The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad - 6.3. Swami Krishnananda.

-


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday,March 07, 2021. 11:03. AM.
Chapter 6: The Meaning of Not Coming Back - 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a difficulty with the human mind, which insists on working on its own natural principles of operation even when it is expected to transcend itself for the purpose of knowing things as they are in themselves – an attainment that is achieved by communion rather than by perception. The knowledge of the truths of things is a samadhi, or a samapatti in the language of yoga. It is an intuition; it is a total grasp by the soul within us, rather than a contact with our senses or a conceptual apprehension by our minds. God cannot be thought. Nothing in the world can be thought. What we think and what we sense is a reflected, shadowy form of the original to which I made reference yesterday – that which stands above us.

Another reason why we cannot know the essential reality of things is that we are involved in things. We belong to the phenomenal universe. Who are we to know the world when we ourselves are a part of the world? So, what chance can there be of anyone knowing the essential nature of things when the person knowing or attempting to know things is also one of the things of the world – an object of the senses? An object cannot know an object. It is the subject that knows the object, but we are now in a position of an object rather than a subject. We are sense objects. We can see ourselves as we can see anything else in the world. We are involved in the space-time complex, as anything else in the world is.

This is the reason why we cannot know that we are in a state of dream while we are inside the dream. We know that it is a dream only when we wake up, not before. This is why great mysteries look like unintelligible abstractions, even as the dream concrete perception may consider the waking world as an abstraction because it is only a concept, not communicable to the world of dream experience. But there is a way to it. This is called yoga.

The Kathopanishad, which is the theme of our study, gives in a nutshell the method of the practice of yoga, an outline of the explanation of which I commenced yesterday. Yoga is union of oneself with all things in the world – with the All Self. The individual self, so-called, unites itself with the All Self, the Universal Self, by degrees. Yoga is a graduated step. It is not a sudden jump. It is an ascent, like the growth of an organic, living body. There is no skipping through steps in yoga as we jump, as it were, from one rung of a ladder to another rung when we want to climb a terrace. The rungs of the ladder are not organically connected with one another; they are independent, though we step over each rung as we ascend. But the yoga steps are not like the rungs of a ladder or any such thing which we use for climbing.

To be continued ...

=========================================================================

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad : 2-3

-
Image
30/10/2018 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad : 2-3 Chapter 2: Nachiketas’ First Two Boons : 3. In a reverse process, we can dissolve everything into space. Earth can become water, water can become fire, fire can become air, and air can become space. So space, which is apparent emptiness before us, is capable of containing within itself the entire physical cosmos. Therefore, space is not non-material. It is nothing but material substance. For one reason, it is an object of perception. We can see space. Anything that is visualised or capable of being contacted by any sense organ is physical, and space is such. Hence, the final condition of the world seems to be only space-time. We are using two words, ‘space’ and ‘time’, for want of better expression. Actually, space and time are not two things. It is one peculiar, indescribable something which is, for want of better words, called a space-time complex. It is better to call it a compound because it is an indivisible
Read more
-
Image
Chapter-1. Section-1. Mantram-13. 1. In this mantram Nachiketas is asking Lord of Death, the second of his boons. 2. Naciketas is now asking Lord of Death, to give the secret knowledge regarding the karma that is to be done by a mortal in the world, 3. So that, as a result of its reactions he would come come to gain the Elysian pleasures of the Heavans. 4. Naciketas is requesting Lord of Death, to initiate him into the secret of the rituals by which the performer can reach immortality.  
Read more

The Secret of the Katha Upanishad : 4.3. Swami Krishnananda.

-
Image
======================================================================= Wednesday, February  01, 2023. 06:00 Discourse - 4.3. Post -22. ======================================================================== Our soul within may be compared to the Lord seated in a chariot. This body of ours, this individuality, this personality, may be regarded as a chariot in which is seated the soul- consciousness. The chariot is driven by a charioteer, a driver. The intellect in us is the charioteer. The reins are the operations of the mind. The horses which pull or drag this chariot are the senses—the eyes, ears, etc. The roads along which this chariot is driven by the charioteer with the help of the horses are the objects of the senses. All this is made possible by a joint activity of the Atman, the senses and the mind. This is a very concise and beautiful description, symbolic, dramatic, full of meaning and profundity. This chariot is to be driven right to the Abode of Vishnu—tad vishnoh paramam
Read more