The Thread and the Inner Controller

Then Uddālaka Āruṇi asked him. When we were studying the sacrifice among the Madras, he said, in the house of Patañcala Kāpya, his wife was possessed by a gandharva, and the gandharva asked Kāpya: Do you know the thread by which this world and the next and all beings are strung together? And do you know the inner controller who rules this world and the next and all beings from within? Kāpya did not know. And the gandharva said, Whoever knows that thread and that inner controller knows Brahman, knows the worlds, the gods, the Vedas, the beings and the Self. I know them, said Uddālaka. If you do not know them and still drive away the cows that belong to the knowers of Brahman, your head will fall off.

Yājñavalkya said, The wind is that thread. By the wind this world and the next and all beings are strung together. Then he told him the inner controller. The one who dwells in the earth, yet is other than the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth is, who controls the earth from within: he is your Self, the inner controller, the immortal. So he went on through the waters and fire, the middle air and the wind, heaven and the sun, the quarters, the moon and the stars, space and darkness and light, all beings, the breath and speech, the eye and the ear, the mind and the skin, understanding and seed. Unseen, he sees; unheard, he hears; unthought, he thinks; unknown, he knows. There is no other seer but he, no other hearer, no other thinker, no other knower. He is your Self, the inner controller, the immortal. Everything else is sorrow. And Uddālaka fell silent.