ATMA BODHAM “KNOWLEDGE of the SELF” : Mantram 45. - Swami Sri Adi Sankaracharya.

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Saturday, Deceember 03,  2022. 06:00.

(68 Mantras in 9 Chapters)

B. EMERGING OUT OF IGNORANCE: Mantras : (40-46)

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MANTRAM- 45: As the Post Appears as Ghost

With Translation :

1 Sthaanau purusha-vat bhraantyaa = Due to delusion, a ghost is seen instead of post;

2 kritaa brahmani jeevataa;       = so also, in Brahman is seen the individual Jiva;

3 jeevasya taattvike roope        = the real nature of the Jiva –

4 tasmin drishte nivartate.       = when it is seen as the Self, (then the Jiva) is destroyed.

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Bhashyam (Vyakyanam ) :

2-3 Wrong identification, which was the very root of the ‘forgetfulness’ or drifting 

away from the Self, is only at the level of the mind. It is just a thought, the “I”-thought. The 

entire problem of spirituality is discovered to have arisen from just this one thought. Does 

that not make the whole of spiritual life look so trivial! Volumes of books have been written 

on this “trivial” problem!

4 If we correct that single, original, stray thought of “I” – meaning the thought which 

led us astray from the Self – then the error is corrected, and with it the Self discovered. In 

trying to make us understand the sheer simplicity of spiritual illumination, Sri 

Shankaracharya in this verse torments us again with another one of his crazy similes…

“Sthanau Purushavat”: The Post and the Ghost Simile :

1 Here we are teased again about the nature of the delusion that has overcome us, 

and Acharyaji’s fertile imagination was triggered by it:

A man is returning home late at night in the fog. As he approaches his home, he is 

terrified by the sight of a man with his hands up in the air, as though eerily stalking through 

his garden. He is gripped by fear at the sight of this ‘ghostly’ figure. As he slowly recovers 

from the shocking sight, he recognizes that it is not a ghost at all, but an old dead tree which 

was struck by lightening a year ago and whose trunk and a couple of branches still remained 

as a reminder of its death. In the fog it looked like the ghostly figure of a man and the 

branches looked like his twisted hands!

That is how delusion clouds our vision of the truth, like a ghost in the fog, that never 

existed. Self-realisation or the true Self revealing Itself follows inevitably when ignorance is 

cleared.

The ‘egocentric individuality’ sees the world only as a ghost; the 

enlightened sage alone sees it as a post, and loses all fear for it.

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Next-
Mantram - 46: As Wrong Notions of Directions Are Destroyed
To be continued

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