The story

"Sarvam khalvidam brahma" — all this, truly, is Brahman. With that line the sage Shandilya gives the meditator both a vision of the whole and a place to stand. Everything arises from Brahman, dissolves into Brahman, and breathes in Brahman; so let one meditate, he says, with a calm and gathered mind.

Then he turns from the vastness to the smallest, intimate point. This Self within the heart, he says, is smaller than a grain of rice, smaller than a barley corn, smaller than a mustard seed — and this same Self within the heart is greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than all these worlds together. The infinite is not somewhere far off. It is seated in the cave of your own heart.

He ends with a quiet resolve that turns vision into practice: "On departing from here I shall become this." The one who meditates so, without doubt, attains it. The teaching is not only that all is Brahman, but that the conviction itself shapes where you are headed.

Figures and teachings in this dialogue

• Shandilya
• Teaching: All This Is Brahman

Questions to explore

• How can the same Self be smaller than a grain and vaster than the sky?
• What does Shandilya mean by meditating with the resolve 'I shall become this'?