Chandogya Upanishad
By
sri Swami Krishnananda

The philosophy of the Upanishads is that it is an ignorance of the way in which the Universe works that binds the individual to Samsara—the series of births and deaths. The affirmation of a reality independent of what really is, is called the ego.

The greater is the knowledge that we have about anything, the greater also is the capacity we have in making it subservient to our own selves. The law of Nature restricts us, because we do not have an adequate knowledge of these laws.

We cannot understand any aspect of reality which is not in space, which is not in time and which is not causally related.

The point that the Upanishad would make out is that no event or no experience can be isolated from other experiences.

The whole universe feels the presence and the birth of a single child anywhere. So what produces a child is not the father or the mother. It is the whole cosmos that produces the child.

There is no such thing as a private act in this world.

Things are not what they seem; there is a deeper significance behind every visible process or activity in Nature.

There is a total activity, in a subtle form, taking place prior to the apparently individual expression of it in the form of experience and perception.

Everything is interconnected, interlinked in an organic manner, so that everything becomes as important as the other.

What we like or what we do not like are only the various reactions that our personalities produce or evoke in respect of impersonal causes of phenomena which have nothing to do with the pleasures or the pains of individuals.

Thinking is not some isolated activity taking place within our heads. When we think, we do not privately think inside our skulls; it is a vibration that we create in us. The vibration of a person is not merely of the physical body—it emanates like an aura to a certain distance from the body of the person.

If we coordinate ourselves and cooperate with the activity of Nature, it becomes a sacrifice, but if we interfere with it and adversely affect its normal function, it will also set up a reaction of a similar character. Then, we would be the losers.

Our actions in this world are exactly like the offering of oblations in a sacrifice for the purpose of invoking a god or deity. We are inviting something, invoking something, calling the attention of something for the purpose of experiencing it when we perform an action.

If we are too greedy, miserly and selfish, everything will be withheld from us. Rainfall, for example, which is the cause of the production of food in this world, is not a chance action taking place in nature, but the result of mankind fulfilling its obligations.

There is, in the end, no such thing as a local event in this world. Every event is a universal event as is the case with the birth of a human individual. Every birth is a point of universal pressure.

Everything is all things, and anything is everywhere. There is no such thing as a particular individual or a particular body.

If you very vehemently circulate a torch, you will find that there is a circle of fire or light in front of you. There is no circle actually. It is only an optical illusion created before you on account of the intensive velocity of the movement of the torch. So a vibration of consciousness in a particular manner becomes cognizable as an object.

You know very well that the shape of a walking stick is different from a table, but from the point of view of the substance, both of them are made of the same wood. So, the knowledge of the walking stick would imply the knowledge of the table also, irrespective of their differences structurally. In a similar manner, the rule can be applied to everything in the world. The Upanishad points out to us that all things in the world are permutations and combinations of the original elements.

We mistake these five senses for everything. There are other factors in the object which the senses cannot contact. Suppose we have one thousand senses, we would have seen many other things in the world.

The highly subtle form and the vibration that is produced by the essential quality of the food influences the mind itself. Your capacity of thinking will be very much influenced by the food that you take.

What happens to all individuals when they reach ultimate Being? It can be compared to bees making honey. Honey includes the essences of various flowers, hundreds and hundreds of them that have been collected. The honey is an amalgam of all these essences, but in this body of the honey one cannot distinguish the essence of one flower from that of another flower. This is what happens to all people when they merge into pure Being.

We may say in a sense, the ocean is the self of the rivers towards which they go and get absorbed, which they become in the end. So is the case with all individuals that tend towards the ocean of the ultimate Being.

What we call death is the departing of life from a particular body. So death is not the death of the life principle itself. Life itself does not die. The vitality is transferred from one location to another.

What is inside the seed of a plant? It is a great wonder. You may say that you cannot see anything there; it is practically invisible and non-existent. This apparently non-existent something, the very little, subtle essence there inside that little seed, has become this vast tree in front of you.

Though we cannot see a thing, it can exist. Because the salt is dissolved in water, it cannot be seen through the eyes. But through some other means--the organ of taste--we can discover it is there. Similar is the case with the Being that has entered into the substance of all this creation. In the same way as we cannot see the salt in water, we cannot see this Being in the particulars. But, by employing other means we can find out that this Being is in every particular.

We have been exiled from our home and cast into the wilderness by these robbers, the senses, and we cannot see things properly as they really are.

The mind is confounded. The only way is to ask for help. Just as a person with sight can help a person without sight and can point out the way to the destination which he has to reach, so is the blindfolded soul in this wilderness of life to take the guidance of a person with spiritual eye-sight.

There is a difference between death and Self-realisation. This is also the difference between sleep and Self-realisation. The desires of the mind are not destroyed in sleep, or even in death. But the desires of the mind are destroyed in Self-realisation, and therefore, there is no return.

The cause of the birth of a body in the process of reincarnation is the presence of a desire for a particular experience.

Death is nothing but the exhaustion of a particular allotted portion of Karma and not the entirety of it.

For all practical, outward purposes, the liberated man and the bound man look alike. They both speak in the same way, eat in the same way, live in the same way. The distinction is within. It is that the liberated one knows what he is, whereas in the other case he does not know what he really is.

Some spiritual seekers erroneously think that they are God-men or that they are about to jump into the ocean of God-consciousness. So, it is necessary to know where we are placed. We should not have any kind of misgivings about where we are actually situated.
Whatever be the degree of reality in which we are, we should be masters of that.

One is free to the extent of one’s knowledge. So, knowledge is power. Wherever there is real knowledge, there is also power to the extent of the operation of that knowledge.

Complete control of a particular thing is exercised only to the extent of the absorption of that particular thing into one’s own Self. Anything that is one with us is controlled by us, and of that we are master. We are not masters of anything that is outside us. So, in the realm of the mind, we should be masters.

Mantras are like fire—great forces of directive intelligence.

Whoever has attained any kind of greatness in life has achieved it only through the power of concentration. If we start thinking of a hundred things, we will achieve nothing. We should apply ourselves to one thing only at a time, apply our heart and soul to it and then we shall succeed.

One’s power depends proportionately on the depth or extent of one’s understanding.

Strength is an automatic outcome of a proper functioning and coordination of all the limbs of the personality, psychic as well as physical. If one contemplates the capacity that is within, then with a proper coordination of these internal powers, strength need not be imported from outside.

Where one sees nothing except one’s own Self, where one hears nothing except one’s own Self, where one understands nothing except one’s own Self, that is the Absolute.

While the incapacity of probing into the subjectivity of the external universe prevents us from knowing everything in the universe, there is a possibility of diving into our own Self and knowing all things at one stroke.

The blessedness of people who know what this Atman is, is grand indeed. Those who depart from this world having realised what the Atman is, their jurisdiction is infinite.

If the will or the desire of a person is filled with untruth, which means to say it has certain characters that cannot be corroborated by the nature of truth, to that extent it shall not succeed.

The more we think we are independent bodily, the more is the difficulty for us in this world, because the more is the reaction produced by other persons and thing in this world in a similar manner.

The capacity to fulfil a desire is actually the power of the vision to find out where the object of desire is and what connection the object has with one’s own self.

All those who have died since ages, millions and millions of years ago, and all those who have not yet come into being at all but are to manifest themselves now or in the ages to come—all these forms are capable of being perceived in one’s own heart.

When a person rises above body consciousness, there is a serenity of experience. It is as if he is free from a drug effect into which he has entered and to which he has been subjected for long. When one attains to this supreme luminosity which is one’s own real nature, one is established in one’s self. Then one is in one’s true form.

Living in seclusion and other austerities are all great vows, no doubt, but whatever one gains by these austerities, vows and practices, one gains merely by self-control, because it is the highest austerity, and nothing can be comparable to it.

Freedom is a chimera as long as there is bodily individuality. One has to pass through these ruts of pleasure and pain, these transitory experiences of life as long as one is content to be in this body.

We know very well how much slavery there is in bodily individuality. The conditions of the body, which are the outcome of the way in which the physical laws of nature work, are limiting us. Thus, there is no freedom except in a state of universality. There is no freedom as long as there is a body. Yet, the consciousness of the existence of the body is not necessarily an evil, provided it is experienced in the proper perspective. The mere presence of the body will not be a bondage if it is known in its reality.

The actions of a Jivanmukta are not individual, but universal movements. He does not think as I think or you think. His is a thought that includes every thought. He has no awareness of a particular encasement in some individual body.

The feeling that “I exist” is the Atman speaking in its own language. This feeling is persisting even in dream, and you cannot say that it does not exist even in deep sleep.

There should be a complete channelisation of our aspiration, in the correct direction. It is for this that we come to the masters. There should be no distraction of aim or purpose. The discipline that is spoken of in the Upanishad is nothing but a channelisation of consciousness.

We are told that the great Ramatirtha had a peculiar technique of his own for self-control. He used to make a list of all his desires. It was no joke. It was an honest investigation into his own mind. To some extent we can know what our desires are.

The discipline of Brahmacharya, of which the Upanishad speaks, is the discipline of dealing with the desires. What are you going to do with your desires? Are you going to just swallow them, or oppose them and crush them, or fulfil them? A very dexterous method has to be employed--neither subjugating, nor crushing, nor fulfilling, in the literal sense, but tackling them in the manner they should be tackled, under the circumstances in which you are placed.

The whole of one’s life has to be lived in such a way that it is a preparation for the spiritual goal.

All of the stages of life are necessary in one’s ascent to the spiritual goal. It is not that the spiritual life commences abruptly only after full renunciation, and the earlier three stages are disconnected entirely from the spiritual goal.

The moment one becomes conscious of the goal of one’s life, then it is necessary to see that one’s every activity is somehow or other reconciled with this goal. One should not do any incompatible thing against one’s own conscience and against the purpose that one has on hand. Thus it is that it is necessary to have one’s entire life transformed into a spiritual art through complete dedication.

We have to meditate that everything comes from That, everything is sustained in That and everything returns to That. That which is the origination, the sustenance and the dissolution of all things is this Brahman.

All the wishes in your mind, all the desires are the desires of the Self ultimately in some way or other.

“This Brahman is what I am.” Thus should we meditate. The moment we get up in the morning, this thought should come to mind. The progress of our life in spirituality can be judged from the first thought that occurs to the mind in the early morning when we get up.

The life of the spirit is not one of suffocation or stifling of the mind. It is a gradual growth of the mind spontaneously, like the growth of a baby into an adult without any kind of stifling of function.

You may be going to a club or to a movie, or you may be having a chat with some friends. All these can be gradually curtailed, because they are not essential. Essentials alone should be maintained.

There is no such thing as an unspiritual life finally. The idea of “I-ness” and “my-ness” is the cause of this peculiar notion in the mind, of there being a distinction between the ordinary life and spiritual life.

Meditation should be a continued practice. How long should we continue the meditation? We must continue until we attain Self-realisation or until we die, whichever is earlier.

If we have intense faith, we will reach our goal. “I must get it; I am doing the best possible thing; I am putting forth all my effort to the extent of my possibility; I am doing my duty.” If one has faith of this kind, one should certainly attain it.

Initiation of a disciple by a Guru is not mere utterance of words. It is a communication of an energy, a force. It is the will of the Guru, as it were, entering into the will of the disciple, where both, have to be on the same level.