Sat Sangam with Swami Krishnananda: Post-10.

 

Swami Krishnananda:

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Tuesday 18, Aug 2026, 5:00.
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Daily Sat Sangam with Swami Krishnananda.
March (from The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)
21. Though It Is the ‘Other’, It Is Also the Self
Post-10.

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21. Though It Is the ‘Other’, It Is Also the Self:

It willed, or He willed: “May I have a second Self.” This is the origin of creation. The world, this creation, this universe is the second Self, as it were, of the Supreme Being. This 'other' Self, which is this vast creation, is animated by the Supreme Being Himself. It is 'other' in the sense that it had not all the characteristics of the Absolute. Yet, it is the Self. Though it is the 'other', it is also the Self. It is called the 'Other Self', inasmuch as the Selfhood of the Absolute is transparently present in this creation. The Universal Atman is immanent in the whole universe, in all aspects of creation; and yet the universe is an 'otherness', as it were, of God, an object of God. It is as if the Universal 'I' is envisaging a universal object, including all that is visible or sensible—space, time and causal relation. A single Subject encountering a single Object is the state which is described in this passage, a Cosmic Consciousness becoming aware of a Cosmic Object in a peculiar manner, not in the way in which the ordinary individual is aware of an object outside. The way in which God is conscious of the universe, is different from the way in which an ordinary jiva, or individual, is conscious of an object.

22. The Whole of the Veda Is Inside Om:

You have heard this great passage of the Bible: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Something like this is what the Upanishad tells us here. The Eternal Wisdom was manifest, with the eternal Word, and with this Word the whole cosmos was created. The Word which is with God, and which is God, is not merely a letter, or a sound that we make through our lips. It is an energy; it is a force; it is a vibration which materialises itself, concretises itself into object-forms. The Word is the Veda, or Eternal Wisdom which is with God, and it is inseparable from God, and so, it is God Himself. The Cosmic Mind projected itself in the form of this Eternal Word and manifested this universe. In the Manusmriti, and such other ancient texts, we are also told in a symbolic manner that Prajapati, the Creator, conceived the whole cosmos in the pattern of 'Om', or the Pranava. The Pranava, or Omkara, is supposed to be the seed of the whole universe. That is the essence of the Word that is Divine. It is also the Veda contained in a seed form. The whole of the Veda is inside 'Om'.

23. All Knowledge Is from the Absolute:

Without the knowledge of the Absolute, not even the smallest of things can be understood. All knowledge is a partial aspect of the Supreme Absolute, which is Knowledge Itself. It is not knowledge in the sense of an information about things, but the very existence of all things which is inseparable from the knowledge of things. And so, any knowledge or wisdom that is worth mentioning is a fraction, a spark, a ray, of the Supreme Absolute. Even the highest geniuses of the world cannot be compared with a ray of that eternal profundity of knowledge. Everything comes from that.

24. The Desire of Every Individual:

The desire of every individual is to become the Virat. This is the meaning of any desire. Even if we take a cup of tea, our desire is only that; we want to become one with everything. It is a stimulation of the inner psyche towards the unification of oneself with all things. One who knows this mystery can become everything, says the Upanishad, which is a great consolation and a comfort for created beings. If we can understand what all this drama means, how this creation has taken place, how Consciousness has become all things, what desire means actually in its intention, if this is comprehended properly by us, we can become That, which has been the cause of this manifestation. One who knows it, becomes 'That'. So is this concluding, solacing message of the Upanishad to everyone: Knowing is Being. If we can know this secret, we can go deep into the secret of self-mastery, so that desire ceases. The assumption by Consciousness that the object is spatially and temporarily cut off from itself is the cause of desire.

25. The Cosmic Consciousness Contemplated:

It is, as it were, the Cosmic Mind contemplated its own Self in the object which is created, namely, the universe. So, the universe assumed a life. There is activity, energy, force and vitality in everything in the universe. That is because of the projection of the Cosmic Mind into this matter, which is the externalised form in space and in time. This happens in every form of perception involving emotion. An emotion is a form of concentration of consciousness on a particular object, and when that concentration is affected, the self moves to the object and enlivens the object in a particular manner. Then, because of the enlivenment, it becomes a part of itself; the secondary self does it become. As the individual object becomes a secondary self of an individual subject by way of emotional movement of self towards the object, so did it happen originally, also. The Cosmic Consciousness contemplated on the cosmic externality, which we call Prakriti, and thus the universe assumed life, as if it is consciousness itself, just as the body assumes a form of consciousness.

26. The Knower Alone Is:

Everything is known by the knower, but who is to know the knower? If the knower is to be known, there must be a second knower to that knower, and the second knower can be known by a third knower, the third by a fourth, the fourth by a fifth, and so on. You go on scratching your head, you cannot know the knower. How can the knower be known? We have already designated the knower as the 'Knower' and you cannot now call it the 'known'. Therefore, there is no such thing as knowing of Knowing or knowing of Knower. Knowing of objects only is there before liberation. With liberation, that object has become part of knowing itself; It has become one with the Knower. The Knower alone is; there is no such thing then as 'knowing'.

27. Madhu Vidya:

The Earth is the honey of all, and everyone is the honey of the Earth. The Earth is absorbed into the 'being' of everything, and everything is absorbed into the 'being' of the Earth. Apart from the Earth and the beings who are correlated in this manner, there is another superior principle present in the Earth and in all beings. That superior principle is the luminous consciousness. There is an animating being behind this physical entity that you call the Earth, and an animating principle behind what you call all the beings, creatures, individuals, in the world. That which is cosmically animating all creation and that which is individually animating every little creature, that also has to be taken into consideration in the correlation ship of the objective and the subjective aspect of creation.

28. The Cosmic Being Manifested Himself as All Things;

The Devas and the Asuras are two tendencies, and not substances. The tendency to unification is the divine principle, and the urge to diversification is the demoniacal principle. The sense organs are incapable; they were defeated by the Asuras, which means to say, that the sense organs cannot work up this unifying activity which is intended for regaining the original position of the deities of the senses. As mentioned earlier, the mistake that happened during the process of individual creation is a reversal of the subject and the object, placing them in wrong positions. In the Aitareya Upanishad, we have a clearer exposition of this descending process. The Cosmic Being manifested Himself as all things, down to the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether—which we regard as objects of sense. The five elements are the objects of our senses, but they were the last evolutes in the process of Divine manifestation.

29. The Law of Dharma:

There are no two laws—God's law and man's law; universal law and individual law. No such thing is there. Such thing as 'my law' or 'your law' does not exist. There is only one law operating everywhere, in all creation, visible or invisible, in all realms of being. The same law is there for the celestials, the humans and the subhuman creatures. Everyone is controlled by a single principle of ordinance. That is called dharma. It operates as gravitation in the physical level; it operates as love in the psychological level; it operates as chemicals in the chemical level and it operates as integration of thought in our mental level, the level of cognition and thinking. It ultimately operates as the connecting link between the subject and the object, on account of which there is knowledge of anything at all.

30. Sri Krishna Opened His Mouth, and Fire Came Out of It:

When we contemplate the Universal Subjectivity of things, the sense organs become causes rather than effects, not as they are now in our individual cases. What this contemplation means is a hard thing to grasp. But, once it is grasped, all fear vanishes in a moment, because fear is due to dependence on things, and independence is assumed the moment this art of transmuting individual consciousness to the Universal Reality is gained. That is real meditation, in the light of the Upanishad. And this contemplation, this meditation on Hiranyagarbha, which is actually the subject of this chapter and which is the reason behind the purification of the senses and their overcoming death, completely converts the effect into the cause, so that speech becomes Fire, the effect becomes the cause, and Fire finds its proper place in the Being of Reality. When Sri Krishna opened up His Cosmic Form in the court of the Kauravas, it is said that the mouth opened, and Fire came out of His mouth. And, in the Upanishad also, we find references to this fact.

31. Objects Are Inert, and It Is the Subject That Is Consciousness:

Being and consciousness go together; they cannot be separated. Our consciousness is tied to our body, so that whatever we know is limited to this little body. We cannot go beyond. The consciousness of our 'being' is the same as consciousness of our body. There is nothing else in us. And the body is so limited, as we know very well. Hence, the expansion of 'being', or the dimension of our 'being', includes simultaneously consciousness, because 'being' and consciousness are one. This is indicated by the other prayer: Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya: Lead me from darkness to light. This world is a world of darkness. It is not a world of light. The light that we see in this world is really a form of darkness, as we studied in an earlier portion of this Upanishad that all forms of life are forms of death only. They are not realities. The sunlight is not real light, because it is not intelligent. It is another intelligence that is responsible for apprehending the value of even sunlight. Mere sunlight cannot understand, because it is an object outside. Objects are inert, and it is the subject that is consciousness. Any object that is bereft of a relationship with the subject is equivalent to darkness. It is lifeless.

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Next
April (from The Ascent of the Spirit)
1. The Ideal of Humanity Is Spiritual
Continued

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