Beyond the beyond || On Mundaka Upanishad (2021)

दिव्यो ह्यमूर्तः पुरुषः स बाह्याभ्यन्तरो ह्यजः । अप्राणो ह्यमनाः शुभ्रो ह्यक्षरात्परतः परः ॥

divyo hyamūrtaḥ puruṣaḥ sa bāhyābhyantaro hyajaḥ aprāṇo hyamanāḥ śubhro hyakṣarātparataḥ paraḥ

He, the divine, the formless Spirit, even He is the outward and the inward, and He the Unborn; He is beyond life, beyond mind, luminous, supreme beyond the immutable.

~ Verse 2.1.2

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Acharya Prashant: A few words now related to the ineffable Truth.

“He, the divine, the formless Spirit, even He is the outward and the inward, and He the unborn, aja .” Ja denotes birth; aja means unborn, unborn and undying. “He is beyond life, beyond mind, luminous, supreme beyond the immutable.”

“The divine, formless Spirit, the outward and the inward, and He is the unborn; He is beyond life” — actually, the verse says beyond prāṇa , aprāṇō , beyond breath, which is beyond all physical processes.

Beyond mind. Luminous, śubhro. Hyakṣarātparataḥ paraḥ , beyond the beyond. Why must this kind of an expression be used, ‘beyond the beyond’? Because the mind has a tendency to visualize the beyond. So, when it is said ‘beyond the beyond’, what is actually being said is: beyond the mind, beyond the beyondness that the mind…