The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad : 2-4

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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 four-dimensional because you will not know what it means. A non-three-dimensional existence is this world. It has no length, no breadth, no height. So no travelling is possible in this world, and how we travel, nobody knows. We travel in the same way as we travel in dream from Delhi to New York, though we are on the bed only. We can travel millions of miles by rocket to the moon or the other planets, but we are on the little sofa of our small room in spite of all the travels. No travel is taking place anywhere in the world. Distances do not exist because space does not exist. Space does not exist because space-time comes together in a continuum which is non-spatial and non-temporal, non-three-dimensional. Physicists today call it a four-dimensional, mysterious, intriguing something, which can make our heads go astray.

“When I return to the world, may I be received with honour. May I be communed with the world as a soul returning to its own body, and not one body among many other bodies,” said Nachiketas.

When we advance on the spiritual path, we are not going far away from the world. It is not that we become more and more distant from our relatives, friends, father, mother, property, etc., as we go near God. We are becoming nearer and nearer, rather than going farther and farther. How can we understand this mystery? Now we are away from the things we are considering as our properties. The things that we are related to in this world are not related to us really; therefore, there is bereavement always. We lose all things that we possess because they do not belong to us. They are not in communion with us. Even our best friend is not in communion with us. There is no such friend and relative in this world who is really communed in soul and spirit and being. There is only an artificial adjustment, and an adjustment cannot be called a communion, so we are ostracised by this world. We are in the world of destruction, ostracism, exile; therefore, we are perpetually in sorrow. We are not in communion with anything. We are bereft of the soul of this communion or the spirit of union.

“When I rise above this mortality, when I free myself from this encounter with the Lord of Death, Yama, may I be received properly,” said Nachiketas.

“Granted,” said Yama. This is the first state of advanced spiritual experience, in which none of us is at present. We have not taken even the initial step. We are struggling to rise from the lap of the mother.

To be continued ...


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