THE MESSAGE OF THE UPANISHADS

Book: Swami RanganathanandaSummary: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

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

PART 5

KATHA UPANISHAD(Continued)

“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!”

“After long searches here and there, in temples and in churches, in earths and in heavens, at last you come back completing the circle from where you started, to your own soul and find that He, for whom you have been seeking all over the world, for whom you have been weeping in praying in churches and temples, on whom you were looking as the mystery of all mysteries shrouded in the clouds, is nearest of the near, is your own Self, the reality of your life, body and soul. That is your own nature. Assert it, manifest it. Not to become pure, you are already pure. You are not to be perfect, you are that already. Nature is like that screen which is hiding reality beyond. Every good thought that you think or act upon is simply tearing the veil, as it were; and the purity, the infinity, the God behind, manifests itself more and more.”

- Swami Vivekananda

The sages of the Upanishads realized the infinite and immortal Atman as the true Self of man. Therein alone is true life for him.

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Shankara says in Vivekachudamani [375]:

“Know O wise one that, for man, dispassion and spiritual awareness are like the two wings of a bird. Unless both are there none can, with the help of either one, reach Liberation that grows like a creeper, as it were, on the crest of an edifice.”

“The sense objects are higher than the sense-organs; the manas is higher than the sense objects; the buddhi is higher than the manas; the ‘mahat’ (mahan-atma) is higher than the buddhi. The ‘avyakta’ (undifferentiated state) is higher than the mahat; the ‘Purusha’ (the infinite Self) is higher than the avyakta. There is nothing higher than the Purusha that is the finale that is the supreme goal.” [Katha Upanishad 1.3.10; 11]

A scrutiny of experience reveals the presence of a changeless subject or knower at the center of the knowing process, at the core of human personality:

“There is some entity, eternal by nature, the basis of the experience of egoism, the witness of the three states (of waking, dream and sleep), and distinct from five sheaths; who knows everything that happens in the waking, dream, and sleep states; who is aware of the presence or the absence of mind and its functions; and who is the basis of the notion of egoism.” [Vivekachudamani 127, 128]

Causality, according to Vedanta, is the last impurity of reason, the most obstinate and intractable, which alone prevents reason from rising from the finite to the infinite. When it is eliminated, reason itself becomes infinite, and reveals the non-duality and inseparable unity of the Purusha and the ‘avyakta’, which is also the unity of the Self and the not-self, the subject and the object. This is the impersonal personal God of Vedanta, the inseparable unity of Brahman and Shakti, or Shiva and Shakti, in which the avyakta becomes transformed in to the Energy of the cosmic manifestation.

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From this Everest of spiritual vision, man and nature, Spirit and matter, and the One and the many are seen as one.

Man, his growth, development and realization, is the perennial theme of Vedanta. Exploring the within of the universe through the human personality, Vedantic sages discovered the ‘Purusha’ or ‘Brahman’ – the Immortal behind the mortal.

The truths that the Upanishads proclaimed ages ago are of contemporary interest in every age, because they are the fruits of a detached and rational, sustained and sincere pursuit of truth, and because they are addressed to man as such, and not to any group or section thereof; and have a profound bearing on his growth, development and fulfillment.

“This Atman, (being) hidden in all beings, is not manifest (to all). But (It) can be realized by all who are accustomed to inquire into subtle truths by means of their sharp and subtle reason.” [Katha Upanishad 1.3.12]

“All knowledge is within us. All perfection is there already in the soul. But this perfection has been covered by nature; layer after layer of nature is covering this purity of the soul. What have we to do? Really, we do not develop our souls at all. What can develop the perfect? We simply take the veil off, and the soul manifests itself in its pristine purity, its natural innate freedom.”

- Swami Vivekananda

All effective mental training, says Vedanta, is training in concentration; it is the development of a capacity for penetration, the penetration through the darkness of ignorance into the light of knowledge.

The raising of consciousness from lower to higher levels, and finally taking it out of the network of relativity, is the hardest task the man can set for himself. The gravitational pull of the non-spiritual parts of his being make this path out of bounds for any but the most heroic of men – the ‘dhira’.

“Arise, awake, enlighten yourself by resorting to the great (teachers); like the sharp edge of a razor is that path, so say the sages, difficult to tread and hard to cross.” [Katha Upanishad 1.3.14]

No thinking human being can help being fascinated by the tremendous vista of human fulfillment here-in presented by Vedanta.

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The river of spiritual tradition is an ancient over-flowing stream augmented from time to time by contributions of realized souls.

“By realizing that Atman which is soundless, touch-less, formless, imperishable; similarly without taste, eternal, without smell, beginning-less and endless, (even) beyond the ‘mahat’, and immutable, one is liberated from the jaws of death.” [Katha Upanishad 1.3.16]

Time consumes everything: but the infinite Atman, beyond the reach of time, space, and causality, consumes time itself, as also space and causality.

Speech and sense organs are good as servants, but not so good, and often positively bad, as masters. When disciplined by manas and buddhi, they become efficient tools in the pursuit of truth and life-excellence.

“Teach yourself, teach everyone his real nature; call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.”

- Swami Vivekananda

The realization of Brahman, the Self of man and the universe, the unity of the ‘within’ and the ‘without’, is the consummation of all knowledge into wisdom.

“The Self-existent Lord created the sense-organs (including the mind) with the effect of an outgoing disposition; therefore (man) perceives (things) outwardly, but not the inward Self. A certain ‘dhiras’ (wise ones) on the contrary, having realized the eternally immortal, do not crave for the non-eternal things here (in the world of relativity).” [Katha Upanishad 2.1.1]

“Children (men of immature understanding) pursue the external pleasures and they (thus) fall into the outstretched shore of death. The ‘dhiras’ (wise ones), on the contrary, having realized the eternally immortal, do not crave for non-eternal things here (in the world of relativity).” [Katha Upanishad 2.1.2]

The ‘dhira’ does not equate human destiny with either organic satisfaction or organic survival, or with biological immortality in a heaven. Having experienced the stirrings of the immortal within himself and becoming rationally convinced that

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change and more change is the characteristic of the external world, he has directed his search for the immortal and the eternal from the world of the ‘without’ to the world of the ‘within’.

All ethics and morality imply the distinction between a lower self and a higher self in man, corresponding more or less with the physiological distinction between his lower brain and higher brain. This checking and disciplining of the lower self is the ‘sine qua non’ for the manifestation of the higher self.

“That by which man cognizes form, taste, smell, sounds, and the sex contacts, is This alone. What remains here (unknown to That)? This is verily That.” [Katha Upanishad 2.1.3]

“Having realized that great all pervading Atman by which one witnesses all objects in the dream and waking states, the ‘dhira’ does not grieve.” [Katha Upanishad 2.1.4]

“He who knows this Atman, the enjoyer of honey (fruits of action), the sustainer of life, ever near, and the Lord of the past and the future, accordingly hates no one. This is verily That.” [Katha Upanishad 2.1.5]

The same truth is expressed by the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad [3.7.23] in a majestic utterance:

“He is never seen, but the Seer; He is never heard, but is the Hearer; He is never thought, but is the Thinker; He is never known, but is the Knower. There is no other seer but Him; no other hearer but Him; no other thinker but Him; no other knower but Him. He is the ‘Antaryamin’ (inner Ruler), your own immortal Self. Everything else, but Him is mortal.”

All ideas of hatred, self-protection, self-defense, or hiding proceed from fear, from a feeling of inadequacy with respect to the environment. Realization of the Atman means realization of one’s infinite dimension and one’s spiritual unity with all; its fruit is infinite love and infinite strength.

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Brahman is in all beings; He is also outside all beings. He therefore is all beings. As proclaimed in a famous hymn of Shrimad-Bhagavat [8.3.3]:

“I take refuge in that self-existing Being in whom is this universe, from whom is this universe, by whom is this universe, who Himself is this universe, and who is beyond this (differentiated universe) as also beyond that (undifferentiated Nature).”

“Whatever is here, that is there; what is there, that again is here. He, who sees here as different, goes from death to death. By mind alone is this to be comprehended that there is no difference here. He who sees here as different goes from death to death.” [Katha Upanishad 2.1.10; 11]

Brahman is the unity of all experience. Differences between the objects, differences between the objects and the subject, and between the subjects themselves, which common-sense reveals and which provide the starting point, and acts as the challenge to knowledge, are overcome in the unity of the Brahman, say the Upanishads. “Knowledge leads to unity and ignorance to diversity”, says Shri Ramakrishna.

Vedanta holds that at the highest reach of the self-knowledge, it becomes the knowledge of the Brahman, the unity of the outer and the inner. This is the ‘Advaita’ or non-dual experience, the glory of which the Upanishads proclaim in language at once rational and poetic. It finds a lucid elucidation in the following verse of the great seventh century philosopher and spiritual teacher, Gaudapada [Mandukyakarika 2.38]:

“Realizing the Truth within the self and realizing the Truth externally (in the not-self), and becoming one with the Truth and delighting in it, one never deviates from the Truth.”

In human life, individual and collective, the stress on separateness has been the one source of hatred, violence, and war. Through it, God has been subjected to crucifixion more than once, and man has experienced death again and again. It

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is through a purification of human knowledge and awareness that man transcends this false view of separateness and overcomes its evil effects.

The ethical value of neighborliness is the product of the spiritual vision of ‘Advaita’, non-separateness, unity. This is brought out by Dr. Paul Deusden, the great German orientalist, in a speech which he gave in Bombay at the end of his India visit in 1892: “The Gospels quite correctly establish as the highest law of morality, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. But why should I do so since by the order of nature I feel pain and pleasure only in myself, not in my neighbor? The answer is not in the Bible, but it is in the Veda, in the great formula, ‘That art Thou’, which gives in three words the combined sum of metaphysics and morals. You shall love your neighbor as yourself because you are your neighbor.”

“As pure water poured into pure water becomes the same, in the same way becomes the Atman (Self) of the ‘muni’ (sage), O Gautama, who knows (the unity of the Atman).” [Katha Upanishad 2.1.15]

The Gita sings the supreme glory of man in this memorable verse [5.19]:

“Even in this very life, they have conquered ‘sarga’ (relativity) whose minds are firmly fixed in ‘’samya’ (equality); for Brahman, verily, is equal (in all) and free from imperfection. Therefore, they are established in the Brahman.”

“(He, the Atman is) the same dwelling in the heaven (in the form of the sun), the air filling the atmosphere, the fire dwelling in the altar, the holy guest in the house; (He is) in man, in gods, in the sacrifice, in the sky; (He is) born in water, born on earth, born as (the fruit of ) sacrifice, born of mountains; (He is) the True; (He is) the Great.” [Katha Upanishad 2.2.2]

This is a famous verse occurring originally in the Rig Veda with the last word omitted [4.40.5], and repeated more than once in subsequent Vedic literature.

“Consciousness is never experienced in plural, only in the singular. Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and that what seems to be plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception (the Indian ‘Maya’).”

- Erwin Schrödinger [‘What is Life’]

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The Shrimad-Bhagavat says [11.2.41]:

“The sky, air, fire, water and earth, the luminous constellations, creatures, the quarters, trees, etc., rivers and oceans – whatever entities and things there be, are to be honoured as non-separate from oneself, knowing them to be the body of Hari (the indwelling God).”

“Just as the sun, the eye of the whole world, is never sullied by the external fault of the eyes (of creatures), so the one inner Self of all beings is never sullied by miseries of the world, as It (in Its own form) is also transcendent.” [Katha Upanishad 2.2.11]

“The One (supreme) controller (of all), the inner Self of all beings, who makes His one form manifold – those ‘dhiras’ (wise men) who realize Him as existing in their own Self, to them belongs eternal happiness and to none else.” [Katha Upanishad 2.2.12]

“The eternal among the non- eternals, the Intelligent among the intelligent, who, though One, fulfills the desires of the many – those ‘dhiras’ who realize Him as existing in their own Self, to them belongs eternal peace and to none else.” [Katha Upanishad 2.2.13]

God is not extra-cosmic and autocratic; He is very Self of all; He is not an outsider with whom our relations may be anything from submission to rebellion. He is our very inner Self, the one immutable and immortal Consciousness in a world of perishing entities and objects’ all estrangement from whom, on the part of mortal man, leads but to darkness and sorrow and all communion to light and peace.

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“There (in the Atman) the sun does not illumine, nor the moon and the stars; nor does the lightning illumine; and much less this fire. When That shines, everything shines after That. By Its light, all this (manifested universe) is lighted.” [Katha Upanishad 2.2.15]

“This eternal ‘ashvattha’ tree has its roots above and branches below; That verily (is the) pure; That (is) Brahman; That alone is called the immortal. In That rest all the worlds; and, none, verily, ever transcends That. This is verily That.” [Katha Upanishad 2.3.1]

“The ancient sages penetrated deeper and deeper until they found that in the innermost core of the human soul is the centre of the whole universe. All the planes gravitate to that one point. That is common ground, and standing there alone can we find a common solution.”

- Swami VivekanandaBrahman is the unity of all existence; and no part the manifested universe can exist apart from Brahman, as no part of the tree can exist apart from the root.

The world tree is in the sphere of time; it is subject to birth and death. By attachment to it and engaged in the incessant pursuit of profit and pleasure, man remains ignorant of his true dimension and in the grip of finitude and death. That is his false life. His true life begins when he develops the spirit of non-attachment to his sense-bound life and enters on a search for root of the world tree in Brahman through a penetration into the spiritual core of his own being, destroying the world tree as conjured up by the sense-bound mind. The world tree itself cannot be destroyed, for it is Brahman, ‘Sanatana’, eternal, ‘shukram’, pure, and ‘amritam’, immortal. Once Brahman, the ‘Urhvamulam’ of the tree is realized, the world tree becomes transformed from a vale of tension and tears into a mansion of peace and joy.

“If one is able to realize (Brahman) here (in this very world) before the fall of the body, (one achieves true life fulfillment). (But if one fails in this) then one has (perforce) to get embodied (again) in this world of manifestations.” [Katha Upanishad 2.3.4]

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Shankara says in Vivekachudamani [39]:

“There are (some) good people, calm and great-souled, who go about doing good to the world as does the spring; having themselves crossed this mighty ocean of (relative) existence, they help others also to cross the same without any (selfish) motive whatsoever.”

In the Chhandogya Upanishad [7.24.1] Sanatkumara pronounced the supreme truth of non-duality as the critique of the infinite:

“Whenever one does not see another, does not hear another, does not know another, that is ‘bhuma’ (infinite). On the other hand, where one sees another, hears another, knows another, that is ‘alpam’ (finite). That which is bhuma, that verily is ‘amritam’ (immortal); on the other hand, that which is alpam, that is ‘martyam’ (mortal).”

“When ‘ahara’ (food, that is, what is gathered into the physical and mental system of man), becomes pure, the ‘sattva’ (mind) becomes pure; when the ‘sattva’ becomes pure, the ‘smriti’ (memory, in this case, of divine nature) becomes steady; when (this) smriti is achieved, all the knots (of the heart) become completely destroyed.”

Vedanta holds that in spite of his enormous and ever-growing knowledge of the not-self and the power conferred by it, man will not shed his creature-ness substantially and become truly free till he achieves the ‘Atma-jnana’, knowledge of the Atman.

“His form is not within the field of sight; none can see Him with the eye. He is revealed in (the cavity of) the heart by the manas that is fully under the control of the buddhi. Those who realize this become immortal.” [Katha Upanishad 2.3.9]

The Gita describes the ‘Atman’ as ‘buddhigrahyam’, grasped by the buddhi. It then ceases to be an organ among organs; beginning in the form of a limited inner faculty or organ as the dim light of reason, it grows and develops, through intellectual, moral and spiritual discipline, into the blazing but soothing light of

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‘bodhi’ or spiritual illumination, merging the illuminating subject, mind, and the illumined object, the Self, into an ocean of undivided Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss, the ‘Sacchidananda’. The pure manas is the same as pure buddhi, which is the same as pure Atman, says Shri Ramakrishna.

Spiritual teachers warn all spiritual aspirants not to belittle the sleeping inner forces:

“Powerful are the sense-organs; they drag down even the wise.” [Manu Smriti 2.215]

All seekers of truth, whether in the field of physical sciences or the science of religion, prize the virtue of alertness; it is highly praised by Buddha [Dhammapada 2.1]:

“Wakefulness is the way to immortality; heedlessness is the way to death. Those who are wakeful die not, the heedless are already dead.”

The same conviction is expressed by the sage Sanatkumara in ‘Sanaksujatiya’ section of Mahabharata [5.42.4]:

“Heedlessness alone is death, I say; through constant wakefulness, I proclaim, is immortality (gained).”

“When all the desires that dwell in his heart are destroyed, then mortal man becomes immortal and attains Brahman here (in this very life).” [Katha Upanishad 2.3.14]

“When here (in this very life) all the knots of the heart are rent asunder, then mortal man becomes immortal – this much alone is the teaching (of all Vedanta).” [Katha Upanishad 2.3.15]

The Upanishads emphasize the need for renunciation, the joyous rising above the sense-life in search of the truth underlying all life and existence, in order to enable man to experience the immortal dimension of his personality.

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Mortal man is mortal only because he considers himself to be the finite ego conditioned by his body, the senses, and the mind. In his true nature he is the Atman, immortal, unconditioned and infinite. This is to be realized by each individual for himself or herself. Through his joys and his sorrows, his successes and his defeats, through all the ups and downs of his life, if man can move steadily forward towards this consummation, that indeed is life truly lived.

In the words of the Mahabharata [12.169.28]:

Immortality as well as mortality are both established in the body (of everyone); by (the pursuit of) delusion, one reaches death; by (the pursuit of) truth, one attains immortality.”

This Purusha, the inner Self, of the size of a thumb, always dwells in the heart of beings. One should separate Him from one’s own body with steady courage as (one separates the tender) stalk from a (blade of) grass. One should know Him as the luminous, as the immortal; yea, as the luminous, as the immortal.” [Katha Upanishad 2.3.17]

Summary: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

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