The Problem in Understanding the Upanishads - 3. Swami Krishnananda

09/05/2019
3.

The most unpleasant thing in the world is to say anything about one's own self. We can go on saying anything about people, but when it is a matter concerning us, we would like that not much is said. Om Shanti. This is because we are the most secret aspect of creation and we are very touchy; we would not like to be touched, even unconsciously, by anybody. "Don't say anything about me; say anything about other people."

Now, what is the matter?

There is some peculiarity about this so-called 'me', 'I', or the self. This is the peculiarity of the Upanishadic teaching, and also its difficulty. The knowledge of the gods in the heavens, the knowledge of historical personages – kings, saints and sages – and the way of worshipping them and adoring them is something we can comprehend. "Yes, we understand what it means."

This is exactly what we commonly understand by the word 'religion'. "He is a religious person." Sometimes we even say, "He is spiritual." Generally speaking, when we say that a person is religious or spiritual, we have an idea that this person is concerned with something higher than himself or herself – some god, some ideal, some future expectation which we may call divine, not concerned with the present, necessarily. The present is unsatisfying; therefore, we are in search of a future. I said something about it in our last session.

The Upanishads are not telling us about any god. Then, what is it that the Upanishads are telling us if it is not speaking about God?

It is speaking about God, but not about the God that we usually think in our mind according to our upbringing, culture, language or tradition. It refers to God and it refers to nothing else, whereas the other religious forms of the concept of God – the God of the various 'isms' in the world – have other things in addition to and simultaneous with God's existence, such as: Something must be done, something must not be done. These 'do's' and 'don'ts' fill the texture of every religion in the world. Something has to be done and something should not be done. The question of this dichotomy does not arise in the Upanishads.

To be continued ..