One of the most insightful transcendant commentaries concerning the second half (and first half) of the Chandogya 7 (post-prana) is by Krishnananda in his 'The Chandogya Upanishad' published by The Divine Life Society and available for free in epub and pdf forms at https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/chhand_0.html {which is commentary and not a strict translation per se). Here are some selections:
15. Life (Prana)
Nobody can understand what life is. We utter the word ‘life’ many times, but we cannot explain what it means. It is not what we do daily that is called life. Though we generally identify life with our activity, it is a mistake that we commit. Life is something inscrutable. Life is really what we are. Here, it is called prana.
It is not the breathing process, but the life principle itself, without which there would be neither aspiration, nor self-consciousness, nor anything for that matter. The entry of the universal into the particular is the juncture which is called life operating in our personality. It is the borderland of the infinite, where the individual expands into the expanse of the infinite and the infinite contracts itself into the finite, as it were. This particular junction is what we call life.
We think we have understood what life is, but we have not understood what it really is. It is a mystery that is operating in all names and forms. Whoever understands this mystery as the all-comprehensive Reality which is superior to all names and forms, which is infused into all names and forms, which is the Reality of even the so-called names and forms, including the name and form of our own self, is a master of Knowledge. He is called in this Upanishad as ativadi, a specific term here indicating one who possesses surpassing knowledge and whose utterances are surpassingly true.
At this stage, Narada is unable to speak. His breath is held up, as it were. He does not know what he is hearing from this great master. This master observes the silence of the disciple who now does not say as on previous occasions, “Please let me know if something more is there.” He keeps quiet, his mouth is hushed and his mind has stopped thinking. He does not know what to speak. Seeing this, the master himself starts pursuing the subject further without being accosted by the disciple.
16. Truth (Satya)
Transcendent speech is an expression of transcendent knowledge. And transcendent knowledge is that knowledge which is identical with transcendent truth. This is the peak of experience, the peak of wisdom. Our speech should be based on the reality of Being. Only then it manifests itself as reality.
“Satyam tv-eva vijijnasitavyam—my dear Narada,” says Sanatkumara. “You want a knowledge which is tuned up with reality, but you must know what reality or truth is. Unless you know what truth is, how can you try to identify your knowledge with truth, or truth with knowledge? You must have a clear conception of what I mean by ‘truth’. Only then can you have an aspiration for identifying your knowledge with truth, knowing truth and speaking truth.”
17. Truth and Understanding (Vijnana)
Again we are in a vicious circle of argument, as it were. You want to know what is truth. Truth has to be known as it is, and not as it appears.
“O Narada,” says Sanatkumara, “you can speak truth only when you know what truth is; otherwise, how can you speak truth? But do you know what truth is? Truth is not what you perceive as true in this empirical world. The whole world is not true. It is not the ultimate truth. So, how can you say that anything in the world is true? Whatever you speak is not true. You must know what is really true. When one knows what truth is, then one speaks truth.”
We are here entering into the difficult subject of the ultimate principle of our very life, knowledge and truth, jnana and satya.
18. Thought and Understanding (Mati)
The word mati and similar other words used in these passages of the Upanishad carry a meaning much more deep than what appears on the surface, because we are treading upon forbidden land where the mind cannot easily reach, where things go almost beyond and above our heads.
We do not know what we are speaking and what we are hearing. Such is the condition that is being explained here. Such is the state into which Narada is being initiated by Sanatkumara, the great master.
There is something higher than this knowledge or aspiration for truth. What is that? It is the tendency of one’s being to move towards Reality. It is the very reason behind our aspiring for Reality.
We say, “I must know God,” “I must search for Reality,” “I must aspire for the Absolute.” How did this idea arise in our mind? There is a tendency in us to move towards the Reality. This tendency is prior to our consciousness of Reality.
“Isvaranugrahad-eva pumsam advaita vasana,” says the great master Dattatreya. We do not know how aspiration arises in our mind. It has not come due to our efforts, because effort cannot be there without knowledge. But the question is, “How has this knowledge arisen?”
So Bhagavan Dattatreya says that perhaps it is God’s grace, or we may call it the grace of the Absolute, or the mysterious outcome of the very process of evolution which is egged on by some principle of which we have no idea and the purpose of which is far, far beyond our understanding.
Only when this tendency, this inclination of your total being towards the Reality is there, only then can you have an aspiration for Reality, not otherwise.
19. Faith (Sraddha)
Sraddha, faith in the existence of Reality, and the working of this tendency of movement of one’s being towards Reality are almost simultaneous. How do we know that Reality exists? That is a faith that is in our mind, introduced into us by the very tendency of Reality urging itself forward towards its own Self-realisation.
This faith is superior to thought and understanding. It is not what we call blind faith, but an irrepressible feeling in us that Reality is. It must be there. We do not have any doubt about Its being.
Mati and sraddha go together. So, Narada is told here, “This sraddha, faith in the very existence of Reality, is somehow to be taken as prior to mati, the consciousness of the tendency towards Reality working through your being, when this faith is present in you.
20. Steadfastness (Nishtha)
When one has steadfastness in Reality, then this superior faith also comes. A person who has steadfastness becomes one with the Reality, as it were, in his psychological being. This is called nishtha in this section. Sanatkumara says that when there is nishtha, there is sraddha, and when there is sraddha there is mati, the tendency in one to move towards Reality.
What exactly is this steadfastness referred to in this section? It is an incapacity of the mind to contemplate anything except Reality. If we think, we think only that; otherwise, nothing. The very function of the mind is set in tune with the nature of Reality so profoundly that we have virtually become that.
21. Activity (Kriti)
All this is the effect of another important factor, kriti, self-control, that has either been exercised by the aspirant or arisen in him automatically, whatever be the reason behind it. In other words, it is a withdrawal of consciousness from every kind of external perception.
Self-control does not mean a pressure exerted upon the senses by force of will, but a spontaneous withdrawal of consciousness from its desire to externalise itself in respect of outward things on account of the superior faith, on account of this aspiration, on account of this knowledge.
When the outside objects of sense cease to be, the subject also ceases to be. When one thing goes, its counterpart also goes. So when the world has gone, the ‘you’ or the ‘I’ also is gone. There is nothing on either side, neither on the object side nor on the subject side. This great achievement is prior to everything, transcendent to everything.
22 Happiness (Sukha)
The whole process of creation, manifestation and dissolution, evolution and involution, the entire activity of the cosmos is an urge of happiness. It is happiness that is trying to recover its own consciousness and establish itself in its own pristine all-comprehensiveness. It is this that is called activity. It is this that is called enterprise and aspiration. It is this that is also called cosmic evolution.
The very fact that the mind is not satisfied with its own self and feels an obligation to move towards something outside should be indication enough that something is lacking in the mind itself.
But the other doctrine that the world is the source of happiness also seems to be refuted by a deeper analysis that no object seems to be capable of attracting the attention of everyone at the same time, nor even one and the same subject at all times.
The impulse from within which seeks for happiness is an answer to this question. It answers its own question by saying that no one is satisfied with any amount of happiness which is bounded by finitude of any kind.
So Sanatkumara says, “My dear Narada, happiness is not anywhere and yet it is everywhere; it is in a completeness of Being that you can find happiness.”
It is the ‘spiritual fullness’ which philosophers call the Absolute, which the followers of religion call God, and which psychologists call the supreme Spirit. The infinite Reality that is behind all finitudes, that alone can be regarded as complete by itself,
23 The Infinite (Bhuma)
The term ‘Bhuma’ used in this Upanishad is a novel word of its own kind which cannot be easily translated. It has a pregnant significance within itself which implies absoluteness in quantity as well as in quality, an uncontaminated character, permanency of every type, immortality, infinity and eternity.
All these ideas are embedded in the very concept of what the Upanishad calls ‘Bhuma’. Well, we can translate it in no other way than to call it the Absolute Being. The Brahman of all the Upanishads is the same as the Bhuma mentioned here in this Chhandogya Upanishad. That alone is happiness.
It is completeness of being that is the source of happiness. But where is this completeness of Being? It is not in the objects of sense, not in the union of one and two, or in the union of many. Social union is no union at all. They are coming together in a physical, psychological or social sense, no doubt, but they are not real union. Union is a real blend into a single Being.
Not in the finite is happiness to be found—valpe sukham asti. The Absolute, Fullness alone is Bliss—bhumaiva sukham. “So I reiterate, O Narada, this is the truth. The total union of Being as such which I regard as Bhuma, that is the real Bliss. So I say once again that Bhuma, the Fullness, is Bliss."
24. The Infinite and the Finite
“Do you want to know what Completeness is? And do you want to know what finitude is? Here is the definition,” says Sanatkumara. “Where one sees nothing except one’s own Self, where one hears nothing except one’s own Self, where one understands nothing except one’s own Self, that is Bhuma, the Absolute; and where one sees something outside oneself, where one hears something outside oneself, where one understands or thinks something outside oneself, that is the finite.”
So here is the whole matter clinched in a single sentence, describing what is Fullness and what is not-fullness. What is immortal is the Bhuma alone, and what you call mortal or perishable, is the finite.
The relativity of things is the support of things in this world. Everything hangs on something else in this world. I hang on you, and you hang on me. That is how we live in this world. But, no such hanging is possible in the Bhuma. It is self-sufficient, self-supported, self-complete and self-existent. It is not any relative being. It is the absolute Being.
25 The Ego and the Self
The Atman in the subject is that which is identical with the Bhuma that is cosmic. So, a distinction is to be drawn between the individual subject and the subjectness universally present behind the individualities. That is called the Atman.
Now, what is this ‘own Self’? It is not my self. It is not your self. It is not the bodily self. It is not the individual self. It is the Universal Being, the All-Being, the All-Presence, Bhuma. This is what is called the Self. And when we say the person enjoys himself, it is the Absolute that is enjoying Itself.
This is a very great distinction that we have to draw when we try to understand these passages of a highly mystical character. A person of this nature endowed with this knowledge, acquiring this realisation, becomes a master of himself, which means to say a master of all things. Self-mastery is mastery of the universe. Atma-svarajya. Atma-svarajya mentioned here is Universal Lordship. It is the experience of God-Being.
But what about those people who do not have this knowledge? They are subjected by other people and controlled by them. They are limited from all sides. If one is living in a world of externalities, those externals shall compel one to subjugation to their own laws and mandates. This cannot be escaped.
