Isha Upanishad - Reconciling the Opposites

Isha Upanishad – Reconciling the Opposites Shrikant Vasudeo

We will here consider as to how Isha Upanishad has reconciled the apparent opposite extremes of the philosophy and led us towards the ultimate truth of being.

1 God and Nature
The Conscious Creator is the Source of the Phenomenal Nature. The object of this creation of multiplicity of movement is to create multitude forms of His consciousness in motion in which the One becomes Many creating thereby the complex web of relations. In each of these Many, the One resides. This is done to enjoy the multiplicity of movement.
2 Enjoyment and Renunciation
Renunciation is an essential ingredient of discipline. It has to be an absolute renunciation and not partial or temporary activity. This is a necessary and essential pre-condition for real integral enjoyment of all this movement and multiplicity in its essential truth and in its infinity. However we must here understand as to what is the real meaning of renunciation intended in the IU. It is not just renunciation in the sense of ‘cutting off’ the thread of desire in a blind and brutal violence. The demon of ‘egoism’ behind the desire has to be killed. The world existence in which the desire arose need not and should not be renounced.
3 Action and Freedom
IU categorically states that actions in the world and freedom of the soul are not ‘mutually exclusive’ principles. When we see a person getting snarled in the worldly existence, it is only an outward appearance. In order to get himself free of this snarl, all he has to do is to remember his original freedom of the soul which is forever free. He has to regain the consciousness of the unity with the Creator, himself and all the existence. In the poise of this inner freedom of the soul, he should and must accept this worldly existence with its multiplicity of movements in their full extent and potential. The very fundamental object of our birth in this life is to manifest the divine in this world and in our actions in the world. It should be the cardinal law of our existence.

4 The Stillness and the Movement
The Supreme Being is beyond all the movement and is still, silent, quiet, motionless. This is the essential condition for the supreme Bliss. If this is so, then we have to do the daunting task of reconciling this state of inactive Brahman with the state of the continuous and multiplicity of the movement in our worldly existence. Unless we are able to reconcile these apparent opposite ends of the thread of our life,
we get into the theory of illusion – Maya. IU handles this problem ‘head on’. It accepts both these states of stillness as well as movement as the essential condition for attaining to the supreme bliss. It states that this apparent discord is only a characteristics of our consciousness. There is no real opposition between space and time, internal and external, me and they, one and many. To our earthly consciousness, the Brahman is appearing in these opposite forms. However in its original state it is beyond such distinctions. The Movement is in a way, a characteristic of the Stillness. The Stillness itself is a Movement too rapid for the gods – that is to say for our various conscious faculties in order to follow its real nature. The actual movement ‘out there’ is actually happening ‘in here’ in our consciousness. What we are seeing is a reflection of the movement in the water of our consciousness, while in itself being still. When we gain the knowledge of the One, we are able to see unity in all this multiplicity. On the other hand, the ignorance of this Unity of Existence divides, discriminates, distinguishes and thus creates apparent opposition. We are in reality having only ‘relations’ of the consciousness within itself. We mistakenly perceive these relations as separate entities. When the dividing Ego comes into play, we start making distinction between I and they, near to me and far from me, moving and non-moving. This is not un-real. It is real only in the context of the ego consciousness, which itself is also real as a movement of the one Brahman. Nothing is declared as unreal. The ‘reality’ is relative to the context in which we are using it. In the final analysis, the one Brahman encompasses all and all the distinctions ‘merged’ into this one Brahman.

5 Being and Becoming
Our sense of perception of the things depends on the window of the soul which we open to view. Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and the same thing. The Being is still. The multiplicity of movements are the Becoming. Being is One. The Becoming are many. From the one window of the soul, these things are separate and opposite. However, if we change the window and look at these things as the One becoming Many in the movement of his consciousness. It is like the multitude rays of the one Sun. With the multitude of the rays, the Sun appears to be multiplied, but actually he is One. When we perceive the One, we need not exclude his multitude of movements form our perception. These multitude of becoming are included in the consciousness of the One Brahman. We need to see from the point of view of the One Brahman – from the vantage point of Vidya – Knowledge. If instead we see from the point of view of the many becoming of the One Brahman, we are seeing things from Avidya – Ignorance, and then we see the discord, distinctions, opposites between One Brahman and his Many Becoming. We need identify our true self with the One Brahman which is unchangeable, indivisible. From this point of view, we can see that all the multitude of becoming are only proceeding from our true self which is inhabiting in our body as well as the bodies of all other objects of existence. We have to consciously live this experience of our true one self becoming everything we see and feel and touch and experience. All the energy, forms, happenings, movement are the flow of consciousness from this true One Brahman residing in us in its relations with these things – as a divine leela – playful mood of the Brahman with his Will and Knowledge founded on he principle of Delight – the Triple Principles of Sat-Chit-Ananda.

When we achieve this state of One Brahman in his many becoming, we get free from the snare of our egoism and the bondage of desire and the separative consciousness of me and they, and the shrinking from world actions due to grief and delusion. The origin of all the sorrow, sense of weakness, fear, anxiety is this shrinking of the ego from contacts of life. This is caused by the sense of the separative ego. This separateness caused by the ego entrapped in our body is the root cause of our grief and fear. Once we realise our true state in the One Brahman encompassing our own self as well of the self of the multitude of its objects and movements, then we pass beyond this stage of uncertainty and sorrow and weakness and hatred. We do not change the question, we change the point of reference. From the earlier reference point of separative ego we move on the new frame of reference of the One Brahman and then all becomes crystal clear. All the opposites become merged harmoniously into the One in a play of divine consciousness for the JOY of existence. In this sense we will overcome the death and become immortal – deathless.

6 The Active and Inactive Brahman
The One Self – the Supreme Lord is manifested as both the Active and Inactive Brahman. The multiplicity of movements originate from this One Self. Even in the midst of all these movements, he is ever free from all the modification. The Stillness is already contained in Movement, Activity is included in Inactive Brahman. The One Self is ever silent in every activity and un-moved from every movement. In fact these are the two aspects of the same indivisible consciousness. We embrace both activity as well as quiescence. They are inseparable from each other. They are in fact inter-dependent. We can not have ‘activity’ unless as the basis of this activity there is inactive Brahman. We can not have quiescence unless there is movement already incorporated inside this quiescence. The terms ‘activity’ and ‘inactivity’ are only relative to each other. They have no independent existence. The Supreme Creator is beyond and above both the active as well as inactive Brahman. This relativity of action and inaction is inside our consciousness. It is a basic characteristic of the consciousness. When we merge our identity with the One Lord who is beyond activity and inactivity, we have the power to enjoy this double existence. However, in the ordinary view, the soul can not exist in both the activity and inactivity at the same time. He merges into the Quiescence and become still, inactive Brahman. The unity with Lord who is above these double existence is a different thing.

7 Vidya and Avidya
The single consciousness visualizes the One as well as his multiple manifestations as a result of the dynamics of the One. In the original Truth-Idea, all things are One. However at the level of the Mind and this world of forms, the differentiation between the One and the Many arises. The Truth is of the One, indivisible whole. The Idea is of his many manifestations. When this Truth and Idea merge into single Truth Idea, we have reached the unified concept of the Divine. This is at the highest level of our being. At the lower level of our understanding, when our mind (manisi) gets absorbed in this world of forms – formal becoming (paribhu) , then it causes the separation of itself from the One in its Truth-Idea (kavi). This is the cause of loss of Vidya – the true knowledge of the One and results in Avidya – the ignorance of the Truth-Idea of the One, and the exclusive knowledge of his many manifestations as the sole reality. This the origin of the separative ego-sense.

Even Avidya has Divine in it. It is not to be considered as Devil. This concept of the Avidya as an evil one has its origin in the western religious thought of good and evil, God and Devil. As per the Veda and the Upanishads, Divine is contained in everything. All the manifestations are of the One Source of All and is intrinsically Divine. This includes Avidya – the Ignorance. Avidya can be the cause of suffering – but it is because of the excessive separative ego. Avidya itself has some useful purpose for the Lord. Avidya is an instrument of Lord in developing individual relations in the world to their highest capacities and in all the possibilities and directions of its individual manifestations. Without Avidya, the world would have got itself absorbed into the One – the Source of All that Is. It would have ceased to exist. These individual existences at the end of the journey come back to the One Source after having fulfilled their mission to the utmost and become Vidya – the knowledge of One in All. The Vidya is not lost or vanished with the advent of Avidya. Vidya existed in the consciousness of the true seer or Kavi at the background level. This true seer is always hidden in our consciousness at the depth of our mind. He is covered by the consciousness of Avidya. It is all part of the game, a play, leela for enjoying the All that Is. The True Seer remains at the background of our consciousness. We seem to ‘forget’ his existence – though he is very much there in every person – dumb or intelligent, holy man as well as un-holy person, pious man as well as robber. When we are thus get fully absorbed in Avidya due to our separate ego sense, our journey starts. We have to conquer this world full of varied emotions of sorrow, joy, suffering, anxiety, excitement and morbidity as we progress forward in our journey. We have to bring to the surface the True Seer – Kavi who has hidden in the background of our consciousness. We have not to ‘abandon’ this world of manifestations – rather to ‘unite’ it with the One – the Source of All. This is the secret of attaining to immortality – the deathless state. If we abandon this world of Avidya in favour of the Vidya, then we miss out on the very meaning of our existence. We in effect abandon our journey half way or even before it began. This defeats the very purpose of our birth in this world. Our birth is not an ERROR of God. It is very much part of the Divine Plan. We have to avoid any of the two extremes which are popularly advocated – to altogether reject this world of Avidya and get absorbed into Motionless One or to get fully involved in this world of Avidya in the false pursuit of happiness. Both these extremes are ERROR OF UNDERSTANDING. Many of our religious teachers fall prey to this error. Even if accept the philosophy of reaching towards Vidya from the starting point of Avidya as advocated above, we do not have the right knowledge of making progress on the way and get stuck in this world of division. We are neither there nor here. We ‘hang’ precariously in between these two worlds.

8 Birth and Non-Birth
The secret purpose of this double movement of Vidya and Avidya of the Seer – the Thinker is to realise the deathless state in this world of death – to realise immortality in the Birth. The Self as Source of All is beyond death, it is uniform, undying. There is no basic necessity for him to prove himself into immortality. He is already and always immortal. He need not take birth into this world of death to reach the state of immortality. He descend into this world as a Divine Leela – Play of World Existence. In this Play, of which he is the author, the director and all the players, he willingly accepts the condition of birth and death, assumes the individual ego, dives into the world of Avidya, and then starts the return journey by dissolving the individual ego sense into the Unity of One and reaches the final station of the journey and realises himself as the Lord. After having reached the end of the journey, it then takes Birth as a becoming of the Lord into mental and formal being. However, this new journey is now governed by the true light of the Seer, in the path of Vidya. During this process, a very important phenomena happens. The becoming is no more inconsistent with Being, Vidya and Avidya are not mutually exclusive things. In this new journey, the Birth becomes a means and not an obstacle to the enjoyment of immortality. The enjoyer is the Lord of this formal habitation – of our world of multiplicity and diversity of forms. And this is the True Journey. We should not for ever remain the chain of birth of death. We should also not run away from this cycle of birth of death and try to get absorbed into One by abandoning the journey in-between. We should note the bondage is not in the physical act of taking birth. We should never commit this mistake of understanding. The bondage is caused by the persistent way of the separative ego in total ignorance of its true origin. The bondage is created by our wrong understanding of the game. The culprit is mind and not the body.

9 Works and Knowledge
We now have to solve the apparent opposition between works and knowledge. This opposition is the result of our egoistic mental thinking pattern. The true knowledge is not a mental grasping of the reality. The true knowledge is gained with true sight, the sight of the Seer, of Surya. In other words, merely by intellectual, analytical and logical analysis of the reality we can not hope to gain the true knowledge. We need to go beyond mind and have the direct perception of the Reality. Mental thought is not the true knowledge. It is the golden lid placed over the face of the Truth, the Sight of the One, the divine Ideation, the Truth-Consciousness, Sat and Chit. When we remove this lid, we become free of the mental obscurity. Instead of ‘groping’ with mental instrument, we are able to SEE the Truth – face to face. The all embracing Truth-Ideation – mahas, veda, drsti replaces the fragmentary mental activity. Our intelligence, Buddhi, is then replaced by the Vijnana – the True Wisdom of the Divine. Our intelligence – Buddhi is the highest possibility of our sense mind – Manas. It can not go further. Our mind is like a torch in the middle of the dark night. While it helps in throwing light on the objects around us and show us the immediate path forward, it is useless in illumining the celestial bodies of stars in the sky. It serves a very limited, but useful purpose. But we can not rely on our torch to gain understanding of our cosmos. Vijnana leads us to pure knowledge – Jnana and pure consciousness – Chit. We then gain the understanding and identity with the Lord at the very elementary level of our existence – here and now – in this very world of birth and death.

Now we come to the final station of our journey. At the highest level, Will and Seeing are included in Chit. The True Consciousness contains in itself the True Knowledge and Will. They are not separated from each other as in our ordinary mortal consciousness. When we have the True Knowledge, the Sight of the Seer, the direct perception of the Truth, when we live in the Truth-Consciousness, we get the spontaneous power to manifest whatever we intend. It is the power of Will. This power is the power of Truth. It leads us in a straight path towards our mission in life. And our mission is always one and the same – enjoyment of divine Ananda. This is the Lord’s delight in self-being, the state of immortality. In our works also we realise the true identity of the One in All, our life becomes a manifestation of this One. It realises Truth and Joy in all its dimensions and actions. The obscure and crooked life path arising out of egoism full of division, error and stumbling is transformed into a life in the full Light of Truth Consciousness. We realise the Life Mission – the Ultimate Purpose of this Divine Play. And that is the Glory of the Divine Life and the Divine Being. We attain to this final destination in all the three aspects of our existence – on this material world on earth against the resistance of matter, or in the worlds beyond our material world, or finally beyond all the worlds – in the absolute state of Truth-Consciousness.

Conclusion
Thus we have reconciled the apparent opposites of various elements of Reality. If we dwell individually on one of the elements of the duality of opposition, we get into the trap of dividing the reality into bits and pieces. In the process of analyzing, distinguishing and rationalizing for the sake of ‘ease of understanding’ of our mental faculty, we miss out the Truth. We only gain fragmentary knowledge. If we mistakenly believe that our fragmentary knowledge is the True Knowledge, we get ‘sucked’ into the trap of this illusory world. We may go to whatever length in elaborating at voluminous proportions our knowledge of reality, we will still miss out on the UNDERSTANDING of the REALITY. Isha Upanishad successfully shows us the Way.

Based on the Guiding Light of Sri Aurobindo