World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 74

scious laws drive these movements. In its journey towards the release of consciousness and its powers, the soul's spark, that conscious being, is at first completely identified with the automatisms of inconscient Nature. As it evolves into human existence, Nature or Prakriti borrows its sense of self from this identity. The Purusha or Isvara, Lord, is spoken for by Nature, Prakriti. Purusha or Ishvara is that which is conscious in us. The instruments of mind, life and body (karana) borrow their sense of self as if by proxy from the consciousness of ishvara (karana). Ishvara wears the mask of prakriti and the mask takes itself to be the surrogate self of Ishvara - this is the Ego. A construct of self at the confluence of the mental, vital and physical forces of nature (triveni sangam), the ego is driven by these forces, struggling to maintain a semblance of stability, to survive and persist in the Ignorance. But this self of prakriti lacks the plenitude of unity which belongs to purusha. Insignificant, separate and precarious, it is marked by grasping, want, need, lack, the hunger and thirst with which the entire creation is seeded in its self-exploration out of its own opposite. This is the foundation of desire in the creation.
Thus, in its first verse, the Isha Upanishad drives us into a meditation towards the recognition of Brahman as Ishvara at the heart of all things in the cosmos, the Being of all their being (vasyam) and the will (isha) of all their becoming. And it reveals its real concern as that of proper and unsullied enjoyment (bhunjitha). For this enjoyment, it shows the method (tena tyaktena) and it warns against the mistaken path (ma gridha). If one is identified with the Lord in being and becoming, attained through the practice of the renunciation of desire, one can enjoy with the enjoyment of the Lord. Lacking this identification, one is out of sync with the intent of the Lord, the isha of the Isha, and the Upanishad sees the person in this condition as a thief, interfering in the paths of God, snatching through desire at the rightful manifestation of Delight, the divine's enjoyment and earning only suffering as result.
• "Tena tyaktena bhunjitha" - by that renounced thou shoudst enjoy. The very second line of the Upanishad it presents one of its two main concerns, that of enjoyment. Indeed, this is one of the major concerns of the Upanishads as a body of text, because among the founding realizations of these texts is the premise that this world arises from delight. Delight is at the basis of things and the very meaning of existence is the enjoyment of delight. This forms an entire class and central core of Upanishadic understanding, which is why it is foregrounded in the second sentence as the injunctive goal of its meditation: "bhunjitha" - enjoy! This is what we are here for. But one must know how to enjoy. Wrongful enjoyment brings only suffering.
VIII The tightness of the first couplet becomes even more evident with this
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