The Chandogya Upanishad - CH-3, Sec-1, Name-5.. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, September 20, 2021. 8:15. AM.
HAPTER III: SANATKUMARA'S INSTRUCTIONS ON BHUMA-VIDYA : 2.
SECTION 1: NAME. 5.
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This is the mistake that many people make even in the practice of spiritual life. They suddenly think that they are God-men or that they are about to jump into the ocean of God-consciousness and drink the nectar of ambrosia. They are caught hold of by their very legs through the laws that operate in the physical world. Knowledge does not mean ignorance of any particular aspect of experience. It is a total comprehension of fact as such. Even bondage has to be known in its true structure. When we are bound, we must know why we are bound. That is real knowledge. You cannot say, "Well, I am not concerned with the stages of bondage, I am concerned with freedom." What is freedom? It is knowledge of the causative factors behind bondage. The cure of an illness begins with the knowledge of the causative factors of illness behind it, knowledge of the aetiology, pathology, diagnosis, etc., of the whole suffering of the patient, and then only the medicine comes. So, it is necessary to know where we are placed. We should not have any kind of misgivings about where we are actually situated. Are we in the physical world, or are we in the social atmosphere of people? Where are we caught up? We are caught up in an intricate network of life which reveals itself in various degrees of experience.

Now, each degree has to be paid its due. As they say, we must pay the devil its due. Though it is a devil, it does not matter; the due has to be paid. Then only we can be free from its clutches. The devil here is nothing but the law that operates in a particular realm. The world of externality, objectivity, is the realm in which we live, and therefore, we can go only to the extent of the law that operates in this world. The lowest degree of knowledge, as has been pointed out, is informative knowledge of objects. If there is a mountain in front of you, a mile away from you, you cannot have any knowledge about it except that it is of such-and-such dimension and is located at such a distance, etc. So, Sanatkumara points out that to the extent name goes, to the extent theoretical learning goes, to that extent we should be masters. Whatever be the degree of reality in which we are, we should be masters of that. "When you go to Rome, be a Roman"—this is a very good adage which means to say that we must be friendly with the atmosphere in which we are, whatever the atmosphere be, and we must be in harmony with the law operating there. Then we become a master of that atmosphere; otherwise, we will come to loggerheads with the external environment.

So, namopassva—the first stage of meditation—is mentioned here, which is ideological. It is conceptual. We may call it theoretical. It is the operation of the mind in respect of an object. The object is not under one's control. It is far away. We have only a thought of the object. But, that is enough for the time being, because we are in that level only.

So, we should meditate on the name. Every stage of meditation or transcendence mentioned here is a stage of the identification of the self with that particular degree of reality. This is very important to remember. We will be taken gradually from stage to stage. When we are taken to a higher stage, what is implied is that the lower stage has already become a part of our own self in deep meditation and experience. It does not remain any more an object outside. When we have become that in self-absorption, then only we can be given access to the realm of a higher degree of reality. "So, now as the first step, namopassva, this is what you can do, Narada," says Sanatkumara. We should complete the process of absorbing the contents of our knowledge, to the extent they can go in this world, by deep meditation. This is conceptual meditation.

To be continued .....


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