KATHOUPANISHAD - 69. Swami Advayananda.

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Thursday 14, November 2024, 06:45.
KATHA UPANISHAD  
Part 2 – Total 49 Mantras 
Chapters 2.1, 2.2 & 2.3 
Chapter 2.1: (15 Mantras) 
INTELLECT – INDIVIDUAL INTELLIGENCE 
Mantram:  2.1.3: The Cogniser of Sense Experiences 
Post - 69.

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INTELLECT – INDIVIDUAL INTELLIGENCE: 

Nachiketas’s third boon is now being answered directly. The Self, which Nachiketas asked about, is being explained in three verses from the level of the individual human 

intellect as the Knowing Principle. We begin with its involvement with the senses.  

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Mantram:  2.1.3: The Cogniser of Sense Experiences: 

1 

Yena roopam rasam gandham = By whatever form, taste, smell, 

2 

shabdaan sparshaan cha maithunaan; = sound, touch and sexual joy one encounters – 

3  

etena eva vijaanaati = it is by That alone that they are cognized. 

4

kim atra parishishyate. = What is their unknowable to That in this world? 

5 

Etat vai tat. = This is verily That (This is the Mahavakya of this text)! 

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The Sense Experience:

 1-2

 The five senses can be experienced individually or in combination with each 

other. A unique experience of all five senses combined together occurs in sexual union, 

which is why it has been specifically added to the list. Who is the experiencer of these? 

3

 It is the Self which experiences all the objects through the senses. The real Knower 

of this world of objects is the inner Experiencer, the Self. 

4

 There is nothing that is unknowable to the Self, as It is Consciousness itself.  

5

This line is the Mahavakya or statement of identity of the Katha Upanishad,. 

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The Bhashya raises the possibility of an objection to this statement: “When we 

experience the objects, we do so through the mind and the body. How can we say that it is 

experienced by another factor called Self? There can be no such thing.” 

The reply given to this is that the body itself is one of the objects of the world. It is 

part of the “Shabda, Sparsha, etc” sense experience. It cannot know itself. There has to be 

another entity that knows it – that entity is the Self, through the human intellect.

*****

Next

Mantram-2.1.4:  Witness of the Three States 

Continued

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