One bird eats the pippala fruits.
Another simply looks, and does not eat.
The inner meaning is,
Tree is the human body.
A person who considers oneself as the Jiv-atma (living self) feasts upon the fruits of sense experiences. He is the eating bird.
In the same body, Param-atma (eternal self) resides as the second bird.
His presence animates His companion -the eating bird
Param Atma being very still, remains a witness to all activities of the Jiva.
Merits and demerits of the jiva's activities do not accrue to the Param-atma.
This is what is conveyed poetically by the Upanishad as 2 birds perched in a tree.
This speaking has undergone distortions in the flow and ebb of time, place, context - to the extent that the original concept itself is lost.
Jiva has become 'Eve', in Hebrew dharmas.
Atma has morphed as Adam, Pippala to apple.
The clarity that shines through a subdued human being, and helps people transcend material embodiment, is symbolised as the Pippala tree.
In the changed narrative, the tree of Bodha, or clarity, has become the tree of knowledge.
A tree of worldly knowledge that bears fruits of sensory experiences, fraught with pleasure and pain.
Bereft of its guided classical study and associated rituals, the Upanishad narrative loses its original intent.
In the Old Testament, the story gets distorted to the extent that even the Paramatma or the Witness, eats the fruits of sensory experiences.
-Shri Chandrashekarendra Saraswati, Kanchi.
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