Spiritual sadana

It is an irony that the right vision arising from a proper

understanding of the dichotomy between the body and the

atma evades the grasp of many, though this forms the

essence of all Vedantic teaching, pointed out Swami

Paramasukananda in a discourse.

Spiritual sadana is to know the truth about an individual’s

standing in the external world with which he has to interact

constantly. An individual who sees himself as a male or a

female, a father or son, wife or husband, employee or

employer, ruler and a subject etc. has no doubt about the fact that he/she is a human being. But when it comes to the

matter of the identity of the self, except for a few realised

souls, the prevailing tendency is to see the self as the body

rather than the atma.

All beings are compelled to interact with the external

world with the help of the body through the senses, mind

and intellect. Even sanyasis who have renounced worldly life have to deal with the world in one form or another.

But a realised person has no doubt that his real self is the

atma and not the body. He knows the atma as the subtle

presence in the body and of its nature as the essence of

sat-chit-ananda. He sees the relationship between the body

and the atma clearly — the body as a mere instrument that is able to function because of the atma and the atma as

independent of the body.

He does not hold any ownership over the body and knows

that whatever selfhood is derived from the body mind

complex is insubstantial. He is always aligned to the atma

which is free and pure. He is never perturbed by the

vicissitudes he may have to face in his lifetime.