Mircea Eliade YOGA IMMORTALITY AND ... - Brihaspati.net

We did not go into detail here: the mass, considerable, Upanishads theories, we will
retain only those aspects concerning our topic. (Texts and bibliographies in Note III, 5.) It
is known that the great discovery of the Upanishads has been the articulation sys-theme
of identity of atman and brahman. Now if you-Nemos into account the meaning of
brahman from Vedic times, the Upanishads discovery involved the following
consequence: immortality and absolute power were returning to be accessible to all to
strive to penetrate gnosis and appropriate knowledge of the mysteries, for the Brahman
stood for all that: it was the immortal, the imperishable, the powerful.
It is difficult to summarize in a single formula all the meanings that holds Brahman in
Vedic texts and postvedicos, beyond doubt, this term expresses the ultimate reality and
unattainable, the Grund of all cosmic manifestation and all experience, and consequently,
force of all Creation, whether cosmological (the universe) or simply ritual (sacrifice). It is
useless to recall the almost unlimited number of your IDs and approvals (Brahmana is
identified in the fire, word, sacrifice, the Vedas, etc.). The important thing is that in all
ages and all levels of culture The Brahman has been considered and expressly called the
impereced ^ ro, the inimitable, the basic principle of all existence. And it is significant
that in the Vedas, the mythical image is skambha Brahman, the cosmic pillar, the axis
mundi, a symbol which does not require demonstration archaism, as is found among both
hunters and herders in Central Asia and north and in the "primitive" cultures of Oceania,
Africa and the two Americas (see our Shamanism, below). We variqs him in the Atharva-
Veda (X, 7, 8, etc.). Identjficado Brahman with this skambha (literally strut, support,
pillar), in other words, Brahman is the Grund which holds the World, yez to the cosmic
axis and ontological foundation.
We follow the procedure for preparing primary symbol dialectics about the Axis Mundi:
first, the axis is always in the "Center of the World, supports and connects the three
cosmic zones (Heaven, Earth, region subterranea), symbolizing both the "cos-mizaci6n"
(manifestation of forms) as the norm, the universal law, the supports and maintains
separate skamhba to Heaven and p. Earth, in other words, secures and prolongs the
World, preventing a return to chaos, confusion on the other hand "in everything skambha
this po-seido by the spirit (atmanvat), everything that breathes" (Atharva Veda, VII , 8,
2). Presented and the path to take the theory upanishad-sion: to be identified in the "axis"
of the universe (in its "Center" at its beginning) is found at another level in the "center" of
the spiritual Man in the atman. "He who knows Brahman in man, knows the Supreme
Being, knows the skambha. (Ath, Veda, X, 8, 43). We see the effort made to isolate the
ultimate reality principle impossible to formulate in words: Brahma is recognized as the
Pillar of the Universe, support, base, and the term Pratishan, which expresses all these
notions, is already widely used -dents in the Vedic texts, in the Mahabharata and the
Puranas, Brahma is called Dhruva, "fixed, immobile, firm and permanent" (see the texts
collected by Gonda, Notes on Brahman, ps. 47-48).
But knowing the skambha, the Dhruva, is to possess the key to cosmic mysteries and find
the "Center of the World" in the depths of our being. Knowledge is a sacred force
because it solves the riddle of the universe and the riddle of the Self. In ancient India, as
in the other sociedade6 traditional science-tual secret was a class, the mysteries
specialists, teachers of the rites: the Brahmins. As expected, the universal principle,
Brahman, is identified man-Brahman: Brahma hi brah-manah is a leitmotif of the FEXT
postvedicos (Gonda, p. 51). "Knowledge of Brahman is an eternal incarnation of the