The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter I

Fourth Brahmana: Creation from the Universal Self (Continued)

The four orders, or groups of individuals, have been constructed as necessary features of the creation by Īshvara. We have to connect the following passages with the earlier ones that have touched upon the more general aspects of creation from which the particular ones and more diversified ones gradually follow.

12. sa naiva vyabhavat, sa viśam asṛjata, yāny etāni devajātāni gaṇaśa ākhyāyante, vasavo rudrā ādityā viśvedevā maruta iti.
13. sa naiva vyabhavat, sa śaudraṁ varṇam asṛjata pūṣaṇam, iyaṁ vai pūṣā, iyaṁ hīdaṁ sarvaṁ puṣyati yad idaṁ kiṁ ca.

Creation is regarded as the working of an urge, which requires to be satisfied till its purpose is fulfilled. This purpose is the utmost diversity, and the greatest multiplicity and variety, up to which point the urge has to reach. It is a desire to play the extreme type of game which exhausts itself in the manifestation of its deepest potentialities. A desire cannot be fulfilled unless its root itself is satisfied. It is not enough if merely one of its aspects is fulfilled. It is the ultimate cause that requires to be satiated. The Upaniṣhad, in its great symbology of creation, makes out that the Cosmic Wish to create does not get satisfied merely with the intermediary stages of manifestation, just as a little satisfaction is not going to extinguish a deep-seated desire. It has to be fulfilled to the brim and to the overflowing limit, and then it exhausts itself and returns to its original condition. It is very interesting to note that every desire is constituted of two phases—the urge to exhaust itself until it is totally extinguished and becomes a void, and thereafter, the returning to the cause which originated the desire. The whole process of the fulfilment of a wish, or a desire, is like the movement of a wheel. It is a recurring cycle, and therefore its movements are unintelligible to the linear logic of the human mind. It is an extreme of action on the part of the Creative Will, leading up to the other extreme of reabsorption into its pristine condition.

So now, in this section of the Upaniṣhad, we are told that the Creative Will was not satisfied with the creation of the intellectual type only. The higher calibre of understanding is not all that the Creative Will requires. It has the need for other aspects of manifestation. When you ask for variety, you do not know what you are asking for, because variety is endless. So, it is an endless type of asking, until the asking gets tired of asking and it is satisfied therefore. So it seeks a many-sided satisfaction, until it comes to a conclusion that every aspect has been comprehended in the manifestation of the wish. It is a very vast and incomprehensible movement, like the many-sided rush of the waves in a turbulent ocean, and in this manner, as it were, the Universal Will rushed forth into the diversity of manifestation in the form of this creation. It wanted the capacity to understand; it wanted the power to exercise control over the items of creation. And, in the completeness of manifestation, as I have tried to point out earlier, various aspects come forth into high relief, of which four at least are predominant, namely, understanding, power, material stability and the urge to action. We are composed of four aspects where we require and ask for the maximum of knowledge, the maximum of power, the maximum of material comfort and the maximum capacity for action. These are the psychological sides of the desire to manifest in a form of variety. So, the Master Will of Īshvara seems to have manifested Itself in all these ways, and when all this creation was complete, the utmost limit of variety was reached, another necessity arose. It is not enough if you merely create a variety, because the variety will go wild and become a problem if it is not controlled by some principle which has the power to maintain order in the midst of this tremendous variety that has been created.

The creation of God is not like a mob, or a chaos. It is not a hotchpotch of multiplicity where anything is of any kind, at any time, in any manner whatsoever. But, that would be the outcome, and that would be the meaning of mere creation of unconnected variety, where every item of variety bears no relation to the others. You can imagine what that condition could be, where every isolated entity bears no connection with the next one. Each one is absolutely independent and has a status of its own. That sort of isolated individual freedom would be tantamount to chaos and a catastrophic situation will arise, and to prevent that confusion, creation had to include within its purview a Supreme Ordering Principle that has to be manifest. Without that, there would be no beauty of the drama. If each of the personnel in the dramatic performance were absolutely independent, and had no connection with the other individuals in the performance, there would be no drama. It would be something quite different altogether, as you know.

The beauty of the drama, or the enactment, lies in the harmony of concept that is behind the enactment, which is in the mind of the Director. If the directive intelligence is not there behind the variety of dramatic personnel, there would be no enjoyment of the drama because there would be no 'embodiment' of the drama. It would be a discrete chaos and warfare of a freedom that has gone mad. To prevent that, there is a need for a directive intelligence, which is at once a force which can exercise itself with the intelligence with which it is identical. That force which is at once understanding par excellence, and which regulates, is called Dharma, a term which defies easy definition, but which has a profound significance. After the variety became manifest, Dharma was manifest. Law was created. A principle was laid down for the purpose of maintaining order amidst this variety that otherwise looks like a wild growth of weeds in a jungle, bereft of the order and law that is supposed to be immanent therein.

Sanaiva vyabhavat: So, the Creative Will was not satisfied even with this utmost manifestation of variety. If you have everything that can be counted as valuable, you cannot be satisfied even thereby, because satisfaction is not merely in the counting of a multitude of variety which is material, visible, physical. Satisfaction is a condition of consciousness, a state of mind. It is not located in an object, and so, this condition which is requisite for the manifestation of a satisfaction is essential, in spite of the variety that may be there. You may have all the money that you could wish for, all the wealth of the world, and you may have every kind of association conceivable, worthwhile in this life; but if there is no harmonising principle in the midst of this variety of possession, there would be no satisfaction arriving from this possession. A person who possesses an immense variety of things should have also the capacity to bring order among them, otherwise there would be no purpose or satisfaction in the possession of those things. It is not merely a heaping up of particulars that would be the cause of satisfaction of a person, but something else which is invisible to the eyes, and which itself cannot be regarded as a material possession. What brings satisfaction is not anything that is material. It is a very important thing to remember, though it may appear to the untutored mind that material objects bring satisfaction. Satisfaction, to repeat once again, is a condition of the mind. It is a state of consciousness which rises within, under certain conditions. And the objects outside which are supposed to bring satisfaction are only instruments in rousing this condition in consciousness, so that it is consciousness that is ultimately responsible for the satisfaction which we feel inside. Even the minutest type of satisfaction, even the silliest type of happiness, is a condition of the mind only. It is consciousness. But, the other things that are apparently the causes of the happiness that we enjoy in life, are extraneous instruments which create circumstances for the consciousness to reveal its necessary condition, which experience is called happiness.

Such a thing is what we call principle, apart from personality. It is not personality that causes value, or brings about needs in life. There is a principle behind every personality that is invisible to the eyes, that cannot be seen with the eyes, that cannot be thought by the mind, ordinarily. But that is the reality of things. The invisible principle is the controlling force behind things and persons. That was needed for the fulfilment of the creation of variety, without which there would be no fulfilment. Suppose the Creator, while creating a human being, as we are told in certain scriptures for instance, created only different parts. Suppose He created one finger, a thumb, a nose, an eye, a skull, etc. and the various parts were heaped together—it does not become a human being. Various parts of a machine, lumped together in a basket, do not make a machine. They have only become a weight; that is all. And yet, these parts constitute the machine. But they do not constitute a machine merely because they are heaped together in a basket, or a trunk. So, the heaping up of the parts, which is the variety of the creation, is not the completion of creation; it is not the perfection of creation; it is not the beauty of creation; it is not the grandeur of creation. It becomes grand, beautiful, perfect and attractive when it is harmoniously adjusted. The parts are related to one another by the machine, by fitting them in the required manner, which then become a machine, as you call it, something which is an instrument for the output of tremendous value. That something was required in creation. Then creation could become a fulfilment. For that purpose, a principle was made manifest, a universal principle. That is what they call eternal Dharma.  

14. sa naiva vyabhavat. tat chreyo-rūpam atyasṛjata dharmam; tad etat kṣatrasya kṣatraṁ yad dharmaḥ, tasmād dharmād paraṁ nāsti: atho abalīyān balīyāṁsam āśaṁsate dharmeṇa, yathā rājñā evam. yo vai sa dharmaḥ satyaṁ vai tat; tasmāt satyaṁ vadantam āhuḥ, dharmaṁ vadatīti, dharmaṁ vā vadantam, satyaṁ vadatīti, etad hy evaitad ubhayaṁ bhavati.

Chreyo-rūpam atyasṛjata: He created thereafter a glorious something, in the form of a power or a principle, resplendent in its nature, because it is the ruling power, standing above even the so-called rulers of the world. Even a king cannot rule unless there is a ruling principle. The power of a king is an invisible something. It is not visible to the eye. We see a monarch, an emperor, or a supreme head of administration, as a power. Where is that power? You cannot see it anywhere. It is not in a box, tied up somewhere. You try to locate the existence of this power of a supreme master of administration, a monarch, or whatever he is—you cannot see it anywhere. Even the wielder of the power cannot see where it is. It is not there to be seen. But it is, existent and operating, and it is feared by everyone. Why is this fear when it is not even visible to the eye? What is this that you call law? What you call law, whether it is a family law, communal law, social law, political law, whatever law it is, it is something which you cannot see with your eyes. But yet it is tremendously operating, and nothing can be more effective in its action than law. What a miracle! A thing that cannot be seen at all anywhere, which apparently does not exist for tangible purposes, is the supreme guiding principle of which everyone is a limb, as it were, and to go against which, everyone is afraid. How can a visible person, solid in his substantial body, fear something which is ethereal, inconceivable, almost non-existent for all practical purposes? This is an indication, as it were, that reality is always invisible. It is not necessarily physical. Even the physical, weighty object can be controlled by the operation of an invisible law. Such a law was made manifest—chreyo-rūpam atyasṛjata dharmam.

Tad etatkṣatrasya kṣatraṁ: This is the Kṣhatra of the Kṣhatra; this is the Ruler of the rulers. That is called Dharma—yad dharmaḥ. Here, a monarch is afraid of the law. It is not a great wonder. Even the maker of law is afraid of the law that is made, because he is involved in that law. So, there is something transcendent, above the manifestation of law. It is not an occasion for us to discuss what law is, and how it is manifest. We are only concerned with the topic that we touched upon, here in this section, that Divine Order manifested itself as a ruling power in the world of this variety. And, some light is thrown upon what Dharma is—tad etat kṣatrasya kṣatraṁ yad dharmaḥ.

Tasmād dharmādparaṁ nāsti:atho abalīyān balīyāṁsam āśaṁsate: Even a weak person can overwhelm a strong person by resorting to law, because strength and weakness depend upon the proportion or extent to which one is in harmony with the law. If you are disharmonious with the law, you are a weak person. If you are in harmony with the law, you are a strong person. So, your strength does not depend upon anything other than your participation in the working of the law. So law is the strength, not any other visible article of physical possession, as people wrongly imagine. When you participate in the law, whatever that law be, you become positive, healthy and endowed with strength. It can be the law of health; it can be the law of society; it can be the law of the universe; it can be the law of the Absolute. Whatever that law be, you have to participate in it by attuning yourself to it, and that law then becomes your friend. And when law becomes your friend, nobody can shake a hair of your body, because law is the supreme ruler. It is God operating in some form. So, the weakness of a person goes when he becomes attuned to the law, or Dharma—atho abalīyān balīyāṁsam āśaṁsate dharmeṇa.

Yathā rājñā evam.yo vai sa dharmaḥ satyaṁ vai tat: Truth and Dharma the are same, says this passage of the Upaniṣhad. So, Dharma may be said to be the form of Truth. So to be in harmony with the law is another way of being in harmony with the Truth. Satyānnāsti paro dharmaḥ: There is no Dharma above Truth. But you must know what Truth is, in order to know what Dharma is, and it is not an easy thing to know it. That which is ultimately true and is in consonance with the nature of things is the repository of law, and so, law and Truth are identical—yo vai sa dharmaḥ satyaṁ vai tat.

Tasmāt satyaṁvadantam āhuḥ, dharmaṁ vadatīti: So, what is it that is usually referred to when a person is said to speak the truth? Well, he is speaking Dharma: he is righteous; that is what people say. So, truthfulness and righteousness are identified with each other. Dharmam vā vadantam, satyaṁ vadatīti: So, when someone is righteous, we also say, he is a truthful person. So truthfulness and righteousness are identical in their nature. Etad hy evaitad ubhayaṁ bhavati: It is difficult to distinguish between truth and righteousness because they appear to be the obverse and the reverse sides of the same coin.

15. tad etad brahma kṣatraṁ viṭ śūdraḥ. tad agninaiva deveṣu brahmābhavat, brāhmaṇo manuṣyeṣu, kṣatriyeṇa kṣatriyaḥ, vaiśyena vaiśyah, sūdreṇa śūdraḥ; tasmād agnāv eva deveṣu lokam icchante, brāhmaṇe manuṣyeṣu, etābhyāṁ hi rūpābhyāṁ brahmābhavat. atha yo ha vā asmāl lokāt svaṁ lokam adṛṣtvā praiti, sa enam avidito na bhunakti, yathā vedo  vānanūktaḥ anyad vā karmākṛtam. yad iha vā apy anevaṁvid mahat-puṇyaṁ karma karoti, taddhāsyāntataḥ kṣīyata evaātmānam eva lokam upāsīta; sa ya ātmānam eva lokam upāste, na hasya karma kṣīyate, asmādd hy eva ātmano yad yat kāmayate tat tat sṛjate.

Tad etad brahma kṣatraṁ viṭ śūdraḥ. tad agninaiva deveṣu brahmābhavat, brāhmaṇo manuṣyeṣu, kṣatriyeṇa kṣatriyaḥ, vaiśyena vaiśyaḥ, sūdreṇa śūdraḥ; tasmād agnāv eva deveṣu lokam icchante, brāhmaṇe manuṣyeṣu, etābhyāṁ hi rūpābhyāṁ brahmābhavat: All this variety, the fourfold classification of individuals mentioned in the earlier sections, is a particular form of Divine Law working. And it is said here that this law is working not merely in this physical realm of human beings, but in all the realms of creation. Creation is not merely physical; it is not only earthly; it is not only the visible cosmos that we call creation. There are levels and degrees and realms of existence, planes of beings, one above the other, one interpenetrating the other, subtler than the other—all these are controlled by the same law. This variety is present in every realm of being, and that controlling Dharma also is operating in every realm of being. All this is the glory of the Absolute—brahmābhavat.

Atha yo ha vā asmāl lokāt svaṁlokam adṛṣtvā praiti, sa enam avidito na bhunakti: Now comes a masterly proclamation of the Upaniṣhad, after having said all this. It is very beautiful, indeed, to appreciate this magnificence of the creation of God. But unless it becomes a part of your practical living, it is not going to benefit you. This is a very strange and important statement of this Upaniṣhad, that anything that has not become a part of your being is as good as non-existent for you. Its existence has no meaning for you. If a person leaves this world, at the time of death, without knowing the true nature of the world in which he finds himself, then this world is not going to help that person. You are not going to receive any support from the world which you have not understood, which has not become a part of your life, which you have always tried to keep away from yourself as if it is an outside object. As for instance, the Vedas which have not been studied are not going to help you. Yathā vedo vānanūktaḥ anyad vā karmākṛtam: An action that you have not performed is not going to yield fruit in your case, because you have not done that action. An action that is not performed by you will not yield fruit for you; and knowledge that you have not acquired is not going to help you. Likewise, the world which has not become part of you is not going to be of any advantage to you. Therefore, the world is going to take steps to see that you understand it; and the punishing rod of Dharma will be lifted for the purpose of compelling you to understand your relation to this creation. As you are a part of this creation, it is your duty to know your relation to this creation, just as it is the duty of every citizen to know the law of his land. If ignorance of law is no excuse in the human realm, it is equally so in the Divine realm. If you do not know the Divine Law, the Divine Law will come upon you like a nemesis, with retribution, as human law also will act upon you even if you do not know its existence and operation.

So, the world that has been neglected by ignorance on the part of the individual, who is a part of the world, will cause him to reap the recompense in a manner which will require repeated participation by continued births and deaths. So, reincarnation, or births and deaths, and repeated suffering in various shapes of metempsychosis, cannot be escaped if we remain ignorant of the Law that has been mentioned here. After all this variety had been created, Dharma was created, which is regarded as identical with truthfulness supreme. So, if this Dharma is not understood, if this truth has not been recognised in one's life; if only the variety of creation has been seen physically, as a cat would see, or a mouse would see, or as an ass would see, for example, without any understanding of the meaning of this variety, then there would be no benefit accruing from this world. And, therefore, the world which has not become friendly with the individual shall become the source of trouble for the individual. Anything that is not understood is a source of problems and it is a trouble. Therefore be cautious, says the Upaniṣhad. It is no use merely being born into this world and not understanding it, just as it is no use living in a country without knowing its laws. You will be in great sorrow one day or the other, if that is the case. So, it is no use living in a world without knowing the law that operates in that world, and here the law does not mean a man-made law, but an eternal law which is identical with Truth-God Himself. What is that Truth?

It has been mentioned already, and it shall be again mentioned, that the truthfulness of creation lies in the immanence of the Creator in every part of creation. If this point is missed, the world shall remain as a foe, as it were, rather than a friend. Yad iha vā apy anevaṁvid mahat-puṇyaṁ karma karoti, taddhāsyāntataḥ ksīyata eva: Without the knowledge of this eternal principle operating in this world, you may be a very charitable person, but this charity is not going to help you. You may be a very great philanthropist; it is not going to be of much benefit to you. Whatever good actions that you have done in this world in the eyes of people cannot be regarded as good, really, if they have been performed without the knowledge of this Truth. If you do not know the 'why' and 'wherefore' of things—the Ultimate Law that is the cause behind every name and form and action; if you are an ignorant person performing ignorant actions for purposes not known to you yourself, then the fruit that accrues out of these actions will be perishable. It shall not bring you eternal satisfaction. Whatever be the great virtuous actions that you do in this world, they will be like burnt ashes without any essence in them—mahat-puṇyaṁ karma karoti, taddhāsyāntataḥ kṣīyata eva.

Ātmānameva lokam upāsīta: Now comes the positive affection, after having given you the fearful side of it, that if you do not know it, you would be punished by the law thereof. What is that you are supposed to know? Ātmānam eva lokamupāsīta: The world that you behold with your eyes is the Self of all beings. This is the knowledge that the Upaniṣhad tries to inculcate and propound. The world that you see before you with your eyes is not the world as you think it to be. It is the Ātman manifest. It is the Supreme Being scintillating before you in all Its glory. It is the Master Plan of Īshvara that is before you in the form of this variety. It is the finger of God that is working through the minutest actions of creation. If this point is not remembered, the Selfhood of the world will also be missed, because Īshvara, the Supreme Being, is the Self of all beings. So to recognise God in things is to recognise the Self in things, which is identical. And so, when you behold the world in front of you, you are supposed to behold it as the Creator Himself would behold it. So, the ultimate wisdom of man would be the capacity to think as God Himself thinks. If that could be possible, the miracle takes place—Ātmānam eva lokamupāsīta.

Na hāsya karma kṣīyate: Then, a miracle will follow from every little action that you perform. Everything that you say, everything that you do, will be a wonder by itself; and that wonder would be worked instantaneously, merely because of the presence of this knowledge in you. And what is this knowledge? It is, as I mentioned in the light of the Upaniāad, the ability to participate in the Will of God, to be harmonious with the thought of God; in short, to think like God. That is the supreme wisdom which one has to acquire by gradual training of thought in its various manoeuvres of activity in this life. And if that wisdom which is to be acquired, comes, every action becomes a fulfilment. It cannot produce a retribution; it cannot produce a bondage, it cannot bind you to rebirth, because no such action can produce a reaction.

Asmādd hy evaātmano yad yat kāmayate tat tat sṛjate: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." It is an equal, as it were, of this passage that is mentioned here. Whatever you wish will instantaneously manifest itself, provided this knowledge is already there. Asmādd hy eva ātmano yad yat kāmayate tat tat sṛjate: You need not beg from people, 'give me this'. Everything shall be given spontaneously, provided you are centred in this knowledge. Just as God need not beg anything from anyone, one who has the possession of this knowledge of God need not also beg, because knowledge is power. They are identical. Supreme Knowledge is Supreme Power. One who is endowed with this ultimate knowledge has ultimate power also, and so whatever such a one wishes materialises itself instantaneously, merely because of the capacity of this knowledge. But if this knowledge is absent, one becomes poverty-stricken, and this poverty cannot be made good by any amount of accumulation of physical particulars.

16. atho ayaṁ vā ātmā sarveṣām bhūtānāṁ lokaḥ. sa yaj juhoti yad yajate, tena devānāṁ lokaḥ. atha yad anubrūte, tena rṣiṇāṁ; atha yat pitṛbhyo nipṛṇāti yat prajām icchate, tena pitṛṇām; atha yan manuṣyān vāsayate, yad ebhyo'śanaṁ dadāti, tena manuṣyāṇām; atha yat paśubhyas  tṛṇodakaṁ vindati, tena paśūnām; yad asya gṛheṣu śvāpadā vayāṁsy āpipīlikābhya upajīvanti, tena teṣāṁ lokaḥ; yathā ha vai svāya lokāyāriṣṭim icchet, evaṁ haivaṁ vide (sarvadā) sarvāṇi bhūtāny ariṣṭim icchanti. tad vā etad viditam mīmāṁsitam.

Atho ayaṁ vā ātmāsarveṣām bhūtānāṁ lokaḥ: This Self is the world of all beings. As a matter of fact, there is no world at all except this One Supreme Being. This is the final Magna Carta, you may call it, of the great Upaniṣhad which is the Bṛhadāraṇyaka. This Ātman is all the world, and whatever you expect from this world is an expression of the Ātman. He shall provide you with anything and everything, as a mother would provide you with your needs. Much dearer to you is the Ātman than your own mother, and more capable is the Ātman than your mother is. More resourceful is the Ātman than anyone else that you can regard as dear and near. It is all the world; all that you can conceive; all that you need; everything that you are and wish to be is the Ātman, and nothing is outside It. Ayaṁ vā ātmā sarveṣām bhūtānāṁ lokaḥ: It is the world of not merely human beings, but of every being. It is the reservoir of supply for everything, whether of this world or of the other worlds, of all these, of the celestial, or the physical, or the nether world; and it is the treasure house of supply which is provided at once, instantaneously, without the succession of the passage of time. What sort of world is this which the Ātman embodies? In what way are we to recognise the presence of this Ātman in all the worlds? What is the method that we have to adopt in our practical lives in order to be commensurate with the law of the Ātman? That is answered in the following passages.

It is not humanly possible to think the Ātman as It is, in Itself, and therefore it is equally difficult to work up this miracle as the Upaniṣhad mentions, of knowing the Self as all this world. It is a great possibility but not an immediate practicability, for reasons known to everyone, because the identification of one's consciousness with the Selfhood of things is the greatest difficulty conceivable to the mind. It is an inveterate habit of the mind to externalise and objectivate things; and it is precisely this habit of the mind that is an obstacle to the identification of the consciousness with the Ātman. So, the Upaniṣhad tells you that you cannot jump off to the skies like that at once, though that is your ideal. You have to move towards this supreme ideal of identification of your consciousness with the Selfhood of things, stage by stage, and some of the stages are mentioned. These are called, in ordinary religious parlance, the Pancha-Maha-Yajña, or the five great sacrifices which a householder, especially in India, has to perform. The five great sacrifices, called the Pancha-Maha-Yajña, mean the way in which one recognises one's own self in the variety of creation that he sees before him, by means of sympathy, consideration and feeling for others. That is the first step that you have to take before you take up the more difficult task of complete identification with the Being of all things.

The sympathy that you psychologically exercise in respect of others is the first step. The identity with others is the next step; that is a more difficult thing. To feel for others is easier than to become others, though that is the ideal. So, the Upaniṣhad tells us, you try to feel for others first and manifest this feeling in your actions before you totally become, or aspire to become one with them.

Sa yaj juhotiyad yajate, tena devānāṁ lokaḥ: You become one with the gods, the celestials. How is this possible? You adore them, worship them, participate in their nature, by prayer and recitation of holy hymns which produce in the mind vibrations sympathetic with the nature of the gods that you worship. So, all worship, all religious ceremony that is generally performed in holy shrines, etc., all prayer, all study of scripture, is an attempt on the part of the human nature to become harmonious with the divine nature; harmonious with the deity that you adore; and so, before the attempt is made to become one with the deity, a feeling sympathetic with the nature of the deity is cultivated within by worship, by sacrifice, by offering in the holy fire, etc. This is called Deva-Yajña.

Atha yadanubrūte, tena rṣiṇāṁ: You become harmonious with the thought of the great teachers or Masters of yore, by communicating their knowledge, by participating in what they call these days Jñana-Yajña, or the imparting of the wisdom of the ancient Rishis which they saw as a revelation in their own meditation. The Masters themselves participated in this Yajña by imparting this knowledge to their disciples. So, you get in communion with the intentions of these great Masters, by continuing this tradition of imparting the great knowledge to disciples and fit recipients. That is called Rishi-Yajña, the second Yajña.

Atha yat pitṛbhyo nipṛṇātiyat prajām icchate, tena pitṛṇām: You have to become, in the same manner, a participant in the will of the forefathers, the Pitṛs, as they are called, the ancestors who have gone before us, by a charity that you have to perform in your own interest. This charitable act takes various shapes. One of them is what they call Shrāddha, or the holy libations that people offer, annually or sometimes monthly; and giving in gift those things which were the objects of satisfaction to those ancestors, that which they liked, that which was their need, that which was to their satisfaction. You know very well that you will be pleased with me if I do what is pleasant to you. That is very clear. I must do exactly what is pleasant to you; then you are pleased with me. So, naturally the ancestors are pleased if you do that which was pleasant to them, and shall be pleasant to them. That would be called Pitṛ-Yajña.

Atha yam manuṣyān vāsayate yadebhyo'śanaṁ dadāti, tena manuṣyāṇām: You have to participate in the welfare of human beings before you try to become one with them, by giving them their needs. That is called Manuṣya-Yajña. For instance, some examples are given; you give accommodation to people who have no accommodation; you give food to people who have no food to eat, and so on and so forth. You provide the needs of people when they are actually in need of them. That would be an act or a gesture on your part, exhibiting sympathy with their nature, precedent to your identification with their Being. This is called Manuṣya-Yajña.

Atha yat paśubhyastṛṇodakaṁ vindati, tena paśūnām: You have also another duty, the sympathy that you have to feel towards subhuman beings—animals, etc., because they are also a part of creation. So, before you try to become one with them, you have to feel a considerate, sympathetic attitude towards them, by giving them their needs, such as grass to the cow, water to the thirsty animals, and so on. These acts of sympathy constitute Bhuta-Yajña. You must have seen some people giving food to animals, birds, etc., which is indicative of this gesture of considerate feeling towards subhuman beings, because the intention is to become one with them, also, ultimately.

Yad asya gṛheṣu śvāpadāvayāṁsy āpipīlikābhya upajīvanti, tena teṣāṁ lokaḥ: The Upaniṣhad goes further then. You have a duty even towards the ants crawling in the house. Even the worthless animals, as you call them, the insignificant ones, the cats and the dogs, and the crawling insects that are in your house or about the house, the gnats and what not, which have no significance at all in life, as far as you are concerned—you allow them to live. Live and let live, is a great law that has to operate. Just as you want to live, others also have to live. You cannot extirpate the lives of others for your living, nor can you interfere with the lives of others because you want to be comfortable. So, non-interference with the lives of others, including ants and such other insignificant creatures which generally escape your notice, āpipīlikābhya—even down to the white ants and black ants, whatever they are, even to their extent you have to go, and not interfere with them, because they have their own world. And you become a participant in their world.

If you participate in the worlds of these beings—celestial, ancestor, rishi, animal, man, and what not—what happens? You become a very hospitable guest in these worlds when you depart from this world. You are received with honour wherever you go. That means you may go to any world. Who knows, you may go to the ant world; they will turn you out if you have insulted them in this world. They will say, "You are the fellow who crushed us, and now we will see to it."

So, be cautious to recognise the fact that nothing is insignificant in this world. Nobody is so poor as not to be able to wreak vengeance upon you. Nobody is so weak as not to be able to do some harm to you, one day or the other, if the necessity arises. And, therefore, no one should have the heart even to imagine that the world is segregated completely, and one can go scot-free. No one can go scot-free. There is an interconnecting Law which recognises even the worst of things and the lowest of animals and other subhuman creatures; and the fulfilment of that Law is the fulfilment of God.

Continued