Monday 12 October · Day 1 on your path
By truthfulness, indeed, by penance, right knowledge, and abstinence must…
A verse for today, chosen from the scholar-translated texts. Ask anything to begin your path.
Today by the texts
सत्येन लभ्यस्तपसा ह्येष आत्मा सम्यग्ज्ञानेन ब्रह्मचर्येण नित्यम् । अन्तःशरीरे ज्योतिर्मयो हि शुभ्रो यं पश्यन्ति यतयः क्षीणदोषाः
By truthfulness, indeed, by penance, right knowledge, and abstinence must that Self be gained; the Self whom spotless anchorites gain is pure, and like a light within the body.
— tr. F. Max Müller (SBE, 1879/1884) (public domain)
Today the verse asks something unglamorous of you: not a sudden vision but truthfulness, restraint, and clear knowing, practiced steadily enough to wear away what obscures. And it promises that what you are looking for is not far off — "pure, and like a light within the body" [MuUp 3.1.5], already lit, waiting only for the smoke to thin.
Five minutes with one line.
Repeat satyena labhyastapasā hyeṣa ātmā slowly. Let the meaning arrive on its own, without pressing for it.