AITAREYA UPANISHAD - 19. Rishi Maheedasa Aitareya.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2023. 07:00.

PART 1: Chapter 3B, 4 Mantras : The Lord’s Regal ENTRY

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Mantram 3.14: From Idandra to Indra – Knowledge to Ignorance!

POST-19.

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Mantram 3.14 : 
With Translation :

12 Tasmaad idandrah naama; Idandrah ha vai naama;  =  Therefore He is called Idandra (“seeing It”); Idandra, verily, is His name.

13 Tam idandram santam indrah iti aachakshate parokshena;  =  This Idandra has since been called as Indra; this is His indirect or “nick-name”.

14 Parokshapriyaa iva hi devaah; Parokshapriyaa iva hi devaah.  =  The Devas are fond of indirect names; Indeed, they are fond of their indirect names.

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Bhashyam (Vyakyanam) :

A deep sadness lies in these words. Having just witnessed the Pure Soul’s expression 

of wonder and joy as He enters the body, we are now given the experience of our “Impure

Soul” or Jeeva (the conditioned consciousness) of the very same process of embodiment. In 

the eyes of the deluded Jeeva, the same experience is a sad tale of allowing creation to get 

the better of us and allowing it to make us forget our glorious Origin.

The chapter closes on this note of forgetfulness of God that now separates us from 

Him. Revival of the remembrance of God becomes the theme of the next chapter.

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Our Sinking Into Ignorance :

12 From being the Supreme Self that “sees It” (Idandra), we have become the Jeeva 

that has “forgotten It”.

13 We have even given recognition or status to our forgetfulness, by giving it 

another name. We were once Idandra of auspicious associations, but now we revel in our 

new self-styled name, Indra, which is the name of our pseudo-Self, the Ego.

14 The sad truth is that we – the Devas, who stand for all the senses, mind, intellect, 

etc – delight in this new name. We love to be called by it and to serve it. We actually do not 

even wish to be known by our original true name of Idandra. Perhaps we have even 

forgotten that it is our true name. Cryptic names can be cruel – they have the power to 

make us forget the Truth, and actually enjoy forgetting It!

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Thus end the three chapters of PART 1 of this Upanishad. As is traditional in the Upanishads, the last line is repeated to indicate that we have concluded the part. 

Interestingly, the line chosen to be the last is one that spells out our separation from Him.

By repeating it twice, a painful irony is rubbed into us like salt into a wound!

The irony is : “We are enjoying our captivity; yes, we are enjoying our captivity!” Such is the iron-like grip over us of our false identity – the Ego.

With compassionate delicacy and charming poetry, Rishi Maheedasa has brought us 

to this understanding of ourselves. How we proceed from here is our choice: back to God, or 

further into entanglement. 

Here ends Chapter 3B of Part 1
Next
PART 2 : The “THREE BIRTHS
Chapter 4, 6 Mantras.
To be continued

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