Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad : 4. Swami Krishnananda

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Tuesday, December 21, 2021. 7:00. PM.
Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad : Part-1.
Discourse-4.

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Unnecessary things cannot exist in this world. Their importance can be recognised and visualised only when we have the insight to probe into the circumstances of their existence, and the part that they play in a larger society of life – wider than the human, and even the organic as it is conceived – in a cosmical setup. The wind that blows, the rays of the sun that impinge upon the earth, the cool balming radiance of the moon in full-moon night, the scintillating movement of water in a flowing river, the waves of the sea, are not inconsequent occurrences. They are tremendously responsible performances taking place, as is the case with the performances in our own body. This system, which is physiological, sociological, cosmological, can be understood only on the acceptance of a living principle pervading all things, a life that is indwelling the parts, which look like physical entities.

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Do we know that the life we seem to associate with our own selves is not capable of identification with any part of the body? 

I live, you live, and someone lives. I am alive. It is a great joy to feel that I am alive. This joy of the feeling that one is alive does not come from the nose, from the fingers, from any part of the physiological system. This is an instance of the presence of an unknown content operating beneath and behind visible particulars, which are otherwise physical in their nature. Our own personality is an example here. Our feeling, our joy, our satisfaction of having lived in this world, or of living in this world, is an unknown thing operating within the physiological setup we call the body. This very same link is bringing satisfaction in human society in the form of friendship, cooperation, a system of coming together or a get-together, a larger organisation of a nation.

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International organisation, whatever it be, gives a satisfaction. It gives a satisfaction not because of the heaps of bodies that form that organisation, but because an unknown element operates in and through the media of these individuals which appear to form the members of this organisation. An organisation is not a bundle of members, just as our life is not a heap of these physical parts. Many people sitting together do not make a society, just as a heap of legs, hands, noses and eyes do not make a man; and so is the case with international organisations and world systems. The physical part is the secondary aspect thereof. There is an unknown element pervading everything.

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Isavasyam idam sarvam : a ruling principle pervades the whole Cosmos. 

‘Isa' is the word used in the Upanishad. 

A controlling, restraining, determining, harmonising, and satisfying principle is Isa, or Isvara. 

All these aspects are present in it. It gives life to all things. 

To be alive is the greatest satisfaction, and minus life, nothing can be called satisfaction. 

Merely to exist is a joy. 

Sat is chit, as they say; existence is consciousness. 

Consciousness itself is joy, as it is told us. 

The gesture of conscious participation in this working of a cosmic content is itself a joy unknown to the sense organs.

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To be continued ....

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