Re: self inquiry
namaste everyone.
vAch--Speech always results in reduction of the Truth, the Absolute Reality of Atman here. The Reality is reduced before there is no way of expressing It, as It has to be personally experienced and realised.
Rupert Spira does a good job but when he says things to the effect that 'your images, feelings and perceptions come and go but you remain the same', it implies that you and I are different. He does not make it out that the I in me and you is the same Atman, the Absolute Reality. I think this realization is important, because it helps me emphasize and obectify my own feelings.
Yajvan's statement "I am not my hat, but I wear one" is again a reduction by speech, because it is not 'I' who wear the hat, but 'my' head.
It seems to me that a good way to differentiate between the inner Self and the associates it is tangled with, is by trying to distinguish between 'I/me' and 'my/mine'. Whenever I put on a hat, it should be experientially obvious to me that it is my head that puts on a hat and that my mind experiences the felling and sensation of personality that it gives my body and mind. Any happiness I feel is not felt by the 'I' in me but by the 'mind' in me because this happiness is fleeting in nature.
So, if I associate my awareness of being 'me' with 'my' external traits of body and mind, then I end of creating a proxy for the real 'me' which is the inner Self, experienced by the awareness of 'I'. This means that I should always be aware of the question of who in my mind, words and action the resultant experiences, at all times. Once we are aware of this question, we would eventually find that the 'I', the inner Self in me is by its very nature all bliss and peace, so it is not affected by the external causes of happiness and suffering.
*****
रत्नाकरधौतपदां हिमालयकिरीटिनीम् ।
ब्रह्मराजर्षिररत्नाढ्यां वन्दे भारतमातरम् ॥
To her whose feet are washed by the ocean, who wears the Himalayas as her crown, and is adorned with the gems of rishis and kings, to Mother India, do I bow down in respect.
--viShNu purANam
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