Lessons on the Upanishads:16- Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday 22, October 2025, 19:05.
Books
Upanishads
Lessons on the Upanishads: 3.2.
Chapter 3: Preparation for Upanishadic Study -2.
Post-16.

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The Atman is not merely a force that causes this impulse of self-identity in things, it is also a consciousness of there being such a self-identity. You are what you are, but not only that; you are also aware that you are what we are. So it exists, and it is also conscious that it exists. Therefore, the Atman is existence, and it is also consciousness. Now, what sort of existence? It is the existence of the fact that it cannot be identified with anything other than itself. This is the characteristic of pure subjectivity. You cannot become somebody else. Rama cannot become Krishna, Krishna cannot become Jesus, Jesus cannot become Thomas, and so on. A particular thing is just that particular thing for the reason that it is constituted of characteristics that make that thing only that thing. This cohesive element which brings the parts of your personality into a centrality of apprehension, awareness, is the work of the Atman within.

To repeat once again what I told you a few minutes ago, this tendency is present in everything and everyone. Therefore, the study of the Atman is not the study of something somewhere; it is the study of everything. I hope you catch what I am saying. The study of the Atman is the study of the essence of everything anywhere because of the fact that everything everywhere has this Atman. There is an Atman in all things in the sense that they maintain an identity-consciousness of themselves. So the Atman has a peculiar characteristic of being just what it is. That is to say, it cannot be an object of anyone. The self-identity aspect of consciousness, which is the Atman, cannot become Anatman, to put it in the Sanskrit language. The Atman cannot become Anatman. The Self cannot become not-Self. The subject cannot become the object. Consciousness cannot become matter. You cannot become somebody else.

This is something that will follow from a proper analysis of the nature of what is called the Atman—the great, grand, magnificent subject of the Upanishads. Inasmuch as this is something which you have never heard in your life, something which nobody has taught you anywhere in any educational institution, something that cannot be included in the curriculum of any kind of science, arts or humanities in the ordinary sense of the term, it is astounding for you. That is the reason why the Upanishads insist that it is a secret knowledge. It is not a subject for public oration. It is secret because it cannot be understood by any amount of scratching your head. The reason is, you are studying your Self as a basic principle—this 'Self' not being the person 'you', this physical body-mind complex, but the principle that is the principle of all things.

Therefore, the study of the Atman is the study of first principles. The philosophy of the Atman is the fundamental philosophy. When that is known, we have known the secret of all things. It is the vital spot of every individual, of anything in the universe. This knowledge is not communicated by merely reading books in a library. It is possible to acquire it through hard discipline. The mind of the human being is usually characterised by three defects, and any kind of self-discipline implies the avoiding of these defects somehow or other—the scrubbing out of the defect-ridden personality of the individual. In Sanskrit, this threefold defect of the human mind is called mala, vikshepa and avarana.

Mala means dirt, something like a thick coating over a clean mirror, preventing reflection of light in it. Dirt is that which covers the essential nature of an object, like a thick coating of dust, etc., on a mirror. There is some such thing covering the mind of the human being also, on account of which correct knowledge is not reflected in the mind, just as a mirror that is covered over with dust cannot reflect sunlight. So some step has to be taken in order to see that this dirt of the mind is scrubbed off.

The other defect of the mind is known as vikshepa— which is fickleness, the inability to concentrate on anything for a long time. Instability is the basic nature of the mind. It thinks twenty things in one minute and is not able to fix its attention on one thing, even for a few seconds. These are the superficial aspects of the defects of the mind.

But there is a deeper defect known as avarana. It is like a thick veil over the mind, a black curtain, as it were, which totally prohibits the entry of the rays of light into the mind. The Atman is pure subjectivity and, therefore, the impulsion of the mind to move outward in the direction of sense objects is an anti-Atman activity taking place in the mind, a movement towards the not-Self. Any psychic operation, any modification of the mind in the direction of anything other than what the Self is, is to be considered as impelled by some dirt in the mind.

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Continues

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