RELATIONSHIP YOU NATURE AND SPACE THE BRAHMAM IN UPANISHADS
The Isha Upanishad opens with a monumental phrase in which, by eight brief
and sufficient words, two supreme terms of existence are confronted and set
forth in their real and eternal relation. Ish is wedded with Jagati, God
with Nature, the Eternal seated sole in all His creations with the
ever-shifting Universe and its innumerable whorls and knots of motion, each
of them called by us an object, in all of which one Lord is multitudinously
the Inhabitant. From the brilliant suns to the rose and the grain of dust,
from the God and the Titan in their dark or their luminous worlds to man
and the insect that he crushes thoughtlessly under his feet, everything is
His temple and mansion. He is the veiled deity in the temple, the open
householder in the mansion and for Him and His enjoyment of the
multiplicity and the unity of His being, all were created, and they have no
other reason for their existence. And the words are
* Ishá vásyam idam sarvam yat kincha jagatyám jagat. *
For habitation by the Lord is all this, everything whatsoever that
is moving thing in her that moves.
This relation of divine Inhabitant and objective dwelling-place is the
fundamental truth of God and the World for life. It is not indeed the whole
truth; nor is it their original relation in the terms of being; it is
rather relation in action than in being, for purpose of existence than in
nature of existence. This practical relation of the Soul to its world thus
selected by the Seer as his starting point is from the beginning and with
the most striking emphasis affirmed as a relation not of coordinate
equality or simple interaction but of lordship and freedom on one side, of
instrumentality on the other, Soul in supreme command of Nature, God in
untrammeled possession of His world, not limited by anything in its nature
or His nature, but free & Lord. For, since it is the object of the
Upanishad to build up a practical rule of life here in the Brahman rather
than a metaphysical philosophy for the satisfaction of the intellect, the
Seer of the Upanishad selects inevitably the practical rather than the
essential relation of God & the world as the starting point of his thought,
use & subordination rather than identity. The grammatical form in *vásyam*
expresses a purpose or object which has to be fulfilled, —in this instance
the object of habitation; the choice of the word *Ishá i*mplies an absolute
control and therefore an absolute freedom in that which has formed the
object, envisaged the purpose. Nature, then, is not a material shell in
which Spirit is bound, nor is Spirit a roving breath of things ensnared to
which the object it inspires is a prison house. The indwelling God is the
Lord of His creations and not their servant or prisoner, and as a
householder is master of his dwelling-places to enter them and go forth
from them at his will or to pull down what he has built up when it ceases
to please him or be serviceable to his needs, so the Spirit is free to
enter or go forth from Its bodies and has power to build and destroy and
rebuild whatsoever It pleases in this universe. The very universe itself is
free to destroy and recreate. God is not bound; He is the entire master of
His creations.
The word Ishá, starting forward at once to meet us in this opening
vibration of the Seer’s high strain of thought, becomes the master tone of
all its rhythms. It is the key to all that follows in the Upanishad. For
not only does it contradict at once all mechanical theories of the Universe
and assert the pre-existence, omnipotence, majesty and freedom of the
transcendent Soul of things within, but by identifying the Spirit in the
universe with the Spirit in all bodies, it asserts what is of equal
importance to its gospel of a divine life for humanity, that the soul in
man also is master, not really a slave, not bound, not a prisoner, *but
free*—not bound to grief and death and limitation, but the master, the user
of grief and death and limitation and free to pass on from them to other
and more perfect instruments. If then we seem to be bound, as undoubtedly,
we do seem, by a fixed nature of our minds and bodies, by the nature of the
universe, by the duality of grief and joy, pleasure and pain, by the chain
of cause and effect or by any other chain or tie whatsoever, the seeming is
only a seeming and nothing more. It is Maya, illusion of bondage, or it is
Lila, a play at being bound. The soul, for its own purposes, may seem to
forget its freedom, but even when it forgets, the freedom is there,
self-existent, inalienable and, since never lost except in appearance,
therefore always recoverable even in that appearance. This is the first
truth of Vedanta assumed by the Upanishad in its opening words and from
this truth we must start and adhere to it always in our minds, if we would
understand in its right bearing & complete suggestion the Seer’s gospel of
life:—
*That which dwells in the body of things is God, Self and Spirit; the
Spirit is not the subject of its material, but the master; the soul in the
body or in Nature is not the prisoner of its dwelling-place, but has molded
the body and its dharmas, fixed Nature and its processes and can remold,
manipulate and arrange them according to its power and pleasure.*
*Idam sarvam yat kincha*, the Seer has said, emphasizing the
generality of *idam
sarvam* by the comprehensive particularity of *yat kincha*. He brings us at
once by this expression to the Advaitic truth in Vedanta that there is a
multitude of objects in the universe, (it may be, even, a multitude of
universes,) *but only one soul of things and not many.* Eko ‘chalah
sanátanah. The Soul in all this and in each particular form is one, still
and sempiternal, one in the multitude of its habitations, still and
unshifting in the perpetual movement of Nature, sempiternal the same in
this constant ceasing and changing of forms. God sits in the center of this
flux of the universe, eternal, still and immutable. He pervades its oceanic
heaving and streaming; *therefore it endures*. *Nature is the multiplicity
of God*, Spirit is His unity; Nature is His mobility, Spirit is His fixity;
Nature is His variation, Spirit is His constant sameness. These truths are
not stated at once; the Seer waits for a later verse to arrive at them. In
this opening phrase he limits himself to the statement of the unity of God,
and the multiplicity and mobility of Nature; for this relation in
opposition is all that is immediately necessary to base the rule of divine
living which it is his one object in the Upanishad to found upon a right
knowledge of God & existence.
*The self then of every man, every animal and every object, whether animate
or inanimate, is God;* the soul in us, therefore, is something divine, free
and self-aware. If it seems to be anything else,—bound, miserable,
darkened,—that is inevitably some illusion, some freak of the divine
consciousness at play with its experiences; if this Soul seems to be other
than God or Spirit, what seems is only a name and a form or, to keep to the
aspect of the truth here envisaged, is only movement of Nature, jagat,
which God has manifested in Himself for the purpose of various enjoyment in
various mansions,—it is an image, a mask, a shape or eidolon created in the
divine movement, formed by the divine self-awareness, instrumentalized by
the divine activity. *Therefore, He is “this man and yonder woman, a boy
and a girl, that old man leaning on his staff, this blue bird and that
scarlet-eyed”. We have, asserted in the comprehensiveness of the phrase,
not only an entire essential omnipresence of God in us & in the world,* but
a direct and a practical omnipresence, possessing and insistent, not vague,
abstract or elusive.
*God is One; Self, Spirit, Soul is one; even when It presents Itself
multitudinously in Its habitations as if It were many souls and so appears
in the motion of Nature, Its universality and unity are not abrogated nor
infringed. In all there is That which by coming out of its absorption in
form of movement, recovers its unity. As the soul in man, though seeming to
be bound, is always free and can realise its freedom, so, though seeming
divided, limited and many, it is always universal, illimitable and one and
can realise its universality and unity.*
This creature born in a moment of time and bound in an atom of Space, is
really in his secret consciousness the universal Spirit who contains the
whole universe of things and dwells as the self of all things in these
myriad forms of man & bird & beast, tree & earth & stone which my mind
regards as outside me & other than myself. In the name of myself God
inhabits this form of my being—but it is God that inhabits and the apparent
“I” is but a centre of His personality & a knot in the infinite coilings of
His active world existence. My ego is a creation of the Jagati in a form of
mind; my Self stands behind, possesses and exceeds the universe.
K RAJARAM IRS 6 7 25
------------------------------
On Sun, 6 Jul 2025 at 09:11, Yeddanapudi Markandeyulu <
yeddanapu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah, I see what you're saying now—thank you for clarifying. You’re not
> suggesting that we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but
> rather emphasizing that we are intricately *connected to the universe*.
> This connection gives our existence deep meaning, and when we align
> ourselves with the natural world in a more holistic way, we become part of
> the larger cosmic whole.
>
> Your point is that *significance comes from interconnectedness*—every
> particle, every individual, is meaningful because it participates in the
> vast network of the universe. The challenge, as you put it, is in our
> ability to *experience nature as nature*, not from an outside, detached
> viewpoint. This experience is what allows us to *understand the universe*
> from within, feeling its rhythms and flows, rather than merely observing it
> as external observers.
>
> This brings us to a deeper philosophical perspective on education. Rather
> than merely absorbing facts or becoming passive recipients of knowledge,
> the *true learning process* involves *immersing oneself in nature*,
> feeling it, and experiencing it in its raw, unfiltered form. *Living
> nature, rather than observing it*, becomes the key to understanding the
> profound interconnectedness of all things.
> Some Additional Thoughts:
>
> 1.
>
> *Reclaiming Oneness*: When you describe experiencing nature "as
> nature," I feel like you're talking about reclaiming a sense of
> *oneness*—not as an outsider but as an integral part of the natural
> world. This echoes many ancient spiritual traditions, where the perception
> of separation between humans and nature is seen as an illusion. By
> dissolving this illusion, we align ourselves with the flow of the universe,
> which can lead to deeper wisdom and fulfillment.
> 2.
>
> *Educational Paradigm*: This approach to education, based on feeling
> and experiencing, would require a massive shift in how we view learning.
> Instead of a system based on memorization, testing, and measurable outputs
> (like grades), education would focus more on experiential wisdom—*allowing
> students to “become” rather than “learn about.”* This could lead to a
> profound shift in how we nurture not just intellectual abilities, but
> emotional intelligence, empathy, and a true connection with the
> environment.
> 3.
>
> *Practical Implementation*: In a world that often feels more
> disconnected from nature, how can we begin to cultivate these experiences
> in daily life? Could outdoor education programs, where students are
> encouraged to *become part of the landscape*, offer a tangible path
> toward this holistic form of learning? Could urban spaces incorporate more
> green areas where people are invited to engage deeply with the natural
> world, instead of just using it as a passive backdrop?
>
> It seems to me that you’re advocating for a deeper, more embodied
> relationship with the universe and nature, where knowledge isn't merely
> intellectual, but felt in the whole of our being.
>
> Do you think that this approach can be realistically integrated into
> today's society, especially with the modern focus on technology and
> industrial progress? Or do you see this as an ideal to work toward in a
> different, perhaps more intentional setting (like eco-villages, or small
> communities dedicated to this holistic approach)?
>
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