Yājñavalkya is challenged by Uddālaka: One of the most iconic passages of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad

Yājñavalkya immediately steps forward, and orders his disciple Samasrava to take all the cows home. With this gesture, he proclaims to be the one who possesses the deepest knowledge of the Vedas.

One of the most iconic passages of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad is the philosophical debate that takes place in the court of King Videha, as described in the third part of the book.

The passage starts with King Janaka of Videha holding a great sacrificial assembly, to which many learned brāhmaṇas and sages are invited. Anxious to learn about spiritual knowledge, he crafted a plan to get the sages to debate, and thus gain access to the highest knowledge about the absolute truth. For this, he brings one thousand cows, ornamented with gold, and proposes that the wisest sage in the assembly can take them all.

Yājñavalkya immediately steps forward, and before the debate could even start, orders his disciple Samasrava to take all the cows home. With this gesture, he proclaims to be the one in the assembly who possesses the deepest knowledge of the Vedas, and on their conclusion, knowledge about the Supreme Brahman.

His boldness creates an uproar among the sages, who challenge him, one by one, questioning him on different disciplines in the Vedas. For each set of questions, Yājñavalkya reveals the ultimate substance behind all of the different topics: the Supreme Absolute truth. This reveals why Yājñavalkya is so confident at the beginning of the passage, immediately seizing the cows. He knows the Supreme Brahman, and thus all the purports of the Vedas are open to him. Just as Krsna explains in the Gītā (2.46): "All purposes served by a small well can at once be served by a great reservoir of water. Similarly, all the purposes of the Vedas can be served to one who knows the purpose behind them."

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One of the sages who challenges him is Uddālaka Āruṇi (the father of Śvetaketu, who is a central figure in the teachings of the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, which includes the famous passage "tat tvam asi") about the nature of the antaryāmī, the Lord within. This is one of the most important passages in all the Upaniṣads, because it defines the identity of the Lord within. One can accept the Lord within as being the Supersoul, the jīva, a demigod, or something else, and according to one's interpretation, the whole body of the Upaniṣads can be interpreted differently. If one concludes that the Lord within is the jīva, then suddenly the Upanisads appear to sustain that we are all one.

Uddālaka had received knowledge on this topic from a Kabandha, a gandharva who spoke through the wife of a patron called Patañcala. Confident of this knowledge, he challenges Yājñavalkya to explain the identity of the antaryāmī.

Yājñavalkya then starts a long explanation, starting from text 3.7.3, which reads:

yaḥ pṛthivyāṁ tiṣṭhan pṛthivyā antarāḥ, yaṁ pṛthivī na veda

yasya pṛthivī śarīram, yaḥ pṛthivīm antarāḥ yamayati

eṣa ta ātmāntaryāmy amṛtaḥ

A literal translation of the verse would be:

"He who dwells in the Earth, who is within the earth, whom the Earth does not know, whose body the Earth is, and who from within controls the earth, this is the Self, the inner controller, the immortal."

As you can see, when one reads the verse without knowing the proper philosophical conclusion, the identity of the antaryāmī is not clear. Who is this mysterious ruler residing inside the heart? Would it be pradhāna, the material nature, would it be the immortal jīva inside the body, or would he be Brahman, the Supreme Person?

One could argue that he is pradhāna, the reservoir of subtle material energy. This thesis would have a good deal of logical support because pradhāna is the immediate cause of all material manifestations, and being the cause, it is woven into the effects. In other words, being the cause of the material elements, pradhāna is present in them, and thus it would not be unreasonable to say that it is the controller within them. Pradhāna is thus in the earth and controls the earth, and thus we could say that the earth is its body. Pradhāna is also present everywhere in the creation, and therefore it can be called ātmā, in the sense of "the great self". Pradhāna is also eternal, and thus may be called amṛta.

The arguments for the antaryāmī being the jīva would also be compelling, since the jīva is immortal and resides inside the heart. The mention of the antaryāmī dwelling in the earth and having earth as his body could then be interpreted as the jīva possessing a body made of material elements.

One could also argue that the antaryāmī is a specific jīva who is a great yogi and has attained the mystical perfections. Using aṇimā, he could become very small and enter everywhere. Using parakāya-praveśa, he could enter into the bodies of others, and thus be present in their hearts. Using antardhāna-siddhi, he could become invisible and thus unknown, and using prākāmya, he could become a great ruler and be thus called ātmā, the great self. As a soul, he is also immortal, and therefore the meaning of the words could be directly applied to him without the need of using figurative interpretations.

The correct conclusion, however, is that the ruler within is the Supreme Lord. Why? Because the verse describes qualities that can be attributed only to Him.

The verse describes the antaryāmī as being situated within the earth and other material elements, but at the same time remaining unknown, being the Supreme Controller, eternal (amrta), all-knowing, and all-blissful. These qualities can't be attributed in full to pradhāna (which is just an inert mass of material elements), nor to any ordinary jīva or even a great yogi. In this way, Srila Vyāsadeva again teaches us the proper way to interpret verses from the sastras.

However, the fact that the Lord permeates everything does not indicate He has no personal form. In the Bhagavad-Gita (9.4-5), Krsna says: "By Me, in My unmanifested form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them. And yet everything that is created does not rest in Me. Behold My mystic opulence! Although I am the maintainer of all living entities and although I am everywhere, I am not a part of this cosmic manifestation, for My Self is the very source of creation."

The Lord is present everywhere in the creation, but at the same time, He has a personal form. He resides everywhere, but at the same time, He is present in His eternal abode. These apparent contradictions are reconciled when we understand that the Lord has a spiritual form that is different from the material forms we have in this world. Material forms are limited by time and space, while the spiritual forms of the Lord exist in the absolute plane and are not subject to these limitations. The word "absolute" in itself implies that there are no limitations to what He can do.

When we understand these points, the meaning of the verse becomes clear:

“He who dwells in the Earth, who is within, whom the Earth does not know, who is the ultimate proprietor of the Earth and the body, and who, residing within, rules the Earth is the immortal Supersoul (antaryāmī), the Supreme Personality of Godhead (ātmā) who resides in the heart."

The word "pṛthivī" in this context does not just mean the Earth as a planet, but the Earth as the whole cosmic manifestation, in the context of the universal form, meaning the space for activities for all living beings.

Antaryāmī is the controller within, the inner Self, who is present inside all material objects and in the hearts of all living beings. Although He is present everywhere, He is not perceived either by the material objects or by the living entities inside of which He dwells. This antaryāmī is defined as ātmā, the Supreme Self, leaving no doubt that it refers to the Supersoul.

The fact that the Antaryāmī is the Supersoul is accepted in both Vaishnava schools and by Śaṅkarācārya. The difference, however, is that Śaṅkarācārya accepts the antaryāmī as identical with the soul, juggling that although one, they appear to be different due to avidyā, the material ignorance. According to him, the Supreme Brahman falls under illusion and accepts the māyā-upādhi (false designation) of being the Supreme controller, and influenced by the mode of goodness, acts as Paramātmā, while the same Brahman, failing under avidyā, ignorance, acts as the conditioned souls. In this way, his theory is that they are all the same, but appear different due to different degrees of influence of Maya. That's why we call their philosophy Māyāvāda, since, although they try to deny it, the truth is that their philosophy assumes that Maya is greater than God. Vaishnava schools, however, hold the proper conclusion of the individual soul and antaryāmī being qualitatively one, but at the same time eternally different individuals. Paramātmā is a partial manifestation of Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the jīva never becomes one with the Lord, even in the perfect stage.

This and other verses make it clear that the person in the eye is Paramātmā, who is also present in the earth (meaning all material objects) and inside the heart with the jīva. Paramātmā is everywhere, and it is only due to His sanction that we can move our bodies and perform activities. This shows how we remain dependent on the Lord even in our conditioned state.

Yājñavalkya then continues his discourse. Each of the following verses follows the same structure, describing a particular manifestation, and mentioning that antaryāmī resides within it, knows it, controls it, owns it, and takes it as His body. Each verse confirms that this immortal antaryāmī, who resides inside of each material manifestation, is the ātmā.

In this way, the antaryāmī is described as residing in and being the owner and controller of the earth, water, fire, the antarikṣa, air, heavens, the sun, the directions, the moon and stars, ether, darkness, light, all beings, prāna, speech, eye, ear, mind, skin, jīva (in this case meaning subtle body), and semen.

This brings us to the conclusion of the passage, which gives specific details about the qualities of the antaryāmī; it leaves no doubts about His identity:

adṛṣṭo draṣṭā aśrutaḥ śrotā amato mantā avijñāto vijñātā

nānyato 'sti draṣṭā, nānyato 'sti śrotā

nānyato 'sti mantā, nānyato 'sti vijñātā

eṣa te ātmāntaryāmy amṛtaḥ, ito 'nyat smārtam

“Unseen, He is the seer. Unheard, He is the hearer. Inconceivable, He is the thinker. Unknown, he is the knower. There is no other seer. There is no other hearer. There is no other thinker. There is no other knower. He is the Supreme ātmā, the immortal antaryāmī. Everything else is dependent on Him.”

The list of qualities described here, beginning with being the observer of everything, may be attributed only to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The words "ito 'nyat smārtam" reveal that anything else that may be described in the scriptures as a seer, thinker, controller, etc., is described as so only in the traditional conceptual or secondary sense, and not in the absolute sense. In other words, all other deities and controllers are subordinate to the Absolute Truth described in the verses. The jīvas, demigods, or even pradhāna possess part of the qualities described, but only in a minute quantity. Only the Supreme possesses these qualities in full, and thus the verses describe Him alone.

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