Chapter 2 Section 4 Maitreyi brAhmana
2.4.1 to 2.4.4 Ygnavalkya is a jnAni householder. He wants to renunciate the householder life to take up sanyAs. He has two wives, Maitreyi and Katyayani. He expresses his intention of sanyAs to Maitreyi, seeking her permission and to divide the assets between the two wives. Maitreyi asks her husband if the wealth will make her immortal. The husband replies in negative. Maitreyi says that she is not interested in wealth. She requests the husband to teach her that which will make her immortal. On hearing this, as Yagnavalkya is very pleased with Maitreyi, he tells her that she has been dear to him and now is dearer. He agrees to teach Maitreyi. Maitreyi, the wife becomes a disciple Maitreyi and Yajnavalkya is the teacher.
2.4.5 The teaching begins with a profound statement by the teacher. Husband, wife, sons, wealth, brAhman, kshatriya, worlds, gods are not loved for their respective sake but for one’s own sake. Nothing is loved for its sake but for one’s own sake. The Self, my dear Maitreyi, should be realised-should be heard of, reflected and meditated upon. By the realisation of the Self, my dear, through hearing, reflection, and meditation, all this is known. With a view to teaching renunciation as a means to immortality, Yajnavalkya creates a distaste for the wife, husband, sons, etc., so that they may be given up. The priority of enumeration is in the order of their closeness to us as sources of joy; for it is all the more desirable to create a distaste for them.
The love for the Self is primary. The love for other objects is secondary, since they contribute to the pleasure of the Self. Therefore, the Self should be realised, is worthy of realisation. It should first be heard of from a teacher and from the scriptures, then reflected on through reasoning, and then steadfastly meditated upon. Three things are dear to any person. They are the goal, the means to accomplish the goal and ‘I’ for whose sake, goal is a goal. Means and the goal keep changing and are respectively dear and dearer. ‘I’ does not change and is the dearest. These are the unpalatable truths. Even though I is the dearest, a person does not inquire about it. As a result, he not only does not know the true I, he also successfully manages to misunderstand it.
VedAnta removes the misunderstanding. It does not introduce a new I. It is already there but misunderstood. The interesting part is that even the misunderstood I is the dearest, not to talk of correctly understood I. A jnAni understand ‘I’ correctly. For him also ‘I’ is the dearest but with a difference. His love for I is an upgraded version. For him, ‘I’ is universal ‘I’ across all beings. And there is no gradation in dearness. All are equally dear which makes a paradigm shift in our perspective of ourselves, the world and God and their inter-se relations and last but not the least about liberation.
A student who has gained four-fold qualifications in sufficient measure is a seeker of Self-knowledge. He cannot and should not attempt to learn Self-knowledge himself. He should approach a qualified teacher belonging to a lineage and listen to him. It is sravan stage. After this, he should reflect on the teaching and get his doubts clarified by the teacher. The student is now convinced about the validity of teaching. The last stage is nidhidhyAsana, i.e., steadfast meditation on teaching.
2.4.6 It is stated above that a correctly understood ‘I’ is universal ‘I’. It is same for a brAhmana, kshatriya, and the gods. The Upanishad conveys it in a different manner. If a person does not treat brAhman, kshatriya, gods, the world as The Self, then they reject him. Not only this, but moksha also rejects him because he does not know the Self.
Contd Part 7