Self Attaiment Vs Attainment of God

[dattaswami]

Self Attaiment Vs Attainment of God

 

 

Some devotees told about their visit to a sacred place called Tripurantakam. Swami gave the following message.

 

The word Tripurantakam means God, who destroyed the three bodies. The gross body or sthula sareeram is made of the inert five elements. The second body is the subtle body or sukshma sareeram made of the vibrations of pure awareness. These vibrations are thoughts or feelings, which can be classified into three main categories called as trigunas or the three qualities i.e. sattvam, rajas and tamas. The third body is the causal body or karana sareeram, which is made of pure awareness without vibrations. The subtle body is called as jeeva and the causal body is called as atman. The subtle body cannot exist without the causal body just like the golden pot cannot exist without gold. The gold can exist as a lump without the pot. Similarly the atman can exist without jeeva.

 

In fact, the advaita philosophy gives stress on the achievement of atman by eradicating jeeva. In this state the pure awareness is left over without vibrations like a water pond remaining without waves. This is the state of sthita prajna as explained in Gita. This achievement is called as the attainment of soul or atma yoga, by which you can be relieved from the worldly worries. This atma yoga is not the attainment of God. The attainment of God is Paramatma yoga or Bramha yoga. The soul is an imaginable item of creation, which is a specific work form of inert energy functioning in a specific machine called nervous system. God is unimaginable being beyond the space. Therefore, the soul or atman is also an item of creation only. If the soul is really eternal without birth and death, Lord Krishna could not have created certain individuals and cows which were taken away by Bramha for one year. An eternal object cannot be created again. When a cow or an individual is created, the soul in it is also created.

 

Of course, the soul is said to be eternal with respect to the gross body. Such eternality is only relative and not absolute. In Gita the eternality of soul is mentioned with respect to the gross body only and it is not mentioned as absolute (na hanyate hanyamane shareere…). It means that even though the gross body is destroyed, the soul is not destroyed. The constancy of soul is thus with reference to the gross body only. Therefore, all the three bodies are created, controlled and destroyed by God. Veda says that God is controller of the souls (Atmeshwaram…). That which has birth and is controlled must be also destroyed. In fact Gita says that the soul is destroyed and is created everyday (Atha chainam…).

 

The soul taken as the basic inert energy remains as eternal, but even this eternality is relative only since the inert energy is also created by God as the first item of creation in the form of space. The science says that space bends along the boundaries of the article and if space is nothing, it cannot bend. If something is bending, it must be something existing only and not the non-existent nothing. The soul taken as specific work form of energy disappears everyday in the deep sleep and appears again after the deep sleep. Thus the soul viewed as work form of energy is born and destroyed everyday. The soul viewed as the basic inert energy was born in the beginning of the creation and can disappear at anytime by the will of God. Thus, the soul viewed in any form is not absolutely eternal. The soul is one of the three bodies and the word Tripurantakam means that the soul is not God and the soul has birth and death. This is the concept in the word Tripurantakam. If the concept is known, the pilgrimage is not necessary.