Yâjnavalkya was a great sage. The Shastras in India enjoin that every man should give up the world when he becomes old. So Yajnavalkya said to his wife, “My beloved, here is all my money, and my possessions, and I am going away.”
She replied, “Sir, if I had this whole earth full of wealth, would that give me immortality?” Yajnavalkya said, “No, it will not. You will be rich, and that will be all, but wealth cannot give us immortality.” She replied, “What shall I do to gain that through which I shall become immortal? If you know, tell me.”
Yajnavalkya replied, “You have been always my beloved; you are more beloved now by this question. Come, take your seat, and I will tell you; and when you have heard, meditate upon it.”
He said, “It is not for the sake of the husband that the wife loves the husband, but for the sake of the Âtman that she loves the husband, because she loves the Self.
“None loves the wife for the sake of the wife; but it is because one loves the Self that one loves the wife. None loves the children for the children; but because one loves the Self, therefore one loves the children. None loves wealth on account of the wealth; but because one loves the Self, therefore one loves wealth.
“None loves the Brâhmin for the sake of the Brahmin; but because one loves the Self, one loves the Brahmin. So, none loves the Kshatriya for the sake of the Kshatriya, but because one loves the Self. Neither does any one love the world on account of the world, but because one loves the Self.
“None, similarly, loves the gods on account of the gods, but because one loves the Self. None loves a thing for that 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. O my Maitreyi, when that Self has been heard, when that Self has been seen, when that Self has been realized, then, all this becomes known.”
Whenever one loves, one has to love in and through the Self. Every time we particularize an object, we differentiate it from the Self. I am trying to love a woman; as soon as that woman is particularized, she is separated from the Atman, and my love for her will not be eternal, but will end in grief. But as soon as I see that woman as the Atman, that love becomes perfect, and will never suffer. So with everything; as soon as you are attached to anything in the universe, detaching it from the universe as a whole, from the Atman, there comes a reaction. With everything that we love outside the Self, grief and misery will be the result. If we enjoy everything in the Self, and as the Self, no misery or reaction will come. This is perfect bliss.
How to come to this ideal? Yajnavalkya says, “As with a drum when we are at a distance we cannot catch the sound, we cannot conquer the sound; but as soon as we come to the drum and put our hand on it, the sound is conquered.”
Adapted from Brihadar-anyaka Upanishad
