Swetaswatara Upanishad is an ancient text embedded in the Yajurveda. It is the fourteenth in the Muktika Canon of one hundred eight Upanishads. It has one hundred thirteen mantras in its six chapters. It is a part of Krishna Yajurveda and sage Swetaswatara is considered the author of the Upanishad. It is a principal Upanishad of Hinduism.The Upanishad is a foundational text of Saiva philosophy as well as the Yoga and Vedanta schools of Hinduism! As in the case of many Upanishads, significance is attached to the Self and the Brahman as the individual and the Atman! The omnipresence of the Brahman is emphasized. The Upanishad opens with meta physical questions about the primal cause of all existence, origin, and end. What is the role of time, nature, chance and the spirit as the primal cause?
People question the cause of existence! “From where were we born? By what do we live? Where is our final rest? By whose command do we undergo pleasure and suffer pain? Those who know the Brahman have to respond to these questions. Can we consider Time, one’s own nature, the elements, mother’s womb, male energy as the cause for our existence? This combination is not the cause of existence because of the presence of the soul! The soul is not responsible for one’s pleasure and pain.It is God who presided over all the causes from ‘Time’ to the 'soul’. That is the realization of those who meditate and concentrated on God!l The soul revolves up and down the cosmic wheel as long as it thinks it is different from the Mover! Blessed by Him it becomes Immortal! The Vedas sing of the Highest Brahman composed of the triad that is its firm and imperishable support. By Knowing its contents, the devotees of Brahman merge into it and are freed from birth! God supports the perishable and the imperishable, the manifest and the unmanifest but the soul is bound because it is the enjoyer! It is liberated when it realizes the Lord!
What is this “Triad?” They are the knowing and the unknowing, the one all powerful and the other powerless respectively. The third is the one that connects the enjoyer and the enjoyed and that is the “Infinite Self of Universal form who is inactive. While matter is perishable, the Lord is imperishable and immortal. He governs over both matter and the soul. Merging with Him is the “complete cessation of the illusion of the world! The third arrives by meditating on Him and that is that of universal lordship! The soul is the repository of the Eternal beyond which there is nothing else to be known! The threefold Brahman, thus, is a combination of the knowledge of the enjoyer, the object of enjoyment and the Ruler!
Fire, latent in wood cannot be seen outside. Neither can it be destroyed. Fire can be produced again and again from the wood by means of a drill! The Self has to be gained in the body by means of the Pranava ( the syllable Aum). The Upanishad makes use of the wood and fire as a metaphor. The body is the under stick or wood! The syllable Aum is the upper stick! Meditation is the drill by which God can be seen as the hidden spark! Where is this Self? The Upanishad declares that the Self is hidden “as oil in seeds, as butter in cream, as water in riverbeds, as fire in sticks of wood”. The Self is embedded in self itself! One can realize this through penance and truthfulness!
The Self is all pervading! ” Ekah paratma bahudehavarti”. It has no birth but takes different forms! “ ajayamano bahudha vijayate”. This omnipresent Self is rather difficult to understand and realize! Though we readily understand that milk contains butter, wood conceals fire and seeds store oil, when it comes to spirituality and philosophy, we find it difficult to equate it with the Self! The Upanishad points out that self knowledge and penance alone can unravel the nature of the Brahman--” That is the highest Upanishad.
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