When words arise from an honest observation of life, then those words are called "divine."
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Acharya Prashant: “tadū dūraṁ tadanantiko,” It is far, it is near — so says Isa Upanishad. It is one of the pramukh (main) Upanishad. It has been called poetic Upanishad, and it is easy to take its utterances as poetic delight. A poet is entitled to flights of fancy, so one may look at this paradox. The Upanishads says — it is within, it is without; it moves, it moves not; it is near, it is far. One may look at these paradoxes and take them to be merely poetic in nature. That would be to miss the point. Let's go into it.
What is it that keeps on appearing far to us? It's a very common, very simple word, ‘far.’ What is far? What do we mean when we say something is far? How is it known that something is far? The Upanishads says, “It is near, it is far.” What is it that appears far? Is it not simple? That which cannot be reached, that which is difficult to reach, right? That which demands effort to reach. That which demands time and method to reach. The further it is, the more effort, time, and concentration it requires. That is what we call far.
And after all the effort and time that you put in, if it is really far, it still cannot be reached. Is there something in our life which is similar, which meets this criterion, something in which a lot of time is invested, something towards which goes a lot of effort, and yet it remains perpetually unreachable? Is there something of the kind? We seem unable to figure out whether there is actually something like this, all right.
