November 7, 2026
kiledaṁ bhrāntimātrātma viśvaṁ brahmeti bhātyajaṁ
bhrāntirbrahmaiva ca brahma śāntamekamanāmayaṁ (186/3)
VASIṢṬHA asked Kundadanta:
Tell us what you have learnt during the course of this discourse.
KUNDADANTA replied:
Conquest of the mind alone is the destruction of all doubts. I have knowledge in which there is no contradiction. All my doubts are at rest. I am firmly established in the supreme state. I have learnt this from you: the infinite self or consciousness alone exists in the infinite space as this world. Everything exists in everything as everything everywhere and ever. The whole universe exists in a mustard seed; but when the reality is known the universe does not exist in a mustard seed. The universe exists in a house; but the house itself is pure void. It is Brahman or the infinite consciousness alone that appears as all this and is experienced as all this.
VASIṢṬHA continued:
It is wonderful that this great man has attained enlightenment. He has realised perfectly that the whole universe is Brahman.
It is only through delusion that Brahman is seen as the world. But that delusion also is Brahman which is supreme and infinite peace. Whatever is, wherever, whenever and in whatever manner, that is there and then and in that manner. Whatever the infinite consciousness considers itself to be, that it appears to be. The entire universe (brahmāṇḍa) exists in an atom of the infinite consciousness; hence an atom itself is the universe. The infinite consciousness is indivisible. When this is realised there is cessation of the bondage of birth, etc., and that is liberation. Be as you are, free from distress.
You are the object of perception, you are the seer. You are consciousness and you are inertia. You are something and you are nothing. Because Brahman rests in itself. There are no two things known as Brahman and the objective universe: they are one like the space and void. An intelligent, conscious man appears to be an insentient and inert person while he sleeps; even so does the infinite consciousness appear to be the insentient objects in this creation. The infinite consciousness later becomes the sentient objects just as the sleeping man begins to dream. This continues till the person attains liberation and realises that this world-appearance has been a long dream. It is on account of the infinite consciousness’s inherent awareness that it considers itself an insentient and immobile being; and it is on account of the same awareness that elsewhere it considers itself sentient and mobile. Just as the same person has sentient and apparently insentient limbs, all the sentient and insentient objects of this creation put together form the body of the infinite consciousness.