The Secret of the Katha Upanishad : 2.6. Swami Krishnananda.
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Friday, February 181, 2022. 19:00.
Chapter -2.
Post -6.
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Nachiketas, a first-rate student of yoga, was not given this knowledge, what to talk of second class and third class students! We are much below that; and Nachiketas was a superlatively good student, and yet Yama said, “Don't ask, don't talk.” And, what was given to him? The wealth of the whole world—temptation! Buddha was tempted. Christ was tempted. None will be free from these temptations. And it does not mean that all the students of yoga will have to pass through the same kind of temptation, so that you can catalogue the temptations and keep them in your mind. No! They come in different forms, though the background of the temptations is one and the same. Just as, though everyone has the same kind of hunger every day, everyone does not eat the same diet—your likings for diet vary according to your own predilections and physiological condition, though hunger is uniform and equal in every individual—likewise, temptations are uniformly present on the path of yoga, but the forms in which they come vary from individual to individual, so that what I face will not be the same as what you have to face. You cannot say what will come to you tomorrow.
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The temptations which the scriptures speak of in our search for reality are nothing but the reactions set up by the desires of the mind and the senses. The desires are not exhausted even if there is a tentative discriminative faculty arisen in us. You may be aware of the existence of a higher reality which you have to aspire for—vivekashakti might have dawned in your mind, a sense of vairagya or dispassion for appearances also might be there—but this will not do. The personality of the human individual is deep, far deeper than what it appears on the surface. A withdrawal of oneself from physical contact with objects of sense does not mean renunciation, totally. If you abstain from physical contact with objects by living in a sequestered place, the desire for them will still remain. The liking for the objects of sense is a mental condition which is different from actual physical contact with the objects, so that even if you are in a holy place like Badrinath or Kedarnath, you may be contemplating in the mind the old pleasures that you have experienced and inwardly dream, “Oh! I am far from them”. The rasa or the taste for enjoyment does not cease, even if you are physically weaned away from objects.
This is condemned in the Bhagavadgita as hypocrisy :
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SBG : Chapter-3 ( Karma yogam ) - Slokam-6.
"karmendriyani sanyamya ya aste manasa smaran
indriyarthan vimudhatma mithyacharah sa uchyate."
Translation of slokam in one line :
SBG 3.6: Those who restrain the external organs of action, while continuing to dwell on sense objects in the mind, certainly delude themselves and are to be called hypocrites.
Translation by words :
karma-indriyāṇi—organs of action;
sanyamya—restrain;
yaḥ—who;
āste—remain;
manasā—in the mind;
smaran—to remember;
indriya-arthān—sense objects;
vimūḍha-ātmā—the deluded;
mithyā-āchāraḥ—hypocrite;
saḥ—they;
uchyate—are called.
Commentary :
Attracted by the lure of an ascetic life, people often renounce their work, only to discover later that their renunciation is not accompanied by an equal amount of mental and intellectual withdrawal from the sensual fields. This creates a situation of hypocrisy where one displays an external show of religiosity while internally living a life of ignoble sentiments and base motives. Hence, it is better to face the struggles of the world as a karma yogi, than to lead the life of a false ascetic. Running away from the problems of life by prematurely taking sanyās is not the way forward in the journey of the evolution of the soul.
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Rishi Kabir stated sarcastically :
"mana na raṅgāye ho, raṅgāye yogī kapaṛā jatavā baḍhāe yogī dhuniyā ramaule, dahiyā baḍhāe yogī bani gayele bakarā."[v2]
“O Ascetic Yogi, you have donned the ochre robes, but you have ignored dyeing your mind with the color of renunciation. You have grown long locks of hair and smeared ash on your body (as a sign of detachment). But without the internal devotion, the external beard you have sprouted only makes you resemble a goat.” Shree Krishna states in this verse that people who externally renounce the objects of the senses while continuing to dwell upon them in the mind are hypocrites, and they delude themselves.
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The Puranas relate the story of two brothers, Tavrit and Suvrit, to illustrate this point. The brothers were walking from their house to hear the Śhrīmad Bhāgavatam discourse at the temple. On the way, it began raining heavily, so they ran into the nearest building for shelter. To their dismay, they found themselves in a brothel, where women of disrepute were dancing to entertain their guests. Tavrit, the elder brother, was appalled and walked out into the rain, to continue to the temple. The younger brother, Suvrit, felt no harm in sitting there for a while to escape getting wet in the rain.
Tavrit reached the temple and sat for the discourse, but in his mind he became remorseful, “O how boring this is! I made a dreadful mistake; I should have remained at the brothel. My brother must be enjoying himself greatly in revelry there.” Suvrit, on the other hand, started thinking, “Why did I remain in this house of sin? My brother is so holy; he is bathing his intellect in the knowledge of the Bhāgavatam. I too should have braved the rain and reached there. After all, I am not made of salt that I would have melted in a little bit of rain.”
When the rain stopped, both started out in the direction of the other. The moment they met, lightning struck them and they both died on the spot. The Yamdoots (servants of the god of Death) came to take Tavrit to hell. Tavrit complained, “I think you have made a mistake. I am Tavrit. It was my brother who was sitting at the brothel a little while ago. You should be taking him to hell.” The Yamdoots replied, “We have made no mistake. He was sitting there to avoid the rain, but in his mind he was longing to be at the Bhāgavatam discourse. On the other hand, while you were sitting and hearing the discourse, your mind was yearning to be at the brothel.” Tavr. It was doing exactly what Shree Krishna declares in this verse; he had externally renounced the objects of the senses, but was dwelling upon them in the mind. This was the improper kind of renunciation. The next slokam states the proper kind of renunciation.
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Futile is the attempt of that seeker who withdraws his physical senses from contact with objects in the name of vairagya or austerity, but allows the mind inwardly to contemplate them in some form or the other. He will not succeed. A husband may be away from his wife, but thinking of his wife. The mother may be away from her son, but the mind is thinking of her son. This will not yield any benefit in the way of virtue. What you think in the mind is more important than what you physically come in contact with. Yoga is a mental process, a psychological effort; it is not a physical activity of the body. So, let us not mistake physical conduct for virtue or the otherwise of it. Man is mind, and mind is man. The study of mind is the study of man, and the study of man is the study of mind. Your physical features do not represent you wholly. A mere assessment of what takes place on the conscious level of our personality will not give us the knowledge of what we are essentially. The desires of the human being are buried deep beneath the conscious level. So, even if you are consciously free from desires, you cannot be free from them subconsciously. The subconscious seeds of an urge for sensory gratification set up reactions in the counterpart of the cosmos outside and come as temptations. What happened to Nachiketas will happen to everybody.
To be continued ....
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