Taittiriya Upanishad Lecture 105 Ch3.7 on 20 May 2026
Full Transcript (Not Corrected)
Opening Prayer (Śānti Pāṭha)
ॐ जननीं शारदां देवीं रामकृष्णं जगद्गुरुम् ।पादपद्मे तयोः श्रित्वा प्रणमामि मुहुर्मुहुः
Oṁ jananīṁ śaraḍhāṁ deveṁ rāmakriṣṇam jagad-gurum
pādapadmetayosritvā pranamāmi-muhurumuhu
ॐ सह नाववतु ।
सह नौ भुनक्तु ।
सह वीर्यं करवावहै ।
तेजस्वि नावधीतमस्तु मा विद्विषावहै ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥ हरि ॐ
OM SAHANAVAVATO SAHANAV BHUNAKTO SAHAVIRYAM KARAVAVAHAI TEJASVINAVADHITAMASTUMA VIDVISHAVAHAI OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTIHI HARIHI OM
OM May Brahman protect us both. May Brahman bestow upon us both the fruit of knowledge.
May we both obtain the energy to acquire knowledge.
May what we both study reveal the truth. May we cherish no ill feeling toward each other.
OM PEACE PEACE PEACE BE UNTO ALL
Recap: Where We Left Off
In our last class, we completed up to the sixth section of the third chapter of the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, wherein Bhṛgu, taking the direction shown by his teacher Varuṇa, had realised: I am Ātman. I am of the nature of Sat-Cit-Ānanda. I am Brahman. With that, the main Upaniṣad is over.
Anybody who follows the same instructions of Varuṇa, as Bhṛgu did, will also get the same results. So, how does one progress in spiritual life? Through these hints, we come to know — and it is actually an indirect suggestion — that Bhṛgu had performed austerity. What type of austerity did he perform? We can understand this through the following vows (vratas), contemplations, and upāsanās.
The Meaning of Anna: Expanding the Concept of Food
He must have done this, because the very first step he had taken was the realisation: Annam brahmeti vijānat — he realised that anna is Brahman. What is anna? The literal meaning of the word anna is food. But it means the body. Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa uses the same word. The entire soul of all of us is totally identified and fixed in the body.
Anna means body. But through what we discussed before, we have to understand — the whole universe is nothing but anna. And the meaning of that word anna is going to be expanded here so beautifully.
Anna means: whatever is experienced, that is anna. And whoever is the experiencer, he is the subject. So the whole universe — and that is what is called duality — means division: the subject and the object, the experiencer and the experienced, the eater and the eaten, the enjoyer and the enjoyed.
The Two Fundamental Relationships: Enjoyer–Enjoyed and Supporter–Supported
So what is the point here? The point is that one person is not exclusively an enjoyer while something else is being enjoyed. If we look at it broadly from the angle of the Upaniṣadic vision, we understand: everybody is an enjoyer, everything is enjoyed; everybody is a supporter, everything is supported.
Everything, ultimately, is nothing but Virāṭ, or the universal. And that is how the Upaniṣad wants us to look upon everything as God — as Svāmī Vivekānanda saw everything as God. Because everything is God only. That which comes from God cannot be anything other than God. So Bhagavān had become both the enjoyer and the enjoyed, the supporter and the supported.
The Dream and Waking State: An Illustration
The best example to understand this is the dream example. As we know, all living creatures go through three different states of experience. Here we are taking only the first two: the waking and the dream state.
Almost all of us — whether we remember it or not — will be having dreams in a particular state. In fact, we should not understand by the word "dream" merely a fantasy, but rather: you are imagining certain things and they appear in a very concrete form — and that is called a dream. Especially when our body is relaxed, when we forget the waking state, and we are not in deep sleep, that in-between state between dreamless or deep sleep and the waking state is called the dream state.
Now, even when we are awake, we are using the mind, and whatever we experience and think through the mind is also, in a sense, a dream state only.
How Dreams Are Formed
Suppose you lie down and want to take rest. Before you fall into deep sleep, you have a state where certain imaginations take concrete form. You may be somewhere, meeting some people, seeing some objects, and so on. How did this dream come about? It is not something unrelated to the waking state. Whatever we had experienced in the waking state leaves impressions in the form of memory, and those impressions emerge in the form of the dream world. So the waking state is the supporter, and the dream state is the supported.
How We Experience the Waking State
But how do we experience the waking state? We do not simply look at whatever object is in front of us and understand it neutrally. We have so many preconceived ideas, and whenever we look at any object, we perceive its qualities — and those qualities produce certain impressions in our minds. The same qualities might produce opposite reactions in different minds.
For example, suppose somebody had eaten a mango and thoroughly enjoyed it — its texture, sweetness, flavour, and juice. When such a person looks at a mango tree with beautiful ripe mangoes hanging, he will undergo a particular emotional state. But suppose there is another person who, while chewing a mango, found a worm inside it, which created a terrible bad odour and bad taste. Such a person's impression about the mango will be totally different. And once a person has this experience, it is likely that he will view every mango through that particular light, based upon his prior experience.
This is how, even when we look at strangers, we already form an impression before we even experience their qualities through words or actions. We say: "This person looks very nice," or "This person looks very roguish." We have already prejudged, based upon our past experiences.
So what I am trying to tell you is this: our thoughts are the supporter, and how we enjoy the world through the five sense organs — how we experience it with pleasure or pain — that is what we need to understand. The waking state, whatever we experience, we store in the form of memories, and that comes out in the form of dreams. So enemies appear as enemies, friends appear as friends — what I mean is, we think some people are our friends, though maybe they are plotting against us; we think some people are our enemies, though maybe they are not really bothered about us. But whatever conclusion we come to, whatever opinion we form, that becomes the pratiṣṭhā, the support.
So the dream is the supported, and the waking state is the supporter. Similarly, the dream state — meaning the thoughts we develop — tremendously influences our waking state. That is why some young people say "dream girl." What I mean is: certain opinions we form, certain thoughts we develop, they become the basis of our actions and reactions.
So the mind becomes both the supporter as well as the supported. And the waking state becomes both the supporter as well as the enjoyer, as well as the enjoyed.
No Exclusive Division Between Subject and Object
When we analyse the whole world — and we are part of the world — we divide ourselves and say, "I am this particular individual, and I am the bhoktā, the enjoyer." Experiencer, as I said, is the better word. And the whole universe, twenty-four hours a day, from birth to death, is the experienced, the enjoyed.
Similarly, everything in this world — including the trees, the birds, the worms, the bacteria, not to speak of human beings — exists in these same relationships. There is no such absolute division as: I am a separate enjoyer-subject, and everything else is a mere object. Subject becomes object. Object becomes subject. And in the end, everything must be looked upon as the body of the Virāṭ. That is called: everything is anna.
The Mosquito Illustration
If I am eating food, I am the eater and the food is the eaten. But when a mosquito bites me — or an ant, especially a red ant, or bacteria that live within us — then the mosquito becomes the bhoktā, the enjoyer, and our body becomes the enjoyed. Yet it also helps us indirectly. So this is a great truth: we become both the experiencers and the supporters, and in our turn, we also become the experienced and the supported. And this interrelationship is divine.
The Body as a Whole
Consider just one small illustration: our hands are different from our legs, which are different from our eyes. Every part of the body — consisting of the ten sense organs, five of knowledge (the organs of input) and five of action (the organs of output) — they are all separate from each other. But they are all supporter and supported, and we look upon them as one single whole body. And that is what makes us "I." So if we can look upon the entire creation as "I," without any distinction, that is called seeing God in everything. That is the upāsanā from the seventh anuvāka onwards, until the tenth anuvāka, which we are going to study.
Consciousness as Supporter
Even in the dream and waking states, consciousness becomes the supporter. Without consciousness, we cannot function. And consciousness cannot manifest without the instruments of the body and the mind. So without consciousness, we cannot experience anything — consciousness becomes the supporter, the enjoyer. But if the body-mind does not exist, then consciousness cannot manifest. Therefore the body-mind also becomes the supporter and the enjoyer. So this is the relationship: each is both the supporter and the supported.
Summary of the Upaniṣadic Vision
The whole universe is nothing but the experiencer and the experienced — both are manifestations of Īśvara or Virāṭ. So the Upaniṣad takes certain pairs and tries to illustrate how both become experiencer and experienced, enjoyer and enjoyed, completely dependent upon each other.
So two points we have to keep in mind:
- Enjoyer or experiencer, and experienced.
- Supporter, and supported.
This is what it wants to tell us.
The Seventh Anuvāka: The First Vrata — Anna na nindyāt
The Vow
So the seventh anuvāka starts here. The vow is: Annaṃ na nindyāt — let a seeker of Brahman never condemn food.
Prāṇo vai annam — the prāṇa is verily food. Śarīram annadam — the body is the eater of the food. Prāṇe śarīraṃ pratiṣṭhitam, śarīre prāṇaḥ pratiṣṭhitaḥ — the body rests on the prāṇa, and the prāṇa rests on the body. Thus food rests on food. He who knows this resting of food on food is established in the realisation, "I am Brahman." He becomes a possessor of food and an enjoyer of food. He becomes great in offspring and in cattle and in spiritual radiance, and he also acquires tremendous fame.
Karma Yoga: The Spiritual Dimension of Duty
Before we go into the details, I want to point out that what is being described here is called Karma Yoga. What is Karma Yoga? Performing our duties in accordance with our stage in life, as well as the type of personality we have, but discharging our duties with the proper attitude — as a worship of God. That is called dharma. That is called Karma Yoga.
Svāmī Vivekānanda's beautiful book on Karma Yoga illustrates certain important factors through two beautiful stories at the very beginning.
The Householder Woman
One story is of an ascetic neglecting his duties — doing what he is not supposed to do, and neglecting what he is supposed to do. He goes for begging, and there was a householder woman whose only Karma Yoga was to love her husband and look upon him as her God and serve him. She had become very highly spiritually progressed.
When this Brahmin ascetic stands at her door, she says, "My son — please wait a little. I am serving my husband. I will come." And then we know the story: how she came to know his entire mental condition, just through the practice of that Karma Yoga — looking upon her husband as God.
The Hunter
Then she advises him to go to another village and meet a person who happened to belong to the lowest caste — a hunter. As soon as this ascetic reluctantly went there — thinking, "What can a low-caste person teach me?" (even Śaṅkarācārya had to learn that lesson) — that person immediately recognised him, understood his condition, and said, "Please wait, sir. Let me finish my duties." He took the Brahmin ascetic home, made him sit and wait, until he had served his aged parents and laid them to rest comfortably. Then only did he come back, and there followed a beautiful discussion.
The Universal Relevance of Karma Yoga
What is the point I am trying to tell you? Karma Yoga is not meant only for spiritual aspirants in the formal sense. It doesn't mean that only Svāmīs, Sannyāsīs, or Sannyāsinīs can progress. Anybody who wants to progress in spiritual life — in any stage of life, whether they are students, married people, of whatever background — Svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya siddhiṃ vindati mānavaḥ — a marvellous idea. That is what is being said here with day-to-day examples in this Bhṛguvallī.
There are examples of so many devotees who have no formal education but who, out of Karma Yoga, have purified their minds and received tremendous grace of God. That is what is most important for us to understand.
So all these vratas belong to Karma Yoga. And to explain this, the Upaniṣad here takes food as an example. As I mentioned, anna means experience — we have to understand it this way. I am looking at something, but most importantly, what I am looking at is also a manifestation of Brahman. And that object, in its turn, can also become the enjoyer and the enjoyed. Every living creature can become supporter and supported.
The Two Types of Relationship: Living and Non-Living
We must note one particular point. When we talk about enjoyer and enjoyed, experiencer and experienced, we are primarily talking about living creatures — and those need not be human beings. When a mosquito is trying to make us food, it is the enjoyer and our body is the enjoyed. When we are eating or drinking something, we are the enjoyers and what we consume is the enjoyed.
But the second type of relationship — supporter and supported — includes the non-living also. Many scientists consider the earth, rivers, metals, and stones as non-living. But can we live without mountains? The Arctic areas, for instance — how much influence they have in bringing about proper seasons! Only scientists have come to understand this. It is what I call a holistic attitude — or what is also called the butterfly effect: everything is dependent upon everything else.
That is why the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad's very first chapter is called Madhukāṇḍa or Upadeśakāṇḍa. Madhu means interdependence. Everything is dependent. Parents are dependent upon their children. When a householder begets a child, how much joy both parents get — their whole lives are centred around that child. The child enjoys the affection, the love, the support, the food supplied by the parents. And the parents also tremendously enjoy the child's smile. So can we live without minerals — that is, without the so-called non-living? If we don't have stones or wood, our sophisticated houses will not exist. Many things we prepare from stones, wood, gold, and other materials — all of this is a supporter-supported relationship.
A whole creation, understood in this sense of supporter and supported, is a marvellous concept. If we can really understand it: whatever supports us is God; whatever is supported becomes a supporter; whatever supports also becomes supported. So everything that is supporting us is a manifestation of God. Therefore, everything is a manifestation of God. That holistic attitude is what this Upaniṣad — especially this Bhṛguvallī — wants to tell us.
What Did Bhṛgu Do?
So what did Bhṛgu do? He went to his father, and his father told him: find out from where the whole creation has come out — especially living creatures. Find out from where you came, and from where your parents came. There will come a point when we arrive at one ultimate cause. Every other cause becomes a secondary cause. The primary cause — which does not have another cause, which is eternal and unchanging, one without a second — that is what must be found. But logic will not help. Thinking will not help. Only contemplation, with the grace of God, can help us.
So Karma Yoga means: starting with looking upon everything as God. That is what Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa said: Śiva jñāne jīva sevā — serve the living beings with the knowledge that they are Śiva. And it doesn't stop with serving only living beings. The whole environment — not harming even a single plant, or anything living or non-living, just accepting whatever is necessary for survival — if we can do that, then we can progress in spiritual life. That is the essence of what we are going to reflect upon now.
The First Vow in Detail: Anna na nindyāt
Never Criticise Food
The first vrata is: Annaṃ na nindyāt — never criticise food. Not criticising food means: simply, when I sit and eat, I look upon it as Īśvara in the spirit of Īśvaraḥ sarvabhūtānām. Can I survive without anna? Impossible. So that which makes me alive — that is God. As I have often explained: without which we cannot survive — that is called God. Can we live without food? No. Without water? No. Without warmth? No. Without air or oxygen? No. Without space? No. Therefore, all these are nothing but emanations — direct manifestations of Brahman only. But we have to start where we are standing.
That is why he says: Annaṃ na nindyāt — never, ever criticise food.
The Spirit of Brahmaārpaṇam
What is Brahmaārpaṇam? It means: eating food as a manifestation of Brahman.
Brahmaārpaṇaṃ Brahma haviḥ, Brahmāgnau Brahmaṇā hutam — who is eating? Brahman. What is he eating? Brahman. Who is digesting it? Brahman. Who is converting the food into energy? Brahman. And what is the purpose? Brahman to enjoy himself.
The Nature of a Vrata
Tad vrataṃ — this is a great vow. Vrata means a solemn promise. Hindus have many vratas, as do people in every other religion. Muslims, for example, during Ramaḍān take a vow: "We will not eat from sunrise to sunset." Those who observe this sincerely definitely get the result. Christians take a vow to go on pilgrimage and touch the very embodiment of the saints they venerate. These are all promises to God: "I want to complete this action." A vrata is always like the Satyānārāyaṇa Vrata — "I promise I will not stop until I have completed it." Every spiritual aspirant must look upon anna — let us take it here as physical food — in this spirit.
Prāṇa as Anna, and the Body as Annada
Why must we never condemn food? Because prāṇo vai annam — what does food do when we eat it? Food is nothing but energy. Food is nothing but a conversion of the sun's energy into an edible format. Plants have the ability to convert sunlight into energy directly. But we have to do this indirectly, by eating plants or by eating the plant-eaters. Whether it is rice, vegetables, or non-vegetarian food, food is nothing but prāṇa — energy. So prāṇo vai annam: anna is nothing but prāṇa, and prāṇa is nothing but anna.
Śarīram annadam — this body becomes the eater of food. Prāṇe śarīraṃ pratiṣṭhitam — this body cannot sustain itself without energy, which is prāṇa. So what do we do? We eat food. What happens? It is digested. And what is digestion? Converting food into prāṇa. And because of prāṇa, the whole body — consisting of the five sense organs of knowledge and the five organs of action — is kept alive. We can see, we can hear, we can walk, we can grasp. Energy is needed for all of this.
Śarīre prāṇaḥ pratiṣṭhitaḥ — and the prāṇa is supported within this body. Because the body eats the food and converts it into prāṇa, the prāṇa as it were is housed and supported inside the body. But at the same time, we are able to gather food because of prāṇa. Prāṇa helps the body by energising it — I can walk, I can cultivate — and without energy I cannot do anything. Even breathing is necessary to digest the food. So prāṇa helps the body, and the body helps the prāṇa. They have an inseparable relationship.
So one is the enjoyer and the other is the enjoyed, and in its turn, that which was the enjoyed becomes the enjoyer. In this case, the body is the enjoyer and prāṇa is the enjoyed. From another angle, prāṇa is the enjoyer and this body is the enjoyed. They cannot be separated.
Tat etat annam anne pratiṣṭhitam — both are inseparably supporter and supported. They remain there together.
The Vision of Holistic Oneness
One who understands this — not separating the enjoyer from the enjoyed, always looking upon both the enjoyer and the enjoyed, the supporter and the supported, as one and the same Brahman playing both roles — that person's vision becomes holistic. Then he becomes a holy man. Holistic attitude is the main characteristic of a holy person. He looks upon everything — call it Brahman, God, or the holy — everything living and non-living, with no difference at all.
This concept, by the way, is beautifully illustrated in the natural world. Sir David Attenborough, famous for his Planet Earth and similar BBC films, said: everything has this relationship of supporter and supported. Nothing is wasted. He showed it so clearly — how even the leaves that fall in autumn from the tree become the very fertiliser of the soil, breeding organisms that in turn support the plants. Everything is supporter, everything is supported. Even a little understanding of science can prove this definitively.
The Fruits of This Knowledge
So what happens if anyone sees this inseparable relationship between the eater and the eaten, the experiencer and the experienced, the supporter and the supported? He becomes firmly established in God. Then he is endowed with plenty of food, and he becomes a true enjoyer of food.
The commentators, especially Śaṅkarācārya, explain: such a person becomes not only a possessor of what is enjoyable, but also possessed of the ability to enjoy it to the fullest degree. Only a person who is genuinely hungry can fully enjoy food. And of course, in a general way, we can extend this meaning to everything that is enjoyed — whether it is a house, dress, a car, a drama, or a piece of music. Everything is mutually related. That is called madhu — the sweetest relationship, as between Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa, Rāma and Sītā.
Annavān annadaḥ — possessing in plenty whatever is necessary. Such a person, if he is a householder, will be endowed with great children or highly capable, intelligent, receptive disciples. And then he will have Brahma-varcas — tremendous inner light. That is why, in pictures of saints and sages, there is a luminous halo painted at the background, to show that one who acquires the knowledge of Brahman acquires Brahma-varcas — the light of Brahman. And such a person will be known as a great person — not by everybody, perhaps, but most people will come to recognise it.
Saints Are Often Misunderstood
If you read about some of the Ṣūfī masters, you can see how much they were tortured, killed, burnt, and beaten. Even Lord Jesus Christ — how much he had to go through, right up to the crucifixion. Some people may have thought these were undesirable or dangerous individuals. But in course of time, their names and fame go on increasing. Now, we should not assume that those who were the very cause of Jesus's crucifixion were all selfish people. Some of them were selfish, yes, but some of them genuinely believed that he was gravely mistaken and that whatever he taught was inimical to what God wants us to understand and practise. So that is how saints are misunderstood — and sometimes killed — because they also come as obstructors to our own glory, and because they openly and fearlessly criticise our faults and our misunderstandings, which in our blindness we cannot tolerate.
Essence of the Seventh Anuvāka
Anyway, the essence of this seventh anuvāka is as follows.
First: whatever you see, it is nothing but a manifestation of God, a manifestation of Brahman. And this manifestation of Brahman comes in two forms — which are ultimately one and the same:
- The enjoyer and the enjoyed.
- The supporter and the supported.
If we understand this one truth, then the further examples that are going to follow allow us to extend the same idea accordingly.
And Bhṛgu succeeded in this vision. He came back and reported: Annaṃ brahmeti vijānat — he realised that anna is Brahman. But he did not stop there. Then prāṇa is also Brahman — prāṇo brahma. Then mind also is Brahman — mano brahma. Then intelligence, or consciousness, or even egotism — that is also Brahman. We mistakenly think our egotism is our own personality. But no — it is nothing but Brahman. God implanted that idea of "I." We have seen that in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka: the very first thing is aham — "I am" — and thereafter everything is added: "I am so-and-so," and so forth.
Such a person will be endowed with the knowledge of Brahman and mahākīrti — great renown. And everything that we experience is anna. Every anna is nothing but a manifestation of Brahman. And this is the relationship between us and the whole world. This is called Virāṭ upāsanā. One who succeeds in it — as Bhṛgu succeeded — realises: Annaṃ brahmeti vijānat.
Closing Prayer
ॐ जननीं शारदां देवीं रामकृष्णं जगद्गुरुम् ।पादपद्मे तयोः श्रित्वा प्रणमामि मुहुर्मुहुः
Oṁ jananīṁ śaraḍhāṁ deviṁ rāmakriṣṇam jagad-gurum pādapadmetayosritvā pranamāmi-muhurumuhu
May Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda bless us all with Bhakti. Jai Ramakrishna!