The Mundaka Upanishad: 6 - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Friday 23, May 2025, 11:00.

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The Mundaka Upanishad: 6. 

First Khanda

Second Khanda

Swami Krishnananda

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Mantram No. 4:

The seven flames of fire are Kaali, Karali, Manojava, Sulohita, Sudhumravarna, Sphulingini and Vishvaruchi.

Mantram No. 5:

Who performs the sacrifice when these flames are brilliant, offering oblations at the right time, him the rays of the sun guide and take to where the ruler of the gods reigns supreme.

Mantram No. 6:

The oblations offered appear in conscious forms and invite the sacrificer, saying “Come, Come”. They speak to him in sweet words and worship him and through the passage of the rays of the sun lead him up to the celestial region and say, “This is your auspicious heavenly world, the effect of meritorious deeds.”

Actions performed without knowledge bind the performer to the particular results of those actions. These actions are infected by ignorance, desire and the impulse to act and, therefore, they are Essence less and the source of sorrow. Hence, such actions are criticised in the following Mantras.

Mantram No. 7:

All the sacrifices performed by the eighteen people connected with them are transient and unsafe boats in crossing this, Samsara. These actions are inferior. Those ignorant ones who glorify and consider as good these actions go to birth and death again and again.

'Plava' is boat or a floating bubble. These actions are called bubbles, because their effects break like bubbles together with the potencies of actions. No action leads a person to something which is not conditioned by space or time, because all actions are in space and time.

Mantram No. 8:

Drowned in the midst of ignorance, but thinking themselves great and learned, the deluded ones, attacked from all sides by decay, disease and death and several other miseries, turn round and round in the wheel of Samsara like blind men guided by blind men.

Mantram No. 9:

Controlled by the diverse forms of ignorance, children without intelligence arrogantly feel: “We have achieved our purpose”. Because of the desires present within their minds, these performers of selfish actions fall down miserably to the field of action and sorrow from the region of enjoyment on the exhaustion of the effects of their meritorious deeds.

Actions, good or bad, give rise to limited results and, therefore, there is an end of the experience of the fruits of all actions. Though a person is really ignorant, he is made to feel that he is wise because of the semblance of consciousness that is reflected through his intellect. The fruits of actions are not powerful enough to give the performer of the actions lasting happiness. There is a threefold defect in the experience of the fruits of actions. An action is generally performed with the expectation that it will bring the desired end. But inasmuch as desires do not have connections with anything permanently and because they shift their centres quickly, at the time of experience of the fruit of the previous action it is no more the desired end. Not only this, it becomes a source of sorrow. This is one defect. Secondly, the experience of happiness through the fruits of actions is not real happiness, but only an excitement of the mind temporarily caused by the desired contact with the object which appeared to give the promise of true happiness. Hence, it is more a deluded state of the mind than an experience of real happiness. Thirdly, because it may not be possible always to fulfil all desires and reap the fruits of all actions in one birth, the individual may have to take several more births for the sake of experiencing them. Thus, all desires and actions lead to bondage. It is sheer ignorance and delusion that make one believe that one can become perfect and happy through his intellect, mind and the senses, as all these instruments of knowledge and action function in the relative plane alone.

For the sake of acting according to his own interests, man takes the advice of only such other people as are conducive to the fulfilment of those personal interests. This is illustrated by the saying of blind men being led by the blind. People full of desires cannot appreciate the advice given by men of wisdom, as wisdom is contrary to desire. Rejecting the precepts of wisdom, people take to their own methods of action and through self-conceit and vanity think that they have achieved their ends. Their experiences, however, shall result in intense grief and they will be made to repent for their actions. Because of heedlessness and pride, they constantly fall back into the experiences of phenomenal suffering and never really attain to what they actually longed for, inasmuch as what is really desired is unrestricted happiness and as this cannot be had through desires and actions.

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Continued

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