The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads - 6.3 - Swami Krishnananda.

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

Wednesday 06, Mar 2024 07:00.

Chapter 6: Some Light on Yoga Practice-3.

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

When we say there is an object outside, we make a confusion of characters. There is the object that exists as anything else also exists. This character of existence, or being, is general. I exist, you exist, this exists, that exists. But the name and the form, the shape and the contour, etc., are different. This shape of mine has risen on account of the space and time factors interfering with the being that I am. There is a ball of clay or mud, which is the substance. It takes the shape as a pot or a vessel. A vessel can be many shapes: it can be round, it can be oblong, it can be square, it can be anything. The substance of every type of pot is the same, the clay. This is the way in which Brahman exists in everything. The clay exists in every form of the pot, but the form of the pot cannot be identified with the substance. What we call the form is a peculiar indeterminable something which is not identical with clay, and yet not different from clay. The shape of the pot is what we call the pot, not the clay itself. When I say there is a vessel or a pot, what I actually speak of is the shape which the substance has taken; it is not the substance itself that I am referring to, because that substance is elsewhere also, not only here. This particular shape is the space-time factor involved in that substance we call clay. So the entire problem is due to space-time. It is not due to the substance as such.

Thus, the interference of the so-called factors of space-time in the substance of the Absolute is the cause of the manifestation we call this vast universe. Therefore, self-control, control of the senses, mind control, yoga practice, whatever it is, is not a withdrawal of the mind from the substance of the object, which is the selfhood of things, but from the name and the form which are the external characters of the object. The selfhood of the object is the same as the selfhood of ours. That is not the problem. The problem is the externality of it. Who told us that it is out there? The space makes us feel so. There is something called space. We do not know what space is, what time is. These are only some words that we are using to describe a thing which is ultimately unintelligible.

The space-time factor is nothing but a force of externality; that is all we can say about it. We cannot say anything more than that because it is involved in our experience. Space and time are part and parcel of our experience itself and, therefore, we cannot say anything about them. Yet, this much can be understood of them: They are expressional habits of the mind, they are the factors which pull consciousness in a particular direction called externality, and yoga practice is nothing but the subdual of the character of the mind from its movement in terms of space and time.

So the control of the mind, or withdrawal of the senses, is a very difficult task. It involves a herculean effort indeed, because it involves a very subtle understanding of what is expected to be done. There are many people who have a wrong notion of the nature of things. They think that to become a yogi or a seeker of Truth, one has to renounce things. We are always told by religions that we have to renounce things and the world in order to reach God. But we renounce the substance itself, together with the name and the form. This is a mistake arising on account of the incapacity of the mind to distinguish between the name and form, and the existence as such.

*****

Continued

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