The Secret of the Katha Upanishad: 1 - Swami Krishnananda

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Friday, 12 Jan 2024 06:30.

Discourse No. 1

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Om saha navavatu; saha nau bhunaktu;

saha viryam karavavahai;

tejasvi navadhitamastu;

mā vidvishavahai;

Om santih; santih; santih!!!

Om! May He protect us both, (the teacher and the taught). May He cause us both to enjoy protection. May we both exert to find out the true meaning of the scriptures. May we never quarrel with each other. Let there be threefold Peace. Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!

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It is the wish of several seekers who have come to participate in the Sadhana Week this year that during this holy occasion a concise presentation be made of the principles expounded in the great Vedic scripture, known as the Katha Upanishad. The purpose of so many sadhakas coming from long distances to this sacred abode at the foot of the Himalayas is obvious, viz. to gain a knowledge of the secret of life and gain also an access into the mysteries in which our life seems to be involved. The aim and mission of your visit to this sacred abode is naturally, as it ought to be, the revelation or the unfoldment of the entanglement of your personality, the involvements of your life, and to return with a newer type of enlightenment about that which you are, and that which involves you or in which you are involved.

Our life itself is the subject of study in the Katha Upanishad. Our life is a beautiful pattern of various threadwork woven dexterously by an expert Maker of all things, such that one cannot easily or intelligibly comprehend how it is made or why it is made. We often, as human beings, take life for granted, as if it is an open book before us. We regard our life as a clear presentation like daylight and go headlong along the business of our daily activities under the impression that things are perfectly perspicuous and we have simply to act on the thought that occurs to our mind. This is an unfortunate assumption on the part of the human being. The cloth of life is spread before us, but it is not a flat surface as we imagine it to be.

In ancient times, it is said, most people imagined the world or the earth to be a flat surface; the sun rose and the sun set, illumining a perfectly flat surface of the earth, not knowing that it was round like a ball or something like that. It was also thought that the sun revolved round the earth; the sun was smaller than the size of the earth, not knowing that the revolution of the planetary system is a highly complicated involvement of powers and forces not easily reducible either merely to the sun or the planets as the earth. Today astronomy, the science of the existence and the operation of the planets and the stellar system, is known to be a highly complicated structure of forces rather than of things. Likewise we, with a crass perception of visible objects, mistaking objects seen with our senses for what they appear to be, rush like fools where even angels fear to tread. The consequence is that we are caught in the grip of unknown powers and forces. As monkeys are caught with the help of rope-nets spread to divert them into a mistaken idea of food being spread for them for their maintenance, likewise, the Maker of things seems to have spread out before us a pattern we call the world which we mistake for a heaven of enjoyment for our senses; but when we rush into it we are caught, and then it would be too late for us to repent.

Everyone has been caught in this network of things called the world, right from creation up to the present day, and we have no reason to believe that the future generation will not be so caught. The pattern of life is not merely a location of objects for our enjoyment, for our likes and dislikes. The pattern of existence is a tremendously well thought-out involvement, externally as well as internally. The more we probe into the mystery and the structure of this involvement of the world, the more we begin to admire the wisdom of the Maker of things. It is not a simple structure. It is not a small ball of earth we call the planet on which we merely live like ants crawling on the surface of a ball. The world, our life, is more subtle and more involved in various ways than our intelligence can permit us to understand.

This mystery is the subject of the Katha Upanishad, which is generally defined as the mystery of death and the mystery of life. Well! Both mean one and the same thing if we understand them carefully. Life and death are identical. They are two aspects of one and the same event that takes place. This mystery of life, or the mystery of death as you would like to call it, is the secret of the Katha Upanishad; and side by side it is also a revelation of the mystery of the whole of existence, the mystery of you, the mystery of me and the mystery of everyone else, the mystery of your deeds, the mystery of the reactions of your actions, the mystery of the consequences of what you do and suffer and enjoy, the mystery of God Himself.

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To be continued

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