The Essence of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad : 1.2. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Tuesday 14, July 2026. 07:00.
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Vedanta & Upanishads
The Essence of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad : 1.2 
Chapter 1: The Absolute and the Universe-2.
Swami Krishnananda.

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The gods could not attempt this contemplation, they were not successful, because the Asuras attacked them in this way, from every side, but they succeeded when they employed not the senses or the ordinary mind for the purpose of this contemplation but the internal Prana which was in tune with the Cosmic Prana, which means to say that we become successful only insofar as we are in harmony with the Cosmic and we are defeated insofar as we are away from it.

When speech, as the Upanishad tells us in this connection, was rid of the Asuric element in it, it ceased to be speech and became Agni or Fire, the Deity itself. Likewise, every sense-organ became the Deity, the 'Pindanda' jumped into the 'Brahmanda', the senses resumed their original conditions as gods, as they were once upon a time in the pristine position which they occupied in the Virat, prior to separation into individuality. The senses, when they are placed in proper position in the Virat-Consciousness, are called the gods—they are themselves the gods. But when they are rid of the connection with Virat, they became ordinary senses running like slaves towards external objects.

The Upanishad tells us, by way of this analogy, that it is no use trying to contact Reality through the senses or the mind; they have to be placed, first, in the context of cosmic universality. This is the meditation to be practised, which means to say that Virat is to be the Object of meditation. Whenever you contemplate an object located as a part of the Body of the Virat, then immediately it assumes a divine character, it ceases to be mortal and it assumes a grand beauty which is characteristic of divinity. This is how we have to meditate really, and not merely look upon some object, as if it is outside. Even spiritual meditations should not be attempted by mere sensory activity or mental function. This is the great truth told us by this analogy of the Asuras and the Devas battling with each other and the gods attempting to overcome the Asuras by means of meditation.

Then we have, perhaps, the most central part of the Upanishad, which is the Fourth Section of the First Chapter, called the Purushavidha Brahmana, a very grand and eloquent exposition of the supreme heights that our ancient Masters reached in their meditations. By means of this Purushavidha Brahmana, the Upanishad gives us a complete description, not only of the nature of Reality, but also of the process of creation upto the lowest limits of manifestation. This is not only a subject for meditation but also for philosophical analysis and comparative study of various religious concepts.

The Purushavidha Brahmana of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is a classical exposition of the famous Purusha-Sukta of the Veda. The very beginning of this section proclaims that there was One Being at the origin of things and It is the Cause for the Primal Will to create. So the 'Will-to-create' is the expression of the Universal Being whose identity with this Will is of an inscrutable nature. Neither can we say that it is identical, nor can we say that it is different. In order to explain the relationship of the creative process and the created individuals with the Supreme Cause, the doctrine of creation is enunciated in the cosmological hymns of the Veda as well as in this section of the Upanishad. The characteristic of the Supreme Being is said to be an eternal 'I' or the Consciousness 'I-Am-That I-Am', 'I-Am-What-I-Am', or, merely, 'I-Am', or, even the word 'Am' is redundant; there is just I, the Absolute. This was the Primary Status of Being.

In order to make us understand our connection as individuals with this Universal 'I', the Upanishad explains how the One tended to become the many in the form of space, time and objects. This is the story of the Fourth Section of the First Chapter—the Purushavidha Brahmana. The One does not suddenly become the multitude. According to the Upanishad, the One becomes two. There is a split of feeling or experience, as it were, which alienates the Self into the subject and the object. It is a peculiar state of consciousness where oneself becomes the object of one's own self. The Absolute is neither the subject nor the object, because these appellations, subjectivity and objectivity, do not apply to a state where Consciousness is not thus divided into two self-alienated aspects. The Supreme, somehow, becomes Its own Object. This is what we call the state of Ishvara, the condition described at the very beginning of this Brahmana of the Upanishad. It is the Universal Tendency to objectivate that is called Ishvara. The objectification has not yet taken place; there is a potentiality of manifestation, as there is a hidden presence of the vast banyan tree in a little seed of the tree. So was this universe contained in the Seed of the Will of the Absolute. The Seed was the cosmic repository of every manifestation that was to take place subsequently. There was, thus, the beginning of a cosmic subject-object consciousness inseparable one from the other. Now, this split becomes more and more accentuated as time passes, so that there is a greater and greater intensity, and density of this feeling to isolate oneself from oneself, into the object of one's own perception and experience. It is oneself experiencing oneself—the subject deliberately condescending to become an object of its own self for purpose of a peculiar kind of joyous experience, which the scriptures describe as Lila, or play of God. What else can be the explanation for that tendency in one's consciousness where one begins to will the objectivity of one's own Universal Subjectivity?

This is apparently a logical contradiction, but the whole of creation is nothing but that; it is a logical contradiction, indeed; logically it has no meaning, and it cannot be deduced; but, yet, it is there. The relationship between the individual and the Absolute is not logically inferable from any kind of premise, it cannot be deduced from any kind of assumption, nor can we argue it out by any kind of inductive process. But we have to take things as they are. The whole purpose of the story of creation, given in this section of the Upanishad, is to help individuals to return to the Absolute, enable the purpose of the practice of Sadhana. It is not an explanation in the sense of a historical or chronological event that took place in some early periods of time but a practical suggestion given to individuals as to how they can reunite themselves with That from which they have been alienated in consciousness.

There is, therefore, a split of the One into two and the two becomes a multitude with the same creative urge continuing in every part of the manifested individualities; that means to say, there is a tendency to go down and down into greater and greater forms of objectivity. From the causal condition there is a descent into the subtle state and from the subtle there is a descent further into the grosser condition, which we call the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether, and everything that is constituted of these five elements. Thus, we have a cosmic integration with an implied multiplicity or, the other way round, there is a cosmic multiplicity with an implied integration or unity hidden behind it. This is the universe, in its apparent form. The Upanishad tells us that the manifestation was twofold and then it was threefold and then it was multiple. It was twofold in the sense that the Subject became the Object and the whole universe was Its own Body which it opposed to its own consciousness as that on which it contemplated as 'I-am-I'. Then the consciousness of threefold creation came into being; the threefold creation being called, in the language of the Upanishad, the Adhibhuta, or the physical, external universe; Adhyatma, or the internal individual perceivers; and the Adhidaiva, or the connecting link between these two. The transcendent spiritual presence which connects the subject of perception with the object of perception is the Adhidaiva. There is a peculiar principle which operates between the seer and the seen, on account of which this seeing becomes possible, but that transcendent element in the process of perception and external experience is always invisible to the normal ways of consciousness. So, there is a threefold creation—the creation of the outer world or the physical universe; the individual experiences, or Jivas, or souls; and the gods, the celestials, the divinities who are the Adhidaivas presiding over everything that is external or internal. This is the threefold creation.

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