Vivekachudamani 29 Atman as Inner Divinity - By Swami Tattwamayananda

133rd verse: “There is one indivisible, eternal divine principle in all of us, which regulates everything within us.”134th verse: “This divine spirit that is present everywhere and in everything, is residing in our own inner being, our essence. It is of the  nature of sattva guna. It is self0effulgent and illuminates everything in this world. It is compared to the Sun.”Swami Vivekananda said: “Religion is the manifestation of divinity already within man.”All good qualities that we admire in people and that are listed in the second and 13th chapters of Gita are manifestations of this divinity. When a person becomes spiritual, he manifests this divinity.Shankaracharya says that in spiritual literature, whenever a list of characteristics of a spiritually enlightened person is provided, there is only one purpose. These characteristics constitute the road by which we should travel to reach the goal that the enlightened person has reached.Sun is the most effulgent thing in the world. It reveals everything and does not borrow its light from anything else. Atman is like the sun; it is self-effulgent and it reveals everything.135th verse: “Atman knows everything about us – our mind, emotions, senses, pranas and so on.  But it cannot be known empirically by anyone. An iron piece, when heated in fire, gets red hot. The heat belongs to the fire, not the iron piece. Similarly, everything is activated by their proximity to Atman.”Our physical identity is only an outer shell. Through spiritual practices, when we get rid of the wrong notions of our true identity, our true identity manifests itself.Vedanta accepts the idea of a personal God. However, it says that the highest idea of God is one divine principle present in all of us.136th verse: “The Atman is never born, it never dies. It does not grow or change. It is the only eternal Absolute Reality.“137th verse: “This Atman is the witness of everything, of all our experiences in waking, dream and deep sleep states. It is always present in the past, present and future.”