The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads 5.3. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Saturday, February 20, 2021. 07:15. AM.
Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-3.

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An analysis would make it clear that happiness is not in the object. If a particular object which attracts our attention is the source of happiness, then happiness should be really inside it, as a part of its nature. Then, as the sun is shining for all equally and not merely for one person, the object concerned also should be a source of happiness to everyone in the world, if happiness is the real character of that object. But we will see on observation that this is not true. The object of our love may not also be the object of other people’s love. On the other hand, that object may evoke hatred, the contrary emotion, in certain other persons for different reasons altogether. So, it is not true that the object is the source of happiness. The happiness has not come from the object, and whoever imagines that it is located in the object is an ignoramus of the first water.

But how then happiness comes, is a question. If it is not in the object, it should be somewhere! From where does the happiness come? Now we have to remember the observations we made earlier about the nature of Reality or Perfection. In our study of the Aitareya Upanishad, we noted that the Atman alone was; nothing else existed in the beginning. “Atma va idam agre asit; na anyat kinchana mishat.” It was Perfection Complete. It was omnipresence; nothing else existed. There is the selfhood in us, which is another name for the deepest non-externalisable consciousness. That alone existed, says the Aitareya Upanishad. What existed then? The Self alone existed; and what is the Self? Anything that cannot be externalised is the Self.

Then, what is the meaning of that non-externalisable Reality, if the universe is an external something? Well, we know very well the universe is an external object. But the Upanishad says that only the non-external was there. It means to say, somehow or other the universe was experienced in that state in a non-externalised fashion. The universe was the Self, which means to say that there was a Universal Self, and not the particular self of mine or yours, which conditions itself into a bodily embodiment and then regards the world or universe as something outside. So, what is Reality, the Ultimate Truth? The non-externalised Atman is the Reality, by which what is meant is that the Universal Selfhood alone was there; nothing else was.

What we call Truth or Reality is non-externalisable consciousness, which is the Atman. It is the Atman; it is the Self. It is non-externalisable and, therefore, it is universal. Because it is universal, it should be present everywhere. That is the very meaning of universality. Therefore, it is in you, it is in me, and it is in everyone. How does it exist in you, in me and in others? In the nature of a Self. You must rack your brain a little bit to understand what this implication means. The Universal is not the vast spread-out physical object we call nature in the form of sky, air, trees, mountains, etc., because that is externalised. The Self is a non-externalised something, and it is also consciousness; and that was there. That existed, and nothing else existed.

To be continued ...

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