Introduction to the Upanishads : 8. Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2022. 20:15.

Post-8.

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Austerity is very important. Tapas is the pre-eminent prescription of the Upanishads for self-control, which means actually the inhibition or abstraction of the tendency of the mind to move towards things other than the self. Austerity or Tapas can be performed or carried on gradually by systematic adoption of graduated methods. The first thing you can do in your life towards performance of austerity is avoidance of luxury and go-lucky attitude. Have or keep with you only those things which are necessary for you, and don't keep those things which are not essential for a reasonably comfortable existence. This is the first step that you can take in austerity. Something is necessary for you under certain given conditions, okay, granted. But more than that you need not ask for. Eating, sleeping and comforts of any kind have to be within the limit of the exigency that you feel under the conditions that you are living, for the work that you are doing, etc, etc, and beyond the limit you need not go. This is the first step that you may take towards austerity.

Austerity is physical, verbal and mental. You have to be restrained not only in your physical appurtenances but also in the words that you speak and the acts that you do. That is, it should not cause any kind of disharmony, incongruity in the atmosphere, and towards that end you may manipulate and adjust yourself ably for being a humane individual, a good person, in the sense that your presence does not cause conflict with anyone. In eating and in other well-known comforts of life, you maintain a minimum to the extent that it is absolutely essential. Here also a note of caution has to be exercised, namely, austerity does not mean torture of the body, nor does it mean indulgence. The path of the spirit is a via media; the golden mean is the path of spirituality.

We have the well-known incident often cited by people in connection with the event that took place in the life of Buddha, or perhaps it is also connected with Raja Janaka's life. Some angels were playing a stringed instrument and they were saying, "Tune not the sitar too high nor too low. If the string of the sitar is tuned too high, it will not give music, it may even snap. If it is too low, it will make a dull humming sound, it will not give music." Neither this extreme nor that extreme is the path of the spirit. Any kind of suffering is to be avoided. Over-indulgence also is to be avoided. Therefore, austerity is also a cautious exercise of one's demeanor in respect of one's own self as well as in respect of others.

So the Upanishad prescribes sacrifice, Yajna, as one method or means of self-discipline, and the other method being austerity, self-control. Self-control is actually taking all necessary steps available for oneself to enable the mind to fix its attention on the root of its own existence, the Self that is behind the mind, the real you that is so valuable to you. When it is a question of yourself, you would like to abandon everything else for the sake of yourself, meaning thereby that the importance that you attach to yourself, for some reason or other, surpasses the importance that one feels to anything else in the world.

So, sacrifice and austerity; and then you have the most important teaching again, the third one, study under a teacher, a competent master who has trodden the path, who knows the pitfalls, who knows the difficulties, who acts like a physician with you. With these methods the dirt of the mind is scrubbed off, the fickleness is brought down, and the veil covering the Atman is lifted gradually, and the light of the sun of the Pure Spirit will shed its radiance automatically from within one's own self; knowledge will arise from within you. This is why it is said when you know yourself, you know everything. Know thyself and be free: Atmanam vidhi.

End.

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