The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads - 5.7 - Swami Krishnananda.

Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF): 

Day 3 at Vedanta Unveiled Camp: 

In the morning session on Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Swamini Vimalananda discussed the roots of fear and how we shape our reality. In the evening sessions, Swami Advayananda elaborated on desires, revealing their connection to our inherent happiness. Pujya Guruji's Swami Tejomayananda session on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15 simplified a complex verse in a lucid manner. 

Bhagavan's statement, "A qualified seeker reaches My abode where the sun does not shine, nor does the moon nor fire," doesn't imply a dark place. Instead, it signifies Bhagavan's Self-illuminating nature. The term 'abode' refers to His Self-effulgent nature. Pujya Guruji also discussed the journey of the ignorant jiva, unaware of its true nature, transmigrating from one body to another across lifetimes. 

During the morning session, 'Sadhana Sopanam' – a Shravana Mangalam album containing discourses by Swami Sharadananda Sarasvati in Malayalam – was released. Group discussions, Guru Paduka Puja and Chuttuvilakku engaged and nourished the participants. 

A day of revelations, guiding us toward a profound understanding of our true nature.

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Monday, 27 Nov 2023. 08:00.

Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-7.

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The Taittiriya Upanishad goes on further. The Universal Absolute is like a non-existence for us. What exists for us is the world only. If we think that only the world exists, and the Absolute does not exist merely because we cannot see it with our eyes, we are going to be miserable indeed. We will also be negated completely from the selfhood of our experience on account of the wrong impression that we entertain that the Absolute does not exist. “Asanneva sa bhavati, asat brahmeti veda chet. Asti brahmeti chet veda, santamenam tato viduriti.” Whoever denies God denies himself, because our own self is nothing but the replica of God. The denial of the Absolute is the denial of one's own selfhood of character because, as we have already seen, we are constituted of the very substance of the Absolute. The Absolute, or the Universal, is That outside which there can be nothing, including ourselves. So in denying God or the Absolute, we deny ourselves, which is absurd.

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.

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To be continued

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