The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad -1.6.

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, indescribably though, seems to be transcendent to anything that you consider as a performance, a duty, an activity, a ritual, any kind of relationship. You may be able to live without any relationship, without any activity, performance, ritual or doing of any kind. Yet, life is a sacrifice. Therefore, it has to be a sacrifice in a difference sense, not necessarily in the sense of doing something, even if it be a religious way of doing as yajnas in yajna kundas, etc.

The Kathopanishad begins with a description of this large sacrifice. This was undertaken in ancient times by a very great sage called Vajasravasa for his future welfare. Now, we are driven again back to the same point of the purpose behind activities and sacrifices. The purpose seems to be one’s welfare. We may say it is others’ welfare also. Again we are jumping into the same difficulty of the relationship between the individual and society.

Let us not probe into it too much now. It was the intention of the great performer of the sacrifice, Vajasravasa, to lay by some merit for his future exaltations in the other realm when the body is shed, when the phenomenon of death takes place. The ancient tradition was followed by him that one has to reach the heaven of the gods, the celestials, and it is a belief prevalent right from the time of the Vedas that sacrifices offered to gods will promise heavenly enjoyment in the future for the yajnamana, or the performer.

To be continued