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CONCEPTS OF PARAMATMA, ANTARATMA
AND ANATMA IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF
DADA BHAGWAN (A Comparative Analysis)
PROLOGUE
At the outset I offer my Namaskar to Saccidanandarupa Paramatma situated in all of us.
Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan, (hence forth referred 'Dadaji' as he is lovingly and reverentially called), has been the harbinger of "Holistic Vision and Integral Living", which is the hallmark of Indian spiritual wisdom. His delineations and averments represent the crux of Indian wisdom for the amelioration of the sufferings of the humankind and offer the sure way to liberation. According to him each and every Indian has immense capacity to shake the world and lead it to emancipation because of the spiritual power inherent in him. (Aptavani, II, p.370). As Arthur Schopenhauer also has rightly opined about Vedic rsis, only Indian seers are capable of apprehending such noble and sublime illuminations. He writes, "They were thus capable of a purer and more direct comprehension of the inner essence of nature, and were thus in a position to satisfy the need for metaphysics in a more estimable manner. Thus there originated in those primitive ancestors of the Brahmanas, the Rishis, the almost superhuman conceptions recorded in the Upanisads of the Vedas (The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, p. 475). Dadaji was such a rsi, a mantradrsta, who visualized the true essence of Reality 'in the context of present times' (Cf. P.P. Shri Kanudadaji in 'Holistic Science of Human Life and Nature, p.73). He was appropriately acclaimed as an apostle of inner peace and harmony. I am neither fully exposed to his divine revelations and liberating averments, nor do I have the needed self-realization (svatmanubhuti),