Celebrating, embracing your inner freedom

This indicates that not a trace of reality of assertion of one’s individual identity or the existence of the world must remain.
For representational purposes
For representational purposes

What is true freedom? The absence of a compulsive need to work is freedom. When can that happen? When our association with limited identifications are removed, says Sri Adi Sankaracharya in the Vivekachoodamani.

When the identification with the limiting thoughts that ‘I am the body, the mind, the flow of energy or the intellect’ is withdrawn and attached to the association of ‘I am the Self’, then for such a person there are no actions to be performed—even those of eating, gathering or releasing wastes need to be done!

Even these actions cease for the one in deep contemplation of the Self. It is not the state of death that is being spoken of here.

It is that still state of mind that happens for the person who has completely identified with the Self. All actions happen through such a person as the identity of the doership no longer exists. To attain this end of freedom, focus on removing the superimposition of the notion of I on all limited thoughts, the Acharya says.

Swa Adhyasa Apanayam Kuru—this is a standard refrain continuing through many verses which means remove superimposition on the Self. The Acharya cites yet another reason why it should be done. He says for realising the oneness of the Supreme Brahman and the Self, born out of contemplation on the Vedantic injunction of Tat Twam Asi, or I am That, and achieving a strong stability in that one thought of establishing oneself in the Brahman, remove superimposition.

How long should I practice removing superimposition? The Master says, as long as the feeling of self as the body is completely dissolved, most attentively, work on removing it.

O learned seeker, continue to remove the identifications imposed on the Self as long as the individuality of one’s Self and the world are experienced even as if it were a dream.

This indicates that not a trace of reality of assertion of one’s individual identity or the existence of the world must remain. If it remains even in a dream, then one has to practice removing superimpositions until that identification goes.

This needs to be continuous and without a break. Do not give a gap to this practice even through the hours of sleep, talking about worldly activities and happenings and being forgetful of this task as you remain engrossed in the objects of the five senses—hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling and touching. Let the practice be constant in this contemplation of the Self within

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com