The Essence of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: 18. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday 21, Apr 2024. 06:50.
Scriptures
Upanishads
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 
Chapter 4: Divine Immanence and the Correlativity of All Things:2.
Post-18.

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Then, Gargi puts the question: 

What are the limits of things? Where is anything founded? Where is this world rooted and where are the other worlds fixed? Where is the last cause ultimately situated? What is the Cause of all causes?

Yajnavalkya says that the Cause of all things is Akshara, the Imperishable, the Absolute; and It is not rooted in anything, though everything and all the worlds are rooted in It. Under the law of the Absolute, everything moves, everything acts, and everything functions. Even the physical harmony, regularity and system that we observe in Nature is due to the existence of this Absolute. Its very being is the law of all things. It does not command things by word of mouth; it does not speak as we speak through speech. It exists! Its very existence is an influence exerted inexorably on everything. The symmetrical action and movement of things in every realm of experience, in every level of being, in every plane of existence, is due to the operation inwardly, subtly, of the law of the Absolute. It is due to it that the sun shines, it is due to it that rain falls, it is due to it that the earth revolves round the sun, it is due to it that we breathe, it is due to it that we exist, and think, and are happy. So, that is the ultimate Reality and it is not founded upon anything else; everything is founded upon That, says Yajnavalkya. Anything that is done here without a knowledge of this Reality, is a waste, concludes the sage.

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Uddalaka asks: What is the Antaryamin, the Indweller? What does one mean by the Indweller, and where does He dwell; what does He indwell? Where is He?

The answer to this question given by Yajnavalkya is that the Antaryamin is the Atman and It cannot be known. While It knows everything, It is not known to anybody. The Antaryamin is the Indwelling Principle of all things. That which indwells an object, knows the nature of that object; but the object cannot know its Indweller at all, because the Indweller is the seeing Consciousness, the experiencing Reality. It cannot be externalised, It cannot be objectified, It cannot stand in the position of a known, and therefore its existence is not known. No one can ever have even an inkling of Its existence, because the highest faculty of knowledge, which are our own mind and intellect, cannot reach even the fringe of this Reality. The mind and the intellect are thrust outwardly, they are extrovert, they are forced to move in respect of things external to them, and so they cannot know what is behind them. The mind, the senses and the intellect cannot know what is transcendent to their own existence. So, the propeller of even the mind and the intellect, the cause of the functions of even the senses cannot be known by these faculties. This is the Indweller.

This indwelling Principle is not merely in me, or in you, but in everything—in physical, in astral and in causal beings. It is in every level of experience. It is outside, it is inside and it is universal, and therefore neither the objects outside can know It nor the intellect and mind can know It, nor even the divinities which are apparently the superintending principles over the senses can know It. No one can know where It is and yet without Its existence nothing can be. Its existence is the existence of everything. Such is what is called the Antaryamin. You cannot know It, you cannot see It, you cannot hear It, you cannot think It, you cannot understand It; because, this Being is the Seer, the Hearer, the Thinker, the Understander, the Experiencer of all; It is the Sarvanubhuh—the Being of everything.

The last questioner was Sakalya who raised various types of queries; some of them being: how many gods are there; what are the presiding deities of the various quarters, and objects, etc., to which all a proper answer was given by Yajnavalkya. Yajnavalkya mentions that there is a divine principle present in every little bit of things in this world. There is nothing undivine anywhere, in all the physical objects, in anything that we regard as phenomenal, external, anything that is apparently perishable, destructible, mortal, earthly; in all these things there is the hidden divine Reality. On account of the presence of this divinity a thing appears to be there. Even appearance could not be, if Reality were not to be there. The presence of Reality in anything comes into relief not merely when an object is visualised, but when it is viewed in its organic connectedness with its perceiver as well as the deity transcending both.

Thus, all the questions put by the eight sages in the court of king Janaka were answered by Yajnavalkya and finally he himself sums up his discourse by saying that the origin of the human being himself is Brahman. Everything comes from this Divinity. The individual existence of anything is not brought about by the mixture of elements, as scientists would tell us. It is not a chemical combination that is the cause of the physical body or of the mental functions, because they are all inert things. That which is inert or unconscious, cannot produce consciousness. Wherefrom does consciousness in the human beings come? It cannot be due to a conglomeration or a mix-up of physical elements; because that which is not in the cause cannot be in the effect. When the cause is only hydrogen and oxygen, and such other chemical substances, which are inert in nature, how can consciousness come out of them? The consciousness which is the effect, apparently, seen in the individual, has to be traced back to a Universal Consciousness. Vijnanamanandam brahma raterdatuh parayanam: Consciousness-Bliss is Brahman, the Goal of all aspirations. This is what Yajnavalkya concluded, in answer to all the queries posed before him. There is one Reality behind everything, which appears as the manifold things in this world. Here concluded the Third Chapter.

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Next

Chapter 5: The Principles of Meditation

Continued

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