The Secret of the Katha Upanishad : 5.3. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, 20  May  2023. 05:30.

Discourse No. 5-3.

Post -28.

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While the raw material of sensory operation may be said to be what we call the mind, the intellect is superior to it in the sense that it has a greater power of judgement. The mind is more instinctive, the intellect more ratiocinative. The mind is a bundle of instinctive stimuli that are invoked into ourselves in respect of things outside. But the intellect is superior, because it does not act merely on stimulus or instinctive urge, but understands things by a consideration of the pros and cons of a given situation. This means to say that our activities, whatever they be, should be an outcome of understanding and not mere instinctive reaction. This is a higher step in the practice of yoga. Never act without understanding the total involvement of any step or action. We are used to go headlong in a particular direction, not thinking properly as to what we are doing. The Bhagavadgita gives us a warning about this matter, in its eighteenth chapter. Action is not a simple movement of the mind towards its target. It is an involved process. The whole of our life is an involvement, as we observed earlier. It is not a movement along a beaten track, where we can walk by closing our eyes. It is an involved process, and therefore we have to keep ourselves vigilant always, even when we take a single step. Action should be based on understanding—then life becomes yoga. Otherwise, life is a bondage. The verse of the Bhagavadgita in this connection is this:

You are not the only conditioning factor of your actions. Do not say, “Everything depends on me; I shall do it in this way”. Everything does not depend upon you, unfortunately. The action that you perform is not conditioned merely by what you think at that moment of time. This is why we are caught by our own actions. While we are under the impression that good will follow as an outcome of a particular deed of ours, suffering becomes the consequence, and then we beat our breasts and weep silently. No one can understand all the implications of an action. This verse of the Gita points out that several personal and super-personal factors contribute to the character of an action, and these, together, determine the result thereof. As fire is covered with smoke, all initiatives that we take in life are stifled by an ignorance of their involvements and implications. The bodily condition, the fitness of the personality, the nature of the mind and the character of the motive behind the action, the powers of the senses at that given moment of time, the various aspects of even a single action that we are going to undertake, and, above all, the centrality of the factor of a universal reality operating behind every action—all these are the conditioning factors of action.

The ultimate principle determining everything is the universal law—providence working. Human effort, while it is very essential, is not all. It becomes successful only when all these different elements are borne in mind. This is enlivened, illumined, conscious, deliberately directed activity—activity based on right understanding. This is a higher step than merely the work of the withdrawal of the sense into the mind. This is the state of dhyana or meditation in  practical  life. The first stage described in the mantra of the Upanishad corresponds to pratyahara or abstraction, and dharana or concentration, the fixing of the understanding, the vijnana or the buddhi, corresponds to dhyana or meditation. But meditation here is directed to a higher end.

This is the beginning of spirituality in the proper sense of the term. Up to this time, it has only been a preparation for it. Virtuous deeds, good actions, moral conduct are all an introductory necessity in the practice of the higher yoga. The spiritual element in the practice comes into relief when the intellect, the buddhi or the jnana-atman, is attuned to the Mahat-atman or the Universal Intelligence. This is not an easy affair, but this is, precisely, meditation proper. The attunement of the intellect to the Mahat, the establishment of the jnana-atman in the Mahat-atman is possible only when we have an adequate understanding as to what this Mahat-atman is. We hear of this term ‘Mahat' several times in the Sankhya, and also in the Vedanta. It is said that Mahat comes out of prakriti and the Mahat is superior to the individual intellect, and so on. But what is this Mahat? What is our relation to it? What are we supposed to do about it, especially in our spiritual practices?

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To be continued

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