An Excerpts from Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad

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Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad - Conversation Between Yaajnavalkya and

Maitreyi

 

This extract from the conversation between Yaajnavalkya and Maitreyi about

the non-duality of the Atman. (From the fourth Braahmana of the second

chapter of first kaanda)describes the nature of 'SELF.'

 

Maitreyi said, 'Here you have bewildered me, Sir, by saying that when He is

gone there is no more consciouness.'

 

Yaajnavalkya replied, 'Surely, I am not saying anything betwildering. It is

wisdom enough, my dear. For when there is duality, as it were, then one

smells another, one sees another, one hears another, one speaks to another,

one thinks of another and one understands another. But when everything has

become the SELF then by what and whom should one see, by what and whom

should one hear, by what and to whom should one speak, by what and of whom

should one think, and by what and whom should one understand? By what should

one know that by which all this is known? By what, my dear, should one know

the knower?'

 

Ram Chandran