Sunday, August 18, 2013

A Commentary on the Upanishads by Swami Nirmalananda Giri -1


















A Commentary
on the Upanishads
by
Swami Nirmalananda Giri



A Commentary on the
Isha Upanishad

Seeing All Things in God


Introduction to the Upanishads

The sacred scriptures of India are vast. Their importance is ranked differently
according to the particular viewpoint of the individual. In Hinduism there are six
darshanas, or systems of philosophy. They often seem to contradict themselves (and
their professed adherents usually do contradict those of the other darshanas), but the
wise know that they are only different ways of seeing the same thing, and it is that One
Thing which makes them both valid and ultimately harmonious. That unifying subject
is Brahman: God the Absolute, beyond and besides Whom there is no “other”
whatsoever. Yet, according to differences in outlook, there is difference in evaluation of
the scriptures. However, all followers of the Eternal (Sanatana) Dharma agree that the
Vedas are the supreme authority, and the Vedas are always understood to include those
treatises of mystical and speculative philosophy known as the Upanishads. The word
“upanishad” comes from the root word upasana, which means “to draw near,” and is
usually considered to mean that which was heard when the student sat near the
teacher to learn the eternal truths.
We do not know who wrote (or relayed from inner perception) the Vedas or the
Upanishads, though we do have the names of those considered the original seers of
the Vedic knowledge, though we know virtually nothing about their lives. This has a
distinct advantage over the scriptures of other religions, for then the image of a
historical, finite personality does not intervene to obscure the revelation they handed
on to their students. It is in no way unjust to say that in other religions concentration
on, adulation, and worship of the person who gave the revelation has often obscured
and even abrogated their purpose in giving the teachings. Words and behavior
diametrically opposed to the Messenger’s teachings are sanctified by “devotion,”
“love,” and “dedication” to “the Master,” “the Lord,” or “the Savior” who has a heaven
to which he will welcome all faithful and believing devotees. “Following” is the ideal
rather than becoming what the Teacher was. Lost in the personality of the Messenger,
they forget the Message. “Adore the Messenger and ignore the Message” becomes
the norm.
The authority of the Vedic scriptures rests not upon those who wrote them down
but upon the demonstrable truths they express. They are as self-sufficient and selfevident
as the multiplication tables or the Table of Elements. They are simply the
complete and unobscured truth. And realization of that Truth alone matters.
The first Upanishad we will look into is the Isha Upanishad, so called from its
opening word: ishavasyam.
Translation

The Upanishads have long interested students of philosophy in the West. The
English philosopher Hume translated some of them into English in the eighteenth
century. Later he travelled to America where he taught Sanskrit to Thomas Jefferson
and together they studied the Upanishads in their original form.
The greatest boon seekers of truth in this country have received are the
translations of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita–The Upanishads, Breath of the
Eternal, and The Song of God, Bhagavad Gita–made by Swami Prabhavananda of the
Vedanta Society of Southern California in the nineteen-forties. I was privileged to hear
him speak in 1962, and the value and clarity of his insights were remarkable. In his
translations he did not attempt an exact literalism, yet they convey the meanings of the
texts far better than most who try for literal wording. Reading his translation of the
Gita changed my life in 1960, and everything which happened afterward was a
consequence of that. My debt to him is incalculable and therefore unpayable. I looked
at many translations before taking up the task of commenting on the Upanishads, and I
found Swamiji’s version inescapable. The Light of the Self (Atma Jyoti) radiates from
the pages, conveying to us the illumination and blessing of his teacher Swami
Brahmananda and his Master, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, of Whom it can be rightly
said: “He shining, everything shines.”
An instructive story
Just before going to India for the first time in 1962, I had the great good fortune to
meet and hear Sri A. B. Purani, the administrator of the renowned Aurobindo Ashram
of Pondicherry, India. From his lips I heard the most brilliant expositions of Vedic
philosophy; nothing in my subsequent experience has equaled them. In one talk he
told the following story:
In ancient India there lived a most virtuous Brahmin who was considered by all to
be the best authority on philosophy. One day the local king ordered him to appear
before him. When he did so, the king said: “I have three questions that puzzle–even
torment–me: Where is God? Why don’t I see Him? And what does he do all day? If you
can’t answer these three questions I will have your head cut off.” The Brahmin was
appalled and terrified, because the answers to these questions were not just complex,
they were impossible to formulate. In other words: he did not know the answers. So his
execution date was set.
On the morning of that day the Brahmin’s teenage son appeared and asked the
king if he would release his father if he–the son–would answer the questions. The king
agreed, and the son asked that a container of milk be brought to him. It was done.
Then the boy asked that the milk be churned into butter. That, too, was done.
“The first two of your questions are now answered,” he told the king.
The king objected that he had been given no answers, so the son asked: “Where
was the butter before it was churned?”
“In the milk,” replied the king.
“In what part of the milk?” asked the boy.
“In all of it.”
“Just so, agreed the boy, “and in the same way God is within all things and
pervades all things.”
“Why don’t I see Him, then,” pressed the king.
“Because you do not ‘churn’ your mind and refine your perceptions through
meditation. If you do that, you will see God. But not otherwise. Now let my father go.”

“Not at all,” insisted the king. “You have not told me what God does all day.”
“To answer that,” said the boy, “we will have to change places. You come stand here
and let me sit on the throne.”
The request was so audacious the king complied, and in a moment he was standing
before the enthroned Brahmin boy who told him: “This is the answer. One moment
you were here and I was there. Now things are reversed. God perpetually lifts up and
casts down every one of us. In one life we are exalted and in another we are brought
low–oftentimes in a single life this occurs, and even more than once. Our lives are
completely in His hand, and He does with us as He wills.” (“He hath put down the
mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.” Luke 1:52)
The Brahmin was released and his son was given many honors and gifts by the
king.
The Isha Upanishad opens with the answer to the question as to God’s
“whereabouts.”
He is within all
“In the heart of all things, of whatever there is in the universe, dwells the
Lord.” (Isha Upanishad 1) Whatever we experience, whether through the inner or
outer senses, it is a covering of the Lord (Isha). Since it conceals, it necessarily blinds,
confuses, or inhibits us. It is a door closed in our face. Tragically, throughout lives
without number we have not known this simple fact and have as a consequence
believed that the experienced, whether objective or subjective, is the sole reality and
have dissipated life after life in involvement with it to our pain and destruction. A door
is never the way out: the way out is revealed when the door is moved aside–eliminated.
Not knowing this, either, we have clawed, hammered, and hewn at the door–at least in
those lives when we were not adulating and worshipping it or calling it “God’s greatest
gift to us”–to no avail. The root problem is our believing in the door’s reality, thinking
that it is the beginning, middle, and end. Only when it disappears will we see the truth
that lies beyond “things.”
We must not just get “inside” things, we must get to their heart. And how is that
done? By getting into our own heart, into the core of our own being. There everything
will be found. The key to the door is meditation.
Another viewing
Prabhavananda has conveyed the ultimate message of these opening words of the
Isha Upanishad. The literal translation, however, gives us another view which we
should consider: “All this—whatever exists in this changing universe—should be
covered by the Lord.” (Translation by Swami Nikhilananda.) Rather than speaking of
piercing to the heart of things, the literal meaning is that the Lord should be seen
covering–that is, enveloping–all things. This has two meanings.
1) What I have just expressed, that we should experience–not just think
intellectually–that God is encompassing all things, that we should not see things as
independent or separate from God, but as existing within God. And this vision should
extend to us: we, too, exist only within Him.
2) In our seeing of things, God should always be between us and them. First we
should see God, and only secondarily see the “things.”
The renowned Swami (Papa) Ramdas in his spiritual autobiography In Quest of God
writes of his initial spiritual awakening in these words: “It was at this time that it slowly

dawned upon his mind that Ram was the only Reality and all else was false.…All
thought, all mind, all heart, all soul was concentrated on Ram, Ram covering up and
absorbing everything.”
In the Bhagavad Gita, considered to convey the essence of the Upanishadic
wisdom, both Prabhavananda’s and the literal translations are put together when
Krishna tells Arjuna that the wise see God in all things and all things in God. “Those
who see Me in everything and see everything in Me, are not separated from Me and I
am not separated from them.” (Bhagavad Gita 6:30)
He IS all
If we accept the foregoing, then we will take the next step and experience that “He
alone is the reality.” (Isha Upanishad 1) This can be understood more than one way.
We can conclude that God alone is real and everything else is unreal. The problem
with that is our tendency to equate “unreal” with non-existent, and wrongly belief that
everything is only an illusion, that it has no reality whatsoever. The great non-dual
philosopher Shankara explained the accurate view by likening our experience of things
to that of a man who sees a rope in dim light and mistakes it for a snake, his mind even
supplying eyes that glitter and a mouth that hisses at him. When light is brought, he
sees that there is no snake, only a rope. The snake was not real, but his impression,
however mistaken, was real. The snake was not real, it was non-existent; but the
impression of the snake was real and did exist. The rope was the reality and the snake
was an illusion overlain on it. In the same way God is the reality and everything else is
illusory like the snake. But illusion does exist. Denying it gets us nowhere; we have to
deal with it by seeing through it, by dispelling it. Then we will see the reality: God.
After that we can progress to the understanding that even though our interpretation
may be wrong, what we perceive does have a real side to it, and that is God Himself.
Hence, all things are God in their real side. The “wrong” side is in our mind alone. We
can say that God is the reality of the unreal, which we need to see past. And that is the
whole idea of the opening verse of the upanishad. He alone is real; He is all things.
Be at peace
“Wherefore, renouncing vain appearances, rejoice in him.” (Isha Upanishad 1) All
of our sorrows and troubles come from our mistaking vain appearances for reality,
from our looking at them with our outer eyes instead of beholding God with the inner
eye. But we are addicted to those vain appearances–we have to admit that. Yes, we are
even addicted to all the pain and anxiety they bring us. That is foolish, but is it any
more foolish than it is to be addicted to drugs or alcohol–or to people that harm us? We
are insane on certain levels; this world is a madhouse for people of our particular
lunacy. The sooner we understand this and resolve to be cured and released, the better
things will be for us. For from “things” we will move on to God-perception.
For this reason the yogis, those who seek God in meditation, should be the most
cheerful and optimistic of people. If we look to God we will see only perfection and
rejoice in it; if we look at ourselves, others, and the world around us we will see only
imperfection and be discontent. Depression comes from looking in the wrong place. It
is the bitter fruit of ego-involvement, of ego-obsession. The remedy is not to have “high
self-esteem” but rather to have God-esteem. And since we live in God, we will see the
divine side even of ourselves and be ever hopeful. Once God spoke to a contemporary
mystic and said: “I am He Who Is. You are She Who Is Not.” Now to the ego that may

sound hateful, but to the questing spirit it is a liberating assurance. The unreal which
we call “me” need not be struggled with: it is only a ghost, a shadow. Bringing in the
light of God-contact will reveal that to be the truth. Then we will be at peace and in
perfect joy. What a burden is lifted from those who come to know that God alone is real
and true, and that we need only look to Him. When we look within we find Him as the
heart of our selves.
We must renounce unreality. As I say, we are addicted to it, so we will have to
struggle to break the terrible habit of delusion, just as those addicted to the
hallucinations produced by drugs have to break away from them and discard them
forever. Then we will “rejoice in Him.”
Desirelessness
“Covet no man’s wealth.” Why? Because it does not exist! It is just a bubble
destined to burst leaving nothing in its place. There are no “things” to covet or possess.
They are the fever dreams of illusion from which we must awaken. No one really owns
anything–firstly because the thing (as we perceive it) does not exist, and the “man”
does not exist either; and neither do we–as least so far as our perceptions of “them,”
“it,” and “me” go.
God and I in space alone
And nobody else in view.
“And where are the people, O Lord!” I said.
“The earth below and the sky o’erhead
And the dead whom once I knew?”
“That was a dream,” God smiled and said,
“A dream that seemed to be true,
There were no people, living or dead,
There was no earth and no sky o’erhead
There was only Myself–and you.”
“Why do I feel no fear,” I asked,
“Meeting you here in this way,
For I have sinned I know full well,
And there is heaven and there is hell,
And is this the judgment day?”
“Nay, those were dreams,” the great God said,
“Dreams that have ceased to be.
There are no such things as fear or sin,
There is no you–you have never been–
There is nothing at all but Me.”
(“Illusion” by Edna Wheeler Wilcox.)

Living a Life Worth Living
How to live
“Well may he be content to live a hundred years who acts without attachment who
works his work with earnestness, but without desire, not yearning for its fruits–he, and
he alone.” (Isha Upanishad 2)
It is generally felt that this verse–and other passages from scriptures and books on
spiritual life–indicates that one hundred years is the normal lifespan for a human
being. On the other hand, the figure of one hundred years may also symbolize the
complete lifespan of a person, however brief or long, the idea here being that not one
moment of our life need be a burden nor should we ever wish to shorten our life by a
single breath–that life should be lived in fulfillment with peace and happiness all the
way through. That this is possible has been shown well by the saints and Masters of all
religions and ages. We need only know how to do it; and these words give the way.
Acting without attachment and desire
In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna draws very clearly for us the picture of a person who
lives in anxiety and misery and him who lives in peace and contentment. Both may be
living in exactly the same situation, for it is not external conditions that make us happy
or miserable, but our reaction to them. Krishna makes it quite plain that the secret of
happiness or misery lies in the absence of two things: attachment and desire. Those
who live in attachment to externalities, anxious to fulfill desire, must suffer and live in
frustration. On the other hand, those who live without egoic desire are perpetually at
peace.
Nonattachment
Krishna not only holds out the ideal for us, He also tells us how to accomplish it.
“Perform every action with your heart fixed on the Supreme Lord. Renounce
attachment to the fruits. Be even-tempered in success and failure; for it is this
evenness of temper which is meant by yoga.” (2:48)
“In the calm of self-surrender you can free yourself from the bondage of virtue and
vice during this very life. Devote yourself, therefore, to reaching union with Brahman.
To unite the heart with Brahman and then to act: that is the secret of non-attached
work.” (2:50)
“When your intellect has cleared itself of its delusions, you will become indifferent
to the results of all action, present or future.” (2:52)
“The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when actions are performed as
worship of God. Therefore you must perform every action sacramentally, and be free
from all attachments to results.” (3:9)
“Whosoever works for me alone, makes me his only goal and is devoted to me, free
from attachment, and without hatred toward any creature–that man, O Prince, shall
enter into me.” (11:55)
‘Therefore, a man should contemplate Brahman until he has sharpened the axe of
his non-attachment. With this axe, he must cut through the firmly-rooted Aswattha
tree.” (15:3)
“No human being can give up action altogether, but he who gives up the fruits of

action is said to be non-attached.” (18:11)
“When a man has achieved non-attachment, self-mastery and freedom from desire
through renunciation, he reaches union with Brahman, who is beyond all
action.” (18:49)
In other words, keeping the mind on God frees us from egoic attachment to our
activities. This is an extremely high ideal and one very hard to attain; yet we must
strive for it through the practice of meditation, for only the clarity of vision reached
through meditation can enable us to live out such a lofty ideal.
Working with earnestness
Lest we think that negative or passive indifference is detachment, or that
carelessness and shoddiness in our daily work is spiritual-mindedness–a view that
prevails in much of the Orient and among many in the West–the Upanishad plainly tells
us that the wise man “works his work with earnestness.” This is really a great portion
of the Bhagavad Gita’s message: that we must work with skill to the best of our
abilities–that is our part–while leaving the results to God–that is His part. In that way
we truly are “workers together” with God (II Corinthians 6:1) in our life. Sri
Ramakrishna said: “If you can weigh salt you can weigh sugar,” meaning that if a
person is proficient in spiritual life he will be proficient in his outer life as well. That
does not mean that all yogis need to become great successes in business or some
other profession, but it does mean that they need to work with the full capabilities they
possess and do absolutely the best they can–and no more; that is, they need not worry
about the results. In this way they will be at peace both internally and externally.
Without desire
The real cankerworm in the garden of our life is desire, whether in the form of
wanting, wishing, yearning, desiring, hoping, demanding, or craving. Whether to a
little or a great degree, desire destroys our hearts and our chances for inner peace.
Desire is a wasting fever which drives us onward to spiritual loss. “For what shall it
profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36) As
Wordsworth wrote: “We have given our hearts away–a sordid boon!” I have spent my
entire life watching people gain a little bit of the world and lose their souls. And
ultimately they lost the world, too, either in the changes of earthly fortune or through
the finality of death.
“And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life
consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And he spake a
parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where
to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build
greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul,
Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be
merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee:
then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up
treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:15-21)
Desirelessness is not a zombie-like passivity, a kind of pious vegetating. Far from it.
Krishna lauds the desireless in these words:
He knows bliss in the Atman

And wants nothing else.
Cravings torment the heart:
He renounces cravings.
I call him illumined. (2:55)
Not shaken by adversity,
Not hankering after happiness:
Free from fear, free from anger,
Free from the things of desire.
I call him a seer, and illumined. (2:56)
The bonds of his flesh are broken.
He is lucky, and does not rejoice:
He is unlucky, and does not weep
I call him illumined. (2:57)
The tortoise can draw in its legs:
The seer can draw in his senses.
I call him illumined. (2:58)
The abstinent run away from what they desire
But carry their desires with them:
When a man enters Reality,
He leaves his desires behind him. (2:59)
The desireless who have fulfilled themselves in God are the most alive, happy, and
satisfied of beings. Surely they–and they alone–are “content to live a hundred years.”
For them there is no talk of death being a “blessed release” (which it is not), for they
are already freed in spirit.

Spiritual Suicides
“Worlds there are without suns, covered up with darkness. To these after death go
the ignorant, slayers of the Self.” (Isha Upanishad 3) (“Verily, those worlds of the
asuras are enveloped in blind darkness; and thereto they all repair after death who are
slayers of Atman.” This is the translation of Swami Nikhilananda.)
The Upanishadic seer(s?) opened by speaking of the way of fulfilled and joyful life:
seeing the Divine in all things, and living on the earth according to Divine Law. But
this is not the only world in which we can find ourself as we move through a cycle of
continuous birth and death–birth into one world after having died out of another, or
another birth into the world where we were just living. When we speak of “birth” we
usually think only of physical embodiment on this earth. But when we die in this world
we are born into an astral world where we remain for some time and then die to that
world and become born back into this world. Although this world remains virtually the
same–despite the fact that every generation thinks it is a great advance over previous
eras–we can spend time in a vast array of astral worlds, positive and negative, pleasant
and unpleasant. The earth becomes a kind of stable place of return for us. Or is it?
Many births, many worlds
Although the earth accommodates a wide range of spiritual and psychological
evolution, the astral worlds are more specialized. There is an astral world for every
degree of consciousness. These worlds can be classified just as sentient beings are
classified. That does not say much, since each person can have a different set of
criteria for such classification. But the masters of wisdom have generally agreed: there
are two basic kinds of people–suras and asuras, those who dwell in the light and those
who live in the dark. “Divine” and “demonic” are commonly used to translate sura–or
deva–and asura. A sura/deva is in the light, an asura is not. Sometimes a person dwells
in the dark by choice, but most often it is a state of ignorance rather than negative
volition. Because of this we need to avoid a “deva is good, asura is bad” reaction in all
cases, though there are instances when this is accurate, and to repress it would be
foolish–and asuric!
The sixteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita
Practically speaking, however–that is, looking at the result of manifesting those
natures–it is just that simple. An entire chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is directed to this
manner of divine (devic) and demonic (asuric) nature as it manifests in human beings.
I know it is pretty lengthy, but it is so insightful and complete that it merits inclusion
here. Sri Krishna speaks:
“A man who is born with tendencies toward the Divine, is fearless and pure in
heart. He perseveres in that path to union with Brahman which the scriptures and his
teacher have taught him. He is charitable. He can control his passions. He studies the
scriptures regularly, and obeys their directions. He practices spiritual disciplines. He is
straightforward, truthful, and of an even temper. He harms no one. He renounces the
things of this world. He has a tranquil mind and an unmalicious tongue. He is
compassionate toward all. He is not greedy. He is gentle and modest. He abstains from
useless activity. He has faith in the strength of his higher nature. He can forgive and

endure. He is clean in thought and act. He is free from hatred and from pride. Such
qualities are his birthright.
“When a man is born with demonic tendencies, his birthright is hypocrisy,
arrogance, conceit, anger, cruelty and ignorance.
“The birthright of the divine nature leads to liberation. The birthright of the
demonic nature leads to greater bondage. But you need not fear, Arjuna: your
birthright is divine.
“In this world there are two kinds of beings: those whose nature tends toward the
Divine, and those who have the demonic tendencies. I have already described the
divine nature to you in some detail. Now you shall learn more about the demonic
nature.
“Men of demonic nature know neither what they ought to do, nor what they should
refrain from doing. There is no truth in them, or purity, or right conduct. They
maintain that the scriptures are a lie, and that the universe is not based upon a moral
law, but godless, conceived in lust and created by copulation, without any other cause.
Because they believe this in the darkness of their little minds, these degraded
creatures do horrible deeds, attempting to destroy the world. They are enemies of
mankind.
“Their lust can never be appeased. They are arrogant, and vain, and drunk with
pride. They run blindly after what is evil. The ends they work for are unclean. They are
sure that life has only one purpose: gratification of the senses. And so they are plagued
by innumerable cares, from which death alone can release them. Anxiety binds them
with a hundred chains, delivering them over to lust and wrath. They are ceaselessly
busy, piling up dishonest gains to satisfy their cravings.
“‘I wanted this and today I got it. I want that: I shall get it tomorrow. All these riches
are now mine: soon I shall have more. I have killed this enemy. I will kill all the rest. I
am a ruler of men. I enjoy the things of this world. I am successful, strong and happy.
Who is my equal? I am so wealthy and so nobly born. I will sacrifice to the gods. I will
give alms. I will make merry.’ That is what they say to themselves, in the blindness of
their ignorance.
“They are addicts of sensual pleasure, made restless by their many desires, and
caught in the net of delusion. They fall into the filthy hell of their own evil minds.
Conceited, haughty, foolishly proud, and intoxicated by their wealth, they offer
sacrifice to God in name only, for outward show, without following the sacred rituals.
These malignant creatures are full of egoism, vanity, lust, wrath, and consciousness of
power. They loathe me, and deny my presence both in themselves and in others. They
are enemies of all men and of myself; cruel, despicable and vile. I cast them back, again
and again, into the wombs of degraded parents, subjecting them to the wheel of birth
and death. And so they are constantly reborn, in degradation and delusion. They do
not reach me, but sink down to the lowest possible condition of the soul.”
Am I an asura?
What are the basic traits that render someone an asura? The Upanishad has already
given them: 1) spiritual blindness, 2) spiritual darkness, 3) spiritual ignorance, and 4)
engaging in deeds that “kill” the awareness and the freedom of the eternal, immortal,
divine self. The first three are what dispose us to the fourth, destructive trait. Krishna
has already given us quite an exposition of the ways of the asuric personality, but it can
all be summed up in their effect: the negation of consciousness of the individual spirit.

Now this point that spiritual ignorance is a matter of unawareness of the individual
spirit, our own atman, is particularly important because many asuras think to hide
their status under an externalized cloak of religiosity, of supposed belief in and
dedication to God. But this is all nonsense. Saint John the Apostle comments that no
one can legitimately claim to love God Whom they have not seen if they have no love
for their fellow human beings whom they have seen. In the same way, it is absurd to
pretend that we know or are aware of the infinite Spirit when we are not aware of the
finite spirit–our own self–which is right within us. This is why Buddha simply refused
to speak about God or gods, and insisted that each one must seek for nirvana alone,
rejecting all other matters as harmful distractions.
Another Upanishad states that if we learn about water from a single cup of water we
can then know about oceans of water. In the same way, if we come to truly comprehend
our nature as spirit we will be able to know God the Infinite Spirit. Thus selfknowledge–
knowledge of our spirit–is essential. Shankara says that until we know the
self we are all asuras in the absolute sense, but if we are seeking to know the self I
expect the distinction is not so drastic.
An asura, then, is one whose life and thought obscure and darken the inner
consciousness so the true self remains unknown and buried–often even unsuspected
as to its existence. It has nothing to do with what philosophers and theologians say
about it; the matter is thoroughly pragmatic. Do we or don’t we, are we or aren’t we?
Verbal claims mean nothing here. State of being alone matters.
The worlds of the asuras
Because it is their will, asuras are born over and over in worlds “enveloped in blind
darkness” at the time of their death, earthly or astral. Naturally our thoughts go to the
ideas of “hell” so beloved to all religionists, east and west, whether it is the absurdly
simplistic fire pit of Christianity or the horrifically complex and lurid hell(s) of
Hinduism, Taoism, or Buddhism. But what is this world in which we presently find
ourselves–a world ravaged with hatred, violence, disease, cruelty, and aggressive
ignorance and greed? The fact that there is also kindness, love, mercy, and toleration in
the world makes it even more crazy: schizophrenic and schizophrenogenic (making us
crazy). No wonder The Onion, a satirical magazine, ran an article entitled: “God
Diagnosed With Bipolar Disorder.” It might seem blasphemous, but it is the
preposterous religion prevailing in the West that is blasphemous, and the satire is just
pointing it out.
Someone once asked Paramhansa Yogananda if he believed in hell. Paramhansaji
smiled and asked: “Where do you think you are?” A very good question, indeed.
We write our own ticket by the way we think and act. No amount of rationalization
or assurance from others will change this fact. If we seek darkness we will find
darkness; if we seek the light we will find the light. Nothing more; nothing less.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and
to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” (Matthew 7:7, 8)
Just be aware of the consequences.

The Undivided, Unmoving Self
The teachings of the upanishads are the supreme expressions of the eternal
wisdom, the eternal vision of the Vedic Seers. Consequently, though simple in their
mode of expression, they can be extremely hard to grasp. The rishis lived in a state of
consciousness almost opposite to that of most of us. But it is possible of attainment,
and so the wise cultivate it. Yet we need guidance along the way, and need to carefully
look into the upanishadic dicta for that guidance. There are many things that we need
not know, but the truths embodied in the upanishads and their inspired summary, the
Bhagavad Gita, must be known by all who would ascend to higher life. So they merit
our intent consideration.
The four levels of understanding
During the last week of his earthly life, Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover
season. At one point, while speaking to the crowd, he prayed: “Father, glorify thy
name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will
glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered:
others said, An angel spake to him.” (John 12:28, 29) And of course a third contingency
heard nothing. This is how it is in this world of unreality when Reality impinges on it.
According to the level of development, so the encountering individual reacts to the
impingement.
In Indian philosophy there are a lot of numerical divisions, but one of the most
prevalent is that of Four. To list some: there are four ages (yugas) of human history,
there are four modes of consciousness (waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep and turiya–
consciousness itself), there are four stages of dharmic life (student, family, semisolitary,
and monastic), and of course there are four castes (shudra, vaishya, kshatriya
and brahmin). All of these relate to the evolutionary development of the individual (as
Krishna says: guna and karma) and are fundamentally a matter of internal disposition
and capacity. These four levels (is it an accident there are four Gospels?) are depicted
in this event. Some people heard what was spoken and knew it was the voice of God;
some heard a voice–not the actual words–and thought it was an angel speaking; some
heard an indistinct sound and thought it was thunder; and others (no doubt the
majority) heard nothing at all. It is not an event that matters as much as our
comprehension of it.
Yes, that is everything: comprehension. And that takes place only according to our
state of inner development. Krishna spoke of this in the beginning of his instruction to
Arjuna at Kurukshetra, saying: “There are some who have actually looked upon the
Atman, and understood It, in all Its wonder. Others can only speak of It as wonderful
beyond their understanding. Others know of Its wonder by hearsay. And there are
others who are told about It and do not understand a word.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:29) Here
again are the four levels of comprehension. We pass from one to another in ascending
steps only through inner cultivation–in other words, only through meditation, but
meditation supported by a entire way of life that facilitates it–in other words: dharma.
For if there is neither the practice nor the support for the practice, little will result in
the way of developing consciousness. And if consciousness is not developed the
teachings of the great sages will be little understood by us, and perhaps greatly

misunderstood or just not understood at all.
Sri Ramakrishna told about a certain group of yogis who were wont to challenge a
person with the words: “What station are you dwelling in?” By “station” they meant the
habitual state of the individual’s mind. The next verse of the Isha Upanishad is not easy
to grasp because it speaks of a mode of being far different from our usual condition. So
it will be a real test as to what “station” of consciousness we are dwelling in, as we try
to decode it. Here it is:
“The Self is one. Unmoving, it moves swifter than thought. The senses do not
overtake it, for always it goes before. Remaining still, it outstrips all that run. Without
the Self, there is no life.” (Isha Upanishad 4)
“The Self is one”
“One” has two meanings in Eastern thought: 1) number and 2) quality. This a very
important point, since many controversies have arisen philosophically simply because
Western thinkers tend to limit “one” to a numerical value only. The incredibly bitter
and violent controversy over the so-called “Monophysite heresy” in early Christianity
in which tens of thousands of Egyptians and Syrians were killed by the armies of the
Byzantine empire, took place only because the Italian-Byzantines could not grasp what
the “heretics” meant by the simple word monos when applied to spiritual matters. Both
meanings, number and quality, have significance for us who, like the Four Kumaras,
are intent on the knowing of the self.
The principle that the self is one should set us to thinking about our own present
self-concept and–perhaps even more important–the way we live out our self-concept.
Many people think one thing intellectually (or at least verbally, for public consumption)
and think another instinctively. For example, I knew a minister who was once
challenged by a self-styled atheist who spent about an hour expounding the “truth” of
atheism and the folly of theism. When he was finished the minister said: “There are
two points about all that you have just said. One: it is complete nonsense. Two: you do
not believe a word of it yourself.” The man threw his right hand up in the air and
declaimed: “I swear to God in heaven that I do!”
Somewhere I have already mentioned that an Eastern Christian theological student
once remarked to me that the worse thing that had ever happened to Western
Christianity and Western philosophy in general was the invention of the “pie chart”–
those round diagrams divided into “slices” that plagued us throughout school in many
subjects, from mathematics to sociology. “People have come to think that they are
conglomerations of pieces that make up a whole, rather than a single homogenous
being,” he explained. How many times do people speak of having several “roles” in life
or of wearing many “hats.” Fragmentation is a terrible plague destroying our capacity
to either see or attain unity-integration of our being. We think it is all right to be
multiple persons. Where this all began with us is buried in the past, but the present
reality cannot be denied. Drawn out from our center of unity, we say: “I am a
businessman, a spouse, a parent, a citizen…” etc., rather than: “I am a single person
who functions in the area of business, marriage, parenthood, citizenship…” etc. This
no small thing, and certainly not merely a philosophical nicety. This is a serious mental
and spiritual disorder. Being both fragmented and dispersed in our energies and
awareness, rather than operating from a central point of order, the mirror of our life is
shattered into innumerable fragments that cannot convey any coherent image of our
“face.” The unity that is the true image is defaced, effaced, and even erased–as far as

our consciousness is concerned, even though our true nature can never be altered in
any manner. Struggling and submerged in the illusion of multiplicity, the truth of our
unity is far from us. For we are not just one numerically, we are absolutely one in
nature. This is an eternal truth that must be regained by us. How to do so? By the only
process that really unifies the consciousness: meditation.
“Unmoving, it moves swifter than thought”
How can the self move swifter than thought and yet be unmoving? This is not some
koan-like platitude meant to faze our mind in relation to self-knowledge; it is simple
fact. The self, the spirit, is completely outside of time and space (which are illusions,
anyway), yet it can scan time and space, moving backward and forward simply because
of the fact that it is one. Being one in the truest sense, the self is everywhere–since
there really is no “where” at all. The self is truly Whole and therefore all-embracing. It
moves swifter than thought, because a thought requires a time–however small–to arise
or be expressed. The self, in contrast, exists only in the Now. The questions “Where
did I come from?” “Where am I going?” “What was I in the past?” and “What shall I be
in the future?” are valuable because they set us on the quest to the discovery that we
do not come or go, nor do we have a past or future–only a Present. When Sri Ramana
Maharshi was at the end of his physical embodiment he commented: “They say I am
‘going,’ but where shall I go?” Some years later Sri Anandamayi Ma visited
Ramanashram. When the Maharshi’s disciples asked her to stay there, feeling that in
her they had “refound” their guru, she simply remarked: “I neither come nor go.” This
is true of us, as well.
“The senses do not overtake it, for always it goes before”
The self does not move, but it is “always before” the questing senses in the sense
that it is always out of their reach. The Mandukya Upanishad, speaking of the
consciousness of the self, of turiya, describes it as “not subjective experience, nor
objective experience, nor experience intermediate between these two, nor is it a
negative condition which is neither consciousness nor unconsciousness. It is not the
knowledge of the senses, nor is it relative knowledge, nor yet inferential knowledge.
Beyond the senses, beyond the understanding, beyond all expression,…it is pure
unitary consciousness, wherein awareness of the world and of multiplicity is
completely obliterated. It is ineffable peace. It is the supreme good. It is One without a
second. It is the Self. Know it alone!” Who can say any more?
“Remaining still, it outstrips all that run”
The self is unmoving, as we have been told. Hence, any “movement” is
incompatible with it and blots it from our awareness. That which moves cannot
possibly perceive it, nor can any process of movement (including the labyrinthine ways
of so much “yoga”) ever result in touching or seeing it. Rather, movement must cease,
as Patanjali points out in the very beginning of the Yoga Sutras: Yoga is the cessation of
movement in the mind-substance. In other words, when we stop “running” we will rest
in our self.
“Without the Self, there is no life”
This is perhaps the hardest lesson for human beings to learn: Without the Self, there
is no life. We may engage in frantic activity, running here and there and

“accomplishing” tremendous things, indulging the senses to the maximum and
immersing ourselves in ambitions, emotions, and “relationships,” but through it all the
truth is simply this: we are dead, mere wraiths feeding desperately on a shadow life
that is no life at all–not even a poor imitation. In the self alone do we find life. How hard
this is to learn, and how much harder it is to follow through on, for it inevitably leads to
the total renunciation of all that is not the self–in other words, to the renunciation of
everything we hold dear and identify with as being ours and our “self” when they are
no such thing at all. This is a bitter insight in the beginning, but as our inner eye
begins to adjust to the truth of it, we find it the source of greatest joy.
“Who knows the Atman knows that happiness born of pure knowledge: the joy of
sattwa. Deep his delight after strict self-schooling: sour toil at first but at last what
sweetness, the end of sorrow.” (Bhagavad Gita 18:37)
“He knows bliss in the Atman and wants nothing else. Cravings torment the heart:
he renounces cravings. I call him illumined. Not shaken by adversity, not hankering
after happiness: free from fear, free from anger, free from the things of desire. I call
him a seer, and illumined.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:55, 56)
“The recollected mind is awake in the knowledge of the Atman which is dark night
to the ignorant: the ignorant are awake in their sense-life which they think is daylight:
to the seer it is darkness.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:69)
“This is the state of enlightenment in Brahman: a man does not fall back from it
into delusion. Even at the moment of death he is alive in that enlightenment: Brahman
and he are one.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:72)
“So, with his heart serene and fearless, firm in the vow of renunciation, holding the
mind from its restless roaming, now let him struggle to reach my oneness, everabsorbed,
his eyes on me always, his prize, his purpose.” (Bhagavad Gita 6:14)
“When a man has achieved non-attachment, self-mastery and freedom from desire
through renunciation, he reaches union with Brahman, who is beyond all
action.” (Bhagavad Gita 18:49)
A great deal is involved when we sincerely pray: “Lead me from death to
immortality.”

The Ever-Present Self
“To the ignorant the Self appears to move–yet it moves not. From the ignorant it is
far distant–yet it is near. It is within all, and it is without all.” (Isha Upanishad 5)
“The Self appears to move–yet it moves not”
We have just covered the fact that, being outside of the illusions of time and space,
the self neither “moves” nor goes through any type of change whatsoever. Yet it
“experiences” a multiplicity of externalities as the unmoving witness–momentarily
caught up in the movie and thinking it is inside it and undergoing the changes in the
scenario. Just as imagining seeing or doing something is not the same as seeing or
doing it, so observing the motion picture of countless lives with their attendant joys
and sorrows is not the same as actually being born, living, and dying over and over.
But we are deluded into thinking so, and the upanishadic sage is endeavoring to wake
us up, just as we awaken someone who is having a nightmare and calling out in pain or
fear. We, however, having become accustomed (even addicted) to the nightmare, are a
lot more difficult to awaken.
“It is far distant–yet it is near”
Since the self is existing in eternity, transcending any degree of relativity, it could
not be “further” away from the relative realm of experience (not existence, because the
relative does not actually “exist” at all except as an illusion). On the other hand, since
relativity is only a concept, the self is the nearest possible because it alone is actually
present!
At the end of the Syrian Jacobite Liturgy the celebrant gives a blessing beginning:
“You who are far and you who are near….” The reference is not to those who are at the
back of the church and those who are at the front, but to those who are far and near in
their minds and hearts.
For those who are immersed in the illusion of relativity, nothing could be further
away than the transcendent self. Yet, since as I have said, the self alone is ever present,
it is nearer than any relative experiencing. It is, as the Kena Upanishad says, the “ear of
the ear, mind of the mind, speech of speech.…also breath of the breath, and eye of the
eye.” (Kena Upanishad 1:2)
“It is within all, and it is without all”
Nothing can exist apart from the self–even an illusion. A hallucination is a “thing”
even though it is solely mental. The self is the substratum upon and within which
everything subsists, the screen on which the light-and-shadow play of “life” is
projected. It is itself the basis of all that is perceived. From one perspective it can be
said that the self (consciousness) is inside everything. From another, since it is forever
separate from all things, it can be spoken of as outside–alien to–all things. Whichever
way you say it, the idea is the same: the self never touches any “thing.”
The effect of “seeing true”
“He who sees all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, hates none.” (Isha
Upanishad 6) Here we come to the practical application of what the upanishad is telling
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us about the self. (This is the inestimable value of the Bhagavad Gita. Where the
Upanishads express spiritual mathematics in a usually abstract manner, the Gita
outlines both the upanishadic principles and what the result will be when they are
followed or realized, defining spiritual realities in practical, observable terms.)
If we never lose sight of the self, then we will be able to perceive what is not the
self. And since what is not the self is not even real, why would we hate it? Conversely,
how could we hate or be averse to the real self? This vision is the foundation of
dynamic even-mindedness.
It is also the absolute end of all delusion and negative reaction to it, for the
upanishad concludes: “To the illumined soul, the Self is all. For him who sees
everywhere oneness, how can there be delusion or grief?” (Isha Upanishad 7)



Om Tat Sat
                                                        
(Continued...) 


(My humble salutations H H Swami Nirmalananda Giri ji and   Hinduism online dot com for the collection)


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