The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter III

Ninth Brahmana: Many Gods and One Brahman (Continued)

In the enumeration of the number of gods, in the conversation in which one of the learned men in the assembly had been Sage Yājñavalkya, the sage referred to various principles and designated them as gods because of their being causes of the corresponding effects in a special manner; not as extraneous or instrumental causes, but as immanent causes, inseparable from the effects of which they were presiding or superintending deities. And enumerating this number of the gods, he comes to a point where he said, in one context, that the "God is one and a half" by which he means that the Cosmic Vital Force functions in two ways, cosmically and individually. In its comprehensive transcendent aspect it is one; there is nothing second to it. But, inasmuch as it appears as if it is whole, even in individuals, it makes each individual imagine that he or she or it is complete and not a part thereof. This capacity of the Cosmic Prāṇa, or Sūtra-Ātman, to remain complete in the Cosmic status and yet make the individuals also complete in themselves, is responsible for the designation of this force as one and a half. It is this way and that way, both ways—katamo'dhyardha iti, yo yam pavata iti.

9. tad āhuḥ, yad ayam eka ivaiva pavate, atha katham adhyardha iti. yad asminn idaṁ sarvam adhyārdhnot, tenādhyardha iti, katama eko deva iti. prāṇa iti, sa brahma, tyad ity ācakṣate.

Tad āhuḥ, yad ayam ekaivaiva pavate, atha katham adhyardha iti: "There is one Being which is the Sūtra-Ātman, the Supreme Vāyu Principle; how do you call it one and a half?" For that the answer is given by Yājñavalkya. Yad asminn idaṁ sarvam adhyārdhnot, tenādhyardha iti, katama eko deva iti. prāṇa iti, sa brahma, tyad ity ācakṣate: "Because of the fact, as mentioned, that everything flourishes on account of the function of this Vital Force." Adhyārdhnot has been translated as 'flourish', or that which is responsible for the nourishment of people. It is present in every individual, and yet it remains transcendent, so it is called Tyat. Tyat means remote. To the individuals, this Cosmic Immanent Being appears as a remote Reality, this is why we refer to God as something other than us, 'That'. The demonstrative pronoun 'That', which is usually used in pointing out or referring to the Universal Reality, is inapplicable, really. You cannot actually call it 'That', as if it is there far off in distant space. This Tyat, or Thatness, Bhūtātathata, as usually philosophers call it, is the Tyat mentioned in this passage, because of its transcendent character from the point of the individuals to whom it remains an external Reality and a cause, though it is also immanent in them. It is the Brahman, the Supreme which is, and which in other words is known in Vedānta language as the Hiraṇyagarbha principle.

Eight Different Persons and Their Corresponding Divinities

Now follow a series of mystical contemplations which are peculiar to this Upaniṣhad, and Upaniṣhads in general. They are very strange, indeed, to people who are not accustomed to esoteric concepts and subtle meditations on the forces which work inside visible forms; to minds which are accustomed to forms alone and cannot conceive of the inner connection of these principles with the forms. The purpose of the Upaniṣhad, in what follows, especially, is to give us a series of meditations, not in the sense you think meditation is, but in a novel form, a strange form, a fantastic form. However, it is very common and normal to the Upaniṣhadic thinkers who are accustomed to conceive everything as sacred and holy. Especially to the Vedas and the Upaniṣhads there is nothing unholy, nothing secular, nothing profane, nothing external, nothing material. Everything is spiritual radiance. And therefore, to people who are used to making the bifurcation of the sacred and the profane, the good and the bad, the inside and the outside, the divine and the undivine, these meditations will look very strange. But we have to take our minds back to the ancient atmosphere of the Upaniṣhad in order to be able to understand what actually it means. We should not think as people do in the twentieth century if we are to understand the spirit of the Upaniṣhad. We have to go back to the atmosphere, to the circumstances, and the way in which the minds of these people worked. As I mentioned to you in a few words, they had a very large concept of everything. They could see a whole universe in a small grain of sand. We cannot see that. That is the only difference. We see insignificance in such particles as a grain of sand, but can see a tremendous significance the moment we are able to probe into the structure of this little formation.

The distinction between right and wrong, good and bad, arises on account of the universal and the particular. And as long as these distinctions are made by us, everything else follows automatically. They are to be abolished. The whole point is that. That is the purpose of meditation.

10. pṛthivy eva yasyāyatanam, agnir lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vai tam puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa vai veditā syāt, yājñavalkya. veda vā ahaṁ tam puruṣaṁ sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇaṁ, yam āttha; ya evāyaṁ śārīraḥ puruṣaḥ, sa eṣah. vadaiva śākalya, tasya kā devatā iti. amṛtam iti hovāca.

Pṛthivy evayasyāyatanam: Now, the meditations enumerated here begin with the physical body itself, which is not a 'brother ass', as you would like to call it, but something which has divinity in it. And you will find everything has something divine in it if you only go deep into its function, its existence and its relevance to the context to which it is connected. This body itself is an object of meditation. You will be surprised to know that the body can be an object of meditation. You try to get out of this body, but there is no 'getting out' or 'getting in' in the Upaniṣhads. Everything is all right provided it is taken in its proper place. Anything can take you to the Supreme Being. Even the smallest creature, even the tiniest little object, even the worst of conceivable things—everything can take you to the Ultimate Reality provided you are able to conceive, in a proper way, the connection that it has got with the Ultimate Cause of all causes. There is nothing that is not connected with this Ultimate Reality. Everything is, in some way or the other, connected with it. As all roads lead to Rome, everything leads to God. So, the physical body is the object of contemplation in this passage where Śākalya queries of Yājñavalkya in this respect.

Pṛthivy eva yasyāyatanam, agnir lokaḥ, manojyotiḥ, yo vai tam puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa vai veditā syāt, yājñavalkya: Now, Śākalya puts a question to sage Yājñavalkya. "I regard, Yājñavalkya, that person as a real knower who can know or tell me what is that Being or Reality, whose support is the earth, whose eye is the fire principle, and whose light of understanding is the mind. Whoever knows what this is, can be regarded as a knower. Do you know this Being?" This is the question of Śākalya to Yājñavalkya. Everyone resorts to this Being. It is the support of all. Everyone loves it. And it is constituted of the physical elements. It works through the fire principle in its function of perception through the eye, and it thinks through the mind. What is that? "I know what is this," says Yājñavalkya. "I quite appreciate your question and I know the answer to your query. What is that Being you are asking, I tell you. Veda vā ahaṁ tam puruṣaṁ sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇaṁ, yam āttha: I know that repository, or reservoir, or resort of all beings to which you are making a reference. It is this body itself."

It is this physical body of the human being which is constituted of the earth in its essence. Therefore it is called pṛthivy eva yasyāyatanam. It is the earth which is its abode. It is formed of the earth element, principally. You know very well that it cannot see unless there is a fire principle associated with it. The body's guiding light is nothing but its own mind. Everyone knows that mind is the guide of a person. We always take the advice of the mind.

So, this is the description of the Being to which everyone resorts and which is a deity by itself. "This physical body is the deity to which you are referring—ya evāyaṁ śārīraḥ puruṣaḥ, sa eṣah. vadaiva śākalya: Śākalya, put further questions if you have anything more to ask." Tasya kā devatā iti: "What is the deity of this body? I regard this body itself as a deity inasmuch as it is resorted to by everybody as a beloved object. Now I ask; has it also got a deity? Does it also depend upon something else? Is there something which it also worships, adores and depends upon." "Yes! Amṛtam iti hovāca: The Amṛta is the immortal essence, due to which the body exists, for the sake of which it is struggling day and night, and which is the food and the very life of this body." Amṛta was referred to in an earlier section of the Upaniṣhad as the Antāryamin—eṣa ta ātmāntaryāmy amṛitaḥ. In the Antāryamin Brāhmaṇa, which we have already studied earlier, we were told that the Antāryamin, or the Immanent God, the Supreme Immanent Principle, the Reality of all individuals, is immortal. That is therefore called Amrita, nectar, ambrosia. It is this immortal nectar, this ambrosia like Reality, which keeps this physical body in a hopeful existence, otherwise it would wither away like a dry leaf. We cannot exist by merely clinging to the body as an Ultimate Reality. It has a reality of its own. It is an instrument for further action in life. You know the utility of the body. It does not need further explanation. But it is not an Ultimate Reality; it is a dependent reality; it is an auxiliary; it is an accessory for further higher achievements. Thus, while the physical body is a value by itself, it has a higher value upon which it hangs, and that is Amṛta, the Immortal Being.

Now, in these descriptions you will be wondering, what is the meditational aspect involved? That aspect is difficult to understand. We have to go deep into the mind of these people. What they intend to tell us is that the object becomes a deity, whatever that object be, if you regard it as non-separable from you. In that sense everything is a god in this world. You can say, there are millions of gods just as there are millions of atoms in the universe which you cannot even count. They become gods in the sense that they are values by themselves. And their spiritual value comes into relief when we are in a position to appreciate the service they can render to us in our evolution, when we befriend them as our own selves. The value of a person, the value of a thing can be known only when we befriend that person or thing. When you become one with that object, you know the worth of it. And so, everything becomes an object of adoration, an object of servicefulness and divinity by itself, veritably, if it be taken as an ideal other than which nothing exists for you, for the time being at least. In the particular stage in which you are, it is an 'ultimate' reality for you. If we study the Taittirīya Upaniṣhad, we would be able to appreciate the nature of the ascent of thought through which we are taken gradually by these meditations. In the third section of the Taittirīya Upaniṣhad, a sage (Bhrigu) is asked to contemplate on various degrees of reality, right from matter onwards—Anna, Prāṇa, Manas, Vijñāna, Ānanda. These are the stages through which the mind passes. Matter is one deity by itself. It is a god; it is a reality. So, even the lowest conceivable reality, the inanimate substance, is a reality. Inasmuch as it is a reality, it is a divinity. And inasmuch as it is a divinity, it is an object of worship and adoration. Thus even matter is god, said the Master, in the Taittirīya Upaniṣhad. But, there are higher concepts of this existence, and so the mind is taken gradually from matter to vital energy—Prāṇa, from there to the mind, from there to intellect and then to Ānanda (bliss). The same thing is repeated in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad in a different manner. The body is no doubt regarded as a value by itself in its material sense, yet dependent upon the immortal Being inside it, which exists hidden as a Reality. The inner constituents of the physical body—Prāṇa, Manas, Vijñāna, etc.—are also taken into consideration here.

11. kāma eva yasyāyatanam, hṛdayaṁ lokāḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vai tam puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa vai veditā syāt, yājñavalkya. veda vā ahaṁ taṁ puruṣaṁ sarvasya ātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, yam āttha; ya evāyam kāmamayaḥ puruṣaḥ sa eṣaḥ. vadaiva, śākalya, tasya kā devatā iti. striyaḥ, iti hovāca.

Now, Yājñavalkya's answers go on, ranging from the physical level up to the highest level. Inside the physical body, there is a vital energy which functions as desire, or rather is the instrument of the manifestation of desire in the individual. It is the Prāṇa that is inside which becomes responsible for the action of the mind in terms of desire for objects of sense. This vital force also becomes a deity, and in a particular level it is a great value by itself. In India's culture, Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣha—these four ideals are regarded as the aims of existence. They are aims of existence, and therefore, they are tremendous realities. The desires of the human beings are not to be regarded as outside the purview of Reality, even as the economic values on which they depend and which they need are also realities by themselves. They become realities under certain conditions. Dharmā virudho bhūtesu kāmo'smi: "I am the desire in beings which is not contradictory to the Ultimate Reality of things." This is what Bhagavan Sri Krishna tells us in the Bhagavadgītā.

The physical needs of life known as Artha, the vital needs known as Kāma, or desire, become realities, as they ought to be, of course, provided they are bound together by the cord of Dharma. They become part and parcel of the reality of life in its more comprehensive form, namely, Dharma, or Law, and they become citizens of a wider area. This Dharma, as you know very well, is a very enigmatic term. It really signifies the Law that operates from the point of view of ultimate liberation of individuals—Mokṣha. It is the law of Mokṣha that operates as Dharma in this world, and it is Dharma which is the law of Mokṣha that becomes responsible for giving any value at all to Artha and Kāma. So, ultimately, Mokṣha is the Supreme value. But it is present in the lower categories also. Just as the transcendent is present immanently in lower categories, Mokṣha is present in the lowest categories also and not only in the heaven as an after—death reality. Mokṣha is not an after—death realisation. It is a universal experience, and therefore, because of its being universal, its law operates in everything, in every degree of reality, in every stage of evolution, and every value that you conceive as necessary.

So, here, Yājñavalkya tells us that desire by itself, in its operation as an aspect of the mind in the human individual, its abode being the physical body, as mentioned earlier, is also a value by itself. Taken by itself it may look odd, but when it is taken in its connection with the other degrees of reality, the physical body, the higher realities like mind, intellect, etc., it becomes a necessary stepping stone to the evolution of the mind. Yājñavalkya says: "I know what is this Kāmamaya Puruṣha, the desireful individual." It is the vital body inside the physical body, and its deity is its own object, whatever be that object. The object of desire is the deity of that desire. It becomes a binding principle when the object is outside. Now, here is the secret of desire. Desire is binding when its object is outside, but it is liberating when its object is its own deity. It becomes an ultimate reality by itself, so that desire has got merged into the object. And in every stage of meditation mentioned here in the Taittirīya Upaniṣhad, the object thereof is contemplated as ultimate reality. Matter is ultimate; Prāṇa is ultimate; mind is ultimate; intellect is ultimate; Ānanda (bliss) is ultimate. Everything is ultimate. How can many things be ultimate? They are ultimate from your point of view, from the point of view of the stage in which you are, and therefore, when you complete a particular stage, that which is above you becomes the next reality for you, so that every degree is a reality by itself.

12. rūpāṇy eva yasyāyatanam, cakṣur lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vāi tam puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa vai veditā syāt, yājñavalkya. veda vā ahaṁ tam puruṣaṁ sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, yam āttha; ya evāsāv āditye puruṣaḥ, sa eṣaḥ. vadaiva, śākalya. tasya kā devatā iti. satyam iti hovāca.

Rūpāṇy evayasyāyatanam, cakṣur lokaḥ: The very act of perception through the eyes also is an object of adoration. You can see God through perception. It is not possible to see the Reality in the act of perception because of the fact that we do not know or visualise the connection between our eye that perceives and the object that is perceived. As I mentioned, we regard objects as outside. Therefore, we are caught. The divinity present in things gets revealed when the connection between the object outside and the subject that perceives is appreciated in its proper form.

Yājñavalkya is queried by Śākalya by another question: "What is that reality of which form is the abode, eye is the light of perception, and mind is the guide? What is that?" Yājñavalkya says, "I know what it is. It is that Being which is in the eye and which is in the sun." The two are identical, ultimately. On what are they based? Why are you considering them as identical? In what sense can you say that the eye is one with the sun? Apparently they are different. They are so distant. Their connection lies in the fact that both are comprehended in the Virāt Puruṣha. In the Puruṣha-Sūkta and other places we are told that the sun is the eye of the Virāt—cakṣoh sūryo ajāyata. And so, our eyes have some connection, in an indirect manner, with the Supreme Eye of the Virāt, which is the sun. "This Puruṣha, whom you are referring to as the one whose abode is form in acts of perception through the eyes, this Puruṣha is the one in the sun, and its deity is Reality—Satya." What is that reality? It is the Supreme Eye. What is that Supreme Eye? It is the perceptive organ of the Virāt Puruṣha. So, when you consider the connection of the sun and the eye with the Universal Being, Virāt, they become deities by themselves, and are then objects of meditation.

13. ākāśa eva yasyāyatanam, śrotraṁ lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vai tam puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa vai veditā syāt, yājñavalkya. veda vā ahaṁ tam puruṣaṁ sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, yam āttha; ya evāyaṁ śrautraḥ prātiśrutkaḥ puruṣaḥ sa eṣaḥ. vadaiva, śākalya. tasya kā devatā iti. diśaḥ iti hovāca.

Ākāśa evayasyāyatanam,etc. "What is that Being," asks Śākalya, "whose abode is the all-pervading space, ears are the instruments of perception, and the mind is the real operating instrument?" Yājñavalkya says: "I know that. That Being is the function of the ears whose deities are the quarters, the divinities presiding over the different directions." The eye was said to have been presided over by the sun, and likewise, the ears are presided over by the divinities of the quarters. If the quarters can be identified with the act of hearing sounds, and if we do not consider sound as merely an object coming from a distant source, as something which impinges upon the eardrums, then we would be able to know the connection between the distant space and the ears within us. There will be no distance at all. The distance between the object outside and the instrument of perception gets transcended, or ceases, the moment identification is established between the instrument of cognition and the object in the act of meditation.

14. tama eva yasyāyatanaṁ, hṛdayaṁ lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vai taṁ puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa vai veditā syāt, yājñavalkya. veda vā ahaṁ tam puruṣaṁ sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, yam āttha; ya evāyaṁ chāyāmayaḥ puruṣaḥ sa eṣaḥ. vadaiva, śākalya. tasya kā devatā iti, mṛtyur iti hovāca.

Tama evayasyāyatanaṁ, etc: "Darkness is the abode of something. Is there something whose abode is darkness? And for whom the heart is the perceiving medium, hṛdayaṁ lokaḥ, and the mind is the guide? Here, again, what is that Being whose abode is darkness?" Yajñavalka says: "I know what you are referring to. It is the phantom perception in our daily life which you are referring to as that Being whose abode is darkness. What is this phantom perception? Chāyāmayaḥ puruṣaḥ: Shadow is its Being."

Our daily perceptions are not true perceptions. They are fragmentary and distorted. We do not see things properly. The light of perception in respect of objects in our waking life is really a manifestation of darkness. It is ignorance that is parading as knowledge in our sensory perceptions. Merely because it has a utilitarian value, it does not mean that it is the Ultimate Reality. Because it is based on ignorance, it is called darkness. What is this darkness? What is this sort of ignorance that you refer to? It is the ignorance of the ultimate nature of things. That objects are outside is not true. This is the essence of the ignorance or darkness on which sense-perceptions are based. If things are not external to us, how is it possible for us to perceive them? So, every perception is an erroneous perception inasmuch as things are not outside us. The conception of the mind that things are outside is ignorance, and it is on the basis of this ignorance that there is perception. What you perceive is a mere phantom. It is not true. It is only like a shadow; it is Chāyā; it is only an appearance, like a picture cast on the screen in a cinema. It is not there, but you can see it! So a thing that is not there can be seen as a solid reality, as it were, with three-dimensional depth, as you see objects in a cinema with a flat screen. So there can be optical illusion. Your perceptions are optical illusions, and they are based on utter ignorance of the fact that objects perceived are not outside you.

So, tama eva yasyāyatanaṁ, darkness is the abode of this reality which you consider as an object by itself—hṛdayaṁ lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ. Yājñavalkya says: "I know what you are referring to. It is the imaginary Puruṣha that you are seeing outside as an object." "And what is its deity?" "Death is its deity." You are going to perish by this attachment to things. This so-called knowledge of yours, this wisdom which you identify with objects of perception, this learning and sciences that we have got these days—these are roads to death. You are going to die with your own learning. And so, Yājñavalkya clinches the whole matter by saying that the deity of this perception is death. Very strange!

15. rūpāny eva yasyāyatanam, cakṣur lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vai tam puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa vai veditā syāt, yājñavalkya. veda vā ahaṁ tam puruṣaṁ sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, yam āttha; ya evāyam ādarśe puruṣaḥ, sa eṣaḥ. vadaiva, śākalya. tasya kā devatā iti, asur iti hovāca.

Rūpāny eva yasyāyatanam, cakṣur lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vai tam puruṣaṁ vidyāt: Now, again another question is put. "There is a kind of perception whose abode, of course, is a form that is seen outside, and the eye is the light of perception, the mind is the guide, but there is something quite different from what I mentioned to you earlier. Do you know what it is, what I am thinking of in my mind?" "Yes," said Yājñavalkya, "I know what it is. It is that what you see in a reflection."

Now, this is a difficult passage to understand. What is it that you see in a reflection? You see things topsy-turvy. You do not see things properly. Suppose you see your face in a mirror, you see something wrong there. Your right ear looks like the left ear and the left ear looks like the right ear. There is a complete reversal of the original in the reflection. Now, in this Ādarśa; Puruṣha, or the reflected being, there is no reality inasmuch as there is a complete topsy-turvy perception, and therefore you cannot say it is connected, really, with the original. This happens in our daily perceptions with the objects. We do not see things in their original capacity. When you see an object outside, you do not see it in its original form. The archetype of the object is not visible. The archetype, as the philosopher Plato would tell you, is in the heaven. It is not here in the physical world. What you see is only a shadow that is cast by the original. And the shadow is distorted by various factors. The distorting factors are the space-time-causal connections, due to which a difference is established between the subject and the object. Now, difference is involved or included in the spatial concept. So, when we say 'space', the difference need not be mentioned once again, as it is because of space that we see the difference. There is therefore a reversal, a distortion, a topsy-turvy vision of the object of perception. In every act of perception, when we see an object, we are seeing a distorted form of it, whether it is a human being that you see or any other object. It is distorted because of the fact that it is turned upside down. You see the top as the bottom and the bottom as the top and the right as the left, etc.

Now, you cling to this just as if it is an ultimate value by itself. Why do you cling to objects in spite of the fact that they are reflections? Do you want to cling to a reflection or do you want the original? We want the original, but we cannot see the difference between the original and the reflection. We see the moon in the water, and try to catch it like children would like to do. So, our attempts at catching objects of sense, for the purpose of our satisfaction, may be considered as the attempts of a baby to catch the moon though just a reflection in the water. The clinging of a human being, or for the matter of that, any created being, to objects of sense is a mistaken action of the mind. It is the love of life. Asuh can be translated as the love of life, Prāṇa, vitality, whatever you call it. The love of life is responsible for the clinging that we evince in respect of objects which are completely distorted and are not going to promise any satisfaction to us. This is the Ādarśa Puruṣha; this is a reality by itself as long as it is seen there. It has its own value of course, but it is a deity tentatively, as any other deity is. "Asu, or love of life, is its deity."

16. āpa eva yasyāyatanaṁ, hṛdayaṁ lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vai tam puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa vai veditā syāt, yājñavalkya. veda vā ahaṁ tam puruṣaṁ sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, yam āttha. ya evāyam apsu puruṣaḥ sa eṣaḥ. vadaiva, śākalya, tasya kā devatā iti. varuṇa iti hovāca.
    
17. reta eva yasyāyatanam hṛdayaṁ lokaḥ, mano jyotiḥ, yo vai taṁ puruṣaṁ vidyāt sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, sa  vai veditā  syāt, yājñavalkya. veda vā ahaṁ tam puruṣaṁ sarvasyātmanaḥ parāyaṇam, yam āttha. ya evāyam apsu putramayaḥ puruṣaḥ, sa eṣaḥ. vadaiva, śākalya, tasya kā devatā iti. prajāpatiḥ iti hovāca.

Apa evayasyāyatanaṁ, etc: So likewise, Śākalya puts more questions to Yājñavalkya, asking him, "Do you know that Being whose abode is water, the heart is the perceiving medium and mind is the light?" Yājñavalkya says: "Varuna is the deity of water." "Who is that whose abode is Retas? Who is its deity?" asks Śākalya. "The urge for progeny (Putramayaḥ Puruṣaḥ) which is the form, has virility (Retas) as the abode, the Heart (Hṛdaya) as the eye, the Mind (Maṅas) as the light and Prajāpati as the deity," replies Yājñavalkya.

18. Śākalya, iti hovāca yājñavalkyaḥ, tvāṁ svid ime brāhmaṇā aṅgārāvakṣayaṇam akratā u iti.

Yājñavalkya answers like this to all these fantastic questions, funny but full of meaning. Yājñavalkya gets annoyed afterwards. "What are these questions? How many questions do you ask like this? I am tired of answering your questions. Śākalya! What is the point in your going on asking questions like this on every blessed thing in the world? Is this audience here to use you as a kind of cat's paw? Are they using you as tongs to hold hot embers of fire? Are they utilising you as an instrument?" It has a double meaning. Yājñavalkya is a little bit irritated by these questions, though he has given answers to them all, even though they are very strange. Yājñavalkya refers to himself as hot fire, and one who touches him must be in danger, indeed, as he is hot embers. "And you want to catch me with the tongs of questions," he exclaims.

Five Directions in Space, Their Deities and Supports

When Yājñavalkya spoke like this, referring to the audience as if it is utilising Śākalya as a cat's paw, the retort of Śākalya was: "Yājñavalkya what are you speaking?"

19. yājñavalkya, iti hovāca śākalyaḥ, yad idaṁ kuru-pañcālānāṁ brāhmaṇān atyavādīḥ, kiṁ brahma vidvān iti, diśo veda sadevāḥ sapratiṣṭhā iti. yad diśo vettha sa devāḥ sapratiṣṭhāḥ.

Yājñavalkya, iti hovāca śākalyaḥ, yad idaṁ kuru-pañcālānāṁ brāhmaṇān atyavādīḥ, kiṁ brahma vidvān iti: "Is it because of your knowledge, knower of Brahman, that you are referring to the audience in this manner that they are using me as a cat's paw. I will ask you further questions." He is not tired. Already he has irritated Yājñavalkya too much by putting questions. Now he says: "I will ask you more questions."

What are these questions? They are more difficult to understand than what we have studied. We are going from one complex to another complex. These last questions are full of meaning, but very complicated, indeed difficult to understand.

Śākalya asks Yājñavalkya: Diśo veda sadevāḥ sapratiṣṭhā iti: "I know the various directions with their deities and their abodes. Do you also know them?"—yad diśo vettha sa devāḥ sapratiṣṭhāḥ. Yājñavalkya says: "I know." There is nothing which Yājñavalkya does not know. Any question you ask, he says; "I know." And he gives a proper answer. Śākalya asks: "What is this deity which is above in the eastern direction? I know it, and if you also know, you tell."

20. kim-devato'syām prācyāṁ diśy asīti. āditya-devata iti. sa ādityaḥ kasmin pratiṣṭhita iti. cakṣuṣīti. kasmin nu cakṣuḥ pratiṣṭḥitam iti. rūpeṣv iti. cakṣuṣā hi rūpāṇi paśyati. kasmin nu rūpāṇi pratiṣṭhitānīti. hṛdaye iti hovāca, hṛdayena hi rūpāṇi jānāti, hṛdaye hy eva rūpāṇi pratiṣṭhitāni bhavantīti. evam evaitat, yājñavalkya.

"The deity of the eastern direction is the sun," says Yājñavalkya. Āditya, of course, because the sun rises in the eastern direction. It is very holy. The eastern direction is full of vibrations. On account of the rise of the sun every day, it is charged with a new type of magnetism. "Āditya, the sun, is the deity of the eastern direction, and on what is this deity, Āditya, founded?" "He is, of course, founded in the eye of the Virāt, as I have already mentioned, because he is the eye of the Virāt"—cakṣuṣīti. kasmin nu cakṣuḥ pratiṣṭḥitam. What is the meaning of "the eye"? What is the very significance of eye? Eye perceives forms. So Rūpa, or form, is the abode or the foundation of the eye, because if there is no form to perceive, the eye has no meaning. So, in a sense we can say that the objects which are perceived by the eye are the abode or the support or the foundation of the eye—cakṣuṣā hi rūpāṇi paśyati. Where are these forms founded? They are founded in the heart, ultimately. There are no forms, really speaking. This is a repetition, in one sense, of what we have studied earlier. The objects of sense are projections, external in space and time, of certain circumstances or situations. They are not realities. And so, the forms that are seen outside as if they are solid objects independently existing are projections of the desire of the mind. It depends upon what desires you have got. Accordingly, you will see forms outside. So, the forms that are visualised by the eye are rooted in the heart's impression, ultimately, because it is in the heart that you perceive; it is due to the feeling that you cognise the forms outside. If you have no feeling for things, you will not perceive anything. "Well; that is very good. This is a good answer to my question," says Śākalya, and goes on further.

Continued