SWAMI DAYANANDA SARASWATI : (Interview with non duality magazine) -14.

NDM: The Taittiriya Upanisad 2.6. says, “The Lord in the beginning of creation desired, ‘May I become many, may I be born.’” What prompted the first desire?    

    Swamiji: There is no first desire because it’s a cycle. In a cycle there is no first desire. The unmanifest becomes manifest. The Lord became – abhavat. It is something like a sleeping person wakes up. The whole jagat was unmanifest, and it became manifest. That is a graphic description of that – some kind of a poetic description of that –  so 'kamayata bahusya prajayeya [He wished: may I become many, may I be born.]    

    One beautiful thing is that He is the creator and the creation is non-separate from Him – asrjyata abhavat – two words. Asrijyata means ‘created.’ Abhavat means ‘became.’ So both the creator and the creation are one and the same because He became the creation.  

    So He thought of the world, and then the world was there along with space and time.    

    Let us put it that way. Whatever He thought of – the sun – the sun was there. And so this is how the creation is really speaking. If you analyze the creation, it is nothing but Isvara’s knowledge, and it is His own knowledge. This is a very big topic. That’s why I said that it is not simple consciousness. It is all-knowledge consciousness. So with reference to the world, it is all-knowledge consciousness. You don’t need anything else.    

    In the Taittiriya that is what is being said. That in a cycle of creation – what was there before – He visualized as the creation. That’s how it is described.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati

To be continued  ...