Chhandogya

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Hari-Om

The sixth chapter of the Chhandogya Upanishad begins with the old,

old riddle: Was there a first cause? Shall we, seeing that the

search for cause leads us backwards along an interminable chain, give

up the theory of causation and say that the world came out of

nothing? This cannot be , says the RISHI . Out of nothing, nothing

coul come. None-Being cannot produce Being. Much less could the

phenomenon of consciousness come out of nothing. We must hold that

there was a first cause: SAT: i.e., Being with consciousness.

 

SAT willed that it may expand and multiply. So it produced light,

THEJAS. The Spirit in Thejas willed to multiply and produced water.

The Spirit in Water willed to become manifold, and it produced all

the living things of the world.

 

Lest the reader imagine that the march of modernscience has made this

explanation out of date, it maaaay be recalled that neither Chemistry

nor Biology nor any other physical science explains anything. Plato

depicted mankind as chained in a cave in such a way that they can

look only on the wall which forms the back of the cave; they cannot

see the busy life outside but only the shadows which objects moving

in the sunshine cast on the walls of the cave. For the captives in

the cave, the shadows constitute the whole phenomenal worls, the

world of reality remaining foreever beyond their ken. Sir James

Jeans, the great physist, says that modern science has cone to the

same conclusion. The reality behind the phenomenal world is

unreachable. Chemical and other 'laws' are only classifications and

simplifications of observed phenomena and nothing moreNeither

familiarity nor classification can itself be explanation. The

unexplained factor outside the cave that permanently circumscribes

our knowledge is the SAT of Chhandogya.

 

" How can this vast universe with its multitudinous variety be

produced in this simple way? " asked Svetaketu whom his father,

Uddalaka , was instructing as to how the entire world has been

evolved out of the SAT>

 

'Fetch a fruit of the big Fig tree' said Uddalaka.

'Here is one, Sir' said Svetaketu.

'Break it, what do you see?'

'These little seeds'

'Crush one of the little seeds'

'Yes Sir'

'What do you see inside?

'Nothing' said the son.

 

Yet in the subtle substance inside that little seed , which your eye

does not even perceive, existed all this big branching nyagrodha

tree. Do you wonder at it? Likewise all that exists , this universe ,

was in that SAT which thou too art. Believe it , dear child, thou art

THAT>

 

If the SAT is the all-prevading cause of all, why is it not perceived

clearly?

 

As a lump of salt is dissolved in water and disappears, so is the SAT

lost from view in the worldbut is still immanent in everything in the

universe, as the salt is present in every part of the water.

 

Jai Sree Krishna!