Atma - 10-Yathākāśo hṛṣīkeśo

Atmabodha Commentary by Swami Paramarthananda

Upādhi and Upāhitaṁ
(Verse 10)
yathākāśō hṛṣīkēśō nānōpādhigatō vibhuḥ |
tadbhēdādbhinnavadbhāti tannāśē kēvalō bhavēt ||

Hereafterwards, Śaṅkarācārya is going to talk about the secondary adhyāsā. This is the confusion between the adhyasta Anātmā/the sṛṣṭa Anātmā and the sṛṣṭi kartā ahaṁ Brahma.

And this adhyāsā, the secondary adhyāsā, this confusion, is caused by the āvaraṇa śaktiḥ of māyā or ajñānaṁ and because of which ‘I’ take the attributes of Anātmā as mine and ‘I’ take my attributes and give it to Anātmā. We call it anyōnya tādātmyaṁ. And since ‘I’ take the attributes of the Anātmā and superimpose them on my self, since the attributes of Anātmā like jāyatē, vardhatē, kartā, bhōktā etc. is transferred to ‘me’ falsely, this Anātmā is called upādhiḥ technically. And ‘I’ am called upahitaṁ. So ‘I’ am the upahita caitanyaṁ cidābhāsa sahita. That which gives the attributes is called upādhiḥ that which receives the attributes is called upahitaṁ. Śarīraṁ is upādhiḥ, ahaṁ is upahitaṁ.

And we have got so many examples. Suppose there is a colourless crystal and there is a red flower nearby. The colour of the flower will appear in the crystal. Therefore, the colour is

transferred to the crystal. The flower lends the attributes. Therefore, it is called upādhiḥ. The crystal borrows the attributes and so it is called upahitaṁ.

So the definition of upādhiḥ is samīpē sthitvā ādhīyatē sveeyaan dharmaan iti upādhiḥ. Upa means samīpē sthitvā – being nearby – ādhīyatē means transfers, gives, attributes. What does it give? svīyān dharmān – its own attributes. Therefore, it is called upādhiḥ.

And for the Ātmā what is the upādhiḥ? It is not just one upādhiḥ but all the Vyakti i.e. individual bodies have become upādhis. And each body has got its own attributes. Now one Ātmā appears to be many Ātmās with many attributes. ahaṁ ēkaḥ paramātmā nānāvidha jīvātmā rūpēṇa bhāmi – ‘I’ the one paramātmā appear as though numerous jivātmā because of various śarīraṁs.

The word upādhi has a technical connotation. Not only must it be nearby, it must also transfer the attribute. Three points should be noted in upādhi.
• It should be near.
• It should transfer the attributes.
• And that is not enough. The transfer must be false.

Suppose one is sitting on the carpet and there is some dirt or stain. He sits on the stain and his white dress gets soiled. Now is that colour transferred really or apparently? Here the transfer is real. So removal also requires effort. But, taking the example of the flower and crystal, we should remember that when the colour of the flower is transferred to the crystal, we need not take the crystal and wash it because the transfer is apparent and not real.

Thus the transfer is two fold. vāstavika tādātmyaṁ and ādhyāsika tādātmyaṁ.. Here the transfer is ādhyāsika saṁsargaḥ. So we have to remember that upādhi means the three conditions should be satisfied. And in that sense only I am going to use the word upādhi. I am not translating the word upādhi because we cannot have a proper translation
Comparison with dream
In fact this is not the unique thing. Every day in the dream we do that. Just examine the whole dream procedure.

Sleep has got Vikṣēpa śaktiḥ. With the Vikṣēpa śaktiḥ, we create the whole svapna prapañcaḥ, the whole svapna śarīraṁs and a special body for us also. And having created all the special bodies, there is a dream body. And even though we are the waker, what do we do? We the waker and the dream body gets confused and we mistake ourselves to be the dream body. We take the attributes of the dream body as our own attributes. That is the āvaraṇa śaktiḥ of nidrā or sleep. Creating the dream body is the Vikṣēpa śaktiḥ of the nidrā. But afterwards taking the dream body to be ourself is āvaraṇa śaktiḥ. So when the dream body moves, we feel we are moving, when dream body sits we feel we are sitting; when the dream body is terrified, we feel we are terrified – this confusion is caused by the āvaraṇa śaktiḥ of the nidrā. (GHV: Dream is the closest example with one exception; our dream objects do not have independent consciousness of their own to realise that they are dream objects of the dreamer. The reason could be that we are ourselves covered in ajnana and hence our dream objects cannot realise their source).

Suppose from the dream we remove the āvaraṇa śaktiḥ alone and Vikṣēpa śaktiḥ continues. Can anyone guess how the dream will look like? We won’t wake up because Vikṣēpa śaktiḥ will contine and therefore, the dream will continue but since āvaraṇa śaktiḥ is gone, we will tell everyone ahaṁ ‘waker’asmi. We would be lying down comfortably in our bed. And we would have created with our Vikṣēpa śaktiḥ this whole svapna prapañcaḥ. And we would have created a body for ourself. Not only a body for ourself, we would have created all other bodies also and having divided into two, we would be doing all vyavahārā. In this way here also the upādhi’s attributes are superimposed. (GHV: Like day dreaming?!)
Atma & upadhis
That is what is said here in the ślōka. Yatha ākāśaḥ hṛṣīkēśaḥ nānōpādhi gatō vibhuḥ, tat bhēdāt bhinnavat bhāti tannāśē kēvalō bhavēt.

Hṛṣīkēśaḥ is the name of the Ātmā – he uses all saguṇa names to make clear that saguṇa nirguṇayōḥ bhēdaḥ nāsti. Nirguṇaḥ alone is appearing as saguṇaḥ. Hṛṣīkēśaḥ is the name of the Lord. Hṛṣīkēśaḥ is the name of the Ātmā also because hṛṣīkēśaḥ means hṛṣīkāṇāṁ indriyāṇāṁ īśaḥ hṛṣīkēśaḥ. indriya adhipatiḥ – that is Ātmā.

And what is the nature of the Ātmā? – Vibhuḥ, which means all pervading. But now this vibhuḥ Ātmā ahaṁ am associated with nānā upādhi gataḥ – so many śarīraṁs are superimposed. And, therefore, I am available in every śarīraṁ. As Lord Kṛṣṇā says in the Gītā, kṣētrajñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarvakṣētrēṣu bhārata. He says “Know Myself to be kṣētrajña (individual soul) in all the kṣētrās”. So ‘I’ am in every upādhi, in every Sthūla, sūkṣma śarīraṁ. ‘I’ am there as the cit, the adhiṣṭhānaṁ of every śarīraṁ including cidābhāsaḥ.

Of this, the śarīraṁs are limited. Cidābhāsās are also limited. Śarīraṁ travels. Cidābhāsa also travels. But the ‘I’ the cit, the adhiṣṭhānaṁ does not travel, ‘I’ has no appearance, no disappearance, all these things are not there, but what happens? ‘I’ also seem to travel etc. because ‘I’ take the attributes of the śarīraṁ as though my attributes. Therefore, he says nānā upādhi gataḥ. The moment we say upādhi, it means that the attributes have been transferred. And because of that tat bhēdāt, because of the differences, because of the plurarity in the adhyasta prapañca, the adhiṣṭhānaṁ ‘I’ also seem to be pluralistic. So that means the first superimposition is what? The upādhi has got duality. Similarly here also, ‘I’ become dualistic. That means other than me there are so many people to compare with. And having created the division, ‘I’ go on talking about the differences. The undivided ‘I’ seemingly appears as divided ‘I’.

The division is in the form of pramātṛ pramāṇa pramēya bhēdaḥ, kartṛ karma kāraṇa bhēdaḥ etc. And tannāśē sati kēvalō bhavēt. Once the upādhis are gone, i.e upādhi nāśē sati what will ‘I’ become? Kēvalaḥ bhavēt.

But here we should carefully understand one point. Tannāśē kēvalō bhavēt, if we take literally, we will get into a problem. We are all divided because of the bodies alone. To remove the division what should we do? Upādhi nāśā and therefore, everyone should be destroyed! So here upādhi nāśaḥ should not be taken literally. We should also remember that it is impossible to do so. Because if we have to destroy everyone, how many jīva rāśīs

are there? Fortunately we need not destroy. We only have to remove the āvaraṇa śaktiḥ of māyā which causes the confusion. So, ‘I’ had given reality to the body. That reality ‘I’ will no longer give. Therefore upādhi nāśō nāma upādau satyatva buddhiḥ nāśaḥ. We just have change the vision.

In Vēdāntā how do we destroy a pot? Normally we will break the pot and destroy. In Vēdāntā the ghata is vittighātyaḥ – one author uses this word – vittighātyaḥ means jñāna nāśyaḥ. We destroy the pot just by seeing the content. We understand that there is no pot other than the clay – pot is gone. Pot has been reduced to just name and form. This is called the Śivā destroying the three puraṁs – tripuraṁ –upādhi trayaṁ. Śivā destroys the tripuraṁ by the jñāna dṛṣṭi.

Similarly if we remove the āvaraṇa śaktiḥ, even though the upādhis will be there they will be mithyā and mithyā upādhi cannot create division. And if at all it does, it will be a mithyā division only. Mithyā division cannot disturb satya advaitāṁ. Therefore, upādhi nāśō nāma jñānaṁ ēva. So understanding this well is what is upādhi nāśaṁ. Therefore, jñānāt satyatva buddhi nivṛttau satyāṁ kēvalaḥ bhavēt. ‘I’ become kēvalaḥ. World will contine, upādhis will continue. Still ‘I’ will say Brahman satyaṁ, jagan mithyā, ahaṁ brahmaiva nā paraḥ.

And to explain that upādhis do not divide ‘me’, he gives an example. – yathā ākāśaḥ.– just as all pervading ākāśaḥ cannot be divided by any number of pots or walls.