अन्धन्तमः प्रविशन्ति येऽविद्यामुपासते ।
ततो भूय इव ते तमोय उ विद्यायां रताः ॥ ९ ॥
अन्यदेवाहुर्विद्ययाऽन्यदाहुरविद्यया ।
इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ॥ १० ॥
विद्यां चाविद्यां च यस्तद्वेदोभयं सह ।
अविद्यया मृत्युं तीर्त्वा विद्ययामृतमश्नुते ॥ ११ ॥
andhantamaḥ praviśanti ye’vidyāmupāsate |
tato bhūya iva te tamoya u vidyāyāṃ ratāḥ || 9 ||
anyadevāhurvidyayā’nyadāhuravidyayā |
iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nastadvicacakṣire || 10 ||
vidyāṃ cāvidyāṃ ca yastadvedobhayaṃ saha |
avidyayā mṛtyuṃ tīrtvā vidyayāmṛtamaśnute || 11 ||
Into a blind darkness they enter who are devoted to ignorance (rituals); but into a greater darkness they enter who engage in knowledge of a deity alone.
One thing, they say, is obtained from knowledge; another, they say, from ignorance. Thus we have heard from the wise who have taught us this.
He who is aware that both knowledge and ignorance should be pursued together, overcomes death through ignorance and obtains immortality through knowledge.
Commentary:
These three mantras(9,10&11) use two technical terms – Vidya and Avidya. Today, these two words mean ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Ignorance’ respectively. But, during the days of the Isha Upanishad, these two words meant something totally different. Most modern translations of these mantras translate these two terms as knowledge and ignorance. With this translation, these mantras make no sense. Acharya Shankara too interprets these two terms in a strange manner; he says Vidya means ‘meditation on a Deity’; Avidya means rituals. So, the purport of these mantras, according to Shankara is – one has to meditate on a Deity along with performing rituals; if a person sticks to only one and ignores the other, great danger awaits him in future.
Swami Vivekananda avers that we need not torture the text in this manner at all.
We have in the Mundaka Upanishad a beautiful conception; all knowledge that man has access to, can be categorised into two – Para–Vidya and Apara–Vidya; Para–Vidya is that knowledge by which a man gets to know his own true nature; Apara-Vidya includes all knowledge of this world, except of one’s own true nature. These mantras in the Isha Upanishad can be understood to refer to the same categorisation that later on came to be denoted by Para-Vidya and Apara–Vidya.
In general, we see a dichotomy between religion and science. Religion reveals unique facts about Man, God and the World. Science reveals unique facts about the World. Science does not talk about Man and God. Ideas about the World emanating from science clash with ideas about the World emanating from religion. Thus, modern people have to be loyal either to religion or to science. It has become almost impossible to harmonise religion with science. Religious leaders all over the world are attempting to resolve this issue by directing their followers to believe in their dictates about Man and God and are giving their followers the concession to believe in science regarding matters concerning the World. But this is tricky. Many aspects of Man are impacted by the discoveries of science. If you study the Papal encyclicals and directives in the last 100 years, you will find most of them struggling to harmonise core Christian practices with modern scientific discoveries concerning the World and their impact on the life of Man in society. Abortion is one such contentious issue. Contraception is another. Many more such issues are there.
These three mantras, and the next three mantras of Isha Upanishad resolve this matter for us in one go. The Rishi of Isha Upanishad declares that the goal of the two studies – the study of one’s own nature, and the study of the world around us – are very different. If we study this world in the greatest depth humanly possible, will we stumble upon the knowledge of our own true self? No. Similarly, if we have directly perceived the Atman, as a consequence, will we know Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism, for instance, or how the tides work?[27] No. We may imagine them as two infinite worlds, the inner and the outer. We may pursue our enquiry into either one of them and obtain tremendous depth of knowledge. But, no amount of depth in one world will reveal to us knowledge of the other world. Each has to be pursued separately. In fact, the Shanti mantra with which this Upanishad begins expresses this idea very beautifully: Om. That is full; this is full. This fullness has been projected from that fullness. When this fullness merges in that fullness, all that remains is fullness. Om. Peace! Peace! Peace! The inner world is infinite; the external world also is infinite; we have discovered that the external world is projected from the inner world; through the practice of Yoga, it is possible to merge the external world into the inner world; when that merger happens, what remains is one infinite existence, without distinction.
If we ask, which of these two is important? Upanishad says that each is important in its own place. Each is necessary for the full development of man. If we believe that the study of the world around us is more important, we would have missed the mark. How? The study of the world gives us unimaginable benefits; life becomes comfortable; life becomes joyous. Yet, this study alone will be unfulfilling because we would have known a huge lot about the world, but we would be ignorant about our own true nature. For a long time, man remains busy with his desires and aspirations. For that period, he may not bother about what lies within him. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that as long as the child is busy with its toys, it is not bothered about its mother; but a time comes when the best toys do not retain the attention of the child and it starts wailing for its mother. The Rishi of the Mundaka Upanishad expresses the same idea beautifully as follows: Let a brahmin, after having examined all these worlds that are gained by works, acquire freedom from desires: nothing that is eternal can be produced by what is not eternal. In order that he may understand that Eternal, let him, fuel in hand, approach a guru who is well versed in the Vedas and always devoted to Brahman.[Mundaka Upanishad 1.2.12]
Take the other scenario. A man has understood that nothing of this world can ever permanently satisfy him. He renounces this world and dives deep into himself and perceives Atman directly. The Rishi says that this man too has missed the mark! How is that? Hasn’t he obtained the Eternal? Shouldn’t that keep him satisfied? How can the Rishi say that this person enters into greater darkness? This is a little difficult to understand, given our value system which places greater importance on the inner life of man.
To understand this enigmatic statement of the Isha Upanishad Rishi, we need Sri Ramakrishna’s words, which we will quote in-extenso: The jnani gives up his identification with worldly things, discriminating, ‘Not this, not this’. Only then can he realize Brahman. It is like reaching the roof of a house by leaving the steps behind, one by one. But the Vijnani, who is more intimately acquainted with Brahman, realizes something more. He realizes that the steps are made of the same materials as the roof: bricks, lime, and brick-dust. That which is realized intuitively as Brahman, through the eliminating process of ‘Not this, not this’, is then found to have become the universe and all its living beings. The Vijnani sees that the Reality which is nirguna, without attributes, is also saguna, with attributes. A man cannot live on the roof a long time. He comes down again. Those who realize Brahman in samadhi come down also and find that it is Brahman that has become the universe and its living beings. In the musical scale there are the notes sa, re ga, ma, pa, dha, and ni; but one cannot keep one’s voice on ‘ni’ a long time. The ego does not vanish altogether. The man coming down from samadhi perceives that it is Brahman that has become the ego, the universe, and all living beings. This is known as Vijnana…[Source] What is Vijnana? It is knowing God in a special way. The awareness and conviction that fire exists in wood is jnana, knowledge. But to cook rice on that fire, eat the rice, and get nourishment from it is Vijnana. To know by one’s inner experience that God exists is jnana. But to talk to Him, to enjoy Him as Child, as Friend, as Master, as Beloved, is Vijnana. The realization that God alone has become the universe and all living beings is Vijnana…[30] Jnana is the realization of Self through the process of ‘Neti, neti’, ‘Not this, not this’. One goes into samadhi through this process of elimination and realizes the Atman. But Vijnana means Knowledge with a greater fullness. Some have heard of milk, some have seen milk, and some have drunk milk. He who has merely heard of it is ‘ignorant’. He who has seen it is a jnani. But he who has drunk it has Vijnana, that is to say, a fuller knowledge of it. After having the vision of God, one talks to Him as if He were an intimate relative. That is Vijnana…[31] First of all, you must discriminate, following the method of ‘Neti, neti’: ‘He is not the five elements, nor the sense-organs, nor the mind, nor the intelligence, nor the ego. He is beyond all these cosmic principles.’ You want to climb to the roof; then you must eliminate and leave behind all the steps one by one. The steps are by no means the roof. But after reaching the roof you find that the steps are made of the same materials brick, lime, and brick-dust as the roof. It is the Supreme Brahman that has become the universe and its living beings and the twenty-four cosmic principles. That which is Atman has become the five elements. You may ask why the earth is so hard, if it has come out of Atman? All is possible through the will of God. Don’t you see that bone and flesh are made from blood and semen? How hard ‘sea-foam’ becomes! After attaining Vijnana one can live in the world as well. Then one clearly realizes that God Himself has become the universe and all living beings, that He is not outside the world. The fact is that one must have the ‘spiritual eye’. You will develop that eye as soon as your mind becomes pure. Take for instance the Kumari Puja. I worshipped a virgin. The girl, to be sure, had all her human imperfections; still I regarded her as the Divine Mother Herself. On one side is the wife and on the other the son. Love is bestowed on both, but in different ways. Therefore, it comes to this, that everything depends upon the mind. The pure mind acquires a new attitude. Through that mind one sees God in this world. Therefore, one needs spiritual discipline.[32]
This concept of Vijnana, enunciated by Sri Ramakrishna is the right explanation of these three mantras of the Isha Upanishad.
If we look at the history of the Hindu religion, we will understand why this important idea got lost in India. The Upanishads were composed a few thousand years before Buddha. When Buddha tried to learn Brahmavidya, there was no one willing to teach him. We have, however, had an unbroken lineage of Brahmavidya experts right from the Upanishad period till now. So, why couldn’t Buddha get a Guru? The knowledge was deeply entrenched in a hierarchical caste system. Buddha, being a Kshatriya, was not allowed entry into the closed Brahmin-caste, and hence he couldn’t learn from the extant traditions of Upanishads. So, Buddha discovered Brahmavidya afresh, from first principles, without the help of tradition. The advantage of this re-discovery was that Brahmavidya, in its bare-bones form, was made available to the masses, bypassing the hierarchical caste system. But tradition always has some vital advantages which amateurs miss. Tradition allows for infinite nuances within itself. Innumerable minor details get accumulated through tradition and gets passed on to future generations, which a re-discovery can never achieve. Buddha brought Brahmavidya out of the clutches of Brahmin caste, but over time, it got entrenched in the monastic circles! Post-Buddhist belief was that anything really spiritual required that man must become a monk; real spirituality was not possible within the married circumstance. Further, real spirituality is possible only by following the path of reason and meditation; this was another belief that entrenched itself in the Hindu mind after Buddha. Notice that both these post-Buddhist developments are closely related to one another; they supplement and complement one another.
What is the problem with these two developments within Hinduism? It leads to the exclusion of the masses from hard-core religion, especially the spiritual benefits of religion. Only the social and economic aspects of religion remained for the masses. That is not enough for elevating the soul. This is one of the worst forms of oppression.
With the advent of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, this national aberration has been corrected.
In the statements of Sri Ramakrishna quoted above, we bring the reader’s notice to an important point. Sri Ramakrishna says “The fact is that one must have the ‘spiritual eye’. You will develop that eye as soon as your mind becomes pure.” No matter how deep you delve into this world, becoming an expert in as many fields of knowledge as you wish, you will never develop this ‘spiritual eye’. The development of this ‘spiritual eye’ happens only by delving deep into one’s own inner world, the forte of religion. It is unfortunate that these two worlds are so utterly separated from one another. How nice it would have been if development in one would have led to commensurate development in the other. But that is not the case. Why? We do not know why. But we do know that such is not the case, and hence the wise thing to do would be to develop both simultaneously. Most of us spend our whole lifetime engaged with this external world, without developing anything within us. The maximum that most of us do is develop the powers of the mind such as reasoning, memory, sensory acuity, linguistic abilities, organising abilities, manipulative abilities, and such things. All these are really fine and grand. They are not trivial things. Look at the world today. How many things have been discovered and invented and life has been made so much easier and better as a result! Yet, if we were to be told that this is all that there is to our life, we would all be extremely dissatisfied. Something more is needed. There is a deep rooted need that arises deep inside the heart of man, especially when he has experienced a huge amount of this world. How does one satisfy that need?
Apart from all the innumerable powers and abilities of our mind that we can develop by using this external world, there is a very rare set of abilities within every living person. This mind can be made extremely alert and self-aware; it can be made extremely calm and silent. It is impossible to achieve access to these two abilities of our mind by dealing with the external mind. The closest we get is the ‘Flow State’ which has been studied extensively by noted Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. But even if we immerse ourselves in Flow States for extended periods of time, it will never automatically awaken these two abilities of our mind – extreme awareness and extreme calmness. Of course, flow states are associated with heightened awareness, but that has to do with sensory awareness and not with an introspective, reversed focus on one’s own self. The mind gazing into itself is one of the grandest states that a man can experience. And this state does not happen automatically. It has to be consciously cultivated. This area is monopolised by religion.
These two closely connected abilities of our mind are clubbed under one term by religion – Purity. Hence Sri Ramakrishna says, “You will develop that (spiritual) eye as soon as your mind becomes pure.”
In the life of Swami Vivekananda, we come across a most strange conversation between the young Naren and his Guru Sri Ramakrishna. One day Naren came to his Guru and expressed his desire to remain immersed in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, coming to normal consciousness once in a couple of days to eat a little so that the body would survive. This is the greatest and purest prayer any spiritual disciple can make to his Guru. While Sri Ramakrishna should have danced in joy to have gotten such a rare disciple, he started berating the young man, saying that he had believed that Naren was a large-hearted man, who would be of great utility to his fellow-beings, while he turned out to be a small-minded commoner! This berating from his Guru made Naren so ashamed that never again did he entertain such a desire. Swami Nikhilananda records this incident as follows: Sri Ramakrishna said to Naren: ‘Shame on you! You are asking for such an insignificant thing. I thought that you would be like a big banyan tree, and that thousands of people would rest in your shade. But now I see that you are seeking your own liberation.’ Thus scolded, Narendra shed profuse tears. He realized the greatness of Sri Ramakrishna’s heart.[33] This scolding fructified later on in Naren’s life in an incredible manner. As Swami Vivekananda, he was found to say the following: Let each one work out one’s own salvation. Freedom in all matters, i.e., advance towards Mukti is the worthiest gain of man. To advance oneself towards freedom – physical, mental, and spiritual – and help others to do so, is the supreme prize of man… Another truth I have realised is that altruistic service only is religion, the rest, such as ceremonial observances, are madness – even it is wrong to hanker after one’s own salvation. Liberation is only for him who gives up everything for others, whereas others who tax their brains day and night harping on ‘my salvation’, ‘my salvation’, wander about with their true well-being ruined, both present and prospective; and this I have seen many a time with my own eyes.[34] He formulated the motto of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission as ‘Atmano mokshartham jagadhitaya cha’; which means ‘these two organisations have been formed for the sake of achieving one’s own salvation and for the benefit of the whole world’.
These three mantras talk about the individual person and his endeavours. An individual can engage himself in knowing this manifest world. An individual can engage himself in knowing his own self. These two fields of a man’s attention are distinctly different and separate. The external world does not reveal anything about our inner self. Similarly, our own inner self does not reveal anything about the external world. Every man must pursue both these fields for life-fulfilment.
The next three mantras(12,13&14) are very similar to these three mantras, but they talk about the cosmic reality.
From Bhagavad Gita —
- Man does not match the actionless state of Brahman by mere non-performance of work, nor does he attain perfection by renunciation only. (3.4)
- Children, not the wise, say that Jnana yoga and karma yoga are distinct: He who is truly established in either of them obtains the fruit of both. (5.4)
- That state (Moksha) reached by men of Knowledge is also reached by men of Action (Karma yogis). He who sees the oneness of Jnana and Karma, really sees. (5.5)
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