Index…

Kathopanisad

Chapter 1 Valli 3 Mantra 5

Lecture

Mantra

yastu̍ avi̱jñāna̍vān bhava̍ty ayu̱ktena̍ ma̱nasā̍ sadā
ta̱syendri̱yāṇy a̍va̱śyāni̱ du̱ṣṭāśvā̍ iva̱ sāra̍theḥ

Yaḥ tu = but that [intellect]; bhavati = becoming; avijñānavān = unskilful, having no insight and discrimination; sadā = being always; ayuktena manasā = with an uncontrolled or undisciplined mind; tasya = his; indriyāṇi = the senses; avaśyāni = uncontrollable; duṣṭāśvā iva = like unruly horses; sāratheḥ = of the charioteer.

One who is always of unrestrained mind and devoid of right understanding, his sense-organs become uncontrollable like the vicious horses of a charioteer.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

Having explained the analogy if the Sruti were not to expose her intentions in making the analogy it would have been an idle indulgence in wordplay. In the style of the Upanishads brevity is the law, and to use therein even a single alphabet unnecessarily is considered as a great sin. Here, from this mantra on we have a team of four stanzas which in their contents express the purpose which was in the mind of the Sruti when she launched out this analogy.

In this Mantra an inefficient charioteer allows his reins to be loose, and, naturally, the sturdy steeds run wild and mad as they list, dashing the chariot into bits and wrecking the Lord on the roadside. In the language of the analogy we are to understand that if we allow an indiscriminate intellect to let our minds loose, then the Indriyas (sense organs) running wild among the sense objects shall wreck the body in sensuous excesses. The implication is that if an individual seeker wants to lead a religious life of perfection and hasten his evolution, he has to keep his mind steady with his discriminating intellect, and thus guide the sense horses properly in full restraint and under perfect control. This is hinted at in the following stanza.

by Swami Gurubhaktananda:

1. Yah tu avijnānavān bhavati     He who is of a non-discriminating intellect
2. ayuktena manasā sadā;          having an unrestrained mind always
3. tasya indriyāni avashyāni      his senses are uncontrollable
4. dushta ashvāh iva sāratheh.    like the wild horses of the charioteer.

This one and the next mantra focus on the intellect, which can be of two opposite types:

1-4 The Avijnana-vani: The undiscriminating charioteer is the most dangerous person to entrust for this work. A dull intellect filled with Tamas or a restless Rajasic intellect cannot be relied upon to take one safely across Samsara.

An unthinking driver will cause a lot of problems. Which owner, after having spent a fortune on a brand new Mercedes salon, will entrust it to a dull-witted, reckless driver?

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Index…

Kathopanisad

Chapter 1 Valli 3 Mantra 4

Lecture

Mantra

i̱ndriyā̱ṇi ha̍yān ā̱hu̱r vi̱ṣayā̍ṁs teṣu̱ goca̍rān
ā̱tmendri̱ya-ma̍no-yu̱kta̱m bho̱ktety ā̍hur ma̱nīṣi̍ṇah

indriyāni = the senses; āhuḥ = they say [are]; hayān = the horse; teṣu = they [the senses]; viṣayāṁ = the objects of the senses; gocarān = the paths, roads; ātma-indriya-mano-yuktam = the Self associated with the body; i.e., having 5 senses and the mind as the 6^th; bhoktā = is the enjoyer, experiencer; iti = thus; āhuḥ = declare; manīṣiṇah = the wise ones, the enlightened ones, the sages.

The sense (and the instincts) they say, are the horses, and their roads are the sense objects. The wise call Him the enjoyer (when He is) united with the body, the senses and the mind.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

Continuing the analogy, the Mantra here explains what the horses in the chariot-picture stand for. The senses are the horses. Without the sense organs such as the ear, the eyes, the nose, the tongue and the skin the body chariot cannot move. It is a well-known truth observed in modern psychology that a child born without any of the sense organs is a dead one. We generally observe that a blind man has invariably an extra power of hearing. Rarely do we find in life an individual who is both blind and deaf. And still more rare are persons (or indeed, such men are not) who have neither the eyes nor the ears nor the sense of touch. In short, we may have among us an unhappy man who has not one or two sense-organs but rarely, indeed, do we have one living among us who has at once, more than two sense organs missing in him.

This is not a strange phenomenon. After all, there is a purpose behind our taking up the bodies and coming here to live this mortal existence, The individual ego-center take their individual embodiments and come to live under a set of circumstances, during fixed periods of time, to Earn the experiences of living that fixed life. The instruments through which we can gain the experiences of the outer world are our five Indriyas. If our Indriyas are all shut up, the world outside rolls up into nothingness so far as we are concerned. For example, in our deep sleep state we are not aware of the outer world at all, because, none of our sense organs functions for us during our sleep state.

If the eyes are not, the forms are not; with our ears surely, we know we cannot grasp ideas of forms. So too, with every other sense-organ. If the organs were not with us, our birth in this life would have been a mad man’s maddening extravagance, purposeless and idle. Lord, the Creator, is no mad man. There is a purpose, definite and sure, in each one’s arrival here; ‘be it a worm or be he a king. Since without the sense organs the purpose of our embodiment is defeated, the Law sees to it that no child is born with none of the sense organs, for, in that case, the child would be defeating the purpose of its Creator.

The Sruti here says that the horses that draw the body chariot are the sense organs. The word Indriyas collectively means pot only the sense organs, but also the organs of actions and, as such, it would be complete only if we translate the term as organs of sense and instincts. This interpretation is according to the fully developed Sankhya and Vedanta philosophies. The first clear reference to the ten sense organs is in Prasna, which is a later composition than the Kathopanishad. There is, indeed, a masterly thoroughness in the inimitable expressions of the Hindu scriptures. Though they are so brief in their style, they never leave any statement half said. When they have discussed the chariot, the rider, the driver and the horses, the picture would not have been complete without the explanation of the road on which the horses are to run. The Upanishad says that the sense horses trot on the sense objects.

The eye can illumine or function only in the realm of form; that is, we can never come to hear with our eyes! So too, the ears; they can perceive only sound; with the cars we can never come to “see”! The tongue can walk only the path of taste, and the skin, the road of touch. On the whole, it means that the sense-organs, because of which the body exists, function each only in its own field of objects.

The wise, in the stanza, means the sages and saints, who have realized in their life the Total Perfection, which is God head and also those who, in declaring their intuitional experiences, have become the authors of the Upanishads, They, declare that the true entity in us, who seems to experience the joys and sorrows of life, is not the Atman, the All witnessing Intelligence, but the conditioned Atman. The Supreme Intelligence as conditioned by the body and mind is the ego-center (Jiva), which seems to enjoy and suffer the passing Circumstances of this evanescent life, called the Samsara. By thus defining the enjoyer in us the Sruti is definitely making a differentiation between the two entities in us, one, the Truth Principle, the non-doer and the non-enjoyer, and the other, the delusion created ego-center (Jiva), which is but a reflection of the Supreme Intelligence in the mental lake.

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