8 ways that India’s best kept secret can benefit us

Treasures & wisdom that can help us care for ourselves along the life-journey

Wikipedia The swan is an important motif in Advaita. The swan symbolises the ability to discern Satya (the Real, & Eternal) from Mithya (the Unreal, & Changing) SOURCE

A chuckle or a smile to start with I hope — Alan Watts says that we want to know that we know and he has a limerick for that;

“There once was a man who said,

though it seems that I know that I know,

what I’d like to see,

is the ‘I’ that sees me,

when I know that I know that I know.”

In this humorous poem Watts sums up the supreme truth I = Awareness

In the Hindu Advaita Vedanta, when translated from Sanskit to English,

We find these several meanings; the eternal self, spirit, essence, soul, or breath.

Atmat then is your true self as opposed to the ego; it is

that aspect of the self which becomes part of Brahman (the force underlying all things).

I teach that our being is taken up into Being as-a-Whole.

Many languages around the world have sanskrit roots. Here we see;

So Ātman is a Sanskrit word which refers to “essence, or breath.”

In Old High German atum it is “breath,”

In Modern German it is atmen “to breathe”Atem “respiration, breath”, in Old English it is eþian).

Ātman, then sometimes means “real Self” of the individual, her or his “innermost essence.”

While often translated as “soul,” it is best translated as “self”.

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