Upanishads' guide for living 06

When we are talking about guide for living where comes the talk of death? It is an unalterable fact of life. So just leave it at that and better don't think about it. This thought will come naturally to anybody. And it is commonsense also not to break one's head on unalterable things in life. This avoidance comes handy in day to day living. So people who want to stop at that can very well do like that. But our mental activity which has been geared towards finding meanings in what is surrounding us and what is happening in us and about us, will be always hitting at this mute point. Every time the avoidance should be done consciously, withdrawing from any serious enquiry. May be, there comes a time, when we change our resolve from avoidance to clarifying. At that moment we can remember that thinkers have been seriously engaging themselves for millennia to pursue this topic. One of the earliest records is our Kata Upanishad. The pursuit continues even now with thinkers but additional methods of science have made this topic more a topic of science than conjecture. There is now a whole field of Near-Death Experience studies or NDE studies or Out-of-Body Experience studies or OBE studies carried out meticulously throughout the world. The accumulated logs or videos so far got from persons who have gone through NDE or OBE experiences show some common features, which are interesting and when understood underline the great efficacy of living. It seems ironic that life is better understood by the records of death. 

We were talking about 'the uninvited guest of death'. Metaphorically and philosophically this carries a different meaning. Instead of trying to avoid the subject of death, when human beings boldly begin to study and understand this phenomenon or un-phenomenon  of death, we may say they are in one way 'the uninvited guests of death'. As William Shakespeare writes in one of his Sonnets: 

'Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more,
So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.'

Swami Vivekananda used to define renunciation as love of death. Sanyasa is making love to death. 

But in our days, in the records of NDE and OBE experiences we see a literal meaning of this phrase, 'the uninvited guests of death'. What these guests, even though they did not have any inkling about the sudden catastrophes that they underwent, have recorded unique experiences they had before coming back into life. Modern Kata Upanishad is all scientific and experimental, with all measurements of vitals and revivals. A singular message that we read across these various NDE records of various persons in various places and various times is this: 'come out of your atomic corner and reach the divine or universal corner or center, diligently work for it and  make sure the fellow human beings also wake up to this innate call and enjoy life in a sublime way.' 

Even the template of Namavali contains this great message. Om indicates the Universal Spirit. The ending 'namaha' indicates 'I have come out of my atomic corner'. In between is the name and form in which one wants to meditate on the Universal Spirit. So the namavali is structured like this : 'The Universal Spirit' + one's own chosen name and form of that Universal Spirit + I have come out of my atomic corner'. Namaha means not mine. So we are blossoming towards the Divine. That is the basic nature of living. Let us make our living meaningful, in tune with its basic nature. Let us not jeopardize it. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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Upanishads' guide for living 05

The guidance of Kata Upanishad is on a different level. Isavasya and Kena ask us to look into the structural aspects of life and experience of the world out there. Both the Upanishads try to make us realise how we are conniving against us by leading  ourselves into our own atomic corner. Kena Upanishad reminds us to be ourself. But Kata Upanishad is taking us to the end questions of life. It knocks at the door of our atomic corner and comes straight into it much to our shock to take us out of the hole. Already we are in the heart of our hearts shivering at the idea of death. Whereas Kata Upanishad asks us to go and encounter death right at its face. To become the uninvited guest of death is not so bewitching a theme to us. Our wrong identification is like a virus. Anything that will stop it, it will abhor. And create a fear and anxiety in us so that we will never go for anything that will remedy the virus from us. Kata Upanishad is the best anti-virus available. This virus of misidentity has to disappear when Kata approaches. But the virus can tweet into your head various alarm messages, 'don't read.. don't understand... thinking about death is abominable,, don't do it.. rather do some pleasant things instead..' But just remember, the virus is desperate to sustain itself. Apply the anti-virus cool and see for yourself what happens afterwards. So much energy, so much wide and panavision, so much universal reach that was all yours all the while, deprived just because, by mistake you lent yourself to the shrinking virus. 

And Kata Upanishad does apply the anti-virus in a poetical way or a cinematic way rather. Just like a beautiful Malayalam film, it settles down into your personality, alters the jammed coordinates back to originals. The uninvited guest at the door of death, Nachiketas asks Yama the question, 'Hi Death! you know well whether there is any soul after the point of death. Tell me what is the truth.' The dodging death finally has to come around to reveal the eternal truth. Of course Nachiketas took the first step of coming out of his atomic corner. Coming out of it, it was but natural to him to interrogate any hidden truth, anywhere. Death pleads with him to return back to his cubby hole. But no. Once you wake up there is no deluding you again. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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Upanishads' guide for living 04

Kena Upanishad tells us to study the basic structure of our own self, that is the physical self, our identity in the world. This word Kena means 'by what'. By what our identity is structured. What constitutes us? We see. hear, feel, taste and smell. Basic data that we get about the world outside. We think and decide. We imagine. We have our inner subjective field, about which only we have the authentic experience. Kena Upanishad asks just basic questions regarding this system. 

You are saying that you see what is out there. By what do you see anything? Why ? by eyes. Of course by eyes. But the seeing actually does not happen in the eyes. The optical data is received through the eyes and that data is processed in the brain. Ultimately when seeing happens, when you say this is that object, some seeing thing or some seeing point or the 'seer' must be there. Only to the 'seer' or 'the seeing point', the phenomenon of sight happens. Till then the data is only optical pulses. In the same way, for the other senses also. 

In short Kena asks us to check our motor. We have a car. Some problem is there. We raise the hood and check the connections and wires. We just check where the flow of function is blocked. Kena Upanishad asks us a simple question. 'What is that which makes you see ultimately? feel ultimately? taste, hear and so on.?' Eyes are just instruments in use. The cognition 'sight' happens by what? Can you see that 'what' by these eyes, which see all things? Can you feel that 'what'? smell that 'what'? taste that 'what'? hear that 'what'? No. So, that something, that 'what' makes your sensations possible in you but is not available to these very senses. That 'what' makes you think, but your thinking does not grasp that 'what'. So that 'what' transcends this system of senses and mind. But it is very much there in us, making it possible, all our sensations, our thinking. So it is there but just transcends this system. All these data produce 'meaning' only in its presence and also for its sake. 

Kena Upanishad says that 'what' is the real you. Only for your sake this whole system functions and you 'see', making it possible. You are inhabiting this system. But mostly you begin to believe that you are this system. Instead of seeing this system as your machine, you are so tied up with believing that the machine is you. Once that happens, your angle becomes atomic. The divine becomes just a dream, a lazy dream perhaps, whereas you become the busiest person of this world. You, the machine, has no meaning. How can it be? Only for you, in your presence, the machine will present data, so that the meaning happens because of you. When you have fallen into your own trap, hallucinating that you are this machine, then what meaning can happen for whom? You have deserted yourself. 

Kena Upanishad just says 'be just the owner of the car, driving it, using the machine. Don't make this car your world or more wretchedly, you yourself. You are the operator. Come out of this self-inflicted delusion. Assume your post. The divine angle is yours ever and ever'. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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Upanishads' guide for living 03

There is a wonderful  line in Isavasya, the literal reading of which is 'gold covers the face of Truth'. Even the literal reading is so meaningful in our present day world. Money blinds our vision. 'Hiranmayena patrena satyasyabhihitam mukham'. But when we think deeply on the phenomenon, it comes to mean what we have been saying. Seeing from our own atomic angle we lose sight of the divine angle. Seeing from the divine angle is seeing 360 degrees. But our own atomic view becomes so precious like gold to us. And we miss our real claim, the greatest treasure from the divine. 

But we are locked as if in our own situation. Is it not? May be it is atomic. But once we crouch into it, it seems quite convenient. It becomes our comfort couch. We would rather like to drag the Divine also into it. But the Divine beats us into it. Knowing well all the tricks of the tiny, the Divine has gone already immanent into our soul. Long before the start of everything, it has hid itself into us, goading us unseen from the inside, to go and claim our real inheritance, the constant voice driving us from within. 

How it does this, how we can cooperate in this divine plan imbedded in us from the start, is the guidance which Kena Upanishad is going to give us. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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Upanishads' guide for living 02

How can one see from the Divine point of view? Is it possible to see from an angle other than our own? Why not? In our daily life we do see from many others' angles rather than our own. In fact our success depends on that. A person appearing for an interview does see his or her manners, answers and personality from the angle of the person who is going to interview him or her. A good teacher is one who sees from the students' angle. A good leader is one who sees from the peoples' angle. The mother sees her own life from the angle of the child in her womb. So seeing from an angle other than our own is what practical life is about. Just we have to push it a little to see from the angle of the Divine. 

Isavasya gives you another thought. You begin to know so many things. We gather data. We become well informed. We attain knowledge and scholarship. But do we know the art of being and becoming? Being totally in a context, becoming others in empathy is an art. Without that, just being knowledgeable is mere dryness of the soul. Isavasya explains this beautifully. Being merely a person of knowledge is inadequate in itself. And being just a person of empathy also is not complete. A human being crosses death as it were by empathy, by being a person of awareness but to enjoy immortality calls for great knowing. Of course the Upanishad employs a lot of parallel terms to bring out the efficacy of possessing this twin capacity - the capacity of knowing and the capacity of being and becoming or the capacity of empathy. We can understand this in short as - being a person of the head and also being a person of the heart make a complete personality. An authentic person is one who knows vast and also feels deep about the human life. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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Upanishads' guide for living 01

Upanishads form an important part of Vedanta and a unique guide for spiritual living. A wonderful record of discussions among Rishis, who were intensely aware of the fundamentals and the universals of human life. Basically they saw the human being in its total make up. A human being of hunger and natural needs is also a being of emotions. And a human being is rational in its core activity. Not only that, a human being is also literary in its attitudes. A human being is intensely analytic and at the same time frivolously playful. A human being can achieve beyond limits. Also a human being can fail miserably in unexpected ways. A human being can love madly and also a human being can hate fiercely. A human being can meticulously plan for centuries and also a human being can be blinded by the range-of-the-moment likes and dislikes. And more so, a human being can transcend its own organic identity and structure and realise moments of pure spiritual essence. Any good prescription for human living must be aware and encompass all these features and facets, failures and excellences. Denying any part of the reality of human being will not do full justice as a guide. It is here that the Upanishads fulfill being such a guide for living. 

Let us take for instance, Isavasya Upanishad. The name is just after the first word with which the Upanishad starts. It simply means 'Being included into God'. Yea everything that is, everything that face us, everything that links with our living, the Upanishad says just include it into God. See yourself, with all your imperfections, achievements and failures, predicaments and chances, everything be included into God. Transact with anything, enjoy or suffer your experiences, after seeing them from the Divine angle. Give up the habit of seeing from where you are situated and start seeing even yourself from the viewpoint of the Divine. A human being is born with the default habit of seeing everything from its own atomic angle. But you have solved the great riddle of life once you start seeing even yourself from the point of the Divine. This is in short the message of the upanishad Isavasya. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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Know Your Heritage - 08

We of the modern world are in one sense, people of the Book. This may sound theological to some but no, not in that sense. But we are the people of the Printed Book. The printed book is something which keeps you engaged with yourself by what is within its two covers. If you know the language and if you are interested in the subject, the book opened may be closing for you, many of the things around. But what you are able to take from the book is mainly dependent on you and your reading. Unless some professional or academic consequence is there for your reading, mostly your reading remains unchallenged and untested. Hence reading, by and by, degenerates into mere going through pages or browsing or picking at random or just getting at a sense of what is written. Approximation over approximation makes you ultimately a proud owner of undigested books. Yea you have gone through, seen through, got it roughly and you have some opinion. That is how we are as people of the printed book, mostly. Our busy life justifies it. And not only that, many books are written based on such opinions 'arrived at'. 

But in our heritage they were thinking in terms of 'the study'. It is not the book that counts but your study of it. They have a beautiful word for it. 'Adhyayana'. Adhyayana means studying. Adhyaya means study. Yea. we are using it, the word in the sense of 'chapter'. By contrast, in our heritage, they were people of the study. It is studying which makes you learned. The printed book can just make you an owner. 

When the stress is laid on the studying, you cannot duplicate, you cannot just form an opinion and you cannot be just going through. You have to encounter the whole body of thought that comes in the shape of a book. 

So in our days we can do slight changes in this concept of Adhyaya, study and bring in a culture of reading. In other words becoming 'people of reading' will empower us more as human beings. Not being mere people of books, counting how many books we happen to possess, we can choose to measure our enthusiasm by how many books we have processed in by active reading. Here again we can read through words and pages, while picking up some snippets here and there and call it reading. But active reading is facing the arguments, para by para, withe an eye to the key words and phrases that underline the development. Just beginning by doing one book, makes our process more facile afterwards. And becoming people of the reading is creative in its function. 

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