TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD
Tasmaadvaa etasmaadaatmana aakaashah sambhuutaha I Aakaashaadvaayuhu I Vayoragnihi I Agneraapaha I
Adbhyah pruthivii I Pruthivyaa oshadhyaha I
Oshadhiibhyo annam I Annaatpurushaha II2.1.3II
“From that (which is) this Atman, is space born; from ‘Akaasha’, air; from air, fire; from fire, water; from water, earth; from earth, herbs; from herbs, food; and from food, man.” 2.1.3
……When first the teacher declared that the Supreme is realised by those who know ‘Brahman’, the gurgling question in the heart of the student was, ‘What is this Brahman?’ The teacher defined that Brahman as ‘Truth, Knowledge, Infinity’. Even then, the disciples were not satisfied, since if there be an Infinite Truth, they had not been told where exactly was this Truth to be contacted.
……….Here we find that the Brahman defined can be realised in the innermost recesses of the seeker’s own personality. The realm in which we can rediscover this Absolute Nature in us is explained here as the Supreme sky which is exactly what was meant by the term the ‘cave of the heart’ used earlier.
The Pure Consciousness described at first objectively and later on indicated subjectively is one and the same. The Reality, being one, All-pervading and Eternal, cannot be limited in any sense of term and, therefore, to assume that the Reality is not at once immanent and transcendent is to misjudge the Divine Nature. To say that the divine is yonder there to be realised as the Sultan of the Skies is a terrible blasphemy, for, it will be attributing a limitation upon Its Infinite and All-pervading Nature, and if Truth be within also then it is certainly realizable there in ourselves.
It is to indicate this fact—that the Consciousness within and without is one unbroken homogeneous Truth, that in this section we are told, “from That (which is) this Atman”.
This idea is brought our fully and clearly in Vedanta through an analogy of the outer-space and the room-space or pot-space. Space being a subtle, all-pervading element it cannot be limited either by the walls of the room or the material of the pot. And yet in our gross concept we generally identify space with the four walls of the room or consider space as conditioned by the material of the pot, and declare it as the ‘room-space’ or the ‘pot-space’. Space being homogenous, is one and the same within and without. The very material of the pot or the walls of the room are themselves standing in space and so space is not limited by the material walls.
Similarly, the cause-of-space, necessarily subtler than the space itself, the Reality, is one-without-a-second—both within the pluralistic world and without it. This oneness of the spiritual essence ‘in’ man with the Infinite Reality, which is the substratum of the entire phenomenal world, is indicated here when the Sashtra says, ‘from That which is this Atman’. (Source: Taittiriya Upanishad by Swami Chinmayananda, 1958, P. 124-30)13.11.2018.37
Tasmaadvaa etasmaadaatmana aakaashah sambhuutaha I Aakaashaadvaayuhu I Vayoragnihi I Agneraapaha I
Adbhyah pruthivii I Pruthivyaa oshadhyaha I
Oshadhiibhyo annam I Annaatpurushaha II2.1.3II
“From that (which is) this Atman, is space born; from ‘Akaasha’, air; from air, fire; from fire, water; from water, earth; from earth, herbs; from herbs, food; and from food, man.” 2.1.3
.……First of all the subtlest of the Five Elements, ‘Akasha’, emerged from Truth and from it a grosser element the ‘Air’ came; a more grosser ‘Fire’ came from ‘Air’; and a still more grosser element ‘Water’ manifested itself from the Fire; and the series ended with the grossest manifestation the element ‘Earth’.
These Five Elements have been accepted as the fundamentals in the manifested world of matter, by almost all the philosophers and scientists of the world, according to whom the entire pluralistic phenomenon is an endless variety of combinations and manipulations of these five Great Elements.
These Five Elements are arranged in their order according to their relative subtlety, measured in terms of their qualities. ‘Akasha’ considered to be the subtlest has only one quality, ‘sound’: and we know sound cannot be created where there is no space. The ‘Air’ has the quality of sound and also its own special quality, the ‘touch’; and to that degree air is considered grosser than ‘Akasha’. Next in the series, Fire, has all the qualities of ‘Space’ and ‘Air’ apart from its own quality of ‘form’; water, besides the qualities of all the previous ones,—namely sound, touch and from—has its own special quality of ‘taste’. And ‘Earth’ the grossest of the lot has all the four qualities described, along with its own specific quality of ‘smell’.
Thus, we find Great Elements—each representing one or the other of the sense-objects cognisable by man through his sense-organs—are described, in the poetic language of the scriptures, as the deities of the five sense-organs: ‘Akasha’ in the ears, ‘Air’ in the skin, ‘Fire’ in the eyes, ‘Water’ in the tongue and ‘Earth’ in the nose.
………though macrocosmically this portion reads as the story of the elements and their manifestations from the Supreme, microcosmically it at once expresses how in the individual, the five great sense-organs, the ears, the skin, the eyes, the tongue and the nose rose as though a separate creation from the ‘Atman’.
‘From Earth, the Food’—Out of the gross Earth rose up the entire world of vegetation and among the herbs, plants and trees are the food materials which can maintain the physical health and stamina of the individual. The food that is taken in large quantities by the father crystallizes into its essence as the seeds in him and a seed fertilising an ovule in the womb of the mother grows into its full maturity, to be born as an individual called ‘Purusha’.
(Source: Taittiriya Upanishad by Swami Chinmayananda, 1958, P. 124-30)13.11.2018.38
