Within this ever changing body resides the eternal Brahman, God, Consciousness-Existence-Bliss Absolute. Realization of the indwelling nearness of, in truth, the inseparable oneness with Brahman awakens man to the conscious cognition of the illimitable power of his wisdom, will and love. He gains the illumination that he is above all conditions of duality, and secures that transcendental self-assurance of moral and spiritual strength which inspires and enables him to live by righteousness and truth amidst all the adversities and perplexities of life.
The source of man’s divine qualities is the infinite perfection of God. But man cuts himself off, though not completely, from this cosmic spiritual reservoir by his own thought of self-separateness and consequently of self-limitation.
“Man thinking himself separated from Brahman, revolves on the wheel of birth and death.”
Man, in his soul, is omnipotent. By divine benediction he possesses the power to liberate himself from the thralldom of bondage by realizing his identity with God.
“In the realization of Brahman is the severance of all bondage of self-limitation.”
The Rishi Svetasvatara, a sage of self-realization and the author of this (Svetasvatara) Upanishad, reveals the wisdom and the way to divine identity and self-liberation:
“Ye sons of immortality, listen!”
—Swami Premananda, Introduction to his translation of the Svetasvatara Upanishad in Eight Upanishads