The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad - 6.14. Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2021. 9:00. AM.
Chapter 6: The Meaning of Not Coming Back - 14.
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Yoga is a difficult thing. It is a mystery because all things that are non-sensory should appear as mysteries. I began by saying this at the very outset. But by discipline, by living with a great Master and receiving his vibrations, and by sincere prayers, gradually one can achieve this most difficult task. Yoga is most difficult of achievement, but not an impossible thing. It is difficult because yoga is the absolution of our phenomenal personality from involvement in space and time, and regaining its originality in its noumenal being.

In concentration, in meditation, what do we do then? Again I revert to what I told you yesterday: All reality being infinite, universal, the object of our meditation should be considered as an emblem of a universal, as we salute the flag of our government. The government or the nation is a universal principle whose emblem is the little national flag which we salute when we observe a national holiday. The little flag cannot be universal. It is a little nothing. Yet we, great men, presidents, prime ministers, bow our heads before this little strip of cloth. Why? Because it is considered as a symbol of a universal which is national spirit. Likewise is the object of our meditation. People who condemn idol worship, etc., do not understand why they should salute a flag or carry currency notes in their pockets. They are all symbols only; they are idols.

This object of our meditation is to be chosen very cautiously, carefully. This is the process of initiation. Our Guru, our teacher, our superior will select for us the proper object of our meditation. We can select it for ourselves if we are intelligent enough, but mostly we do not know what it is that we love most. Ask any person, “What is it in this world that you love most, in comparison with which there is nothing?” Nobody will say there is any such thing because there is nothing in this world which they love the most, superlatively. Everything is loved little by little, but wholeheartedly, entirely, completely, a hundred percent, how can they love anything?

But yoga is a hundred percent love for our object. Why should we love that object a hundred percent? Why should we love our national spirit? Because we are included in that. In loving the nation, we are loving our own self. Otherwise, who would be a patriot? The nation is the spirit which includes our own spirit. The welfare of the nation is our welfare. That’s why there are martyrs who sacrifice themselves for the national good, the communal good, or even the family good. Likewise, we are becoming spiritual martyrs in surrendering our individuality to the universal that is recognised in this emblem of the object of our meditation. We cannot see the whole nation with our eyes because it is an imperceptible force, so we keep a symbol and then salute to that spirit by bowing our head before the symbol. Likewise, the true Universal cannot be seen, and hence we require a symbol. How can we think the Absolute except through a symbol or some medium on which we can hang the coat of our mind? It requires a nail to hang upon.

To be continued ....



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