Mundakopanishad : CHAPTER-2. SECTION-2. MANTRAM-1.{ Pointers to the nature of Brahmam and advice how to know it. }

Mundakopanishad :

 CHAPTER-2.

SECTION-2.

MANTRAM-1.{  Pointers  to  the  nature  of  Brahmam  and  advice  how  to  know  it. }

Discussion-9. "The  one  beyond  the  understanding  of  creatures" ...

This  is  not  a  statement  of  despair  or  hopelessness.

Nor  is  it  a  declaration  that  the  Upanishad-s  are  merely  pointing  out  a  beautiful  idealism  of  dreamy  nothingness  which  is  not  within  the  scope  of  ant  man's  actual  experience.

This  is  a  way  in  which  the  gross  mind  and  intellect  or  the  idle  materialism  interpret  this  sacred  expression  in  the  scripture.



This  is  a  false  and  sad  misunderstanding  of  a  great  Truth.

When  the  Sruti  says  that  the  " Spirit  is  beyond  the  intellect,"  she  only  means  to  say  that  the  Spirit  is  the  Subject  which  is  the  thinker,  in  the  intellect.

The  instruments  of  thinking  have  no  vitality  of  their  own  to  think  themselves  without  the  thinker  behind  them.

To  accept  that  the  intellect  can,  through  its  thinking,  know  the  thinker  would  be  an  absurdity  in  logic  and  a  shameful  dream  in  philosophy.

Nobody  can  ride  on  himself; in  that  case,  the  rider  and  the  ridden  are  to  become  one  and  the  same.

It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  Sruti  declares  here  that  the  "Spirit  is  beyond  the  understanding  of  creatures,  because  the  Spirit  is  the  understanding - Principle  behind  all  instruments  of  understanding.

END.

Next :   Mantram-2.

To be continued  ....