In Chapter 3 we also learn that, according to Ghora, austerity (tapas), charity (dâna), rectitude (ârjava), nonharming (ahimsâ), and truthfulness (satya) are to be thought of as the sacrificial gift (dakshinâ) given to the officiating priest. In other words, it is one’s way of life that is the best recompense for what one has received from one’s teachers. This notion is connected with the idea, expressed in a different passage (3.15.1), that a person—so long as he or she is a spiritual practitioner—is a sacrifice. In contemporary language, such a person is called a self-transcender.
The disciplines mentioned by Ghora may be understood as components of the early Upanishadic Yoga, and indeed some of them recur in the later Yoga-Upanishads as regular aspects of spiritual practice. Sage Ghora affords a direct link between Krishna and the tradition of the Atharva-Veda, and this is further strengthened by the fact that in the Bhagavad-Gîtâ (10.25), which is Krishna’s song of instruction to Arjuna, the divine Lord exclaims that “of the great seers I am Bhrigu.” The fire priest Bhrigu, founder of the Bhârgava lineage, was one of the leading lights of the Atharva tradition.
In another chapter of the Chândogya-Upanishad, the intriguing honey doctrine (mâdhû-vidyâ) is mentioned.
Verily, yonder sun is the honey of the Gods. The sky is its cross-beam. The mid-region is the honeycomb. The particles of light are the brood. (3.1.1)
This peculiar esoteric psychocosmological teaching, alluded to already in the Rig-Veda and the Atharva-Veda, compares the world to a bee hive. It is clear from the phrase “honey of the Gods” that this passage should be understood metaphorically. Moreover, in another passage (3.5.1), where the upward rays are spoken of, the Absolute (brahman) is said to be the flower from which the honey is gathered and which drips with nectar. As we read elsewhere (3.6.3), “He who thus knows this nectar (amrita). . . becomes content.”
Honey (mâdhû), then, stands for the nectar of immortality, which in Tantric Yoga is thought to be secreted within the body itself. The Chândogya-Upanishad cryptically speaks of five kinds of nectar, which may be levels of spiritual realization. Five nectars are also known in later Tantra, which perhaps is no coincidence. Ultimately, this Upanishad declares (3.11.1), the knower of the Absolute “neither rises nor sets but remains alone in the center.”
The same chapter (3.13) includes an exposition of the different forms of the life force (prâna), which are called the “divine openings” (deva-sushi) of the heart, the “brahmic men,” and the “doorkeepers of the heavenly world.” They are the gateway to the Absolute that is seated in the heart of all beings. This notion continues the speculations found already in the Vedas and suggests a developing knowledge of the yogic practice of breath control (prânâyâma).
IV. THE TAITTIRÎYA-UPANISHAD
Third among the oldest Upanishads is the Taittirîya, which stands in the tradition of the Yajur-Veda, the Vedic hymnody containing the sacrificial formulas. The esoteric teachings of the Taittirîya-Upanishad go back to the teacher Tittiri, founder of the Taittirîya school, whose name means “partridge.” The contents of this scripture are similar to that of the Chândogya-Upanishad. It emphasizes the mystical implications of the Vedic chants and sacrificial rituals. Of its three chapters, only the second and the third are of particular interest to the student of Yoga history.
Probably the most fascinating teaching of the Taittirîya-Upanishad is the doctrine, received and transmitted by Bhrigu, that everything is to be looked upon as food (anna). This is an early ecological idea, referring to the interlinkage of all things—the chain of life— which anticipates contemporary Eco-Yoga.3 In the words of the Upanishad:
From food, verily, creatures are produced— whatsoever [creatures] dwell on earth. Moreover, by food, in truth, they live, and into it they finally pass. (2.21)
This extends the notion, mentioned earlier, of the sacrificial nature of human existence to all forms of life. There is nothing dreadful about this thought, for, in the final analysis, life is deemed blissful. This is a most important discovery: that the Absolute is not a dry, desertlike environment but supraconscious bliss beyond description. The Taittirîya-Upanishad teaches that there are degrees of bliss, extending from the simple joy or pleasure of a prosperous human life to the delight on higher levels of existence (such as the realms of the Gods and forefathers), up to the immeasurable bliss of the Absolute itself—an idea that was later explored in Tantra.
He who knows this, on departing from this world, proceeds to the self consisting of food, proceeds to the self consisting of life force, proceeds to the self consisting of mind, proceeds to the self consisting of consciousness, proceeds to the self consisting of bliss.
On this there is the following stanza:
He who knows wherefrom words recoil together with the mind, without attaining the bliss of the Absolute, fears nothing at all. (2.8-9)
This passage hints at a teaching of considerable importance in later Vedânta, namely the doctrine of the five sheaths (panca-kosha):
The anna-mâyâ-kosha, or sheath composed of food; that is, of material elements: the physical body.
The prâna-mâyâ-kosha, or sheath composed of life force: the etheric body in Western occult literature.
The mano-mâyâ-kosha, or sheath composed of mind: The ancients considered the mind (manas) as an envelope surrounding the physical and the etheric body.
The vijnâna-mâyâ-kosha, or sheath composed of understanding: The mind simply coordinates the sensory input, but understanding (vijnâna) is a higher cognitive function.
The ânanda-mâyâ-kosha, or sheath composed of bliss: This is that dimension of human existence through which we partake of the Absolute. In later Vedânta, however, the Absolute is thought to transcend all five sheaths.
Reaching the pinnacle of spiritual life, the sage realizes his essential oneness with the blissful transcendental Being. In his ecstasy he triumphantly proclaims:
Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful!
I am Food! I am Food! I am Food!
I am the Food-Eater! I am the Food-Eater!
I am the Food-Eater
I am the Maker of Poetry (shloka)!4
I am the Maker of Poetry! I am the Maker of Poetry!
I am the first-born of the cosmic Order (rita), prior to the Gods, [residing] in the hub of immortality!
He who gives Me [as food], he indeed has preserved Me!
I, who am Food, eat the Eater of Food!
I have overcome the whole world!
[My] effulgence is like the sun. (3.10.6-7)
The Taittirîya-Upanishad has preserved many archaic teachings that were part of the cultural background of those adepts who crafted the early yogic technology. It is also in this scripture (2.4.1) that we find the very first unequivocal occurrence of the word yoga in the technical sense, apparently standing for the sage’s control of the fickle senses. However, it would take many more centuries for the Yoga tradition to fully emerge and to assume its place alongside the other paths of liberation within Hinduism.
V. OTHER ANCIENT UPANISHADS
The Aitareya-Upanishad
Of the three remaining Upanishads of the early period, the relatively short Aitareya is of interest because of its archaic cosmogonic material. This work, which is named after an ancient teacher, opens with a myth also found at the beginning of the Brihad-ranyaka- Upanishad: “In the beginning”—that is, before the emergence of space-time—the single Self (âtman) decided to create, out of itself, the universe. First it created the material elements; then it created various functions (called devas, “divinities”), such as hearing and sight, which joined with the human form. Next the Self created food for all creatures.
As the final act of the process of world creation, the Self enters the human body through the sagittal suture (sîman), also known as the “cleft” (vidriti) and the “delighting” (nandana). This is the location of the sahasrâra-cakra, as specified in the Tantric literature. According to later teachings, the yogin must consci
ously exit through that same opening at the crown of the head at the time of death. It is quite possible that this practice was known long before the time of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ (8.10), in which it is hinted at.
The Kaushîtaki-Upanishad
This scripture, titled after the old brahmin family Kaushîtaki in which it was handed down, contains a valuable detailed exposition of the doctrine of rebirth and a description of the path to the “world of the Absolute,” or brahma-loka.5 It also includes a long discourse on the life force as being identical with the Absolute. One passage reads as follows:
Life is prâna, prâna is life. So long as prâna remains in this body, so long is there life. Through prâna, one obtains, even in this world, immortality. (3.2)
In a subsequent section (3.3), prâna is equated with consciousness (prajnâ). It is by means of consciousness that a person acquires true resolve (satya-samkalpa), the whole-body desire to transcend the finite world and thence achieve immortality. Thus, through the cultivation of the conscious life force, the sage attains the universal prâna, which is immortal and utterly joyous.
In the fourth chapter of the Kaushîtaki, we encounter the widely traveled sage Gârgya Bâlâki proudly instructing the famous king Ajâtashatru in the mystery of the Vedas. However, Gârgya Bâlâki’s wisdom does not satisfy Ajâtashatru, who promptly proceeds to initiate the mendicant in the secret of the universal prâna, or life, which is consciousness and which can be known only by those who are pure in spirit. The Self, declared the king, has entered the body from head to toes and is resident in it “like a razor lies concealed in its case.” This is one of a number of instances in which a member of the warrior estate instructs a brahmin.
The Kena-Upanishad
Another archaic Upanishad is the Talavakâra- or Kena-Upanishad, which received its title from the opening phrase kena, meaning “by whom?” It starts with the question of who sent forth mind, speech, sight, and so on, thus asking for the cause of our outer-directed consciousness. To be able to answer this question, one must apperceive, as the Upanishad insists, the underlying unitary substratum of all experience, which is the transcendental Self (âtman). That which is responsible for our externalized awareness is the same Reality that is also responsible for the objects of that awareness. The transcendental Subject is the matrix of both the conditioned consciousness and the objective world.
The Mahâ-Nârâyana-Upanishad
Although this Upanishad dedicated to the Divine in the form of Nârâyâna (i.e., Vishnu) has often been branded as a late text containing deliberate archaisms, this scholarly judgment has been far too severe. Like other parts of the sacred canon, this Upanishad contains later additions or interpolations, such as the verses mentioning Pashupati, Umâ, Lakshmî, Nara-Simha, the Varâha (“Boar”) incarnation of Krishna, Sadâ-Shiva, Vedânta, or shiva-linga. Unless we find better reasons to the contrary, however, we must count it among the earlier works of this genre standing midway between the old prose Upanishads and the later metric texts.
The Mahâ-Nârâyâna-Upanishad, which belongs to the Krishna-Yajur-Veda, is something of a compendium of Vedic mythology and sacrificial ritual. The German indologist Jakob Wilhelm Hauer proposed that this texts consists of an older and a younger part, with the former containing archaic material about Rudra- Shiva and Nârâyâna.6 It appears that subsequently the teachings were incorporated into a more orthodox brahmanical tradition focusing on Brahma and the ideal of renunciation (nyâsa = samnyâsa), which is praised as the highest means of realizing the Absolute (see 79.13). Thus, we really have three traditions present in this scripture: Rudra-Shaivism, Nârâyana- Vaishnavism, and Brahmanism. It is curious that despite the prominence of Rudra-Shiva ideas in the Mahâ-Nârâyana-Upanishad, the title of this scripture claims primacy for the Vaishnava tradition.
The text, incidentally, shares several verses with the Shvetâshvatara-Upanishad, which also draws on the ancient Vedic Rudra-Shiva tradition, one of the evolutionary lines in the development of Proto-Yoga. The Mahâ-Nârâyana-Upanishad (24.1) contains the following powerful invocation to God Rudra:
All is verily Rudra. Let there be salutation to that Rudra. Rudra verily is the [supreme] Person (purusha), the glory (mahas) of existence. Salutation, salutation! The material universe, the manifold world, and whatever has been variously created or is being created— all that is indeed Rudra. Let there be salutation to that Rudra.
VI. THE EARLY YOGA UPANISHADS
The Kathâ-Upanishad
The Kathâ- or Kâthaka-Upanishad, which is named after an ancient Vedic school associated with the Black Yajur-Veda, is widely held to be the oldest Upanishad that deals explicitly with Yoga. It is commonly assigned to the fourth or fifth century B.C.E., which in light of our revised chronology is too late. There is nothing in this work to conclusively suggest that it belongs to the post-Buddhist era. It could just as well have been composed in 1000 B.C.E.
This text develops its novel yogic doctrines around an old legend: A poor brahmin once offered a few old and feeble cows as a sacrificial fee to the priests. His son Naciketas, concerned about his father’s afterlife, offered himself as a more appropriate reward. This roused the anger of his father, who sent him to Yama, the ruler of the after-death world. But Yama was temporarily absent, and Naciketas had to wait for three full days without food before the mighty God returned to his abode. Pleased with the boy’s patience, Yama granted him three boons.
As his first gift the quick-witted young boy asked to be returned to his father alive. For his second boon he desired to know the secret of the sacrificial fire that leads to heaven. For his third boon he insisted on knowing the mystery of life after death. Yama tried to talk the boy out of the third boon, offering him all kinds of enticing substitutes—sons and grandsons, a long life, and large herds of cattle. When he failed to deter Naciketas, he proceeded to instruct him in the path to emancipation. On one level, the story is meant to portray the death-defying determination that spiritual practitioners must bring to their discipline. On another level, it depicts the initiatic process, which calls for seclusion, fasting, and confrontation with death.
The doctrine propounded in the Kathâ-Upanishad is called adhyâtma-yoga, the “Yoga of the deep Self.”7 Its target is the Supreme Being, which lies hidden in the “cave” of the human heart:
The sage (dhîra) relinquishes joy and sorrow realizing, by means of the Yoga of the deep Self (adhyâtman), the God (deva) who is difficult to see, hidden, immanent, stationed in the cave [of the heart], dwelling in the deep, the primordial (purâna). (1.2.12)
This Self (âtman) cannot be attained through study, nor by thought, nor by much learning. It is attained by the one whom it chooses. This Self reveals its own form. (1.2.23)
Here it is stated that the Self is not an object like other objects we can experience or analyze. It is in fact the transcendental Subject of everything. Thus there is really nothing anyone can do to acquire the Self. On the contrary, Self-realization is dependent on grace. As the Kathâ-Upanishad has it, the Self is “attained by whosoever It chooses.” It is clear from the context, however, that there is something the spiritual aspirant can do: He or she can and must undergo the necessary preparation for the event of grace.
In the third chapter of this text, the anonymous composer explains that the Self is at the top of a hierarchy of levels of existence. He employs the following metaphor:
Know that the Self is the charioteer, and the body is the chariot. Know further that the wisdom faculty (buddhi) is the driver, whereas the mind (manas) is the reins.
The senses, they say, are the horses, and the sense objects are their pasture. The sages call that [Self] the enjoyer (bhoktri) when united with the body (âtman), the senses, and the mind.
He whose mind is constantly unyoked, lacking in understanding—his senses are uncontrollable like the unruly horses of a driver.
But he whose mind is always yoked—his senses are controllable like the obedient horses of a driver.
And he who is devoid of understanding, mindless (amanaska), and always impure— he never attains that [lofty] goal but moves around in the cycle [of repeated births and deaths].
But he who understands, always with a pure mind, verily reaches that goal whence one is not born again.
The man who has understanding as his driver, with the mind as his [well-controlled] reins— he reaches the end of the journey, [which is] Vishnu’s supreme Abode. (1.3.3-9)
The Kathâ-Upanishad understands spiritual practice as a progressive involution or retracing in consciousness, in reverse order, of the stages of the evolutionary unfolding of the world. The text distinguishes seven stages or levels that make up the Chain of Being:
the senses (indriya)
the sense objects (vishaya)
the lower mind (manas)
the higher mind or wisdom faculty (buddhi)
the “great self’ (mahâ-âtman, written mahâtman), or “great one” (mahat), a kind of collective entity composed of the individuated selves
the Unmanifest (avyakta), which is the transcendental ground of Nature (prakriti)
the Self (purusha), the true Identity of the human being.
Only the Self is eternally beyond the dynamics of the cosmos in its manifest and unmanifest dimensions. Such ontological schemes, or models of the diverse modes of existence, are characteristic of the classical Sâmkhya school of Îshvara Krishna and also of the earlier Sâmkhya-Yoga schools. They were never intended as mere philosophical speculations, but they served as maps for the yogic process of involution, the climbing of consciousness to ever higher levels of being, terminating with the omnipresent Being, the Self itself.
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