Now this is, in a different way, the subject of the Taittiriya Upanishad also, wherein we are given a cosmological treatment of the entire bondage of the soul and the process of the liberation of the soul from this bondage. As the Aitareya told us that the One Atman alone was, nothing else external to the Atman existed, and it became the many as the universal and entered into it, and projected itself as the various divinities, became the Jivas, had these experiences, etc. etc., so does the Taittiriya Upanishad tell us. The original being is Satyam, Jnanam, Anantam or you may say Satyam, Jnanam, Anandam - (Satchidananda), where there is a simultaneous experience of everything; not a successive experience of particulars, as we have today. This is the interpretation given by the commentators of the passage which reads as ‘Saha Brahmana Vipaschita’. In that state of Brahman, there is an instantaneous experience of all things. Even when we use the word instantaneous, the idea of time lingers in our mind. We cannot get rid of the idea of the time factor. We think everything is experienced at the same time. This is how we think in our own temporal way. It is not a simultaneity of temporal events that is called an instantaneous experience there. It is a timeless experience, because it is spaceless Being.

Now the Taittiriya cosmological treatment is as follows. The universe of five elements (Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth) is a condensation, as it were, of the Atman itself. There was a gradual descent of the Atman into greater and greater particularity and together with it greater and greater externality. There is particularity, externality and grossening of the cause into the effect. ‘Tasmadva etasmad Atmanah akasah sambhutah, akasat vayuh, vayor agnih, agneh apah, adbhyah prithivi’ etc. The individual being comes as a consequence of these universal manifestations of the elements. Here again, even in the Taittiriya, we stand as effects to the Universal which stands in the position of a cause, as in the case of the doctrine of the Aitareya. Though the universe is an effect of God, it is a cause of our experience. We have no control over the elements. We cannot order the earth, water, ether or fire to behave in this way or that way. In this sense they are causes of our experiences. The objects precede our experience.

There seems to be some great point in the doctrines of realism as well as idealism, which are the dominant schools of philosophy. The realist holds that objects come first, experience comes afterwards. But the idealist thinks that experience comes first and object afterwards. There is a great quarrel among these schools of thought; but there need be no quarrel. Both these standpoints seem to be correct because they speak from different positions and different points of view altogether. There is a metaphysical idealism implied behind even the empirical realism of perception of objects. We perceive the world, no doubt, as something external to us, and we know very well that the world was there even before we were born and therefore realism is right. The world of objects in its physical form precedes the experience thereof by the individual experiencer. But idealism is also right, because there is a consciousness underlying the very manifestation of the things. The whole universe ultimately can be reduced into consciousness, because the objects which are apparently external to us are

The Taittiriya tells us, there was thus the creation down to the earth, and from the earth arise vegetations of various kinds, herbs or ‘Aushadhis’ which become the diet of the individual, the Purusha, Aashadhibhyah Annam, Annat Purushah, the individual grows out of the food that he takes. Here is again an interesting factor that we have to observe. We are constituted of Anna or food. It is not merely the physical body that is constituted out of food but everything that we are is nothing but the food that we take. As cloth is made of threads, as any composite object is made up of the component factors, so is the total individuality of ours, including the psychic individuality, constituted of certain bits of experience and bits of matter. Thought is nothing but the various functions it performs. The various feelings and emotions and the volitions put together constitute what we call the mind, the fabric of psychic personality. The body again is constituted of these elements only - earth, water, fire air and ether, etc. Everything in the so-called individuality of ours is a composite structure or ‘Sanghatta’ of various factors which can be dismembered and broken into their component parts. These compositions of individuality become the causes of the various experiences we pass through in our life.

Our experiences are through the layers of our personality. These layers are called, in the language of the Upanishads, as Koshas. A Kosha is a sheath, like a sheath or a scabbard for a sword. These sheaths are something like peels of onion growing one over the other, and while there can be many such layers conceivable, five of them are mentioned as predominantly experienced by us in our day to day life. These are the so-called Annamaya, Pranamaya, Manomaya, Vijnanamaya and Anandamaya Koshas. These Koshas are not actually like peels of an onion though the illustration gives some idea of what these Koshas are. Because one peel of an onion is not connected with another peel. They are independent. But here the Koshas are not so independent. They are various gradations of density, one slowly passing into the other and we cannot know where one begins and where one ends. Thus we can finally say that there is only one Kosha, which appears as fivefold on account of the gradations of density, all of which are ruled over by the central light of the Atman.

All this is, of course, out of our sight. We have descended as low into the physical externality of our experience that the Atman which is universal in its original status has projected itself out of the senses and come out of the body, as it were, and it is now looking back towards its own self as an object outside. It has completely lost itself in matter. To lose itself in matter is not so bad as to come out of it and then look upon it as an object of its own self. This is what the senses do. So in one sense we are far, far removed from reality, much more than even inorganic matter, because we have come out of the material body and then projected our consciousness backwards, as it were, looking to matter as an object of our own self.

The universal consciousness has been completely buried in the material content and after getting buried it comes out of it in a reflected form, becomes the Jiva and looks at its own body as an external something. So you can imagine why there is desire for objects. It is the desire of the Atman for its own self. It is not asking for anybody else, it is wanting its own self. It cannot get it. It has become mad completely. It is in the mental hospital now. The whole world is such a crazy house of delirious individuals. What has actually happened to us we cannot explain, and the less we say about it the better. Such a catastrophic event has taken place, which we regard as heaven itself. How happy we are in the world! We are very happy with a cool drink, with a fan or a refrigerator. Everything is giving happiness to us, but we do not know that we are diseased to the core and we are trying to scratch the itch to some extent to see that it does not give us agony in an intensified manner. We are not going to cure the disease. No activity of ours in this world can be a cure of this disease of Samsara, from the point of view of the magnitude of the suffering in which we are involved and the magnitude of the catastrophe that has taken place. It requires a Herculean task to bring the consciousness back. Mere activity born of ignorance is not going to be an aid.

You have heard people say that Acharya Sankara was against Karma. There is a point in what he says though many people don’t understand what the implication of his statement is. Every action that we do normally is a movement of ignorance in the direction of an object that is there outside, apparently, but not really. How can a movement in the direction of an apparently existent something liberate us from bondage? If our activities are directed to the sublimation of individuality and have as their purpose the universalisation of our status, that could be Karma Yoga. That is not what Acharya Sankara condemns. He condemns Karma which is binding in its nature, which is born of the ignorant feeling that body is real and therefore everything that is associated with the body is also real. An activity that is directed to self-satisfaction of the body is bondage. That is not going to liberate us. But all that we do in this world is nothing but that. We are not doing Karma Yoga. We should not be misguided. If we are consciously directing our activity towards the efflorescence of our individuality towards the universal, then it is Karma Yoga. On the other hand, if we merely drift like a fly from place to place, it is not Karma Yoga. Any activity involving sweating and toiling cannot be called Karma Yoga unless the consciousness is there behind it. Otherwise it becomes an ordinary, empty, humdrum activity, which is impulse driven rather than consciousness-motivated. This distinction has to be drawn carefully. Impulse-driven activity is different from consciously directed Yoga practice. And how many of us are conscious of what we are doing? We are driven by impulse only. When we are feeling hot because of the atmosphere outside, we feel like mitigating it by a contrary activity. When we are hungry, we are doing something contrary to it. Everything that we do is a contrary activity in respect of the particular experience through which we are passing. We have no idea of the basic disease behind it, or the ideal that is ahead of us. But if this is clear, well, it cannot be called action, It is a movement of consciousness.