Lesson 10
vidyA sUtra
Now let us continue with the text. We are in I-4-7. The then-undifferentiated universe differentiated into names and forms and to this day it is known only as names and forms. The Self has entered into these bodies ‘up to the tip of the nails’ (aa nakhaagrebhyaH), ‘as a razor might be put in its case’ or as ‘fire may be in its source’. People do not see it, says the upaniShad, because they see it only incompletely. When it does the function of living it is seen as prANa, the vital force. When it speaks it is seen as the organ of speech or the speaker. ‘When it sees, it is the eye, when it hears, the ear’. The ear and the eye are concerned with name and form. Action has name and form as its auxiliaries and inheres in the prANa. The organ of speech is the instrument to manifest this action inherent in the prANa.
Thus the universe consists of name, form and action only (I-6-1). And finally when it thinks, it is recognised as the mind. None of these describe the Self as it is. But if the Self is realised as a whole, without being divided into different aspects, which are functions of particular limiting adjuncts such as the prANa, that is the Self to be meditated on. When perceived thus as the Reality, it becomes complete; for all the differences are unified in it. ‘The Self alone is to be meditated on, for all these are unified in It’. In the text this reads as
AtmA ityeva upAsIta, atra hi ete sarve ekaM bhavanti
This is the crucial part of I-4-7. This is known as vidyA-sUtra of the upaniShad. It is introduced at the end of the description of adhyAropa (supposition), so that, as Shri S. Kuppuswamy Sastri says, ‘one may not lose oneself in it and may find one’s way further to the stage of apavAda’ (negation of the supposition).
In the presence or proximity of the sAkShi, every organ becomes the agent or doer of the action assigned to that organ. Just as the crystal appears red in the proximity of the red flower, in the vision of an ignorant person the sAkShi appears to have gained individuality. This apparent individualisation of the sAkShi is only out of Ignorance. ‘Hearing, it ‘becomes’ the hearer. Seeing, it ‘becomes’ the seer. But hearing and other actions are not the nature of the sAkShi; they are the functions of the respective organs. So the use of the word ‘becomes’ in the previous sentences is an imperfection; in fact it is an ‘abuse’ of language, caused by paucity of right words to express what cannot be expressed – recall the famous upaniShadic quote ‘yato vAco nivartante’ (meaning, ‘from which words recoil’). This ‘seemingly becoming’ happens so inobtrusively that one is completely oblivious of it.
So when one says ‘I am the hearer’, one is committing more than one factual error. ‘I’ cannot be anything other than sAkShi. But sAkShi does not hear; the hearing agent is the ear. But the ear also cannot hear without the life-giving energy it gets in the presence of the sAkShi. Because of the proximity of the organ of hearing, the sAkShi appears to become the hearer, just exactly as the crystal, because of the proximity of the red flower appears to emit redness. So the sAkShi, namely the Atman, takes on the apparent role (or agency) of hearer, seer, thinker, doer. Not only with respect to these actions. It also appears to take the role of father, mother, husband, wife, son, etc. All this is an ‘apparent becoming’. This apparent becoming is what is called saMsAra. In other words, the non-located everywhere-present sAkShi ‘becomes’, as it were, a located, specified individual.
You may ask, ‘So what?’ The question is legitimate. The answer is: Much is lost. Any specification makes one incomplete (apUrNa). When one looks upon oneself as a specific individual – as for example, I am hearer, I am seer, I am father, I am mother, etc. – the specific characteristic denies him the other characteristics of the totality. So the upaniShad says: akRRitsno hi saH, i.e. he is incomplete. This ‘he’ (‘saH’) is not the sAkShi now, it is the sAkShi, specified by the individualisation either by means of a function like seeing, hearing, etc. or by means of a characteristic like ‘father’ ‘mother’, ‘husband’, ‘wife’ etc. The specification makes one limited, finite, incomplete. This ‘apUrNatvaM’ (incompleteness, finiteness) is the sorrow of saMsAra, because it makes you want or desire. It is from this want or desire all misery starts.
The paramAtmA which is always limitless, appears to have ‘become’ the limited jIvAtmA. It now gets names only according to the functions it does. When it does the function of living, it is called the vital force – prANanneva prANo nAma bhavati; when it speaks, (it is called) the organ of speech – vadan vAk; and so on (See I – iv – 7, second sentence). These are merely its names according to functions – etAni karma-nAmAni eva. He who looks upon oneself as a specified individual, does not know – saH yaH ataH ekaikam-upAste na sa veda. As long as the man knows the Self as such, as possessed of an individuality coming from a function or characteristic, and thinks that It sees, hears or touches or that It is this person or that, he does not know the whole Self.
If so, then through what kind of vision can he know the Self? The upaniShad continues and makes an epoch-making statement which is a kind of zipped-up version of all the mahA-vAkya-s (Grand Pronouncements) that occur later in this upaniShad and naturally in many other upaniShad-s. This statement is usually referred to as the vidyA-sUtra. It is the foundation for all the more well-known mahA-vAkya-s.
AtmA ityeva upAsIta
(brahman is to be known or understood as the Self only).
For, in it all these (functions and characteristics) become one --atra hi ete sarvaM ekaM bhavanti. Apnoti iti Atman: That which encompasses all is the Atman.
Incidentally this is where the teaching of the bRRihadAraNyaka upaniShad begins. Technically this is known as the upakrama of the teaching. Recall that the upakrama (beginning) of the teaching of the gItA begins only at Shloka 11 of the 2nd chapter. Technical Sanskrit works are greatly appreciated only if the upakrama contains within itself the entire teaching of the work in a nutshell. In that sense it is interesting to note that this vidyA sUtra contains within itself the entire teaching of the bRRihadAraNyaka upaniShad.
One may be tempted to ask: How then do we convert the limited sAkShi (our individual jIva) into the limitless sAkShi (brahman)? This question is however ill-posed. For sAkShi is always the non-specified (=non-individualised) awareness which is present in all three facets of Time. It never becomes ‘limited’ or ‘specified’. The paramAtmA has not ‘become’ the jIvAtmA. That is why the terminology of ‘conversion’ in the question has been said to be wrongly posed. The jIvAtmA may ‘feel’ it is limited and located. It is the feeling that is wrong. When we say ‘I am limited, I am finite’, we are only giving expression to this wrong feeling. This ‘feeling’ arises from a confusion born out of ignorance. So the thing to do is to remove this ignorance. I, the sAkShi, is non-exclusive. The agents of functions, such as the speaker (vaktA), the hearer (shrotA), the thinker (mantA), are all mutually exclusive. They cannot be simultaneously present. But the sAkShi is always present. Hearing or speaking or thinking is not the Atman’s intrinsic nature, because each of these functions disappear when the other is present. One should know oneself to be the ever-present non-specified Consciousness. This is what ‘AtmA ityeva upAsIta’ says.
In practical terms this means, throw back the seer-hood to the eye that does the seeing function; throw back the thinker-hood to the mind that does the thinking function; and so on. And know yourself as the unqualified, unspecified Consciousness (nirvisheSha-caitanyaM), which is in the seer but itself is not the seer, which is in the thinker but itself is not the thinker. So the word ‘upAsIta’ (whose direct dictionary meaning is: should be meditated upon) of the sUtra is better taken as meaning ‘should be known’, because of the context of discussion.
Shankara’s Commentary on vidyA sUtra
Acharya Shankara writes therefore a very elaborate commentary at this point. In fact he raises the point of view of the pUrva-mImAmsaka-s and counters their possible objections. The pUrva-mImAmsaka point of view is that anything in the veda-s that is not a statement of commandment (do’s and don’ts – vidhi nishedha vAkyAni) is of no value. Their contention is that the vidyA sUtra is also a commandment and it enjoins the action of meditation. Shankara refutes both these contentions. Shankara says the karma-kANDa (the ritualistic portion) of the veda-s has lots and lots of commandments and so it is full of requirements of action. There is no such doing of action prescribed in the j~nAna-kANDa portion of the veda-s, because vedAntic statements are not for ‘doing’ anything; they are only meant for ‘knowing’ something in the form of realisation of a truth.
The right analogy for this is the standard rope-snake analogy where by the very fact of knowing the truth that what you see is only a rope is enough to remove the ignorance by which you thought it was a snake and therefore also enough to remove the tremor etc. that you felt on the wrong thinking that it was a snake. So also the truth that your Self is brahman removes the ignorance of the saMsAra thought ingrained in you and thereby removes the misery consequent to the wrong feeling of limitedness by saMsAra.
Now we shall take up the objections like those of the pUrva-mImAmsaka view and see how Shankara meets them.
Part 1, Part 9, Part 11 Coming Soon...