Post by jash on Feb 24, 2013 16:34:37 GMT
In Eknath Easwaran’s translation of the Upanishads, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is greatly abridged, since it is the longest and most exhaustive Upanishad. It contains three dialogues. The first is between Yajnavalkya a sage who is renouncing his worldly existence to find liberation from mortality, and his wife Maitreyi. His wife knows that the liberation he seeks is more important than the wealth he is leaving to her:
“Maitreyi: Of what use then are money and material possessions to me? Please tell me, my Lord, of the way that leads to immortality.”
And so husband and wife begin a spiritual instruction, an upanishad. Yajnavalkya tells his wife that children, spouses, wealth, the gods, the universe itself, are all not loved for their own sake, but because the Self lives in them.
The self has to be realized. When you hear about, meditate on, and realize the Self, you come to understand everything in life. This suggests that the Self is the end goal of everything, which is good, and which needs to be lived and become.
“Everything confuses those who regard things as separate from the Self.”
What is the purpose of anything? If there is no direction, nothing which things are moving towards, then there is no reason for anything to exist. But if everything is moving to unity within the Self, then everything makes sense.
“...there can be nothing without the Self.”
God is everything. Without everything, there is nothing. And just like a lump of salt dissolves into water but still tastes salty, the separate self dissolves into the sea of pure consciousness when it ceases to be identified with the body.
Maitreyi is bewildered by the contention that there is no separate self. But Yajnavalkya reassures her that the unity of the Self transcends smell, touch, sight, and understanding.
In the second dialogue, Gargi, a female spiritual sage, tests Yajnavalkya’s wisdom by asking him two questions:
“That which is above Heaven and below Earth, and between them, which is the same past present and future, in what is it woven?”
Yajnavalkya answers “Space.”
“And in what is that woven?”
Yajnavalkya answers “The Imperishable Self. The unseen seer, the unheard hearer. Big nor small.”
Gargi admits that nobody can beat Yajnavalkya in a debate about Brahman. So the Self, Brahman, is the consciousness out of which everything arises.
The third and final dialogue is between Yajnavalkya and the king Janaka. Janaka asks about the Self. Yajnavalkya says the Self is the light within the heart, that only appears to think, emote, dream, wake. There is an inbetween state between lives, where the Self sheds the frailties and limitations of a physical body, and the next life is determined by impressions from the past life. This is the idea of karma.
During sleep, the Self, who is always awake, lives out the karma of past lives, and is detached and free.
“As a great fish swims between the banks of a river as it likes, so does the shining Self move between the states of dreaming and waking.”
Yajnavalkya gives us a glimpse of what it is like to unite with the Self. He describes it as the fulfillment of all desires.
“As a man in the arms of his beloved is not aware of what is without or what is within, so it is with one who is in union with the Self.”
Unity with the Self is supreme joy. Yajnavalkya describes aging, the mind and body growing weak, as the Self drawing life energy towards itself, in preparation for the next life. Just as the caterpillar, having reached the end of a leaf, draws itself together to leap to the next.
Renouncing separate desires is vital, for the heart which points towards the Self has all desires fulfilled. For all desires are fulfilled within the Self. The Upanishads stress the renunciation of worldly desires, but this is only because true joy and happiness can only be found in Brahman. The Upanishads are really the formula to happiness, not in conflict with happiness.
Janaka pledges his allegiance and his kingdom to Yajnavalkya, having reached the kingdom of Brahman.
The way to get to the kingdom of Brahman is through three practices, which the thunder itself is said to recite: Da-da-da!
Damyata: self control through meditation
Datta: giving
Dayadhvam: compassion
Om shanti shanti shanti.
“Maitreyi: Of what use then are money and material possessions to me? Please tell me, my Lord, of the way that leads to immortality.”
And so husband and wife begin a spiritual instruction, an upanishad. Yajnavalkya tells his wife that children, spouses, wealth, the gods, the universe itself, are all not loved for their own sake, but because the Self lives in them.
The self has to be realized. When you hear about, meditate on, and realize the Self, you come to understand everything in life. This suggests that the Self is the end goal of everything, which is good, and which needs to be lived and become.
“Everything confuses those who regard things as separate from the Self.”
What is the purpose of anything? If there is no direction, nothing which things are moving towards, then there is no reason for anything to exist. But if everything is moving to unity within the Self, then everything makes sense.
“...there can be nothing without the Self.”
God is everything. Without everything, there is nothing. And just like a lump of salt dissolves into water but still tastes salty, the separate self dissolves into the sea of pure consciousness when it ceases to be identified with the body.
Maitreyi is bewildered by the contention that there is no separate self. But Yajnavalkya reassures her that the unity of the Self transcends smell, touch, sight, and understanding.
In the second dialogue, Gargi, a female spiritual sage, tests Yajnavalkya’s wisdom by asking him two questions:
“That which is above Heaven and below Earth, and between them, which is the same past present and future, in what is it woven?”
Yajnavalkya answers “Space.”
“And in what is that woven?”
Yajnavalkya answers “The Imperishable Self. The unseen seer, the unheard hearer. Big nor small.”
Gargi admits that nobody can beat Yajnavalkya in a debate about Brahman. So the Self, Brahman, is the consciousness out of which everything arises.
The third and final dialogue is between Yajnavalkya and the king Janaka. Janaka asks about the Self. Yajnavalkya says the Self is the light within the heart, that only appears to think, emote, dream, wake. There is an inbetween state between lives, where the Self sheds the frailties and limitations of a physical body, and the next life is determined by impressions from the past life. This is the idea of karma.
During sleep, the Self, who is always awake, lives out the karma of past lives, and is detached and free.
“As a great fish swims between the banks of a river as it likes, so does the shining Self move between the states of dreaming and waking.”
Yajnavalkya gives us a glimpse of what it is like to unite with the Self. He describes it as the fulfillment of all desires.
“As a man in the arms of his beloved is not aware of what is without or what is within, so it is with one who is in union with the Self.”
Unity with the Self is supreme joy. Yajnavalkya describes aging, the mind and body growing weak, as the Self drawing life energy towards itself, in preparation for the next life. Just as the caterpillar, having reached the end of a leaf, draws itself together to leap to the next.
Renouncing separate desires is vital, for the heart which points towards the Self has all desires fulfilled. For all desires are fulfilled within the Self. The Upanishads stress the renunciation of worldly desires, but this is only because true joy and happiness can only be found in Brahman. The Upanishads are really the formula to happiness, not in conflict with happiness.
Janaka pledges his allegiance and his kingdom to Yajnavalkya, having reached the kingdom of Brahman.
The way to get to the kingdom of Brahman is through three practices, which the thunder itself is said to recite: Da-da-da!
Damyata: self control through meditation
Datta: giving
Dayadhvam: compassion
Om shanti shanti shanti.
