The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads : 3.3. Swami Krishnananda

 

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Saturday, September 19, 2020. 8:10. PM.

Chapter 3: Ishvara and Jiva - 3.

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1.

Now the metaphor continues. The Great Being projected a bull before them and said, “Here is the abode for you. This is the body for you. You enter this body and satisfy your hunger and your thirst.” The divinities looked at the bull and said, “This is not suitable. This is not a proper abode for us.” Then He projected a horse. They looked at the body of the horse and concluded that the horse, too, was not a proper body for real satisfaction. Then He projected a human body. “This is correct,” they said. “We want this body only,” and they entered it.

2.

The Aitareya Upanishad is very precise. It does not go into long details of the evolutionary process of the individual body. But certain other Upanishads, such as the Maitrayani for instance, give us hints of there having been a gradual ascent, or we may call it a descent from another point of view, of the consciousness of these individual divinities from one category of experience to another category. We may call it, in the language of our evolutionary doctrines, the rise from the abode of inorganic matter to the abode of the vegetable kingdom, then further up to the abode of the animal world, and finally to the human level. Then we find ourselves in the state in which we are.

3.

The divinities entered every body and rejected the earlier ones on account of not finding adequate facilities for the satisfaction of their appetitions through those bodies. Even if we have a desire, there must be a proper instrument to fulfil that desire. If the instrument is defective, the desire cannot be fulfilled. So they wanted a perfected embodiment or tool for the satisfaction of their appetition—the hunger and the thirst, as the Upanishad puts it. And the human body, which is superior to the lower categories of manifestation of the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, was considered by them as the fittest instrument, and the Great Being ordered them to enter this body. “This is your house. Live in this house. This is your vehicle, and now you do whatever you like through this.” They entered. How did they enter?

To be continued ....

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