Katha Upanishad and the Deathless Self

This talk explores the theme of the Deathless Self in the Katha Upanishad. Other themes explored and discussed are the role of paradox in the Upanishads and time as impermanence. The talk is part 1 of a larger discussion on the Katha Upanishad.

Transcript

This talk will be on the topic of the Katha Upanishad and the Deathless Self.

This talk is based upon a paper I wrote while studying East-West psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies based in San Francisco,

California.

This talk will be broken into two parts.

The first part will be a discussion around the role of paradox found in the Upanishads,

As well as a discussion around time as impermanence.

The second part will be a discussion around the two paths,

The good and the pleasant,

As well as the parable of the chariot.

The Upanishads are replete with paradox.

One might say there is no greater paradoxical statement than the self is never born,

Nor does the self ever die.

The aim of this talk is to help really show the spiritual aspirant how the Katha Upanishad can help them in realizing the Deathless Self within,

Therefore helping one remove themselves from samsara,

Which can also be seen as liberation from suffering.

The role of paradox requires that the aspirant transcend the intellect or rational mind.

From the perspective of the intellect or the rational mind,

One experience of the of the impermanence of time causes suffering for an individual.

Therefore the two paths,

The good,

Shreya,

And the pleasant,

Preya,

That death teaches in the Katha Upanishad,

Provides the aspirant a path of discrimination in order to realize the one and only thing that is permanent,

The Deathless Self.

It is in choosing the good that one renounces the pleasant,

And therefore the renunciation path is the path of self-realization.

And the parable of the chariot illustrates how the aspirant is able to realize the Deathless Self through a practical and methodical manner.

Paradox and the Upanishads.

Paradox is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a statement or tenant contrary to received opinion or belief,

Especially one that is difficult to believe.

In her doctoral thesis from the California Institute of Integral Studies,

Heather Thompson writes about the use of paradox in the Upanishads,

Where she states,

Paradox deals with apparent contradictions within the conceptual framework,

Merely hinting at what there is behind phenomena.

Through two contradictory statements juxtaposed cleverly,

Man and woman is encouraged to plunge deeply into the conceptual process and discover its transcendental ground that sustains it.

Paradox seeks to push the aspirant beyond the intellectual alternatives.

The Upanishads teach that one simply cannot experience Brahman,

Or what Sri Aurobindo would call integral consciousness through the rational mind.

Therefore,

The role of paradox in the Upanishads requires that a person contemplate what the mind cannot comprehend,

Eventually leading the individual to shift to a space beyond intellect,

Which can be considered a meditative state.

It seems that paradox helps the aspirant transcend the apparent realm to the transcendent realm,

Or what Sri Aurobindo refers to as the geocentric and heliocentric realms.

In Indian philosophical tradition,

There is a distinction between apparent reality and ultimate reality.

Apparent reality is the geocentric realm,

Where things are subject to change.

Therefore,

The death of self would be considered ultimately real because it isn't subject to change.

Kerr-Whitfield articulates this point in her article Advaita Vedanta,

The Self,

Where she states,

According to Vedanta,

In order for something to be real,

That is,

To be truly existent in its own right,

It cannot be subject to change.

If a given thing is subject to change,

Then it is bordered by non-existence on either side of its change.

If something comes from non-existence and goes back into non-existence,

We cannot say that it really exists during the interim period of its appearance.

Rather,

It must enjoy an apparent reality,

Being dependent upon something else for its existence,

Which survives its modifications.

" Thoughts and emotions come and go.

Thus,

We can see thoughts and emotions are only apparently real from this perspective.

They are not based in ultimate reality,

Which is to say they are only real on a surface level.

But not a deeper,

More fundamental level of existence.

Therefore,

One must transcend the mind and intellect if one is aspiring to realize the deafness self within.

Paradox,

As we have seen,

Confounds the intellect.

The human being using intellect to think about a paradox will only produce more thoughts.

Paradox is a Upanishadic tool or device.

In a sense,

It helps cultivate a space for deeper contemplation and ultimately a meditative state to experience the deathless self.

The impermanence of time and the deathless self.

How one experiences time causes suffering.

More specifically,

It is how one experiences the impermanence of time.

The experience of time is a fleeting entity.

This impermanence makes an individual feel the need to try to grasp or hold on to a specific moment in time.

In his video on the topic of the Ishi Upanishad,

Debashis Bhanerjee discusses this topic of the impermanence of time and how it relates to suffering.

He states,

The other root of suffering is time.

It is the fact that nothing remains.

If I try to hold on to something,

It will go away.

I myself will not remain.

And I experience that from day to day.

In fact,

Our experience of time always is bounded by events that come and go.

The day itself starts in a certain way with morning and ends in a certain way with night.

There are seasons,

And all around us things are born and die.

And at the same time,

We experience life as expectations,

Happenings that seem to be bound in time,

That when we look back,

We have these memories of various things that occupied a certain amount of time.

And each of these experiences in time also have a shade of unhappiness or sorrow to it,

However happy it is because it passed away.

Now,

If it is an unhappy experience,

Perhaps we might think that it passed away,

It should make us happy.

Well,

It does from the viewpoint of relief.

But somewhere we are unhappy of the fact of impermanence and transience.

It is a chronic kind of suffering.

" Thus,

Time itself is a form of suffering due to the experience of impermanence and transience.

The experience of time constantly moving and moments and times always coming and going is a form of suffering for humans.

This suffering is due to our surface level perception of time.

If time is constantly changing,

And if we experience our physical bodies changing through time as we age,

Then both time and our physical bodies are only apparently real.

Contemplation on the deathless self can help one distinguish between apparent reality and ultimate reality,

Helping the aspirant to shift their consciousness.

In doing so,

One is able to enter a space that is conducive to realizing ultimate reality,

Which is considered the deathless self.

By realizing the deathless self,

One is able to go beyond time and space.

If one is able to live from this realization,

Then the aspirant can still experience the apparent reality of time,

That is,

The time that is impermanent,

While at the same time realizing a deeper,

More fundamental level of time,

The eternal and deathless self.

A significant component in achieving this ability is the dissolving of one's attachments.

Death in the Katha Upanishad is teaching the aspirant that it is necessary to go beyond the senses if one is serious about realizing the deathless self.

For instance,

In chapter 2,

Section 2,

It states,

The small-minded go after outward pleasures.

They walk into the snare of the widespread death.

The wise,

However,

Recognizing life eternal,

Do not seek the stable among the things which are unstable here.

Thus,

The desire for the pleasant and outward objects are what trap the ignorant in death,

Whereas the wise are able to realize that it is pointless to seek the eternal among the impermanent.

Hence,

There are two paths in which the aspirant must constantly choose,

The good and the pleasant.