The Aitareya Upanishad-3. Swami Krishnananda
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04/02/2020.
Post-3.
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1.
However, we are eager to know how this world came to be. So, as a mother tells a story to a little child, the great metaphysical philosophers of the Upanishads, taking into consideration the weakness of human thought and its involvement in space and time absolutely, used the term – tentatively, for the time being, and not finally, of course – "the Atman alone was". Atma va idam eka evagra asit, nanyat kin cana misat (Ait. 1.1.1) is the first sentence of the Aitareya Upanishad.
#There was nothing alive anywhere at that time, when the Atman alone was.
#Outside the Atman, outside Brahman, outside the Absolute nothing can be, because it is a non-relative existence.
The emanation of this universe is made possible by the appearance of space and time. It is humanly impossible to imagine how time can emanate from a timeless eternity. It is not possible for anyone to understand how that could be possible; yet, somehow, that has become possible.
But when it has become possible, the process that actually follows this unthinkable, unintelligible, transcendental possibility is involved in certain stages, which are the very degrees mentioned in the Taittiriya Upanishad: inwardly, psychologically, the five koshas; outwardly, cosmically, the elements themselves – space-time, air, fire, water, earth.
#These are the names that we give to certain stages of the manifestation of matter – prakriti, concrete substance, object, or call it externality.
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2.
The Atman, the Universal Being which is Brahman universally, willed this cosmos. Usually religions tell us, "God created the world," "He created the heaven, the earth," and so on. As the Upanishad tells us, this Supreme Being, in willing this cosmos, firstly projected a negation of Universality.
I touched upon this aspect of the matter some time earlier; I am briefly repeating it for your memory. The external, which is the universe, can become meaningful only on a tentative submerging of the Universal Principle; nothing that is external can be in harmony with the Universal.
The word 'Universal' implies that which is inclusive of all things, outside which nothing can be. So if you imagine that the world, which is created, is to some extent external to the Creator – the word 'externality' comes in here – you have to explain what happened to the Universal Being when the external manifested itself. It had covered Itself, as it were – made Itself completely oblivious to all external perception.
When God created the world, it appears as if He has ceased to be, and that is why we see only the world in front of us. We do not see God in front of us, because seeing the Universal is an impossibility. We can perceive, see, only that which is outside, external. The total inclusiveness cannot become an object of perception because that Universal inclusiveness naturally includes the perceiving individual also.
Therefore, no one can perceive or know that which is Universal; hence, God cannot become an object of sense perception. The world, which is an object of sense perception, is somehow a kind of alienation of consciousness into a negation of Universality in the form of an emptiness that we see – space, a large dimension, an extension before us, which equally appears to be infinite for our comprehension.
We cannot imagine the end of space; it is a negative infinity that is presented before us in contradistinction with the positive infinity of the Absolute. The concept of space goes together with the concept of time; we cannot separate one from the other.
#So, modern people generally say space-time rather than space and time.
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04/02/2020.
Post-3.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
However, we are eager to know how this world came to be. So, as a mother tells a story to a little child, the great metaphysical philosophers of the Upanishads, taking into consideration the weakness of human thought and its involvement in space and time absolutely, used the term – tentatively, for the time being, and not finally, of course – "the Atman alone was". Atma va idam eka evagra asit, nanyat kin cana misat (Ait. 1.1.1) is the first sentence of the Aitareya Upanishad.
#There was nothing alive anywhere at that time, when the Atman alone was.
#Outside the Atman, outside Brahman, outside the Absolute nothing can be, because it is a non-relative existence.
The emanation of this universe is made possible by the appearance of space and time. It is humanly impossible to imagine how time can emanate from a timeless eternity. It is not possible for anyone to understand how that could be possible; yet, somehow, that has become possible.
But when it has become possible, the process that actually follows this unthinkable, unintelligible, transcendental possibility is involved in certain stages, which are the very degrees mentioned in the Taittiriya Upanishad: inwardly, psychologically, the five koshas; outwardly, cosmically, the elements themselves – space-time, air, fire, water, earth.
#These are the names that we give to certain stages of the manifestation of matter – prakriti, concrete substance, object, or call it externality.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
The Atman, the Universal Being which is Brahman universally, willed this cosmos. Usually religions tell us, "God created the world," "He created the heaven, the earth," and so on. As the Upanishad tells us, this Supreme Being, in willing this cosmos, firstly projected a negation of Universality.
I touched upon this aspect of the matter some time earlier; I am briefly repeating it for your memory. The external, which is the universe, can become meaningful only on a tentative submerging of the Universal Principle; nothing that is external can be in harmony with the Universal.
The word 'Universal' implies that which is inclusive of all things, outside which nothing can be. So if you imagine that the world, which is created, is to some extent external to the Creator – the word 'externality' comes in here – you have to explain what happened to the Universal Being when the external manifested itself. It had covered Itself, as it were – made Itself completely oblivious to all external perception.
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3.
Therefore, no one can perceive or know that which is Universal; hence, God cannot become an object of sense perception. The world, which is an object of sense perception, is somehow a kind of alienation of consciousness into a negation of Universality in the form of an emptiness that we see – space, a large dimension, an extension before us, which equally appears to be infinite for our comprehension.
We cannot imagine the end of space; it is a negative infinity that is presented before us in contradistinction with the positive infinity of the Absolute. The concept of space goes together with the concept of time; we cannot separate one from the other.
#So, modern people generally say space-time rather than space and time.
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To be continued ....
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