Atma Bodha of Sri Adi Sankaracharya (Sanskrit Text, Transliteration, Word-to-Word Meaning, Translation and Detailed Commentary)

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Introduction

No text book can be prescribed to the students without an initial chapter giving the definition of the terms and terminology that are used in the body of the book. The Scientist visualizes the world from his view point. He sees truths that are not visible to others. And since he sees visions which are not the common property of all, in his language he will have to use unconventional words which have for him some special imports and secret suggestions. If these extraordinary words are not rightly understood by the teacher and the taught, transference of knowledge would be impossible. Therefore, in every text book of science, the first few chapters describe the categories.

Suffering and sorrows form a part of life's game. There is none who has not undergone pressing agonies in his own day to day life, either physically or mentally or emotionally. Yet, nobody seems to invite them. All that we do is to avoid as far as possible this aspect of life coming in contact with us. The more we want to escape its cruel jaws, the more it takes an endless variety of subtler and sharper ways of attacking.

Physical ailments form but one tribe of hordes that barbarously attack us; even more relentless and cruel are our mental sufferings. As we progress in our knowledge of the curative processes for ameliorating the physical sufferings, we observe that the mind's ill health affects the body much more than what one could imagine; and this king of suffering proves all the more difficult to deal with. Mental disintegration is more dangerous, for it brings about not only misery to the sufferer but a kind of dangerous disharmony in and excruciating intolerance with the surroundings of such an individual.