Lesson on The Taittiriya Upanishad - 4. Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, May 12, 2022. 21:00.

Post-4.

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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.


Everything in the world has a subjective side and an objective side. I conceive of myself as a subject and, for some other reason, I also conceive of myself as an object. The impact that is produced upon me by conditions that are not me may make me feel that I am an object, but the impact that I produce on the external conditions may make me feel that I am a subject. That which exists outside my perceiving consciousness may make me conceive of myself as a subject of perception, but the presence of such an object for itself will appear as an object. This dualism, cosmically introduced at the very beginning of things, is the subject of all the religious doctrines of creation, wherever one may go in this world. God created the world, somehow. 


This ‘somehow' brings in this peculiarity of the externalisation of God's Universality. “The Supreme Purusha sacrificed Himself as this cosmos,” says the Purusha Sukta. The supreme alienation of the Universal into the supreme externality is called creation. God alienated Himself, as it were, in the form of this large, vast, perceived world. He has become this vast world. I mentioned to you previously the difficulty arising out of using such words as ‘becoming', ‘transforming', etc. I will not go into that subject once again. These words have to be understood in their proper connotation and signification.


Tasmat va etasmat atmana akasas sambhutah (Tait. 2.1.1): This fundamental cosmic space-time-motion, or vibration, became more and more gross in the form of wind—vayu. Actually, the word ‘vayu' used here should not be taken in the sense of what we breathe through the nostrils. It is, again, a vibration of a vital nature, which we call prana. An energy manifested itself; cosmic energy emanated, as it were, from this basic vibratory centre which is the space-time-motion complex, to put it in a modern, intelligible style. 


The solidification, condensation and more and more externalisation of the preceding one in the succeeding stage is actually the process of the coming of what is called the elements. From space, or akasha, arose vayu; from vayu, or air, came friction—heat, or fire; from there came the liquefied form, water; and then came the solid form of the earth.

To be continued ...



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