The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 7. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday,December 05 2021. 8:00. PM.
The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 7.
(Spoken on June 19, 1972)

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Such is the feeling of Nachiketas. Nachiketas shall not be satisfied with any other thing than this question: What happens to one when he is absorbed into the Beyond? Does one exist or does one not exist?


Well, the best Guru has found the best disciple. It is impossible to evade the question anymore. Pointedly Nachiketas presses forward this question. “I shall not be satisfied with any other thing than the answer to this question that I put before you: What happens to the soul when it is absorbed?”


Now, this is, concisely speaking, the initial difficulties which we have to face when we tread the path of the Spirit. We are not to be given this treasure so easily as we imagine. It is literally searching for the golden apple in the Garden of the Hesperides. It is not easily gotten, and we have to encounter death on the way. Yama comes before us. Yama's facing Nachiketas is nothing but death facing us and threatening us on the way of the Spirit. “You ask for the Spirit? I shall devour you before you ask for it.”


This happened to all the saints and sages. Nachiketas is only a classical example before us in the Upanishad. We have records even in the case of Buddha. Illumination did not come to him so easily. The first thing was temptation, and then came opposition. Temptation is what is offered. Opposition is death coming over our head, like a Damocles sword hanging over us, and if we are not weaned away from this quest by the wondrous temptations that are offered before us, we shall be punished with death. What shall we do then? The rod of Yama is on our head.


Nachiketas had to pass through all these stages of severe test, which is all given only in a few verses in the Kathopanishad. It does not mean that the experiences of Nachiketas were so simple as we find them described in the few verses there. They must have been very terrific for him, as they were for Buddha. It is very awful indeed even to think and read about them, what to experience. But these are the experiences that everyone has to pass through – you, I, and everyone. Not one of us is exempted. Everyone has to pass through the same ruts, the same path, the same discipline, the same ordeal of fire, which cannot be escaped. There is no shortcut to Reality. It is all the same beaten track over which people have trodden years and years back, and in future also they shall tread it, and we too presently have to tread the same path. Well, this is the preliminary ground that is laid before the spirit that is now to receive the higher wisdom of the soul's absorption into the Beyond.


To be continued ...



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know the self, know the self in Nature, know the self in Jiva, Further Oneness.

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