Nachiketas’ First Two Boons
(Continued from Spiritual
Message for the Day – Nov 19,2013 – The World is an Arena of Sacrifice)
Sacrifices, performances, even
religious attitudes may turn into a letter rather than a spirit if a long rope
is given to the instinct in man, because though man has an aspiration for that
which is superhuman, yet man is still man only. So
in the case of this sage Vajasravasa there was greed for satisfaction, joy in
the heavenly empire after the passing from this world, but he was not prepared
to entirely give up his possessions in this world in the true spirit of sacrifice.
His son Nachiketas knew that
it was a sacrifice, a vishwajit, which required the performer to give in
charity everything that he possessed. The boy seemed to have observed that he
did not offer in charity everything that he possessed. He presented himself
before the father and said, “Father, to whom are you going to offer me?”
The father kept quiet. He was
busy with his own activities, yajnas. The boy persisted. In a contour of anger
or rage, the father seems to have blurted the imprecation: “To death I give
you.”
The story is very mystical. The
next thing that we are told in the Upanishad is that the boy found himself in
the courtyard of the god of death, Yama. The boy stood at the gate of the
palace of the great lord. Three nights passed. He observed fast and vigil for
three continuous days and nights. On the third day Yama appeared before him.
“Dear boy, what made you come
here? I am very sorry I could not greet you with the respect that is due to a holy
man like you. I was not here. It is unbecoming on the part of any person to
show scant respect to a guest who comes, especially a guest like you. What have
you eaten?”
“I have eaten all the merit
that you have performed,” the boy replied. That is, if a guest starves outside
while you are eating well in your house, that guest is supposed to eat all your
merits. Yama was startled. “I am deeply grieved. You have starved before me for
three days. Ask for three boons, and go happy.”
Spiritual practice, which is
an adventure of the spirit, is the esoteric significance of the epic story of
the Kathopanishad. Nachiketas, the aspiring intelligent lad, is face to face
with the great Lord Yama who has sanctioned three boons as a sort of
compensation, as it were, for the fast and vigil which the boy observed for
three days. Very intelligently and perhaps with deep consideration, the boy
chose the three boons.
We wish to be received by the
world with gratitude, with a word of thanks, with affection and regard. Nachiketas
asked for his first boon from the great Master. “May I be well received by the
world when I go back. Now I am in another world, in the land of the Lord of
Death, which is other than the world of physical experience. When I return, may
I be received honorably with love and affection by my father, and let his
eyesight be granted.”
Nachiketas never asked
anything for himself. When we become competent in our spiritual achievements in
an appreciable measure, we come back to the world. Spiritual experience is not
an abandonment of the world. It looks like a renunciation and a detachment from
things in the earlier stages. We withdraw ourselves from the world for the sake
of communing ourselves with the world once again in a better way than the
manner in which we are encountering the world now.
When we achieve a spiritual
status by profound inner experience, we gain a greater knowledge of our
relationship with the world, and we shall be once again in the world. When we
wake up from dream, we do not go to a world which is outside dream. We are in
the same place that we were while we were dreaming that particular world of
apparitions. The world is not made up of mountains, stones, trees, and the
solar system. It is made up of space-time – nothing more, nothing less. Even
the solid objects of the world are only configurations of the space-time
continuum. From akasha came vayu, from vayu came agni, from agni came apas, from apas came pritvi, says the Upanishad. Space
is the original cause, which projected space and air as its effect. From air
came fire by friction, and by condensation it gave birth to water. Water
solidified itself into the solid matter we call the earth principle.
In a reverse process, we can
dissolve everything into space. Earth can become water, water can become fire,
fire can become air, and air can become space. So space, which is apparent
emptiness before us, is capable of containing within itself the entire physical
cosmos. Therefore, space is not non-material. It is nothing but material
substance. For one reason, it is an object of perception. We can see space.
Anything that is visualized or capable of being contacted by any sense organ is
physical, and space is such. Hence, the final condition of the world seems to
be only space-time.
In a sense comparable to the
distinction we draw between the space-time experience of dream and the
space-time experience of waking. Distances do not exist because space does not
exist. Space does not exist because space-time comes together in a continuum
which is non-spatial and non-temporal, non-three-dimensional. Physicists today
call it a four-dimensional, mysterious, intriguing something.
“When I rise above this
mortality, when I free myself from this encounter with the Lord of Death, Yama,
and when I return to the world, may I be received with honor,” said Nachiketas.
The great geniuses of the spirit, jivanmuktas as
they are sometimes called, who return from death and are reborn in the spirit,
are received by the world once again in a different way altogether. This is the
first state of advanced spiritual experience.
“Granted,” said Yama. Now ask
for the second boon.”
“I have heard that Vaishvanara
is a great mystery. Initiate me into this mystery of the Vaishvanara.”
What is Vaishvanara, into
which mystery the great Master Yama initiated Nachiketas? It is the mystery of
the Vaishvanara, the origin of all things. The secret of cosmic comprehension,
and without a knowledge of this secret we cannot become good karma yogins.
Arjuna was never satisfied with anything Sri Krishna told him, until the
Visvarupa was shown.
‘Visva’ is the universe;
‘nara’ etymologically means man. Visvanara is the Cosmic Man. In a way, the
Creator of the universe. Vaishvanara is that which pertains to the cosmic
personality. There is only One Person in the whole universe. In a way, we are
all connected to this Cosmic Person. There cannot be two thoughts in the world.
There also cannot be two actions. Only one action, only One Person does
everything. This knowledge is Vaishvanara-vidya and into this mystery, Nachiketas
was initiated.
(to be continued)
Excerpts from:
Nachiketas’ First Two Boons - The Esoteric
Significance of the Kathopanishad by Swami Krishnananda
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