Taittiriya
Presented on: Thursday, January 19, 1989
Presented by: Roger Weir
Intro to the Major Works of the Upanishads
Presentation 3 of 13
Taittiriya
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, January 19, 1989
Transcript:
And by myself.
**inaudible comment from the room**.
Yeah. Are your machines ready? Im going. Let's spur these machines on.
The Taittiriya Upanishad is the only Upanishad that is still widely practiced yet today. it's practice is largely in South India centered around Madras. I don't know how many of you are acquainted with Indian types, but the Madrasas are super sophisticated. Krishnamurti was a Madrasi. They're very elegant. Subtle. They love to not only split hairs but to show you very carefully why it's all necessary.
The Taittiriya Upanishad was written down sometime around 600 B.C. or so. And it belongs to a very large cycle of literature, The Yajur-Veda. And a certain recension of The Yajur-Veda that gives it a kind of an esoteric spin to it. Its purpose is to be a secret of The Yajur-Veda. So that traditionally this Upanishad would be something that you would be told only when you were ready. So, it's truly esoteric in that sense.
The Taittiriya Upanishad is the origin in the Indian tradition of the way in which a certain philosophic structure, which has come to be indispensable in Vedanta. And that structure is centered around the five koshas, the five sheaths, as it were. And in The Taittiriya Upanishad there are three sections. They're always called volleys. And the first section is a preparatory, a transitional section. Which I'll spend most of the time on tonight. The second set, section of the Brahmanaya gives you the power of the teaching. The discourse. It gives you the five koshas as the approach to Brahma. And then the third section, the third volley, which is attributed to a sage named Bhrigu, is like an exclamation mark. It's the taking of the power of the teachings and radiating it out into a presence. And using a language form which is almost like a rhetorical declamation, centered around the kind of Upanishadic realization, Tat Tvam Asi. Thou art that.
So that with The Taittiriya Upanishad we have a different sort of Upanishad from the first two. The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad and The Chandogya Upanishads are very early. They're very large. They're still somewhat compendious. They're still somewhat clumsy. But with The Taittiriya you begin to have that characteristic streamlined structure. That whoever has written this down has understood that the structure is what will become memorable. and that the content will be recalled from the structure. But the mnemonic key is to posit a structure which is powerful enough to remain. that is to say, if you're trying to remember content you're still dealing on a mythic horizon. You're still dealing with the imaginative function. but when you shift from content to structure, then you're dealing with a symbolic structure which works in memory. And what the memory does it recalls the symbolic structure and all the content is there.
Now with imagination you have to constantly work with the images to try and bring up the content. And you lose your sense of ordering. It's like the dream level. The images are clear enough. And they're powerful enough. And they're evocative enough. But they don't hold their order. But once a symbolic realization is put on to the images and arranges them, then just recalling the structure. In Latin the term was loci ed foci(sp?). The place and the location within some kind of a grid. Some kind of a pattern. If one simply recalls the symbolic structure all of the content is there and will come out of the structure ordered. All of the images, all of the imaginative of work will maintain its arrangement.
So that whereas the imagination is always a kind of a paralleling of the natural world. You're trying to think in images. And you're trying to, to do according to the feelings that the images are giving you. And only as a secondary or sometimes a tertiary actor you're trying to think about well what is this feeling? What are these actions for? What do they mean? Whereas in the symbolic structure, in the mnemonic mode, the meaning is all brought together in focus. So as soon as you have the structure. As soon as you have the symbol. You have it all.
So, The Taittiriya Upanishad in the first, the **inaudible word** volley, gives us the transition from a ritual ceremonial realm, where images and where imaginative functioning is the mode. And where the median between man and God are the demon realms. the demons, the Gods. And incidentally with the Gods are always the demons. Wherever there are Gods there are demons. They go together. They exist as a realm.
The Taittiriya Upanishad in the first volley and the Sheikcha volley, gives us the transition from that world view to a new world view. Where the self as a symbolic understanding wholeness comes into play. And it so far out distances the image or realm, that a whole new sense of being and presence comes into play. It is so new in, at 600 B.C. that The Taittiriya Upanishad.
Is the original document that posits the structure. The five sheiks, the five koshas, leading inward and leading to the realization of Brahma. and always, always, always working in The Taittiriya is the admonition that one can see Brahman through the symbol but that the symbol is not Brahman. One can realize Brahman through the penetration of the five koshas, but Brahman is not limited by the five koshas.
So, in The Taittiriya Upanishad if those two sections have been learned. If they've been taught right. If the teacher is energized with power and elegance right like the third volley tastes right to the experience. And the Bhrigu volley is, is like the dessert. It's like if you have a taste for this you have learned well. So, this is what The Taittiriya Upanishad is in its basic structure.
And there are many translations of the document because it's still used. I consulted six or seven different translations. But it's very difficult to read any one translation through. The reason for this is that after 2,600 years of constant use, there are a lot of ethnocentric and culturally political active parties and viewpoints. Like the Vedantas are actually a school of thought. Although they do not like to think of themselves as that. The Sri Aurobindo people are a new school of thought, although they would consider themselves universal new humanity. But the best translations of The Taittiriya Upanishad are all encased in these kinds of ethnocentric, politically oriented, idea schooled presentations.
So, in order to get away from that somewhat I've brought The Taittiriya Upanishad with three different translations for the three different sections. So as to try and give you as much as possible the sense of what The Upanishad would have been through an accurate teaching of it 2,600 years ago.
For the first I'm going to take a volume which is about 900 pages. And The Taittiriya Upanishad in its translation is only 30 pages, 20 pages. Something like that so you can see that ninety-five or six percent of this is commentary. And in fact, the commentaries of volumnius because The Taittiriya is the basic pattern for which all philosophical exploitation in India came Visa-vee symbolic structures. Before this there were ceremonial structures. There were ritual structures. there were the different Vedas. The Rig-Veda, The Sama-Veda, The Yajur-Veda, The Atharva-Veda. There were in fact various teachers and schools. But it's with The Taittiriya Upanishad for the first time that you get a set style of presenting the symbolic pattern and then making the explication come out of the symbolic pattern.
It makes of India a very peculiar kind of a situation. If the student is not in sync with the teacher, the teacher will not teach. And only to the extent that the student is able to harmonize with the teacher, that the two are in sync will the teacher open up. And by the time the teacher has opened completely, the student has also opened completely. So that the mode, the process mode, of teaching is the delivering of the symbolic structure. So that when the student has received the teaching completely, he is able to understand then the final coda, like in The Taittiriya Upanishad the Bhrigu. At which case the teacher ceases from symbolic exploitation and we'll just talk about how such and such a Rishi did so-and-so. And leave it at that.
Millennia later that whole technique when it passes into China under the guise of Buddhism will become like the Chon Buddhist stories of the Chon masters. And then will be refined in Japan and will become like the little vignettes. The little stories of Zen masters. That you could not appreciate any of those stories if you didn't have the cognitive understanding of the symbolic structure and content. The stories would be meaningless to you.
So, The Taittiriya Upanishad is indeed a very great document. I imagine if the population of the PRS mailing list understood what it was that the room would be filled to overflowing. But unfortunately, such things are not known in our time.
The basic translation commentary of this The Taittiriya Upanishad belongs to Shankar Acharya from the 8th century A.D. But there is also included in this the foreword The Study Of Upanishads by Vidyaranya and The Commentary On Shankar Acharya by Shri Shivachharia. So that there are worlds within worlds of commentaries upon commentaries. And they all have various names and titles. Karekes and Varekes and so forth. Bashas. And I won't burden you with all of this.
At the very beginning of The Taittiriya is an invocation. And the invocation reads somewhat like this. and I'll use Sri Aurobindos translation for this because it's beautiful poetic.
Ohm. Be peace to us Mitra. Be peace to us Varuna. Be peace to us Aryaman. Be peace to us Indra and Brihaspati. May far striding Vishnu be peace to us. Adoration to the eternal. Adoration to the O Vayu. Thou, thou art the visible eternal. And as the visible eternal I will declare thee. I will declare righteousness. I will declare truth. May that protect me. May that protect the speaker. Yay may it protect me. May it protect the speaker. Ohm. Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi.
In the very beginning of The Upanishad is a traditional call and appeal to Vedic powers. We have Mitra, which is the Sun. Varuna which is the ocean. Aryaman which isn't aspect, the self of the Sun and so forth. Indra the king of the Gods. Brihaspati. Vishnu. Were shown that the traditional appeal to these Gods is for a purpose. The purpose is that one should be protected. that bringing all these Gods together, their form together is a protective form. That is to say the Gods collected in this way form an amulet. But that that amulet is nowhere in the world but is in the speaker. It is in me.
And this is a way of beginning and showing that this is the time-honored way in which everyone has dealt with these powers. But we are going to deal with these powers in a different way. We are not going to stay under the umbrella of their protection, but we are going to step freely away from that full amulet of ritual ceremonial origin.
So, Shankar Acharya gives us a wonderful kind of way to understand this. There is a popular saying that many are the obstacles which beset the way to a good end. On our way to BrahmaVidya, on our way to seeing God, especially there are many obstacles placed by the Devas. And we are used to thinking of angels as helpers. Celestial beings as helpers for us. And they are helpers for us as long as we stay under the, under their protection. As long as we remain below that amulet level of the symbolic self. But as soon as we seek to penetrate through that horizon, raise ourselves above that, we find ourselves stopped by the very powers that would help us. And so, the devas are the ones who place the obstacles.
And in The Taittiriya Upanishad the understanding is yogic that it even includes the neural physiology. That at the base of the skull, at the top where the Tsushima would penetrate into the head there is a block there. And that the physiological location of that, the seat of Indra as it's called, is a little bit of flesh that hangs down in the throat. In your tonsil area. The seat of Indra. That there is where the king of Gods as the center of the whole amulet pattern of all of the Gods rests and has his power. And all of their power comes together but does not extend beyond there. That if one goes beyond that threshold, one exceeds the realm where they can be.
And of course, as The Taittiriya Upanishad commentary explains the Divas depend upon man for worship. For sacrifices. Once one has passed beyond that level, a human being no longer worships and sacrifices to the Divas. But turns that energy to realization of the true God. Not of the Divas but of Brahman. And so, the Divas are deprived of that worshiper. They're deprived of that nourishment. And thus, while they are helpers up to that point, they form an obstacle threshold that stop us from going beyond there. So that it takes a tremendous energizing and concentration. The term Dianna, which means not meditation so much but concentration, comes from this. And the correlate of Dianna was always Veria, strength. That it requires everything that one has in order to break through this barrier.
So that in the invocation here, starting off with an homage to the Divas, one has this admonition that what had been a helper structure before is now going to become adversarial.
Then the commentary gives us an injunction here about self-contemplation and symbolic contemplation. Because this is extremely difficult differentiation to make. Especially when one is energizing oneself hundred percent. On that level of intensity, the fineness of this distinction is very difficult to make. So, it has to be made before you get there. It has to be understood and practiced before you raise your intensity to that level.
Upasana is your contemplation are of two kinds. Those which involve the contemplation of the self. With a capital S. Those contemplations which involve the self. And those which are concerned with external symbols. The term in Indian thought for that is Pratitya. There, the Buddha who is, the Buddha who is masterful at language like Jesus was changed that word a little bit when he talked about the law of dependent origination. talked about Pratityasamutpada about how all of the Nidanas, the twelve Nidanas, hanging together. And if you pull any one of them out. They all collapse and vanish. So that was the Pratityasamutpada. The external symbols are Pratitya, just a little bit different. The Buddha is a highly unusual character with language, like Jesus was too.
So, you can, when you contemplate you can use external symbols. Or you can use the self. And it's different. In one your orientation short-circuits you back to the world, back to the realm of the divas. Without you even knowing it. With the other you come up against the barrier and as you energize so to the obstacles energize. As your intensity to concentrate comes into power, so to the resistance of forms ever more clearly. Its like one never sees the devil until you're one step away from heaven. It's like that. That's why the old Irish toast, may you be and have and a half hour before the devil knows you're dead. That sort of the thing. Irish are, are related to the Indians and are, and are wise.
In the former, in the Upasana of contemplation of the self. In this the highest self, the Paramatan. And in Indian Sanskrit whenever you have several As close together you put a consonant in. Sometimes the T. Sometimes it's an N. In this it's an M. So instead of para atman, they make one word and they say Paramatan. But it means para, beyond the atman. The highest self. The highest self.
The highest self is contemplated in his Saguna or conditioned form. there it is taught that the Purusha, known as **inaudible word or two** Paramatan, known as the highest self, abiding in the heart space, has to be contemplated upon as being made up of Manas as immortal. As golden and so on. in the thought that however it is I am that highest self.
So that they the concentration here, if when we're not prepared would inflate your ego to the bursting point. So, it's very dangerous in this sense that one already has to have made your discipline and made your shift of emphasis. Because a grandiose inflation would come out of this otherwise. Many of the so-called spiritual teachers of our time are in this condition. They're blown up balloons bloated with worldly power. And their one pinprick away from being exploded. It's not very hard to do.
So that one has to have disciplined already to accept this expansion. And the expansion can only be accepted on this level of energy and scope by the real self. the highest self. Because the highest self does not have any kind of limitation that would swell. It is in fact the all. It is Brahman. And this is one of the proofs of it because no matter how much energy you feed into it; it is always what it is. It is unchanging. Its proportions, its qualities are what they are and do not change. You cannot take anything away from it. You cannot add to it. And you know that you're feeding it incredible energy. You can electrify the whole body almost to an electrocution level. And the deep-self unchanging. It's, it's like the proof of the pudding.
Another inundation that's used is that no symbol should be contemplated as the self. Otherwise the symbol receives the energize. one ends up becoming a true believer for the cause that that symbol represents. and in, in this way history is littered with the crises that such movements have made.
Later on, in The Taittiriya Upanishad we come to the fourth section of the first volley, the Shiksha volley. And here the translation that we have differs radically from the others. So, I'll give you all three of them and you can make up your mind. You can make up your sense of hearing. Which might be more interesting for you to pursue.
Here's the first one. And this is in our 900-page volume published by Samanta Books and Mantras. Who of all forms, the bull of chance, sprung up from chance immortal. May he, the Lord me, with intelligence cheer of the immortal. Oh God the possessor may I be. Now this is language that has been turned and folded at least four or five times. So that there is no way to read it out in any linear fashion.
Ill give it to you again and then I'll give you the other two translations so you can see. It's a very difficult sentence. It has to do with the first glimmer of the interior sentence. It's the first glimpse. It's like the aurora. It isn't the dawn but it's the false dawn, so called. It the aurora of the dawning of the test of is yourself here.
Who of all forms the bull of chance. Ohm. Sprung up from chance immortal. May he, the Lord me with intelligence cheer of the immortal. Oh God, the possessor may I be.
Here is the translation by Sri Aurobindo.
The bowl of the hymns of Vida, whose visible form is all this universe. He above the Vedas, who sprang from that which is deathless. May Indra increase intellect unto me for my strengthening. Oh God may I become a vessel of immortality. may my body be swift to all works. May my tongue drop pure honey. May I hear vast and manifold lore with my ears.
And the third translation is by Swami Nikhilananda, who is the Swami who gave Joseph Campbell his little tour of the Ramakrishna centers in India. And this is his translation. May he, ohm, who is the bull i.e. the foremost of the Vedic hymns. Who assumes all forms. Who has sprung from the immortal hymns of the Vedas. May that Indra, the Lord, cheer me with wisdom, Mehta. Oh God may I be the possessor of immortality.
Nikhilananda, as you can see is careful to deliver like a professor would deliver the sense of the meaning. Aurobindo poetic as he is, is interested in, in uplifting you. And the translation I'm using here gives you the conundrum straight. You have, you have to wrestle with it. And it's an instant challenge to your perception. So, I use this for you because it, it should not seem easy. It should not seem that, oh well this is, this is simple. It's not simple at all. It's not simple. People who think that the world is simple are quite surprised when they come to terms with their inner self. Usually unfortunately it only happens at the moment of death. And that's a quite a surprise.
Here is a way
I'll give it this way. This is part six of the Shiksha volley. The term that will be used here, the Sanskrit term is Akasha. And our ears are abused by the term Akashic. The term here is used in its original kind of formulation. Its symbolic formulation. It means bright space.
And it reads in this way in the translation. Here in this bright space within the heart is he. That soul who is formed of thought undying full of light.
Here is Sri Aurobindos translation of, of this.
Low this heaven of ether, which is in the heart within. There dwelleth the being who is all mind. The radiant and golden immortal. Between the two pallets. This that hangeth down like the breasts of a woman, is the womb of Indra. Yay. Where the hair at its end whirleth round like an eddy. There it divided the skull and push us through it.
And then Nikhilanandas translation of this crucial passage. There is a space, Akasha, within the heart. And you have to understand this heart here is the Anahata chakra.
There is a space, Akasha, within the heart. In it lies the person, Purusha. Consisting of mind, mono Maya. Immortal and luminous. The sushumna passes through the piece of flesh which hangs down like a nipple between the two pellets and ends where the skull splits and the roots of the hair lie apart. That sushumna is the path for the realization of Indra, the Lord or Saguna, Brahman. The soul of the aspirant passing through sushumna rests in fire represented by the **inaudible word**. He rests in the air represented by the **inaudible word**.
And then you can see that this can get complicated very quickly.
And I'll just release this from the intensity of this and carry us to another section. And then we'll take a break.
These words, the bahu, the bhuva, the Suva and the maha. These are our power sound, phonetic symbols which are meant to energize. And in The Taittiriya Upanishad they're given in such a way that they're reinforced by a series of examples. And the examples actually are five in number so that one gets introduced to the structure of the five sheaths of the koshas without mentioning that fact. So that you're, you're given ohm. And now you're given four very powerful phonetic mantras, which can be shown to have explication in five different realms. And what will be memorable about the teaching is not the content of how they're used in the five different realms but the fact that there is a five-fold structure on this level of symbolic penetration to the universe. So that when the brai
Brahmananda volley comes into play it will tap that memory of that structure and show you that it wasn't in the power phonetics but there was something else at play. Brahman was at play. And what one seeks to realize is not to bag a bunch of power words but to let them open you up to the experience of God. That that's what was important. And not to be deterred or delayed by the fact that one now has incredible power in this world. The real power, the use of that power, is to open up. To open up the sheaths and to pass through. The reason why one has that power is not to dominate the world on any of the five levels. But to open those levels and free oneself for the divine.
Let's take a break and we'll come back to this.
The Taittiriya Upanishad is concerned with delivering not what it's saying but what it's doing. It's concerned with delivering the feel of the movement. Of the apperception, the acceptance, the registering, the remembering and the doing of the form of God.
And so, the way that the first of the third sections, the way that the Shiksha volley begins is exactly the same way it ends. It begins and ends with the same litany. So as to show you this ending is not an ending of a development but we're right back where we started. And thus, this whole first volley is just an endless cycle. It's a serpent swallowing its tail. If you didn't understand it, we'll go through it again. If you didn't understand it then we'll go through it again. Etc., etc., etc.
This is the ending which is the beginning. Ohm may Mitra be propitious to us. And Aruna propitious be. May Aryaman propitious be to us. Propitious be Indra and Brihaspati to us. To us propitious may Vishnu of vast extent be. Bow to Brahman. Bow to thee Aviayu, you know art indeed Brahman perceptible. Aviayu is air but it always has the sense of movement so that there's like the wind. like that. In ancient times is to be the wind. There's a pun unintended in Spanish via con dios is oddly enough this kind of an equation. The wind is the Spirit of God.
But here Brahman is mixed in with all the other Devas. That has protected me. That has protected the teacher. That has protected me. That has protected the teacher. Ohm. Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi. It's an invocation. Its thanksgiving. One comes back to the beginning.
The Brahmananda, the joy of God. The Brahmananda volley begins in the very same way, the very same sequence, to show you that this fits but it will go in a different way. Instead of just going the same as the first volley went. This fits at the beginning but there's something different. What is different is that one has understood the form, the structure of the experience. And when you have understood the structure of the experience you can crack a threshold and you can go into the structure. It's just like breaking through the atom. And one can go down to the subatomic particles. Whereas before you were stopped by the atomic structure of matter. Now you can go in.
And so, the Brahmananda, the joy of God portion, starts the same. But because we have done something. We have not learned a content, but we have done something. We have internalized a whole structure in its wholeness. In its structuralness and now we can go in. And how do we go in?
We go in, in these five stages. We go in first of all, the ecology of food. The nourishment of food. The world in terms of food.
This is the translation I'm using for this one, Nikhilananda. The sheath. The food.
Ohm. may Mitra be propitious unto us. May Varuna be propitious unto us. May Aryaman be propitious unto us. May Indra and Brihaspati be propitious unto us. may Vishnu of wide strives be propitious unto us. salutation to Brahman. Salutation to **inaudible word**. Thou art indeed the visible Brahman. Thee indeed I shall proclaim as the visible Brahman. Thee indeed **inaudible word** I shall proclaim as the right. Thee indeed I shall proclaim as the true. May it protect me. May it protect the teacher. May it protect me. May it protect the teacher.
That is to say, the opening invocation of the Shiksha volley and the closing Thanksgiving of the Shiksha volley and everything that went in between, that whole ecology belongs to a sheath, a kosha, the sheath of food. The shell of the world. All of those ceremonies. All of those divas. All of those rituals. All of those chants are at home, not in the whole world but only in the most gross first level of the world.
One now moves one step inwardly. And there is a completely different world. A different sheath. It is the sheath of the vital breath. One now is moving inward and down. From food
Well wait for the machines as usual.
END OF SIDE ONE
**inaudible word** verily are produced all creatures. whatsoever dwell on earth, by food alone furthermore do they live and to food in the end do they return. For food alone is the eldest of all beings. And therefore, it is called the panacea for all. They who worship food as Brahman obtain all food. Food alone is the eldest of all beings and therefore is called the panacea for all. From food all creatures are born. by food when born they grow because it is eaten by beings. And because it eats beings. Therefore, it is called food. Verily different from this, which consists of the essence of food. But within it is another self which consists of the vital breath, prana. By this the former is filled.
That is to say within the whole realm of food, hidden within it like a golden thread running through the structure of the fabric of the food realm is the vital breath. Much more powerful. Much more in control of the activities.
This too has the shape of a man. And by this 600 B.C. what they mean is the shape of what we would call today the person. Remember the phrase you are what you eat. Well even more so, you are what your vital brass does. It's like that. And it's like what we're doing here is we're taking; we're taking screens of perceptual and conceptual fineness and we're laying them over the person and we're getting a truer and truer portrait with each one. when you see yourself by the screen of the sheath of food it looks like you. It looks like you in a mirror. but when you put the screen a vital breath on then you're looking at your neuro physical structure. It is different. It is you. It is you. It is more you than what you saw in the mirror is you.
I was reminded always of the John, Saint John the Apostle. Who when it was an emphasis and saw a portrait on a wall in one of the homes there, one of the early Christian communities. He chided the man of the house, he said we, we don't have icons. and the man said look it but master it's you. It's a portrait of you. And Saint John went over to a bowl of water that's used for washing your hands and he looked in the reflection and he was surprised. And then tempered. His sternness and said well that's, that's the worldly likeness. That isn't who I am at all. So, get rid of it.
But it's that kind of a thing. What you see in the mirror yes that's you, but that's not a really refined you. but on the level of vital breath, the neurophysiological structure now we're getting closer. That is more like you. And when you operate on that level what happens is that the previous level becomes understandable as a whole structure. You're no longer in that process, lost in that process. But you stepped out of that and you see that process as a shape. As a shape which you have left. It's an old self. It's an old way of doing things. And of course, because you have a much finer you now, you're going to live in a different way. Ah, but the vital breath. When one puts a finer screen, mind. And you see in terms of structure of the mind it's ever so much finer than the vital breath. Your neuro physiological system, your chakra system, is nothing compared to the mind. Just like your chakra system was fantastic in compared to this mirror fleshliness, ah but the mind is incredible. The superiority of the mind would shock the Wednesday night people who come to hear about the, the chakra system. It's incredible.
And yet The Taittiriya Upanishad in its evenness says, now we'll put a finer screen than the mind. We'll put the structure of thought, which is within the mind. Not the mind in its structure and shape but the subtle essence of the mind. And now when we put that on and we see ourselves, now on this forth sheath we can see how primitive we were. And often a teaching at these kinds of points, especially when one goes within the mind. I put reason up here sometimes it's called intellect. Plotinus called it the Nous. N-o-u-s. There's a sense of disgust that you could have been so, so worm-like as to think that that was who you were. And to have acted in your life, carried your life energy in such a way that you expressed it in those kinds of, in totally inappropriate ways. So very often there has to be kind of like an encouragement at this point. This is all in the way that the total structure of reality is and works. And one must look with courage.
And in fact, that becomes like the key clue. because one is shown that the essence of the reason which is ever so much more subtle than the mind, which is ever so much more subtle than vital breath, and that than food. That this fourth sheath, is clumsy compared to the fifth kosha, bliss. The kosha of bliss. That however, and let me use a simile here, however quick the mind is thought is ever so much quicker. The essence of thought is ever so much quicker. But bliss is instantaneous. And the instantaneous is ever so much more superior to any kind of speed whatsoever.
And then The Taittiriya Upanishad with its exquisite teaching says, now remove that fifth kosha. Remove that fifth veil of bliss. And when does that God is there. God is there.
It reads this. This is The Taittiriya. This is 2,600 years ago.
If a person knows Brahman is non-existent, he himself becomes non-existent. If he knows Brahman as existent, then knowers of Brahman know him as existent. This sheath of bliss is the embodied soul of the former. The sheath of the intellect. Thereupon the following questions of the pupil. Does anyone who knows not Brahman attained that world after departing this life? Or does he who knows Brahman attain that world after departing this life?
And the answer is given.
He the supreme soul desired. Quote may I many may. I be many. May I be born. He performed austerities. Having performed austerities, he created all this. Whatever there is. Having created all this, he entered into it. Having entered into it he became both the manifest and the unmanifest. Both the defined and the undefined. Both the supported and the unsupported. Both the intelligent and the non-intelligent. Non-intelligent. Both the real and the unreal. The Satya. The true. Became all those whatever there is. Therefore, the wise call Brahma Satya.
And then they give us a little mantra. And the mantra is, is the original form of the, the fearlessness mantra. In Mahayana Buddhism the mantra became very sophisticated and became, Gotti, Gotti, paragotti, parasem gotti Bodhi svaha.
And in The Taittiriya Upanishad about a thousand years before that it ran like this. This is the fearlessness of Brahman. In the beginning all this was non-existent. From it was born what exists. That created itself by itself, therefore it is called self-made. That which is self-made is flavor. Or essence.
For truly on obtaining the flavor one becomes blissful. Who could direct the Prana and the Apana if this bliss did not exist in the Akasha of the heart space. Brahman verily exists because it alone the bestows bliss. when a man finds fearless support in that which is invisible, incorporeal, indefinable and support less, he has then obtained fearlessness. If he makes the slightest differentiation in it, there is fear for him. That becomes fear for the knower who does not reflect God.
And so that was how it was originally.
So that the second volley, the Brahmananda volley, with the five koshas, the five sheaths, is all a delivering of the form of the first volley. But showing that within that first form there is a finer form. And a finer one. And yet a finer one. And yet an even more subtle one. And that after that God exists. If that teaching has taken hold. If it has come across then the Bhrigu volley is able to be heard.
All of the Buddhist sutras when they were written down afterwards. All of them begin with the same phrase, thus I have heard. And it means, just like from The Taittiriya Upanishad, it's just a couple of generations before the Buddha, that I understood this. I'm not only telling you what I've heard but I'm giving you what I have understood. That's why I can tell you. And then the form in which I will tell you is the form in which I understood it.
The, the consistency of that kind of passing on is what in Asia is called a tradition. Or a lineage. and if there's any break in it the lineage is gone. The tradition is gone. It can be it can be approximated but the lineage is gone. And then it takes some very special person to reestablish the tradition. To go, to go into the core of it. It's like in, it's like in Tibet. The, the tradition, the core of the tradition. The lineage. Let's take say like the Karmapa order, the lineage. Its taproot is with a very powerful yogachara named Tilopa. And it was Tilopa who, who plumbed the, the depths and found God. And found a way to express. It but when Tilopa passed it on he passed it on in such a way that only a very rare special person could ever have gotten it. Only one person ever understood Tilopa, that was Naropa.
And the way that Naropa understood it was that he brought six different yogas to bear all at once to try and understand what is this? What, what is happening here? And so, the six yogas of Naropa became part of an ecology of esoteric studies. And because, because the oneness of the six yogas of Naropa was the point, the next man in the lineage Marpa was called the translator. Because he could take the six-yoga discipline from India and he could give the one understanding in Tibet. So, he's a translator not just out of Sanskrit into Tibetan, but out of the six yogas of Naropa to the one lineage. And yet because it was so strange, he couldn't find anyone he could pass it on to.
Until a very great sage came along, who was cracked up in just the right way. And that was Milarepa. And Marpa just proceeded to accentuate the brokenness of Milarepa until he was just non-existent. and that's how Milarepa was able to get it because he was an existent anymore. His ego was completely gone. Marpa had had like surgically fractured it so it would never work again.
And so, when Milarepa went to pass it on he couldn't pass it on in any kind of a normal way. and the man who got it from him, Gampopa, didn't know he got it until about 12 years after Milarepa died. And he realized that he had gotten it. And then when he went to pass it on, he couldn't find anybody. And he found a natural telepathic thief Dusum Khyenpa, who came the first Karmapa. And he thought that Gampopa had something really valuable in his mind. So, he read his mind. And when he read his mind you got it.
So, a lineage is peculiar. It's very peculiar.
With The Taittiriya Upanishad the lineage is unbroken. It's never been broken. Its 2,600 years intact. And someone like Krishnamurti is a master of Taittiriya Upanishad. Masterful. Smooth. The finest silk there is. The silk beyond bliss.
Here is translation by Sri Aurobindo of the essence of the Bhrigu, Bhrigu volley. Notice now the Bhrigu volley. Here's how it begins. Notice how the invocation is completely transformed.
The beginning of the Bhrigu volley is the same as the ending of the Brahmananda volley. The Brahmananda volley began with the way in which the Sheiksha volley began and ended. But the ending of the Brahmananda volley is different from its beginning. But the Bhrigu volley begins with the ending of the Brahmananda volley.
With, because its setting up the lineage.
The Taittiriya Upanishad in itself creates the movement of the lineage. Understand. The first volley passes itself as a whole onto the second volley. The second volley transforms it, passes it to the third. And the third shines it. So that someone understands The Taittiriya Upanishad the only thing he can do is come out shining. If he did understand it. And so, one becomes, as the saying is, the self in the Sun. It's like when you look in the Sun, you see yourself. It's like that.
Here is the beginning of the Bhrigu volley. Hari ohm. Together may he protect us. Together may he possess us. Together may we make unto us force and virility. They are reading be full of light and power. May we never hate. Ohm. Peace. Peace. Peace.
And then the quotation that I have for you. I'll just excerpt it.
The spirit who is here in man and the spirit who was there in the Sun. Lo it is one spirit and there is no other. He who hath this knowledge, when he goeth from this world having passed to the self, which is of food. Having passed to the self which is of prana. Having passed to the self which is of mind. Having passed in the self which is of knowledge. Having passed to the self which is of bliss. Lo he rangeth about the world. And eateth what he will. And taketh what shape he will. And ever he singeth the mighty sama. Ho. Ho. Ho. I am food. I am food. I am food. I'm the eater of food. I am the eater. I am the eater. I am he who maketh scripture. I am he who maketh. I am he who maketh. I am the firstborn of the law. Before the Gods were I am. Yeh at the very heart of immortality. He who giveth me verily he preserveth. For I being food eat him that eateth. And I have conquered the whole world. And possessed it with my light. Is as the Sun and its glory. Thus, he sing earth who hath the knowledge. This verily is Upanishad. The secret of the Veda.
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