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

19

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...) 

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