Seek the Supreme Atma, the Source and Core of the Universe
Let us take the five elements, one by one. The living being has the first one, the earth, as its base. Water, the second, is the basis for the earth. Water is produced from fire, the third element, and fire itself emanates from the wind (vayu), which is the fourth. Wind arises from ether (akasa). Ether emerges from the primal nature, and the primal nature is but the manifestation of one aspect of the majesty of God, or the supreme sovereign atma (Paramatma).
Seeking to reach that supreme atma, the source and core of the universe, the individual (jivi), who has entangled himself in the elements, must overcome the bonds one by one, by discrimination and steady practice of detachment. One who does this is a spiritual aspirant, and one who wins in this struggle is liberated even while alive is a jivan-mukta.
The human eye cannot delve into the microcosm or the macrocosm. It cannot read the mystery of the virus or the atom or the stellar universe. Therefore, scientists supplement the eye with a microscope and telescope.
Similarly, sages can experience Divinity through the eye of knowledge gained by following the dharma of moral conduct and spiritual discipline.
When the human eye needs an extraneous instrument to observe even the insignificant worm and virus, how can a person refuse to go through the process of mantra [spiritual formula] to see the omnipresent transcendent Principle? It is very hard to acquire the eye of wisdom. Concentration is essential for it. And, for concentration to develop and stabilize, three things are very important: purity of consciousness, moral awareness, and spiritual discrimination.
Upanishad Vahini, Disc. 1
The atma is beyond sound, touch, form, taste, and smell (shabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa, and gandha), it knows no end. The senses are object-bound and outward-bound. The atma is the prime instrument for all activity and knowledge, the inner motive-force behind everything. This delusion of manifoldness, variety, and multiplicity must die. It is born of ignorance (a-jnana). The “many” is a mirage caused by “circumstances”. The feeling that you are separate from the One is the root of all this seeming birth and death through which the individual appears to go.
Upanishad Vahini, Disc. 3
The ignorant can never grasp the fact of atmic immanence. Those who are conscious can see things and feel their presence. Those who have lost awareness will search for the lost jewels, even though they wear them at the moment. Though one may know all things, one conceives the a atma as existing in some unapproachable, unreachable place on account of loss of consciousness. But the wise person, who is aware, sees the atma in all beings and sees all beings as atma. The wise person sees all beings as the same and perceives no distinction or difference. So, the wise person saves themself from duality.
Upanishad Vahini, Disc. 2
