The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 3. Swami Krishnananda

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Monday, November 8, 2021. 9:00. PM.

The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 3. Swami Krishnananda

(Spoken on June 19, 1972)

POST-3.

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Now, those three days passed by the spirit of Nachiketas before the palace of Yama have a tremendous significance on the path of the spirit. They are not four days or seven days, but only three days, and Yama is absent for three days. The starvation of the spirit is implied here as, for example, we have a famous saying of Christ given to us in the New Testament: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” It is not poverty of economic existence, but poverty of the spirit; starvation and fasting of the spirit in its threefold entanglement is what is meant by Nachiketas' three days of fasting.

We are involved in a threefold manner in this universal concatenation of forces. The threefold involvement is physical, astral and causal. Psychologists know that our bodily personality is not our entire personality. What experiences we pass through bodily or physically in this world of nature is not the entirety of our experience. We are a deeper psychological unit than the bodily experience can reveal to us. We have an astral or a subtle personality which works as the force or the incentive power behind the movement of the limbs of the body. So the bodily or physical austerity that we are likely to perform in the name of ritualistic observances in religion, etc., is one part of the spiritual discipline, no doubt, but it is not the whole of the discipline.

The first day's fast can be compared to the discipline of the physical nature. The physical nature indeed is to be disciplined, but that is not all, because the physical body is like a cart that is pulled by bulls, energies which are supplied by forces that are inside us. The senses are not the organs of perception. The eyeball, the eardrum, the palate, the nostril, these are not the senses. They are the outer instruments or the mechanisms which are utilised by powers that are internal. So the discipline of the personality has to imply and involve not merely the mustering in the physical forces of the body, but also the bringing together or focusing of the internal nature within us, which is the true man. The true individual is within, and what we see outside is only a contour; it is only a map drawn of the hidden significance which is the mark of our individuality.

The subtle body is called the linga sharira. ‘Linga' means a mark or a symbol. It is an insignia of what we really are. It gives an idea of our nature. By looking at the face or the bodily structure of a person, we cannot understand the person so beautifully as by the analysis of the internal nature, the linga sharira, the insignia of individuality or personality.

To be continued ...

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