Lessons on the Upanishads -2.6: Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday 19, Aug 2024. 06:50.
Upanishads
Chapter 2: The Problem in Understanding the Upanishads - 6.
Post-14.

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Now, is any one of us prepared to face this kind of encounter? If the whole earth becomes yours, you will jump just now. You will leave the hall and run. All of you will run from this hall because the whole earth is coming to you. That temptation becomes inevitable in the case of most of us because we do not understand the significance of the answer to this question. We think there are so many questions and this is also one question; and there so many answers and this is also one answer. What do we gain by knowing the answer to this question of whether the soul is there or not? Let it be; let it not be. We are so foolishly complacent and idiotically ignorant of the meaning of the answer to the question that we do not see the truth behind it. 

Otherwise, why should there not be an answer? Why did Lord Yama deviate from the point and say, “Take something else; I will give you diamond and gold, but not the answer to this question”? What did he mean? What would he lose? There is something very problematical about it. That problem is the problem of the Upanishads. It cannot be handled like that, so easily. Why do we consider the answer to this question to be so simple that Yama could have immediately answered it? It is because of the fact that our mind is not yet prepared to comprehend the significance and the in-depth reality of this matter.

When we speak of the soul, we do not know what it is that we are speaking about, finally. It is a nebulous, flimsy, slippery object. What are we talking about when we say “self”? Everybody uses the word 'self'. “I myself I have done this work.” “He himself is responsible for that mistake.” Do we not use the word 'self' in this manner? We are very well acquainted with the use of the word 'self': myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself—everywhere this 'self' comes in. It is so common in our daily life that we do not see any special significance in that usage at all. We do not see the significance because we do not know the meaning of the word 'self', and no dictionary gives us the correct meaning of this word. 

Even if the dictionary says it is you, one's own Self, the basic Reality, the Atman, these are only words which will mean as little as the word 'self' itself. This is because here is a question of the handling of one's self by one's Self. You may ask me: “Why should I handle my self when there are more important things in the world? The world is so rich and beautiful and grand and vast; instead of that I handle my self? What is the great thing that I am going to gain out of it?” Terrible is the problem. If you have answers and questions of this kind and you have doubts as to why this Self is to be considered as so important, you will not be immediately fit for the knowledge of the Upanishads. People had to stay with the Guru for many years.

I will tell you another story. One day Prajapati, the Creator, announced: “He who knows the Self knows all things.”

Both the gods and the demons heard this and said, “Oh! Is it so? If one knows the Self, all things are known? Then it is worth knowing. Let us go.”

“Great Master, we have come to learn the Self from you which—as you proclaimed—is the source of all knowledge.” The gods sent Indra as their representative to obtain this wisdom. The demons sent Virochana as their leader. Both of them went to Prajapati and said, “We have come for Knowledge.”

“Stay here and observe discipline for many years,” replied Prajapati.

 They stayed with Prajapati and served him for years and years—thirty-two years. After the lapse of so many years of discipline and hardship under the tutelage of Prajapati, these two persons approached him and said: “Now, please initiate us into the nature of the Self.”

“Come on,” Prajapati replied. “Go and look at yourself in a pan of water, a vessel filled with water. You will see something there. That is the Self.”

“Oh, good; very good. It is a very simple matter,” they said.

They looked. What did they see? They saw their own face—their own body.

Virochana said, “Now I know what is the Self. This body is the Self.”

Virochana returned home and proclaimed to all the demons: “Now we know what the Self is, by knowing which all things are known and all things can be obtained. This very body is the Self. Eat, drink, be merry and enjoy.”

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Continued

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