The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads :2-5. Swami Krishnananda

Sunday, July 19, 2020. 5:18.AM.

Chapter 2: The Atman-5.

When we say that the Atman alone is, we assert the One alone, to the exclusion of the many; and when we speak of the One becoming the many, we are conscious of the One and the many at the same time. Then comes the level of thinking where we are aware only of the many, and not the One. That is the dividing wall between the One and the many. The original drama was an envisagement of the many by the One. That is the grand creation. But when the curtain falls, the One is cut off from the many; or rather, the concept or the consciousness of the One is isolated from the consciousness of the many. Then there is what we call the manifestation of diversity in a literal sense. Then comes the necessity for one individual to cognise or to perceive the presence of another individual.

But, before this took place, the original Cause has taken care to see that it does not lose control over this manifestation completely. This is another aspect of the beauty of the drama. It has maintained its multiplicity with the background of the unity of its own Atmanhood or Selfhood, so that there was a peculiar intermediary condition where the multiplicity of the manifestation was the content of the total awareness of a single being, the Universal Atman that it was. And the Aitareya Upanishad tells us that the mouth burst open, speech came out, and out of it Agni, the deity, came. The eyes came out, sight manifested itself out of it, and Aditya or the sun came—and so on in respect of the various functions.

The beauty of this manifestation is a fact which we should never forget when we go further: the function comes first, and the deity comes afterwards. There is the mind first, thought afterwards, and the moon subsequently. The eye is first, seeing comes afterwards, and the sun still afterwards. The guardians or the deities of the various functions in their cosmical setup are subsidiary to the Ultimate Cause, which is the one Atman. They are not the controlling elements, as is the case with ourselves.

The universe was an effect of the Atman. It does not stand in the position of a cause, outside us, stimulating our senses to activity, as it happens to us today. The presence of an object stimulates our senses and the mind, and then we become conscious of the object. Then we establish a relationship with the world outside. The world is first, and we come afterwards here in this individual, empirical state. But there, it was not like that. The world was subsequent; and here, we become the consequents.

Now, this is a very crucial point where we have to very carefully draw a distinction between the cosmic level and the individual level, because the extent of our understanding of this mystery of the distinction between the cosmic and the individual will also be the extent to which we will be able to understand what life is, what duty is, and what the aim of mankind is.

Chapter Ends.

Next : Chapter-3. Ishvara and Jiva

To be continued ...

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