The Chhandogya Upanishad - 66: Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday 26, September 2024. 06:40.

Chapter 4: An Analysis of the Nature of the Self

Section 15: Parting Advice to the Pupil:

Mantram-1. (Continued)

Post-66.

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The great vow of the sannyasin is ahimsa, that he would never harm anyone. He is the embodiment of the great fearlessness that he extends to all living beings. No one will be afraid of seeing a sannyasin, for he will not do any harm or anything bad, as his heart has expanded beyond the limits of his own body and his family. The term anyatra tirthebhyah here used with reference to ahimsa means that it would be difficult to extend this obligation of non-injury in an unconditional manner on account of the fact that we live in a world. Various interpretations have been offered for this particular phrase. The usual meaning would be the sacrificial injunctions of the Brahmanas of the Vedas that the committing of himsa is forbidden everywhere except in prescribed places or prescribed occasions. 

The more generous interpretation of it, as is offered by many commentators, is that the prescribed occasions are those times or periods of activity when you are likely to commit some kind of harm to creatures inadvertently, as it were. It is not possible to live a life of such an extreme type of ahimsa on account of our not being aware many a time as to what we are doing. Of course the intention is not that you should consciously do any harm. Unconsciously harm is done. This is done particularly by the householders because of their living in a house having a kitchen with a fire place, a water place, a grinding place, a broom, etc., where insects, flies and the like are likely to be crushed and killed inadvertently. 

Various other occasions also are there in life which cannot be recounted here when you are likely to cause unconsciously harm to living beings. These of course are excluded, if they are unconsciously done. But they can be expiated by the intense sadhana which the sannyasin is expected to perform in the purely internal spiritual life that he lives full of proper meditation.

The whole of one's life should be lived like this. The moment one becomes conscious of the goal of one's life, then it is up to one to see that one's every activity is somehow or other reconciled with this goal. One should not do any incompatible thing against one's own conscience and against the purpose that one has on hand. Thus it is that it is necessary to have one's entire life transformed into a spiritual art and complete dedication.

Often it is said that the last thought is the determining factor of one's future fate. The last thought that may come to the mind at the time of death is the fruit of this tree of the long life that one has lived in this world. We know very well that the fruit cannot be different from the nature of the tree. So, the last thought cannot be something quite contrary to or different from the various impressions produced in the mind by the continuous thoughts that it was entertaining throughout life. And if one has to have this spiritual ideal maintained in one's consciousness at the time of departing, then it has to be maintained as a discipline throughout one's life.

Thus, one reaches the great abode of the Creator, Brahma-loka, from whence there is no return. Once we go there, we will not come back. This is very frightening to many people. They interject: "We don't come back! Is it like entering into a lion's den!" We need not enter into this subject, because it looks very funny that after studying the whole Upanishad we have an uncanny fear that God will swallow us and we will have no occasion to come back. The question of coming back does not arise because we become one with the universal Reality. This going and coming are only ways of speaking in this phenomenal world. What happens is actually a union of consciousness with the All-Being, the Absolute.

Continued

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