Seven Rivers of Inner Life

Seven Rivers of Inner Life - ............................................Shrikant Soman

Isha Upanishad Second Stream V 4-5 Part IV Shrikant Soman
Verse 4
One unmoving that is swifter than Mind; That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.

Verse 5
That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.
….. repeated and continued from Part I, II and III

Seven Rivers of Inner Life
We have seven levels of Consciousness or Chit in our life. Out of these 7, we very well know three levels i.e. Mind, Life and Physical Body. We can call these three levels combined as the lower sphere of our existence. We are fully conscious about this lower sphere of consciousness. This existence is characterised by the principle of division and constant change under the condition of unstable harmony. Its driving force is strife between two opposite forces of positive and negative polarity. Its only stable condition is the inevitability of birth and death. All life is a constant birth or becoming (sambhava, sambhati of Verses 12-14). This in turn results in the event of death or dissolution. It creates and then it dissolves. And then again it creates anew. This stage is called mrtyu, Death. It should be our aim to transcend this cycle of birth of death (Verses 11,14).

This is not the ultimate reality of our being. It is not our pure being who is subjected to this cycle of birth and death. As against the frontal lower sphere of consciousness of body, life and mind, we have behind them higher sphere constituted by another set of three levels. These are Sat, Chit-tapas and Ananda.

Sat is the true essence of our being. It is pure, infinite and undivided. As we have already seen that our lower and current existence is having the essential quality of constant change, mutation, division, discord, strife. Sat is the divine counterpart of the physical existence and having the qualities opposite to it.

Chit-Tapas represents pure energy of Consciousness. It is essentially free in its rest state as well as active state. It is lord of its own will. It is contrasted with the quality of Prana – Life Energy which is obstructed in its free flow and is taken for a ride by diverse forces in life – being a slave of our whims and passions rather than its sovereign. The life energy critically depend on the feeding of physical substance. It is inevitably locked with it for its sustenance. It (physical substance) is therefore appropriately called by the Upanishads as ‘annam’ or food. However, in its original meaning prior to the Upanishadic period, the word ‘annam’ simply meant being or substance. It probably got its meaning of ‘food’ at a later stage due to the obvious connotation implied as explained above. Chit-Tapas is divine counterpart of the lower level of nervous or vital energy.

Ananda is Pure Joy, Bliss, Beatitude. It is the bliss of pure conscious existence and energy. It exists by itself and does not drive its impetus from the life of sensations and emotions as is characterised by our lower sphere of emotional and sensational being. The joy which we derive at our life in the lower sphere is derived from the sense pleasures and the emotions. It is at the mercy of the outward touches of Life and Matter. It swirls around the two extremes of joy and grief, pleasure and pain. At our lower level, we need grief in order to have joy. We need pain in order to have pleasure. For us, joy without grief and pleasure without pain loses its ‘charm’. Anand is the divine counterpart of the joy of our lower sphere.

This triple quality of Sat-Chit-Ananda is called Sachchidananda. It is unified and self existent. It is not affected by the events of Birth and Death. It is called amrtam – Immortality. This should be our final goal or destination. We reach this state when we have transcended the state of death. (Verses 11,14, 17,18)

Between the higher sphere of Sat-Chit-Anand and the lower sphere of Body-Life-Mind is the connecting link of Vijnana. It is causal Idea. This is not to be confused with the abstract mental idea. It is supramental Real-Idea. It is triune combination of Consciousness-Force-Delight of the Being. It leads to the all-inclusive as well as discriminative awareness of all the truths and powers of its own existence. It carries in its self-knowledge the will of self-manifestation. It inherently incorporates the power of all its potentialities as well as the power of all its forms. It is a power that acts and effectuates. At the same time it is also enlightened master of its own action. It means supramental Knowledge-Will. Behind our confused state of strife and discord in the physical world, is a secret guiding force of Vijnana. It ensures and compels the semblance of harmony and order in our world. If it were not so, our present world would have ended in its self-destruction in a very short period. In the Veda vijnana is called the Truth - Satyam. Its vision of the reality is direct. It is independent of any external instruments of sense and mind. Though is embraces the visible world, it is also independent of its appearances. It is also called Right or Law – Rutam. It contains in itself the effective power of Chit or Pure Consciousness. It works out all things according to their inherent and true nature. It is having perfect knowledge and prevision. It is also the Vast – Bruhat. It is of the nature of an infinite cosmic Intelligence which is comprehensive of all individual activities.

With its power of Truth, Vijnana leads our divided consciousness back to the Undivided Unified Presence. This does NOT exclude the truth of things in their multiplicity. Vijnana is the divine counterpart of the lower divided intelligence.

Interestingly, the Vedic Rishis have called these seven powers of Chit-Consciousness as Waters. Out human consciousness is given the epithet of Sea. They have called it ‘Hrdya samudra – Ocean of the Heart’ (Rig Veda IV.58.5). The seven POWERS of Chit are envisioned as the CURRENTS flowing into or rising out of this Sea.

Another interesting characteristic of these seven Powers of Consciousness is that they are not mutually exclusive of each other but rather co-existent of each other. They exist in this world eternally and inseparably. At the same time they are capable of being involved and re-manifested into each other. All these seven Powers are already involved in the physical Nature – though in various stages of manifestation. It is the secret purpose of our life to fully manifest all of these seven powers out of out physical Nature. They can also get fully absorbed into their original source – pure infinite Being – only to be again re-manifested out of it. This is called the In-Folding and Un-Folding of the One in Many and Many in One. It is therefore appropriately called the law of recurrent cosmic Cycles.

The Concept of the Brahman
The Upanishad explains to us how to perceive Brahman in the Universe and in our own self-existence. We need to comprehend Brahman as both Stable and Moving. We must perceive Brahman as eternal and Immutable Spirit and at the same time as ever changing manifestations of universe and relativity. We have to perceive all things in the two dimensions of Space and Time. We need to grasp it as both inclusive of the far and the near (Space dimension) and as the immemorial Past, the immediate Present, the infinite Future (Time dimension). The Brahman simultaneously lives in the universe as well as possesses it.

To sum it up, the Brahman is transcendental, universal and individual existence. It is the Lord, Continent and the Indwelling Spirit. It is the object of our pursuit of real knowledge. The realisation of Brahman is the necessary condition of perfection. It is our true way to Immortality.

Principle of Life

The Principle of Life - .................................................Shrikant Soman

Isha Upanishad Second Stream V 4-5 Part IV Shrikant Soman
Verse 4
One unmoving that is swifter than Mind; That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.

Verse 5
That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.
….. repeated and continued from Part I, II and III


Let us now consider the objective of this interplay of Being and Becoming, One and Many, Immutable and World of Changing Forms, Infinite Eternal Brahman and the World limited by Space and Time.

Let us look at this from a different perspective. This Movement of this manifested world is a Rhythm. It is a Harmony expressed by the Supreme Reality in the form of Universal Life. This Harmony and Rhythm is created in the Conscious Being through the multitudinous Forms which are nothing but the representative symbols of Itself. It is a formula for ‘knowing’ the Reality which is by itself Unknowable. This expression of Reality in our consciousness goes much beyond what is actually expressed by it. Its depth is much deeper than what is perceived. It is a play of the divine Consciousness – a Leela. This play is for its own Joy. However, we should also note that in this process of creation it does not actually add anything to That which is already complete. It exists in our conscious being. It gets justified by its own existence – and not by any other purpose. There is no purpose of its existence other than the very fact of its existence.

Let us understand that this idea of an objective, goal, purpose etc is a product of gradual self-unfolding by the world of its own true nature. This unfolding is perceived by the individual Souls residing in the forms of creation. The Being progressively reveals itself within its own becoming. This process of the unfolding from Being to Becoming is gradual and progressive. When the Being is self-revealed in the multiple becoming, we get the understanding of Unity in the midst of multiplicity. The whole meaning of the diversity of forms gets radically changed when we perceive this Unity secretly residing in the inner chamber of all the manifested forms.

Though this self-unfolding appears to be natural, there is a governing principle behind it. Its cosmic action has a complexity of consciousness which determines the process of unfolding. The consciousness is not a ‘single’ homogenous principle. It is not as simple as that. Out consciousness has seven levels of existence or grades of conscious activity. At its apex level is Pure Being. At its lowest level is our physical world. The interplay of these various levels of our consciousness creates the worlds. It is the origin of all our activities. It is the constituent of our manifested world. The Master of all these interplay is Brahman. He self-extends himself within the parameters of Space and Time. This is the birth of the Universe.

First, the Earth Principle is the Mother of all material projection of Brahman. He represents himself as formative Nature – Prakriti. Its first appearance is in the form of matter. It is called prithvi or the Earth Principle.

Second, we have Prana which is Life Power. This is called Matarishwan in the Upanishad. It is a dynamic energy of Life. It is also Brahman representing itself in this manifested world. It is in charge of the function of all arrangement and formation of this world.

The Universal Life gets involved in the Matter. It thus establishes the seven levels of consciousness. The interaction of Prana which is a dynamic energy of creation with the material world creates a Matrix of things. This is the origin of the creation of manifold forms and beings. It is the basis of evolution or the gradual unfolding of the Brahman in this manifested world.

Running of the Gods

Running of the Gods - Shrikant Vasudeo
Isha Upanishad Second Stream V 4-5 Part III Shrikant Soman
Verse 4
One unmoving that is swifter than Mind; That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.

Verse 5
That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.
….. repeated and continued from Part I & II



As the Truth is included in this manifested world of limitations, it is also beyond this world. Similarly, When we dwell in Vidya, that is the knowledge of the One as the Supreme Reality, we are arriving at only one aspect of The Truth. This is because even in understanding of the One, we are taking help of our discriminative mental faculty. Here again, we need to understand that the Brahman is absolute, infinite and beyond discriminations and therefore beyond the grasp of our mental faculty – even if we are here trying to seize the Truth as the One Reality and not its multitude manifestations. Our consciousness can understand One as a ‘representative’ of the REAL ONE BRAHMAN. We can understand One as a ‘contrast with the multiplicity’. Both Vidya and Avidya are the eternal powers of the Supreme Consciousness – ‘Chit’. Any one of the these powers in isolation represents only one aspects of the Truth. This is the common error in popular perception of the Brahman and it needs to be rectified.

Having said so, between the One and the Multitude, between Vidya and Avidya, the One is at the foundation of the Reality. It is more near to the Reality than the Many manifestations. Being is more fundamental than the Becoming. Being is the basis of Becoming and not vice versa. This leads us to the premise that the oneness is our self and the essential nature of our Being. On the other hand, the multiplicity is only a representation of Self. It is becoming of the Supreme Being. Brahman is One Self of All. The manifested world, which is Maya is the becoming of the One Being. However, both the Being and the Becoming or Maya are Brahman. We can not include one of these to the exclusion of the other in our concept of the Brahman. Both the Being as well as the Becoming or Maya are REAL. The Maya is as much Real as the One. To say that the illusion (Maya) is Real appears to be the contradiction in terms. It is not. The apparent contradiction goes to the root of the development of our thought system and the consequent language. If we reject Maya as unreal, then we land up rejecting the Brahman as well. Maya is a Power of Brahman and is very much part of the Supreme Reality. The One is the basis. The multiplicity is the ‘flowering’ of this base reality.

The Running of the gods
Life in this manifested world is an interplay of the two principles of Purusha and Prakriti. Purusha is Sat, the Stable, Immutable principle of Brahman. He is God, Spirit. When Purusha by the power of Chit – the active consciousness, projects itself as Motional phenomena, it becomes Prakriti – Nature. It becomes Force – Shakti. It becomes World-Principle – Maya. All are the manifestations of the One Stable, Immutable Purusha. Prakriti is the executive power. Purusha is the Soul governing, but not itself involved in the action. It takes the cognizance of the action of the Prakriti. It enjoys the works of Prakriti. This duel principle is also represented as the duel play of Ishwara and Shakti. She is the self-cognitive, self-existent and self-effective Power of the Lord. Shakti is the expressive faculty of the Shakta - Ishwara. In the original meaning contained in Veda, Maya is comprehensive and creative Wisdom. The meaning of illusion was attached to Maya at a later development of the philosophy. In the Upanishad, the meaning of the word Maya is as per the original thought contained in Veda – that is comprehensive and creative Wisdom. If we take Maya in the sense of illusion, then we relegate its position to the lower Nature (apara Prakriti). In this lower Nature, it seemed to have forgotten its Divine Wisdom and is absorbed in the experience caused by the separative Ego. This is NOT the sense in which it is used here in the Upanishad. Here what we mean by Maya is the Supreme Nature, which is a creative Wisdom.

We have now to understand as to who are the gods and what is their role in the cosmic scheme of things. Gods are the cosmic Personalities of the One Brahman. They are the various representations of the Brahman – who is also called the Supreme Godhead. These gods are the various play of the principles of Nature. In other words, they are part of the World of Maya. They are placed at the apex position in this Maya World – Prakriti – Nature. All other beings are referred to as the Brahman representing in the separative consciousness of the Many (sarvani bhutani). It should be noted that even the gods are tied to the Wheel of Nature in this manifested world. All this manifested world, including gods and many beings, are making an evolutionary steady and slow progress towards the ultimate Goal of reaching the Brahman. This Goal is working at the background of our consciousness. At the front of our consciousness is our various temporal goals driving us towards their attainment. Brahman is the beginning as well as the ultimate Goal. It is the Cause as well as the Result of the Movement.

Now here comes the twist. Having said these things about the Final Goal of Brahman, we are now giving some clarifications, which may appear to be the change in our position, thought in actuality it is not. This very idea of the final Goal of Nature is itself an illusion – Maya. Brahman is Absolute, Infinite. It is BEYOND THE ATTAINMENT OF GOAL. This lands us in a rather piquant situation of a Mirage in the desert. As we think that we have reached the location of water as indicated by the Mirage, we find that the location of water has further moved forward. This is a continuous process – the water ever keeps on moving forward – ever beyond our reach – though appearing to be an attainable goal. As the gods labour to reach the Goal of Brahman and as they attain their immediate next goal on the way, they find that the Brahman is further moving forward – like our example of the mirage of water in the desert land. This is because we live in our consciousness which is relative and not absolute. Our consciousness can take into cognizance only symbolic representation of the Brahman – which is Unknowable. In other words, we are trying to know something which by very definition is unknowable. We are trying to reach to Brahman when in reality he is beyond our reach – Infinite. If we reach the Goal of Brahman, then he becomes Finite – he loses his essential characteristics of Infinity.

Again a twist in the story. We are not saying that the Brahman is un realisable by the Gods and by us. Brahman is very much realisable. Actually, there is nothing to realise. All things are already realised in Brahman. This manifested world does not lose Brahman in the process of its manifestation. It is only working out by the principle of Causality, in the parameters of Time and Space, through the instrumentation of Prakriti, something which the Brahman already possess. The idea of the Goal is itself illusory. There is nothing to attain when the thing to be attained is already included in the person who is trying to attain it.

Brahman exceeds the Movement. He is beyond Time. He includes in itself, all the three aspects of Time – namely past, present and future. He includes them ‘simultaneously’ so to say. Actually it does not make any sense because on the one hand we take time as ‘linear’ and make the distinction of past, present and future. And on the other hand we use the word ‘simultaneous’ demolishing the very essence of the Time – its linear-ability. This non-sense happens because we are ourselves ‘trapped’ in the function of the ‘linear’ time and trying to comprehend something which is beyond Time. Therefore, the concept of ‘moving’ forward, which implies the functionality of time, is non-applicable. Rather than considering it as ‘illusory’, we better understand the term by referring to it as ‘non-applicable’.

As with Time, so with Space. The Brahman contains in itself all the Formation of this World integrally. It does not have to move forward, as there is no forward for it – all the forward, back-word etc are contained in it at all locations.

Similarly, Brahman exceeds the principle of Causality. Brahman contains in itself all the potentialities and eventualities in a free form. There is no cause and no effect. There is no potentiality trying to realise itself in an eventuality. Both these terms are already included in Brahman at any single event. It contains all these while at the same time is beyond the ‘chain’ of causality. Brahman has already realised everything that is to be realised in his capacity as Lord of the Universe. The apparent process of accomplishment of the individual beings of Personalities of the Brahman is only a secondary aspect of the Reality expressed in Prakriti.

Absolute Brahman and His Manifold Creations

Absolute Brahman and His Manifold Creations - Shrikant Soman

Isha Upanishad Second Stream Verses 4-5 … continued from Part I

Verse 4
One unmoving that is swifter than Mind; That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.

Verse 5
That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.
….. repeated and continued from Part I

In the manifested world of forms and relations, Brahman takes various forms and it enters into relations with Itself through each human being in a variety of ways. This is the play of divine consciousness. However, in each individual, the Brahman is present in its full entirety and not in pieces. Brahman in its absolute form, can stand back from the multitude of movement and relations. This is his supreme power. However, for the joy of play, he makes the illusion of differentiation between the individual being and the Absolute Brahman. The multitude of relations and forms between different beings in the creation is conceived as distinct from the One unmovable and Supreme Being. This is not out of any compulsion or an error. The Brahman is beyond any ‘necessity’ or the duality of Vidya and Avidya. This differentiation is created solely for the joy of ‘experiencing’ the existence and its play. If this illusion of differentiation between the individual being and other world and the Supreme Being is not created, the world will automatically and naturally get ‘absorbed’ into the Brahman. In other words, this world of forms and relations would cease to exist the moment the illusion or the Maya is removed from the mentality of the creation. All will then become One Brahman. There will be no more any world of creations and relations. This illusion at the universal level is reflected in the individual level of each human being. Therefore, each being considers himself as separate from other human being and also from the Supreme Brahman. The identity with the Supreme Brahman is kept in the background consciousness and the separative Ego come to the front of the consciousness of each human being.

Three possibilities emerge out of this play of separative consciousness and the striving of each individual to get at the ultimate Truth.
1 The individual being may consider himself eternally different from the supreme Brahman.
2 The individual being may realise the oneness of the individual with the Absolute Brahman, while at the same time keep his separative ego and existence.
3 The individual being may completely identify himself with the Supreme Reality.
It should be noted that in the first two possibilities, even if the individual considers himself as ‘different’ from the Supreme Reality, he can not consider himself as ‘independent’ from It. For example, the individual leaves and branches of the trees can consider themselves as different from the main bark. This is also a reality – though only a partial reality. However, these can not consider themselves as ‘independent’ from the main Tree. This understanding has no basis on the physical reality. Similarly, when the individual considers himself as ‘different’ from the Supreme Reality, it is based on the truth contained in the Master Plan of Creation – that is the Drama of the Play of Consciousness being enacted on the World Theatre. Though it is not the ultimate Truth, it is also part of the Truth. However, when the individual considers himself as completely ‘independent’ from the other individuals and also form the Brahman, then it is gross error because it does not have any source in the ultimate scheme of things.

These three different ‘understandings’ of a human being about the Truth are all valid in themselves, though only partially valid. They all represent any one aspect of the same Reality. They are in a sense complete the picture of the whole Reality. They are not therefore to be taken as ‘complementary’ truths and not as ‘independent’ truths. They all are valid simultaneously. They are not mutually exclusive. They are the three sides of the triangle of Reality. Remove any one side, and you have incomplete triangle. This is only an ‘intellectual’ explanation of the Reality. It defies our common logic and understanding. We are able to comprehend any one of this theory at a time. We can not comprehend all the three theories as simultaneous truths and have full picture in our mind. It is something like saying we exist, we exist not and we exist as well as we exist not at the same time and then go on explaining that all these three phenomenon are true and simultaneously valid. Howsoever we stretch our imagination, we will not be able to extend our understanding to envelop the full reality. It is much beyond our ‘intellectual understanding’. The solution is given. The only way to ‘grasp’ this reality in our human instrument is by ‘identity in consciousness with Brahman’. Instead of trying to ‘understand’ the reality, we ‘become’ the reality and ‘experience’ it in our consciousness. We traverse our journey from Becoming to Being. Instead of trying to fully grasp the full terrain of the mountain standing at the bottom of the mountain on one of the side of it, we climb to the peak of the mountain and then have the full view of it.

Even when we reach the peak and get a full view of the mountain, still it is falling short of the complete understanding of the full terrain of the mountain. To do that, we need to ‘become’ the mountain ourselves. This is not possible in our limited consciousness. We can only have the ‘view from the top’ and try to get as near to the full understanding as is ‘humanely’ possible. Our only instrument of understanding is mind. And mind can not ‘understand’ unless it discriminates. And ironically, our quest necessitates us to ‘transcend’ this very ‘discriminative’ faculty of the mind which is its essence. Even when we claim to understand the One Reality as the Truth, we understand it with our mind. The thought of this One-ness is a projection of the mind. However, Brahman is not a creation of thought. In other worlds, we are trying to understand the Absolute Truth by our discriminating mind, while this Truth is Absolute, infinite, eternal and therefore beyond the reach of discriminating faculty.

Our mind can understand anything only when it projects its thought toward something visible or perceptible. It can understand ‘in language’ of words. It can not reach beyond the words. It can only understand symbols and not the truth contained in the symbols. It can understand the truth only through the means of the symbols. We have only a knowledge based on symbols and language of words which is the representative of the Absolute Knowledge. We can not comprehend the Absolute Knowledge directly beyond symbols and words. We can say more definitively what is ‘not’ the Truth. We can understand the Truth by understanding what is NOT the Truth. We can progress by the process of elimination. We thus reach the state of the Void – empty of all that is not the Truth. We thus get nearer to the Truth – as far as it gets and not more. It is certainly better position than being trapped in the illusion of separative identity and multitude of relations with the world and its beings. But we must always keep in mind that the Absolute is not Void or negation. By arriving at the understanding of what is not the Truth, we can not claim to have understood what is The Truth. Truth is certainly included in this manifested world bound by space and time. But it is also beyond the limits of Space and Time.

Identity of God and World

Identity of God and Manifested World Shrikant Vasudeo
IU Second Stream Part I Verses 4-5 Shrikant Soman

Verse 4
One unmoving that is swifter than Mind; That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.

Verse 5
That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.

The Supreme Creator and his manifested World of Relations do outwardly appear to be separate from each other. However, essentially they are One Brahman.

All the existence as well as non-existence is contained in the Brahman. Therefore, he is the only one stable and eternal Reality. He is beyond the equations of the Space and Time, and therefore, he is beyond the concept of any movement. The concept of movement is based on the two pillars of space and time. Therefore, Brahman is said to be stable and unmoving. Similarly, there is no increase or decrease in the quantity of Brahman because he eternally contains all the manifested and unmanifested world in himself. There is no change in the relations in him because he is beyond causality and relativity.

The essential attribute of this manifested world is the cyclic movement (samsara) of the Divine Consciousness. This is based on the phenomenon of Space and Time. Its whole system as well as its aim is eternal movement forward. Its very existence is based on this movement. When the movement is stopped, the world ceases to exist. However, it should be noted that the foundation of this movement is not material. It is the energy of Active Consciousness. This consciousness appears to be having different applications of his energy in motion and results in multiplication of its forms. However, in essence it is the same Brahman appearing differently in various forms. It creates the impression of opposition of unity and multiplication, divisions of Time and Space, relations and groupings of circumstance and Causality.

All these oppositions are very much real in consciousness. They are NOT illusory. However, beyond the level of our limited consciousness, they are only symbols of the Brhaman, imaginations of the creative Mind. They are true representation of its eternal reality.

We should note that our limited mental consciousness has no power to create this world. This power is vested in something which is far more puissant, swift and unfettered than the mind. And this entity is the pure omnipotent self-awareness of the Absolute. It is unbound by any law of the relativity. Here we should distinguish between gods and the Brahman. The laws of relativity are supported by gods and is a temporary creation. This world appears to be eternal to our limited consciousness but has a limited duration which in itself is immeasurable to us. These laws are valid within the limited context of this manifested world and the gods as well as our human consciousness are part of this world. However, these laws are NOT binding on the Brahman which contains them. The gods are therefore described as ‘continuously running’ in their course. The Brahman is himself stable, eternal and unmoving while containing this world of movement, progression and duration.

The movement of this manifested world has as its basis the quality of eternal stability of the Brahman. In the larger canvas of eternal Immutability, we see the smaller picture of constant shifting of the apparent relations causing the appearance of change. The expression ‘One Unmoving that is swifter than Mind’ has this implied meaning in it. The Upanishad therefore says ‘That which moves and moves not, the one Stable which outstrips in the speed of its effective consciousness the others who run.’

When we say that the eternal reality is Brahman, it does not mean by inference that the multitudinous world of movement is not Brahman and therefore unreal or illusory. On the contrary, this world of forms is very much real. This world is not the figment of the Mind.

The diversity of creations is a play of consciousness of the One which is the eternal truth of things. The sense of Unity is called Vidya – Knowledge of One. The sense of diversity is called Avidya – ignorance of One. Both Vidya and Avidya are real. When Avidya in its inner understanding gets detached from the concept of One as the eternal source of it all, then only it becomes the cause of suffering. Isha Upanishad does not advocate the pure Monism, i.e. the exclusivity of the One as the sole reality. It accepts One as well as the Many as real. It explains the concept of One in his many manifestation. It advocates the duel reality and utility of Vidya and Avidya.
Isha Upanishad says that :
The twin aspects of aim of human life to be the Vidya and Immortality on one hand and
the reality of Life and Birth arising out of Avidya in this manifested world on the other hand,
are both the reality and part of One Brahman. One is not real to the exclusion of other as unreal. Every single atom in this universe is Brahman. Every soul is divine Purusha. It rejects the theory of illusionist or exclusive Monism. It rather takes a synthetic or comprehensive, all inclusive view of the Brahman and the World.

The concept of Brahman being indivisible One is not a mathematical concept. It is an abstract concept. Mathematical Oneness would exclude multiplicity as inconsistent with its theorem. It may on the other hand wrongly accept the Many as its ‘fractional’ parts which combining make it the Whole Number One. The Unity of Brahman is altogether different concept. It is not amenable to decrease, increase or division.

The many movements in the manifested world are given the symbolic representation with the waves of the sea. If by this example is meant that all the waves together constitute the sea, then it is wrong representation of the reality. In reality, each wave is the whole sea itself and not the part of the sea. They only appear to be different from the sea because of their frontal or superficial aspect caused by the motion of the sea. Each single atom in this universe is in reality the whole universe in itself – nothing more, nothing less. It is only the frontal node of manifestation which appears to be separate. Similarly, each individual soul is Brahman – complete and whole. This Brahman regards Itself and the world from a centre of cosmic consciousness.

Every manifestation in this world in its inner reality ‘identical’ with the Brahman and NOT a singular and individual existence separate from the Brahman. It is eternally identical within the limited concept of Time and Space as well as beyond the world of Time and Space.

This duality of existence have their origin in the Chit. Chit is the all creative self awareness of the Brahman. It views itself variously, infinitely, innumerably. It does not stop at that point. It then proceeds to actually formulate what it conceptualises. Chit is power of Vidya as well as of expressive and creative will. At our mundane level of existence, we treat these two concepts as different. However at higher level of reality, they are combined into one – Chit. It is the power of receptive vision as well of formative expression of this vision. These are not two separate powers but one single power of Chit. This is because the original source of Chit is Brahman and not an empty impotent void. It naturally, seamlessly and automatically manifest in reality whatever it inwardly visualises or ‘dreams’. What it visualises beyond the constraints of Space and Time becomes the manifested reality within the limitations of Space and Time.

It needs to be clarified that by creation we do not mean as it is commonly understood in our world of Avidya. In Truth, the creation is not producing something out of nothing or of transforming one or more things or parts thereof into another thing. It is ‘self-projection’ of Brahman in the limiting conditions of Space and Time. In other words Creation is not making but Be-coming. This becoming happens in the conditions and forms of conscious existence.

One Source in All Life

The One Source in all Life Shrikant Vasudeo

Based on Isha Upanishad, Verses 1 – 3 Shrikant Soman


Verse 1
The Supreme Creator is the inhabitant of all the Universe. The individual universe of movement is part of the Universal Motion. By renouncing the concept of the individual universe as separate from the One, man should truly enjoy his life. Keeping this divine principle in mind, he should not crave for the excessive accumulation of wealth for his self alone.

Verse 2
By living life to the full extent in this material world, man should have a very long and healthy life. Renouncing the life is not the way. The action in life does not bind man if it is done in the light of the knowledge of the One as the source of it All.

Verse 3
If one does not live as per this true knowledge of the One and dwells in his egoistic world, then his life is full of darkness. He goes down into a state of blind gloom.

Free Translation

Everything in this Universe is in a flux. There is nothing ‘fixed’. It is the dynamic of motion. Even the objects which appear to be stationery (like stone for example) are inherently in motion only appearing to be fixed to our senses. Ever item in the Universe has the Full Universe contained in it. It is like (actually much more than that) a holographic reality. What we perceive in a material object is only a particular manifested point of the Universe. The microcosm is one with the macrocosm.

A human being who stays in this Universe is subject to its laws. He can not escape them. He is part of the Cosmic Nature. His source of activity is contained in the Universal Activity. It is not separate from it.

Behind this manifested Universe of dynamic motion, is an immutable One Source. This One Source is stable, unmoving, eternal and unaffected by the movement in the Universe of his creation. This varied creations in the Universe with its diverse movements has been created by this One Source to provide for his inhabitation. The Creator who dwells in the multitudinous parts of the Universe is the same – though he appears differently to our perception. This is the play of the cosmic consciousness. In its essence, every human being has a ‘divine spark’ which is the same as the ‘divine spark’ contained in every other human being. He is essentially himself the One Source. Every human being is the One Source. Therefore, it is more proper to call every human being of this Universe as in themselves One Source rather than to call them as ‘brothers and sisters’. Calling brothers and sisters has some element of differentiation even with common parentage. We are not just the children of God, we ARE GOD ! Each one of us. We are essentially free, divine and One.

Inspite of our divine origin, man is engulfed in every kind of sorrow and misery. We see ourselves as separate from every other human being. We are trapped in the vicious circle of Samsara – death, sorrow, ignorance. We do not feel our ‘connection’ with the One Source. We feel ourselves as an independent entity. The essential true and divine objective of our birth is possession and enjoyment of the world. However, we are not able to accomplish this objective. Instead, we are mired in miserable life situations. This is due the Avidya – the ‘memory lapse’ of our origin in One Source and the false feeling of our separativeness from every other object of manifestation. This is the origin of Ego.

Vidya (knowledge of One Source of All) and Avidya (ignorance or forgetfulness of this knowledge) are the twin ‘powers’ of the Creator. They are both essential for the divine play. With these powers, the Creator has the possibility of double existence at the same time. He dwells in the world of multiplicity and relativity with the power of Avidya and at the same time is also in the consciousness of unity and identity of One with the power of Vidya. With the power of Vidya, he is not ‘bound’ by this world of multiplicity. With the power of Avidya, he gets into the play of separative mentality. He identifies himself with the object in movement. He fully ‘absorbs’ himself passionately in this play of Nature. He appears to become ‘forgetful’ of the Vidya – the knowledge of One. And above all, at the background of his mentality, he is having Vidya as his source of activity. This is the double movement of Vidya and Avidya running simultaneously – apparently in the mutually exclusive way, but in reality in a complimentary way.

The Mind in man is the cause of Avidya or shall we say the instrument of Avidya. The action of the mind creates the impression of the visible world as the sole reality with all its limitations. The Lord gets ‘caged’ in our mental definitions and descriptions. It forgets the ultimate reality of the object being the particular ‘front’ of the Whole Universe. Instead, it treats individual object as a distinct and separate sole reality separate from every other object in the Universe. This is the Maya – the illusion – the false appearance – the Mirage. It is created by ‘ahamkara’ the sense of separative ego, the ‘I’ ness of our existence. This ahamkara, though itself of divine origin, creates the illusion of our separative individual existence.

This creates the dichotomy of our existence with the loss of harmony and oneness with the whole of the Universe. This defeats the essential objective of our birth – to possess and to enjoy life. We do take birth anyway, but instead of having ‘possession’ and ‘enjoyment’ we have exactly its opposite effect. We feel the ‘lacking’ and ‘sorrow’ in place of ‘abundance’ and ‘Joy’. However, the basic impulse of our Ego is still to ‘possess’ and to ‘enjoy’. Inwards, this separative is faintly aware of its one origin in Supreme Creator. However because his thinking faculty of mind is obscured by Avidya, he is not able to realise this inner reality in his outward life. It is like loss of transparency of water with the dilution due to impurities being added to it. This is the real cause of our misery. it results in discord with oneself and with others, dissatisfaction with life in general, mental and physical suffering, disease, weakness and inability, sense of obscuration and limitation, lack of power, lack of self confidence. It then results in the wastage of our energy in the false and futile pursuit of passion and craving for self-fulfilment. It leads ultimately to the recoil of energy in itself, fully exhausted and frustrated. The final result is death and disintegration.

The root cause of our suffering is our ‘craving’ towards objects of enjoyment. When one realises his true identity with the Supreme Source of All, he need not crave, because he is already in possession of the Universe, one with it and in full and true enjoyment of all that it contains.

Object of the Divine Life
The essential divine objective of our life is to possess the whole Universe and to Enjoy it. Possession and Enjoyment is NOT contrary to the divine principles. On the contrary, they are the only and main divine principles of our existence. We need to renounce our ‘craving’, which arises our of our separative sense of existence. Then only we will be able to truly and freely enjoy our life.

It should be noted that we are not talking of the moral constraint of self denial. Physical rejection of the world or any of its objects is not demanded. What is desired is the complete liberation of our spirit from any form of craving after the apparent and outward form of things.
What is needed is the liberation from the idea of ego sense. With the liberation from the idea of ego sense, we get the freedom from the craving after material objects. We need to clear ourselves from any of the false sense of the ownership of an object by oneself or by any other person or the sense that any object is absolutely essential for our happiness or the feeling of greediness in our heart. One can have a ‘preference’ or ‘desirableness’ of any object for the purpose of possession and enjoyment. This is in accordance with the divine law. What is to be abandoned is the sense of ‘absolute requirement’, of ‘critical necessity’, of ‘non-violable condition’ of the possession of any particular object. We should not make the mistake of mixing these two separate feelings. One enables us to have full enjoyment, the other leads us towards total misery – though both are essentially derived from the one source.

The cardinal principle behind this rule is the reality of Unity of all existence. The Supreme Creator dwells in each soul. The separative appearance is only an illusion. We need to transcend our Ego and realise the true Self in us. When we do this, we become the Lord of this Universe and have one cosmic consciousness – transcending the limitations of our individual mind. The physical possession of our object of desire becomes a secondary objective. The common man may have the need to prove his ownership of an object, the Emperor has no need to give this proof. He is the owner of his entire empire.

The craving after sense enjoyments also vanishes when we arrive at the stage of infinite delight of existence after we identify with the One Source of All. We possess the cosmic consciousness. We live in this Ananda as our essential principle of existence. We achieve the duel objective of transcendent existence as well as this manifested individualised world of ours. We become inwardly free in our soul while at the same time live in this world of duality with full force.

The freedom of the soul which we are talking here is NOT that of the silent inactive soul. We are dealing with the soul which is fully active and passionately absorbed in this manifested world. This is the most important principle emphasised in these verses. The freedom from the action is NOT to be understood as INACTION. Freedom from action means while doing our action with full force, zeal and passion, inwardly we should be aware of the One Reality of All. Outwardly, we are absorbed in action, while inwardly, we are absorbed in the One Source of All – and therefore liberated from the Karmic effect of our action. Thus it should be noted that the culprit is not the action itself, but our attitude towards it. The Upanishad is absolutely and explicitly clear on this point.

Similarly, the enjoyment of the worldly objects is not by the inactive soul who only ‘witnesses’ the process of enjoyment. The enjoyment is of the active soul who participates in the very process of enjoyment.

On the other hand, it is an absolute condition for the purpose of the completeness and wholeness of our life that we do get fully engaged in this material world by our actions and have a full and joyful acceptance of the terms of the physical life. This world is not to be considered as a necessary evil or a prison of the soul. This world is our opportunity for possession and enjoyment thereby making our life whole and complete. Only then the original Plan of Life by the Supreme Creator gets fulfilled.

The very notion of inaction as a means of keeping oneself free from the entrapment of Karma, by renouncing the world, going in the mountains etc is itself an illusion. This is due to the cosmic principle of vibration. Even our inertia is an action and creates vibration in the cosmic waters. Our inertia itself can create our Karma and bind us down. When we take birth in this body, it is an illusion to even think of escaping from life by any means whatsoever. The very idea which prompts us to refrain from action and find ways and means to escape from life is itself founded from ignorance – Avidya because it treats the manifested universe which itself is a form of Brahman as separate from the Soul. If the manifested Universe and the Brahman are the same, then to escape from this life is like escaping from oneself – which is absurdity. We can not escape life. We have to lovingly and joyfully embrace life.

It is our ill-conceived notion that action is to be abandoned because it is inconsistent with freedom. This notion derives from the understanding that behind every action is desire. It is subjection to the formal energy which drives this action. This makes the soul ‘entangled’ in the action. However, this is not true in the true system of the cosmic law. It is only the superficial understanding of the cosmic principle which falsely makes us believe in this way. Let us see how.

Craving is only a mode of the emotional mind. This mind under the spell of Avidya, falsely believes that the enjoyment is generated by the object of enjoyment. When we live in Vidya, we realise that the enjoyment is generated by the Brahman which resides in the object of the enjoyment. When we crave for Icecream, in ignorance we believe that it is the icecream itself which is the ultimate cause of enjoyment. However when we are enlightened in Vidya, we realise that the real source of our enjoyment is the Brahman dwelling in the icecream. Icecream may be a desirable object for our enjoyment. It is acceptable feeling in our true scheme of cosmic existence. However, craving for icecream as being an absolutely and seriously necessary thing in itself for our enjoyment is contrary to the cosmic principle.

The Energy in Motion is essentially a form of Brahman. He expresses himself through Energy in Motion with perfect freedom. We need to get behind the veil of Nature and arrive at the Lord of Nature. We need to merge our individual into the Cosmic Will. Then we can do all our worldly actions in perfect freedom with divine presence. Our actions are offered to the Lord thereby our personal responsibility for the actions get merged with him and we act in true liberty.

The movement of Nature generate the cycle of Karma and is bound by it. The soul indwelling in us with full awareness of Vidya, the knowledge and identity with One Source of All, is ever free – he is even free from the outward appearance of the binding effect. He is free inside as well as outside in our actions.

To sum up, the true freedom lies not in inaction but in non-identification of self with the movement of Nature and realising our true identity with the Brahman

The event of death does not din-integrate our individual existence. We are still in the wheel of movement. The state of our consciousness is changed to a state other than the physical consciousness. These states are either obscure or illuminated. It may be full of sunlight or ‘sunless’.

When we persistently get absorbed in the gross form of ignorance, crave after material enjoyments in the obscurity of Avidya, get merged in the movement by losing our identity with Brahman, one enters in a state of blind darkness. On the other hand, when we live in the movement with the true knowledge of Brahman as explained above, we enter into the worlds of light, get liberated and have a blissful living after death.

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

Isha Upanishad - Summary

Isha Upanishad - Summary
Based on the notes of Sri Aurobindo

The central theme of Isha Upanishad (IU) is absolute, complete and very firm reconciliation of the apparent opposites of enjoyment and renunciation, action and inaction, Unity of Lord and Multiplicity of Action, Truth and Illusion (Maya), Vidya and Avidya. IU draws its inspiration from the Vedic thought. At a later stage, the thought process drifted towards down grading of this World, Enjoyment, Action, Multiplicity, Birth and Avidya (Ignorance). As against this the higher preferred status was given to the exact opposite of them. God, Renunciation, Inaction, One, Cessation of Birth, Vidya (Knowledge) were given exalted status. This trend went to the extreme level resulting in the idea of the world being illusion – Maya, Unreal, a snare, trap, hopeless burden imposed by the soul on himself under the influence of seduction of desires. It was advocated to ‘cast aside’ this world altogether in order to get out of this ‘trap’. At end of this road we reach a point wherein ‘cut the knot’ of this great mystery altogether and once and for all set oneself free. This was indeed a very ‘violent’ method.

As against this backdrop, let us examine how IU tackles this issue. IU does not cut these knots – even thought it appeared that it (i.e. the cutting of the knots) was the only feasible solution). Instead, it holds these extreme ends of the threads of thought and un-knot them, disengage them, remove the tangles, release them and then place them side by side. While doing all this no compromise whatsoever is made to the law of truth of being. It should also be noted that in this process of reconciliation of the extreme viewpoints, IU has not down-graded or up-graded any one of them. On the other hand, it has shown the inter-dependence of these diverse view-points.

We need to have very high level of renunciation. At the same time we should also have total enjoyment in this world. While advocating the complete and willful acceptance action in this world, the equal emphasis is also laid on the absolute freedom of the soul from any attachment to its works. Complete and total Unity is prescribed as the goal. However, this Unity must incorporate in it the whole gamut of the multiplicity of movement in the world.

We should note that IU is very serious in this line of thought about the reconciliation of the opposites. Take for example the statement “By the Ignorance having crossed over death by the knowledge one enjoys Immortality”. It appears that the position of Vidya(knowledge) is
put very high above that of Avidya (Ignorance). Life in this world is given the inferior status over that of the life after death. Now have a look at the other statement : “By dissolution having crossed over death by birth one enjoys Immortality” This statement asserts that the deathless stage of immortality is to be achieved in the birth and not in death. This statement balances the earlier statement. The immortality is to be found in this life itself and not somewhere beyond life. This is very much similar to the early Vedic thought which laid great emphasis on the current state of embodied human being for achieving the diverse objectives of existence and non-existence, death and life and immortality. These objectives are to be achieved as fully realizable, possessed and enjoyed in this life itself without having to renounce life and bodily existence. This thought has never passed out of our philosophy. However, it has become more secondary and a sort of ‘side product’. This thought was superseded by the more and more dominant philosophy of ‘cutting’ the knot as explained above – to renounce life altogether, to extinguish all desires, to seek solution in after-life.

IU has successfully taken up these opposites one by one and reconciled them harmoniously and integrally into a whole solution. It has elaborated upon following pair of opposites :
1 The Conscious Lord and phenomenal Nature
2 Renunciation and Enjoyment
3 Action in Nature and Freedom in the Soul
4 The One stable Brahman and the multiple Movement
5 Being and Becoming
6 The Active Lord and the indifferent Akshara Brahman
7 Vidya and Avidya
8 Birth and Non-Birth
9 Works and Knowledge

Shrikant Vasudeo Soman

Upanishad - Central Theme

Isha Upanishad – Central Theme
Based on the notes of Sri Aurobindo

There are four streams of thought contained in the Isha Upanishad.

First Stream
There is Spirit which is one and stable. Then there is this Universe of movement and forms of movement. The Spirit is living inside and governing from inside this Universe of movement. (Verse 1, line 1)
The divine life of man in this universe is attained by enjoyment of all. This is done by renunciation of all through the killing of the desire. (Verse 1, line 2)
We have then the explanation for the justification of works and of physical life here. The soul is inherently free. It is unified with the God. Even in the midst of all the movement of activity, the soul is absolutely and completely free. The Ultimate Creator of All is manifested in this multiplicity of movement. (Verse 2)
If we make changes in this cosmic law, then we sink into the state of blind darkness after our death. (Verse 3)

Second Stream
In the second stream, the central thought of the first stream are stressed and further elaborated. Brahman consists of the One Unmoving Creator of All and the multiplicity of Movements. Of these two, the Unmoving, Unchanging Stable Creator of All is placed on higher order of importance. However, underlying this movement, is the unifying principle of Stable Creator. (Verse 4,5)
The goal of a human being in this Life is to realise this Brahman. He has to experience this Unity in the Multiplicity of Movement in his inner being. He has to identify himself with the Lord with all his world – taken together and not in isolation of one to the exclusion of another. This is possible only if he achieves complete freedom from grief and illusion. (Verse 6,7)

Third Stream
In the third stream, the subject of the justification of life and works which was mentioned in Verse 2 is further elaborated. This is given a further dimension by bringing in the element of divine fulfillment. The various aspects of the Creator’s self-manifestation in this Universe with all its Movements as well as the process of many Becomings from the One Being are explained. The inner law of all the existences actually originates from the one Creator out of his conception and intention. (Verse 8)
The diametric opposition of Knowledge and Ignorance, Vidya and Avidya, Becoming and Non-Becoming is then reconciled. They instead of creating discord and confusion, actually help in the progressive self-realisation of soul. This is explained as the progression from the state of the inevitability of death to the deathless immortal stage. (Verse 9-14)

Fourth Stream
In the fourth stream the symbols of Surya and Agni are used to represent the idea of many worlds of existence and their relation to the Supreme Truth and Deathless Stage (Verse 15,16). The activities of this life are explained (Verse 17). The state after death is then symbolically indicated (Verse 18).