Shri Atmasiddhi Shastra – Inspiring to Reflect

Param Krupalu Dev, through Shri Atmasiddhi Shastra, encourages the aspirant to question one’s beliefs and think independently on the truth about the Self. Awaken to your true nature. Seek to yearn Self-realisation.

Listen to the Guru’s teachings. Catch the silence in His words. Just as a cage is used to carry a bird, Guru conveys truth in words. Do not get attached to the cage and ignore the bird. Catch the Guru’s spirit expressed through words, get absorbed in it and bring it into experience. Don’t store His teachings in books or the intellect. It will lose its freshness, and efficacy. Receive Guru’s teachings in a way that it increases your yearning for Self-realisation.

Soul is Incapable of Making Changes in Matter

The nature of the Self is consciousness. It cannot do anything in the inert non-Self. Infinite power is manifest in the Omniscient One; yet that power cannot bring about any changes in the non-Self. Such is the independent and complete nature of the soul. In consciousness, there is no give or take of matter particles.

Soul and matter both undergo modifications independently, and as per their own nature. But because their modifications happen simultaneously, the ignorant one believes he can bring changes in the non-Self. The Self is only an instrument and not the cause of material modifications. It only knows the changes; does not do them or stop them from occurring. In the absence of this understanding, the ignorant one endeavours to seek happiness, peace and security by bringing about modifications in the non-Self. In trying to do so, he remains the doer and enjoyer only of the auspicious and inauspicious feelings but never becomes the doer of the modifications of the non-Self.

Reflect

Superficial reading of spiritual books will not help. The glory of the pure Self should arise from within. When the importance of wealth, power etc. get evaporated then the significance of the Self will develop. Just as reading a menu card doesn’t appease hunger, years of reading scriptures and listening to discourses – bereft of spiritual practices – cannot result into experience of the bliss of the Self. Having heard about the Self in the correct manner from the Enlightened Master, the aspirant must pursue the important step of reflection so as to doubtlessly determine the nature of the truth.

Man is dependent on others. He doesn’t think independently. You are taught to adopt others’ thoughts, but not think on your own. You are asked to believe, but not reflect. Due to this dependence, your mind is caught in the chains of blind beliefs. Your so-called independent thinking is also a repetition and not reflection. If you were asked, does God or soul exist, you would say, yes. But is this your answer or are you giving an answer that you have been taught? You learnt from someone, remembered it and said yes. If this is happening then your mind is dependent, not free.

Let alone soul and supreme Self, your daily experiences are also not yours. You only repeat what you have been taught. If you were asked what a rose is like, you immediately say ‘beautiful’. Check; is this your answer or have you borrowed someone’s opinion? Or, is it that because you are attached to someone who believes that the rose is beautiful you say so?

If your personality is to repeat what the society believes in, then you are not independent. You will be an echo-point that resonates others’ views. Unless you think independently, you will not realise the eternal. Do you have anything that you can say is yours? Because, all that has come from outside will leave. Manifest in you that which is authentic and original.

Liking Slavery

Only when something original arises in you, you become worthy of realising the Self. As long as your mind is a slave to others’ beliefs, it cannot think differently. It becomes blind. You are prepared in thousand different ways for such slavery by your nation, society, sect, so-called gurus etc. Because that is how you can be exploited. Slavery destroys the possibility of your independent, revolutionary thinking and conscious living. You continue to remain in shackles, even in the name of religion. Blind belief is dependence, liberation is supreme freedom. You cannot experience liberation, if your mind is caught up in blind belief.

To realise the truth you should give up blind belief and begin to think. To be in a state of blind belief is to be in a state of thoughtlessness. Your society or sect insisting you to follow their set beliefs can be understood because they want to exploit you, but why would you want to live thoughtlessly? What good will you derive from continuing blind beliefs?

You indulge in blind faith because for that you don’t have to do anything, while for independent thinking you must take the pains to first of all doubt those beliefs. This begets the fear of sinning against the Masters by doubting. But without questioning, thinking does not arise. Also, in independent thinking there is a fear of getting singled out, of insecurity that you may not get any support. And there is a possibility of making mistakes and getting lost.

The Harm

However, blind faith has grievous consequences; the truth gets abandoned and the untruth is held on to. Even Aristotle, a great Greek philosopher and the then ‘father of logic’, had a strange belief. He wrote that women have fewer teeth than men. He had two wives, still he never thought of opening their mouths to count the teeth. For thousands of years Greeks believed that women are less in strength and intelligence than men then how can they have same number of teeth? Men liked believing in this and women also had accepted this belief as it had been held for years. No one doubted, gave a thought or checked this belief. Even after a thousand years of his death, this belief continued in Europe.

Masses create delusion and the prudent ones also get trapped in it and err. There is no other adharma than believing in something without thinking and there is no other dharma then questioning and reflecting upon it. If you don’t question you will never be free of blind beliefs. But you have been told by the masses, society, or sect that to doubt or question their beliefs is a sin. And the sinner is doomed.

Questioning is Not a Sin

To question beliefs is not a sin. It only shows that you are not happy to follow it blindly. You are not lazy, but you are courageous and diligent. Those who question long-held beliefs are deemed atheists and rebels by the society. This is not true. A person can check and verify the truth of the prevailing belief, but the masses can’t. Society has no life, it mechanically follows laws. Hence, the one who follows the masses, becomes mechanical. His identity gets destroyed. He may speak and think a lot on truth, but all that is borrowed from someone.

To attain the truth you must dare to reflect on what you hear or read. For that you need a questioning mind. The strength to reflect arises from your doubt. Raising questions doesn’t mean you are doubting the Enlightened Ones, the scriptures and their expounders. It only shows that you are thinking. Because you know that believing without thinking will not let you experientially know the truth, but questioning will eventually unveil the truth that is manifest in the hearts of the Enlightened Ones.

From Insecurity to Security

Questioning terminates thoughtlessness, while blind belief strengthens it. However, thinking is a penance. A painful one, where you doubt a set belief and then pass through a process of thinking to verify the truth of it for yourself. To doubt is to be ready for insecurity, to accept your ignorance, to walk without any support. As long as you take support of hearsay beliefs, you will remain weak to walk. You will readily accept to remain blind to the truth. However, from right thinking will dawn the strength of conviction beyond your imagination. The force of conviction will put all your knowledge into practice and take you in the direction of a state beyond the mind, the state of pure Self. As Param Krupalu Dev says in Shri Atmasiddhi Shastra – contemplate deeply and realise your Self.