The Mandukya Upanishad 7.4 Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, January  22, 2021. 10:40. AM.
Section 7: The Transcendent Presence-4.

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Prapancopasamam : 

Here all Samsara, all this tumult of creation, subsides, like waves sinking into the ocean, as dream is withdrawn into waking consciousness. The universe, in all its conditions – gross, subtle and causal – ceases here. In this state, there is neither the Virat, nor Hiranyagarbha, nor Isvara; because, there is no creation. This is the Atman where there is neither waking, nor dreaming, nor sleep. Thus, it is called Prapancopasamam. It is not a condition; it is beyond all conditions. It is not a state of affairs. We do not know what it is. It is a mystery. Wonder of all wonders is this: Wonderful is that disciple who can comprehend it from the wonderful teacher who can teach this wonderful Being. Ascaryavat pasyati, Vadati, srinoti', says the Katha Upanishad. What a glorious Being is it! The Prapanca, this vast cosmos, ceases there, and That alone is, shining as the glorious Sun of all suns. 

It is Santam : 

Peaceful is that state. No worries, no anxieties, no pains, no sufferings, no births and deaths, no agonies of any kind can be there. It is not the peace born of the absence of sound or the absence of contact with things. It is the peace which is positive in its nature. We say we are peaceful when nobody talks to us, none disturbs us, and we have everything that we want. This is not the peace of the Atman, because our concept of peace in the world is purely negative and, again, relational. The Atman is non-relational peace that cannot be put an end to by the passage of time. Our peace on earth has a beginning and an end. Today we are peaceful, tomorrow we are not. We cannot afford to be always peaceful. But the peace of the Atman is eternal, and most blessed is that state. It is Sivam: It is the only thing that can be called really auspicious, designated by the most blessed terms, 'Om' and 'Atha'. Pranava is its designation, in its Self-comprehensiveness. Advaitam: Non-dual is that state. We cannot even call it as the One. It is 'Not-two'; – that is all; because, to say that it is one, would be to denote it by a numerical figure. It is not one, because there is nothing other than it. We can only say, 'it is not-two'; - Advaita. The Upanishad, after having said that it is Eka (One), now says that it is Advaita (Non-dual). We should not call it as one, or Eka, because 'onc' has a relation to 'two', 'three', 'four', etc. It is non-relational; therefore, we should not describe it even as one. It is 'not-this, not-this'; - 'Neti, neti'. It is not this, and not that; not anything that we can think, or understand.

Caturtham manyante, Sa atma: This is the fourth state of Consciousness, which is called the Atman. It is called the fourth, not numerically, but in comparison with the three relative states of waking, dream and sleep. When you go to this fourth state, you do not feel that you are in a 'fourth state'. You are, then, in the only possible state. It is the transcendence of the three, not in a fourth, but in a numberless, figureless, quantityless, immeasurable Being. This is the Atman. This is our essential nature, and the essential nature of all things. We are the Atman, which does not wake, dream or sleep which does not restrict itself to the outer or the inner. The Atman is the sole Being of all beings, Existence of all existences, 'Sat' of all 'sat', 'Chit' of all 'chit', Ananda of all anandas: - Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.

Sa vijneyah; This is to be known. This is the purpose of life. We live here for this purpose, and we have no other aim in life. All our activities, all our business, all our functions, whatever they be, are conscious or unconscious attempts on our parts to realise the Atman, and until and unless we reach the Atman, we cannot be happy, we cannot be satisfied, and we cannot put an end to the cycle of birth and death. We are perpetually both and we perpetually die to train ourselves for attunement of our being with the Atman. Births and deaths are processes of training in the field of experience. We experiment with the things of the world, with a view to visualising the Atman in them, coming in contact with the Atman in the objects. We love things because we hope that the Atman is there in them, but we do not see it there because it is not in one place only. Why do we love things, love persons, love objects? Because we have a hope that the Atman is there, and we go for it. We do not find it there, and so we go to another object – perhaps it is there – like the Gopis searching for Krishna in different places. Krishna! Are you here, are you there? You know, where; He is everywhere. 

The Gopis queried the trees, the plants, the bees and even the inanimate things. Have you seen Krishna? Has Krishna passed by this path? Where is Krishna? Can you give an indication of Krishna's whereabouts? Madly did the Gopis ask of everything in creation, animate and inanimate. Do you know Krishna? Have you seen Him? In a similar manner, madly do we go after the things of the world. Is the Atman here? Have you seen the Atman? Can you get the Atman here, there, in this, in that? It is nowhere! It is not in anything particularised, and, therefore, we cannot get the Atman by any amount of search in the outer world of objects. So, all the loves of the world are futile in the end, and are bound to be frustrated, doomed to suffer, because of this erroneous approach to Reality made through the objects, to which Reality cannot be confined on account of their inherent structural defect. And, in this experimentation, we die. Life is too short. The experimentation does not end. 

In the next birth we do, again, experiment with things, because the objects in creation are infinite. We make infinite experiments, and the struggle goes on. This process is called Samsara, transmigration; and in all the lives that we take, in all the deaths that we pass through, the Atman cannot be seen, just as the Gopis could not see Krishna until He Himself made a Will to appear before them. Nobody could inform the Gopis as to where Krishna was. 'I do not know: I do not know': this is what all the objects will tell you. What are we asking for, then? We have never seen it. And, considering this enigmatic situation of the quest for the Atman, the Upanishad finally said that perhaps it can be realised only by him whom it chooses. You have to leave it to itself. You do not know how you can see it. There seems to be no means of knowing it. Nothing in the world can be a help to us in knowing it. Yam eva esha vrinute tena labhyah: Whom it chooses, he alone can obtain it. This seems to be a solution arrived at by the sage of the Katha Upanishad. We are tired of the quest. 

And when the Gopis were fatigued in this arduous quest, when they became unconscious in their utter surrender to Krishna, He revealed Himself. Now the time has come. The ego has gone; effort has ceased; one cannot do anything further; then He comes. You search, and search, and search, and you realise its futility. The ego realises its limitations, and it ceases. When you know your limitations, you cease from all egoistic effort, and the cessation of the ego is the revelation of the Atman. God comes when the ego goes. When you are nowhere, He alone is everywhere. He takes the position of your personality. You vanish, and He comes in, not before that. When the personalities of the Gopis vanished, Krishna took possession of their hearts, and instead of the Gopis being there; Krishna was there. The Jiva expires into Isvara. This is the Atman to be known, the Goal for which we live in this world. This is the fourth state Consciousness, the Atman, the Absolute, Brahman.

End.

Next-8. The Atman as the Pranava

To be continued ....

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