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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 2, Brahmana 5. The honey: the Self shining in all beings

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Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.

Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.

Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.

॥ 2.5.11 ॥

Honey in righteousness

अयं धर्मः सर्वेषां भूतानां मधु । अस्य धर्मस्य सर्वाणि भूतानि मधु । यश्चायमस्मिन् धर्मे तेजोमयोऽमृतमयः पुरुषो यश्चायमध्यात्मं धार्मस्तेजोमयोऽमृतमयः पुरुषोऽयमेव स योऽयमात्मा । इदममृतमिदं ब्रह्मेदं सर्वम्
In transliteration
ayaṃ dharmaḥ sarveṣāṃ bhūtānāṃ madhu | asya dharmasya sarvāṇi bhūtāni madhu | yaścāyamasmin dharme tejomayo'mṛtamayaḥ puruṣo yaścāyamadhyātmaṃ dhārmastejomayo'mṛtamayaḥ puruṣo'yameva sa yo'yamātmā | idamamṛtamidaṃ brahmedaṃ sarvam

In English

This righteousness is honey to all beings, and all beings are honey to this righteousness. The shining, immortal person who is in this righteousness, and the shining, immortal person who in the body belongs to righteousness: this very one is that which is this Self. This is the immortal, this is Brahman, this is the All.

In plain words

Righteousness (dharma) and all beings nourish one another; each is sweetness to the other. The radiant, deathless person residing in righteousness as a cosmic law and the radiant, deathless person present in the body as one's own righteousness (dharma) are one and the same, and that one is the Self. That Self is the immortal, is Brahman, is everything.

In the commentaries

Sri SankaraAdvaita

Sankara takes dharma here as scripture and right conduct working in both an unseen cosmic form (the apurva that orders the elements) and a bodily form; the deathless person in each is the one Self, the immortal Brahman, the All.

Sri Sankara, Brhadaranyaka-bhasya 2.5.11 (via Madhavananda)