In the Isa Vasya Upanishad, which is the last part of the Sukla Yajur Veda, Yajnavalkya says,
pUSan : Oh Nourisher! (Surya, the Sun)
EkarSE : eka RSi : the one Rishi (visonary) (Sankaracharya says that Ravi (Surya) is the ekaRSi because he travel alone.)
yama : the controller (also the name of his son Yama)
sUrya : the Sun (Sankaracharya says that the sun is called Surya since he receives rays, lives and rasas. I always think sUrya was a variant of s’Urya and is a term derived from valour. )
prajApatya : the son of prajApati kas’yapa , who was the son of marIci, the son of Brahma
vyUha ras’mIn samUha : that army (arrangement) totality of rays (Sankaracharya interprets the word vyUha has a verb, a request to remove that brilliant collection of rays (vigamaya), I have taken it to mean arrangement, assembly)
tEjO yat tE rUpam kalyANatamam : which is a brilliant and auspicious (causes good) form
tat te pas’yAmi : That, of yours, I see
yah asau : He who is this
asau puruSah : that puruSa (that divine being who is both manifest and unmanifest, who is the cause of the universe and present in it).
sah aham asmi : He I am
What does Sankaracharya say?
Sankara says, I am not making this request to see your auspicious form behind your golden orb as a servant, but as one in whom the same puRuSa resides, as the one who is behind
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your golden brilliant rays of light.
What do I think?
This is also one of my favorite mantras. “Oh Nourisher! O valorous son of Prajapati! Oh Controller! I see your brilliant and auspicious form as a collection of of sunrays. He who is You, I am He, the puruSa!”
We are looking at the energy that gives us life and sustains us and recognise that we are that.
Thus slowly we learn, not to think of ourselves as “us and them”., “humans and nature” or “humans and divinity” but as “humans as divinity”., “us as that”.
A baby really starts thinking that its mother and it are one because she responds to its needs and cries. Slowly it learns to think of itself as separate from the mother and that it can do things for itself and that its needs are different from the mothers’ needs and gets a sense of individuality or dwaita. I and others. It then learns to lose its individuality in team activities and friendships and enjoys it. It learns to feel part of humanity and the environment and the earth and the universe and tends to advaita.
You no longer think of a God and a devotee, of great and small, but sense a oneness, a peace, an absence of loneliness, a bliss. Its a nice feeling.
Then you feel that the universe responds to you, your thoughts, feelings and needs sometimes even before you think or ask for them, as your own body responds to your needs. Its a nice state to be in.
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