WITH KRISHNA PREMI MAHARAJ
“Rejoice in being conscious of Awareness. This is the essence of sat-chit-ananda, Awareness – Consciousness – Bliss”, says Krishna Premi Maharaj, a mahatma who lives in Paranur, a village near Thiruvannamalai. In obedience to his guru’s instructions, he travels through the year, throughout India, expounding the story of Lord Rama, the Ramayana, and the story of Lord Krishna, Srimad Bhagavatham. When I looked at this great saint with reverence, he continued, “Sayings of mahatmas and scriptural utterances abound with Truth. They are not statements but states to be directly experienced by the seeker!”
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“The scriptures say that the non-moving, all-powerful Brahman, the ultimate Truth, expresses itself as sat-chit-ananda. What does it mean? Since the whole, the Brahman, permeates all that exists, nothing is left out without containing these three aspects of the ultimate Truth.
How? Let us take a simple, everyday example. When one is attracted to an object, how exactly does the act of attraction to the object take place? Let us view ice cream as the object. The ice cream is there. It exists. You recognize it as ice cream. You are conscious of it. And you like it immensely. You enjoy the bliss of eating it. So even in an inert object like ice cream, sat-chit-ananda is explicitly experienced! It exists (sat), you are conscious of it (chit), and you enjoy it (ananda).
Thus, in many aspects of daily life too, the experience of sat-chit-ananda is revealed. With this understanding, let us go deeper within and rejoice in sat-chit- ananda. You are thus always soaked in sat-chit-ananda. If you fully grasp this simple fact, you would have taken the first step to being established in Truth!”
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On another day, the mahatma was compassionate enough to freely talk to me. He said, “Even for serious seekers there exists a doubt. How did the all-pervading whole, the Brahman, get caught up as an individual soul within a human body? The explanation is very simple.
Consider: There is a large wall. You draw a small circle on it with a colour chalk. Having drawn it you wonder, ‘How did the wall come inside this circle?’
First of all, you defiled the wall by drawing a circle on it. This is the same as taking your body to be your Self. The wall was already there. It did not come into the circle. The superimposed demarcation of limiting yourself as the body has caused all the confusion.
Actually, there is no room for any confusion as the Self alone exists, and always too! Fully cognize that whenever you are not conscious of the body, as in deep sleep, you continue to exist as the Self. The Self is the only continuous Truth. All the rest are partial truths.
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Pay full attention to the ‘I AM’ and not to ‘I am this name and form’. Give up your identification with the body and all problems are instantly solved. You will then be constantly established in the Self. Bhagavan authoritatively declares that Awareness is the ‘I AM’. Experience it by remaining as the Self, always. Give up the ‘I am the body’ idea.” This inimitable saint still lives in our midst. How fortunate we are!
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