The Secret of the Katha Upanishad: 11 - Swami Krishnananda.

Chinmaya Mission: 

 With remarkably simple teachings, Swami Shantananda concluded the 7-Day Srimad Ramayana Saptaha last week at Chinmaya Somnath, Pittsburgh. 

The community members were thanked for their attendance and participation in the festivities, which surely motivated all the volunteers to provide a wonderful experience for everyone. 

A mahatma once said that the greatest jewel of Rama was His simplicity. 

Inspired by this wisdom, everyone was encouraged to discover and cultivate the Rama within themselves.

These teachings emphasized the importance of acting on positive impulses without delay while allowing time to reconsider negative actions. 

This approach not only enriches individual lives but also fosters a more harmonious community. 

By embodying Rama's simplicity, everyone can contribute to a more compassionate and peaceful world. 

The event highlighted how such spiritual insights can guide people toward leading more fulfilling lives and creating a supportive and loving community.

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

Friday 24, May 2024 07:20.
Discourse No. 2-5&6
Post - 11.

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

2-5

The temptations which the scriptures speak of in our search for reality are nothing but the reactions set up by the desires of the mind and the senses. The desires are not exhausted even if there is a tentative discriminative faculty arisen in us. You may be aware of the existence of a higher reality which you have to aspire for—vivekashakti might have dawned in your mind, a sense of vairagya or dispassion for appearances also might be there—but this will not do. The personality of the human individual is deep, far deeper than what it appears on the surface. A withdrawal of oneself from physical contact with objects of sense does not mean renunciation, totally. If you abstain from physical contact with objects by living in a sequestered place, the desire for them will still remain. The liking for the objects of sense is a mental condition which is different from actual physical contact with the objects, so that even if you are in a holy place like Badrinath or Kedarnath, you may be contemplating in the mind the old pleasures that you have experienced and inwardly dream, “Oh! I am far from them”. The rasa or the taste for enjoyment does not cease, even if you are physically weaned away from objects. This is condemned in the Bhagavadgita as hypocrisy:

2-6

karmendriyni samyamya ya aste manasa smaran

indriy arthan vimudhatma mithacharah sa ucyate.

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

Futile is the attempt of that seeker who withdraws his physical senses from contact with objects in the name of vairagya or austerity but allows the mind inwardly to contemplate them in some form or the other. He will not succeed. A husband may be away from his wife, but thinking of his wife. The mother may be away from her son, but the mind is thinking of her son. This will not yield any benefit in the way of virtue. What you think in the mind is more important than what you physically come in contact with. Yoga is a mental process, a psychological effort; it is not a physical activity of the body. So, let us not mistake physical conduct for virtue or the otherwise of it. Man is mind, and mind is man. The study of mind is the study of man, and the study of man is the study of mind. Your physical features do not represent you wholly. A mere assessment of what takes place on the conscious level of our personality will not give us the knowledge of what we are essentially. The desires of the human being are buried deep beneath the conscious level. So, even if you are consciously free from desires, you cannot be free from them subconsciously. The subconscious seeds of an urge for sensory gratification set up reactions in the counterpart of the cosmos outside and come as temptations. What happened to Nachiketas will happen to everybody. What happened to Buddha will be our experience also, and everyone has to pass through the same 'strait gate' as the Christ put it.

Narrow is the passage to the Eternal. You cannot take your bag and baggage with you when you go there. You cannot take your purse with you. You cannot take your clothing, even. You cannot take even this body through that narrow gate. You have to drop everything. Such is the subtlety, such is the narrowness, such is the sharpness of that path—kshurasya dhara, as the Katha Upanishad would tell us. Like the sharp edge of a razor or the cutting point of a sword is the path of spirituality. Therefore, the more cautious you are in the understanding of your own nature, the better it is for you. The less arrogant you are, the better it is for you. An assumption of knowledge on the part of the human individual or a seeker of Truth is not going to help him in his pursuits. Humility is the first prerogative of a true search for knowledge. 

Vidya (knowledge) and vinaya (humility) go together, says the Bhagavadgita. But, unfortunately, the more is the learning, the more is also the arrogance of man today. You want a pedestal, a higher seat, because you are learned; but the path of God is different from the way of the world. Study the lives of great saints like St. Francis of Assisi, the great masterminds like the Alvars and Nayanars of our own country, great saints like Purandaradas, Tukaram—how they lived. They possessed nothing. They wanted nothing. They never craved for position and prestige or name, not even a thanking word from anybody. They were the lowest of individuals from the point of view of the human evaluation of values, but they were the greatest persons from the point of view of the higher values of life. It is difficult to tread the path of yoga. Nothing can be more difficult than this arduous struggle of the soul.

*****

Continued

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