Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
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with the Lord in the enjoyment of his creative will and the enjoyment of his receptive experience. Being the Will of the cosmos as a single becoming in all becomings, that will, Isha, causes a harmonious unfolding, even in the appearance of discord, and leads to an enjoyment proceeding from that harmony. Because this will is the knowledge-Will of Supermind, there is no gap between its knowledge and its action. Its Action is the seamless and spontaneous expression of its Knowledge. It contains within it all the relations that are being mapped out inevitably in time as the unfolding representation of Being-in-Becoming. Therefore, this dynamic union with the Lord puts us in "the right place at the right time." We are led spontaneously to the work to be done (kartavyam karma). We know ourselves, as the Gita says, as occasion only (nimitta-matra) with the Lord as doer and enjoyer in us and we partake of the enjoyment of action but not of the consequences of action. This is how the very first verse of the Isha Upanishad encapsulates the core of what will become the Gita's teaching of the yoga of works (karma yoga). This also becomes one of the cornerstones of Sri Aurobindo's teaching of The Life Divine. This cornerstone is now further elaborated.
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The second stanza of the Upanishad runs:
Kurvan eva iha karmani jijivisheshwata sama
Evam twayi na anyat ito asti na karma lippyate nare.
Doing verily works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this; action cleaves not to a man.
In our elaboration of the first stanza, we could see the relation between enjoyment and work. But this is not an obvious relation. So, too, there seems to be little relation between renunciation and living a hundred years. As with the verses which precede this stanza, such suppressed links are part of the intuitive languaging of the Upanishads. This stanza brings us even closer to the Gita and its doctrine of divine works. We have already seen how the very first stanza fields the question of renunciation, tyaga and noted the resonance of this idea with the later distinction between sannyasa and tyaga which is dealt with in the Gita. This is an early debate in Indian spiritual life, which had hardened by the time of the Buddha. In the life-story of the Buddha, the choice between samsara and sannyasa is coded at the very outset, in the pre-natal calculations of the astrologers. He will either be a great king of the world (samsara) or a great spiritual emperor by world-renunciation (sannyasa). He chooses the life of the wandering renunciant. But this distinction is not a hard division at the time of the Upanshads, where the king or other householder (grahasthi) can also be a seer (rajarshi) or knower of Brahman (brahma-jnani). The Isha Upanishad emphasizes this world-af
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