Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad - 23. Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday 29, Feb 2024 06:30.

SCRIPTURES

UPANISHADS

ISAVASYA UPANISHAD

Post-23.

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Mantras 9 to 11.

Into dense darkness they enter, who worship avidya, into greater darkness, as it were, they enter, who worship vidya. The results achieved through the worship of vidya and avidya are different from each other. One who knows vidya and avidya together crosses over death through avidya and becomes immortal through vidya. Avidya is lack of knowledge of the Self, giving rise to desire and action. It is ignorance which extends through various degrees in the world of manifestation. Absence of Self-knowledge always expresses itself as a desire or a wish for something external, whether seen or unseen. The experiences of those who believe in the reality of these phenomenal worlds are always negative and objective. They try their best to develop relationships and contacts with the objects of these worlds, thinking that they can acquire perfect happiness thereby. All contacts end in sorrow, all actions give rise to perishable fruits. Nothing that is the result of the struggle of the ego is long-lasting. Therefore, people who worship and love the world and its contents enter into dense darkness, viz., death after death. Their experiences are painful because of the lack of the light of knowledge. But, there is one advantage in this state of ignorance, viz., the absence of egoism. There is opportunity for these ignorant ones to rise to higher states, if only they get proper guidance. They have no egoism because their intellect is not developed. They follow merely the instincts of nature.

Those who worship vidya, i.e., the knowledge of different divinities or celestial beings, appear to fall into greater darkness. They have knowledge, and hence egoism, too. Here knowledge does not mean the knowledge of Brahman, but lower, relative knowledge. Those who worship a celestial being, a divinity or God himself with form are led to the belief that their state is the all. Because what they aspire for is superior to the human region it appears as though it is good and worth coveting. In fact this knowledge is imperfect, capricious and perishable, because it is objective and not absolute. There is no hope of further rising up in the case of those who are satisfied with the present lot. This vidya is worse than avidya, because avidya at least produces pain and makes one understand that the present condition is unsatisfactory, while vidya deceives a person into the belief that he is perfect and there is no need for further progress. A little knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge. Those who are satisfied with the celestial region have to be reborn as individuals performing action for the attainment of happiness, because the effect of upasana or this lower knowledge has an end. One cannot rejoice in heaven eternally.

In this mantra and in the following two a combination of vidya and avidya is advised. This, however, does not mean that the knowledge of the Absolute can be combined with desires and actions that are the effects of ignorance. Action, being relative in its character, can be combined with relative knowledge and not with Absolute Knowledge. Relative knowledge means the effect of the upasana of a deity. Both karma and upasana require body-consciousness, without which they have no value. They cannot be combined with a knowledge that is all-pervading and therefore transcends the body. Objects belonging to the same class join together but not those belonging to different classes. Action therefore should be performed with the knowledge of its causes and effects with respect to one's progress in the path to perfection. The egoless state of ignorance and the illumination of knowledge combined together give rise to true knowledge which is egoless consciousness.

Performance of actions with the full knowledge that it is the law of life that manifests itself as action and therefore without any reason for the desire for the results of such actions makes one get disgusted with the world of actions, frees him from attachment and liberates him from the trammels of death. Through the knowledge of the divine being, viz., the divinity whose upasana is performed, one attains to that divinity, and opens the door to immortality. Upasana of any divinity, when it is performed with a desire to attain that divinity alone, gives one the temporary freedom of the attainment of that divinity, and later makes one take birth as an individual; but when action is combined with this knowledge, action becomes selfless. Action has got a quality of producing pain, and knowledge by nature is illuminating. When action is illuminated by knowledge, it becomes the source of the experience of pain born of viveka, not pain born of ignorance. Motiveless action combined with the knowledge of divinity does not cause one to revert to the mortal world, but allows one to attain krama-mukti or gradual liberation through the passage of that divinity of upasana. The highest divinity of upasana is Hiranyagarbha, the Cosmic Being, and the result of this upasana is the attainment of Hiranyagarbha. The upasaka reaches this state, and from there he passes onward to the Absolute, provided his upasana is not restricted to the region of Hiranyagarbha alone.

Therefore, a combination of karma and upasana is beneficial; it leads to krama-mukti; but when they are performed separately, they lead to their respective specified limited results, and make one take birth as an individual.

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Next

Mantras 12 to 14

Continued

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