Chandogya Upanishad, one of the oldest Upanishad has been written during the Vedic Brahmana period. Chandogya Upanishad is associated with Sama Veda. Chandogya Upanishad is the part of Chandogya Brahaman that contains ten chapters. The 7th Khanda of Chapter Six of Chandogya Upanishad describes about the way the mind consists of food. Man consists of sixteen parts. Svetaketu`s father told him not to consume anything but drink as much water he wishes to as prana consists of water. It would then sustain him and not leave him. Svetaketu did not eat any food for fifteen days. His father then asked him to recite the hymns of the Rig Veda, Sama Veda and the Yajur Veda. However, Svetaketu could not recite them as he was tired and weak. His father then explained that when a huge fire leaves a small remnant, insignificant as the spark of the firefly, it cannot burn much fuel. In the same way of the sixteen parts only one now remains, and therefore with that one part he cannot remember the Vedas. His father instructed him to consume some food. Svetaketu ate and then again approached his father. He could now answer his father`s questions.. His father explained him that as a huge fire a single remnant insignificant as the spark of the fire-fly, of a large fire invigorated with little bits of hay or straw becomes powerful and able to consume much, the last single remnant of his sixteen parts invigorated with food, is able to understand the Vedas. The mind is thus, made of food, the prana of water, and the speech of heat.
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