What is the meaning of aatma saakshaatkaara?

[Following are the questions asked by devotees to Swami in the satsaṅga held on October 17, 2020]

What is the meaning of ātma sākṣātkāra? (10 of 10)

[A question by Śrī Vishnu.]

Swami replied: The word ātman means body in Sanskrit. A part of the body is the brain and nervous system in which awareness flows. Hence, ātman means a living body possessing awareness. Awareness need not be isolated from the body to say that only awareness is ātman and not the body. You are giving unnecessary importance to awareness. Of course, awareness is the most precious form of energy. Awareness is a specific work-form of inert energy and it appears only in the functioning brain and nervous system. When the Gītā says that God enters a human body, it means that He enters a human body along with its awareness. It does not mean the human body without awareness (Mānuṣīṃ tanumāśritam…—Gītā). The Gītā clearly says that awareness is a part of creation (prakṛti) called as parā prakṛti, which means the best part of creation. This importance given to awareness misled scholars and they began to treat it as God. They say that awareness is puruṣa and the inert creation is prakṛti. This is a misunderstanding of the classification given in the Gītā.

The Gītā gives two types of classifications. As per the first classification, Puruṣa means God and prakṛti means creation, including souls. As per the second classification, puruṣa means awareness, prakṛti means inert creation and Puruṣottama means God. Puruṣa can mean awareness or the soul, but only as per the second classification and not as per the first classification. These people take the meaning of puruṣa from the second classification and apply it to the first classification to conclude that awareness or soul is God. This is the result of a confusion between the two classifications.

When God is unimaginable, where is the question of seeing God with one’s eyes? Even one’s intellect cannot imagine God. Sākṣātkāra means seeing with one’s own eyes. Ātma sākṣātkāra is misunderstood to be seeing the soul or awareness. Awareness can be easily seen on the screen of medical electronic instruments as pulses of inert energy flowing through the brain. Inert energy is the material cause like gold and awareness is like the golden ornament. The soul can be seen with one’s eyes as told in the Veda (Dṛśyatetvagrayā buddhyā…) and the Gītā (Paśyanti jñānacakṣuṣaḥ…). Therefore, when the unimaginable God makes a soul-containing body as His medium to become the mediated God (Incarnation), God can be seen with one’s own eyes. A soul in an energetic body is not seen by human beings. Only a soul with a human body can be seen by human beings. Hence, a human being selected by God becomes the Human Incarnation when God enters and merges with it. That mediated God or the Human Incarnation of God alone can be seen. Therefore, the word Ātman means the Human Incarnation of God like Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Śaṅkara etc., who can be seen by us. The word ātman also means a simple human being and thus, ātma sākṣātkāra can also mean seeing an ordinary human being.

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| Shri Datta Swami | What is the meaning of aatma saakshaatkaara? | atman Manushim tanumashritam Giita Gita prakruti Purushottama purusha Aatma sakshatkara Drishyatetvagraya buddhya Pashyanti jnanachaksushah Rama Krishna Shankara

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