You need freedom from the cage, not lessons in flying || Acharya Prashant, on Vedanta (2021)

Acharya Prashant
5 min readJun 7, 2024

हिरण्मये परे कोशे विरजं ब्रह्म निष्कलम् । तच्छुभ्रं ज्योतिषं ज्योतिस्तद्यदात्मविदो विदुः ॥

hiraṇmaye pare kośe virajaṃ brahma niṣkalam tacchubhraṃ jyotiṣaṃ jyotistadyadātmavido viduḥ

In a supreme golden sheath the Brahman lies, stainless, without parts. A Splendor is That, It is the Light of Lights, It is That which the self-knowers know.

~ Mundaka Upanishad, Verse 2.2.10

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Acharya Prashant: “A Splendor is That, It is the Light of Lights, It is That which the self-knowers know.”

To see you need two lights: one is the external light that must fall on the object you want to see, and then there is an internal light that must be there to perceive the external object, the external light, and even the internal subject. Without that internal light you will be blind in spite of the external light. You might be in a room flooded with light, but if your eyes have no light, you will see nothing.

That’s the analogy being used here. Brahm is the light of lights. Light connects the subject with the object. If there is no external light, there is no object. So, light is what forms the relationship between the seer subject and the seen object. In…

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