Post by radha on Mar 27, 2012 12:18:39 GMT 5.5
Sri Gurupyo Namaha:,Respects to Sri Maha Periva.Hara Hara Sankara Siva Siva Sankara
So neither by intelligence nor by Vedic scholarship can the Atman be obtained. If that is the conclusion of those two Upanishads then by what shall one obtain the Atman? You have to ‘choose’ it. This process is called ‘varaNaM’.
What does one mean by ‘varaNaM’? What is ‘varaNaM’?. ‘vara’ means ‘best’. When a bridegroom is chosen for an eligible daughter; the bridegroom is called ‘varaH’ in Sanskrit and ‘varan’ in Tamil. Also another meaning is one who has been chosen from among several.
This choice is inbuilt into the word ‘svayamvara’ where a bride (usually a princess) chooses her match from an assembly of several princes who consider themselves eligible bachelors for the princess. She chooses whomsoever she likes best.
The act of choosing is ‘varaNaM’.
We look for a proper guru, finally choose one and seek him as our guru – this is ‘guru-varaNaM’. Accordingly there is ‘sishhya-varaNaM’ also. In a similar manner we have to choose ‘Atman’, by discarding everything else.
We have to keep praying “Please reveal yourself, O Atman. You are nothing but my self; but I am not able to recognize it. All this mind, speech, and intelligence (medhA) which think of myself as ‘I’, cannot recognize you. Therefore please reveal yourself by yourself”.
A continued prayer like this will one day flash the truth. It will nullify the intellect, manas and speech and produce a Self-realisation as the Atman itself. This is ‘Atma-varaNaM’.
The reciprocal process by the Atman, is beautifully described in the Upanishads and called *vi-varaNaM*. The word means ‘revelation of what is inside or hidden’.
In sum, the sAdhaka has to do only this. He should understand that intellectual smartness will not work with Brahman. What will work is only a constant prayer, after having discarded everything else, to Atman itself, to be the chosen goal.
The word ‘varaNaM’ which is the process here, includes in it the concept of ‘prayer’ also; that is how the Acharya has constructed his Bhashya for those mantras of the Kathopanishad.
The same Acharya here says: “Establish the buddhi (intellect) in shuddha Brahman”. What is meant by this? I think it is only this: The intellect should dwell, not on shuddha brahman, but in a one-pointed way on what has been said by the Guru and the Shastras about Brahman.
But now let me not take you into that ‘high philosophy’. Whatever it be, the only objective of the right advaita-sAdhaka is the Realisation of the Atman. It is for that purpose, he keeps meditating, at the final stages of his SAdhanA, on the mahA-vAkyas. And he experiences the non-different status of JIva and Brahman, declared by the mahAvAkyas.
By that very experience he knows that the bondage is gone. And that is why the Acharya says *sva-svarUpAva-bodhena moktuM*.
‘Avabodha’ means waking up to a perception. ‘Waking up’ does not mean that ‘sleep’ is gone and then ‘waking’ happens. One wakes up instantaneously. And by that itself one knows that ‘sleep’ is gone. The same way here.
We can even say more. *sva-svarUpa-avabodhAya* , that is, only for the awakening to One’s Nature. (awakening to Spritual Wisdom). When one is in the state of ‘mumukshhu’ he desires release from bondage.
When he goes beyond and attains enlightenment, he awakens to Wisdom (*sva-svarUpa-avabodhena*) and by that very awakening he knows he has been released from bondage.
So neither by intelligence nor by Vedic scholarship can the Atman be obtained. If that is the conclusion of those two Upanishads then by what shall one obtain the Atman? You have to ‘choose’ it. This process is called ‘varaNaM’.
What does one mean by ‘varaNaM’? What is ‘varaNaM’?. ‘vara’ means ‘best’. When a bridegroom is chosen for an eligible daughter; the bridegroom is called ‘varaH’ in Sanskrit and ‘varan’ in Tamil. Also another meaning is one who has been chosen from among several.
This choice is inbuilt into the word ‘svayamvara’ where a bride (usually a princess) chooses her match from an assembly of several princes who consider themselves eligible bachelors for the princess. She chooses whomsoever she likes best.
The act of choosing is ‘varaNaM’.
We look for a proper guru, finally choose one and seek him as our guru – this is ‘guru-varaNaM’. Accordingly there is ‘sishhya-varaNaM’ also. In a similar manner we have to choose ‘Atman’, by discarding everything else.
We have to keep praying “Please reveal yourself, O Atman. You are nothing but my self; but I am not able to recognize it. All this mind, speech, and intelligence (medhA) which think of myself as ‘I’, cannot recognize you. Therefore please reveal yourself by yourself”.
A continued prayer like this will one day flash the truth. It will nullify the intellect, manas and speech and produce a Self-realisation as the Atman itself. This is ‘Atma-varaNaM’.
The reciprocal process by the Atman, is beautifully described in the Upanishads and called *vi-varaNaM*. The word means ‘revelation of what is inside or hidden’.
In sum, the sAdhaka has to do only this. He should understand that intellectual smartness will not work with Brahman. What will work is only a constant prayer, after having discarded everything else, to Atman itself, to be the chosen goal.
The word ‘varaNaM’ which is the process here, includes in it the concept of ‘prayer’ also; that is how the Acharya has constructed his Bhashya for those mantras of the Kathopanishad.
The same Acharya here says: “Establish the buddhi (intellect) in shuddha Brahman”. What is meant by this? I think it is only this: The intellect should dwell, not on shuddha brahman, but in a one-pointed way on what has been said by the Guru and the Shastras about Brahman.
But now let me not take you into that ‘high philosophy’. Whatever it be, the only objective of the right advaita-sAdhaka is the Realisation of the Atman. It is for that purpose, he keeps meditating, at the final stages of his SAdhanA, on the mahA-vAkyas. And he experiences the non-different status of JIva and Brahman, declared by the mahAvAkyas.
By that very experience he knows that the bondage is gone. And that is why the Acharya says *sva-svarUpAva-bodhena moktuM*.
‘Avabodha’ means waking up to a perception. ‘Waking up’ does not mean that ‘sleep’ is gone and then ‘waking’ happens. One wakes up instantaneously. And by that itself one knows that ‘sleep’ is gone. The same way here.
We can even say more. *sva-svarUpa-avabodhAya* , that is, only for the awakening to One’s Nature. (awakening to Spritual Wisdom). When one is in the state of ‘mumukshhu’ he desires release from bondage.
When he goes beyond and attains enlightenment, he awakens to Wisdom (*sva-svarUpa-avabodhena*) and by that very awakening he knows he has been released from bondage.