Human history could be divided into two parts, the time before the Upanishads and the time afterward. The appearance of the Upanishads in India three thousand years ago began with the gradual revision of traditional religion. Till then orthodox religious rites centred on worship through the yagna, the fire-sacrifice of Agni who is the mediator between the earthly and heavenly realms. The agnihotri was the only one who could perform efficacious worship to the Divine and employed a highly sophisticated and detailed liturgical repertoire of mantras, recitations, sacraments, and mudras to bring the desired effect. He was the specialist on whom the faithful depended to make their petitions to God. By contrast the Upanishads declared that the havan fire, which till then had been the sole vehicle and portal to the divine, in fact burned just as brightly within the individual human heart.
If the Upanishads speak of Brahman as a bridge between ‘here and the beyond’ (iha/para), contemporary seekers often imagine that it is only the beyond we are looking for, whereas in reality we are striving to become the bridge between the two. What does this mean? It means that there is a beautiful paradox at the centre of the non-dual vision. The link between instantiation in a world and the transcendence beyond it is the domain of the sage:
A mantra in the Upanishads says, “He who is in the sun, is also in the man!”…The Heart of the Upanishads is construed as Hridayam, meaning, “this (is) the centre”. This is where the mind rises and subsides. It is the seat of Realisation. When I say that it is ‘the Self’, people imagine that it is within the body. But the name of the centre is ‘the Heart’ [and should not be confused] with the physical organ. [1]
If some have said that we need a body in order to support consciousness, Bhagavan adds, we are not the body, nor is there a world, and thus, we are not confined to incarnate existence which is only an appearance:
The Heart is not physical; it is spiritual. Hridayam = hrit + ayam. That is the centre. It is that from which thoughts arise, on which they subsist and where they are resolved. The thoughts are the content of the mind and, they shape the universe. The Heart is the centre of all. Yatova imani bhutani jayante (that from which these beings come into existence) etc. is said to be Brahman in the Upanishads. That is the Heart.[2]
The cells of our biology carry the memory of our ancestry which would also include our evolutionary past in chronological time. Our hearts carry the memory of a karmic history born of past births, according to the traditional understanding. What is the root? Upanishadic Ramana comments:
An astronomer discovers a new star at immeasurable distance and announces that its light takes thousands of years to reach the earth [travelling at the speed of light]. Well, where is the star in fact? Is it not in the observer? People wonder how a star larger than the Sun at such a distance can be contained in the brain of a man. But space, the magnitudes and paradox are all in the mind only.[3]
The Upanishads upset former assumptions about the Divine as dwelling in a distant place and advise us to look within. Bhagavan points out that the external and internal are not two. Bhagavan’s Upanishad and Vedantic thinkers down through the ages say there is a place prior to both:
By means of all created things, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.[4]
If the sense organs draw our attention outward, the inner sense organ of the mind and its identifications can likewise trap us. We recall the dictum, know the truth and the truth will set you free,[5] and could imagine it to mean that there is something objective in the world that needs to be seen and known for us to be free. But the Self is not attained by instruction,[6] says the Mandukya. Bhagavan points out that fixed positions and absolute views cannot help us because they lie without in the externals of the ruminative mind while the Self lies hidden within the innermost chambers of the heart.[7]
The Mandukya continues, when one knows the Absolute, everything is known.[8] That is where our freedom lies. Dogmas and formulas can never carry us the distance. The mahavakyas of the Upanishads and Bhagavan’s teaching are not directed toward acquiring a formula for spiritual success but are rooted in insights born of stillness beyond words and letters. Teachings in words function not as doctrinal cocoons to be inhabited but as sparks of divine intuition that allows for the heart to open. Paradoxically, the samadhi of words is the purest silence. But what is the samadhi of words? It is a temporary suspension of the intellect and its ruminations mediated through a spontaneous absorption in sacred words and phrases. A stillness beyond material silence, it takes us to the edge of thought and points us to something further on. It is born of the contact between the mahavakya and an empty Heart. The words do not act conceptually but give rise to a current of vibrant spiritual bounty, dynamizing the Heart and causing it to blossom. In such moments, the psyche is led to a threshold state of ‘in-betweenness’ wherein the labelling mind becomes pliable and flexible. Such threshold awareness is the quality of ambiguity that occurs between a previous way of structuring our identity, and a new way which is yet to be fully discovered. Here nothing is to be clung to and conceptual grasping dissipates and yields to a more fluid, malleable state.
The Upanishads—the song of the ages, the essence of all religions—beckon us beyond the thinking mind to ‘ponder’ what mind is. Here we find we can hold whatever complexity the immediate surroundings present us with. The impulse to pare things down to their lowest common denominator, namely, to compulsive sequential thought, drops away, at least momentarily.
The Mandukya talks of the twin aspects of the mind and of modes of living—the worldly and the supramundane—likening them to two birds, inseparable companions, perched on the same branch. One eats the fruit, and the other looks on.[9]
If we formerly treated the vital pulsation of Divine Being as something graspable, the Upanishadic bridge closes the gap between time-bound, concept-bound ideation and the depth of a psyche unencumbered by worldly longings. The sphurana born of deep insight that replaces it is outside of time.
Of the two birds, one is proficient in perfecting what is already known and operates within a closed loop of self-referential knowledge. But he rearranges and refines existing knowledge without necessarily being able to break free of pre-existing frameworks. The other bird by contrast sits back and watches panoramically and takes in all she sees with a broad intuitive gaze. While she is not great on details, her non-structured way of engaging the world allows for novel insights and fresh experiences beyond pre-existing templates of thought. Both serve their respective functions but the second knows and observes the actions of the first while the first is ignorant of the second and anything beyond the task immediately before him.[10]
If formerly we got caught up in familiar loops of the thinking mind that names and defines objects of the world, we made the mistake of imagining that we should make them our home, restricting ourselves to living like the first of the two birds. But here we recall the invitation of a poet from bygone days:
There’s a field beyond wrong and right, beyond polarities. I’ll meet you there. [11]
What does the poet mean? There’s a place in the heart beyond names, forms, dogmas, identities, narratives, and chronological time. If we meet there, we come to recognise ourselves and one another as we truly are. If earlier we prized the fruits of the intellect, now we see how much they pale in comparison with that field. The Upanishad comments:
Anyone who has even once drunk his fill of nectar, will never again wish to savour even the finest draught devised by the wit of man.[12]
The etymology of the word ‘Upanishad’ is to ‘sit nearby, below.’[13] This suggests a posture of humility, i.e., sitting at the feet of the guru, and tells us something about Upanishadic wisdom. It is not gained through book learning but through a shift in awareness which most readily comes when in the presence of one who has already made such a shift. Bhagavan’s upadesa, like the Upanishads, are there to help us lay the ground for this transition.
The Upanishadic vision is not linear or static, does not lean on dogmatic certitude, presuppositions, or assumptions, but embraces uncertainty, vulnerability, and a complete openness to the unknown, gained through direct experience. It resists trying to predict much less dictate the future. Dynamic and processual, infused with the wisdom of the divine, its flame ignites the spiritual heart. Unravelling clung-to notions, it gets at the inner entrenchments born of fear and the impulse to return to some former state of ease. Sympathetic and compassionate, it is the drive toward wholeness, integration, and freedom. With legs to walk, it is mobile, at liberty to move about like the wayfaring sages of old who meandered from the hallowed riverbanks of the Kaveri to the exalted heights of Gangotri.
When the Upanishadic gale blows through the heart of the seeker, the complexion of things changes, and we find former troubles no longer so troublesome. Exalting in its exuberant fresh air, we are no longer fazed by the loops of the thinking mind, the endless repetition of rumination that formerly kept us circling back again and again in a perpetual replay of thoughts and images. The impulse to repeat gives way to continual renewal born of the surge and flow of the divine’s revitalising power. Soon, everything and everyone is understood as one’s own Self, and one’s Self is seen in everything[14]. The former obsession with externalities begins to slacken as the awareness of inner spaces expands. From this vantage point, Sri Ramana is met with more intimately. Bhagavan comments:
Each one knows the Self but is yet ignorant. The person is enabled to realise only after hearing the mahavakya. Hence the Upanishadic text is the eternal Truth to which everyone who has realised owes his experience. After hearing the Self to be the Brahman the person finds the true import of the Self and reverts to it whenever he is diverted from it. Here is the whole process of Realisation.[15]
The two birds are a simile for the two modes of consciousness. Both are required but we very often become compulsive about the one and forget the other. In his life, Bhagavan demonstrated a balance between the two. The first directs the activities of the body while the second serves as the source for global awareness and intuitive wisdom. Imbalance between the two comes when the first craves nutriment which includes not only food but ideas, experiences, possessions, and various forms of sense stimulation and forgets the one ‘just looking on’. The worldliness of the first refers to the habit of ever seeking to have our immediate experience be an enjoyable one and avoiding any hint of unpleasantness. Worldliness is just the name we give to the deep attachment to the pure sensation of the moment and is related to addiction, which also includes the compulsion to sequential thought, rumination, conceptualization, and reverie. Disconnected from full range understanding, it focuses on the narrow field of vision that lies before it, assuming that is all there is. This is traditionally called ignorance owing to the lack of (self) awareness regarding the limited nature of its frame. It is fearful of the prospect of abandoning itself to the mercy of destiny failing to recognise that by such giving over—namely, to the totality of human experience—we find the path to freedom.A ship taking on water at sea requires a wise response. Polishing the brass railing of the vessel’s otherwise shiny deck is not one such response. Rather, plugging the large holes in the ship’s hull and pumping out the water that has flooded the ship’s hold are the required actions. We live our lives not recognising that the ship of the Heart is taking on water, after all what happens deep below in the ship’s hold is easily overlooked. If fire breaks out in a remote area of our house, we might not notice at first, busy as we are with other things. Identifying the signs and putting out the fire is the first order of business, not least of all, because the babies are asleep in the bedroom.
In getting caught up in an outwardly directed sense world and its pursuits, we miss seeing what is being asked of us moment by moment.
In this connection, we recall a story from the Kathopanishad when Nachiketa challenged his wealthy father for his lack of genuineness in making offerings at the yagna. His father, Vajasravasa, grew angry and banished his nine-year-old boy to Yamaraja. Nachiketa went of his own accord to find Yamaraja and seek his advice. When at last Nachiketa came to the dwelling of the God of Death, he found that Yamaraja was out on business and so waited outside the gates of Yamaloka without food, water, or shelter for three days. When Yamaraja at last returned and met the youngster, he was so impressed with the boy’s sincerity that he gave him three boons. Nachiketa’s first wish was for the welfare of his father; the second, to know the ways by which one can reach heaven; and finally, he asked Yamaraja to teach him about the mystery of death. Yamaraja did not want to grant this third wish and instead offered Nachiketa land and riches, kingdoms and palaces. But Nachiketa was steadfast. Yamaraja finally gave him the requested knowledge and Nachiketa was enlightened.
This is a story about the two birds, the one grasps at whatever excites the eye in a futile effort to be free of inner dissatisfaction. The second with its unselfish nature and purity of heart avoids the temptation to grasp at worldly consolations and instead dives ever more deeply within to solve the knotty problem of earthly existence.
All human endeavour is unconsciously directed toward solving the core mystery and yet, we get lost in the by-ways of worldly longings, which may be satisfying in the short-run, but do not grant lasting peace. We scale up our efforts to crack the riddle of mortality by making use of science and medical technology, not recognising that deathlessness is born of a turn of the Heart within. A contemporary poet comments:
Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then humanity will have discovered fire. [16]
What is this fire? It is the Promethean fire of the Atman. Lying at the innermost prakara of the Heart, it contains within itself the entire universe, each person possessing it as his or her innate endowment. All of one’s body and all the visible objects of the external world are but appearances on the screen of awareness indwelling the inner space of this Heart-Fire. If we are made in the image and likeness of God,[17]as has been said, it is so not by virtue of anything we possess outwardly but by virtue of the brightness of this flame within:
The [Upanishadic] fire emits rays of blessedness, spiritual beauty, and eternal bounty. The flaming Godhead, without whom fire would be unable to burn aright in the altar of the ascending Spirit, is force and light, the knower of births, the possessor of divine wisdom, the immortal in mortals, the divine power in man, and the energy of fulfilment through which he does his work. God in the form of Light, ever visible to Hearts that thrill with faith, is vividly brought home by this fire.[18]
If the world arises by our beholding it, when beholding it free of personal preferences, it and, we along with it, are seen to be nothing but Brahman. But what is Brahman?
The Self is Brahman, the Brahmic-Fire, the all-absorbing flame whose head is heaven, and whose eyes are the Sun and Moon. He is the great Truth-Light blazing out on us for a vision of the supreme beatitude. He is in the Heart and can be meditated on as the Heart-Self, and in fire, as the Fire-Self.[19]
It has been said that the eye cannot see without sunlight and the mind cannot see without Self-Light, that is, the Light that illumines everything, i.e., pure awareness, for everything shines by virtue of That. The sun, the moon, the stars and fire shine [because] the Self-God shines.[20]
The mantra which opens the Upanishads belongs to the Isa Upanishad as its invocatory verse:
That is full, this is full/From that fullness comes this fullness/when fullness is taken away from fullness/only fullness remains.[21]
Fullness comes with knowing that ‘great Person’, shining like the sun, beyond darkness [by whose acquaintance,] one passes beyond death.[22] Sorrow, doubt and delusion can no longer touch the one who has discovered it. The Isa adds:
It moves, it does not move. It is very close, and it is far away, within all, outside of all. Thought cannot catch up with it nor can any of the gods. Without moving, it runs faster than all. Knowing and not-knowing, both alike it has gone beyond, and having passed through death, it attains to immortality.[23]
If the yagna had once been the only means of accessing the Divine, the light of the Upanishadic Fire pointed to the yagna of the Heart and changed everything. Indeed, religion and the life of faith would never be the same. Although this momentous event took place some 3,000 years ago, many are only learning of it after waiting a very, very long time. Now enabled to take the first step in glimpsing the true shape of things, they direct their gaze upward toward the gates of heaven and cry out in exaltation:
Swing open, O ye doors Divine, and give us easy passage for our expanding; lead us further and further on and fulfil our sacrifice. O Ray, be born in us and dwell there, harmonising your knowledge with the flame of the blazing Life-God! [24] —
[1] Talks, §201, §474.
[2] Talks, §97.
[3] Talks, §474.
[4] Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Mileau, 1960.
[5] John 8:32.
[6] Nayam atma pravachanena labhyo (Mandukya: 2.2.9). In the Chandogya Upanishad: 8.12.3: The eye does not go there, nor speech, nor the mind. We do not know, we do not understand, how anyone can teach it. It is different from the known and also it is above the unknown.
[7] The Self-existent pierced the senses to turn outward. Thus, we look to the external world, not within. A sage, however, turned his eyes inward and beheld the Self within. Kathopanishad: 2.4.
[8] Yasmin vijnate sarvam idam vijnatam bhavati, Mandukya Upanishad: 1.1.7.
[9] Mandukya Upanishad: 3.1.1.
[10] Renowned neurophychologist Prof Iain McGilchrist of Oxford University takes up this discussion in his The Master and the Emissary.
[11] Rumi
[12] See Abhishiktananda’s The Secret of Arunachala, p. 55.
[13] It comes from the Sanskrit root, shad (to sit), upa (near), and ni (beneath, below). From ‘The Upanishads are True, I know it!’ by Vinaya Chaitanya in Witness to the Fullness of the Light, p. 133.
[14] Isa Upanishad: 6.
[15] Talks, §647.
[16] Teilhard de Chardin, Toward the Future, 1936, XI, 86-87.
[17] Genesis: 1.26.
[18] Arunachala: Ramana Maharshi and the Hill of Fire, p. 95, taken from Self-Realisation, p. 4 and the Call Divine, vol. 4, p. 515, vol. 14, p.537.
[19] Ibid., p. 92, taken from the Call Divine, vol. 13, pp. 12-13; vol.14, p. 536, vol. 15, p. 534.
[20] Ibid., p. 93; taken from the Call Divine, vol. 13, p. 116.
[21] This oft-recited verse reads: Purnam adah, purnam idam/purnat purnam udachyate/purnasya purnam adaya/ purnam eva avashishyate.
[22] Svetasvatara Upanishad: 3.8.
[23] Isa Upanishad, from Guru and Disciple, Abhishiktananda, p. 75.
[24] Arunachala: Ramana Maharshi and the Hill of Fire, p. 97.
