3. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi Samvada: Mantras 2.4.1 to 2.4.5

Vedanta Talks - Swami Sarvapriyananda

Vedanta Society of New York

Hinduism, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 714 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2026

⏱️ 73 minutes

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Summary

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (Sanskrit: बृहदारण्यकोपनिषद्, IAST: Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad) is one of the Principal Upanishads and one of the first Upanishadic scriptures of Hinduism. A key scripture to various schools of Hinduism, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is tenth in the Muktikā or "canon of 108 Upanishads".

Brihadaranyaka literally means "great wilderness or forest". The Upanishad forms the last part, that is the fourteenth kānda of Śatapatha Brāhmana of "Śhukla Yajurveda". The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad has six adhyayas (chapters) in total. It includes three sections: Madhu kānda (the 4th and 5th chapter of the fourteenth kānda of Satapatha Brahmana), Muni kānda (or Yajnavalkya Kanda, the 6th and 7th chapter of 14th kānda of Satapatha Brahmana) and Khila kānda (the 8th and 9th chapter of the fourteenth kānda of Satapatha Brahmana).

The first and second chapters of the Upanishad's Madhu kānda consists of six brahmanas each, with varying number of hymns per brahmana. The first chapter of the Upanishad's Yajnavalkya kānda consists of nine brahmanams, while the second has six brahmanas. The Khila kānda of the Upanishad has fifteen brahmanas in its first chapter, and five brahmanas in the second chapter.

In the fourth brahmana of the Second chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajnavalkya and his wife Maitreyi engage in a dialogue about love and spirituality. Yajnavalkya states that one doesn't connect with and love forms, nor does one connect or love mind, rather one connects with the Self, the Self of one's own and one's beloved. All love is for the sake of one's Self, and the Oneness one realizes in the Self of the beloved. He then asserts that this knowledge of the Self, the Self, and Brahman is what makes one immortal, and the connection is also immortal. All longing is the longing for the Self, as the Self represents the true, the immortal, the real, and infinite bliss.

Reference material:

Book:

https://a.co/d/iQqKCWM

PDF of the entire Upanishad can be found https://dn790002.ca.archive.org/0/ite....

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ome Purnamadhaf Purnamidam Purnat Purnamu Dattyae Purnasya Purnam Phaa Váshyhhhhhhhh.
0:18.0	Om, shanty, shanty, shanty, shanty, oam.
0:24.6	From that Purnam, which is the Saguna Brahman, this Purnam, which is the Jiva and the
0:31.6	Jagat has arisen.
0:34.6	So that is Purnum.
0:35.6	Zaguna Brahmhan is Purnam.
0:36.6	This world, manifested world is also Purnum.
0:40.3	And this manifested world has arisen from that Saguna Brahman.
0:45.3	And in this manifested Jiva, in ourselves, when we discover the Purnatvam, the infinite nature,
0:53.3	then the Purnum alone remains, the infinite alone remains.
0:57.0	Ome, peace, peace, peace.
1:00.0	Namaste and welcome back to the class.
1:05.0	This is the Buryadana Upanishad class.
1:08.0	The Yagyavalkya Maitre Sambhādā, the dialogue between Yagya Valkya and Maitre.
1:15.6	In the first two classes, we studied the peace chant, Purnamadha Purnamidam.
1:22.6	That is infinite, this is infinite, etc.
1:26.6	Somebody commented that, is this class about the
1:30.3	yaggyalkiyamaitri dialogue or is it about Purnabata why are you going on and on about
1:35.3	that well yes because it is the peace chant for the Brihadarne Kupanishad and also
1:41.3	because it is so extraordinarily profound in a sense all of Vedantah is packed into Purnamadha Purnamidam.
1:50.0	Also because this mantra actually the peace chant not only we chanted at the beginning of the Upanishad,
1:57.0	but it actually occurs in the Upanishad itself.
	...

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