[Part – 31 (aita 2)]

The aitareya Upanishad next presents a teaching story to unfold a profound philosophical truth.

It first describes the creation of the celestial deities, the presiding powers that govern the universe. Having brought forth the worlds, the Creator projected these deities, who then approached Him and said, in effect, “The world is our food, and we are its enjoyers. Where shall we abide to experience it?” The gods here represent the powers that function through the organs of perception and action.

ताभ्यो गामानयत्ता अब्रुवन्न वै नोऽयमलमिति । — mantra 1.2.2, aitareya upa.

[Meaning: For them He (i.e. the Creator God) brought a cow. They said, “This one is not certainly adequate for us.” ]

The Creator first produced the body of a cow and then that of a horse. The gods found neither suitable.  Continue reading →

[Part – 30 (aita 1)]

From the two facts that 

(i)   no percept (a perceivable object) can be known unless it is illumined by Knowingness; and, 

(ii)  all percepts are contained within Knowingness;

it follows that the known depends on Knowing and not the other way round. The seen depends upon the seer. The witnessing seer alone is the evidence for the existence of any object. Without a perceiver, there would be no experienced world. This is the meaning behind the Vedāntic statement that the world is mAyA or mithyA. Its appearance is called AbhAsa—a fallacious appearance.

The individual (jIva) too is of the same essential nature as Knowingness. The difference is only that the individual appears limited, whereas Knowingness is unlimited. The knower and the known, the individual and the world, are both appearances within the one Infinite Knowingness.

Why then do we fear the world?

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[Part – 29 (taitti 4)]

8.  aitareya Upanishad:

The taittirIya Upanishad concludes with the ecstatic Vedic chant (sung by realized Sages) that “I am food; I am the eater of the food.” Here, “food” is not merely what is eaten from a plate. Whatever is consumed is food. The four elements—earth, water, fire, and air—are served to us on the vast platter of space. We consume them directly or in the countless forms they assume.

Our consumption is not merely through the mouth. The mind also feeds continuously. From birth until death it devours impressions, memories, relationships, possessions, emotions, hopes, fears, and ideas about this world and even other worlds. All these constitute food for the mind.

Thus, “food” in the mantra stands for the entire field of experience. The eater is the individual (jīva); the eaten is the world. In Vedāntic language, the eater is the knower and the food is the known. Everything cognized belongs to the world of names and forms.

The Upaniṣhad therefore ends by bringing together the knower and the known and declaring that both are included in “I.” Hence the sage proclaims, “I am the world and I am the individual.”

When both the individual and the world dissolve into “I,” no boundary remains between them. This naturally raises the crucial question: Who or what is this “I”?

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[Part – 28 (taitti 3)]

Fear occurs when there is an “other”—a second object. Oneness, by contrast, is fearlessness. When the world is taken to be real and external, it appears as a constant source of threat and insecurity. This fear born of the world is sustained only as long as we attribute independent reality to it (saṃsāra). Once its dependent and insubstantial nature is understood, fear naturally subsides.

This is illustrated by the familiar analogy of the rope and the snake. In dim light, a rope is mistaken for a snake, and fear instantly arises. However, when the rope is recognized for what it truly is, the imagined snake vanishes, and with it goes the fear. Under the spell of ignorance, reality appears divided, and this apparent division gives rise to fear. When ignorance is removed through knowledge, the division is recognized as merely apparent, just as darkness vanishes in the presence of light.

The Upanishad concludes this vision with the declaration:  Continue reading →