Satsangatve nissangatvam nissangatve nirmohatvam, nirmohatve niscalatattvam niscalatattve jivanmuktiH.
Index…

Kathopanisad

Chapter 1 Valli 3 Mantra 13

Lecture

Mantra

ya̱cched vāṅ ma̍nasī prā̱jñas tad ya̍cchej jñā̱na-ā̍tmani |
jñā̱nam ā̱tmani maha̍ti ni̱ya̱cche̱t ta̱d-yacchecchā̱nta-ātmani ||

prājñaḥ = the wise one, endowed with discriminating wisdom; yacchet = should merge; vāk = speech [representing all the organs]; manasī = in the mind; tat = that [mind]; yacchet = should merge; jñānaātmani = in the intellect; [which is the “self” as it were of all the organs]; jñānam = the intellect; niyacchet = should be dissolved; mahati ātmani = in the Great Self, the First Born “Hiranyagarbha”; tat = that ; yacchet = should be merged; śānta ātmani = into the tranquil Self, the Ocean of Great Peace.

Let the wise sink his speech into the mind, the mind into the intellect and the intellect into the Great Atman and the Great Atman into the Peaceful Atman.

 

by Swami Chinmayananda:

The Aryan nature is such that he is not satisfied by a mere philosophical idea, however poetical and utopian it may be; for, the Aryan is too much of a creature of purpose and practical vision. Unless an idealism is supported by a perfect technique of self-discipline by which the practitioner can come to live as an experience for himself all the Joys it promises, it is totally rejected and laughed at by the sturdy intellect and courageous mind of the true Aryan stock!

True to this spirit of the country and its people, Indian philosophy is never a mere text-book of style and fantastic ideas strung together to form a garland to applaud a passing mood of some tumbling generation! Immediately following an explanation of the Supreme State of Existence there is in the Mantra now under discussion, a vivid detailed explanation of the technique by which we can come to realize that State of Perfection indicated by the term Purusha.

Merge the speech in the mind – There are some mere Sanskrit scholar Pundits who take a limited view of the words and come to read into the scriptural text too tight a meaning, and thus ruin the very broad hints on Truth given in the scriptures. The very style of the scripture is to express what she has to say, more with the suggestiveness of the words than with the literal word-meaning. More harm than good is done by the mere Sanskrit scholars trying to play their havoc in the field of the scriptures. With their dry knowledge of words trying to gain the Science of Sciences, which deals with the Absolute, can but be a folly and a disastrous crime.

The scriptural text here is to be understood as indicating at once both the organs of knowledge and action by the mere mention of one of them, namely, the speech (Vak). All the organs of action and of knowledge have to be brought under perfect control of the mind,” is the advice of the Sruti.

Thereafter the mind is to be sunk into the intellect, meaning, the mental tossing, doubts, desires, emotions, etc., are to be completely brought under the iron grip of the intellect and its powers of discrimination. The process is continued by lifting our identification with our individual and fixing it up with the Grand Total Whole. This again is to be sublimated into its fundamental cause, the State of Sleepless Sleep, the Turiya Avasthā, transcending which the seeker in his higher meditations reaches the goal of life, there, to eternally recognize himself, in a powerful subjective experience, to be the Purusha Himself.

by Swami Gurubhaktananda:

1  Yachhet vaak manasee praajnah     The organ of speech should be merged into the mind by the discriminating man;
2  tat yachhet jnaane aatmani;             Then that mind should be merged into the intellect, the knowing self;
3  jnaanam aatmani mahati niyachhet  Then the intellect or knowing self should be merged into the Mahat, the Total Mind;
4  tat yachhet shaante aatmani.            Finally, that Mahat, too, should be merged into the peaceful Self.

The process of tuning oneself more and more to the inner Self is once again repeated from the point of view of a Sadhana to attain the Self. It follows the same lines as already seen in 3.10/3.11.

Yacchet is the verb which defines the Sadhana needed to be done. It occurs in every Pada. It means dissolve or merge, to withdraw from the grosser into the subtler. That is the Sadhana. This is done at four levels:

  • Dissolve Speech into Mind: ‘Speech’ is used here as an Upa-Lakshana, i.e., it stands for all the five organs of action in the body of which speech is the All actions stem from a desire in the mind. The desire is not permitted to act itself out. The organs of actions are instructed not to permit any vagaries of the mind to drive the senses. In modern psychology, this is tantamount to suppression. Suppression can burst out into rampant, uncontrolled desire-activity if there is nothing to stop the mental energy from damming up from within. At best, it is a temporary necessity, until the mind is trained to check the desires themselves.
  • Dissolve Mind into Intellect: The desire which remains in the mind, notwithstanding the above external checkpoint, has to be dissolved by the discriminating power of the intellect. The intellect is a controlling power over the irrational mind; hence it is here called the Atman, which has to be taken to mean the controller of the When desire is checked through Viveka, it is called sublimation. This is more desirable than the temporary suppression. The effulgence of the intellect pacifies desire in the mind. Each desire checked in this way adds to the mind’s purity.
  • Dissolve Intellect into Mahat or Cosmic Intellect: The method of checking the intellect itself lies in surrender of one’s Ego-sense. This is the most difficult of all operations. Swami Sivananda calls it ‘Ego-dectomy’. The ‘I’-thought which originates in the intellect has to be dissolved. When the sense of individuality is thinned out, the individual intellect expands into the Total Intellect. The words in the Bhashya, ‘Swacchha-Swabhaavakam- Atmanah’ tell us that the idea is “to render the individual intellect as pure and sweet” as the Total Intellect, whose other name is Hiranyagarbha. When an intellect expands in this way, the hold of the Ego upon it gets completely loosened and dissolved.
  • Dissolve the Mahat or “Great Soul” into the Supreme Self: This final emergence of the Consciousness into its deepest level of awareness is called Self-Realization. This is characterized by the experience of Shanti or peacefulness. We note that the intellect with ego cannot directly merge into the Self. As soon as the ego-sense is dissolved, the intellect, which is now identified with the Totality, merges naturally into the deep, universal being.

Link Passage (to next verse): In an important link, three similes are quoted in the Bhashya to help us understand our real predicament. They are: i) the water of a mirage; ii) the snake on the rope; and iii) the dirt in the sky. Our ignorance or deluded state of the intellect is described in each of these similes:

  1. The Mirage: The world is only an appearance; it is not really.
  2. The Snake: Due to fear this appearance makes us resort to all sorts of actions to get rid of a “snake” that is really only a rope.
  3. The Dirt: The ignorance is not our true nature. Just as the sky is unaffected by the dust in the air, so also the Self is really unaffected by the presence of the ‘dust’ of Karmas accompanying.

In all three cases, once the real nature of the seen object is understood, the misconception vanishes. In the same way, once the knowledge of one’s true nature sets in deeply into our heart, and when purity and one-pointedness are developed, the Self reveals Itself. Peace of mind is enjoyed, and the goal of life is achieved.

Therefore, it is worth making effort to acquire knowledge. The next section gives us a big boost of inspiration to strive hard for this state of peacefulness.

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