Day by Day with Bhagavan

Afternoon

I was reading Vichara Sangraha (Self Enquiry). I came across the statement that something in the heart i.e., something is shining or sounding as ‘I-I’ in the heart. I have always had doubt what exactly the word sphurana means. So I asked Bhagavan and he said, “It means i.e., which shines or illuminates.” I asked, “Is it not a sound we hear?” Bhagavan said, “Yes, we may say it is a sound we feel or become aware of”. He also referred to the dictionary and said, “The word means ‘throbbing’, ‘springing on the memory’, ‘flashing across the mind’. Thus both sound and light may be implied in the word sphurana. Everything has come from light and sound.”

I asked Bhagavan what it is that ‘shines’, whether it is the ego or the Self. He said it was neither the one, nor the other, but something in between the two, that it is something which is a combination of the ‘I’ (Self) and the ‘I-thought’ (ego), and that the Self is without even this sphurana. Explaining how the Self is mere light and how it is both the word or sound and also that out of which word or sound originally came, Bhagavan said, “Man has three bodies, the gross one made of the five elements, the sukshma or subtle one made of manas and prana, and the jiva. Similarly even Iswara has three bodies. All the manifested universe is His gross body, light and sound are His sukshma body, and the Self His jiva.”