I don't know how to begin as there is a lot going in my mind right now. Recently there had been a tragedy in our family. Youngest of my maternal uncle passed away.
He wasn't that old and left us all shocked and heart broken.
We cremated him with proper rituals and wet eyes. After the cremation there is a Hindu ritual of collecting phool (bones) and ashes.
The day after we all went there to complete the ritual where I encountered a strange thing.
The priest searched in the ashes took a piece of bone which was located near my uncle’s heart and “there it is AATMARAM” he said.
Clueless for a moment I looked at it. It was a piece of bone looked more like a vertebra. Being from a science background I knew it is not a vertebra. Then what is it?
As I was about to ask what is aatmaram, the priest started explaining. “Not every deceased person has aatmaram after being cremated. This represents that Tirath Ji (my maternal uncle) is a pure soul.” This increased my curiosity so I put all my focus on aatmaram. It looked like a person sitting crossed legs with his hands and fingers in dhyan mudra (position of meditation). I was speechless. It was like a new dimension of knowledge just opened in front of my sight.
Still a little sceptical I searched the internet later that night to find many post not only by the Indian origin but also from the foreign researchers. One of which took my attention. It stated “The Aatmaram is a piece of bone which is a part of the ribcage closest to the heart. It is here, that the soul resides. Although, the soul is said to be in the entire body but it is said that this is the centre point. If found intact, it looks like a person in a yogic sitting position with crossed legs and hands & fingers in a mudra. This aatmaram is supposed to signify the greatness and the purity of the person.”
Exactly! What I encountered during the day.
We may be living in the 21st century with all the researches and amazing new technologies and countries competing to reach mars etc. But we still do not have answers to many questions which god created. We do not study aatmaram in anatomy books. I asked a friend of mine who is a doctor and is into research related to bio mechanics. When I spoke to him it doesn't took me long to conclude that science doesn't even have a logical answer to it.
Sometimes we don’t need today’s logic to get correct answers.
-- Ankit Malhotra.
