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31 CHAPTER THREE The Nature of the Ātman The basic problem of human beings, according to the Advaita Vedānta tradition , is that the experience of the finite and the satisfaction of desires for wealth and pleasure leave us wanting. Secular knowledge, as Nārada discovered , also culminates in the discontent of sorrow. Even the more intangible gains such as fame, power, and social prestige leave us with a sense of incompleteness . The multiplication of desires does not liberate us from want. Satisfactions are ephemeral and behind everything “is the great spectre of death, the all encompassing blackness.”1 The desire for a wisdom that satisfies the human longing for meaning and fullness underlies the question of Śaunaka to his teacher, Anùgiras, at the beginning of the Mun³d³aka Upanis³ad (1.3). “What is it, my lord, by knowing which one comes to understand everything?”2 Śaunaka’s question is not a request for empirical information about the world. It is a desire for meaning in existence, a solution to the despair of his own life. The students at the beginning of the Śvetāśvatara Upanis³ad (1.1) ask a series of questions centered on the meaning of their lives. Why were we born? By what do we live? On what are we established? These are universal human questions concerning the origin, purpose , and goal of human existence.3 In Maitreyī’s question to her husband, Yājñavalkya, “If I were to possess the entire world filled with wealth, would it make me immortal?” we find expression of the human anxiety about mortality and a longing for the transcendence of death. In the case of Nārada, his vast learning and attainments did not bring him lasting happiness. He spoke of the human predicament by confessing to his teacher that he is a “man full of sorrow ,” and requests to be liberated from his suffering. His sorrow is born of a persistent experience of incompleteness. OV ERCO M I N G T H E H U M A N P RO B LEM The human problem expresses itself in a variety of modes: as a longing for meaning, the fear of death, or the sorrow of an unfulfilled life. At the back 32 THE ADVAITA WORLDVIEW of it, according to the Upanis³ads, is the desire for the infinite. In the view of the Upanis³ads, it is the attainment or gain of the infinite that truly resolves the human problem. “Only when people,” says the teacher in the Śvetāśvatara Upanis³ad (6:23), “will be able to roll up the sky like a piece of leather will suffering come to end, without first knowing God.” “It is the infinite,” says Sanatkumāra to Nārada in the Chāndogya Upanis³ad (7.23.1), “ that is bliss. There is no bliss in the finite. Only the infinite is bliss. One must desire to know the infinite.”The infinite is immortal whereas the finite is mortal.4 The infinite is referred to in the Upanis³ads as brahman and the knowledge of brahman (brahmavidyā or brahmajñāna) liberates the seeker from the human predicament of meaninglessness, sorrow, and fear of mortality. “I know,” says the teacher in the Śvetāśvatara Upanis³ad (3:8), “that Infinite Being, shining like the sun and beyond all darkness. Only by knowing him does one pass beyond death; there is no other path.”5 How does the teacher in the Upanis³ads instruct the student about the nature of brahman? The gist of the Upanis³adic solution to the human problem is to point out that the seeker is the sought. In other words, one is already the immortal and full being that one desires to become.The self (I) (ātman) is the infinite (brahman). This truth is summarized in what the Advaita tradition regards as the four great Upanis³adic sentences (mahāvākyas). These are as follows : “That Thou Art (tat tvam asi)” is taken from the Chāndogya Upanis³ad (6.8.7) of the Sāma Veda; “This ātman is brahman (ayam ātma brahma)” is taken from the Mānùd³ukya Upanis³ad (2) of the Atharva Veda; “Consciousness is brahman (prajñānamù brahma)” is taken from Aitareya Upanis³ad (5.3) of the R³g Veda; and “I am brahman (ahamù brahmāsmi)” is taken from Br³hadāran³yaka Upanis³ad (1.4.10) of the Yajur Veda. If one...

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