The dialogue between sage Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi, his wife, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is a classical exposition of the significance of Self and the love between the individual and things! What is the secret behind the love expressed by one person to another? Is it the love for the body or for anything else? To these questions of his spouse Maitreyi, Yajnavalkya answers with power and authority, the cause for love and attachment between individuals and things! Calling his dear wife Maitreyi, Yajnavalkya announces that he is about to renounce that life and make a settlement between her and Katyayani. Maitreyi, more spiritually oriented, questions whether the whole earth filled with wealth would make her immortal. Yajnavalkya replies that she would be similar to the rich but wealth cannot make her immortal! Maitreyi wonders of what use wealth can be that cannot make her immortal! She asks Yajnavalkya earnestly to tell her what he knew of immortality. Pleased with her words, Yajnavalkya asks her to come and sit down and reflect on what he explains!
Yajnavalkya started by saying that “ It is not for the sake of the husband that the husband is dear, but for the sake of the Self is a husband dear. The wife is dear for the sake of the Self in her! The sons are dear only because of the Self, not because they are sons! Yajnavalkya continued and said that it is not for the sake of the wealth that the wealth is dear but for the sake of the Self is wealth dear! Brahminhood is dear for the sake of Self only! Kshatriyahood is dear for the sake of Self! All worlds are dear only because of the Self embedded in them!j Even the Gods are dear because of the Self principle in them! All creatures are dear for the sake of Self! Everything is dear just for the sake of Self! Yajnavalkya instructs Maitreyi that the Self should be visualized in everything! “ It should be seen, heard of, reflected on and meditated upon.” When this is understood all this is known!
Yajnavalkya says that anyone who takes him to be different from the Self is rejected! Thus the Kshatriya, the worlds, the gods, and the creatures, reject one who takes them to be different from the Self! In other words, the Brahmin class, the Kshatriya class, these worlds and Gods and creatures are that Self! Yajnavalkya further says that the drum and the sound it produces cannot be separated! Even so, the conch and it's sound! as well as the vina and it's sound are inseparable! Like the smoke that rises up when fire is kindled with damp fuel, from the great Being is produced everything: the four Vedas, history, legends, arts, Upanishads, verses, aphorisms, glosses and commentaries! They are all breathed forth from Him!
This great Being is the center of everything like the ocean for water, skin for touch, nose for all smells, tongue for all tastes, eye for all forms, ear for all sounds, mind for all intentions, heart for all arts, hands for all actions, and the feet for all movements! When a lump of salt is put into water it dissolves and loses itself we cannot get it back but it tastes salty! Yajnavalkya tells Maitreyi that this infinite and boundless Being is a ‘mass of consciousness’. Emerging from these elements, it merges into them again! In its absence there is no more Individual consciousness!
Yajnavalkya completed his explanation and Maitreyi felt bewildered at his interpretation and detailed analysis. She was astonished at the statement that ‘when he is gone there is no more consciousness.’ Yajnavalkya replied that there was nothing bewildering in his statement! It is the essence of wisdom. It is duality that causes one to smell another, see another, hear another, speak to another, think of another, and understand another! But when everything has become the Self, then by what and whom should one smell and carry on other functions? By what should one know that by which all this is known asked Yajnavalkya and posed the question to his dear wife, Maitreyi! The five elements, earth, water, fire, and the sun are sweet like honey for all beings and they are also sweet for the five elements! This alpervading radiant person is enshrined in oneself and is the seed , the Self! Yajnavalkya thus establishes that the Lord and king of all beings is this very Self! “ As all the spokes are held together in the hub and the felly of the wheel, just so are all gods, all worlds, all breathing things, all these Individual selves are held together in the Self!! Duality should be eschewed and one should see the Self in everything in the world and nature!
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