The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads - 5.8 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, 09 Dec 2023. 07:00.

Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-8.

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The universal material is not the Ultimate Reality. This was what Bhrigu realised by deep meditation. He entered further inside into the substance behind the physical universe and came to experience that subtle vital energy permeating the whole cosmos as Reality. It is called prana. “Prano brahmeti vyajanat.”

Earlier we studied the five sheaths in an individualistic fashion, which are experienced in a cosmical fashion by deep meditation. The individual is a cross section of the universal. Whatever is in the universal we will find in the individual, but in a minute, microscopic manner. The five sheaths are individual as well as cosmic. When we regard ourselves as this physical body alone, then we will have a notion only of the individual five sheaths. These are the annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya and anandamaya koshas mentioned.

But in real meditation, we concentrate our mind on the absoluteness of this object. That is the meaning of meditation, incidentally. Meditation is the fixing of the attention of our mind on any object exclusively, as if it is the total reality and nothing else exists outside it. This sort of intense fixing of the attention of the mind on any given object bursts the bubble of individuality, or the limitation of the mind. Then we are made to enter into the ocean, with which this particularity of the object and our own body are all connected.

So likewise, meditation was practised by Bhrigu. From the universal physical he went to the universal vital that is prana, universal prana. And he went to the father and said: “This is what I experienced. Please teach me further.” The father did not give any answer. He said, “Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva”: Meditate further and realise for yourself. He was a very good Guru. He would not tell anything. He simply said, “Meditate further.” Perhaps he was the best Guru. It is no use simply superimposing some ideas on the mind of the disciple by saying something which the mind cannot grasp. So he said, “Concentrate more, practise more, sit more and more for meditation, and see what comes out.”

Then he realised that the cosmic mind is the Supreme Reality. Mano brahmeti vyajanat. This is still subtler. The cosmic mind which vibrates everywhere in the form of prana, or the vital energy in the cosmos, was realised by him in his direct experience. Again he went to the father and said, “This is what I experienced; teach me further.” The father replied, “Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva”: Meditate further and know for yourself. Then he realised the cosmic understanding, the intellect or intelligence—mahat tattva as it is sometimes called—as Brahman: “Vijnanam brahmeti vyajanat”.

Now in all these realisations, there was a little bit of externality. Whatever be the expanse of this experience in its cosmic manifestation, there is still a sort of externality in it. That externality should also go completely into universal subjectivity. That had not taken place yet. So, after the realisation of the cosmic understanding, mahat tattva, again he went to the father and said, “Teach me Brahman.” The father said, “Meditate further and realise for yourself.” Then he realised “anandam brahmeti vyajanat”: Bliss is Brahman. The constitutive essence of Reality is happiness. It is not objectivity; it is not an attribute, and it is not a thing.

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To be continued

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