by Roopa Pai
‘The wise reflect deeply on the two choices and pick the good, which gives perennial joy, even if that joy should take long to arrive, and involve hard work, many sacrifices and plenty of self-doubt. The ignorant, on the other hand, led only by their senses, greedy for short-term gains and seeking instant gratification, pick the pleasant one every time. Worse, they go around congratulating themselves on the choice they made, believing that they are the wise. “There is only this world, there isn’t any other,” proclaim these foolish men. “When my body dies, I die. So I take only what pleases the body, and enjoy the world to the fullest!” Such men, Nachiketa, are like the blind who are led by the blind. They never escape my coils – they die a hundred deaths as they blunder from life to life.
‘Only a few realize that the body is not the Self, that when the body dies, the Self remains – untainted, unchanging, eternal. It is the rare person who hears the Self speak, and rarer still is the person who recognizes that it is Him who speaks. Wondrous is the person who can teach someone else about Him, and more wondrous is he, who, on finding such a teacher, is able to glean that knowledge.
‘For you can talk about Him all you will – debating His nature, arguing about what He is and isn’t; and you can think about Him, and study the scriptures, and listen to all the discourses you like, but you will never attain Him via those routes, for He lies beyond the grasp of reason, beyond the reach of the intellect. Find a good teacher, however, and He is easily gained.
‘You, Nachiketa, are among the rarest of the rare. I laid before you every kind of treasure known to man and you rejected them all without a second thought – you chose the good over the pleasant! You have grasped the truth of the Self, dear boy. Blessed is the teacher who has a seeker like you to question him!’*
*Here, as is so many other places, the Upanishads point out how a worthy student is just as rare a species as a worthy teacher. Next time you want to blame your teachers for something, take a moment to reflect on whether you’ve done your part towards being an ideal student!
Nachiketa bowed. ‘What you call “treasure”, sir, I know is transient – it comes with a bang but is gone with a whimper. I seek that which is eternal and unchanging, and that can never be gained through something fleeting.’
Yama smiled and nodded. The boy was right, of course. But before he could say anything, Nachiketa spoke again.
‘I have heard that there is something beyond right and wrong, past and future, action and inaction. What would you say that is, sir?’
‘That, Nachiketa, is the word proclaimed by the Vedas as the holiest of the holy, glorified in every ritual, the supreme syllable that we know as the everlasting spirit Himself – Aum! Dwell on it, son, chant it, let the sacred syllable echo unceasingly in your heart, and you will go beyond sorrow, and all your longings will be fulfilled.’
(The conversation between Yama and Nachiketa ends around here, but the conversation with the reader about death, the body and the Self continues.
On a different note, ever wondered about the meaning of Nachiketa’s name? Here are some theories – ‘Na kshiti’ means ‘that which does not decay’, relevant to that part of the story in which the second boon is granted to him by Yama; ‘Na jiti’ means ‘that which cannot be vanquished’, which applies to the third boon he receives; and ‘Na chiketa,’ which can be translated as ‘I do not know’, is what Nachiketa essentially submits to Yama – ‘Tell me because I do not know’ – while asking him to reveal the greatest secret of all. Now you know.)
DEATH, BE NOT PROUD
Does a man die at his death, or does he still live? The wise know that the Self within is neither born nor ever dies, has not come from anything and does not go anywhere, and is constant, unchangeable and everlasting. If the slayer imagines that he slays, or if the slain imagines he has been slain, they are both wrong, for the Self who lives inside neither slays nor is ever slain.*
*Sounds familiar? It would, if you had read the Bhagavad Gita – this is one of the first arguments that Krishna presents to Arjuna, while trying to convince him to do his duty as a warrior and a king, even if it means killing his closest family. ‘You see, you can’t really kill the Self in them,’ says Krishna, ‘you only kill their bodies, which are meant to die one day anyway.’ Krishna thinks it’s a pretty persuasive argument. Arjuna, quite understandably, doesn’t. So Krishna is forced to give him the long lecture we know today as the Gita.
Smaller than the smallest, vaster than the vastest, the Self lives within the heart. Stop striving in vain – submit instead to His will, embrace with equanimity everything that comes your way, sacrifice your anxiety about the outcome of your work. Thus will your mind be tranquil, thus will you behold His glory in yourself.
For He is closer to you than you know but farther away than you can imagine. Sitting still, He moves everything; lying down, He goes everywhere. And though He abides in everyone, He only reveals Himself to a few.
The unrighteous cannot reach Him, nor they whose minds are not composed. The man who controls not his senses cannot know Him, nor he who gives not a thing his complete dedication.
He who consumes both priest and king like a dish of boiled rice and gobbles up death itself like the curry on top, who can truly know where to find Him, until He decides to reveal Himself?
***
What are the main messages in this passage? One, of course, is clearly stated – the death we talk about is only the death of the body, not the soul, which is our one true Self.
But there seems to be another big message here as well: no matter how hard you work towards something, how sincerely, or how single-mindedly, it is impossible to achieve what you set out to, or scale the pinnacle of your particular mountain, unless your effort is also touched by divine grace. Or, as the Kathopanishad puts it, unless ‘He decides to reveal Himself’.
That is one way to explain, say, why certain sportspersons are consistently at the top of their game even though others practise just as hard, or why certain musicians are more popular than others who are just as focused, or why someone else got elected school prefect when you are just as responsible a leader as she is – the former simply have that something ‘extra’. You can call it luck if you wish, or find a dozen rational-sounding reasons for their success; the Kathopanishad itself attributes it to Him deciding to reveal Himself.
Unfortunately, there is no formula for ensuring that He reveals Himself to you – bummer! – but here’s what you can and must do. Simply continue to put in your very best effort, because showing that you are worthy – by doing the hard work and making the sacrifices required – is the very first step to becoming a Chosen One. For it’s only when someone’s effort – even if that someone is a genius – combines with divine grace, that success – both in this world and the next – is guaranteed.
One more thing – while you are putting in that effort, quit looking over your shoulder to see when your turn to be the Chosen One will come. Oh, and stop hating on those who seem to have been picked over you – that kind of thing distracts you from your own effort. Instead, focus entirely on your effort and enjoy it for its own sake. This last is vital, say the scriptures – letting go of expectation is the key to a happy life!
THE RIDER IN THE CHARIOT
In the chariot of the body rides the Master, the Self.
Who’s the driver? Buddhi, the Intellect!
The reins? Manah, the Mind!
The horses? Why, the five senses!
The paths they wish to traverse? Selfish desires!
O charioteer, hold firm the reins and control your skittish horses, which pull in every direction! O Intellect, understanding that worldly desires lead only to sorrow, train the Mind to be one-pointed, and draw the senses to yourself!
For he whose intellect is not discriminating and whose mind is not still, he stumbles along winding paths that lead from death to death. But he whose charioteer is illuminated by understanding, he sticks to the one true path to his destination, the a
bode of the Supreme, never to return.
Using a chariot as an allegory to talk about the importance of controlling the wild horses of the mind and the senses is not unique to Indian thought. The 4th century BCE Greek philosopher Plato, student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, also uses the chariot allegory in one of his dialogues, Phaedrus. Socrates tells Phaedrus that the human soul is a chariot pulled by two winged horses, with Reason as the charioteer. One of the horses is white, and of noble breed and character, the other is black, and quite the opposite, which necessarily makes driving the chariot a very difficult proposition.
In Plato’s story, the white horse represents good passions (like being passionate about confronting and fighting injustice, seeking the truth, and so on), while the black one represents more pedestrian and not-so-noble passions – wealth, fame, success.
Those souls who are fully enlightened know for certain that a realm exists beyond what the senses can see, and aim for it single-mindedly – they let the white horse lead them there. Others are not so sure – they bob up occasionally into the other realm, catching a glimpse of what exists beyond the material world, but without that unshakeable faith, or shraddha, which Nachiketa had to guide them, they forget what they have seen and let the black horse bring them crashing down to earth.
Depending on how much of the other realm a soul has seen in one lifetime, Socrates tells Phaedrus, it gets reincarnated into one of nine categories of people (see list on following page) in its next. Those who have seen the most (the almost-enlightened) will come back as No. 1 on the list – philosophers – while those who have seen the least (the grossly unenlightened) are likely to come back as No. 9. Everyone else fits somewhere in between. (Given how you have behaved in your life so far, what do you think you will be reborn as? More importantly, which category of people would you like to be reborn into? From his list, it is clear that Plato did not believe that even the most terrible people would be reborn as cockroaches; according to Hindu philosophy, however, this is a very real possibility. Eeeeeps!)
A sculpture of Greek philosopher Plato
On to the list now!
(1) Philosophers (devious, that, considering Plato himself was a philosopher; but the category basically includes learned men, whose nature makes them delight in the pleasures of the mind. Yup, exactly how brahmins are defined in the Gita);
(2) Law-abiding kings and leaders (essentially, men of action, or kshatriyas);
(3) Politicians and businessmen (vaishyas, among others – although if Plato came back to live in the 21st century, he might want to reconsider this category’s position in the list);
(4) Doctors and healers (so low down on the list? Unfair much?);
(5) Prophets, diviners, alchemists and assorted mystics;
(6) Poets and artists (at number six? Seriously? Seriously. Plato did not care for poetry and art, dismissing both as imitative; they were either copied from nature, he said, or were pure fantasy – Greek poetry then was mostly about the gods – and therefore inauthentic, unoriginal and fake);
(7) Craftsmen (people who got their hands dirty, i.e., shudras);
(8) Sophists (who were also philosophers, but who, according to Plato and his friends at least, were the worst kind of frauds, only imparting philosophical truths to those who could pay for them, and coming up with all kinds of flawed reasoning to support their specious arguments); and
(9) Tyrants (enough said!)
But enough about Plato. Let’s talk now about the Bhagavad Gita, which borrows so heavily from this section of the Katha. Apart from the argument about the slayer and the slain, Krishna also uses the chariot allegory to instruct Arjuna on who or what his Self really is. The fact that their conversation happened in a chariot, where he, the Lord of Wisdom, was Arjuna’s charioteer, is not a random coincidence at all! Also, by choosing Krishna as his charioteer, Arjuna had declared, loud and clear, his shraddha to the highest goal. Later, Krishna would choose to reveal Himself to Arjuna, thus blessing his effort with the elusive divine grace. You see how, with all this on his side, Arjuna could not but win – not just the earthly war he was fighting with the Kauravas but also the bigger war he was fighting with himself?
ARISE! AWAKE! YOU’RE TREADING THE RAZOR’S EDGE!
Uttishtatha jaagrata praapya varaan nibodhata
Kshoorasya dhaara nishita duratyaya; durgam pathas tat kavayo vadanti
Get up! Wake up! Pay attention
To all the blessings you’ve received!
Sharp as the razor’s edge is the path, they say,
More arduous than can be conceived!
To believe implicitly in a world that you cannot experience with your senses, to choose always the good path over the pleasurable, to be so dedicated to your quest that no earthly temptation can divert you, even while everyone around you mocks at your ‘idealistic nonsense’ – all of it demands a rare brand of courage.
What does that kind of courage translate to in the real world? Not paying a bribe to get something done, perhaps, even though you know it will delay things for you, and require you to make many trips to do it; or skipping a friend’s impromptu party because you have already promised your granddad you will play chess with him; or taking issue with your mom, respectfully, when you believe she is not treating the domestic help right; or picking up the litter on your street each Sunday, even though your neighbours never step in to help (in fact, they don’t even stop throwing stuff out of respect for your efforts; instead, they hasten to discourage you, assuring you that you are wasting your time and should be studying instead).
Do you see how displaying this kind of courage will eventually make you a better person, in your own estimation if not in anyone else’s? Sure. But is it something that you’d rather avoid? Oh, most certainly! See how the sages were so on point when they declared that the path to self-realization was as sharp as a razor’s edge?
ETAD VAI TAT – THIS, INDEED, IS THAT!
All the body’s ‘gates’ – eyes, nose, ears, mouth – He in his wisdom turned outwards; therefore, willy-nilly, we look outside us for our happiness. But the wise sage looked inside himself, and beheld the Self within.
When we can only perceive what lies outside,
Using all our tools of perception.
That which is left behind, which nestles inside –
This, indeed, is That!
He who rose from the primordial ocean
And abides in the cave of the heart,
And of every creature is the driving notion –
This, indeed, is That!
Divine mother, who sustains each breath,
Aditi, the boundless one
Who dwells in our hearts and keeps us from death –
This, indeed, is That!
Concealed in kindling is the eternal spark
(Hidden like a life in the womb)
Of Agni the Glorious, who puts out the dark –
This, indeed, is That!
With its roots in Heaven and its branches on earth
Stands the upside-down world-tree,
Immortal source of our sustenance, our worth –
This, indeed, is That!
They speak of a city with eleven gates,
And of Him, its watchful guardian;
He guides us across sorrow’s straits –
This, indeed, is That!
The thumb-sized Being enshrined in the heart
Like a flame smokeless and eternal
Lord of time, of every creature a part –
This, indeed, is That!
When death comes to the body, and the Self breaks free
And vanishes quicker than eye can see,
What remains is the Word that holds the key –
This, indeed, is That!
How do we describe something we cannot perceive? And what is the Self? Here’s how the sages of the Kathopanishad did it – they declared that the Self was no different from Hiranyagarbha the Creator, Aditi, the divine mother, Agni, the eter
nal fire, the upside-down Ashvattha tree*, or the ‘guardian of the city with eleven gates’.** In fact, said the sages, the ‘thumb-sized being that is enshrined in the heart’*** was no different at all from the Universal Soul – the Supreme Spirit that is all around us and deep inside us, enveloping the universe and extending beyond it (vaster than the vastest), while at the same time sitting snug as a bug inside every atom of creation (smaller than the smallest).
And to hammer their point home, the sages employed a rousing refrain – Etad vai tat! – This (the Self), indeed, is That (Hiranyagarbha, Aditi, Agni, the upside-down tree, the guardian of the fort with eleven gates, the Universal Soul)!
*The story of the ‘world-tree’ that connects Heaven and earth is found in many cultures. Most stories about these ‘connectors’ place them at a mythical location called the Axis Mundi (centre of the world), which is believed to be the spot at which the four cardinal directions meet. While most stories have it that it is through such connectors that prayers go up to the gods and blessings descend to our world, the Indian conception of it is a little different.
Our tree is an upside-down one, with its roots in Heaven and its branches on the earth. But so thick do this tree’s branches grow on the ground that we are deluded into believing that the branches are the forest, that it is the earth, and not Heaven, that sustains the tree. Instead of seeking the great trunk rising to the sky, we begin to chase after the low-hanging fruit on earth, believing foolishly that this is all there is.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna this story and exhorts him to hew down the dense forest of delusion using the sharp axe of detachment, so that the truth stands revealed. Another example of the influence of the Upanishadic stories on the Gita!
**The ‘city with the eleven (or nine) gates’ is a common metaphor for the body in Indian philosophy and storytelling. The nine gates of the body are the nine ‘openings’, all of which face outwards – the two eyes, the two nostrils, the two ears, the mouth, and the two openings down under through which stuff is discharged (women have three, of course, but the sages were, as usual, not thinking of them when they wrote this). Sometimes, eleven gates are mentioned – the two extra ones are the navel and what is called the ‘brahmarandhra’ (Brahma’s passage), the opening at the top of the skull which closes up as a baby grows. Hindus believe that it is through the brahmarandhra that the life-force, or Brahman, enters the foetus, and it is through it again that the soul leaves once the body dies.