THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD : Ch-1.1.17 SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

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THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD 

DISCOURSE-8 (8 FEBRUARY 1977) 

CHAPTER I 

Third Brahmana

1.THE SUPERIORITY OF THE VITAL FORCE AMONG ALL FUNCTIONS -17

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Asat does not mean non-existence like the horns of a human being. Here, the unreal is not of that category, because if a thing is totally nonexistent, it will not be seen, and the question of rising from it does not arise. The rise of the consciousness from one state to another becomes necessitated on account of there being an element of the real reflected in the apparent. The world of  unreality is capable of being taken for reality, and therefore one gets involved in it. Certain characters of reality are visible in the world of unreality, and so there is a mix-up of two attributes. The appearance, as we call it, is not a total nonexistence. It is a confusion, a kind of muddled thinking. That is the appearance.The muddle arises on account of mixing up, or juxtaposing, or superimposing, attributes belonging to different categories, or realms, by way of mutual association, i.e., the attribution of the character of one to the other. 

The famous analogy given to us in the Vedanta scriptures is that there is what is known as Adhyasa, or the reading of the meaning of reality in that which is transient, and conversely, the transposing of characters of transiency and becoming to the being which is real. This happens every day in our practical life. We live as persons who are standing examples of this mix-up of attributes. Our individualities, our bodily personalities are immediately available example of this confusion of thought,where the real and the unreal are mixed up, and we drift from one condition to another on account of not being able to judge what is what in our own cases. 

We have feelings which are combinations of two aspects – the real and the unreal, the Sat and the Asat. We have a confidence that we are existing. We never feel that we are non-existent, not also that we are a moving flow, or we are apparent, or we are in a condition of process. We are told that this world is in a state of perpetual motion, but we never have any such feelings in our lives. We live in a world of motion and transition from one condition to another, but, in our own lives, we feel that we are perpetual. There is a strong feeling in regard to ourselves that we are steady beings and that there is a continuity of consciousness of our being, right from birth to death. This feeling of continuity of existence in our own selves is due to our attributing the character of reality to ourselves, because that which is, the Pure Being, is somehow made to get reflected in our own conditioned personalities. 

The sense of ‘I’, the feeling of ‘being’ and the certitude that we have in respect of our existence is due to the reality that is present in us. But, there is something more in us, apart from this feeling of mere ‘being’. We do not merely feel that we exist. We always feel that we are limited; we are inadequate; we are povertystricken; we are impotent; we are grief-ridden, and we have anxieties and insecurities of every type conceivable. This peculiar other side of the feeling that is associated, side by side, with the feeling of certainty, existence; being etc., is the quality of appearance.

 The conditioned form which is embodiment, the body, has one character; and the unconditioned reality has another one altogether. We bring the two together and create a personality, so that there is what is called a transient personality which ‘appears’ to be. The being of the personality is the reflection of reality in the personality, whereas the transiency is its real nature. We are conscious of a current, as it were, which flows, which never is steady, but the consciousness of continuity, even in the transitory process of the current of a river, is due to the consciousness being different from the process. We have two elements in us – sometimes, theologically, we say, the god and the demon principle – the Deva and the Asura. We have both elements in us, the higher and the lower, the eternal and the temporal. 

The eternal speaks and infuses meaning into the values of life, to which we cling so ardently, and create in our life a hope for the future, of a better condition.

To be continued ...

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