Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad : 7. Swami Krishnananda.

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Yagna at Hiranandani Gardens, Powai

Chinmaya Mission Mumbai, has organized a discourse on #Excellence based on Bhagvad Geeta - Chapter 3 and on #Gratitude - Talk on Kritajnata & Practice of Gratitude Meditation by Swami Swatmananda, Acharya Chinmaya Mission, South Mumbai and West Zone Director - All India Chinmaya Yuva Kendra. Dates: 23rd to 28th February, 2015

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Monday, January 10, 2022. 6:00. PM.

Part-1.

Post -7.

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We are friends because we are commonly placed in the position of participants in a cosmic purpose. Individually we cannot be friends. Sometimes the individual character asserts itself, and we behave like enemies. We hate each other. We do not always participate and love. The trait of dislike or hatred arises when the individuality in us asserts itself minus its position of participation in a cosmic whole. 

When we are awakened to the fact of the necessity to participate in a larger whole, we became friends, we smile at each other. But when we forget this aspect and assert this bodily individuality only, we begin to hate each other. Love and hatred, the positive and the negative aspects of psychological operation, arise on account of two different attitudes altogether, organisational and anti-organisational.

The Upanishad is very brief. It does not give us a large commentary. Know this, and grab not property, and covet not any wealth. Be happy. Anyone who has a little common sense, who has the leisure to think deeply over this important issue, will appreciate the meaning of this dictum of the Upanishad that merely by knowing this, we will be happy. Knowledge is bliss. Chit is ananda.

We are not accustomed to this kind of thinking. Our thinking is commercially oriented. It is conditioned by a give-and-take policy, exploitation, and possession of property, as I mentioned. We do not know any other way of thinking except this kind of crude materially-oriented thinking. But divine thinking is free from this trait of the desire to possess external objects.

Is God happy? Or do we think that He is an unhappy person? 

Even trees live together. I, poor fellow, have no comrade. You have left me alone.” God, in the world of a person, says, “Do you believe I am alone? I have no friends. I have no partner. Since eternity I have been alone. Adam, do you believe that I am happy?” This question of God to common  men is a question before us.

How can God be happy if He has no property? 

He has no money. He has no land. He has no house. He has no family.

 What kind of existence is God's, if we conclude that it is these things that make a man happy, and minus these he is a wretched individual? 

God possesses nothing except the awareness of being complete and inclusive of all things. If we can accept for certain reasons that God can be the highest state of bliss irrespective of possessions, connection with property, etc., and just being aware of that perfection only – if only this awareness of being complete, excluding any other external contact, can make God perfect – anyone who wishes to be perfect, likewise has to be godly. 

And anyone who wishes to be godly, also has to be perfect.

To be continued ...

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