UNTYING THE KNOTS 

The celebrated American writer Mark Twain known for his keenness of observation, spent time in India towards the end of the nineteenth century. He has described India as “the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grandmother of tradition”. One could be tempted to attribute all of this to the Vedas and all the knowledge streams that flow from them, yet the very Rishis who are said to have “tuned in” to the source and heard the vedas in deep meditative states say, this is all lesser knowledge “higher knowledge is that alone by which the imperishable is known. So when we seek to taste the very essence of Indian culture, we have to dwell upon that ‘imperishable’ which is beyond the word, scripture or any material references.

The ‘Shad’ of Upanishad means “to split up”, “to loosen”.

‘Upa’ means ‘near’.

‘Ni’ means ‘low’ or ‘down’ or ‘under’.

The knots which tie up clarity and confusion, the illusory and the real, the essential and the non-essential, the perishable and the eternal. Upanishad means “seeking to loosen or split up this knot we submit to the lessons of one who has succeeded at doing it”. A simple way of understanding the word ‘Upanishad’ is “near the feet of the teacher”. It simply means the student like Saunaka is one who has in the due course of living his life come to a point where all he cares now is to realise this ‘imperishable’ and so he is single pointed in his desire to untie the knots that come in the way. It is to such a student the teacher says;

“What you seek is beyond all the knowledge you possess, even the Veda will not help you find it”.

This is a great moment of truth for the mature student, Standing at the peak of his achievements, he looks at the Guru and can only feel like what the King felt with Rishi Vasishtha.

“He has that something that I don’t in spite of all my efforts, achievements and study”.

This makes him feel like a small speck of dust in the unfathomable infinite space around him and in the sunlit embrace of the Guru’s gaze, he melts like a sleepy baby in the arms of an elder. This is not a typical retreat of an escapist, it is the surrender of the accomplished to wisdom. It is the meekness of the mighty, the child-like-ness of the ripe and experienced, an innocence of the mature, a vulnerability of the strong. This “pulse of the surrendered heart” has throbbed in the very veins of the Indian civilisation since the dawn of time.

The conversation between Angiras and Saunaka is called ‘Mundakopanishad’ ‘Mundaka’ means “shaved head” indicating the quality of that imperishable, which like a razor shaves off the lush growth of ignorance. Such a seeker was not on the look-out for a domain expert. He looked for one who is the living answer to his questions. It is in one such moment that the mature student hears from the Yogi “Atha Yoganushasanam”, “now the practise of Yoga”, the Upanishads are attached to one of the four Veda and yet the Upanishads themselves say that revered as they might be, the words of even the Veda cannot lead you to the “knowledge of the imperishable”.

As the great teacher in recent times J Krishnamurti has said, “truth is a pathless land”.

Once a scholar was crossing the river on a boat. It was a beautiful cloudy evening and it inspired him to sing a few lines from a scripture that hailed the abundance of nature. The boatman enjoyed the sonorous recitation and was very appreciative. This put the scholar in an expansive mood and he asked if the boatman knew the Ramayan and the Mahabharat. He said “no”, the scholar said half in jest “quarter of your life is waste” feeling delight in his own vast knowledge, “Have you read the darshana the six schools of philosophy”, “no” said the boatman. “oh, then half you life is waste”. The scholar was not really putting the boatman down but just enjoying his own high. The boatman was now concerned as the clouds had turned dark and the river had began to swell. Oblivious of all of this, the scholar in a world of his own continued, “have you read the vedas”. It had started to rain, the winds were getting unruly, the river was now extremely choppy and dangerous. “No sir, but”, “3/4ths of your life is waste” said the scholar holding on to his seat delirious in joy. The boatman interjected desperately “sir do you know how to swim”, the scholar’s trance broke, “why, no I don’t”. For the first time he noticed the storm that was raging. The boatman had by now jumped into the water, “then your whole life is now a waste Sir”.

This is of course an allegory, where the river is the river of life, of intelligence. It is alive and learning how to swim in it is to learn the art of life and not doing so could be disastrous. So the knowledge of the imperishable was not a specialisation, skill or artistry. It wasn’t about an uncommon expertise that only the gifted could aspire to, it was about the very core of every human being and the Guru was not necessarily a Rishi in a forest academy, he could be anywhere, from any walk of life without ever having read the scriptures or even knowing how to read and write. He was just the one who had tasted what Angiras and Vasishtha had tasted and deep down what every human being seeks in every thought, in every desire, in every act, a taste of that beyond.

THE MAKING OF THE STUDENT 

An aspiring Yogi, Kaushika (*6) was reciting the Veda under a tree in a forest. A crow was creating a ruckus on the tree. This broke his trance, he looked at the bird angrily. The bird was burnt to ash. Kaushika was delighted at his powers, “my practice is paying off”. A little later he went to a nearby village to beg for food as per custom, the lady of the house made him wait for a long while as she was feeding her husband who was not keeping well. Once he had finished his meal, she emerged to serve him. Kaushika scolded her saying she had kept a Yogi waiting;

“Don’t waste your anger on me, I am not like the helpless crow” her response stunned Kaushika.

“How did she know”.

Humbled, Kaushika begged to be forgiven and pleaded, could he be her student. She referred him to a teacher in the city of Mithila, in present day Nepal. He follows her directions only to find that to his utter disgust that his teacher to be, Dharmavyadha, was not a scholar or a teacher surrounded by students chanting holy scripture but a man who earned his daily bread by cutting and selling meat. Dharnavyaadah greeted him saying;

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“I am a butcher but I don’t kill helpless birds out of anger”.

First the housewife, now this butcher knew all that was going on with him. Kaushika couldn’t have felt any smaller but more tests awaited him. Dharmavyadha made him wait for a whole day. Kaushika got to see his typical day, he had incredible skill in the way he sorted the meat. Looking at him at work, far from repulsion, the meat abhorring Kaushika felt a certain joy at the artistry. In the way he moved, the way he handled the deadly edge of the cleaver which always landed precisely where it was intended. Millimetres away from his fingers, it was awe inspiring. Dharmavyadha knew his customers by name. The customers liked to spend time at his shop and he always enquired about their well-being and Kaushika noticed he always gave a little extra meat and each customer went back happy, not for the extra but for the time they got to spend with him. Apart from his work, all he did was care for his ageing parents, bathed them, massaged their limbs, fed them with his hands. His day ended with feeding the leftovers to dogs, tens of whom all eagerly waited for the appointed time he would emerge with the goodies and he usually cooked enough to feed a whole bunch of the needy people who hung around his shop at meal time and he saved no grain or money for the next day. By the end of the day, Kaushika was a different man his anger, his temper, his pride were all chopped as if Kaushika’s deft strokes with the sharp knife did not just land on the meat and fat on his cutting block but also on all the flatulence that covered the light of Kaushika’s very soul, Leaner, sharper, clearer by the end of the day all there was in Kaushika was the eager, mature student ready for some real lessons.