“In the beginning, this universe was water (arnav) alone. That water
produced Satyam. Satyam is Brahman. Brahman produced Prajapati and Prajapati
the gods. Those Gods meditate on Satyam. This name Satyam consists of three
syllables. Sa is one syllable, ti is one syllable and ‘yam’ is one syllable. The first
syllable ‘Sa’ and the last syllable ‘yam’-both are the Eternal Truth. In the
middle lies untruth. This untruth is enclosed on both sides by Truth; thus
truth preponderates. Untruth does not hurt him who knows this. Now, that
which is Satyam is the Sun- the being who dwells in yonder orb (prabha/Light),
and the being who is in the right eye (akshi-purusha). These two rest on each
other. The former (the being in the sun) rests on the latter (the being in the
right eye) through his rays and the latter rests on the former through his
organs. When the individual self is about to leave the body, he sees the solar
orb clearly (i.e. without rays). Those rays no longer come to him.” [Yajurveda, Brih. Upa, V, V- In Praise of Satya Brahman, 1-2; Ishavasya Upa., 16-18].
The
Lord says, “I am in air, the air does not know it; I am in fire, the fire
does not know it and i am in jivas as prana, vital breath, consciousness, and
these jivas do not know it.”
“Now, as these,
arising from yonder akasha and reaching the highest this body and reaching the
Highest Light, appear in His own form. In that state He is the Highest Person.
There He moves about, laughing, playing, and rejoicing-be it with women,
chariots, or relatives, never thinking of the body into which he was born. As
an animal is attached to a cart, so is the prana (i.e. the conscious self)
attached to the body. The vital breath is delicately knotted to the subtle
kurna nadi. When the person in the eye resides in the body, he resides where
the organ of sight has entered into the akasa (i.e. the pupil of the eye); the
eye is the instrument of seeing. He who is aware of the thought: 'Let me smell
this,' he is the Self; the nose is the instrument of smelling. He who is aware
of the thought: 'Let me speak,' he is the Self; the tongue is the instrument of
speaking. He who is aware of the thought: 'Let me hear,' he is the Self; the
ear is the instrument of hearing. He who is aware of the thought: 'Let me think
this,' he is the Self; the mind is his divine eye. He, the Self sees all these
desires in the World of Brahman through the divine eye, the mind and rejoices.
The gods meditate on that Self. Therefore all worlds belong to them and all
desires. He who knows that Self and understands It obtains all worlds and all
desires. Thus, said Prajapati, yea, thus said Prajapati.” [Samaveda, Chan. Upa.
VIII, XII - The Incorporeal Self, 1-6].
“From the dark I come to the variegated;
from the variegated I come to the Dark. Shaking off evil as a horse shakes dust
from its hair, freeing myself from the body as the moon frees itself from the
mouth of Rahu I fulfil all ends and obtain the uncreated World of Brahman.”
[Sama Veda, Chan. Upa. VIII, XIII - A Mantra for Meditation and Repetition].
“Even as water becomes one with water,
fire with fire, and air with air, so the mind becomes one with the Infinite
Mind (akasha) and thus attains final
freedom. [Krishna Yajur Veda, Maitra Upanishad 6.34.11. tu, 103]. “All the
sacred books, all holy sacrifice and ritual and prayers, all the words of the
Vedas, and the whole past and present and future, come from the Spirit. With
maya, His power of wonder, He made all things, and by maya the human soul is
bound. Know, therefore, that nature is maya, but that God is the ruler of
maya, and that all beings in our universe are parts of His infinite splendour.”
[Krishna Yajur Veda, Svet. Upa. 4.9-10. upm, 92].
“The seer sees not death, nor sickness, nor
any distress. The seer sees only the All, obtains the All entirely. For the
sake of experiencing the true and the false, the great Self has a dual nature.
Yea, the great Self has a dual nature. Yea, the great Self has a dual nature!”
[Krishna Yajurveda, Maitra Upanishad 7.11.6 & 8. 458]
Once the air, fire, and water went to the
Lord and one by one asked Him, who am I? The Lord said, you are ‘Me’, and ‘none
else’. They did not understand this. Further, they all asked, “Why do we cause
harm to jivas if we are your own Self?”
The Lord replied, “You are all unaware of
your true Self. The moment you realize who you are, you will shine in My own
glory. You will be sweeter and much dearer to jivas in whom I am residing and
do them no harm.” When aware of the Self, the Fire will not destroy life and
property in rage, Water will not flood all over and cause destruction, and Air
will not storm in and destroy property. Awareness of one’s self,
Self-consciousness (atma prajnya)
brings in self-awareness. It keeps the elements within their limits (maryada); so also, the human beings,
when fully aware of their true Self, will be more Conscientious and work with
humility for the welfare of all, help each other, and live a better life. It is
this awareness that is important in the day to day life and work that brings
success, happiness and peace. “This being identified with the mind and
resplendent by nature is realized by yogis within the heart as of the size of a grain of rice or barley.
He is the lord of all, the ruler of all and governs all this-whatever there is”
[Yajurveda, Brih. Upa. V, VI- Meditation on Brahman as the Mind-1].
The sages, absorbed in meditation through
one-pointedness of mind, discovered the creative power, belonging to the Lord
Himself and hidden in its own gunas. That non-dual Lord, rules over all those
causes- time, the self and the rest. The sages saw the wheel of Brahman, which
has one felly, a triple tire, sixteen end-parts, fifty spokes with twenty
counter-spokes and six sets of eight; whose one rope is manifold; which moves
on three different roads; and whose illusion arises from two causes. We
meditate on the River whose five currents are the five organs of perception,
which is made impetuous and winding by the five elements, whose waves are the
five organs of actions and whose fountain-head is the mind, the source of the
five forms of perception. This River has five whirlpools and its rapids are the
fivefold misery; and lastly, it has fifty branches and five pain-bearing
obstructions. In this great Brahma-Wheel, in which all things abide and finally
rest, the swan wanders about so long as it thinks the self is different from
the Controller. When blessed by Him the self attains Immortality. It is the
Supreme Brahman alone untouched by phenomena that is proclaimed in the
Upanishads. In It is established the triad of the enjoyer, the object and the
Lord who is the Controller. This Brahman is the immutable foundation; ‘It’ is
imperishable. The sages, having realized Brahman to be the essence of
phenomena, become devoted to Him. Completely merged in Brahman, they attain
freedom from rebirth. [Yajurveda, Svet. Upa.I, Ch.1,1-7].
“They say that lightning is Brahman. It is
called lightning (vidyullekha)
because it scatters (vidanat)
darkness. Whosoever knows this-that lightning is Brahman-scatters the evils
that are ranged against him; for Lightning is indeed Brahman.”
[Yajurveda, Brih. Upa. V, VII- Meditation on Brahman as Lightning,].
“Having
attained this (Brahman), the Seers become content with their knowledge,
established in the Self, freed from attachment and composed. Having realized
the all-pervasive, the ‘One’ everywhere, these discerning people ever merged in
contemplation, enter into the All.” [Mandukya Upa. 3.2.5].
“One should meditate upon the Supreme- the
limitless, unchanging, the omniscient brahmn, the cause of the happiness of the
world, dwelling in the sea of one’s own heart- as the goal of all striving. The
place for its meditation is the space of the heart, which is like an inverted
Lotus bud” [Mahanarayana Upa.13.6]. “After knowing all these, of three kinds-
the Individual Soul (the enjoyer), the objects of enjoyment, and the antaryamin (the internal Ruler) that is
spoken as Brahman, this (Brahman) is to be invariably known as existing in
one’s own heart, since there is nothing to be known beyond this.”
[Shveta. Upa. 1.12].
There are two ways of contemplation of
Brahman:1. In sound and 2. In silence.
By sound we go to silence. The sound
of Brahman is Aum. With Aum we go to the End, the silence of Brahman. The
End is immortality, union and peace. Even as a spider reaches the liberty of
space by means of its own thread, the man of contemplation by means of Aum
reaches freedom. The sound of Brahman is Aum. At the end of Aum is silence. It
is a silence of joy. It is the end of the journey, where fear and sorrow are no
more: steady, motionless, never-falling, everlasting, and immortal. It is
called the omnipresent Vishnu. In order to reach the Highest, consider, in adoration,
the sound and the
Silence
of Brahman. For it has been said: God is sound and silence. His name is Aum.
Attain, therefore, contemplation, contemplation in silence on Him. [Krishna
Yajur Veda, Maitra Upanishad 6.22-23. upm, 102]. Than whom there is naught else
higher, than whom there is naught smaller, naught greater, the One,
‘that’(tyat) which stands like a tree established in heaven. By Him the
Purusha, is this whole universe filled. [Krishna Yajurveda, Svet. Upanishad 3.
9. upr, 727].
The Upanishads are our guides to sane and
sensible living. Some devote to yoga as yogopanishads,
and some to mantra as Mantro- upanishads.
These are beautiful standard texts for liberation. Almost 180 Upanishads are
enumerated in the muktikopanishad where Shree Ramachandra is giving
instructions to His ardent devotee Anjaneya. Anjani putra Anjaneya asks his
master Ramachandra as to the path of salvation. Sri Rama advises him to read
the ‘Ishavasya upanishad’ and that would bring emancipation. He read and did
not understand a single word in it. When this failed, Anjaneya goes back to Sri
Ram, who in turn advices him to read the selected ten Upanishads- the
Ishavasya, katha, kena, mundaka, maandukya, brihadaranyaka, chhandigya,
shvetashvatra, taittiriya and the aitareiya. Even after going through these,
Anjaneya was not happy and satisfied, and again went back to Sri Ram. This time
Sri Rama advised him to read all the 108 Upanishads and he would be liberated
whether he understood the meaning of these Upanishads or not. Thus, mukti or
Moksha (liberation, emancipation) of the embodied soul is guaranteed from the
mere reading of the Upanishads, if one is to believe Sri Ram, the Redeemer. But
one must have faith. By reading all these Upanishads, it is no wonder that one
will automatically get merged in the higher knowledge, knowledge concerning
Atman, the brahmn.
The philosophers- either the modern or the
ancient, have so far not been successful in conveying all that is profound in
these Upanishads. Almost all of these great thinkers have failed to bring out
the essence of the sacred words, the esoteric meaning of the verses that are
deeply symbolic, full of imageries like the ‘dva suparna’. Most of them have
not realized the importance of the prelims of the ashtanga yoga sutra, such as
yama, niyama, pratyahara of yoga sutras in understanding these ancient Texts.
There are also stalwarts who profess profound knowledge and say, ‘aham
brahmasmi’ or simply, ‘i am’ in this retreaded path of mukti, moksha or
Salvation. Some learned ones advocate a holistic approach to all these. The
seeker has to travel the path and realize by his self-effort through
introspection, atma avalokana, a ‘search
within’, and get an insight into all these complicated issues! No other
person- a guru or teacher, a priest, or pundit, will be able to impart anything
in this regard. It is simply not something to be imparted by a teacher or
learnt by a student. Svadhyaya, satsang, nidhidhyasana, dhyana (meditation) are
advised in this regard and the rest is in the hands of divine grace (daiva anugraha). Nobody can give any assurance in this regard. So, one is
left to go on his own without any support and mend his self.
“One should meditate upon speech (the Vedas)
as a cow*. She (speech) has four teats- the sounds Svaha, Vashat, Hanta, and
Svadha. Bull** is the vital breath (prana) and her calf, the mind.” [Yajurveda,
Brih. Upa, V, VIII-Meditation on the Vedas as a Cow*,1].
_________________________________________________________________________________*
Cow is Truth, Light, Jnyan, chit; energy.
** Bull
is Force, Energy. ‘Go lok’ is Galaxy.
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