The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad : 4.7 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, June 13, 2020.
Chapter 4: Overcoming the Limitations of Space and Time -7. 

1.
Thus, many things are involved in the practice of yoga. The road has to be well laid. The objects are the roads. Whatever we see with our eyes is the road along which we have to move. This world is a passage to God. It is not an obstacle; it is not a hell that God has created for us. Along the very objects that are visible to the eyes, this chariot has to be driven. Here is a great secret which may easily escape our notice: how the objects of the senses, which are considered as evils from which we have to restrain ourselves, are also considered as the way or the road along which we have to move. We shall consider this matter shortly.


2.
Self-control is the meaning of this description given in the Upanishad. What does the driver of the motorcar do except practise self-control? What vigilance does he exercise? He cannot be wool-gathering when he drives the vehicle along a winding road. The people who are seated in the vehicle may be sleeping, or reading a newspaper. Whatever they may be doing, the driver cannot afford to be missing the point of his attention.

3.
Sri Krishna was the charioteer of Arjuna, and more intelligent than the rider; otherwise, the chariot would go astray. This chariot analogy is everywhere. It is in the Bhagavadgita, in the Mahabharata, in the Kathopanishad, in the Dialogues of Plato, to our surprise. Plato mentions this analogy of the chariot in his Dialogues, though we cannot expect him to have read the Upanishads or even heard of the Bhagavadgita. He lived some three centuries before Christ. All great men think alike, so they need not read scriptures for that.

To be continued ...


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