Real & Unreal Series by Chittaranjanji

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

 

Located the following gems while browsing through http://www.swami-

krishnananda.org/vaish/vaishv_3.html in Section captioned "The Self

as the Universal Whole" in Swami Krishnanandaji's essay "VAISHVANARA

VIDYA" (An exposition of cosmic meditation as adumbrated in the

Chhandogya Upanishad). Thought it was relevant to our pUrNamadah

discussion and CN's co-extensiveness:

 

 

QUOTE

 

"There is no need to pour water and put manure on every leaf of the

tree if you want to tend a tree. You have to water the root, that is

sufficient. If you want to take care of a huge tree, what do you do?

Do you go to the top of the tree and count every leaf and sprinkle

manure over it, one by one, water every leaf, every flower, every

fruit? No. You concern yourself with the root of the tree, and then

you see there is an efflorescence of every part of the tree,

automatically. Whatever you have obtained through these discrete

forms of meditation, you can obtain at one stroke by a total

meditation, which is the meditation on the Vaishvanara-Atman. The

root of the Reality is missed by your consciousness. Whoever can

conceive in his mind the true Vaishvanara as that which extends from

the earth to the heavens, from the heavens to the earth, from the

topmost level of manifestation down to the lowest level, missing no

link whatsoever, visualises the Whole. If you can see through your

mind this extensiveness of manifestation from the highest to the

lowest, at once, without missing any part, which means to say, if you

can be comprehensive in a universal way in your envisagement of the

form of Reality, and if it can be the Atman, the Self at the same

time, then what is it that you lack? This is the Vaishvanara-Atman,

the All-Self. Whoever can meditate in this manner becomes the Self of

every being all at once. One becomes the Self of all the worlds; he

becomes the Self of anything that can be anywhere, and he becomes the

possessor of the glory of anything that exists anywhere, in any

realm, in any form, under any circumstance. This is the secret I let

out to you, if you can contemplate in this manner. This is a

Herculean feat, because the mind cannot think like this. If you slip

from the grasp of your mind when you think like this, you will find

that the mind falls back upon its old groove of thinking in terms of

particulars and externalisation of objects. Who can contemplate the

object as non-externalised? Not any human being. But this is what you

are supposed to do. All these parts which you have mentioned are

various limbs of the Cosmic Body. You have to bring them together and

conceive the Whole, at once, in your consciousness. Do not say, 'This

is the sun, this is space, this is water,' and all that. Do not think

like this. Let all these be thought together, immediately, in their

comprehensiveness, without missing any one whatsoever, by feeling

oneness with Earth, Water, Sun, Air, Space, Heaven, and everything."

 

"Now, having described the cosmic aspect of the Vaishvanara-Atman as

the Supreme Object of meditation, the Upanishad introduces us to an

immediate consequence that follows from such meditation. The

meditator cannot stand outside this Great Object of meditation. This

is very clear. Because of the comprehensiveness of the Object, the

Universality of the Vaishvanara-Atman, the meditator has already

undergone a transmutation of personality, entered into the bosom of

Reality……….."

 

 

UNQUOTE

 

Swamiji sure doesn't recommend us to throw the universe in the

dustbin! It and its seer are very much in the bosom of Reality! The

seer has become Vaishvanara - the Whole – the pUrNa of pUrNamadah

verse!

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair