[Advaita-l] The significance of metaphorical meditations in various Upanishads

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Namaste,

On Mon, Jun 3, 2019 at 8:26 PM Akilesh Ayyar via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> I'm wondering why so much time is spent in various upanishads -- I'm
> reading Chhandogya right now -- on various metaphorical comparisons of
> Brahman or truth generally to various things.
>

Why even upAsanas, there are so many different ways in which the equation
tvam = tat is explained building up to it with creation stories in various
ways, so that at least one may click to someone and another to someone
else. That too is difficult to understand, so chittashuddhi via various
upAsanas is necessitated, again based on the background of the person at
least one may settle down with some upAsana. On this very list, you can see
the opposition if one begins from the culmination that jIva is Ishvara! Our
Acharya used to quote this in Hindi as Aropa from others "You are Ishvara?
chehrA dekhA hai apnA? (You are the creator? Have you seen your face [in
the mirror?])" This is the level of misunderstanding that people land
themselves into even after study as many people understand only one
prakriyA as idam ittham, whichever their antaHkaraNa allows! Same is with
upAsanas.

gurupAdukAbhyAm,
--Praveen R. Bhat
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