सः ह उवाच उषस्तः चाक्रायणः यथा वै ब्रूयात् असौ गौः असौ अश्वः इति एवम् एव एतत् व्यपदिष्टम् भवति यद् एव साक्षात् अपरोक्षात् ब्रह्म यः आत्मा सर्वान्तरः तं मे व्याचक्ष्व इति एषः ते आत्मा सर्वान्तरः कतमः याज्ञवल्क्य सर्वान्तरः न दृष्टेः द्रष्टारम् पश्येः न श्रुतेः श्रोतारम् शृणुयाः न मतेः मन्तारम् मन्वीथाः न विज्ञातेः विज्ञातारम् विजानीयाः एषः ते आत्मा सर्वान्तरः अतः अन्यत् आर्तम् ततः ह उषस्तः चाक्रायणः उपरराम
saḥ ha uvāca uṣastaḥ cākrāyaṇaḥ yathā vai brūyāt asau gauḥ asau aśvaḥ iti evam eva etat vyapadiṣṭam bhavati yad eva sākṣāt aparokṣāt brahma yaḥ ātmā sarvāntaraḥ taṃ me vyācakṣva iti eṣaḥ te ātmā sarvāntaraḥ katamaḥ yājñavalkya sarvāntaraḥ na dṛṣṭeḥ draṣṭāram paśyeḥ na śruteḥ śrotāram śṛṇuyāḥ na mateḥ mantāram manvīthāḥ na vijñāteḥ vijñātāram vijānīyāḥ eṣaḥ te ātmā sarvāntaraḥ ataḥ anyat ārtam tataḥ ha uṣastaḥ cākrāyaṇaḥ upararāma
Uṣasta Cākrāyaṇa said: "That is explaining as one says 'that is a cow, that is a horse'. No — explain to me the Brahman that is evident and not hidden, the ātman that is within all!" — "This is your ātman, within all." — "Which one, Yājñavalkya, is within all?" — "You cannot see the seer of seeing, you cannot hear the hearer of hearing, you cannot think the thinker of thinking, you cannot know the knower of knowing. This is your ātman, that is within all. Everything else is affliction." And Uṣasta Cākrāyaṇa fell silent.
3d90e261e5cf · publicado 27 jul 2026, 1:01:54 UTC
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Uṣasta objects: pointing to the ātman by way of the breaths is like poking a finger and saying "that is a cow, that is a horse" — indirect! Give it plainly. And then comes an answer unmatched for exactness in all philosophy: na dṛṣṭer draṣṭāraṁ paśyeḥ — "you cannot see the seer of seeing, hear the hearer of hearing, think the thinker of thinking, know the knower of knowing".
The demand "show the ātman plainly" contains its own error: what is evident (an object) is what is seen — and the ātman is the seer; to make Him an object of display is to lose Him precisely in what He is. He is not hidden — He is super-evident: He is that by which everything evident is evident; the eye does not enter its own field of vision, not because it is far away but because it is the source of that field. And this was "plainer than plain": the ātman is given not as something you can see but as the One by whom you are seeing now.
And the closing seal: ato 'nyad ārtam — "everything else is affliction": all that is not this Seer is subject to pain, transient, "sufferable". In one line the world is divided: the Beholder — and the beheld; the eternal Witness — and everything that ails. Uṣasta falls silent: there is nothing more to demand — the demander was the Demanded.