Samayasara OR Nature of Self

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 65

SAMAIASAKA
IXIV only that which saves itself from the allurements of the world and imposes on itself the rigorous spiritual discipline can know the truth, can escape from the illusion and attain that neverfailing bliss of true freedom.
Mundaka Upanishads—This Upanishad belongs to Adharvana Veda. It is divided into a number of Khandas. Its main purpose is to teach the knowledge of Brahman. Hence it may be taken as the farthest limit of the antiritualistic culture of the age. This Upanishad starts with the distinction between the two kinds of knowledge. Lower knowledge consists of the study of the Vedas and the secular sciences such as grammar, astronomy, astrology etc. The higher is the knowledge of the indestructible Brahman. It is this indestiuctible Brahman that is the source of all things. Its nature is described thus. “That which is invisible, unseizable without family or caste that which has no eyes, or ears, no hands, nor feet, the Eternal, the omnipresent, Infinitesimal, and imperishable. That it is which the wise regard as the source of knowledge. As the spider sends forth and draws in its thread, as, plants grown on earth as the hairs of the head shoot forth from every person thus does everything arise from the imperishable." These two verses clearly illustrate the spiritual nature of Brahman and he is the root principle of all existence. Knowledge of this is claimed to be knowledge Par-excellence. What is the value of the lower knowledge of the traditional religion of the sacrificial mantras and the skill in arranging sacrifices, but frail in truth are those boats, (the sacrifices). Fools are they that praise this as the highest for they are subjected again and again to old age and death. Fools who hold this vedic scholarship or rituals wise in their own conceit and puffed up with vain knowledge go round and round staggering to and fro like blind men led by the blind. If at all it is of any use to a person who offers sacrifice it will lead him to Swarga which is merely a kind of lower happiness since that state of existence is also included in the samsaric cycle. How is the higher knowledge to be obtained ? "By truthfulness, by penance, right knowledge and abstinence must that Self be gained.” The Self whom spotless anchorites gain is pure, and like a light within the body. Further the Upanishad