Lessons on the Upanishads -1.8: Swami Krishnananda.

 

Swami Chinmayananda: 

Beware of the two W’s: Wealth and Women, warns Shri Adi Shankaracharya! 

These two while they can bring pleasure but can also lead one to sorrow and suffering. 

Spiritual seekers, heed Adi Shankara’s advice to avoid these pitfalls and find true inner peace. 

Swipe to read his timeless wisdom. 

To purchase this book, comment ‘Bhaja Govindam’.

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

Sunday 26, May 2024. 07:10.
Upanishads
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Upanishads-8.
Post-8.

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

This is a fact you will recognise by an analysis of deep sleep. The body and mind are excluded from awareness or cognition in the state of deep sleep. Do you exist only partially in deep sleep, or do you exist entirely? If your body and mind are really a part of you, when they are isolated from your consciousness in deep sleep, you would be only fifty percent or twenty-five percent; and when you wake up from sleep, you would get up as a twenty-five percent individual, and not as a whole person. But you wake up as a whole person. Therefore, the wholeness of your true essence need not include the body and the mind. This is what is meant by the word 'Spirit'. Because of the difficulties in understanding what it is, mostly you think that the Spirit is inside, the Atman is inside, God is inside; everything is inside. But inside what? When you utter the word 'inside', you do not know what exactly you mean. Does it mean that the Spirit is inside the body? If that is the case, are you inside yourself? Are you inside your body? Just think over this absurdity in defining your own Self as something inside yourself. “I am inside myself.” Can you say that?

These are some of the difficulties that are faced in understanding the Upanishadic doctrine, which is why the Upanishads are not intended to be taught to the public. We should not shout the Upanishads in a marketplace. Great teachers used to communicate this knowledge only to great students. The students also must be equally great. Electricity can pass only through a high-tension copper wire; it cannot pass through a rope which is made of coir. So, every person cannot become a fit student for the Upanishads. Years and years of tapasya were prescribed to the students. Unless you are hungry, food cannot be digested. Similarly, if you have not got the appetite to receive this knowledge, nothing will go inside you.

When you search for the Spirit of the world as a whole, the Spirit of your own Self, when you search for your Self, you conclude there is no need in searching for anything else. Here is the condition that you have to fulfil before studying the Upanishads. Do you want only your Self as the true Spirit, commensurate with the Spirit of the universe, or do you want many other things also? Those who want many other things are not fit students of the Upanishadic or even the Bhagavadgita philosophy, because the Upanishads and the Gita take you to the very essence of things, which is the Reality of all things. When you get That, attain That, reach That, identify yourself with That, you will not have to ask for anything else. It is like the sea of Reality, and nothing is outside it. But if desire still persists—a little bit of pinching and a discovery of a frustration, and emotional tension: “Oh, I would like to have this”—and it is harassing you, then you had better finish with all your desires. You should fulfil all your requirements and not come to the Upanishadic teacher with the disease of a frustrated, unfulfilled desire.

Teachers used to prescribe many years tapas—in the form of self-control—to students. That is why in ancient days the students were required to stay with the teacher for so many years. What do you do for so many years? Pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya (Gita 4.34): “Every day prostrating yourself before that person—questioning, studying and serving.” This is what you do with the Master. This process should continue for years until you are perfectly chastened and purified of all the dross of worldliness—earthly longings, all rubbish of things. These must be washed out completely and like a clean mirror, you approach the teacher; then, whatever knowledge is imparted to you will reflect in your personality as sunlight is reflected in a mirror. Thus, you receive something in depth in the Upanishads.

The last portion, Vedanta, is also the name given to the Upanishads. Anta means the inner secret, the final word of the Veda or the last portion of the Veda—whatever is one's way of defining it. The quintessence, the final word, the last teaching of the Veda is the Upanishad, and beyond that there is nothing to say. When one knows That, one has known everything. Thus, these are the four sections of each of the four Vedas—Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda—known as Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, Upanishad.

*****

Next

Chapter 2: The Problem in Understanding the Upanishads

Continued

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