The Secret of the Katha Upanishad: 6.2. - Swami Krishnananda.
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The Secret of the Katha Upanishad: 6.2.
Discourse No. 6
Swami Krishnananda.
Post -31.
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There is something more than Universality. What could it be? If the mind is to contemplate it, the heart would give way, the brain would cease to function. Every cell of the body will melt, and it is this condition, indescribable, inscrutable, that made saints and sages dance in ecstasy. You must have heard of Mira dancing, Tukaram dancing—all these saints danced. And why did they? They were not crazy people. It was the bursting experience of a supernatural delight that entered them. They could not explain it. They could not express it in words. They could not even contain it within themselves. It could be expressed only in an ecstasy of a supernormal behaviour. The individual is invaded by the Absolute.
The Shanta-atman is the Peace that prevails when even the Universality of the Mahat becomes an inadequate experience. It is inadequate because the notion of a universe subtly persists even in the Mahat. In the language of the yoga of Patanjali, we may compare it to the last verge of savikalpa or sabija samadhi, where a vestige of the Universal experience persists, but it is not perception of the universe. What happens to the soul beyond the fifth stage of Knowledge, no one can say. These are merely language and words for us, which will convey no sense, practically speaking. But something exists beyond the Mahat. There is something beyond the Universal also. What could it be? The Katha Upanishad tells us:
astīti bruvato'nyatra kathaṁ tad upalabhyate.
How can one say anything about it except that it is? It is not the Universal, it is not Virat, it is not Hiranyagarbha, it is not Ishvara. How can one attain it except by accepting that it simply is. It was St. Augustine who said that it can only be called 'That which is'. Nothing else, nothing more, nothing less; and centuries before Augustine was born, the Katha Upanishad had already said it—asti, astitva. Not even asmita, Self-consciousness, can explain the nature of Truth.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, we are told that the Creative Will felt, 'I am', 'Aham asmi'. But Pure Being is something beyond the state of 'Aham asmi'. It is Kevala-astitva—Absolute Existence. 'Tathata' is the term used for it in Buddhist philosophy. They also call it Bhutatathata—'Thatness' or 'Suchness'. These are the attempts of language to express the inexpressible. Bhutatathata or Astitva, Kevalata, or Be-ness as they put it in English, is the Shanta-atman which is experienced, realised as the Inner Soul of even the Universal Mahat.
The yoga that is the means to this realisation, if we can call it a means, is as difficult to comprehend as the goal itself. Gaudapada, in his Karika, says it is asparsa yoga. It is not yoga in the sense of union or contact of one thing with another. Generally we define yoga as union. Here, in this Experience-Whole, one thing does not become another thing. As a matter of fact, one thing cannot become another thing. Everything maintains its own substantiality. It is not sparsa yoga or the yoga of contact or union, but asparsa yoga or the yoga of non-contact. As a baby cries in fear when it is placed in an atmosphere where it can see nothing outside, not because it is afraid of anything that it sees, but because it does not see anything, the soul trembles, shivers, quakes and is taken aback when it gains entry into That wherein it cannot see anything external. It cannot contact anything. Do you know what you will feel when you are absolutely alone? Something more indescribable and miraculous than this takes place here, where the soul perceives nothing outside it, because it begins to get absorbed into That which it sees.
This is also described in one of the sutras of Patanjali, where he says that the meditating consciousness slowly gets tinged with the nature of the object, and the object gets tinged with the nature of the subject. The objects in the world begin to speak to you in their own language, by recognising you: “My dear friend, you have come!” The mask which covers the objects is lifted. The world is no more a stranger to you. The world begins to speak to you as your dear and near friend, kith and kin of the family to which you belong. Originally you belonged to it, but now you have forgotten it.
In this union of the soul, which cannot be called a literal union of one thing with another thing, where the subject melts into the object, and vice versa, what yoga can be practised? Here the Upanishad alone is our guide. The yoga of the Upanishad is a masterly technique of soul-transformation. In various places they give us indications, hints of what this yoga could be. The Upanishad yoga is not the ordinary yoga that we usually study in our yoga institutions of the world. It is the yoga which can be practised only by the soul, not even by the mind and the intellect. It is soul contemplating itself as its goal. In this yoga, what does the soul do? How does it recognise its goal? It is the perception of the Self of all things that is the yoga of the Upanishad.
The world will not lose you and you will not anymore lose the world. You will not be a stranger in this world and the world will not be anymore a stranger to you. You will not be denied anything by the world, and you will not deny anything to the world. The object, the world outside, the things that you see with your sensory functions, all assume a new character altogether, which could not be discovered or detected earlier. We can never dream that the objects have any quality or character which is akin to our own nature. There, in the stage of the contemplation of the Universal where the vijnana-atman rises to the Mahat and the Shanta-atman, the objects lift the covering which has been hiding them upto this time, and you see what it is in front of you. In this meditation, you do not see the objectivity of things. A tree is not a tree, a stone is not a stone, a mountain is not a mountain, the world is not the world. In this yoga of meditation, according to the Upanishad, you rise into a state of consternation when the objects begin to seem as those in whose company you once lived. The universe is not anymore a field where you live as a content thereof, but it becomes a part of your nature, a part of your very skin itself so that when you think, everything will begin to think; when you breathe, everything will start breathing.
In the Chhandogya Upanishad, there is an anecdote of Raikva, the sage, who used to sit under a cart, scratching his body as a person with no work whatsoever, known to nobody in the world, a great master of yoga. There was a king called Janasruti in that country, who was also a yogin and a master. The Upanishad tells us that two birds were flying across in the sky and Janasruti was on the ground on some mission of his, and one of the birds said to the other, “Don't cross him, don't cross him. Don't you know it is Janasruti, the sage who will burn us if we cross over his head?” The other bird retorted, “Who is this Janasruti, about whom you are speaking, as if he is Raikva, the sage?” This conversation between the two birds was heard by Janasruti, the king, who was also a great sage. “Oh! look at it! They are speaking about me in this manner!” “Who is this Janasruti as if he is Raikva?” The birds went on: “All the virtuous and good deeds that anyone performs are credited to the account of Raikva. If anyone does any good thing, it goes to his credit.” What is this? Suppose you all people start earning salary, and it is all credited to my account, what is the good of your working? But this is what happens—whatever wonderful things, good things, beautiful things, glorious things or valuable things or signficant things exist in the world, all these belong to such a person of Knowledge. The whole world converges towards that personality which practises that yoga of 'That which is', says the Chhandogya Upanishad:
yatheha kshudhita balah mataram paryupasate;
evam sarvani bhutani agnihotram upasate.
As hungry children sit around their mother asking for bread, cringing for a little food from the mother, loving her, jumping on her lap, so does the world cringe for you, crave for you, come round you, sit on your lap, fall at your feet, when you realise this Stupendous Reality. This is what will happen to you when you practise this yoga of the communion of the vijnana with the Mahat and the absorption of the Mahat into the Shanta-atman.
The Upanishad gives us this wonderful message, the glorious message of eternity to all mankind, enough to fill us all with unbounded joy for all times to come. But the Upanishad is also cautious in giving us sufficient advice of a motherly character, when we tread the path. It is the path of the sword, the path of the razor's edge—kshurasya dhara. Who will try to walk on the edge of a sword? But this is the path of true yoga. The tests you have to pass through, the various disciplines one has to undergo before this yoga becomes successful, are indeed difficult to explain. The whole body, the mind and the senses have to be chastened simultaneously. How this is done is also hinted at towards the end of the third chapter of the Bhagavadgita, where we are told that it is only with the strength and the power and the grace of the Atman that the senses and the mind can be controlled—buddheh param buddva.
In the Gita, immediately preceding these verses, we have the advice given that the senses have to be controlled. But how can the senses be controlled? Who is to control the senses? We are wedded to the senses in such a way that we have no power over them. We work in terms of the senses, according to their demands and their interpretation of the nature of things. How can we exert any kind of pressure on the senses without utilisation of a higher power? Morality, truly speaking, is the interpretation of the lower in terms of the higher. This is the principle of all ethics. All success depends upon the extent to which we can utilise the resources of the higher when we deal with a lower principle. Unless we draw sustenance from the higher forces for our progress in the path of yoga, let alone in our efforts in the ordinary activities of life, there would be the least chance of success. Where God is forgotten, success is far to seek. Everything is done by the Absolute, Universal Ishvara, God Himself. All actions are His actions. He hears through the ears, sees through the eyes, speaks through the tongues of all beings. Our sight, our hearing, our taste, our action, our thought, our intellection, our very existence, is His existence and His action.
When this yoga takes possession of us, the world takes care of us. We are no more in poverty, we are no more in fear, we have no more any kind of insecurity around us. We are well guarded by the police of the whole cosmos. The Yogavasishtha has this comforting message for us all. The guardians of the quarters themselves begin to take care of us. Why should we worry about our daily meal? It is a pittance and a poor thing to think of. You shall be filled with the ambrosia of the Eternal. Everything will be supplied to you in the proper manner, at the proper time, to your fullest satisfaction. These implications and consequences naturally follow from the practice of this majestic yoga.
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Next
Discourse No. 7
Continued
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