Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

========================================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, July 26, 2021.11:1001. AM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA :  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-10. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Here, again, we have some description of the condensation of the dense form of things, gradually taking place in the process of creation – the subtle becomes gross. The cosmic waters hardened, as it were, became solid, gradually, and the Earth element was formed. By the Earth element, what is meant here is not merely this little globe of the earth on which we are living, but the entire Earth Principle of the whole astronomical universe, through which your eyes cannot pass. The whole element of Earth can be regarded as the solidified form of this cosmic condition, the subtle nature of things which is called here, Waters. It solidified itself. From Fire comes Water...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, July 18, 2021. 9:01. PM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA :  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-9. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. There is a diversity in the form of this creation, made possible by a reversal of the position of the ultimate Reality and that reversed position assumes a consciousness of its own, originally. That is what is known as the Universal Mind. It is attended with Self-Consciousness, –  is something less than the Absolute. It is a condition that has to be accepted, subsequent to the reversal, which, again, has to be assumed prior. 2. The Cosmic Mind, Hiranyagarbha, as we call it in the Vedanta, is the Cosmic 'I-Am'. It is Self-Consciousness, Pure Universality. And, here is the seed of all diversity. In a sense, we may say that we are parts of this Cosmic Mind, but not, indeed, correctly. As I pointed out, we cannot regard ...

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, July 11, 2021. 7:26. PM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA :  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-8. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, such is the very interesting doctrine propounded by thinkers like Acharya Adi Sri Swami Sankara.  We find it in the Brahma-Sutras, especially, mentioned in a very concise form. Perhaps, this doctrine is based upon the Upanishads, which are more concise and less clear in their exposition.  Here we have such a type of doctrine of creation, which makes out that the consciousness of the world is the reverse of the Consciousness of the Absolute, which is very strange for us to hear and even to understand. It is not a part of the Absolute that we are seeing when we are looking out into the world. We are seeing something topsy-turvy, a reversed form, as we see ourse...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, July 02, 2021. 9:24. PM. Chapter - I : SECOND BRAHMANA:  THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-7. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 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.  2. Likewise is the presence of the Will of God in the...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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...