The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads -2.4.& 3.1. - Swami Krishnananda.
Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF) :
Happy Ram Navami. Greetings on the auspicious Ramanavami day!
May Lord Shri Ramchandra bestow His grace and blessings on all of us.
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Thursday, March 30, 2023. 07:30.
Chapter 2: The Atman -4.
Chapter 3: Ishvara and Jiva-1
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Chapter 2: The Atman -4.
The universe was an effect of the Atman. It does not stand in the position of a cause, outside us, stimulating our senses to activity, as it happens to us today. The presence of an object stimulates our senses and the mind, and then we become conscious of the object. Then we establish a relationship with the world outside. The world is first, and we come afterwards here in this individual, empirical state. But there, it was not like that. The world was subsequent; and here, we become the consequents.
Now, this is a very crucial point where we have to very carefully draw a distinction between the cosmic level and the individual level, because the extent of our understanding of this mystery of the distinction between the cosmic and the individual will also be the extent to which we will be able to understand what life is, what duty is, and what the aim of mankind is.
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Chapter 3 : Ishvara and Jiva -1.
The great cause of all causes, the Supreme Being, projected this universe, and Itself arose out of the universe, as it were, in a character of immanence, not losing the transcendence of its own essential being. And all the functions that we see in our own selves, jivas or individuals that we are, were present there in their original form. But the seeds of the manifestation of diversity were also sown in the body of this Cosmic Being. There is a great difference between the original and the reflected parts that we are.
Thus it is mentioned in the Upanishad that the causative factors of all the functions were projected first. These are what are usually known as the adhidaivas or the superintending divinities, the gods of religion, the various Devatas, the supreme celestials. They began to twinkle forth in the body of this universal manifested Being. So the adhidaiva is nothing but the Supreme Being Himself appearing in part or essence as the controlling principle behind all functions in the universe.
Chinmaya Mission :
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This is the point of a sudden transformation taking place in many quarters of creation. We cannot actually have an idea as to what are the various transformations that took place. The entire constitution of the government of the universe was laid down at one stroke: “Yathatathyatah arthan vyadadhat sasvatibhyah samabhyah.” It is a nonamendable constitution. It cannot be meddled with or interfered with; it does not stand in need of any kind of change in the process of time. Such an eternal setup of administration of the whole cosmos was contemplated and laid down.
The basic principles of human experience also were laid down and made manifest in the form of the subjective experiencers, called jivas, and the objective world, known as the adhibhuta-prapancha. The individual may be called the adhyatma and the external world is the adhibhuta. The adhidaiva has already been mentioned as the controlling divinities. But all this does not happen at once. There is a gradational procedure followed. From the Cosmic-conscious Being, who as a total of the entire divinity rose up from the manifested universe, there was the multiplicity of divinities, the adhidaivas.
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To be continued
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