The Self - Atman-the Supreme Reality

The SELF- ATMAN-THE SUPREME REALITY

अनेजदैकं मनसो जवीयो नैनद्देवा आप्नुवन पूर्वमर्षत।

aneja-dekaM manaso javîyo, nainad-devâ âpnuvan- pûrva-marsat,


तद्धावतो न्यानत्येति तिष्ठत तस्मिन्नपो मातरिश्वा दधाति ॥4॥

tad-dhâvato-'nyâna-tyeti tisthat, tasmin-napo mâtarisHvâ dadhâti.( 4).

 "The Self is the motionless one, swifter than the Mind, The devas (senses) could not overtake;It ran before  before them. Sitting, It goes faster than than  those who  ran after  It. By It ,Matarsiva(the element Air) supports the activity of all living beings"(Isha 4).(Swami Chinmayananda).

<sup>That One, though motionless, is swifter than the mind. The senses can never overtake It, for It ever goes before. Though immovable, It travels faster than those who run. By It the all–pervading air sustains all living beings. 
This verse explains the character of the Atman or Self. A finite object can be taken from one place and put in another, but it can only occupy one space at a time. The Atman, however, is present everywhere; hence, though one may run with the greatest swiftness to overtake It, already It is there before him. Even the all–pervading air must be supported by this Self, since It is infinite; and as nothing can live without breathing air, all living things must draw their life from the Cosmic Self.


We have now four continuous verses(4 to7) where description of the Supreme in terms of Its qualities of the Self has been done, which  constitute the fourth wave-of-thought. The Atman or the Self is motionless, says the Isha Upanisad, which is neither  the inability or impotency of the Supreme. It is indicative of only all pervasiveness  of the Supreme Reality. Motion is a change in time and space. The Atman cannot(and need not) move because it is all-pervading. The Reality can not and need not move anywhere because there is no spot wherein It is not already existing.The Isha asserts that the Self is swifter than the mind. The Self runs faster because the Reality in the form of existence is already there, before the mind could contemplate. In short,the Self is discussed here as All-pervading in terms of motion and speed. By denying the former and asserting the latter,the Rsis are explaining to us the Consciousness or the Self,is a factor which in Itself is 'motionless speed'. Consciousness is All-pervading,it can not move,and nothing that moves in the universe (Ishavasyamidgam sarvam) can ever move except in a medium of Consciousness.</sup>


The sense-organs cannot ovetakethe Self, as they can only perceive their objects, functioning only in the field of consciousness. The sense-organs and the sense-objects spring from and exist in the Self,and so they cannot,in their functions ever remain totally away from the Self, the medium of their existence,the field of their activities.

The Self,thus, is not only all-pervading,but it is the very substance and dynamism in all movements and the very force behind everything.Presided over by the Self alone,can allthe transactions of life take place. Self is Life; without It everything is dead and non-existent. The idea has ben more vividly brought out in the closing line of the verse, when the Rsi declares that the Matarisva(Lord of the Atmosphere- Air) supports the activities oflife,having derived its Life-force and vigour from this great and all-pervading Reality. According to Sri Sankara,Matarisvar efers to the individuality(jiva)and water(apah)here means karma. Then it would mean that all activities of all individualised personalities are always within the Self.


 ^vedprakash

^{http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/}

Results san Renunciation or Action

RESULTS OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION

असुर्या नाम ते लोका अंधेन तमसा वृताः।
Asûryâ  nâma te lokâh andhena tamasâ vritâh,

ता स्ते प्रेत्याभिगछन्ति ये के चात्महनो जनाः ॥3॥
Tâgmste pretyâbhi-gacchanti ye ke câtma-hano janâh.  (Isha 3).

"Sunless are those worlds, and enveloped in blindering  gloom to  which  all those people , who  are slayers  of  their  own Souls go, departing  from here".(Swami Chinmayananda)

The  great Master of  Upanisad declares  here that  having been born as man, an individual (or  society or community or nation), who refuses  to  live  either the ' the life of  renunciation/meditation' (cf. verse 1)or  ' the life of intense and continuous  activity'(cf. verse 2), is  to be  considered as a suicide. Such  an  entity  must  necessarily come into  fall  into an abyss of  darkness and despair, experiencing a terrible down-turn in its cultural  and spiritual eminence. If a community is neither willing to live the higher values nor be efficient  in its constructive  material  program, such a generation should slowly decay  into darkness, having  lost its soul,  and to face the sorrows  of dark age. Such  people are considered the 'slayers of their Souls' (Atma-hanah), or  Self-destroyers, who kill the Divinity  in themselves, will go to the 'sunless worlds',when they leave their bodies

Thus, with this Mantra(verse) the third 'wave of thought' indicates brilliantly  the consequences for individual entities  without  following the 'Path of Renunciation'(verse 1) or the  alternate 'Path of Action'(verse 2) .

vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Path of Karma (righteous deeds)

 PATH OF KARMA(RIGHTEOUS DEEDS)

कुर्वन्नेवेह कर्माणि जिजीविषेच्छत समाः।

एवं त्वयि नान्यथेतो स्ति न कर्म लिप्यते नरे ॥2॥

kûrvan-neveha karmâni jijîviSec-chatagM samâH,

evaM tvayi nânya-theto'sti na karma lipyate nare.( Isha  2)

"Performing verily, work in this world  should  one  desire to live a full  hundred years. This  alone  is right, for  there is  no  other  right  path. Action  never clings to a man following this  path" (Isha.2)

For the coveted goal set  out in the first verse, the pilgrim needs  a lot of mental and intellectual calibre,a man of renunciation, with discriminating capabilities, a  strong will and an indomitable faith in himself.However,many among us  have ample  desire  for wealth, for relationships,and for glory and  recognition. The Scripture  says that  such persons having inclinations towards the world, are to practise sincerely and diligently, the life of Action. If we study the history of mankind with detachment, we observe  that noble and eternal values of life,when negated and  flouted, the generation tumbles down into wreckage, and their  revival is almost  always directly proportional to the  sincerity,intensity and strength with  which the rising generation adopts the nobler and enduring  values of  philosophical and religious  perfection.

Thus,the great Rsis have anticipated  the result of action,inaction and unaction.According  to them, unaction - a seemingly physical inactivity which wears a thick veil  covers the extreme inner activity(sattva),the latter being the   sublimest, which  attitude is  for the  seekers on the 'Path of Renunciation' and 'Knowledge'. The opposite  'Inaction' is  external and internal morbidity,inertia and sloth(tamas), which  activity kills  the  generation. Action is the dynamic and conscious work, either  to fulfil a given and known  desire,or to enjoy the very  activity itself as its own goal(rajas ). Thus,  we should  immediately take to a dynamic and conscious program of activity and  should steadily walk the 'Path of Action', and  be  dedicated  to the 'Path of Karma'.In the words  of Swami Chinmayananda, 'In case you are not  able to live the life of God-vision achieved through renunciation,then do  certainly desire  to live  a full hundred  years of productive selfless work.'

The expression, 'kurvan  eva' performing,verily,work alone'(karmani  eva), is  indeed  very important and powerful. It amounts to saying  that having been born  as  a  man, there is no other go but  to work,especially if you strongly  desire to live verily(jijiviset  eva) a full  hundred years(satagm samah eva). Thus, the Isha have glorified sweat and toil to the highest pinnacle of recognition as service. The ‘dignity of labour consists in service’ is a fact no where else so openly declared and so religiously glorified as in the Hindu scriptures. Dedicated and noble work alone can polish the animal-man to a state of true culture and right discipline. Man is not born to revel in idleness. Nature will whip the tamasic on to the road of right or wrong activity(rajas), and gradually evolve him to sattva, a state of joy with action-oriented performance. Swami Chinmayananda has opined, 'Here is a stanza, which declares that  he,who cannot afford to live the noblest life of  (total)renunciation and self-restraint,must unavoidably live  a life of intense activity,striving his best to fulfil allhis desires through sweat and toil,and must teach himself to live in appetising enthusiasm all his life- 'a full hundred years'  in the service of man and  in the glorification of the Lord."The Isha Upanisad repeats: 'Thus, it is right  for thee and not otherwise than  this.' The one who thus intensively plunges into life - eager and anxious to meet  daily challenges,and  at every turn doing his best to meet  each challenge with truth and purity as his standard of values -  to such a one,actions do not cling. Bhagavad Gita  also exhorts :'Therefore,engage yourself in doing Karma only'(BG IV-15).

'Na karma lipyate nare'(Action never taints such aman) signifies that our actions cannot affect us, if  the work  is done with a spirit of detachment,coupled with the  joy of dedication to  our work. LordKrsna alsosaysin the Gita(IV-24) that  workcan never contaminateHim,asHe works  with detachmentand total selflessness. Even otherwise, along periodofsuch activities,undertaken in a spirit ofdetachment,toalargeextentcleansesthe mind of its impurities like desires, ttachments, hatred,selfishness, jealousy,greed,etc. Such a purifiedmindalone can havethe required intellectual temperand spiritual stability topursue the pathof righteousnessthrough intense and high editation.
If one should desire to live in this world a hundred years, one should live performing Karma (righteous deeds). Thus, thou mayest live; there is no other way. By doing this, Karma (the fruits of thy actions) will not defile thee. If a man still clings to long life and earthly possessions, and is, therefore, unable to follow the path of Self–knowledge (Gnana–Nishta) as prescribed in the first verse, then he may follow the path of right action (Karma–Nishta). Karma here means actions performed without selfish motive, for the sake of the Lord alone. When a man performs actions clinging blindly to his lower desires, then his actions bind him to the plane of ignorance or the plane of birth and death; but when the same actions are performed with surrender to God, they purify and liberate him.

Thus,while the first wave of thought(in verse 1) explained to us the 'Path of Renunciation'  (tyagten bhunjitha)and realisation(Isha vasyamjagadamsarvam),the second wave(verse 2)has exhorted us to wish for a full hundred years of vigorous life,spent inloving service of man and seeking Him in and through the joys of 'selfless activities'.
( This research-based  endeavour has been attempted on Swami Chinmayananda's Discourses on Isavaya Upanisad)
vedaprakasha
www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com

Isha's Peace Invocation Prayer-Om pUrNamadah pUrNamidam...

Peace Invocation(Prayer):Isopanishad Invocation (Prayer)

ॐ पूर्ण मदः पूर्ण मिदं पूर्णात पूर्ण मुदचत्ये,


पूर्णस्य पूर्ण मादाये पूर्ण मेवावशिश्यते॥


om purnam adah purnam idam, purnat purnam udacyate


purnasya purnam adaya,purnam evavasishyate (Isha Upanisad: Invocation Prayer)

This is an innocuous looking verse for which someone once said: "Let all the Upanisads disappear from the face of the earth - I don’t mind so long as this one verse remains." In Isavasyopanisad, the text begins with this SantipAta payer : "OmpUrNamadah pUrNamidaM..." :

" That is whole; this is whole; From that whole this whole came;


From that whole, this whole removed, What remains is whole."

Idam, This;PurNam, the single noun in the verse, is a beautiful Sanskrit word which means completely filled - a filledness of which is wholeness itself, absolute fullness lacking nothing whatsoever. Adah, which means ’that’, and idam, which means ’this’, are two pronouns each of which, at the same time, refers to the single noun, pUrNam; PUrNam adah - completeness is that, PUrNam idam - completeness is this.

Adah, that, refers to something which is remote , not available for direct knowledge. Adah, refers to a jnEyavastu,a thing to be known, but remains to be known upon destruction of the remoteness.

Idam, this, refers to something not remote but present, here and now, immediately available for perception, something directly known or knowable. Traditionally, however, idam has come to have a much broader meaning. Idam indicates all driSya, all seen or known things. All adah, called ’that’ become ’this’ as soon  as their thatness, their remoteness in time, place or knowledge is destroyed. It is in this sense that the SantipAta "pUrNamadah." uses idam.

The first verse of IshAvAsyOpaniSad, following the SantipATa makes clear that idam is used in the traditional sense of all driSya, all known or knowable things:. IshAvAsyaidam sarvam yat kinca jagatyAm jagat ;. all this, whatsoever, changing in this changing world...
So when the verse says pUrNam idam, "completeness is this", what is being said is that all that one knows or is able to know is pUrNam, which means completeness, absolute fullness, wholeness.. If pUrNam is total fullness which leaves nothing out, then ’this’ cannot be used to describe pUrNam because ’this’ leaves something out. What? The subject. ’This’ leaves out aham, I, the subject.

Adah, That
Since idam, this, has been used in its traditional sense of all knowable objects, here or there, presently known or unknown, the only meaning left for ’that’ is to indicate the subject. Idam, this, stands for everything available for objectification. What is not available for objectification? The objectifier - the subject. The subject, aham,I, is the only thing not available for objectification. So, the real meaning of adah, that, as used here in contrast to idam,this, is aham, I. If that is so, how can adah, that, mean aham, I? Am I remote? I am certainly not remote in terms of time or place. I am always here right now. But perhaps I may be remote in terms of knowledge. If in fact I do not know the true nature of myself I could be a jnEyavastu, a to-be-known, in terms of knowledge. Because it is only through the revelation of shruti (scripture functioning as means of knowledge) that I can gain knowledge of my true nature, it can be said that, in general ,the truth of aham is remote in terms of knowledge - something that is yet to be known.
’That’ so used as ’I" means AtmA, the content of truth of the first person singular, a jnEya-vastu, a to-be-known, in terms of knowledge.When that knowledge is gained, I will recognize that I, AtmA, am identical with limitless Brahman - all pervasive, formless and considered the cause of the world of formful objects.

PUrNam adah - completeness is I, the subject AtmA, whose truth is Brahman, formless, limitlessness, considered creation’s cause; PUrNam idam - completeness is all objects, all things known or knowable, all formful effects, comprising creation.pUrNam, completeness, brooks no exclusion whatsoever. The   nature of pUrNam is wholeness, completeness,limitlessness.

There cannot be pUrNam plus something or pUrNam minus something. It is not possible to add or to take away from limitlessness. The nature of pUrnam being what is, ’that’ pUrNam must include ’this’ pUrNam; ’this’ pUrNam must include ’that’ pUrNam.Therefore, when it is said that aham, I, am pUrnam and idam, this,is pUrNam, what is really being said is that there is only pUrNam.

Aham, I, and idam, this, traditionally represent the two basic categories into one or the other of which everything fits. There is no third category. So if aham and idam, represent everything and each is pUrNam , then everything is pUrNam. Aham, I is pUrNam which includes the world. Idam this, is pUrNam which include me. The seeming differences of aham and idam are swallowed by pUrnam - that limitless fullness which shruti (scripture) calls Brahman.

However, my every day experience is that I am a distinct entity separate and different from idam jagat, ( this world of objects )which I perceive. My experience is that I see myself as not the same at all as idam, this. When I hold a rose in my hand and look at it, I, aham, am one thing and idam, this rose I see, is quite another. In no way is it my experience that I and the rose are the same. We seem quite distinct and separate. Because shruti tells me that I, aham, and the rose, idam, both are limitless fullness, pUrNam. Furthermore, it is not my experience that either I or the rose are, in any measure, pUrNam, completeness - limitless fullness. I seem to me to be totally apUrNah, unfull, incomplete, inadequate, limited in all sides by my fellow beings, by the elements of nature, by the lacks and deficiencies of my own body and mind. My place and space are very small; time forever crowds me; sorrow dogs my path. I can find no limitless fullness in me. No more does there seem to belimitless fullness in this rose even now wilting in my hand, pressed by time, relinquishing its space; even in its prime smaller and less sturdy than the sunflowers growing outside my window. It is my constant experience that I, aham, and all I perceive, idam, are ceaselessly mutually limiting one another. Thus, PurNam, completeness, absolute fullness, must necessarily be formless. PurNam cannot have a form because it has to include everything. Any kind of form means some kind of boundary; any kind of boundary means that something is left out - something is on the other side of the boundary. Absolute completeness requires formlessness. Sastra (scripture) reveals that what is limitless and formless is Brahman, the cause of creation, the content of aham, I. Therefore, given the nature of Brahman by shruti, I can see that pUrNam is another way for shruti to say Brahman. Brahman and pUrnam have to be identical; there can only be one limitlessness and that One is formelss pUrNam Brahman.Thus, the verse is telling me that everything is pUrNam. PurNam has to be limitless, formless Brahman.

Vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Īsha's Resolution of the Opposites and The Principle of Īsha Upanishad

Īsha's Resolution of the Opposites and The Principle of Īsha Upanishad:

In Īsha Upanishad, there  are  certain pairs of OPPOSITES  intermingled in the eighteen verses of the Upanishad , which need resolution, in tune with the basic principle of the Upanishad.The principle  followed throughout is the uncompromising reconciliation of uncompromising extremes.  We  are confronted with the terms like the World, Enjoyment, Renunciation Action, Knowledge , the One and the Many, Birth, death,the knowlesge and  Ignorance,etc. and in later verses , a more and more secondary position has been given, exalting the opposite series, God, Renunciation, Quietism, the One, Cessation of Birth, the Knowledge until this trend of thought culminated in Illusionism and the idea of existence in the world as a snare and a meaningless burden imposed inexplicably on the soul by itself, which must be cast aside as soon as possible. It ended in a violent cutting of the knot of the great enigma.
This Upanishad tries instead to get hold of the extreme ends of the knots, disengage and place them alongside of each other in a release that will be at the same time a right placing and relation. It will not qualify or subordinate unduly any of the extremes, although it recognizes a dependence of one on the other. Renunciation is to go to the extreme, but also enjoyment is to be equally integral; Action has to be complete and ungrudging, but also freedom of the soul from its works must be absolute; Unity, utter and absolute, is the goal, but this absoluteness has to be brought to its highest term by including in it the whole infinite multiplicity of things.

So great is this scruple in the Upanishad that having so expressed itself in the formula "By the ignorance having crossed over death, by the knowledge one enjoys Immortality"(Verse  11) that life in the world might be interpreted as only a preliminary to an existence beyond, it at once rights the balance by reversing the order in the parallel formula "By dissolution having crossed over death by birth one enjoys immortality", and thus makes life itself the field of the immortal existence which is the goal and aspiration of all life. In this conclusion it agrees with the early vedic thought which believed all the worlds and existence and non-existence and death and life and immortality to be here in the embodied human being, there evolvement, there realizable and to be possessed and enjoyed, not dependent either for acquisition or enjoyment on the renunciation of life and bodily existence. This thought has never entirely passed out of Indian philosophy, but has become secondary and a side admission not strong enough to qualify seriously the increasing assertion of the extinction of mundane existence as the condition of our freedom and our sole wise and worthy aim.

The Conscious Lord and Phenomenal Nature

Phenomenal Nature is a movement of the conscious Lord. The object of the movement is to create forms of His consciousness in motion in which He as the one soul in many bodies can take up his habitation and enjoy the multiplicity and the movement with all their relations. This is also the view of the Gīta and generally accepted.

Renunciation and Enjoyment: तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः

Real integral enjoyment of all this movement and multiplicity in its truth and in its infinity depends upon an absolute renunciation; but the renunciation intended is an absolute renunciation of the principle of desire founded on the principle of egoism and not a renunciation of world-existence. This, again, is the central standpoint of the Gita, which, however, admits also the renunciation of world-existence. The general trend of Vedantic thought would accept the renunciation of desire and egoism as the essential but would hold that renunciation of egoism means the renunciation of all world-existence, for it sees desire and not Ananda as the cause of world-existence. This solution depends on the idea that desire is only a egoistic and vital deformation of the divine Ananda or delight of being from which the world is born; by expiration of ego and desire Ananda again becomes the conscious principle of existence. This substitution is the essence of the change from life in death to life in immortality. The enjoyment of the infinite delight of existence free from ego, founded on oneness of all in the Lord, is (probably) what is meant by the enjoyment of immortality.

Action in Nature and Freedom in the Soul

Actions are not inconsistent with the soul's freedom. Man is not bound by works, but only seems to be bound. He has to recover the consciousness of his inalienable freedom by recovering the consciousness of unity in the Lord, unity in himself, unity with all existence. This truth would, again, be generally admitted, but not the conclusion that is drawn from it. This done, life and works can and should be accepted in their fullness; for the manifestation of the Lord in life and works is the law of our being and the object of our world-existence.

The One Stable Brahman and the Multiple Movement

What then of the Quiescence of the Supreme Being and how is persistence in the movement compatible with that Quiescence which is generally recognized as an essential condition of the supreme Bliss?

The Quiescence and the Movement are equally one Brahman and the distinction drawn between them is only a phenomenon of our consciousness. So it is with the idea of space and time, the far and the near, the subjective and the objective, internal and external, myself and others, one and many. Brahman, the real existence, is all these things to our consciousness, but in it ineffably superior to all such practical distinctions. The movement is a phenomenon of the Quiescence, the Quiescence itself may be conceived as a Movement too rapid for the Gods, that is to say, for our various functions of consciousness to follow in its real nature. But it is no formal, material, spatial, temporal movement, and only a movement in consciousness. Knowledge sees it all as one, ignorance divides and creates oppositions where there is no opposition but simply relations of one consciousness in itself. The ego in the body says, "I am within, all else is outside; and in what is outside, this is near to me in Time and Space, that is far." All this is true in present relation; but in essence it is all one indivisible movement of Brahman which is not material movement but a way of seeing things in the one consciousness.

Being and Becoming

Everything depends on what we see, how we look at existence in our soul's view of things. Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the same thing: Being is one, Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one Being who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His consciousness. We have to see the One Being, but we have not to cease to see the many Becomings, for they exist and are included in Brahman's view of Himself. Only, we must see knowledge and not with ignorance. We have to realize our true self as the one unchangeable, indivisible Brahman. We have to see all becomings as developments of the movement in our true self and this self as one inhabiting all bodies and not our body only. We have to be consciously, in our relations with this world, what we really are, —this one self becoming everything that we observe. All the movement, all energies, all forms, all happenings we must see as those of our one and real self in many existences, as the play of the Will and Knowledge and Delight of the Lord in His world-existence.

We shall then be delivered from egoism and desire and the sense of separate existence and therefore from all grief and delusion and shrinking; for all grief is born of the shrinking of the ego from the contacts of existence, its sense of fear, weakness, want, dislike, etc.; and this is born from the delusion of separate existence, the sense of being my separate ego exposed to all these contacts of so much that is not myself. Get rid of this, see oneness everywhere, be the One manifesting Himself in all creatures; ego will disappear; desire born of the sense of not being this, not having that, will disappear; the free inalienable delight of the One in His own existence will take the place of desire and its satisfactions and dissatisfactions.Immortality will be yours, death born of division will be overcome. [In the ordinary view all this would be admitted, but the practical possibility of maintaining this state of consciousness and birth in the together would be doubted.]

The Active Lord and the indifferent Akshara Brahman

The Inactive and the Active Brahman are simply two aspects of the one Self, the one Brahman, who is the Lord. It is He who has gone abroad in the movement. He maintains Himself free from all modifications in His inactive existence. The inaction is the basis of the action and exists in the action; it is His freedom from all He does and becomes and in all He does and becomes. These are the positive and negative poles of one indivisible consciousness. We embrace both in one quiescence and one movement, inseparable from each other, dependent on each other. The quiescence exists relatively to the movement, the movement to quiescence. He is beyond both. This is a different point of view from that of the identity of the Movement and Quiescence which are one in reality; it expresses rather their relation in our consciousness once they are admitted as a practical necessity of that consciousness. It is obvious that we also by becoming one with the Lord would share in this biune conscious existence. [In the ordinary view the jiva cannot exist in both at the same time; his dissolution is into the Quiescence and not into unity with the lord in the action and inaction.]

Vidya and Avidya

The knowledge of the One and the knowledge of the Many are a result of the movement of the one consciousness, which sees all things as one in their truth-idea but differentiates them in their mentality and formal becoming. If the mind (manīşhi) absorbs itself in God as the formal becoming (paribhu) and separates itself from God in the true Idea (kavi), then it loses Vidya, the knowledge of the One, and has only the knowledge of the Many which becomes no longer knowledge at all but ignorance, Avidya. This is the cause of the separate ego-sense.

Avidya is accepted by the Lord in the Mind (manīşhi) in order to develop individual relations to their utmost in all the possibilities of division and its consequences and then through these individual relations to come back individually to the knowledge of the One in all. That knowledge has remained all along unabrogated in the consciousness of the true seer or Kavi. This seer in ourselves stands back from the mental thinker; the latter, thus separated, has to conquer death and division by a developing experiences as the individual Inhabitant and finally to recover by the reunited knowledge of the One and the Many the state of Immortality. This is our proper course and not either to devote ourselves exclusively to the life of Avidya or to reject it entirely for motionless absorption in the One.

Birth and Non-Birth

The reason for this double movement of the Thinker is that we intended to realize immortality in the Birth. The self is uniform and undying and in itself always possesses immortality. It does not need to descend into Avidya and Birth to get that Immortality of Non-Birth; for it possesses it always. It descends in order to realize and possess it as the individual Brahman in the play of world-existence. It accepts Birth and Death, assumes the ego and then dissolving the ego by the recovery of unity realizes itself as the Lord, the One, and Birth as only a becoming of the Lord in mental and formal being; this becoming is now governed by the true sight of the Seer and, once this is done, becoming is no longer inconsistent with Being, birth becomes a means and not an obstacle to the enjoyment of immortality by the lord of this formal habitation. [This is the stumbling-block to the ordinary philosophies which are impregnated with the idea of the illusoriness of the world, even when they do not go the whole way with the Māyavāda; Birth, they would say, is a play of ignorance, it cannot subsist along with entire knowledge.]

This is our proper course and not to remain for ever in the chain of birth and death, nor to flee from birth into a pure non-becoming. The bondage does not consist in the physical act of becoming, but in the persistence of the ignorant sense of the separate ego. The Mind creates the chain and not the body.

Works and Knowledge

The opposition between works and knowledge exists as long as works and knowledge are only of the egoistic mental character. Mental knowledge is not true knowledge; True knowledge is that which is based on the true sight, the sight of the Seer, of Sūrya, of the Kavi. Mental thought is not knowledge, it is a golden lid placed over the face of the Truth, the Sight, the divine Ideation, the Truth-Consciousness. When that is removed, sight replaces mental thought, the all-embracing truth-ideation, mahas, veda, dŗşhti, replaces the fragmentary mental activity. True Buddhi (vijnāna) emerges from the dissipated action of the Buddhi which is all that is possible on the basis of the sense-mind, the Manas. Vijnāna leads us to pure knowledge (jnāna), pure consciousness (chit). There we realize our entire identity with the Lord in all at the very roots of our being.

But in Chit, Will and Seeing are one. Therefore in Vijnāna or truth-ideation also which comes luminously out of Chit, Will and Sight are combined and no longer as in the mind separated from each other. Therefore, when we have the sight and live in the Truth-Consciousness, our will becomes the spontaneous law of the truth in us and, knowing all its acts and their sense and objective, leads straight to the human goal, which was always the enjoyment of the Ananda, the Lord's delight in self-being, the state of immortality. In our acts also we become one with all beings and our life grows into a representation of oneness, truth and divine joy and no longer proceeds on the crooked path of egoism full of division, error and stumbling. In a word, we attain to the object of our existence which is to manifest in itself whether on earth in a terrestrial body and against the resistance of Matter or in the worlds beyond or enter beyond all world the glory of the divine Life and the divine Being.

(This  is based on ‘Īsha Upanishad’ by Sri Aurobindo, published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust)


vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Nature of Supreme Being in Isha Upanishad

 NATURE OF  SUPREME BEING

ईशावास्यं इदं सर्वं यत् किञ्च जगत्यां जगत।

तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः मा गृधः कस्य स्विद् धनम् ॥1॥

Om îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat,

tena tyaktena bhuñjîthâ mâ gRidhaH kasya sviddhanam. Isha Upanishad: 1

"All this,whatsoever moves in this  universe, including the universe itself  moving,is indwelt or pervaded or enveloped or clothed by the Lord . Tthat renounced, thou shouldst enjoy; covet  not  anybody's wealth."

The Isha Upanishad is significant amongst the Upanishads for its description of the Nature of Supreme Being. ‘Isha’presents a monist or non-dual perspective of the universe, in that it describes This Being as "unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated" (verse 8), one who "moves and does not move', who is 'far away, but very near as well'" and who "although fixed in His abode is swifter than the mind" (verses 4 and 5).The text then asserts the oneness of the supreme self;"For the enlightened one all that exists is nothing but the Self" and asks; "So how could any delusion or suffering continue for those who know this oneness?"
The later verses take the form of a series of prayers requesting that the speaker be able to see past the supreme light or effulgence in order to understand the true nature of the Supreme Lord. It shows the way the Upanishads describe the non-material aspects of the Supreme Being, as when it describes Him as ‘One who walks but does not walk’. It is a way of relating how the Lord has no material qualities, but has all spiritual qualities and characteristics. By understanding this, one can begin to perceive the spiritual truths of which the Upanishadas speak and exhort.
This Upanishad starts with the phrase: ‘Isavaasyam itham sarvam’.  This Upanishad derives its title from the opening words Isa–vasya, “God–covered.” The use of Isa (Lord)–a more personal name of the Supreme Being than Brahman, Atman or Self, the names usually found in the Upanishads–constitutes one of its peculiarities.  Oneness of the Soul and God, and the value of both faith and works as means of ultimate attainment are the leading themes of this Upanishad. The general teaching of the Upanishads is that works alone, even the highest, can bring only temporary happiness and must inevitably bind a man unless through them he gains knowledge of his real Self. 'To help him acquire this knowledge' is the aim of this and all Upanishads.
The Seer of the Upanishad has opened this Upanishad with this daring  statement of the Sublimest  Truth: îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat. Vasyam is a pregnant word in Samskrata with unlimited suggestiveness with multitude of meanings,the root 'vas' meaning 'clothing', 'inhabiting', 'enveloping',or 'pervading'. The great Rsi exclaims that 'all this'(idgam  sarvam)-that we are perceving through our sense-organs or our mind and intellect-is indwelt by the Spirit which is the Lord of the world-of-perception. In every entity in the world-of-objects the Spirit indwells, permeating everywhere in Its homogeneous all-pervasiveness. Spirit muffled in matter is the living  being.Matter is  but an equipment through  which Truth  expresses Itself in  the 'dynamic-'life',as known to all of us.But, in reality,beneath it all,pervading  everywhere is the very  kernal of Life,the Spirit or the Self,which is the Lord of these matter  habitations.The Lord is, thus, omnipresent as the Governor (of all environments), Ruler(over  all  sense  activities), Monitor(in  all mental and intellectual   functions). And yet, we  are not conscious of this Lord! This  is  a  great  tragedy, which is  to be  ended. ' Allow not  this darknessof  ignorance to shroud the Light  of Truth. Bring  out  the Lord to envelop the phenomenal  world,and this in His Infinite  Light, let the experience of multiplicity be, to the enlightened seeker, a  vision  clothed in celestial  Light Divine', seems  to be the silent  import here.(SwamiChinmayananda). 'When properly analysed and  logically revaluated,each  one of us  can end  all  our mis-apprehensions,and  the Spirit shall emerge out of all our mental projections and the  consequent inner confusions'.(ibid). We perceive  all things with the Lord through his Divine  Presence  everywhere. When the consciousness is firmly fixed in God, the conception of diversity naturally drops away; because the One Cosmic Existence shines through all things. As we gain the light of wisdom, we cease to cling to the unrealities of this world and we find all our joy in the realm of Reality.

Om îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat: The Isha Upanishad opens with a monumental phrase in which, by the above eight brief and sufficient words, two supreme terms of existence are set forth in their real and eternal relation: Isha is wedded with Jagati, God with Nature, the Eternal seated sole in all His creations with the ever-shifting Universe and its innumerable whorls and knots of motion, each of them called by us an object, in all of which one Lord is multitudinously the Inhabitant. From the brilliant suns to the rose and the grain of dust, from the God and the Titan in their dark or their luminous worlds to man and the insect that he crushes thoughtlessly under his feet, everything is His temple and mansion. He is the veiled deity in the temple, the open householder in the mansion and for Him and His enjoyment of the multiplicity and the unity of His being, all were created and they have no other reason for their existence. . For habitation by the Lord is all this, everything whatsoever that is moving." (Maharishi Aurobindo) .
"This relation of divine Inhabitant and objective dwelling-place is the fundamental truth of God and the World for life. This practical relation of the Soul to its world thus selected by the seer as his starting-point is from the beginning and with the most striking emphasis affirmed as a relation ...of lordship and freedom on one side, of instrumentality on the other, Soul in supreme command of Nature, God in untrammelled possession of His world, not limited by anything in its nature of His nature, but free and Lord. "(ibid)
Since it is the object of the Upanishad to build up a practical rule of life here in the Brahman rather than a metaphysical philosophy for the satisfaction of the intellect, the Seer of the Upanishad selects inevitably the practical rather than the essential relation of God and the world as the starting-point of his thought, use, and subordination rather than identity. The grammatical form in vasyam expresses a purpose or object to be fulfilled, in this instance the object of habitation, the choice of the word isa implies an absolute control and, therefore, an absolute freedom in that which has formed the object, envisaged the purpose.
 Nature, then, is not a material shell in which Spirit is bound, nor is Spirit a roving breath of things ensnared to which the object it inspires is a prison-house. The indwelling God is the Lord of His creations and not their servant or prisoner, and as a householder is master of his dwelling-places to enter them and go forth from them at his will or to pull down what he has built up when it ceases to please him or be serviceable to his needs, so the Spirit is free to enter or go forth from its bodies and has power to build and destroy and rebuild whatsoever It pleases in this universe. The very universe itself It is free to destroy and recreate. God is not bound; He is the entire master of His creations."(ibid).

"The word Isa, starting forward at once to meet us in this opening vibration of the Seer's high strain of thought, becomes the master tone of all its rhythms. It is the key to all that follows in the Upanishad. For not only does it contradict at once all mechanical theories of the Universe and assert the pre-existence, omnipotence, majesty and freedom of the transcendent Soul of things within, but by identifying the Spirit in the universe with the Spirit in all bodies, it asserts what is of equal importance to its gospel of a divine life for humanity, that the soul in man also is master, not really a slave, not bound, not a prisoner, but free - not bound to grief and death and limitation, but the master, the user of grief and death and limitation and free to pass on from them to other and more perfect instruments. If then we seem to be bound ...by a fixed nature of our minds and bodies, by the nature of the universe, by the duality of grief and joy, pleasure and pain, by the chain of cause and effect or by any other chain or tie whatsoever, the seeing is only a seeming and nothing more. It is Maya, illusion of bondage, or it is Lila, a play at being bound. The soul, for its own purposes, may seem to forget its freedom, but even when it forgets, the freedom is there, self-existent, inalienable and, since never lost except in appearance, therefore, always recoverable even in that appearance."(ibid).

This is the first truth of Vedanta assumed by the Upanishad in its opening words and from this truth we must start and adhere to it always in our minds, if we would understand in its right bearing and complete suggestion the Seer's gospel of life:That which dwells in the body of thine is God, Self and Spirit; the Spirit is not the subject of its material but the master; the soul in the body or in Nature is not the prisoner of its dwelling-place, but has moulded the body and its dharmas, fixed Nature and its processes and can remould, manipulate and arrange them according to its power and pleasure.

Idam sarvam yat kinca, the Seer has said, emphasizing the generality of idam sarvam by the comprehensive particularity of yat kinca. He brings us at once by this expression to the Adwaitic truth in Vedanta that there is a multitude of objects in the universe, (.. even, a multitude of universes), but only one soul of things and not many. Eko'calah santanah. The Soul in all this and in each particular form is one,  ...one in the multitude of its habitations, ... God sits in the centre of this flux of the universe, eternal, still and immutable. He pervades its oceanic heavings and streamings; therefore, it endures. Nature is the multiplicity of God, Spirit is His unity; Nature is His mobility, Spirit is His fixity; nature is His variation, Spirit is His constant sameness. These truths are not stated at once; the Seer waits himself to the statement of the unity of God, and the multiplicity and mobility of Nature; for this relation in opposition is all that is immediately necessary to base the rule of divine living which it is his one object in the Upanishad to found upon a right knowledge of God and existence."(ibid).
"The self , then of every man, every animal and every object, whether animate or inanimate, is God; the soul in us, therefore, is something divine, free and self-aware. If it seems to be anything else, - bound, miserable, darkened, - that is inevitably some illusion, some freak of the divine consciousness at play with its experiences; if this Soul seems to be other than God or Spirit, what seems is only a name and a form or, to keep to the aspect of the truth here envisaged, is only movement of Nature, Jagat, which God has manifested in Himself for the purpose of various enjoyment in various mansions, - it is an image, a mask, a shape or eidolon created in the divine movement, formed by the divine self-awareness, instrumentalized by the divine activity. Therefore ,He is "this man and yonder woman, a boy and a girl, that old man leaning on his staff, this blue bird and that scarlet-eyed." We have, asserted in the comprehensiveness of the phrase, not only an entire essential omnipresence of God in us and in the world, but a direct and a practical omnipresence, possessing and insistent, not vague, abstract or elusive. The language of the Sruti is thus trenchant and inexorable. We must exclude no living being because it seems to us weak, mean, noxious or vile, no object because it seems to us inert, useless or nauseous. The hideous crawling worm or snake no less than the beautiful winged bird and the strong or gracious forms of four-footed life, the dull stone and foul mire ...  no less than the  man, the divine fighter and worker, are motions of the supreme Spirit; they contain in themselves and are in their secret reality the living God. This is the second general truth of Vedanta which arises inevitably from the pregnant verse of the Seer and, always present to him in his brief and concentrated thinking, must also accompany us throughout our pursuit of his sense and doctrine.
God is one; Self, Spirit, Soul is One; even when It presents Itself multitudinously in Its habitations as if It were many souls and so appears in the motion of Nature, Its universality and unity are not abrogated nor infringed. In all there is That which by coming out of Its absorption in form of movement, recovers Its unity. As the soul in man, though seeming to be bound, is always free and can realize its freedom, so, though seeming divided, limited and many, it is always universal, illimitable and one and can realize its universality and unity."(ibid).  Thus,this creature born in a movement of time and bound in an atom of Space, is really in his secret consciousness the universal Spirit who contains the whole universe of things and dwells as the self of all things in these myriad forms of man and bird and beast, tree and earth and stone which my mind regards as outside me and other than myself. In the name of myself God inhabits this form of my being - but it is God that inhabits and the apparent "I" is but a centre of His personality and a knot in the infinite contents of His active world-existence. My ego is a creation of the Jagati in a form of mind; my Self stands behind, possesses and exceeds the universe.

This is Spirit in relation to Nature, one in multiplicity, the Lord of nature and process, free in the bound, conscious in the unconscious, inhabitant, master and enjoyer of all forms and movements of life, mind and body. Nature in relation to Spirit is its motion and the result of its motion, jagatym jagat, phenomenon and everything that exists as phenomenon, universe and everything that constitutes universe. There are two terms in this brief and puissant formula, jagati and jagat. The second, jagat, is particular and multiple and includes whatsoever is separate existence, individual thing or form of motion, yatkica; the first, jagati, is general and indicates both the resultant sum and the formative principle of all these particular existences, sarvam idam yat kinca. Sarvam idam is Nature regarded objectively as the sum of her creations, jagati is Nature regarded subjectively and essentially as that divine principle, expressed in motion of being and observed by us as force or Energy, which generates all these forms and variations. ... It is movement of energy in Existence which is active, which determines forms, which generates appearances of finite being and brings about phenomena of Becoming as opposed to fixed truth of Being. Therefore, every objective existence in the world and all subjective forms, being forms of Existence in motion, being inconstant, being always mutable and always changing, progressing from a past of change to a future of change, are not truly different beings at all, but becomings of the one and only Being; Each is the result of its previous motion, stands by this continued motion and if that motion were pretermitted or its rhythm disturbed, must change, disintegrate or transmute itself into some other form of becoming.
"Spirit or God is eternal Being, Nature in its sum and principle is the becoming of God and in its particulars a mass of His becomings, real as becomings, falsely valued as beings. The knowledge of the Upanishads takes its stand on this supreme distinction of being and its Becomings; we find, indeed, in this Upanishad itself, another and more convenient collective term used to express all that is here defined as yat kinca jagatyam jagat, - one which brings us straight to this great distinction. The soul is Atman, Being; everything else is sarvabhutani, all becomings or.. all things that have become. .. as inclusive of all existences whether they are  animate or inanimate, self-conscious or veiled in consciousness....the tree, flower and stone no less than the animal, heaven and wind and the sun and rain no less than man, invisible gas and force and current ... within its all-embracing formula."God is the only Being and all other existences are only His becomings; the souls informing them are but one Spirit individualized in forms and forces by the play and movement of Its own self-consciousness.(ibid).

We see, then, whose this energy is and of what this universe is the motion. But ,  there begins to emerge clearly another truth which  the Upanishad  Seer leaves in shadow for the present and only shapes into clear statement in his fourth and eight couplets; he emphasizes in the fourth verse the unity of Soul and Nature; the stillness and the motion are not separate from each other, not one of them Brahman and the other an illusion, but both of them equally the one sole Existence, which moves and yet is still even in its motion, tad ejati tamnaijati, anejad ekam manaso javiyas. In the eightth verse he indicates that Brahman and the Lord are not different from each other or from the motion, but are the reality of the motion as the motion itself is the play of the stillness; for to tad ejati, That moves, comes as an echo and response, sa paryagat,... Nature is motion of the Spirit, the world is motion of God; but also Nature is Spirit in motion, the world is God at play.All our inefficient envisagings of the world, all our ignorant questions fall away from this supreme Vedantic conception. We cannot ask ourselves, "Why has God brought about this great flux of things, this enormous and multitudinous world-movement? What can have been His purpose in it? Or is it a law of His nature and was He under an inner compulsion to create? Who then or what compelled Him?" These questions fall away from the decisive and trenchant solution, isa vasyam jagat. He has no purpose in it except habitation, except delight, an ordered and harmonized delight, - therefore, there is what we call universe, law, progression, the appearance of a method and a goal; but the order effected feels always its neighborhood to the grandiose licence of the infinite and the harmony achieved thrills at once with the touch of the Transcendent's impulse to pass out of every rhythm and exceed every harmony. For this is a self-delight which in no way limits or binds Him; He has brought it about and He conducts it in perfect freedom; there is no compulsion on Him and none can compel Him, for He alone exists and Nature is only a play of time-movement in His being, proceeding from Him, contained in Him, governed by Him, not He by it or proceeding from it or coeval with it and therefore capable of being its subject, victim or instrument. Neither is there any inner compulsion limiting He either as to the nature of the work or its method. The movement of the universe is not the nature of God, nor are its processes the laws of God's beings; for Spirit is absolute and has no fixed or binding nature. God is supreme and transcendent and is not bound by state, law or process, - so free is He, rather, that He is not bound even to His own freedom. The laws of Nature, as we have seen, cannot be laws of being at all, since Nature itself is a becoming; they are processes which regulate the harmonies of becoming, processes which are, in the Vedic image, chandas, rhythms of the movement and not in their own being rigid, inexorable and eternal because self-existent verities; they are results of the tendency to order and harmony, not sempiternal fetters on Existence. Even the most fundamental laws are only modes of activity conceived and chosen by Spirit in the universe. We arrive then at this farther all-important truth:
"Nature is a divine motion of becoming of which Spirit is the origin, substance and control as well as the inhabitant and enjoyer. Laws of Nature are themselves general movements and developments of becoming and conditions of a particular order, rhythm and harmony of the universe, but not inexorably preexistent or recognizable as the very grain of existence. The Laws of Evolution are themselves evolutions and progressive creations of the Spirit."(ibid).

We get the fuller statement of the truth in the fourth verse of the Upanishad, tad amtarasya sarvasya tad u sarvasyasya bahyatah; That, the inexpressible Reality of things, is within this universe and each thing it contains, but equally it is outside of this universe and each thing that it contains, - outside it as continent, outside it as transcendent. The omnipresent Inhabitant of the world is equally its all-embracing continent. If form is the vessel in which Spirit dwells, Spirit is the sphere in which form exists and moves. But, essentially, It transcends form and formation, movement and relation, and even while It is inhabitant and continent, stands apart from what It inhabits and contains, self-existent, self-sufficient, divine and eternally free. Spirit is the cause, world is the effect, but this cause is not bound to this effect . Na ca mam tani karmani nibadhnanti, says the Lord in the Gita; I am not bound by these works that I do, even while I do them. The soul of man, one with God, has the same transcendence and the same freedom.
Spirit contains, dwells in and transcends this body of things. It acts in the world but is not bound by Its actions. The same essential freedom must be true of this soul in the body, even though it may seem to be confined in the body and compelled by Nature's results and its own works. The soul in us has the inherent power not only of becoming in this outward and waking consciousness what it is in reality, the continent of the body which seems to contain it, but of transcending in consciousness all bodily relation and relation with the universe...(ibid).
It is not enough, however, to know the inner fact and the outer possibility of our freedom; we must also look at and take into account the apparent actuality of our bondage. The debit side of the human ledger must be taken into the reckoning as well as the credit account. The explanation and seed of this bondage is contained in the formula jagatyam jagat; for, if our freedom results from the action of Spirit in Nature and of Nature in Spirit, our bondage results from the action of Nature on all that she has created and contains. Every mundane existence is jagatyam jagat, not a separate and independent motion by itself, but part of and dependent on the universal movement. From this dependence by inclusion derives the great law that every form of things engendered in the motional universe shall be subject to the processes of that particular stream of movement to which it belongs; each individual body subject to the general processes of matter, each individual life to the general processes of vitality, each individual mind to the general processes of mentality, because the individual is only a whorl of motion in the general motion and its individual variation, therefore, can only be a speciality of the general motion and not contradictory of it. The multiplicity of God in the universe is only a circumstance of His unity and is limited and governed by the unity; therefore, the animal belongs to its species, the tree, the rock and the star each to its kind and man to humanity. .. This generality, this pressure of tyrannous insistence is necessary in order that the harmony of the universe may be assured against all disturbing vibrations. It is the bulwark of cosmos against chaos, of the realised actuality against that inconstant and ever-pulsating material of infinite possibility out of which it started, of the finite against the dangerous call and attraction of the Infinite."(ibid).
The unity of God governs His multiplicity; therefore, the more general motion of Nature as representative of or nearest to that unity governs the multiple individual products of the movement. To each motion its law and to each inhabitant of that motion subjection to the law. Therefore, Man, being human in Nature, is bound first by Nature, then by his humanity.But because God is also the transcendence of Nature and Nature moves towards God, therefore, even in Nature itself a principle of freedom and a way of escape have been provided. Avidyaya mrtiyum tirtva. For, in reality, the motion of Nature is only the apparent or mechanical cause of our bondage; the real and essential cause arises from the relation of Spirit to Nature. God having descended into Nature, Spirit cast itself out in motion, allows Himself as part of the play ...and seems to accept on Himself in the principle of mind isolated from the higher spiritual principles, her absorption in her work and her forgetfulness of her reality. The soul in mind identifies itself with its form, allows itself apparently to float on the oceanic stream of Nature and envisages itself as carried away by the current. Spirit veils itself from Mind; Ish wraps Himself upon jagat and seems to its own outer consciousness to be jagat. This is the principle of our bondage; the principle of our freedom is to draw back from that absorption and recover our real self-consciousness as the containing, constituting and transcendent Spirit."(ibid).

"Spirit, absorbed in the motion and process of Nature, appears to be bound by the process of becoming as if it were law of being; it is, therefore ,said to be bound by Karma, that is to say, by the chain of particular cause and effect, the natural chain of active energy and its results. But by drawing back upon itself and ceasing to identify itself with its form, it can get rid of this appearance and recover its lordship and freedom. Incidentally, the soul of Man by drawing more and more towards God, becomes more and more Ish and can more and more control the processes of becoming in himself and in others, in the subjective and in the objective, in the mental and in the material world."(ibid).

 The ideal of Tyaga, this consummation has been constantly praised and held up before us in this country as the highest ideal of man and his only path to salvation. But even if for the few this goal be admitted, yet for the majority of men it must still and always remain God's ultimate purpose in them to realise Him manifest in the world, - since that is His purpose in manifestation, -- and not only and exclusively unmanifest in His transcendental stillness. It must be possible then to find God as freedom and immortality in the world and not only aloof from the world. There must be a way of escape provided in Nature itself out of our bondage to Nature. Man must be able to find in Nature itself and in his humanity a way of escape into divinity and freedom from Nature, avidyaya mrtiyum tirtva. This would not be possible if God and Nature, Brahman and the Universe were two hostile and incompatible entities, the one real and the other false or non-existent. But Spirit and Universe, God and Nature are one Brahman; therefore ,there must always be a point at which the two meet; their apparent divergence in consciousness must be somewhere corrected in consciousness, Nature must at some point become God and the apparently material universe stand revealed as Spirit.

In the profound analysis of the human soul built by the ancient Vedantic thinkers upon the most penetrating self-observation and the most daring and far-reaching psychological experiments, this point of escape, this bridge of reconciliation was discovered in the two supramental principles, Ideal Consciousness and Bliss Consciousness, both of them disengaged from the confusions of the mind involved in matter...The old Vedantic Yogins, not satisfied with observing the surface activities and ordinary processes of our subjective nature, penetrated farther, analyzed, probed, discovered hidden forces and extraordinary activities by which our whole active mentality could be manipulated and rearranged ... pressing yet farther towards the boundaries of existence they discovered whence this energy proceeded and whitherward this stir and movement tended and worked. They found beyond the manifest and obvious triple bond of body, life and mind, two secret states and powers of consciousness which supported them in their works - they discovered a principle of ideal consciousness, vijnana, which saw Truth face to face and unerringly, looking on the sun with unshaded eyes, and a principle of all-blissful power and being which possessed in itself, by the very right of its eternal existence and inalienable nature, right joy, right awareness and right action as the very self-atmosphere of its manifestation in the universe. Above this inferior trilogy of matter, life and mind (Annam, Prana, Manas), there is a superior trilogy of Infinite Being, Force and bliss (Sat, Chit, Ananda) accessible to us and working on us inhabitants of the lower spheres from the symbol of divine beatific consciousness, the Ananda-tattwa, as its throne of world-rule, the home and fortress of the divine Master, and employing as its distributing and arranging minister the truth-seeing idea mind to feed, supply and compel the activities of the lower being.The principle, "To each motion its law and to each inhabitant of the motion subjection to the law" is crossed and corrected by this other principle, "Each motion contains a tendency towards the motion above it and to each type of becoming, therefore, there comes in the progress of time the impulse to strain beyond the mould it has realized to that which is higher than itself."(ibid).
In this complex arrangement of Nature where is man's exact position? He is a mental being housed in a vitalized body and he tends through pure idea towards divine beatitude. Now just as matter informed with life, no longer obeys the processes of matter only, but, even while it affects life-processes, is also affected by them and finds its complete liberation in the conquest of matter by life, just as mind in a life-body is affected, limited and hampered by vital and bodily processes, but still governs them and would find its own liberation and theirs in the perfect conquest of life and matter by mind, so, since this mental being is really a soul imprisoned in mind, its perfect liberation comes by rising out of the mould of mind through pure idea into beatitude; escaping into beatitude, this mental existence is able to liberate the whole lower system of being by renewing every part of it in the mould and subjecting every part of it to the process of that which we have now become. The mould and process of Ananda is freedom, God, bliss, immortality, universality, and these, therefore, are the laws of being, the dharmas, the sum of a divine beatific existence which we put on by rising out of mental ego into infinite Ananda. The motion of pure Idea, vijnana, is the door of our escape in Avidya; for it is the kingdom within us of Truth and Illumination, domain, in the Vedic symbol, of the god of the Sun, the prophetic Apollo, the burning and enlightening Surya. Sa no dhiyah pracodayat.(ibid).

We are a double birth, God the Spirit, God in Nature, Ish and Jagat. In Nature we are bound in our consciousness, because we are there a whorl of its motion, a wave in its sea; in Spirit we are free, for there we are a part of nothing, but one with the indivisible Spirit. But this double is really biune. God, unbound by His divisibility, unbound by His indivisibility, weds the One to the Many in the play of His consciousness, in His ineffable beatitude. There God and Nature meet, Vidya and Avidya embrace each other, our real freedom governs and uses consciously our apparent bondage, the bliss of Transcendence joins hands with the bliss of manifestation, God shows Himself in humanity and man realizes himself as divine.(ibid)

Thus,the joy of that reconciliation dwells in the Immortality to which the Vedanta is our guide and its starting-point is the recognition by mind of the one Lord in all bodies, the one Spiritual Being in all becomings, atmannam sarvabhutesu. Since it is the all-blissful Lord who dwells within and Nature is for His habitation and enjoyment, then a state of Nature which is a state of bondage, sorrow-pursued, death-besieged, wrestling with limitations, is convicted of being only a temporary mask and a divinely willed starting-point for the Energy confined in the triple bonds of mortal Mind, Life and Matter to work out its own immortal freedom. The object of life is self-liberation, the only aim of human existence consistent with the dignity and fullness of our being is the escape through Nature to God, out of grief, bondage and death into joy, freedom and immortality. Avidyaya mrtyum tirtva vidyayamrtam ansnute.


vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Ethical Values from Ishopanisad

Balanced Attitude   Towards Wealth

ईशावास्यं इदं सर्वं यत् किञ्च जगत्यां जगत।


तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः मा गृधः कस्य स्विद् धनम् ॥1॥


Om îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat,

tena tyaktena bhuñjîthâ mâ gRidhaH kasya sviddhanam. 1.

The Isha Upanishad present a balanced view towards wealth like all other  social and ethical values. In its very first verse 'tyagten bhunjitha' it warns against coveting wealth. It rather explains the real status  of  wealth in life,suggesting that wealth is not a real value, being external to life. We  treat wealth as our possessions,but in reality it is not  our own, as it remains external to our being. Its value is only an instrumental value as a means to  higher ends of life. It can  serve as a valuable resource only when it is integrated  with a spiritual  attitude  towards life. Thus, spiritualisation of wealth and  other means  of life is the opening gospel of Isha Upanishad.

Common happiness being the objective test of spiritualisation of wealth, such an attitude of  economic value can be construed as economic socialism, which  alone can  ensure  social justice.  There is no place for greed and personal aggrandisement in such an economic view. Hence,the Isha Upanishad advises economic contentment   with the rider of abandonmentof greed.

Moreover, verse 15 towards the end of Isha Upanishad indicates the likely illusion if the  opening gospel is not followed:
hiranmayena patrena saryasyaplitaM mukham
tat tvaM pu Sannapav Rinu satyadharmayad RiSTaya(Isha-15)
" The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid,that do thou remove,OFosterer, for the law of truth, for sight."

Amassing of wealth makes a man vain and deludes  him away  from truth. Infatuation of wealth blinds one's vision  of truth. It has  been stated that a cup or cover of gold conceals the truth from his vision. It is only vision of spiritual  reality or grace of God ,which can remove this golden  covering and can help a truth-loving man to see the truth. This  can be possible only when one  visualises the world as a kingdom of God and enjoys  things with contentment but without greed, as a sacred gift from God, with full understanding  that the wealth of the world is not  his property and it  is also not  his integral  being. Afterall,whose wealth it is    all this? None.except His.
This balanced  economic view enshrined in  the Isha Upanishad  first presents this principle of right economic adjustment, which can also be conducive  to spiritual salvation,and then in the end it also indicates the delusion which results from lust/infatuation of wealth and also the need  of dispelling this delusion  for realisation of truth in life. Thus,this view of Isha Upanishad  reconciles material life with spiritual salvation of  man..
All this proves the moderate economic view of the Upanishadic sages, which is 'tyagten bhunjitha' i.e.  enjoy with contentment but abjuring greed. Such a view presents  a restricted and qualified  recognition of economic value,which is, ultimately, in consonance   with the spiritual view of life.

vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/