The Essence of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad : 1.4. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Wednesday 12, Aug 2026. 05:30.
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Vedanta & Upanishads
The Essence of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad : 1.4.
Chapter 1: The Absolute and the Universe-4..
Swami Krishnananda.

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All the groups of individuals have to work together from the point of view of their own species at least, for the purpose of their ultimate good. The four 'Varnas' mentioned are the four capacities of individuals—the spiritual, the political or the administrative, the economic, and the working groups. The social groups are really not connected one with the other; they are individuals, of course. How can anyone bring individuals into a harmony or a united formation? How can you ask many people to think singly? This is not possible, obviously. So, the Upanishad tells us that God created what is called 'Dharma'. The law of integration is called Dharma; the law that binds multiplicity together in a harmony is Dharma; any cohesive force is Dharma; else, there would be a split of parts into fragments which flee away hither and thither, without any connection among themselves. The parts of creation would apparently have no connection among themselves if Dharma were not to be there as a strong cementing force.

We know, there is always a tendency of things to meet together, to come together and unite themselves in some form or the other, for the purpose of a higher achievement. This tendency is present physically, vitally, subtly, grossly, socially, intellectually, ethically, spiritually, or whatever the way be—this uniting Law is called Dharma. Dharma simply means the law of the Righteousness of the Absolute, and this Law operates in every realm of creation, even the lowest form of sub-atomic structures. Here, too, is the cohesive force working, bringing particles together into a single formation called atoms, molecules, etc. In higher forms of life it is organically visible as the living body, and then there is the social group, etc., all which are indications of the fact that the Supreme Brahman, the Absolute, is operating as an integrating Law, or Dharma, in and through all these manifested varieties, which apparently are disconnected from one another. Thus, there is the creation of the groups of individuals, and the Law of Dharma, at the same time manifested, to bring them together into a harmony. So, the whole creation is complete in itself. It is a perfect constitution which is laid down with all details, right from the top to the bottom, for all times.

Then, there is a set of suggestions given by the Upanishad from the practical point of view. All activity in the world is ultimately futile, if one condition is not fulfilled. We are not going to succeed in any attempt of ours in this world, we are going to be a miserable failure, whatever be our enterprise—you may be a great philanthropist, you may be a loving social worker, you may have big ambitions in life to do great things and magnificent things—all these efforts will go to dust and one will go repenting, achieving nothing of the nature of success in this world, if one essential point is missed. What is that? The Dharma, or the Law of Unity which is present as the Selfhood of all things, the Atman-nature in things, even in the midst of all this apparent variety of activity and experience.

Every activity becomes divine, provided the element of the Atman is impregnated into it. Every activity becomes futile, if the Atman is divested out of it. Every body is alive, if the soul is present in it; every body is a corpse, if the soul is out of it. Thus, the Upanishad very precisely tells us here, again, that we should not weep and cry if we do not succeed in life, for it is our mistake. We have an unspiritual attitude towards things, and this is the cause of our failures in life. We fail at home, we fail in our personal works, we fail in society, we fail even in our higher ambitions, which may be superphysical in nature. Where God is absent, nothing can be a success. Where God is present, everything shall be a success. This is the essence of this practical suggestion given by the Upanishad. When we forget God, we shall be in the throes of misery at that very moment and when we are in the presence of God, when we are able to practise the presence of God, when our consciousness is tuned to universality, then, whatever we touch would become gold, and any enterprise of ours is bound to be a success, whichever be the direction we take. Success will be in our hands and failure will be unknown, if the Atman is our guide, if the Absolute is at the beck and call of our personal experience; otherwise, we are not going to succeed; everything shall be futile.

There are three personal desires in the individual, or we may say, there are three urges in the individual, which are three types of expression of the very same Absolute. The Upanishad tells us that we cannot be completely closing our eyes to these desires in the individual. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is a very complete scripture; it touches every point of psychology and spiritual aspiration. What we call desires and call bondages in life are the blind movements of the same spiritual force. It is God Himself walking, as it were, closing His eyes—that is called a desire; and we cannot call it undivine merely because it has closed its eyes. It becomes undivine only when it has lost the awareness of its purpose. The movements of the human nature in the form of desires, called Eshanas, or the primal urges of the personality are the gropings of the very same cosmic force, attempting to unite itself with every blessed thing in creation, searching for the Selfhood in things. These are the functions of hunger, sex and renown. Even if one ignores only one of them, there is a sense of incompleteness of being. But, their activity is of a painful nature; it does not lead to success ultimately; it throws the individual into sorrow finally, because its well-intentioned activities or movements are blindly directed. It is an unawakened urge of the Universal, and these are the blind forces of Nature; they are also the Absolute Law working, only they are not conscious of themselves. The Upanishad tells us that it is up to us to render them conscious, awaken them to the awareness of their own purpose, then desires shall become directives of the soul on the path to liberation. The Self is the true world of all living beings.

By Yajna or sacrifice, study of sacred lore, offering of libations, providing boarding and lodging, giving grass and water and the like, tending and non-interfering with domestic animals, birds, etc., even up to such creatures as ants in one's house, the knower of the Self recognises the Reality of the gods, sages (Rishis), ancestors (manes), human beings, animals, etc., respectively, and becomes one with all existence, evoking the love of all beings as they would love their own Self. This is, in essence, the doctrine of creation, as well as of the return of the soul to God, or Brahman, as expounded in the fourth section of the First Chapter of the Upanishad.

The subject of the object of consciousness, is again continued in the further passage by way of description of what the Upanishad calls 'the food of the soul'. We are told that there are seven kinds of food which God has created for the satisfaction of the individuals. The ordinary food that we eat every day, is one kind of food. The milk that comes out from the breast of the mother, is another kind of food, natural to children, whether they are human or otherwise. The sacrifices offered to the gods or the divinities called Darsha and Purnanvasa, the offerings that we make to gods especially during the new moon and the full moon occasions, are two other kinds of food that sustains the gods, because that is the way we establish a connection between ourselves and the celestials.

There is then a threefold food which is psychological in nature, called in the Upanishadic language as speech, mind and Prana. These are the internal apparatus of the individual to come in contact with things outside and therefore they are called the instruments of food. By means of entanglement in this sevenfold food, the subject-individual gets caught up in the object-atmosphere. The objects catch hold of the subjects by attracting them towards themselves and making the subjects depend on them. Anything on which you depend is the food of yours, and all these seven things are mentioned as things on which individuals depend for their sustenance.

The internal or psychological foods—speech, mind and Prana—are further described in their cosmical connotation, and we are told that we are supposed to spiritualise these external forms of manifestation called the foods of the Jivas, and when we spiritualise them, they become universal in their nature. An object when it becomes universal ceases to be an object; it is particularised, and so it looks like an object. The Upanishad proffers certain meditations, or Upasanas, according to which these seven kinds of food, especially the speech, mind and Prana, get cosmically enlarged in their magnitude and become part-and-parcel of Hiranyagarbha-Prana. Anything can become a passage to God, provided it gets universalised in meditation.

Then we are told that, individually, no sense-organ can be an instrument or help in our contacting God. Neither the senses nor the mind can be an aid, but they become aids when they are universalised, when they are united back to their original sources, namely, the Deities presiding over them. If the senses and the mind act individually, as if they are disconnected from their sources, the divinities, then they cannot succeed in their attempts. When they are connected back to their divinities, they become cosmical in their nature, they become part of Virat, they gain their status in the cosmos instead of being located merely in the individual bodies. This is one kind of meditation whereby the individual limbs get transferred to their respective locations in the Cosmic Body.

Name, form and action are what this world is. The world consists of nothing but name, form and activity. These, when they are externalised, particularised or finitised, become sources of bondage. Again, the Upanishad goes to the technique of universalising name, form and activity. Then they become the name, form and action of Hiranyagarbha-Prana. This is a meditation which, we may say, is the basis for the Karma-Yoga doctrine, according to which every action is supposed to be divinity manifest, and a means to liberation of the soul, provided, of course, names, forms and actions get universalised in the meditation which is to be the background of one's activities in the world. As the Bhagavad-Gita tells us, Karma should be based on Buddhi (Understanding) or Jnana (Knowledge). With this, the First Chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is concluded.

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Next: Chapter 2: The Supreme Goal of Life-1.
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