Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Ch.2 1.2-3 Lecture 44 on 21 June 2026 Q&A

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Question: Additional Qualities Taught by Ajātaśatru

Question: Maybe I didn't hear properly, Mahārāj. What I heard was what Ajātaśatru taught Gārgya as the additional qualities in the form of effects.

Response: In the form of qualities to be acquired. Some guṇas, spiritual qualities to be acquired.

Questioner: Yes, Mahārāj, that is clearly mentioned, Mahārāj. But what did Gārgya contemplate Āditya as previously? How did he do the upāsanā, Mahārāj?

Response: Without these qualities. Simply, there is a being, and that being is a spiritual being. He is manifesting as Āditya. That was the quality (guṇa) he was contemplating upon, for which Ajātaśatru added three more qualities.

Questioner: Oh...

Response: Atiṣṭhā, Mūrta, and Rajan.

Questioner: Ahh, okay, same thing for the others...

Response: Because these things are also very necessary. What is called when we want to become like Brahman—Brahman contains all these qualities or not.

Questioner: Yes.

Response: So until we develop these qualities, our spiritual progress will be lagging. That is why I told you that when a person develops one particular spiritual quality, it will never come alone. I gave the example, if you still remember: Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa stuck to truth. "Whether you are mother or father, I don't care. Truth is truth. I promised, I must fulfill." But he cannot maintain that truthfulness unless he is courageous. "Oh, my father, my parents may throw me out and kick me out. What is going to happen to me? Who is going to take care of me?" If he has those doubts, he will say, "All right, all right, all right. It is the third time you tell me to follow you; I will obey you." So he is persuadable.

Questioner: Yes.

Response: Sometimes we are persuadable without any persuasion at all.

Questioner: Sure.

Response: You understand?

Questioner: Yes, Mahārāj.

Response: The purpose of Ajātaśatru is not to burden him with some useless qualities, but all the useful qualities which will help him become a fit person to grasp what he is going to teach in the second part of his teaching, taking him to a sleeping person, analyzing the three states of our experiences.

Questioner: Mahārāj, so can I understand it this way? I think you hinted yesterday also that Gārgya was practicing nāma and rūpa dhyāna. Ajātaśatru was taking him to guṇa dhyāna.

Response: No, no, he already—Gārgya was meditating upon certain guṇas. Somebody must have taught him. The teaching will not fall from the sky. Either his father or some other teacher must have taught him what they know: "You meditate upon Āditya as Hiraṇyagarbha, as that being who is manifesting as Āditya from within Āditya." But that is not enough. He has to develop some other qualities, which Ajātaśatru is completing—the incompleteness of Gārgya.

Questioner: Okay, Mahārāj.

Response: How do we know? Because when he developed these qualities, then only he took him to that sleeping person. That is where the real teaching starts—what we call Sādhana Chatuṣṭaya Sampatti. They are a must or not.

Questioner: Yes, Mahārāj.

Response: And only these things in those days—this kind of contemplations. In fact, nobody can develop anything without concentration, without thinking. Ideas come if you have deep sleep or you go on thinking deeply.

Questioner: Go on thinking deeply.

Response: So contemplation is enough. That is the only instrument.

Questioner: Sure.

Response: Yeah.

Questioner: Thank you.

Response: Okay.

Question: Reconciling Ekajīvavāda with the Dream and Waking States

Question: I have a question just to clarify my understanding about ekajīvavāda. You mentioned about the dreamless state and the dream state, and there it makes perfect sense that there is only one jīva that creates the dream. But you also mentioned that this is late when you used to understand the world. Here, this is a bit confusing for me, since if it would be similar to the dream, then that would be solipsism. But if we take it to a higher abstraction such as Hiraṇyagarbha, that doesn't also make sense, since that would be counterintuitive to what we've heard from Arjuna and Gopālam with the view of all the jīvas. So is it just that it is about the witness or the subject of Brahman, and we refer to that principle as a jīva? That also seems strange. That is the only way—how can we reconcile it?

Response: Okay, it is a very beautiful question. The answer is: when we analyse our dream, upon waking up, only we can analyse. You remember, when we are dreaming, we can only experience but not analyse. But when we wake up, we look back and say, "That was all my thoughts, imaginations, concretization," isn't it? Yeah. So somebody comes and kicks me in my dream. In my dream, that is a fact. When I wake up, what do I say? Who kicked whom?

Questioner: When I woke up, it is someone in the mental state that kicked me.

Response: No, when I wake up, I understand: I myself kicked myself in my dream. The kicker was my own creation. Then, if he is a thoughtful person, might not the waking world also be a creation by me? In fact, it is, because we know very little about anybody else. So it is our opinions about other people, and we are convinced that what we think about the other person is, in fact, God created that person in that way—is it not?

Questioner: Yes.

Response: So whose creation is this? Is it God's creation or my creation?

Questioner: So that would be my subjective creation.

Response: Not only that, think deeply. I am thinking about God. Who creates that God? I only create my God. That is why Hindus create their own gods, Christians create their gods, Muslims create their gods. Everybody creates their concept of God—what they think is the real God. Is it not?

Questioner: Yes, very well.

Response: That is the ordinary people think, but thoughtful people think: "This is my opinion I am expressing as if it is the final truth." Isn't it? Yeah. That is why Aham Brahmāsmi means "I created the whole world." That is part of the understanding. So, this is a spiritual stage, and it doesn't come naturally. We have to develop it. Okay.

Then also, we go into the deep sleep state, and there is only one person—you are the only being who is enjoying deep sleep. You don't say "All of us were in deep sleep." No, only I am the only one who is in deep sleep. Therefore, I am the only jīva. Thoughtful people come to this conclusion from studying the deep sleep state: since there is no world, when I wake up, then I create that world. When I dream, I create my dream. When I go to deep sleep, then I am the only jīva. Why do I call myself a jīva? Because it is not a permanent state. Therefore, I must be a jīva. So all the three worlds are created by whom? By me. So you will have to think about it. This is how advancement, further advancement in spiritual life, that the whole sṛṣṭi is nothing but "I am the only jīva." The moment I close my eyes, you disappear—is it not? Yes. The whole world disappears when I forget about you. That is what I mean. Closing the eyes means what? When I stop thinking about you, do you exist for me? Not me. When do you exist for me? So long as I keep thinking about you—isn't it? And then I have various experiences with you, so various reactions from me. So I form an opinion about you. Is that the truth? It cannot be the truth. Maybe you are in... something happened. I don't know what happened to you, but you shouted at me. That is purely a temporary phenomenon, but I take it as if that is your permanent nature, and that is how, for me, you are that kind of person. So apply this to the whole world, okay?

Questioner: Yeah, so this is very...

Response: Finally, the person understands: the other persons are also created just as I create them in my dream state. When I don't create—that means when I am in the deep sleep state—I don't create, and if I don't create, they don't exist. Okay. That leads to the final stage, Ajātivāda: there is no creation at all. When I realize, then the entire effect disappears along with its cause. Then I realize that there is no creation at all. What remains, remains. These are, as I said, various stages of spiritual progress. Yeah.

Questioner: This is very similar—this is very related to ahaṃkāra and the idea of mithyā that we are talking about: we believe that there is a snake, but in fact there is only the substrate which is the rope.

Response: It is part of the same process. Even the concept of mithyā is also my creation or not.

Questioner: Yes, that is also a creation.

Response: My thinking that there is something other than mithyā—that is also my creation or not. Remember, all these things are my thoughts so long as my mind is functioning.

Questioner: Yeah.

Response: The moment you are in deep sleep, do you think there is something mithyā? No. Do you think something is satyam? No. All these thoughts disappear. Why? Because there is no object. When there is no object to think about—whether it is real or unreal—then the whole creation disappears. Who can describe that state? What remains? So consciously we have to develop this.

Questioner: Thank you so much, Mahārāj. Thank you for this.

Response: Yes.

Questioner: Praṇāms, Swamiji.

Question: The State of Jagrat (Wakefulness)

Question: More or less the same question which Daniel was asking. It is just so—in this Swamiji's uttiṣṭhata jāgrata—I almost get this feeling that almost every day that I wake up, actually wake up, I have probably uttiṣṭhita. But when am I probably never awake, isn't it? I will be awake (jāgrata). Only that state can be described only for somebody who is a realized jñānī.

Response: No, no, no. Each one of us, whenever we get some unpleasant experience, then we start thinking, "Why did this happen?" That is called waking up.

Questioner: Oh, I see.

Response: How to prevent it in future? Slowly, our understanding deepens, because I cannot get rid of unhappiness unless I get rid of happiness also. As I mentioned earlier, unhappiness is less happiness—it is a comparative state. Happiness is less unhappiness. Only in suṣupti state there is no experience of either less or more. Both disappear.

Questioner: So jāgrat could be applied when we are like... every class that you are teaching, and one is learning some newer aspect of ātmajñānam—like upāsanā and the guṇa dhyāna which is so predominant at this moment in time what you are describing—I am getting slowly more and more jāgrat, more and more awake.

Response: Yes, it is making you think. The attempt even to understand what I am listening falls under the state of jāgrat.