Passage 7

Tap any word for its meaning.

In plain words

One may have specialised in the heart. Dividing up what is in the body, for a livelihood, each one researched one part and won the name doctor. So all are doctors. In just the same way, all are embodiments of the Ātma. For a livelihood one may hold a job. Another may do a labourer's work. Another may do business. Another may farm. Through the callings settled on for a livelihood, we have gone on building up these names. These names came with the callings; they did not come to stay forever. In just the same way, though the Ātma remains only one in all, people receive those pleasures and pains in keeping with their attachment to their own bodies.

A small example. A plane has had an accident somewhere. If our own people are on that very plane, there is no need to say it. We set about many kinds of anxious inquiry. In fact, if none of our own people were on that plane, we would try to gather the information: how it happened, what happened, how many died. So, because there is no feeling of 'this is mine', we all go into information. When you feel that the tattva in all is one, you will no longer go down into information; you will come into transformation. So we must hold the feeling of the Ātma as one. What is, is One; there is no other. But as long as this Manas, the body, all these are there, attaining oneness is very hard. To feel only this all the time, saying 'it is hard, it is hard', is not natural either. Hard though it is, we must make the fitting effort to recognise our own truth.

We have come to know of the body called the chariot. We have come to know of the senses called the horses. We have also understood Manas, called the reins. We have also inquired a little into Buddhi, called the charioteer. But for what were this chariot, these horses, these reins and this charioteer made? The master. That master is in it as the embodiment of the Ātma. That is why: Ekovasi sarvabhūtāntarātmā, the One alone dwells in all beings. But when we think of a bhūta, we may ask whether it is something joined with life.