The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

╭ introduction
Western philosophers have reasoned their way to a similar
conclusion, but with them it was an intellectual exercise.
David Hume confesses that whenever he was forced to conclude
that his empirical ego was insubstantial, he went out for
a walk, had a good dinner, and forgot all about it. For these
ancient sages, however, these were not logical conclusions but
personal discoveries. They were actually exploring the mind,
testing each level of awareness by withdrawing consciousness
to the level below. In profound meditation, they found, when
consciousness is so acutely focused that it is utterly withdrawn
from the body and mind, it enters a kind of singularity
in which the sense of a separate ego disappears. In this state,
the supreme climax of meditation, the seers discovered a core
of consciousness beyond time and change. They called it simply
Atman, the Self.
I have described the discovery of Atman and Brahman
– God immanent and God transcendent – as separate, but
there is no real distinction. In the climax of meditation, the
sages discovered unity : the same indivisible reality without
and within. It was advaita, “not two.” The Chandogya Upanishad
says epigrammatically, Tat tvam asi : “Thou art That.”
Atman is Brahman: the Self in each person is not different
from the Godhead.
Nor is it different from person to person. The Self is one,
the same in every creature. This is not some peculiar tenet of
the Hindu scriptures; it is the testimony of everyone who has
╭ 26