Maharishi Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2. : Swami Krishnananda

25/04/2019.
2.

2.1
But what does this declaration say?

Imani bhutani, idam sarvam yad ayam atma. All the created beings, all the worlds, ima lokah – all – sarvam yad ayam atma.

Can I place myself in the location of something which is the extended world outside? Is the world outside my self?
How can I tear the internal location of my selfhood and place it in the sun, or anywhere else?

This is an exercise which is like the Brahmastra to the human concept of any value in this world. Can anyone believe that his self or her self is anywhere else other than in one's own self?

Is it possible?

Is the Self sitting in Brahma Loka, is it in Bhuvar Loka, Swarga Loka?

Is it in Pathalam, is it in the sun, the moon and the stars?

Can my self be conceived as being located there?

But it is necessary to conceive such a possibility according to this great statement of Sage Yajnavalkya. This will rend the knot of attachment to personality, attachment to selfhood in an individualised form, and the result would be unthinkable.

This exercise should not be attempted by anyone with even the least attachment to human individuality, personality, in whom the idea of 'I' or 'mine' has not gone. When an immature person attempts this kind of meditation and tries to wrench the self of oneself and place it on a tree outside, disastrous consequences may follow. If a purified mind tries this, liberation may follow.

2.2
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is not intended for everybody.

It is a cosmic meditation.

In the Chandogya Upanishad we have cosmological meditations which are wonderful by themselves.

But in the Brihadaranyaka we have the cosmic meditation.

The whole thing is transcendent, beyond ourselves.

How would we think of anything that is beyond ourselves?

Even when we think of self, we place it within ourselves. My self is inside me. But this great admonition of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says the Self is not within us – it is within everybody, within everything, within all the worlds and the universes. In all space and all time, the Self is there.

Can anyone close one's eyes and meditate thus?

I am present in a far off distance of a world near the skies above!

Can you place yourself in the skies and contemplate from there?

But, you may say, 'this is an easy thing, I can do that, I can place myself in the skies', but when you place yourself in the skies, again you are bringing a spatial concept, which is not permitted in the case of the awareness of one's Self.

To be continued ..