The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad -1.11. Swami Krishnananda

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Tuesday, August 11, 2020. 1:40.PM.

1.Introduction -11.

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1.

The Upanishad, to reiterate, is the science of the Self, studied not for the sake of a diversion of the intellect or a satisfaction of the understanding, but for freedom of the spirit and removal of sorrow, utterly. The Adhyatma-Vidya about which we hear so much in fields of spiritual living is not 'a kind' of Vidya, just one of the branches of learning, but the Mother of all the branches of learning, including every other learning that can be conceived of in this world of sense, understanding and social living.

2.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, particularly, attempts to explain the various processes of bondage and liberation. It tells us how we are bound and how we are to get free; and it goes to the very cause ultimate, of the bondage of the soul. Our bondage is not merely physical or social. It is a more deep-rooted condition which has been annoying us through centuries and through our repeated births and deaths. Anything that we do in the outer world does not seem to be an adequate remedy for this sorrow of ours, because the sorrow has not come from outside. We can have a bungalow to prevent us from suffering from rain and sun and wind; we can have daily food to eat; we can have very happy and friendly social relationships; but we can also die one day, even with all these facilities. Nobody can free us from this fear. This is the greatest sorrow of the human being, that he has apparently everything but there is some secret sorrow of his which can swallow up every other satisfaction – that death can catch hold of a person, and no one can save him then.

3.

What is this dependence of the individual on a circumstance over which no one has control; and why does death come, why is that sorrow? Why is there any kind of inadequacy felt in life at all. This is the subject of analysis and study in the Upani?had, for the purpose of bringing to our own self a knowledge which is not a learning or information about things, but an enlightenment about our own self. It is again to be repeated that this enlightenment is not about any other person or object, but about our own self. It is an understanding of oneself, an enlightenment of oneself, an illumination of oneself; and when this illumination takes place, it is expected that everything connected with the self also gets illumined automatically

To be continued ....

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