The Secret of the Katha Upanishad -27. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Friday 03, January 2025, 12:10.
Upanishads:
The Secret of the Katha Upanishad: 
Discourse No. 5
Swami Krishnananda.
Post - 27.

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The difficulty of the practice of yoga, the way of the Spirit, lies in this central enigma of our not having any knowledge of what has befallen us, where we stand actually at this present moment, and what is required of us for our true freedom. There are several layers of our bondage. The bondage is not only external, but also internal. It is woven into our texture like a carpet that is knit with various layers of thread. It is wide, and also thick. If you remove one layer, you will find another layer underneath it. There is an organic complication, as it were, in the bondage which is part of us. The practice of yoga is, thus, not a straight movement towards a given point or a target in front of us. It is a winding process, sometimes a circular motion, occasionally with forward and backward steps, and with ascents and descents. It is like entry into the chakravyuha, the impregnable fortress described in the Mahabharata. One does not know how to enter it, and if anyone enters it, he does not know how to come out of it. Such is the difficulty involved in the practice of the path of the Spirit, the way of the Atman.

The bondage understood, we shake up our being from the mire of ignorance, and we place the first step on the initial rung of yoga. The hundreds of implications in this woven structure of human bondage are difficult to describe in an 'open book' fashion. We shall confine ourselves to the aspects that are touched upon by the Upanishad, in this context.

The first step, according to the Upanishad, in the mantra cited, is a withdrawal of the senses, such as speech, etc.—all the senses of knowledge and action—into the mind. But this is not all. The instruction goes further. The mind has to be settled in the intellect (jnana-atman). The intellect is then to be set in tune with the Cosmic Intelligence (Mahat-atman). This Cosmic Function should get settled in Cosmic Being (Shanta-atman). Here, Being, Consciousness, Freedom, Bliss are all one, indivisible essence (Akhanda-Ekarasa- Satchidananda).

yada pancavatishante jnanani manasa saha,

buddhis ca na vicestati, tam ahuh paramam gatim.

The intelligent one, the discriminative seeker, should introvert the senses in such a way that they stand in unison with the substance of the mind. The mind and the senses, though they work in collaboration with each other, are not identical in their function. The difference in their activities lies in the fact that while the mind can contemplate spatial and temporal objects independently of the functions of the senses, the senses require space and time and externality for their activity. Also, they cannot work unless the mind is actively associated with them. There is a specialty in the working of the senses, the specialty being that they cannot move inward to the subjective centre, but are always accustomed to move outward to the object. So, you will never be able to make them contemplate themselves or meditate upon the source on which they have they're very being. The senses are the forms of the mind itself. We may say, to give a working example, the senses are to the mind what the rays are to the sun or the light of the sun. 

The analogy is not complete, but there is some similarity in this illustration. As there is a jetting forth of rays from the orb of the sun, there is a projection of force from the psychological organ, the antahkarana, in the form of sensory activity. The mind itself becomes the senses when it contacts objects. The senses are the mind thinking external forms. So, the first step, according to this mantra of the Upanishad, in the practice of yoga, is the attempt on the part of the seeker to block the avenues of the senses, so that the mind is not channelised towards objects but stands self-controlled, self-subdued and centered in itself. The five senses mingle with the mind in a blend of unified function; the intellect does not flicker with desire or distraction; there is a feeling of wholeness, then, in oneself. This is the yoga of meditation. 

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Continued

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