(Nov 20,2013 ) Spiritual Message for the Day – Nachiketas’ First Two Boons by Swami Krishnananda

Nachiketas’ First Two Boons

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter2 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad by Swami Krishnananda

(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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(Nov 19,2013 ) Spiritual Message for the Day – The World is an Arena of Sacrifice by Swami Krishnananda

The World is an Arena of Sacrifice

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter1 The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad by Swami Krishnananda

This world seems to be an arena of sacrifice. Are we altruistic essentially or selfish essentially?

The Kathopanishad is the story of spiritual ascent. It is the sadhana, the spiritual endeavor of the human individual towards the achievement of ultimate perfection that is narrated to us in epic form in the Kathopanishad.

Sacrifices of a ritualistic type -  yajnas, havanas as they are called, are prevalent in some measure even in this day. So when we speak of yajna or sacrifice, we are likely to think of pouring sacred objects into the fire in a yajna kunda or an altar. But this is a ritual expression of sacrifice which life seems to be. Life does not appear to get exhausted by rituals or gestures or activities of any kind.

If life cannot be equated wholly with activity and we can be alive even without being active, and therefore, life may be something different from what we call action or performance, then yajna or sacrifice need not necessarily be the ritualistic performances with which we are usually familiar in orthodox circles.

You do not know what it is to live. You may say to live is to do something. On a careful study of this situation you will realize that to live need not necessarily mean to do something. You may be able to live without any relationship, without any activity, performance, ritual or doing of any kind. Yet, life is a sacrifice. Therefore, it has to be a sacrifice in a different sense, not necessarily in the sense of doing something, even if it be a religious way of doing as yajnas in yajna kundas, etc.

The Kathopanishad begins with a description of this large sacrifice. This was undertaken in ancient times by a very great sage called Vajasravasa for his future welfare. It is a belief prevalent right from the time of the Vedas that sacrifices offered to gods will promise heavenly enjoyment in the future for the yajnamana, or the performer.

Sacrifice is parting with something which one possesses. It may be the offering of ghee to the sacred fire, when we actually utter the mantras and conclude with saying svaha. Some article which we possess, which belongs to us, is offered as a gesture of parting with our own little joy for the sake of a larger joy, maybe in heaven.

Vajasravasa the sage performed a yajna called vishwajit for the conquering of the blessedness of heavenly satisfaction. He gave away all his possessions because it is laid down that the more is the charity that you do, the greater is the joy that comes to you as recompense thereof.

But man is after all man, he cannot be anything else. The aspiration for heavenly enjoyment in Vajasravasa was one thing, and the man that Vajaravasa was, was another thing. So two operations were taking place simultaneously in this person. He was thinking as a learned Brahman, Vajasravasa, owning wealth and cattle and many other possessions, and at the same time aspiring for that which is not of this world. He had to offer all the things of this world for the sake of another world. Here is a suggestion that the other world seems to be superior to the present world, else no one would be prepared to offer this world for the sake of another world. You would not like to die here merely because you want to live somewhere else, unless life somewhere else is far superior to life here. This was known to Vajasravasa, and everyone knows that perhaps this is the meaning behind every gesture of goodwill, kind word, a word of thanks or service. Else, there is no point in doing any of these things.

The little gesture of sacrifice that we communicate in respect of others is a tendency towards movement in the direction of the higher world. Our world is this body only, and when we do a little sacrifice we have transcended this bodily world and extended it to the realm of other people’s existence. We cannot have any sense of affection for other people unless we have overcome the sense of satisfaction with only this bodily world. The gesture of good will, in whatever form it may be expressed, is a tendency to the recognition of an existence of a world transcending the physical world of body.

Vajasravasa performed this yajna, and offered everything that he possessed - land, buildings, silver, gold, cattle and the like.  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. So he was evidently throwing off bad coins in the coffer of temples, torn notes which could not be used by anybody. God can take it because man cannot use it. This is sometimes the gesture of people like us.

In this spirit of a self-deceptive conduct, Vajasravasa is said to have been offering things which were not worth their salt. Cattle which were famished, cows which would not yield any milk– such things were evidently being given as charity, a great sacrifice for the sake of the heavenly rejoicings to come later on.

Often we can conduct ourselves very cleverly by engaging ourselves in the letter and very conveniently ignore the spirit. We are two people at the same time, almost every minute of the day. We can behave as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in one second. Such a double attitude each person has in this world. So we agree with the noble aspiration that manifests itself in us in the direction of a larger dimension of existence which we may call the heavenly existence, yet the greed for physical existence persists.

People are thinking what will happen to their family – sons and daughters and property, etc. – after their death. They are worried even before they die. Though it is true that a person who is thinking thus is not going to have any relationship with what he is thinking of now after he sheds this body – he will be in a new space-time complex altogether, he will not have any kind of sensible contact with the things he is worrying about now – yet the worry continues. Human nature goes simultaneously with a transhuman aspiration.

The Upanishad, in a very cryptic form, tells us that this sacrifice which he performed was not true to its spirit, it was true only to the letter. He followed the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law.

(to be continued…)

Excerpts from:

The World is an Arena of Sacrifice - The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad by Swami Krishnananda
Archives - Blog

If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit:
http://www.dlshq.org/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?

If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at:

generalsecretary@sivanandaonline.org