The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads : 3.4. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Saturday, October 03, 2020. 9:57. AM.

Chapter 3: Ishvara and Jiva - 4.

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1.

Here is the peculiar characteristic of the individual explained in contradistinction with the original status of the divinities in the body of the Cosmic Being. The Upanishad mentions that when the divinities were originally projected from the body of the Cosmic Being, there was first the location of the function, for instance, the mouth; then there was the urge of the expression of that location in the form of speech; and then the divinity Agni, the presiding deity over speech, manifested itself—and so on with every other function.

2.

Thus, the god or the divinity came afterwards; the function came first, so that the controlling principle of even the divinities was co-extensive with the existence of the Universal Being Himself. The gods were not independent, but were dependent on the Total from which they were projected. The gods were not the controllers; rather, they were controlled by the forces that worked integrally behind them, which arose from the total being of the Universal Virat.

3.

But now, what has happened is that when the divinities entered the human body, there was a reversal of the whole process. The human functions correspond to the universal functions in the same way as the functions in a reflected image correspond to the functions in the original that is reflected. Or, to give another example, when we look at our face in a mirror, there is a reflection of the face seen in that mirror, but there is a reversal of parts taking place—the right looks left and the left looks right. Also, if we stand on the bank of a river and see our reflection, we will find the head as the lowermost position in the reflection, though it is the topmost in us, the original.

4.

Some such distorted reversal of processes took place when the divinities entered the body of the individual; instead of the mouth projecting the speech and then the Agni, or the Devata coming thereafter, Agni entered into the body as speech and found the mouth as the abode. So Agni is the controller here, and we are dependent. We are the effects. The effect in the universal status becomes the cause in the individual realm. So the jiva is different from Isvara in this manner, though it has come from Isvara only. It is a tremendous difference, notwithstanding the identity of essence, because of the same divinities operating there as well as here.

To be continued ...

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