The Mundaka Upanishad: 9 - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Friday 20, June 2025, 06:10.
Books
The Mundaka Upanishad: 9. 
The Third Mundaka: 
First Khanda
Mantras: 3&4
Swami Krishnananda.

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Mantram - No. 3:

When the knowing individual has the vision of the intelligent creator, the Lord, the Purusha, the Brahman which is the source of all, then it shakes off both merit and demerit, and having become taintless, attains to supreme equality with the Lord.

In this Mantra, the Lord is designated as having a golden hue, which means that His nature of Knowledge is eternally inherent in Him even as the colour of gold is something inherent in it. It points to the self-luminous nature of God, whose characteristics are imperishable, which fact is hinted at by the unaffected colour of gold. It is also said that the individual should have the fit perception, i.e., it should have the ability to perceive the universal Being. To the individual is attributed the quality of knowingness which is the knowledge of the Supreme Being achieved after the acquisition of the power of correct discrimination.

Divine knowledge is free from the conception of good and bad, because this knowledge is non-relative. It is an all-consuming wisdom in which relative natures or conceptions can have no value. Distinctions like virtue, vice, good, bad, high, low, etc., are made only as long as the all-comprehensive knowledge, which underlies all these distinctions, is not realised. The effects of merit and demerit are burnt up by the fire of knowledge, because these effects are only conceptual and not spiritual. They exist only as long as the mind exists. When the mind is transcended, they too are transcended. The whole universe stands transfigured in the Absolute. The Jiva becomes free from blemishes, attachments and sorrows, and gets unified with the Supreme Being. Equality with the Infinite is the same as identity with the Infinite, which is of the nature of non-duality, limitless and unsurpassable. Equality of objects which have different characteristics is only a mental imagination and not a fact. But the equality of identical natures encompassing the whole existence is the experience of an indivisible unified whole.

Mantram - No 4:

In all beings this one supreme life manifests itself. Knowing this, the wise one does not speak of anything else. Having his sport in the Self, bliss in the Self, and action in the Self, he is the best among the knowers of Brahman.

One who realises this Supreme Being as one's own Self, ceases from his natural sense-functions and puts an end to all speech unconnected with the Self. Rather, he does not speak at all. Speech is a manner of connecting one thing with another thing. In Self-realisation, the relationship of the subject with the object is transcended and all things become the Self Itself. Whenever there is a perception of duality, speech has got a value, but in non-duality all such relationships lose their value. Instead of the experiences of the external relationships, the knower has the experience of Self-identity. This experience of the Self is described in the form of finding everything that is found externally, in one's own Self Itself. The statements regarding sporting in the Self or finding all bliss in the Self make it clear that the highest form of happiness is realised without any contact with any object or any condition. Real bliss is not the effect of either mental or physical contact, but is the result of the absence of all contacts. In short, bliss consists in the resolution of the very sense of objectivity into the conscious subject. The action of the knower consists in the knowledge of the Self. Self-delight itself is action for him. It is a simple mass of bliss that he experiences, unhampered by any function alien to the nature of the Self. Sankara points out that the action of the knower is of the nature of renunciation, meditation and wisdom.

The Mantra does not imply that the knower performs any function. It only glorifies the state of the realisation of the Self by resorting to figurative descriptions of his greatness. The possibility of the combination of action with knowledge is denied by the fact of his being the highest among the knowers of Brahman. The Brahma Varishtha is the one who is in the seventh state of knowledge where his ego is totally merged in the Absolute. It is quite evident that external bodily action with personal consciousness cannot be in conformity with Absolute Knowledge. It is not possible for a person to sport in the Self or have delight in the Self and at the same time concern himself with relative action. Self-Knowledge is possible only after withdrawing oneself from all external functions, physical as well as mental. The consciousness of externality and internality cannot be simultaneous, even as darkness and light do not exist in the same place.

Therefore, the contention that it is possible to combine action with Absolute Knowledge is only the prattle of the ignorant. The Upanishads have constantly declared that true Knowledge is obtained through renunciation of all external functions and through meditation on the Absolute. The Brahma Varishtha, therefore, is one who has realised Brahman and whose action consists in Self-Knowledge preceded by renunciation of external consciousness.

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Next
Mantra No. 5:
Continued

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