The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad - 5.11 : Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday, January 20, 2021. 11:42.AM.
Chapter-5.  Sannyasa – The Renunciation of Erroneous Notions - 11.

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We are crying day in and day out for something that we have lost, and what we get is a little sugar candy, a toy, etc., which distracts our attention for the time being and makes us believe that we have obtained our desire, while we have not got it. We are misdirected. So we ever remain dissatisfied with all the possessions and satisfactions of life.

Now I come to the point again. The senses are to be controlled for the reason that the senses cannot come in real contact with the objects because these objects are only shadows cast by originals, and our real desire is to come in contact with originals only. We do not want the shadows, though the shadows may look like the originals. How is this achieved? By self-control, sense control. How do we do this? It is by educating the mind in the art of convincing itself that yoga is the operation of the consciousness in a wider field of acquisition, possession, enjoyment of a greater reality than this narrow limited circle of contact with a shadow thereof.

This is a hard thing for the mind to accept, but by protracted practise, by abhyasa and vairagya, it is controlled. Abhyasa vairagyabhya? tan nirodha? (Yoga Sutras 1.12); abhyasena tu kaunteya vairagye?a ca g?hyate (Gita 6.35). Yacched va? manasi prajñas tad yacchej jñana-atmani, jñanam atmani mahati niyacchet, tad yacchec chanta-atmani (Katha 1.3.13), says the Kathopanishad. The senses have to be placed in the mind, the mind in the intellect, the intellect in the cosmic intellect, and the cosmic intellect in the Absolute. The lower is to be drowned in the higher, absorbed in a greater reality, just as when we are promoted to a higher job we have not lost the lower job. We will not cry that we have lost something, because the higher job is inclusive of whatever we are getting at the lower level.

The object of meditation in yoga is a reality that is inclusive of all things that we would like to expect in this world by contact of the senses. As I told you, the mind will not accept this argument. It will say, “No, I have got many desirable things here and this little object that I am concentrating upon is a candle flame, a rose flower, a dot on the wall, an image, an idol, a concept, a notion. It is not the reality.” The mind will say this again and again.

Great training is necessary, and hard is the path. Apramattas tada bhavati (Katha 2.3.11): We have to be very cautious. Durgam pathas tat kavayo vadanti (Katha 1.3.14): Impregnable is this fortress of God, through which we cannot pierce. There are many ramparts stronger than steel and iron, such as the chakravyuha which we cannot enter without dire consequences. Fearsome is yoga, yet it is the greatest blessedness we can think of. It looks fearsome because we have to cut ourselves off, as it were, apparently, from all the beloved things in the world. But the point is, we are not so severing ourselves, as people who were mistaking shadows for realities in Plato’s cave will not lose anything when they are released from the prison and look at the brilliant daylight outside and the originals which cast the shadows which they mistook for realities. All these analogies, comparisons, images, are to enable us to understand where we really stand in this world.

Therefore, yoga requires an adamantine tenacity of purpose, and when we take to it, we have taken to it once and for all – no budging, no retracing our steps. A great force of will is necessary, coupled with deep longing, desire, mumukshutva, aspiration for freedom from the thraldom of involvement in this perishable body and the false relationships, social and otherwise.

To be continued ...

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