The Essence of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: 21. Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday 05, June 2024. 05:15.
Scriptures
Upanishads
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 
Chapter 6: The Principles of Meditation - 1.
Post-21.

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The stages of the evolution of man's desires and aspirations may be said to rise from his economic needs (Artha) to his vital urges (Kama), from these two, further on, to the fulfilment of the Universal Law (Dharma) and, finally, the liberation of the self in the Absolute (Moksha). The last-mentioned, the longing for spiritual freedom, is, again, constituted of certain stages of approach to Reality. From the ordinary impulse to the doing of selfish actions, there is an onward, rather an upward, ascent to the performance of unselfish activity (Karma-Yoga), and then through the more inwards stage of devotion, adoration and worship (Upasana), one finds the culmination of one's aspiration in total spiritual absorption by means of the higher knowledge of Reality and meditation on It (Jnana).

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad purports to be a compendium of instruction on every one of these stages of the ascent of the soul to the Supreme Being. While the first four Chapters are confined pre-eminently to the elucidation of the nature of Reality( Jnana) and Its Law as operating in the Universe (Dharma), there is a predominant emphasis on internal worship (Upasana) in the Fifth Chapter, to which subject it is entirely devoted. There is reference interspersed in different places, in some degree, to ritualistic performances as well as concrete meditations in practically all the Chapters of the Upanishad.

The First Section of the Sixth Chapter is, again, a discourse on worship and adoration, the objects here being the supreme Prana, the speech, the eye, the ear, the mind, etc., in their universalised forms. The superiority of the Universal Prana over everything else is emphasised. 

The second section of the Sixth Chapter deals with the famous Panchagni-Vidya, or the doctrine of the Five Fires, as taught by king Pravahana Jaivali to the Brahmana sage Gautama, in answer to the great questions: 

(1) Where do people go after death? 

(2) From where do people come at the time of birth? 

(3) Why is the other world never filled up even if many die here repeatedly? 

(4) How do the liquids offered as libations rise up as a human being? 

(5) What are the paths of the gods and the manes?

The Five fires of the universal sacrifice mentioned here are the celestial realm, the atmospheric realm through which rainfalls occur, the physical earth or the world of living beings, the male, and the female, with all which, gradually, by succession, the souls, when they reincarnate, are supposed to get identified until they enter the womb of the mother; i.e. the first urge for rebirth or the impulse to descend into grosser forms is supposed to originate in the super-physical realms, and then it grossens itself by greater and greater density through rainfall, the foodstuffs of the earth, man's virile energy and a woman's womb. On birth and after appreciable growth there is the natural tendency to work for ulterior gains, which produces effects (Apurva) causing the rise of the soul to other worlds after death here, only to bring about its descent to the lower worlds once again on the exhaustion of the force of the works done here.

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Continued

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