Introduction to the Upanishads - 2. Swami Krishnananda

 

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Friday 26, Apr 2024 06:24.
Article
Scriptures
Post-2.

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To repeat once again what I told you a few minutes before, this tendency is present in everything and everyone. Therefore the study of the Atman is not study of something somewhere – it is the study of everything. I hope you catch what I'm saying. The study of the Atman is the study of the essence of everything anywhere because of the fact everything everywhere has this Atman. There is an Atman in all things in the sense that they maintain an identity-consciousness of themselves. So the Atman has a peculiar characteristic of being just what it is; that it to say, it cannot be an object of anyone. The self-identity aspect of consciousness, which is the Atman, cannot become Anatman, to put it in the Sanskrit language. The Atman cannot become Anatman. The Self cannot become not-Self. The subject cannot become the object. Consciousness cannot become matter. You cannot become somebody else.

This is something that will follow from a proper analysis of the nature of what is called the Atman, the great, grand, magnificent subject of the Upanishads. Inasmuch as this is something which you have never heard in your life, something which nobody else taught you anywhere in any educational institutions, something that cannot be included in the curriculum of any kind of science, arts, or humanities in the ordinary sense of the term, this is an astounding thing that you are hearing. That is the reason why the Upanishads are insisting that it is a secret knowledge; it is not a subject for public oration. It is secret because it cannot be understood by any amount of scratching your head. The reason is, you are studying yourself as a basic principle, this "yourself" not being a person, this physical body-mind complex, but the principle that is the principle of all things.

So the study of the Atman is the study of first principles. The Atman philosophy is the fundamental philosophy. When that is known, you have known the secret of all things. It is the vital spot of every individual, of anything in the universe. This knowledge is not communicated by mere reading books in a library; it is possible to acquire it through hard discipline.

The mind of the human being us usually characterized by three defects, and any kind of self-discipline implies the avoiding of these defects somehow or other, the stubbing out of the defect-ridden personality of the individual. In Sanskrit this three-fold defect of the human mind is called Mala, Vikshepa and Avarana.

Mala means dirt, something like a thick coating over a clean mirror, preventing reflection of light in it. Dirt is that which covers the essential nature of an object, like a thick coating of dust, etc. on a mirror. There is some such thing covering the mind of the human being also, on account of which correct knowledge is not reflected in the mind, as a mirror that is covered over with dust will not reflect sunlight. So some step has to be taken in order to see that this dirt of the mind is scrubbed off.

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Continued

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