Strength of Knowledge
“Until the man has ceased from bad conduct, until he has controlled his senses, until his mind is set in meditation, samādhi, until he is free from anxiety about the results of his samādhi, he cannot attain this Self, even through knowledge.” What does this mean? He says the man has knowledge, he calls him, ‘Self-knower’; he calls him ‘one who has experience of Brahman’, Brahma-vijnana, and yet he says these injunctions are necessary; that he has to devote himself to it to get the strength. It cannot be attained even by a knower unless he has strength. Shankara explains that as devotion to this knowledge. This is an injunction – in the Gita it explains this as going to a solitary place and being ever engaged in yoga and dhyana, and engaged in meditation on the Self. These are injunctions and they can’t apply to knowledge.
These things come in many places in Shankara, although some interpreters don’t care for them. In the Upadesha Sahasri he says, “An action which has already begun, in the sense that the karma has begun and is manifest in the body, it can overcome, overpower, the knowledge in you concerning the truth.” What do these things mean? Shankara stresses that knowledge cannot be the subject of a command – we either know a thing or we don’t know it, and yet these commands are given. When the man has knowledge, he may have to devote himself to that knowledge. These commands are no commands. The command, “Stay there” to Sita doesn’t mean that anything is to be done because she is there. So, it’s no true command, and such commands are explained as, although they have the form of commands what they are really saying is “Don’t do anything else”. The devotion to knowledge is not something new, but only says, “Don’t lose [your] knowledge.” The Gita says the senses are powerful, although illusory her mind was pulled by it. The injunction is to stay, and in other places Shankara says these injunctions to sannyasa are no true injunctions, because sannyasa is an inevitable result of knowledge. But that result can be obstructed by the pulls of the senses or by other illusions. The apparent command to devotion to knowledge simply is equivalent to “Stay there”, where he is already. Otherwise illusions, known to be illusions, can still disturb the peace of mind of the knower; and if they do, as he says in the Upadesha Sahasri chapter 3, “If the knower of Brahman finds his mind disturbed then he practises the repetition of knowledge.” He doesn’t say that every knower of Brahman will have to practise repetition of knowledge – that would be completely against Shankara’s doctrine.
You can say, “Well how can it happen. If a man knows a thing he knows it and can’t be disturbed.” But it isn’t so. A man who’s been very poor, who fights his way up; he has a good place in Oxford Street, a big house and several other properties and his businesses make money. But he’s becoming ill with the tremendous effort he’s putting in. His friends say to him, “Well, you have this whole basis now, you’re a wealthy man.” And he says, “Yes, on paper”. They say, “But not just on paper – you actually have these properties, which are going up and up. Why don’t you work part time in your business?” He says, “You don’t know what it was like building that up.” “But you’ve built it up now, this is going well. You could have a manager. You have a big house in the country. The children have got their own.” “Yes, I built that for three thousand, now it must be worth forty or fifty thousand.” “Well, you could sell that, you only need a small place now.” “Yes, but you don’t know what it cost to make that first three thousand.” Now he knows, in a certain sense, that he’s done what he needed to do and more. He wanted to practise music. He went across to New York to see Horowitz play when he came out of retirement. But he can’t free himself from the idea; he said, “It’s been such a struggle”, that he can’t free himself from the feeling that he must go on struggling. This is an example of clear knowledge which is somehow carried away by something that he knows is illusory. His face assumes a sort of anxiety and he can’t realise that his struggles are now in the past.
In these ways, something that is illusory and known to be illusory can disturb the peace of mind of a man in spite of his clear knowledge. This is only a certain kind of man and a certain kind of circumstance. Other people would say, “Right I’ve made it now. Now I’m going to enjoy myself.” They can do it without thinking at all about the past struggles. But under certain circumstances, certain people can’t do that. The illusion continues to hold them and then life can be spent meaninglessly in an illusion and the man doesn’t find an inner satisfaction. He knows, and yet he doesn’t know. In his case, he should leave his business and think and actually realise that he no longer has to do that, and that would be the devotion to knowledge. It will not be anything different from the knowledge that he has, but the knowledge would be clear. Otherwise we spend our time in illusions.
A miser in Japan used to go and eat his bowl of rice next to an eel shop, where they fry eels – it’s a delicious smell. He used to eat the rice. The little boy, the son of the eel merchant, once heard his father say, “That smell – that’s our business, that’s what brings the people in. They’re passing…” So at the end of the year, the little boy and one or two of his friends went round to see the miser and they said, “You’ve been coming around and taking away our business, because daddy says that smell is our business and I see you sitting there taking it away. You’ve got to pay for it, you’ve got to.” They got quite upset about it and he realised there would be a row, so he said, “All right, I’ll pay.” He opened his purse and got out the money and said, “Yes, think of the money.” And the little boy was satisfied. In this way, by trading in illusions you can seem to be satisfied, but actually nothing is gained.
Then I’ll read the verses again.
“Those who strive, being yogis, perceive Him dwelling in the Self; though striving, those of unrefined self, without wisdom, perceive Him not.”
“This Self cannot be known through many words, nor through the intellect, nor through much hearing. It can be known through the Self alone, that one prays to. This Self of that seeker uncovers its true nature to him. One who has not ceased from bad conduct, whose senses are not controlled, whose mind is not set in samadhi, who is not free from anxiety, cannot attain this Self even through knowledge.”
“This Self cannot be known through many words, nor through the intellect, nor through much hearing. It can be known through the Self alone, that one prays to. This Self of that seeker, uncovers its true nature to him. This Self is not attained by one devoid of strength, nor through delusion, nor through knowledge if not associated with sannyasa (renunciation), but the Self of that Self-knower, who strives through these means, enters into the abode of Brahman.”
Titles in this series are:
1. Bhagavad Gita, Katha the Mundaka Upanishads
3. Spiritual energy springs up
The full talk is Seeking the Self
© Trevor Leggett