|
|
|
స్వాత్మతత్త్వానుసంధానం భక్తిరిత్యపరే జగుః ॥ 32॥
స్వాత్మతత్త్వానుసంధానం - జీవాత్మకు పరమాత్మత్వము యొక్క అనుసంధానము, భక్తి రితి - భక్తియని, ఆపరే - ఇతరులు, జగుః చెప్పిరి.
జీవుడగు తనకు తత్పదవాచ్య పరమాత్మత్వమును అనుసంధానము చేయుట, అనగా వాస్తవిక భేదమున్నను అభేదోపాసనము చేయుట – దీనికే అహంగ్రహోపాసన మని పేరు– భక్తి యని మరి కొందరు చెప్పిరి. భేదబుద్ధితో కూడిన దగుటచే భ్రాంతిరూపమగు ఈ భక్తి ముఖ్యభక్తి కాజాలదని సూచితమైనది.
అవ. పూర్వోక్త సాధనసంపన్నుడు చేయవలసిన పనిని చెప్పుచున్నాడు.
svātmatattvānusandhānaṃ bhaktirityaparē jaguḥ ।|32||
The Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato theorized that light originated in the eye, traveled in straight lines called rays and reflected back the image of the object. Subsequently, many theories about how we see objects came before Kepler in 1604 published the modern version of how light reflecting on objects enters the eye and the lens in the pupils converges the light rays on the retina.
Like the 2400 years old Greek theory, we can make a crude hypothesis of how consciousness works. Some believe that consciousness is manifest all over the universe and our minds draw it inward. This works fine until we want to affect the world with our consciousness. To do so, we have to project our inner consciousness on the object of interest and make it respond to our desires. This may seems like a siddhi, a yogi possesses, but it is like the early Greeks' version of "conscious seeing", if only the true nature of objects.
Contrary to the belief that as soon as we are asleep consciousness is lost, the ancient rishis had said consciousness is lost only in deep sleep or sushupti when even dreams are not present. In the dreamful state or swapna avasta the consciousness instead of being projected outward, is turned inward. The subconscious mind plays images and sounds that manifest as dreams. Some of us, for example, can remember a particular dream for years.
What is interesting about sushupti is our consciousness transcends the smaller self and enters the zone of bigger Self. That is, the jeeva atma takes refuge in paramatma. Some may question, if paramatma is within our body along side jeeva atma where is the need for transcendence?
It is like the space exploration. Before the advent of telescopes in general and orbiting telescopes in particular, the sages perceived the universe in deep meditation. If nature intended us to see the distant galaxies with naked eyes, then we would be befuddled and thwarted. That's why the night sky, the one without clouds, is 90% dark with stars and the moon taking up the rest. But the orbiting telescopes have no "sky" to watch. They are directly attuned to the light waves from far away galaxies. So there is an enormous viswam out there that we haven't explored yet. This is what is meant by the paramatma.
We are able to probe the universe with telescopes because paramatma wanted to reveal himself. When the telescope sees a bigger galaxy "swallowing" a smaller one, it makes sense for those aware of the animal kingdom where might rules. Sometimes a smaller galaxy "steals" the mass and energy of a bigger galaxy. We see that too on the earth. One can say we are anthropomorphing what we see in space to make sense as earthlings. This is like saying we are projecting our inner consciousness outward. What the upanishad rishis did was the opposite. By transcending their consciousness, with meditation and penance, they were able to achieve universal consciousness.