Taittiriya Upanishad

Wednesday, June 24, 2020.10:06.AM. Post-10. 1. So our individuality, as a symbol of conscious existence, is a contribution; it comes from the prana, the vital energy that is operating within this body. But the prana is operating because of the thoughts of the mind. We can direct the prana, or the energy, in different directions by the concentration of thought of the mind. If the mind thinks only of one particular thing, the pranic energy is directed to that particular thing only. Little children look beautiful because of the equal distribution of pranic energy in their bodies. They do not have sensory desires projected through any particular organ. As the child grows and grows, he becomes less beautiful to look at because the senses begin to appropriate much of the pranic energy for their own individual operation. The senses become more and more active when we grow into adults or old men. But a little child is beautiful. Whether it is a king's child or a beggar's child, one can...

Thursday, June 18, 2020. Post-9. 1. The cosmic sheaths can be conceived, and they are really conceived many a time when we speak of Brahman becoming Ishvara, Ishvara becoming Hiranyagarbha, Hiranyagarbha becoming Virat, and so on.  These sheaths in us – the physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal – are the inverted forms of the otherwise-vertical, we may say, forms of the cosmic sheaths which are in the form of the five elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether, going upwards from below.  The Ultimate satyam jnanam anantam is negated, as it were, in this creation, because the Universal being is absent in all that is external. The word 'external' contradicts anything that can be considered as universal. In a way, God is denied in this world.  We cannot see God anywhere; we see only particulars and spread-out things which are external in nature. Nevertheless, as the Isavasya Upanishad warns us, the so-called negated, abolished existence of the Supreme Reality is...

Monday, June 08, 2020. Post-8. 1. Taittiriya Upanishad Chapter-2 : On the Bliss that is Brahmam Brahmananda valli.  Section-1 : Brahmam is Satyam, Jnanam, Anandam - Enunciation of the Doctrine of Sheaths. Mantram-2. Tasmad va etasmad atmana akasa sambhutah,  akasad vayuh, vayor agnih, agner apah,  adbhyah prthivi, prthivya osadhayah  osadhibhyo - nnam annat - purushah." (Tait. 2.1.2):  "All vegetation started from the earth." Osadhibhyo annam : The diet that we consume is nothing but the vegetation growing on earth.  Annat purushah : Our personality is an adumbration, solidification, concretisation, clarification – whatever we may call it – of the food that we eat.  In the personality of the human being we find in a miniature form all that has come cosmically down to the earth, right from the Supreme Brahman – satyam jnanam anantam brahma.  So the universe is called brahmanda and the individual is called pindanda.  The macrocosm is the univer...

========================================================= ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, May 20, 2020. Post-7. ---------------------------------------------- 1. *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, someho...

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

========================================== ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 22/04/2020. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. *Tasmat va etasmat atmana akasas sambhutah (Tait. 2.1.1) : *"From this Universal Atman, space emanated" – as it were. *This is something hard for us to conceive at the present moment. **Space is actually the negation of the infinity of Brahman. Infinity does not mean extension or dimension – but space is extension, dimension, distance. So, immediately a contradiction is introduced at the very beginning of the concept of creation. **God is negated, as it were, for various reasons, the moment creation is conceived, one reason being that the creation appears as an external manifestation, whereas God – Brahman – is the Universal Existence. ***We know the difference between universality and externality. #The moment there is the concept of space, there i...

======================================================================= ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30/03/2020. Introduction to the Bhrigu Valli of the Taittiriya Upanishad : ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The Rishis of the Upanishads were seeking, not an intellectual idea of the Brahman, but a knowledge by identity that transcended the structures formulated by the mind.  The Taittiriya Upanishad systematically moves from an overview of categories and the building blocks for knowledge in the Shikshavalli, to an exposition of the nature of the universal manifestation and its underlying basis in the Brahmananda Valli, to a practice and methodology for obtaining direct knowledge in the Bhrigu Valli. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...