Prajapati said: "This is the great truth, O Indra. This is the Atman. Now do you understand what the Atman is? This is the Supreme Person, if you would call It a person." It is not a person actually. We call it a person only by way of expression, explanation for the purpose of helping the understanding of the immature mind. It is the Supreme Being. That is how we translate the term Uttama-purusha, occurring here. Superior to the transitory purushas, we have the universal Purusha. The word Uttama-purusha occurs in the Bhagavad-Gita also in its fifteenth chapter, where we are told that there are two purushas, the kshara and the akshara, and that there is the third, the supreme one, the Purushottama or the Uttama-purusha, which means to say that there is something transcending both the perishable universe and the imperishable, immanent consciousness.

These descriptions pertain to the life of spiritual freedom, sometimes called Jivanmukti. In the usual language of the Vedanta philosophy, there is that state known as Jivanmukti which means spiritual Liberation even when the body is there apparently. There are umpteen descriptions of what Jivanmukti is, and there is limitation in all these descriptions. It is held by people that the so-called existence of the body of the Jivanmukta is there from the point of view of others who see him and not from his own point of view. This is one way of looking at it. We cannot say whether he himself is aware of the body or not. But others see it. So, as long as others see the existence and the movement of the body of that individual, that individual is supposed to be a Mukta with a body. That is why he is called Jivanmukta.

Others are of opinion that he may also be aware of his own physical existence in a different way altogether from what we feel in respect of our own bodies. The consciousness of the existence of the body is not necessarily an evil, provided it is experienced in the proper perspective. It is the ignorance that is the cause of bondage and not merely the existence of this thing or that thing. The mere presence of the body will not be a bondage provided it is known in its reality.

This again is a very difficult thing to grasp. What is it to know a thing in reality? No one can explain these things unless one goes to this state personally. And no one can understand it also unless one enters this state. It is usually held that one experiences in this condition of Jivanmukti a tremendous freedom of attainment and achievement. What sort of freedom is it? It is not a freedom to do anything that one likes in the sense of a license given to an immature individual. It is a freedom that comes, on account of a knowledge of the depths of everything, not only a knowledge in the sense of an ordinary accumulation of facts by logical knowledge, but an insight into the nature of Reality by identity of being.

To understand as to what the behaviour of this person would be in respect of others, we have only to imagine for the time being what would be our attitude towards a thing in respect of which we have established identity of existence. It is well nigh impossible to conceive it, as long as we have not experienced it, but by a stretch of imagination we can, to some extent, feel what that state could be. How do we feel in respect of the thing with which we are one? What is our attitude towards it? Well, it is neither one of attachment nor one of repulsion, neither one of like nor one of dislike, but a feeling of complete mastery over it. This is the characterisation of that state where one is in identity with everything and yet is not attached to anything or repulsed by anything. The freedom that one experiences in the state of Jivanmukti is, therefore, one of complete mastery born of identity of being, and not a mastery in the sense of control of one person by another person as we see in this world. It is not the exercise of power by one person in respect of another. It is an exuberance of the abundance of power which is inseparable from the universality of Being. Ultimately power is one with Being itself. So, this is something very enigmatic, very difficult to grasp ordinarily. It is nothing but the difficulty in explaining God himself. It is God-being that we are describing when we speak of Jivanmukti, an embodiment so called which becomes the vehicle of God-experience in this world itself. Such is Jivanmukti about which Prajapati is speaking in these passages.

The perception of a Jivanmukta is now described very precisely in one or two sentences. With our present state of mind it is not possible to understand what the perception of Jivanmukta could be. We can only have comparisons, illustrations and analogies. But what actually it is, it is not possible for us to understand. Some of us may be under the impression that he sees God, and does not see the world. This is the usual way of giving an opinion about the experiences of a Jivanmukta. As I have already stated, these are all our ways of looking at things and our ways of thinking. There is no such thing as seeing God and not seeing the world. Such differences, such contrasts do not find a place in a vision which sees what Truth is. There is a lot of controversy among the different schools of thought as to whether the world is seen by the Jivanmukta or not. It all depends upon what is meant by the word 'world'. He sees the world! Yes. Or he does not see the world. Both statements are correct. He sees the world as it really is, and he does not see the world as it appears to the senses which are distorted in their structure. Our relative values should not be carried to this realm of universal perfection. It would be unbecoming on our part to appraise the experiences of a Jivanmukta in the scales of our understanding.

There is no world even now and the question of seeing the world, or not seeing the world, does not actually arise. Whatever is there now, will be there even afterwards. Just because someone has changed his mind, the world is not going to be different. But his mind has undergone discipline to such an extent, and has changed and transformed in itself, that it will see the world in the way it has to be seen. The Upanishads are never tired of telling us that the correct way of perception is to perceive the Self in things and not to see the form in them. This is exactly what the Jivanmukta sees. To see the Self in a thing is not to see the thing or the object as such. Even these analogies are inadequate. We cannot understand as to what it is to see the Self in a thing.

Again we will be interpreting the Self as something outside us, to be seen with the eye of spiritual perception. It is nothing of the kind. With this cautious background we have to try to understand these very short portrayals of the grandeur of the Jivanmuktas given in these passages of the Upanishad. He may do exactly what you do and what I do. There is no difference in his conduct. He may speak the same language and he may eat the same food. Yet, he is not eating and he is not speaking. This is a difficult thing to understand, because these particular activities and particular modes of experience are generalised and universalised in his case, so that they no longer become obstacles to his unique experience. They become obstacles only when they are wrested out of their universal context and made one's own, my own, your own, or made to stand on its own legs, independently of others. His actions are not individual actions, but universal movements. And he does not think as I think or you think. His is just a thought which includes every thought. It is the general substance of every kind of mind and thought. So when the Upanishad says that he speaks, he laughs, he moves about and he enjoys, it does so from our point of view only. The question of enjoying or speaking or moving about does not arise for that which has no particularised consciousness, either of space, time, or movement. In the vision of other people, he will be practically speaking just like anyone else. You cannot identify a Jivanmukta by observing him. He will look like yourself only. But there will be a tremendous difference inside.

The electrons are not seen with our naked eyes, but the microscope can see them. You keep a solid object in front of you and gaze at the solid object, and keep also a very powerful microscope. Your eyes are seeing the object and the microscope is also is seeing the object. But the two instruments are seeing two different things altogether. What your eyes see the microscope does not see, and what the microscope sees your eyes do not see. But, both are seeing the same thing simultaneously. Now, you are the person to judge whether the object is what your eyes see, or whether it is what the microscope sees. Which is the correct thing? This is just an example.

You see a world and the Jivanmukta also sees it, but he sees it differently from what you see it because of the difference of the instrument of perception. For him an instrument does not exist. He himself is the instrument and he himself is the object seen. He has become that which he is seeing and so it cannot be called seeing, but it is rather 'being'. Seeing, he does not see. It appears that he does not see, because there is nothing outside him, and yet, he sees everything because he is himself that. He cannot be conscious of the body. He is not only in one body. He is in every body. Whatever you think is his thought and whatever anybody thinks also is his thought only. So you cannot say whether he thinks, or I think, or you think. The consciousness of a particular body or object does not arise because all the bodies or objects are his, nay he himself. So the Upanishad says that he has no awareness of a particular encasement in some individual body. Just as bulls may be yoked to drag a cart, this Supreme Self manifests itself as the prana and is yoked to this cart of the body, as it were. The bulls do not become one with the cart. They are different. Likewise, this prana or consciousness that is yoked to the body is not identical with the body. Whatever the eyes see when they are cast into space is something different in the case of this liberated soul from what our eyes see. From the point of view of the liberated soul, when the eyes perceive something outside, it is not the eyes that are seeing the object, but it is 'something else' that sees.

This was the subtle point which was in the mind of Prajapati when he told Virochana and Indra at the very outset that whatever is reflected in the eye is the Atman. So he is right from his side. But both Indra and Virochana could not understand what his intention was. What sees through the eye is not the eye, but is something different from the eyes. And what hears through the ears too is not the ear but there is something else inside which hears through the ears. So is the case with every other sense organ. The senses do not contact the object. He who contacts is 'somebody else' utilising these senses as instruments.

4. Atha yatraitad-akasam anuvisannam caksuh, sa caksusah purusah darsanaya caksuh, atha yo veda idam jighrantiti, sa atma gandhaya ghranam, atha yo veda idam abhivyaharaniti sa atma, abhivyaharaya vak, atha yo veda idam srnavaniti, sa atma, sravanaya srotram.

This eye is only an instrument of perception. What sees an object is not the eye. What sees through the eye is the same thing as that which hears through the ear. The eye cannot hear and the ear cannot see, and so are the functions of the other senses limited to their respective domains. There is a distinction among the functions of the different senses. But we know very well that we can integrate these perceptions through all the senses into a single whole, so that one individual being is aware simultaneously that there is seeing, hearing, etc. In our case, it is only an inference, but in the case of the liberated soul, it is an actual revelation

It is not merely that. It is something deeper than this implication. What sees through the eye also is different from the eye, and what is seen through the eye also is different from the object. It is not the eye that sees, and it is not the object that is seen. It is 'something else' that is seen and it is the same 'something else' that sees. Therefore, the seen and the seer are one. It is as if that 'something else' is beholding itself. It is the Atman that smells, not the nose. The nose or the instrument of smelling is only a vehicle utilised by consciousness for this purpose. One that speaks is not the tongue. It is the Atman that speaks utilising the instrument of the tongue as merely an occasion for its manifestation in that particular manner. So is the case with the ear. The ear is only an occasion for the manifestation of the Atman. The Atman is a single, non-dual, all-pervading Being which works in these diverse ways in the forms of the senses, sense-perception, and the objects of perception. So, there is really no such things as sense-perceptions, the senses and their objects. It is the Atman projecting itself in every nook and corner of the universe through these orifices called the senses and contacting its own universal body, outside which we wrongly call the objects of sense. This is the truth. The liberated soul is fully aware of this truth, while others are ignorant about it, although it is the same in their case also.