The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad - 5.1. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, September 25, 2020. 7:37.  PM.

Chapter-5.  Sannyasa – The Renunciation of Erroneous Notions - 1.

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1.

This body is like a chariot. The consciousness within that rides this body is the Lord of this chariot. The reason, the purified intellect, is the charioteer. The horses are the senses. The mind is the reins. Thus, with controlled movement this chariot has to be driven in the direction of its destination. What is the destination? Every vehicle moves in some direction. In a similar way, the vehicle of this human individuality also moves. It is already moving. Sometimes the charioteer sleeps. He is not fully conscious, or he starts looking this way, that way, either side, in the direction of the shops, the bazar, the noises, the music, the cinemas and the loud clamours of people, and may fail to give the attention needed for the onward march of the vehicle.

The driver cannot afford to be distracted by a circus going on or a dance being performed, whatever be the glamour of these sights. Self-control is required on the part of the driver, the charioteer; else, the vehicle will go into the ditch.

2.

I mentioned yesterday that the road, the path along which the chariot of this body moves, is the sense object. The sense objects are the roads. It is the sense objects from which we have to restrain the mind and the senses. It is also the sense objects which are the conducting medium of this vehicle driven by the very senses which are to be restrained from contact with the objects.

That which is to be avoided is the very thing that we have to take advantage of. This is a principle made out in the tantra sadhana. That by which we fall is also that by which we rise. The medicine that can kill also is the medicine that can save our life, at least from the point of view of the homeopathic system. In a particular potentised form, poison saves life. If it is given in a crude form, it destroys life. The objects are bondages. They are hell for the jiva which is caught up in samsara.

3.

But this world is also the road along which we have to move. Otherwise, where comes the need for karma yoga? Why should we have any duty to perform in this world since we have nothing to do with this world, and we have to abstain from every kind of relationship with the world? “This is what I shall do,” said Arjuna. “I shall cut myself off from everything in this world. It is a bondage and a horror.” And the advice of Sri Krishna was altogether different. While the world is a bondage, it is also a necessary medium of communication of ourselves with the great destination which we have to reach. The world is ishvara-srishti, God’s creation. It is not a hell that God has created for us. It is uncharitable on our part to imagine that God can create a hell for us. That karuna murthi, the ocean of compassion, father and mother, the great Almighty, will He create a hell for us? How would He be a father and mother for us? Mātā dhātā pitāmahaḥ (Gita 9.17). This is what is told us about God in the Bhagavadgita. God has not bound us. He will be the last person to do any harm to us. So if the world is a hell from which we have to extricate ourselves at the earliest opportunity, and the objects of senses are to be shunned wholesale, in a sense we are condemning the world which God has created.

To be continued ...


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