by Roopa Pai
Because, boys and girls, the operative word for a good life, a blissful life, a blessed life, is balance. Extreme beliefs (whichever end of the spectrum they may sit on) and exclusionary beliefs (i.e., beliefs that exclude every other belief) simply do not wash with the sages of the Isha. It’s all very well to believe that the Real Truth can only be experienced by meditating in a forest, but hey, everyone has responsibilities to fulfil in the material world as well! The pursuit of Moksha has to be balanced by the pursuit of Dharma, Artha and Kama! Escaping your responsibilities to go after a selfish pursuit, however noble it may seem, is simply not A-ok by the Upanishads.*
*It was not A-ok by Krishna either, in the Bhagavad Gita. When Arjuna wanted to escape his responsibilities as a warrior and a king, and run away from the battlefield, because he simply could not bear the thought of bringing down his nearest and dearest in a bloody war, he saw himself as doing the noble thing. Krishna was quick to point out that he was kidding himself, and this was exactly the kind of there’s-no-escape lecture poor Arjuna got.
Krishna’s larger message, as is the message of the Isha, is to all of us – the householder’s life (in your case, the student’s life) with its never-ending, never-changing routine of work and responsibility, is no less noble than the hermit’s life, which is spent in prayer and meditation. What’s more, the rewards of the worldly life, when it is lived with the understanding that there is something beyond the material, are just the same as the rewards of the ascetic life. Hurray!
Again, while it may be true that what cannot be experienced by the senses is What Really Counts, we are unfortunately born into bodies that can only experience the world via the senses. Denying and rejecting the beauty and endless variety of the world of the senses while chasing Things That Really Matter is just as bad as denying and rejecting the sublime world beyond the senses, and spending your life chasing Things That Don’t Really Matter.
In fact, if you have the knowledge of this truth, and yet your action is not in keeping with it (i.e., you live your life as if the material world and its rewards – fame, power, wealth – was everything), your sin is greater than that of the ignorant person, who lives a life of pure action simply because he doesn’t know any better. Similarly, if you know that the scriptures say that every creature is equal, but don’t follow it up with appropriate action (i.e., you treat your fellowmen badly), yours is a ‘sin of commission’ and thus deserving of a greater punishment than those who haven’t bothered to go to the scriptures at all, for theirs is merely a ‘sin of omission’. You see why those who live by knowledge alone are condemned to a worse fate than those who live by ignorance (or action) alone?
And therefore, says the Isha, do your Dharma, fulfil your responsibilities, do the right thing, be a role model. In short, live fully and joyously in the material world, performing the kind of actions that make it a better place for everyone around you. But know, always, that there is a world beyond what you can see and hear, which can only be gained by (1) believing in the underlying unity of all things and (2) being detached from the ups and downs, the praise and scorn, the joy and grief, and every other pair of opposites that are an inseparable part of living in the material world.
In other words, tena tyaktena bhunjeetaa – renounce and rejoice!
THE GREAT SECRET – REVEALED!
Shloka 15-16
O Pooshan, I’ve heard it told –
The Truth lies hidden by your disc of gold;
O Lord of Light, now hear my plea –
Dim your brilliance so I may see.*
Thy radiance dims, the One emerges
In me, a wondrous wonder surges;
For when I raise my eyes to Thee –
What do I see? That I am He!
The tone of the Isha changes suddenly here, as if the composer was suddenly overwhelmed with devotion. Shlokas 15 and 16 are addressed to Pooshan, another name for the sun, and end with the resounding declaration So’ham Asmi ! – I am He!
So’ham Asmi is not traditionally considered one of the four Mahavakyas, or Great Pronouncements, of the Vedas, but it is essentially saying the same thing every other Mahavakya is – I am He, Thou art That, You are God.
*Does that bring to mind a similar plea from another beloved Indian work? Yup, the plea that Arjuna made to Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna displayed his cosmic Vishwaroopa form, as brilliant as a million suns, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra! ‘Dim your brilliance, Lord,’ Arjuna begs him then, ‘so I may behold what is behind the light.’ Krishna obliges, but the Truth is so awesome and so terrifying that Arjuna cannot bear to look upon it.
REMEMBER, REMEMBER!
Shloka 17
May breath merge into immortal breath!
As body turns into ashes – Aum!
O Mind, remember what’s done, remember!
Remember what’s done as you go home!
While the 18th and last shloka of the Isha, which is also the last shloka of the Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita, is a simple and fairly typical prayer to Agni for blessings and guidance, the penultimate one, Shloka 17, seems a little out of place as far as its content is concerned. It has the same heightened emotional tone as the previous two shlokas, but is nowhere near as ecstatic. Instead, it is an urgent exhortation chanted over a funeral pyre to the mind and intelligence of the person who has died, asking him to remember all the deeds of his life just past, for they will impact and influence his next life.
We will never know why the composer of the Isha decided to bring this particular verse into it, but that does not reduce its impact or importance in any way. In fact, so long is the shadow cast by this particular shloka that it is used as part of Hindu funeral rites to this day.
Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||
१०
KENA
The Upanishad of ‘Whence-Came-It-All’?
In which we discover that the reason we can’t recognize Brahman is that He has (smartly!) never shared his photograph
Aum!
I seek blessings
That my limbs, speech, breath, eyes, ears, strength
And all my senses be nourished;
I pray
That I may never deny Brahman or be disloyal,
That Brahman may never forsake or reject me;
I, the seeker, ask
That all the wisdoms of the Upanishads
Shine in me,
That they all shine in me.
Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||
THE BACKSTORY
Another short Upanishad, the Kena is part of the Sama Veda, the Veda that Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, hailed as the loveliest of the four. The Kena has a rather unusual structure. Of its four chapters, the first two are in verse and are philosophical reflections, while the last two of are written in prose, and relate a story and its epilogue. The whole Upanishad takes the form of a dialogue between teacher and pupil. Its name, as in the case of the Isha, is taken from the first word of its first shloka.
What does the Kena broadly deal with? There are two main subjects:
(1) Nothing happens, nothing moves, nothing is possible, without desire, so whose desire is it that moves the universe? From where, from whom, does that desire originate? (Kena is Sanskrit for ‘from whom’ ); and
(2) The difficulty – even for the gods – of understanding the nature of Brahman the Supreme.
As always, before getting into the Upanishad, take a minute to reflect on its Shanti Mantra (you’ll find it on the previous page) and ask that its wisdom may shine in you.
THE STORY
The teacher and the pupil sat in companionable silence under the peepul tree, ready to begin the day’s lesson. The boy was a little fidgety this morning, his eager, shining face more impatient than usual. He was a rare one, this boy, thought the teacher, with his many, many questions, his insatiable curiosity and his willingness to work harder than his fellows – he would go far. Chuckling to himself, he decided to put the boy out of his misery without del
ay.
‘So,’ said the teacher, ‘tell me, what burning question has troubled you all night? What do you want to learn from me today?’
‘Oh sir,’ began the student, ‘From whom comes all of it – my thoughts, my sight, my hearing?
‘Who is He
Who makes my mind soar and my speech flow,
And my eyes see and my breath grow,
And my ears hear and my thoughts go?’ *
*Being a modern, rational, science-loving 21st century student, who does not believe in all this god mumbo-jumbo, you might well ask the same questions of your science teacher, changing the ‘Who is He who...’ to ‘What is it that...’ His or her answers, however, may not be much clearer, or more satisfying, than those of the teacher here, because even science does not have answers to these questions yet. More than 2,500 years after the Upanishads were composed, the Great Secret, the Eternal Mystery of Life, is still just that – a thrilling secret and a ginormous mystery.
Ah, the big one. All his best students got to that one at some point. The teacher took a deep breath. ‘Son,’ he said –
‘He is
The hearing behind hearing, the speech behind speech,
The sight behind sight, in a place beyond reach.’
The student listened, rapt. He didn’t quite understand what that meant, but he wasn’t going to interrupt, not yet.
‘He is
What words cannot express, seed of all that is uttered;
What the mind cannot grasp, by which thought is bestirred;
The wellspring of hearing, itself never heard.’
That sounds so beautiful, thought the student. But what does it mean?
‘Inconceivable, unperceivable, indescribable, Supreme –
That is Brahman, not the one they deem.’
The student nodded. It was all a little hazy still, but he thought he had a fair idea of Brahman now. Brahman was clearly not Indra or Agni – ‘not the one they deem’. He clearly wasn’t someone you could please and get favours from by pouring ghrita and soma into a fire – he was wayyy more complicated than that.
‘I think I understand,’ said the student. ‘Thank you.’
The teacher smiled to himself. If only Brahman was that simple to ‘understand’, if only he could be ‘understood’ at all by the limited human intellect! He looked at the young upturned face and shook his head. Some tough love was called for.
‘If you think “I know it well”, son, perhaps you do, but know that you know only a tiny, tiny part, which He chooses to reveal to us here on earth. For there is one part of Brahman that dwells among the gods, and that – that you have yet to discover. Ergo, back to your toil! Think about what I have told you, meditate, contemplate – there’s a long, long way to go yet!’
The student flushed.
‘I do not think that I know Him well, sir,
But I would not say that I do not, either.’
The teacher was impressed in spite of himself. The boy was not one to be cowed easily. Perhaps it was time to take him a little further. ‘You see, my boy,’ he said, ‘the difficulty with Brahman is this –
‘The one who knows Him, knows Him not
And the one who sees it, knows not
That he sees what he sought.’
The student’s face fell. How would he ever know Brahman then? If his teacher was to be believed, it was a futile quest. Clearly, Brahman was not someone who could be understood, he could perhaps only be experienced. But the ones who had experienced Him, it seemed, could not share the experience, because they didn’t even realize it had happened!* But the teacher was speaking again.
*Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, an Indian scholar–statesman, in his commentary on the Upanishads, quotes Plotinus, a philosopher from ancient Greece, to beautifully illustrate this seeming inability of those who have ‘seen’ to share the vision with others. ‘In other words,’ says Plotinus, ‘they have seen God and they do not remember? Ah, no: it is that they see God still and always, and that as long as they see, they cannot tell themselves they have had the vision; such reminiscence is for souls that have lost it.’
That sounds confusing, but it’s just a olde-worlde way of saying that you cannot ‘remember’ something when it is still part of you. It’s only when you no longer have something – your old phone, long hair, a toy you played with when you were little – that you can ‘remember’ it. Those who have seen God, Plotinus is saying, cannot ‘remember’ seeing Him because once that happens, He becomes an integral part of that person, forever.
The teacher’s words in the story have another meaning too – if you don’t know what the person or thing you are seeking looks like, how will you identify it when you see it?
‘But when the truth a man finally sees,
He becomes immortal, undying, ceases to cease.
Should that wisdom come to him on earth,
He escapes forever the cycle of rebirth;
If it does not, let him beware,
For great destruction awaits the unaware.’
Would that wisdom ever come to him? wondered the student, a little despondently. It seemed as if there was no way to make sure it would. The teacher’s heart went out to the boy. He decided to throw in a little tip.
‘But he who sees Him in each and every being –
He is blessed, in worlds both seen and unseen.’
Well, that was a bit of hope there, at last! thought the student to himself. That was something he could try to work towards. If he treated all his fellowmen and fellow creatures like he treated himself – with respect and kindness – maybe, some day, he too would experience Brahman. But the question still remained – would he recognize Him when he did?
The teacher’s voice broke into his soliloquy. ‘Let me tell you a story,’ said the teacher, ‘of how the gods were once humbled.’
‘I am all ears, sir,’ smiled the student. Trust his teacher to know when to break a low mood, with one of his stories! The stories were fun on the surface, but they usually came with a hidden lesson. He leaned in eagerly to give it his full attention.
‘Once upon a time,’ began the teacher, ‘a great war was fought between the gods and the demons. The gods won and started to congratulate themselves, feeling invincible in their victory. ‘We did it, boys!’ they exulted. ‘We did it all by ourselves! How cool are we!’ They did not pause for a moment to reflect, or to give thanks to the real reason behind their success, who was Brahman.
Seeing this, Brahman made himself visible to them. Drunk on their success, they did not recognize Him. ‘What is this strange apparition?’ they wondered. ‘Better send someone to find out if it is friend or foe.’
After a quick discussion, Jatavedas (he was more often called Agni) was picked to be the one to approach the apparition. Agni was powerful and fearless – with his torrid breath, he could turn anything to ashes in a twinkling.
‘All right, then,’ said Agni, and he reached the apparition in a few quick strides.
‘Who are you?’ the apparition asked him. ‘Why, I am Fire,’ said Agni. ‘They call me Jatavedas.’
‘Uh-hunh. And what sort of power do you have?’
‘I can burn up the whole world,’ boasted Agni. ‘Like, everything on earth!’
The apparition said nothing. Instead, it placed a blade of grass in front of Agni, saying, ‘Show me.’
Agni smiled. Mustering up all the firepower at his disposal, he breathed plumes of scorching flame at the challenger. The blade of grass lay there, as fresh and green as before.
Agni returned to the gods, very shaken. But he did not reveal what had happened. ‘I could not find out who that Being is,’ he said shortly, and took his place among the gods.
The gods turned to Wind. ‘Maybe you can find out for us, Wind?’ they said. ‘You are among the strongest of us all.’
Wind smiled. ‘That I am,’ he said and walked jauntily towards the apparition.
‘And who are you?’ said the apparition.
‘Me?’ said Wind, a little put out that the Being did not already know him. ‘I am Matarishvan, the Wind!’
‘I see,’ said the apparition. ‘And what sort of power do you have?’
‘I can carry away the whole world,’ boasted Wind. ‘Like, everything on earth!’
The apparition did not reply. Instead, it placed a blade of grass on the ground, saying, ‘Impress me.’
‘You can’t be serious!’ chuckled Wind. And he huffed at it a little. Nothing happened. He puffed at it some more. Nothing happened. Baffled, Wind loosed upon it a hurricane, with all the power at his command. But the blade of grass remained exactly where it was, not lifting off the ground by so much as a whisper.
Humbled and sore, Matarishvan returned to the gods. But he did not reveal what had happened. ‘I could not find out who that Being is,’ he said curtly, and went away to lick his wounds.
‘Maghavan,’ said the gods to their king, Indra. ‘There’s something strange afoot. You’d better go yourself and find out who or what it is.’
‘Right,’ said Indra, and off he went towards the apparition. But the moment he got close to it, it disappeared. In its place appeared the beauteous Uma, daughter of Himavat, the snow mountain.