Katopanishad (A commentary by H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) –
✨ "The Grace of Divine"✨
1) So when Nachiketa was offered all these temptations, “You can be the lord of the world, the king of kings, you can have beautiful girls, singing and dancing around you”, he said with a smile, “No. But what I want from you us the secret of death?” When the boy was adamant. “I only want the highest; I don’t want any of these other appeasements that you are giving me,” the lord of death was pleased. This is a real good student, a really good seeker; He was pleased by his patience, his perseverance. Then he praised Nachiketa.
2) You have chosen liberation when pleasure was offered to you. They both have got different users. The one who goes for liberation the pleasure also comes to him. The one who goes only for pleasure, only misery comes to him. Not only does he get misery, he is deprived of the Highest. You have chosen this path of liberation, so you will get all other pleasures as well. They follow you.” What is certain is that the one who chooses this path of knowledge is lucky in the sense he gets both. But if you have chosen only pleasure, you will be deprived of this highest knowledge, this beautiful knowledge, which is the birth right of human life.
3) This is what Yama said, and it’s so beautiful. “I consider you worthy of giving that instruction because none of this could distract you; your attention is not on that, your attention is on what is real. Not money, not power, not position, not reputation, none of this.” There is a beautiful couplet in Sanskrit that says that pleasures are of utmost importance for people – food, sex, enjoyment. More difficult to get over is reputation and recognition. Once you have it, it is so difficult for you not to have it. Many are caught in these two – pleasure and reputation. The brave cross beyond reputation. They don’t worry because they know it is all temporary. What people think about you – they don’t have time, they will all forget.
4) Just wake up and see there are millions of people even in this city. Among those millions, only a few are getting a chance to hear about this. A few walk on spiritual path. Few people hear about it. Among the few who hear, a few really grasp it. It is a wonder how some people can speak about it with skill. It is such an abstract thing; some skill is needed to talk about it. And that’s a wonder how some people are able to express it. It’s a skill and it is even a greater wonder – how some people are skillfully able to imbibe it!
5) Lord Krishna said in Gita, “Among millions of people, only a few will walk on spiritual path. Among those who walk, only a few will know me.” Few are those who really reach the goal, who understand this and it is a wonder in itself. You are not going to get it just by listening to a lot of talks, reading books or doing practices. Now this can cause frustration. What do we do? “I listen, I read, I do all this. I don’t get it?” No way. The hurry to get it becomes an impediment in itself. Relax. It’s the ego that wants to capture, which wants to get it now. Neither the intellect nor the ego can capture it, or your efforts. The glory of the Self is seen by the grace of the Divine, not by your effort. You do all your effort and then finally it happens by the grace.
6) Once in Lord Rama’s kingdom somebody threw a stone at a dog. Rama’s kingdom was considered to be very non-violent and there was truth and justice for all. So the dog went to ask for justice – animal rights! It went to Rama and demanded that road is for everybody and dogs can also walk on the road. Lord Rama heard this and said, “That’s correct. The road is for everybody.” He summoned the person who threw the stone. In those days, the victim would decide the punishment for the culprit. So they asked dog, “What punishment do you want to give to this person?” And the dog said, “Make him the head of the ashram”. Lord Rama said, “This is such a strange request.” The dog said, “I was also the head of ashram in my past life. I thought it is better to be a dog than the head of an ashram. On my own Sankalpa, I became a dog. Let him go through that. Let him be made a head of an ashram.”
7) There are many who hear about spirituality, many who walk on the path. Still it is difficult to achieve. It is the same with basic course. You see that many people have heard, many teach also, “Accept people as they are; don’t be football of others people’s opinion; don’t see intention behind other’s mistake; live in the present moment.” It takes a whole lifetime to practice and to perfect this. Don’t think that just by doing basic course once, you have perfected the art. Don’t think that by teaching the course to many, you have perfected this art. Imbibing these five points in your life is a challenge for a lifetime.
😎 The Lord of Death says, “May we have more seekers like you.” It’s not just a student who is blessed to have a great teacher. A teacher also feels happy and blessed to have a student who sees beyond logic and scholarship. When you think your logic is very strong, you don’t see light on the other side. “I am right. I am so good.” Then you make others culprit, the world as culprit.
9) Nachiketa then said, “I know that earthly treasures are transient. I can never reach the eternal through them. Hence I have renounced all my desires for earthly treasure to win the Eternal through your instructions”. He basically said, “Now come to the point. I praise you, you praise me. You are just beating around the busy.”
10) Lord Yama said, “The wise realize the timeless Self, through meditation. It is beyond all perception, hidden in the cave of heart, leaving pain and pleasure far behind.”
11) In the Puranas, even Gods are shown getting angry and jealous. This is happening even among the devas. Why? Just to show that there is divinity inside you also. Do not undermine that for passing emotions. You think about an ideal state in your mind, where no emotions should come. If it comes, it comes on its own. Don’t be hard on yourself. Either you are hard on somebody or hard on yourself. Balancing is like walking on razor’s edge.
12) What Nachiketa said next is very beautiful. A student usually says, “Teach me what is right.” But Nachiketa said, “Teach me of that you see beyond right and wrong.” He has transcended the limited logic of the mind.
13) Those who meditate, for them there is no fear of death. For others there is only one fear, that of death. All fear is about death. Behind the losing money, fear of losing reputation, fear of losing attention, fear of losing status – behind all that, there is only one fear that is of death. Meditation is confronting that. When you are in meditation, there is stillness, nothing exists. This is what takes you away from fear of death.
14) Unconsciously, we encounter death every day. I remember when I was with my grandmother, in the village, as soon as you get up, they would role the bed and sprinkle water, where you slept and mop it. Sleep is like a mini death. When you take the dead body out, you clean and mop that place. As children coming from an urban area to a rural area, we would wonder why grandmother is saying all these things. “You should not touch that place. You should keep the bed rolled. Mop the place, clear the vibration.” You don’t do this in the cities. In villages, the earlier generations used to do this. The place where you have slept has tamas. So, you have to clean the place and then you can use it. We were never allowed to eat food on the bed. “Get up, brush your teeth and take bath. No more getting in the bed till night. You have to be dynamic the whole day. If you lie down on bed that means and you are impure again. Go and take bath.” It appeared to be utter superstition to me. As children, we would say this is superstition. You can sit on the mat but not on the bed because that is where you sleep and go to another state of consciousness. In Brahmin families it is like that. If you touch the bed, you have to take bath. But it is not prevalent anymore.
15) Why do people practice charity? Why do people practice self-restraint, why do people take monkhood, stay in monastery? Why do people become nuns and fathers or swamis? Why do they all do this? What is the purpose? They want to attain something higher but they get lost in their way. They simply become recluses, become monks, but they don’t get it. The purpose of them doing all this is to see that which is beyond death.
16) The lord of death told Nachiketa, “This is why they all are doing it and I am going to give it to you right away because you are a capable student. You didn’t become a monk but you are even more than a monk.” You don’t have to leave everything and run away from this world. You can be in the world, yet your mind can be completely unblemished by possessions. Don’t think those people who have renounced everything are greater than you. They might have greater craving than you. They are so hell bent on getting something which they don’t know. It is said that, when you finally meet God after all your struggle, then you say, “Oh! He was my neighbor, I knew him all the time.
17) Aum consolidates all that I am telling you. Death gives you sound Aum. It is called the sound of one hand clapping in the Buddhist tradition. Go deep in meditation, there is a sound that resonates in you –Aum. When you die the sound that remains with you is Aum. I said two things will stay with you – sound and sight. Sound is Aum, sight is light. So death is nothing but a light and a sound show. If sound and light are removed, then your subtle body dies and only the casual body remains. And the casual body is all bliss. It is the subtle body that makes you miserable. It is sound and light. How to cross over the sound and light? You can only cross over the sound by sound.
18) Yama said, “The sound which is required for this, which is eternal is that secret I am telling you.”
19) When Buddhists meditated, they found Aum. Jains meditated and they found Aum. Sikhs found Aum. Zoroastrians found Aum. Aum is very similar to Ameen. In the Jewish tradition, it is Shalom. Aum is there Shalom. Aum is the eternal sound, Aum is what one hears. So that which cannot be expressed by any name or form is represented by sound. That sound is Aum. Thought it is beyond sound, it can be identified with the sound Aum.
20) Once we brought two swamis (recluse monks) from India. We took them to Disneyland. I wanted them to experience the world, have some fun. The first ride was ‘splash mount’ roller coaster and that really scared them. They come out and said, “Guruji, all our Vedanta went back to India. We keep saying everything is maya but we were so scared” They accepted it with such innocence. It is easy to say everything is maya when we sit somewhere comfortably. But when we are failing from such height! “My heart was beating so fast. All the scriptures we studied ran away to Bangalore. We were left shaking.” And they were laughing. Body-mind complex can go through all these. They said, “Guruji, it is so scary.” When they saw the next ride, they went off in the other direction. “No no, no more rides, we just want to walk.” We had to convince them that ‘small world’ ride was good.
21) Guru and Self have same vibrations. You innermost and the teacher have the same frequency. That is why you feel comfortable with Guru, because you feel comfortable with your Self. Why do Guru give joy? You self is joy. When you are with the Guru, your mind opens, your ego opens; it can’t stand there fully, unless you try so hard to keep it. Joy wells up. A streak of light shines through, that’s all. That’s the mechanism that is the science behind it.
-Sri Sri Ravishankarji
Founder The Art of Living🌷
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