Ashtottaram 3

 

 

3) OṀ JNĀNA BHŨMYAINAMAH:

 

        OṀ (AUM) - JNAA - NA- BHOO-MYAI - NA--MA- HA

 

        (Jnānam: Knowledge about the Self, Soul, and God)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Brihadāraṇyakopanishad is instructing us “OṁTamasoma Jyotirgamaya”-Every Hindu and Vedic devotee pray God to lead him from darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge. “Nahi Jnānena Sadruśam, Pavitra Mahi Vidyate”; “Jnanāt Eva Mokṣhah” - these are the words of our vaidic ṛishis and in Bhagavad Gita-Lord Sri Krishna also said that all yogas are for the sake of Jnāna yoga only and a Jnāni is closest to Him. Our spiritual gurus also assert that no power is equal to the power of spiritual knowledge.  The actual meaning of “Bhāratah” is that one who is very much interested in the knowledge (illumination). That’s why we, the Hindus give importance to the knowledge over authority and power. From ancient times our kings and their authority bowed to knowledge and not the other way around.

 

Wealth that promotes knowledge and knowledge that increases prosperity is the motto of our culture. Our land is the land of knowledge for a Jnāni, for whom there is no fruits of actions and there is no bondage. In Bhagavad Gita, Lord Sri Krishna says that a Jnāni who is a Jēvanmukta (liberated while living) performs his actions without a notion of doer ship. That means there is no ego involved in his actions like “me, myself and I”, the motto of the younger generations and the western culture. He performs his actions with dispassion and detachment. Believing that you are the body, mind, and senses is ignorance and it leads to the cycles of repeated births and deaths, and you change bodies like you discard old and ragged clothes and wear new clothes as long as you believe you are the body and you are the doer. Knowing and experiencing that “you are the Divine”- is liberation.

 

The land which is the vehicle and means for the knowledge of the Self- “that you are Divine and the Self is eternal”, is "Jnāna Bhūmi", and that is our mātrubhūmi.