Mandukya_Upanishad

All our efforts in life are towards the attainment of apermanent happiness, which is the attainment of ānanda.For this we have to reach pure sattva, unfettered by thechains of rajas and tamas. These distinctions obtain in therealm of the jīvas. We see these distinctions; but the Virātdoes not have these distinctions. To the Virāt, it is all ‘I’,without a ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. Aham asmi, “I-AM” - is theawareness of the Virāt, while our awareness is “I am, andyou also are, in addition to me”. “I am, and the world is alsothere outside me”. But, to the Virāt, the Consciousness is, “Iam; there is no world outside Me”. The whole world is ‘I’;therefore He is called Vaiśvānara, the Cosmic Being, thePerson who feels, and has the Consciousness that He is allthis-cosmos.According to the Upanishad, the description isas if He has seven limbs. He has, indeed, infinite limbs.Thousands of arms has He. He is Viśvamūrti, omnifaced isthis Lord of the cosmos; and when we say He has sevenlimbs, we only give a broad outline of His CosmicPersonality, just as we can describe a human being as onewith seven limbs – head, heart, arms, nose, eyes, ears, feet,etc. But if we give a more detailed description, we may gointo the minutiae of the personality.Now, while this Cosmic Person, the Virāt, may beregarded as the Consciousness of Universal Waking; we arealso, in our work of analysis of consciousness in its firstphase, concerned with the microcosmic aspect, the state ofjīvatva – individuality. It is here that it is supposed to havenineteen mouths. Its mouth is the organ by which weconsume things, take in objects, appropriate material byassimilation into our bodies, digest them into ourselves, as56