Taittiriya Upanishad - 6. Swami Krishnananda

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Tuesday, May 05, 2020.
Post-6.
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1.

A tremendous vibration, an uncanny force is generated the moment there is the beginning of what we call creation.

It is a central point that begins to vibrate – bindu, as it is called in the Agama Shastra.

Bindu is a point.

It is not a point which is geometrical, which has a nucleus; it is a cosmic point, a centre which is everywhere with a circumference nowhere, as people generally say.

It is a point that is everywhere, which is inconceivable to ordinary thought.

It is a tremendous vibratory centre.

Modern astronomy also seems to be hinging on this point when it concludes there was a 'big bang' when creation took place – a splitting of the cosmic atom. The atom should not be considered as a little particle; it is a cosmic centre.

The entire space-time arrangement is one point, like an egg – brahmanda, as it is called. A globular structure is easy to conceive, and so we call it an 'anda', a kind of egg – a cosmic egg.

Tadandam abhavat haimam sahasramsh samaprabham (Manu 1.9) says the Manusmriti: "Even millions of suns cannot be equal in brilliance to that cosmic spot." Therefore, it is not a point as we can geometrically imagine. It is an inconceivable point.

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2.

The Universal cannot be thought by the mind and, therefore, that cosmic point also cannot be really thought of. Astronomers call it the cosmic atom. But the word 'atom' has such peculiar suggestiveness to our thinking mind that often we are likely to slip into the thought of it being a little, small thing. 

The smallness and the bigness question does not arise there. In that condition, we cannot say what is small and what is big. "Who is a tall man?" If I ask you this, whom will you bring? "Bring a short man." These are all relative terms. In comparison with a tall man, someone may look short, etc. 

So there is no such thing as a tall man or a short man, a long shirt or a short shirt; they are comparative words. So, too, we cannot say what kind of atom it was. Therefore, they call it brahmanda; and it split, we are told, into two halves. What kind of halves they are is not very clear. The subject and the object, can we say? 

The Cosmic Subject and the Cosmic Object can be two halves of the cosmic egg – or we may say it is the Cosmic Awareness meeting with the Cosmic Object, which is material in its nature. The materiality of the object follows automatically from its segregation from the perceiving consciousness. 

The concept of matter also has to be very carefully noted. Here, in this condition, 'matter' actually means a hard stone or granite or a brick; it is also a vibration. 

The Samkhya definition of prakriti, in its highest condition, is not in the form of a solid object but a vibratory condition of a tripartite nature – sattva, rajas and tamas. Certain Upanishads analogically tell us that these two halves of the cosmic egg are something like the two halves of a split pea. The pea is one whole, but it has two halves.

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To be continued ....

Swami Krishnananda on 60th Birthday

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