भूमा संप्रसादादध्युपदेशात् ॥ ८ ॥
bhūmā saṃprasādādadhyupadeśāt || 8 ||
bhūmā—The Bhuman; saṃprasādāt-adhi—after of beyond the state of deep sleep, (here, the vital force); upadeśāt—because of the teaching.
8. The Bhuman (is Brahman) because it is taught after the state of deep sleep (i.e. after Prana or the vital force, which alone functions even in that state).
In the seventh chapter of the Chhandogya Upanishad, Sanatkumara teaches Narada several truths. He begins with ‘name’ and goes higher and higher, till he teaches the highest truth, which is Bhuman.
“The Bhuman (infinite) is bliss. . . . The Bhuman you should seek to understand. . . . Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the Bhuman” (Chh. 7. 28 and 7. 24. 1).
The question is, what does this Bhuman refer to. The opponent holds that it is the vital force. He argues as follows : After Sanatkumara finished teaching every truth from name up to the vital force, Narada asks him, “Is there anything higher than this?”—to which Sanatkumara answers, “Yes, there is,” and takes up the next higher truth. But after being taught about the vital force Narada does not ask whether there is any higher truth, and yet Sanatkumara gives this dissertation on the Bhuman—which shows that this Bhuman is not different from the vital force taught already. Not only that, he calls the knower of the vital force an Ativadin (one who makes a statement surpassing previous statements), thereby showing that the vital force is the highest truth, and in accordance with this he further elucidates the truth as Bhuman.
This Sutra refutes this argument and says that Bhuman is Brahman, for though the Sutra calls the knower of vital force an Ativadin, yet it says,
“But he indeed is an Ativadin who is such through the realization of the Truth” (Chh. 7.16.1),
which clearly shows that it refers to something higher than the vital force, knowing which one becomes truly an Ativadin. Thus it is clear that a new topic about Brahman which is the highest Truth is begun, though Narada does not ask whether there is any truth higher than the vital force. Sanatkumara, in accordance with Narada’s desire to be an Ativadin through Truth, now leads him by a series of steps to the knowledge of the Bhuman, showing that this Bhuman is Brahman. Moreover, if the vital force, says the Sutra, were the Bhuman, then the Srut; would not give any information about it— as it does in Chh. 7. 24. 1 cited above —beyond what it has already given in section 15.