The Chhandogya Upanishad - 54 : Swami Krishnananda

 

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Tuesday 09, Apr 2024. 05:30.

Chapter 4: An Analysis of the Nature of the Self

Section 11: The Self in Deep Sleep

Section 12: The Self as Spirit

Mantras-3

Post-54.

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Section 11: The Self in Deep Sleep (continued)

Mantram - 3.

Evam evaisa, maghavan, iti hovaca, 

etam tveva te bhuyo'nuvyakhyasyami, 

no evanyatraitasmat, vasaparani panca varsaniti, 

sa haparani panca varsany-uvasa, tanyeva-satam sampeduh,

etat tad-yad-ahuh eka-satam ha vai varsani maghavan 

prajapatau brahmacaryam uvasa. tasmai hovaca.

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"Another five years of discipline is necessary. So stay here for another five years," said Prajapati. According to the advice of the great master, he lived there again for five years with intense discipline, and sought initiation again. So, one hundred and one years of tapas did Indra perform in the abode of Prajapati for the sake of this Supreme Knowledge. Even now people say: "Indra, such a powerful person with such a brilliant intellect, had to live a life of tremendous austerity for one hundred and one years for the sake of this Atman knowledge!"

What to speak of other ordinary people! How much discipline is necessary! How much preparation is called for! And what intense austerity has to precede this seeking of knowledge from a teacher! This shows the need for the requisite preparation for the reception of this knowledge. It cannot come easily. After these preparations on the part of Indra and his having completed one hundred and one years of tremendous tapas, Prajapati instructed about the final truth about the Atman.

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Section 12: The Self as Spirit

Mantram - 1.

Maghavan, martyam va idam sariram attam 

mrtyunatad-asyamrtasyasarirasyatmano'dhisthanam,

atto vai sasarirah, priyapriyabhyam, 

na vai sasarirasya satah priyapriyayor-apahatirasti, 

asariram vava santam na priyapriye sprsatah.

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Prajapati said, "O Indra, please listen to me. This body is perishable. It is enveloped and overwhelmed by death from every side. How could this be the Atman?"

The physical body is subject to death and transformation, a matter known to everyone. So is the state of the psychic individuality also. The mind is not in any way better than the body in that it is equally finite, limited, and conditioned in the same way as the body is. The limitation of personality in space and time and exclusiveness of oneself from other individuals are similar, whether it be the case of the physical body or the psychic personality. So this individuality is subject to death. Anything that is visible, individual, particular, or finite cannot be the Atman. Neither the body nor the mind can be the Atman. Neither the waking individual, nor the dreaming individual, nor the experiencer of deep sleep can be the Atman. Sleep is a causal condition which engenders the experiences of the mind through dream and waking. It is a potential food which contains the seed of life in the form of these experiences in dream and waking. Hence, being the mother of this phenomenal experience here, it cannot be regarded as being out of touch with phenomenality.

The Atman is neither an individual conscious of itself as a person, nor is it an unconscious entity. It is something quite different. It is not personality consciousness; it is also not non-consciousness. Then what sort of consciousness can it be? Can you even imagine what sort of awareness it is, where one is not aware of one's individuality, nor is one not unaware of anything? Such awareness is the Atman about which we have to know. It is not the body because it is characterised by change, transformation and death.

No one can escape death as long as he has a body. This body is nothing but a vehicle for the manifestation of the immortal, bodiless Atman. This body manifests one degree of the Reality of the Atman. That is true. In that sense, it is a receptacle, as it were, of this consciousness which is the Atman. The immortal is capable of manifesting its existence through the functions of the body, but it is not identical with the body. This physical experience, the mortal life that we are living here, is incompatible with the immortal life of the Atman. But it is the vehicle in the sense that it has characters in itself by which we can proceed to the nature of the Atman gradually by the logical process of induction. Though it is the vehicle, it is not identical with it.

Anyone who has a body, whatever that body be, physical or psychic, cannot escape being conditioned by the vicissitudes of pleasure and pain. There is no use exulting in pleasure, because it is not going to be there permanently. There is always the undercurrent of future sorrow even at the time of the experience of the present so-called happiness. It is a transitory wind only that is blowing in the form of happiness in this world. So is the case with the sorrow of life. No one can escape the clutches of pleasure and pain as long as one lives in this finite body. No one can be free as long as one has a body. Freedom is a chimera as long as there is bodily individuality. One has to pass through these ruts of pleasure and pain, these transitory experiences of life as long as one is content to be in this body. The body we are speaking of is not necessarily this body here on earth. It may be any body of any realm of existence. It may be even a body in paradise. That also is subject to destruction, because it is also in space and time, though of a different order. It is, after all, characterised by finitude. And what is finitude? It is the consciousness of something being outside one's self and of something limiting one's own being. This is the fate of everyone who has a body and no one who has a body can be free at any time, in any manner whatsoever.

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Continued

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