Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Ch.2 Introduction Lecture 41 on 13 June 2026

Opening Invocation

ओं जननीं शारदां देवीं रामकृष्णं जगद्गुरुं, पादपद्मे तयोः श्रित्वा प्रणमामि मुहुर्मुहुः.

Oṃ jananīṃ śāradāṃ devīṃ rāmakṛṣṇaṃ jagadguruṃ, pādapadme tayoḥ śritvā praṇamāmi muhurmuhuḥ.

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात् पूर्णमुदच्यते

पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः

OM PŪRṆAMADAḤ PŪRṆAMIDAM PŪRṆĀT PŪRṆAMUDACYATE PŪRṆASYA PŪRṆAMĀDĀYA PŪRṆAMEVA VAŚIṢYATE OM ŚĀNTI ŚĀNTI ŚĀNTIH

OM That Brahman is infinite, and this universe is also infinite. The infinite proceeds from the infinite. Taking the infinitude of the infinite universe, it remains as the infinite Brahman alone.

OM Peace, Peace, Peace be unto all.

Introduction to the Second Chapter of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad

In our last class, we started this second chapter of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. From one point of view, this has got three chapters, three sections. From another point of view, it includes another three sections, what you call Yājñavalkya-Maitreyī Saṃvāda. But in this, we are only taking these three sections, and it is a conversation—a dialogue between a would-be disciple who thought he knew everything and a real knower of Brahman.

We can recollect the very first meeting of M, or the second meeting. Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa asks M: "Do you believe in the personal aspect of God or the impersonal aspect?" And Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa's question made M think. Sir, I prefer only the Nirākāra Brahman, the formless aspect of Brahman. But then he went to teach Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa that persons like you, who are in a position accepted by a large section of society as a capable teacher—an authorised teacher—should preach to people that they should not worship images. This same ignorance, unfortunately, is continuing even today. The Ārya Samāj was completely against the worship of images. Then Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa says that is also necessary. So God should not be limited. He is with form, He is without form, He is beyond both form and formlessness. This is the unique teaching of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa.

Just like Gārgya, M was also thinking that "I know everything." It is impossible that that which is with form can be formless, and that which is formless can also be with form. Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa once for all cut M's ignorance, as it were; but that is only from the side of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa. From M's side, it took a long time. How do we know? Because Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa much later asked, "How is your meditation going on?" By this time, M had accepted Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa's teachings as the highest teachings and accepted Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa as his guru, as Gārgya had done. And he said, "I understand, though I am inclined to think about the formless aspect of God, I am not capable of focusing, concentrating, or thinking about the formless." M, I think, is yet to learn. It is not that it is your choice—"I will think of the formless." First of all, one has to be extraordinarily expert, a great expert, in thinking of God with form. Spiritual progress is like climbing successive steps. So he did not perhaps understand it at the time, or intellectually understood: "I understand it is not easy to think of the formless aspect." I would say it is impossible. Why? Because you cannot jump to the roof from where you are standing.

So this is the same essence of the story that is going on. Here was a person whose name was Gārgya. He was also called Bālāki, and he was proud, almost bordering on arrogance—but I would say not really. Why? Unlike Śvetaketu (just like Śvetaketu's father in the Chāndogya), this man, as soon as he was made to understand, understood everything and accepted his limitations. He said, "I need to learn a lot." So immediately he said, "You are my guru." He came to teach, but he became a pupil, a student. That is the greatness and true nature of every sincere aspirant.

So in this second chapter, what does it want to tell us? It tells us that whatever we see here, whatever we experience here, either physically or mentally, is nothing but Brahman. But we are experiencing only Brahman with form. To be a little more elaborate: Brahman with names and forms. So Sat-Cit-Ānanda plus Brahman with names and forms—that is called Sṛṣṭi Prapañca (creation). But Prapañca minus names and forms is Brahman. So the highest realization cannot be reached until we understand the final cause, the causeless cause of everything. So what is the relationship? What does the second chapter want to tell us?

We have to take the whole three sections into consideration and have an overview of these three sections. It is called in Sanskrit Siṃhāvalokana—the outlook of a lion, the king of animals. A lion sits on an elevated place, a rock or something, surveys his whole domain like a king and has an overall picture: where are the other animals, where are certain animals whom I have to hunt later on, how far away they are, what are they doing. It has a mind-map of its whole kingdom, and leisurely it decides, when it is hungry, where to go. It knows. This is called siṃhāvalokana.

So this second chapter of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad begins, as we know, with the famous dialogue between Gārgya (also known as Bālāki), the learned sage. He was learned really, and he was not a paṇḍit merely; he was an upāsaka. We have to keep always this distinction between a learned man, a professor, and a real sādhaka. And this person was a real sādhaka. We know it by what happened very soon. When he came to know that "my knowledge is extremely limited," immediately the roles were reversed. So he thought he knew, and out of goodwill, he came to King Ajātaśatru, who was a jñānī (a knower of Brahman). We do not know who taught him. We know how Janaka became a jñānī—Yājñavalkya himself gives the certificate: abhayaṃ vai prāpto'si Janaka. But we don't know who was the guru of Ajātaśatru. But one thing we know: both Ajātaśatru and Janaka were more or less contemporaries. How do we know? Because when Gārgya comes there and says, "I will teach you about Brahman," immediately upon hearing this, Ajātaśatru promises, "I will give you one thousand cows even for this your expression, whether you teach me or not." That is a separate issue. Everybody is recognizing only Janaka; they are running to Janaka. But who is running? Not ordinary people—people like Yājñavalkya. So many people have run, and many of them must have been tempted by the offer of one thousand cows. Every cow's horn is completely adorned with a golden ornament. To get one thousand cows, one has to prove that one is not only the greatest knower of Brahman but also the greatest expounder of Brahman. So there must be a capacity to teach. Swami Vivekananda was given that capacity. Not only was he a learned person—he squeezed the very essence of the scriptures—but he also has the capacity, the voice, the understanding, the diction, the power of the voice (kaṇṭha-kaṇṭheśvara), and he was a realised soul.

Once, Swami Vivekananda had indicated to one of his devotees, saying, "By God's grace, I have all the five." If one wants to be an effective teacher, one must possess these five—a marvellous definition of who could be a teacher. First, he touched his head, then forehead, then lips, then his throat (kaṇṭha), and then his heart, indicating: one must have correct, right intellectual understanding; one must be authorised by God (this is called fate); even the greatest singers, if they are not authorised by God, they will not become famous; so many speakers become very famous, not because of their mere intellect, but by God's grace; one must have proper words which express exactly what this person wants to convey; and one must have that capacity of the voice to clearly carry out unmistakable sound—not only selected diction, but every word should come out as the ringing of a bell. In Andhra, there was a great singer, a male singer; he was called Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao—ghaṇṭa means like the ringing of a very beautifully made bell. His voice was so powerful and yet so melodious, and none could be compared to him. Some of his songs are available, so one can also listen to them. But above all these intellectual things, one must—by touching the heart—Swamiji indicated that one must have that personal realisation. Only then will the teacher be perfect.

Ajātaśatru was such a soul, but Gārgya did not know. So what did he not know? He knew a little. He was doing upāsanās (contemplations), and he succeeded in realising something. He was not merely a professor, because he himself confesses in nearly twelve ślokas what he had realised, what he had been doing. That means he had successfully attained the result of those limited contemplations. Why did I use the word "limited contemplations"? I will come to that very soon.

The Meeting of Gārgya (Bālāki) and Ajātaśatru

So this learned Gārgya insisted that he would teach Ajātaśatru about Brahman. What Ajātaśatru understood was that he would teach him about the Nirguṇa Brahman. But Gārgya did not even know about Nirguṇa Brahman; he knew only Saguṇa Brahman, also called Īśvara, Hiraṇyagarbha, sometimes Virāṭ also, and that too, there are gradations of understanding. The same person can be graded. For example, a student of music approaches his guru, who is also a quite famous musician—that much he can recognise. But besides being a musical teacher, not only does he know how to teach, but he knows the rarest of the rāgas. He may be an extraordinarily good person, an unselfish person, a great devotee of God like Tyāgarāja, Purandara Dāsa, etcetera. So there are so many aspects to each person, so many wonderful qualities that must be there, might be there, but we do not recognise them. We recognise only probably one or a few limited qualities. If we can open our eyes and see beyond, we will be greatly benefited by ourselves.

So this Gārgya insisted upon certain forms of which he knew and which he was practicing in meditation. But we find, through this dialogue, that the king was more educated in this line, emphasising on the other hand that no form, no particular manifestation can be regarded as complete in itself unless its universal background is also taken into consideration. To simplify this statement, what it means is: every atom is a manifestation of Brahman. It is not separate from Brahman, but we are incapable of seeing it as one indivisible infinite. At the beginning of this peace-chant (Śānti Mantra), they say: pūrṇāt pūrṇam adakṣete—from that infinite Brahman has come out this creation, an infinite world. But we do not see it as infinite; we see it as vast, but not infinite, and everything is separate from everything else. No, the infinite cannot be divided. The infinite is indivisible; the infinite can never be broken. Infinite minus infinite, infinite multiplied by infinite, infinite divided by infinite—infinite minus retracted can only be infinite because it is indivisible.

So the whole conversation between Gārgya and Ajātaśatru is on this particular theme: recognising the universal in every particular mode of manifestation. Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa—how did he look upon every one of his disciples? As the Divine Mother. Even a cat as the manifestation of the Divine Mother, not to speak of his own father, his own mother, and his own teachers. That is why whoever has taken refuge in him have been saved. So everything is nothing but Brahman. But Brahman as such is not understandable by us. So we have to remove what makes us incapable of recognising Brahman in this finite. What we call finite is not really finite; it is our mind surrounding it, breaking it into pieces with the instruments called time, space, and causation. The highest universal is nothing but consciousness, pure consciousness. That is the theme of every Upaniṣad: īśāvāsyam idaṃ sarvaṃ yat kiñca jagatyāṃ jagat.

So that consciousness, whose faint inklings are observable only in the state of deep sleep—that is why deep sleep is the nearest analogy to understand what is called pure consciousness. Why? Because time, space, and causation are thrown out in the waking state and dream state. They grasp certain minds, but are completely out of this deep sleep state. That is why we do not recognise or cognise time while we are deeply asleep. Only when we come out do we recollect: "I went to sleep at such and such a time; now I woke up, so I must have slept six hours, seven hours, whatever it is." But that awareness of time, of space (divided space), and of separation of objects is completely absent, and that is expressed as "I did not know anything." It doesn't mean he does not know what he is experiencing; it means "I did not know time, space, and causation." But I am fully aware. How do I describe when the awakened person from deep sleep issues a statement? "I do not know anything." What we need to understand is that he was not ignorant of what he experienced—there can be no experience in a state of ignorance. What we need to understand is that there is no way to describe what I have experienced: na kiñcid avediṣam. But how do I know I experienced it? sukham aham asvāpsam—I was joyous; it was unbroken happiness from the beginning to the end, unbroken by time, space, and causation.

So this is the essence of the discourse between Gārgya and Ajātaśatru (Bālāki and Ajātaśatru). Why do we use "Bālāki"? Because the very first mantra says: dṛptaḥ Bālākiḥ. Dṛptaḥ means arrogant—arrogant means that he thought he knew everything, and he did not know that he did not know so much. Only a little bit of it he knew, and little knowledge cannot be compared as all knowledge.

The Teaching: Universal in the Individual (Brahmāṇḍa and Piṇḍāṇḍa)

So this is a very useful instruction: that everything that is in this cosmic world is also present in the individual. We will come to this very important point. For example—I am fond of giving these illustrations so that we understand what we are talking about—the whole Brahman, infinite Brahman, is unmanifested, invisible, but unknowingly it is there in every part of the body. One simple example we have already talked about: the triangle of the individual, of the physical world, and of the presiding deities. A combination of all these three is called Īśvara. The complete full name for the triangle—Adhyātmika, Adhibhautika, and Adhidaivika—is called here Hiraṇyagarbha or Saguṇa Brahma, Īśvara.

Now this is the example. My eye, for example, is my individual eye, and I am seeing a tree. The tree is part of Adhibhautika, the external, complete external world. Even though I am in the same world, I feel that I am somehow separate: I am the subject, I am the seer, and this world is an object of my experience. And we have thoroughly understood this one in the earlier portions: everything is the enjoyer, everything is the enjoyed; everything is the subject, everything is the object; everything enjoys everything. So that is the relationship between the whole universe. That means you cannot separate it; you cannot live without a single thing.

So in this example, my eye cannot see a tree. That means there must be something in the external world. Even if it is there, I cannot see it if I do not have light. That light transforms itself in the form of the capacity to see in my eye, and that same power transforms itself into the power of revealing (called light) in the external world, and that presiding deity is called the Sun (Sūrya Devatā)—not merely a star, but it is a Devatā. So there is an indivisible, irrevocable, undividable relationship between my eye, the external world, and the light. And all these three are represented by the Sun. In fact, the Sun alone gives the light; the whole external world is the manifestation of the Sun, and I am part of that manifestation. So that Sun is in the form of the eye of each one of us; that Sun is in the form of the manifestation of the external world; and again, He is the presiding deity who gives light so that my eye—which is nothing but the power of light, the capacity to see—belongs to the power of light. Because a blind person, even when there is light, cannot see anything. So that seeing capacity, that light, and that external object are three in one, one in three.

So imagine extending the same example to all the five sense organs of knowledge: the ear and sound, and that universal sound which is called Ākāśa. Similarly, my individual capacity to think (called my mind) and the capacity to think—the same mind is nothing but a manifestation of Candradeva. And very interestingly, Chandra is cool. When does a person really develop deep thinking? When he is cool, quiet, unperturbed; his mind is focused, which is called a state of calmness, quietness, peacefulness. These are conditions when knowledge becomes deeper, or the discovery of knowledge—revelation—becomes deeper. So extend to all the five sense organs of knowledge.

Similarly, as we get in the Gospel of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa, the adhiṣṭhāna—my capacity to hold and do things with my hand. That power which is endowed in my hand, in your hand, in everybody's hand, and the objects which we have to catch, and that power which is manifesting in each one of us as the holding power and in the world as the power to be held—that is called Indra. That is why there is the famous story: a brāhmaṇa kills a cow, and with his half-knowledge of this Vedāntasāra, he said, "It is the hands which killed," and the presiding deity is Indra, etcetera. You know this story; I am not going to repeat it.

So every part of our body includes every part of the physical world, includes the whole of that presiding deity. Therefore, I am no more an individual; I am the universal. But because of ignorance, I think I am the subject and everything is the object. The first thing for us to awaken to is to realise that everything is a subject and everything is an object. So there is an unbreakable relationship between the subject and object. If the object is not there, the subject will disappear automatically, and vice versa. And one subject-object also disappears. "Subject" means my individuality; "object" means that which is called Adhibhautika, the world that we experience, the creation we are interacting with. This is possible only because of the anugraha (power, grace) of the presiding deity. So the presiding deity is manifesting in each individual, in the whole world, and it unifies everything in this world. That is called the cosmic view. That is what Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa experienced: "Am I not eating through every mouth?"

So this interesting instruction comes: everything that is cosmic and universal is also present in the individual. It is in Sanskrit in beautiful terms—that is why I repeat them. What is in the Brahmāṇḍa is in the Piṇḍāṇḍa. Brahmāṇḍa is a collective name for all the piṇḍāṇḍas. Piṇḍāṇḍa means individual; Brahmāṇḍa means universal. Without the universal, the individual cannot exist. Without the individual, there is no universal. Just as subject and object are dependent upon each other, the individual and the cosmic whole are totally interdependent. That is why Swami Vivekananda's beautiful talks in his Jñāna Yoga—I do not remember if it is the seventh or eighth talk, but two talks are there: "The Microcosm and the Macrocosm." And both, he says, are the outcome of the same principle. What is in the Brahmāṇḍa is in the Piṇḍāṇḍa, and vice versa. When a person realises, he sees God everywhere because we see God in ourselves; now we have to see God in everything else.

The Saptarṣis and Deities Within

Not only that, in this very three sections, we are also told that Hinduism very highly praises all the Saptarṣis (seven ṛṣis), of which we believe, according to Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa, that Swami Vivekananda was one of the ṛṣis. But all the ṛṣis are already located in each one of us. So when I get a particular quality, one particular ṛṣi is manifest in us, and every ṛṣi (seer) is an embodiment of a particular quality. So the text goes on to say: Vasiṣṭha, Viśvāmitra, Bharadvāja, Atri, Jamadagni, Gautama, and Kaśyapa—all the seven are in our bodies. They are superintending over the different limbs of our personality. They are all situated in our own senses. Even every god is located in our own body. Say, for example, the Sun is located in our eye; Ākāśa is located in our ear; the Moon is located in our mind; Indra is located in our hands; Viṣṇu is located in our legs, because the movement of the legs is the power of Viṣṇu.

So you see, all the gods, deities, gods and goddesses are also present. That is what Swami Vivekananda meant: "Each soul is potentially divine." So if we do sādhana (spiritual practice) in our own lives, in our own selves, we can recognise these cosmic realities, and God can be realised in our own being. That is what Swami Vivekananda meant. The more a person advances in spiritual life, God also grows along with him. That means as our understanding capacity about the world and myself grows, our understanding of God also grows. That understanding is that the God whom I thought was outside me—now I find, as I approach Him nearer and nearer, that I am part of that God, and that God is also a part of me.

Similarly, the Upaniṣad tells us that the five elements which we already know from the Taittirīya—earth, water, fire, air, and ether—can be classified and located in each object. Every particle, every atom of this creation is a combination of these five elements. And these five elements again are further divided into the manifest and the unmanifest, the experienceable and the inferable (mūrta and amūrta). Earth, water, and fire can be directly experienced by us, but air and especially space (Ākāśa) can only be inferred by sharp logic. They can be experienced because we are breathing Vāyu, but we do not see Vāyu Devatā; we infer because my experience is pramāṇa for me. What a marvellous analysis is doing!

And then there is a relationship between the mūrta and amūrta, and then the triangle—that is to say, Adhyātmika, Adhibhautika, and Adhidaivika. All these three completely combined is called Hiraṇyagarbha, Saguṇa Brahma, Īśvara. And there is an indefinable, inexpressible connection between these two—an unbreakable connection. Where there is individuality, there is universality; where there is universality, there is individuality. Take the example of a body. If you remove every single cell in the body, there will be nothing called the body. Or if you remove one by one all the limbs—the hands, the legs, the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the tongue, everything—there will be no object called the body. The body is called the cosmic, and different parts are part of this body. They combine the name for all the parts into that which is irrevocably unified, and that is called the cosmic Brahmāṇḍa.

The Purpose of Upāsanā

So what is the point? Now Ajātaśatru wants to enlighten Bālāki (Gārgya), his son (after he became the student of Ajātaśatru). It is a marvellous incident. First, in twelve mantras, Bālāki teaches: "I worship Saguṇa Brahma in this manner—in the Sun, in the Moon, in the lightning, in the waters, in the earth, etcetera." And at every mantra, Ajātaśatru listens and says, "What you are doing is right; it is not wrong, but it is very limited. I worship exactly in the same way with some higher qualities." Why was Ajātaśatru telling this? Because, my child—a teacher has a right to call the pupil, however old he is—"My child, you will not reach the goal of your life if you stop only with this much knowledge."

So first, one must develop those extraordinary qualities which in the Bhagavad Gītā (chapter 16) are called Daivī Sampat (divine wealth), and remove and destroy all the opposite qualities which keep us in ignorance. This sādhana is nothing but destroying unspiritual qualities and developing spiritual qualities. Once we develop, our understanding becomes crystal clear, and then we do not learn anything new, but we recollect what we have forgotten: Ahaṃ Brahmāsmi. Remember, before creation, Brahman knows "I am Brahman"—aham Brahmāsmi. But for whatever reason, we cannot fathom that secret of how Brahman became the creation. These are all, from our viewpoint only, umpteen number of times I have told you: you should not question why Brahman has fallen; we should question how I have come to forget my own true nature. Instead of wasting time, how can I recollect? And unconsciously we are recollecting:

असतो मा सद्गमय, तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय, मृत्योर् मा अमृतं गमय.

asato mā sadgamaya, tamaso mā jyotirgamaya, mṛtyor mā amṛtaṃ gamaya.

So this is the essence—how to see the universal in the individual. This is the purpose of all the upāsanās, of all the Upaniṣads, of every scripture practically in the world.

And not only that, we cannot but help think about these qualities whenever we talk about meditation. Just imagine a Christian devotee, say Saint Teresa of Ávila, or Saint John of the Cross, or Saint Francis of Assisi. When they are supposed to be meditating on the figure of Christ and completely merged in Christ, what do you think they are doing? "This is Christ, this is Christ, this is Krishna, this is Rāma"—no. What am I talking about? You think of any person, say a wife is thinking about the other person, her husband. What is she thinking? "This is my husband"—a special relationship, and this relationship is a special quality. It cannot be applied to other brothers or other men; it is only available to this wife. For the wife, the husband is everything, and that is an upāsanā of which I mentioned in my last class how Swami Vivekananda quotes it. When a brāhmaṇa sage wanted to do tapasyā, neglecting the service of his old parents who required it, he went for bringing food in front of a house, and the house-lady said, "Please kindly wait; soon I will finish my service to my husband." This is called developing or becoming a satī. Satī means satyā—satyā means what? You no longer look upon the husband as a mere individual, as a mere husband fulfilling certain biological and social functions. But look upon the same husband, elevate him to the position of God. This is the technique of upāsanā: elevate the qualities of a lower object into the highest quality. So in this particular case, the husband is looked upon as Brahman. Is it imagination? If we think it is imagination, we are totally wrong. We are only reminding a person who has forgotten that you are really the son of a king. We are not telling him, "Thereafter, even though you are not a prince, you are going to become a prince"—that is not the case. You were a prince; you are a prince, but you have forgotten temporarily because of your circumstances, because you grew up with some people who are not belonging to the royal family. This is the most marvellous thing: to think of the forgotten truth in the form of attributed truth—superimposed quality on a lower object. This is called Upāsanā.

The Qualities of a True Seeker

So that is what upāsanā is about. And this boy Gārgya (Bālāki) practiced it and progressed. He must have progressed; otherwise, he would not have felt that. Remember always: these personalities that we come across in the Upaniṣads are not people like professors. They practiced something, and they realised something. That means they progressed in spiritual life somewhat, and then only—either they come, if they realise their knowledge is not complete, to learn more, or if by mistake they think that they have reached the highest goal, they presume that they can teach others. Sometimes they are lucky to get people who know better than themselves, and those greater people also realise that this is a sincere spiritual aspirant. And so they guide them step by step to reach the highest truth. Always the goal is Brahman, Nirguṇa Brahma.

This is what we understand: "Each soul is potentially divine. Manifest this divinity with the help of a guru and remain as Brahman, as divine." That is what we have to understand. So King Ajātaśatru is a knower of Brahman, and a knower of Brahman does not go on saying, "I am a knower of Brahman; you please come to me." Because even if he broadcasts day and night through YouTube, most people are not interested in becoming Brahman; they are more interested in becoming Brahmā, not Brahman. So this boy was sincere; he came.

And then how do we understand the next twelve mantras? So Ajātaśatru said very humbly, very sincerely, "Please teach me." And this boy Gārgya said, "I worship the Sun as Brahman." And he did not know that there are two aspects of Brahman—Saguṇa Brahma and Nirguṇa Brahma. That is the first mistake—ignorance. The second ignorance is that even in Saguṇa Brahma, within Saguṇa Brahma, there are qualities which this person did not realise: "I know only some qualities; I do not know the higher qualities; I know only the lower qualities." This Gārgya was thoroughly ignorant of this difference. So that is how we have to understand it.

Now, before going further, I will just give you—because only three minutes are there—the mantra itself is a beautiful mantra:

ॐ दृप्तः बालाकिः

oṃ dṛptaḥ Bālākiḥ.

Dṛptaḥ means arrogant, proudful. But there is a difference between arrogance and pride. A person who is arrogant does not have any quality, but he goes on declaring himself: "I am the owner of such and such qualities; I am the owner of this company; I am the owner of so much bank balance"—without having anything. He wants to get rid of his inferiority complex. But a proud person is one who knows what he is, what he has, and what he knows, and he knows very few people are there equivalent to him; therefore he becomes proud. That is why in the Bhartṛhari Subhāṣita—even in the Gospel of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa we get it—if somebody is so great, soon another person comes who proves he is greater; and if he thinks he is the greatest, some other person comes. So a person who understands "I am not the greatest"—that is called vidyā. And what does vidyā do? Vidyā dadhāti vinayam—Vidyā gives complete humility.

As I remember, if you still remember the great Western scientist who discovered gravity—he was approached and said, "Sir, you know everything," and then he said, "No, I am like a person sitting by the side of a sea, and whenever any thirsty person comes, I give one or two cupfuls of this salt-water." A similar better story is regarding Socrates. He was declared by the Delphic Oracle that he was the wisest man in this whole world, and he became curious to know: "How did I earn this title? Do I really earn it?" So he wanted to find out. He met all the greatest so-called wise people—they are called philosophers—and he put certain adroit questions. Then he came back and declared: "The Oracle is absolutely right. I am the wisest person." And lest he might be mistaken, he declared: "Why do I say I am the wisest? Because the wisest person is one who knows definitely that I am not the wisest person. I met so many people, and they did not know that they are not wise, but they are under the delusion that we are all great wise people."

अन्धैव नीयमाना यथान्धाः दन्द्रम्यमानाः परयन्ति मूढाः.

andhaiva nīyamānā yathāndhāḥ dandramyamānāḥ parayanti mūḍhāḥ.

In the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad we get this one. So like that, I went and met everybody; they did not know that they are fools, but they think they are wise. I know I am a fool because my knowledge is very little. That is what makes him a wise person.

Conclusion: The Wise Know Their Limitation

So in conclusion, what is the essence? A wise person is one who knows, "I know very little." A great bhakta knows, "I am a small bhakta, but it is all again not by my effort, but by the grace of God." A greatest jñānī thinks, "I am the least of the jñānīs, and that is also by the grace of Īśvara-kṛpā only that I have become a jñānī." That is why Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa said, "O Mother, I am a fool—āmi boka, āmi kichu jāni nā—You please hold my hand, and You operate through me; let me be an instrument." Beautiful thoughts. We will talk about them in our next class.

Closing Prayer

ॐ जननीं शारदां देवीं रामकृष्णं जगद्गुरुम् ।पादपद्मे तयोः श्रित्वा प्रणमामि मुहुर्मुहुः

Om Jānānāṃ Śāradāṃ Devīṃ Rāmakṛṣṇaṃ Jagadgurum Pada Padme Tayo Śṛtvā Praṇamāmi Muhur Muhuh

May Rāmakṛṣṇa, Holy Mother, and Swami Vivekānanda bless us all with Bhakti.

Jai Rāmakṛṣṇa!