The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter I

Second Brahmana: The Creation of the Universe (Continued)

Here is a passage of great significance from the point of view of philosophical technique employed in the understanding of the relation between the individual and the Universal. This which is a symbolic statement in the Upaniṣhad, very hard, indeed, to understand, conveys a wealth of meaning. What exactly is the connection between the diverse individuals and the Universal Absolute? This has been a great point of discussion throughout the history of philosophy, and it is not easy to come to a conclusion. Often, it is thought that the Universal is a collection of all the individuals or particulars. Many a time, we are told by philosophers that the Absolute is the whole, and the individuals are the parts thereof; so that to get the Absolute, one has only to collect all the individuals and group them together, which means to say, anything that we find in the individual will be found in the Absolute. There will be nothing more in the Absolute than what we see in the individual. This conclusion also will follow, if this assumption is correct; and it is a very uncomfortable conclusion, because we are not seeking in the Absolute merely what is in us. A million people put together cannot be regarded as qualitatively superior to what a single individual is. It is also held that the Absolute is transcendent in the sense that it has no connection at all with the visible universe. Often, it is also held that the Absolute is so much absorbed in the universe that we cannot find it outside the universe. So, we have theories and theories, and doctrines and doctrines.

This Upaniṣhad, in this one single sentence, tells us what the fact is. The original condition, causing the manifestation of diversity, is the death of universality. This is what is called Mṛityu. The death of something becomes the birth of something else. For the birth of the individual, the universal has to die. Very strange, indeed! We cannot understand what this means. The death of the universal means the complete abolition of the consciousness of the universal; and for all practical purposes, death and absence of consciousness are the same. The condition that is requisite, absolutely necessary, for the manifestation of the universe in the form of diversity, is an abolition of the consciousness of the Absolute, because there is no question of the manifestation of diversity in the Absolute. Manifestation requires space, time and cause, and many other things that follow. If the Absolute is spaceless and timeless, durationless, infinitude, eternity, the question of creation, manifestation, etc. does not arise there. Then, how comes this universe? From where has this universe arisen, or the diversity come? It can be explained, says this Upaniṣhad, by a strange phenomenon that should be assumed to have taken place, if at all creation is to be taken as a fact.

The consciousness of the existence of the universe is different from the consciousness of the Absolute. That the two are not identical, is a point that is made out here. Once the existence of the universe is accepted in consciousness, everything else that follows from it can also be accepted. If two and two make four, four and four make eight, and so on, arithmetically, we can draw conclusions. But two and two must, first of all, make four. We must accept that. If that is not true, then any multiplication, therefrom, also is not true. There is a distinction between Absolute-Consciousness and universe-consciousness. That distinction is the cause behind this line drawn here between Pure Being that is Absolute, and the condition precedent to creation. It is difficult for the human mind to understand what the Absolute is. Whatever be our stretch of imagination, we cannot conceive it, because every conception is quantitative and qualitative. The Absolute is neither a quantity nor a quality, and therefore no thought of it is possible. Even the subtlest thought that can be applied to the Absolute is, after all, a magnified form of the quantity-quality relation in terms of which alone is the mind able to think. There is no such thing as 'thinking' the Absolute. Such a thing is not possible, because the thought which thinks the Absolute cannot exist independent of the Absolute; for, what we call the Absolute is that which includes everything, including even the mind. So, the mind that thinks the Absolute is a part of the Absolute itself, and therefore the mind cannot think the Absolute. This is a very reasonable conclusion. Inasmuch as the thinker is involved in what is thought, there is no such thing as thinking at all in terms of 'That'. Either the Absolute is outside the mind, in which case it ceases to be the Absolute, or it is not an object of thought. It is not even a concept for philosophical disquisitions. But that being the nature of the Absolute, we cannot attribute to it any quality that is visible in the universe of creation. What about diversions, three dimensions, for instance? The three-dimensional universe, which is of space and of time which is duration, cannot be correlated with the Absolute, if this is its character, this is its nature, and this is the essence of its Being.

In order that the universe may be manifest, some phenomenon should take place; and that phenomenon is described here as Mṛityu. And Mṛityu, here, does not mean the ordinary phenomenon of death or destruction of a body. It is a metaphysical concept that is introduced here. It is a tentative withdrawal of the consciousness of the Absolute, and a manifestation of a new universal which embodies within itself, in a seed form, everything that we call the gross universe. The Will of God is supposed to be the originator of the universe, as we hear of, as proclaimed in the scriptures of the religions. The God of the universe, who is the Creator, manifested through His Will all this creation. Now, the attribution of 'Will' to God is indeed a difficult task, because, as far as we know, Will is a psychological function, and it can be defined in certain specific manners. But the definition of the 'Will' that we have in psychology is something which cannot be attributed to a God who is Universal. However, we have to assume a different kind of 'Will', and the Will which is responsible for the projection of the universe in a seed form, originally, can be described as a kind of potency or potentiality or latency of being, as the seed may be said to be the latency of the tree. The vast banyan tree which is so big, grows towering to the skies, is hiddenly present in a very tiny seed, as we know. We may say that the seed is the potential condition of the tree, though if we cut the seed, we cannot see there anything of the tree. Visibly, there is nothing; but we have to infer the presence of all the diversity of the banyan tree in this little seed which is so tiny. Likewise, a condition is assumed which is the potential seed of all the diversities to be manifest.

Now, many thinkers of the topmost calibre, in the field of philosophy, have held that the cause of creation is not a desire on the part of God, as many would ordinarily think, because it is impossible to imagine that God can have a desire. Achārya Śankara, and such other thinkers, tell us that the cause of the universe is not the desire of God, just as the moon shining in the sky is not the cause of the thief breaking into somebody's house—a very beautiful analogy. If, with the help of the moonlight, some burglar enters somebody's house, the action of burglary cannot be imputed to the moon because it is responsible, in some way, in shedding light to the thief. Likewise is the presence of the Will of God in the process of the manifestation of the universe. The activity of creation, or the substance, the material of creation is, in some way, distinguished from the efficient cause of creation. The efficient cause of creation is the potency of God's Will, which does not desire the world to be created, but becomes necessary for the manifestation of the universe in a particular fashion. The fashion, the pattern, or the shape which the universe takes in a particular cycle of time, is supposed to be the grossened form of the subtle psychological or psychic potency, present in the individuals who lay unliberated at the end of the previous cycle, or the Kalpa, as we call it. The individuals who are not liberated at the end of the world lie potent, latent, seed-like, in the bosom of the cosmos, and they are said to lie for as long a time as the universe lasted earlier. Such is the night of Brahma as the scriptures tell us, as was the day of Brahma, earlier.

This night of the cosmos is compared to the cosmic waters in some mythologies, as we have the waters mentioned, also, in this Upaniṣhad. The cosmic waters, mentioned in creative or cosmological theories, are nothing but the original condition of things, subsequent to the dissolution of the cosmos, and prior to the creation later on, during which period the unliberated individuals lie like seeds about to sprout. A particular set of individuals—they may be millions, hundreds of millions, thousands of millions, etc.—are grouped together in a particular category; and this grouped category of individuals, in their generality of psychic structure, becomes responsible for the material shape which the universe has to take after the fructification of those potencies. Just as the seed does not sprout into a tree at all times—it requires conditions, such as proper atmosphere, good climate, rain and suitable soil, etc.—the individuals who are lying in a seed form do not sprout into activity until maturity takes place. This maturity is supposed to take place somewhat like the waking of the individual from sleep. How long do you sleep in the night? As long as it is necessary for the psychic potencies to wake up into activity. The awakening of the psychic potencies within, into activity, is called waking from sleep, which happens into the daylight of consciousness. Something like that is supposed to take place, cosmically, during the time of creation. The individuals, collectively, feel the fructification of their psychic contents, and they germinate into action. And, the world that is manifest, the universe that is projected, is of a character which is necessary for the fulfilment of the desires left unfulfilled by the individual during the time of the dissolution of the universe earlier.

So, such is the very interesting doctrine propounded by thinkers like Achārya Śankara. We find it in the Brahma-Sūtras, especially, mentioned in a very concise form. Perhaps, this doctrine is based upon the Upaniṣhads, which are more concise and less clear in their exposition. Here we have such a type of doctrine of creation, which makes out that the consciousness of the world is the reverse of the Consciousness of the Absolute, which is very strange for us to hear and even to understand. It is not a part of the Absolute that we are seeing when we are looking out into the world. We are seeing something topsy-turvy, a reversed form, as we see ourselves reversed in water as a reflection. When we stand on the bank of the Ganga and see ourselves reflected, we will find that the head which is topmost will be the lowermost there. The feet which are the lowermost will be the uppermost in the reflection. So, there is a complete reversal of the position of the body when it is reflected. Some such thing is said to have taken place at the time of creation, so that, when we see the head of ours reflected in water, it appears to be our head, but it is not really our head. The head that we see, reflected in water, looks like our head, and it is exactly like our head. We may mistake it for our head, but it is not our head, really. Likewise, we may mistake these things of the world for the Absolute, but they are not, in the same way as we may think the reflected head is ours, but it is not.

And, also, another analogy is given in a passage of the Katha Upaniṣhad as to what happens in creation. There is a reversal of the whole position, as our face is reversed in a mirror where it is reflected—the right becomes left, and the left becomes right—even so, the subject becomes the object, and the object becomes the subject, when the creation takes place, which is the essence of the whole matter. Very interesting, and very comforting, indeed! We can imagine where we are seated, and what has happened to us. God has played a very beautiful joke with us, made us great fools, turned us upside down by positing the subject in the context of the object, and the object in the context of the subject. Really, we are the objects; the universe is the subject. This is the truth. But, we think that we are the subjects, and the universe is the object, and gaze at it, look at it, try to exploit it for our own individual purposes, under the misapprehension that we are the subjects. We are subjects in the same sense as the reflected head is our head.

So, this reversal of the position of the Absolute is called Mṛityu, or destruction, or death, here. Well, it is destruction indeed, when we mistake one thing for another thing by completely forgetting the original, and we are destroyed, in fact, when we are in a different paradise altogether, where we are under an illusion. And, consciousness gets reflected wherever there is this reversed position, cognised or felt, where consciousness attends. So there is a reflected consciousness, also. The entire personality of ours may be said to be a reflected structure. Even the intellect is a reflection of the consciousness of God. It is not qualitatively equivalent to God-consciousness. It does not mean that a tiny part of God is in our brains. Not so; it is reflected, which means distorted. The sun, reflected in water, may look like the sun, but it does not have the quality of the sun. It will not burn you. You cannot warm yourself by the reflected sun in the water.

There is a diversity in the form of this creation, made possible by a reversal of the position of the ultimate Reality and that reversed position assumes a consciousness of its own, originally. That is what is known as the Universal Mind. It is attended with Self-Consciousness—ātmanvī syām iti. 'I-Am', the Cosmic 'I-Am', is something less than the Absolute. It is a condition that has to be accepted, subsequent to the reversal, which, again, has to be assumed prior.

The Cosmic Mind, Hiraṇyagarbha, as we call it in the Vedānta, is the Cosmic 'I-Am'. It is Self-Consciousness, Pure Universality. And, here is the seed of all diversity. In a sense, we may say that we are parts of this Cosmic Mind, but not, indeed, correctly. As I pointed out, we cannot regard ourselves as parts of the Absolute. Nothing that we see with our eyes can be regarded as a real representation of the Absolute. Thus, we have to understand that we are not parts, even of the Hiraṇyagarbha. We are much less than that. We are far down below the condition of Hiraṇyagarbha and Virāt, for reasons we shall see shortly. For the time being, it is enough if we understand the actual meaning of this passage. There was a destruction, a Mṛityu, a complete abolition of Reality, which is what the Sāṁkhya calls Prakṛiti, the Vedāntins call Maya, Mula-Prakṛiti, etc., the Potential Being, the Matrix of the universe. That becomes the seed for the manifestation of the Cosmic Mind, known as Mahat and Cosmic Ahamkāra. The Vedānta calls them Hiraṇyagarbha and Virāt.

So׳rcann acarat, tasyārcata. āpo׳jāyanta, arcate vai me kam abhūd iti; tad evārkasya arkatvam; kaṁ ha vā asmai bhavati, ya evam etad arkasya arkatvaṁ veda. One who makes this phenomenon, assumes power over this phenomenon, becomes that, is the advice with which the passage concludes. The cosmic condition is thus to be described. The Mind which was created, cosmically, in this manner, by a reversal of the content of the Absolute, this cosmic condition, is the seed of the universe. This seed of the universe, we call Īshvara; we call Hiraṇyagarbha; we call Virāt, in the various degrees of the densities manifested. It assumed a joy. It became the energy of the universe. It became Vaiśvānara. Here the word 'Arka' is sometimes taken to mean Cosmic Fire, or, we may say, Universal Energy, which is also the same as the great Joy of the Universal. 'Kam' means joy, happiness. There is a happiness which is untarnished and undiminished in this condition on account of the retention of universality, though it is the seed-form of all diversity. The conditions of Hiraṇyagarbha and Virāt are potential diversities, no doubt, but not manifest diversities. What we call diversity, responsible for the sorrow of the individual, has not taken place yet. There is no sorrow in Virāt, Hiraṇyagarbha and Īshvara, though there is a potency for diversity. The reason is that there is the Universal Consciousness maintained yet, in spite of the potentiality for diversity. There is an organic connectedness of things in Virāt and above, and this consciousness is maintained. Therefore, on account of the absence of the loss of universality there, the Joy of the Universal also is present. Whoever knows this becomes that; and knowing this, he is also equal to have the power of it. Knowledge and Power are identical. So the knowledge of it is necessary, by 'being it' in meditation. And then there is power that is unlimited, power that is born of unlimited knowledge on account of unlimited 'Being'.

2. āpo vā arkaḥ. tad yad apāṁ śara āsīt, tat samahanyata, sā pṛithivy abhavat, tasyām aśrāmyat. tasya śrāntasya taptasya tejo raso niravartatāgniḥ.

Here, again, we have some description of the condensation of the dense form of things, gradually taking place in the process of creation—the subtle becomes gross. The cosmic waters hardened, as it were, became solid, gradually, and the Earth element was formed. By the Earth element, what is meant here is not merely this little globe of the earth on which we are living, but the entire Earth Principle of the whole astronomical universe, through which your eyes cannot pass. The whole element of Earth can be regarded as the solidified form of this cosmic condition, the subtle nature of things which is called here, Waters. It solidified itself. From Fire comes Water; from Water comes Earth. This is the chronological order of creation of the gross forms, ordinarily speaking. Sā pṛithivy abhavat: That became the Earth, the grossened form of things.

Here is the end of Cosmic creation. There is a famous passage in a text of the Vedānta, known as Panchadaśi, written by Sage Vidyāraṇya, who describes this in one Sloka: Iksānadi-praveśāntā ṣṛṣhtirīśena kalpitā. Jāgradādi-vimokṣhantah samsāro jivīkalpitaḥ. This passage of the Upaniṣhad, and such other passages are given their meaning in this verse of the Panchadaśi. From the Cosmic Will down to Divine Immanence, it is Īshvara's creation. From waking till liberation, it is the individual's creation. Īshvara's creation or God's creation ends with the manifestation of the universal physical form, and God is not responsible for what the individual is experiencing. The loves and sorrows, the joys and pains, the births and deaths of the individual are not created by God. They are created by some other factor which is not to be attributed to God. The condensation of the cosmos, right from the causal condition down to the physical, through the subtle, may be said to be the manifesting activity of God. He becomes the 'All' and becomes also the consciousness of the 'All'. But the reversal of attitude, the considering of the object as the subject and the subject as the object, and the desire to grab objects for the purpose of personal satisfaction, and the capacity to fulfil certain desires and the incapacity to fulfil certain others, the getting fatigued in personality on account of the inability to fulfil all desires, the falling into sleep every day on account of the latent condition of desires unfulfilled, etc.—these are all the phenomena of individuality, not of Cosmic Being. Even the 'process' of Mokṣha, or liberation, is not God's creation, because God has no Mokṣha. He is always in the state of Mokṣha only. The process of bondage and liberation, the cycle of births and deaths and joys and sorrows and activity, everything of this nature is an outcome of certain subsidiary characters assumed by the individual, isolated from the Universal, so that we may say that there is no sorrow down to the point of the Virāt manifestation. Sorrow starts after that, when there is a split into the diverse individuals who regard themselves as self-contained, self-sufficient, self-exhaustive individuals. Each one of us regards himself as complete. That there is nothing lacking in us, is a misconception. We lack everything, but we think we are complete in ourselves, so that we have a soul of 'our own', an entire soul, which is entirely ours, independent, unconnected with others! This is called the ego-principle which affirms a total isolation of itself from others. This has happened subsequently, and anything that follows out of it is the responsibility of the Jīva, the individual, not of Īshvara.

Here we have a description of creation down to the point of Virāt. Tejo raso niravartatāgniḥ: A luminous essence, which we may call the Cosmic Fire, emanated from this condition, which is the outrush of the Creative Process. That luminous Cosmic Essential Being, the Fire Universal, is what we call Vaiśvānara or Virāt. Then what happens? We are slowly to come down to our sorrowful state, not yet begun, but going to begin.

The intermediary conditions are now described, which are prior to the manifestation of our grossened individualities. There are certain intermediary stages—the division of the Virāt into the Tripartite Being, known in technical language as Adhyātma (subject), Adhibhūta (object), and Adhidaiva (transcendent). There is no such thing as Adhyātma, Adhibhūta, Adhidaiva in the Virāt. All the three aspects are one there, but these three have to be separated and conceived independently for the purpose of subsequent creation. That point is slowly being arrived at, in these passages.

3. sa tredhātmānaṁ vyakuruta, ādityaṁ tṛtīyam, vāyuṁ tṛtīyam, sa eṣa prāṇas tredhā vihitaḥ. tasya prācī dik śiraḥ, asau cāsau cairmau; athā asya pratīcī dik puccham, asau cāsau ca sakthyau; dakṣiṇā codīcī ca pārśve, dyauḥ pṛṣṭham, antarikṣam udaram, iyam uraḥ, sa eṣo׳psu pratiṣṭhitaḥ, yatra kva caiti tad eva pratitiṣṭhaty evaṁ vidvān.

Threefold is the manifestation subsequent to this original condition. Ādityaṁ tṛtīyam, vāyuṁ tṛtīyam, sa eṣa prāṇas tredhā vihitaḥ: Here Prāṇa means the Cosmic Prāṇa, Hiraṇyagarbha, or we may say, Virāt. He assumed a threefold form—the transcendent (Adhidaiva), the objective (Adhibhūta) and the subjective (Adhyātma). Prior to this, there was no such distinction as the transcendent, the objective and the subjective. Now we have the God who is above, the world which is outside, and ourselves here. This tripartite distinction has now taken place. So, when we pray to God, we look up, as if He is 'above'. He was not above previously. Now He has become above, because we have lost Him. He has run up to the skies, as it were. And the world is 'outside' us, and we are looking at it, and we are 'here' as imagined subjects. We are subjects falsely arrogated to ourselves. This is, perhaps, the fall described in the Biblical context, the Satan falling, assuming individuality, independent of God. The assumption of individuality immediately calls for a transcendent Creator and an external universe. The moment you become conscious of yourself as an isolated being, you begin to see an outside world, and then you conceive, not perceive, a transcendent God. Here, God becomes merely a conception; He is not an object of perception. Originally, He was a content of direct perception, experience, realisation. He was 'Being', 'Existence', 'Vitality', the 'Soul' itself. Now He has escaped our grasp, and over and above us become transcendent, and remained only as a theoretical Creator for our prayers and worships. What we physically see is only the world of gross objects, towards which we run every moment of time, assuming that we are the sole monarchs of this world, that we are the rulers of things; an assumption, false indeed, for reasons quite obvious.

This Cosmic Prāṇa, Hiraṇyagarbha, or Virāt, assumed a threefold aspect—Adhibhautika, Adhyātmika and Adhidaivika, viz., the physical, the subjective and the transcendent. The objective or the physical, the subjective or the psychic, and the transcendent which is the invisible divine content, are later formulations.

Here again the Upaniṣhad brings us back, by a Simhāvalokana, as it were, a retrospective look, to the unity of things, in spite of the tripartite diversification that has taken place. In spite of this threefold manifestation, which is apparently a segmentation of creation into three different corners, as if unconnected with one another, there is yet a unity among them. That point is brought out here, in this analogy, which describes the unity present in the midst of this tripartite diversity, by the comparison of this triad with that of the horse in the Aśvamedha Sacrifice, and also in terms of a particular shape the sacrificial ground takes in the Aśvamedha Sacrifice, viz. the shape of a bird. The sacrificial ground is drawn in a particular shape. The shape is of a bird. So, the bird is described here, or we may say, the horse itself is described. Both comparisons are apt. The eastern direction of this sacrificial ground in this drawing which is of the shape of a bird, or of this Aśvamedha Sacrificial horse; of this, the eastern direction is the head. And the various limbs are described further, as before. Its arms are the intermediary quarters, northeast and southeast. The western quarter is its tail. Again, the hip bones in the body of the horse are the other intermediary quarters, viz., northwest and southwest. The southern direction and the northern direction are the sides of the body. The sky is the back; the atmosphere is the belly; this earth is the chest. And this is the description of the cosmic condition. This Virāt description is to be found in the sacrificial diagrams of the Aśvamedha Sacrifice, as also in temple constructions.

The temples, especially in Southern India, are constructed in the shape of the Virāt. The Holy of Holies inside is the head of the Virāt, which is represented by a luminous glow of a sacred light in a dark room, comparable to the Ānandamaya Koṣha (causal sheath) which is dark, but illumined by the Ātman within, and encompassed by seven Prakaras, or corridors. Sometimes these are five, comparable to the five Koṣhas or vestures of the body—Annamaya, Prāṇamaya, Manomaya, Vijñānamaya, Ānandamaya—the physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal sheaths. And there is the Balipitha, the sacrificial altar, at the entrance, which is represented by a huge post. Before you enter the body of the Virāt, you have to offer yourself first; otherwise, no entry is possible. You have to pay a fee to the Virāt before you gain access into it, and the fee is your own self. You have to cease to be, first, as you are now, in order that you may become what you want to become. This is the symbol of temple construction, and also of the patterns drawn in the Aśvamedha Sacrifice. That pattern is described here in its correlation with the parts of the universe. Such is the geometrical description of the creation of the universe, with its deep philosophical significance and spiritual connotation. One who knows this becomes strong and obtains a resting place, wherever he be.

Continued