Sadhana The Spiritual Way
by Swami Krishnananda
Chapter 8: Sadhana The Spiritual Way (Continued)
We cannot understand how this can be possible. Am I loving things merely because I love myself? Is my love for my land and property and my wealth and my relations just a manifestation of my own love of myself? Very difficult indeed it is to appreciate this kind of point of view. It does not look like that, easily. Well, it will not look like that, because of the fact that the sense organs rule us, mostly, and the spirit is dead in many individuals. The senses are very active and they are dancing to the tune of the biological needs of the human being, and the spirit is sleeping.
As the Bhagavad Gita puts it in a verse: ya nisa sarvabhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami, yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh. When the senses are active in the daylight of their rejoicings through the objects of the senses, the spirit is asleep. When the spirit is awake to the daylight of its universal awareness, the senses are sleeping.
We are told that both Krishna and Christ were born at midnight, which may perhaps be a symbol of God manifesting Himself in the darkness of the sense organs. All the demons are sleeping at that time.
The inwardness of our spirit is also the inwardness of its existence in all things. The word inwardness has to be cautiously interpreted. It is not inside some person. It is the insideness of a non-objective character – that is, it is inside all things. Can you imagine what would be your experience if you are to contemplate an inwardness which is also the inwardness of everything in the world? If you make the mistake of imagining that people are sitting outside you, immediately their self-hood becomes an object of your perception and you are not giving sufficient respect to the spirit that is present in these individuals.
There is an inwardness even in the externality of things. In the same way as my spirit is inward to me, it is inward to others, also. So, my vision of your self, my perception of things in terms of the inwardness of my spirit, should not contradict in any manner the inwardness that you experience in your own self. This is a hard nut to crack, though it looks very simple when we read a translation of the Upanishads. There is no use of reading an Upanishad if this strange instruction of theirs cannot enter our heads. Otherwise, we would be worshipping an external god.
A transcendent divinity, high above in the heavens, creator-preserver-destroyer, far above space and time, inaccessible to mortal existence – this is one way of looking at God. Do you not believe that God created this world? And, naturally, the creator of the world should be above creation. And if the universe is so vast, with all its extended space and time, the creator of this space and time should be above space and time. How far? How distant? Inaccessible, infinitely far and incalculably distant in time. How many years will it take to reach God, if you have to transcend time to reach Him? And how much distance do we have to cover if we have to overcome the limit of space? This is the childhood of human aspiration, which looks at things in terms of space, time and cause,which means to say, in the light of externality, duration and isolation.
There are only three things that are apparent to our vision in this world. Everything is distant (everything is away and far from me); everything is in some time and not always, and everything is separate from the other things. This is called "desha-kala-vastu-pariccheda" in the ancient philosophic terminology, a conditioning by space-time and individuality. Due to this involvement of perception in such threefold categories, we begin to look upon God as an infinitely inaccessible, transcendent, extra-cosmic creator.
To some extent, the Veda Samhitas also contribute to this view. But the divine character of God, which is this Self-hood, is taken notice of by the austere contemplators of the Aranyakas, and they give up the description of God and the manifested divinities in terms of a distant far-off existence and try to visualise the existence of these divinities in the hearts of all. But it should not end merely in a visualisation, theoretically. It will not suffice if I merely accept the subjectivity of the divinity in all people in the world. Acceptance theoretically is one thing, but a practical implementation of it in one's own life is a different thing altogether. That practicality comes in the Upanishads.
"Isavasyam idam sarvam yat kim ca jagatyam jagat, tena tyaktena bhunjithah ma gridhah kasyasvid dhanam" is the first mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad: The entire universe is indwelt, enveloped, covered by the Supreme Being, whatever this world be – moving or non-moving, living or otherwise. The second part of this mantra is a conclusion drawn from this vision: Live a happy life in this world. Enjoy your existence; do not suffer. Life is not intended to be a misery. We cannot expect God to have created a hell for us. Compassionate is He. It should be lived, and not merely got on as a drudgery. "Somehow I am getting on," – this is not the way of living. There must be some meaning, significance, and satisfaction in one's existence; therefore, enjoy – bhunjithah - enjoy. Live well, but in the light of what has been said earlier,the indwelling character of God.
Tena tyaktena bhunjithah: by renunciation effected in the light of the consciousness of the indwelling presence of God, enjoy this world. Do the gods enjoy? They do not eat and drink. They do not have any need for sense contact. Gods do not eat. They merely visualise by their consciousness, and they are satisfied because of the inwardness of the very object of enjoyment being in a state of unity with their own inner spirit. The object that I would like to enjoy is inseparate from the pure subjectivity of myself. This is the meditation of the Upanishads.
By a renunciation effected in the light of the all-pervading nature of God, you can live a life of happiness in this world. And you need not covet anybody's property. Actually, all property belongs to the Creative Principle. There is no such thing as property, in the strictest sense of the term. It is not possible to own anything, because all things are outside in space and time. The externality of an object precludes its being possessed by anybody. Even if something is within your palm and in your grip, you cannot say that it is yours, because it is outside and it can be dropped from your hand. Anything that is hanging on in an external fashion cannot be regarded as your belonging. Therefore, no one can own anything in this world. Property is a misnomer. It is a meaningless attachment which leads to misery; and everybody who owns, knows what misery it is to own anything at all.
Therefore, renounce this sense of ownership in the light of the indwelling all-pervasive enveloping character of the Supreme Being and then live a life of happiness. This is the crucial message of the first mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad. In a way, we may say, this is the seed sown for the entire gospel of the Bhagavad Gita.
I am trying to introduce your minds to the perspective of life as adumbrated in the Upanishads. The first mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad looks like a seed sown by the seer of that Upanishad for something that is to come in a more elaborate form later on, in the form of the karma yoga of the Bhagavad Gita.
The first half of this principal mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad is metaphysics – the philosophy thereof. The second half is the practical implementation of it. As the Bhagavad Gita tells you, there is Samkhya and yoga, knowledge and action, which both have to be brought together in a state of harmony for your beneficial existence. These two halves of the mantra tell the same thing to you. If God envelops all things and He is indwelling everything, how would you live in this world? What kind of vision will be conditioning your perceptions? How would you deal with anything: With this little desk in front of you, with people around you, with this world of space and time – what would be your attitude?
If you are to live according to the Upanishads, if that is the aim and objective of your life – "I would like to live according to the injunctions of the Upanishads," - if that is the case, you may have to look at things as you may be expected to look if God indwells everything. You will be veritably in the presence of God always. Is it a joy, or is it a sorrow to be in the presence of God?
Can there be a greater joy than to feel oneself at the feet of the master of the cosmos? Abundance will pour itself upon you. Everything will be given to you, not by somebody who is outside you as your potentate, but by your own communion with Reality. It is Reality that pours itself upon you.
The more you give out of your own self, the more also will be given to you by the abundance of the cosmos. How does it happen? "Give and it shall be given unto you," it is said. "Give and it shall be given unto you in a greater abundance than the measure with which you gave." How does this happen? Because of the largeness of the universe and the littleness of your personality which you have in large measure sacrificed by the performance you call yajna, which is the principal doctrine of the Bhagavad Gita, or the Vedas, or the Aranyakas, or the Upanishads. The entire culture of India we may say is contained in a capsule of the word "yajna."
Yajno vai vishnuh; yajnarthat karmano 'nyatra loko 'yam karma bandhanah. God Himself is sacrifice,that is the meaning of this grand statement. And the other one that I quoted from the Gita says, "Every action is binding, when not performed in the spirit of a sacrifice."
What is the sacrifice that you are expected to perform? What is it that you are expected to abandon in the sense of this sacrifice? The abandonment of what is wrongly associated with your personality, and what rightfully belongs to the cosmos – these accretions of the five koshas, this physical encumbrance, this entanglement, this biological, psychological existence which we consider as our true spirit is to be sacrificed, because, if they are to be held intact, the inwardness of the Universal Spirit will be marred to that extent. The externality of our physical existence would diminish to the extent of the inwardness of the all-pervading nature of God.
If you always persist in asserting yourself as an outward individual (you are there and I am here), if everything is "elsewhere" and nothing is internally related "organically," then the inward indwelling character of God is marred. Hence, we are supposed to live in the light of the existence of God as indwelling – isavasyam. Or to put it in the words of the Gita, "Nothing external to me exists," says the great Master. And the Upanishad affirms the same thing: isavasyam idam sarvam yat kim ca jagatyam jagat. "Everything, all things, all living beings, even that which you consider as dead, has an incipient presence of consciousness sleeping there."
Therefore, activity is incumbent upon every one of us, because work we must. Everybody has to work, but what kind of work? Work which is commensurate with the vision of the indwelling spirit of God. You should not, in your work, contradict the indwelling spirit of God. Each one of us should touch one's own heart and, deeply, closing one's eyes, contemplate how far we are successful in placing our daily routine in the context of this vision of the inwardness of God.
We are totally external, segregated, confused, scattered in our feelings and emotions, and we are more little pieces of individuality rather than an integrated personality. Wherever our thoughts are, there we actually are, and you can find out where your thoughts are. Somebody says, "I have to go to the railway station"; then, the mind is in the railway station. Another is somewhere else – some in the kitchen, some in the bank, some in the court case. The mind is in different corners of the world.
We are shreds of personality, fractions of individuality, as it were, in our daily life, rather than aligned, integrated persons. If these shreds of our so-called individuality persist in asserting their own individuality, we would be little, little individuals, like pebbles heaped on a roadside, and not individuals indivisible in our nature. Wherever there is indivisibility, there is joy. Wherever there is separability, there is sorrow.
The Upanishads are supposed to be attached to the Vedas as their conclusions. The inner secret of the Vedas is contained in the Upanishads. The word "Upanishad" signifies a secret teaching. It is not to be broadcast to the public, as the general mind of the masses will not be in a position to appreciate what this secret teaching is. It is so secret that you cannot even speak about it loudly. It is generally communicated by a guru to the disciple in a very intimately seated initiation process.
Another meaning of the Upanishad is "seated-ness closely." "Close seated-ness" is also the meaning of the word "Upanishad." "Upa" means near; "nishad" means sitting. The disciple sits close to the guru in order to receive this compact concentrated teaching of a universally conditioned inwardness of consciousness. How difficult it is to entertain this idea! The difficulty in keeping this consciousness, this idea of the Universality of God as harmonious with our inwardness, makes even great masters nod their heads in perplexity.
In one of the Upanishads, the Chandogya, we have a description of five or six great brahmavidya masters questioning among themselves, "What kind of thing is this – this Atman of the Universe, on which we are supposed to meditate? Where is it situated? How is it located? How are we to contemplate?" Each one was a great expert in some sort of contemplation. They were not ordinary persons. But each one had a doubt. They had a partial comprehension of the nature of the Self-hood of the Atman, but the total conception was not there. This mistake could not be detected.
When the disease goes deep, it is not easy to discover where it is located. Even a suffering person cannot always say what kind of suffering it is, as it is pervading the entire personality. With these questions, these masters sat together one day and wanted to have a solution as to where this Atman is – how we are to commune ourselves with It in the state of Its true reality. They could not come to any conclusion. They had heard that the king of the country, Ashvapati Kaikeya, is well versed in this knowledge. "Let us all go there and be humble disciples of this venerable king."
In ancient days, brahmins were considered as superior to kshatriyas. Kshatriyas would be students of brahmins, but for brahmins go to kshatriyas for teaching and learning is something unprecedented. But so much was their eagerness and their intensity of aspiration for gaining knowledge of Truth, they, in spite of their being great persons themselves, humbly went to the king of the country and expressed their feeling, "We have come as your disciples."
Our material body is like wearing protective Sun glasses.
As the Bhagavad Gita puts it in a verse: ya nisa sarvabhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami, yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh. When the senses are active in the daylight of their rejoicings through the objects of the senses, the spirit is asleep. When the spirit is awake to the daylight of its universal awareness, the senses are sleeping.
We are told that both Krishna and Christ were born at midnight, which may perhaps be a symbol of God manifesting Himself in the darkness of the sense organs. All the demons are sleeping at that time.
The inwardness of our spirit is also the inwardness of its existence in all things. The word inwardness has to be cautiously interpreted. It is not inside some person. It is the insideness of a non-objective character – that is, it is inside all things. Can you imagine what would be your experience if you are to contemplate an inwardness which is also the inwardness of everything in the world? If you make the mistake of imagining that people are sitting outside you, immediately their self-hood becomes an object of your perception and you are not giving sufficient respect to the spirit that is present in these individuals.
There is an inwardness even in the externality of things. In the same way as my spirit is inward to me, it is inward to others, also. So, my vision of your self, my perception of things in terms of the inwardness of my spirit, should not contradict in any manner the inwardness that you experience in your own self. This is a hard nut to crack, though it looks very simple when we read a translation of the Upanishads. There is no use of reading an Upanishad if this strange instruction of theirs cannot enter our heads. Otherwise, we would be worshipping an external god.
A transcendent divinity, high above in the heavens, creator-preserver-destroyer, far above space and time, inaccessible to mortal existence – this is one way of looking at God. Do you not believe that God created this world? And, naturally, the creator of the world should be above creation. And if the universe is so vast, with all its extended space and time, the creator of this space and time should be above space and time. How far? How distant? Inaccessible, infinitely far and incalculably distant in time. How many years will it take to reach God, if you have to transcend time to reach Him? And how much distance do we have to cover if we have to overcome the limit of space? This is the childhood of human aspiration, which looks at things in terms of space, time and cause,which means to say, in the light of externality, duration and isolation.
There are only three things that are apparent to our vision in this world. Everything is distant (everything is away and far from me); everything is in some time and not always, and everything is separate from the other things. This is called "desha-kala-vastu-pariccheda" in the ancient philosophic terminology, a conditioning by space-time and individuality. Due to this involvement of perception in such threefold categories, we begin to look upon God as an infinitely inaccessible, transcendent, extra-cosmic creator.
To some extent, the Veda Samhitas also contribute to this view. But the divine character of God, which is this Self-hood, is taken notice of by the austere contemplators of the Aranyakas, and they give up the description of God and the manifested divinities in terms of a distant far-off existence and try to visualise the existence of these divinities in the hearts of all. But it should not end merely in a visualisation, theoretically. It will not suffice if I merely accept the subjectivity of the divinity in all people in the world. Acceptance theoretically is one thing, but a practical implementation of it in one's own life is a different thing altogether. That practicality comes in the Upanishads.
"Isavasyam idam sarvam yat kim ca jagatyam jagat, tena tyaktena bhunjithah ma gridhah kasyasvid dhanam" is the first mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad: The entire universe is indwelt, enveloped, covered by the Supreme Being, whatever this world be – moving or non-moving, living or otherwise. The second part of this mantra is a conclusion drawn from this vision: Live a happy life in this world. Enjoy your existence; do not suffer. Life is not intended to be a misery. We cannot expect God to have created a hell for us. Compassionate is He. It should be lived, and not merely got on as a drudgery. "Somehow I am getting on," – this is not the way of living. There must be some meaning, significance, and satisfaction in one's existence; therefore, enjoy – bhunjithah - enjoy. Live well, but in the light of what has been said earlier,the indwelling character of God.
Tena tyaktena bhunjithah: by renunciation effected in the light of the consciousness of the indwelling presence of God, enjoy this world. Do the gods enjoy? They do not eat and drink. They do not have any need for sense contact. Gods do not eat. They merely visualise by their consciousness, and they are satisfied because of the inwardness of the very object of enjoyment being in a state of unity with their own inner spirit. The object that I would like to enjoy is inseparate from the pure subjectivity of myself. This is the meditation of the Upanishads.
By a renunciation effected in the light of the all-pervading nature of God, you can live a life of happiness in this world. And you need not covet anybody's property. Actually, all property belongs to the Creative Principle. There is no such thing as property, in the strictest sense of the term. It is not possible to own anything, because all things are outside in space and time. The externality of an object precludes its being possessed by anybody. Even if something is within your palm and in your grip, you cannot say that it is yours, because it is outside and it can be dropped from your hand. Anything that is hanging on in an external fashion cannot be regarded as your belonging. Therefore, no one can own anything in this world. Property is a misnomer. It is a meaningless attachment which leads to misery; and everybody who owns, knows what misery it is to own anything at all.
Therefore, renounce this sense of ownership in the light of the indwelling all-pervasive enveloping character of the Supreme Being and then live a life of happiness. This is the crucial message of the first mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad. In a way, we may say, this is the seed sown for the entire gospel of the Bhagavad Gita.
I am trying to introduce your minds to the perspective of life as adumbrated in the Upanishads. The first mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad looks like a seed sown by the seer of that Upanishad for something that is to come in a more elaborate form later on, in the form of the karma yoga of the Bhagavad Gita.
The first half of this principal mantra of the Ishavasya Upanishad is metaphysics – the philosophy thereof. The second half is the practical implementation of it. As the Bhagavad Gita tells you, there is Samkhya and yoga, knowledge and action, which both have to be brought together in a state of harmony for your beneficial existence. These two halves of the mantra tell the same thing to you. If God envelops all things and He is indwelling everything, how would you live in this world? What kind of vision will be conditioning your perceptions? How would you deal with anything: With this little desk in front of you, with people around you, with this world of space and time – what would be your attitude?
If you are to live according to the Upanishads, if that is the aim and objective of your life – "I would like to live according to the injunctions of the Upanishads," - if that is the case, you may have to look at things as you may be expected to look if God indwells everything. You will be veritably in the presence of God always. Is it a joy, or is it a sorrow to be in the presence of God?
Can there be a greater joy than to feel oneself at the feet of the master of the cosmos? Abundance will pour itself upon you. Everything will be given to you, not by somebody who is outside you as your potentate, but by your own communion with Reality. It is Reality that pours itself upon you.
The more you give out of your own self, the more also will be given to you by the abundance of the cosmos. How does it happen? "Give and it shall be given unto you," it is said. "Give and it shall be given unto you in a greater abundance than the measure with which you gave." How does this happen? Because of the largeness of the universe and the littleness of your personality which you have in large measure sacrificed by the performance you call yajna, which is the principal doctrine of the Bhagavad Gita, or the Vedas, or the Aranyakas, or the Upanishads. The entire culture of India we may say is contained in a capsule of the word "yajna."
Yajno vai vishnuh; yajnarthat karmano 'nyatra loko 'yam karma bandhanah. God Himself is sacrifice,that is the meaning of this grand statement. And the other one that I quoted from the Gita says, "Every action is binding, when not performed in the spirit of a sacrifice."
What is the sacrifice that you are expected to perform? What is it that you are expected to abandon in the sense of this sacrifice? The abandonment of what is wrongly associated with your personality, and what rightfully belongs to the cosmos – these accretions of the five koshas, this physical encumbrance, this entanglement, this biological, psychological existence which we consider as our true spirit is to be sacrificed, because, if they are to be held intact, the inwardness of the Universal Spirit will be marred to that extent. The externality of our physical existence would diminish to the extent of the inwardness of the all-pervading nature of God.
If you always persist in asserting yourself as an outward individual (you are there and I am here), if everything is "elsewhere" and nothing is internally related "organically," then the inward indwelling character of God is marred. Hence, we are supposed to live in the light of the existence of God as indwelling – isavasyam. Or to put it in the words of the Gita, "Nothing external to me exists," says the great Master. And the Upanishad affirms the same thing: isavasyam idam sarvam yat kim ca jagatyam jagat. "Everything, all things, all living beings, even that which you consider as dead, has an incipient presence of consciousness sleeping there."
Therefore, activity is incumbent upon every one of us, because work we must. Everybody has to work, but what kind of work? Work which is commensurate with the vision of the indwelling spirit of God. You should not, in your work, contradict the indwelling spirit of God. Each one of us should touch one's own heart and, deeply, closing one's eyes, contemplate how far we are successful in placing our daily routine in the context of this vision of the inwardness of God.
We are totally external, segregated, confused, scattered in our feelings and emotions, and we are more little pieces of individuality rather than an integrated personality. Wherever our thoughts are, there we actually are, and you can find out where your thoughts are. Somebody says, "I have to go to the railway station"; then, the mind is in the railway station. Another is somewhere else – some in the kitchen, some in the bank, some in the court case. The mind is in different corners of the world.
We are shreds of personality, fractions of individuality, as it were, in our daily life, rather than aligned, integrated persons. If these shreds of our so-called individuality persist in asserting their own individuality, we would be little, little individuals, like pebbles heaped on a roadside, and not individuals indivisible in our nature. Wherever there is indivisibility, there is joy. Wherever there is separability, there is sorrow.
The Upanishads are supposed to be attached to the Vedas as their conclusions. The inner secret of the Vedas is contained in the Upanishads. The word "Upanishad" signifies a secret teaching. It is not to be broadcast to the public, as the general mind of the masses will not be in a position to appreciate what this secret teaching is. It is so secret that you cannot even speak about it loudly. It is generally communicated by a guru to the disciple in a very intimately seated initiation process.
Another meaning of the Upanishad is "seated-ness closely." "Close seated-ness" is also the meaning of the word "Upanishad." "Upa" means near; "nishad" means sitting. The disciple sits close to the guru in order to receive this compact concentrated teaching of a universally conditioned inwardness of consciousness. How difficult it is to entertain this idea! The difficulty in keeping this consciousness, this idea of the Universality of God as harmonious with our inwardness, makes even great masters nod their heads in perplexity.
In one of the Upanishads, the Chandogya, we have a description of five or six great brahmavidya masters questioning among themselves, "What kind of thing is this – this Atman of the Universe, on which we are supposed to meditate? Where is it situated? How is it located? How are we to contemplate?" Each one was a great expert in some sort of contemplation. They were not ordinary persons. But each one had a doubt. They had a partial comprehension of the nature of the Self-hood of the Atman, but the total conception was not there. This mistake could not be detected.
When the disease goes deep, it is not easy to discover where it is located. Even a suffering person cannot always say what kind of suffering it is, as it is pervading the entire personality. With these questions, these masters sat together one day and wanted to have a solution as to where this Atman is – how we are to commune ourselves with It in the state of Its true reality. They could not come to any conclusion. They had heard that the king of the country, Ashvapati Kaikeya, is well versed in this knowledge. "Let us all go there and be humble disciples of this venerable king."
In ancient days, brahmins were considered as superior to kshatriyas. Kshatriyas would be students of brahmins, but for brahmins go to kshatriyas for teaching and learning is something unprecedented. But so much was their eagerness and their intensity of aspiration for gaining knowledge of Truth, they, in spite of their being great persons themselves, humbly went to the king of the country and expressed their feeling, "We have come as your disciples."
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