The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 15. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, October 01, 2022. 08:00.
Chapter- II :
FIFTH BRAHMANA: 
MADHU-VIDYA – THE HONEY DOCTRINE :
Post-15.

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Chapter II - FIFTH BRAHMANA: MADHU-VIDYA – THE HONEY DOCTRINE 

There is an interesting story behind this knowledge. 


It is a very secret knowledge which cannot be imparted to all people. And Indra got this knowledge from Sage Dadhyaṅṅ. Greedy that he was, he did not want others to know this. He wanted to have this knowledge only for himself. He had told his Guru, "If you tell this to anybody else, I will cut off your head." He was a very strange disciple, and the Guru said nothing. He kept quiet. Indra desired to be the only knower of it. Such a great secret it is! Then two other gods known as the Aśvinis – they are the twin celestial physicians – wanted to have this knowledge. They knew that this Guru knows this – the Madhu-Vidyā. 


So they came and said: "Will you teach us Madhu-Vidyā?" 


The Guru Dadhyaṅṅ ātharvaṇa Rishi said: "You know the danger behind my telling what I know? I will lose my head." "Why?" they asked. He told them: "This is what happened. That foolish Indra, I taught him something, and this threat is the gratitude he gave me. He says, if I tell this to anybody else, he will sever my head. So, if I tell you, my head will go." "Oh, you do not bother about it," the twins said, "We shall look to it. We shall take care of this matter. You do not be afraid of losing your head." "How are you going to save me?" "You start teaching. Then, we cut off your head. Then, we will bring the head of a horse and place it on the trunk of your body, and you speak through the horse's mouth. Then Indra will get angry and cut off your head. But what he will cut off is the horse's head only. 


Afterwards he will go away and we will replace your real head and join it so that you become all right. Thereby you will not have lost anything." That was a very good idea. Then Sage Dadhyaṅṅ began to speak and the Aśvinis cut off his head and kept it safe somewhere, in secret. They brought the head of a horse from somewhere, fixed it on the sage's trunk and gave it life. Immediately the horse started speaking the Madhu-Vidyā, and through the mouth of the horse it is that this wisdom has come. Indra got enraged on seeing that the sage had started imparting the Madhu-Vidyā. He went and cut off that head he found on the sage's neck – the horse's head. Then the Aśvinis came and put back the original head on the sage and made him whole again.


So, this is the interesting story behind the Vidyā called Madhu-Vidyā. 



But whatever the story is behind this enunciation of the Vidyā, it is a magnificent statement of the Upaniṣhad, where it tells us that everything is organically related to everything. When you touch anything, you are touching everything. If I touch a table, I am touching the sun at once. Nobody can understand the mystery behind this thing. Everything is vitally connected, not merely artificially related, so that when I see anything, I am seeing everything. When I speak to anyone, I am speaking to everybody. When I touch anything, I touch all things, and when I know one thing, I know everything. This point is really a magnificent theme in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad. No wonder Indra was very fond of it and did not want others to know it.


"Iyam pṛthivī sarveṣāṁ bhūtānām madhu, asyai pṛthivyai sarvāṇi bhūtāni madhu; yaś cāyam asyām pṛthivyāṁ tejomayo'mṛtamayaḥ puruṣaḥ, yas cāyam adhyātmaṁ śārīras tejomayo'mṛtamayaḥ puruṣaḥ, ayam eva sa yo'yam ātmā, idam amṛtam, idam brahma, idaṁ sarvam."


Iyam pṛthivī sarveṣāṁ bhūtānām madhu: So, do not cut off my head because I am telling it to you. This earth is the honey of all beings. It is the essence and milk of all beings. People suck this earth as if they suck honey which has such a beautiful taste; and earth sucks everybody and everything as if they are honey to it. The earth is the honey of all, and everyone is the honey of the earth. The earth is absorbed into the 'being' of everything, and everything is absorbed into the 'being' of the earth. That is the meaning of saying that earth is the honey of all beings, and all beings are the honey of the earth. It is the honey that you absorb into your being by sucking, by licking, by enjoying, by making it a part of your own 'being'. So does the earth make everything a part of its own 'being' by absorbing everything into itself. And so does every 'being' in the world suck the earth into itself and make it a part of its own 'being'.



Asyai pṛthivyai sarvāṇi bhūtāni madhu; yaś cāyam asyām pṛthivyāṁ tejomayo'mṛtamayaḥ puruṣaḥ, yas cāyam adhyātmaṁ śārīras tejomayo'mṛtamayaḥ puruṣaḥ:  


Apart from the earth and the beings who are correlated in this manner, there is another superior principle present in the earth and in all beings. That superior principle is the luminous consciousness. There is an animating being behind this physical entity that you call the earth, and an animating principle behind what you call all the beings, creatures, individuals, in the world. That which is cosmically animating all creation and that which is individually animating every little creature, that also has to be taken into consideration in the correlationship of the objective and the subjective aspect of creation. The earth that is mentioned here is not merely this little ball of mud on which we are sitting. It is the entire physical creation. The whole physical creation is what is designated as 'earth'. And here there is a description of the correlativity and correlationship which are animated by the same consciousness. There is an immanence of consciousness in the objective universe and an immanence of consciousness in the individual beings, manifesting in some degree, not always in the same degree. Now, these two are correlated. Just as the objective world and the subjective individual are organically connected, so is this animating consciousness in the objective world correlated with the individual consciousness. 


One is hanging on the other, one is connected with the other, one is dependent on the other, one is incapable of being without the other. That Being which animates the cosmic and the individual aspects of creation is called the Luminous Immortal Being – tejomayo' mritamayah purusah. He is called the Puruṣha because the Puruṣha is etymologically that which exists in anybody, or that which animates anybody. It may be an individual body or a Universal Body. In either case it is known as the Puruṣha.


It may be the Puruṣha that is individual when we merely call it the Puruṣha, otherwise we call it Puruṣhottama – yaś cāyam āsv apsu tejomayo'mṛtamayaḥ puruṣaḥ.


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To be continued ...

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