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This is the 18th and final installment of A Catechism of Enlightenment–a serialized commentary on “A Method Of Enlightening A Disciple” from Shankara’s Upadeshasahasri–A Thousand Teachings

72) “At the end of many births the wise man comes to Me, realizing that all this is Vasudeva [“He who dwells in all things”]; such a great soul [mahatma] is very hard to find.” (Bhagavad Gita 7:19)

It is only the ripened soul that at last comes to the realization that all is Brahman, and therefore all is his own inmost Self. Such a one is a “great soul” by reason of his identification with the Supremely Great. They are hard to find since they live quiet and contented while the ignorant run about teaching and “enlightening” others. In India I learned quite early that those who volunteered their “wisdom” were ignoramuses, and that the wise had to be asked persistently to tell me anything worthwhile. Sometime Indian texts liken sages to a honeycomb: you have to keep poking them to get the honey of their knowledge.

73) “When in the waking and dream states there is, as it were, another, then one can see the other, then one can smell the other, then one can speak to the other, then one can hear the other, then one can think of the other, then one can touch the other, then one can know the other.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4:3:31)

But when awakened we know that the “other” is Brahman, is our Self.

74) “By one clod of clay all that is made of clay is known, the modification being only a name, arising from speech, while the truth is that all is clay.” (Chandogya Upanishad 6:1:4)

When the yogi knows the “clod” that is his individual Self, then he knows all selves and the Self of the selves–Brahman. He knows: “All is Vasudeva” as pointed out a couple of sections ago.

75) “For when there is duality, as it were, then one sees another, one smells another, one tastes another, one speaks to another, one hears another, one thinks of another, one touches another, one knows another. But when to the knower of Brahman everything has become the Self, then what should he see and through what, what should he smell and through what, what should he taste and through what, what should he speak and through what, what should he hear and through what, what should he think and through what, what should he touch and through what, what should he know and through what? Through what should one know That Owing to which all this is known?

“This Self is That which has been described as ‘Not this, not this.’ It is imperceptible, for It is never perceived; undecaying, for It never decays; unattached, for It never attaches Itself; unfettered, for It never feels pain and never suffers injury. Through what should one know the Knower?

“Thus you have the instruction given to you. This much, indeed, is the means to Immortality.

“Having said this, Yajnavalkya renounced home.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4:5:15)

This catalog of facts has been cited before from other parts of this same upanishad. Two points at the end are worth noting. One is the statement that the teaching on the Self is the means to immortality, since it awakens and stimulates the worthy student to pursue knowledge of the non-dual Brahman. The other is the statement that having said all this Yajnavalkya “renounced home.” So will all who truly hear with inner ears the truth and glory of the Self. They will refuse to live anywhere but in the Self. It is not a matter of where or how their body lives.

76) “To the seer, all things have verily become the Self: what delusion, what sorrow, can there be for him who beholds that oneness?” (Isha Upanishad 7)

So it is.

77) “In this there is but a single one-pointed determination.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:41)

In summation Shankara quotes this and the following verse to remind us that mere philosophizing is not what he is doing. We are being advised to be completely practical. The first thing needed is “a single one-pointed determination” to know the Self.

78) “When a man completely casts off, O Arjuna, all the desires of the mind and is satisfied in the Self by the Self, then is he said to be one of steady wisdom!” (Bhagavad Gita 2:55)

The final and most effective steps are two: completely casting off all desires and becoming satisfied in the Self–not through ideas or feelings but by the Self alone, by entering into and regaining the experience and identification of the Self. Then such a one is of permanent wisdom.

79) “In the beginning this aggregate of desirable objects was but the Self, one only. He cherished the desire: ‘Let me have a wife, so that I may be born as the child; and let me have wealth, so that I may perform rites.’ This much, indeed, is the range of desire; even if one wishes, one cannot get more than this. Therefore, to this day, a man who is single desires: ‘Let me have a wife, so that I may be born as the child; and let me have wealth, so that I may perform rites.’ So long as he does not obtain each one of these, he thinks he is incomplete.

“Now, his completeness can also come in this way: The mind is his Self, speech his wife, the vital breath his child, the eye his human wealth, for he finds it with the eye; the ear his divine wealth, for he hears it with the ear; the body his instrument of rites, for he performs rites through the body.

“So this sacrifice has five factors–the animals have five factors, men have five factors and all this that exists has five factors. He who knows this obtains all this.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1:4:17)

We live in two worlds, inner and outer. The inner is the world of the Self, the outer is the Not-Self. Completion in this latter world avails nothing, but we are swept from life to life and in each one find ourselves incomplete and once again strive for a completeness that by its nature must melt away–if it is ever attained, which in most lives it is not. Finally, weary of seeking the will-o-the-wisp of outer completeness, we turn within and find another path altogether.

The five factors of liberation are common to subhuman as well as human life. These are the primal elements that are reflected in us as five faculties which are also great powers. Those who are moving out from the human level to the divine realm employ Yoga to unite the mind, speech, prana (breath), inner eye, and inner ear through Yoga. In this way the seeker becomes complete, becomes the Self alone.

The final message

This is the final counsel of Shankara to us who have followed his course of instruction in the path to enlightenment. Like Krishna (Bhagavad Gita 6:46), his last message to us is: “Therefore become a yogi!”

The entire text of A Catechism of Enlightenment is now available on the main Atma Jyoti website. Visit it now and bookmark it for future study.

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My hope is upon the Lord, and I will not fear.
And because the Lord is my salvation, I will not fear.
And He is as a garland on my head, and I shall not be moved.
Even if everything should be shaken, I stand firm.
And if all things visible should perish, I shall not die. Because the Lord is with me, and I am with Him. Alleluia.

–The Fifth Ode of Solomon

(The Odes of Solomon are the earliest known Christian hymns. Written in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, some actually appear to have been composed by Him. Furthermore, the ideas expressed by the Odes reveal the utterly esoteric nature of original Christianity.)

There are two ways to “look at” Divinity. One is to see It as absolutely distinct from ourselves and therefore outside us. The other is to see It as absolutely one with us, and therefore within us. The results of these two views are quite different in their effect on us. One produces anxiety, insecurity, and even fear–though there may be occasional patches of “faith” and “hope” to artificially relieve the unease. The other produces confidence, tranquility, and inner strength. Those that subscribe to the “outside” view of God continually speak of the need for “trusting in” and “surrendering to” God, developing a total and pious dependence on God, firm in a conviction of their nothingness and valuelessness. Those that hold to the “inner” view are intent on the necessity for self-knowledge and the liberation of their inner potential to manifest the Divine. One group sees themselves as sinners, the other sees themselves as embryonic gods. What a totally different world these two live in! And more: what a totally different world is created or shaped by those who hold such views.

Some friends of mine had a very successful Montessori school. Quite a few of their students were “behavior problems” that were rejected by the public school system. One five-year-old had been expelled from as many schools as his age. In his second or third week of attendance he did something “bad.” He looked at one of the teachers and said: “I’m a little ‘devil’ aren’t I?” She smiled and replied: “Not to me. I think you are a little angel.” The poor boy was utterly flummoxed. “I am an angel?” he asked, his voice expressing total amazement. “Yes; you are to me,” she answered. And from that moment on his behavior was ideal. Because he really was an angel, but had not known it.

The real Gospel–Good News–of authentic Christianity is that of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) Our Christ nature is potential and must be brought forth, but we have no other nature to manifest. It is just a matter of now or later.

Once we realize that the Lord is our inmost being, the words of the Ode become extremely clear. The only comment needed is this poem of Emily Bronte:

No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven’s glories shine, And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.

O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life, that in me has rest, As I, undying Life, have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by Thy infinity, So surely anchored on The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love Thy Spirit animates eternal years, Pervades and broods above, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and moon were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou wert left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: Thou–thou art Being and Breath, And what thou art may never be destroyed.

More on the Odes of Solomon:

Odes of Solomon – text

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“The universe becomes conscious of itself in us.” – Roger Scruton

We were pleasantly surprised when we recently came across “The Return of Religion,” an article by contemporary English philosopher Roger Scruton, which we would like to share with our blog’s readers.

Scruton begins with an analysis of today’s “evangelical atheists” – the self-dissatisfied enemies of religion who try to use the advances of science to bludgeon into silence the religious impulse wherever they find it. But this impulse cannot be silenced, as Scruton explains so well. Our self-consciousness is what differentiates us from animals, and is the very image of God within us. And with this self-consciousness comes the urge to transcendence, to reach out to that greater Consciousness of which we are a part, which even the atheists cannot deny forever.

Read “The Return of Religion” by Roger Scruton.

A Commentary on the Inner Meaning of the Gospel of St. Matthew

“And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, by another road they [the wise men] went back to their country.”
(Matthew 2:12 – Wuest’s translation)

“By another road they went back to their country.” We came from God and we return to God; but the paths by which we leave and which we return are not the same. One is the taking on of illusion and the other is the divestment of illusion. One is the downward-going lefthand path of increasing involvement in ego and material consciousness and the other is the upward-going righthand path of decreasing involvement in ego and material consciousness. One is the path of unconscious evolution and the other is the path of conscious evolution. Both are necessary–first the lefthand path and then the righthand path–but they are mutually exclusive of one another, antithetical to one another. We cannot have one foot on the lefthand path and the other on the righthand path, for they lead in opposite directions. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

Now that is the part that sometimes unsettles and pricks us, but there is another aspect to the matter that is so wonderful, hopeful, and positive that it takes away all the discomfort we may be feeling. And that aspect is the wonderful truth that there really is a “road” that leads back to our country–back to God. That our return to God is not haphazard or whimsical (on the part of either us or God), but is a definite, precise, and methodical route to divine consciousness. That is why, when preparing to return to the Father, Jesus told His disciples: “Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” (John 14:4) To know the way to God–what a wonderful thing! To no longer wander in a vague search, either not knowing the way or thinking that a false way is the true way. When He had been the prophet Isaiah, Jesus had prophesied of “the way of holiness” that would be a spiritual “highway” to the Infinite. (Isaiah 35:8)

Another road

The return of the wise by another way is a symbol of the fact that all the “good” in us which brought us to the point of meeting our inner Christ must become “baptized in Christ.” That is, these inner powers, however helpful they may have been heretofore, have got to be transmuted–spiritualized–before being made again operative in our life. They, too, must be “renewed” in order for us to be able to “walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4) “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5) “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (II Corinthians 5:17) This is very important, for since we are in the grip of ego we like to hold on to the past “good” of which we are proud, and want to keep running in the same tracks as before. It seems virtually impossible for most people to realize what a total revolution is required before we can begin to hope of real spiritual attainment–and even more impossible for them to get busy and start renovating themselves from A to Z.

All our faculties which enable us to function intelligently must also be “returned” to their correct orientation of spirit; they must be taken from their present status of serving our ego and given back to their rightful owner–our divine spirit.

It is evolution from life to life on this earth that has brought us to this point. And that was good. But now we must disdain any further terms (lives) on earth and aspire to evolve henceforth into the higher realms of being. The blind, haphazard seeking that we engaged in through past lives was not without benefit; but now it must be abandoned; from now on we must seek in a careful, intelligent, and systematic manner.

Our own country

The very purpose of finding the Christ within is to enable ourselves to return, like the wise men, into our own country–the place of our origin. This is a most important fact, for when we realize that we are going back to where we came from–that it is our nature to be there–our perspective on the matter is greatly affected, for we realize:

1. We do not need to become something other than what we really are–we do not need to make ourselves into something else. So all the struggle that we see virtually all religions engaging in is absolutely unnecessary–even detrimental to attainment of the true goal. By misapplied understanding and application religion binds us and keeps us from knowing our true selves just as much as any of the other evils of the world. (Yes, I mean that implication: erroneous religion is one of the evils of the world.) For we only need to reclaim our eternal status, praying: “O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” (John 17:5)
2. We do need, however, to stop being what we are not. Once we do that, we shall automatically become what we are. When we endeavor to stop the delusion, though, we discover that we are not passively in ignorance. Instead, we are frantically applying all our energies to create and maintain our ignorance and illusion. Since this is not a conscious process on our part we do not realize what we are doing. Authentic meditation reveals this situation to us right away, however, and we go on from there. Meditation, then, is not a doing but a stopping. This fact reveals that nearly all meditation being engaged in is invalid for spiritual realization–that is just a tool for perpetuating our illusions.
3. Since self-realization is our nature we need not doubt the possibility of our return. For “no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven.” (John 3:13) The very fact that we can ascend means we have first descended. We have already done half the journey!
4. Our return is inevitable, having been eternally predestined for us. “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34)

It is also necessary for us to realize that spiritual experience or awakening is not the goal: it is only the beginning. The wise men did not stay with Jesus in Nazareth. They had to go back home. It is the same with us. No matter how wonderful our spiritual awakenings and experiences may be, we have to turn from them and be about our “Father’s business” (Luke 2:49) of return.

The wise went home, and we, if we are wise, will also go home. We must understand that true religion is not just pleasing or placating God, or even this emotional idea of loving God; it is returning to God. It is getting up and getting out of here. As it says in the Constitution of the Apostles: “May grace come to us and may this world depart from us.” We do not belong here; we never have.

We must know that we came from God, and then we must use every waking moment of our life to return to God, otherwise we are not wise, but foolish. We have to get away from the land of Herod, away from the land dominated by the alien powers of the Romans, and go back to where God is the heart of everything.

Read more commentaries on the inner meaning of the Gospels, and the teachings of Jesus.

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This is Part 17 of A Catechism of Enlightenment–a serialized commentary on “A Method Of Enlightening A Disciple” from Shankara’s Upadeshasahasri–A Thousand Teachings

61) “The non–dual and resplendent Lord is hidden in all beings. All-pervading, the inmost Self of all creatures, the impeller to actions, abiding in all things, He is the Witness, the Animator and the Absolute, free from gunas.” (Svetashvatara Upanishad 6:11)

Brahman and the Self are witness, but they are also actor–though only in a dream.

62) “The knowing Self is not born; It does not die. It has not sprung from anything; nothing has sprung from It. Birthless, eternal, everlasting and ancient, It is not killed when the body is killed.” (Katha Upanishad 1:2:18)

The salient point here is that nothing has really “come from” Brahman or the Self. All projections for the purpose of “creation” are really only concepts–dreams. The dreams are real, but the things in the dreams are not real.

63) “It is through the Atman that one perceives all objects in sleep or in the waking state. Having realized the vast, all-pervading Atman, the calm soul does not grieve.” (Katha Upanishad 2:1:4)

This simply underscores what was just said in the last section.

64) “‘He is my Self’–This one should know.” (Kaushitaki Brahmana Upanishad 3:8)

This is true knowledge of Brahman–not as an object, but as our inmost reality.

65) “The wise man beholds all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings.” (Isha Upanishad 6)

This is self-explanatory.

66) “It moves and moves not; It is far and likewise near. It is inside all this and It is outside all this.” (Isha Upanishad 5)

No comment needed.

67) “He [it is] in whom the universe finds a single place of rest. Having seen that Paramatman, one becomes a true knower of all the worlds and proclaims that Reality as immortal. He knows that all-pervasive One.” (Mahanarayan Upanishad 1:15)

There is no place of rest but Brahman and the Self–that are really one. Those who know Brahman and the Self know all the worlds that have come forth from Brahman and the bodies (little “worlds”) that have come forth from the Self. Such a one proclaims Reality both in his life and in his words. His authority is his knowledge.

68) “All beings are the body of One who resides in the hearts of all.” (Apastamba Dharma Sutra 1:8:22)

No mystery here. Brahman is the Self in all bodies, the Self in all selves.

69) “All gods verily are the Self.” (Manu Smriti 12:119)

We have already said a lot about “gods,” including this fact. To really worship gods or God we need to know our Self.

70) “The knowers of the Self look with an equal eye on a Brahmana endowed with learning and humility, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a pariah.” (Bhagavad Gita 5:18)

This is because they see that they are all indwelt by the eternal Self–that is their own Self as well.

71) “Undivided, yet He exists as if divided in beings; He is to be known as the supporter of beings; He absorbs and He projects also.” (Bhagavad Gita 13:16)

Brahman is never divided, but he experiences unreal division by his will. He is “supporter of beings” because he is dreaming them, is the basis of their existence. He alternately absorbs and projects them within the cosmic dream.