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bull, the fire, the swan and the diver-bird (4.4-8), to a climactic return of Satyakama to his teacher for the long desired teaching. But the teaching itself is not given in the chapter, which merely ends by saying, "Then [the teacher] explained to him the same [Brahman]. In that [explanation] nothing was omitted, nothing was omitted." (4.9.3) The set upanisadic text is not the appropriate place for the presentation of the needed living dialogue. |
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Second, an upanisad may present the content of teaching, but still not as important in itself; rather, the exposition encourages the seeker to go to a wise teacher for a comparable presentation of knowledge, for the practice of reflective study with the teacher. The knowledge presented in the text is only exemplary. Thus, Chandogya 3.1-11, a richly and elaborately constructed meditation on the "honeys" of the Vedas, each in correspondence to an aspect of the sun and an atmospheric deity, concludes with a record of its own transmission, praise of its unsurpassable value, and directions regarding its future communication to select students: "Therefore, only to the eldest son shall his father proclaim Brahman, or to a trusted pupil, but to no one else, whoever he be." (3.11.5-6)
4 The upanisadic text is a record of remembered wisdom, yet thereby still a resource for the active engagement of teacher and student. |
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Even the portion of the Chandogya Upanisad that is most important for the Advaita, the teaching in Chapter 6 on the equivalence (or identity) of the self (tvam)and the ultimate principle of the universe (tat), is presented as a dialogue in which the boy Svetaketu is required by his father to perform various exercises by which the knowledge of "You are that" (tat tvam asi) is illuminated: to fast (6.7), to split open a fruit (6.12), to examine salt dissolved in water (6.13). The text must be performed in a conducive pedagogical environment if it is to be understood. |
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Even when the upanisads present teachings ostensibly available to the reader, they are still proposing a knowledge which is relational and which requires a conscious repositioning of oneself in relation to the world; their message cannot be passively received or processed as mere information. Thus, as in Chandogya 3, there are passages which require of the student an elaborate |
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