The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad - 5.9 : Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, December 20, 2020. 09:31.AM.
Chapter-5.  Sannyasa – The Renunciation of Erroneous Notions - 9.

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When the will of God, the will of the universe, or the process of the whole of nature is in harmony with our own ways of thinking and our volitions, we are citizens of all the worlds. Tasya sarve?u loke?u kama-caro bhavati (Ch. Up. 7.25.2): You can enter into all the worlds. We have a passport which is valid for all the nations of the world at one stroke because we are nationals of every country. Now we are nationals of only this body. We cannot enter into another body; we cannot touch it; we cannot have anything to do with it. This is because we are hard-boiled individuals, caught up within the prison of this body.

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In an intricate manner, the yoga spiritual is described in a very few verses of the Kathopanishad. Yada pañcavati??hante jñanani manasa saha, buddhis ca na vice??ati, tam ahu? parama? gatim; tam yogam iti manyante sthiram indriya-dhara?am, apramattas tada bhavati, yogo hi prabhavapyayau (Katha 2.3.10-11): When the five sensory operations stand united with the mind – yada pañcavati??hante jñanani manasa saha – then the intellect or the reason does not oscillate. Like the flame of a lamp placed in a windless place, that is yoga. That is the supreme state: tam ahu? parama? gatim. Tam yogam iti manyante sthiram indriya-dhara?am: That is called yoga wherein the senses stand united with the mind and the reason.

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How can the senses stand united with the mind and the reason? The senses are not the eyeballs or the eardrums or the skin or the tongue or the nostrils, though we are often told that these are the sense organs. The senses that we are speaking of here from the point of view of spiritual practice are not the physical lobes or the eyeballs, etc. The powers that project themselves through these avenues or apertures and forcefully jet themselves externally are the senses. What is a sense which has to be subdued? It is an energy that is struggling to rush vehemently outward through the channel of the eyes, the ears, etc. It is not the eye or the ear that we are speaking of, but the energy of consciousness that is vehemently attempting to rush outside for grasping, grabbing external objects.

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Therefore, the restraint, which is sense control, is not closing the eyes or plugging the ears, etc. It is not physical fasting, etc. It is a difficult internal conscious technique by which the very thought, which cannot be separated from conscious manipulation in terms of objects, is melted down into a point of concentration which is automatically en rapport with the all-comprehensiveness of the object of concentration. Whatever we consider as our god, our deity or the object of meditation is a principle of universality. The ishta-devata, so called, is an emblem of what is universal. Thus, there should be no occasion for the mind to run here and there from this point of concentration. If the mind is not willing to concentrate upon this object which is called the ishta-devata, it means we have not considered this as a principle of universality and think of it as one particular object among many other things.

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To be continued ...

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