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Flowering of Supreme Bliss

Discourses by Sadguru Prabhuji

On
Taittiriya Upanishad
(March-April 2014)

Transcribed and Edited by Atmajyothis

Published By
Light of the Self Foundation Publication

Price: Rs 200

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 Contents
Preface ........................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 5

Brahmananda Valli ....................................................................................................13

The Sheaths of Food, Prana and Mind .................................................................19

The Sheath of Intellect .............................................................................................30

The Blissful Sheath....................................................................................................39

Brahman, the Foundation of all ..............................................................................48

Supreme Bliss .............................................................................................................53

Bhrigu Valli .................................................................................................................62

Annexure: Questions ................................................................................................79

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 Preface
Existence is Bliss. It is Bliss Supreme. In this very life we can realize the
Supreme Bliss which is our own true nature. One who realizes the Supreme
Bliss becomes immortal in this very life. We are indeed fortunate to have the
gift of Taittiriya Upanishad from Krishna Yajurveda. It describes the Nature
of Supreme Realization in a very lucid way.

For any success in life, it is important to have a disciplined noble way of

living. A way of living in tune with the Universal Law – Dharma. The
Dharmic way of life leads to purification of the mind leading to increased
awareness and Self realization. The first chapter of Taittiriya Upanishad is
an instruction in Dharmic way of living by the Spiritual Master to the disciple
at the time of graduation. The Spiritual Master lovingly instructs the disciple
to lead a life Dharma after he leaves the abode of the Master and takes up a
householder’s life.

The second chapter of the Taittiriya Upanishad describes the glory of the Self
Realized. The degree of bliss experienced by Self Realized soul – Brahma Jnani
is far greater than the bliss experienced by any being in existence. This
chapter also beautifully describes the 5 sheaths of human being – Annamaya
(Physical), Pranamaya (Vital), Manomaya (Mental), Vijnanamaya (Intellectual)
and Anandamaya ( Blissful sheath) and the Self beyond these sheaths thus
giving a clear model for contemplation for Self Realization.

The third chapter describes the way Bhrigu the son of Sage Varuna realizes
the Supreme Bliss.

This book covers the lectures on selected shlokas from Chapter 2 and 3 given
by me to the members of Atmajyothi Satsang.

Prabhu
12th July 2014
Guru Purnima

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 Introduction
My respectful Pranams to all Atmajyothis.

Today we shall begin the study of Taittiriya Upanishad. It is a part of Yajur

Veda. There is an interesting story behind this Upanishad. There was a Rishi
by name Yajnavalkya and his Guru was Vaishampayana, a very famous
Master who used to teach Yajur Veda. People used to come from far and
wide to study under his guidance. The king of that country had some disease
and he came to Vaishampayana Rishi’s ashram seeking treatment.
Vaishampayana agreed to treat the king. He would go to the palace and recite
some Yajur Veda mantras and conduct some Upasanas. This went on for a
month but the king did not find any relief. The king then came to
Vaishampayana’s Ashram and said that the Mantras are useless and
Vaishampayana Rishi was cheating him. Yajnavalkya who was a student there
could not withstand the accusations made by the king. He told the king that
the Veda mantras have the ability to bring about any desired results; he
pointed to a dry piece of wood lying nearby and said that the mantras have the
ability to bring life into it. He then chanted some Yajur Veda mantras and
sprinkled some water on the dry wood and much to the king’s surprise it
came to life and green leaves appeared on it. The king then humbly requested
Yajnavalkya to come to his palace and cure his disease and Yajnavalkya
obliged. When Vaishampayana learnt that his disciple had cured the king’s
disease which he was unable to cure, he was angry that his disciple had spoilt
his reputation. Vaishampayana cursed Yajnavalkya for having insulted him. A
Master’s curse is very effective; the disease that the king was suffering from,
now came on to Yajnavalkya. The other students were very sad to see him
suffer from the disease. Yajnavalkya told them not to worry and he cured
himself by uttering the Prayaschitta mantra. This made Vaishampayana angrier;
he went wild with fury as his disciple had insulted his curse too. He then
asked Yajnavalkya to give back everything that he had learnt from him. Then
Yajnavalkya chanted the entire Yajur Veda and said that he has returned
everything that he had learnt and he would never chant the Yajur Veda
mantras again. The story says that the other disciples at the Ashram were very
eager to learn the mantras and they took the form of Tittiri bird (partridge)
and swallowed the Yajur Veda mantras vomited by Yajnavalkya. These are only
symbolic, don’t be under the impression that they had an extraordinary ability
to take the form of the bird and swallow the vomit of Yajnavalkya. It is a
figurative way of speaking. The Yajur Veda mantras that he gave back his
Master came to be known as Krishna Yajur Veda (Black Yajur Veda).
Yajnavalkya from that day onwards stopped practicing the Yajur Veda mantras
learnt from Vaishampayana. He then decided to get the Yajur Veda mantras
directly from the Sun and did Surya Upasana. Vedas have three portions:
Karma Kãnda for rituals, Upasana Kãnda for worship and Jnana Kãnda for
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knowledge. Upasana is worshipping, contemplating or meditating upon
divinity through a form. He meditated on Suryanarayana, Narayana in the
form of sun. Upasana requires a Pratika (form). Surya was very pleased with
his Upasana and he came in the form of Hayagriva (horse) and taught the
Yajur Veda mantra again to Yajnavalkya. The mantra which Surya (in the form
of Hayagriva) taught to Yajnavalkya became Shukla Yajur Veda (White Yajur
Veda).
What does acquiring a mantra from Surya mean? Is such a thing possible
today? Is it possible to realize the mantra, is it possible to experience the
mantra, to understand and receive the mantra from God? One who receives
the mantra from God, from the divine directly is called seer of the mantra
Mantradrishtara or Rishi. Veda mantras are called Shrutis, ‘Shruthi’ means
heard, Veda mantras are heard. Hearing the mantra and seeing the mantra are
different. When one sees the mantra, he experiences the mantra directly. For
example, there is a mantra in the Purushasukta which goes like this, ‘Purusha
yevedam sarvam yadbhutam yaccha bhavyam, sahasra seersha purushaha sahasraaksha
sahasrapaat’. The Purusha is ‘Sahasrapurusha’, he has thousands of heads, eyes
and ears. Everything in this existence is Cosmic Consciousness. The Rishi
who wrote down this Mantra not only heard the mantra but also experienced
the mantra simultaneously and that is why he is called Mantradrishtara. The
mantra is not just heard, mantra is experienced. Yajnavalkya is the
Mantradrishtara of Shukla Yajur Veda. Yajnavalkya is a very famous Rishi of
the Upanishads. The entire Brihadarankyaka Upanishad is dedicated to the
teachings of Yajnavalkya.

There is another story about Yajnavalkya. There was a king called Janaka in
Mithila, at the time of Ramayana. He was Mother Sita’s father. He used to
host Vidvatsabhas and invite many saints and scholars for discussions. He
would ask questions and would honour those who gave the right answers. In
one of those Vidvatsabhas, Yajnavalkya was present and King Janaka
announced that the one who is recognized as the greatest Brahmajnani would
be presented one thousand cows that are decorated with golden ornaments.
Nobody came forward as nobody had the courage to claim that they are
Brahmajnanis.

Brahmajnani is the knower of Brahman, Brahman is the absolute Reality behind

all names and forms that we see in the world. Brahman is the axle behind the
revolving world; Brahman is the unchanging substratum that supports the ever
changing world. Brahman is not available for knowledge, cannot be
experienced by the senses. Like how an electric bulb cannot understand
electricity, similarly, a human mind and intellect cannot understand
Consciousness. One might wonder that this being the case, how can anybody
be a Brahmajnani, how can anyone know that, which cannot be reached by any
human faculty? A Brahmajnani is not a knower in the ordinary sense. A

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knower is always in relation to an object, ‘knowing’ is the relationship
between a subject and an object. If I say I know this book, I have read this
book, the book is the object and I, the knower am the subject. Whereas
Brahman is not an object to be known, Brahman is the subject and that is why
it is said that the knower of Brahman becomes Brahman himself ‘Brahmavid
brahmaiva bhavati’, the object, the subject and the process of knowing is
Brahman. So when we say Brahmajnani or Brahmana do not be under the
impression that he is a knower of Brahman, he is Brahman himself. Brahmana in
this context is different from the Brahmana of the Chaturvarna, ‘Brahmana,
Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra’. ‘Varna’ means colour, the nature of the soul
can be Brahmana. A Brahmana soul has an aptitude for learning and teaching
spiritual truths. This was true for the earlier days; in today’s context a
Brahmana can be a scientist or a knowledge worker, somebody who has keen
interest for intellectual enquiry into any subject can be a Brahmana by Varna.
Brahmana when it comes to Brahmajnana is somebody who has gone beyond
Varna Ashrama and Dharma, who has become Brahman himself.

There was a Brahmajnani called Ajja in Puttur. He used to wander around and
take food wherever it was available. Usually in South Canara, food is served
in all the temples during lunch time and it is served in separate halls for
Brahmanas and non-Brahmanas. Ajja went into dining hall in a temple at
lunchtime and they asked him if he was a Brahmana and Ajja said yes. They
asked him to remove his shirt and he did. They noticed that Ajja was not
wearing the sacred thread. They were angry that he was not wearing the
sacred thread but claiming to be a Brahmana. They literally lifted him up and
threw him out of the dining hall of Brahmanas. Ajja was physically injured
and at that time somebody who knew Ajja came by and asked him if he was
hurt and if he felt bad. Ajja replied, “The body is injured but I do not feel
bad, they asked me if I was a Brahmana and I said yes. Knower of Brahman is a
Brahmana for me while a person wearing the sacred thread is a Brahmana for
them.”
In today’s times, a Brahmana is merely someone who wears the sacred thread.
Why does a Brahmana wear the sacred thread? The thread represents the four
Vedas - Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvanaveda, and all these four
Vedas are in three forms; prose, poetry and verse. These are represented by
the three threads and the knot which connects these three threads is the
Brahmagantu which represents Brahman. A person desirous of knowing
Brahman wears such a sacred thread to remind himself everyday about his
prime motivation to realize Brahman. It is thus only symbolic. A thread is
called ‘Sutra’ in Sanskrit. The sacred thread is the Brahmasutra. Brahmasutra
is one of the three prime texts of spirituality; the other two being Srimad
Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. The knowledge of Brahman is told in a
very systematic way through Brahmasutras, and the sacred thread is worn in
remembrance of that. Next is the question about why married men wear a

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pair of such sacred thread. In the olden days some women did not have the
spiritual education due to lack of facilities and at the time of marriage the
husband would take a commitment to teach Vedas to his wife. One was a
reminder of his own commitment to study and the other was symbolic of his
commitment to teach his wife if she had not studied at a Gurukul and was
not a knower of Vedas. If the wife had gone through Gurukul education then
it was not necessary for the husband to take a commitment to teach her.

Coming back to the story of King Janaka, Yajnavalkya stood up in the

gathering and asked his students to take the thousand cows to his ashram.
Everyone there objected and asked him to prove to them that that he was a
Brahmajnani before he could take the reward. Yajnavalkya then said “When
the king announced the prize no one came forward, I want the cows and the
wealth to run my ashram and take care of all my Sishyas so I am taking the
cows with me.” They did not agree to that and started questioning
Yajnavalkya on Brahmajnana and he answered them all. Finally, the wise lady
Maitreyi asked him several questions and he answered them too and she
proclaimed that he was a Great Brahmajnani. She was attracted by his wisdom
and clarity and asked him to marry her. Yajnavalkya who was already married
to Katyayini then married Maitreyi. After many years of running the ashram
he decided to take Sanyasa and before leaving he wanted to distribute the
wealth that he had received through donations between his two wives. Then
Maitreyi asked him to give her the teaching that would make her immortal
instead of giving her his wealth and Yajnavalkya taught her ‘Atmadeva
drishtavyam mantravyam shrotitavyam’, this is the famous teaching of Yajnavalkya.
For self realization, you have to meditate and contemplate only on Atman,
think and contemplate only about Atman. People say I love my parents, I love
my wife, I love my children and none of this is true! You love your children,
husband or wife for your own sake, for yourself. The self alone has to be
meditated upon and realized is the teaching of Yajnavalkya. Our real self is
Atman, which is not a body, not a mind and not the intellect but pure
Consciousness.

Taittiriya Upanishad has 3 Vallis, Vallis means chapters. Siksha valli,

Brahmananda Valli and Brighu Valli. Shiksha Valli is the teaching about how
your living, conduct and thoughts should be in order to attain Self realization.
In the second chapter Brahmananda valli, the degree of ananda (bliss)
experienced by various beings is compared with the ananda experienced by a
Brahmajnani. The bliss experienced by a human being, the bliss of a
Gandharva, the bliss of Devas, the bliss of Rishis are compared to the bliss of
a Brahmajnani because Supreme bliss cannot be explained it can only be
compared.

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To explain this in a better way, let me tell you a story. There was a frog in a
well. A bird came and sat on the well and sang about the ocean. The frog
which had never seen anything outside the well asked the bird about the
ocean. The bird said that the ocean is very big and has lot of water, the frog
showed it hands and asked if it was that big and the bird said it is much
bigger, the frog then stretched out its arms and asked if the ocean was that
big and the bird said that it is much bigger. The frog then asked if an ocean is
bigger than the well and the bird said yes it is much bigger and the frog called
the bird a liar! The maximum that the frog has seen is a well. The human
mind has a similar limitation, it cannot understand ananda. It tries to
understand bliss through comparison, in comparison to the joy of drinking
coffee, joy of watching a movie and so on, as it cannot comprehend absolute
bliss. The bliss experienced by various beings is explained in the Brahmananda
Valli. The Self realization of Brighu maharshi is explained in Brighu Valli.
Taittiriya Upanishad also contains the Panchakosha Jnana.

Shanti Mantra
oṃ śaṃ no mitraḥ śaṃ varuṇaḥ |
śaṃ no bhavatvaryamā |
śaṃ na indro brihaspatiḥ |
śaṃ no viṣṇururukramaḥ |
namo brahmaṇe |
namaste vāyo |
tvameva pratyakṣaṃ bhrahmāsi |
tvāmeva pratyakṣam brahma vadiṣyāmi |
ṝtaṃ vadiṣyāmi |
satyaṃ vadiṣyāmi |
tanmāmavatu |
tadvaktāramavatu |
avatu mām |
avatu vaktāram |
oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ ||

AUM, may Mitra (Sun) be propitious to us. May Varuna be propitious (to us) May
Aryaman be propitious (to us) May Indra and Bruhaspati be propitious (to us) May the
all pervading Vishnu be propitious to us. Salutations to Brahman. Salutations to you, O
vayu. You indeed are the perceptible Brahman. Of you indeed, the perceptible Brahman,
will I speak. I will speak of the right. I will speak of the truth. May that protect me. May
that protect the speaker. Let that protect me. Let that protect the speaker. AUM! Peace!
Peace! Peace!

May Sun who is the deity of the day, the friend who facilitates our growth
and development and Varuna the deity of night who facilitates rest and
rejuvenation bless us. May Aryaman, the deity who powers the Sun and
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Bruhaspati who is the Guru of all the Devatas bless us. Devatas are the powers
of nature and the powers of Consciousness. The power of the eyes to see is
due to Chakshu Devata. The power of ears is due to Shrotru Devata, the power
of skin is due to Twak Devata. The inner deity of the eye (microcosm) has a
corresponding outer deity in the universe (macrocosm). If in the microcosm
the deity is responsible for seeing, in the macrocosm the same deity is
responsible for the energy that facilitates seeing. The eye is useless without
light (Agni), Agni is the Devata inside the eyes, Agni is the Devata who gives
light outside. The inner and outer power of Consciousness is called Devata.
Your ability to hear is because of Shrotru Devata operating in you and also
outside you to propagate the sound. We are here praying to Bruhaspati who
is Devaguru, the one who gives wisdom to all the Devatas. Devatas gain
understanding about how to play their role from Bruhaspati.

Vishnu is the all-pervading Consciousness. Everyone must have heard about

the story of Trivikrama and Bali Chakravarthy. Bali Chakravarthy was a
demon king who had conquered all the three lokas and chased out the
Devatas. Then Vishnu in the form of Vamana went to him and begged for
three pieces of land. When the land was granted Vamana became Trivikrama
and pervaded through space, Earth and nether lands. ‘Vishvam vishnur
vashatkaro’, the whole universe is pervaded by Consciousness, by Vishnu.
Apart from the cosmic context, this story should also be understood in the
context of the individual. Bali represents ego. He taking control of all the
three lokas is similar to how ego takes control of our waking, dreaming and
deep sleep state. ‘Mana’ means mind and ‘Vamana’ means an uplifted mind,
mind which can show the limitation of ego and bring divinity in life. This
story is about enlightenment. God first comes into our life as a small being,
as Vamana, as purified mind. If we give a chance to that small Vamana then
he will pervade through our waking, dreaming and deep sleep state as
Trivikrama and we can realize Vishnu Consciousness. This is called Savikalpa
Samadhi. The story says that Bali Chakravarthy offered his head, offering
head is symbolic of offering the ego. Once offered the ego disappears into
nether lands and this is the state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

Salutations to Brahma and salutations to vayu! Brahma is the unseen

(Nirguna) and vayu is seen (Saguna), the formless and the form are both
respected. The formless and form are related to each other in the same way
as wave is related to water.

Wave is the form and water is the formless, ring is the form and gold is the
formless. The formless does not disappear once the form manifests, both
formless and form coexist. The moment I say formless you should not search
for it elsewhere, both the formless and the form are within you and without
you but your mind gets gripped by the form, when you look at the ring you

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forget about gold which is the substratum of the ring. When you are able to
see the form and the formless simultaneously in the universe you attain
complete realization. Realization of the formless alone is not complete.
Realizing both Shiva and Shakti, Consciousness and energy, formless and
form is complete realization.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had realized Mother Kali in her form. He was
able to speak with her and this was Saguna rupa realization. Kali is the power
of Kaala, the time. She is dark because time cannot be seen only its effect is
seen. Everybody is afraid of the effect of time as it can take away anything
from us; body becomes old, disease takes over and finally death. Time can
destroy everything that we know and her form is as terrifying as her effect.
He realized that she is a mother and not terrible and to the one who realizes
this, time becomes a loving mother and its effect becomes responsible for
your liberation. If you are not seeking Mukti, time is terrible to you but when
you seek liberation it is a loving mother that facilitates. Later a Master by
name Totapuri came to Dakshineshwar and told Ramakrishna that he will
teach him Vedanta. Ramakrishna said that he has to take his mother’s
permission before he can accept teaching from him. He went inside and
asked mother Kali and she gave him permission to learn Vedanta. He then
went back and the first thing that Totapuri did was shaving off
Ramakrishna’s head. Shaving the head is symbolic of dropping all the old
thoughts, vasanas and samskaras and this is why at the time of Brahmopadesha
and also at the time of initiation into Sanyasa the head is shaved. People go to
Tirupati and other temples and offer the hair. The idea is to drop all old
thought processes and become free from all the past impressions. After
shaving off Ramakrishna’s head, Totapuri taught him Aham Brahmasmi, I am
Brahman and everything else is Maya, an appearance. The moment Sri
Ramakrishna closed his eyes mother Kali appeared and he told the same to
Totapuri. Totapuri tells him that mother Kali is Maya and asks him to cut her
off and he does the same and becomes one with Brahman and stays in that
state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi for twenty one days. Totapuri was a wandering
monk and would not stay anywhere for more than three days but because
Ramakrishna was in Samadhi for twenty one days he had to stay there. After
twenty one days he prepared to leave and at that time he got a terrible pain in
his stomach and it was so severe that Totapuri wanted to kill himself in the
river Hoogli. The river was known to be in floods but the moment when he
wanted to kill himself and entered the river; much to his surprise the water
level went down and there was not enough water. No matter how far he
went, the water was only knee deep. He was surprised by this Maya, he was
not able to kill himself so he prayed to be healed and the pain disappeared.
He then came running to Sri Ramakrishna and said that he had been rejecting
everything in the world as it was Maya but he has now realized the power of
Maya. Brahman is the unseen, unchanging, supreme Consciousness and Maya

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is the changing appearance in the form of the world but they are not separate.
Just as you cannot separate fire from burning, you cannot separate out Shiva
and Shakti. Those who realize only one aspect, either Shiva or Shakti are not
complete. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had realized Shakti first and then
by the teachings of Totapuri he realized Shiva whereas Totapuri realized
Brahman first and then Maya.

Now we are praying to vayu (prana Shakti) who is a manifestation of Brahman.

‘ritam vadishyami’: the word ‘ritam’ in Sanskrit means rhythm of English. There
is a rhythm or pattern in everything that exists, there is a pattern in the
appearance of the world, something is born, it grows and it dies. There is a
pattern in the seasonal changes; there is a pattern in sunrise and sunset. This
pattern is governed by Chaitanya, you can see the pattern which is the effect
of Consciousness but you cannot see the Consciousness behind it.
‘Twamevaritam vadishyami’: I am saying that ‘Lord you are the rhythm too’.
‘satyam vadishyami’: rhythm is the periodic pattern of changes and satyam is the
truth, Consciousness. satyam cannot be explained but only experienced. satyam
is your own nature. May the Lord protect me and my Master who is teaching
me the truth. Let there be peace throughout the universe. May the Brahman
alone who has been described so far in his various forms as Mitra, Varuna,
Vishnu, vayu, ritam and satyam protect my Master and me. The Master himself
must have the health and the wisdom to be able to speak the truth and the
student must have faith and ability to grasp the truth. The protection prayed
for, is in these regards. ‘Shanti Shanti Shantihi’: There are three types of
problems Adibhautik, Adidaivik and Adhyatmik in existence. Adibhautik
problems are physical problems related to environmental condition like rain
and whether change, Adidaivik problems are those related to natural
calamities like earthquake and Adhyatmik problems are mental and
psychological disturbances like anger, depression, and suspicion. Shanti is
uttered three times so that Lord Brahma may protect the Master and the
disciple in these three domains.

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 Brahmananda Valli
In the first chapter of this Upanishad Shiksha Valli, the Master educates his
disciples about how they should lead their life. We can find teachings like
‘Acharya devo bhava, matru devo bhava, pitr devo bhava’ and ‘Swadhyaya
pravachanabhyan no pravatitvyam’ which outline how we should lead our life,
engage in self-study and teach the higher truths every day. Speaking of
teaching, the best way to learn is to teach since the teacher should always be
at least one step ahead of the disciple. If you teach you learn, if you give you
get and this is true for everything in life. If you give money, your money
increases. I am not speaking about charity I am speaking about the law of
business. If any businessman has to be successful then he has to help people
make money or save money. For example I bought this wireless router a few
days ago. Its selling point is high speed internet, high speed saves my time
and time is money. So the one who sold this router made money by helping
me to make money. The paradox of life is that we gain by giving and lose by
holding on. We have to know how to offer whatever we have and that is
yajna. Yajna is the basic teaching in the first chapter. Without going into the
details of this chapter let us move ahead to Brahmananda Valli which speaks
about attaining supreme bliss.

Shloka 2.1

ॐ ब्रह्मविदाप्नोवि परम् | िदेषाऽभ्यक्त ु ा|

सत्यं ज्ञानमनन्िं ब्रह्म | यो िेद वनवििं गिु ायां परमे व्योमन् |
सोऽश्निु े सिाान् कामान् सि | ब्रह्मणा विपवििेवि ||
िस्माद्वा एिस्मादात्मन आकाशः संभिू ः | आकाशाद्वायःु |
िायोरव्नः | अ्नेरापः | अदभ्् यः पृवििी |
पृविव्या ओषधयः | ओषधीभ्योऽन्नम् | अन्नात्परुु षः |
स िा एष परुु षोऽन्न्नरसमयः |
िस्येदमेि वशरः |
अयं दविणः पिः | अयमुत्तरः पिः |
अयमात्मा | इदं पच्ु छं प्रविष्ठा |
िदप्येष श्लोको भिवि ||१||इवि प्रिमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Om Brahmavidapnoti param tadeshabhyukta
satyam jnanam anantam brahma
Yo vedanihitam guhayam parame vyoman
Sa ashnute sarvan kaman saha brahmana avipaschiteti
Tasmad va etasmadatma askashah sambhoota
Akashat vayuh vayor aghih anger apah

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Apbhyapruthvi pruthvya oshadhayah
Oushadhebhya annam annat purushah
Sa vaa esha purusho annarasamayah
Tasmadeva shirah
Ayam dakshina pakshah ayamuthara pakshah
Ayam Atma
Idam puchcham pratishthaa
Tadapyesha shloko bhavati

AUM. The knower of Brahman attains the supreme. As to this the following has been
said: He who knows Brahman as the real, as knowledge and as the infinite, as placed in
the transcendental space within the secret cavern, enjoys all desires along with the attainment
of Brahman, the all-knowing. From such a self, verily, space came into existence. From
space emerged air. From air fire, from fire water, from water the Earth, from Earth herbs,
from herbs food and from food the person. This person verily consists of the essence of food.
Of him this indeed is the head, this the right side, this the left side, this the body, this the
tail end, the foundation. As to that there is also this verse.

Brahmananda Valli means supreme bliss and the first Shloka of Brahmanada
Valli explains about Brahman. We are seeking something, searching
something and we are always in need of something throughout our life. What
is it that we are searching for? It is bliss that we are in search of. A boy is in
search of a girl, a girl is in search of a boy, both of them search for name,
fame and money, everyone is going round in circles. Each person is chasing
something and nobody knows what. You think that by getting married you
will be happy, the moment you get married restlessness starts because you
will want to have children. Every time you say that you have reached a step
the next step will open up. Life is continuously shifting and you go on
looking for one thing after the other. What is it that everyone is searching
for? Everyone is searching for bliss, a peaceful and tranquil state of mind.
When we are blissful we feel expanded, limitless and when we are sad we feel
small, we shrink. We constantly seek that expanded state but we have a
wrong understanding about it. We think that we attain that state by getting
something, we put a goal for that and try to achieve it but in reality no goal
will satisfy us for long as the infinite cannot be gained by the finite. You
cannot gain the infinite by any method unless you already have it. Infinite
bliss is something that is already within you and discovering that is the
purpose of your life.

There was a beggar who used to beg near the Gateway of India. He had
bought that begging spot from another beggar. Later, when he died, the
people from the municipality came to take the body away but then decided to
bury him there itself. When they dug open the place they found a lot of
money underneath which, the previous beggar had hidden. This poor beggar

14
was all sitting on this huge pile of money all these years but spent his entire
life begging. If you have infinite bliss within but don’t know and don’t
recognize it in you then you will still be a beggar. All of us are beggars who
are begging for happiness and peace from someone else while all the while
we are sitting on the infinite treasure of happiness and bliss. Bliss is our own
nature and this Shloka points that out.

‘Om brahmavid aapnoti param’, the one who realizes Brahman attains the
supreme eternal bliss. We not only want happiness from the world but also
want permanent happiness from it. Nothing is permanent in life, everything
comes with an expiry date and everything changes. How can we aspire for
permanent happiness and bliss? ‘Brahmavid aapnoti param’, one who realizes
Brahman attains supreme eternal bliss. A knower of Brahman becomes Brahman
himself. In the world, it is not possible to become someone by knowing that
person or to become the subject by knowing the subject. But in the domain
of spiritual knowledge if you have knowledge of Brahman then you become
Brahman. You might wonder how so let me explain it through the story of a
salt doll.

There was a salt doll that was depressed because it was small. One day
someone told the doll that it is not small, it has a rich heritage and its
grandfather is the ocean which has a lot of salt. The salt doll went to see his
grandparents and entered the ocean. Once the salt doll entered the ocean
there was nothing left of it. No more salt doll, the ocean alone remains. If
you are on a journey to meet Brahman then ‘you’ will not return, only Brahman
will remain and what you know as ‘you’ will disappear. If today I ask you who
you are then you will tell me that you are a daughter or a mother or a working
woman. All these are temporary. You are a mother with respect to your
children and a daughter with respect to your parents; all of these are
temporary and relative identities. Do you have a permanent identity or do
you thrive only on relative identities? That permanent identity is Brahman,
Supreme Reality. This unchanging identity supports the changing identities.
It is like how an axle supports the wheel. The unchanging which supports
this constantly changing universe is Brahman. We chase the change hoping
that it will be permanent. We drop what is permanent and this is the misery
of life. Our search for permanent happiness in the world is like going behind
a mirage looking for water; it disappears the moment you go close to it. Look
at your own life, your body has changed in these years, your body will grow
old and die but you still say ‘I’. It is because this ‘I’ has not changed that the
body which is changing can exist. If ‘I’ also changed then you would be a
different person yesterday and someone else tomorrow but it is not so
because inside you there is an ‘I’ which is not changing and that ‘I’ is God.
That ‘I’ is the support for your existence and in the universe too there is
something which is unchanging called Brahman. Are these ‘I’ and Brahman

15
different? They are the same. You are one with the Supreme Reality and even
when the body dies you do not die as the ‘I’ is eternal. When you realize your
infinite nature you will attain infinity.

Before knowing Brahman one has many temporary identities as life itself will
be a web of relationships. For some reason or the other God shows grace
and detaches you from all the relationships either naturally or forcefully. The
identity that you have when all the relationships are taken away is called
Brahman. What you have will disappear but what you are cannot disappear
and what you are is that Supreme Reality. I said that knower of Brahman
becomes Brahman. What is this knowledge about Brahman? You can know
about any object but how can you know about Brahman? He is the subject, he
is the knower in you and is there a way to know the knower? Can you know
about sunlight which powers all forms of light by using a torch light? Atma,
the Self cannot be known by any other means other than dropping the
ignorance due to which we identify with relative identities and not the
absolute identity. You were not related to your husband of wife before
marriage, you were strangers but one event changed it, it gave you a new
relationship and identity. Similarly one correction in our faulty
understanding, one time removal of the error in our body, mind and intellect
complex will help you see your true identity and remain eternally blissful. You
will realize that this was the only purpose of your life and life is a waste
without that.

‘tadesha abhiyuktanam’, this is what is told in the scriptures. We can know

about the objects which are available to our senses but how can we know
about Brahman? The tube light works because of the presence of electricity
but it cannot understand electricity, similarly our body, mind and intellect
lights up due to the presence of Atma but the intellect cannot know Atma.
The created cannot know the creator and this is the challenge about knowing
Brahman. To know that there is infinite bliss within you, somebody has to tell
you about it and the Vedas tell you that.

Nobody tells you anything without a benefit for themselves in doing so,
without some selfish motive. If somebody does tell you that you are Brahman
how can you trust such a person? If there is no trust on the person then there
is no confidence in what he says either. If you are ill and someone advices
some medication to you then you will not take it because you will be afraid of
the damage it can cause if it is not the correct medicine. But if a doctor
prescribes the same medicine to you then you will take it. Is there someone
trustworthy in the world? Yes you can trust a doctor for health, an engineer
for a building and a banker for a transaction but how can you trust someone
in the spiritual matter where Atma cannot be seen. Our day to day experience
is that the Sun goes round the Earth but when our primary school text book

16
told us that Earth goes round the sun we believed it because we have faith in
the text book and the teacher. We take many things in life based on trust and
faith. Whom should you trust about immortality and your true nature? That
trustworthy person is called Sadguru. For a very mature student if the Sadguru
tells him once that he is Brahman it is more than enough. No explanation and
logic is required. Trust and faith on the authenticity and spiritual authority of
the Master is most important. The Sadguru derives his strength from the
Upanishads and Vedas. Upanishads are the experiences of realized masters
the Rishis. The Master shares his experience, he tells you that his experience is
true for you and then says that the Rishis also say the same, and he refers to
the Upanishads. When he refers to the scriptures it does not mean that he
teaches from the scriptures or just repeats what is in them. He teaches from
his own experience, he is the authentic source; he refers to the scriptures for
the student’s confirmation. His experience is the ultimate realization, he is
Brahman, his words are the Vedas and Upanishads, and you cannot find any
difference between what is written in the scriptures and what a realized
Master teaches. Vedas are nothing but the words of realized Rishis. Similarly
what Sri Ramana Maharshi teaches is Ramana Veda, what Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa teaches is Ramakrishna Upanishad. Vedas and Upanishads aid
the students to cross check and confirm as there are many false Gurus whose
teachings are not in tune with the teachings of the Rishis. Spiritual journey is
from the known to unknown and to embark on that journey you need to
have faith and confidence in the Master and you get faith in the Master when
what he teaches is in tune with what has been mentioned in the Vedas and
Upanishads.

‘brahmavid aapnoti param’, knower of Brahman becomes Brahman himself. This

is the reason why Brahmins are worshiped in India. Brahmin is someone who is
Brahmin not by caste but one who has realized Brahman. Buddha and
Mahavira never spoke about God but people call them Bhagvan Buddha and
Bhagvan Mahavira because they have realized God, supreme Consciousness.
‘satyam jnanam anantam brahma’, it is impossible to define Brahman as he is the
subject but it is possible to outline the main characteristics. ‘satyam’, truth is
one of them.

Truth is something that does not change with time, something that existed in
the past, exists in the present and will exist in the same way in the future. We
get confused between truth and fact. Fact is something that is available to
objective experience and it changes. Truth on the other hand is a subjective
experience. For example, happiness or unhappiness is a subjective
experience, it is truth for you but not a fact for me as I cannot know it if you
do not express. It cannot be proven or shown by any scientific instrument or
cannot be proven by anyone. Truth is your inner experience but fact is an
objective experience. ‘satyam shivam sundaram’, Shiva is truth, truth is the

17
eternal reality. Find out that in you which does not change. Your body, mind,
house, society, and lifestyle everything has changed but have you changed?
You still say ‘I’, that ‘I’ which is constant throughout is Atma; the truth, the
unchanging in you.

Let us now understand ‘Jnanam’. There are four aspects of our personality,
doer, enjoyer, thinker and knower. We say I eat, I drink, I go around, and the
doer is the body. Mind in the experience of all the emotions, intellect is the
thinker and you are the knower, Atma. To make this clear to you let me give
you an example. When you play a 3D game wearing the 3D glasses you feel
as if you are driving the car but are you really driving the car? You experience
as though you are driving the car because of the 3D glasses that you are
wearing. The moment you remove the glasses the experience disappears.
There is a knower and the known, Kshetra and Kshetrajna. Kshetra is the field,
the world and Kshetrajna is the knower, the Atma. Your body is also a field
(Kshetrajna), you know that your body is doing something; you know that your
mind is happy or unhappy; you know if your intellect is thinking or not
thinking. You are the knower not the doer. Atma is jnanam. It knows what is
happening in your body. The universal Atman knows the collective
experience and knowledge of the world; it is the knower of everything in the
universe. To know everything your mind has to become silent. Silent mind
becomes one with the knower, the Kshetrajna. ‘Anantam’, Atma is infinite in
space and time.

18
 The Sheaths of Food, Prana and Mind
Shloka 2.1 continued

‘brahmavid apnoti param’, the knower of Brahman attains the Supreme Reality
and becomes Brahman himself. This is not possible in a day-to-day
transaction. If I know about something, I cannot become that. But Brahman is
something where a knower of Brahman becomes Brahman himself. Not
because he was something else earlier and here, knowing is not in the sense
of knowing something as an object, knowing is a correction in understanding.
And because of the correction in understanding he becomes (realizes that he
is) Brahman himself and because, earlier also he was Brahman. Only there was
an ignorance which made him feel like an individual. So ‘brahmavid apnoti
param’: the knower of Brahman becomes Brahman himself. “tadesha yukthaha” –
This is what is told in Scriptures and Upanishads. So knowing God, Brahman
is to be one with Brahman. You cannot know Brahman, the Supreme Reality as
an object, He is the subject. This correction takes place.

“satyam jnanam anantham brahma” – What is the definition of Brahman? satyam –

eternal, Jnanam – Consciousness, Anantham – infinity. So these are the three
aspects of Brahman. ‘yo vedam nihitam guhayam paramam .’ He is to be known in
the cave of the heart. The cave of the heart is the intellect. It is called cave
because there is darkness there, the darkness is ignorance. In that cave of the
heart resides the Supreme Reality. ‘soshnuthe sarvan kaman’ One who realizes
Brahman, all his desires will be fulfilled. This is great actually. Does it mean
that whatever he desires for will be fulfilled? What is the meaning of that?
The desire in us arises from the feeling of inadequacy which is there because
we feel like an individual separate from existence. Now, when this feeling is
dominant, all our life we have a fear because at any given point of time our
identity –physical, mental or psychological is under threat because of our
perceived separation. So to protect against an eventuality, we have a desire to
build layers and layers of protection. Just like politicians who have many rims
of police protection around them, we build layers and layers of safety. It can
be relationships, it can be family, money, job, power etc. So, all our desires
are related to the sense of inadequacy because of the feeling of separateness
from the existence. To cover that up we build protections and these
protections are called objects. So, these desires are always related to fulfil the
need for security in some way and to increase that. When you realize the
Brahman, your ignorance drops and you realize yourself as the infinite Self.
The moment you realize yourself as the infinite Self, the deep rooted feeling
of inadequacy drops. When the feeling of inadequacy drops all the existing
desires which are born out of ignorance and inadequacy will drop. He feels
fulfilled as nothing else is there to be achieved in life. So the desires getting
fulfilled does not mean that whatever he thinks or desires will come true. He
19
will not have any desire to acquire out of ignorance. Still the person will
continue to have, as far as the world is concerned, his own way of living. A
person who is a monk, who is enlightened, will live out of charity that is
given to him. An enlightened person who is a king will live like a king only.
His day-to-day routine will not change. A person who is enlightened and
working in some place will continue to work there for the maintenance of his
body. It is not that Universe will suddenly give him something to maintain his
body and mind. There will be no alteration in his day-today affairs as they are
concerned with the maintenance of body and mind. The only thing that will
drop is the deep rooted fear and desire for survival and growth.

There are 4 aspects of motivation for a person, Dharma, Artha, Kama and
Moksha. Kama means desire, all desires are related to Kama, and it is related to
inadequacy and is born out of ignorance. Artha (money) is required for
fulfilment of Kama, desire. Doing that in Dharmic (righteous) way to purify
oneself is called Dharma. Moksha is liberation or Self realization. When
somebody gets Moksha, when somebody realizes his own nature as
Consciousness, Dharma, Artha and Kama as motivations drop. What will he
live for then? He will continue to live, maintain his body and mind, probably
social responsibilities, etc whatever is required. Responsibility is slightly
different from duty. Duty is a compulsion whereas responsibility is
something that is taken up. So a Jnani or an enlightened being will continue to
have responsibilities, may take up higher and higher responsibilities to help
the people through whatever position he is in. A king like Janaka Raja ruled
the kingdom in the view of the protection of his subjects, establishing
Dharma in the society. A monk who is an enlightened being may teach which
was the case with enlightened beings like Vyasa Maharshi, Buddha, Adi
Shankaracharya etc. They may continue to take the responsibility for the
purpose of upliftment of the world, but not anything born out of selfish
desires. There are no selfish desires left beyond the point of enlightenment.
That is what spirituality is.

Now the process of creation is told. What is the process of creation? From
that Self all this has come. All that is there is one reality Brahman whose
nature is Consciousness. That one reality took the form of the subject and
object. For the sake of convenience I will say ‘Subject Consciousness’ and
‘Object Consciousness’, because all that is there is Consciousness only. So I
will call matter as object Consciousness and individual I will call as subject
Consciousness, just to bring in the word Consciousness. In that Supreme
Reality, there is subject Consciousness and object Consciousness which
appears. This happens in the dream state. When you enter into a dream your
mind is there. The mind takes the form of subject as well as object. Mind
takes the form of a tiger, a building, or a forest and yourself. Both are mind
only. One mind appears as subject as well as object also. Similarly Universal

20
Consciousness appears as both subject and object, subjective reality and
objective reality – this and that, ‘aham’ and ‘tat’. Aham means subject and Tat
means the object. Tat also means ‘That’, the Consciousness. So that ‘Tat’
becomes ‘Aham’ and ‘Idam’, Subject Consciousness and Object
Consciousness. What is the difference between the Subject Consciousness
and Object Consciousness? Subject Consciousness becomes the experiencer
and Object Consciousness becomes the ‘experienced’. But both are coming
from the one reality or ‘tat’, they are not different. So from that reality,
’akasha sambhutha’ space appeared, ‘akasha vayuhu’ - from space, wind
appeared, ‘vayoha agnihi’ - from wind, fire appeared, ‘agnihi tapasaha’ - from fire,
water appeared, ‘tapasaha prithvihi’ - from water appeared Earth and from
Earth human beings appeared. So, this is the process of the appearance of
creation. Successive levels of creation are explained in this. It is almost
something similar to the scientific of explanation of creation. What science
explains for this creation is, long before there was nothing. In that
nothingness there was a gaseous formation which exploded, what you call as
the big bang. In that big bang, the whole space and time were created and the
universe started expanding. Initially the universe was in the form of a sparse
molecules which were scattered by wind, as those molecules cooled down,
they liquefied and subsequently got solidified into Earth. On the Earth, water
appeared, then life forms appeared and then human beings appeared. So the
process of creation is from big bang, the explosion, formation of solar
system, galaxies, mostly in the molten form, then gradual solidification, and
then life form creation. Except for that Scientists don’t recognize or don’t
give credence to Consciousness which is the source of all this. They say there
was vacuum, there was nothing and in that nothing something got created.
Whereas Upanishads went one step further and said, to say that there was
nothing, is not true, Consciousness, Chaitanya was there all along. In that
Consciousness, space was born, the wind was born; the wind is nothing but
movement of molecules. When the movement of molecules happens at very
long distances, it becomes wind and when the molecules come closer and
closer, heat gets generated and that becomes fire. When the cooling takes
place, there is water and then the water or the liquid form melt in Lava. Then
gradually solidification takes place which became Earth and beyond the
Earth, living beings are born. Initially the Earth is composed of inorganic
molecules. Gradually there is formation of complex molecules in terms of
organic molecules. Organic molecules support life form and life is thus born.
“Annad graasaha” From the essence of food which is actually Earth, all the
living beings are made up of Earth elements predominantly Earth element is
organic and inorganic molecules and that is what our bodies are. So,
‘Purushaha’, living beings are born. So this is the summary of creation.

Why is this told like this? Because all of us are deeply connected to all aspects
of existence. On Apollo mission to moon there were three astronauts. Before

21
landing on the moon, the lunar module gets separated out and when it lands
on the moon, there is a module which rotates around the moon. One of
these three astronauts was sitting inside this module which was launched for
exploration purpose. The atmosphere on the moon was having less of
oxygen and all around it was deep darkness. As the module was orbiting
around the moon, he could see the stars, planets, galaxies in a different
colours. Suddenly he had a realization of feeling connected with the whole of
existence, every part of existence. He felt oneness with the existence. He
realized that the universe of galaxies, stars and planets are made of the same
stuff. The star dust is also a part of his own body. His body is also made up
of the same start dust which all the galaxies are made up of. You are related
to every aspect of creation. Suddenly his Consciousness opened up and after
that he was no longer the same person. When he landed on the Earth, he was
well received and he became a celebrity. But he just withdrew himself and he
found an organization to research into Consciousness with which he spent
the rest of his life. He could not find the right word and the meaning in the
English language for the experience which he had at that point of time.
Eventually he found closest meaning in Indian literature and that is called
‘Savikalpa Samadhi’. Feeling of total oneness with the Universe which is also
called God Realization. So this is the experience which he had. The idea is, as
an individual we are connected to the universal and how we are connected to
the universe is told step by step in this Upanishad.

Even now if you look at yourself, the air which you breathe is the same air
which is circulating the atmosphere throughout the world. The air which has
been there millions of years ago is the same air that is getting circulated, it is
not different air. The same air which Lord Rama or Lord Shri Krishna
breathed is also there today. The same air which is being breathed by the
human beings in America or in Australia is what you are breathing now. So
you are connected to the rest of the world through air. What about the space
in you? You might feel space in you is separate, but if you look at the atoms
or molecules in your body there is vast space actually. What scientists say is, if
you collapse all the atoms and the molecules in the universe, they would not
even occupy one spoonful of space. There is so much of space in between,
but it appears to be solid and large to us. Your body is also 99.9% space, still
it feels very solid. Between the nucleus and the electron the space is so much
that it is equivalent to a football ground. Two Venus planets positioned
across the distance of football ground, that much of space is there at the
molecular level. You are nothing but space. Your body is full of space.

Your body is also 80% water. Where is the water coming from? The water
comes from the water you drink and the blood is nothing but water. The
water you drink comes from the rains which come from the ocean and all the

22
rivers and the oceans in the world are connected. So you are also deeply
connected with the existence in the form of water.

What about fire? The heat in your body is nothing but the heat generated
through the chemical reactions which got produced because of the food you
ate. The food you ate came from the food which was grown in the fields. The
food was grown in the fields because of the sunlight. Because of the solar
energy or the sunlight it became the heat in your body. If there is no sunlight
for a couple of days you will be dead.

Then what about the Earth? Your body of bones and bone marrows is made
up of the Earth element. How is it made up of the Earth element? You ate
an apple, what is an apple actually, or the food grain? Food grains are actually
the synthesis of the nutrients taken from the Earth. In the solar light it gets
transformed into an apple. It may look like very nice, something to eat, but it
is actually mud transformed into apple. So when you eat, a larger part of that
goes into flesh and bones. A small portion becomes energy and some part
gets circulated into blood. So your body is nothing but mud or Earth
element. Earth is the same which is throughout the world and the same Earth
is also there in the Mars and in some other galaxies. You are actually a part of
the whole existence and not different from it.

You are connected to the universe very deeply. If there is no sunrise

tomorrow your life will also disappear because you are connected to the sun.
If the wind is polluted or poisoned you will be dead because you are
connected to the wind. If the water is polluted you will not survive because
we are connected to all five elements of the nature very closely and these five
elements of the nature came out of Consciousness, Chaitanya. And this
Consciousness takes the role of converting the non-living material into
Consciousness living being and vice versa. For example, you take apple; the
apple that you ate got converted into your blood and cells in your body.
Apple is non living because it is cut from the plant but it gets converted into
something living in your body. Who does this? This is done by
Consciousness, Chaitanya. This process goes on. So this Shloka states that you
are deeply connected to Existence. You have to relate the feeling of
separation from the Existence to what is told in the Upanishad and trace
back your Existence to Chaitanya. Our mind gets stuck in separateness. You
have to go back to the original source of life, Chaitanya.

Shloka 2.2

अन्नाद्वै प्रजाः प्रजायन्िे | याः काि पृवििी ीँ

वििाः | अिो अन्नेनैि जीिवन्ि | अिैनदवप यन्त्यन्ििः |
अन्नीँ वि भिू ानां ज्येष्ठम् | िस्माि् सिौषधमच्ु यिे |
23
सिं िै िेऽन्नमाप्निु वन्ि | येऽन्नं ब्रह्मोपासिे |
अन्नीँ वि भिू ानां ज्येष्ठम् | िस्माि् सिौषधमच्ु यिे |
अन्नाद् भिू ावन जायन्िे | जािान्यन्नेन िधान्िे |
अद्यिेऽवत्त च भिू ावन | िस्मादन्नं िदच्ु यि इवि |
िस्माद्वा एिस्मादन्नरसमयाि् | अन्योऽन्िर आत्मा प्राणमयः |
िेनैष पणू ाः | स िा एष परुु षविध एि |
िस्य परुु षविधिाम् | अन्ियं परुु षविधः |
िस्य प्राण एि वशरः | व्यानो दविणः पिः |
अपान उत्तरः पिः | आकाश आत्मा |
पृवििी पच्ु छं प्रविष्ठा | िदप्येष श्लोको भिवि ||१||
इवि वद्विीयोऽनिु ाकः ||
Annad vai praja prajayante
Yah kaashcha pruthveem shritaa atho annenaiva jeevanti
Atha ened apyantyantatah
Annam hi bhootaanaam jyeshtham tasmad sarva oushadhamuchyate
Sarvamvaite annam aapnuvanti
Ye annam brahmam upaasate
Annam hi bhootaanaam jyeshtham tasmad sarva oushadhamuchyate
Annad bhootaani jayante jaataani anyena vardhante
Adhyaate atichabhootani tasmad annam taduchyata
Tasmadvaa etasmaadannarasamayaat anye antara atmaa
Pranamayah tenaishapoornah sa vaa purushavidhah eva
Tasya purusha vidhataam anvayam purushavidhah
Tasya prana eva shirah
Vyano dakshina pakshah apaana uttara pakshah
Akaasha atmah pruthvee pucham pratishtham
Tadapyesha sloko bhavati iti dvithiyo anuvakaha…

“From food, verily, are produced all creatures—whatsoever dwell on Earth. By food alone,
furthermore, do they live and to food, in the end, do they return; for food alone is the eldest
of all beings and therefore, it is called the panacea for all.”
“They who worship food as Brahman obtain all food. Food alone is the eldest of all beings
and therefore it is called the panacea for all. From food all creatures are born: by food, when
born, they grow. Because it is eaten by beings and because it eats beings, therefore it is called
food.”
Verily, different from this, which consists of the essence of food, but within it, is another
self, which consists of the vital breath. By this the former is filled. This too has the shape of
a man. Like the human shape of the former is the human shape of the latter. prana,
indeed, is its head; vyana is its right wing; apana is its left wing; akasa is its trunk; the
Earth is its tail, its support.

24
‘anna tvam’, ‘anna’ means food and anna also means matter, prakriti. So from
‘anna’ - matter, ‘prajaha’ - living beings are born. They live in that matter; they
die and again go back to that matter which is ‘anna’. So anna is the original
source of the living beings. That is why it is called ‘Aushadha’, the medicine.
One who worships anna as Brahman; he will not have any shortcomings in life.
‘Annam Brahmeti’, we will understand the meaning of this. So first it is told
that all living beings are born from matter and matter is not the first born. So,
the process we have already told, from Consciousness space was created,
from space water, etc and all this matter was created. So matter came out of
Consciousness. So that matter becomes the playground of Consciousness.
Matter is not opposing Consciousness but the matter becomes the material
through which the Consciousness expresses itself and its creativity. It is like a
painter, his creativity gets expressed through the painting. He can take
multiple colour paints and create a painting of forest, animal, living beings or
non-living beings, etc. The painting is the means through which the creativity
of the painter is expressed. So creativity of the Consciousness is expressed
through matter. anna bhutaha, living beings are born out of matter. That does
not means that matter gives rise to Consciousness. The material becomes a
playground for the Consciousness to operate. So the play in this world can
involve birth, growth and the death. They play and go back to matter. The
body is made up of five elements and again goes back to the five elements.
So this is the process by which creation happened. ‘Annam brahmeti upaseta’,
matter becomes matter, anna. It is Brahman, the Supreme Reality and one who
worships that will attain abundance.

Now the problem is, it is not that matter has to be worshipped, stone is not
Brahman because the quality of stone, the Consciousness what we have to see,
the Consciousness which is the nature of the Brahman is not expressed in
stone. But the matter comes out of Consciousness. The source of matter is
Consciousness. So one who worships the Brahman, understanding that the
matter is born out of Brahman, for the play of Brahman, for the play of
manifestation of Brahman, he will attain abundance. One who worships
matter does not attain abundance. One who worships the source of matter,
as Brahman will attain abundance. Earlier I told what is meant by abundance,
abundance is lack of individual limitation. The way to do that is, matter
becomes the focus point, you go beyond matter and understand that
Consciousness is the source of the matter and then you become free. This is
actually a very different opinion from that of a scientist. They are materialists.
They think that Consciousness is born out of matter. It is the other way. A
couple of days back I received a phone call from a scientist. That lady is
doing a research in Australia. She is in Neuroscience. She was talking to me
about the mind and brain connection and Consciousness. I told her that body
and the mind are born out of Consciousness. She was shocked. That is not
what is taught in neurology or in science. What they say is, ‘You have a brain,

25
which is why you have a mind and because you have a mind you have
Consciousness’, so it is the other way for them. Consciousness is a by-
product of matter, which is what is taught in science. What spirituality says is
that Consciousness is the one which is the source of the matter. So what
difference does it make? If the Consciousness is the source and matter is the
by-product and on the other hand matter is the source and the
Consciousness is the by-product? It makes a difference. In the sense that
matter undergoes changes. Consciousness does not undergo any change. You
are actually confusing something which is eternal with something which is
temporary. Your view of life will be very different including your perception
of what is the source and what is the by-product.

Today’s understanding of science is, there is a body, there is a brain and

because there is brain there is mind and because there is a mind there is
Consciousness. The body has a short life, may be fifty-sixty years and after
that nothing is there because when body goes you are also gone. This is a
very temporary view of the world. We are super-imposing the characteristic
of matter on Consciousness. See, with this temporary view of the world, a
second view comes, ‘anyway life is short, get the maximum juice out of the
world in this temporary life. Just squeeze maximum possible out of this
world’. That will be the view of the world. Whereas Consciousness being
eternal, the other view of the world will be, ‘anyways there is infinite time,
you take one body or the other body, this lifetime or the next lifetime, this is
anyway a never ending process. So you can just go on and on, you can keep
on doing. You do not have to kill yourself in this lifetime itself to get
everything out of life. This is the other view and the view here is that
Consciousness is eternal reality and the matter is a temporary reality. Matter is
equivalent to paint in the hands of a painter or stone in the hands of the
sculptor. So what are you really, that makes the difference.

‘Anyo anthara aathma pranamayaha” So, anna, the body is made out of the
matter. Consciousness is different from the body. The body is born from
Consciousness, but Consciousness is different from the body. The body has
no life of its own. Consciousness animates the body with the prana. prana is
the life force. prana is the Shakti. Without the animation of the body with the
prana, the body has no life. It is non-living. prana is of five types, prana, apana,
vyana, udana, samana. Atma controls the body through prana. Atma animates
the body through prana. Here the parts of the body where the prana is there is
described. prana is the head portion, vyana is the lower portion, apana is the
nasal portion, and samana is the middle part of the body ‘pucchaha’, which
means the back portion. This is how the prana is established in the body.
Atma is the controller, prana is the controlling force and body is the
controlled. What is the difference between what is said here in the first Shloka
and this Shloka? In the first Shloka there is a process of subtle becoming

26
grosser and grosser and taking the body form. In this Shloka from the grosser
you start and go back to subtle and subtler. You start from matter and then
you say behind matter is prana, the energy or life force and behind energy
there is Consciousness. You move from the grosser to the subtle, reverse
process.

Shloka 2.3

प्राणं देिा अनु प्राणवन्ि | मनषु याः पशिि ये |

प्राणो वि भिू ानामायःु | िस्माि् सिाायषु मच्ु यिे |
सिामेि ि आययु ावन्ि | ये प्राणं ब्रह्मोपासिे |
प्राणो वि भिू ानामायःु | िस्माि् सिाायषु मच्ु यि इवि |
िस्यैष एि शारीर आत्मा | यः पिू ास्य |
िस्माद्वा एिस्माि् प्राणमयाि् | अन्योऽन्िर आत्मा मनोमयः |
िेनैष पणू ाः | स िा एष परुु षविध एि |
िस्य परुु षविधिाम् | अन्ियं परुु षविधः |
िस्य यजरु े ि वशरः | ऋ्दविणः पिः | सामोत्तरः पिः |
आदेश आत्मा | अििााङ्वगरसः पच्ु छं प्रविष्ठा |
िदप्येष श्लोको भिवि ||१||इवि िृिीयोऽनिु ाकः ||
Praanam devaa anupraananti manushyah pashavashchaye
Praanohi bhootaanaamayuh tasmaad sarvaayushamuchyate
Tasmad sarvayushamuchyate Sarvameva ta aayuryaanti
Ye praanam brahmopaasate Praanohi bhootaanaamaayuh
Tasmad sarvaayushamuchyati it Tasyaisha esha shareeraa atmaa yah poorvah
Tasmadva etasmaadpraanamayaat
Anye antara atmaa Manomayah tenaisha poorna
Sa vaa esha purushavidhah evam
Tasya purusha vidhaataam anvayam purushavidhah
Tasya yajur eva shirah
Ruk dakshina pakshah saama uttara pakshah
Aadesh aatmaah Atharvaangirasah puchcham pratishtham
Tadapyesha sloko bhavati Iti thritheeyo anuvakaha.

The gods breathe after the prana, so also do men and cattle; for the prana is the life of
creatures. Therefore it is called the life of all. Those who worship the prana as Brahman
obtain a full life; for the prana is the life of creatures. Therefore it is called the life of all.
This sheath of the prana is the embodied soul of the former. Verily, different from this
sheath, which consists of the essence of the prana, but within it, is another self, which
consists of the mind. By this the former is filled. This too has the shape of a man. Like the
human shape of the former is the human shape of the latter. The Yajur Veda is its head,

27
the Rig Veda is its right wing, the Sama Veda is its left wing, the teaching is its trunk,
the hymns of Atharva and Angiras are its tail, its support.

‘Pranaha deva anuprananthi’: All livings beings including human beings and the
Devatas which means Divine beings are all born out of prana. prana, the life
force is giving life to all the living beings. As long as there is prana in the
body, you will be living. The moment prana goes, you are dead. prana is the
fuel which is responsible for running your body. As long as this prana is there
in your body, your life will be there. So your life is nothing but prana. ‘ye
pranambrahmeti upansati’, one who worships prana as Brahman will become free.
Again when you say prana is Brahman, prana itself is coming out of
Consciousness. When you say ‘prana ithi Brahma’, we worship the prana as
controlled by the Self, Atma. prana has no independent existence other than
Atma. prana is nothing but the force of life which is coming from
Consciousness, Atma. So, ’pranam brahmeti upansati’ which means all living
beings are born out of life, they live in prana and die in prana. So the birth,
growth, death and decay of the living beings is because of prana. prana is
controlled by the Brahman, the Supreme Reality and one who realizes this will
become free. prana has no independent existence; otherwise prana itself may
be taken as the Supreme Reality which is not true.

People understand this in various ways. The body oriented aspect of

understanding is the body is you. If your body is gone then you no longer
exist. Your body itself has a shape and form and once you die, the body is
gone. This is one way of thinking. If you go a little bit subtler your body lives
as long as there is prana. You will say you are nothing but the life force, prana.
Here it is being pointed out that within this grosser form of the body there is
the subtler form of prana, beyond that there is Atma. So none of this, neither
the body, nor the prana is the Atma, the Supreme Reality, body and prana both
are controlled by the Atma, the Self. The Self is the Supreme Reality. So this
is what is being taught here. Without prana there is no animation of the body,
no life. So life is dependent on prana and the prana itself is dependent on the
Atma.

So Atma uses the shareera (body). The body is operated through the mind,
manomaya. The mind controls the body and prana animates the mind and the
body. So one who is there in annamaya (this body), one who is there in
manomaya (the mind) and one who is there in pranamaya, that Atma is what
you are. The Atma is there in the body in the sense that he is there spread
throughout the body. His head is Yajurveda, his right hand is Rigveda, his left
hand is Samaveda, and Brahmana is the middle portion. Atharvaveda is the lower
portion. So the meaning of this is Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvaveda and
Brahmana, they actually adore Brahman. The Vedas are the means of adoring
and worshipping Brahman. Brahman, Paramatma is called Veda Purusha. He is

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explained in terms of the four Vedas. Who is this Veda Purusha? All these
four Vedas speak of Brahman, in a different language. They worship and
praise Brahman and Vedas came from Brahman. So Vedas actually manifested
from Brahman like everything else has manifested. What is speciality about
Vedas is they describe, proclaim and talk about Supreme Reality. Whereas
other things which have come from Brahman like science and technology etc,
do not speak of Brahman directly but speak about matter. That is the
difference. So, while science speaks of matter, Vedas speak of Consciousness
through matter. The Vedas have more direct connectivity to the Supreme
Reality. Bhagavan or Brahman is called Veda Purusha because Vedas manifest
from him. The authentic knowledge of his own Self is in the form of Vedas.
That is why he is called Veda Purusha. What you study in the Vedas is nothing
but description of Brahman.

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 The Sheath of Intellect
Shloka 2.4

यिो िाचो वनििान्िे | अप्राप्य मनसा सि |

आनन्दं ब्रह्मणो विद्वान् | न विभेवि कदाचनेवि |
िस्यैष एि शारीर आत्मा | यः पिू ास्य |
िस्माद्वा एिस्मान्मनोमयाि् | अन्योऽन्िर आत्मा विज्ञानमयः |
िेनैष पणू ाः | स िा एष परुु षविध एि |
िस्य परुु षविधिाम् |
अन्ियं परुु षविधः | िस्य िद्धैि वशरः |
ऋिं दविणः पिः |
सत्यमत्तु रः पिः | योग आत्मा | मिः पच्ु छं प्रविष्ठा |
िदप्येष श्लोको भिवि ||१||इवि चििु ोऽनिु ाकः ||
Yatho vacho nivartante aprapya manasaa saha
Aanandam brahmano vidvaan na bibheti kadaachaneti
Tasyaisha shareera atmaa yah poorvasya
Tasmadva etasmanmanomayat anye antara atmaa
Vijnaanamayah tenaishapoornah
Sa vaa esha purushavidhah evam
Tasya purusha vidhataam anvayam purushavidhah
Tasya shradha eva shirah
ritam dakshina pakshah satyam uttara pakshah
Yoga atmaah
Mahah puchcham pratishtham
Tadapyesha slokobhavati Iti chathurtho anuvakaha

He who knows the Bliss of Brahman, whence all words together with the mind turn away,
unable to reach it—he never fears. This sheath of the mind is the embodied soul of the
former. Verily, the different from this sheath, which consists of the essence of the mind, but
within it, is another self, which consists of the intellect. By this the former is filled. This too
has the shape of a man. Like the human shape of the former is the human shape of the
latter. Faith is it head, what is right is its right wing, what is truth is its left wing,
absorption is its trunk, Mahat is its tail, its support.

Brahman is of the nature of Supreme Bliss, ananda. The highest possible

ananda, the greatest possible bliss is Brahman. All our life we keep searching
for ananda, bliss. Somebody says, ‘I am trying for a job’, somebody says, ‘I am
trying for a marriage’ and somebody says, ‘I am trying for this, that etc’.
Finally what you are trying to do is you are searching for bliss in whatever
way possible. Do you have experience of bliss in your life? Do you know the
30
difference between joy and bliss? When you get something you have a joy,
you are happy and you enjoy, right? The joy which is experience is
momentary in nature whereas bliss is eternal in nature. Bliss is you own
nature; joy is what you experience when you get something. When you get
something in life you say “I am joyful”. But bliss is your own nature. The
closest experience of bliss which you experience is when you are in deep
sleep. After waking up you say I felt very peaceful and enjoyed a good sleep.
In twenty four hours of a day, in the waking state you are stressed from the
interaction with the world. In the dream state you recollect in various ways
whatever you did in the dream state, which is also a sort of disturbance. In
deep sleep state, there are no thoughts, no ego, there is a deep sense of peace
and joy. That is the joy that is closest to Brahman. When there is no sense of
ego and no sense of appearance of the world, your own nature as Brahman is
experienced.

What is joy? “I am so happy when my cricket team wins; I feel joy when I eat
ice-cream, I feel joy when I eat jalebi.” What is this joy? Joy comes when I get
something from the world, joy is object related. When you seek an object in
the world, let us say ice-cream, a job, or whatever that is, your mind is
constantly agitated with lots of thoughts about acquiring the object. When
you acquire that the mind becomes momentarily silent and you experience
the joy within. That ananda came from inside you not from outside. That
ananda which you felt is not because you got a jalebi or a job or something in
life. It is because during that time your mind became silent. When the mind
became silent momentarily, you felt your Atma in that silence. So what you
experienced is ananda, the bliss of the Atma and nothing else. But we make a
mistake in attributing happiness to outside factors i.e. objects, but bliss can
never come from outside objects, it is only inner experience, the experience
of Atma, Brahman.

‘Yatho vacho nivarthanthe’, the words cannot describe that bliss. It is very
difficult to explain any experience of life. Let us say you felt happy and you
are asked to go and tell somebody else that you felt happy. They will ask,
‘How much happiness?’ You say, “Very happy” or “Very very happy”. You
can tell the adjective, but you cannot explain very clearly what happiness is
about. Similarly if somebody has never eaten a sweet before; you cannot
communicate sweetness i.e. taste of sweets that you eat with the word ‘sweet’.
I cannot understand what that real sweet is, I don’t know. We cannot easily
communicate our inner experiences to somebody; we can only communicate
about outer objects. We can speak about this book or this chair, but we can’t
speak about the inner experiences to anybody. So what about the experience
of Supreme Bliss which is infinite? There is no way you can explain the
infinite bliss to somebody. For that matter our mind and words cannot
explain what that infinite is to anybody. Let us say, I ask you, what is space?

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Can you explain space to me? How will you explain it? If you want to say
what space is, you’ll say absence of objects is space. What is space you cannot
explain. Similarly ananda, the bliss of Brahman which is of infinite nature, you
cannot explain to anybody, because any explanation falls short. But the
beauty of that ananda is, it is your own nature and you already have it. But you
keep on searching for what you have without knowing that you have it and
search outside in various objects, in some entertainment programs, alcohol,
smoking, and job, etc. You try to find that ananda which already you have like
the story of the beggar told earlier.

Even though you have lot of ananda, bliss inside you, if you don’t know it,
you keep on searching outside in Rasgulla, Laddoos, jobs etc. What all jobs
you search! So you keep on searching for bliss outside when bliss is your own
nature. Atma’s nature is ananda. Now the problem is not only you search for
ananda outside, you say, ’My wife has to give ananda to me, my husband has to
give ananda to me’ and we expect somebody else to give ananda to us as if
they have extra stock of it. They are also beggars who keep on begging for
ananda from somebody which you don’t know. And then there are these
Swamijis who keep their name as some ananda, at least in their names they
want to keep as ananda, Brahmananda, Yogananda, and Mukthananda etc. So
you keep on searching for ananda. So where do you get ananda from? Ananda
or bliss can come only from within. That is infinite and the closest example
you know of that is in deep sleep. You experience the bliss, ananda. That is
your own nature. The key to ananda is that the mind has to become silent. In
deep sleep, your mind becomes silent. Now the problem is, throughout the
day, our mind keeps jumping like a monkey. Not only my mind is monkey, I
can make your mind also a monkey. See, the monkeys have to keep on
jumping, keep scratching each other’s head. So we scratch everybody, we
make everybody a monkey. Ananda is our nature and we can experience that
when the mind is made silent. The process of making the mind silent is called
meditation or dhyana. When my mind is silent, I will not disturb you and if
you disturb me, it doesn’t matter. I am peaceful. Now the problem is, my
mind is disturbed and I disturb your mind also and everybody’s mind is
disturbed. You have to do meditation daily to make your mind silent, to
experience the ananda of Atma.

‘Yatho vacho nivartante’ How much is the ananda, the bliss you have already
inside you? It is infinite and no words can explain it. ‘apraapya manasasa’, the
mind can’t reach it. Why can’t the mind reach it? The ananda of the Atma can
be experienced only when the mind is silent. Then you say I got joy, I got
some money or I got a job and I became very happy. What you don’t
understand is the happiness is not because you got a job, happiness is not
because you ate a jalebi or laddoo. Happiness is because when you got the
job or ate jalebi, your mind became silent. When the mind became silent, the

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ananda of the Atma got reflected in that silent mind. The mind comes back
and says, ‘I experienced joy’. The experience of joy was there because it
became silent. When it is talking, it has already come out of the silence.

‘Anando brahmani vidwan nabhibheti kadhachaneti’, so one who has realized the
Brahman, see, we call as ‘Brahmin’, but Brahmin has become just a name.
Brahmin is not somebody who is born in a community. Nobody becomes a
Brahmana by being born in a Brahmana community. Brahmin is the one who
has realized the Brahman, Atma. Such a person is called Brahmana. Now,
Brahmana by a community is not the right explanation of a Brahmana. If a
person who is born in a Brahmana community can become a Brahmana, then
the moment a child is born in a lawyer’s family will become a lawyer, a child
born in a doctor’s family will become a doctor and a child born in a
policeman’s family will become a policeman. No such thing happens because
only somebody who realizes Brahman becomes a Brahmin and not by birth.
One who realizes Brahman, one who realizes the bliss of Atma within, he
becomes free from all the fears.

Why is it important to become fearless? All our life we are driven by fear.
Constantly at the back of our mind, there is a fear factor. We fear, “What will
happen if this does not happen, what will happen we do not get money, if I
don’t get a job, what will happen if my health is not good’, all these fears are
there in the background of our mind and Consciousness throughout. We
live and die in fear. We may not say so, but fear is the real motivator which
makes you go out and do something. When you become fearless, your mind
will become clear and the decision making will become clearer. Otherwise
our decision making is always cluttered with fear factor. When you realize the
Atman or Brahman, the fear drops. Why? Because you realize that my nature is
only Brahman. Only one who realizes this is called Brahmana. My nature is
Brahman, I am of the nature of Supreme Reality. Brahman has no birth or
death. My nature is infinite. This understanding will make one free from fear.
We have a fear of losing 5000 rupees or one lakh rupees, why? That one lakh
rupees is important for us because we have very less money. But let us think
of a billionaire who has lots of money. If he loses one lakh rupees, it is
nothing for him; he doesn’t even bother about it, because he has no fear.
When you get something in infinite, then you will not be worried about the
finite. When you get infinite ananda you will lose the fear of anything because
your nature is bliss. Otherwise, moment to moment in your life, please look
at what you are afraid of, you are afraid of losing something because you
think that having that is ananda, and you are afraid of losing ananda, bliss
which is our life. Constantly we are afraid of losing something, it is not the
objects, husband, wife or job, it is the fear of losing ananda or the happiness
that we have. So that fear disappears.

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He will be free from any aggression in the world, no weapon can threaten
him. He is not afraid of any weapons. The Mahabharata war was there, Lord
Shri Krishna was sitting unarmed as a charioteer for Arjuna. He was not
using any weapon, but he was not afraid of anything also. Why? When you
know yourself as the birthless and deathless spirit, the Atma, there is no
question of at all. No weapons can threaten him. Please understand, all your
life you make decisions based on fear. Can you take a decision in ananda or
happiness? Then that decision will be clearer and less cluttered. Because that
is not based on the fear factor.

‘anyo antharatma” we have multiple layers in the body. Annamaya kosha is the
outer layer of the body, the physical structure. It is made up of skin, muscles,
bone etc. Inside Annamaya kosha we have Pranamaya kosha which is giving life
to our entire body. Inside Pranamaya kosha, there is Manomaya kosha, the mind
which has the thoughts, images, imaginations etc. Behind that Manomaya
kosha is the Vijnanamaya kosha - that is the intellectual sheath and beyond that
intellectual sheath is the Atma. So there are five layers in our body, Annamaya
kosha (the physical body), Pranamaya kosha (the vital body), Manomaya kosha
(the mental body), Vijnanamaya kosha (the intellectual body), Anandamaya
kosha (blissful body) and Atma which is of the nature of bliss. One who has
realized the Atma in these five layers, he becomes free. But most of the
people live with the concept that ‘I am the body’. They don’t even know that
there is something beyond the gross body. They live like machines because
they live in the outer layer of their life. You live in the surface level of
Consciousness, you do not go deeper. If you go deeper inside, you will see
the Bhagavan, Atma or Brahman inside and that is the realization. He is beyond
the Vijnanamaya kosha and his head is shraddha.

What is shraddha? It is not name of some girl. Shraddha means faith. Our
entire life is driven by a sort of faith and we are dependent on it. Our day-to-
day transactions are dependent on it. When the child drinks milk from the
mother, it has the faith that she will not give poison. Otherwise it will not
drink milk. When husband and wife are living together, the husband has the
faith that wife will be giving food, not poison. When you are interacting in
the office, you have the faith that if you work hard you will get salary. When
you are doing business, you have the faith that the customers will pay you for
the products you have sold. Faith is the foundation of life. Faith is the
foundation of spiritual life also. In material life you need faith for living, if
you live in constant suspicion you cannot live. If you are suspicious, you
cannot do any transactions. Some amount of faith is required in transactions.
If this faith is missing, there is no transaction possible in life. Without faith
how can you find God in you? To find God, Atma or Bhagavan in you, you
need shraddha. How does the faith come? Faith comes from the teachings of
the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and the teachings of realized masters. It

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comes from the teachings of the Guru. Faith is required to do any sadhana, to
realize your Self, the Consciousness beyond the body mind intellect. Beyond
the five koshas my Atma, my God is there. God is in me. For this realization,
faith is the shraddha, the head that is required.

‘ritam dakshina pakshaha’ - ‘ritam’ is the left hand and ‘satyam’ is the right hand.
‘ritam’ comes from the English word, ‘rhythm’. Rhythm is a pattern. There is
summer, rainy season, winter etc, which is a seasonal rhythm, and then there
is a body rhythm. There are various rhythms in the world. Rhythm is the
pattern in nature. satyam means the truth, your inner experience is called
satyam. So left hand is ritam and right hand is satyam. Likewise Atma has two
dimensions. Atma manifests as the ritam in the outer world and as satyam in
the inner world. That Atma, ‘tat’ becomes, ‘aham’ and ‘idam’, the Self and non
Self, Subjective Consciousness and Objective Consciousness. The one
Parabrahma appears as two, as individual and as universal, ‘aham’ and ‘idam’. In
the individual he manifests as ‘satyam’ and in the world he manifests as ‘ritam’.
The world has a pattern and if that pattern is destroyed, the world will go.
The different seasons occur as a pattern and if suddenly that is disturbed,
then life will go. So that pattern itself is important and Bhagavan himself
appears as that pattern. Consciousness itself appears as that pattern. That
pattern is called ritam (rhythm). Inside you there is a deep feeling called ‘I am’
or ’aham’ and that is called satyam. Satyam and ritam are his left and right
hands.

‘Yogaha madhyaha’ – Yoga is the Self. To realize Atma you need to go through
the process of Yoga. There is Karma yoga, Bhakti yoga, Jnana yoga and Kriya
yoga. There are different types of yoga. Yoga is one which helps you to attain
peace, attain Bhagavan, and attain Consciousness in you. What we are doing
now is a part of Jnana yoga.

‘Mahaha pruccham pratishta’: ‘mahat tathva’ is the lower part, what you call as
Bhagavan, God. We are speaking of Parabrahma, Bhagavan and the jivatma. They
are related to each other like water, ocean and wave. Wave is the individual
Consciousness. “I am a small wave, you are small wave, he is a big wave”
similarly each individual is an individual wave. Waves are part of ocean and
ocean is nothing but water. These are actually representations for Parabrahma
which represents water. Bhagavan or God represents the ocean and jivatma
represents individual wave. Bhagavan is also called as ‘maha tathva’. He is also
called as ‘Saguna Brahma’. The realization is “I am not the body, mind and
intellect, I am Pure Consciousness, Atma which is ananda, bliss”. This
realization is explained in this chapter. What is the realization?

“Nanu nanembudhu naan alla ee deha mana buddhi naan alla, satchitadAnanda Atma
shiva naanu naane shivoham shivoham shivoham”.

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So the purpose of life is to realize the Atma, Parabrahma in us and in
everybody. By that realization we feel Supreme bliss, ananda. That is the
meaning of this Shloka.

Shloka 2.5

विज्ञानं यज्ञं िनिु े | कमाावण िनिु ेऽवप च |

विज्ञानं देिाः सिे |
ब्रह्म ज्येष्ठमपु ासिे | विज्ञानं ब्रह्म चेद्वदे |
िस्माच्चेन्न प्रमाद्यवि | शरीरे पाप्मनो वित्िा |
सिाान्कामान्समश्निु इवि | िस्यैष एि शारीर आत्मा |
यः पिू ास्य | िस्माद्वा एिस्मावद्वज्ञानमयाि् |
अन्योऽन्िर आत्माऽऽनन्दमयः | िेनैष पणू ाः |
स िा एष परुु षविध एि | िस्य परुु षविधिाम् |
अन्ियं परुु षविधः | िस्य वप्रयमेि वशरः | मोदो दविणः पिः |
प्रमोद उत्तरः पिः | आनन्द आत्मा | ब्रह्म पच्ु छं प्रविष्ठा |
िदप्येष श्लोको भिवि ||१||इवि पञ्चमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Vijnaanam yajnam tanute kamaani tanutepi cha
Vijnaanam devaah sarvah brahmajyeshthamupaasate
Vijnaanam brahmachetvada tasmaachenna pramaadhati
Shareere paapmanohitvaa sarvaan kaamaan samashnuta it
Tasyaisha eva shareera atmaa yah poorvasya
Tasmadva etasmaadvijnaanamayaat anye antara atmaa
Aanandamayah tenaishapoornah
Sa vaa esha purushavidhah evam
Tasya purusha vidhataam anvayam purushavidhah
Tasya priyam eva shirah modo dakshinah pakshah
Pramodo uttara pakshah aananda atmaah brahma pucham pratishthaa
Tadapyesha sloko bhavati Iti panchamo anuvakaha

The intellect accomplishes the sacrifice; it also accomplishes all actions. All the gods worship
the intellect, who is the eldest, as Brahman.” “If a man knows the intellect as Brahman
and if he does not swerve from it, he leaves behind in the body all evils and attains all his
desires. This is the embodied soul of the former. Verily, different from this, which consists of
the essence of the intellect, but within it, is another self, which consists of bliss. By this the
former is filled. This too has the shape of a man. Like the human shape of the former is the
human shape of the latter. Joy is its head, delight is its right wing, great delight is its left,
bliss is its trunk. Brahman is its tail, its support.

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Jnana means knowledge and Vijnana means science in common language.
But here Vijnana means ‘visishta jnana’, the knowledge which is actually arrived
at after deep analysis. It is not just ordinary knowledge. You just don’t take
for granted what is there. You go deeper, analyze and understand. ‘Vijnanam
yajnam vinuthe’, greater than your senses is your mind, greater than the mind is
the intellect. Intellect has knowledge and after a clear understanding of life
the knowledge becomes Vijnana, Supreme knowledge. It is not a mistaken
knowledge but a clear knowledge of the higher purpose of life. We have a
knowledge of the lower purpose of life. I have to earn money, I have to do
this job, I have to take care of children, etc. But higher purpose of life is to
realize Brahman, God within. So that comes from Vijnana and application of
that Vijnana in life is called Yajna.

I keep saying Yajna is the foundation of life. The idea is service and when you
know how to do service, seva, the mind gets purified. Yajna is the supreme
principle of life. In nature everything lives on the basis of sharing. The ocean
shares the water with the cloud, the cloud shares the water with the rivers,
and the rivers give back the water to the ocean. The process of cycle of
nature is called Yajna. Everything in life, whether it is plants or trees or
animals, they know how to give. That process is called Yajna. What you give
grows, except money. If you have knowledge when you teach children it
grows. You are a teacher, when you teach children, your understanding
becomes much better. Who is learning, children or the teacher? The teacher
becomes better every year. He is able to teach. Knowledge grows by teaching.
Goodwill grows by helping each other. Similarly money grows by giving, not
in charity, but in business. What happens in business is that somebody who
makes lot of money teaches other people how to save money or to earn
money in business. Nature is the process of giving. Only by the process of
giving you grow and that is Yajna. One who has Vijnana, one whose
understanding has become clear, he lives by Yajna, and he understands how
to do Yajna. Then he uses his sense organs and body, mind complex for the
purpose of Yajna and service. Why do you do service? By doing service,
helping each other, by doing service to God, your mind becomes purified. In
that pure mind, you become closer to God, you can realize Bhagavan.
Realization happens with inner clarity, inner purity.

One who realizes that Vijnana is Brahman, here, don’t be under the
impression that intellect itself is Brahman, the intellect is powered by Brahman.
Like you have laptop, right? Laptop has ‘Intel inside’. So what do you have to
say? ‘God inside’. Then the power will be higher. Only when Bhagavan is
inside you will have more power. The idea is to realize that Supreme Reality,
Brahman, Atma is in you, that is your power, and then you will get enough
power in the world to interact. There are different types of powers on which
people live, what are the powers on which people live? Dhanabalam,

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somebody who has lots of money; power of money. Adhikarabalam, the
power of position, and Yavvanabalam, ‘I am youthful, I am handsome, and I
am beautiful’. Jnanabalam, the power of knowledge. Whatever balam you have
is not good enough. Adhikarabalam, when you sit in the chair there is power,
when you move out of the chair somebody else comes and sits. The chair is
powerful, not you. When you sit in the chair you will get power and when
you go out, the power is gone. And people are waiting to pull you out of the
chair!! The life of a person in power is very fearful. In earlier days when the
kings had many wives, the wives were the power. If a king had hundred wives
he was more powerful compared to some other king who had fifty wives. But
even that king was living in fear that his wife may add poison in his food
anytime. So kings used to have dogs which ate the food first after which they
eat. Power is also fear. Power of Yavvanabalam “I am handsome, I am
beautiful”. There is a girl of twenty – twenty five who is beautiful. One day a
kid comes and calls her ‘Aunty’, she becomes aunty? She gets very angry. She
goes and tells the kid, “Did you call me aunty?” and then kid says, “I am
sorry nani (grandmother)”. So yavvanabalam also goes. Dhanabalam, I have so
much of money. My dear, there will always be some bigger guy who will
come as competition in your business. None of this bala is yours. They are all
borrowed, rented. Only bala you have deep inside is called atmabala. Atmabala
is the strength, which alone can make you survive. All your balas are
dependent on atmabala. Your body is dependent, your mind is dependent,
your intellect is dependent, and adhikara is dependent on Atma which is the
inner strength. There is a huge building under which there is a strong
foundation of concrete pillars. What you don’t see is the concrete pillars,
what you don’t see is the foundation, but you can see the building. Similarly
our life has a foundation, that foundation is Jnana. The foundation of life is
Yajna, which people cannot see. The strength, the inner pillar within us is
Bhagavan, God, Atma in us. We cannot see that, but everything is dependant
on that alone. What is seen is the physical, mental or intellectual strength, but
the real strength comes from Atma, the Brahmabalam within.

“Shareere paapmanohitvaa sarvaan kaamaan samashnuta iti tasyaisha eva shareera

atmaa yah poorvasya” Then he becomes sinless or free from sin. What is sin?
Society has a concept of sin based on right and wrong that is ethical and
moral values. The sin spoken of here is to know yourself as a body and mind,
not as Atma. This is the greatest sin. And because of this sin all your life you
are living in an illusion that you are a body mind complex. This is the biggest
sin and there is no other sin. To realize that I am not the body, I am not the
mind, I am not the intellect, I am pure Atma, I am pure spirit, Chaitanya,
Consciousness one with Bhagavan is the greatest freedom, freedom from sin.
Only when you realize this you will be free from the cycle of birth and death
“Punarapi jananam, puranapi maranam”. Until you realize “I am Atma” there is
no freedom, there is no Mukti.

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 The Blissful Sheath
Shloka 2.5 continued

In the last shlokas, we talked about Annamaya shareera (body), Pranamaya

shareera and Manomaya shareera. Now we are coming to Vijanamaya shareera.
There are actually five Koshas or sheaths. The physical sheath is called
Annamaya. It is made up of food (matter). Pranamaya kosha is full of pranic
energy and is composed of prana, apana, vyana, samana and udana. Then comes
Manomaya, the mental sheath. What does the mental sheath have? Thoughts,
imaginations etc., Beyond Manomaya kosha, there is Vijnanamaya kosha, the
sheath of intellect whose role is decision making i.e. to decide what is right
and what is wrong, what is to be done and what is not to be done. I see
something, the eyes get the sense inputs, and then the mind says, ‘I like this, I
don’t like this, this is a fruit, this is a mango, etc.’ Then the intellect has to
decide whether I eat it or not, whether I do something or not. So
Vijnanamaya kosha, ‘Vijananam Yajnam thanuthe’, we have to understand the
Vijnanamaya kosha and lead our life in the form of Yajna. What is Yajna? Yajna
is an offering, Yajna is a service. The moment we say Yajna, we remember fire
worship where some offerings are made into the fire and there is some
prayer. The real Yajna is the karma which we do in our life. So what are the
actions which we do in our life? Most of the time when we do actions, it is
for selfish reasons. When we are able to the actions with the attitude of
service, as an offering to the Lord, Bhagavan, it becomes Yajna. It has nothing
to do with fire worship. The real Yajna is your action which is service
oriented and done with deep devotion. There are Panchamaha Yajnas or five
Yajnas which are prescribed, through which you can do service to Bhagavan:
Deva Yajna, Pitru Yajna, Manushya Yajna, Bhuta Yajna and Rishi Yajna.

Deva Yajna
Deva Yajna is service to the divine beings. Who are the divine beings? These
divine beings are responsible for the balance in the nature, for protection of
the nature. So for them, any offering you do is called Deva Yajna. So, Indira,
Vayu, Varuna, Agni etc. are all divine beings. Now what is their
responsibility? What do the Devatas do? They are responsible for the balance
in the nature. Timely rains, sunshine, weather conditions, oxygen etc which
are required for the survival of the life forms. So any action which you do, to
help the environment, to take care of the environment , for the protection of
the environment, for bringing back balance in the environment, for cleaning
up the rivers , reducing pollution etc all these are participation in Deva Yajna.
So, that is an offering, service to the Devatas. Any puja you do at home, any
homa you do, that also comes under the Deva Yajna category.

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Pitru Yajna
Then comes the Pitru Yajna. What is Pitru Yajna? Pitru Yajna means you live a
life of gratitude for generations of people who have given birth to you and
sustained you. It is not easy to survive in life, it is a hard struggle for anybody.
You might have read in the newspapers, more than 40% of the IT graduates
today get high blood pressure by the age of twenty seven compared to any
other field. There is so much work pressure that survival is not easy. With
that condition our parents have struggled to survive themselves and bring
you up, give you education and make your life easier. So Pitru Yajna is
gratitude to the ancestors, senior citizens, and elders. Also, in Pitru Yajna,
what happens is, earlier there was a way by which three generations of people
lived together. Grandparents, sons and grandsons. So in the process there
was wisdom transfer from one generation to next generation. The
Grandfather will pass on the wisdom to the grandchild, in the form of
stories, in the form of blessings. Today the families have become nuclear.
There is no Grandmothers and Grandfathers; they are mostly in old age
homes or their own houses. The son is in the USA, the grandchild will
probably study for a few years with the parents and then he will go for
studies in hostels. So the whole family gets separated out. When the family
gets separated out, how does the education come? I am not speaking of social
education which is required for living. I am speaking of spiritual education,
how to face life if something happens, how not to get stressed, face life
confidently etc, who will give that courage, who will give that strength? That
is gone. Because father is busy with his own job, he is himself under tension.
The son is under tension, the grandfather is nowhere. Where is the passing of
the wisdom from one generation to another? India is an ancient country. If
you see the Ramayana and Mahabharata age, which is like 20,000 years back,
wisdom got passed from one generation to next. If the wisdom does not get
passed, it gets blocked; at various places it gets cut. When it is getting cut,
what role do you have to play to make sure that wisdom gets passed from
one generation to the next generation? That can be done by inculcating
spiritual values, provided you have values. If you don’t have values, what to
do? Can you bring it, borrow it? What to do? So there are systems required to
bring spiritual education to the children. Pitru Yajna means respecting the
elders, respecting the senior citizens and bringing spiritual education to the
next generation through some systematic way.

Bhuta Yajna
Bhuta means living beings. For us to live, we displace and destroy a lot of life
forms. In the last one century alone more than few tens of millions of life
forms have been killed. Systematically in the name of entertainment, food
industry, we rear animals in farms and kill them. We torture animals for
beauty products, scientific experiments, and even for fun. Any contribution
you do, any service you do to bring love, compassion to animals in any form

40
is called Bhuta Yajna. Bhuta Yajna nowadays is limited to what you do when
you have some puja at home. You keep some food at the door steps so that
ants can eat. It has to go slightly beyond that.
Manushya Yajna
Manushya Yajna is service that you do to human beings who are in difficulty,
in distress. Now if you do service to human beings, it is called social service.
We are not speaking of social service. Social service does not lead to spiritual
evolution. Social service may get you a good name, fame and probably a
Nobel Prize too. But for spiritual evolution to take place, what is important is
your attitude toward service. Your inner feeling should be, ‘I am doing the
service not to the human beings, but for God himself’, Naranarayana seva. If
that attitude is there, you will get elevated. If you think ‘I am doing service to
a human being’, then it becomes a social service. No doubt it is good, but to
really uplift yourself, you should have an attitude of doing puja to God in the
form of human being.
Rishi Yajna
Finally, the last and most important Yajna is called Rishi Yajna. It is the study
and passing on of the teachings of the Rishis. The teachings of the Rishis have
come in the form of Vedas, Upanishads, and Puranas, Itihasas. Study them and
pass them on by teach them to the next generation. This is what I’m doing
today as Rishi Yajna. You might have heard, where there is no Yajna, in that
place, asuras or demons will dance. So where Rishis teachings are not taught,
the mind becomes clouded and deluded. People start behaving erratically,
they become trouble for others. Any philosophy will start gaining ground.
Somebody says this is good, then people will start following that and when
somebody says the other thing is right, people will start accepting that
because they don’t have a direction. The directions that Rishis have given
have to be learnt and implemented in life, which is called Rishi Yajna. So these
Panchamaha Yajna have to be performed with Vijnana. The buddhi directs us
to act, you do this or you do that. So the direction has to come with Yajna
bhava.

All the sense organs, eyes, ears, skin, etc and the organs of action follow the
guidance of Buddhi (vijnana). So it is very important that Buddhi is purified and
it is giving the right direction to the sense organs. Only then your life will be
Yajna, otherwise life will be spent in Karmic actions, actions which will lead
to karma phala, thereby creating more and more karmic load. Whatever
actions you do with the attitude of Yajna will purify you, will uplift you and
this society also. That is the importance of Yajna.

One who knows Vijnana (intellect) as Brahman and is not deluded by

Annamaya kosha, Pranamaya kosha, Manomaya kosha, becomes free. See we have
a lot of respect for intellectuals. We say that person is an intellectual. Being
intellectual is called the greatest thing. Some intellectual comes and makes a

41
statement and all the newspapers will publish it though he may have made a
stupid statement. But people give respect. The person with a greater intellect
is considered as a great person. So now intellect is no doubt highest, but
higher than the intellect is Atma. People get misled by somebody having good
intellectual powers. The same mistake happens at lower level also. Somebody
who is handsome, beautiful, with strong muscles, etc. get respected in society.
Many people in society believe that body itself is Brahman, God. You have to
understand that body itself is not supreme. Some of the people are very
focused on prana. They say prana itself is God, Brahman. They do are involved
in different kinds of healing which involves prana, e.g. Pranic healing. prana is
no doubt important, it is required for sustaining the body and mind, but it is
not supreme. Many people are not aware that something more than prana is
there. They think if prana goes, the person is dead and nothing is there
beyond prana. Then there are people who are very focused on the mind,
manas. They give a lot of importance to it. Look at the poets and all these
movie songs. What are movie songs designed for? Stirring emotions in you.
We say, ‘Oh! Such a moody person!’ thinking as if the mind is supreme. No,
the mind is not supreme. We call somebody an intellectual. There are so
many intellectuals in the world who have given direction and shape to the
history of the world. Ultimately Intellectuals are the people who are able to
bring some direction in the society. But the intellect is not supreme because it
can be misguided. There are lots of philosophies in the world, for example
Communism, Marxism which have influenced many people. They started
growing beards, wearing weird dresses, saying “I belong to such and such a
cult, philosophy”. The intellect gives rise to ideas and philosophies and
people do get influenced by that. Large number of people get influenced by
sharp philosophies. Even in the political systems you see now, somebody will
say ‘corruption has to be banned’. Lot of people will follow, until they find
that there is problem with the person himself. So, even though the person is
intellectually superior there may still be some defect in him. Because the
intellect itself is not supreme. Beyond the intellect there is the Anandamaya
kosha or the blissful sheath. That intellect is the one which gives you bliss, but
that is also not final, beyond Vijnanamaya kosha there is Atma. So you have to
go deeper and deeper inside you.

Only who realizes that there is something greater than the intellect, he will
not sin. This is a very important understanding. Those who think that they
are intellectuals are actually fools. An intellectual, buddhi jeevi, not only
misguides himself but misguides others also. It does not mean that the
intellectual himself is wrong, but there is something higher than the intellect.
So only the person who has risen above the intelligence has the right ability
to the guide the intellect. The situation is like this. There are twelve servants
in the house of a rich man. One day he goes for a foreign tour. The servants
have a good time. One uses the master’s dress, another uses the master’s bed,

42
and another uses master’s plate. So, they enjoy, watching TV, smoking from
master’s pipe. They were having a great time. One day the master comes back
suddenly without informing these servants about his return. Everybody is
shocked and they go back, they hide whatever they have done and sit as if
nothing happened. Who are these ten servants? They are the five karmendriyas
(organs of action) and five jnanendriyas (sense organs) in you. There are two
other servants, the mind and the intellect. These servants are supposed to be
working under the master called Atma. Most of the time they say “The master
himself is not there in the house, I am the master”.

When the intellect becomes the master, it is very dangerous. There are many
many big scams, banking scams, frauds in the world. They are conducted not
by petty criminals but by the ones who have studied from the best of the
best, the top most management schools, the MBAs. They know exactly how
to manipulate the system and make money. For example the world went into
recession in 2008-2009. It was called Lehman’s crisis. Now if you think that
this crisis has been created by some government, it is not true, it has been
created by a very few bankers, may be eight or ten of them. The best and the
brightest (most intellectual) of the bankers in the world studied in the best
MBA schools. They studied how to get more and more money out of the
system. People say that they are intellectuals and we should give them
respect but in fact many of the intellectuals don’t even know that they live in
ignorance. They misguide the people because they don’t know that the Atma
is the master, and not the intellect. That’s why in India there is respect for a
person who is Self realized, an Atma Jyothi whose intellect works properly
under the guidance of Atma and not on its own, otherwise it will go haywire.
The intellect itself is Brahman we say. When we say Brahman, please
understand, people worship so many things as God, like money, name,
beauty, duty, body, mind and Intellect, forgetting real God which is Atma.
Only when you realize Atma, the mind and Intellect will be in proper shape.

Then he will become sinless. What is the meaning of sinless? Most of the
times, sin is determined by the society. In some countries if you don’t cover
your face you are committing a sin and in some countries if you cover your
face you are committing a sin. So what is right and what is wrong? These are
all manmade. What is sin from God’s point of view? Sin from a human point
of view and sin from God’s point of view are different, they are not the same.
What is sin from God’s point of view? Thinking that you are a body, mind
and intellect is sin. Living with that thinking is the only sin. That is the
greatest sin. Once you do that everything goes wrong in your life. Not
literally, it goes wrong in the sense that although you may make lot of money,
name and fame etc. you will not be having inner peace. The sin is not having
inner peace because of the wrong understanding about yourself. When a
person becomes sinless because he never mistakes himself to be a body and

43
mind, he knows that he is Atma all the time, he is called Atmajnani. That is
why there is a saying in our Sanatana Dharma that somebody goes and takes a
dip in holy Ganga he becomes free from sins. Does that happen? A lot of
waste is dumped into Ganga and Ganga itself requires a lot of clean up. If
you take a holy dip in Ganga, will you become free of sin? You have to
understand the real meaning of Ganga. Ganga comes from Lord Shiva’s
head, Shiva’s I. That is the real Ganga. What comes from the head of Shiva is
Jnana Ganga. What is Jnana Ganga? Jnana Ganga is yoga, Shiva’s teachings,
Agama and the Shastras. This is what Shiva teaches. In river Ganga you have
to take a bath to purify yourself and in Jnana Ganga you have to take a bath
to become free from sins. Without taking a bath in Jnana Ganga which has
come from Shiva’s head, how will you become free? It is required. Jnana
Ganga is in the form of Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Shiva’s teachings.
Yoga Shastra is required to become free. Then there is another saying that if
you take a dip in Prayag, you will become sin free. Prayag is where the three
rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati meet. One who takes a dip in a place
where these three rivers meet will become free from sins. Is it true? It is also
true. These three rivers are nothing but three pranic currents in our body Ida,
Pingala and Sushumna, they meet at Ajna chakra. One who meditates at Ajna
chakra will become free from sins. Then what is the importance of taking
bath in Ganga and Prayag? Is it of no importance? Or is just a myth? What
happens is, when you go to Ganga or Prayag and take a dip in that holy river,
there is a larger concentration of Atma Jnanis, Jnana purushas around that
place. There is a possibility that you might meet a Jnana Purusha. So you get a
purification of the body, mind and intellect with the Jnana Purusha’s darshan.
That is why it is important to go to holy places. So are there no Jnana
Purushas in Bangalore or Hubli or other places? Jnana Purushas are there in
other places also, but what happens is that in many of these river banks you
may find them more in number because most of them chose to be in such
places. There is no place for Jnana Purusha. The world is his house. They can
be anywhere. But there is a possibility that many of such holy people can be
found near river banks. So the purpose of going to Ganga is not to just take a
dip, but to meet a Jnana Purusha and get some wisdom from them. That was
the purpose. He will not sin means he will not do any action thinking that he
is a body and mind. How will that be a sin? Everybody thinks like that. Does
that means everybody is sinning? What happens is, what you think yourself as
will determine your love and affection wherever you see. If you think yourself
as body, then your life will have full of attraction for bodies, materialistic
bodies. Because you think yourself as matter, you get attracted to matter. It
will not lead you to peace and satisfaction because anything related to the
material world or matter keeps on changing. You may be attracted to a
beautiful girl or boy. So the boy looks at the girl, gets attracted and marries
her. Two years are over, girl changes, she becomes fat and he also becomes
fat. The girls also get attracted to boys with six pack abs and may be a nice

44
bike; but a couple of years later, abs are replaced by tyre. You get attracted by
so many superficial things. Somebody is attracted by money, somebody gets
attracted by beauty. All those things will change. Everything is temporary,
because you are thinking yourself as a body; you get attracted by the bodies.
Then what will happen, your life will be full of suffering, because your
attraction was wrong. Now you think of yourself as mind, so then you say,
‘Oh! I love her, she is so moody, and her smile is so beautiful’. You are
getting attracted by the moods of the person. Those who get attracted by
moods will take a roller coaster ride because they will be in one mood in the
morning, another mood in the afternoon and different mood in the night. So
what you think you are, you get attracted by that. Then you get attracted by
intellectuals. You say, “He is such a great intellectual, I have never seen such
a person’. There are so many people who get misled by wrong ideologies.
Many countries have been ruined by their wrong ideologies. People are made
paupers. We have followed some ideologies from last 60 years and that has
taken us down the road of ruin. Then some country says, this is the best
ideology, revolutions happen and people are killed in large numbers and
jailed, but the country remains the same, people still remain poor. So it is a
problem when people get attracted by intellectuals. Only when you know that
you are Atma, then you will be free from these temporary things, intellect,
mind, buddhi etc. Don’t get trapped by them but use them properly. Such a
person’s actions are very beneficial to mankind because he is not partial. He
is not attracted by superficial things. He doesn’t do anything out of a narrow
mindset. Such a person is called Jnani, Mahatma. No sin can happen from
that person, because all actions are universal in nature, not partial, not based
on caste creed, religion, community, sex, ideologies, but pure love and
compassion.

‘Tassmat kaaman’, all his desires gets fulfilled. This is a great thing. A person
who becomes Jnani, all his desires gets fulfilled. Tell me what desires will he
have? You have to understand desire. Desire for anybody is born out of fear.
The fear is born out of wrong understanding “I am the body, mind and
intellect”. When that ‘I am’ becomes small you become limited and because
you become limited you will have fear and this fear leads to desire. Because,
once you have fear, you need protection, insurance. The only guys who sell
really some useful product which is not useful to you are the insurance guys.
That is always useful to somebody else. Our neighbour used to say, ‘I will
never take Insurance because anyways it will not be useful to me.’ All these
things we do out of fear. Fear is the root of our existence. Out of fear we
have desire. Now we have lot of desires and when you get them you will
happy and when you don’t get them you will feel miserable. Ultimately, you
come to a conclusion that these desire can never be fulfilled completely.
Whether they are your desires, or your husband’s desires or children’s desires,
but ultimately you come to a conclusion that there is no end to these desires.

45
Then is there a way to end all the desires? Is it possible to end all the desires?
So, there is a great desire to overcome all the desires – mother of all Desires.
That desire is called Mumukshatva, desire for liberation. So one who gets
Atmajnana becomes free from the desires itself because he has no fear left.
The fear called I am the body, mind and intellect is not there, and
subsequently there is no concept of desire. So a person who has no desire
will he become like stone? A dead body? The stone has no desire. If an
Atmajnani has any desires, what desire will he have? He will have a desire for
loka kalyana, to help and serve all the people, because for him, everybody in
the world is his own Atma. His concept of Atma gets extended from the
body, mind to everything in the universe. So naturally he will be able to take
care of the people, society and animals in a more beautiful way. So his desire
is not for the individual, his desire is for universal welfare. These desires will
also get fulfilled when somebody gets Atmajnana. So when Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa had enlightenment, Mother Kali told him that you will have
students who will teach other people. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa keeps
on waiting for the students to come. He used to get angry with Mother Kali,
“You told that students will come, but nobody is coming”. His desire is to
teach so that people will benefit from the experiences he had gone through.
That is the desire. A jnani will have a desire for Universal welfare. Whereas an
ajnani will have a desire of selfish nature. That is the difference between the
desires.

So, beyond Manomaya kosha, there is Vijnanamaya kosha. Within Vijnanamaya

kosha there is Anandamaya kosha, the sheath of Bliss. What is the body of
Anandamaya? Priya, something which we like. Whatever I like is Priya. All of
us get some joy in what we like, that is called Priya. Modha means whatever
you like you get it and enjoy it. That is why it is called Modhaka in Ganesha’s
hand. You enjoy that, taste that. Pramodha, a greater joy, an overflowing joy,
that is the left hand. So Priya is the head, the joy, modha is the right hand,
Pramodha, overflowing joy is the left hand, ananda is the middle portion.
Brahma Puccha, puccha means the lower part. So, a description of the
Anandamaya kosha is explained here. When I say Anandamaya kosha it is
Ananadmaya Purusha the inner soul. If I have to describe a person, I will say,
he has a head, two hands, two legs and a body. What is the head of an
Anandamaya Purusha, not figuratively, but for explanation purpose? Priya and
then Modha, Pramodha, these make up the body of the Annamaya kosha. But
Puccha means bottom, it is standing which means that Annamaya kosha itself is
not final, it is standing on Brahman, supreme Consciousness. Annamaya kosha,
Vijnanamaya kosha, Manomaya kosha, Pranamaya kosha, Annamaya kosha, all these
five Koshas are animated and lit up by Atma, Brahman. Like the electricity that
lights up a tube light, fan or a motor, where these don’t have any
characteristics of electricity. Light glows, fan rotates, motor pumps, what you
see is the action of these, but what you don’t see is the electricity. Similarly

46
what we see is the action of all the Koshas, but we don’t see the Atma which is
lighting up all these. Like a building where the pillars are not visible but the
building is standing on the strength of the pillars the foundation is not visible,
but we can see the strength of the foundation. We can see the body, mind
and intellect operating, but we don’t see the foundation which is Brahman.
The foundation of bliss is Brahman which we don’t see, we see only the effect.

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 Brahman, the Foundation of all
Shloka 2.6
असन्नेि स भिवि | असदब्र् ह्मेवि िेद चेि् |
अवस्ि ब्रह्मेवि चेद्वदे | सन्िमेनं ििो विदरु रवि |
िस्यैष एि शारीर आत्मा | यः पिू ास्य |
अिािोऽनप्रु श्नाः | उिाविद्वानमंु लोकं प्रेत्य | किन गच्छिी३ उ |
आिो विद्वानमंु लोकं प्रेत्य कवित्समश्निु ा ३ उ | सोऽकामयि |
ििु स्यां प्रजायेयेवि | स िपोऽिप्यि | स िपस्िप्त्िा |
इदीँ सिामसृजि | यवददं वकञ्च | ित्सृष्ट्िा |
िदेिानप्रु ाविशि् | िदनप्रु विश्य | सच्च त्यच्चाभिि् |
वनरुक्तं चावनरुक्तं च | वनलयनं चावनलयनं च |
विज्ञानं चाविज्ञानं च | सत्यं चानृिं च सत्यमभिि् |
यवददं वकञ्च | ित्सत्यवमत्याचििे |
िदप्येष श्लोको भिवि ||१||इवि षष्ठोऽनिु ाकः ||
Asanneva sa bhavati asad brahmeti veda chet
Asti brahmeti chet vedah santam enam tato viduriti
Tasyai ya eva shareera atmaa yah poorvasya
Athato anuprashnah Uta avidvaan amum lokam pretya kashchana gachchati
Aaho vidvaanamum lokam pretya kashchil samashnutaa u
Sa akaamayata bahusyaam prajaayeyeti Sa tapo atapyata idam sarvam asrujat
Yadidam kincha tat srushtva tadevaanupravishat
Tadanupravishya sat cha asat abhavat
Niruktam cha aniruktam cha nilayanam cha anilayanum cha
Vijnaanam cha avijnaanam cha satyam cha anrutam cha
satyam abhavat yadidam kimcha tatsatyamiti aachakshate Iti shashto anuvakaha

“If a person knows Brahman as nonexistent, he himself becomes nonexistent. If he knows

Brahman as existent, then know him as existent.” This is the embodied soul of the former.
Thereupon the following questions of the pupil: Does anyone who knows not attain that
World after departing this life? Or does he who knows attain that World after departing
this life? He desired: “May I be many, may I be born. He performed austerities. Having
performed austerities, He created all this— whatever there is. Having created all this, He
entered into it. Having entered into it, He became both the manifested and the
unmanifested, both the defined and undefined, both the supported and unsupported, both
the intelligent and the non - intelligent, both the real and the unreal. The Satya became all
this: whatever there is. Therefore call It the True.

One who knows Brahman as Asbhaat (nonexistent), he himself will become

nonexistent. What we think we will become is the law of nature. If we
constantly think of higher things in life, we become that. There is an example
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in the Upanishads. It is called ‘bhramara keeta nyaya’. A bhramara is an insect; it
brings for itself as food a keeta which is another small insect and keeps it in its
nest to feed its child. The keeta is very afraid of bhramara and keeps thinking
‘it will eat me’. It constantly thinks of the bhramara. What will happen to that
insect? It itself will take the shape of the bhramara. This is called ‘bhramara
keeta nyaya’. We have heard this in many puranas as well where kings like
Kamsa and Ravana attained Mukti. People like Kamsa thought of Krishna
while walking, eating, and talking. Even devotees of Krishna will not think
of him so much. They will think of Krishna only in their free time. Whereas
Kamsa was thinking of Krishna all the time, even in his dreams. That is called
‘dvesha bhakti’. You constantly think about something which you hate or are
afraid of. But if you love something, you may not think constantly about it.
Kamsa was always afraid that Krishna could come anytime and kill him. He
could come from the window or sky or any other place and kill him. Even in
sleep Krishna could come and kill him. He was very afraid and used to
constantly think of Krishna. Because he was thinking constantly of Krishna,
at the time of death his mind became very peaceful and he became free and
attained Mukti. So this is the story.

Whatever you think you become that. But that doesn’t mean that you should
have ‘dvesha bhakti’. It doesn’t mean that you have to hate Krishna or hate
Guruji to get Mukti. Have you seen anybody’s marriage photos and photos of
the same couple taken again after twenty five or thirty years? Of course, both
would have gained weight. Other thing what will happen is, if you look at the
faces of husband and wife, both look alike. Husband keeps constantly
thinking of wife, because he is afraid of her and wife keeps constantly
thinking about husband because she either loves him or hates him. Both are
constantly thinking of each other and one day their faces become alike. So,
the idea is whatever you think you become like that. If you think about
Brahman, God, you become Brahman. If you constantly think about some
negative thing, you will become that. What you think in your life is important.
Is your life full of negative thoughts, positive thoughts, loving thoughts or
thoughts about Brahman? Is your life full of God? What is it? That you
become.

Please understand, what you love may fluctuate, but what you hate never
fluctuates. Fear and hate is very constant. If somebody says there is no
Brahman or God, he will go into non-existence, asat. Because, you are creating
your own reality, you are an amsa (reflection) of Brahman, the Supreme Reality
which has the ability to create anything. You are also creating your life
constantly. Every minute what you think you are creating. If you think that
there is no Supreme Reality you also get unrelated, you will also not exist,
because you also came from that Supreme Reality. You will also attain asat.
There is a class of philosophers called ‘Charuvaka’. Charu means sweet and

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vaka means talk. They are called Charuvaka. Their philosophy in life is that
you have only the body, there is nothing called soul or Atma. ‘ranam krathva
dranam pripetha’: enjoy your life when you are alive. In earlier days, it was told,
‘borrow money to eat ghee’. At that time maybe eating ghee was the only
enjoyment. They did not have all those bottles of Coke, Fanta etc. Nothing
will happen to you after you die because there is no ‘papa’ or ‘punya’, because
there is no soul at all. This is the philosophy. Then there is another
philosophy that there is Atma and it will never die. What difference does it
make, please tell me? Whether body is Atma or body is different from Atma,
what difference does it make? If body is Atma, then body is limited, it has a
shelf life. You have to use within a certain number of day, like all these food
products that you get in the market which have a shelf date and an expiry
date. If you don’t consume it before the expiry date, it will be useless. You
also have a shelf life say sixty or seventy years until which you can indulge in
enjoyment. So this is one philosophy where there is a lot of pressure on you
to extract maximum enjoyment in a lifetime. Now another philosophy says,
the bodies come and go, you will take another body and life goes on and on.
So the pressures of enjoying life and achieving everything within a period of
one lifetime come down. You don’t get tensed and you become relaxed
otherwise this life itself becomes a pain. But some people can convert that
itself into stress, ‘Oh!!! I have to get Mukti in this life only. I don’t want so
many lives, I want Mukti now itself.’ It is a different matter that people can
convert anything you tell them into stress. But these things are told so that
you don’t get stressed and learn to relax. Life is a continuous process.

So there are two alternate thoughts, body is Atma or Atma is different from
the body. If Atma is different from the body, then Atma can change bodies,
but it can never die. So the fear of death will go. Otherwise many people who
are body conscious have tremendous fear of death. The death affects them
seriously. It is very important that Atma is different from body. This concept
has been given to us in India by the Rishis which has made death less fearful.
There will of course be fear of living when someone who has taken care of
you has passed away, but that is ok. So what you think of Atma, you will
become that. If you think that Atma is small you become small. If you think it
is big you become big. If you think that Atma is eternal, you become eternal.
Atma has the ability to create reality for you. The question is whether you
have the right or the wrong understanding of Atma. Most of the people think
that Atma is body. You have become body because you constantly think of
Atma as body. You have to start thinking that Atma is Chaitanya, it is ‘Sat-chit-
ananda’ swarupa’ (of the nature of Existence Consciousness and Bliss) and
become free from the bondage of the body. If you constantly think “I am
not realized” you become that only. That is why it is told in Upanishads that
never think that you are bonded, never think that you are born, and never
think that you will die. Consider yourself as Atma. To think otherwise is a

50
wrong understanding. What is the teaching? “Nanu nanembudhu nanalla ee deha
mana buddhi naan alla satchitanandatma shiva naanu naane. Shivoham. Shivoham.
Shivoham.”

Please understand that whatever you think you experience. If you think that
God is sitting far away, thousands of miles away in Kailasa, God will be
sitting like that. You will be far away from him. Constantly think that God is
in your heart then he will be in your heart. Constantly think that I am one
with God, you will become one with Him. Whatever you think you create
reality for yourself. Please understand, you have to create right reality which
is beneficial to you, which uplifts you. Don’t mess up your life by creating a
wrong reality. But to know what the right reality is, you have to first
understand and know about it. From where will you learn? Who will teach
you? Everybody will teach you. Now it is elections time, right? Everybody
has their own truths, their own interests. The teachings of Rishis, the spiritual
masters are not selfish. They never did anything selfish. All other teachings
are selfish in nature. If I say, you are Atma, you are Brahman, it will uplift you,
what is the benefit for me? There is no benefit for me. What Rishis told
created divinity in all people and it was not for any personal benefit. Whereas
politicians do it for votes, businessmen do it for gaining money. Everybody
does in some way of transaction to tell something. The absolute truth can be
told only by the realized Masters, a Rishi. The spiritual teachings which are
pure and not corrupted, which only uplift are called Upanishads. If you think
that Brahman doesn’t exist, you will become like that.
This is actually what happened to science. Science constantly denied
Consciousness. Lot of improvements happened in society, lot of material
benefit came, but the 20th century was disastrous for the psychological health
of the people where lot of so called modern development happened. In the
entire human history until now, the maximum percentage of psychiatric
patients existed in the 20th century. I don’t know if the percentage is same or
increased in the 21st century. What happens is when you constantly think that
you are a body, there is no higher Consciousness, you start becoming restless
out of fear, that fear starts becoming a psychological disorder. You don’t
know how many people have psychological diseases. Psychological disease is
not abnormal, it is very common. Only the people who go to the psychiatric
hospitals are uncommon. People don’t want to go. Otherwise psychological
disorders are very common. A much larger percentage of the population is
affected by psychological disorders. It is simply because they don’t have
concept that there is something higher than their body, mind and intellect.

Have you heard this story called ‘Alcoholics anonymous’, AA? In the US
there was an alcoholic, a drunkard. He was drinking so much of alcohol that
his liver got spoiled. Alcohol will affect the liver. He started taking treatment.
This is back in the 20th century. No treatment worked for him although he

51
got them from the best, top most psychiatrists at that time who charged him
heavily. He used to take the treatment and come home. Within a few weeks,
it relapsed and he again went back to drinking. So the doctor told him, if you
don’t stop drinking, you will die within 3 months because your liver is
completely damaged. Unless you stop drinking nothing will happen. He
asked, “I have tried the best psychiatrist in America, who can save me?” The
doctor said “Only God can save you, human beings cannot save you”. Then
this person went home. He felt so bad and he prayed to God, “Please free me
from this disease”. He prayed very sincerely and that day his alcoholism went
away. It dropped. He lived for many more years. He said “I can share this
experience with other people. No Psychiatrist will help you, no doctor will
help you, but God will help you.” So in this AA group, they pray to God the
higher Consciousness, ‘Free us from alcoholism’, and it brings them some
relief.
Unless we have a concept of higher reality we are stuck to the lower, bound
to the lower. There is a higher Consciousness in you, Atma. There is Brahman
in you, the Supreme Reality. Unless you constantly think of that you are stuck
to the lower plane of existence. Many people think, “There is God, where is
He?” In some far away loka, but if God is in faraway loka, of what use is it to
you? Do you think that God is in some faraway place and you have to take a
train ticket or a bus ticket, go and wait in a queue? Some people also have
such kind of concepts which is wrong. God is in you. God is the one who is
closest to you, God is you. Atma and Brahman are one. This understanding
has to be there constantly, otherwise life become miserable.

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 Supreme Bliss
Shloka 2.6 continued

I had mentioned in my previous talk that you will become what you think
about. If you think that there is no Brahman or there is nothing then you will
become nothing. We should rather think that there is Brahman and
contemplate about the Supreme Reality behind everything. What about
people who say that there is no God? If somebody tells you that there is a
very beautiful place and you will enjoy its natural beauty if you visit that
place. If you say that there is no such place, there is no such thing as natural
beauty then you will just miss out on that beautiful experience, nothing else
will happen to you. You will ultimately attain whatever you think. Vedas and
Upanishads say that Brahman is the Supreme Reality; their purpose is to guide
you and uplift you, not out of any selfish reason. If you think that Brahman
does not exist then you will also become nonexistent, Brahman alone existed
in the past; he alone exists in the present and will alone exist in the future.
Everything that exists is pervaded by Brahman and thinking on these lines will
uplift us. This brings us to another question. If Brahman is the Supreme
Reality does anyone who dies attain Brahman automatically? If an ajnani, an
ignorant person who is identified with finite things like his body, mind,
profession, achievements, name, fame or anything else dies, does he does not
attain Brahman the Supreme Reality. To attain something in life you have to
drop something else that is holding you back. You have to drop TV time if
you want to study; you have to drop your job if you want to become a
business man and so on. An ajnani is holding on tightly to something finite,
he cannot attain the infinite until he loosens his grip on the finite and drops it
altogether.

To bring more clarity to this let me tell you about how monkeys are caught.
A few peanuts are put in a bottle with a small neck through which the
monkey can squeeze its hand. Once the monkey grabs the peanuts it will not
be able to take out hits hand from the bottle. It will remain caught there but
will not drop the peanuts and release itself. If you hold on to something finite
you will be stuck there like the monkeys. The body, mind and intellect is
given to you so that you can understand the reality of life and once this
vehicle dies there is no possibility to gain anymore knowledge. You leave
with ignorance and find another body to experience life. Coming to what
happens to a Jnani when he dies, does he attain Brahman when he dies? No. A
Jnani is one who has attained Brahman while he is alive. Mukti is not
something that you attain after death; it is only when the intellect is working
that one can realize what reality is and what it is not. You have to attain
Brahman when you are alive; you have to attain Jeevanmukti when you are alive.

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Let us say that someone is content and leads a simple life, does not want
anything, will he attain Brahman after death? Some identity, some individuality
still exists and that is the problem. The prominent thought at the time of
death is supposed to determine the next life. The prominent thought of this
person will most probably be about how he is a content man and that will
determine his next life. He will be born and lead a content life again.
Contentment is only a state of mind, absence of fear is not wisdom. Life will
continue to exist in one form or the other until wisdom dawns. Contentment
is not a stable state of mind, life after life various situations will come which
will trigger fear, restlessness and suffering. A content person is not always
wise but a wise person is always content. There was a king by name Bharata,
his kingdom spanned from Afghanistan to Sumatra. He was content with his
achievements and with his life as an emperor. He then renounced everything
and went to the forest to lead an ascetic’s life. In the forest he saw a wounded
deer and out of compassion and not desire he began to take care of the deer.
At the time of his death the most prominent thought in his mind was about
who will take care of the deer after his death. In his next life he was born as a
deer. Ignorance is like a seed, one seed can give rise to thousands of plants.

Before creation Brahman, Paramatma alone existed. This is depicted as

Narayana resting peacefully on Adishesha the serpent. Narayana then decided
to become many, he created many and entered all of them, and he gave life
by entering them. Many ask me if He created out of boredom or
unhappiness. He created out of bliss, out of ananda and that is why it is called
as his Leela, his play. When you have to construct a building you first
contemplate about what you want to do, visualize it in your mind and then
lay the foundation. Mental creation precedes actual creation. Similarly,
Narayana meditated and visualized about creation and this is called Tapasya.
He did Tapasya and created the world out of Tapasya. Conceptualization gives
rise to thought, and from the thought comes the form. He entered all that he
created, ‘Niruktam cha, aniruktam cha’, ‘niruktam’ means spoken and ‘aniruktam’
means unspoken. He entered both the concrete and the abstract. Everything
is Consciousness only. ‘Nilayam cha anilayam cha’, ‘nilaya’ means a place where
one stays. God entered both, those who have a place to stay and those who
do not have a place to stay. ‘Vijnanam cha avijnanam cha’, ‘vijnanam’ means
intellect. He entered both the ones with intellect and the ones without
intellect. ‘satyam cha, anrutam cha’, ‘satyam’ means truth. He entered both the
true and the false, both water and mirage. You see a tiger in your dream, it is
not real but you still see it, your mind itself has taken that form. While
dreaming, everything that you experience appears to be real, this is the
individual dream. All the things that we see around is the universal dream,
dream of Brahmaji and that is why Narayana is shown lying down and resting
on Adishesha. Many universes appear and disappear in the dream of the
Naryayana – Supreme consciousness. But from individual stand point, these

54
appearances and disappearances last for billions and trillions of years. Once
you wake up the dream disappears name and form which are untrue
disappear and only Chaitanya (Consciousness) which is true remains. Deep inside
us we have a feeling that we are separate from the universe, from existence,
in our meditation we can rectify this thought by the understanding that
everything is Brahman, Consciousness alone.

Shloka 2.7

असद्वा इदमग्र आसीि् | ििो िै सदजायि |

िदात्मानीँ स्ियमकुरुि |
िस्मात्तत्सक ु ृ िमच्ु यि इवि |
यद्वै िि् सक ु ृ िम् | रसो िै सः |
रसीँ ह्येिायं लब्ध्िाऽऽनन्दी भिवि | को ह्येिान्यात्कः
प्राण्याि् | यदेष आकाश आनन्दो न स्याि् |
एष ह्येिाऽऽनन्दयावि |
यदा ह्येिैष एिवस्मन्नदृश्येऽनात््येऽवनरुक्तेऽवनलयनेऽभयं
प्रविष्ठां विन्दिे | अि सोऽभयं गिो भिवि |
यदा ह्येिैष एिवस्मन्नदु रमन्िरं कुरुिे |
अि िस्य भयं भिवि | ित्िेि भयं विदषु ोऽमन्िानस्य |
िदप्येष श्लोको भिवि ||१||इवि सप्तमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Asad vaa idamagra aseet tato vai sad ajaayata
Tad aatmaanam svayam kuruta tasmaat tat sukrutam uchyate iti
Yad vai tat sukrutam raso vai sah rasam hi eva ayam labdhaa aanandee bhavati
Ko hyevaanyaat kah praanyaat yadesha aakasha aanando na syaat
Esha hyevaanandayaati
Yadaahyevaisha etasmin adrushye anaatmye
Anirukte anilayane abhayam pratishthanam vindate
Atha sa abhayagato bhavati
Yadaahyevaisha etasmin daramantaram kurute
Atha tasya bhayam bhavai
Tatvesha bhayam vidusho amanvaanasya
Tadapyesha sloko bhavati Iti sapthamo anuvakaha

“In the beginning all this was nonexistent. From it was born what exists. That created
Itself by Itself; therefore It is called the self made.” That which is Self made is flavour; for
truly, on obtaining the flavour one becomes blissful. Who could direct the prana and the
apana if this Bliss did not exist in the akasa? Brahman verily exists because It alone
bestows bliss. When a man finds fearless support in That which is invisible, incorporeal,
indefinable and supportless, he has then obtained fearlessness. If he makes the slightest

55
differentiation in It, there is fear for him. That becomes fear for the knower who does not
reflect.

Whatever you see was ‘asat’ earlier. asat means not there. It doesn’t mean that
it was non-existent, it was in a very sookshma, subtle form. For example, a
mango tree exists in a mango seed in the subtle form and once it is sown the
gross form will manifest. The universe has a gross, subtle and a causal form.
It existed in the causal form in the beginning, it then manifested in the gross
form and it will sooner or later go back into the causal form again, it was
never nonexistent. Just like the tiger which manifested in your dream,
although it was in your mind in a subtle form even before it manifested.
Nothing comes out of Shunya, the universe has not come out of nothing, and
it has come out of the causal form in which it existed. This is explained
beautifully in the Puranas. Narayana is shown sleeping on the Shesha, ‘Shesha’
means remainder, all the remaining Karmic impressions become Shesha and
the next universe comes out of this. Now do not mistake that some material
is used to create the universe. The creation is always a part of Brahman,
everything is from his self. Everything that is created is created out of ananda.
Wind blows out of ananda, trees grow out of ananda; there is no bondage.
Everything you do from cooking to working to dressing up is out of some
sort of fear or expectation of some reward. He alone is responsible for
experience of ananda in our life. Whatever little ananda you experience is
because of him. When you understand your relationship with Brahman fear
which there because of feeling of separation, drops. Brahman is ‘Asharira’. He
has no body but all bodies are enlivened by him, like how all golden
ornaments have a shape but gold itself does not, like how waves and ocean
have a shape but water itself does not. He is ‘Avikari’, free from all forms of
disturbance because he is not bound. He is ‘Anirvachya’ because there is
nothing that you can speak about the formless. Pooja of idols and chanting
of God’s name is to reach the formless through form and nameless through
name and one who realizes the formless and nameless becomes Brahman,
goes beyond the body, mind and intellect. Once the name and form is
removed Chaitanya (Consciousness) alone remains. Fear is due to
identification with the limited self, with the body and mind, when you
become unlimited the fear drops. That is why we see all idols show ‘Abhaya
hasta’. You will be completely fearless only if you realize that everything in the
world is Brahman, if you see even a minute difference in Brahman that is
sufficient to create fear. Lord Narayana’s idol has four hands. Two lower
hands that represent the manifest world have Gadha and Padma, while the
upper hands which represent the non manifest world, beyond the creation,
have Shankha and Chakra. Shankha represents the primordial sound Omkara,
Chakra represents the universal intelligence, the Maha Tathva. Gadha
represents the karmic laws and Padma represents liberation. Gadha says that
the world is ruled by him through the laws of karma and Padma says that he

56
facilitates liberation and since they are related to the world they are in the
lower hands.

Tatvesha bhayam vidusho amanvaanasya. Vidusho means a scholar, a scholarly fool

who has learnt all the scriptures and all about Brahman but has not realized
Brahman. Once there was a scholar who was crossing a river by boat. He
asked the boatman if he has studied the Vedas and Brahma Sutras and the
boatman said that he had not studied them. The scholar said that the
boatman has wasted half of his life. Then it started raining heavily and water
began to collect in the boat, the boatman asked the scholar if he knows to
swim and the scholar said that he does not. The boatman said to him that
then he has wasted his entire life and he is in danger now. The boatman
jumped into the water. The problem of learned fools is no different from the
problem of others; it is realization that makes a difference not learning.

Shloka 2.8

भीषाऽस्माद्वािः पििे | भीषोदेवि सयू ाः |

भीषाऽस्मादव्निेन्रि | मृत्यधु ाािवि पञ्चम इवि |
सैषाऽऽनन्दस्य मीमाीँसा भिवि |
यिु ा स्यात्साधयु िु ाऽ्यायकः |
आवशष्ठो दृविष्ठो िवलष्ठः |
िस्येयं पृवििी सिाा वित्तस्य पणू ाा स्याि् |
स एको मानषु आनन्दः | िे ये शिं मानषु ा आनन्दाः
स एको मनषु यगन्धिााणामानन्दः | िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य |
िे ये शिं मनषु यगन्धिााणामानन्दाः | स एको देिगन्धिााणामानन्दः |
िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य | िे ये शिं देिगन्धिााणामानन्दाः |
स एकः वपिृणां वचरलोकलोकानामानन्दः |
िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य | िे ये शिं वपिृणां वचरलोकलोकानामानन्दाः |
स एक आजानजानां देिानामानन्दः
िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य | िे ये शिं आजानजानां देिानामानन्दाः |
स एकः कमादिे ानां देिानामानन्दः |
ये कमाणा देिानवपयवन्ि | िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य |
िे ये शिं कमादिे ानां देिानामानन्दाः |
स एको देिानामानन्दः | िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य |
िे ये शिं देिानामानन्दाः | स एक इन्रस्याऽऽनन्दः
िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य | िे ये शिवमन्रस्याऽऽनन्दाः |
स एको िृिस्पिेरानन्दः | िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य |

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िे ये शिं िृिस्पिेरानन्दाः | स एकः प्रजापिेरानन्दः |
िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य | िे ये शिं प्रजापिेरानन्दाः |
स एको ब्रह्मण आनन्दः | िोवियस्य चाकामििस्य
स यिायं परुु षे | यिासािावदत्ये | स एकः |
स य एिंविि् | अस्माल्लोकात्प्रेत्य |
एिमन्नमयमात्मानमपु सङ्रामवि | एिं प्राणमयमात्मानमपु सङ्रामवि |
एिं मनोमयमात्मानमपु सङ्रामवि | एिं विज्ञानमयमात्मानमपु सङ्रामवि |
एिमानन्दमयमात्मानमपु सङ्रामवि | िदप्येष श्लोको भिवि ||५||इत्यष्टमोऽनिु ाकः ||

Bhisha asmad vatah pavate bhishodeti suryah

Bhishaasmaadagnishcha indreshcha
Mrutyurdhavati panchama iti
Saisha aanandasya meemaamsa bhavati
Yuvaasyaatsaadhuyuva aadhaayakah aashishtho drathistho balishthah
Tasyeyam pruthvi sarva vittasyapoomasyaat
Sa eko maanusha aananda Te ye shatam maanusha aanandah
sa eko manushyagandharvaanam anandah
Shroutriyasy chaakaamahatasya
Te ye shatam devagandharvaanaam aanandah
sa eka pitrunaam chiralokaanaamaanandah
Shrotriyasya chaakaamahatasya
Te ye shatam aajaanajaanaam devaanaam aanandah
sa eka kamadevaanaam devaanaam aanandah
Shrotriyasya chaakaamahatasya
Te ye shatam devaanaam anandam sa eko indrasya aanandah
Shrotriyasya chaakaamahatasya
Te ye shatam indrasya aanandah sa eko bruhaspateraanandah
Shrotriyasya chaakaamahatasya
Te ye shatam bruhaspateraanandah sa eka prajaapater aanandah
Shrotriyasya chaakaamahatasya
Sa yashchaayam purushe yashchvaasavaaditye
Sa ekah say a evam vit
Asmaallokat pretya etam annamayamaatmaanam upasmakramanti
Etam praanamayaatmaanam upasamkramanti
Etam manomayamaatmaanam upasamkramanti
Etam vijnaanamayamaatmaanam upasamkramanti
Etam aanandamayamaatmaanam upasamkramanti
Tadapyesha sloko bhavati Iti ashtamo anuvakaha

“From fear of It the wind blows; from fear of It the sun rises; from fear of It Agni and
Indra and Death, the fifth, run.”
Now this is an inquiry regarding the Bliss.

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Suppose there is a young man—a noble young man—versed, the best of rulers, firm in
body and strong and possesses the whole world, full of wealth, is his: that is one measure of
human bliss.
This human bliss, multiplied on hundred times, is one measure of the bliss of the human
gandharvas, as also of a man versed in the Vedas and free from desires.
This bliss of the human gandharvas, multiplied one hundred times, is one measure of the
bliss of the celestial gandharvas, as also of a man versed in the Vedas and free from
desires.
This bliss of the celestial gandharvas, multiplied one hundred times, is one measure of the
bliss of the Manes, who dwell in the long—enduring world, as also of a man versed in the
Vedas and free from desires.
This bliss of the Manes who dwell in the long—enduring world, multiplied on hundred
times, is one measure of the bliss of the gods born in the Ajana heaven, as also of a man
versed in the Vedas and free from desires.
The bliss of the gods born in the Ajana heaven, multiplied one hundred times, is one
measure of the bliss of the sacrificial gods who have attained to divinity by means of
sacrifices, as also of a man versed in the Vedas and free from desires.
The bliss of the sacrificial gods, multiplied one hundred times, is one measure of the bliss of
the gods, as also of a man versed in the Vedas and free from desires.
The bliss of the gods, multiplied one hundred times, is one measure of the bliss of Indra, as
also of a man versed in the Vedas and free from desires.
The bliss of Indra, multiplied one hundred times, is one measure of the bliss of Brihaspati,
as also of a man versed in the Vedas and free from desires.
The bliss of Brihaspati, multiplied one hundred times, is one measure of the bliss of
Prajapati, as also of a man versed in the Vedas and free from desires.
The bliss of Prajapati, multiplied one hundred times, is one measure of the bliss of Brahma,
as also of a man versed in the Vedas and free from desires.
He who is here in man and he who is in yonder sun—both are one. He who knows this,
after dying to this world, attains the self which consists of food, attains the self which consist
of the vital breath, attains the self which consists of the mind, attains the self which consists
of intellect, attains the self which consists of bliss.

The wind blows out of fear of Brahman. This creation has a certain order and
laws that are created by Brahman and everybody follows that order. The laws
of universe operate at various levels and it is called Dharma. No being can
violate Dharma. The sun rises and sets, wind blows, fire burns, mrityu also
operates according to Dharma.
Now comes the main shloka of this Upanishad. This particular chapter is
called ‘Brahmananda Valli’. It explains Brahmananda, the bliss of Brahman. It is
very difficult to explain something without giving examples or comparing it
with something that you know. Even if I try to explain about a new sweet
you will ask me questions comparing it to a sweet that you have tasted.
Hence there are a set of examples here to make us understand about
Brahmananda.

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Imagine the ananda (bliss) that a person who has conquered the whole word
and all its riches. That ananda is the least, the smallest, it is called
manushyananda. If you put together hundred such manushyanandas you get
manushya gandharvananda. Gandharva means musician. A musician experiences
more ananda in music than a person can experience with all the riches.
Ananda of hundred gandharvas is equal to one deva gandharvananda. Hundred
deva gandharvanandas is equal to one pitr ananda. All these anandas are only a
fraction of brahmananda. There is sunlight, tubelight and candle light, can any
form of light exist without sunlight? All these are derived from sunlight and
are only a small fraction of it. Similarly all forms of ananda are derived from
brahmananda and are only a small fraction of it. Pitras are those who have
passed away and attained Sashwata Lokas. There are two types of lokas,
Sashwata Lokas and Asashwata Lokas, permanent and temporary lokas
respectively. The ananda of hundred such ancestors is equal to the ananda of
one unborn Devata. There are different categories of Devatas, unborn devatas
and karma devatas. Karma devatas are those who have done lot of good service
here and have attained the devaloka after death. The ananda of a karmadevata is
equal to the ananda of 100 unborn devatas but even that is just a fraction of the
ananda experienced by a Brahmajnani. Hundred such devatanandas is equal to
the ananda of Indra, hundred Indras put together is equal to the ananda of
Brihaspati the Devaguru. Hundred Brihaspatis put together is the ananda of
Prajapati, the creator, Chaturmukha Brahma and that too is just a fraction of
Brahmananda. This is just to give a gradation of ananda. The one who realizes
the eternal within crosses over the annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya
and anandamaya koshas and becomes free. Aditya is one who has no beginning
or end. All these koshas are like clothing, these change but Atma does not
change. The difference between you and Chaturmukha Brahma is that you
have a small body and he has a bigger body but the one who is wearing it is
the same, the same changeless Atma. One who is in the ant is the one who is
in the elephant, one who is in the devatas is in you. Everything is a covering
and the one who realizes this becomes free.

Shloka 2.9

यिो िाचो वनििान्िे | अप्राप्य मनसा सि |

आनन्दं ब्रह्मणो विद्वान् |
न विभेवि कुििनेवि |
एिीँ ि िाि न िपवि |
वकमिीँ साधु नाकरिम् | वकमिं पापमकरिवमवि |
स य एिं विद्वानेिे आत्मानीँ स्पृणिु े |
उभे ह्येिैष एिे आत्मानीँ स्पृणिु े | य एिं िेद |
इत्यपु वनषि् ||१||इवि निमोऽनिु ाकः ||
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Yatho vacho nivartante aprapya manasaa saha
Aanandam brahmano vidvaan na bibheti kadaachaneti
Etam ha vaava na tapati kimaham sadhu naakaravam
Kimaham paapamakaravaamiti
Sa ya evam vidvaaneti aatmaanam sprunoti
Ubh hyovaisha ete aatmaanam sprunute
Ya evam veda ityupanishad Iti navamo anuvakaha

He who knows the Bliss of Brahman, whence words together with the mind turn away,
unable to reach It—he is not afraid of anything whatsoever.” He does not distress himself
with the thought: Why did I not do what is good? Why did I do what is evil? Whosoever
knows this regards both these as Atman; indeed he cherishes both these as Atman. Such,
indeed, is the Upanishad, the secret knowledge of Brahman.

Words cannot explain Brahman, how can words explain the experience of
deep silence and deep love? When you see two people speaking, the only
thing absent there is love, if there was deep love between them then there
would be no words. Brahman is beyond words and only silence is the way.
Every word falls short, words are only a pointer. Upanishads are also words,
they are also just pointers. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa once asked
Vivekananda to squeeze out a cup of water from a book about rivers of India
in order to explain the limitation of words. Upanishads are only a roadmap to
attain Brahman. All scriptures are like maps not the destination. Brahman has
to be realized and one who realizes Brahman becomes free from fear, free
from regrets and goes beyond Dharma and adharma. He becomes free, you
cannot judge him by social standards but he will never do adharma. Krishna
says, ‘yada yadahi dharmasya’, ‘whenever Dharma goes down in the society I will
come back to restore it’. In the Mahabharata he ordered Arjuna to kill Karna
when he was stuck without a chariot. Is that Dharma or adharma? Shri
Krishna merely allowed the play of karmic laws – “What you reap ye shall
sow”. Karna had killed Abhimanyu another warrior in a helpless situation
earlier in the war. Shri Krishna is beyond Dharma and adharma, an atmajnani
is beyond Dharma and adharma. Atmajnanis vision and action are towards
establishment of dharma, and elevating consciousness of masses.

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 Bhrigu Valli
Today we are going to start with Bhrigu Valli, the third chapter. This is a
recording of realization of Bhrigu.

Shloka 3.1

भृगिु ै िारुवणः | िरुणं वपिरमपु ससार |

अधीवि भगिो ब्रह्मेवि | िस्मा एित्प्रोिाच |
अन्नं प्राणं चिःु िोिं मनो िाचवमवि |
िीँ िोिाच | यिो िा इमावन भिू ावन जायन्िे |
येन जािावन जीिवन्ि |
यत्प्रयन्त्यवभसंविशवन्ि | िवद्ववजज्ञासस्ि | िद् ब्रह्मेवि |
स िपोऽिप्यि | स िपस्िप्त्िा ||१||इवि प्रिमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Bhrugurvai vaarunih varunam pitaramupasasaara
Adheehi bhagao brahmeti tasmaa etatprovavacha
Annam praanam chakshuh shrotram mano vaachamiti
Tam hovaacha
Yatho vaa imaani bhootaani jaayante yena jaytaani jeevanti
Yat prayatyabhisamvishanti
Tadvijnaasva tadbrahmeti
Sa tapo atapyata sa tapastaptvaa Iti prathamo anuvakaha

Bhrigu, the son of Varuna, approached his father Varuna and said: "Venerable Sir,
teach me about Brahman." To him, the son, he said this: "Food, the vital breath, the eye,
the ear, the mind, speech." To him he said further: "That from which these beings are born,
That by which, when born, they live, That into which they enter, they merge—seek to know
That. That is Brahman." He performed austerities. Having performed austerities—

Varuna was Bhrigu Maharshi’s father. He was a realized Master and had
many students. On one day Brighu approached his father and asked him to
teach him Brahmajnana. It might appear strange to you that a son is going to
his father who has many students and asking him to teach. Hasn’t the father
already taught the son? Even a father does not teach his son until it is asked
for and this is a very important aspect of spirituality. Only the ones who seek
are taught. If there is no seeking then there is no teaching. Many people who
get an initial exposure to spirituality, out of their enthusiasm try to teach
spirituality to everyone they come across. It is like giving food to somebody
who is not hungry. It doesn’t work. Even though Brahmajnana is very
important and realizing Brahman is the ultimate purpose of life it is not taught
to those who do not seek. Religion is taught to everybody, but do not mix up

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religion with spirituality. Religion is for masses, it is about following
something, you believe in God so you go to temples and on pilgrimages, it is
about doing something. Spirituality is not about doing something it is about
seeking something within. Religion is about God and spirituality is about
realizing God. If you think that all the people who worship God want to
realize God then you are mistaken. They worship God because they think
that if they worship him then he will solve their problems. Spirituality is for
people who want to realize God and do not have any expectation of any
other benefit. When a student approaches a realized Master seeking
Atmajnana, the Master will not tell him everything at one go, he will take him
step by step. When Bhrigu approached his father he asked him to
contemplate about the origin of life as follows,

‘annam pranam chakshuvu kshotram mano vachamiti’

Varuna said to Bhrigu that the five things of which living beings are made are
anna–food, prana-energy, shrotram-hearing, manas-mind and vakk-speech. Go
and seek something from which all the beings are born, grow up and go back
to after death. Seek that which is behind birth, sustenance and death. Reality
is something that is all pervading and it should be the substratum of all
change (birth, sustenance and death). It is like how a scientist asks about the
fundamental nature of matter, fundamental means that it should be a part of
all matter, something that is common to all forms of matter be it wall or
water or anything else. Similarly, here Varuna is saying that something which
is present in birth, growth and death is Brahman. Brahman is that fundamental
nature. Bhrigu then goes away and does tapasya.

Tapasya means constant focus on a subject, contemplation and deep

meditation about it. When a student studies with focus and concentration it is
Tapasya. When a scientist studies in depth about a subject it is Tapasya. When
someone is focusing on his body to build and maintain it well it is also
Tapasya. Tapasya for higher truth is uplifting. Tapasya for Brahman is to
understand, contemplate, think and come to a conclusion by eliminating all
that is not reality. This method of eliminating the untruth is called ‘neti neti’
(not this, not this). If you eliminate what is not Brahman you will realize
Brahman. Many people think that if I meditate then one day Brahman will
come and stand in front of me, that is false. Brahman can be realized through
the process of viveka and vairagya. Viveka is the ability to distinguish between
Atma and Anatma. Varuna’s idea was to set Bhrigu on the right path of
contemplation so that he comes to discover Brahman himself and not to
spoon feed him. If you think that the Guru will give his disciple Brahman on a
spoon then you have mistaken. It is not possible because Brahman is not an
object. The Guru can only point in the right direction. Do not hold on to the

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guru’s finger. After contemplation as per his father’s instruction Bhrigu
comes to a conclusion, he returns and says,

Shloka 3.2

अन्नं ब्रह्मेवि व्यजानाि् | अन्नाद्् येि खवल्िमावन

भिु ावन जायन्िे | अन्नेन जािावन जीिवन्ि |
अन्नं प्रयन्त्यवभसंविशन्िीवि | िवद्वज्ञाय |
पनु रे ि िरुणं वपिरमपु ससार | अधीवि भगिो ब्रह्मेवि |
िीँ िोिाच | िपसा ब्रह्म विवजज्ञासस्ि | िपो ब्रह्मेवि |
स िपोऽिप्यि | स िपस्िप्त्िा ||१||इवि वद्विीयोऽनिु ाकः ||
Annam brahmeti vyajanaat
Annaadhyeva khalvamaani bhootani jaayante
Annena jaataani jeevanti
Annam prayantyabhisamvishanti
Tad vijnaaya punareva varunam pitaramupasasaara
Adheehi bhagao brahmeti
Tam hovacha
Tapasaa brahma vijnaasasva
Tapo brahmeti
Sa tapo atapyata sa tapastaptvaa Iti dviteeyo anuvakaha

He realised that food is Brahman; for from food, verily, are these beings born; by food, when
born, do they live; into food do they enter, do they merge. Having realized this, he
approached his father again and said: "Venerable Sir, teach me Brahman." To him, the
son, he said this: "Seek to know Brahman by means of austerities. For austerities are the
means of knowing Brahman." He practiced austerities. Having practiced austerities—

Annam brahmeti upasita – food itself is Brahman. Food is matter composed of

the five elements space, air, sunlight, water and Earth. All living beings are
born out of matter, grow in matter and die and go back to matter. Therefore
matter itself is Brahman. Varuna then asked him to continue his Tapasya and
discover the truth. Tapasya, the ability to focus and contemplate itself is
Brahman. Many people think that if they are spiritual then they need not do
anything. They are missing the point, the ability to focus and do something is
itself a spiritual act. Brahman created this whole world out of Tapasya.

Shloka 3.3

प्राणो ब्रह्मेवि व्यजानाि् |

प्राणाद्् येि खवल्िमावन भिू ावन जायन्िे |

64
प्राणेन जािावन जीिवन्ि | प्राणं प्रयन्त्यवभसवं िशन्िीवि |
िवद्वज्ञाय | पनु रे ि िरुणं वपिरमपु ससार |
अधीवि भगिो ब्रह्मेवि | िीँ िोिाच |
िपसा ब्रह्म विवजज्ञासस्ि | िपो ब्रह्मेवि |
स िपोऽिप्यि | स िपस्िप्त्िा ||१||इवि िृिीयोऽनिु ाकः ||
Prano brahmeti vyajanaat
Pranaadhyeva khalvamaani bhootaani jaayante
Praanena jaataani jeevanti
Praanam prayantyabhisamvishanti
Tad vijnaaya punareva varunam pitaramupasasaara
Adheehi bhagao brahmeti
Tam hovacha
Tapasya brahma vijijnaasva
Tapo brahmeti
Sa tapo atapyata sa tapastaptva iti tritiyo anuvakaha

He realized that the prana is Brahman; for from the prana, verily, are these beings born;
by the prana, when born, do they live; into the prana do they enter, do they merge. Having
realized this, he approached his father again and said: "Venerable Sir, teach me
Brahman." To him, the son, he said this: "Seek to know Brahman by means of
austerities. For austerities are the means of knowing Brahman." He practiced austerities.
Having practiced austerities—

After further tapasya Bhrigu comes back with a conclusion that prana is
Brahman. The moment prana enters the body one comes to life. Prana
maintains life and the moment it leaves the body one dies. So prana has all the
characteristics of Brahman. There are five elements of prana. The main prana is
called Mukhyaprana. Once it enters the body it takes five forms prana, apana,
vyana, udaana, and samana. Prana is in the upper part of the body, responsible
for heart and lungs and vital organs to function. Apana is in the lower part of
the body which aids excretion, child birth and such activities. Samana is in
between prana and apana and is responsible for distribution of energy in the
body. Udana is in the upper part of the body, the head portion which is
responsible for various states of Consciousness, waking, dreaming, deep sleep
and enlightenment. Vyana radiates from the center of the body, heart and
spreads throughout the body spreading energy. Nobody can live without
these five pranas and if the flow of prana to a certain part of the body is
blocked then that part becomes paralyzed. Hence prana itself is Brahman is
Bhrigu’s conclusion.

It is not so, prana is not Brahman because it has no ability of its own, it gets
ability to move and function when Chaitanya is present, prana is not
65
fundamental. Prana is just like an instrument in the hands of Chaitanya. This
is why Sri Madhvacharya says, ‘Hari sarvottama vayu jeevottama’, vayu is prana
and Hari is Consciousness. Varuna again asks Bhrigu to continue tapasya and
understand Brahman through tapasya

There is another misconception about tapasya that it takes a lot of time. Tapasya is
the ability to focus and concentrate and it does not take time. Understanding can
dawn in a second and all it requires is a sharp intellect. To do anything in the world
outside you require time but it does not take time in the inner world. There was a
lady who saved a lot of money over many years and bought a diamond necklace.
She wore it and was very happy, she had done tapasya to save and buy the necklace.
One day she was unable to find it anywhere and was running around searching it.
At that time her friend pointed it out to her that the necklace was around her neck,
she became happy again in no time. Tapasya for Brahmajnana is about turning your
mind from outside to inwards and recognizing what is already within.

Shloka 3.4

मनो ब्रह्मेवि व्यजानाि् | मनसो ह्येि खवल्िमावन

भिू ावन जायन्िे | मनसा जािावन जीिवन्ि |
मनः प्रयन्त्यवभसंविशन्िीवि | िवद्वज्ञाय |
पनु रे ि िरुणं वपिरमपु ससार | अधीवि भगिो ब्रह्मेवि |
िीँ िोिाच | िपसा ब्रह्म विवजज्ञासस्ि | िपो ब्रह्मेवि |
स िपोऽिप्यि | स िपस्िप्त्िा ||१||इवि चििु ोऽनिु ाकः ||
Mano brahmeti vyajanaat
Manasohyeva khalvamaani bhootaani jaayante
Manasaa jaataani jeevanti
Manah prayantyabhisamvishanti
Tad vijnaaya punareva varunam pitaramupasasaara
Adheehi bhagao brahmeti
Tam hovacha
Tapasya brahma vijijnaasva
Tapo brahmeti
Sa tapo atapyata sa tapastaptva Iti chaturdho anuvakaha

He realized that the mind is Brahman; for from the mind, verily, are these beings born; by
the mind, when born, do they live; into the mind, at the time of dissolution, do they enter,
do they merge. Having realized this, he approached his father again and said: "Venerable
Sir, teach me Brahman." To him, the son, he said this: "Seek to know Brahman by
means of austerities; for austerities are Brahman." He practiced austerities. Having
practiced austerities—

66
Bhrigu meditates again and concludes that manas is Brahman. The mind uses
prana to make the body do some action. Nothing can be done without the
mind. There were two beggars, one without legs and the other without eyes.
The beggar without legs used to sit on the shoulders of the beggar without
eyes and direct him. Prana is like the blind beggar and manas is like the beggar
without legs. Mind itself has no ability to move, it directs prana to move so
mind and prana work together. Mind is higher than prana and mind itself is
Brahman. When a desire to take birth arises in the mind one takes on a body.
He lives his life based on fears and desires of the mind and when the body is
no longer useful it is dropped and the mind moves on with the prana. Our life
and death is because of the mind. Varuna listened and asked Bhrigu to
continue meditation and contemplation.

Shloka 3.5

विज्ञानं ब्रह्मेवि व्यजानाि् |

विज्ञानाद्् येि खवल्िमावन भिू ावन जायन्िे |
विज्ञानेन जािावन जीिवन्ि |
विज्ञानं प्रयन्त्यवभसंविशन्िीवि | िवद्वज्ञाय |
पनु रे ि िरुणं वपिरमपु ससार | अधीवि भगिो ब्रह्मेवि |
िीँ िोिाच | िपसा ब्रह्म विवजज्ञासस्ि | िपो ब्रह्मेवि |
स िपोऽिप्यि | स िपस्िप्त्िा ||१||इवि पञ्चमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Vijnaanam brahmeti vyajanaat
Vijnaanaadhyeva khalvamaani bhootani jaayante
Vijnaanena jaataani jeevanti
Vijnaanam prayantyabhisamvishanti
Tad vijnaaya
Punareva varunam pitaramupasasaara
Adheehi bhagao brahmeti
Tam hovaacha
Tapasaa brahma vijnaasasva
Tapo brahmeti
Sa tapo atapyata sa tapastaptvaa iti panchamo anuvakaha

He realized that the intellect (vijnana) is Brahman; for from the intellect, verily, are these
beings born; by the intellect, when born, do they live; into the intellect, at the time of
dissolution, do they enter, do they merge. Having realized this, he approached his father
again and said: "Venerable Sir, teach me Brahman." To him, the son, he said this: "Seek
to know Brahman by means of austerities; for austerities are the means of knowing
Brahman." He practiced austerities. Having practiced austerities—

67
Bhrigu goes back and understands that mind itself is not final. It is directed
by the intellect and hence Vijnana is Brahman. Intellect directs the mind,
intellect is what has the ability to understand, analyze and decide. Intellect or
Vijnana decodes what needs to be done and the mind executes it with the
help of prana. Intellect is what leads life and intellect is what decides to leave
the body at the time of death when there is no will to live anymore. We were
born with the intellect; we live and die according to it. Varuna again
encourages Bhrigu to continue contemplation.

Shloka 3.6

आनन्दो ब्रह्मेवि व्यजानाि् |

आनन्दा्येि खवल्िमावन भिू ावन जायन्िे |
आनन्देन जािावन जीिवन्ि | आनन्दं प्रयन्त्यवभसंविशन्िीवि |
सैषा भागािी िारुणी विद्या | परमे व्योमन्प्रविवष्ठिा |
स य एिं िेद प्रविविष्ठवि | अन्निानन्नादो भिवि |
मिान्भिवि प्रजया पशवु भब्राह्मिचासेन |
मिान् कीत्याा ||१||इवि षष्ठोऽनिु ाकः ||
Aanando brahmeti vyajanaat
Aanandadhyeva khalvamaani bhootaani jaayante
Aanandena jaataani jeevanti
Aanandam prayantyabhisamvishanti
Saisha bhargavee vaarunee vidya
Parame vyoman pratishthitaa
Sa ya evam veda pratitishthati
Annavaanannaado bhavati
Mahaan bhavati prajayaa pashubhirbrahmavarchasena
Mahaan keertyaa iti shashto anuvakaha

He realised that Bliss is Brahman; for from Bliss (ananda), verily, are these beings born;
by bliss, when born, do they live; into bliss, at the time of dissolution, do they enter, do they
merge. This is the wisdom taught by Varuna and learnt by Bhrigu. It is established in the
supreme akasa, in the heart. He who knows this is established in the Bliss of Brahman.
He becomes a possessor of food and an eater of food. He becomes great in offspring and
cattle and in spiritual radiance and great in fame.
After further contemplation Bhrigu comes back and says that ananda, bliss is
Brahma. The entire creation is pervaded by bliss. Living beings are born out
of bliss, seek bliss and when they die they merge with that bliss, ananda. The
existence is born out of bliss, lives in bliss and dies into bliss. This is the
realization which Bhrigu has and one who realizes is Parame vyoman. This is
the innermost space, the innermost reality of all living beings and one who
68
realizes this will attain ananda (bliss). Annaman annado bhavati- There will not
be any shortage of food for that person. He will attain whatever is required
for his survival. He will have many children. It does not mean biological
children but spiritual children. He will have many students who will come
and study about Self realization (Atmajnana) under his guidance. Bhrigu was
initially the biological son of Varuna and seeking spiritual knowledge from his
father made him his spiritual son. The father does not make any distinction
though, does not give any special privileges to his son, he will have to study
the subject of spirituality like anyone else through contemplation, meditation
and service. He will then attain prosperity, as many students come he will get
more donations and wealth which he can use for the purpose of teaching
more students and building an ashram.

Maha brahma varchasvi bhavathi - tejas, the light of Brahman will shine through
him. Varchas is ability of a person to have tremendous influence on others
without using force or power. Things just happen in his presence. Just like
how bees come in search of a flower when it blossoms, many students come
to him to learn about Brahma vidya.

Shloka 3.7

अन्नं न वनन्द्याि् | िदर् िम् | प्राणो िा अन्नम् |

शरीरमन्नादम् | प्राणे शरीरं प्रविवष्ठिम् |
शरीरे प्राणः प्रविवष्ठिः | िदेिदन्नमन्ने प्रविवष्ठिम् |
स य एिदन्नमन्ने प्रविवष्ठिं िेद प्रविविष्ठवि |
अन्निानन्नादो भिवि |
मिान्भिवि प्रजया
पशवु भब्राह्मिचासेन | मिान् कीत्याा ||१||इवि सप्तमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Annam na nindyat tad vratam
Prano vaa annam shareeramannadam
Prane shareeram pratishthitam shareeram pranah pratishthitah
Tadetannamanne pratishthitam
Sa ya etadannamanne pratishthitam veda pratitishthati
Annavanannado bhavati
Mahan bhavati prajayaa pashubhir brahmavarchasena
Mahaan keertyaa Iti saptamo anuvakaha.

Let him (the knower of Brahman) never condemn food; that is the vow. The prana is,
verily, food; the body is the eater of food. The body rests on the prana; the prana rest on the
body. Thus food rests on food. He who knows this resting of food on food is established; he

69
becomes a possessor of food and an eater of food. He becomes great in offspring and cattle
and in spiritual radiance and great in fame.

Here the hierarchy among anna, prana, manas, vijnana and ananda is told. It
does not mean that if you are aspiring for ananda then the others are not
required. It is not so. You need a physical body for realization; body is to be
taken care of with good food and exercise. Prana enlivens the body and they
both exist together and should not be ignored. Taking care of the body which
is the temple of God is a Vratha in itself, it is worship. Prana and body are
two aspects of the same basic element like ice and water. Without these you
cannot interact and operate in the world. Food is required for energy. A part
of the food gets converted into prana and a part gets converted into body.
There is constant interaction between the body and prana. If one takes care of
the body with the understanding that I am not a body, mind and intellect, I
am Pure Consciousness then he will attain the supreme.

Shloka 3.8

अन्नं न पररचिीि | िदर् िम् | आपो िा अन्नम् |

ज्योविरन्नादम् | अप्सु ज्योविः प्रविवष्ठिम् |
ज्योविषयापः प्रविवष्ठिाः | िदेिदन्नमन्ने प्रविवष्ठिम् |
स य एिदन्नमन्ने प्रविवष्ठिं िेद प्रविविष्ठवि |
अन्निानन्नादो भिवि |मिान्भिवि प्रजया
पशवु भब्राह्मिचासेन |मिान् कीत्याा ||१||इत्यष्टमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Annam na parichaksheeta tad vratam
Aapo vaa annam jyotirannadam
Apsu jyotih pratishthitam jyotishyaapah pratishthitaah
Tadetannamanne pratishthitam
Sa ya etadannamanne pratishthitam veda pratitishthati
Annavanannado bhavati
Mahan bhavati prajayaa pashubhir brahmavarchasena
Mahaan keertyaa Iti ashtamo anuvakaha

Let him (the knower of Brahman) never abandon food; that is the vow. Water is, verily,
food; fire is the eater. Fire rests on water and water rests on fire. Thus food rests on food.
He who knows this resting of food on food is established; he becomes a possessor of food and
an eater of food. He becomes great in offspring and cattle and in spiritual radiance and
great in fame

Food makes the body. It should not be denied but should be respected.
Water is also food; a larger part of the body is made up of water. The fire
element is also present in the body in the form of heat and temperature.
70
Don’t ignore matter which consists of five elements. Water and fire are
together responsible for digestion, assimilation and growth. One who
understands this will have wealth in the world.

Shloka 3.9

अन्नं ििु कुिीि | िदर् िम् | पृवििी िा अन्नम् |

आकाशोऽन्नादः | पृविव्यामाकाशः प्रविवष्ठिः |
आकाशे पृवििी प्रविवष्ठिा |िदेिदन्नमन्ने प्रविवष्ठिम् |
स य एिदन्नमन्ने प्रविवष्ठिं िेद प्रविविष्ठवि |
अन्निानन्नादो भिवि |मिान्भिवि प्रजया
पशवु भब्राह्मिचासेन | मिान्कीत्याा ||१||इवि निमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Annam bahu kurveet tad vratam
Pruthvee vaa annam aakaasho annaadah
Pruthvyaamaakaashah pratitishthanti aakasho pruthvee pratitishthanti
Tadetannamanne pratishthitam
Sa ya etadannamanne pratishthitam veda pratitishthati
Annavanannado bhavati
Mahan bhavati prajayaa pashubhir brahmavarchasena
Mahaan keertyaa Iti Navamo anuvakaha

Let him (the knower of Brahman) make food plentiful; that is the vow. The Earth is,
verily, food; the akasa is the eater. The akasa rests on the Earth and the Earth rests on
the akasa. Thus food rests on food. He who knows this resting of food on food is
established; he becomes a possessor of food and an eater of food. He becomes great in
offspring and cattle and in spiritual radiance and great in fame.

We have to grow food that is required for sustenance. Don’t ignore it. By
growing food, we can sustain our life and by distributing food help sustain
other forms of life. Nature produces everything in abundance. If you sow a
seed, that seed will become a tree and that tree will produce lot of fruits
which in turn will produce more trees. The law of nature is giving, growing in
abundance. Similarly you should also grow food. Food can be in terms of
agriculture or business or wisdom and teaching something that you can share.
Don’t say that I don’t need this, by growing and sharing everybody will
prosper and everybody will grow together. The Earth grows food and the
space eats food. It means that whatever grows is absorbed by space. Earth is
established in space so the Earth and space are given as examples here.
Interdependence of various things is given in this shloka. Food is dependent
on water, water is dependent on fire, fire is dependent on water and water is
dependent on food. Prana is dependent on body and body is dependent on
prana. Everything is nature is dependent. Earth is established in space, food is
71
grown on the Earth, living beings live on Earth and whatever is required for
Earth is supplied by space in terms of rain and water. They need each other.
There is a harmony in all aspects of life. Within the body there is
interdependence between anna, prana, jala and agni. Likewise the
interdependence of nature is also understood. Understanding this
interdependence, grow something by sowing and distribute the fruits and in
the process you will prosper. This is Yajna.

Shloka 3.10

न कञ्चन िसिौ प्रत्याचिीि | िदर् िम् |

िस्माद्यया कया च विधया िह्वन्नं प्राप्नयु ाि् |
अरा्यस्मा अन्नवमत्याचििे |एिद्वै मख ु िोऽनीँ राद्धम् |
मख ु िोऽस्मा अन्नीँ रा्यिे |एिद्वै म्यिोऽनीँ राद्धम् |
म्यिोऽस्मा अन्नीँ रा्यिे |एदद्वा अन्ििोऽन्नीँ राद्धम् |
अन्ििोऽस्मा अन्नीँ रा्यिे
य एिं िेद | िेम इवि िावच | योगिेम इवि प्राणापानयोः |
कमेवि िस्ियोः | गविररवि पादयोः | विमवु क्तररवि पायौ |
इवि मानषु ीः समाज्ञाः | अि दैिीः | िृवप्तररवि िृष्टौ |
िलवमवि विद्यवु ि
यश इवि पशषु ु | ज्योविररवि नििेषु |
प्रजाविरमृिमानन्द इत्यपु स्िे | सिावमत्याकाशे |
ित्प्रविष्ठेत्यपु ासीि | प्रविष्ठािान् भिवि |
िन्मि इत्यपु ासीि | मिान्भिवि | िन्मन इत्यपु ासीि |
मानिान्भिवि िन्नम इत्यपु ासीि | न्यन्िेऽस्मै कामाः |
िदब्र् ह्मेत्यपु ासीि | ब्रह्मिान्भिवि |
िदब्र् ह्मणः पररमर इत्यपु ासीि |
पयेणं वियन्िे वद्वषन्िः सपत्नाः |
परर येऽवप्रया भ्रािृव्याः |
स यिायं परुु षे | यिासािावदत्ये | स एकः
स य एिवं िि् | अस्माल्लोकात्प्रेत्य |
एिमन्नमयमात्मानमपु सङ्र्य |
एिं प्राणमयमात्मानमपु सङ्र्य |
एिं मनोमयमात्मानमपु सङ्र्य |
एिं विज्ञानमयमात्मानमपु सङ्र्य |
एिमानन्दमयमात्मानमपु सङ्र्य |
इमाीँल्लोकन्कामान्नी कामरूप्यनसु ञ्चरन् |
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एिि् साम गायन्नास्िे | िा ३ िु िा ३ िु िा ३ िु
अिमन्नमिमन्नमिमन्नम् |अिमन्नादो३ऽिमन्नादो३.आिमन्नादः |
अिीँ श्लोककृ दिीँ श्लोककृ दिीँ श्लोककृ ि् |अिमवस्म प्रिमजा ऋिा३स्य |
पिू ं देिेभ्योऽमृिस्य ना३भावय |यो मा ददावि स इदेि मा३ऽऽिाः |
अिमन्नमन्नमदन्िमा३वि |अिं विश्वं भिु नमभ्यभिा३म् |सिु ना ज्योिीः |
य एिं िेद | इत्यपु वनषि् ||१०||इवि दशमोऽनिु ाकः ||
Na kanchana vasatou pratyaachaksheet tad vratam
Tasmaadyaa kayaa cha vidhaya bahunam praapnuyat
Araadhyasmaa annamityaachakshate
Etadvai mukhato annam ratdham
Mukhato/sma annam ratdhyate
Etadvai madhyato/nnam ratdham
Madhyato/sma annam ratdhyate
Etatdvaa antato/nnam ratdham antatosma annam ratdhyate
Ya evam veda kshema iti vaachi
Yogakshema iti pranaapanayoh kameti hastayoh gatiriti paadayo
Vimuktiriti payou iti manushee samaajnaa
Atha daiveeh triptirit vrushtou balamiti vidyuti
Yasha iti pashushu jyotiriti nakshatreshu
Prajaatiramrutamaananda ityupaasate
Sarvamityaakaashe
Tatpratishthetyupaaseet pratishthaavaan bhavati
Tanmaha ityupaseet mahaan bhavati
Tanmana ityupaaseet maanavaan bhavati
Tannam ityupaseet namyanteasmai kaamaah
Tadbrahmetyupaseet brahmavaan bhavati
Tadbrahmanah parimara ityupaseet
Paryangam mriyante dvishantah sapatnaah
Pariyoapriyaa bhratruvyaah sa yashvaayam purushe
Yashvaasaavaaditye
Sa ekah
Sa ya evamvit asmallokaapretya
Etam annamayamaatmaa anupasamkramya
Etam manomayamaatmaa anupasamkramya
Etam vijnaanamayamaatmaa anupasamkramya
Etam aanandamayamaatmaa anupasamkramya
Imamllokaan kamaanni kaamaroopyanusamcharan
Etat saamam gaayanaaste
Ha3vu ha3vu ha3vu
Ahamannam ahamannam ahamannam
Ahamannado3 ahamannado3 ahamannadah
Aham slokakrut aham slokakrut aham slokakrut
73
Ahamasmi prathamajaa shrutasya poorvam devebhyoamrutasyanaabhyai
Yo maa dadaati sa ideva maavah
Ahamannam annamadantama admi
Aham vishvam bhuvanamabhyabhavaa3m
Suvarna jyotih ya evam veda
ityupanishad Iti dashamo anuvakaha

1 Let him not deny lodgings to anyone: this is the vow. Therefore he should procure much
food by any means whatsoever. To guests, he should say: "The food has been prepared for
you." If this food is given first, food comes to the giver first. If this food is given in the
middle, food comes to the giver in the middle. If this food is given last, food comes to the
giver last.

2 He who knows this obtains the fruit mentioned above. One should meditate on Brahman
as preservation in speech, as acquisition and preservation in the prana (upward breath) and
the apana (downward breath), as action in the hands, as movement (walking) in the feet, as
evacuation in the anus. These are the meditations on Brahman through actions. Next
follows the meditation on Brahman, through the gods: One should meditate on Brahman as
satisfaction in rain, as power in lightning;

3 As fame in cattle, as light in the stars, as procreation, immortality and joy in the organ
of generation and as everything in the akasa. Let him contemplate Brahman as the support
and he will be supported; let him contemplate Brahman as greatness and he will become
great; let him contemplate Brahman as the mind and he will be endowed with mind.

4 Let him contemplate Brahman as adoration and all desires will fall down before him in
adoration. Let him contemplate Brahman as the Supreme Lord and he will be endowed
with supremacy. Let him contemplate Brahman as the destructive agent and his enemies
who hate him and also those who do not hate him will perish. This he who is in this man
and that he who is in yonder sun, both are one.

5 He who knows this, as described above, after dying to (i.e. withdrawing from) this world,
attains the self which consists of food, attains the self which consists of the vital breath,
attains the self which consists of the mind, attains the self which consists of the intellect,
attains the self which consists of bliss. Then he goes up and down these worlds, eating the
food he desires, assuming the forms he likes. He sits, singing the chant of the non—duality
of Brahman: "Ah! Ah! Ah!"

6 "I am food, I am food, I am food! I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food, I am the
eater of food! I am the uniter, I am the uniter, I am the uniter! "I am the first—born of the
true, prior to the gods and the navel of Immortality. He who gives me away, he alone
preserves me. He who eats food—I, as food, eat him. "I, as the Supreme Lord, overpower
the whole world. I am radiant as the sun." Whosoever knows this, attains Liberation.
Such, indeed, is the Upanishad.

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The first principle told here is, if somebody comes for your shelter, don’t
refuse. It is like saying ‘athithi devo bhava’. Respect somebody who comes to
your house. We have to give food to them. We should not send them away
without giving food; if you do so then you will lose the yajna phala that you
have earned. ‘Food’ is a metaphor. It may be related to eating or it can be
teaching. If somebody comes to listen to teaching; you have to give them
teaching, you should not deny teaching to anybody. You should also not send
away somebody hungry. If you have to give food to somebody, you should
first have sufficient food for yourself. You should earn and only when you
earn you can give something to somebody. Without earning how can you
give? Whether is it wisdom or money you have to earn it first and then you
can give it to others. So don’t ignore earning and growing food for a living.
Only when you earn for a living, you can generate excess and then give
others. So the importance of work and earning excess for the purpose of
yajna is stressed here.

Taittiriya Upanishad is a summary of all the teachings for students. It is

similar to convocation. In the first chapter of Siksha Valli, they are taught
what to do. Then there is a summary of teachings about Self realization and
finally a summary of way of living. This is their final class so he tells his
students that they have to study every day after going home. ‘swadhyaya
pravachanabhyam na pramaditavyam’ – this is told in the first chapter. You have
to study, be aware and teach without fail. Then a summary of what is anna,
prana, manas, etc is given and finally there is a detailed explanation about
Bhrigu Maharshi’s realization. He stresses on how to live because all his
students would be entering Grihasthashrama. Just because Brahman is the final
realization, you should not ignore everything else. You have to live in
Grihasthashrama in such a way that you earn your livelihood, you should give
and grow. Just because you have Atmajnana you cannot ignore everything.

He then teaches about talking. Talking itself is tapasya. Talk is the way of
worshipping Brahman. Don’t ignore talk. If you are able to bring love,
compassion and wisdom by your talk, it will help other people grow. Your
words should bring peace, happiness and confidence to somebody. You
should enrich and nourish life that way. That itself is tapasya of talk. Talk
which nourishes, which inspires, which brings the positive in other people is
called Tapasya. Our body itself is a marvellous engine, a marvellous
instrument. To keep the body in the right condition through right food and
exercise also is tapasya. ‘shareeram khalu dharma sadhanam’ you require a proper
body to perform any act of dharma. By working your body will be exercised,
you will earn your livelihood and you will be able to contribute back to the
society.

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Now he speaks about Upasana, worshipping God. Everything in nature is the
grace of Divine. Timely rains and lightning which increase the fertility of the
soil are grace. Cow which indicates prosperity and provides food and milk is
grace. Whatever you are getting in your life is a gift of Brahman. Human
beings have the ability to produce the children, the virility to produce
children. The child has two aspects, the body and Consciousness, the
Consciousness aspect comes from Brahman. We get that aspect of Brahman
which we worship. If you worship the power aspect you will get money, if
you worship the healing aspect you will get healthy, if you worship the Guru
aspect you will get wisdom. That is why there are so many forms of Divinity
representing various aspects, Lakshmi, Narayana, Hanuman, etc. e.g.
Hanuman represents the strength aspect. Whatever aspect of God we
worship that aspect multiplies in us.

There are two aspects of realization; one is called Brahman realization and the
other Shakti of Brahman, the power of Brahman. The power of Brahman is
required for living in the world, whether it is food, prosperity, job or Yajna.
We need to contemplate and meditate to bring the power of Brahman into our
life. Don’t say Brahman alone. Brahman and the power of Brahman are to be
contemplated on. Whatever power of Brahman you understand will manifest
in your life. There are people who understand that the world is sustained by
Brahman and that Brahman is the ruler, Brahman is the power behind the world
and they have become powerful leaders. It depends on what aspect appeals to
you.

Suppose somebody wants to become successful in Yoga then Brahman has to

be meditated upon and worshipped as Yogeshwara, the Master of Yoga. Lord
Shiva is Yogeshwara, Lord Dakshinamurthy is Yogeshwara. Various Swamijis
and Gurus have established various temples at different places. These
temples are established with an intention that a particular aspect of Brahman
should be worshipped there. The wisdom aspect of Brahman is worshipped in
Shringeri Sharada temple. Lots of wisdom and spiritual knowledge is
concentrated in that center. There is Mahalakshmi Temple in Bombay and no
wonder it is the financial capital of India. This is being told here because
these students, these children are completing education and they have to go
out to work and become successful in life. Some people will become
Brahmanas, some people will become Kshatriyas, some people will become
Vaishyas, and somebody will become workers. These people have to know
how to worship God so that the power which they required will come in
their life. A Kshatriya has to worship the power of God as a ruler of the world.
If you worship with the feeling that Brahman is the all pervading reality,
Brahman alone exists; then you will be filled with the power of Brahman. If
you worship with a feeling that Brahman is Sachidananda Swarupa, of the nature
of Sat-Chit-ananda, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss then you will realize

76
Brahman. Your body and mind will become an instrument in the hands of
Brahman and he will take care of all your needs because the mind and body
are offered completely to him. Brahman becomes the sustainer and protector
of the body because that body becomes his instrument.

There is a rule for Sanyasis that they are not supposed to store more than
what is required for a day because what is required for the next day will come
to them. Once Taponanda Maharaja was in Himalayas and suddenly there
was a snow storm. He was walking and he lost his way. He was very hungry
but had not carried any food because sanyasis are not supposed to carry any
food. The teaching here says that if you rely on Brahman, then Brahman will
come and provide you food and Taponandji Maharaj wondered how he can
get food in this Himalayas area where no one is around. With that thought he
became unconscious. He woke up after sometime and when he opened his
eyes he saw a lot of people around him. Somebody was sprinkling water on
his face, somebody was giving him food. After sometime he realized that they
were robbers. There used to be many robbers in the Himalayan region before
as merchants used to carry food in huge bags on the donkeys to sell in other
regions like Tibet and Ladakh. These robbers were searching for merchants
to rob the food and then they saw one big bundle of cloth lying at a distance.
They thought that some merchant has left something and ran away so these
robbers went closer and saw that it was a Swamiji lying there on the ground.
They woke him up and gave him food. Swamiji realized that Brahman will take
care of you even if you are unconscious. The question is what is your faith?
As is your faith, so is your life. If your faith is that Brahman will take care, he
will surely take care. If your faith is that Brahman is wisdom then wisdom will
come to you. If your faith is that Brahman is the source of wealth, wealth will
come into your life. The question is what is your faith? One who does
Upasana of Brahman as Sat-Chit-ananda; he will attain Brahman himself, not the
Shakthi or power of Brahman, but Brahman himself.

The one in me and in the Sun is the same. What is in the individual is in the
universe, it is one and the same. Behind both the jivatma and Hiraynagarbha,
the living being and God is the same Parabrahma, one who knows this will
attain Mukti, liberation after death. He becomes one with the Supreme
Reality, he will be blissfully and joyfully enjoying in Brahman. He says, ‘aham
annam, aham annado’ which means, ‘I am the food and I am the consumer of
the food. I am everything, I am the seer and I am the seen.’ That means the
object and the subject is one, one who understands this will be beyond birth
and death. One who is able to give to others, one who is able to donate and
one who is able live his life as an offering will get everything in plenty,
abundance. One who gets food only for himself, only for making his own
living will destroy himself. You have to live with an attitude of loka kalyana.
He will become the light for everybody; he will become the light of lights. In

77
this Upanishad there is a teaching about the individual and there is a teaching
about the Universe. You have to understand the relation between the
individual and the universe. At the individual level everything is
interdependent and at the universal level also everything is interdependent. In
this way if you understand that there is commonality between the individual
and the universe, “yat pindande yat brahmande” then you will understand that
what is in you is the Supreme reality. Individual soul and Paramatma are one,
and if you live with this attitude you will attain Mukti, you will become free.
This is the teaching of this Upanishad.

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 Annexure: Questions
Student: When you say the jnani transcends the gunas, does that mean that he
will be able to operate through any of the varnas after enlightenment?
Prabhuji: The jnani is basically self identity, so what each of us has is self
identity. When I say I, what do you mean by I? That I has an identity, I as a
body has identity, I has a profession as identity, and I has a knowledge as
identity. I am an engineer or something else. I is associated with certain
identities. Now a realization means the identity is with respect to pure
Chaitanya (Consciousness). I am supreme Consciousness that is the identity.
A woman before marriage is known by the identity of the family, surname.
After marriage she is known by the identity of her husband’s family. Before
engineering graduation you have some identity and after that you have an
engineering identity. These are all variable identities we take up, but what is
your absolute, unchanging, true identity? That true identity is Brahman. A
Brahmajnani will never forget his true identity with a relative identity. In any
action he does or wherever he is, he will not forget his true identity. It is
something similar to this. A woman is a mother when children are there, a
wife when her husband is there, an employee when she goes to office. In all
these conditions she still remembers that she is a woman and she will not
forget that. Similarly a Brahmajnani will not forget he is Brahman himself
whatever action he performs. It doesn’t prevent him from doing any action.
In fact he can do any action. He will continue to do some action for loka
kalyana for the service and welfare of the world for which he has to use one
of the identities acquired earlier and continue with that. For example a
Brahmajnani can become a teacher, Master, where he takes the identity of a
Guru. He can be a musician like Thyagaraja or Purandaradasa. They are
enlightened poets and they will continue the music, poetry or any other skill
they have acquired in their lifetime for delivering the message to the world.
The only difference betwee an ajnani and Brahmajnani is that the ajnani is
never aware of his true identity. He is only aware of his relative identity and
that is concrete for him. For the Brahmajnani his relative identity is not at all
solid, only his true identity is solid. Relative identity is used for discussion and
interaction, but he will not be identifying himself with that relative identity.
The ajnani is possessed by the identity whereas the Brahmajnani possesses the
identity. That’s why you see nagabharana where Shiva has a nag or serpent as
the abharana, as the ornament on his neck. What does this serpent signify?
The serpent is poisonous. It kills others and is dangerous. For Shiva it
becomes an ornament. The serpent there on the neck of Shiva represents
ego. The ego is the ornament he just uses. The ornament has no utility, its
only purpose being to show off. Similarly a Brahmajnani uses the identity. It is
an ornament for him for the purpose of interaction with the world, but he is
never possessed by it. Whereas for an ordinary person the snake is
poisonous. It can kill him. It is not an ornament. So the identity becomes
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bondage for any person, whereas it becomes an ornament for the Brahmajnani
for just its decorative purpose. He puts on the ornament and removes it as
needed.

Student: In terms of skill Thyagaraja is a musician. One day he becomes a

jnani and realizes that he is Consciousness. Now can he become a Kshatriya?
Prabhuji: No, he won’t, that is the point. The question is ‘What is the effect
of enlightenment?’ You have to understand what is called prarabdha karma,
sanchita karma, kriyamana karma, agami karma. In Brahmajnana, sanchita, agami
and kriyamana karmas disappears. Kriyamana disappears in the sense that he
does some action, but there is no imprint left in his Consciousness. Whatever
he does, even if he kills somebody also there is no imprint left. Krishna was
responsible for almost fifty lakh people getting killed in Mahabharata but
there is not a trace of karma in him. The Consciousness is pure because it has
already lost its individual identity. It is universal identity. That is what
kriyamana is and effect of this is agami which is gone. Sanchita is gone because
all accumulated karma is gone but prarabdha remains. Prarabdha is actually
your body and accumulated impression during your growth. So if somebody
learnt music, after enlightenment he cannot switch off his prarabdha, his skill.
He can continue to be a musician if he wants to or he can stop, but he cannot
become a scientist, because the skill is not there. After Brahmajnana there is
no motivation to learn another skill. So Osho gives a good example. He
keeps going for walks on Juhu beach. On the beach there is a person, a
beggar who makes dolls, vighrahas, and sculptures out of sand. People used to
throw some money to him. Osho used to go and see him making beautiful
sculptures of people and animals. This person was deeply spiritual and wise
man and Osho used to have conversations with him. Osho goes there after a
couple of years. The same person is there but now he is no longer making
statues of animals, birds and all. He is making statue of enlightened beings
like Buddha sitting in meditation. Now Osho asks him “Why are you making
this? People won’t pay money for this. They may buy some statues of girl and
pay you money but if you make Buddha who will pay”. He says “They are
peaceful and I like this”. Osho then asks him “Why are you making them out
of sand. You can make them from stone” He says “Life is anyway temporary
like this sand. It comes and goes. Let me live life for today.” He has become
a wise man. So Osho says enlightenment does not change your skills. A
musician will not become a dancer, a dancer will not become a musician.
Because of the skill acquired, a sculptor will continue to be a sculptor but the
only thing will be that their enlightenment will give a new touch. It will shine
in wisdom. A housewife will continue to be a housewife. Suddenly there is
enlightenment. Does it means that a housewife will go and give pravachanas?
No, she won’t. Unless she has the skill, the prarabdha karma. Otherwise she
will become peaceful will give peace in and around her. The skills will not be
new. An enlightened person suddenly will not fly an aircraft, ride a bike or

80
start horse riding. There will not be any new skills. Don’t mix up skills with
enlightenment.

Student: Let’s take my own example. If I am a non confrontational person,

after enlightenment will I just go and confront anybody?
Prabhuji: No. The non-confrontational attitude is not a skill, it’s a strategy of
life. Confrontation and non confrontation is actually a strategy a nature of the
mind. Enlightenment means you become free from that nature of the mind.
That means in case you have to confront somebody, you will confront, you
will not be overpowered by the mind

81
Student: There is a knower in her a knower in me, both are different body
mind complex. Would not they interpret the same data differently?
Prabhuji: There is sunlight which throws out light uniformly. The sunlight is
same but the reflected surface makes a difference. The Atma is one like the
sun. For Atma it doesn’t matter. Who is asking this question is the reflected
surface (mind). It has a question. From the point of view of Atma there is no
question actually.
Student: The distinction between knowledge and memory is a bit confusing
I see the lamp at different times. What throws up that memory of the lamp?
Is it knowledge or is it something else?
Prabhuji: The memory is a recording of the event. There is an image
associated with that. There is a name associated with that. The name and
picture recorded is the memory, it like a recording in the camera
Student: So where is that memory?
Prahbuji: You can say it is in nervous system. It is in the universe. It can be
in any place. It doesn’t matter
Student: But not the self?
Prabhuji: Not the self. The Self is the knower of that, it sees the record and
intellect says this is the lamp, self says ok, I understand.
Student: Isn’t that also a form of memory?
Prabhuji: No. For example, in the laptop a beautiful picture comes up. The
laptop has a program; it says this is a beautiful picture. The program is
coming from memory, and does it have any value? You see it and say yes.
The value is given by a sentient being, Consciousness. The body mind and
intellect is like a computer. It gives lot of data that is validated and
authenticated by a sentient being, which is jnanam. Jnanam is not lot of
information, it is authentication by the sentience. If you don’t exist, whatever
laptop says is of no value. Your existences gives a value to that. Your
Consciousness gives a value to that. It is that Consciousness we are speaking
of. That means you may not be as fast as a computer, that’s all job of the
body mind complex
Student: What is it that triggers memory? I am travelling and I see a statue of
Buddha. So who triggers this memory of Buddha? Did the first time I got
identified with it got recorded somewhere
Prabhuji: Yes, it is more like a computer mechanism, learning mechanism.
The neuron connection form, the neuron will have a name and form record
in the body. The body mind complex is more of a computer, but only
biological. In the earlier days there was no concept of a computer but still
they understood this principle very clearly. Now in the age of computer you
should be able to understand and appreciate much better, because body mind
complex is nothing but a computer, whatever junk which is produced by the
computer has no value unless the sentience comes and says yes. That
sentience is the knower is you. Did you understand the difference? Tell me
what you have understood

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Student: I am always there, whatever memory or whatever I am just seeing
it, I am experiencing it, I is always the same
Prabhuji: That’s perfectly alright, but the problem comes when you confuse
that I with the temporary I. The body mind complex is like a computer or a
mirror. This I sees the face in the mirror. The mirror shows something then
this I identifies with the mirror not with itself. So when you confuse yourself
with the body mind complex, then you start feeling the misery. Even though
you don’t have misery, can you live without that confusion is the question.
For example, you say “I am walking”. The ‘I’ doesn’t walk, it is just there.
What walks is the body and you are mixing up that ‘I’ with the body. Who
did this trick? The intellect. You accepted whatever the intellect says without
asking any question. The intellect is like a tube light. It can only see what the
body is. When the body walks it says “I walk”. It borrowed the concept of I
from the self and said “I walk”. You accepted it without questioning. I
cannot walk. I doesn’t walk. I is eternally there. But you do not question that.
You say, “Oh somebody died”! ‘I’ cannot die, the body has expired. So that
unchanging in you is what you are and that is what is called Satya. Jnanam
means throwing light, the light of awareness. As told earlier, the computer is
there, unless your awareness is there, whatever shows up on the computer
will be meaningless. It is all memory. You give the validity to memory, which
means you are sentience, Jnanam.

Student: If there is oneness at all levels how does separation come into
picture?
Prabhuji: There is no separation.
Student: But that ignorance is there, right?
Prabhuji: That is the nature of the mind. Mind is there for experience in life
and that is also part of Consciousness. So for the very purpose of experience
of life, there is a separation. Your mind is nothing but that which creates the
subject and object Consciousness. And experience in process is also created
by the mind. So, this gives rise to the feeling of separation. It is the feeling of
separation, not reality. So, now, what are you doing now?
Student: I am sitting
Prabhuji: Are you sitting still or moving? You are actually moving at a speed
of 25000 miles per hour. That is the speed at which the Earth is rotating. You
are feeling the stillness when actually you are in motion. The Earth is
spinning around its own axis at one speed and going around the sun at
another speed. The sun is going around the galaxy at some other speed. We
are actually moving at a mind boggling speed. Yet we feel the stillness. It is a
feeling, but not a reality. So this feeling of separation appears to be there. But
if you really enquire, it disappears.

Student: Why is there creation?

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Prabhuji: Why the creation is there, there is no answer. Anywhere in the
world, science or spirituality, for ‘why’ you cannot answer. A painter likes a
painting. If you ask him why he is painting, he will reply that it is his nature.
Of course, he may be selling those and making some money for a living.
Because it is his creativity which creates the painting. So Consciousness has
the creative ability. With that creative ability it has created the Universe. It is
out of sheer creativity. Now if you ask why this creativity is there, it will say,
’it is my nature’. If you ask, ‘Why did you create?’, it will say, ‘Because I have
the creativity’. For ‘why’ there is no answer. Science can explain only ‘what’,
but it cannot explain ‘why’? It can say gravitational force is there and what is
this gravitational force, etc. Why gravitational force is there. There is no
answer for that. So for the question, ‘Why creation’. There is no answer as
such. The simple answer for this is creativity, sheer creativity. It is the nature
of Consciousness to be creative. That creativity is called Shakti. In Vedantic
literature it is called Brahman and Maya. Maya is the power of creativity.
Creativity is there and it creates. That is the answer. Yet we need further
inference. Because we have become very business minded. Everything needs
to have a purpose, everything needs to have a cost-benefit analysis and
profitibality. In everything we do, we think ‘what is in it for me’? In creation
that ‘what is in it for me’ is not there but only the sheer joy of creation, of
creativity. That is why it is called leela. If your life has become a leela, then you
are in tune with creation. If your life has become not a leela, a play, it becomes
a burden, and then you are out of tune. When I say leela, it is not a girl’s
name. Leela means ‘play’. Is your life a play? I am not asking if you play with
somebody’s life. Your life itself is a play. If it has become a creative
expression of yourself then you are in tune with the universe. Or else you are
out of tune with the universe. If it has become too much of business then
you are out of tune. It will be like, what is the benefit, what is the profit, what
is the loss, etc. Life should be sheer creativity. So, you will get some money,
some fame will come, something will go.

Student: Is the physical death controlled by Atma?

Prabhuji: When does the death happen? Each body is taken to fulfill certain
karmic impressions, certain karmic experiences. Your fuel in the body prana is
always sufficient to fulfill those karmic experiences. Suppose you want to go
from Bangalore to Chennai which is 500 kms you need some 50 liters of
petrol. Once you reach Chennai, the fuel in the vehicle will be over. If you
have to travel further from Chennai to some other place you have to again fill
the fuel tank. Similarly, once the body is created for fulfillment of certain
karmic impressions or desires, the amount of prana shakthi required for that
duration is determined and that will be available in the body. Once it gets
exhausted, the individual Consciousness which identifies with the body
moves with the subtle body associated with that shareera into another body
for further experience of life. There is a gross body, a subtle body and a

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causal body. The subtle body and the causal body together move from one
body to another body. Atma is of course the controlling force, the individual
Atma is the one which is identified with the subtle body and the causal body.
When the identification with the subtle and causal body drops there is no
more transmigration or rebirth.

Student: Guruji, theoretically is it possible to hold on to the same physical

form for a longer period than the normal period?
Prabhuji: Why is it required?
Student: There is no answer to the “Why”. It is just out of curiosity.
Prabhuji: See, there are always stories about yogis who have lived for
thousands of years. There are yogis who have been living forever. So such
stories are there. These are all very interesting to the human mind. Because
for the human mind, living means living with the body. So prolongation of
the body itself appears to be a very great fascination for human beings. From
that perspective all the medical sciences are working on how to prolong the
human body. In the last century there have been lot of advancements in
medical science. Lot of body parts can be replaced with mechanical parts.
Your lungs will be operating with mechanical lungs and most probably by the
time you become old, all your teeth will be replaced by silicon teeth. And
may be the liver will be replaced with some auto pump which will pump
insulin. Moreover the body parts will be replaced by mechanical and electrical
parts. So one day you will become a cyborg which means you can live longer,
the physical form can be there for a longer time. I don’t know whether you
have heard about this project called Project 2035. There is a Russian Oil
billionaire, he has billions of dollars which he is pumping to make human
beings immortal. It is done in three phases. In the first phase all your
memories and experiences of life get recorded in digital form. It is not very
complex actually; you wear a small camera near your eye and an audio sensing
device near your ear. So anything you experience in your life from morning to
night will get recorded somewhere in digital form. Your whole life, whatever
experience you are having in your life from your view point from your sense
organs will be recorded in digital form. This is the first step. The second is
that your genetic map is stored in a digital form. What this means actually is
that your genetic maps are available on the network. The third step is a robot
can be used to use your experiences and operate. For example let us say that
you are doing very good gardening. This experience can be recorded in digital
form and given to the robot and the robot will perform that very well. The
Fourth step is that your holographic image can function out of your digital
document. So practically you can do functions, mechanical functions or
memory based functions and your holographic image can do sufficient for
your presence. All these things are available in a digital form on the internet.
Even if you die, millions of years later you will live on in your memories and
live in biological form. And one day they can recreate a genetic map of you as

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the memories are there and they can recreate you. That is the concept.
Whether yogis physically living for longer period is important or not, but
surely in millions of years they can live in digital life also. Now the question
is, is it you? You have a memory but are you the memory? These all are our
illusions, what we experience in our lifem if you record it you are living for
ever. That is not a right understanding. What is the guarantee that what you
are today is not the digital recording of you done some billions of years ago
by somebody else? You may be just a reproduction of that, your body and
mind. What are genes actually? Nothing but some sort of recording, some
memories. You are a carbon based lifeform. Life is carbon based. You may
be the carbon copy of some genetic form. So the question is what are you? If
you are just body, mind and memory, then you can be reproduced; you can
live for billions of years. Digital forms can survive for long time. But are you
that? The whole of system of spirituality says, you have memory, you have
experiences, you have body, but you are none of them. You are the
Consciousness which uses that. And the Consciousness itself cannot be
preserved. Consciousness itself cannot be recorded somewhere on the
internet. Consciousness can always use the recording later at some point of
time. But Consciousness itself cannot be preserved, it is always there. So this
is a good modern way of science.

Now coming back to ancient yogis, there is always some fascination for yogis
who have lived for 2000 years, 3000 years etc. But what is that they have
done by living for so many years? By preserving a body for 200 years what is
that they have achieved? This is actually a mistaken concept of fascination
that human beings have about body being the Self. If some yogi has lived for
200 years, I don’t know what is that he is doing. Nowadays an engineer
working in some company for 3 years gets outdated actually and by the
fourth year he is junk and will be thrown out. A person who has been living
for 200 years, how much outdated he is I don’t know. I don’t think they have
the time to update also. All these changes in technology, software, up
gradations etc nothing is there. He may have some knowledge which is 2000
years old. It is very tough, hard to live for 2000 years, there will be no
contemporaries, there will be no means of living, there is will be no means of
knowing anything because all your knowledge is outdated and there is no
means of earning also because with that man you can’t earn anything. What
will you do?

So this actually is, I would say, a popular fantasy of human beings. Living
2000 years is not a big achievement. That may be possible with some yogic
practices by preserving prana. There was a person called Changdev a yogi.
The yogis are supposed to have very special abilities. At least yogis are
supposed to know how to preserve prana. Just like how we are able to
preserve the fuel like the most fuel efficient cars. For example, if one car runs

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for 15 kms/liter, the other car runs for 20kms/liter. Likewise yogis are like
very fuel efficient vehicles. So Changdev was a yogi. It is told that he lived for
400 years at the time of Jnaneshwar. Jnaneshwar was a very young boy. He
was very famous and known as a Jnani. This Changdev had ten thousand
disciples. Changdev heard the name and fame of Jnaneshwar and he sent him
a piece of white paper. Jnaneshwar wrote back the essence of Bhagavad Gita
which was named as Janeshwari in Marathi. It was written in the form of
Changdev PrathiShati, in hundred shlokas he explained Bhagavad Gita to
Changdev and he sent that to Changdev. Changdev, it seems he got wild and
angry and he came riding on a tiger with ten thousand disciples to
Jnaneshwar. Jnaneshwar was sitting on a wall, seeing the arrogance on
Changdev, Jnaneshwar said, “move” and the stone wall started moving and it
stood in front of Changdev. Changdev was so impressed by Jnaneshwar’s
achievement that he fell at the feet of Jnaneshwar. He asked for forgiveness
and became Jnaneshwar’s disciple. This is the story. Actually most of the
spiritual stories are corrupted versions. They bring the fantasy of the people
at that point of time. So let us look at this story. Changdev sent a letter, a
white piece of paper to Jnanadev. In the popular version it says that
Changdev was very arrogant. He sent a white piece of paper as a challenge to
Jnaneshwar. Actually the reality is that Changdev was very humble, he says, “I
am a piece of white paper, you please teach me”. But in the popular story this
has been misinterpreted as Chgandev has challenged Namadev with a piece
of white paper. So, then Jnaneshwar wrote Changdev Prathishati. Then in the
story it is said that he came with 10000 disciples riding a tiger. So the tiger in
Puranic literature is the mind. Changdev was a yogi, he had mastered the
mind. Then it is told that Jnaneshwar was sitting on a stone wall and he asked
the wall to move and that point Changdev said, “mera bitta chad gaya”,
Changdev was from the Kashmiri Shaivism tradition and ‘bitta’ in Kashmiri
language was ‘Kundalini’, which meant that looking at Jnaneshwar my
Kundalini arose. ‘bitta’ in Marathi is wall. So the whole story gets
misinterpreted and corrupted in the common man’s mind.

The point here is Changdev lived for 400 years where Jnaneshwar was 18 yrs
old. Now why Changdev lived for 400 years, you have to understand. Yogis
prolonged their lives for the sake of Self Realization. He was not realized for
400 years, which is why he retained the body. After Self realization there is no
need of body. So if somebody is living for 5000 years or so, that means that
he is not yet Self Realized and he is preserving his body for that purpose.
Otherwise there is no need of the body. Actually when somebody says that a
person lived for 200 or 300 years, you have to pity on that person. Because
he has not achieved the purpose of life. It is actually common because it is
fantastic. But for a Jnani it is such a pitiable condition. The purpose of life
and having a body is to achieve Self realization, Enlightenment. Till that
point of time body has to be preserved because goal is not reached.

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Somebody preserving their body 1000 years or 5000 years needs that to reach
his goal.

Student: Where does the concept of time come from?

Prabhuji: There are two types of time, psychological and chronological.
What is chronology? There is a movement of sun. There is movement of
planet, Earth. The sun rises in the morning, sets in the evening. One
completion of such event is one day. It is chronological time. The
chronological time is related to the nature and the psychological time is
related to you. Psychological time depends on your state of mind. If you are
happy in the company of good people, you are in satsang, you don’t know
how fast the time has passed. The time flies away. The time disappears.
Because the mind has become silent. When you are in deep sleep, you feel
like you have slept for only half a minute whereas in reality you have slept for
an hour or two. Time has disappeared because there are no thoughts in the
mind. So time disappears when mind becomes silent. Now let us say you
have a tooth ache that too at 10 in the night. Every minute you keep looking
at the clock. Every minute appears to be like one hour. When we are in pain
and suffering time appears to be extending. Suffering extends time; joy and
happiness make time disappear. This is psychological time. So when we speak
of time, we speak of psychological time because psychological time is real
experience of time. What is psychological experience of time? It is the gap
between two psychological events. I saw the sun rise and I saw it set, the gap
between the two I call as time. Now this is actually my experience of two
physical events. But that psychological experience is affected by the mental
state. If the mind is very peaceful, time disappears. When the mind itself
disappears and becomes no-mind it is enlightenment and the Self disappears
from experience.
Student: Does chronological time disappear after Self Realization?
Prabhuji: Chronological time goes on, but for you time is gone. You have
gone beyond time. Observation of time will be there
Student: You said time disappears and you gave two examples of sunrise and
sunset and the observation of that is the one which is causing the experience
of time. Now, that observation constitutes the same.
Prabhuji: No. The observation will be there because the psychological
experience of passage of time is different from chronological experience of
time. In one dream you may have two lifetimes going through, your
psychological experience of time. That is independent of chronological time.
Student: So when we are in joy that experience of time has collapsed.
Student: The concept of Brahman and Shivathva, are they similar?
Prabhuji: First you have to understand that everything is Consciousness,
whether it is Brahman and Shivathva or for that matter Brahman or anything
else. So when Consciousness performs various roles, it is called by that name.
A woman is a mother when she performs the role of taking care of a child,

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she is a wife with respect to a husband, she is a daughter to her mother, and
she is a friend to her friends. When Consciousness operates in different roles,
with respect to the function performed by that role, it is called by that name.
Brahman or the Supreme Reality is called Narayana when it is in a resting
form, where there is no function or manifestation that happens. The same
Brahman or the Supreme Reality is then called as Vishnu when he manifests as
the world and protects the world as all pervading Consciousness. When he
destroys the manifestation he is called Shiva. When he takes functions as an
individual he is called Jiva. When he takes the role of destroying ignorance he
is called Shiva Consciousness or Guru. So Shiva is called Adiguru. There is
absolute and relative and all names are with respect to the relative.
Conciousness in relative domain functions within the framework of name
and form.

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