January 31, 2009
In the CU 6.9-11 the lessons continue to be about the nature of atman brahman, this living essence, or this essence that pervades and defines our existence. I’m not quite sure if he’s referring to what happens when we die, or what is always true, in reference to the Self – the atman part of each thing/creature. Each verse uses a different metaphor. The first, verse 9, uses honey. Bees collect nectar from all over to create honey, but once it is all together, each part doesn’t say “I came from here, I came from over there, etc.” No, it is just all the one honey. In the same way, our atman does not know it is a tiger, wolf, C (a friend), Me, Indiana (my cat), etc. It is just one thing. In v.10 the metaphor is rivers flowing into the ocean.
Verse 11 is different. Here, the father/guru speaks of sap in a tree; wherever one cuts the tree one finds living sap flowing, and wherever the sap stops flowing, those branches die. In the same way, wherever there is the essence, atman, there is life, or living (jiva). “Know that this, of course, dies when it is bereft of jiva, but life itself does not die.” “The finest essence here – that constitutes the self of this whole world; that is the truth; that is the self (atman). And that’s how you are.”
It takes the animating force of jiva to keep our bodies alive – as C would say, our animal part – but because we are more than animal, because we are Atman, too, the death of the animal part, the shell, is not the death of life. It is not the death of us, though the earlier verses certainly indicate that it is the death of our consiousness as individuals. Do all the Upanishads teach this? I thought this was a difference between Hindu and Buddhist thought. I mean, at the end, at the merging, or moksha or samadhi, of course one lets go of individuality. So it is just a symptom of my spiritual immaturity that this bothers me in the slightest. We are One. Why hold on to the whitethoughts-construct?
V. 12 and 13 are good, short, profound lessons too. In 12, the teacher asks the son to cut up a fruit from a banyan tree, then take a tiny seed and cut it up into quarters. Now point to a quarter. He can’t, because the pieces are so small they’ve disappeared. Just so is the essence that pervades us; atman is invisible to see, but the essence, as in the seed, was/is mighty enough to start and uphold a great banyan tree.
In 13, he gives the son a chunk of salt to dissolve in water, asks him to retrieve it, to taste the water in several locations, and finally to throw the water out on a stone (where it will evaporate and the salt re-emerge). Just so is atman in every particle of our being; not here nor there but everywhere. Just so is it invisible, even when you doubt and disbelieve. That is what and who you really are.
February 1
The Seventh chapter of the Changdogya Upanishad is another treatise – using the “Socratic (how arrogant is that, considering how many others created the method pre-Socrates?)” method – on what brahman is, and what is the “greatest” part of brahman. Since brahman is everything, I guess I don’t really understand these sages’ preoccupation with determining the “most” important or “best” part of brahman. What I am witnessing here is partly to do with the development of the philosophy; they had to go through the stage of questing for most and best. And maybe it’s also about what to focus on. Its fine to know that all the cosmos is brahman, is One, but where does one begin? On what should one train one’s attention in order to really grok that? Theortetically, absolutely anything can be your doorway, but aren’t some easier to enter than others?
So in Chapter 7 a man comes to Sanatkumara and says he’s learned everything anyone else can teach him. He has studied and mastered the Vedas, ancestral rites and histories, mathematics, monologues and dialogues, astrology, mythology, etc. Yet still he suffers from sorrow. He has heard Sanatkumara can teach him about self, and that this will allow him to pass out of sorrow. He begs to become a student and is accepted. The first thing the teacher says – the first lesson – is that everything he has studied is “nothing but name.” We are back to what we talked about a couple days ago; the words for things. But here he just says, “So venerate the name.” Venerate brahman as name. Right, extend it maybe, at least to labels. All those words are just labels, and if you venerate the lables as brahman, you are getting it, you are looking past the label, the ritual, the duty, the chants, whatever, to the real thing, which is One.
The student asks if there is anything greater than name. Yes, speech. Because speech makes all of those things known. Venerate brahman as speech and you can go all the places speech goes. After a bit . . . Is there anything greater than speech?
The mind. The mind envelopes both name and speech. One formulates both speech and names in the mind, so it is greater. Even greater than mind is intention. Samkalpa. Will, purpose. One must have these in order to shape words in the mind. This is a rather longer set of verses that says the earth, sky, the Vedas, rituals, the essence of all of them is intention. There is a whole pattern of intention laid out in the pattern of the cosmos and in the rituals and the body and the vital functions. So venerate brahman as intention.
That isn’t the end of the chain by far. Still greater, in order of ascent, are thought, deep reflection, and perception. So far, all of these seem consistent – logically and with later teachings. But after perception, the student asks again, “Is there anything greater?” And the surprising (to me) answer is “Strength.”
“Even one strong man strikes terror into the hearts of a hundred men of perception. When someone becomes strong, he comes to stand; standing, he moves about; when he moves about, he becomes a pupil; when he becomes a pupil, he comes to be a man who sees, thinks, hears, discerns, performs rites and perceives. By strength does the earth persist . . .” 7.8.1 Without the first sentence, on could argue that this is referring to personal force – that strength/power by which we move ourselves through the day and life, not brute strength that can be used on others, though I suppose the two are necessarily related. If strength is truly better than perception, why not dedicate one’s life to body-building, rather than meditation? Is it that one must keep the body’s strength up through hatha yoga and healthy eating?
Obviously, I was surprised to find this so highly ranked. And look what comes next – greater than strength is food. One must eat to stay alive, and eat well to live well, to be strong, able to perceive, reflect deeply, perform rites, speak, etc. Even more important than food – water. We can go longer without food than water. All the vital functions rejoice over water. Therefore venerate brahman as food and water, which give us strength.
More posers – at first at least – what is greater than water? Well, what can dry up water and prevent it from coming? Heat! And what contains the sun, rain, moon, lightening and more? Space.
Really not knowing what to expect next . . . It is memory. Without memory “they would not be able to hear, consider, or recognize anything. Clearly it is through memory that one recognizes one’s children and one’s cattle.” 7.13
Hope is even greater, since without hope we wouldn’t bother remembering or having intentions or even eating and drinking. And finally, the very greatest . . .
Life breath. All this is fixed to lifebreath, as spokes are fixed to a hub.
There follows an injunction to the student that he must follow a course of learning in order to really master this knowledge of the self. But the teacher seems to contradict his orders. I mean, he seems to lay out what was perhaps a standard belief and practice of the time and say, “but I don’t think that’s true, or right.” What he says is that the student, in order to speak truth, must first perceive it. To perceive truth, he must understand perception, and in building like that, the order is, perceive thinking, perceive faith, produce, act, attain well-being, attain plenitude.
The notes help us understand that there was a belief, to which the teacher is referring, that one’s faith was demonstrable with monetary wealth in Vedic India. Makes sense. The gods reward the faithful, and if you do the rites properly, wealth will flow your way. Plus, one has to have wealth to do the rites and pay the priests and have over all the guests and show proper hospitality to humans, priests and dieties.
Thus the injunction to produce, which requires action and the attainment of material well-being. So here is where this radical Upanishadic thinking breaks with that tradition: The student asks, “Sir, on what is plenitude based?” He answers, “On one’s own greatness. Or maybe it is not based on greatness. Cattle and horses, elephants and gold, slaves and wives, farms and houses – these are what people here call greatness. But I don’t consider them that way; no, I don’t, for they are all based on each other (my emphasis) 7.24”.
Then he says plenitude is below, above, in the west, east, north and south. It extends over the whole world. Now substitue “I.” I am below, above, in the east, east, north, and south. I extend over the entire world. Next substitute the self. The self is below, above, etc. “The man who sees it this way, thinks about it this way, perceives it this way; a man who finds pleasure in the self, who dallies with the self, who mates with the self and who attains bliss with the self, he becomes completely his own master; he obtains complete freedom of movement in all the worlds. Thsow who perceive it otherwise are ruled over by others and obtain perishable worlds; they have no freedom of movement in any of the worlds” 7.25
In 7.26 he says that a person who perceives it this way – for him lifebreath, memory, hope, space, heat, water, food, strength, perception, deep reflection, though, intention, mind, speech, name, vedic formula, rites – all spring from his self. The whole world springs from his (or her!) self.
One sees here both the upholding of the Vedic rituals and the utter breaking with the old interpretations and meanings. Everything is being recast in the light of the new insights, but they are managing to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The search for the greatest makes a little more sense, in terms of developing ever deeper insights. One imagines the dialogue taking place over a long period of ime, as the student goes away to digest the first message and practice venerating brahman as mind, the feels dissatisfied and realizes this is only part of it, “let me go back and ask if there is something more.”
C and I were talking yesterday about how ridiculous it is that we still smoke (cigarettes). With all of the emphasis on breath – that breath is the absolutely most important and fundamental part of life and spirit – which should be kind of obvious – I really wonder if, when I begin hatha yoga, it will help me feel ready to just let go of the cigs. I want to want to. I am getting closer. Just not quite there yet. Hopefully between yoga, meditation, Chantix, a cervical cancer scare and the cold weather, I can give it a try.
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