Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

Manomaya
I45
Some say that a person is made by desire. As is one's desire, so is one's
intention (kratu); as is one's intention, so one performs actions; as is the action
he performs, so he becomes."
In spite of the introduction of the term 'desire', there is still no
implication of any moral teaching here, As Collins puts it:
'Desire' here should not be taken in the general moral sense with which we
are familiar.. .; rather it is that concentrated attention within the sacrificial
ritual, focussed on the desired object of sacrifice, which was held to be a
necessary condition of attaining it.''
What Yajfiavalkya does in using the term 'desire' is explicitly to suggest
that the power of the mind is instrumental in obtaining the object of the
sacrifice. lg
More usually in Vedic material, and in classical Indian religions which
are based on the Upani;ads, this power of the mind is associated with
knowledge rather than intention in the sense of volitions. Knowledge of a
thing gives power over it, and the importance of knowledge underlies the
sacrificial rationale: it is knowledge which gives the ritual actions their
power. The way this was thought to work in the early sacrificial religion is
discussed in some detail by Collins, and I need not go into it here.20 What
is of interest to us here is the early suggestion that knowledge of something
through meditation can have a transformative effect on the individual
meditator. The principle is found as early as the Satapatha Briihmapz, which
states: "One becomes whatever one meditates on".21 And it is referred to in
an early Upani;adic passage on meditation, where Gargya instructs
AjataSatru as follows:
Verily, I meditate on him [Brahman] as a likeness. He who meditates on
him in this way, to him comes what is like, not what is unlike; from him
arises what is like him.22
The suggestion that one becomes what one meditates on is also of
cosmological significance. The UpanGalis teach that Brahman is everything.
So it follows that if one meditates on Brahman one becomes identified with
everything. This is generally expressed in the microcosmic/rnacrocosrnic
formula that &an is Brahman, and knowledge (in the sense of experience)
of this constitutes liberation. One passage in the Byhadtiragaka Upani~ad
identifies Ztman/Brahman with all things. It states: "The self (5tman)is
indeed Brahman; it is consciousness-made, mind-made and breathmade".23
The passage continues: "[The self] is sight-made, hearing-made,
earth-made, water-made, air-made, space-made, light- and no-light-made
. . . made of all".24 This passage clearly indicates an absence of ontological
discontinuity between the different things of ( or by) which one is made and
implies that in identifjring with Brahman one identifies with everything.