WHAT IS THE NEXT THEME IN THE BLOG?

Dear Readers,

Adi Shankara

After one of the most important treatise on Bhakti / Devotion, Narada Bhakti Sutras got completed with many posts covering all the Sutras, there was a gap for a week and from within, it has come intuitively to take up ATMA BODHA, a beautiful poetical gift given by Adi Sankara to the world of sincere seekers of the ultimate goal in / through the path of Jnana / Knowledge.

ATMA BODHA is a prakarna Grantha, dealing with Knowledge of the Self. It describes the state of realization from different standpoints, using various comparisons from day-to-day experiences. It explicitly conveys Brahman as the only Reality and all other Tattvas in the world have only an apparent Reality. That is the sole subject of this text.

It is written in poetry. There are 68 couplets in the entire text, without any group classification or title for each verse. The poetical meter is similar to the verses of the Bhagavad Gita.

From the Introduction by Swami Chinmayanandaji, we quote:

“Sri Sankaracharya, in the days of his perfect maturity, took up his pen to write ‘Introductory Books’, introducing the theme of Vedanta for the infants in the spiritual world. Atma Bodha is one of them. This is not an original book in as much as there is not a single idea in it which is an entirely original contribution of Sri Sankara. 

Every one of them is culled from the garden of the Upanishads, and strung together on the chord of his poetry.

“Scientific detachment, honest observation, logical conclusions, and heroic decisions alone can help an individual to come away from his own life’s fallacies. Atma Bodha supplies all these requisites and Acharya Shankara has made this scientific treatise a chiselled beauty with a distinct cadence and rhythm of its own.”

Commenting on the exquisite examples given in the book, Swamiji says: “The poet in Shankara revels in these 68 verses. There is no verse here which does not have a simile. Each is a picture, a sure and striking example. These examples are real hammer strokes that nail the elusive ideals of Vedanta onto the immature comprehension of all early students. They are all striking examples, so pregnant with suggestions that to ruminate upon them is in itself a profitable meditation for the new initiates.” 

In the next few posts, we will reproduce / recapitulate important and relevant posts covered earlier under various other theme such as "Creation of Universe" or "Veda and Vedanta" to gain a proper insight into the KNOWLEDGE OF SELF / ATMAN which is what ATMA BODHA is all about.

With such introduction and insight, the posts related to the 68 couplets of Atma Bodha are ready to feast the spiritual hunger of the world of Mumukshus / sincere seeker existing at present / in times to come, even after the author leaves this world.

Love.