A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c9.s5.2.2

c9.s5.2.2

The Mystic of the Chhāndogya Upanishad declares that even as a horse might shake its mane, similarly had he himself shaken off all his sin, that even as the Moon might come out entire after having suffered an eclipse from Rāhu, even so, having been freed from the mortal coil, had he obtained the eternal life in the Ātman (S. 28). Then, again, the utterances of Triśaṅku in the Taittirīya Upanishad are remarkable for the grandeur of the ideas involved in them. After Triśaṅku had reached Self-realisation, he tells us he felt as if he was the “ Mover of the Tree.” What is the Tree to which Triśaṅku is referring? It may be the Tree of the Body, or it may even be the Tree of the World. It is not uncustomary for Upanishadic and post-Upanishadic writers to speak of the Body or the World as verily a Tree. In fact, Triśaṅku tells us that, like the true Soul that he was, he could move the Tree of the bodily or worldly coil. He tells us, furthermore, that his glory was “ like the top of a mountain,” which is as much as to say that when he had come to realise the Self, he felt that everything else looked so mean and insignificant to him from the high pedestal of Ātmanic experience that he felt as if he was on the top of all things whatsoever. Triśaṅku tells us furthermore that "the source from which he had come was Purity itself." May this not refer to the Purity of the Divine Life from which all existence springs?