Sat discusses how to end the struggle by accepting the Truth.
The Asatoma Prayer*
Asatho Maa Sad Gamaya
Thamaso Maa Jyothir Gamaya
Mrithyor Maa Amritham Gamaya
*The Asatoma Prayer is an ancient prayer from India written in Sanskrit.
“Asatho Maa Sad Gamaya” means “lead me from untruth to truth.” The remainder of the prayer translates to “lead me from darkness to light and from death to immortality.” That is the job of a teacher, or a Guru. What does it mean to go from untruth to truth or from the unreal to the real? “Unreal” is anything that we perceive with our senses. That, in and of itself, pretty much gets rid of a lot of things. Anything that we perceive through our senses, and interpret by our mind, is unreal, and realizing that alone, is freedom.
So, whatever you are testifying to, by your senses, and accepting with your mind, is not the truth. And, the reason why the senses, and the mind can persuade us with happiness, sadness, anger, loneliness, and or anxiety, is because we believed they are true, when in actuality they were never the truth at all. Why are they not the truth? They are not the truth because if they were the truth they would feel good, or they would be lasting. Of course, some of our senses bring in good feelings, but they don’t last. So, going from untruth to truth, is to unlearn, and the sooner, the better. This is because the body is the only vehicle that can teach you how to go from the untruth to the truth. There is no other way; there is no other way to taste it.
If we are serious seekers, any time that we have testified to this duality, or the unreal, we recognize it, and we drop it. The belief in the five senses and this unreality has gotten to the point that people can not even face the truth very easily. They tend to somewhat escape it. The Truth is the absence of a lie. The Truth is the absence of untruth. That is all there is; when we remove what is untruth, what is left is the Truth. Just imagine that we are in a dark room, and most of the people in this world who may be in a dark room, try to move the darkness out of the room. And in that, there is a struggle. The wise open the curtains. By just opening the curtains, the darkness goes away. The struggle signifies that we did not open the curtains. We are trying to drag, fix, mend, prepare, and repair our lives, which in and of themselves are part of the untruth.
So, the best thing to do is, to bring in the wisdom of Truth, then we don’t have to adjust, repair, mend, help with, or solve any problems. Otherwise, from the beginning of our lives to the very end, we will be trying to solve problems, our own and others’.
-Excerpt from “Asatoma” DVD, 3/01/05: Sat’s Meditation Class
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