Peace Invocation
Om Aapyaayantu mamaangaani vaak-praanas-chakshuh srotram atho balamindriyaani cha sarvaani | sarvam brahmoupanishadam maaham brahma niraa-kuryaam maa maa brahma niraakarot; aniraakaranam-astu aniraakaranam may astu yadaatmani nirate ya upanishatsu dharmaah te mayi santu te mayi santu ||
|| Om saantih; saantih; saantih ||
May my limbs, speech, vital force, eyes, ears, as also strength and all the organs, become well developed. Everything is the Brahman revealed in the Upanishads. May I not deny Brahman; may not Brahman deny me. Let there be no spurning (of me by Brahman), let there be no rejection (of Brahman) by me. May all the virtues that are spoken of in the Upanishads repose in me who am engaged in the pursuit of the Self; may they repose in me. Om! Peace, peace, peace.
~ Swami Gambhirananda translation
The Chandogya Upanishad continues with Chapter VI – The Story of Svetaketu.
This story contains one of the great Mahavakyas, Tat Tvam Asi or That Thou Art. Mahavakyas are the great aphoristic revelations of the Upanishads setting forth the identity of the individual soul with the Supreme. Here, in That Thou Art, Thou -the individual soul is understood as separated from its appearing appendages, viz. The body, senses and mind and thereby touching the divine ground of Being.. That is either the Saguna Brahman (God) or the Nirguna Brahman (the Brahman within – Sat, Chit and Ananda – Pure Being), This Mahavakya can provide us a perspective of one’s identity with Brahman, just like the conviction that is normally there in the sense of identity of the self with the body. One who has realized this mahavakya through meditation is liberated. Just as the belief of the identity of the self with the body is firmly rooted in almost all of us, in like manner when the conviction is that the self is Brahman (Pure Consciousness – Pure Being) and that knowledge is firm and steadfast, then the person is realized The Upanishads are not about believing in something outside of oneself but of having knowledge and experience of one’s own true divinity. We are, through the story of Svetaketu, taken beyond our normal boundaries which limit us. One of the main messages in most of the peace invocations is to seek blessings and grace so that we may reach that place where ignorance is rooted out and discernment dawns. Then we pass from our limited appearance to the ultimate reality.
The translations we have selected, for our study group, wisely condense the narrative as it contains a great deal of repetition, which at one point in India was considered a highly literary style (as the Palli Sutras of Buddhism show).
The story of Svetaketu begins with his father Uddalaka sending him at the age of 12 years to study with a Vedic teacher for ‘none of our family… is ignorant of Brahman.’ Thereupon Svetaketu went to the teacher’s ashram and returned 12 years later having learned all the Vedas by heart. However, when he returned home, his father, noticing the young man’s pride said to him:
“Svetaketu, have you asked for that knowledge by which we hear the unhearable, by which we perceive, the unperceivable, by which we know the unknowable?”
“What is that knowledge, sir?” asked Svetaketu.
1.2.
As by knowing one lump of clay, dear one, we come to know all things made out of clay; that they differ only in name and form, While the stuff of which all are made is clay; as by knowing one gold nugget, dear one, We come to know all things made out of gold: That they differ only in name and form, While the stuff of which all are made is gold: As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one, we come to know all things made of iron, while the stuff of which all are made is iron – So through that spiritual wisdom, dear one, we come to know that all of life is one.”
~ Eknath Easwaran translation
Svetaketu says that those venerable teachers of his must have been ignorant of this knowledge otherwise they would have taught him, and requests his father to give him that knowledge.
Then follows Uddalaka’s teaching of Brahma vidya.
We will read the remaining selected slokas from Eknath Easwaran or Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester translations as these passages get to the heart of Uddalaka’s teaching to Svetaketu.
Uddalaka, in his teaching of Brahman, starts with Existence or Pure Being.
“In the beginning there was only Existence -Pure Being, for nothing can come out of non-existence.
Existence (Sat) was One only, without a second…He the One thought to himself let me be many, let me grow forth. Thus out of himself he projected the universe; and having projected out of himself the universe, he entered into every being. Of all things he is the subtle essence. He is the truth, he is the Self. And that, Svetaketu, tells Uddalka, That Thou Art.
It is important to note that Brahman did not “create” anything: it projected everything out of its own Being- not as a separate entity, for it is within everything as its sole Reality, as its inner Self, as its ground of Being.
The Upanishad is teaching Svetaketu and all sadhakas that ignorance is to identify ourselves solely with our body, senses and mind, our limited ego sense and our personality. Our names and forms change and are subject to birth, growth, decay and death. Brahman, which we may fail to recognize in our daily life, is ever present in our deepest inner Self – infinite and changeless. It is our total identification with our bodies and minds that cause human suffering by tying us down to desires, attachments and aversions. All attachment to the body-mind complex limits us and separates us from our own real divine nature of Pure Awareness, which is pure existence, pure consciousness and pure bliss, infinite, unchanging, and self-luminous that is never born and never dies.
Svetaketu, like Nachiketa in the Katha Upanishad, continues his questions and wants to know more and more about Brahman. Uddalaka continues the teaching of the knowledge of Brahman and the great Mahavakya – Tat Tvam Asi (That Thou Art) with various examples to help Svetaketu realize that his real essence is Brahman (Sat-Chit-Ananda or Pure Being). Through the teaching of this Mahavakya, Svetaketu is led to understand how the perceived many are really all One at their core.
“It is everywhere, though we see it not. Just so, dear one, the Self is everywhere, Within all things, although we see him not.
13.3 There is nothing that does not come from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self. He is the truth; he is the Self supreme, You are that, Svetaketu; you are that”.
The teaching ends with the above sloka re-emphasized in 15.3
“There is nothing that does not come from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self. He is the truth; he is the Self supreme, You are that, Svetaketu; you are that”.
~ Eknath Easwaran translation
A similar story is provided in chapter 7 with the teaching of Narada.
Chapter VII – Narada’s Education
This appears to be the early education of Narada who subsequently became a great sage. Interestingly, just as Nachiketa approaches Yama, Svetaketu his own father, Narada approaches the sage Sanatkumara. These young seekers of liberation want to deepen their knowledge and realize Brahman. One of the cardinal truths in all these teachings is that there is no peace or real happiness outside of this knowledge (Atma jnana). Sanatkumara teaches Narada the ascending steps to reality and direct spiritual experience with various meditations. We will read these passages from the selected sections in the translations of Eknath Easwaran and Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester.
We will read these sections since these passages are what the venerable Sanatkumara taught Narada who was pure in heart and wanted to pass from darkness into light.
This knowledge is summed up in Sloka 26.2.
“The Self is one, though it appears to be many. Go beyond decay and death, beyond separateness and sorrow.”
“Control the senses and purify the mind. In a pure mind there is constant awareness of the Self. Where there is constant awareness of the Self, freedom ends bondage and joy ends sorrow.” This is a key meditation.
We also have the possibility of following the example of Narada of going beyond sorrow, beyond darkness, to the light of the Self. In the next blog we will conclude the Chandogya Upanishad by reading about the City of Brahman as well as the meeting and dialogue between Indra and Prajapati.
Please note: excerpts, commentary and references from the following teachers of Vedanta.
Vedanta Society lectures and literature Swami Sarvapriyananda Swami Nikhilananda Swami Gambhirananda Swami Swahananda and Madhavananda.
Excerpts from the following commentaries and translations of the Upanishads: Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester Swami Swahananda and Swami Madhavananda Eknath Easwaran
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