Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, March 30, 2021. 10:09. AM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-9. Post-9. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So׳rcann acarat, tasyārcata. āpo׳jāyanta, arcate vai me kam abhūd iti; tad evārkasya arkatvam; kaṁ ha vā asmai bhavati, ya evam etad arkasya arkatvaṁ veda.   One who makes this phenomenon, assumes power over this phenomenon, becomes that, is the advice with which the passage concludes. The cosmic condition is thus to be described. The Mind which was created, cosmically, in this manner, by a reversal of the content of the Absolute, this cosmic condition, is the seed of the universe.  This seed of the universe, we call ?shvara; we call Hiranyagarbha; we call Virat, in the various degrees of the densities manifested. It assumed a joy. It became the energy of the universe. It became Vai?v?nara. Here...

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, March 20, 2021. 08:35. PM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-8. Post-8. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And, also, another analogy is given in a passage of the Katha Upanishad as to what happens in creation. There is a reversal of the whole position, as our face is reversed in a mirror where it is reflected – the right becomes left, and the left becomes right – even so, the subject becomes the object, and the object becomes the subject, when the creation takes place, which is the essence of the whole matter. Very interesting, and very comforting, indeed! We can imagine where we are seated, and what has happened to us. God has played a very beautiful joke with us, made us great fools, turned us upside down by positing the subject in the context of the object, and the object i...

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, March 13, 2021. 10:06. AM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-7. Post-7. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, many thinkers of the topmost calibre, in the field of philosophy, have held that the cause of creation is not a desire on the part of God, as many would ordinarily think, because it is impossible to imagine that God can have a desire. Ach?rya ?ankara, and such other thinkers, tell us that the cause of the universe is not the desire of God, just as the moon shining in the sky is not the cause of the thief breaking into somebody's house – a very beautiful analogy. If, with the help of the moonlight, some burglar enters somebody's house, the action of burglary cannot be imputed to the moon because it is responsible, in some way, in shedding light to the thief. Likewise is the presence of the Will of God in ...

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, March 04, 2021. 05:31. PM. Chapter I : SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-6. Post-6. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The consciousness of the existence of the universe is different from the consciousness of the Absolute. That the two are not identical, is a point that is made out here. Once the existence of the universe is accepted in consciousness, everything else that follows from it can also be accepted. If two and two make four, four and four make eight, and so on, arithmetically, we can draw conclusions. But two and two must, first of all, make four. We must accept that. If that is not true, then any multiplication, therefrom, also is not true. There is a distinction between Absolute-Consciousness and universe-consciousness. That distinction is the cause behind this line drawn here between Pure Being that is Absolute, an...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, February 21, 2021. 03:53. PM. Chapter I : SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-5. Post-5. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, this cosmological process, the development of the effect from the cause, gradually, from the Universal Being, down to the lowest of diverse elements – this it is that is described here in this Br?hma?a, which says that originally nothing was, from where the element of distinction between the subject and the object, characterised by a double activity of grasping and separation, was evolved, and then arose the Cosmic Mind, Hira?yagarbha. Here is a passage of great significance from the point of view of philosophical technique employed in the understanding of the relation between the individual and the Universal. This which is a symbolic sta...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, February 11, 2021. 10:43. AM. Chapter I : SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-4. Post-4. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sankhya and the Vedantaam cosmological descriptions, we have certain grades mentioned of the coming out of the effect from the cause. Before we go further into the difficulties envisaged in these passages of the Upani?hads, it is better to understand the evolutionary principles as initiated in the Sankhya and the Vedanta. The Sankhya tells us that there was an original condition where everything was potent, though not patent. Everything was hidden, though not expressed. Everything was in a universal causal state. That is regarded as the non-existent, dark, undeveloped, indivisible state of things. That is called Prakriti in the S??kh...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, February 08, 2021. 08:42. AM. Chapter I : SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-3. Post-3. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, this peculiarity, whatever we may call it, whatever designation may be applied to it, is the cause of the distinction of the effect from the cause, and that becomes the first breeding ground for the further multifarious division we see in the form of this vast creation. The moment this creation begins, the moment there is the potency released for the external expression of what was hiddenly present in the cause, there is a catastrophic change taking place. And, this is the urge for creation, the urge for diversity, multiplicity, colour, sound, activity, etc. This characteristic of self-division is called M?tyu (death principle), that which destroys ...