Lessons on the Upanishads

by Swami Krishnananda

So this dirt of the mind, so-called, the mala or the impurity that compels the mind to move in the direction of sense objects, can be scrubbed off by work – hard work, service, labour – provided it is in the spirit of a service done to a larger self of one's own self. Then work becomes worship and karma becomes karma yoga.

A discipline of this kind was instituted in earlier days when it was obligatory on the part of students to serve their Masters and learn under their tutelage. Narada, a master in all the arts and sciences conceivable by the human mind, went humbly to the great divine sage Sanatkumara, as it is recorded in the Chhandogya Upanishad.

"I am unhappy, great Master," said Narada.

"What have you learned already, Narada?" asked the sage Sanatkumara.

"All the things in the world, all the sciences, astronomy, physics, psychology, axiology, aesthetics, ethics, civics, astrology, economics, politics, religions, philosophy – there is nothing that I do not know. But I have no peace of mind," replied Narada.

The great Master said: "All this that you have learned is only words. You have not gone to the depths of things; the Atman has not been studied. You have only collected words, names and information about the outer structure of things. The name and the form complex of things have been made available to you by the studies that you have enumerated just now, as a series of learning."

Likewise, in the Upanishads we have instances of great seekers humbly moving towards sages and saints for the purpose of making themselves fit to receive this knowledge. Even after achieving considerable success in purifying the mind of this dross of its tendency to move in the direction of objects of sense – by duty, by service, by unselfish work – the mind will refuse to concentrate on this subject. It has, as I mentioned, very fleeting ideas, one of which is what I have been enumerating just now.

The other is the incapacity of the mind to fix itself on anything for a long time. Try to think of something for a long time, continuously. Let us see what happens. Go on looking at this tree and thinking only about this tree, and about nothing else. After a few minutes you will think of another tree nearby. You will think of the mountain in front. You will look at the river; you will look at the buildings and at people moving about. Distraction is another malady of the mind. How will consciousness rest itself in its pure subjectivity, which is the Atman, if this fickleness continues for a long time and thus makes it impossible for one to be aware of anything other than what is outside?

But, there is a greater danger – namely, the inability to know why this discipline is to be undergone at all. "What for is all this study, sir, finally? What do I gain?" You bring a business mentality once again: "What do I gain by way of profit?" The mind of the human being is made in such a way that it will not undertake any kind of work, project or activity unless it is told that something will follow. This is exactly what the Bhagavadgita has condemned. You should not expect anything to follow from the pure subjectivity aspect of the work because that which follows, as it were, is a futurity which you are trying to inject into the present. You are creating a conflict between the present and the future. Naturally, there is a difference between the present and the future when we think of the future possibility of attainment, or obtaining an objective far ahead in time as a fruit accruing to the work that we are doing at this moment, in the present. But the Atman is a present; it is not a future. The reason or the rationale behind this study, this activity, is something beyond reason itself. The reason behind the need for the study of the nature of the Atman is super-rational. What can be more important than your own self? Is any burden of material value superior to your own existence? Has the world any meaning minus you? Let your existence be isolated completely; you will find that the world will stand as a series of zeros or ciphers unless there is a single stroke of a figure that makes sense and which is the Atman who does things.

There is a screen covering the consciousness of this pure subjectivity in oneself. That screen is called avarana, the third defect of the mind. Dross, physical impurity, is removed by karma yoga, or the performance of unselfish action. The fickleness of the mind is subdued by upasana, or devout worship. And avarana, or the veil, is removed by jnana, or wisdom of life. The Bhagavadgita is a standard gospel on the art of karma yoga, unselfish spiritual activity. The Epics and the Puranas highlight the path of devotion – bhakti or upasana – love of God. The Upanishads deal with jnana, or wisdom of the Ultimate Reality.

Thus, this teaching that is going to be imparted to you is not to be taken as a diversion from the ordinary regime of life, but as a very serious matter which will polish your personality, chasten your individuality and make you a perfect individual, not only in your own self but also in human society. The teaching is a spiritual discipline; it is not just intellectual information.

I have briefly told you something about the nature of karma yoga, or unselfish action – performance of duty for duty's sake as a standard method laid down before us by the ancient masters for cleansing the mind of the dross of extraneous desires for sense objects – and upasana is the love of God that you evince in your own self by daily worship performed in whatever way you would like to do it.

In the beginning when you conceive of the Supreme Being, you have a spatio-temporal imagination of that Being. God is very big, very large, very far away, very great, adorable; you offer your prostrations to that Almighty as something lovable. Even the Upanishads sometimes refer to the Supreme Absolute as the most lovable. Vanam means adorable; that Being is the most adorable. That thing which you call God, that thing which pulls your attention in its own direction, that which is the Ultimate Reality of things, that which is the Self of the cosmos, is the most magnificent, beloved, lovable, beautiful, most essential of all beings. And one who loves this Ultimate Being as the most lovable is loved by the whole world. You attract things towards yourself because you are attracted towards that which is everywhere. This is the best way of making friends in this world. You need not read Dale Carnegie, etc. If you are attracted towards that which is everywhere, wholly and solely, the entire world will be attracted towards you as a natural consequence of the attraction that you feel towards that Ultimate Reality. This is how you can honestly love it, if you want to be loved by others. How can you expect love from anybody if you yourself have no love for that which is the essence of all things?

Worship, or upasana, is conducted in many ways: by ritualistic methods as it is done in temples or before the altar in one's own house, by japa or recitation of the Divine Name, in japa sadhana, by prayer which is offered in the form of actual articulation of voice or even mentally, or by the study of scriptures. All these constitute part of upasana, adoration, the feeling of love for that which is supremely divine.

All this process will have to be carried on for a considerable period of time in order that the fickleness of the mind may be subdued. Otherwise, if you give scant attention to this difficulty in the mind, you will find that you will not be able to appreciate the methodology prescribed in the Upanishads for the realisation of the Atman. You will not only not be able to do this, you will also have a difficulty in even knowing why this meditation is carried on at all, because many people may honestly feel a difficulty in knowing what will happen to them after attaining God. Everybody knows that one has to attain God, but what will happen to you afterwards? You cannot easily answer this question because you still have a defective understanding of what you are and, therefore, there is a defect persisting even in your attempt to know what will happen to you at that time. However, by a protracted practice of upasana, by worship, by japa sadhana, by svadhya, by jnana, and your own notion of God, whatever that notion may be, the fickleness of the mind comes down. It will become attentive.

After having sufficiently undergone this discipline by which the distraction of the mind is subdued and also the impulse towards sense objects is curbed, you can become good students of the Upanishadic philosophy.

In the Upanishads, three disciplines are referred to, which are equivalent to what I meant as karma, bhakti and jnana – namely, sacrifice, austerity and Guru pasakyti, approaching a master for teaching. In ancient Vedic terminology, sacrifice meant, of course, the offering of holy oblations into the sacred fire, but sacrifice may also mean mentally offering anything that one would like to dedicate to God. There can be externally performed sacrifice, or yajna – or a mentally conceived yajna. You can be charitable by an external gesture or you can be charitable in your own feeling. A charitable feeling is more important than a charitable gesture. I am not going to dilate upon the subject of sacrifice just now, as many of you may know what it actually means, and as it is not the main subject of our study.

Austerity is very important. Tapas is the pre-eminent prescription of the Upanishads for self-control, which actually means the inhibition or abstraction of the tendency of the mind to move towards things other than the Self. Austerity, or tapas, can be performed or carried on gradually by a systematic adoption of graduated methods.

The first thing you can do in your life towards performance of austerity is to avoid luxury and a happy-go-lucky attitude. You should have or keep with you only those things which are necessary for you, and should not keep those things which are not essential for a reasonably comfortable existence. This is the first step that you can take in austerity. Something is necessary for you under certain given conditions – okay, granted – but you need not ask for more than that. Eating, sleeping and comforts of any kind have to be within the limit of the exigency that you feel under the conditions that you are living, for the work that you are doing, etc, and you need not go beyond that limit. This is the first step that you may take towards austerity.

Austerity is physical, verbal and mental. You have to be restrained not only in your physical appurtenances but also in the words that you speak and the acts that you do. That is, you should not cause any kind of disharmony, incongruity in the atmosphere, and towards that end you may manipulate and adjust yourself ably for being a humane individual, a good person, in the sense that your presence does not cause conflict with anyone. In eating and in other well-known comforts of life, maintain a minimum, to the extent that it is absolutely essential.Here also a note of caution has to be exercised – namely, that austerity does not mean torture of the body, nor does it mean indulgence. The path of the spirit is a via media; the golden mean is the path of spirituality.

There is the well-known incident often cited in connection with an event that took place in the life of Buddha, or perhaps it is also connected with Raja Janaka's life. Some angels were playing a stringed instrument and they said, "Tune not the sitar too high or too low. If the string of the sitar is tuned too tight – hence, high – it will not produce music; it may even snap. If it is too low, it will make a dull humming sound; it will not give music." Neither this extreme nor that extreme is the path of the spirit. Any kind of suffering is to be avoided. Over-indulgence is also to be avoided. Therefore, austerity is also a cautious exercise of one's demeanour in respect of one's own self as well as in respect of others.

Hence, the Upanishad prescribes sacrifice, yajna, as one method or means of self-discipline, and the other method is austerity, self-control. Self-control is actually taking all necessary steps available for enabling the mind to fix its attention on the root of its own existence – the Self that is behind the mind, the real you that is so valuable to you. When it is a question of yourself, you would like to abandon everything else for the sake of yourself, meaning thereby that the importance that you attach to yourself, for some reason or other, surpasses the importance that you feel towards anything else in the world.

After sacrifice and austerity, there is the most important teaching – the third, which is study under a teacher, a competent master who has trodden the path, who knows the pitfalls, who knows the difficulties, who treats you as a physician treats his patients. With these methods, the dirt of the mind is scrubbed off, the fickleness is brought down, the veil covering the Atman is lifted gradually and the light of the sun of the Pure Spirit sheds its radiance automatically from within one's own self. Knowledge will arise from within you. This is why it is said that when you know yourself, you know everything. Know thyself and be free – atmanam viddhi.