The Kathopanishad-1. Swami Krishnananda

========================================================================

Tuesday, 30 May, 2023. 09:00.

Post-1.

======================================================================== 

There are incidents that caused the ascent of the student Nachiketas to the Lord of Death, Yama, and how he could not meet the Lord when he went there, and for three days he had to stand at the gates of the palace of Yama, not eating and not sleeping, I hope you remember from the previous session. After three days the great master returned and asked for pardon, “My dear boy, you are an atithi, a guest come to my place, and unfortunately I had to make you stand here without eating and sleeping for three days and nights. As a recompense for this pain that I have caused to you unwittingly, I ask you to choose three boons from me.” The boy Nachiketas said, “I am glad that you have offered to give me three boons.” “Yes, please ask.”

“Now I shall ask for the first boon. When I return to the world from your abode, may I be received with affection by my father, by the world, by everyone.” This boon has also a special, mystical significance. Though the words of the Upanishad are couched in some sort of an epic, mythological style, the borderland of universal knowledge is the death of the human personality. The great Lord Yama, here in the context of the Upanishadic teaching, may be regarded as the Lord over the borderland between the empirical and the transcendental realms. Death is the greatest teacher. Ordinarily even the very notion of death shakes our personality, and we learn the wisdom of life only when we are on the verge of dying. Until that time we are mostly ignoramuses. When we are drowning in water and there is no hope of coming out, when death is immanent and there are only a few more minutes left, or we have lost everything that we considered as our own, at that time we learn the wisdom of life. When everything is gone and nothing remains – even the ground under our feet is shaking – at that time we know what life is made of and what the wisdom of life is.

When Nachiketas asked for this boon as a student of the highest mysticism conceivable, we may understand from this request of Nachiketas that when we return to the world after the attainment of the wisdom of life, the world becomes a friend. At present the world is not our friend – it stands outside us as a glaring, tearing reality of which we have very little knowledge. The world is very heavily sitting on us; too much is this world for us, many a time. We dread it. We cannot consider anything in the world as our real friend because it has its own laws and regulations, and we are obliged to obey these laws and regulations. It compels us to obey its dictates and mandates. But it suddenly changes its colour and becomes part and parcel of our personal life. The jivanmukta is the name that we give to the transmuted personality of the spiritual seeker. Nachiketas may be regarded as a jivanmukta, especially having contacted that great master of knowledge, Yama himself. “When I return to the world after having seen you, the abode of wisdom, may the world receive me with affection. May there be nothing dissonant, incongruent, disharmonious in this world, and may there be a communion of spirits and purposes between me and the world.” This boon is granted at one stroke. “Yes,“ said Yama. “It is a simple thing for me. You shall have what you asked for. Now ask for a second boon.”

The second boon is something more complicated. It is deeper than the one mentioned earlier. “I have heard,“ said Nachiketas, “that there is a mystery called Vaishvanara, having known which, one becomes all-knowing, omniscient. May I be blessed with this boon.” “Yes, I shall initiate you into this mystery of the supreme wisdom of the Vaishvanara, the Universal Reality.” The necessary initiation process was carried out.

“Now ask for the third boon.” This was a crucial issue that Nachiketas raised when he asked for the third boon. “What happens to the soul after death – after the death of this body, or it may be after the death of the individuality itself – in either case, what happens to the soul?“ While Yama, the Lord, was very eager and quick in the response to the questions of Nachiketas, in the case of the third question he was not willing to say anything. He said, “You should not ask this question. Nobody can understand what it is. The gods themselves have doubts about this matter. Therefore a young boy like you should not raise a question of this kind. Ask for better things – gold and silver, long life, health. The emperorship of the whole world, and a long life, as long as this world lasts, all the wealth of the world, all the glory, all the majesty and magnificence of an emperor of the world I shall grant you. Do not ask this question.”

*****

To be continued

=======================================================================