If brevity is the essence of wit, Bhagvan Adi Shankaracharya has it. And if wisdom is anybody’s property, Shri Shankaracharya shows it. The setting: A Svami with his disciples is on the way to Kāśī Viśvanāth temple after a sacred dip in the Ganga. He recoils from a sweeper doing his usual round of sweeping and asks him to move away. The sweeper stuns the Svami with a challenging spiritual poser – one body may move away from another, but can the Atma of one person be separated from another’s? Only five verses in Manīṣa-Pañcakam but enough to keep one thinking for a lifetime… Pujya Gurudev, Swami Chinmayananda’s commentary is apt & heart-piercing, at the same time capable of making the reader introvert.
