Related LinksContents of Bookby Swami Krishnananda
There was a banyan tree in front of the kutir. All know that the banyan tree is very large but the fruit is so small and the seed is atomic. "Bring one fruit," says the father to the son. The boy runs and brings a small fruit of that huge expanse of the tree called banyan, and says, "Idam bhagavah-here is the fruit, my father." "Bhinddhiti-split it, break the fruit into pieces," says the father. "Bhinnam bhagavah-I have broken it," replies Svetaketu. "Kim atra pasyasiti-now what do you see inside it?" asks the father. The boy says, "Anvya-I see small granules."
All must have seen the fruit of a banyan tree. How many fruits are there in the tree? How many seeds are there in each fruit? Innumerable, countless, very tiny, atomic seeds are there. How small they are! And you can contrast the smallness of the seeds with the largeness of the tree which is the banyan.
"Anvya ivema dhanah-very small seeds I see inside the fruit, very tiny, atomic seeds are there," says the son. "Asam angaikam bhinddhiti-now you split one small seed," says the father.
It is very difficult to split it. You cannot take it by the hand. It will escape your grip. Somehow the boy split that little atomic seed.
"Bhinna bhagavah iti-yes, I have split it," he says. "Kim atra pasyasiti-now inside that very little atomic seed, what do you see?" the father asks. "Na kim-chana-I do not see anything," says the boy.
Our naked eyes cannot see what is inside that little seed. There is a small jelly-like, very tiny, invisible essence inside that seed. It is very small, a semi-liquid-like substance. We may be able to see it with our powerful microscope. There is no solid hard substance there inside that little seed.
"What do you see in it?" asks the father, and the son replies, "I cannot see anything."
The father now explains: "Do you know, my dear boy, what is inside the seed? It is a great wonder. You say that you cannot see anything there. It is practically invisible and non-existent, as it were, from your point of view. Thin, apparently non-existent something, the very little, subtle essence there inside that little seed, has become this vast tree in front of you. Do you know this? How is this possible? Is it not a miracle that a terribly large tree grows from this little speck of jelly which cannot even be seen with the eyes? Now look at this miracle. Please have faith in what I say and go into the deeper profundity of this analogy of mine."
This little so-called subtle essence is pervading the entire tree. How is it possible? How can an atomic little speck pervade the large expanse of the tree? Yet, there is nothing in this tree which is not in this little speck of jelly. The so-called large tree that you see there is nothing but whatever was contained in the invisible speck inside the seed. So is this vast universe. We say this universe is so large, so big or so unmanageable, so gross, so weighty. This is exactly like saying this tree is so big. But from where has it come? It has come from a very small, atomic, subtle Seed. That is the Being, the essence of the vast tree of this universe. So this Being, the essence of this whole universe, is the Self of the whole universe. This little jelly-like substance inside the little seed is the Self of this whole tree. It is the Atman of this banyan, because that has become all this, and outside it the tree does not exist. So it is the being of this tree. Even so is the Being of the whole universe including one's own self. "Tat-tvam-asi-you are that," says the father. We can tell every branch of the tree, "You are that essence," we can tell every leaf in the tree, "You are that essence," every fruit and flower in the tree, "You are that." And you will not be committing a mistake in saying that, because it is true. Even so we can say to every individual, "You are That," because all individuals have come from that indistinguishable, homogeneous Reality. "Bhuya eva ma bhagavan vijnapayatv-iti-please explain further," says the son. Another example is given by the father.
"Bring a little salt and put it in a cup of water," said Uddalaka. The boy brought a cup of water and put some salt into it. "See me tomorrow morning," says the father. Sa ha tatha chakara-the boy does like that. Next morning the boy comes and greets the father and the father says, "Yesterday you put salt into the water; bring that salt." He goes there and sees that the salt is not there in the cup. What has happened to the salt? It has become one with the water. So he could not bring the salt.
The boy says, "There is no salt in the water." Uddalaka says, "Now I shall prove that there is salt. You sip a little of the water from the top and tell me what the taste is." "It is saltish," says the boy. "You sip a little from the middle and tell me its taste." "It is salty." "You sip a little from any part of the water and see how it tastes." "All is salty." "So, now tell me, does the salt exist there or not?" "Yes, it does exist." "But you cannot see it, is it not?" "Yes, I cannot see it."
Now, this is a proof to show that though we cannot see a thing, it can exist. Because the salt is dissolved in water, the former cannot be seen through the eyes, but through some other means, the organ of taste, we can discover that it is there. The generality of the salt, which has become indistinguishable from the body of the water, cannot be visibly seen with the eyes, no doubt, but we can find out that the salt is there by tasting the water. By one means we cannot see it, but by another means we can. Similar is the case with the Being that has entered into the substance of all this creation. In the same way as we cannot see the salt in water but we can verify its existence by some other means, that is, by tasting, we cannot see this Being in the particulars of this world through our organs including the internal organ, as it is dissolved in the particulars, as it were. But, by employing another means, other than the organs and the mind, we can find out that this Being is in every particular. And then we will find that It is everywhere in the universe, just as salt is everywhere in the saline water. Wherever we touch, we touch That only, just as wherever we touch the water which is saline, we are touching salt only in that water.
"What is this other way? Please instruct me about this," asks the boy. How is it possible for us to get an insight into this Reality present in all particular forms? Neither one's own intellect nor the senses will be of any use here. The senses are used to a kind of contact with externals, and whatever is not an external cannot become an object of their perception. Whatever is outside, that alone the senses can perceive, and this Being we are speaking of is not outside and, therefore, It cannot be an object of the senses. Nor can the mind conceive the Being, because the function of the mind is principally a synthesis of the perceptions of the senses, an organisation of these sensations and perceptions. It introduces a kind of coordination and method into the chaotic mass of perceptions of the senses. The mind does not see something which is not seen by the senses. It is only introducing a logical sequence and coherence into the mass of sensations. We are not in any way better off by employing the mind or the intellect as a means of cognition or perception. What the mind does, what the intellect does, is merely a corroboration and confirmation of what senses tell us. And if the senses are of no use, the mind and intellect also are of no use. The only importance that you can attach to the function of the mind or intellect is that it has a peculiar capacity to reflect an inferential presence of a higher reality, due to the fact that it is less distracted than the senses and that it has an integrating power which is absent in the senses on account of their isolated activities. Now, the mind which is endowed with this special power which is ordinarily not visible, has to be employed for the purpose of gaining an insight into Reality by means of guidance received from a master.
To this subject Uddalaka, the sage, reverts by means of an illustration. Take for instance, there is a person who has been waylaid by robbers, blindfolded, handcuffed, legs tied together, dragged into a wilderness and thrown into a pit somewhere in an unknown place. He has been taken a long distance away from his house. He does not know where he has been taken, because his eyes have been covered by a patch of cloth. He only knows that he has been removed to a distant place. He is in a state of despair. The only thing that he can do under that condition is to cry for help. His intellect will not help him there, his mind will not help him, his sense of sight has failed. Under such conditions, the only help can be from another who has sight. A person with eyes who can see the way can come, help, and guide him. There is no other way out. Even so, every one of us has lost sight of Reality. Every one of us has been spiritually blindfolded. Everyone is in complete spiritual darkness. And there is sorrow, as a consequence thereof. What is the way out?