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Today we are pleased to present selections from the Maitrâyana-Brâhmana-Upanishad from the book “The Upanishads” translated by Max Müller. Maitrâyana-Brâhmana-Upanishad FIRST PRAPÂTHAKA. “The laying of the formerly-described sacrificial fires is indeed the sacrifice of Brahman. Therefore, let the sacrificer, after he has laid those fires, meditate on the Self. Thus, only does the sacrificer become complete and faultless. But who is to be meditated on? He who is called Prâna (breath). Of Him there is this story: A King, named Brihadratha, having established His son in His sovereignty, went into the forest, because He considered this body as transient, and had obtained freedom from all desires. Having performed the highest penance, He stands there, with uplifted arms, looking up to the Sun. At the end of a thousand (days), the Saint Sâkâyanya, who knew the Self, came near, burning with splendor, like a fire without smoke. He said to the King: ‘Rise, rise! Choose a boon!’ The King, bowing before him, said: ‘O Saint, I know not the Self, thou know the essence (of the Self). We have heard so. Teach it us.’ Sâkâyanya replied: ‘This was achieved of yore; but what Thou ask is difficult to obtain. O Aikshvâka, choose other pleasures.’ The King, touching the Saint’s feet with His head, recited this Gâthâ: ‘O Saint, what is the use of the enjoyment of pleasures in this offensive, pithless body – a mere mass of bones, skin, sinews, marrow, flesh, seed, blood, mucus, tears, phlegm, ordure, water, bile, and slime! What is the use of the enjoyment of pleasures in this body which is assailed by lust, hatred, greed, delusion, fear, anguish, jealousy, separation from what is loved, union with what is not loved, hunger, thirst, old age, death, illness, grief, and other evils! […] There is the drying up of other great oceans, the falling of mountains, the moving of the pole-star, the cutting of the wind-ropes (that hold the stars), the submergence of the Earth, and the departure of the gods (suras) from their place. In such a world as this, what is the use of the enjoyment of pleasures, if he who has fed on them is seen to return (to this world) again and again! Deign therefore to take me out! In this world, I am like a frog in a dry well. O Saint, thou are my way, thou are my way.’”SECOND PRAPÂTHAKA. “[…] Then the Saint said to Him: ‘He who, without stopping the out-breathing, proceeds upwards (from the sthûla [coarse] to the sûkshma [delicate] sarîra [body]), and who, modified (by impressions), and yet not modified, drives away the darkness (of error), he is the Self. Thus said the Saint Maitri. And Sâkâyanya said to the King Brihadratha: ‘He who in perfect rest, rising from this body (both from the sthûla [coarse] and sûkshma [delicate]), and reaching the highest Light, comes forth in his own form, he is the Self […]”
