The divine Self. Atman. Shivaya Subramuniyaswami

You can't explain It.
You are only able to feel Its existence
if your senses are sufficiently purified for this,
but you cannot explain It.

To know Him, you must experience unity with Him.
And the best thing you can say when describing It
is that It is the depth of your Being,
your core.

He is you. Here's how you can mentally imagine It:
there is emptiness above you;
there is emptiness under you;
to your right is emptiness;
to your left is emptiness;

Here's how you can mentally imagine It:
there is emptiness in front of you;
there is emptiness behind you;
and you dissolve into this emptiness.

That would be the best way
you could explain
the realization of the Atman.

And, nevertheless, this emptiness is not the absence of anything,
like the emptiness in an empty box, comparable to unoccupied space.

This emptiness is the fullness of everything, the energy
that supports the existence of what surrounds us.

After realizing the Atman, you see the mind as
it really is —
an element that has created itself.

Such is the mind that recreates itself again and again.
Mind is a form,
an invariably created form,
a preserved form,
creating new forms
and destroying old forms.

This is the mind, the illusion, the great unreality,
that part of you that is in the thinking part of the mind,
which you dare to think is real.

What gives the mind such energy?
Does the mind have energy if it is unreal?
Does it matter if it has energy or not?

Maybe what I'm saying is happening because the Atman exists by itself?

You can live a dream, and it can disturb you.
You can be in search and with a burning desire to strive to know reality
and be happy with all this.

A person's fate leads him back to himself.
The fate of a person leads him to the knowledge of his Being;
leads him further, to the realization of his True Essence.

They say that in order to realize the Atman, you have to take the spiritual path.
You only take this path when you and only you are ready for it,
when what seems real to you loses its reality.

Then and only then are you able to become detached enough
to search and find a new reality that is not subject to change.

Have you ever noticed that what you think of as permanent,
is it so only because you and only you
give permanence to this thing through its protection?

Have you ever tried to stop the process of thinking and try
to get a clear intellectual concept
that only the Spirit residing inside you
is the only permanent thing?
That everything else is changing?

That everything else has a direct wire
connecting it to the area of joy and sadness?
That's the mind.

When the Atman, your Radiant Essence, awakens to life within you
, joy and sadness become the subject of study for you.

You should not think and tell yourself that everything in its place is unreal.

You know from the innermost depths of your being
that the form itself is not real.

The subtlety of the feeling of joy that you experience
as you approach your Radiant Essence cannot be described.

It can only be projected to you
if you are sufficiently purified to catch the subtlety of the vibration.
If you are in a sufficient degree of harmony,
you can feel great joy,
the sharpness of bliss that you feel
as you approach your True Essence.

If you make efforts to achieve the Atman using your mind,
all these attempts will be in vain, because the mind cannot give you the Truth;
a lie can't give you the truth.
A lie can only draw you into a web of deception.

But if you make yourself more sensitive,
awaken your true, beautiful, wonderful qualities
that everyone has, then you become a guide,
a sacred place in which your Radiant Essence will shine.

At first you will think that the light is shining inside you.
You will search for this light.
You will try to keep it
just as you cherish and keep a beautiful pearl.

Later you will discover that the light that you have found within yourself
is in every pore, in every cell of your being.

Later you will see that this light fills all the atoms in the universe.
Later you will discover that you are this light, and what is permeated by it
is an unreal illusion created by the mind.

How strong you must be to find this Truth.
You have to become very, very strong.

How will you become so strong?

Exercise.

You have to train every muscle and every nerve of your body
by obeying the dictates of the law, spiritual laws.

It will be very difficult to implement.

A weak muscle is very difficult to make strong,
but if you exercise for a certain period of time
and do what you should do, it will respond.

Your nature will respond as well.
But you have to work on it.

You have to try.

You have to try.

You have to try very, very hard.

Very diligent.

How often?

Ten minutes a day?

No.

Two hours a day?

No.

Twenty-four hours a day!

Every day!

You have to try very, very hard.

Preparing oneself for the realization of the Atman can be compared to tuning a violin,
adjusting each string, bringing it into harmony with all other strings.

The more sensitive you are to tuning, the better you will tune the violin,
and the better it is tuned, the better the music will be.

The stronger your essence, the more you can bring
through your true nature;
the more you can enjoy the bliss
of your True Self.

It's worth working for.

She's worth wanting passionately.

It is worth giving up a lot of things for the sake of purifying your nature.
For the sake of this, it is worth fighting with your own mind
to bring it under the control of your will.

Anyone who has experience of contemplation knows the depth
from which I am speaking now.

You've tasted your true Self.

And this taste is unlike anything you've ever met.

Even if you were in this state of contemplation for no more than sixty seconds,
it thrilled you, filled your being, and completely saturated it.

From this state you have received great knowledge,
knowledge that you can always turn to,
knowledge that will bear the fruits of wisdom,

if you connect the experiences of the future life with this knowledge,
knowledge much more than you can get at any university
or other higher educational institution.

Can you only try to get a clear intellectual
conception of the realization of the Atman that you felt
while in a state of contemplation?

The Atman that permeates you and all forms?

This is your next step.

Someone who struggles with his mind
in numerous attempts to concentrate it,
force it to meditate,
bring it into a state of calm, relaxation —

continue your efforts.

Every creative effort you make is not in vain.

Each brick added to the building of the temple,
built of brick, leads to the completion of its construction.

So, keep making efforts

and one day, suddenly, you will pass through the lower realms of your mind
and enter a state of contemplation.

And you can say:

"Yes, I know, I saw. Now I know exactly the path I'm on."

Continue your efforts.

You have to start somewhere.

You cannot talk about the Atman.

If you want, you can just try to think about It like this:
feel your mind, body and emotions, and know that you are

you are the Spirit that permeates the mind,
which is the expression of all forms,

the body in which you live, as well as the emotions
that you control, or that control you.

Think about it,

think about it,

and you will find,

that you are the light of your eyes.

You are the feeling of touch in your fingers.

You shine much brighter than the Sun,

You're cleaner than snow,

more subtle than ether.

Keep trying, and with each such attempt
you get one step closer
to your true Radiant Essence.