Rishi Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: 3.Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday 22,  Aug 2024 07:00.
Article
Scriptures
Rishi Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: 3.
Swami Krishnananda.

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There are varieties of selves. The lowest is the physical self – 'I am coming, I am going' – statements like this indicate the physical self. When you speak of 'my family', 'my son', 'my daughter', 'my husband', 'my wife', you are identifying yourself with the family atmosphere. When you speak of 'my community', 'I am from Brahmana community', 'Kshatriya community', you are identifying yourself with a group of people of a particular category. 'I belong to Uttar Pradesh, I belong to Gujarat' – if you say like that, you are identifying yourself with a larger location of human beings. 'I am an Indian, I am a British, I am an American' – when you say that, you are expanding your concept of selfhood to a larger area geographically. All these are selves. An American loves an American, a British loves a British, an Indian loves an Indian, a Tamilian likes a Tamilian, a Kannada man likes a Kannada one – they will talk to each other in that language only. Language is the characteristic of the attachment of self to particular cultural patterns. Language attracts.

These are some of the various forms in which the Self finds itself cosily, and seems to be attracting everything everywhere. It is the Self that is attracting the Self in different connotations, in various areas of application. Here we are placing ourselves in a rather dangerous zone. We are habituated again and again to think that the Self cannot be anywhere else than inside us. By 'us' we mean this body! What else can the 'I' be except this body? "I am going tomorrow to Gujarat." – Who is speaking this? Which self is speaking? It is the bodily self that is speaking. This habit cannot be escaped from. Now, the Upanishadic dictum is that you cannot go to Gujarat like that. The whole universe you carry with you when you move. The universal Self moves with you who are the universal.

The Selfhood in the object attracts the Selfhood in the observer of the object. The Self pulls the Self. All love is this much. The husband does not love the wife for the sake of the wife, the wife does not love the husband for the sake of the husband, but for the sake of the Self present there. People do not love wealth for the sake of wealth, but for the sake of the Selfhood therein in a widened form. In what we call wealth, we love the Self. Whatever it be, in any part of the universe, in any context, in any location, the Self is present exclusively.

The Self need not necessarily be that imagined self inside the physical body. I have already given some idea that there can be many kinds of self exteriorised outside the physical location of oneself until it becomes the universal Self. The universal Self should not be considered as a pervading thing, because the Self is inside, it is inside something, and it is inside the universe. The universe is not an extended form in space. The idea of 'all-pervading' also should be given up, because the Self does not pervade, It is just what It is; It is utter subjectivity incapable of externalisation. We cannot split it into the object seen. The Self cannot be an object that is visualised. It is the visualiser. Thus, 'everything' is the Visualiser only. How would you like to know the knower by whom alone everything is known? Who will know the knower?

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Continued

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