musings 208

My erudite friend TVL sent me certain queries for reply..

I know better than anyone else that I am not an authority on anything. However when my thoughts were excited by him and I blurted out my instant reactions, I thought I should list them for my archives

His observations:

1. You are attracted to Magic. Like the bhajan team in Nochur's story did not believe

the child is really God Krishna. He had to touch a stone to turn it into gold.

My Reply

The structure and existence of the stone is magic by itself. All materials we see are not stones. If God can conjure up the magic of creating a stone it should be very easy for Him to turn it into gold too. Every moment is a magic.

2. Like North Indian ladies you are impressed by someone not eating food,

abstaining from bodily function, etc.

The purpose of the body is to grow, reproduce, become old and then useless. This is done by the microscopic Aatma in the heart.

My answer

Eating food is just like adding fuel. Fuel by itself is a dead substance. Actually the growth and activities are regulated by the mind and spirit that quantifies the food for consumption. If you offer nutritious food to a dead body will it help?

3. You keep forgetting Atma is the kshetranjnan and the body is only the kshetram.

It is you and wife who stay in A-9-4. It is your family that cleans, maintains, repairs A-9-4. The lights come on in A-9-4 when dark. But A-9-4 is not live. Only you are alive. You are the one who operates the light switches. Like that our body is not live. It is the Atma inside which is operating the body. And you are saying I am eating sandwich! Actually it is the operator atma inside who is making my body eat the sandwich

My answer

Body, infrastructure etc are simply like hardware and operating system. That subtle something is the energy and motive force. That is supreme. And quiite unlike man- made software and hardware that supreme one can, by will, device it's own modalities instantly

4. You already know my body cannot eat or breath once the Atma inside leaves it.

How can you say I am eating sandwich?So if a person is shouting, it is the Atma that is shouting.

If a person is reproducing, it is the Atma that is doing it.The body is a non-living item. Like wood and steel.

My answer

You blow a whistle or a clarinet and sound is produced. Apparently it is the vibration of the reed. But that vibration is created by the lung of the player and the lung operates by whose orders? Answer this and you will know

5. If a body is a brahmin, it is the atma who is brahmin. If a body is in a muslim body, it is the same atma that wants to be born and enjoy/suffer things in that family.And yet should I distinguish between Atma living and operating inside different bodies? Should I understand that all Atma are same? Atma is just a part of the Brahman.

My answer

Shankara has defined this best.

Anyway it is like air within a pot and air outside a pot. Is there really any difference?

6. I am wearing a shirt. But for the tailor, it is just cloth cut and stitched.Actually, it is just cotton grown in a plant.Similarly, the Brahman the Universe, appears like a body to our eyes, seems to be an amsham of the Brahman to our puny mind. Is this wrong?

My answer

Perception has two planes. Subjective and objective or rational. Our subjectivity is ever regulated by comparison of notes and therefore we can ratify anything as right or wrong only with reference to the proto type for comparison. We have no means to assert that the prototype represents the ideal. So all our conclusions are basically flawed