It’s October, and each day is now shorter, and every night longer. As the shadows extend, we reach for the light that guides us.
On the first moonless night of this season, we celebrate the darkness and the light within. In the Indian tradition, this night is the festival of lights, Diwali. The western pagan tradition celebrated the time as all-hallows-eve, where prayers, candles and treats welcome the souls of the dead.
It’s a time for rebirth. A time to think about the meaning of material life.
One famous Upanishad verse stands out this season. It’s from the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad (the great wilderness lectures), and this verse is also known as the Pavamana Mantra, the purifying chants.
असतो मा सद्गमय । Asatō mā sadgamaya
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय । tamasō mā jyōtirgamaya
मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय । mr̥tyōrmā amr̥taṁ gamaya
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥ Om śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ
– Br̥hadāraṇyakopaniṣat 1.3.28
This is translated into English as (from the Wikipedia)
From untruth lead us to Truth.
From darkness lead us to Light.
From death lead us to Immortality.
Om Peace, Peace, Peace
There are three prayers, and each line follows the same structure, and it’s evident even if you can’t read Sanskrit. Lead me from this to that. There are three requests: for Sat (Truth), Jyoti (Light) and Amritam (Immortality). I’ll talk later about how these three are directly linked to another great triad from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad- Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss).
Sat, of what is capital T True
If it’s true on Monday and false on Tuesday, it’s just not True. That’s just the definition of capital-T-Truth. For something to be True, it must always be true without conditions. For something to exist, in Truth, it must always exist. But we are born, and we die. How can our individual existence be True if we are only temporarily true? What is the Truth of our existence? This is the search that the first line of the prayer implies. What is the un-changing Truth behind this sound-and-light show that we call our own life? Similarly, in the world outside, what is it that doesn’t change with the seasons? What is the Thing that every-Thing is part of? We want answers.
Jyoti, the light that illuminates
What is the light that shines upon everything? In the outside world, we light a candle, bulb or Sun’s light to see clearly. But what shines in the world inside?
Why is it that our eyes receive signals, and our ears receive signals separately, and yet we see the world as a single connected experience? What is the light of this inner experience that illuminates our being? How do our thoughts find their way around in the darkness of our minds? Why don’t they get lost in the tangle of nerves that is our brain?
Consciousness is one of the hardest problems of science, the other being “what is the universe made of”. What is the source of our experience, and what is this experiencing self?
There is a way to know the Knower. There’s a way to know the inner light. That way is mystical, mysterious and momentous. We pray for that light.
Amritam, the immortality of bliss
Amritam can be interpreted here as immortality and as ambrosia, or nectar of bliss. Both work just fine, and maybe both meanings are exactly true together here. What is the opposite of death? Is it eternal life, or it time-less-ness?
The world of perception is known as mrutyuloka (death’s world) because our experiences here are ultimately frustrating. We have moments of happiness and joy, but we can’t hold on to them. We grasp, we dream, we crave…and yet we return empty handed.
Like kids at the door on Halloween, we know that there’s no treats available here forever — it’s a trickster’s world. Even Halloween treats lose their taste when we have too many. It’s a cruel world where one hundred candies don’t taste one hundred times as tasty as a single bite. Why is that? This material world is designed to saturate our peak experiences. It is designed to be frustrating and fleeting. That’s just how it works.
So the opposite of this frustrating death-experience is not immortality (in time), but the attainment of an ananda, bliss, that is not fleeting. That unflinching light of joy, that taste that doesn’t fade, that musical note that never tires. What is that experience? We want it. Give it to us.
Sat, Chit, Ananda
True Existence is Consciousness and Bliss. All is This, This is All.
Truth is that we are here and we don’t know the first thing about who we are, what “Here” is, and why we are here. We just don’t think about these things at all because there are no easy answers.
But there is one easy answer if you are willing to accept it.
The only unchanging thing about this material world is the Truth of our experiencing Self (note capital S). This Self lights up our experiences and shows us the way. This Self changes and doesn’t change. This experience is material and yet not material. This way takes us there but doesn’t travel. These are the paradoxes we have to learn to live on the inward journey.
The world outside our eyes is not more real than the world behind our senses of perception.
We pray for the light that illuminates our path to this Truth.
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