Taittiriya Upanishad Lecture 69 Ch2 2.4-3 on 10 September 2025 Q&A
Question 1: Reconciling Self-Realization with Self-Surrender
Student A: The Upanishads are full of this idea of self-realisation and I find it a bit difficult how to reconcile the idea of self-realisation with self-surrender. It seems that sometimes there are at odds with each other.
Maharaj: Correct. Sadhana means surrender. Surrender means give up what is not Real and approaching Reality step by step. Another word for it, from the knowledge point of view, it is called Atmanishaya [Atmanishta?]. From the devotee point of view, it is called you surrender yourself to God and the more we surrender, the less we become, and more God enters in. That is called surrender.
Question 2: Upasana - Meditation or Contemplation?
Student B: What I just wanted to clarify, this system of Upasana, is this in the realm of contemplation or is it really the Dhyanam, meditation?
Maharaj: There is no difference between meditation and contemplation. If your meditation becomes deep, what happens first of all? You will forget your physical body. You forget your pranic body. Then the more you become identified with what you are meditating upon, and what are you meditating upon? God. So, all the panchakoshas slowly become melted away and only God remains in the end.
That is called Upasana. Why is it called Upasana? Upa means near. As you approach nearer to God, then automatically your ideas before approaching God will melt away and you become empty. That is the purpose of meditation, to become one with the object of contemplation.
Student B: And what I get to understand is. So this increasing knowledge, from moving from one Kosha to another, giving up step by step one anatma principle, and then go to the next one and to the next one. Simultaneously, it looks like this knowing is becoming because you also mentioned there is a transformation happening alongside.
Maharaj: Correct. That is what I have been telling all the time. To know means to become.
Student B: Now, the question is: Can one every day in the meditation or dhyana, can one not simultaneously do the first step and then do the second and then do the third. So, you are more or less going at each session of your Upasana. Can one go through one after the other in the same session?
Maharaj: No.
Student B: Or we should wait?
Maharaj: So, it is like a school child asking "I will close my eyes and I will understand what college professor is telling, what university professor is telling". It is not a realistic meditation. It is only imagination.
Student B: Yes, yes. But it is just so wonderful, because a clear methodology is there.
Maharaj: In any field, not only in spiritual field, in every field.
Student B: Yes. So, essentially when we are saying this upasana, you are actually concentrating what you have just been teaching.
Maharaj: Identifying oneself with the higher manifestation of the Self.
Student B: How would we know when we are ready to go to the next step?
Maharaj: I told you, I explained to you in this very class. If somebody has become, or progressing towards Annabrahma, his selfishness becomes less, his generosity, his love, his identity with everything in this creation becomes more and more. Otherwise, he or she may be imagining I am becoming Annabrahma. The effects will show but we have to be awake to know whether I am progressing or not. Simply thinking I am progressing, staying where one is, that is not going to be helpful.
Student B: It is just tempting to go straight to the pranamaya. Only because it looks like there is a facility where it automatically unblocks your know various...
Maharaj: No, it will not happen. First step, we have to transcend actually. You stand on the ground floor, go on shouting "I am on the first step! I am on the second step! I am on the third step!" What will happen? Mentally, that is what we are shouting.
Important point is somebody has become, let us say, identified with Pranabrahma. In his presence, in her presence, people will be inspired. In other people's, those who are not, their perspiration will grow, not inspiration.
Student B: Maharaj Ji, would it be fair to assume you know, like some very amazing books or a very great music, you would say that's just simply Medananda is not an effect of Pranamaya Kosha being activated?
Maharaj: Yes, Prana is the very foundation for whichever, every kosha, Prana. If Prana is not there, mind will not work, buddhi will not work, there will be no ananda.
Question 3: How Koshas Limit Our Idea of God
Student C: So Maharaj, in today's class, I will just ask these questions. It seems that the kosha that we are in or identified with at any time, does that kind of limit or determine our idea of God?
Maharaj: Sure, sure, sure, sure. Whatever we know about ourselves, our concept of God will be exactly the same.
Student C: So the highest idea of God we can reach within or have within a particular kosha would be at the most the universal aspect of that kosha? Would that be correct to say?
Maharaj: Yes, yes. If I think I am the body, I cannot think of Annabrahma except as a huge human being. That's what Swamiji says, you know, if you ask a cow, its idea of God. It is a huge cow, powerful cow. If you ask an ant, most powerful ant. The concept one has about oneself when it is magnified to a great extent is called God.
Student C: So that statement, as God grows with us, that's really what this is talking about. And then when Thakur says in the gospel that in this Kali Yoga our body is dependent on food. So he is saying to us that we are mostly identified at the most with the Anna?
Maharaj: Correct. Anna means body. Body means related with the body, possessions, relationships, other people's opinions about ourselves, adverse circumstances, favourable circumstances, everything that is physical, external, that which affects our body, that is what is called our level. Where are we? At the body level.
Question 4: Desert Fathers and the Meaning of Spirituality
Student D: Maharaj, a general question. We see spiritual people, especially with Desert Fathers, the more spiritual a person gets, the more human he gets. They are identified with even the most defective or the most sinful, as the Christians put it. They are very human to the core. What does spirituality really mean? Is it just being human fundamentally?
Maharaj: You see, our understanding of what is called our concept of sinfulness and the Desert Fathers, what they mean by sinfulness, don't presume that what we understand is what they mean.
Swamiji explained during his talks that even Christianity has this idea of involution, that Adam and Eve have forgotten their true nature and to feel that they are human, to feel that they are, that is called the body level, worst body level. What do I mean? Why did Eve cover herself? What is the meaning of this covering?
Student D: She is the body now.
Maharaj: Not only body, everybody will not do that. Two children, say three years old boys and girls, most of the time they will be playing naked. Do they cover themselves? The adults want to cover them and they want to uncover themselves, isn't it? Is it the same like young men and women? So, grossest body level, that falling is called fall from the paradise. That is called sin. That is the concept of the Desert Fathers.
Sin means ajnana, which is the root cause. That is why he said they got the fruit of knowledge. Here knowledge means what? Ajnana. And by the way, ajnana is not absence of knowledge, but very positive knowledge, but wrong knowledge, ignorance of who we are.
So, the more these Desert Fathers were advancing in spiritual life, the more they realise how powerful is this ajnana, or what we call Mahamaya. And that is why they are always praying, "O Lord, please remove this," because only through prayer, "mayādhyakṣheṇa prakṛitiḥ sūyate sa-charācharam" (BG 9:10) not only that, "daivī hyeṣhā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā, mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te" (BG 7:14). Bhagavad Gita says "This maya is mine". Mine means what? I am only manifesting in the form of ajnana to sport with myself. Of course, we do not know that. We think he is playing with us like a cat plays with rats. They are struggling to overcome this maya, which is called satan. That is what they mean by the word sin. And what do we understand by the word sin? There is a vast difference between their understanding and our understanding. The nearer they are approaching, the more they become conscious of the power of the Mahamaya. The more they pray to the Divine Lord.
That is why when other people fall, they become most compassionate because they understand how difficult it is to overcome. Not difficult, it is impossible. Only God's Grace can save us.
Student D: So, in approach Maharaj, it seems like the real stepping-ladder towards spirituality. So it means the expansion of the consciousness, to become more and more.
Maharaj: What is the meaning of the expansion of consciousness? The understanding that I am from God, my nature is Divinity. To feel more Divinity is to feel less identity with body, mind, etc. That is what we should understand by the word Consciousness. Knowledge. In other words, Real Knowledge.