The Chandogya Upanishad : 10. Swami Krishnananda

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08/02/2020.

Chapter -1 : Vaishvanara-Vidya -10

10. The Self as the Universal Whole

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1.

This is what the king said in answer to the representations made by all the six great men. 

"My dear friends," spoke the king: "All of you are very sincere in your meditations, and honest, indeed. Because of your honesty and sincerity and tenacity in meditation, you enjoy plenty of everything in your houses and in your families and within yourselves. 

But you do not know that you have committed errors in your meditations. Ultimately, some trouble would have come to you as a consequence. It is good that you all came to me. In the beginning, everything looks all right even in an erroneous meditation, but afterwards some difficulty arises which cannot be rectified even by the best of medicines. 

So, what is it that we have to now? 

We have understood where we stand. Well, you have all made two mistakes, to put the whole thing precisely. You have considered some parts of the whole as the whole. You have mistaken the finite for the Infinite. 

Nothing that you are thinking in your minds can be the whole, because the mind is accustomed to think only finite objects. Whatever be our concept of expanse in regard to the particular object on which you are meditating, it is still finite. 

This is one error. The other mistake that you are making that you think of the Atman as an object, as if it is outside. You say, it is Space, it is Water, it is the Sun, it is the Earth, and so on. Well, it is all very beautiful. But, it is 'outside you'! How can non-Atman be the Atman?

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2.

"And what do you mean by the Atman? 

How can the Atman be outside you? 

Your own Self is external to you? 

What a concept! 

You have really committed a blunder in conceiving your own Self as a non-Self. The Self cannot be outside itself; it cannot be an object of itself; it cannot think itself; meditate upon itself as another; it cannot be other than itself. The first point, then, is that a finite thing cannot be regarded as the Infinite. The other thing is that an external thing cannot be regarded as the Self. You have committed both these mistakes. 

You are having the knowledge of this Great Being, little by little, part by part, as in the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each blind man was touching a part of the elephant's body and regarding it as something specific. The man never knew for a moment that he was touching a part of the elephant. Likewise, you are not aware of the fact that what you think as the Absolute is, in fact, relative. What you think as the All, is only a part. 

Therefore, you are well-to-do people, indeed, on account of the meditations, but there is also the defect that I have pointed out. One can have glory in this world, have renown, have plenty, and look all right in the eyes of people, even if there is a fundamental defect spiritually. And that cannot be known by mere observation from outside.

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To be continued ....

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