The Mundakoupanishad : Post-56. - Swami Krishnananda

 

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Sunday 14, Apr 2024. 06:30.
Chapter 3: Section 2.
Mantram- 10&11.
POST-56.

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Mantram-10.

"Tad etat rcabhyuktam: kriyavantas srotriya brahmanishas svayam juhvata ekarsim sraddhayantah, 

tesam evaitam brahma-vidyam vadeta sirovratam vidhivad yais tu cirnam (3.2.10)."

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This Upanishad is not to be taught to everybody. This is what this mantra says. We should not go on blabbering it in public, unless they are sufficiently purified in their minds to receive its import and meaning. Kriyāvantaḥ: Only those people who have performed their duties well in this life should listen to it. Otherwise, they will have a wrong notion of there being no duty in this world and will be like a half-baked pot or a raw vegetable, which is of no utility. They will be neither here nor there.

Attainment of God does not mean violating duties and rules that bind us to the conditions in which we are. The duties that we are expected to discharge in this world are the automatic consequence of the location of our personality in society. We must find out where we are actually seated. Our physical body, our mind, and our very existence are conditioned by certain external atmospheres. We know very well what the requirements of our existence in the world are, and the sources which fulfil the requirements are those to which we owe some obligation. Somebody serves us, somebody protects us, somebody is taking care of us, somebody sees that we are secure. We know very well how our life in this world is made possible by the operation of various social and natural factors. To those things, we owe an obligation. 

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Therefore, 

kriyavantas: 

Those who have fulfilled their duties and discharged their obligations; 

srotriya: 

who know very well the import of the scriptures and do not have any kind of misunderstanding about them; 

brahmanishas : 

whose mind is fixed in Brahman and who have no desire at all apart from that; 

svayam juhvata ekarsim sraddhayantah, : 

who have performed those sacrifices that are expected to be performed through the stages of life that they have passed—Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha, Sannyasa, etc.; 

tesam evaitam brahma-vidyam vadeta: 

you shall speak this Brahma-Vidya, the knowledge of this Upanishad, only to these people, and do not speak it to other people.

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sirovratam vidhivad yais tu cirnam: 

You should speak this Upanishad only to those who have performed shirovrata. The word 'shirovrata' has been explained in various ways. It is said to mean the vow of the head. Some commentators say it is Sannyasa, as shaving the head or carrying fire on the head is also one form of sacrifice that is performed before one enters into the Sannyasa order. It is also called the Mundaka Upanishad. Mundaka means shaving, mund, and so the word 'mundaka', as well as the word 'shirovrata', seem to imply that this Upanishad is intended only for Sannyasins. Those who have not discharged their duties as householders, Brahmacharis or whatever they are in the world under the conditions they are placed in life, cannot become Sannyasins, and those who have desires in their mind also cannot become Sannyasins. But those who have fulfilled this condition, to them this Upanishad may be taught, and only then this instruction will become properly fructified.

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Mantram - 11.

At the very beginning of this Upanishad, Saunaka put a question to Angiras: “What is that, by knowing which, everything can be known?” The whole Upanishad is an answer to that question, what is that by which we can know all things. Thus is the answer which Angiras gave to Saunaka and all the rishis who were there in the audience. And this was told in early days.

One who has not fulfilled his duties, one who has not undergone the necessary discipline for this purpose, will not read this Upanishad.

Prostrations be to the great sages, prostrations be to the great sages who have given us this great knowledge of the Upanishad.

End

Next

First Mundaka

First Khanda

Continued

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