Page 390 - WLMIG_6132004.indd

of ego, sit silently in a corner and observe what your breathing is telling you. It is declaring Soham, conveying the meaning “I am Brahman.” If you constantly meditate upon this, your ego sense, characterized by the idea “I am the body,” will cease to bother you. Soham is your natural and permanent name. It is your reality. Realize that and experience sat-chit-ananda \[supreme knowledge, awareness, and bliss\].
The buddhi is very close to the Atma, and therefore well located to receive 90 percent of the Atma energy and illumination. The mind derives its power from the buddhi, the senses from the mind, and the body from the senses. In this process of the flow of power from Atma to the body in stages, there occurs a gradual quantitative and qualitative diminution of the power.
The purity of the Atma gets gradually contaminated as it passes through the buddhi, the mind, the senses, and finally reaches the body. Nevertheless, it is possible, through effort, to minimize this quantitative and qualitative deterioration by satisfying and purifying the buddhi and by facilitating the direct influence of the buddhi on the body. (SSB)
Commenting about the nature of Atma, Swami said the following.
The Atma is the unseen basis, the substance of all the objective world, the reality behind the appearance, universal, and immanent in every being. It is inherently devoid of aachment, is imperishable, and does not die. It is the witness, unaffected by all this change in time and space, the immanent spirit in the body, the motivating force of its impulses and intentions. It is one’s own innermost reality, one’s divinity, the real Self, the soul.
The Atma cannot be grasped through metaphors and examples. No form can contain it; no name can denote it. How can the limited comprehend the unlimited, the now measure the ever,
390