Sat Sangam with Swami Krishnananda: Post-9.
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Daily Sat Sangam with Swami Krishnananda.
March (from The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)
Post-9.11. Physical Division Does Not Exist
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11. Physical Division Does Not Exist:
I shall give you a small example of how physical division does not exist. It is only imaginary. The bodies of people are constituted of the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether. Your body, my body and everybody's body are constituted of only these things, nothing else—earth, water, fire, air, ether. If the body of one individual, 'A', is substantially the same as the body of another individual, 'B', because of its being formed of the same five elements, what is the reason for the distinction or the difference that we make between one body and another body? It is that which exists between the two bodies. The space is the cause. But space is a part of the very constitution of the body itself. So, how does this become an element of distinction? That which we regard as spatial, and, perhaps, the only reason for the distinction that we usually make between one body and another, is an element essentially present in the constitution of the body itself.
12. The Entire Psychology of Meditation:
The entire psychology of meditation is nothing but a setting right of errors in thought; and the details of these methods we shall be considering as we proceed further. So, to come to the point, this distinction between the individual unit and the Universal Substance is to be abolished for the purpose of the removal of the sorrow of the individual. Meditation is the technique of the removal of sorrow in the sense that sorrow is caused by the segregation of the individual from the world outside. For this purpose, one enters into the technique of meditation. Now, here, the context being sacrifice, we are given a method which is ritualistic in its nature, and thus the ritualistic horse of the Asvamedha Sacrifice becomes an object of contemplation, literally, liturgically as an animal in the sacrifice, but psychologically and spiritually as an element like any other element in creation as a whole.
13. The Desire to Possess Objects:
The desire of the mind for a particular desirable object is a desire to get united with that object in its being. So, the idea of possession is something very strong, indeed. It is actually a desire to get united with the object, so that you become physically, psychologically whole in being, and not merely in an external relation. This condition is however not possible, as you cannot enter into the being of any object. Therefore, there is not such satisfaction even after the fulfilment of a desire. No desire can be fulfilled eternally, whatever be the effort that you put forth, because it is not possible for you to enter into the being of that object.
14. Nothing Can Come From Nothing:
In creation, a new thing is not created, because nothing can come from nothing. If a new thing is to be created, it must have been produced out of nothing. How can 'nothing' produce 'something'? This is illogical. The effect must have existed in some causal state. This causal state is the substance of the universe. Now, what is actually the distinctive mark of the universe that is created, as different from the original causal condition? In what way does the effect get differentiated from the cause? If everything that is in the effect is in the cause, what is the distinctive feature, what is the distinguishing mark, which separates the effect from the cause? If the effect is entirely different from the cause, we cannot posit a cause at all, because the cause is non-existent. If the cause is non-existent, the effect also would be non-existent. So, the cause must have contained the effect in a primordial state; and, therefore, nothing can be visualised in the effect which could not have been in the cause.
15. The Absolute is Transcendent Being:
The mind of the cosmos, which is called the Cosmic Mind in usual parlance, is regarded here as an evolute, and not the original Being. The Absolute is Transcendent Being, and not a mind thinking. It is not even a causal state. Even the causal state is supposed to be posterior to the Absolute. We never associate the Absolute with the world. The Brahman of the Upanishad, or the Absolute of philosophy, is the assertion of Being which is unrelated to creation. And, when we have to associate God with creation, we have a new word altogether for it. Ishvara is the word we use in the language of the Vedanta. Such words do not occur in the Upanishads. They are all to be found in the later Vedanta, but they are assumed here. In the Samkhya and the Vedanta cosmological descriptions, we have certain grades mentioned of the coming out of the effect from the cause. Everything was hidden, though not expressed. Everything was in a universal causal state. That is called Prakriti in the Samkhya language.
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16. The Absolute Is Neither a Quantity nor a Quality:
The consciousness of the existence of the universe is different from the consciousness of the Absolute. That the two are not identical is a point that is made out here. Once the existence of the universe is accepted in consciousness, everything else that follows from it can also be accepted. If two and two make four, four and four make eight, and so on, arithmetically, we can draw conclusions. But two and two must, first of all, make four. We must accept that. If that is not true, then any multiplication therefrom also is not true. There is a distinction between Absolute-Consciousness and universe-consciousness. That distinction is the cause behind this line drawn here between Pure Being that is the Absolute, and the condition precedent to creation. It is difficult for the human mind to understand what the Absolute is. Whatever be our stretch of imagination, we cannot conceive it, because every conception is quantitative and qualitative. The Absolute is neither a quantity nor a quality, and therefore no thought of it is possible.
17. The Cosmic “I-am”:
The Cosmic Mind, Hiranyagarbha, as we call it in the Vedanta, is the Cosmic “I-Am”. It is Self-Consciousness, Pure Universality. And, here is the seed of all diversity. In a sense, we may say that we are parts of this Cosmic Mind, but not, indeed, correctly. As I pointed out, we cannot regard ourselves as parts of the Absolute. Nothing that we see with our eyes can be regarded as a real representation of the Absolute. Thus, we have to understand that we are not parts, even of the Hiranyagarbha. We are much less than that. We are far down below the condition of Hiranyagarbha and Virat, for reasons we shall see shortly. For the time being, it is enough if we understand the actual meaning of this passage. There was a destruction, a Mrityu, a complete abolition of Reality, which is what the Samkhya calls Prakriti, and the Vedantins call Maya, Mula-Prakriti, etc., the Potential Being, the Matrix of the universe. That becomes the seed for the manifestation of the Cosmic Mind, known as Mahat and Cosmic Ahamkara. The Vedanta calls them Hiranyagarbha and Virat.
18. The Love That You Feel Is for Completeness:
The love that you feel in respect of an object is in fact the love that you feel towards that which is called perfection and completeness. It is not really a love for the object. You have thoroughly misunderstood the whole point, even when you are clinging to a particular object as if it is the source of satisfaction. The mind does not want an object; it wants completeness of being. That is what it is searching for. Thus, when there is a promise of the fulfilment that it seeks, through the perception of an object that appears to be its counterpart, there is a sudden feeling that fullness is going to come, and there is a satisfaction even on the perception of that object; and there is an apparent satisfaction, just by the imagined possession of it together with the yearning for actual possession.
19. What Is Dear Is the Condition of Completeness:
What you love is a completeness of being which is reflected in the condition felt to exist between yourself and the object concerned. You must mark this point. What you love is only the condition that you imagine to be present in the state of the possession of the object. But that state can never be reached, for the reason already mentioned. So, nothing is dear in this world. What is dear is the condition which you intend to create, or project in your own being by an imagined contact with the object. So, not one person is dear in this world, but what is dear is that condition which is imagined to be present after the possession of that object or that relationship.
20. Shariri-Sharira Bhava:
The object, in an ordinary perception, is segregated from the subject by the differentiating medium of space and of time, so that there is no vital connection between the object that is perceived and the subject that perceives. But there is a living connectedness between the Cosmic Object and the Cosmic Subject. This connection is sometimes described as one of body and soul. We know that there is a connection between the soul and the body. This relation between the soul and the body is different from the relation between an individual subject encountering an outside object. The soul and the body cannot be separated from each other. They are organically one. This relation is called shariri-sharira-bhava, the relation between consciousness and its embodiment. Thus, we can say that the Cosmic Awareness of the universe, in the case of God-Consciousness, is one of inseparable relation, like the relation of the soul and the body. When we are aware of our bodies, we are not only becoming aware of an object situated in space and time. We can say that this body is an object because it can be sensed, it can be seen, and it has all the characters of any object in the world; but, at the same time, it is an object which clings to us vitally and organically.
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Continued
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