Introduction to the Upanishads - 6. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday 23, June 2024 06:00.
Article
Scriptures
Post-6.

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The great master said, "All this that you have learned is only a word; you have not gone to the depths of things – the Atman has not been studied. You have only collected words, names, information about the outer structure of things, the name and the form complex of things has been made available to you by your studies that you have enumerated just now, as a series of learnings."

Likewise in the Upanishads we have instances of great seekers humbly moving towards sages and saints for the purpose of making themselves fit to receive this knowledge. Even after achieving considerable success in purifying the mind of this dross of the tendency of the mind to move in the direction of objects of sense, by duty, by service, unselfish work, the mind will refuse to concentrate on this subject. It has, as I mentioned, very fleeting ideas, one is this that I have been enumerating just now.

The other is incapacity to fix itself on anything for a long time. You try to think of something for a long time, continuously – let us see what happens. Go on looking at this tree and thinking this tree only and nothing else, after a few minutes you will think of another tree nearby. You will think of the mountain in front. You will look at the river; you will look at all the buildings, and people moving about. Distraction is another malady of the mind. How will consciousness rest itself in its pure subjectivity which is the Atman if this fickleness continues for a long time and then makes it impossible for one to be aware of anything other than what it outside?

But there is a greater danger, namely, the inability to know why this discipline is to be undergone at all. What for is all this study, Sir, finally? What do I gain? You bring a business mentality once again – what do I gain by way of profit? The mind of the human being is made in such a way that it will not undertake any kind of work, project or activity unless it is told that something will follow. This is exactly what the Bhagavadgita has condemned – you should not expect anything to follow from the pure subjectivity aspect of the work because that which follows, as it were, is a futurity which you are trying to inject into the presence. You are creating a conflict between the present and the future. Naturally there is a difference between the present and the future when you think of the future possibility of the attainment or obtaining an objective far ahead in time as a fruit accruing to the work that you are at this moment doing at the present. But the Atman is a present, it is not a future.

The reason or the rationale behind this study, this activity, is something beyond reason itself. The reason behind the need for study for the nature of the nature of the Atman – you have to say this reason is super-rational. What can be more important than your own self? Is any burden of material value superior to your own existence? Has the world any meaning minus you? Let your existence be isolated completely. You will find that the world will stand as a series of zeros or ciphers unless there is a single stroke of a figure that makes sense and which is the Atman who does things.

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Continued

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