यस्मिन्द्यौः पृथिवी चान्तरिक्षमोतं मनः सह प्राणैश्च सर्वैः ।
तमेवैकं जानथ आत्मानमन्या वाचो विमुञ्चथामृतस्यैष सेतुः ॥ ५ ॥
He, on whom the sky, earth and the atmosphere is woven,
And the wind, together with all life-breaths,
Him alone Known as the one soul.
— Mundaka (2.2.5)
Plodding through our mundane tasks we are not aware of any interconnectedness among things, but as we dive into finer, the realm of subatomic world, something different from our ordinary individualised material world is seen.
The constituents of matter and the basic phenomenon involving them are all inter-connected, inter-related and interdependent. They cannot be understood as an isolated entity but only as integral parts of The Whole.
In the quantum world, the observer influences the properties of the observed object to the extent that it’s prudent to replace the world observer by “ Participator”.
We see that the external world and the inner world are two sides of the same fabric. As we dive into the Self, the distinction between the observer and the observed breaks down completely, where subject and the object fuse into a unified, undifferentiated whole, the Bramhan.
Yagnavalkya, the great sage of India, after successfully concluding the three ashrams of his life, was about to enter the fourth Samnyasa Ashram, wherein he has to renounce all material possessions. So he declares to divide all his belongings between his two wives, Maitreyi and Katyayani and asks for leave.
To this Maitrayi , thee seeker enquires whether all this wealth can give her immortality(not of the physical body), Liberation or moksha. Getting the answer as negative she rejects the material possessions and instead asks for the true knowledge which can give her a state of eternal bliss, beyond any pain or sorrow, freedom from all bondages, the moksha.
The great sage obliges happily describing the unified singularity, The Self. He says “One loves the husband, not for the sake of husband, but for the sake of self, because one loves the Self. Same with wife, child or any other thing. None loves a thing for thing’s sake but it is for the self that one loves it. This self, therefore, is to be heard, reasoned about and meditated upon, for when this Self has been realized all this becomes Known. But those that love the self without knowing what it is, their love is selfishness, ego. Those that love knowing what self is their love is free, beyond any misery or grief.”
The universal, all-pervading, eternal consciousness is all but One Infinite Being. In and through every spirit of individuality is shining that infinite.
This state of universal unity ”Samattva”, with living and non-living alike is the path to reach the ultimate goal, freedom, moksha. We all, knowing or unknowingly, through work, love, knowledge, meditation are striving for same. For only in a state of perfect mental equilibrium, tranquil, this state is reached where one’s individuality dissolves into an undifferentiated oneness, where the world of senses is transcended and the notion of things is left behind.
