Lights on the Upanishads

VAISHVANARA VIDYA

"In all worlds, in all beings, in all selves he eats the food."¹³⁹

In high terms the Upanishad describes the glory of the Sadhana, called vai śvānara vidya and therefore of the sublime status in realisation of one who adopts this line and worships Brahman as the vai śvānara åtman. It is true that all the Sadhanas of the Upanishads lead to and converge in the attainment of Brahmic realisation; but the starting-points differ, the lines of approach vary, the results seen on the way in the working out of the Sadhana, may be diverse and the ultimate realisation itself, essentially one, is distinguished with a certain stress on one or other aspect of Brahman. For the One Brahman in its immense Reality stands over and above the All even as It does behind the All, presents itself in its countless features in the multiple manifestation and is revealed, initially, in the particular aspect through which the approach is made as determined by the competence and temperament of the sådhaka. Thus we find the Sadhana of Brahman as vai śvānara ātman spoken of in the Chhandogya (V.11-18) which we have chosen to enquire into in this brief discourse. We have a different version of the same vidyā in the S’atapatha Brāhmaṇa to which we shall have occasion to refer.

Who is the instructor of the vaiſvānara vidyā and whom did he instruct? What is the precise significance of the term vaiśvānara as taught in the Upanishads? Is there any connection between the vaiſvānara of the Upanishads and the vai svānara agni of the Rig Veda ? In what respect do they differ? What is the character of this Sadhana? Is it instruction or initiation? What is the fruit that results from the Sadhana ?

These are some of the questions we shall discuss here and before proceeding let us mention the context as stated in the Chhandogya.

“Who is our Self? What is Brahman?” This enquiry seized the minds of five men who were great householders well-versed in the Vedic learning. They agreed upon a decision to approach the well-known Uddalaka Aruni ’with a request to grant them Knowledge of vaisvānara ātman. When they came to Aruni, the latter realised that it would be difficult for him to answer all their questions, to clear all their doubts, and pointed to another source, offered to accompany them to king Ashvapati Kaikeya who was known to be an adept in the vai fvānara sādhanā. He was a king in whose realm there was no thief, no miser, no drunkard, none neglected the Fire worship, none was ignorant or unchaste, man or woman. Such was the efficiency and benevolence of his administration. Yet he was renowned for his Wisdom, for his Knowledge of the vai śvānara vidyā. This shows, we may note in parenthesis, that Brahmic wisdom is not opposed to activities of life in the world; or, this is a fine earlier illustration of the oft-quoted line of the Gita, “ Yoga is skill in works.” Then the king welcomed with due respect the Brahmins led by Uddalaka, offered to give them presents at the ensuing sacrifice he was to perform, and requested them to stay on. But on learning the object of their visit, he was pleased to instruct them and asked them to come the next morning. He was pleased, as Shankara remarks, because of their humility and of their craving for knowledge from a kșatriya, lower to them in social rank. Next morning he called and questioned them separately, for the teacher must know what and how far the pupil already knows, so that he may proceed with further instructions.

“Whom do you worship as the ātman?” was the common question that each one of them was asked and we shall state their answers in brief. Prachinashala, son of Upamanyu, worshipped Heaven as the ātman; Satyayajna, son of Pulusha, worshipped the Sun as ātman; Indradyumna, grandson of Bhallavi, vāyu; Jana, son of Sarkaraksha, ākāśa; Budila, son of Ashvatarashva, the Waters; Uddalaka, son of Aruna, worshipped the Earth as ātman. Apparently satisfied with the several answers of the pupils, the teacher said in effect: your worship is all right as far as it goes and indeed yields certain benefits too; but the Heaven, the shining brilliance, sutejas, is only the head of the atman, the Universal Being; the Sun is just the Eye, the vāyu is but the Breath, ākāśa is the Body, the Waters are the Bladder, the Earth is the Feet of the ātman, the Universal Being. If you had not come to me, those limbs in you would have witherd or blown off which correspond to the parts of the ātman which you worship mistaking severally each part for the whole.¹⁴⁰

Thus the teacher corrects the wrong notions of the vaiśvānara ātman entertained by the disciples and proceeds to point out positively the way of worshipping the Universal Person, for this ātman is purușa, not a mere all-pervading existence or being.¹⁴⁰: Here Shankara’s commentary reminds us of the popular maxim of the blind men and the elephant — hasti-darśane iva jātyandhāḥ. Certain blind men wished to have an idea of the shape of an elephant. Touching the trunk one thought that the elephant was like a snake; another caught hold of a leg and supposed that he resembled a post and so on. This maxim is often used to illustrate the error of mistaking a part for the whole.

How is He, this vaiſvānara, to be conceived and worshipped ? Heaven and Earth, it is said, are the head and feet, Sun is the eye, Wind, vāyu, is the breath, the infinite Extension, ākaśa, is the body and the Waters are the wealth, rayi, of the Universal purușa, the vaiśvānara ātman. Then, are we simply to put these parts together for a correct conception of the whole ? Could that be a real and effective help in the worship of vāiśvānara? We can, indeed, form for ourselves an idea of the vastness of the Universal purușa as one having for head the Heaven, the top, the summit of this creation; for his feet, the Earth, the bottom, the support from below; and in between the vast Extension for his body and so on. But that would be a symbolic representation of the immense Universal ātman in a measure of space. Besides, parts pieced together cannot form into a living soulful whole. It is the Spirit, the Self in all these things that brings them into being, allots their place in the plan of creation, makes a whole of them and gives them their value in His own Cosmic embodiment. Therefore they are not to be ignored, but it is the atman that is to be worshipped as dwelling in the Universal Being of which Heaven, Earth and the rest are the limbs, and these are, as has been said, but a measure in terms of space of the Immeasurable — pradeśa-mātra, a term used in the Upanishads with a double significance.¹⁴¹

But how is the ātman, the Self, the Soul of universal Being to worshipped and realised ? He is the Self of all these things, all creation. He is known as abhivimāna, the inner I behind each and all as explained by the commentator —pratyagātmataya abhivimiyate aham iti vijñāyate. Therefore one has to realise Him in one’s own being as the Self before one can effectively comprehend and perceive Him as the Self of all selves and all creation. For as the Brhadaranyaka (1.4) states graphically “ ātman alone was all this in the beginning. He was in the form of a Person, puruṣa. He looked around and saw nothing else than Himself. He said I am ’ therefore His Name is I.”¹⁴² It is the ātman, the purușa, who sees (anu-viksya) and creates himself (srstvā) in the very act of the look and enters into (anuprāviſat) the creation, into all things, all beings and all selves. Well has it been said that “The individual I and the universal I are one; in each world, in each being, in each thing, in each atom is the Divine Presence, and it is man’s mission to manifest it ”, (The Mother in The Supreme Discovery). And because the I of each and the great Universal I are one, one has to take the cue from one’s own self, the I which one knows or fancies one knows. For ordinarily what we take to be ourselves is a perpetual bubble of the I afloat on the superficies of our being, of our bodily life; it is an incessant shade of the I thrown on the surface, on the waves of feeling and thinking and willing over the deep waters of our Self. Our true being is the Soul, the individualised Self whose light plays upon and supports and activates our separative existence in mental and bodily life. This superficial self is a shadow of the Soul, it is the ego figuring the Self; however persistent, continuous and unceasing in its appearance, it is frothy, has no substance of its own but is there all through as a reminder of the constant Presence within of the Self which is the true import of the I. It is this Self which is within us established as our innermost Being that Ashvapati Kaikeya calls upon Uddalaka and others to realise as the vai śvānara ātman, the Self that is the Universal Purusha. Not only does he instruct, but actually initiates them into the Sadhana as we find it stated in the slightly different version of the vaiśvānara vidyā in the S’atapatha Brāhmaṇa (X.6). Ashvapati convinces the pupils of the essential oneness, of the identity of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, explains the already declared parts in the external, in the Universal, as correspondences of those within, in the Individual, and finally leads them to the understanding of the central point of the teaching. “I shall make you realise” (abhisampādayi-şyāmi), says Ashvapati pointing to every part (upadiśan), Head, Eye, Nose and others and affirms that each is indeed the vaiśvānara but that He is in the form of a Person, puruşavidhaḥ, this universal Fire, vai švānara agni, firmly established within in man (puruṣe antaḥ pratisthitaḥ). The Upanishads always give general instructions, but they do not give the actual methods of the Sadhana; even when it is possible to find out the method from oral or recorded teachings, the actual and definite working out of the sadhana takes place only when the would-be sadhak receives the help, the influence, the power from some source human or Divine or more truly from the Divine in the human. This fact is plain from many texts of the Upanishads themselves, from passages such as "He knows who has a teacher” (ācāryavān puruṣo veda). “Thou art our father who leads us across the shore beyond ignorance” (tvam hi nah pitä avidyāyah param pāram tārayasi), “For this knowledge one shall approach the Guru ” (tad vijñānārtham sa gurum eva abhigacchet). The Guru, then, is the master who pours the influence into the competent vessel, and gives the start as well as the final touch to the Sadhana in the disciple. For he is, in the words of Sri Aurobindo, “One who has risen to a higher consciousness and being and he is often regarded as its manifestation or representative. He not only helps by teaching and still more by his influence and example but by a power to communicate his own experience to others.” And this is precisely what is meant when the Guru Ashvapati declares abhisampādayisye, “I shall effect the attainment in you"

And once the realisation of the Universal Self is there as the burning Fire, the Soul within one’s own being, its application extends, the Presence of the same Universal Self in other selves, in all beings, in all existences. For all these are abodes of the ātman; things and beings, living and sentient or apparently non-living and insentient are all ātman as the Many. “Let me be born as the Many ” (bahu syām prajāyeya); it is the will, the glance, the attitude of the atman, that causes the creation and therefore He is first to be realised as the in-dwelling Fire in others also as in oneself. It is not to be supposed that the ātman is really beyond all manifested existences and to realise Him one must go beyond using the worship of the Universal Soul as a means so long as one is in the Ignorance. That the atman is beyond and above all is perfectly true; but it is also equally true that the whole creation is the product of his Will, is the Home of his presence, and in fact Himself as the One and All. It is not to be denied that this ātman is one and above and beyond the All and is and can be so realised. That is an experience, the culmination of a different Sadhana. But the vaiſvānara vidyā is concerned with the realisation of that ātman —who is in his own right what we may call the Transcendental — who has willed and become the many selves. He is to be worshipped, seen and felt as the Universal Being whose indivisible Presence dominates the All, the divided existences in the universe of all forces and things and beings and souls. But the divided existence, it must be noted, is at once an expression and veil over the undivided Self; hence each division is to be regarded as a part of the undivided whole and must not be overlooked.

Ashvapati, then, instructs his pupils Aruni and others in the art of living in accord with the truths of the vaiśvānara, the Universal Person. As the sustenance of the material body is indispensable for living, he enjoins upon them not to eat the food and live as if the vai śvānara ātman were something separate, but to live—and eat for living—with the knowledge of Him as the One Fire who lives aglow in all the creatures. Anyone who so lives, lives also for other souls, for other beings around, for the rest of the whole universe; for he lives not as a divided being separated in feeling and knowledge from the source of his existence, the Universal Person seated within him as in all others. He lives in conscious union with Him, lives a conscious life aware of the fact that what we call creatures are formations for the housing of the Great Presence of the Universal Fire, vaiśvānara agni. When he eats, he knows and feels that it is the awakened Fire of the Universal Person in him that eats. When he takes in the substance of matter, he knows that it comes from the Universal Being. His living is a source of joy and power to the living of others, to the general progress of the world, of all beings, and of the human kind in particular that is closer to his level. Whether the others in the outer world know it or not, he radiates the rays of Wisdom, throws out waves of life-giving strength, emanates the concrete influence spontaneously exercised for the onward march of the soul’s progress in others. Therefore other souls feel joyous and satisfied when they are drawn to him.¹⁴³ The food he takes in is an offering to the Universal Fire in the vital mechanism of his being, prāņa-agnihotra. This is the real meaning of the Fire ritual, and our text says (V.24) that whoever, without knowing this, performs the ritual, pours his offering on the ashes removing the burning charcoal, angārān apohya bhasmani juhuyāt. But when one does the real Agnihotra, the offering to the Universal Fire, all beings yearn towards that true Fire sacrifice, just as hungry children surround their mother. In the Fire ritual of one who knows, all sins, continues the Upanishad, are like a tuft of reed burnt to ashes.

This, in sum, is the vaiſvānara vidyā of the early Vedantic seers. But there is one remarkable feature which distinguishes it from the other Vidyas mentioned in these scriptures. That this is one of the earliest Upanishadic Sadhanas directly drawing their inspiration from the hymns of the Rig Veda is certain without a shadow of doubt; and this will be clear from a careful perusal of the vaiśvānara Hymns of the Rik Samhita.

It is not to be supposed that the other Sadhanas and teachings are not based in some way or other on the spiritual teachings of Vedic Wisdom. The thinkers and sages of the Upanishads have certainly drawn their inspiration and support from the Hymns when they were engaged in developing their Self-culture for the realisation of the ultimate Truth, for confirming their lives to the laws of the Spirit, for the attainment of Brahmanhood while still living on Earth. In their endeavours, in their successes, in their conclusions, they often seek the support of the Vedic seers, though we may not always trace their names or find their hymns in the Samhitas that have come down to us; they make mention of certain verses presumed to be those of the Vedic seers though they are not traceable now; they actually quote the Riks also, but in their own sense and for their purpose though their meanings in the Rig-Vedic context may differ or may not be exactly the same. But living in an age far posterior to the Vedic epoch, their method of expression is more intellectual and less symbolic and mystical than that of their Vedic forefathers. Even when they use Vedic symbols, they give them often different significances. The results of their explorings in the fields of the inner Life and Spirit, the truths of their intuitive perceptions, the means at their disposal and the lines they proceed along, the fruits of their labour in the occult and spiritual realms, are often implicitly, but in authentic tones, expressed in a language that is more intelligible to the mentality of our age and fairly far removed from that of the Rig Vedic Hymns. Thus we find that they do not record their discoveries and deliver their messages in terms which are too abstract and rarefied as are those with which later Indian Philosophies and Metaphysics of the modern age have familiarised us. Nor do they employ the mystical language of the hoary symbolic age of the Vedas where concrete figures and images are in common currency. The Upanishads speak of the Self, ātman, Brahman and that is the supreme Being, the Creator, God — the God of gods and men and all existences. Even when they mention the Vedic gods, Agni or Vayu or Indra or Surya, these occupy subordinate positions, their functions are different, narrow and limited. But in the Vedas, the Gods occupy superior places, for each God retains his distinction and personality in the front, is himself the whole God-head behind in the plenitude of his Cosmic and Supracosmic existence. This has been shown by Sri Aurobindo in his translations of and comments on the Riks; and the fact is on the face of it easily discernible in the case of Agni, the Divine Flame, who is the first and foremost of the Gods awakened or born in man. Agni becomes other Gods in his progress as the functions vary according to the needs that arise in the course of his developing puissance in the various stages of man’s inner progress or in the rising tiers of creation in the Cosmic manifestation. That agni vai śvānara is plainly hymned in the Rig Veda as sūrya is a well-known instance (Rig Veda X. 88). While the Upanishads generally assign a lesser place to the Gods as psychological powers within us and as Forces of Nature, they give a high place to the vai śvānara agni and mention Him as ātman which is the same as Brahman, the Supreme Being, The S’atapatha text of the vai śvānara vidyā mentions Him as Agni, and even though the Chhandogya does not expressly mention Him as Agni, it concludes with what is called the prāņa-agnihotra to which reference has been already made. What exactly is meant by vai śvānara? It means the Universal Person or Soul and that is generally the accepted sense; but it also means One who is actively present in the Universe, in all things and beings, gods and men; and if we remember the radical significance of this Vedic term, it means the Leader within (naraḥ, netā) of gods and men, of the Universe and from within the Universe. Substantially the Upanishad also uses it in this significance, judging from the universal and spiritual character of the adjective abhi-vimāna used in the text to express the nature of the ātman one is called upon to worship and realise.

What is the idea conveyed by the term abhivimāna? Deriving the word from man" to know” some commentators have interpreted it, as has been already stated, to mean “One who is to be understood as the Inner I.” But the word vimāna, wherever it occurs in the Rig Veda, is used in the sense of a word derived from mā to measure. Sayana invariably gives the same meaning to vimāna; either “ measure”, limit”, and “make definite”, or “construct and create " is the sense attached to it rajaso vimānam lokasya paricchedakan “One who measures out and makes definite the world” (Rv.II.40.3 Sayana). Or, rajaso vimānaḥ lokasya nirmātā,

“One who builds the world” (Rv.IX. 62.14 Sayana).¹⁴⁴ But whether the word vimāna is taken to mean measure with distinction", višeșeņa māna, or “ to build or create ”, nirmāņa, it does not make any essential difference. For whatever is created is measured; measure itself is “setting a limit to and making definite what is to be created”. Indeed creation itself is measured out of the Immeasurable—the Illimitable limiting itself to a part, the Indeterminate willing and putting forth an aspect Self-determined and Self-conditioned and bounded by the Boundless. That, indeed, is the import of ātman, the Self who “ looked around, willed, created became the many ” as mentioned in many passages of the Upanishads.

There is another consideration which should weigh with us in determining the meaning of abhivimānam used as an adjective of ātmānam in the Chandogya text. Even if it is taken to mean “One who is to be understood as the inner I” distinguished from the other parts of the being, it need not be inconsistent with the sense of the ātman who sees, measures and creates. But one cannot afford to miss the significance of the term pradeśa-mātra applied to ātman. As already pointed out, it means that the atman is to be worshipped as vaiśvānara who is of the measure of a span, or of the vast universe embracing Heaven, Earth and the Vast Extension etc., forming His Head and Feet and Body and the rest.¹⁴⁵

If so, what is taught in the vai śvānara vidyā is not the realisation of the Self who is beyond and unrelated to Creation, though still the general source and support and indifferent or equal to all activity and inertness, always remaining the Absolute of absolutes of knowledge and power, of light and life, but is the realisation of ātman, the supreme as the Indweller, the Universal Being, Vaishvanara, who is ever awake and active from within and without us, the Great Guide. It may be asked even if such a high spiritual thought may have been possible for the sages of the Upanishads, how we could say that this Sadhana owes its inspiration to the Vedic Hymns themselves. If it were a question of relying upon two or three expressions of the Upanishads that are found in some form in the Rig Veda, then certainly it may be considered rather ingenious. But when we take the whole body of the hymns devoted to the agni vaiśvānara and find his glory sung and the same ideas expressed though in a more sublime and elaborate manner, we are doubtless entitled to conclude that the vidyā we have been considering has the special distinction of close association with the ages-old Vaishvanara of the Rig Veda. To be convinced of the correctness of the position we have taken up there is only one condition necessary for us to fulfil and that is to dismiss from our minds the idea that all spiritual thought is to be traced to and found in the Upanishads alone and that the Vedic Hymns are meant for the purpose of rituals, to subserve the karma-kāņda portion of the Vedas, Instead of listening to the words of others about the sages of Upanishads, if we hear what they say about themselves and about the Vedas, our difficulty would vanish at once. For they proclaim quite often that the fountain-head of their inspiration is the superior wisdom of the mystics and the traditions embedded in the Vedic hymns of their forefathers. Nor is it correct to think that the germs of philosophic speculation and spirituality in general are to be found only in the last book of the Rig Veda. It is true that the language of many hymns of the last mandala belongs obviously to a comparatively later period, but there are also many hymns therein of which the antiquity of the language is unquestionable. That spiritual ideas and sublime thought run through the body of the whole hymnal text in every Mandala will be apparent to any one who cares to go through them. We can leave aside for our purpose those hymns which are on their first appearance either patently symbolic and occult or ritualistic and too worldly in their drift. But in each Mandala we have hymns which, if straightly looked into arrest our attention, bespeak a cosmic breadth of vision on the part of the hymnodist and inpress us with the Soul’s inspired soarings to the pinnacles of Divine glory. If we look into the hymns of the agni vaisvānara and confine ourselves to them which are about twenty in number scattered over all the Mandalas of the Rik Samhita except the eighth, the ninth and perhaps the fifth, we cannot escape the impression that would be left on us of the sublime spiritual function and the cosmic character of the Godhead, the Universal Person, the Divine Fire, vaiśvānara agni.¹⁴⁶

This, then, is the vaiſvānara vidyā of the Upanishads. It is a Sadhana that preserves the Vedic tradition of the Universal Godhead, the Divine Fire, awake in man as the Self of his self, vigilant, active, guiding him to universalise himself on the lower levels of Creation while he still lives in the world of Matter as an individualised mind and self; it starts with the conception, faith and will to recognise the active Presence of the vai śvānara ātman, the Universal purușa in each living being; it progresses by the extension in thought, feeling and action of the individual to others immediately around, to whomsoever he sees and comes in contact with in his interchange with the environment, and indeed to all beings, to the world at large; it culminates in the realisation of the individual completely freed from the bonds that chain him to the separate and finite living matter and so identified with the Universal Divine Presence in himself, in all beings, in all worlds, that whatever he does is seen and felt as the doing of the Sole Self of the Universe and, indeed, one with the Universal purușa, when he eats the food he eats the food in all worlds, in all beings and in all selves, “ sa sarveșu lokeșu sarveșu bhūteșu sarveșu ātmasu annam atti."