Isavasyopanishad
Knowledge pertains to the
essential nature of the Self. Knowledge neither creates nor modifies nor
obtains nor purifies the Self, because the relationship between knowledge and
the Self is not one of doer and doing. The mantras of the
Isavasyopanishad assert that the true Self is secondless, non-doer,
non-enjoyer, pure and ever untainted by sin.
The universe in essence is the
truth of God Himself. There is nothing in this universe which can have any
value or being without the existence of God. Divinity should be felt as the
pratyagatman or the Inner Self of oneself. One should assert that the whole
existence is, in its objective form, unreal and that oneself in fact is the
essential Atman existing as the basis and the truth of everything.
Even as a scented stick begins
to give out its fragrance when the external fungus growing over it is rubbed
out, the light of the Self reveals itself when the external crust of the sense
of doership and enjoyership which is falsely imagined is completely erased out.
The multiplicity and the duality of the universe should be denied in the light
of the fact that the Lord, the one Self, alone exists. This omnipresent Self
cannot be associated with individual functions, like doership and enjoyership.
Name, form and action which characterize the world cannot be the natures of
God, because these are objective perceptions and not eternal values. The
universe, thus, gets renounced, because God is the only Truth.
Tena tyaktena means “by such
renunciation” consequent upon the knowledge of the only existence which is God.
Renunciation is the result of the knowledge of Truth. Anything that is
abandoned as unconnected with the Self does not become useful to the Self in
any way. Everyone in the world is dependent on the not-Self. But when the
not-Self is denied one cannot be dependent on it. The denial of the not-Self or
the renunciation of the universe means that the Self is not helped by any
external agency and it has to save itself through itself. It also means that
previous to knowledge, i.e., when the Self appeared to be entangled in the
not-self, it was in bondage, as it were, but now because of disentanglement it
saves itself and protects itself and is dependent on itself. Because the Self
is permanent its independence also is permanent.
Human knowledge is an action alone, because it is produced by the motion of the mind and the senses. The knowledge propounded in the Advaita Vedanta is objectless knowledge, and it is never produced but realised. It is not the knowledge of something but the knowledge of the knower himself. It is atma-sakshatkara that Shankara means by knowledge when he says that action is the antithesis of knowledge.
Freedom from action does not
simply mean freedom from bodily movement, but freedom from objective thinking,
feeling and willing. The knowledge of the Self is absolutely necessary in order
to transcend the recurring pains of birth, life and death. Pleasure and pain,
confusion and mistake, are all the results of ignorance and desire which are
possible only in the case of an individual. The Absolute Being can have no such
individual experiences. The cause of misery, together with all its effects, is
completely rooted out in the state of the Absolute. The Atman transcends and
includes every created being. All values, except existence, are the effects of
the relations that the subject develops with the objects. Relations being
private and unreal, all values, too, are unreal. Pure existence, which is
independent of all individualistic values, alone is real. A combination of karma
and upasana is beneficial; it leads to krama-mukti; but when they are
performed separately, they lead to their respective specified limited results,
and make one take birth as an individual.
Realize that every function of
the universe is carried on properly, merely through the very existence of the
Absolute, even if it does not perform any act. The Atman is intense knowledge,
without internal or external restrictions.
The Isavasyopanishad advises
the combination of action with objective knowledge and not with Absolute
knowledge. The Absolute is always opposed to objectiveness. Action and Absolute
knowledge differ from one another in their causes, natures and results. Action
is caused by the sense of imperfection. Its nature is distraction and its
result is perishable. Knowledge is caused by perfection. Its nature is peace
and its result is eternal. Hence action and knowledge are different from one
another. It is not possible to say that action can be combined with knowledge
in the beginning, though not in the end, because the moment there is the dawn
of knowledge there is the cessation of action. It is not possible for fire to
be hot and cold at the same time. Knowledge cannot co-exist with its opposite,
viz., action that is characterized by motion. Knowledge is motionless. When the
cause of action, viz., ignorance, is removed, all its effects also are removed.
Absolute knowledge gives rise
to immediate realization or Sadyo-mukti. The combination of action is only with
relative knowledge, for, in Absolute knowledge there is no motion, whatever.
Absoluteness means existence merely, and not changing or moving.
Excerpts from:
Isavasyopanishad - Essays on the
Upanishads by Swami Krishnananda
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