Talk 273.
Dr. Syed asked: I have been reading the Five Hymns. I find that the hymns are addressed to Arunachala by you. You are an Advaitin. How do you then address God as a separate Being?M.: The devotee, God and the Hymns are all the Self.
D.: But you are addressing God. You are specifying this Arunachal a Hill as God.
M.: You can identify the Self with the body. Should not the devotee identify the Self with Arunachala?
D.: If Arunachala be the Self why should it be specially picked out among so many other hills? God is everywhere. Why do you specify Him as Arunachala?
M.: What has attracted you from Allahabad to this place? What has attracted all these people around?
D.: Sri Bhagavan.
M.: How was I attracted here? By Arunachala. The Power cannot be denied. Again Arunachala is within and not without. The Self is Arunachala.
D.: Several terms are used in the holy books - Atman, Paramatman,
Para [?], etc. What is the gradation in them?
M.: They mean the same to the user of the words. But they are understood differently by persons according to their development.
D.: But why do they use so many words to mean the same thing?
Page 238
M.: It is according to circumstances. They all mean the Self. Para means `not relative' or `beyond the relative', that is to say, the Absolute.
D.: Should I meditate on the right chest in order to meditate on the Heart?
M.: The Heart is not physical. Meditation should not be on the right or the left. Meditation should be on the Self. Everyone knows `I am'. Who is the `I'? It will be neither within nor without, neither on the right nor on the left. `I am' - that is all. The Heart is the centre from which everything springs. Because you see the world, the body and so on, it is said that there is a centre for these, which is called the Heart. When you are in the Heart, the Heart is known to be neither the centre nor the circumference. There is nothing else. Whose centre could it be?
D.: May I take it that the Self and the non-Self are like substance and its shadow?
M.: Substance and shadow are for the one who sees only the shadow and mistakes it for the substance and sees its shadow also. But there is neither substance nor shadow for the one who is aware only of the Reality.
D.: Buddha, when asked if there is the ego, was silent; when asked if there is no ego, he was silent; asked if there is God, he was silent; asked if there is no God, he was silent. Silence was his answer for all these. Mahayana and Hinayana schools have both misinterpreted his silence because they say that he was an atheist. If he was an atheist, why should he have spoken of nirvana [?], of births and deaths, of karma [?], reincarnations and dharma? His interpreters are wrong. Is it not so?
M.: You are right.