The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad : Ch-8.1.4.1. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, December 27, 2021. 8:00.PM.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad :

Discourse-8 (8 Febrauary 1977) 

Chapter- I 

Fourth Brahmana : Creation from the Universal Self : 1.

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Fourth Brahmana

CREATION FROM THE UNIVERSAL SELF

 Passing on to the fourth Brahmana, we actually go to a different subject  altogether. As a matter of fact, this fourth section is the most important portion in the first chapter. It is a grand description of the story of creation, right from the beginning up to the lowest level. And incidentally, a mention is made of the strata of Reality through which the descent takes place and also the degrees of Reality through which the ascent has to take place, reversely. So, in this sense, the fourth section, which is called the Purushavidha-Brahmana, is a quintessential teaching, of which everything else can be said to be a commentary, following it subsequently. The whole saga of creation is a grand dramatic event. This is described in this section. While it is a description of creation, it is a description of everybody – ‘you’, ‘I’ and all creatures – because we are all included in creation. It, incidentally, also points out the relationship that obtains among things, the duties which one has to perform in respect of another, and in regard to the ltimate Truth, and so on all that is concomitant in the nature of the subject.

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In the beginning, what was? This is the point from which the section begins. hen creation was not there, what existed then? There was no world, there were

no individuals, no persons, no activities, but something was. What was there?

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1. atmaivedam agra asit purusavidhah, so’nuviksya nanyad atmano’pasyat, so’ham asmity agre vyaharat; tato’ham namabhavat, tasmad apy etarhy amantritah; aham ayam ity evagra uktva, athanyan nama prabrute yad asyabhavati, sa yat purvo’smat sarvasmat sarvan papmana ausat, tasmat urusah; osati ha vai sa tam, yo’ smat purvo bubhusati, ya evam veda.

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 The Supreme Self alone was. Nothing else existed. The Atman alone was, because the Atman was inclusive of all beings. It was the Self, as it is the Self, and t shall be the Self, of everyone, and of everything. It is the Being of all beings, Satyasya Satyam, as the Upanishad will tell us. That alone was, and one cannot conceive of anything else.

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 Now, Pure Being is inconceivable. When we try to conceive Pure Being, it looks like nothing, and hence we have to adopt a particular mode of thinking inrespect of the Being that is supposed to be responsible for creation, because creation implies the manifestation of a cause, and that is the production of an  effect. The effect must have a cause. The cause must be related to the effect. The effect must be conversely related to the cause. So, the conception of a cause being inevitable when we assume that there is an effect, the whole story of creation seems to arise on account of our perception of the world.

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 When we perceive an effect, we have to infer a cause, and the question does not arise as to whether the world is there or not, because our senses tell us that the world is there. We do not ask a question to our own selves, ‘Is the world there; does the world exist?’ We do not put such a question, because it is taken for granted that the world is, merely on the stand that it is perceived. Inasmuch as we are wholly dependent upon sense-perception, and we regard the conclusion of sense-perception as entirely reliable and real, we are involved in it vitally, organically, completely, and we cannot be convinced of any other truth than our own conviction that the world is; and, so, by the inductive process of reasoning, we may say, we are taken to the essence of a cause of the effect that we perceive in he form of this world of manifestation; and the cause should have certain characters which are present in the effect, and the effect has nothing in it which is not in the cause.

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Now, causation is a movement in space. It is a condition of creation. Space and time are essential for creation. So, we have to assume, together with the assumption of a cause, the principle of spatiality, temporality and causality. The ultimate cause must have had, potentially present in it, the principles of spatiality, temporality and causality. Space, time, causes – these elements are absolutely necessary for anything to be manifest. And, therefore, that which was prior to the process of creation, prior to the beginning of things, must have had these conditions of space, time and cause in itself.

To be continued ....

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