The Temple And Rama Are In Your Heart

The Bhagwad Gita says, “The foolish think of me, the unmanifest, as having manifestation, knowing not my higher, immutable and excellent nature”. In the highest state of samadhi, when the mind dissolves, the Atman finds itself absorbed in its own bliss in the temple of the human heart. This bliss of realization, ‘Tat tvam asi’ is Rama, the divine Brahmn within.

Buddhi, human intellect, is the mirror that reflects both the outer and inner sides that are objective and subjective, respectively. It endows us with the ability to discriminate and choose, to penetrate abstract truths and the will to act on intuition rather than instinct. Buddhi culminates in the glorious faculty that discriminates between buddhi itself and the atman, purusha. This is penultimate to the final stage of yoga called samadhi.

The vast compendium of Vedic mantras extol Brahmn the infinite, formless, static ocean of non-dual pure consciousness as Ekam, the One Brahmn that the Vedas say is ‘srishti’, meaning emanation.

Maya is the creative power of unified consciousness .The magician conjures the limitless cosmos from its own substance, simultaneously becoming the subject and object, screen and projection, the divine consciousness and its Shakti, revealed as the psychedelic display of a multiplicity of light and shadow. The cosmos and God are one. Is there a purpose to this universe of incessant motion and turmoil? Is lila, sport of the divine, a joke? Sri Aurobindo uses the word ‘teleological’ to qualify the universe. Creation is  perfection in the making, an unfolding of phenomena to reveal the luminous presence within.

Krishna, in the Gita, declares his triple status as the transcendental Brahmn, the causal Ishwara and jivatman, manushya, who is Brahmn in a human body.

All wars between the cosmic forces, good and evil, are fought in the human mind. Inner turmoil can either degenerate the human personality into the abyss of bestiality or be given as havis, offering, into the quest for perfection and completion that is burning in the human heart, where a divine discontent has been planted by Prakriti.

According to Sage Patanjali, the human mind does not perceive any object /person  for what it/he really is. Sutra 1.42 of yoga sutras says, “Our cognition of an object  is actually a ‘vikalpa,’ hallucination, based on a misinterpretation of  linguistic connotations. This consists of an amalgam of sabda, name of the entity, artha, the entity itself and jnana, our preconceived  mental concept of the entity --  and has little to do with the true essence of the entity. This is applicable to the vast range  of human perceptions, from the purely objective, a cow, to more subtle, subjective perceptions like dharma, atman and God.

For instance, when someone says “I own a cow”, your brain registers the phonetic sound ‘cow’ -- the actual cow and the image you already have of the animal in the substance of your mind. The concept includes the utility of the cow for that person and the cultural connotations attached.

When a human being’s perception of a common physical object is so distorted, then, subtler realities are often warped beyond recognition. Add to that, religious zeal, and you have a caricature-god who has shape, form, a cultural milieu, a home (temple or place of worship) which the poor god has no choice but to belong.