Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad : 20. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, December 31, 2022. 07:30. 

Part-3.

Post -20.

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What is the solution? The solution is also mentioned in the Upanishad. We have to work with knowledge, and not simply work without knowledge. We should not only have knowledge, minus work. Both should be known together as a blend.

Here, in these mantras of the Isavasya Upanishad, we seem to have a seed of the gospel of the Bhagavadgita, where Sri Krishna hammers into the mind of the student Arjuna that karma should be based on buddhi, or sankhya. Yoga is an expression of sankhya. Yoga is action, sankhya is knowledge. Arjuna knew what action was, but he did not know what knowledge was. He was considering the pros and cons of activity. The gains and losses, the loves and the hatreds involved in action, were before his mind's eye. But he did not know; he had no sankhya. He had no knowledge as to why he had this sentiment of love and hatred inside, and the idea of gain and loss outside. Sri Krishna reprimanded Arjuna, “You are lacking sankhya.” Sankhya buddhi was not there. Here in a little passage, in a two-line instruction of the Isavasya Upanishad, we have a premonition, as it were, of the great gospel of the Bhagavadgita.

In the Bhagavadgita, as well as in this mantra of the Isavasya Upanishad, we are told how we have to live in this world. We should not go to extremes, either empirically or transcendentally. Neither can we deny what consciousness accepts as reality, nor can we cling to it as the only reality. In this condition of our physical existence, what consciousness accepts as reality has to be accepted as reality – to the extent it is accepted by consciousness. But in this acceptance, we cannot be attached to that perception, because it is not the whole of truth. Our consciousness clings to this body and clings to the world of values, though this clinging is unwarranted. It is a mistake. It is ignorance, avidya. It is death. As long as we persist in the acceptance of a mistake, it is a reality for us. We accept a mistake deliberately and affirm that it is right because our consciousness has taken a stand that it is right. As long as we are not disillusioned of this fact, the acceptance of reality of the otherwise mistaken notion will continue.

A gradual disentanglement of consciousness from the involvement in the physical world is advised. That gradual system is yoga. That is knowledge; that is sankhya. The sankhya says that purusha is involved in prakriti. If the purusha does not know that it exists independent of prakriti, and gets totally involved in prakriti and does whatever the prakriti does, it is earthly bondage, avidya, which takes us to darkness. But if, having involved itself, the purusha imagines, “I am not involved. I am totally independent” – that would also not be freedom. A person in a prison can say that he is a free man and nobody can bind him. He may have a conceptual freedom in his mind, but he is actually in bondage in a prison.

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To be continued

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