The texts, known as the Upaniṣhads, are spread out throughout the range of the literature of the Veda, and each section of the Veda has its own Upaniṣhad or Upaniṣhads. We are proposing to take up the study of the most important of them, very rarely studied by people and very rarely still discussed about - the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad - the great forest of knowledge, as its name suggests. One can find everything there, as one finds in a forest. This Upaniṣhad, particularly, is never studied by students, nor is it taught by tutors, because of its complicated structure, difficult to grasp, and not safe also to communicate if its import is not properly rendered. If its meaning is properly grasped, it would be the ultimate, unfailing friend of a person, till death. It will guard you, protect you and save you, and provide you with everything, at all times. But, if it is not properly understood, it can be a sword in the hands of a child. So is this Upaniṣhad to be studied with great reverence and holiness of attitude, not as a mere book that you study from the library. It is not a book at all. It is Spirit that manifests itself in language, not merely a word that is spoken. Such is this Upaniṣhad, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad.

This Upaniṣhad, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, which we are trying to study, is a very lengthy text, ranging from thought to thought, in various stages of development; and I have particularly found that it is something like a very elaborate commentary on one of the Master-hymns of the Veda, that is, the Puruṣha-Sūkta. Some others have thought that it is an exposition of the principles of the Isavasya Upaniṣhad. It may be that they are right. But I, in my own humble way, tried to discover another meaning in it when I studied it and contemplated upon it - that it is a vast body of exposition of the inner significance of the Puruṣha-Sūkta and, perhaps, also, of the Nāsadīya-Sūkta, where the Cosmic Person is described, and creation hailed, about which we shall be studying, shortly, stage by stage.

The Upaniṣhad begins with a startling exposition of the very methodology of living adopted in our country. As I tried to mention to you, the method of the Upaniṣhad is secret, esoteric and intended to go into the meaning of action which is otherwise exoteric. I have also mentioned that the Veda has an aspect, namely, the ritual aspect, the aspect of sacrifice, performance of religious ceremony by the application of the Mantras of the Samhitas, as expounded in the section known as the Brāhmaṇas. The Āraṇyakas go to the contemplated side of the Brāhmaṇas, and tell us that a sacrifice need not necessarily be outward; it can also be inward; and the inward is as powerful as the outward. It can even be more powerful than the outward. The ritual that is performed by the mind, say the Āraṇyakas, is more puissant in the production of effect than the ritual that is outwardly performed through the sacred fire, or in the holy altar. The entire range of the Āraṇyakas is filled with this meaning, that mental action is a greater action than outward action. Its capacity is greater than external activity. Thought is more potent than word and deed. This principle is carried to its logical limit in the Upaniṣhads.

If thought is more potent than action, there may be something more potent than even thought; greater than thought, and more powerful than thought, which can explore even the content of thought itself. If action is superseded by thought, thought is superseded by 'being'. So, we go to the Upaniṣhads where the principle of 'being' is expounded as transcendent even to the operations of thought, which, otherwise, are superior to all action outside. The range of the Upaniṣhads, expounding the character of 'being' as transcendent to thought of every type, is very wide, and no one can understand a Upaniṣhad unless one understands what 'being' is. We cannot even know what thought is, far from knowing what 'being' is. We can know how we think at a particular time, but we cannot know exactly what mind is, what thought is, where it is situated, and how it acts. The reason is that what we call the mind or thought is involved in a process. Inasmuch as it is involved in a process or transition, it becomes difficult of exposition and investigation. And what are the processes in which thought, or the mind, is involved? Everything that we call outward life in that the mind is involved. We always think in terms of some thing. That something is what we call life, or at least an aspect of life. Since every thought is an involvement in a particular aspect of outward existence, thought never finds time to understand itself. Thought never thinks itself; it always thinks others. We never see at any time our own mind contemplating its own self. It always contemplates other persons, other things and other aspects of life. There is a peculiar proclivity of thought by which it rushes outward into the objects of sensual life, externally, into persons and things, and never can know what it is itself. How can the mind know what another thing is when it cannot know what it itself is? If you cannot know what you are, how can you know what others are? But this is life a great confusion and a mess and a conglomeration of involvements in the objects of sense. This is called Samsāra, the aberration of consciousness in spatio-temporal externality.

We are to free ourselves from this mess of involvement, through a deeper diagnostic technique applied to our own life; and this is the purpose of Upaniṣhad. The difficulty of this achievement is well-known. Every one of you knows what this difficulty is. Just as you cannot peel your own skin from the body, you cannot dissociate yourself from the conditions of life. But such a feat has to be performed in this superpsychic technique known as Upaniṣhadic contemplation of 'being'.

The beginning of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad is, thus, a rise of thought into the inward principles of outward sacrifice as advocated in the Brāhmaṇas of the Vedas: What is a sacrifice; what is a ritual; what is a performance; and what is an action? When this is understood in its principle, its inward significance, it becomes commensurate with human thought; it becomes inseparable from mind; it becomes a part of one's psychic life. You will find, on a careful investigation of the matter, that anything that you do is involved in a process of thought. It may be a religious ritual or a worship, a performance or a sacrifice, or it may be a secular deed it makes no difference. It is mind that is working in a particular fashion; that is all, and nothing more, nothing less. So, unless the mind in its essentiality is probed into, human action is not understood. The Upaniṣhad is a revelation of the inner principles of life as manifest in actions of a variegated nature. The ritual of the Brāhmaṇas is contemplated in the Upaniṣhads. The Vedic sacrifice, or, for the matter of that, any kind of religious performance, is a symbol, ultimately, which is the point of departure in all esoteric approaches to religion. External religion is symbolic of an internal principle which is true religion, towards which the Upaniṣhad drives our minds. This departure is to be found in every religion in the world. The symbolic character of human activity and religious performance is brought out in a study of esoteric principles, which is the philosophy of life. The activities of human life are symbolic in the sense that they are not representative of the whole Truth, but manifest only certain aspects of Truth. Every action is involved in cosmic relations of which very few are brought to the surface of one's notice when the action is really performed. We always think that an action is motivated by an individual or a group of individuals towards a particular relative end which is visible to the eye and conceivable by the mind, but never do we imagine for a moment that there can be farther reaches of the tentacles of this action, beyond the reach of the human eye and mind and our little action can really be a cosmic deed, that God can see what we do, and the whole universe can vibrate with the little word that difficult thing for us to understand; and the Upaniṣhad explains it to bring to the purview of our consciousness these inward secrets of outward action, telling us that the outward sacrifice is symbolic of an inward contemplation of Universal Reality.

The Upaniṣhads are embodiments of different types of contemplation on Ultimate Truth, and so is the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad. The beginning of the Upaniṣhad is a contemplation of the inward meaning of a great sacrifice described in the Brāhmaṇas, known as Aśvamedha Yajña. It is an external performance of a religious character for the purpose of achieving higher results in the form of celestial enjoyment, etc., but, the Upaniṣhad tells us that the proper approach to the aims of human life, such as ultimate satisfaction, delight, etc., need not be the method of the Brāhmaṇas, which is only symbolic, and there should be a technique more affiliated to the nature of Reality than is the external action of the Brāhmaṇas. The sacrifice known as the Aśvamedha signifies the consecration of a horse in a large ritual performance, mostly undertaken by princes and kings in ancient times for the purpose of name, fame etc. in this world and heavenly exaltation hereafter. The Upaniṣhad however, tells us that its meaning is something quite different and more profound. What we see with our eyes and what we do with our deeds are indicative of a deeper aspiration in our minds, and what we actually seek is not pleasure, not satisfaction in the ordinary sense, not power, not name or fame, because all these are transient and tantalising.

Everything passes away; nothing in the world can last. Everything shall end, one day or other. What are these joys in heaven? What is this power this world? What is this name and status? They are mirages; they are nothing but husk, because they pass like the wisp of wind. And how is it possible for the soul to ask for that which is perishable and vanishes the next moment? Will any wise person crave for a perishable joy? How could anyone engage oneself in activities, performances, religious or otherwise, which are capable of promising only apparent joys, which rob us of all our strength and then land us in sorrow most unconceivable? What is the real aspiration of the soul of the individual? What is it that it really needs? What is it that it hungers for? It is difficult to answer this question. The child cannot answer the question, 'What do you need?' 'I want a sweetmeat, a sugar candy, a toy.' What else can the child say? Such seems to be the reply of the untutored mind, the illiterate soul, sunk in the darkness of ignorance which speaks in terms of name, fame, power, wealth, rejoicing, diversion, gain, pleasures whether they are real and lasting, or not, it cares not. It asks for pleasure, which shall end in a complication from which it is difficult for one to free oneself.

The Upaniṣhad promises us a freedom which is above the turmoil of all earthly existence. It can make us happy perennially under every condition, even after death, not merely in this life. In fact, the Upaniṣhad assures us that death is not a bar and not a fear. There is no such thing as death as we think of it. Death is another kind of process which is intended for the training of the soul in its march to a greater perfection; and perfection is what we seek, not pleasure. This is what the Upaniṣhads teach us; that is what the Bṛhadāraṇyaka contemplates in vast detail.

The knowledge proclaimed in the Upaniṣhad is a science which deals with the removal of sorrow. Thus, it is a knowledge which is different in kind from the learning that we usually acquire or the knowledge that we gain in respect of the things of the world. It is not a science in the ordinary sense of the term. While there are sciences and arts of various kinds, all of which are important enough, and wonderful in their own way, they cannot remove sorrow from the human heart, root and branch. They contribute to the satisfaction of a particular individual, placed in a particular constitution, in a particular type of incarnation, but they do not go to the soul of the person concerned. In the sense of the science of the soul, the Upaniṣhad is also called Ātma-Vidyā or Adhyātma-Vidyā. It is different from other Vidyās or learnings like Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology etc., because all these latter pertain to objects of sense, the perceived world. Adhyātma-Vidyā, or the science of the Self, pertains not so much to the object-world which is the field of the operation of the senses, as the Subject which is the ultimate conditioning principle of every perception of every kind. The objects that are perceived by the senses are conditioned by the processes of perception, and the very process of perception is determined by the nature of the perceiver, and so it is important that the nature of the perceiver is known directly; because when the perceiver is known, everything connected with the perceiver also is known. If, fortunately for us, the objects that are perceived are in some way determined wholly by the character of the perceiver, the knowledge of the Self would be the knowledge of the whole cosmos. Towards this end, the Upaniṣhad takes us by hand, gradually.

The grief of the mind, the sorrow of the individual is not brought about by outer circumstances. This is a very important lesson we learn from the Upaniṣhad. We do not suffer by incidents that take place outside. We suffer on account of a maladjustment of our personality with the conditions of life, and the knowledge of this fact is supernatural and super-sensual. What has happened to us cannot be known by us, because it has happened to 'us' and not to somebody else. We cannot know what has happened to others because we cannot know what has happened to us, for who is to know our own selves? This is the crux of the whole matter, towards which the Upaniṣhad is to take us.