Tweet
GOD
Source:http://kirtimukha.com/chinnamma/God.htm
Ishaavaasyam idam sarvam - God Omnipresent
"Ishaavaasyam idam sarvam yat kim ca jagatyam jagat
tena tyaktena bhunjithaah maa gridhah kasyasvid dhanam"
first mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad:
The entire universe is indwelt, enveloped, covered by the Supreme Being;
Live a happy life in this world. Enjoy your existence; do not suffer.
When through Jnaana (knowledge), abhyaasa (practice) and vairaagya (detachment) we succeed in developing this perception of the world: namely, that God envelops all things and He is indwelling everything; it follows that we will be veritably in the presence of God always and therefore, ever blissful and joyous. This is an affirmation by the Rishis, the realized saints, who traveled the path and experienced the all-pervading spirit.
Commentary by Swami Krishnananda, The Divine Life Society, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh:
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/sadh/sadh_08a.html
The entire universe is indwelt, enveloped, covered by the Supreme Being, whatever this world be, -- moving or non-moving, living or otherwise. The second part of this mantra is a conclusion drawn from this vision: Live a happy life in this world. Enjoy your existence; do not suffer. Life is not intended to be a misery. We cannot expect God to have created a hell for us. Compassionate is He. It should be lived, and not merely got on as a drudgery.
Tena tyaktena bhunjitaah: by renunciation effected in the light of the consciousness of the indwelling presence of God, enjoy this world. By a renunciation effected in the light of the all-pervading nature of God, you can live a life of happiness in this world.
________________________________________
In an interview published in INDIA New England News – Chinmaya Mission, Boston (June 1, 2003) (page 6 of the pdf document (this link does not connect now): (http://media.collegepublisher.com/me...s/60e6n63f.pdf ) Swami Chinmayananda explained the meaning lucidly thus:
This positive state of harmony and peace, which can be invoked by an intelligent person of will and courage, is called God.
He is present everywhere --
as the raga in the music, or
the canvas in a painting.
He is the warp and woof of the entire tapestry of life,
as the thread in a piece of cotton.
We must have
the ears to listen to the raga,
the understanding to see the canvas, and
the knowledge to recognize the thread in the cloth.
The hurried existence of busy experiences
diverts our attention, and we consequently
fail to see, hear, or know Him. ……….
We can do no better than sing in chorus with Hans Denk:
'Oh my God,
how does it happen in this poor old world that
Thou art so great and yet nobody finds Thee,
Thou callest so loudly and nobody hears Thee,
Thou art so near and yet nobody feels Thee,
Thou givest Thyself to everybody
and yet nobody even knows Thy name?
Men flee from Thee
and say they cannot find Thee;
Men turn their backs
and say they cannot see Thee;
Men cover their ears
and say they cannot hear Thee.'
________________________________________
HiranyaKashipu, blinded by his Ego, challenged his son Prahlada to show
his God Vishnu in the stone pillar near him. Affirming His devotee Prahlada's declaration,
God came out of the pillar as NaraSimha to validate the eternal truth:
Ishaavaasyam idam sarvam - God's omnipresence
there is nowhere that He is not there.
________________________________________
The Tamil Saint Tirumoolar explained in his Tirumanthiram how our individual perceptions hide Reality/Truth
with this example of a child playing with an elephant-figure carved out of wood:
maraththai maRaiththadhu maamadha yaanai
(wood (was) hidden (by) wild elephant
maraththil maRaindhadhu maamadha yaanai
in the wood got hidden wild elephant
Paraththai maRaiththadhu paarmudhal bhootam
paramaatma was hidden (by) the five elements
paraththil maRaindhadhu paarmudhal bhootam
in paramaatma has merged the five elements The child played ecstatic with his elephant proud,
He cared not it was made of wood,
Man with his worldly knowledge beholds only the wood,
But misses the Lord in all creation;
Even so, the Elements hide the Real from our sight,
But the Mystic's eye of perception
pierces through the Elements and experiences God.
paar-mudhal-bhootham = earth etc. the (five) elements = prithvi, aapah, tejas, vaayu, akaasha = earth, water, fire, air and space.
A wild elephant carved out of wood might look very real. A closer scrutiny reveals that though it resembles an elephant in shape, it is made of wood only and is life-less. Similarly, study of the scriptures and cogitation in the mind will reveal to us that this world which appears to be made of the five elements is really made of the timber called the Paramatman; we must learn to look upon all this as the Supreme God-head.
Thirumoolar says in this poem that because of our being accustomed to seeing the five elements (pancha bhootas) all the time, we must not forget to see the Paramatman that is hidden in them. We must recognize that it is indeed He who pervades them, learn to see Ishwara in everything and develop the Upanishadic perception: Isavasyam idam sarvam .
________________________________________
The Upanishad thus perceived Bliss as pervading the entire world;
the Buddha, however, perceived suffering as all pervading in our experiential world
and stated this as his 'First Noble Truth' :
"The suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death is unavoidable".
We may try to block out sadness, pain, loss and grief by indulging in pleasures, thinking that it will bring happiness; but actually we end up disguising our real feelings, making us feel even worse when the temporary happiness runs out. Buddha taught people to recognize and accept that suffering is part of life and that it cannot be avoided. He taught his followers not to be distracted by momentary pleasures, but to look at the bigger picture of their life experiences. He taught that happiness and pleasures are temporary and therefore, that people should learn more about what he taught as the True way to end suffering. He taught these lessons in his next Three Noble Truths.
________________________________________
One may term the Upanishad's perception as positive in that the fundamental Truth about Life was asserted at the very beginning in positive terms:
"Life is full of Bliss" in contrast to Buddha's "There is inevitable suffering in life" and the Bible's "we are born in Sin".
Realizing this truth, we have to train ourselves to move into this state of bliss from our present state of misery and pain
created by our incorrect perceptions and our addiction to the pleasure-principle..
Shraddha (faith), Bhakti (love of the all-pervading God) and Karma Yoga (action) practiced with detachment (vairagya)
will help us to progress on the path to Bliss.
________________________________________
Continues:
Since God is sat-chit-ananda, Blisssful existence principle,, the Dweller in all beings (Vaasudeva)
the assertion that 'Life is full of Bliss' is a corollary to the statement that God is Omnipresent;
this is implied in the following Gita Slokam:
Bhagavad Gita Ch.6 sloka 30
Yah one who; pashyati sees; maam Me, Vaasudeva, who am the Self of all; sarvatra in all things.
ca and; pashyati sees; sarvam all things, all created things, beginning from Brahma; mayi in Me who am the Self of all;
aham I who am God; na praNashyaami do not go out; tasya of his vision-of one who has thus realized the unity of the Self.
ca sah and he also; na praNashyati is not lost. me, to My vision.
Below is Sankara's translation
He who perceives Me in all
and perceives all in Me,
to him I am not lost and
he too is not lost to me That man of realization does not get lost to Me, to Vaasudeva,
because of the indentity between him and Me.
For that which is called one's own Self is surely dear to one and since
it is I alone who am the see-er of the unity of the Self in all.
vaasudeva=the Lord who is the dweller (vasati) in all beings
Sri Ramanujacharya's commentary on Gita Slokam 6.30:
He who, having reached the highest stage of maturity, views similarity of nature with Me, i.e., sees similarity of all selves to Myself when They are freed from good and evil
and when they remain in Their own essence, as declared in the Sruti, 'Stainless he attains supreme degree of equality' (Mun. U., 3.1.3); and 'sees Me in all selves and sees all selves in Me.'
That is, on viewing one of Them (selves), one views another also to be the same, because of their similarity to one another. To him who perceives the nature of his own self,
I am not lost on account of My similarity to him i.e., I do not become invisible to him.
He (the Yogin) viewing his own self as similar to Me, always remains within My sight when I am viewing Myself, because of similarity of his self with Me.
________________________________________
Search for God
The experience of one who, not knowing this great truth about the omnipresence of God,
searched for Him in many places and missed Him -- is vividly illustrated in the following pictures:
The man whispered: "God, speak to me" and the meadowlark sang.
But the man did not hear!
So the man yelled: God, speak to me.
And God rolled the thunder across the sky.
But the man did not listen!
He looked around and said, "God, let me see you."
And a star shined brightly.
But the man did not see!
And, he shouted, "God, show me a miracle."
And a life was born!
But the man did not notice!
So, he cried out in despair, "God, touch me."
Whereupon, God reached down and gently touched the man.
But the man brushed the butterfly away ....
and walked on, disappointed.
He could not see God anywhere, because
he could not see Him everywhere and in all beings.
________________________________________
________________________________________
The ego in the un-evolved person,
is a rebel that has exiled itself from its native kingdom, the Self.
On re-disovery of the Self, the ego becomes the Self
in such a happy blending of a homogeneous whole that,
thereafter, there is no distinction between the ego and the Self.
Such a realized person experiences God in many ways:
in the chirping of the birds,
in the roll of the thunder,
in the twinkling light of the stars,
in the miracle of the birth of a child,
and in the soft touch of a butterfly.
He sees God everywhere
and experiences God in everything.
He sings in tune with the Isavasya Upanishad mantra:
Isaavasyam idam sarvam
________________________________________
________________________________________
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad narrates the story of Lord Prajapati
instructing the Devas (gods), the Naras (humans) and the Asuras (demons):
When they were confused and approached him for advice,
He sent the thunder pealing forth with the sound DA, DA, DA.
The Devas understood 'DA' to mean daamayata - 'control yourselves', since they were lost in the pleasures of heaven..
The Naras understood it as datta - 'give', since they were acquisitive and selfish by nature.
And the asuras got the meaning dayadhvam - 'be compassionate', since they were by nature cruel.
We can constantly listen to the DA-DA-DA sound that our heart sends forth and imbibe the Lord's lesson of
Self-control, Sharing and Compassion.
________________________________________
Maneesha Panchakam
Sankaracharya meets the Chandala
Perceiving the Divine every where is the central theme of Adi Sankaracharya's Maneesha Panchakam.
There is this instructive story about how a chance encounter with a chandala (outcaste) on a Banaras street, while returning from a bath in the Ganga river, revealed to Adi Shankara his own residual caste bias and inspired his famous composition Maneesha Panchakam, wherein he vowed to see the Self in everyone.
After a holy dip in the Ganga, when Sri Sankara was going to the Vishwanath Temple, he noticed a Chandala accompanied by his wife and four dogs coming on the same path towards him. Sri Sankara shouted at him to make way ('go away', 'go away'), and to keep a distance. The untouchable smiled and replied
Slokas 1 & 2 from Maneesha Panchakam):
"O great ascetic! Tell me.
By uttering 'go away' 'go away', do you want me to keep a distance from you, taking me to be an outcaste? Is it addressed from one body made of food to another body made of food, or is it to consciousness from consciousness --- which, O, the best among ascetics, you wish should go away, by saying 'Go away, go away'? Do tell me.
Answer me. While the supreme Being is reflected in every object as the sun's reflection could be seen in the placid wave-less water bodies, why this doubting confusion and differentiation i.e. whether one is a brahmin or an outcaste, who is the superior one etc ?. Is there any difference in the reflection of the sun in the waters of the Ganges or in the water present in the street of an outcaste? Likewise, is there any difference when the water-container happens to be a golden vessel and earthen pot?"
Immediately, Shankaraacharya realised the presence of Lord Shankara Himself (as an instructor to remove the last vestige of imperfection in His devotee) and composed five stanzas known famously as 'maneeshha panchakam'.
In the very first slokam, Shankaracharya enunciated the principle of perceiving divinity in all, be he a Brahmin or an outcaste:
"If one is convinced firmly, that he is that very Soul which manifests itself in all the conditions of sleep, wakefulness and dream, in all the objects from the great Brahma (the creator) to the tiny ant and which is also the vibrant, but invisible, witnesser of all, then as per my clear conclusion, he is the great teacher/preceptor, be he a twice-born (i.e higher castes) or an outcaste."
________________________________________
The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one Being and that every soul is that Being in full, not a part of that Being. All the sun is reflected in each dew-drop. Appearing in time, space and causality, this Being is man, as we know him, but behind all appearance is the one Reality. Unselfishness is the denial of the lower or apparent self. We have to free ourselves from this miserable dream that we are these bodies. We must know the truth, "I am He". We are not drops to fall into the ocean and be lost; each one is the whole , infinite ocean, and will know it when released from the fetters of illusion. Infinity cannot be divided, the "One without a second" can have no second, all is that One. The Vedanta says that the Soul is, in its nature, Existence absolute, Knowledge absolute, Bliss absolute.
Therefore in Advaita philosophy, the whole universe is all one in the Self which is called Brahman. That Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe, the body, is the soul. This very soul, therefore, is the Self in man. There is only one Purusha, the Brahman of the Vedanta; God and man, analysed, are one in It. The universe is you yourself, the unbroken you; you are throughout the universe. "In all hands you work, through all mouths you eat, through all nostrils you breathe, through all minds you think." The whole universe is you; the universe is your body; you are the universe both formed and unformed. You are the soul of the universe and its body also. You are God, you are the angels, you are man, you are animals, you are the plants, you are the minerals, you are everything; the manifestation of everything is you. Whatever exists is you. You are the Infinite.
The Infinite cannot be divided. It can have no parts, for each part would be infinite, and then the part would be identical with the whole, which is absurd. Therefore the idea that you are Mr. So and so can never be true; it is a daydream.
Know this and become free.
http://www.advaitaonline.com/aashrama.htm
________________________________________
Source:http://kirtimukha.com/chinnamma/God.htm
Ishaavaasyam idam sarvam - God Omnipresent
"Ishaavaasyam idam sarvam yat kim ca jagatyam jagat
tena tyaktena bhunjithaah maa gridhah kasyasvid dhanam"
first mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad:
The entire universe is indwelt, enveloped, covered by the Supreme Being;
Live a happy life in this world. Enjoy your existence; do not suffer.
When through Jnaana (knowledge), abhyaasa (practice) and vairaagya (detachment) we succeed in developing this perception of the world: namely, that God envelops all things and He is indwelling everything; it follows that we will be veritably in the presence of God always and therefore, ever blissful and joyous. This is an affirmation by the Rishis, the realized saints, who traveled the path and experienced the all-pervading spirit.
Commentary by Swami Krishnananda, The Divine Life Society, Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh:
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/sadh/sadh_08a.html
The entire universe is indwelt, enveloped, covered by the Supreme Being, whatever this world be, -- moving or non-moving, living or otherwise. The second part of this mantra is a conclusion drawn from this vision: Live a happy life in this world. Enjoy your existence; do not suffer. Life is not intended to be a misery. We cannot expect God to have created a hell for us. Compassionate is He. It should be lived, and not merely got on as a drudgery.
Tena tyaktena bhunjitaah: by renunciation effected in the light of the consciousness of the indwelling presence of God, enjoy this world. By a renunciation effected in the light of the all-pervading nature of God, you can live a life of happiness in this world.
________________________________________
In an interview published in INDIA New England News – Chinmaya Mission, Boston (June 1, 2003) (page 6 of the pdf document (this link does not connect now): (http://media.collegepublisher.com/me...s/60e6n63f.pdf ) Swami Chinmayananda explained the meaning lucidly thus:
This positive state of harmony and peace, which can be invoked by an intelligent person of will and courage, is called God.
He is present everywhere --
as the raga in the music, or
the canvas in a painting.
He is the warp and woof of the entire tapestry of life,
as the thread in a piece of cotton.
We must have
the ears to listen to the raga,
the understanding to see the canvas, and
the knowledge to recognize the thread in the cloth.
The hurried existence of busy experiences
diverts our attention, and we consequently
fail to see, hear, or know Him. ……….
We can do no better than sing in chorus with Hans Denk:
'Oh my God,
how does it happen in this poor old world that
Thou art so great and yet nobody finds Thee,
Thou callest so loudly and nobody hears Thee,
Thou art so near and yet nobody feels Thee,
Thou givest Thyself to everybody
and yet nobody even knows Thy name?
Men flee from Thee
and say they cannot find Thee;
Men turn their backs
and say they cannot see Thee;
Men cover their ears
and say they cannot hear Thee.'
________________________________________
HiranyaKashipu, blinded by his Ego, challenged his son Prahlada to show
his God Vishnu in the stone pillar near him. Affirming His devotee Prahlada's declaration,
God came out of the pillar as NaraSimha to validate the eternal truth:
Ishaavaasyam idam sarvam - God's omnipresence
there is nowhere that He is not there.
________________________________________
The Tamil Saint Tirumoolar explained in his Tirumanthiram how our individual perceptions hide Reality/Truth
with this example of a child playing with an elephant-figure carved out of wood:
maraththai maRaiththadhu maamadha yaanai
(wood (was) hidden (by) wild elephant
maraththil maRaindhadhu maamadha yaanai
in the wood got hidden wild elephant
Paraththai maRaiththadhu paarmudhal bhootam
paramaatma was hidden (by) the five elements
paraththil maRaindhadhu paarmudhal bhootam
in paramaatma has merged the five elements The child played ecstatic with his elephant proud,
He cared not it was made of wood,
Man with his worldly knowledge beholds only the wood,
But misses the Lord in all creation;
Even so, the Elements hide the Real from our sight,
But the Mystic's eye of perception
pierces through the Elements and experiences God.
paar-mudhal-bhootham = earth etc. the (five) elements = prithvi, aapah, tejas, vaayu, akaasha = earth, water, fire, air and space.
A wild elephant carved out of wood might look very real. A closer scrutiny reveals that though it resembles an elephant in shape, it is made of wood only and is life-less. Similarly, study of the scriptures and cogitation in the mind will reveal to us that this world which appears to be made of the five elements is really made of the timber called the Paramatman; we must learn to look upon all this as the Supreme God-head.
Thirumoolar says in this poem that because of our being accustomed to seeing the five elements (pancha bhootas) all the time, we must not forget to see the Paramatman that is hidden in them. We must recognize that it is indeed He who pervades them, learn to see Ishwara in everything and develop the Upanishadic perception: Isavasyam idam sarvam .
________________________________________
The Upanishad thus perceived Bliss as pervading the entire world;
the Buddha, however, perceived suffering as all pervading in our experiential world
and stated this as his 'First Noble Truth' :
"The suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death is unavoidable".
We may try to block out sadness, pain, loss and grief by indulging in pleasures, thinking that it will bring happiness; but actually we end up disguising our real feelings, making us feel even worse when the temporary happiness runs out. Buddha taught people to recognize and accept that suffering is part of life and that it cannot be avoided. He taught his followers not to be distracted by momentary pleasures, but to look at the bigger picture of their life experiences. He taught that happiness and pleasures are temporary and therefore, that people should learn more about what he taught as the True way to end suffering. He taught these lessons in his next Three Noble Truths.
________________________________________
One may term the Upanishad's perception as positive in that the fundamental Truth about Life was asserted at the very beginning in positive terms:
"Life is full of Bliss" in contrast to Buddha's "There is inevitable suffering in life" and the Bible's "we are born in Sin".
Realizing this truth, we have to train ourselves to move into this state of bliss from our present state of misery and pain
created by our incorrect perceptions and our addiction to the pleasure-principle..
Shraddha (faith), Bhakti (love of the all-pervading God) and Karma Yoga (action) practiced with detachment (vairagya)
will help us to progress on the path to Bliss.
________________________________________
Continues:
Since God is sat-chit-ananda, Blisssful existence principle,, the Dweller in all beings (Vaasudeva)
the assertion that 'Life is full of Bliss' is a corollary to the statement that God is Omnipresent;
this is implied in the following Gita Slokam:
Bhagavad Gita Ch.6 sloka 30
Yah one who; pashyati sees; maam Me, Vaasudeva, who am the Self of all; sarvatra in all things.
ca and; pashyati sees; sarvam all things, all created things, beginning from Brahma; mayi in Me who am the Self of all;
aham I who am God; na praNashyaami do not go out; tasya of his vision-of one who has thus realized the unity of the Self.
ca sah and he also; na praNashyati is not lost. me, to My vision.
Below is Sankara's translation
He who perceives Me in all
and perceives all in Me,
to him I am not lost and
he too is not lost to me That man of realization does not get lost to Me, to Vaasudeva,
because of the indentity between him and Me.
For that which is called one's own Self is surely dear to one and since
it is I alone who am the see-er of the unity of the Self in all.
vaasudeva=the Lord who is the dweller (vasati) in all beings
Sri Ramanujacharya's commentary on Gita Slokam 6.30:
He who, having reached the highest stage of maturity, views similarity of nature with Me, i.e., sees similarity of all selves to Myself when They are freed from good and evil
and when they remain in Their own essence, as declared in the Sruti, 'Stainless he attains supreme degree of equality' (Mun. U., 3.1.3); and 'sees Me in all selves and sees all selves in Me.'
That is, on viewing one of Them (selves), one views another also to be the same, because of their similarity to one another. To him who perceives the nature of his own self,
I am not lost on account of My similarity to him i.e., I do not become invisible to him.
He (the Yogin) viewing his own self as similar to Me, always remains within My sight when I am viewing Myself, because of similarity of his self with Me.
________________________________________
Search for God
The experience of one who, not knowing this great truth about the omnipresence of God,
searched for Him in many places and missed Him -- is vividly illustrated in the following pictures:
The man whispered: "God, speak to me" and the meadowlark sang.
But the man did not hear!
So the man yelled: God, speak to me.
And God rolled the thunder across the sky.
But the man did not listen!
He looked around and said, "God, let me see you."
And a star shined brightly.
But the man did not see!
And, he shouted, "God, show me a miracle."
And a life was born!
But the man did not notice!
So, he cried out in despair, "God, touch me."
Whereupon, God reached down and gently touched the man.
But the man brushed the butterfly away ....
and walked on, disappointed.
He could not see God anywhere, because
he could not see Him everywhere and in all beings.
________________________________________
________________________________________
The ego in the un-evolved person,
is a rebel that has exiled itself from its native kingdom, the Self.
On re-disovery of the Self, the ego becomes the Self
in such a happy blending of a homogeneous whole that,
thereafter, there is no distinction between the ego and the Self.
Such a realized person experiences God in many ways:
in the chirping of the birds,
in the roll of the thunder,
in the twinkling light of the stars,
in the miracle of the birth of a child,
and in the soft touch of a butterfly.
He sees God everywhere
and experiences God in everything.
He sings in tune with the Isavasya Upanishad mantra:
Isaavasyam idam sarvam
________________________________________
________________________________________
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad narrates the story of Lord Prajapati
instructing the Devas (gods), the Naras (humans) and the Asuras (demons):
When they were confused and approached him for advice,
He sent the thunder pealing forth with the sound DA, DA, DA.
The Devas understood 'DA' to mean daamayata - 'control yourselves', since they were lost in the pleasures of heaven..
The Naras understood it as datta - 'give', since they were acquisitive and selfish by nature.
And the asuras got the meaning dayadhvam - 'be compassionate', since they were by nature cruel.
We can constantly listen to the DA-DA-DA sound that our heart sends forth and imbibe the Lord's lesson of
Self-control, Sharing and Compassion.
________________________________________
Maneesha Panchakam
Sankaracharya meets the Chandala
Perceiving the Divine every where is the central theme of Adi Sankaracharya's Maneesha Panchakam.
There is this instructive story about how a chance encounter with a chandala (outcaste) on a Banaras street, while returning from a bath in the Ganga river, revealed to Adi Shankara his own residual caste bias and inspired his famous composition Maneesha Panchakam, wherein he vowed to see the Self in everyone.
After a holy dip in the Ganga, when Sri Sankara was going to the Vishwanath Temple, he noticed a Chandala accompanied by his wife and four dogs coming on the same path towards him. Sri Sankara shouted at him to make way ('go away', 'go away'), and to keep a distance. The untouchable smiled and replied
Slokas 1 & 2 from Maneesha Panchakam):"O great ascetic! Tell me.
By uttering 'go away' 'go away', do you want me to keep a distance from you, taking me to be an outcaste? Is it addressed from one body made of food to another body made of food, or is it to consciousness from consciousness --- which, O, the best among ascetics, you wish should go away, by saying 'Go away, go away'? Do tell me.
Answer me. While the supreme Being is reflected in every object as the sun's reflection could be seen in the placid wave-less water bodies, why this doubting confusion and differentiation i.e. whether one is a brahmin or an outcaste, who is the superior one etc ?. Is there any difference in the reflection of the sun in the waters of the Ganges or in the water present in the street of an outcaste? Likewise, is there any difference when the water-container happens to be a golden vessel and earthen pot?"
Immediately, Shankaraacharya realised the presence of Lord Shankara Himself (as an instructor to remove the last vestige of imperfection in His devotee) and composed five stanzas known famously as 'maneeshha panchakam'.
In the very first slokam, Shankaracharya enunciated the principle of perceiving divinity in all, be he a Brahmin or an outcaste:
"If one is convinced firmly, that he is that very Soul which manifests itself in all the conditions of sleep, wakefulness and dream, in all the objects from the great Brahma (the creator) to the tiny ant and which is also the vibrant, but invisible, witnesser of all, then as per my clear conclusion, he is the great teacher/preceptor, be he a twice-born (i.e higher castes) or an outcaste."
________________________________________
The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one Being and that every soul is that Being in full, not a part of that Being. All the sun is reflected in each dew-drop. Appearing in time, space and causality, this Being is man, as we know him, but behind all appearance is the one Reality. Unselfishness is the denial of the lower or apparent self. We have to free ourselves from this miserable dream that we are these bodies. We must know the truth, "I am He". We are not drops to fall into the ocean and be lost; each one is the whole , infinite ocean, and will know it when released from the fetters of illusion. Infinity cannot be divided, the "One without a second" can have no second, all is that One. The Vedanta says that the Soul is, in its nature, Existence absolute, Knowledge absolute, Bliss absolute.
Therefore in Advaita philosophy, the whole universe is all one in the Self which is called Brahman. That Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe, the body, is the soul. This very soul, therefore, is the Self in man. There is only one Purusha, the Brahman of the Vedanta; God and man, analysed, are one in It. The universe is you yourself, the unbroken you; you are throughout the universe. "In all hands you work, through all mouths you eat, through all nostrils you breathe, through all minds you think." The whole universe is you; the universe is your body; you are the universe both formed and unformed. You are the soul of the universe and its body also. You are God, you are the angels, you are man, you are animals, you are the plants, you are the minerals, you are everything; the manifestation of everything is you. Whatever exists is you. You are the Infinite.
The Infinite cannot be divided. It can have no parts, for each part would be infinite, and then the part would be identical with the whole, which is absurd. Therefore the idea that you are Mr. So and so can never be true; it is a daydream.
Know this and become free.
http://www.advaitaonline.com/aashrama.htm
________________________________________