THE KATHOPANISHAD : A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 12.( Ends Here ) - Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, February 06, 2022. 20:40.

Post-12.

(Spoken on June 19, 1972).

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For that, the answer is given by Yajnavalkya again in his instruction to Janaka in another context altogether. It is not that one does not see there, but one does not see as one usually sees. 

Yad vai tan na pasyati, pasyan vai tan na pasyati (B.U. 4.3.23): 

He sees, and yet does not see. He sees, and yet it is not an actual seeing through the senses. Why do we say that he sees, and yet does not see? 

viparilopo vidyate, avinasitvat; na tu tad dvitiya masti, tato'nyad vibhaktam yat pasyet: 

The seer has become one with the seen there. So what does one really see there? 

We cannot say that one does not see anything there, because the object of seeing is already there. Everything that is to be seen is there; necessarily, therefore, there is seeing. But a mysterious phenomenon has taken place. That which is to be seen has become a part of seeing itself. Then what does one really see? Does one see, or does one not see? Yes, one sees, because all the objects of perception are there intact. And yet one does not see in another sense because that which is to be seen or cognised has become part of the cogniser himself.

These are the crowning answers of Yajnavalkya as if to give a satisfying conclusion to what Yama in the Kathopanishad began in answer to the question of Nachiketas. We pass from stage to stage, from one encounter to another. The path of the spirit is a path of encounter, of facing problems and problems, vistas and vistas, newer and newer visions, and higher and higher integrations of oneself. The integration becomes complete when the object that is to be cognised becomes a part of the cogniser himself. That is the pinnacle of integration.

But the lower integrations are of a different nature altogether. The lesser integration is where we see a harmony around us. It is not actually unity of the object of perception with the perceiving process, which is the last thing to be experienced, but only a harmony or a collaboration of forces. But in the lower stage, still we see a difference of things as if there is nothing connected in this world. Everything is thrown in different places by an invisible connecting link of space, time and cause.

But for gravitation, space, time and cause, etc., there would not be even a conceptual unity or harmony among things. We cannot see a physical unity of things. We have only an imaginary unity, such as what we call social unity, international unity, family unity, etc., which is really not there. It can be broken any moment because it is only a conceptual relationship that has been established by the function of the mind of people. But higher than that is actual physical merging of forces, a creative entering of forces into themselves so that there is an awakening of oneself to the fact that harmony is not merely conceptual or notional as we have in the physical world, but it is creative existence. It really is there. There is a real collaboration of forces. One is connected with the other as threads in a cloth, we may say. Physically we can see the interconnection of threads in a cloth. They are not merely notionally connected, but they are really and physically related to one another. But, the highest integration is where the threads themselves get lifted to an awareness of there not being any kind of warp or woof, but a single indeterminate mass of existence, a featureless transparency of Spirit.

Towards that we have to move through these arduous processes of ordeal – the discipline of the body, the discipline of the mind, the psychological organs, and finally the overstepping of the boundaries set before us by the causal body itself, which I said are represented by the three days of fasting by Nachiketas. So from the individual body there is the rise of consciousness to the astral level, from the astral level the consciousness rises to the causal level, and from the causal level the consciousness rises to the cosmic intellectual level, the Mahat-tattva, as it is mentioned in the Kathopanishad. From the cosmic intellectual level we rise to the cosmic causal level. This is what the Vedanta calls as Ishvara. And from the cosmic causal level, we rise to the Absolute.

All these stages are described in a scattered manner in the Kathopanishad itself, so that we may safely say that the Kathopanishad is a wondrous epic of the spirit before us, a beautiful scripture which I would like every one of you to study with deep concentration.

The End.

Swami  Krishnananda

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