The Chhandogya Upanishad - 59: Swami Krishnananda.

 

Chinmaya Mission: 

 

Chinmaya Mission Uganda are utterly grateful to have been blessed and graced by the first-ever Non-Stop Musical Hanuman Chalisa Chanting in Uganda. Events were held prior at Jalaram Mandir and SSD Mandir, leading up to the 108 Chanting. Approximately 350 people attended throughout the day, with 120 staying for the entire event. The First Lady High Commissioner of India, Dryuti Rawat Singh, graced the occasion and participated as one of the main Yajma, and H.E. Uppender Singh Rawat joined for the last three hours.

The team took the crowd to depths of electrifying magic and a meditative state. The Hanuman Chalisa chanting inspired many, and they look forward to making it a signature event in Uganda. Kudos to the dedicated sevaks of Chinmaya Mission Uganda for organizing such beautiful events that spread the fragrance of Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda's work and vision. Your efforts are truly inspiring, fostering love and devotion in the hearts of all.

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Thursday 20, June 2024. 07:10.
Chapter 4: An Analysis of the Nature of the Self
Section 12: The Self as Spirit
Mantram-3 continued
Por-59.

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Again we will be interpreting the Self as something outside us, to be seen with the eye of spiritual perception. It is nothing of the kind. With this cautious background we have to try to understand these very short portrayals of the grandeur of the Jivanmuktas given in these passages of the Upanishad. He may do exactly what you do and what I do. There is no difference in his conduct. He may speak the same language and he may eat the same food. Yet, he is not eating and he is not speaking. This is a difficult thing to understand, because these particular activities and particular modes of experience are generalised and universalised in his case, so that they no longer become obstacles to his unique experience. They become obstacles only when they are wrested out of their universal context and made one's own, my own, your own, or made to stand on its own legs, independently of others. His actions are not individual actions, but universal movements. And he does not think as I think or you think. His is just a thought which includes every thought. It is the general substance of every kind of mind and thought. So when the Upanishad says that he speaks, he laughs, he moves about and he enjoys, it does so from our point of view only. The question of enjoying or speaking or moving about does not arise for that which has no particularised consciousness, either of space, time, or movement. In the vision of other people, he will be practically speaking just like anyone else. You cannot identify a Jivanmukta by observing him. He will look like yourself only. But there will be a tremendous difference inside.

The electrons are not seen with our naked eyes, but the microscope can see them. You keep a solid object in front of you and gaze at the solid object, and keep also a very powerful microscope. Your eyes are seeing the object and the microscope is also is seeing the object. But the two instruments are seeing two different things altogether. What your eyes see the microscope does not see, and what the microscope sees your eyes do not see. But, both are seeing the same thing simultaneously. Now, you are the person to judge whether the object is what your eyes see, or whether it is what the microscope sees. Which is the correct thing? This is just an example.

You see a world and the Jivanmukta also sees it, but he sees it differently from what you see it because of the difference of the instrument of perception. For him an instrument does not exist. He himself is the instrument and he himself is the object seen. He has become that which he is seeing and so it cannot be called seeing, but it is rather 'being'. Seeing, he does not see. It appears that he does not see, because there is nothing outside him, and yet, he sees everything because he is himself that. He cannot be conscious of the body. He is not only in one body. He is in every body. Whatever you think is his thought and whatever anybody thinks also is his thought only. So you cannot say whether he thinks, or I think, or you think. The consciousness of a particular body or object does not arise because all the bodies or objects are his, nay he himself. So the Upanishad says that he has no awareness of a particular encasement in some individual body. Just as bulls may be yoked to drag a cart, this Supreme Self manifests itself as the prana and is yoked to this cart of the body, as it were. The bulls do not become one with the cart. They are different. Likewise, this prana or consciousness that is yoked to the body is not identical with the body. Whatever the eyes see when they are cast into space is something different in the case of this liberated soul from what our eyes see. From the point of view of the liberated soul, when the eyes perceive something outside, it is not the eyes that are seeing the object, but it is 'something else' that sees.

This was the subtle point which was in the mind of Prajapati when he told Virochana and Indra at the very outset that whatever is reflected in the eye is the Atman. So he is right from his side. But both Indra and Virochana could not understand what his intention was. What sees through the eye is not the eye, but is something different from the eyes. And what hears through the ears too is not the ear but there is something else inside which hears through the ears. So is the case with every other sense organ. The senses do not contact the object. He who contacts is 'somebody else' utilising these senses as instruments.

***** Next Mantram-4 Continued

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