The Secret of the Katha Upanishad: 2 - Swami Krishnananda

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

Wednesday, 24 Jan 2024 06:30.

Discourse No. 1.

Post - 2.

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

We shall, during these few days before us, try to have a quintessential comprehension of this very interesting Upanishad—'Upanishad' which means the secret knowledge or the wisdom of life—and try to be blessed in our souls that our speaking as well as listening becomes a contemplation of a particular form, a meditation, veritably, by which I pray and I wish that our souls may be lifted up into a higher knowledge and experience.

The Katha Upanishad is one of the esoteric appendices to a section of the Vedas known as the Brahmanas. A particular Veda has a particular Brahmana and it has also a concluding esoteric exposition known as the Upanishad. The Katha Upanishad is such an esoteric, mystical, spiritual exposition appended to a Brahmana of the Krishna-Yajur-Veda. This Upanishad has within it implanted the wisdom of the entire life of man woven into a story of a great seeker of Reality we know as Nachiketas. This is the story of a great aspirant called Nachiketas; how this young lad aspired for the highest Reality of life and got an access into it through the working of mysterious forces.

The story that is the background of this exposition of the Upanishad is something like this—to give you in outline. There was a sage called Vajasravasa, known also as Gautama. He performed a yajna or a sacrifice called Vishvajit, a yajna or a sacrifice by which he aspired to enter the heaven of the gods. This sacrifice was of a very peculiar nature which demanded of the performer that he gave in charity everything that he possessed, dear and near. This Vishvajit sacrifice known as the sarvavedasa yajna was performed by Gautama or Vajasravasa, the sage. In this yajna, through which performance he aspired to enjoy the pleasures of the heaven of the gods, he gave in charity as philanthropy everything that he possessed. 

All his belongings were given in charity—everything, whatever be the value of that possession—because that was the requisition of the yajna. Everything was given, and given, and given, nothing was left. Every day he began to give in charity all his possessions. This great sage known as Vajasravasa had also a son, perhaps the only son, known as Nachiketas. This unlettered boy, perhaps, untutored, simple, unsophisticated, observed this wonderful ritualistic performance of the Vishvajit sacrifice by his father, went on seeing everything being given—'all things are going'. All the wealth of the sage was being given. Those days cattle were regarded as a great wealth. The cattle wealth was held to be real wealth. 

All the multitude of the cattle belonging to the sage were given in charity, but unfortunate it was to the sensitive mind of the poor lad Nachiketas, he began to observe that these cattle were famished. They were only skeletons. Such cows were being given in charity—the cows which had drunk their water for the last time, which had eaten their grass for the last time, which were not going to calve again, which were without any strength in the body and were tottering with their poor legs. “Oh! Such charity is being given by my father!” The boy had no guts to speak but something urged him to speak forth his feelings. The sensitive lad spoke out his inner heart and called out to his father, “Father, you give everything that belongs to you. I am your son. Perhaps I too belong to you. To whom do you propose to give me in charity? 

Because in this sacrifice you have to offer everything that belongs to you, and inasmuch as a son also seems to be a property of the father to some extent, evidently you think of giving me also. To whom do you want to give me?” The father had no idea of giving the son in charity to anyone. It was the last thing that he could imagine. The father paid a deaf ear to the words of the son. He said nothing. The second time the son asked the same question, “To whom do you want to give me, father?” 

He did not say anything. He was wroth. “Oh, this boy is butting in and impertinently putting me a question!” When a third time the boy asked the same question, the father responded, “To hell you go.” This is what we generally say when we are irate. And he said, “To death I give you.” He was angry. “Oh, I see! You give me to death.” The boy went on thinking, “What has death to do with me, death presided over by Yama? I am being sent to him. What has Yama, the Lord of Death, to do with me? I do not understand.”

To be continued

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