UPADESA SAARAM OF RAMANA MAHARSHI – AN APPRECIATION (Verse 21)

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UPADESA SAARAM OF RAMANA MAHARSHI – AN APPRECIATION (Verse 21)

 

Idam ahampada abhikhyamanvaham

Ahami leenakepyalaya sattaya

 

 

Idam ahampada : The term `aham' representing the individual self

Abhikhyam anvaham: later denotes the ever pure `Aham' or the

unconditioned Self

Alaya sattaya : (of the nature of) Indestructible Existence

Ahami leenake api:for, it lasts even after the limited

individual `I' is lost as in deep sleep.

 

When the individual and the total `I' (jeeva and Iswara) merge, this

Self indicated by the word aham – `I' shines due to indestructible

Existence.

 

The Maharshi says that at no time we are without That, nay, we are

That. Self persists in the waking, dream and deep sleep, even when

the individuality with its `I' is gone. No one knows anything in

sleep. Only after getting up one says, " I know nothing. I had a

good sleep. " One says so because there was no external object to

know during the sleep. In the state of deep sleep, one lives or

exits in a different dimension and the proof of it is the subsequent

memory. The primal `I' is not abolished in the state of deep sleep,

but one is leveled down to an impersonal state where one is neither

male nor female, rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy : nothing can

apply to that pure state of Being. Hence the statement – ahami

leenake api alaya sattaya – we do not cease to exist even when the

body-centered individual `I' is lost, for our nature is

indestructible Existence.

 

prof laxmi narain (prof_narain)

 

Source and courtesy: Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad

This article was published in Sri Ramana Jyothi,

monthly magazine of the Kendram.