Introduction to the Upanishads : 7. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, July 02, 2022. 04:30.

Post-7.

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So I have told you something briefly about the nature of Karma Yoga or unselfish action, performance of duty for duty's sake, as a standard method laid down before us by the ancient master for cleansing the mind of all dross of extraneous desires in the direction of objects of sense; and Upasana is the love of God that you evince in your own self by daily worship performed in whatever way you would like to carry on.

When you conceive the Supreme Being, you have in the beginning a spatio-temporal imagination of that Being. God is very big, very large, very far away, very great, adorable; you offer your prostrations to that Almighty as something lovable. Even the Upanishads sometimes refers to the Supreme Absolute as the most lovable. Vanam means adorable; that Being is the most adorable. That thing which you call God, that thing which pulls your attention in its own direction, that which is the ultimate reality of things, that which is the Self of the cosmos, is the most magnificent, beloved, lovable, beautiful, most essential of all beings. And one who loves this Ultimate Being as the most lovable, is loved by the whole world. You attract things towards yourself because you are attracted towards that which is everywhere. This is the best way of making friends in this world. You need not read Dale Carnegie and all that. If you are attracted towards that which is everywhere wholly and souly, the entire world will be attracted towards you as a natural consequence of the attraction that you feel towards that Ultimate Reality. This is how you can honestly love it, if you want to be loved by others. How can you expect love from anybody if you yourself have no love for that which is the essence of all things?

Worship or Upasana is conducted in many ways, by ritualistic methods, as we have it done in temples or on alters in one's own house, by Japa or recitation of the Divine Name, by Japa Sadhana, by prayer which is offered in the form of actual articulation of voice or even mentally, or study of scriptures. All these constitute part of Upasana, adoration, the feeling of love for that which is supremely divine.

All this process will have to be carried on for a considerable period of time in order that the fickleness of the mind may be subdued. Otherwise, if you give scant attention to this difficulty in the mind, you will find that you will not be able to appreciate the methodology prescribed in the Upanishads for the realization of the Atman. You will not only not be able to do this, you will also have a difficulty in even knowing why this meditation is carried on at all. Because many people honestly feel or may feel a difficulty in knowing what will happen to them after attaining God. Everybody knows that one has to attain God, but what will happen to you afterwards? You cannot answer this question easily because you have still a defective understanding of what you are, and therefore there is a defect persisting even in your attempt to know what will happen to you at that time. However, by protracted practice of Upasana, by worship, by Japa Sadhana, by Svadhya, by Jnana, and your own notion of God whatever that notion may be, the fickleness of the mind comes down. It will be attentive afterwards.

After having sufficiently undergone this discipline by which the distraction of the mind is subdued and also the impulse towards sense objects is curbed, you can become a good student of the Upanishadic philosophy.

In the Upanishads, three disciplines are mentioned which are equivalent to what I mentioned to you as Karma, Bhakti and Jnana, namely sacrifice, austerity, and Gurupasakti, approaching a master for teaching. Sacrifice in ancient Vedic terminology meant, of course, the offering of holy oblations in sacred fire, but sacrifice may also mean offering mentally anything that you would like to dedicate to God. There can be externally performed sacrifice or Yajna, or a mentally conceived Yajna or sacrifice. You can be charitable by a gesture outside, or you can be charitable in your own feeling. A charitable feeling is more important than a charitable gesture. I am not trying to dilate upon the subject of sacrifice now, as many of you may know what it actually means, and also as it is not the main subject of our study.

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To be continued ....

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