The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads 5.8. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, April 13, 2021. 10:24. AM.
Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-8.
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The Absolute appears to be non-existent from the point of view of the senses, not from its own point of view. It is non-existent to the senses because the senses can perceive only what is in space and in time. But the Absolute Brahman is not in space and in time; it is the Self. Again we come to the point that we cannot see the Self, just as we cannot see our own eyes. The Self is the seeing consciousness. That is called the Atman; that is called Brahman or the Absolute. How can we see it? Who can see the Seer?

We cannot see the Seer because the Seer is the seer of things. The Atman cannot be beheld in the way we behold a building outside or people in the world externally, because the beholding outside is done through the senses. But the senses function on account of the light of the Atman. The deepest Self within us cannot be experienced by any activity of the senses. And if we try to contact the Absolute with the help of the senses or through a test tube in a laboratory in a scientific manner, as they call it today, then we will be a failure. The Absolute is the selfhood in things and it can be known only by self-restraint, by self-control, by tapas.

Now we come to the importance of tapas, whereby Varuna is supposed to have taught his son Bhrigu the knowledge of the Atman. Bhrigu approached his father and said to him: “Master, Father, Sir, teach me Brahman.” The father gave the following definition of Brahman and asked him to contemplate on it. “Yato va imani bhutani jayante; yena jatani jivanti; yat prayantyabhisamvisanti; tad vijijnasasva; tat brahma”: That from which everything has come, That in which everything abides, and That to which everything must return one day is Brahman, the Absolute. This is a very difficult definition; we cannot make any sense out of it, and he was asked to meditate on this.

He went on meditating. He could not catch the full import at all. So he realised that the whole material universe is Brahman. “Annam brahmeti vyajanat.” Due to the intensity of concentration, there was a realisation of the togetherness of all the physical things in the world. This is what we will experience in meditation. If we concentrate intensely on any object, we will find the inter-connectedness of the things in this universe in a physical manner at the initial outset. 

This was what Bhrigu realised. He realised anna, food, matter, the physical universe itself is Brahman. Then he went to the father and submitted, “This is how I realised. Please tell me about Brahman. Is it true?” “Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva, tapo brahmeti”: You contemplate further; you will know what it is. He did not give any answer. The father never initiated him into any further mysteries. He simply said, “Tapas taptva”: Restrain your mind more and more, concentrate more and more, meditate more and more, and you will realise what Brahman is.

To be continued ...

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