Maharishi Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 4. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, December 19, 2021. 7:00.PM.
Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 4.  
Discourse-4.

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You must read the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, especially the Second and the Fourth Chapters where Yajnavalkya pours the highest wisdom on Maitreyi and King Janaka, till they become stunned completely.

"Go on, Yajnavalkya, say further, I will give you a thousand cows as big as elephants. Go on, tell me further, further. I am not satisfied. You are raining nectar on me. Go on, Yajnavalkya." It would be good if we had been present there in that audience. Oh, how blessed it would be! Nectar flowed from the words of Sage Yajnavalkya, and the highly satisfied King said, "Go on, go on further, great Sage, further! I am not satisfied. I'm giving you thousands of cows as big as bulls, take."

Oh, I cannot find words to tell you what all this actually means or implies. The most difficult thing, the most frightening thing is that your self can be somewhere else. "Oh, it is in all creation! How is it possible? I am sitting here. This person with this qualification, this length, this breadth, this much responsibility; how can I be somewhere else?" You are really somewhere else. This is the meaning of the Universal Self, for want of better words. "Whoever knows this possesses the whole world. He himself is the world."

Can anybody contain all things inside oneself and be at rest? It is not possible even to hear these things. These admonitions and teachings are damaging to the egoistic individuality which locates the self inside the body only. Enough of it. Can you imagine that your self is sitting in the most distant stars? Can you imagine that you yourself are the stars, you are shining as the far-off luminary, and 'I am the Self'? You are not seeing the stars; you yourself are the stars. You are the sky; therefore the sky is not extended. The moment you say sky is extended, it becomes an object. But you yourself are the space – then the spatial characteristic of space vanishes. If you go on drumming this into your ears, and go on racking your head, scratching yourself – how is it possible? Is it possible? You will find this is not possible. This is why preliminary qualifications are prescribed: Viveka, Vairagya, Shatsampatti, Mumukshutva – discrimination, dispassion, the six virtues and longing for liberation. These preliminary qualifications are necessary. If anyone is distracted in the direction of anything else than the Self, then the Self will hide itself fully away somewhere.

There are very great things in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad which should not be read by impure minds. With these subtle longings, we should not go to the Upanishads to seek, "let me see if I can find something there." You should not experiment with these things. You should say, "I shall find it." The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is a supermarket – you can find anything there. It is a forest, a large, large forest of knowledge – Brihadaranyaka. It is aranyaka, a forest of knowledge. That also, brhat very large, impregnable forest for every kind of knowledge. Very vast: it will take one year to say anything about this book. Even one year is not sufficient. You are touching the Self, that is the most important thing. You can touch anything and go scot-free, but we cannot touch the Self and go like that. It will do some mischief afterwards.

To be continued .....

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