Isha Upanishad: An Elegant Reconciliation of Apparent Opposites
The essence of Indian spirituality is contained in just the eighteen verses of the Isha Upanishad. This Upanishad forms the conclusive chapter of the Vajasaneyi or the Yajnavalkya Samhita of the Shukla Yajurveda because, unlike the Krishna Yajurveda, this Samhita is devoid of the commentaries of Brahmanas. Though called an Upanishad, it is Vedic in its origin, essence and flavour. The verses comprising it are not mere poetic creations of the logical mind, but intuitive revelations of the Seers through seeing, drishti, and hearing, shruti, rendered by them as perfectly inspired poetry — the Word. It is called the Isha Upanishad because it begins with the word “Isha”, meaning “by the Lord.” The first verse, introducing the Lord and His world, and the last verse, invoking the Divine Will, Agni, in an attitude of utter submission and surrender to lead us by the straight path to the Lord, complete the purpose of the creation and the eternal seeking and aspiration of human life, and the culmination of this aspiration in the experience of Oneness with the Lord in His love, light and delight.
The first verse says,
“All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man’s possession, ‘kasya svid dhanam.’” (Isha Up pp 5) The other way of interpreting the phrase “kasya svid dhanam” is, “whose is all this wealth anyway?” meaning all this is the Lord’s and who are we in our highest state of being? The Lord himself. So do not lust after things, for they are yours anyway, but you as Ish and not as Anish; when you have risen and grown to the stature of the Lord, you are in possession of the world and all that is in it automatically.
There are several important concepts here: Lord, world, moving, renunciation, enjoyment and possession. Some of these concepts are apparently contradictory, for instance, the Lord and the world, renunciation and enjoyment or possession. In fact, these are some of the contradictory concepts, which the Isha synthesises seamlessly and beautifully into a complete whole, in the true and vast spirit of Hinduism. Let us see how:
The Lord and the World/ Nature: The Lord is that which is free, eternal, infinite and conscious, while the world or nature is limited, temporal, finite and phenomenal. How and where can the two meet? In a stroke of genius, the Seer provides the answer to this question right at the beginning of the Upanishad; all here in the world is for habitation by the Lord. The word “vasyam” has two meanings, to live in and to be worn as a garment, to envelop, and both are applicable here; all this is to be worn by the Lord, has to be enveloped by Him and at the same time has to be dwelt in by the Lord. All that our senses perceive as the world has to be suffused by the Lord inside and outside. It means that all that we see, trees, mountains, animals, other men and women, stars, suns, etcetera, are not just the Lord but are exceeded by Him as He envelops them. Just as the robe envelops the wearer, the Lord envelops the world and is hence greater than his universe. The universe is not Him but enveloped by Him. Isha goes a step further and clarifies that the world is not only that which is perceived by our limited senses, but “yatkincha jagatyam jagat”, anything and everything that is moving in this moving universe. Jagati is “that which moves” and it is the feminine gender, corresponding to the great female material energy of the Lord.
How can the Lord envelop everything? How can something that is finite and temporal connect with that which is infinite and eternal? And why should it? This is answered by the eighth verse, which while explaining about the Lord says that, “He who has gone abroad,” meaning He is both in the universe and envelops the universe because it is He manifested as the universe in the relativity and multiplicity of events and phenomena. “Lord is subjectively the Self and all in the world is the becoming of this Self in the movement, jagati”. The aspect of the Lord that is being spoken of here is not the Parabrahman, the transcendental, which though realisable is inexplicable or unknowable but the Lord of the manifested universe.
Renunciation and Enjoyment: How can one renounce and enjoy at the same time? In fact, the only way of enjoying is by renouncing, says the Isha. Desire-motivated action brings only unhappiness and suffering. When human desire is unfulfilled, there is suffering arising from the lack of possession. Till this desire is fulfilled, happiness and contentment is a far cry from the existing state of lack. But what happens when it is fulfilled? Does it bring happiness? No, there is still suffering, because now there comes the perpetual fear of losing what has been gained or possessed. So we endlessly keep pursuing the chimera of happiness and to no avail. The only way of possessing and enjoying is through renunciation and detachment because only then shall we be happy, in both the conditions of want and of plenty. By renouncing desire arising out of the separative consciousness and growing in oneness into the stature of the Lord, we can therefore automatically be in full possession of the world and enjoy it.
The second verse introduces and synthesises the irreconcilable concepts of Works and freedom from Action.
It says, “Doing verily works in the world one must wish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this, action cleaves not to man.” (Isha Up pp 5) The popular Indian concept of karma holds that as long as man is engaged in action, he is never free and can never be liberated, as he has to constantly bear the consequences of his actions. Therefore, it is advised that for nirvana or moksha or liberation one has to abstain from action. This myth is demolished in this verse. Isha says that not only should man carry out work in the world, but while working he should also wish or aspire to live a hundred years. The number “hundred” here is symbolic of the full cycle of life, and the word “wish” is used to answer two questions: The first is that when one has renounced everything and there is no desire motivating one’s action, then why should one be impelled to work? Secondly, when one is absorbed in the Divine fully and lives in the beatitude of the beyond, why should one deign to carry out the burden of the works on this earth, ridden with unhappiness, suffering and struggle? The Isha advises us that when we work overcoming desire and attachment, (first verse), it liberates us as well as others we engage with. The only way to be liberated from action is not by inaction, but by and through action; that action, which is free from desire and attachment. To act and work not impelled by personal desire but because one is moved by the Divine Will. And even when one has merged into the divine beatitude, one must wish to and continue to work in the world because it is only through this action free from desire and carried out in accordance with the Divine Will that one is truly liberated and therefore, “action does not cleave to man.” The entire “Yoga of Works” of the Gita is summarised in this brief verse.
The verses nine through fourteen discuss the concepts of realising the consciousness of immortality through the apparently contradictory methods of Knowledge and Ignorance, and Birth and Non-Birth. Let us look at the two concepts one by one:
Vidya and Avidya, or Knowledge and Ignorance: Isha says, “they who follow after Ignorance enter darkness, but into a greater darkness they enter who devote themselves to Knowledge alone. He who knows That as both in One, The Knowledge and the Ignorance, by the Ignorance crosses beyond death and by Knowledge enjoys immortality.” (Isha Up pp 8) Here we are dealing with the two seemingly opposite paths of Vidya or Knowledge, and Avidya or Ignorance. How can we reconcile the two? According to Isha, Vidya or Knowledge is the consciousness of unity, of the One, of that which is beyond time and space, of the Brahman; and Avidya or ignorance is the consciousness of multiplicity, the knowledge of the many, of that which exists in time and space, Maya. Those who spend their lives following ignorance, which means those who are devoted to the principle of multiplicity and division and turn away from oneness, live their lives in a disintegrated fashion subject to the mechanical necessities of the separative consciousness and hence turn away from the light into the darkness. But they who devote their lives exclusively to the principles of knowledge and oneness deny multiplicity and integrality and lose themselves in some void, which is a greater darkness. Because from the darkness of ignorance, which is fragmented and chaotic, it is still possible to attain the oneness of light, but from the void or Asat or non-being, the fulfilment of the self in manifestation is more difficult and nearly impossible. The perfect way, says the Isha, is to embrace Vidya and Avidya, knowledge and ignorance, unity and multiplicity, the One and the many because they are both present in the manifestation and are essential for the fulfilment of the Brahman in the universe. So the Indian thought is that though it is important to have the knowledge and experience of the Brahman, Vidya, it is equally important to have the knowledge of all that has been created by the Brahman, Avidya. Education has to simultaneously proceed on a two-fold path — perfecting of Avidya, with the perception of Vidya, i.e. mastering the world with the awareness of the One inhabiting it in various forms; honing the talents in science, music, art, literature, etcetera, while also growing in the inner perception of the One Divine within and without everything.
Birth and Non-Birth: According to Isha, “they who follow after Non-Birth enter darkness, but into a greater darkness they enter who devote themselves to Birth alone. He who knows That as both in One, the Birth and the dissolution of Birth, by the dissolution crosses beyond death and by Birth enjoys immortality.” (Isha Up pp 8) Birth and Non-Birth are the two states corresponding to the two states of being of the soul; Birth is the soul in nature, involved in the movement of Prakriti, and non-birth is the liberated soul, free from nature, the witness consciousness. The soul out of nature is already eternal and immutable, in the state of Being, but the soul in nature is in the state of Becoming, of changing its forms and states of consciousness. “We begin from the troubled state of Birth, which is the life in this body and this world, and reach the state of liberation called Non-Birth.” Birth is the life led with ego as the reference point, and Non-Birth is the state of the dissolution of this ego. But for immortality in Birth, says the Isha, both these states of Birth and Non-Birth are mandatory. At its best, the pursuit of Non-Birth may lead to the realisation of the silent Brahman, but its danger is that it may lead one to the state of nihilism or void, which is a state of darkness. On the other hand, while it is possible that those who pursue Birth, which is the expansion of the ego, may by their very self-enlargement stumble upon a truer and fuller life, but the danger here is that they may also continue forever in the cycle of birth and death due to their contentment with this lower state of egoism and blindness. But neither of the above followed exclusively is the proper way. We are neither to escape from birth into some pure non-becoming nor are we to stay forever in the cycle of birth and death. The perfect path, says the Isha, is a combination of the pursuit of Birth and Non-Birth. It is in this very Birth and not outside it that we have to attain immortality, because outside it the soul is already eternally free. Through Non-Birth, which is the dissolution of the ego and the detachment from Birth, the soul crosses beyond death; it is liberated. Having thus attained this liberation, “it accepts Becoming as a process of Nature subject to the soul and not binding upon it and by this free and Divine Becoming enjoy Immortality”. (Isha Up pp 23) Sri Aurobindo says that His yoga begins where those of others end. Other yogas end with after moksha and nirvana, but Sri Aurobindo’s yoga begins when the soul, thus liberated into Non-Birth, takes up the outer nature for transformation in birth.
One and the Many: In the verses five through seven, the Isha introduces the important concept of the simultaneous Oneness and Multiplicity of the Supreme and of the condition of self-realisation being the perception and the experience of the oneness in the many-ness. This is another contradiction, which the Isha resolves elegantly. Says Sri Aurobindo, “The Brahman is One, not numerically but in essence. Numerical oneness would either exclude multiplicity or would be a pluralistic and divisible oneness, with the Many as its parts. That is not the unity of the Brahman, which can neither be diminished nor increased, nor divided. Unity is the eternal truth of things, diversity a play of the unity. If the One is pre-eminently real, “the other”, the Many are not unreal. Diversity is not false except when it is divorced from the sense of its true and eternal unity.” (Isha Up, pp 23)
Self-realisation is the understanding and experiencing of the oneness everywhere. When the seeker begins to see the Lord in and surrounding all things — trees, mountains, creatures, and human beings — he sees them as images and manifestations of the same divine reality. This is the truth behind idol worship. It is not the stone that is worshipped, but initially the awareness and finally the experience of the presence of that divine reality in and around the stone. Isha says that only this perception of oneness in the many can lead us to self-realisation. This proceeds through several steps. Initially, it is the experience of empathy, goodwill, compassion and fellow feeling for all. But, says Sri Aurobindo, “the oneness so realised is a pluralistic unity, the drawing together of similar units resulting in a collectivity, or solidarity rather than in real oneness. The Many remain to the consciousness as the real existences; the One is only their result. The real knowledge begins with the perception of essential oneness, — one Matter, one Life, one Mind, one Soul playing in many forms.”
In order to accomplish this self-realisation, we need the help of Surya and Agni — the Vedic godheads; Surya representing Truth, Knowledge or the Divine Light and Agni representing Force, Power or the Divine Will. The conditions of immortality are the emergence of this Light and Will, and the condition of the emergence of this Light and Will is life, called Matarishwan in the Isha Upanishad. It is only this life principle that can bring down the Agni from the realm of the Surya. The meaning of this Vedic symbolism is that it is only in mortal life that one can, by invoking the Divine Will, bring down the Supramental Truth and enjoy immortality. So life is not a field of death, sorrow and suffering, but an opportunity to establish the condition of immortality. And the two ingredients of immortality are Truth and Will, or Knowledge and Action, which is the final contradiction that Isha reconciles.
Knowledge and Action: It is commonly seen in life that men of action are not men of knowledge and vice versa. In the lower hemisphere of Mind and Life or Knowledge and Action, the two aspects of the Supreme Being, which are one in the higher hemisphere of Sachchidananda, separate into irreconcilable, limited, partial knowledge and ineffective, individual will. Knowledge becomes a “partial ray not in possession of the will, the act and the result” and the will becomes “an impulsion ignorant of its secret motive and aim.” These two have to be united in one “seeing and doing” in order to create the right conditions of immortality. Action has to be enlightened by Knowledge and Knowledge has to be applied to Action simultaneously. This is possible only when, by overcoming desire as the prime mover of our life and replacing it by the Will of the Divine, we have grown out of the ego into our true self, the Truth Consciousness, in which action and knowledge are one movement.
So Isha contains the essence of Indian spirituality wherein a divine life on earth is envisaged through the reconciliation of apparent opposites which otherwise leave us bewildered. Sri Aurobindo says that “Isha Upanishad is the gospel of a divine life in the world and a statement of the conditions under which it is possible and the spirit of its living.” This is Indian spirituality in its essence.
- Gitanjali J B, Sep 2010
