Index…

Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 1 Mantra 6

Mantra

yaḥ pū̱rvaṁ tapa̍so jā̱tam a̍dbhyaḥ pū̱rvam a̍jāyata |
gu̱hām pra̱viśya̍ tiṣṭha̱nta̱m yo̱ bhūte̍bhir vya̱paśya̍ta |
e̱tad vai tat ||

yaḥ = anyone [desirous of liberation] who; vyapaśyata = sees; pūrvaṁ jātam = the First-born (Hiranyagarbha); yaḥ = who; ajāyata = was born; tapasaḥ = from austerity [contemplation]; pūrvam = earlier; adbhyaḥ = than water; bhūtebhiḥ = associated with the elements; guhām praviśya = having entered into the heart of all beings; tiṣṭhantam = exists; etat vai tat = this is indeed That.

He (Mumuksu) Who beholds him seated within the five elements, him who was born of Tapas of (Brahma), who was created before the waters, who entered the Cave of the Heart and dwells there (that Mumuksu verily sees Brahman). This is verily that (Brahman, which thou hast asked for).

by Swami Chinmayananda:

The theory of creation is a knotty problem in the Upanishadic literature. Modern book grazers and hasty students of the Upanishads come to the fantastic conclusion that intuitive understanding is not true, since these sacred books have self-contradicting theories to explain the how and whence of the worlds’ creation. No two Upanishads concur among themselves as regards the details of the processes in which creation had taken place. Each Upanishad explains to us in its own inimitable style a method and a process; each of them in itself has a charm of its own and can give the student a convincing explanation quite satisfactorily, till the same student comes to read and understand a totally different process expounded by another Upanishad.

The Upanishad Rsis in their firm understanding of the Truth could not take the problem of creation with any seriousness at all. They knew, in their wisdom, that this manifested world of names and forms is but a delusion created by the human mind.

The world has only as much reality as our dreams have. But the Rsis knew at once that to the seeker who had approached them, steeped as he was in the impressions created by his own delusions, in his early stages, the world is absolutely real. Each student is to be delicately and softly raised to the higher realms of knowledge from the state in which he finds himself at the time of his approach to the Guru.

Again, no two students are of the same temperament, culture, attitude or aptitude. The teacher learns the nature of each student through patient and close observations and classifies him according to his temperament.

The great Rsis explain to each type, a particular Myth-explanation for the Myth-world! The authors of the Upanishads were not in the least serious about their explanations of a non-existent world. Whatever be the explanation given and processes elaborated, to explain the creation of the world, each master had to lead the student ultimately to a State of Pure Consciousness, viewed from the Absolute Nature of which the creation had actually never taken place, except in the deluded Jiva’s own mind!!

If we were to explain the fallacy of the snake in the rope, we too would adopt an explanation according to the condition of the bitten, and shall modify our own explanations when the victim of the snakebite changes to be another individual of a different temperament and belonging to a different class of culture.

In this Mantra we have just some hasty cross-references to the processes of creation which have been much more elaborately dealt with in other Upanishads.

Brahman of the Supreme Reality in the (Samasti) macrocosmic aspect is Hiranyagarbha and in the (Vyasthi) microcosmic aspect is the Jiva. He who knows Brahman through both these aspects is a true Knower of Reality.

Adbhya Poorwam (prior to waters)— The Hiranyagarbha or the Total Mind was born prior to the “five elements”. Here water stands for all the “five elements”; Akasha (space) is a grosser manifestation risen up from the Total Mind.

Tapasah (by penance or of knowledge)— There are passages in the different Upanishads where the processes of creation are explained; one of them is “the Supreme willed Himself to be many and many came or became”. It is this theory that is echoed in this Mantra.

In short, the Mantra says that a seeker finally realizes the Supreme Reality, the Eternal Factor, both in the microcosm and in the macrocosm (Vyashti and Samashti). Brahman appears as Jiva through the conditioning of Avidya and as Hiranyagarbha through the conditioning of Maya.

When the conditionings drop off the Hiranyagarbha and Jiva, they become identical with the transcendental Brahman. “This is verily that”, which you had enquired for.

Previous…                                                                                                                                                     Next…

 

 

Index…

Kathopanisad

Chapter 2 Valli 1 Mantra 5

Mantra

ya i̱mam madhva̍daṁ ve̱da̱ ā̱tmāna̍ṁ jīva̱m anti̍kāt |
ī̱śānam bhūta̍-bhavya̱sya̱ na̱ tato viju̍gupsate |
e̱tad vai tat ||

yaḥ = anyone who; veda = knows; antikāt = proximity; imam = this; ātmānaṁ = Self; jīvam = the sustainer of the vital energies; madhvadaṁ = the enjoyer of the results of actions; īśānam = the ruler; bhūta-bhavyasya = of the past and the future [and also the present]; tataḥ = thereafter [knowing which]; na vijugupsate = fears nothing (shrinks away from); etat vai tat = this is indeed that.

He who knows this Atman, the enjoyer of honey, the sustainer of life and the lord of the past and the future, as very near he fears! no more thereafter. This is verily That.

by Swami Chinmayananda:

Not only does such a perfected one go beyond the source of sobs and tears, but shall, says this Mantra, reach the Domain of Fearlessness.

Madhvadam (the enjoyer of honey) – Honey here stands for the good fruits of meritorious acts performed by the ego-centric Jivas. The Atman, Pure Consciousness, is said to be here the cater of honey; meaning that He is the enjoyer of all the good luck that accrues to one as a result of noble acts of kindness, mercy and love, performed in earlier states of existence.

This statement, in fact, if understood literally, would go against the grains of the very philosophy of Vedanta, as Atman is neither an enjoyer nor a doer. In case we accept the Atman to be an enjoyer, in Pure Consciousness which is One-without-a-second, how can there be the ‘enjoyed’ and the ‘enjoying’ separate from the eternal Enjoyer?

Aman is the Intelligence that illumines for us both the acts of commissions and omissions, meritorious or otherwise. It is again the Light Principle that illumines for us both our joys and sorrows. The sun may illumine equally a scene of murder at one place and-a scene of a great Yagna at another place; but the sun never gets defiled by he blood nor purified by the Mantras. Similarly, the Atma-Chaitanya is only a Witnessing Light of Pure Intelligence lending Its consciousness to all acts committed by the ego-centric vain Jiva during itself forgetful, delusory transactions in life. But here the Upanishad calls the Atman as an enjoyer of the fruits of the good acts, only in its conditioned aspect. We have already found that the body-mind-intellect-equipment in itself has no life of its own, it being made up of mere dead matter. It is the spirit in us that lends to these overrings a simulacrum of life.

To make this point clearer let us take an example. The glass bulb or the filament has no capacity in itself to illumine objects in a dark room. But when a required quantity of electricity is allowed to flow through the same filament, the bulb gains a special capacity to illumine the objects of the room. In fact electricity as such does not illumine the room; it is the glowing filament in the bulb that gives us the light. Yet, don’t we in our transactions say that the room is lit by electricity? It is exactly in a similar way we have here the statement that Atman is the enjoyer of the fruits of actions; Atman as conditioned by the mind, intellect, and body, is actually what is meant here.

One who realizes his Atman “henceforward fears no more”. Where there is Raga (attachment) there Bhaya (fear) and Krodha (anger) co-exist. When, as we have seen in the last Mantra, a barbecued soul has reached the State of Desire lessness he has no more attachments with any particular objects of the world, and, naturally, there cannot be in him any sense of fear. He has in his true wisdom realized the shadow-nothingness of his dream body, and so does not fear even death which to him is only an escape from his own self-created body cocoon!’! He has no attachments even with his body, He is perfectly above all body consciousness. This verily is that Brahman, which thou hast asked for.

Previous…                                                                                                                                                     Next…