Commentary on the Isa Vasya Upanishad: 9. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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

Sunday 15, June 2025, 07:45.
Article
Scriptures
Commentary on the Isa Vasya Upanishad: 9
Part-2-2
Swami Krishnananda
POST: 9.

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

Similar is the case with every kind of action, every work, every event, every occurrence. The omnipresence of the Ultimate Reality, about which the first verse of the Upanishad told us so much, and on which we dilated a little bit earlier, implies that everything has to move towards it. We noticed that every part that belongs to a whole is not only conditioned by the nature of the whole to which the parts belong, but the whole also determines the very function and the manner of the working of the parts. I mentioned last time the analogy of the working of the physiological organs. The characteristic of our physical body as a whole will decide how each limb of the body will work. The parts of the body are conditioned by the intentions of the whole.

Likewise, is the activity that takes place in all creation. It is not that only human beings work. There is activity taking place in all levels, subhuman as well as superhuman. In the Bhagavadgita, again, we have this statement, that neither on earth nor in heaven can we find anything that is free from the operation of the properties of prakriti, known as gunas. 

“Na tad asti prithivyam va divi devesu va punah, 
sattvam prakriti-jair muktam yad ebhih syat tribir gunaih." (Gita 18.40). 

The propulsion to work, is the cause originating from the rajasic quality of prakriti. The stability that we sometimes experience in our life, is the work of the tamas of prakriti. The balancing of forces between rajas and tamas, is sattva. All that is born, gods in heaven, human beings on earth, whatever be the created being, everything is composed of these three gunas.

Sattva, rajas and tamas are not merely abstract qualities, like the colour of a rose or the whiteness of a flower. These three gunas, as they are called, are properties of the very substance of the world. They constitute the brick and mortar of all things, living as well as non-living. The weight of the body, its substantiality, is the tamas thereof. The agitation, causing impulsion to movement of any kind, is the rajas there. And any kind of satisfaction that we feel in our mind, is the sattva prevalent in the mind. If we are always agitated and there is no satisfaction of any kind, we are never happy at any moment of the day, it will mean that there is no sattva working; only rajas are active. But if we feel sleepy and lethargic and very heavy in our personality, it will mean that tamas is predominant.

Sattva, rajas and tamas being the constituents of the human individuality, they propel the individual to work and act in a particular direction. It is impossible for the rajas element to keep quiet without some movement; the element of rajas in our personality will compel us to act. 

"Na hi kascit kshanam api jatu tisthaty akarmakrt, 
karyate hy avaśah karma sarvah prakrti-jair guniah." (Gita 3.5.)

Everyone shall move. The atom shall move, the sand particle shall move, the solar system shall move, the planets shall move, every cell of the body shall move. Why shall they move? The reason is the constitution of the universe itself. The centre of the universe is like a magnet, which pulls everything towards itself.

We have estranged ourselves from God. The fall of the individual from the 'Garden of Eden', the headlong sinking into empirical existence, samsara, mortality, is the upside-down vision of the individual, opposed to the vision of the Universal. The separation of man from God is the cause behind every kind of work. The necessity to work, the need for action, arises on account of the restlessness of the psychophysical individuality, caused by the isolation of it, the finitude of it, and its aspiration for breaking through the fortress of this finite individuality.

*****

Continued

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