Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, June 24, 2021. 6:55. AM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA:  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-6. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 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, and t...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, June 13, 2021. 6:55. AM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA:  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-5. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 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 Brahmam, 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, Hiranyagarbha. 2. 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 statement in the Upanishad, very hard, indeed, to understand, conveys a wealth ...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, June 1, 2021. 8:05. PM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA:  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The mind of the cosmos, which is called the Cosmic Mind, in usual parlance, is regarded here as an evolute, and not the original Being. The Absolute is Transcendent Being, and not a mind, thinking. It is not even a causal state. Even the causal state is supposed to be posterior to the Absolute. We never associate the Absolute with the world. The Brahman of the Upanishad, or the Absolute of philosophy, is the assertion of Being which is unrelated to creation. And, when we have to associate God with creation, we have a new word altogether for it. Ishvara is the word we use in the language of the Vedanta. Such words do not occur in the Upanishads. They are all to be found in the later Vedanta, but they are assumed here. In th...

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, May 22, 2021. 8:42. PM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA:  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-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 the indivisible, that which isolates the one from the other...

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, May 12, 2021. 06:07. PM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA:  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE- 2. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The devouring death principle is the element of hunger which grasps objects. Here, hunger does not mean merely the appetite for edible dishes like rice, barley, etc. Here is a metaphysical principle. Here, the hunger is a cosmic element. It is not an operation of the biological spleen or the liver or the stomach of the individual. What is here intended is the principle of grasping. The object can be regarded as the hunger of the soul of the individual. There was nothing except the desire to grasp the object, if at all one could say that anything was there. A?an?yay? is the hunger of the individual to grasp, absorb, contact, abolish and devour the object. Now, this is a condition which cannot be easily analysed, u...

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, May 05, 2021. 07:29. PM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA:  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE- 1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now follow some very difficult symbols of the Upani?had. Literally, they cannot be easily grasped. Even the Sanskrit is not classical; it is highly archaic. It is a Vedic language. And the idea conveyed through this most difficult style is still more difficult, so that one cannot easily make out the sense of some passages, unless we deeply think over the words as well as the meanings that are hidden between the lines. An unphilosophical mind may not be able to understand the hidden meaning of these symbols, and perhaps it is the case with all symbols; they cannot be understood literally. The symbolic description here is one of the process of creation. How things come; and what it is that we see with our eyes. Where...

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, April 24, 2021. 11:39. AM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-11. Post-11. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Cosmic Prāṇa, Hiraṇyagarbha, or Virāt, assumed a threefold aspect – Adhibhautika, Adhyātmika and Adhidaivika, viz., the physical, the subjective and the transcendent. The objective or the physical, the subjective or the psychic, and the transcendent which is the invisible divine content, are later formulations. Here again the Upaniṣhad brings us back, by a Simhāvalokana, as it were, a retrospective look, to the unity of things, in spite of the tripartite diversification that has taken place. In spite of this threefold manifestation, which is apparently a segmentation of creation into three different corners, as if unconnected with one another, there is yet a unity among them. That point is brought out here...