The Chhandogya Upanishad - CH-2, SEC-8, POST-2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, March 14, 2021. 07:31. PM.
Chapter Two: Uddalaka's Teaching Concerning the Oneness of the Self
SECTION 8: CONCERNING SLEEP, HUNGER, THIRST AND DYING
POST-2.
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"Sa yatha sakunih sutrena prabaddho disam disam patit-vanyatrayatanam-alabdhva bandhanam evopasrayate, evam eva khalu, saumya tan mano disam disam patit-vanyatrayatanam-alabdhva pranam evopasrayate prana bandhanam hi, saumya, mana iti."

You have no support anywhere in this world, except your own self, as the peg is the resting place of the bird in the illustration. But, this is a point which nobody can remember. You seek support outside, and so go on working hard every day to come in contact with things external, thinking that your support is outside, but it is not there! You can not find a final support anywhere in the world. Everybody is sick of you, in fact, wherever you go. Then what happens? Your experiment fails and you go back to your home, because nobody really wants you. There is the home which you enter after realising the truth of things. "I have searched and searched with the help of friends and so-called supports. I have found nothing anywhere; I go back to my own home." This is what you do when you retire to sleep, but you do not properly get educated by the phenomenon. You do not know why you are exhausted in life. If you had known the reason for this occurrence, you would have learnt a lesson from this futile experiment of earthly pursuits. The understanding is not there; there is only an exhaustion and a fatigue, the cause of which is never realised. So, every day you make the same mistake and every day you go back home crying in the same way. "This is the sleep that you undergo," says the father to the son. You go to the being that you are, instead of searching for support in the non-being that is 'the outside'. Pranabandhanam hi, saumya, mana iti: The mind is rooted in true being which is your essential nature, which you enter in sleep. That is sleep—that is your basic substance.

"Asana-pipase me, saumya, vijanihiti yatraitat puruso asishati nama, apa eva tad asitam nayante: tad yatha gonayo svanayah purushanaya iti, evam tad apa acakshate asanayeti, tatraitacchungam utpatitam, saumya, vija nihi, nedam amulam bhavishyatiti."

Why are you hungry, and why are you thirsty? 

This, again, is the action of the three elements in your body. We said there are three primordial features of reality manifest as fire, water and earth. They are functioning in the body in some way. Because of the action of these three elements in the body, you are hungry and thirsty. What is this hunger, and what is this thirst? "Now, my dear boy, listen to me again. I shall explain what is hunger and what is thirst." You go on pouring food, gross items, articles of diet into your stomach, but, even then, you are hungry after some time. Why? The water element liquefies the physical food, draws the essence of it inward, and exhausts the contents of the food that you have taken. 

So you feel hungry again, in spite of your having eaten food. The water principle draws the gross food into itself. Food dissolves in the water principle and, then, naturally, the food is exhausted and so you feel the need for it again. This is how there is hunger. In Sanskrit, asanaya is 'hunger'. Why do you call hunger as asanaya? Because, water carries (naya) food (asa) and causes hunger (asanaya). A person who leads cows is called gonaya, one who drives horses is called asvanaya, he who is a leader of men is called purusanaya. Like that, water is called asanaya, because it leads food to its proper place. From the body which is the effect, try to know its source, which is water. There is no effect without a cause.

To be continued ....

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