Meditation According to the Upanishads - 7. Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday,  March 18, 2021. 07:16. PM.
(Spoken on January 14th, 1973)
Post-7.
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The Vaishvanara Vidya is a concrete instance of the saprapancha view of the Chhandogya Upanishad, of how the cosmos is to be regarded and contemplated as the body of the Supreme Being, while the teachings of Yajnavalkya, primarily in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, give us the nishprapancha, or the acosmic view of Reality. There is no cosmos in Reality. It is acosmic, super-cosmic. 

"Yatra hi dvaitam iva bhavati, tad itara itaram pasyati. yatra tv asya sarvam atmaivabhut, tat kena kam pasyet" (B.U. 2.4.14). 

Yajnavalkya tells us that where we have an object in front of us, we can see. Where there is no object in front of us, what do we see? Yenedam sarva? vijanati, ta? kena vijaniyat : 

How can we see That through which alone we are able to see everything? This is the pinnacle of Upanishadic contemplation, the highest reaches of the Upanishads. With this, philosophy stops. We cannot go beyond it.

While that is the stunning super-cosmic meditation of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Chhandogya Upanishad gives us a more sympathetic view suited to our own weaknesses because we cannot get rid of the idea that there is a world in front of us. 

Therefore, the Chhandogya Upanishad tells us to contemplate the universe as unified in the Supreme Being. Both lead to the same goal.

The study of the Upanishads is a very difficult thing. It requires a good philosophical background because they tell everything, for the matter of that. There is no school of thought which is not touched upon in some Upanishad.

In connection with the meditations of the Mandukya Upanishad, special mention has to be made of a beautiful blend that it has brought about between meditation and the recitation of Pranava, or Omkara. The chant of Om, and the understanding of its relation to the three states of consciousness, are regarded as necessary for the practice of this meditation. The chant of Om is said to be constituted of three syllables, three morae, as they call it, three stresses of intonation. 

These three stresses of intonation of the chant of Om are identified with the three states of consciousness: waking, dream and sleep. Just as there are three states of consciousness, there are three stresses of Om chanting: A-U-M. When they are put together and chanted in a blend, they become a single compound, Om, in the same way as the three states of consciousness, waking, dream and sleep, when contemplated together become the Creator of the Universe, Ishvara. 

Tasya vacakam pranavam (Y.S. 1.27) : The name of God is Om. Just as everything that is indicated has an indicator, Om is said to be a cosmic indicator of the Cosmic Being. While individual names particularise individual form, the Cosmic Being is denoted by the cosmic vibration of Om.

To be continued ...

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