From RtambharA

Ch. 5 External and Internal by Sri Bijoykrishna Chattopadhyaya

From brahma the greatest, to the tiniest clump of grass, this entire world is a ceremonial altar to the supreme being. The sages have repeatedly said this to us. From the movements of a speck of dust, to the evolution of the entire universe, everything appears to be occupied with the performance of this ceremony. Conscious or unconscious, whatever we see anywhere, all appear to be a flow of activity, of ceaseless unrest, uninterrupted movement. All this unrest and movement is a ceremonial offering to brahma. This ceremony has been going on, uniterrrupted, for eternity and will continue for eternity. The brahma is eternal and his ceremony is without beginning and end. The priest of this sacrificial ceremony is brahma, brahma is the oblation, brahma the fire, brahma the offering. The sages have clearly made us comprehend this and god himself came amongst us and said so himself [21].

The subject, object, means, recipient, source, locus and address, all the cases for this sacrifice are brahma. He has divided himself in many ways, forms and names. Dividing himself in this way, he has lit up sacrificial fire-pits of various perceptions; igniting in all of them, the same fire. The name of the fire is feeling (bhAb), the name of the flames is want (abhAb). The truth-natured brahma’s wish-natured enterprise or heat, taking the shape of flames of want are blazing away. From particle to particle, being to being, planet to planet, universe to universe, flames of want, burning of need. The blazing embers, its external form; the swirling flames, its heated breath; fires of feelings, flames of want.

Those that recognize this conflagration of perceptions as the truth-formed brahma, are carrying out their complete offerings into the sacrificial fire. They are involved by the truth-natured brahma and are the beneficiaries of the sacrifice, the master of ceremonies. Those that cannot do this, their want, their flames of non-awareness, pierce the skies, cross the spaces and spread their fiery tongues to the horizons. Not seeing feeling or perception (bhAb or bodh) one only sees want or non-existence (abhAb or achit).

Those who are taking the words of the seers as of a preceptor, and begin to recognize the fire; their flames are subsiding. Their flames only give light, luminescence, progress and life; they bring forth divine ambrosia; and finding it, they become immortal and in joy move towards nirvANa, they are the gods (sura). Those who do not recognize the fire, do not try to recognize it, only look at the flames as those of want, as non-awareness, not holding them to be the aspiration and wish for truth, their flames blaze into the skies; they burn from space to space, they extend through skies. Unruly, uncontrolled, ill-behaved, their flames of want and non-self burn to the horizons; they burn themselves. They bring up venom, they find venom and on every side they discharge venom. They find only burns, only pain, only smoke- they are the demons, the asura.

One seeks completeness (purNa), and finds entirety (purNatA). The other seeking entirety, find nothing (sunya). To complete themselves, one looks at the face of the entirety, and see the completeness of purNa. To give total authority to the whole, they empty themselves into the wholeness, increase the power of the whole, do not limit the authority of the whole by keeping their own; they put what is whole on their own throne. The others also want to make themselves complete, but they increase their own rule, spread looks of longing and discover want, create kingdoms of emptiness upon emptiness; trying to become whole by increasing the emptiness, they create a mirage of completeness in the void; they dissolve in emptiness. They want to seat themselves in the throne of purNa.
I have said, perception or feeling is the fire of this ceremony, its flames are want or non-self. The truth natured brahma, having the wish to play, with infinite reach, on one side shows its wholeness and on the other, the void, void, void. Those who see feeling (bhAb), do not see want (abhAb). Those who see abhAb, they do not see bhAb. Those who vision want, they only have burns, flames and the screams of danger.

They shout for succor, but who will save them? Where is the savior? Who is there to rescue them, who is a liberator? Only spirals of fiery smoke; unending darkness, endless immobility, only empty expanses; vision dimmed by smoke, breathless with it; throat choked by it.

No signs of a savior- only echoes. “Are you there?” echoing “there”. “Where are you?” echoing “you”. “Where?” echoes “Here”. “Where?” “There”.

A phenomenal ceremony, which is being carried out superbly; the conductor is right there. The ones who see want, think it to be a house on fire, a conflagration. “Run from here! Run, run!” But, where to run to? That is not known. This happens when one does not look at the very root of this.

The sages say, “Children, why this turmoil? Why this running about? Look at the lord of the ceremony. Keep your eyes there. The smoke will not bother you. This is not a house on fire, this is a ceremonial site.”
“Where is the lord of ceremonies?” In you, in your heart; in me, in my heart; in this fire ceremony, in it’s heart, in the flames, in the heart of the flames, in the burning, in it’s heart.

One can envision the ceremony and catch sight of the ceremonial priest if one can recognize, know and acknowledge this universe, this sacrificial ceremony of brahma, this playing field of the awareness of the truth-natured, animate brahma, as an indulgence of awareness, as a play of knowledge, as an evolution of feeling or an appearance of the sentient atma as name-form-action. If you can attain divine sight of the self, by applying the kohl of knowledge to eyes blind to the self; if you can know and agree that the truth-natured paramatma, the priest of the ceremonies exists; if you can expand the perception of his universal existence to the most material expression in this world; if you can realize, earth, water, energy, air, sky or sound, touch, form, taste, odor, or mind, intelligence, spirit and ahaMkAra or the fundamental force of these variations to be expression of the atma, differences in the name, form or action of the atma, then you will be able to observe the ceremony, see the master of ceremonies. As long as you can not do that, untruth, emptiness, the mirage of want will blow you about from space to space. The flaming, burning tongues of death will throw you about time and again. To satisfy the hunger of death, you will have to be born and burn again and again.

To save oneself from the clutches of death, to free oneself from the ties of delusion, to find the cooling touch of a million moons from these burning flames, one has to move towards the establishment of truth, wager ones life for the view of truth, turn oneself into truth. Death is but another form of the divine nectar; your perceptual self is both the forms of death and eternal life. Inside and out, this is the perceptual duality of your true self. This has been shown by the sages in the srutis and following these great statements, you will attempt to fill your perceptions with these feelings. Whether inside or outside, do not fell any other existence, and even if you do, think of it as the form of truth; this is the central conclusion in all the srutis. This is what the sage declared as ‘envelop this world by god, whatever is in the outer world or inner’ [22]. Convert this world, this consumption of the world into the enjoyment of truth. See it as truth. Feel yourself to be truth. Practice that other than truth there is nothing that you know of, inside or outside. Do not see the world as false. Say, ‘you alone are the only refuge in this universe’ [23]. Say ‘That self or my own self is all that is manifest or unmanifest. It is all the earth, water, air, fire and sky. It is all perception, intellect, mind, prANa. It is energy and non-energy, desire and non-desire, anger and non-anger, it is all. Truly it exists. Whether inside or outside, it truly exists. There is nothing false, no mirages, it truly exists even as unconscious form. I am engrossed in truth, it is my inside, it is outside, this universe is true, my mind is true, senses true, life is true, I am true. This world is true, all beings are true, the host of deities are true. He is true, who is the truth of truth. I am born in truth, live in truth and will vanish in truth. Hear this, O dwellers of this world, blessed children of the divine nectar, I see that great truth, know it and abide by it. There are not many; the one has become many. What else but truth will hold me, what else will pick me up to its heart. From what else but the truth, will I receive food, in what other water will I bathe, by what other fire, what light will my eyes be lit, by what other air will I survive, in what sky will I will I pour my words of care, love, respect, unruliness and demand? Other than that, from which all appears, who else will I accept with the heart of my heart? Whose wealth will I enjoy but his. Don’t accept riches from anybody. Take it as his. ‘do not desire the wealth of others ’. Really all things are his glory. Enjoy them as his glory. DO not accept riches from anyone else. What you know as different from the true soul is poison, is death.

Inside and out, accept all things as the true form of the AtmA. Do not build mirages of falsehood by trying to understand what is false. Do not cover the deity of your hearts, by the things of the world. Drown your sense of falsehood into oblivion, for ever.

This perception of truth, in truth, is the establishment of truth.


21 bhagabad gitA: 4: 24.
22 ishaponiSad, 1 “ishA vasyamidam sarvam…..”
23 AdhArabhutA jagatastvamekA, devI mAhatayma. 11:4
24 mA gridhaH kasyasiddhanam, ishaponiSad, 1


© 2008 Adyakalidas