Maharishi Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1. : Swami Krishnananda

09/04/2019
1.

Idam brahma, idam kshatram, ime lokah, ime devah, imani bhutani, idam sarvam yad ayam atma.
"This Source of knowledge; this source of power; all these worlds; all these gods; all these beings – All this is just the Self."

This proclamation is like a Brahma Astram that Sage Yajnavalkya is discharging against every kind of attachment one can conceive in this world. It is somewhat easy to accept that God is everywhere. It becomes easy because we always externalise the location of God, however much we may try to universalise Him. The idea of location in space does not leave us so easily. God is everywhere, this is what we generally believe. The everywhereness of God implies that there is space, and inasmuch as our mind is wedded completely to the concept of spatial expansion, we feel a little bit comforted when we are told that God is everywhere.

Now, here, a thunderbolt is discharged by Sage Yajnavalkya when he says the Self also is everywhere. Imani bhutani, idam sarvam yad ayam atma. All the fourteen worlds are the Self. Here we will not find it so easy to accept it, because we cannot spatialise the concept of Self. Our Self cannot be somewhere else, it must be within us only. But, what does one mean by saying "all the worlds, all the gods, all this is the Self". What is this that the Sage is telling us? What exactly is the Self? Can anyone tell us what is the Self? What meaning can we attach to this word? There is myself, yourself, this self, that self! The self is something which cannot be externalised, objectified or spatialised in any way. The Self is the utter subjectivity of universality. The universal concept is rather easy to accept because we may spatialise even the universal being. But the Self cannot be spatialised – I cannot be anywhere else than in myself.

To be continued ....