Index…
Kathopanisad
Chapter 1 Valli 3 Mantra 14
Lecture
Mantra
utti̍ṣṭhata jā̱grata prā̱pya va̍rān ni̱bodha̍ta |
kṣura̍sya dhārā ni̱śitā̍ dura̱tya̱yā̱ du̱rgam pa̍thas tat ka̱vayo̍ vadanti ||
uttiṣṭhata = arise; jāgrata = awake, be vigilant; prāpya varān = having obtained the boons; nibodhata = realize, comprehend them; kṣurasya dhārā = like the edge of a razor; niśitā = being sharpened; duratyayā = impassable; kavayaḥ = the seers, poets, enlightened ones; vadanti = declare; durgam = difficult to traverse; tat = is that; pathaḥ = path.
Arise, awake; having reached the great (teachers) learn (realize that Aman). Like the sharp edge of a razor is that path difficult to cross and hard to tread; thus the wise say.
by Swami Chinmayananda:
Upanishads are the declarations of Truth, as experienced by the Upanishad Rishis in the white heat of their living meditations. An individual even when he comes to discover an ordinary joy or beauty almost goes mad and strives to explain the experiences to his fellowmen. Thus, we have the sons of bards in every language, besides the various volumes of literature on every branch of knowledge. Instances are not wanting where scientists’ have almost gone made, when they suddenly, during their deep study, discovered for themselves one more secret of Nature, Newton, certainly, could not have felt so much the pain of the apple falling on his nose as the joy of his thoughts over a gravitational force that draws everything towards the earth. Archimedes ran naked, directly from his bath-tub, crying “Eureka”, “Eureka”, through the streets of the city, when he discovered for the first time how volumes can be measured by measuring the water displaced by material objects!
Similarly, when the great Rishis of old, in their silent contemplation upon Truth, came to realize the godliness, that is eternally their nature, they roared forth their joy-calls and victory trumpets to their generation in their joy and feeling of the Absolute Perfection. Instances are many in the various Upanishads, where the Rishis directly call their generation to follow the Path, seeking Truth until each realizes for himself his identity with the Godhead.
Jesus Christ also expresses almost a similar idea when the Lord says: “Strive to enter in at the straight gate, for narrow is the gate and straight is the way that leads to life, and few be they who find it.” Here in the Mantra under discussion, we have the world-famous Call of the Spiritual Kingdom; the Call of Hope and Glory; to man routing in his dejections and sorrows. This famous call to man to arise and awake has been adopted by Shri Swami Vivekananda as his Mission’s emblem.
Arise! Awake! – Oh man rotting in the quagmire of Samsar. Arise, Turn, towards the brilliant sunlit land of perfection and walk through the Path shown to us by the Rishis. Walk the Path, and reach the glorious summit from where you can experience that your sense of limitations and imperfections, hopes and desires, successes and failures, loves and hatreds, birth and death, were all but a gruesome Midsummer Night’s dream!!
Mere rising from the bed is not at once a total ending of sleep. It is our agreed experience that although we have arisen from our pillows we are not immediately as alert and fully awake to the external world as we would be after a time. Certainly, there is a lot of difference between our sudden rising from the bed and our state of full awakening.
Rude shocks in life such as loss of property, sudden bereavements, disappointments in love and such other causes may temporarily make us realize the falsity of the values lived by us in our day-to-day life of competition and selfishness. Man, under these stresses in life, comes to feel the hollowness of life and, for the time being, comes to entertain, a seemingly healthy Vyragya! But this is only a passing mood. In many of us this mood does come at some time or other, but soon it passed off as an impotent impulse. This state of temporary opening as our mind to the hollowness of life as lived by us is here indicated by the word “Arise”, At this state the seeker is not fully aware of the very change that has taken place in him. Hence the Rishis cry out: “Awake”; meaning that the one who has under the lash of circumstances come to accomplish the command, “arise”, should try his best to come to a fuller realization of what has actually happened within him in his personality, and thus fully get himself awakened.
This awakening can be effective only when one, who has “arisen”, rushes to the feet of a real Guru (who is well versed in the scriptures and also well-established in the Brahmic consciousness) and learns the Brahma Vidya.
Why should we at all have a Guru? This is often asked by almost all the modem educated class of people. But they at once forget, that when even as mechanical an art as typewriting cannot be mastered without an instructor, no one can pursue the Path of Self-Realization without the help of a Master.
Again, the Path is very difficult: “like the Sharp edge of a razor is that Path”. Anybody who has at least made even a sportive attempt to live always the Path of Good shall realize how slippery and narrow is the Path! A life dedicated to perfect self-control and self-discipline, a life of full awareness and all discrimination. is no easy life. A Sadhu sitting under a tree may be an “Idler” to a city-bread Insurance agent or a jungle wood-cutter. But if only the Insurance agent would try to do what the Sadhu is doing even for an hour!!
The statement that the Path is as risky as the knife edge is made by the Sruti only to emphasize the importance in strictly following the Path, under all conditions and circumstances. This should not in any sense of the term be misconstrued that the Path is impossibly difficult; nothing of that sort is it to a true seeker.
Lord Death could claim the statement as His own. But he does not, and, in this, he is not showing off any sense of assumed modesty. In Vedanta, we do not accept any statement made by anybody “as his own experience” with any credulity! Imaginations and fancied ideas have no place in Vedanta. We accept only words and statements that have come to us by a long line of teacher-disciple descendants. Hence Lord Death is quoting here the Wise as having made this statement in the ancient days! (Kavayo Vadanthi.)
According to the Rishis any civilization or culture which precludes the experience and the recognition of the Divinity in man is an existence in continuous sleep and a progress through tumbling falls!!
by Swami Gurubhaktananda:
A Wake-Up Call From the Wise
1 Uttishthata jaagrata “Arise! Awake!
2 praapya varaan nibodhata; Having reached the great ones, learn from them!
3 kshurasya dhaaraa nishitaa duratyayaa Like the sharp edge of a razor, very difficult to cross,
4 durgam pathah tat kavayah vadanti. and hard to tread is the Path!” So say the wise ones.
The first half (1-2) of this verse is not set in any meter. A command is hardly likely to be sung; there is no music in it! It has to come through sharply with urgency and authority.
The second half (3-4) is a contrast to the first. It is gentle and melodious, set in meter. Its primary message is to warn us that the path is difficult; it is like treading over the edge of a sharp sword without any shoes. The hidden message is: The spiritual journey of Sreyas is difficult in the beginning but the end is very sweet. In contrast, the path of Preyas is pleasant during the journey, but its fruits are very bitter.
- A rich insight from Pujya Gurudev explains why ‘arise’ has been placed before ‘awake’. One would expect to awake first and then arise. Here is Gurudev’s insight:
“In normal sleep we would awake first and then arise from bed. However, in the case of very deep sleep, one actually gets out of bed, still sleepy, eyes half-opened. Then he goes to the washroom and, only after splashing some water over the eyes, does he really awaken. In the sleep-in question, it is not just very deep sleep but the ‘sleep of ignorance’ which has been going on for ages. Can there be a deeper sleep than this? For this reason, arise comes before awake.” An interesting point, worth noting!
- Awakening from the slumber of ignorance, what does one do first? Approach the noble teachers – plural because there are different teachers for different types of seekers. We must go to them and learn how to get out of ignorance once and for
- Going to the teachers is also because it is very difficult to tread this path alone, almost impossible. It is always advisable to walk with somebody who knows the pitfalls. The path is very difficult, indeed, and that is perhaps another reason why it is called subtle.
- And who says that it is tough? They are the wise ones, the saints, those who have been through the grinding mill and know what it is like. Their words have to be taken If we dismiss them, we do so at our own risk.
The Bhashya suggests a reason why the path is so difficult. It is due to the subtleness of the knowledge of Truth. Because the Truth Itself is so subtle, the qualifications to grasp It are also very subtle. It certainly needs the help of a realized sage to tread it with confidence.
Sri Śaṅkaracharya is one of those “wise ones” to whom we can turn to for light on the Path. His Bhashya says: “Do not take this lightly – it can make all the difference.”
The love that Mother Sruti (the scriptures) has for us is like that of a mother. Acharya ji spoke very inspiringly to us of a mother’s love: “Śaṅkaracharyaji loved his mother very greatly. A mother’s love is pure selflessness. God could not reach all his children, so He made mothers! The father may try to correct us once and then forget it, but mother will go on correcting us. She is not concerned about what we think of her; she only has our well-being at heart. That is how the scriptures are.”
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