The Secret of the Katha Upanishad : 5.2 Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, March 28, 2023. 08:00

Discourse No. 5-2.

Post -26

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Bondage is not only dependence on the non-Atman but also forgetfulness of the nature of the Atman, at the same time. The consciousness of the object necessitates a forgetfulness of the subject in some proportion. As a matter of fact, the awareness of the existence of anything outside is due to a transference of a part of our consciousness to the object outside. All perception is an extroverted operation of consciousness. The awareness of an object, the knowledge that we have of things outside, is a form of the operation of our consciousness within in terms of what is outside. We are aware of the existence of a world on account of our being in a state of motion towards the conditions of externality. This is why human life is to be regarded as a state of becoming, rather than being. Life is considered as a process of transiency by masters like the Buddha. They never considered the world as ultimately existent. Nothing in the world is. Everything passes. Everything moves. Even our awareness of the existence of the world is a process, a transitory condition of the activities of the mind, due to which we are said to be living in perpetual anityata, perishability, changefulness and an urge towards something beyond at every stage in which we are. There is a perpetual asking for the ‘more' in us. We ask for more and more, endlessly—we do not reach an end of it. One of the philosophers of the West, William James, called this process the philosophy of the more. The whole life of man is nothing but an asking for the more. Whatever is supplied to you is inadequate for your purpose. If you become the ruler of the earth, you would like to become the ruler of the sky, and so on. This is because there is a tendency in us to move beyond the limited self, to overstep the boundary of the body and mind, to break through all bondage, and to reach that which we seem to have lost and of which we have at present no knowledge whatsoever. Our bondage is of such a nature that we do not know what type of bondage it is. It is like a sick man not knowing what ailment he is suffering from. Bondage becomes real when its nature is not known. A real thief is one who is never caught at any time. A thief who is caught is not a good thief! Likewise, when you know what sort of bondage you are in, you are not in bondage. You have already overcome it to some extent. But we are in it right up to our necks. We are not only in it, but are also deprived of the knowledge of what has happened to us. This is samsara in its quintessence.

The difficulty of the practice of yoga, the way of the Spirit, lies in this central enigma of our not having any knowledge of what has befallen us, where we stand actually at this present moment, and what is required of us for our true freedom. There are several layers of our bondage. The bondage is not only external, but also internal. It is woven into our texture like a carpet that is knit with various layers of thread. It is wide, and also thick. If you remove one layer, you will find another layer underneath it. There is an organic complication, as it were, in the bondage which is part of us. The practice of yoga is, thus, not a straight movement towards a given point or a target in front of us. It is a winding process, sometimes a circular motion, occasionally with forward and backward steps, and with ascents and descents. It is like entry into the chakravyuha, the impregnable fortress described in the Mahabharata. One does not know how to enter it, and if anyone enters it, he does not know how to come out of it. Such is the difficulty involved in the practice of the path of the Spirit, the way of the Atman.

The bondage understood, we shake up our being from the mire of ignorance, and we place the first step on the initial rung of yoga. The hundreds of implications in this woven structure of human bondage are difficult to describe in an ‘open-book' fashion. We shall confine ourselves to the aspects that are touched upon by the Upanishad, in this context.


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To be continued

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