The Chhandogya Upanishad

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 2: Uddalaka's Teaching Concerning the Oneness of the Self

Section 1: Preliminary

1. Aum, svetaketur ha'runeya asa, tam ha pitovaca: svetaketo, vasa brahmacaryam, na vai, saumya, asmat-kulino' nanucya brahma-bandhuriva bhavatiti.

There was a great sage called Uddalaka, the son of Aruni. He had only one boy, his son by name Svetaketu. For some reason or the other the father was not in a position to school him, teach him personally or give him instruction. The boy was loitering, running about here and there with children of the neighbourhood, and never knew what study was; what learning was; what education was. The father, one day, called the boy and said: "My dear son, in our family nobody is a Brahmin merely by name. He has to be worth his name, which means to say that he has to be filled with the real knowledge of the Brahmin, and we should not call ourselves so, merely by name in the social sense. You are here a relative of a great man; you need to be a great person. You should not just be in a position to say, "I am the friend of so-and-so, I am the son of such-and-such a father." You should also be equal inside. So, you must go to a gurukula and study, and then come back." Aum svetaketur ha'runeya asa, tam ha pitovaca: svetaketo, vasa brahmacaryam: "Be a student." Here, brahmacharya means the role of a student in a gurukula. Na vai, saumya, asmat-kulino' nanucya brahma-bandhur iva bhavatiti.

2. Sa ha dvadasa-varsa upetya caturvimsati varsah sarvan vedan adhitya mahamana anucana-mani stabdha evaya, tam ha pitovaca, svetaketo, yan nu saumya idam mahamana anucanamani stabdho' si uta tam adesam apraksyah.

The boy was sent. The boy went to a gurukula for study and he underwent the whole course of education. He was twelve years old when he went from the house of the father. When he returned after education he was twenty-four years old. So, he studied for twelve years. He studied all the Vedas, all the Shastras, all the scriptures, and there was practically nothing religious which he had not learnt. Now, this learning had some other effect also, that of swelling up the head of this boy with an immense pride. He began to feel that nobody was equal to him in learning; that he knew all things, was almost omniscient. So, when he came, at the age of twenty-four, to the father at home, he would not speak because of the learning that was in his head. He was very dignified looking and sat without uttering a word even to the father. He started behaving very conceitedly. He did not utter one word because of the so-called depth of his knowledge. The father observed what had happened to his son. He does not speak; he sits arrogantly; he is very proud; he is puffed up with learning and he thinks he knows everything. It is very strange indeed. So, having observed this, the father calls the boy one day and says: "You don't speak, you seem to be very learned and you put up a very arrogant appearance; I can't understand what it means. Have you learnt everything from your Guru, which makes you feel that you know everything and are now so full of pride? Do you know everything, have you studied everything?"

3. Yenasrutam srutam bhavati, amatam matam, avijnatam vijnatam iti: katham nu, bhagavah, sa adeso bhavatiti.

"Do you know That, by knowing which, everything is known? Do you know That, by which the unheard becomes heard, the unthought becomes thought?" Yenasrutam srutam bhavati, amatam matam, avijnatam vijnatam iti: "Has your Guru, or the preceptor from whom you have studied the four Vedas, taught you these secrets by which things which are not heard of, are heard, things which cannot be thought of, are thought of, that which cannot be understood, is understood? There is something by knowing which everything can be known. Have you heard of this? Have your teachers imparted this knowledge to you?" Very strange indeed! The boy had never heard of such things-how can an unheard thing, be heard; an unthought thing, be thought; an ununderstood thing, be understood? This is not in the Vedas or the Shastras; nowhere is anything mentioned of it. Katham nu, bhagavah, sa adeso bhavatiti: The boy says: "What is this? I do not know. I have never been taught this thing." He is humbled a little bit. So, there is something he does not know. "If you have never heard of a thing, how can you hear of it? If you can never think of a thing, how can you think of it? And if it cannot be understood at all, how can it be understood?" "But there is a way," says the father. "There is a way by which you can execute this feat of knowing everything, even if it cannot be known normally. Supersensory things can be known and everything can be known by the knowledge of a single thing." The father puts this question to the boy, but the boy knows nothing about this. "How is it possible?" the boy queries the father. "What is the meaning of this question? How is it possible for one to know, in this manner?" "Well; I give you an example of how it is possible." Without going into the details of the subject, the father gives only an example, an analogy of how such a thing is possible.

4. Yatha, saumya, ekena mrt-pindena sarvam mrnmayam vijnatam syat vacarambhanam vikaro nama-dheyam, mrttikety eva satyam.

"If you know what earth is made of, you also know at the same time what anything that is made of earth also is made of, because all the articles that are manufactured out of earth are constituted of earth essentially. So, I give you an example of how many things can be known by the knowledge of one thing. Pot, tumbler, plate, etc., and various articles of this kind manufactured out of clay are clay only, in reality. So, if you know what clay is, you know what a clay tumbler is, a clay plate is, a clay glass is, etc. Do you understand what I say? Yes! Because they are only shapes taken by that substance called clay. And, what you mean by an earthen pot is only a name that you have given to a shape taken by the earth."

5. Yatha, saumya, ekena loha-manina sarvam lohamayam vijnatam syat, vacarambhanom vikaro nama-dheyam lohamity eva satyam.

6. Yatha, saumya, ekena nakha-nikrntanena sarvam karsnayasam vijnatam syat, vacarambhanam vikaro namadheyam krsnayasam ity eva satyam, evam, saumya, sa adeso bhavatiti.

"So is the case with certain other things. You take a nugget of gold, and you know a nugget of gold can be cast into various shapes of ornaments. It can be a necklace; it can be a ring; it can be anything. Now, if you know what gold is really, what gold is made of essentially, you will also know what a gold necklace is made of, what a gold ring is made of, etc., because the gold ring, gold necklace and the like are gold only in their essence. These are only shapes, forms taken by the essence which is the substance, gold.

"If you take a pair of scissors, for instance, made of iron, you know what it is made of. It is made of iron. Then you would also know what anything else made of iron is. It may be a hammer; it may be a nail; it may be an axe; it does not matter what it is, all these things are the shapes taken by the same iron which is in the pair of scissors.

"Now, this earthen pot is a very strange thing, altogether. The earthen pot is a name that you have given to a shape taken by the earth. There is no such thing as a pot, really speaking. You touch a pot and tell me whether you are touching a pot or are touching clay. What are you touching? You cannot say what you are touching. You will say, 'Well; it is difficult for me to say if I am touching the pot or have touched the clay.' You are touching the clay and you say you are touching the pot. The pot is in your head; it is not outside. What is there is really the clay. Your conception, your thought is that the substance is clay only. The interference of space and time in the substance called earth is responsible for this peculiar shape that it has taken. So, the pot made of earth is only a name, a sound merely. You are only uttering some words indicating a shape taken by the earth which is its substance. So, what do you mean by the shape taken by the earth? What is shape? You cannot understand what shape also is. The shape also is earth itself. You are interfering with the substance called the earth by your notional interpretation of its connection with space and time. So, the earthen pot is nothing but a conceptual interpretation that you are introducing into the substance that is called clay. There is no such thing as pot; it does not exist. Yet, you have coined two words. On one side there is the word called clay, on the other side there is the word called pot. Now, you have got two names indicating one and the same thing. Now, why should you have two names if the substance is only one? Yatha, saumya, ekena mrt-pindena sarvam mrnmayam vijnatam syat vacarambhanam vikaro namadheyam, mrttikety eva satyam: You are under an illusion of perception. You are confounded in your notion of the substance. There is a mistake that you commit in your interpretation of reality when you say, 'There is a pot.' The pot does not exist; what exists there is only the clay. And what you call the pot is only a concept in your mind. So is the case with everything else in this world," says Uddalaka Aruneya to his son Svetaketu.

The illustrations provided by the sage Uddalaka make out that object forms are inseparable from concepts in the mind. If they had not been organically involved in the mind of the perceiver, they would be objectively existent and could be physically sensed by the organs of perception.

Now, in this analogy of the pot, an effect of a substance, namely, clay-the pot-when properly analysed is known to contain no element apart from the clay in spite of the fact that people go around saying that there is a pot. It is very strange indeed that there is no pot there and yet we say that there is a pot. Are we under an illusion? Is it true that every human being is equally misconceived in the perception of things? Or do we give names to things for the sake of convenience in social life? Now, mere practical utilitarian convenience cannot be regarded as an objective reality. If we give names to things only to distinguish their form, one from the other, for the purpose of practical life in the world, that would not sanction a philosophical or even a scientific existence to the counterparts of these names. We must accept that we are only giving names for the purpose of our notional convenience in work-a-day life, and that there are no corresponding objects. If this is a fact, diversities cease to be at one stroke. It will imply that all the varieties that you see in this world are mere nomenclature. They are a jumble of ideas expressed in language, the ideas having got concretised into apparent realities, as if they are really there and are trying to pounce upon us like hobgoblins.

The variety of things, the diversity of objects and the multitudinousness that this world is apparently, is not really there. If it is true that a substance, when converted into a shape or a form called the effect, does not introduce into the effect anything new other than what was contained in itself alone; if clay is there in the pot and nothing else is there in the pot, it would be pointless to call that shape as a pot. We have unnecessarily created trouble by calling a particular form of clay by another name. We can call the same mass of clay by a third or a fourth name like tumbler, plate and so on. So we have created a variety in our minds while variety is not really there.

This is the philosophical conclusion that automatically follows on a careful investigation into the nature of the creation of variety in respect of the effects that are manufactured out of causes while the causes are uniform in their nature, ultimately. This is the outcome of the analysis of what Uddalaka mentioned in very plain, simple language to the boy Svetaketu.

As is the case with clay in its relation to the effects produced out of it, so is the case with everything else in this world out of which effects are produced, whatever the causes may be—iron, gold, wood or anything for the matter of that. The boy could not understand the significance of this teaching. Well, it is very clear. We do understand what they say, but it is terrifying. It seems to shake the very foundation of our belief in the world, and it appears that we cannot exist at all, if this is the truth. "My Gurus did not appear to have understood all these things. They never taught me these things," says the boy to the father.

7. Na vai nunam bhagavantas ta etad avedisuh, yadd hy etad avedisyan, katham me navaksyn-iti bhagavans tv eva me tad bravitv iti; tatha, saumya, iti hovaca.

"If they had known this, why should they have not told this to me? I have never heard these things up to this time. I have studied the four Vedas, I have studied the Shastras, but nothing of this kind was heard from any quarter. What is this? Will you kindly explain, holy father?" He is now also the Guru of Svetaketu. The father says, "Well, listen. I shall explain to you what all this mystery is about."

Section 2: The Primacy of Being

There was one Being alone in the beginning. It is not true that there is a variety of beings.

1. Sad eva, saumya, idam agra asid ekam evadvitiyam, tadd haika ahuh, asad evedam agra asid ekam evadvitiyam, tasmad asatah saj jayata.

"My dear boy, there was only a single Reality existing in the beginning. The so-called variety was not there. It was one; it was without a second. There was nothing outside it; nothing external to it, to compete with it, to equal it or to be different from it. There is no conceivable reality in this world of this nature. Whatever be the stretch of your imagination, you cannot conceive of something outside which nothing is. At least space would be there, time would be there, something would be there. But even space and time are objects, externals, effects that came afterwards in the process of creation. And, therefore, they too are negated in the case of this reality. That alone was. There was absolutely no differentiation whatsoever, originally. There was neither external differentiation nor internal variety. In scriptural language, there was neither sajatiya bheda, nor was there vijatiya bheda, nor svagata bheda."

These are the stock words in Vedanta philosophy which make out that differences of three kinds are observed in this world, which are not there in Reality. There can be internal variety or difference, like the difference observed among the branches of a tree. The tree is one but the branches are many. Even so, there is internal differentiation or variety in a single body. The right hand will be different from the left hand, one finger is different from another finger, one part of the body is different from another part of the body. This is svagata bheda—difference within one's own self, one's own body. Though the object is single and is a unity in itself, yet there is an internal variety of this nature. There was no such variety in the Absolute Being, originally. There is also another kind of difference that we observe in this world. One human being is different from another human being. Though everyone is a human being, human beings are different from each other. One cow is different from another cow. This is sajatiya bheda, or difference in a single species or a category of the same kind. Even that kind of difference was not there. Vijatiya bheda is the third kind of difference. A tree is different from a stone, a man is different from an animal. This is the difference of different kinds of species. That also was not there.

So the absolute reality was completely free from all these three possible differences. It was a tremendous unity inconceivable to the human mind.

2. Kutas tu khalu, saumya, evam syat, iti hovaca, katham, asatah saj jayeteti, sat tu eva, saumya, idam agra asid ekam evadvitiyam.

There are some people who think that, originally, Non-Being was—not Being, but Non-Being. Non-Being is sometimes regarded as an origin of things under peculiar conditions. How is it possible that Being can come from Non-Being? Has anyone seen such a phenomenon? Something can produce something; how can nothing produce something? We have never heard of such a possibility. So Uddalaka says: "My dear boy, though it is true that there are people who hold the doctrine that Non-Being was, originally, and Being proceeded out of Non-Being as an effect, this is not a practicability. It is inconceivable. Non-Being cannot be the cause of Being. Nor can we say that Being is the cause of Being. It is a tautology of expression. 'A is the cause of A'-you cannot say that. It is a meaningless way of speaking. If Being is not the cause of Being, then what is the cause of Being? Non-Being? Not possible! Non-Being cannot be the cause of Being. Being also is not the cause of Being. Then what is the cause of Being? No cause. There cannot be a cause for Being. So it must be a causeless Being. If it has a cause, we must explain what that cause could be, and the cause should be either Being or Non-Being. There cannot be a third thing. Being cannot be the cause of Being; Non-Being also cannot be the cause of Being, so there is no cause for Being. It is causeless existence. It is useless and pointless to say that Non-Being can be the origin, in any manner whatsoever, of Being. Kutas tu khalu, saumya, evam syat, iti hovaca: How is it possible? It is an aged doctrine, a humorous saying indeed, to hold that something can come out of nothing. Katham, asatah saj jayeteti: How can Being come from Non-Being? Sat tu eva, saumya, idam agra asid: Now please listen to my conclusion. I hold that Being alone was, and not Non-Being. Ekam evadvitiyam: So I repeat what I have told you already. Being alone was. Now, it is non-dual Being. It is not like my 'being' or your 'being' or 'being' of this or that. It is not an individual 'being'. It is not a particularised 'being'. It is not something connected with any object. It is Being as such, inconceivable, because it is not an object. The mind can think what is outside it. It cannot think anything else. But Being cannot be something outside the mind, because the mind also is rooted in Being. Therefore, it is not a subject for comprehension by the senses or conception by the mind. It is not an object of any kind, either physical or conceptual; that means to say, it cannot be investigated scientifically nor argued about philosophically. What sort of thing is it, then? Well, if it could be understood so easily, then you would be blessed. But it cannot be understood like that, because, who can understand That which is the preconception of even the very act of understanding itself. Even the mind cannot move unless Being is there at its background. So it is a presupposition of even the faculties of understanding and thinking. Thus, there is no such thing as understanding it, thinking it, sensing it, conceiving it, describing it, explaining it or arguing about it."

Now This is, to put it plainly, the origin of everything. The commentators on this Upanishad go into vast details of the method of the effect coming from the cause and how creation was originally effected by this Supreme Being. According to the various schools of thought to which people belong or commentators belong, there are various types of vadas or philosophical arguments explaining the relationship between the cause and the effect. The crux of philosophical argument is the cause and effect relationship. It is the difference in the conception of cause and effect relationship that makes the difference in the schools of philosophy. How the cause is related to the effect, and vice versa, is very difficult to understand. Has the effect come from the cause, is it something different from the cause, or is it not different from the cause? You cannot easily answer these questions, because if the effect is different from the cause, it is not an effect of that cause. You have already assumed that it is different. Then why do you say that it is an effect of that cause? Naturally it is the same as the cause. So either way you are caught. You cannot say that it is different from the cause; you cannot say that it is the same as the cause. If there is no distinction between the cause and the effect, why should there be two languages or two words used for designating these two items? Where are the two items at all? Or if there is a continuity, a process as people make out sometimes, connecting the cause with the effect, we have to explain what this process is. The process must be either a movement of the cause into its own self or it must be the movement of something else. If it is something else, then again it is not the cause. The same difficulty arises. If it is the same as the cause, there is no such thing as the effect. So you are caught up in a great quandary. You have to say that there is no such thing as an effect. But if there is no such thing as an effect, how comes the creation? If creation has to be explained, the nature of an effect has to be explained; but you cannot understand what an effect is. And therefore you cannot understand what creation is.

This is the extent to which philosophy can go when it stretches its arguments to the logical limits. But philosophers do not argue merely to get defeated. The purpose is to find a solution. It may be that you face a wall in front of you whenever you argue into the depths of an object. But a solution has to be found for the appearance of this enigma of creation, or in principle the appearance of an effect from a cause. Solutions cannot be found easily, and inasmuch as intellectually or logically a satisfactory explanation cannot be found for explaining the relationship between the cause and the effect, there are thinkers who hold that the doctrine of creation is not an explanation or a narration of a historical event that took place sometime. It is not that somebody did something once upon a time and something happened and we are talking of it today. Creation does not mean that. Especially, people like Sankara hold this view that creation is a necessary assumption on the part of the individual for the purpose of the ascent of the individual to the Absolute. It may be there or it may not be there; that is not the point. But it has to be accepted as being there. As we have observed some time back, certain assumptions are not objectively existent like an 'x' in an equation. It does not really exist; it has no meaning. Yet it has a tremendous meaning, you know very well, as it solves the problem. When it solves the problem, it extinguishes itself automatically. It itself is not there. So there can be a so-called non-existent thing assumed to be really there and capable of solving a very serious problem, and having solved the problem, itself getting withdrawn automatically.

The purpose of teaching of the Upanishad is something quite different from giving a story or telling you a tale of what happened once upon a time. This is a very important point emphasised again and again by Sankaracharya in his commentary. That is, we are not understanding the implication behind the teachings of the Upanishad. They are not grandmothers telling us stories. You can understand very well that a phenomenon cannot be explained unless certain assumptions are already made, which are acceptable to the present condition of the human mind. There is no use arguing about whether creation exists or not. It is taken for granted that it exists, because we see the world. No one doubts the existence of the world. So you have to take a stand which is acceptable from the point of view of the immediate reality for seeing. And Uddalaka followed this technique of teaching like a good psychologist. The question is not whether creation exists or not, or how it came. That is not the argument, because there is no use speaking about a concept in the mind which cannot be practically demonstrated from the point of view of the present degree of reality which the student holds. It is taken for granted that the effect is the worldly creation that took place. I shall take you to a further point later on, from this assumption, further to something quite different from what you expected. From the acceptance of the fact that creation is, it is there of course, the mind is taken gradually to the point where it understands that there is no such thing as creation. But it cannot be accepted in the beginning itself. It has to be concluded later on by a gradual ascent of thought through a calculation of logic, step by step, without missing a single link in a chain of arguments, and this chain of argument is followed up in a very interesting manner by Uddalaka.

There was creation. Let us take it for granted. Therefore, there must be a Creator. How can there be creation without a Creator? The Creator was the Absolute Being. This is what I posit as the Ultimate Reality. And what would be the process of creation and the cause for creation? The intention of the Creator is the cause of creation. The will of the artist is the cause of the manufacture of the effect or the product in the form of sculpture, architectural piece, painting, etc. The intention, the will, the original meditation or tapas, as sometimes it is called, of the Supreme Being is the cause of creation. It willed.

3. Tad aiksata, bahu syam prajayeyeti, tat tejo srjata: tat tejo aiksata, bahu syam prajayeyeti, tad aposrjata, tasmad yatra kva ca socati svedate va purusah tejasa eva tad adhy apo jayante.

"May I see the drama of my own manifestation." This is the Will, and it alienated itself into an effect, like the pot being created out of clay. So, an interesting assumption is already made that the effect is not really substantially different from the cause. Just as pot is not different from clay essentially, the effect in the form of this creation and every stage in the process of creation is not different in essence from the cause which is pure Being. And according to the doctrine of this particular teaching in the Chhandogya Upanishad, the original creation, the first creation, was of agni (fire)-tat teja aiksata-and at every stage of the argument Uddalaka refers to this effect as God or deity, devata. They are not material objects. The fire or the water or the earth that we will be speaking of are not material things. Devata is the word used to designate these items. They are, in essence, identical with the Supreme Being Himself. So how can you not identify their importance with the importance of the Supreme Being Himself? Teja aiksata: There is a chain action taking place in creation. The Supreme Being, whom you may tentatively call A, willed, "May I become B." Now, the original will of A charged into the being of B has a tremendous effect upon B. The creative will of A works through B. It again willed, "May I become C." C willed, "May I become D." So there is a downward descent into greater and greater forms of particularisation and diversification until the largest considerable diversity in the form of this world is here before us. The Supreme Being or Sat, the pure Being willed, "May I be another." It then became the Fire Principle operating universally everywhere. That, in turn willed, and It became the Water Principle operating everywhere—tat teja aiksata, bahu syam prajayeyeti, tad apo'srjata. The waters congealed into solid objects and became the Earth Principle, not necessarily this little globe of the earth but anything that is of earth anywhere or anything physical in its nature. Tasmad yatra kva ca socati svedate va purusah tejasa eva tad adhy apo jayante. "Whenever there is heat felt in the body there is an expression of liquidity like perspiration," says the Upanishad. Heat in the form of fever or for any other reason whatsoever is seen to produce an effect in the form of water oozing out. The example given here is, that when you are grieved or when you are perspiring, you feel that the heat generated within yourself either due to sorrow or due to fatigue becomes the cause of the water of perspiration. By this, the connection between fire and water is explained. From water comes earth.

4. Ta apa aikaanta, bahvyah syama, prajayemahiti, ta annam,, asrjanta, tasmad yatra kva ca varsati, tad eva bhuyistham annam bhavati, adbhya eva tad adhy annadyam jayate.

Water produced food-anna. In the language of the Upanishad, food means matter. Anything physical or material is called food. Ultimately, anything that is external to consciousness is food. An object of thought is food. That is food which comes out of the condensation of the water principle. Now, these elements mentioned here—fire, water and earth—are what are usually called the subtle elements. They are the pure principles of creation. Later on they get mixed in certain proportions for the manifestation of grosser elements, namely, the fire and the water and the earth that we see with our eyes. So, what the Upanishad speaks of here as fire, water and earth are not the physical fire, water and earth that we see. They are the super-physical elements called tanmatras. These tanmatras are mixed or blended in certain proportions. For the purpose of the expression of the physical fire, three elements have to be joined in a certain proportion. This is called trivritkarana in Sanskrit. Trivritkarana is the threefold mixing of the original principles, tanmatras, namely, fire, water and earth, in such a way that a particular element contains half of itself and one-fourth of the other two. So you have got in every element an element of every other element also. Pure elements are never available in this world. They are all a mixture of the original three. This is called trivritkarana-triplication-the mixing of three attributes, three substances, in certain proportions. When there is water in plenty, there is food also in plenty. This is what the Upanishad tells us in this connection. Tasmad yatra kva ca varsati, tad eva bhuyistham annam, bhavati, abdhya eva tad adhy annadyam jayate: Everything is produced out of these elements. All the variety in this world, whatever be the number and the quality of the variety in this world, all this is an expression of these three elements, just as we are told that every colour is but a mixture in some proportion by permutation and combination of the three essential colours. There are only three colours, only three substances, ultimately. Everything else is constituted in some way or the other in some proportion of these three elements alone. Every form of creation is a manifestation thereof. What are these creations? Let us see. Apart from the triplicated gross elements, fire, water and earth, which we may call inorganic existence in our language, there are organic bodies also.

Section 3: Threefold Development

1. Tesam khalv esam bhutanam triny eva bijani bhavanti, andajam, jivajam, udbhijjam iti.

The organic bodies also have originated on account of the mixture of these three elements only. There are various types of organisms. Those which sprout up from the earth, like the plant, the tree, the vegetables, etc., are called udbhijja. That is one kind of organic creation-the vegetable kingdom. There are other beings that come out bursting through the egg, not like plants coming from the earth, but egg-born beings. This is another type of organic beings; they are called andaja. There are others that come out of the womb of the mother; they are called jivaja or jarayuja. There is a fourth type which is called svedaja, coming out of dirt, dust, sweat, etc. All these varieties of organic creation are also made possible on account of the substance of their bodies being provided by these three original elements only. The entry of consciousness in varying proportions and intensity into these bodies is responsible for the variety of these organic bodies. They are different from one another on account of the different intensity of consciousness present there. The lesser the degree of the manifestation of consciousness in a particular body, the less is the capacity of the organism in every respect. The more the intensity, of course, the greater is the capacity.

Now the Upanishad says: The Supreme Being willed through these manifested parts—"May I reveal Myself in this multiform of creation."

2. Seyam devataiksata, hantaham imas tisro devata anena jivena tmana nupravisya nama-rupe vyakaravaniti.

"May I enter into these three elements that I have created-fire, water and earth-and through them, may I become further manifold, by means of the triplication of these."

3. Tasam trivrtam trivrtam ekaikam karavaniti, seyam devatema tisro devata anenaiva jivera'tmanra'nupravisya nama-rupe vyakarot. Tasam trivrtam trivrtam ekaikam akarot.

Name and form came into existence on account of this action of multiplication brought about by the triplication of the elements by the Will of the Supreme Being. So the whole world is nothing but nama and rupa, name and form. There is a particular shape and that is called a form and that has got a name also, by which you distinguish it from another. Minus name and minus the particular shape, what is that object? It does not exist. The three dimensions of an object, length, breadth and height, the weight and the features, which are sensible to the perceptive organs, are the constituents of the object, and if these sensations are not there, if the aspects of three dimensions are not there, there will be no objectivity at all. And, therefore, there will be no nomenclature of any kind. So there will be no name and form. Then, what is this world ultimately? It is a formation of a single substance which originally became threefold—fire, water and earth—and then divided itself into manifold forms, to which many names have been given. Thus, what is this universe of diversity before us? It is the one Being alone; except That, nothing is. It is said, "Being alone was." Now we have to say, "Being alone is." Even after creation, that Being alone is—not that It was, only once upon a time, in ancient times and not now. Even now when there is the so-called creation or manufacture of the variety, It has not ceased to be. The variety is not really there, as the causative factors of this variety are also constituted of the substance of this Being alone. That which causes the difference of one thing from another is also that Being only, manifested in some other form. So how can there be difference? If the differentiating factor itself is a part of that which is differentiated, then there is no such thing as differentiation. So we have the world which is only notional, ultimately. It is in the mind. Well, you need not go further into this subject, as to where the mind is situated and whether the object is in your mind or my mind. That is another subject into which we shall enter later on. It is not anybody's mind. It is the consciousness that vibrates in some particular manner and makes it appear that there is something other than itself. The appearance of the multiplicity of the world is something like the circular shape of the fire that you see in the vigorous movement of a firebrand. If you very vehemently circulate or turn round a torch, you will find that there is a circle of fire or light in front of you. There is no circle actually. It is only an optical illusion created before you on account of the intensive velocity of the movement of the torch. So a vibration of consciousness in a particular manner becomes cognisable as an object. The object is not there at all. Therefore, what you call creation is nothing but consciousness appearing in a particular manner due to a certain vibration, a particular density, a movement of it in a particular manner. So Being alone was and Being alone is, even now, in the form of this creation. Again we are brought back to the conclusion that there is no creation, and that it is Being only that appears as creation. However, it is not very clear, so the argument goes on further.

4. Tasam trivrtam trivrtam ekaikam akarot, yatha tu khalu saumya, imas tisro devatas trivrt trivrt ekaika bhavati, tan me vijanihiti.

"My dear boy," says father to son, "listen to me further."