The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads : 3.6. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday, October 19, 2020. 07:26. AM.

Chapter 3: Ishvara and Jiva - 6.

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We are not asking for any kind of contact, really speaking. We are thoroughly mistaken, and that mistake itself is lost sight of completely. This complete oblivion of the very reason behind this hunger is called avidya. These terms do not occur in the Upanishad. I am explaining from the terminologies of the later philosophies.

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Ignorance precedes every kind of action in the direction of the possession of the requirements of the senses. We run after things on account of an ignorance, which covers our consciousness, of the reason behind the very existence of this hunger. There is only one need that we have, and not more than one—the need to become one with That from which we have been separated, and out of which we have been thrown. That is all. The divinities within are hungering. It is not the tongue or the ear or the nose that asks for things; it is the divinities within that are hungry. Indra, Varuna, Surya, etc., are the deities which are superintending over every part of our body. They are the rulers, they are the masters, they are the actual occupants of this habitat called this body. They ask for a reunion and a rehabilitation with the status they have lost. This hunger for reunion with the Universal manifests itself in a diversified form through the senses as desire to see, desire to hear, desire to taste, desire to touch, and so on. Hence, these are artificially created tentative satisfactions, because no other satisfaction is available. When everything has gone, whatever is available satisfies us.

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The senses are thus duping us in this way by making us think that our need is something different from what it really is. What the child cries for is something, and what we give it is something else. It may be having an acute stomach ache, but we give it a sugar candy. We say, “Take this sugar candy. Don’t weep.” We do not know why the child is weeping. It has some ailment. It cannot express itself, poor thing! It has some deep-rooted agony which it is not able to speak out in its own language. But we are trying to pacify it, pamper it by things which are actually not what it needs. So is the case with the hunger or the thirst of the soul.

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The word ‘soul’ is very important in this context. Here the soul means the jiva, or the individualised divinity. It has been satisfied with this body. “Enter this abode,” said the great Lord, and the jivas entered this abode of the human being. This abode has become a source of inadequate satisfaction, unfortunately, even though they thought that the human body is the best of all the productions. They did not want the earlier ones—the horse, the bull, etc.

To be continued ....

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