{"id":654,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=654"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:30","slug":"10-isha-upanishad-vol-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/12-the-upanishad-volume-12\/10-isha-upanishad-vol-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","title":{"rendered":"-10_Isha Upanishad.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nISHA UPANISHAD<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n1.  All this is for habitation\u00b9<\/sup> by the Lord,
\nwhatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that
\nrenounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man’s possession.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n2.  Doing verily\u00b2<\/sup> works in this world one should
\nwish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this;
\naction cleaves not to a man.\u00b3<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/span><\/sup>There
\nare three possible senses of vasyam,<\/i> "to be clothed", "to be worn as a
\ngarment" and "to be inhabited". The first is the ordinarily accepted meaning.
\nShankara explains it in this significance, that we must lose the sense of this
\nunreal objective universe in the sole perception of the pure Brahman. So
\nexplained the first line becomes a contradiction of the whole thought of the
\nUpanishad which teaches the reconciliation, by the perception of essential
\nUnity, of the apparently incompatible opposites. God and the World, Renunciation
\nand Enjoyment, Action and internal Freedom, the One and the Many, Being and its
\nBecomings, the passive divine Impersonality and the active divine Personality,
\nthe Knowledge and the Ignorance, the Becoming and the Not-Becoming, Life on
\nearth and beyond and the supreme Immortality. The image is of the world either
\nas a garment or as a dwelling-place for the informing and governing Spirit. The
\nlatter significance agrees better with the thought of the Upanishad.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2<\/span><\/sup>Kurvanneva.<\/span><\/i>
\nThe stress of the word eva<\/i> gives the force, "doing works .indeed, and not
\nrefraining from them".<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b3<\/span><\/sup>Shankara
\nreads the line, "Thus in thee \u2014 it is not otherwise than thus \u2014 action cleaves
\nnot to a man." He interprets karmani<\/i> in the first line in the sense of
\nVedic sacrifices which are permitted to the ignorant as a means of escaping from
\nevil actions and their results and attaining to heaven, but the second karma<\/i>
\nin exactly the opposite sense, "evil action". The verse, he tells us, represents
\na concession to the ignorant; the enlightened soul abandons works and the world
\nand goes to the forest. The whole expression and construction in this rendering
\nbecome forced and unnatural. The rendering I give seems to me the simple and
\nstraightforward sense of the Upanishad.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 63<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\n3.  Sunless\u00b9<\/sup> are those worlds and enveloped in
\nblind gloom whereto all they in their passing hence resort who are slayers of
\ntheir souls.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n4.  One unmoving that is swifter than Mind, That the Gods
\nreach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others
\nas they run. In That the Master of Life\u00b2<\/sup> establishes the Waters.\u00b3<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n5. That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is
\nnear; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/span><\/sup>We
\nhave two readings, asūryāh.<\/i> sunless, and asuryāh, <\/i>Titanic or
\nundivine. The third verse is, in the thought structure of the Upanishad, the
\nstarting-point for the final movement in the last four verses. Its suggestions
\nare there taken up and worked out. The prayer to the Sun refers back in thought
\nto the sunless worlds and their blind gloom, which are recalled in the ninth and
\ntwelfth verses. The sun and his rays are intimately connected in other
\nUpanishads also with the worlds of Light and their natural opposite is the dark
\nand sunless, not the Titanic worlds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2<\/span><\/sup>Mātariśvan<\/span><\/i>
\nseems to mean "he who extends himself in the Mother or the container" whether
\nthat be the containing mother element, Ether, or the material energy called
\nEarth in the Veda and spoken of there as the Mother. It is a Vedic epithet of
\nthe God Vayu, who, representing the divine principle in the Life-energy, Prana,
\nextends himself in Matter and vivifies its forms. Here it signifies the divine
\nLife-power that presides in all forms of cosmic activity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b3<\/span><\/sup>Apas,<\/span><\/i>
\nas it is accentuated in the version of the White Yajurveda, can mean only
\n"waters". If this accentuation is disregarded, we may take it as the singular
\napas,<\/i> work, action. Shankara, however, renders it by the plural, works. The
\ndifficulty only arises because the true Vedic sense of the word had been
\nforgotten and it came to be taken as referring to the fourth of the five
\nelemental states of Matter, the liquid. Such a reference would be entirely
\nirrelevant to the context. But the Waters, otherwise called the seven streams or
\nthe seven fostering Cows, are the Vedic symbol for the seven cosmic principles
\nand their activities, three inferior, the physical, vital and mental, four
\nsuperior, the divine Truth, the divine Bliss, and divine Will and Consciousness,
\nand the divine Being. On this conception also is founded the ancient idea of the
\nseven worlds in each of which the seven principles are separately active by
\ntheir various harmonies. This is, obviously, the right significance of the word
\nin the Upanishad.<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 64<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n6.  But he who sees everywhere the Self in all existences and
\nall existences in the Self, shrinks not thereafter from aught.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n7. He in whom it
\nis the Self-Being that has become all existences that are Becomings\u00b9 for he has
\nthe perfect knowledge, how shall he be deluded, whence shall he have grief who
\nsees everywhere oneness?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n8. It is He that
\nhas gone abroad \u2014 That which is bright, bodiless, without scar of imperfection,
\nwithout sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker,\u00b2 the One who
\nbecomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to
\ntheir nature from years sempiternal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n9. Into a blind
\ndarkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a greater
\ndarkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/span>The
\nwords sarvāṇi bhūtāni<\/i> literally, "all things that have become", is
\nopposed to Atman, self-existent and immutable being. The phrase means ordinarily
\n"all creatures", but its literal sense is evidently insisted on in the
\nexpression bhūtāni abhūt<\/i> "became the Becomings". The idea is the
\nacquisition in man of the supreme consciousness by which the one Self in him
\nextends itself to embrace all creatures and realises the eternal act by which
\nthat One manifests itself in the multiple forms of the universal motion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2<\/span>There
\nis a clear distinction in Vedic thought between kavi,<\/i> the seer and
\nmanīṣī,<\/i> the thinker. The former indicates the divine supra-intellectual
\nKnowledge which by direct vision and illumination sees the reality, the
\nprinciples and the forms of things in their true relations, the latter, the
\nlabouring mentality, which works from the divided consciousness through the
\npossibilities of things downward to the actual manifestation in form and upward
\nto their reality <\/b>in the self-existent Brahman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 65<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n10.  Other, verily,\u00b9<\/sup> it is said, is that which
\ncomes by the Knowledge, other that which comes by the Ignorance; this is the
\nlore we have received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n11. He who knows That as both in one, the Knowledge and the
\nIgnorance, by the Ignorance crosses beyond death and by the Knowledge enjoys
\nImmortality.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n12.  Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the
\nNon-Birth, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Birth
\nalone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n13. Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the
\nBirth, other that which comes by the Non-Birth; this is the lore we have
\nreceived from the wise who revealed That to our understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n14. He who knows That as both in one, the Birth and the
\ndissolution<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/span><\/sup>Anyadeva
\n\u2014 eva<\/span><\/i>
\nhere gives to anyad<\/i> the force, "Quite other than the result described in
\nthe preceding verse is that to which lead the Knowledge and the Ignorance." We
\nhave the explanation of anyad<\/i> in the verse that follows. The ordinary
\nrendering, "Knowledge has one result. Ignorance another", would be an obvious
\ncommonplace announced with an exaggerated pompousness, adding nothing to the
\nthought and without any place in the sequence of the ideas.<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 66<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nof Birth, by the dissolution crosses beyond death and by the
\nBirth enjoys Immortality.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n15. The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid;
\nthat do thou remove, O Fosterer,<\/span>\u00b9<\/span>
\nfor the law of the Truth, for sight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n16. O Fosterer, O sole Seer, O Ordainer, O illumining Sun, O
\npower of the Father of creatures, marshal thy rays, draw together thy light; the
\nLustre which is thy most blessed form of all, that in Thee I behold. The Purusha
\nthere and there, He am I.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n17.  The Breath of things\u00b2 is an immortal Life, but of this
\nbody<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n \u00b9In the inner
\nsense of the Veda Surya, the Sun-God, represents the divine Illumination of the
\nKavi which exceeds mind and forms the pure self-luminous Truth of things. His
\nprincipal power is self-revelatory knowledge, termed in the Veda, "Sight". His
\nrealm is described as the Truth, the Law, the Vast. He is the Fosterer or
\nIncreaser, for he enlarges and opens man’s dark and limited being into a
\nluminous and infinite consciousness. He is the sole Seer, Seer of Oneness and
\nKnower of the Self, and leads him to the highest Sight. He is Yama, Controller
\nor Ordainer for he governs man’s action and manifested being by the direct Law
\nof the Truth, satya-dharma,<\/i> and therefore by the right principle of our
\nnature, yāthā-tathyatah, <\/i>a luminous power proceeding from the Father of
\nall existence, he reveals in himself the divine Purusha of whom all beings are
\nthe manifestations. His rays are the thoughts that proceed luminously from the
\nTruth, the Vast, but become deflected and distorted, broken up and disordered in
\nthe reflecting and dividing principle. Mind. They form there the golden lid
\nwhich covers the face of the Truth. The Seer prays to Surya to cast them into
\nright order and relation and then draw them together into the unity of revealed
\ntruth. The result of this inner process is the perception of the oneness of all
\nbeings in the divine Soul of the Universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b2<\/span>Vayu,
\ncalled elsewhere Matarishwan, the Life-Energy in the universe. In the light of
\nSurya he reveals himself as an immortal principle of existence of which birth
\nand death and life in the body are only particular and external processes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 67<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

\nashes are the end. OM! O Will,\u00b9<\/sup> remember, that
\nwhich was done remember! O Will, remember, that which was done, remember.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n18.  O god Agni, knowing all things that are manifested, lead
\nus by the good path to the felicity; remove from us the devious attraction of
\nsin.\u00b2<\/sup> To thee completest speech of submission we would dispose.\u00b3<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup>The
\nVedic term kratu<\/i> means sometimes the action itself, sometimes the
\neffective power behind action represented in mental consciousness by the will.
\nAgni is this power. He is divine force which manifests first in matter as heat
\nand light and material energy and then, taking different forms in the other
\nprinciples of man’s consciousness, leads him by a progressive manifestation
\nupwards to the Truth and the Bliss.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n2<\/sup>Sin,
\nin the conception of the Veda, from which this verse is taken bodily, is that
\nwhich excites and hurries the faculties into deviation from the good path. There
\nis a straight road or road of naturally increasing light and truth, <\/font>
\nrjuḥ
\npanthāh, ṛtasya panthāh<\/font><\/i><\/span>̣<\/font><\/span>,<\/font><\/span><\/i>
\nleading over infinite levels and towards infinite vistas, <\/font>
\nvitā p<\/font><\/i><\/span>̣<\/font><\/span>rs<\/font><\/span>̣<\/font><\/span>t<\/font><\/span>̣<\/font><\/span>hā,<\/font><\/span><\/i>
\nby which the law of our nature should normally take us towards our fulfilment.
\nSin compels it instead to travel with stumblings amid uneven and limited tracts
\nand along crooked windings <\/font> (duritāni, vr<\/font><\/i><\/span>̣<\/font><\/span>jināni).<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n3<\/font><\/sup>The
\nword vidhema<\/i> is used of the ordering of the sacrifice, the disposal of
\nthe offerings to the God and, generally, of the sacrifice or worship itself. The
\nVedic namas,<\/i> internal and external obeisance, is the symbol of submission
\nto the divine Being in ourselves and in the world. Here the offering is that of
\ncompletest submission and the self-surrender of all the faculties of the lower
\negoistic human nature to the divine Will-force, Agni, so that, free from
\ninternal opposition, it may lead the soul of man through the truth towards a
\nfelicity full of the spiritual riches, rāye.<\/i> That state of beatitude is
\nthe intended self-content in the principle of pure Love and Joy, which the Vedic
\ninitiates regarded as the source of the divine existence in the universe and the
\nfoundation of the divine life in the human being. It is the deformation of this
\nprinciple by egoism which appears as desire and the lust of possession in the
\nlower worlds.<\/font><\/span> 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 68<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISHA UPANISHAD   1.  All this is for habitation\u00b9 by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","wpcat-14-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}