The Mandukya Upanishad: 2. Swami Krishnananda.

 

Swami Chinmayananda

On this sacred Ashadhi Ekadashi, as millions of Varkaris reach the holy abode of Lord Vitthala in Pandharpur, let us remember what truly brought Sant Dnyaneshwar so close to God.

Despite rejection and suffering, Sant Dnyaneshwar chose compassion over resentment, devotion over despair, and wisdom over worldly recognition. 

It wasn't the miracle of making a buffalo chant the Vedas. It wasn't the yogic powers he displayed. It was his unwavering faith, constant chanting of Hari Nama, humility in the face of adversity, and his complete assimilation of the Bhagavad Gita.

dev Swami Chinmayananda often reminded us, the Bhagavad Gita is not meant merely to be read it is meant to be lived.

This Ashadhi Ekadashi, don't just fast from food. Fast from anger, ego, and selfishness. Live one teaching of the Bhagavad Gita today and let that become your offering at the feet of Lord Vitthala.

Which Gita teaching will you practise today? Share it in the comments.

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Sunday 26, July 2026. 19:50.
Article
Sriptures
Upanishads
Mandukya Upanishad - 2.
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It is also mentioned, in this connection, that we can conceive this form of perception in a cosmic way. Cosmic consciousness can be conceived to be operating in this manner in a cosmic waking condition. In the same way as we are individually conscious of objects in our waking condition, in a similar manner we can conceive that the universal consciousness is awake to the world of daylight. The whole universe is the object of the consciousness of a consciousness in its manner, similar to an individualised, circumscribed world becoming the object of our individual consciousness in the waking state. The waking state is called jagrat-avastha-jagratsthan. Technical words are used, which may be remembered or not remembered. For instance, visva is the word used to designate consciousness in the waking, individualised state. Our consciousness, the jiva-tattva, this individuality of ours at this moment of waking, is called visva. This very waking world of universal expanse in space and time, animated by a universal consciousness, is called Vaishvanara, or sometimes the word used is Virat. There is a consciousness pervading all things, as we know already. If this consciousness, which is universal and hidden behind all things, is to be aware of the whole cosmos as we perceive in our waking condition, that cosmic awaking or awareness of the whole universe may be regarded as Virat-tattva, or cosmic consciousness of the whole physical world, the entire cosmos of physicality.

We have heard that Sri Krishna manifested the Viratsvarupa before Arjuna. In the Purusha Sukta we also have some sort of description of the Cosmic Being conceived as animating the whole physical cosmos. By 'physical cosmos' we have to understand here not merely this physical earth, but all the layers of externality which are computerised, as it were, into fourteen categories known in Sanskrit as Bhurloka, Bhuvarloka, Svarloka, Janaloka, Maharloka, Tapoloka and Satyaloka. The whole cosmos, in all the levels of its manifestation, is at once an object of the awareness of this Cosmic Being. Such an awakened, waking state, as it were, of the cosmic consciousness is Virat, also known as Vaishvanara in the language of the Upanishads. Individually, the microcosmic aspect of this Virat is visva – your own or my own waking experience as it is available just now, for instance.

Through nineteen mouths we experience objects of the world in this waking condition. We can conceive for our own intellectual satisfaction that the universe operates also in this manner, and God-consciousness, imagined to be operating through this waking condition everywhere, is an expanded form of our individualised consciousness. While we in our waking state know only certain things, God as the universal consciousness knows all things at the same time. This is briefly a description of consciousness involved in the waking state; a total physical perception in which the consciousness is involved is the objective world of waking state of consciousness.

In the dream state something else happens. The actual physical world which is seen and contacted through the sense organs in the waking state is absent, but by an action of the mind it looks as if it is present even in the dream state. Without the assistance of the gross senses and the organs of action which are active in the waking condition, the mind alone concocts, imagines, projects a world of its own in the dream state, and we see a world in dream. We exist there in the same way that we exist in the waking state. We can see ourselves now, seated here, in the waking state; in a similar way we can see ourselves observing certain things in the dream state also. There is a dream 'me' in the same way as there is a waking 'me', and there is a dream world. We see all sorts of things in the waking state – mountains, rivers, sun, moon, stars, and people of all kinds. We can see all that in the dream world also. There is space, time and externality in dream, as we have also in the waking state. The difference between the waking and the dream is that the mind has created this entire world of external cognition and perception of its own accord, without the existence of physically external objects or the physical sensations. There, also, nineteen mouths are operating. We have dream eyes, dream ears, a dream nose, a dream tongue that tastes, dream touch; and dream legs, dream hands, dream organs of every kind. We run in dream with the legs, we eat a good meal in dream, we can even live and die – even that experience is possible in dream. One can feel that one is born, or one can feel that one is dead. One can observe one's own cremation in dream. All kinds of fantastic things can be experienced in dream. A new world is projected by the mind – space, time, causation, objects, people, all blessed things. They are in the dream world because the psyche is operating through the vital energy, the mind, the intellect in a diminished form, not in an active way. The only difference is that the physical body is not there as an object of awareness. Sometimes people sleep with open mouths. If a few particles of sugar are put on the tongue of a sleeping man, he will not feel the taste of it, because his mind is withdrawn. The mind is the main operative organ which causes sensations of seeing, hearing, tasting, etc. Even the ego will react in dream. If somebody calls us, either in dream or in sleep, by a name that is not ours, we will not listen to it. We will not wake up. If John is sleeping and he is called as Jacob, he will not wake up. John must be summoned as John only. That is, the ego is so intensely identified with this particular name-form complex that it is acting even there in a submerged condition of dream and sleep.

So, the nineteen mouths of the waking condition are psychologically projected by the mind in the dreaming state also, and there also we have all these experiences, every blessed thing, as we have in the waking state. The Mandukya Upanishad is a study of these states. It is said that if one properly understands the Mandukya Upanishad and its implications, one need not read any other Upanishad afterwards. Mandukyam ekam eva alam mumukshunam vimuktaye – For the sake of the liberation of the soul, one Upanishad is sufficient, the Mandukya Upanishad, provided it is understood properly in its deep connotations. We should not just read it only to understand of the lower meaning of it. The suggestion given by the Mandukya Upanishad is to take one's consciousness deeper and deeper into the very root of one's personality – from external sensations, from body etc. to what one really is in one's deepest essence.

There is a third state, called sleep, where not only are we not aware of the body, but even the psychological functions are not there. The mind does not think, the intellect does not decide, and we do not even know that we exist. Our existence itself is abolished, as it were; a nothing. It is a nothing of which we are not even aware that it is a nothing. To be aware that it is a nothing is something, but even to be not aware that it is a nothing – that is pure nothing, unadulterated. But, what is happening there? Are we dead? No; very much alive. Who told us that we are alive in sleep when we call it nothing and our awareness is totally obliterated by something? We are totally oblivious of all things happening there. When we did not even know that we are existing, how do we come to the conclusion that we were alive at that time? Nobody told us. We ourselves conclude, "I am the same person now that I was before I slept yesterday. Therefore I conclude that I must have been existing in sleep. Today I am not another person – I am the same person that I was yesterday. Therefore I must have existed in sleep." But how do we know that we are the same person? We may be another person; every day we can change and become somebody else. This does not happen. A continuity of consciousness is maintained between yesterday's experience and today's experience. Is this not interesting and surprising? We are very certain, cocksure that we are the same person today that we were yesterday, and our consciousness is continuing even through the sleep condition, making us feel we are existing today in the same way as we existed yesterday. That is to say, we did exist in the state of deep sleep. The proof of it is only our conviction that we are the same person today as we were yesterday. We have a memory of having slept.

Now, if consciousness must have existed in the state of deep sleep, we must have existed as consciousness only. We did not exist as a body, mind, intellect, or anything else. We did not know even that we were breathing at that time. We did exist as consciousness only. So, do we believe that our essential nature is consciousness? Because minus all these appurtenances of body, mind, intellect, etc., if we can exist nevertheless, why should we imagine that we are the body, mind, intellect, etc.? If I can exist minus something, then that thing from which I am withdrawn is not me, really speaking. If I can be safe without something, that something is redundant. So body is a redundant thing; mind, intellect also are not us. We are pure – shuddha chaitanya, as they call it – Pure Consciousness. In that state we existed. There is no other thing which can be regarded as an attribute of our being in that condition. Consciousness was our essential nature. What were we conscious of? Conscious of nothing; conscious of consciousness only. It was a consciousness of existence, about which we heard something sometime back. It was not a consciousness of something, it was a consciousness of consciousness existing. We were aware that we were aware – that's all, nothing more than that; nothing more, nothing less. It was being-consciousness; and we were very happy, therefore it was bliss also. We know how happy we are after having gone into a good sleep – happy – and we would like to continue the sleep, would we not?

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