2022 Year-End Vedanta Course

Swaminiji unfolds this mantra and offers practical tips of freeing oneself from guilt and hurt in daily life. In the vision of Vedanta, one is totally free from guilt and hurt. Guilt and hurt are the offspring of self-ignorance. Due to ātma-avidyā, one identifies oneself to be the agent of action, and as the object/recipient of the omission and commission of the actions of others. The Taittiriya Upanishad helps to understand oneself as free of fear and sorrow by cognitively giving up agency in the light of the knowledge that the self is neither a doer nor is “done in” by the actions of others.

Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.12 with Swami Muktatmananda
“If a person knows the self as Brahman, the Self of all, what cause can there be for suffering related to this body?”

In concluding the teaching on what happens after the death of the body, Yajhavalkya asks the rhetorical question above. In this way, the sruti points out that the one who knows the body so intimately is in fact the source of all bodies, and that all suffering is related only to mistaken identification with the limited.