KENOPANISHAD - 1.1 Swami Krishnananda

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Monday, May 09.05.2022. 20:30.

1. INTRODUCTORY - 1.

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Karma and upasana act as steps leading to jnana. The immediate reality experienced by the human being is the physical body connected with the physical world. The function of the body is to act objectively in relation to external existence. It is never possible to keep one's individuality inactive, because activity is a necessity that urges the individuality to transcend itself in some other state that is superior to the preceding one. Action can be destroyed through action alone, even as iron is cut by iron. Individuality can be transcended through individuality.


Upasana is a mental act, while karma may also be a physical act. Mind also is a constituent of individuality. The mind can be transcended through mind itself. The laws of the body and the mind are overcome through karma and upasana. Karma should be done as a necessity of individual life and not as a process of self-satisfaction. This is the distinction between selflessness and selfishness. Upasana is the method of subduing the distractive character of the mind through concentration on the one objective reality, viz., God. God is the unified wholeness of objectivity, though in upasana it is not possible to consider God as the secondless Absolute. The body becomes steady and calm; the mind becomes unshaken and the aspirant becomes fit for the higher state of Self-knowledge by purification attained thus through karma and upasana.


All actions done for the sake of the satisfaction of oneself become mothers of rebirth, because every desire has to be fulfilled today or tomorrow. The vastness of desires makes it impossible for the individual to fulfil all of them in this life itself. The nature of the future birth is determined by the desires that are left unfulfilled in this birth. Pleasures and pains experienced in this life are the results of the positive and the negative reactions of desires and actions. Knowledge is possible, therefore, only for one who ceases from desiring objects, whether physical or psychological, real or ideal.


Even the memory of desires and experiences has to be erased out. Nothing that is objective can be perpetual, because something becomes an object only when it has a relationship with a subject. All relationships constitute bondage. The mere fact that objects exist in the world does not constitute bondage. It is the relationship that is developed between one object and another that constitutes bondage. Desire for the knowledge of Brahman is not a desire, because such a desire is like the movement of a straw towards fire. Desire shall be burnt by the knowledge of Brahman. Movement towards the Self within is not the development of a desire, but the process of the cessation of desire. The senses and the mind get withdrawn and dissolved in the unity of the Self. Immortality is the condition of the experience of the Self as free from the connections that it appears to have with the not-Self.


The Mundaka Upanishad has said that the seeker after knowledge should first investigate the worthlessness of regions which are the effect of actions performed in this world. He should get disgusted with the world through understanding and not merely through tradition. Reason should strengthen faith, logic should supplement intuition. This shall bring about perfect vairagya born of viveka. Vairagya is not possible without a previous conviction, and conviction is not possible without analytical knowledge. This power of analysis comes to a person, first through past meritorious deeds, next through Satsanga, and later through svadhyaya and vichara.




To be continued ...




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