Surge Sixty Three
Is Our True Nature Divine?
“That Thou Art,” is one of the Great Statements1 of the Vedanta. It means every one of us is divine in our true nature. God and we are one, implies this revelation. We know God to be indestructible and full of love. The Vedic utterance here2 is meant to be an eye-opener for us, saying we too are full of love in the depth of our hearts. Usually we live in self-doubt if not in self-condemnation.
How are we divine? A simple way to explain this is – we have infinite capacity to love and we are undoubtedly lovable. Love here is in the truest sense of the term, and not in one of its narrow connotations as most movies, plays, novels or short stories present. Love is a state of being, where there is no selfishness or fear. In that state, we look at all people with a great sense of harmony. We have no intention to take anything from them, nor are we worried about losing anything to them. This state has no personal likes or dislikes3.
The ignorant work for happiness, but the wise do out of happiness, observed Swami Chinmayananda. This answers the popular question, “Why would a divine person do any work at all in this world?” Most people take some kind of discontent or dissatisfaction as a prerequisite to live in this society. They imagine that a man would drop dead if he were satisfied in all respects. They do not see anything other than desire or ambition as the driving force behind action. The truth however is different. Love moves mountains.
Almost everybody in the world suffers from some form of insecurity or the other. Today, in the face of the global economic depression, large numbers of people in the developed countries also are under stress. A study of the Vedanta can help them see through their own self-created misery. Such a study can throw light on the dividing line between biological insecurity and psychological insecurity. Spiritual wisdom eliminates the latter and then we see that, in 99 out of 100 cases, the former hardly exists.
“You are the Atma,” roars the Vedanta, “You have identified falsely with the personality made of the body and the mind.” Countless thoughts, following this false identification, continuously reinforce the foundation for all sorts of negative conclusions. We are then sorry for not having a big house, while our true need is just a little place with basic amenities. We are sad that somebody else is more recognized than we are, while we have received enough love and regard from a good number of people. We are depressed that we do not know enough philosophy (to talk over tea), while a lot of verbal knowledge seldom enriches our life.
It is neither by possessing things nor by avoiding them that we become happy. Similarly neither company of people nor resisting them ensures happy living. Harmonious living is marked by not depending on things or people. When we are happy within us, we welcome them when they come and let them go when they leave4. This state is not arrived at by willing to be so. This becomes our natural state when we let go of all artificialities in our daily living.
When pretending ceases and we stop clinging to false prestige, we remain in our nature. The Vedanta calls this true nature of ours divine, “You are That.”
Swami Chidananda
Varanasi
Monday, March 30, 2009