Taittiriya Upanishad - 3. Swami Krishnananda

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05/02/2020.
Post-3. 
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1.

It is not merely possessing a kingdom; that also may look like a happiness which is sudden and simultaneous. A king who is the ruler of this whole world may imagine that he has simultaneous happiness of the entire kingdom of the earth. 

"The entire earth is mine," the king may feel. But the entire earth stands outside the king. The experiencing consciousness of the king does not hold under his grip or possession this vast earth that he considers as the means of his satisfaction. So the king's happiness is a futile, imaginary pleasure; really, he does not possess the world. The world stands outside. 

If the object of experience stands outside the experience, the experience cannot be regarded as complete. Unless the object of experience enters into you and becomes part and parcel of your own existence, you will not be able to enjoy that object. All objects cause anxiety in the mind because they stand outside the experiencing consciousness. 

Even if you have a heap of gold in the grip of your palm, it cannot cause you happiness. It will only cause anxieties of different types – such as how to keep it, how to use it, how to protect it, how not to lose it, and how to see that it is not leading you to bereavement. 

The possessor of gold and silver is filled with anxieties, and that person cannot sleep well. Even a king cannot sleep well because of the fear of attack from sources that are external to him. To be secure under conditions which are totally external to yourself is hard, indeed, to imagine.
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2.

Brahman experience is not an object of contact; it is an identity. The object is the experiencing consciousness itself. The content of awareness becomes the awareness; existence and consciousness merge into each other. 

Sat becomes chit, chit becomes sat. It is not actually one thing becoming another thing; the one thing is the other thing. Existence is nothing but the consciousness of existence. When you say that you exist, you are at the same time affirming that you are conscious that you exist. You are not merely existing, minus the consciousness of existence. It is not an appendage that is added on to existence in the form of consciousness. 

Consciousness is not a quality or an attribute of existence, like the greenness of a leaf or the redness of a flower – nothing of the kind. You cannot consider consciousness to be connected to existence; it is existence. Actually, existence-consciousness means consciousness which is – or existence which is aware of its existence. In that state, which is called Brahman-knowledge or Brahman-experience, there is simultaneous experience of all things. 

There is all-existence, a simultaneous knowledge of all things – omniscience, a simultaneous taneous enjoyment of all things, and perfect freedom. It is perfect freedom because there is nothing to obstruct your freedom in that state. Here, in this world, whatever freedom you may have is limited by the existence of other things in this world. 

Your freedom is limited by the freedom of another person and, therefore, your freedom is limited to that extent. You cannot have unlimited freedom in this world. But That (Brahman) is unlimited freedom. It is unlimited because anantam brahma: "Infinite is Brahman."
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3.

Now you have, as students of this great doctrine of the Upanishads, questions of various types : 

"What is this world? 

We understand what you are saying. Now, what is this world that we are seeing in front of us? 

How are we to reconcile this perceived world with that Great Thing that you are speaking of?" 

The cosmological scheme that follows in the very same Upanishad after this statement about the absoluteness of Brahman gives us a brief idea as to how we have to set in harmony the nature of this perceived world with the eternal existence of Brahman.
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To be continued ....


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