"A Discussion between Father and Son"

 

 

 

 

 

1. What is the ultimate cause? The cause ultimate can only be that which is not absorbed into a higher cause. The absorption process ceases when the ultimate cause is reached. The grosser forms get absorbed into the subtler ones, and the subtler ones reach the causal state, the so-called ultimate cause from the empirical point of view. This ultimate cause dissolves in the Absolute.

2. There, everything comes to a cessation. The individuality gets dissolved, as it were. It gets tuned up to the ultimate Reality. So, there is an absorption of the grosser element of the earth into the water element, the water element into the fire element and the fire element into the ultimate Reality which is called Sat, pure Being. It is the origin of all things from which the multiplicity appears to proceed through the instrumentality of this triplicated structure of the universe, the constituents of which are fire, water and earth.

 

3. Everything, ultimately, is rooted in Being. This is what Uddalaka makes out. San-mulam anviccha: If we find out and discover the cause of everything in pure Being, we will not find the ultimate cause of anything in any other thing, except in that Being, pure and simple, in which the effects are rooted in an undistinguishable manner.

 

4.Imah sarvah prajah sadayatanah: All this variety of creation is rooted in Being which is incapable of further absorption into any higher cause, because nothing can be greater than Being. Everything is an effect of It. Everything is an expression of It, but It Itself is not an expression of anything else.

 

5. The generality of existence that is behind the particularity of objects is what is called Sat or Satta. Sometimes, it is known as Satta samanya, general Being in all created objects which is their essence. Every particular can be resolved into this causeless cause. Just as the varieties of furniture can be resolved into the cause which is the wood, so is the case with any other manufactured object.

 

6. There is a tendency of every effect to return into its cause. This is what we call the evolutionary process. It is impossible for the effect to rest in itself, because of the pull exerted by the cause. This pull is invisibly felt and inexorably exercised universally everywhere, in all creation, in respect of every object whatever it may be, organic or inorganic.

 

7. And so nothing can have any peace in this world. Everything is restless, everything moves, everything is tense and everything has an objective transcending itself. That is why there is such endless activity going on in the world, in every field of life. Everything tries to overcome its own limitations and to entertain higher and higher objectives, until it reaches the pure Being.

 

8. The very aspiration to become something else, to transcend one's self, to become better and to move towards something greater, is because of the limitedness, the finitude of things. This itself is a pointer to the existence of a cause beyond themselves. If there is no cause beyond an effect, there would be no motion of the effect towards something else, and there will be no feeling of finitude. 9.

9. There would be noaspiration, no desire whatsoever, and no activity at all.
So, this is the philosophical background to which our mind is driven
through the analogical explanations of Sage Uddalaka, when he says that the
earth element goes back into the water element, the water element into the fire
element, and the fire element into that pure Being, the causeless cause of all
things.

 

10. Sarvah prajah sadayatanah: Everything is having Being as its abode
and everything is rooted in Being. Everything is established in It, as the
branches of a tree are supported by the trunk and are dependent on it.

11. The trunkagain is dependent on the root, and the root on the seed which contains all this
variety. The magnificent expanse of the tree is hidden in that little insignificant
thing which we call the seed. We have already explained how the three
elements get mixed up in certain proportions called trivritkarana and come to
constitute both the objective universe as well as the subjective body of an
individual.

 

12. Now this subtlety of things, this essence of things, this background of all
objects and this invisible Cause that is transcendent and is behind all the variety
of particulars, is the Self of all beings. This is the Atman of all things and
everything in this world has this as its Self. Everything is moving towards the
Self of itself. Where do we move? We move towards our Self. We do not move
towards something else, some other object. So, even the so-called evolution is
not a movement towards something else. It is a movement towards the very
Self of that which is moving.

 

13.The whole difficulty is to locate where that Self is. Is It inside or outside, is
It in me or in you, or is It somewhere else? This is a point which will be
discussed in the next chapter of this Upanishad. This movement of the world
and the tendency of things to move, the whole process of the absorption of the
effect into the cause, is ultimately an indication that everything is pulled by the
Self towards Itself.

 

14.  The subtlest of all things is the Being, pure and simple, and
this Being which we call Sat is also the Atman of all things. There is a hint
given here as to where the Self is, though it is not pointedly explained as to
where It is. You have already been told as to where Being is, and now the
Being is identified with the Atman, the Self.

15. So naturally where Being is, there Self also has to be. And we have already said that the Sat, the pure Being, is the Sattasamanya, and therefore, it must be everywhere. So the Self is everywhere.
Now, where is it that you are going when you are pulled by the Self towards
Itself? What is it that pulls you, which object? Everything pulls you from every
side. So it is not an entry of one thing into another thing, not even of the
individual into the cosmic.

 

16.  It is not anything internal in an empirical sense,
internal in the sense of something being inside another thing physically. It is a
metaphysical internality, a spiritual internality, inconceivable by the mind. It
cannot be calculated in a mathematical way as if something is contained in
something else; not at all. It is the Self of all things in a novel manner,
impossible to describe in words, and it is this universal Selfhood which is the
cause of all things and towards which everything is moving.

 

Chandogya Upanisha: Chapter-2, Section-8, Mantram-6.