The Brahma Sutra on the Final Salvation of the Soul: 1.2 - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday 19, October 2026, 18:30.
Books
Vedanta & Upanishads
The Brahma Sutra on the Final Salvation of the Soul: 1.
Chapter 1: An Overview of the Brahma Sutra - 2.
Swami Krishnananda

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The Third Chapter deals with a very interesting aspect of the subject, namely, which passages of the Upanishads can be combined for the purpose of meditation. The Third Chapter deals with meditational processes according to the Upanishads. Every statement in the Upanishads is a prescription for meditation. In all the ten Upanishads, several such statements are made, and many of them of a similar nature and import can be brought together for the purpose of meditation. Which point of the Upanishad can be combined with which other point for the purpose of meditation is the subject of the Third Chapter.

The Fourth Chapter is the most important for us, as it deals with the cause of bondage and the release from bondage.

Thus, the Brahma Sutra is a pinnacle of Indian philosophic thought, which deals with and tackles every existent school of thought in India. It points out their inadequacies, rejects them wholesale, and substitutes for all these thoughts a more comprehensive vision of life, integrated in its nature, complete in every aspect, and wholesome in every means. The question is about our own selves. The Brahma Mimamsa, or Uttara Mimamsa, is also sometimes called Sharika Mimamsa. A sharika is a being who has embodied physicality. Whoever has a body is a sharika. Inasmuch as it studies the nature of the embodied soul, it also is called Sharika Mimamsa. As it is concerned with the establishment of the Supreme Absolute, it is called Brahma Mimamsa because it is posterior to the Karma Mimamsa. Mimamsa which is Purva is called Uttara Mimamsa. Varieties of names are given to this wonderful, spiritual, metaphysical textbook called the Brahma Sutra.

“How are we here in the world?” is a question raised by the Brahma Sutra. From where have we come? We have poor, childish answers to this question, such as: I have come from my father; I have come from my mother; I have come from this country, that country; I belong to this nationality, that nationality. But the text tells us that we are not such simple things as we appear to be. Every individual is a highly complicated texture of cosmic events and universal operations. For the birth of a single child, the whole universe has to be active. People think that a father and mother are sufficient for the coming of a child. They do not know that it is a cosmic event.

We are ignorant of the involvements of our own selves in the whole structure of the phenomenon of nature. We are not educated properly. Our education is only job oriented, money oriented, success oriented; empirical concerns are the primary issues of our education. We think, “If I get a job, I am wonderful.” The job is not the cause. What is the use of a job? How long are we going to live in the world with a job? Nobody bothers about that.

Everything is interconnected with everything else. To understand the universe, we have to have a little insight into the nature of our own physical individuality. In the body that we are donning, there is a very intimate, organic relation of the parts thereof. The parts of the human body are not like the parts of a robot or a machine. They are not mechanically dovetailed, but organically involved. There is a difference between mechanical unity and organic unity.

We find heaps of stones on the roadside. A well-arranged heap may look like a whole by itself. There is a whole heap of stones, but one stone does not feel the presence of another stone. If one stone is lifted and thrown away, the other stones are not affected in any manner. Their connection is purely mechanical in its nature, and one stone has no connection with another stone. Though they may look intensely connected with one another because they form a heap, if one stone is removed, the other parts of the heap remain unaffected. But we cannot remove a limb from the body without the whole body being affected. If a limb is severed from the body, it affects the entire organism. This is the meaning of organic relation. By organic relation we mean a vital, substantial, intelligent, cooperative system. The parts work together, not merely as different individuals but as substantial, vital, and inseparable from the other parts. This is how we have to see our own body.

Since this body is a part of the universal phenomenon, it follows that the universe is made in a similar manner. We cannot stand outside the universe. The very substance of our body is the substance of the Universal. The physical aspect of our body is purely material in its nature. There is an earth element which makes it look solid. There is the water element in our body; otherwise, we will get dehydrated. There is the heat in the body from the fire element. There is the air element which we breathe. There is also space inside the body. The length and the breadth in our body, the so-called size, is due to the space that is inside it. Modern scientists say that if the body is squeezed and all the space is pumped out, the whole body will be only one cubic centimetre in size.

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