ब्रह्मैवेदममृतं पुरस्ताद्ब्रह्म पश्चाद्ब्रह्म दक्षिणतश्चोत्तरेण । अधश्चोर्ध्वं च प्रसृतं ब्रह्मैवेदं विश्वमिदं वरिष्ठम् ॥
brahmaivedamamṛtaṃ purastādbrahma paścādbrahma dakṣiṇataścottareṇa adhaścordhvaṃ ca prasṛtaṃ brahmaivedaṃ viśvamidaṃ variṣṭham
All this is Brahman immortal, naught else; Brahman is in front of us, Brahman behind us, and to the south of us and to the north of us and below us and above us; it stretches everywhere. All this is Brahman alone, all this magnificent universe.
~ Verse 2.2.12
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Acharya Prashant (AP): We come to the last verse of the second Mundaka now.
“All this is Brahman immortal, naught else; Brahman is in front of us, Brahman behind us, and to the south of us and to the north of us and below us and above us; it stretches everywhere. All this is Brahman alone, all this magnificent universe.”
To the left of us, to the right of us; above us, below us; here, there; inside us, outside us. All this is Brahman alone.
What really is meant? Is there Brahman somewhere here and here and there (pointing outwards to various directions) and in here (pointing at the body) ? No, not that.
All these directions that are being talked of are directions that we can perceive. These are experiential directions. The entire dimension of space has been covered in the description: this way, that way, up and below—all this is space. And if the entire ambit of space is being talked of, then the entire universe is being talked of. To the front, to the back, take that in totality; to the right, to the left, combine all of that, and what do you get? You get the entire universe. And what does the entire universe consist of? Your entire set of experiences; all that you know of is there.
So, whichever way you look at, all you have is Brahman . But what is it that looks this way or that way? Your consciousness. So, what is being indirectly said is:
The entire expanse of your consciousness is Brahman.
But why is it being said that consciousness itself is Brahman ? We know that consciousness is incomplete and Brahman is complete, so why is consciousness being equated with Brahman ? Because, in a poetic way, if consciousness is not Brahman , then consciousness says, “I do not deserve to exist. If I am not Brahman , then I am forever restless. If I am not Brahman , then all that I am is frustration and suffering and sorrow.”
Therefore, consciousness has to be Brahman . It’s an inner imperative. It’s so much of an imperative that the sage does not even say, “Consciousness must be Brahman * ”; he simply says, “Consciousness is * Brahman ,” because consciousness not being Brahman cannot be an option. If it is an option, then you will suffer a lot. And if that suffering is to be discounted, then the possibility that consciousness is not Brahman too has to be first of all discounted. Therefore, that possibility has been discounted.
Now, consciousness not being Brahman is not a possibility, because entertaining that possibility implies entertaining suffering. So, what is left, then? Consciousness is definitely Brahman .
There are two options: consciousness is potentially Brahman * —as our usual, normal consciousness is—and the other possibility is: consciousness is actually * Brahman . If consciousness is only potentially Brahman , then you suffer. Therefore, the sage is just ruling that out. Consciousness should not be potentially Brahman ; consciousness has to be actually Brahman . So, he is saying, consciousness is Brahman .
So, let’s go through all of it again. First of all, the entire expanse of space and the directions was talked of. What does the entire expanse point towards? The entire universe. And who is the perceiver of the universe? Consciousness. And then it was said, “All this is Brahman ,” implying consciousness itself is Brahman . But consciousness as we know it is impure, limited, tainted. So, why is that impure, limited, tainted consciousness being called not potentially but actually as Brahman ? We said, because potentiality is nothing but suffering.
Potentially, everybody is joyful. Actually, nobody is. So, what is potentiality? Another name for suffering. You can keep carrying your potentiality and keep suffering, and your body will be reduced to ashes, and you will still potentially be Brahman without ever having lived in the fullness of Brahman . That’s pointless.
So, “All this is Brahman alone, all this magnificent universe.”
“All this is Brahman alone.” Read it as: “All this has to be Brahman alone. And if I see it as anything other than Brahman , then I be cursed.” You can look at this pillar as merely a pillar. If this is merely a pillar, then you are merely a human body, and that is suffering. For you to be Brahman , this pillar has to be something more than a pillar.
That is the reason why in the Indic paths there has been a tradition of worshiping just about everything. By worshiping everything that you perceive and experience, you are actually worshiping the perceiver, the experiencer. In other words, you are raising the perceiver, the experiencer to a point where he becomes worthy of worship. By worshiping the pillar, we are raising the experiencer of the pillar to a point where he becomes worthy of worship. And if you do not raise the experiencer to that point, then all that the experiencer experiences is suffering.
Do you see what the Upanishads aim at? Their solitary aim is freedom from suffering.
Questioner (Q): So, consciousness is Brahman . The Rishi has ruled out the mere potentiality of consciousness to be Brahman . It might be actually Brahman , but suffering is still there. If consciousness is actually Brahman , then…
AP: …then suffering does not exist, then you stop admitting suffering, because Brahman and suffering are mutually incompatible. If you really, really are convinced that outside and inside there is only Brahman , then where do you have space left for suffering? Brahman occupies everything; suffering may still exist, but now it is Brahman suffering. You may still suffer, but now you are a suffering Brahman , which is okay. Great!
If Brahman is another name for freedom, then Brahman has the freedom to suffer as well. Brahman is exercising his unrestricted freedom to suffer. Now suffering is not something life has imposed on you; now suffering is something that you have embraced. You are not resisting it anymore. You don’t need to resist anything; you are Brahman .
See, these things are very, very delicate. Your Brahman -nature will not obliterate what comes with the bodily tendencies. It’s just that now the bodily tendencies and all the fruits of the actions associated with the body will no more be something you will associate with your deepest identity and existence. You will say, “These things are happening, but these things are happening at my surface; they are not really happening in my heart.”
If you take an example including your body, you know, somebody comes and raps you on your knuckles; fine, that is one thing. But if somebody comes and punches you right in the heart, that is another thing. When you are Brahman , now your heart has become punch-proof. You can still be rapped on the knuckles, somebody can come and still hit you from behind, but all that will be peripheral; all that is happening to your skin, to your bones, to your muscles. None of that is happening to your heart.
A fly comes and sits on your shoulder. Fine, the fly is very much there in contact with you. Where? On your shoulder. But you have not swallowed the fly; the fly has not entered your guts. The fly does exist in contact with you but only on the periphery, not at your center.
That’s how the Brahmavid , the knower of the Brahman , lives. Stuff does happen to him, as it happens to anybody, everybody else, but stuff happens to his periphery, not to his core. At his core nothing really happens; at his core is Brahman . And Brahman is just too full to admit a companion; Brahman is just too expansive to let anything else sit besides itself. When Brahman occupies you, it does not leave any space for anything or anybody else.
So, everything else is just external. It is happening, it does have a certain significance, but it does not involve my core. Nothing in the world is so important that it can shake me to my center.
Q: I will take the example of the pillar again. So, we have learned and discussed before that we suffer because we try to imagine the pillar to be more than just a pillar. But today we have said that if the pillar is just a pillar for us, if it is not something more than that for us, then we will suffer. This looks contradictory.
AP: No, no, no. When you say ‘pillar’, the pillar is never a pillar. When the word ‘pillar’ is uttered, then that word itself comes loaded with meanings. When you use the word ‘pillar’, you cannot now avoid the various constructs that come along with that word. So, the word and its object become very meaningful to you. Brahman is when those meanings are shredded away.
Whenever you name anything in this world, what is it that the name does? The name makes the thing meaningful to you.
What is a pillar? A pillar is something that upholds something. (Pointing to his right) What is this pillar? This pillar is that which is keeping the roof at its place. Now, if the roof is not at its place, then it will fall on your head. And because you are body-identified, so you are head-identified, and therefore the pillar becomes very meaningful to you now. You may not consciously think this much when you utter the word ‘pillar’, but just by naming a thing you have given it a lot of significance.
There is nothing in the world that is named and does not carry significance. If something is entirely meaningless for you, you will not name it, believe me. That’s why you name pet animals and not stray dogs. Why? Same breed, quite possible. Why do you name one and not name the other? What does naming imply? Significance, meaning, attachment, identification. If the pillar becomes very dear to you, it won’t even remain just a pillar; it would probably become pillar darling.
Even when it is ‘pillar’, P-I-L-L-A-R, it still has meanings. Therefore, I said that as long as you are calling it a pillar, there will be suffering for you because the pillar will have meaning for you. Brahman is when the pillar is no more pillar. When the pillar is no more pillar—what does that mean? When the pillar no more carries the bundle of meanings that it usually does, then you are free of suffering.
When we look at the world, we don’t just look at stuff. We are looking for meaning, not looking at something. As long as you are looking for meaning here and there, you are hungry and thirsty, and there will be frustration and incompleteness within. The senses don’t just arbitrarily float in space; they hunt, they choose a target, they go after it. They want to fetch returns from what they are perceiving, and all that is human suffering. When that ceases, then suffering ceases. When you can just look without looking for, then you are liberated.
Q: If all is actually Brahman , why do we still suffer in all this?
AP: The Rishi said all is Brahman . We don’t listen to the Rishi. For us, all is not Brahman .
What is Brahman ? That which you cannot associate yourself to, that which does not admit a second, that which has no attachment, and that which is not available to be attached to. That is Brahman . Do we look at our perceived objects that way? We do not look at them as if they are Brahman , right? We look at them as incomplete entities; we look at them as pieces that can be used to complete an inner jigsaw puzzle.
So, there is that person; pick that person up and plug him in here (points towards his chest) , and now what has happened? A certain measure of completeness has been attained. Can you pick Brahman up and plug it in here? You can’t do that, right? But you are so sure that there is a hole within. And if there is a hole within, then it is dangerous to perceive the other as Brahman because now the other person becomes useless for you; he cannot be picked and plugged. So, how will I look at the other? I will say, “Oh, an incomplete person, a little piece of something, and that little piece can now be gainfully utilized by me. I pick that piece up and plug it in here.”
We do not look at Brahman . Our incompletenesses—our belief in our incompleteness—do not allow us to look at the world as Brahman . You can perceive completeness outside only from a point of completeness inside. If you are adamant that inwardly you are incomplete, then outwardly you will compulsively perceive incompleteness even if there is no incompleteness there. Even if a prophet is walking in front of you, you will compulsively perceive the prophet or the avatar as incomplete, because that’s what suits you.
So, everything is Brahman , avers the Rishi, and advises us that we too must perceive the world as Brahman . To do that, we will have to change the point of perception, the perceiver himself. That’s a choice. Exercise that choice, and then tendencies will bother you only superficially. At your center will be a point of steel not available to be bothered, not amenable to be dislodged. Stuff will keep happening as stuff does; there would be tension, there would be the usual nagging and nudging that life consists of, friction and strain, but none of that will penetrate you beyond a limit. When that limit will be touched, you will just shrug it all off and say, “Well, it’s not all that important. Now, come on, I am not going to sell myself away for this.”
So, to an extent you will participate in the game of misery, frustration, highs and lows, hope and despair. And when that starts crossing a limit, you will say, “Alright, goodnight, time to sleep. Don’t want to play the game anymore, not in a mood to take it anymore, enough for tonight,” as kids do. They gather together for the evening and play football and all that lasts an hour or so, and then the sun sets, and what do they say? “Fine, we are dispersing now.” They are not angry with each other; they will meet again the next day, the next evening. It’s just that there is a limit—and it’s a happy limit. “We don’t want to go beyond that. We are done, and we will happily restart the whole thing tomorrow, again to disperse when the sun sets. It’s a game, after all.”
So, that threshold has to be there. Your inner circuit must have an inbuilt cut-off, like these MCBs: the voltage crosses a point and it trips. You must have a similar mechanism inside. Tension rises beyond a point, and you trip. Now you are not available to take the nonsense. Where are you now? You have gone to an inner sleep. “I don’t want to be in this circuit anymore. It’s a bad circuit, it’s getting heated up.”
Gradually, you find that your ability to take heat and load without getting heated up, without feeling loaded, keeps increasing. Now the point within is gaining strength; it does not even demand any protection. It is saying, “Yes, you can take a little more, I am not threatened. You can bear more, I am not threatened. You can allow the situations to penetrate you a little deeper; I will remain untouched, don’t worry.”
Then you start becoming more and more available to life, to experiences. You start becoming more vulnerable. That vulnerability is not your weakness. That vulnerability is a demonstration of your inner strength. You are taking it because you can take it. Not everybody can take it. You are taking it because now there is no inner need to block it, to restrict it, to resist it. You are telling the enemy, “Come, come! Come on in right into my drawing room. I don’t feel threatened. Come on in!”
And then the enemy changes its nature: the tendencies that you loathe so much, they become loveable. Everything in existence that you once used to despise and be cautious against now becomes something to be celebrated. But that’s a very, very later, very advanced stage. Do not start dreaming of that stage as you are.
As you are, first of all you must learn to resist and protect. Slowly, the need to resist and the need to protect will reduce. As it reduces, you gain in freedom. Now there is no need to have an existential doorkeeper. Now you don’t need to guard yourself. But before you come to a point where you can drop the armor, you need to gain in internal strength so much that you don’t need an armor. Getting it?
I am not sure you are getting it. I don’t even expect you to get it. Just sit through it.
