Kathopanishad : ( 04/03/2013. )

12/11/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad : 2-5 Chapter 2: Nachiketas’ First Two Boons : 5. This great experience is a highly advanced stage of communion with all things, where we are sarvabhutahite ratah (Gita 5.25). We are friends. We do not belong to parties. It is like the President of a country representing the whole nation. He is above the government, and is a super-departmental head. So a spiritual adept who returns to the world does not come as a man or a woman. He is not a human being coming back to the world of human beings. He will not be received as a human being; he will be received as a soul of all beings. He can shake the hearts of everyone. Though he may appear to be encased in a physical body like a great incarnation such as Krishna, Rama,  he is not really encased, as money is not contained inside a coin or a little piece of paper, though it appears as if it is. Money is everywhere. It is a pervading principle, an economic strength, and

21/11/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad : 2-4 Chapter 2: Nachiketas’ First Two Boons : 4. So when we return from the Lord of Death, when we return from this mortal world of destruction, this world of death, the land of Yama, we return from this world itself, which is mystically explained in the Kathopanishad as an encounter with a divinity. There is a deity presiding over every event and every realm of existence. The deity presiding over the phenomenon of destruction is called Yama, and the fact that it is another world altogether has to be understood in the way in which I explained as to what the other world means. That other world is here only. It is not to be calculated in miles or the kilometres, as we are accustomed to thinking. There is no kilometre in space because space-time is an indivisibility. It is not a measure of length, breadth and height; it is not three-dimensional. Scientists tell us it is non-three-dimensional. I do not want to call it f

30/10/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad : 2-3 Chapter 2: Nachiketas’ First Two Boons : 3. In a reverse process, we can dissolve everything into space. Earth can become water, water can become fire, fire can become air, and air can become space. So space, which is apparent emptiness before us, is capable of containing within itself the entire physical cosmos. Therefore, space is not non-material. It is nothing but material substance. For one reason, it is an object of perception. We can see space. Anything that is visualised or capable of being contacted by any sense organ is physical, and space is such. Hence, the final condition of the world seems to be only space-time. We are using two words, ‘space’ and ‘time’, for want of better expression. Actually, space and time are not two things. It is one peculiar, indescribable something which is, for want of better words, called a space-time complex. It is better to call it a compound because it is an indivisible

10/10/2018 Chapter 2: Nachiketas’ First Two Boons : 2. The first thing that we aspire for is a very comfortable, happy reception by the world. We wish to be received by the world with gratitude, with a word of thanks, with affection and regard. We do not wish to be slighted by people, spat at, condemned or criticised, looked down upon or cowed down. The world has to receive us with respect and honour and love. This is a slightly nobler and more sublime interpretation of the way Nachiketas asked for his first boon from the great Master. “May I be well received by the world when I go back. Now I am in another world, in the land of the Lord of Death, which is other than the world of physical experience. When I return, may I be received honourably with love and affection by my father, and let his eyesight be granted.” In an obvious and outline form, it is a request that the father may forget his annoyance, if at all he was angered at the import-unities with which Nachiketas ha

21/09/2018 Chapter 2: Nachiketas’ First Two Boons -1. Spiritual practice, which is an adventure of the spirit, is the esoteric significance of the epic story of the Kathopanishad. Nachiketas, the aspiring intelligent lad, is face to face with the great Lord Yama who has sanctioned three boons as a sort of compensation, as it were, for the fast and vigil which the boy observed for three days. The boy could have asked for anything. It was a blank check presented before him; he could write anything on it. Very intelligently the boy chose the three boons step by step, perhaps with deep consideration. The manner in which the boons were asked by Nachiketas, and the things that were asked, indicate the manner in which every spiritual seeker has to conduct himself in his disciplined career. In our spiritual living we are expecting something. We are asking for a favour, and this is exactly the choosing of the boon. What for is this spiritual life? What is the outcome of religion? Wha

06/08/2018 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-11. Well, no father would like to listen to such impertinent poses. The father kept quiet. He was busy with his own activities, yajnas. The boy persisted. “To whom are you going to offer me? The father kept quiet. A third time the boy insisted, “To whom are you going to offer me?” In a contour of anger or rage, the father seems to have blurted the imprecation: “To death I give you.” “Go to hell,” as we sometimes say in anger. The story is very mystical. It is not merely a narration like a novel. Something seems to have happened to the boy immediately after this incident, and the next thing that we are told in the Upanishad is that the boy found himself in the courtyard of the god of death, Yama. Whether he went astrally travelling voluntarily by his own God-given power or he died due to the imprecation and his spirit gravitated to Yamaloka, this is not mentioned in the Upanishad. However, for our purposes it is immateria

07/07/2018 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-10. In this spirit of a self-deceptive conduct, Vajasravasa is said to have been offering things which were not worth their salt. Cattle which were famished, cows which would not yield any milk further and were counting their days, having drunk their water for the last time and eaten their fodder finally – such things were evidently being given as charity, a great sacrifice for the sake of the heavenly rejoicings to come later on. He seems to have had a son called Nachiketas. We know very little of this intricate story except the bare outline we have been given in the Taittariya Brahmana and the Kathopanishad. From what we can gather from the story given to us in outline, it appears this boy was intelligent. He knew the nature of the sacrifice that was being performed by the father, the purpose for which it was conducted, and so on. He knew that it was a sacrifice, a vishwajit, which required the performer to give in

15/06/2018 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-9. Often we can conduct ourselves very cleverly by engaging ourselves in the letter and very conveniently ignore the spirit. Sacrifices, performances, even religious attitudes may turn into a letter rather than a spirit if a long rope is given to the instinct in man, because though man has an aspiration for that which is superhuman, yet man is still man only. A human instinct works simultaneously with a superhuman aspiration in every one of us. We are two people at the same time, almost every minute of the day. We can behave as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in one second. Such a double attitude each person has in this world. So we agree with the noble aspiration that manifests itself in us in the direction of a larger dimension of existence which we may call the heavenly existence, yet the greed for physical existence persists. People are thinking what will happen to their family – sons and daughters and property, etc. – a

30/05/2018 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-8. The little gesture of sacrifice that we communicate in respect of others is a tendency towards movement in the direction the higher world. Our world is this body only, and when we do a little sacrifice we have transcended this bodily world and extended it to the realm of other people’s existence. We cannot have any sense of affection for other people unless we have overcome the sense of satisfaction with only this bodily world. If this body were all and I am totally satisfied with living in this body only, there would be no point in my talking to another person. I would totally mind my own business. The gesture of good will, in whatever form it may be expressed, is a tendency to the recognition of an existence of a world transcending the physical world of body. Here is a philosophical note attached to the story that I am trying to narrate. Vajasravasa performed this yajna, and offered everything that he possess

18/05/2018 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-7. Sacrifice is parting with something which one possesses. It may be the offering of ghee when we actually utter the mantras and conclude with saying svaha. We offer to the sacred fire some charu or holy ghee or some such thing. Some article which we possess, which belongs to us, is offered as a gesture of parting with our own little joy for the sake of a larger joy, maybe in heaven. The yajna, or the sacrifice, which Vajasravasa the sage performed was called vishwajit, a sacrifice which is not known to people these days and not undertaken by anyone nowadays. A world-conquering sacrifice was vishwajit, as we have Indrajit; one who has conquered Indra is called Indrajit, one who conquers the universe is vishwajit. Vajasravasa the sage performed a yajna called vishwajit for the conquering of the blessedness of heavenly satisfaction. He gave away all his possessions because it is laid down that the more is the charity

07/05/2018 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-6. Now we are coming to a very interesting feature of human existence itself, which I was trying to identify with sacrifice. If life cannot be equated wholly with activity and we can be alive even without being active, and therefore, life may be something different from what we call action or performance, then yajna or sacrifice need not necessarily be the ritualistic performances with which we are usually familiar in orthodox circles. The concern of man, and of all living beings, is primarily the instinct of living. It is the instinct to exist, to live, a word which you cannot define adequately. You do not know what it is to live. You may say to live is to do something. On a careful study of this situation you will realise that to live need not necessarily mean to do something. There may be something in you which cannot be equated with activity of any kind. You, the so-called I or you, evidently, obviously, indescriba

15/04/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad -1.5 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-5. No sane person in moods of sobriety and sanity would agree with the definition of man as a wholly self-centred beast, though we cannot argue against the discoveries of psychoanalysts. There are things which we cannot argue against nor argue for, yet there may be facts which cannot come within the purview of arguments. As I mentioned, argumentative logic and scientific observations do not exhaust the truths of the universe. There are facts, there are truths, there are realities which logic cannot fathom and science cannot observe. One of such mysteries is man himself, the human character. The Kathopanishad, to which I made reference, is the story of man as he is located in the context of creation, a theme which I would like to dilate upon on this occasion of the Sadhana Saptaha, inasmuch as it appears, to me at least, that the Kathopanishad is the story of spiritua

24/03/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad -1.4 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-4. We cannot gainsay that we have a goodness in us with all the crude behaviours that one is capable of under pressurised circumstances. This basic cooperative instinct is seen seen sometimes in animals, though we may dub them as utterly beastly and selfish. Tame animals do not behave like animals. When they are educated into a new type of awareness, they behave in a more coordinated way than they would be expected to behave as beasts in the jungle. The miracle of God’s creation is said to be man himself, and this mystery that man is incapable of being dissected into scientific apparatus or objects capable of observation by telescopes or microscopes is laid before us in an interesting narration of a scripture that goes by the name of the Kathopanishad, a spiritual saga sung before us by the ancient masters who had, to a large extent, plumbed the depths of being and

11/03/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad -1.3 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-3. 3.1 Are we altruistic essentially or selfish essentially? The social psychology, based on a social philosophy, seems to proclaim that without the positive manifestation of the social instinct, the individual may perish. At the same time, it appears that the human being is basically selfish and the social instinct is not an independent activity of the mind. It is an extended form of human selfishness, says psychoanalysis.  Even our gesture of goodwill towards others may be a subtle expression of a secret selfishness which it tries to fulfil by a method which is very carefully projected onto the screen of public actions. 3.2 The question boils down to this fundamental crucial issue: Is man also a kind of animal if his basic instincts seem to be non-distinguishable from the animal instincts of self-preservation, even at the cost of everything in the world? Ar

03/03/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad -1.2 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice-2. 2.1 But there has always been a ringing tone in the voices of people, right from creation onwards evidently, that we have to live together for a common purpose. Even selfish motivation may not succeed finally unless it is capable of receiving sufficient cooperation from other people. 2.2 An unselfish gesture in respect of the existence of other people like us sometimes seems to contribute to the prosperity of one’s own selfish objective also. There is a very peculiar dextrous movement of the mind in its daily activities which rapidly takes effect, like the movement of cinematographic films moving so fast that we cannot even know that they are moving. 2.3 The adjustment psychologically that we make in our lives quickly and precisely, to the point, is a miracle of human nature. There is a multifaceted encounter of human nature which it faces with a tremendous d

25/02/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad -1.1 Chapter 1: The World is an Arena of Sacrifice - 1. 1.1 The need we feel in life for mutual cooperation in all the enterprises in which we engage ourselves would perhaps reveal that we live in a world of sacrifice. If this had not been the case, it would have been easy for each person to live each for oneself and mind not the existence of other people in the world. Though often we, as human beings, feel an impulse from inside to assert ourselves as independent beings, and this affirmation many a time takes a vehement form, landing even in clashes among people, there is a subtle undercurrent vibrating at the back of all this outward manifestation of disparity as an inclination towards cooperation and a wish for the welfare of all people. In spite of a vicious impulse of a terrific self-affirmation of one’s individuality in an obviously selfish form, in spite of all this well-known fact in human nature, there se