The Chandogya Upanishad - CH-3, Sec-1, Name-6.. Swami Krishnananda.

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BID FAREWELL.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2021. 8:15. AM.
CHAPTER III: SANATKUMARA'S INSTRUCTIONS ON BHUMA-VIDYA : 2.
SECTION 1: NAME. 6.
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Sa yo nama brahmeti upaste yavan-namno gatam, tatrasya yatha kamacaro bhavati yo nama brahmetyupaste'sti, bhagavah, namno bhuya iti; namno vava bhuyo'stiti, tan-me bhagavan bravitviti.

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Whoever contemplates 'name' as Brahman, which means to say, whoever regards the object of meditation as absolute, gains whatever that object includes within its gamut. The principle of meditation is this: whatever the object of your meditation be, that has to be taken as absolute. There should not be anything external to it, because if the mind conceives something higher than that particular object, then that higher thing becomes the object of meditation. The point is that the object that you have chosen for your meditation should be the last point of the reach of your mind, beyond which it cannot go. Then it becomes the absolute. So this absolute is only a name that we give to the best possible reach of the mind in any level or degree of experience. 

'Name is Brahman'-this means name is the absolute, inasmuch as we are in a realm of names only. Why should we not take the higher degree as the absolute, and not the lower one? Because the higher one cannot be the content of the mind in its present state. Suppose we are asked to meditate on the heavenly regions. We cannot, because we do not know what it means. The heavenly regions are beyond the reach of the mind. We will only superimpose physical pictures of our imagination on paradise, Brahma-loka, etc. This is not what is intended. We must limit ourselves to the extent of our knowledge, and complete the meditation regarding that particular object as absolute in itself. So, Narada was asked to take 'name' as the absolute. The result of this meditation on name is that to the extent name goes—to the extent of the reach of the mind theoretically, conceptually—to that extent, the meditator will be free.

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We know very well that there are learned people in this world, very educated people, masters of science, etc. They have freedom within that realm, but not beyond that. To the extent their knowledge can go, to the extent of the applicability of their learning, there is freedom for them. But where their knowledge is not applicable, there is no freedom for them. So it depends upon the realm in which one finds oneself. If one is in an academic realm, the academic knowledge helps.

But, it will not help when one is in the middle of a river or the ocean where another kind of knowledge is necessary. It will not help when one is threatened with some kind of catastrophe in life where again another kind of knowledge is necessary. So the knowledge that one gains is helpful to a person within the limit of the operation of that knowledge, within the realm in which it works, and to the extent of the operation of the law pertaining to that branch of learning.

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Whoever meditates thus on 'name' as Brahman has freedom in this manner, to that extent of, and in that particular realm of, the name only. Narada asks: "Is there not anything more than this?" "Yes, there is something more than this," replies Sanatkumara. "What is that something which is more than the name?" again asks Narada.

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SECTION-1 : NAME - ENDS

NEXT - Chapter Three: Sanatkumara's Instructions on Bhuma-Vidya

SECTION 2: SPEECH

Continued


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