CAUSE OF BONDAGE AND MEANS TO ATTAIN LIBERATION
Mantra 6
sarvājīve sarvasaṃsthe bṛhante tasmin haṃso bhrāmyate brahmacakre /
pṛthag ātmānaṃ preritāraṃ ca matvā juṣṭas tatas tenāmṛtatvam eti // 1.6 //
In this great Brahma-Wheel, in which all things abide and finally rest, the swan wanders about so long as it thinks the self is different from the Controller. When blessed by Him the self attains Immortality.
The individual self is compared to a swan in this mantra. It says that all beings evolve from the Wheel of Brahma i.e., evolve from Brahman with attributes (with its creative power maya). The individual self, the jiva, roams about in the phenomenal world, assuming different bodies - human, subhuman, and superhuman. The cause of the java’s wandering in the samsara is due to the mistaken notion that the individual self is different from the Supreme Self that is to say the Supreme Lord, the Controller of the Universe.
When blessed by Him i.e., when the knowledge that the individual self is non-different from the Supreme Self dawns, it gets absorbed in the Brahman, the essence of Bliss and Consciousness, the immortality or Liberation.
He who knows himself to be Brahman or the Ultimate Reality is liberated and he who knows himself to be other than Brahman remains bound.
SAVING KNOWLEDGE OF BRAHMAN
Mantra 7
udgītam etat paramaṃ tu brahma tasmiṃs trayaṃ svapratiṣṭhākṣaraṃ ca /
atrāntaraṃ brahmavido viditvā līnā brahmaṇi tatparā yonimuktāḥ // 1.7 //
It is the Supreme Brahman alone untouched by phenomena that is proclaimed in the Upanishads. In It is established the triad of the enjoyer, the object and the Lord who is the Controller. This Brahman is the immutable foundation; It is imperishable. The sages, having realized Brahman to be the essence of phenomena, become devoted to Him. Completely merged in Brahman, they attain freedom from rebirth.
This mantra clarifies that the realization of Brahman referred to in the previous mantra relates to the Brahman without any attributes in whom the Contemplator, the object of Contemplation and the act of contemplation or the individual soul, the world, and the Cosmic Lord (bhokta, bhogyam, preritaram) merge into one. This supreme Self is the substratum, the imperishable, on which phenomenal universe rests. Brahman is the indwelling Spirit, antaram. He is within all of us. When we know this, when we see the universe is just an appearance, when we understand the Reality behind the appearance, we merge in Brahman, brahmani linah. “Brahma veda brahmaiva bhavati” - he who knows Brahman becomes one with Brahman. (Mundaka Up. III.ii.9).
Mantra 8
saṃyuktam etat kṣaram akṣaraṃ ca vyaktāvyaktaṃ bharate viśvam īśaḥ /
anīśaś cātmā badhyate bhoktṛbhāvāj jñātvā devaṃ mucyate sarvapāśaiḥ // 1.8 //
The Lord, Isa, supports all this which is a combination of the perishable and the imperishable, the manifest, the effect and the unmanifest, the cause. The same Lord, the Supreme Self, devoid of Lordship, becomes bound because of assuming the attitude of the enjoyer. The jiva by realizing the Supreme Self is freed from all fetters.
Brahman, the Lord or Pure Consciousness, is the support of phenomena as the rope is the support of the illusory snake or the desert is of the mirage. When we think of Brahman as the cause of manifestation, it is called Isvara. Brahman is the support of all relative phenomena which include both the tangible effects and the intangible cause or Isvara.
“The perishable comprises of all creatures and the imperishable is said to be the unchanging. But there is another Being, the Highest, called the Supreme Being, Purushottama, who as the Immutable, pervades and sustains the three worlds”. (Bhgavad Gita 15.16-17).
Under the spell of ignorance, the Supreme Self appears as the jiva or a phenomenal being, who in association with body, senses, mind and intellect becomes individualized. This jiva is the doer of the action and the enjoyer of the results. Once the ignorance is destroyed, the jiva is freed from the fetters and becomes the Supreme Self. The concepts of bondage and liberation, pleasure and pain, do not affect Brahman. They are created by maya and apply to phenomena and therefore they are ultimately unreal.
ISVARA AND JIVA
Mantra 9
jñājñau dvāv ajāv īśanīśāv ajā hy ekā bhoktṛbhogārthayuktā /
anantaś cātmā viśvarūpo hy akartā trayaṃ yadā vindate brahmam etat // 1.9 //
The Supreme Lord appears as Isvara, omniscient and omnipotent and as the jiva, of limited knowledge and power, both unborn. But this does not deny the phenomenal universe; for there exists further the unborn prakriti, which creates the ideas of the enjoyer, enjoyment and the object. Atman is infinite and all-pervading and therefore devoid of agency. When the seeker knows all these three to be Brahman, he is freed from his fetters.
Both Isvara and the jiva are in fact Brahman which is the substratum and hence they are called unborn. Maya is the material cause of the universe. Being itself inert, maya cannot function without the power of the Lord, Isvara, who uses it as an instrument for creation, preservation and dissolution. On account of this association with maya, Isvara himself appears to be like a phenomenal entity, having as it were a body and material substance. Thus the Lord, though non-different from Brahman, the Supreme Lord, on account of his association with maya he appears as a phenomenal being. Since maya is ultimately unreal, the ideas of the enjoyer, enjoyment and the object of enjoyment are also unreal. For this reason, non-dual Brahman alone exists without any ideas of agency, action etc., which belong to the phenomenal world alone.
To the illumined person, the substratum is non-different from what is super-imposed; for him the illusory snake is nothing but the real rope. Thus he who knows Brahman alone as Reality is free from all false conceptions and sees Brahman everywhere and in everything. He rids himself of the false notions of doership and being free from grief, he attains Supreme Bliss.