There was another young boy in the Upanishads, he was Svetaketu, son of Uddalaka. And he was only twelve years of age. The father sent him, according to the family tradition, to go wheresoever he wanted, to learn wisdom. Svetaketu spent twelve long years acquiring all the knowledge of the Vedas, and returned home, a conceited young man. Uddalaka then questioned him and found Svetaketu’s knowledge utterly hollow. ‘Did you not,’ asked the father, ‘know that by which the unhearable becomes heard, the unknowable becomes known?’ ‘How so,’ asked Svetaketu, ‘How venerable sir, can there be such a teaching?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Uddalaka, ‘all that is made of clay, whatever its form is still clay, and all that is manufactured of gold, whatever that jewel might be, is still gold. So too, all, all modifications are just “name arising from speech”—namadheyam lohamityeva satyam—“the truth is just gold”—so too, this universe is Atma, Being itself.’ For, first (agre) Being alone was there, one without a second . . . ‘That which is the subtle essence of this whole world is the Self. That is the truth, tad satyam. That is the Self, sa Atma. Tat tvam asi, Svetaketu, iti. That you are, Svetaketu.’

Then when asked for further illustrations, Uddalaka says, just as when a man has his eyes bandaged, and he, the man, is from the country of Gandhara, and he is left far from his home, and does not know whether to go east or north, and shouts, ‘Where shall I go now, how shall I reach my home?’ and someone comes along, the Teacher, and in his compassion, takes off the bandages, and tells the man, ‘That way, Sir, is Gandhara,’ and then the man starts knowing his direction and goes from village to village, and arrives finally reaching his country, his home. That home, beloved, is the Self.

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