The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 25. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, March 13, 2023. 07:45.

Chapter- III :

FIRST BRAHMANA: SACRIFICIAL WORSHIP AND ITS REWARDS

Mantras - 5&6 :

Post-25.

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 Mantram-5.

 "There is a difference of the bright fortnight and the dark fortnight in the lunar month, and everything is involved in the movement of the moon causing the distinction between the bright half and the dark half of the month. How can one free oneself from this involvement? 

Answer this question. Can we be free from the connection with the moon?" "Yes, you can. You can free yourself with the meditation that you have to conduct together with the sacrifice." "And who is to conduct this meditation?"  


The Sāma Vedic priest should conduct the meditation. The Sāma is, in a very esoteric way, connected with Soma, the divine element that is invoked, as connected with the moon. And when you conduct the meditation in the context of this sacrifice, for the purpose of overcoming the limitations imposed by the movement of the moon, reciter should practise a kind of retention of breath. 

 The breath, the vital force, with the operation of which the chant of the Sāma is made possible, should be regarded as the real chanter of the Sāma. It is not a person or a priest that chants the Sāma; it is the breath that chants. And if the breath is not to be there, there will be no chant also. 

So, if the  reciter of the Sāma Veda, can identify himself with the principle of breath and vital energy inside, and that vital energy be identified with the Cosmic Vital Force, Sūtra-ātman which is called Vāyu here, in other words, if the meditation on Hiranyagarbha be conducted simultaneously with the sacrifice, then the reciter can be freed from Mrityu. This would be also the simultaneous freedom from death of the Yajamana or the conductor of the sacrifice."

It is not possible to absolve the performance of sacrifice from the limitations caused by death unless all the four priests are freed from death. So the fourth one, Brahma also is to be freed. So, Aśvala puts a fourth question.

Mantram-6.

"How can the last one, Brahma, be free from death? He has another difficulty. 

What is that?" : "How can the performer of the sacrifice go to heaven when there is no ladder from the earth to the heaven? There is an unsupported sky or space between the earth and the heaven. How can you jump through the skies to the heaven? What is the means by which the soul of the Yajamāna, or the performer of the sacrifice, goes to Svarga?" 

"It is done by a meditation conducted by the fourth priest called Brahma." "And what is the meditation he should conduct?" "His work is merely to observe through the mind. He does not chant anything. It is the mind of the Brahma, or the fourth priest, that works in the sacrifice. This mind is presided over by the moon. So, he should identify himself merely with the psychological principle of the mind, and the mind with its presiding deity." "Then what happens?" "Then he would cease to be an individual. He becomes the mind only, and the mind becomes its deity, so that the deity or the divine principle which is the ultimate factor involved in the performance of the sacrifice, alone becomes the recipient of the fruits of the Yajña. The individual should not imagine that he is the recipient of the fruits. Mano vai yajñasya brahmā: It is the mind that performs the sacrifice as the Brahma or the fourth priest. 

Whatever is the mind, that is the moon. They are interconnected. 

So, Yājñavalkya tells Asvala; "I have answered four of your questions, by which I have told you how it is possible for these important conductors of the sacrifice to free themselves from death, which otherwise would be impossible. If a sacrifice is merely a performance without a meditation, death cannot be escaped. But if the meditation is done simultaneously with the performance of the sacrifice by which the performers get identified with the deities at once, there would be a final harmonious adjustment of all the four conductors, in a unity of purpose which will culminate in the realisation of the one Divinity, which is the aim of the sacrifice, and then, there will be no death."

So, these are four questions which Aśvala puts to Yājñavalkya and the answers which Yājñavalkya gives to the four questions. But there are further questions. The man does not leave Yājñavalkya so easily. So he says, "I will ask you some more questions," and we shall now see what they are.

Four more questions are asked. In all he puts eight questions. Four have been answered; four more remain.

*****
To be continued

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