We see a lovely red apple falling from a tree. We will wash it and eat it. Newton saw an apple and he discovered the law of gravitation. We see people who are fat or thin, tall or short and immediately we label them as so and so. “You are too fat. Why don’t you do some exercise and keep your body fit?” This is a common advice we hear the fortunately trim ones giving to the others. Sri Dattatreya says in a most beautiful verse: I am neither fat nor thin, I neither come nor go. I am free of beginning, middle or end. I am indeed referring to that supreme truth alone, the truth which is like the sky, the essence of knowledge and is one equality everywhere.
The body is fat or thin, tall or short. Many bodies in fact have a couple of these attributes. However, the ‘I’ or the self who is actually seeing these bodies is neither tall nor short, fat nor thin. So at any point of time, we need to just relax and know that we are indeed the observer that is complete, without any blemish. I neither go nor come. I have always heard an old relative often mention a Tamil proverb, when somebody wishes to have an extra helping of their favourite dish — “Where do you go? Where do you come? Eat well!” Though it is a humorous proverb, the deeper truth of it is that the self neither goes nor comes. It is always present in the now and that self is you and me. This ‘I’ has no beginning, middle or end. It is free of all the three periods of existence and it is subtler than the subtlest of matter.
Once when I contemplated on the word Anathai in Tamil which refers to an orphaned child, I wondered that it has its root in Anadi — that which has no beginning or without an Adi. And that refers to the supreme self or God himself who exists beginninglessly.
That the supreme truth shines so delightfully in orphaned children, you will know when you visit an orphanage and interact with them. They are so materially less endowed than their counterparts living in families. Children living with parents get all the things that they need, want or desire, yet there is many a time room for great sorrow and unhappiness.
These children that more often live simple lives in orphanages and shelters have so much joy in their faces that can come only as the expression of that divinity within. Sri Dattatreya reiterates at the end of each verse that he is in essence the expression of this supreme truth alone.
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