The Message Of The Upanishads 4

THE MESSAGE OF THE UPANISHADS Book: Swami Ranganathananda Summary: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

“Let noble thoughts come to us from all sides.” [Rig-Veda I-89-i] PART 4

KATHA UPANISHAD

“Om! May Brahman protect us (teacher and student) both! May Brahman nourish us both! May we acquire energy (as a result of this study)! May we both become illumined (by this study)! May we not envy each other! Om, Peace! Peace! Peace!” This ‘Shanti patha’ (invocation) is meant to induce a state of creative tranquility in the mind by making it receptive, knowledge oriented, and bereft of any other evil passions. Teacher and student engaged in the pursuit of knowledge and excellence of character is education. Education according to Indian sages is lighting of one lamp from another. Education is not stuffing the brain but illuminating the mind and heart. The Upanishads conceived education as training in clearness of vision, in purity and strength of will, and in richness and stability of the emotions. The very word ‘Upanishad’ means ‘education received by a student while sitting close to his teacher’. The profounder the subject, the more the need for close communion between teacher and student. When man achieves some sort of order and stability in his outer life, and if his mind is not stifled in the process but continues to be creative and seeking, he is bound to feel the impact of a vaster and more significant inner world pressing upon his mind and seeking his attention. It is only then that he becomes aware of something profound and deep within himself; close to him and not far away. This 35

recognition at once makes for a gradual silencing of the clamors of the sense organs; a mood of inwardness and peace descends on the soul of man; and he now enters on the search for the truth of experience, not in the field of sensedata, but beyond them. Only a seeker endowed with such a frame of mind, and backed by a measure of inner discipline, can pierce the outer literary form, and enter into the spiritual atmosphere, of the Upanishads. The Katha Upanishad emphasizes the truth through two participants in its dialogue: young ‘Nachiketa’, the student, and wise ‘Yama’, the teacher. Nachiketa is the embodiment of inner discipline and one-pointed love of truth. He is a child, pure and fresh and fearless, pulsating with life and vigor. And Yama, the god of death, is the master of Self-knowledge; he has pierced the mystery hidden in life and death and achieved wisdom and serenity. His very name suggests self-control and moral elevation. He has compassion for those who struggle on the path of truth. Among the Upanishads the Katha Upanishad stands in a category all alone. It blends in itself the charm of poetry, the strength of philosophy, and the depth of mysticism; it contains a more unified exposition of the spiritual insights of Vedanta than is found in any other single Upanishad. The word ‘Shraddha’ has no exact equivalent in English; it is usually translated as faith; but it is not faith in a creed or dogma but faith in oneself, faith in the infinite power lodged in each soul; it is also faith in the power of truth and goodness, a firm conviction of the ultimate meaningfulness of the universe. It is the totality of positive attitudes, ‘astikya buddhi’ as Shankara defines it. It is the impelling force behind man’s efforts at character development, his civic virtues, and social grace, his search for truth in science and religion. When man looses faith in himself, he loses faith in everyone and everything else as well, and the gate is opened to all-round deterioration. Truth, ‘Satya’, which expresses itself as righteousness, ‘Dharma’, in human life, is an eternal value. It cannot be moulded and shaped to suit human convenience. The later, on the other hand, must be made to conform to Truth. “Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth, or die…. Practice that boldness which dares to know the Truth, which dares show the Truth in life, which does not quake before death, nay, welcomes death, makes a man know that he is Spirit, that, in the whole universe nothing can kill him. Then you will be free. Then you will know your real soul.” - Swami Vivekananda

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The ‘Mahabharata’ exhorts man to gain his spiritual strength by constant devotion to ‘dharma’, righteousness:

“Neither through lust, nor fear, nor greed shall man forsake ‘dharma’ even to save his life; for eternal is ‘dharma’, ephemeral are joys and sorrows; eternal is the soul of man, but ephemeral, however, is its cause (which makes for the soul’s limitation in the body).” [Mahabharata 18.5.50] “The ancient sages penetrated deeper and deeper until they found that in the innermost core of the human soul is the center of the whole universe. All the planes gravitate towards that one point; that is the common ground, and standing there alone can we find a common solution. - Swami Vivekananda Nachiketa seeks his third and final boon from Yama in the following verse:

“When a man dies there is this doubt: some say that he exists; some (others) say he does not exist. This I should like to know, being taught by you. This is my third boon.” [Katha Upanishad 1.1.20] It is the phenomenon of death that makes us ask questions about life. This mood of questioning comes to all people at some time or other in their lives. But the mood does not stay; the pressures of external life drive it away and man continues his humdrum existence, shut out from the knowledge of the mystery which alone renders life meaningful and worthwhile. But if the mood stays, man becomes philosophical; he achieves spiritual depth. If it is not properly handled, however, this mood will make man pessimistic and apathetic, and rob him of all zest in life. There is, therefore, need to discipline this mood of questioning that the experience of death induces in man. It must be disciplined in the rigorous pursuit of truth, unattached to passing moods and unafraid of consequences. This is the Vedantic discipline which is also the discipline of modern science. It is such a disciplined mind that we meet in Nachiketa. The grappling with truth on the part of such a mind, and under the guidance of a master mind such as Yama, is what invests this Upanishad with special significance for human thought.

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Man is his own greatest mystery. He does not understand the vast veiled universe into which he has been cast for the reason that he does not understand himself. Least of all does he understand his noblest and most mysterious faculty: the ability to transcend himself and perceive himself in the act of perception. Nachiketa is setting out to investigate precisely this mysterious internal nature of man with its faculty to transcend himself and perceive himself in the act of perception. Nachiketa, and others like him, have impressed upon the Indian mind that the object of human life is knowledge and not pleasure. Pleasure and pain are incidental to physical existence; the animals function only on that plain but man has the capacity and privilege to transcend it and achieve intellectual knowledge, moral elevation, aesthetic delight, and spiritual perfection. Pursuit of knowledge and excellence is strenuous exercise needing all the health and vigor of the psycho-physical system. Yama is highly pleased with Nachiketa; he finds him a fit student of ‘Atma Vidya’, the science of Self. Yama begins his exposition with appointed reference to good life as the ethical precondition to spiritual striving and realization:

“One thing is ‘Shreya’ (the good) and (quite) different indeed is ‘Preya’ (the pleasant). Leading to different ends as they do, they both bind man. The good befalls him who accepts the good, but falls he away from the goal who chooses the pleasant.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.1] ‘Shreya’ has two levels, namely, ‘Dharma’, the good life, and ‘Amrita’, the divine immortal life. The good life is not an ultimate, not an end in itself; it must lead to the realization of the Atman, the true Self of man, the birth-less and death-less spiritual reality in him and the universe. This is the achievement of ‘Amrita’. Religious speak of spiritual realization as the highest end; and Vedanta terms it ‘Nihshreyasa’, the ultimate ‘Shreya’, or good. The first stage in man’s spiritual evolution is ethics, which Vedanta terms ‘Abhudaya’, welfare in the social context. At this stage, man is a producer of wealth and social welfare and an enjoyer of the delights of social existence, in association with his fellow men. At the ethical level man takes into account not only himself but also others. This is called ‘Samsara’, the repetitive experiences of worldliness, in the language of the Vedanta. But if he dares to break through this bondage of the Samsara, he will achieve a timeless existence, characterized 38

by naturalness, spontaneity, and fullness of being. This is the plentitude of ‘Shreya’, ‘Param Shreya’, which Vedanta also calls ‘Nihshreyasa’, or Moksha’, the highest freedom of the spirit.

“Both ‘Shreya’ and ‘Preya’ approach man; the ‘dhira’ (wise man) examining the two (well), discriminate between them. The wise man verily prefers ‘Shreya’ to ‘Preya’; but the foolish man chooses ‘Preya’ through love of gain and attachment.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.2] Vedanta insists that if the search for the eternal and the changeless is to come to fruition in spiritual realization, it must be backed by renunciation of the finite and changeful.

“He who can withstand in this very life, before the fall of the body, the flood-tide arising from lust and anger, he is the spiritually integrated one, he is the happy man.” [Bhagavad-Gita 5.23] Vedanta does include in ‘Vidya’ literacy and gathering of information, and all forms of training the mind for creative acquisition of knowledge – what is usually termed education. But it holds that if this education fails to advance the spiritual growth and development of man, if it fails to raise him above the sensate level, it sheds its ‘Vidya’ quality and becomes ‘Avidya’; for Vidya is that which liberates the human spirit from the thralldom of the senses; and where it fails to do so it becomes Avidya, in spite of all the intellectual knowledge and sharpness of mind gained from that education. Avidya or spiritual blindness is characterized by absence of discrimination, with or without learning or scholarship. If it is with learning, it becomes a greater tragedy. For learning without inner illumination makes for greater pride and vanity, resulting in increased spiritual blindness. “No books, no scriptures, no science can ever imagine the glory of the Self that appears as man, the most glorious God that ever was, the only God that ever existed, exists or ever will exist” - Swami Vivekananda The ‘Para prakriti’, higher nature in the form of an indwelling Self, is submerged in the ‘Apara prakriti’, lower nature in the form of the material world. Evolution,

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says Vedanta, is the progressive manifestation of the Self through the transformation it effects in the material mass around. “Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature is both internal and external.” - Swami Vivekananda Spiritual knowledge helps us to swim across the sea of the world; those who are bereft of this knowledge and are deluded by wealth, they die, not knowing how to swim across the sea of this world. The thinkers of the Upanishads realized that to be deathless also involves being birthless; also that anything that is birthless and deathless cannot be finite, and, further, that the infinite cannot be two, but must be non-dual. The sages of the Upanishads realized this infinite non-dual Self, the Atman, as the true self of man wherein the values of subtlety, inwardness, and infinitude reach their consummation in supreme universality. The Atman is beyond the grasp of the senses and the sense-bound logical intellect or reason, but it is revealed by ‘buddhi’, philosophical Reason. Spiritual discipline in Vedanta is meant to purify and transform the sense-bound intellect or logical reason into ‘buddhi’, philosophical Reason. Spiritual truths and life’s mysteries are penetrated and laid bare by this buddhi alone, the glories of which are sung in the Gita and other Vedantic books. Vedanta holds that reason is the most precious possession and that it should be kept bright and pure, and that nothing should be indulged in which weakens or destroys it. “Beyond (waking) consciousness is where the bold search. Consciousness is bound by the senses. Beyond that, beyond the senses, men must go, in order to arrive at truths of the spiritual world, and there are even now persons who succeed in going beyond the bound of the senses. These are called ‘Rishis’ (seers of thought), because they come face to face with spiritual truths.” - Swami Vivekananda It is the supreme function of philosophical Reason, say Upanishads, to synthesize the results of the various disciplines, and study experience in its totality. ‘Brahma-Vidya’ philosophy, they say, is ‘sarva Vidya pratishtha’, the basis of every Vidya, or science. In investigating the nature of knowledge or truth or of reality, logical and scientific reason confines itself to the field of the ‘known’; it ignores the ‘knower’, the subject, or the Self; this explains the limitations of its knowledge, the partial character of the truths it finds, and the relative character of the reality it reveals.

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Buddhi or philosophical Reason reveals the ultimate truth of the unity of ‘Atman’ and ‘Brahman’, in the unity of the within and without of nature. It signifies the complete annexation of the sub-conscious and unconscious by Reason. It signifies according to Vedanta, the complete and true waking state, the everawake and ever-free state of the Atman. This vision of unity is the meeting ground of faith and reason, love and knowledge, poetry and philosophy, science and art. Man goes out of himself because he finds all is not quite well within himself; he goes on searching here and there, trying to achieve security, happiness, welfare, and fulfillment. At the end of all these rounds of movement, he finds himself far from fulfillment; examining the situation critically and with calm detachment, the knowledge dawns on him that he has been searching for something which has been all the time nearest to him, within him, his own infinite Self.

Yama says: “The ‘Dhira’ (wise man) relinquishes both joy and sorrow when he realizes, through meditation on the inner Self, that ancient effulgent One, hard to be seen, profound, hidden in experience, established in the cavity of the heart, and residing within the body. Mortal man rejoices, having heard and comprehended well this subtle truth, the soul of the ‘Dhira’, realizes it after proper discrimination, and having attained what is verily blissful. I consider that the house (of truth) is wide open for Nachiketa.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.12; 13] The Atman is never the unknowable; for as the eternal Subject or Self, it is the basis and presupposition of all knowledge; as the very principle of pure awareness it is more than known and knowable; for it is in and through the Atman that all objects, entities and events are known. In every act of knowledge, perception, and judgment the Atman is present: ‘pratibodha-viditam’. ‘Dharma’ and ‘Amrita’ are two key words in Sanskrit which convey the whole range of values sought after by man; of these, ‘Dharma’ represents the values which he seeks in association with his fellows. These values, which proceed from motivations of profit and pleasures, are collectively known as ‘Abhyudaya’, which in modern language, means social security and welfare; and it is only through ‘Dharma’, social ethics, that man can achieve this.

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“The goal which all Vedas proclaim, which all tapas (penances) declare, and desiring which they lead the life of ‘Brahmacharya’, that goal I shall tell thee in brief; it is ‘Om’.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.15]

“This syllable is verily Brahman; this syllable is verily the highest. Having known this syllable, one gets whatever one desires.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.16]

“This support is the best; this support is the Supreme; knowing this support, one is glorified in the world of Brahman.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.2] As explained by Shankara in his comments on this verse: “It is That which is meant by the sound ‘Om’, and That which has for its symbol the sound ‘Om’.” A word and its meaning are inseparable, says the great poet Kalidasa:

History has shown that human knowledge in various fields has been greatly advanced by the invention and use of symbols. When ancient Indian scientific thought invented the numerals, including the zero sign, the algebraic symbols, and the decimal system, it helped immensely to simplify mathematics and its handling of immense physical quantities. When the Indian sages realized the Absolute and the Unconditioned in the unity of Brahman and Atman, they felt the need for an adequate symbol to communicate so incommunicable a truth. In their search, they came across the symbol ‘Om’, which, as the Taittiriya Upanishad [1.8] informs us, had already established its usefulness for the communication of particular moods and ideas. This ‘Om’, as the unity of all sound to which all matter and energy are reduced in their primordial form, is a fit symbol for Atman or Brahman, which is the unity of all existence. These and possibly other considerations, led the Vedic sages to accord to ‘Om’ the highest divine reverence and worship, and treat it as the

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holiest ‘pratika’, symbol, of divinity; they called it ‘Nada Brahman’ or ‘Shabda Brahman’, Brahman in the form of sound. Throwing away an advantage already gained in order to achieve a greater advantage has been a characteristic of organic as well as cultural evolution. This is the only safeguard against stagnation and death. It is especially the law of moral and spiritual evolution. The lesson is not ‘hold on’, bur ‘give up, and move on’. This is what the Isha Upanishad proclaims in its memorable opening verse: “Enjoy life through renunciation”. Shankara quotes from ‘Yajnavalkya Smriti’: “The concentration (of the energies) of the mind and the senses is supreme ‘tapas’; it is greater than all virtues (dharmas); it is (in fact) the supreme virtue.” Tapas is the very root of creation; it is also at the root of every creative act or achievement of man, be it literary or artistic, scientific or spiritual. This concentration of organic and psychic energy achieved by ‘tapas’ is the means to advance evolution to the highest summit of spiritual realization.

“The discerning man (knows that he) is not born nor does he die; he has not come into being from anything; nor has anything come into being from him. This (Self of man) is unborn, eternal, everlasting and ancient; It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.18] The discovery by the Indian sages that the true Self of man is free, that it is untrammeled by the cause and effect relation and beyond the network of relativity was a great discovery in the history of man’s search for truth.

“The Atman, smaller than the atom and greater than the cosmos, is (ever) present in the heart of this creature. One who is free from (the thralldom of) desire realizes the glory of the Atman through purity and transparency of the senses and the mind, and (thereby becomes) free from grief.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.20]

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“Realizing the Atman as the bodiless in the embodied, the changeless in all changeful entities, infinite and all pervading, the wise one does not grieve.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.22] The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad [3.7.15] says:

“He who exists in all beings, who is their innermost core, whom all beings do not know, whose body are all beings, who, remaining within, controls all beings; this is your Atman, the ‘antaryamin’, (inner controller), the Immortal.”

“This Atman cannot be obtained by study of the scriptures, nor by sharp intellect, nor by much hearing; by him is It attained whom It chooses – to him this Atman reveals Its own (true) form.” [Katha Upanishad 1.2.23] It is remarkable that the Vedas themselves, in several passages, say that the Atman cannot be attained through a mere study of them. Few scriptures in the world have the boldness to say this of themselves; for that boldness is the product of a deep passion for spirituality and not of a dogma or creed; and it is sustained by the spirit of detachment and objectivity. The Atman according to the Upanishads is the nature of pure Awareness, infinite and undecaying. All the Upanishads ecstatically sing in chorus this characteristic of the Atman. A total discipline of the inner life, beginning with moral purity, is demanded of the student who is not content to know the Atman intellectually, but seeks to realize it spiritually. Moral purity and discipline of the senses help to lead man into the stream of spirituality leading to the ocean of spiritual realization. The Power of God is power of Love. Love is more potent than hatred, or fear, the Spirit is more powerful than the sword. Sings the Rig Veda [10.121.2]:

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“Unto Him who gives our individuality, who gives us strength, whose commands all beings, together with the gods, obey, whose shadow is immortality as well as death, we offer our oblations.” Life is a journey to fulfillment. The attainment of fulfillment, however, will depend upon the path that man takes. The path of profit and pleasure, earthly or heavenly, the way of ‘Preyas’ can never lead to true fulfillment; though involving much action and movement, and capable of yielding gross or refined sensate satisfactions, it is repetitive, but not creative; it tends only to increase of tension, sorrow, and fear. The path of knowledge and illumination, the way of ‘Shreyas’ on the other hand, offers the supreme opportunity to man. Guided by discrimination and detachment, life forges ahead in this path to achieve fulfillment in character and vision.

“Know the Atman as the master within the chariot, and the body, verily as the chariot; know the buddhi (intelligence) as the charioteer, and the manas (insipient mind), verily as reins; the sense-organs, they say, are the horses, and the roads for them are the sense-objects. The wise call Him (the Atman) the enjoyer of the experience (when He is) united with the body, senses, and mind.” [Kathopanishad 1.3.3; 4]

“He who is possessed of right understanding with the manas always disciplined, his senses become controlled like the good (controlled) horses of a charioteer. He who is possessed of right understanding, with manas held and ever pure, reaches that goal whence there is no birth (return to worldliness) again.” [Kathopanishad 1.3.6; 8] The horse provides the motive power of the journey, but they cannot be allowed to set the pace for the journey, lest it should turn out to be their journey, with the charioteer and master of the chariot becoming just helpless victims. The reins are meant to prevent this; the more energetic the horses, the tougher the reins should be. It is the charioteer who should set the pace of the journey, guided by the purpose and satisfaction of the master behind. Life’s journey, to be successful, needs the contribution of all constituents of the personality: the body, the senses, the manas, the buddhi, and the 45

Self. The most important thing is to ensure that the initiative and control pass from the senses to the buddhi through the manas. This cannot happen unless the buddhi and the manas are trained and disciplined into their true forms. The true form of manas is its pure state when it is aligned with buddhi, and ceases to be a mere appendage of the senses; then alone it can stand the stress and strain in its unique situation, namely, between the two powerful and initially opposite forces of the senses and the buddhi. Such a buddhi is the best guide in life’s journey. It denotes the fusion of intelligence, imagination and will in their purest forms. Its impact on life is irresistible as well as wholesome. When the buddhi dominates the journey, life rises to the steady ethical levels, tastes true freedom and delight, and achieves fulfillment in universality through spiritual illumination.

“He who has ‘vijnana’, buddhi, or Reason, for his charioteer and a (disciplined) manas as the reins – he verily attains the end of the journey, that supreme state of Vishnu.” [Kathopanishad 1.3.9] The human personality, with its constituent elements of the body, the senseorgans, the manas, the buddhi, and the Self, is the finest contrivance that nature has evolved for the exploration not only into her world of facts, but also into her world of values, into the world of truth, goodness, and beauty. Gita advocates a balanced life style (middle path):

“To him who is moderate in eating and recreation, who is moderate in the performance of actions, who is moderate in sleep and working, yoga becomes a destroyer of misery.” [Shrimad-Bhagavad-Gita 6.17] [To be continued] Summary: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

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