The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Ch-1. THIRD BRAHMANA : Chapter-1.THE SUPERIORITY OF THE VITAL FORCE AMONG ALL FUNCTIONS - 5. Swami Krishnananda.
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The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Ch-1. THIRD BRAHMANA : Chapter-1.THE SUPERIORITY OF THE VITAL FORCE AMONG ALL FUNCTIONS - 5. Swami Krishnananda.
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Wednesday, November 3, 2021. 7:20. PM.
Chapter - I : THIRD BRAHMANA :
Chapter-1.THE SUPERIORITY OF THE VITAL FORCE AMONG ALL FUNCTIONS - 5.
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In the Chhandogya Upanishad also, we have a very interesting anecdote, concerning the force that is generated around a person who devotes himself to meditation on the Hiraiyagarbha Prana. There was a simple person who was very poor, but a meditator on the Cosmic Prana, Hiranyagarbha, and he was begging for food, asking for alms, moving from place to place. One day, he went to a Yajñasala, a sacrificial ground, where Brahmanas were performing rituals of various kinds. This gentleman thought that he will get some charity in that sacrificial ground.
So, he went there, and found those people busy performing the rites. They were offering sacred ghee to the consecrated fire. And he said, "I am hungry; give me some food." No one paid any attention. They did not even look at him. They were busy performing the sacrifice. He asked a second time, and third time, "Give me food; I am hungry." And nobody cared; they did not talk. Then he uttered thus: "Do you know whom you are refusing food; you are refusing food to the Cosmic Prana." The very word was sufficient to shake their whole person. They rose up, "Come; come, please sit, take food," said they all in great fear.
The vibration of the meditator of the Cosmic Prana is a power which can influence anything and everything. The incapacity of the individual, the powerlessness, the impotency that we feel, is due to the isolation of our individual Prana from the Cosmic Prana. The Cosmic Prana moves into us, it is within us, like the all-pervading space which is inside everything. The all-pervading space which is illimitable is inside this hall. The little space inside this hall is the same as the space that is outside and everywhere. In the same manner, the Prana that is within us is the same as the Cosmic Prana called the Sutra-atman, or Hiranyagarbha. But, due to arrogance, egoism, self-assertion,
we began to appropriate for own selves whatever is within our body as our own. We begin to say, "my mind, my Prana, my limbs, my organs, my senses" etc. This 'mineness' in respect of properties and acquisitions, born out of the 'I'ness of self-affirmation, is the cause of cutting oneself away from the inflow of the energy that is everywhere. And, therefore, we feel weak vitally and psychologically. The moment this bund is broken, the wall that separates us from the Cosmic Prana is lifted by a contemplation which is called the Udgatha-Vidya, meditation on the Sutra-atman. As long as this art of meditation on the Sutra-atman is not learnt, we feel impotent in every respect. The contemplator on the Sutra-atman is an all-powerful being.
The story is not merely a description of the powers of the Prana. It is a statement on the powers of everything that is within us. The Prana is the most forceful principle in the subtle body within us, but there are other principles, the sense-organs, for the eye, the ear, etc. They are also powerful if they are properly located. Any person can assume strength when placed in a proper position. But, if we put a person in the wrong place, even the powerful one becomes weak. So, the senses, like the Prana, should be placed in their proper positions. The mind also has to be placed in its proper context. When the mind becomes powerful, the senses also become powerful. One can convert things and bring about transformation by the operation of the mind and the senses, properly attuned to their sources.
The whole meditation described here, in this context of Prana-Vidya, is the placing of the mind, the Prana and the senses in their proper places. What is the proper place? The eye must go back to the Sun. That is its proper place. It should not regard itself as isolated from its deity. Just as the soul cannot be separated from the body, the deity of an organ cannot be separated from the organ. The senses should not regard themselves as independent individuals working for their own purpose. They are only outer instruments of action for the divinities that are within. So, the contemplation of the divinity, Devata-Dhyana, is the attunement of the sense-powers with the divinity that is superintending over them.
The divinity, again, has to be placed in its proper place. What is it? It is the limb of the Virat. Every god is a limb of the Cosmic Virat, and so, when the senses are placed in their identity with their divinity, and likewise, the divinity is placed in its proper place, in its identity with the Virat, the Virat begins to work in us at once. It is like putting on a switch, connecting our little light bulb with the power house, though far away from us. This is the art of meditation. The object which is usually regarded as external to the senses should not be regarded as such, because it is not really an object. From the point of view of its own location, it may be a subject.
We know this very well. You are an object for me, because I see you, but you are a subject to your own self, and I may be an object for you. So, if I am a subject for myself, and you are a subject for yourself, and if everyone and everything is a subject from his own or her own or its own point of view, where is the object? The object does not exist. It is only an hallucination.
There is only One Subject. Everywhere, there is subjectivity. Even in the minutest atom and electron, there is a subjectivity. A principle of the affirmation of self is present in every little nook and corner of the universe. So, the affirmation of the subjectivity of things in their proper places, i.e., to regard all beings as limbs of the Virat, to regard everyone as a self, rather than an object, would be the highest meditation conceivable.
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