Commentary on the Kathopanishad

by Swami Krishnananda

Discourse 2: The First Two Boons

We observed that the boy Nachiketas stood there at the gates of the palace of Yama for three days and nights without taking any food, and without even drinking water. The great Master speaks to Nachiketas: “Prostrations to you, O holy lad. As a recompense, as an expiation for all the mistakes that may be involved in not treating you properly, I offer you three boons.”

Nachiketas now speaks what he would like to have from Yama, the great Master: the first boon, the second boon, and the third boon. In asking, the boy is very logical. The easiest thing, which can be granted at once, he asks for initially. A more difficult thing he asks for as the second boon. The most difficult thing, surpassing the earlier two, he keeps for the last. Perhaps if he had mentioned the last at the beginning itself, it would not have succeeded, and it would have actually defeated the very purpose of the granting of the boons. Wise was this boy, very intelligent, and he knew what he was asking. So what did he say? The first boon is here in this verse.

Śānta-saṁkalpaḥ sumanā yathā syād vīta-manyur gautamo mābhi mṛtyo, tvat-prasṛṣṭam mābhivadet pratīta, etat trayāṇām prathamaṁ varaṁ vṛṇe (1.1.10): “When I return, freed from you, O Lord, to the world where my father lives, may he receive me with a calm and composed mind, free from the anger with which he sent me to you. When you release me from this place, let him recognise me and speak to me cordially, lovingly and affectionately. Of the three boons that you have been good enough to grant me, this is the first one. Please be good enough to give it to me,” says Nachiketas.

This is a single verse whose literal meaning is obvious and clear, and we know what is actually meant. It has a spiritual import. Actually, the Kathopanishad is a textbook for the highest kind of spiritual instruction, a mystical text even, and it has an outer meaning as well as an inner one. Nachiketas, who faced death, could not have been an ordinary person, as facing death is the last thing that anyone can do. Death is said to be the greatest instructor and educator of people. One who has faced it will, to a large extent, know the secret of life, because death is the secret that is hidden from our vision throughout our earthly sojourn. We live in this world minus the consciousness of death. We do not even imagine that such a thing exists in this world. What exists is a conglomeration of sense objects which are expected to give us physical satisfaction, and we consider that life is coeternal and coeval with the joys of life, not for a moment thinking about the possibility of our having to face a thing called death. Nobody thinks of it at any time in the day, though that is what rules the world. It is often said that what we call life in this world is only a camouflage which death has put on. It is an incessant dying that we are experiencing in this world, which we mistake for actual continuous life.

Little pieces of pictures totally different from one another give the impression, illusorily, of a motion picture, with people walking about, speaking, singing and dancing. It is an illusory presentation presented to our senses, which cannot catch up to the speed of the movement of the pictures. If the power of the eyes can be adjusted to the speed of the motion picture, we will see each picture moving separately. Inasmuch as our visual capacity is inferior to the velocity of the movement of the pictures in a cinema, we mistake the isolated bits for a continuous stream of motion.

In a similar manner, the ruling principle in this world is fluxation, which is the very structure of everything. Everything moves; everything is heading towards something else every moment of time. Nothing is; everything is becoming. If this is the law of life and this is what is actually happening in the world, death is actually what we call life, and our knowledge is nothing but a shadow of ignorance. One who has faced death, one who has actually encountered it, understood it and learnt a lesson from it, would not anymore be a human being. He would be a super-person, a superman.

When that person returns to the world, he would be received in a different manner altogether. The reception given by the world to a person who knows the world is like the reception given by a thief to a person who knows that he is a thief. If we mistake the person for somebody other than a dacoit, he will be treated differently. The world treats us as subjects, as servants, as it were, under the clutches of it being impossible to understand how the world is working. But a superman, or a Godman, is one who has insight into the very structure of things. We may call him a jivanmukta purusha if we like, in traditional language.

When we take a bath in the sea of death and come out drenched with it, we view things with a new perspective altogether that has been given to us by the bath of death. We will not be confined to the limitations of the world if we overcome death. When a person who has overcome the tribulations caused by the death principle visualises the world, the world shall receive that person quite differently from the manner in which it receives most of us ignorant persons. It will not anymore be a terrifying phantasm before us. The world will not anymore be a controlling power over us. We shall have no fear from anything in this world, because knowledge is also power. Knowledge of the world gives us power over the world.

At present we are ignorant people. We have no knowledge of things. Neither do we know how we are related to this world, nor do we know what the world is made of, what its internal constituents are. We are helplessly dragged by the whims and fancies of nature, we may say, or even granting they are not whims and fancies, by the laws of nature, of which we are totally ignorant. The days and the nights and the seasons, the heat and the cold and the rain and the drought, and the concomitant difficulties that arise from these events over which we have absolutely no control, make us subjects in this world. We are no more masters of the world, because these problems are the outcome of our not being able to understand how we stand in the context of this world.

When we return to this world after having faced death, it means to say, having plunged very deeply into the constituent death-like features of the world, it shall no more be a fearsome ogre before us. Calm and quiet will be the world before us. It will not be a terrifying medium of material presentations, as it is to us now. We will not be a servant of the world anymore; it shall be our servant. It shall not anymore be an object of our senses; it shall be our friend. Control over things follows from the inner knowledge of the constituents of the objects. Wherever there is insight, there is also strength over the things of which we have an insight.

So spiritually construed, this particular mantra, or verse, is also a hint into the manner in which a great genius, a spiritual stalwart in insight, lives in this world, and how the world reacts in respect of that person. The world is not anymore a snare to that person. All things will be smiling before us. They will not frown at us, as they are doing now. The things in the world will be our friends. The so-called inert matter of this earth stuff will assume an intelligence which will speak to us in the language of friendship and conformity, rather than difference and dissidence.

A superman's return to the world is an inner significance of this verse, a secret meaning that is hidden here, while the outer meaning is just the literal dictionary meaning which I read out just now: “When I go back, may my father greet me with affection.” This world is our father; may it greet us with affection. May it not tantalise us, may it not subject us to its drama-creating activities. May it not subject us to death. We shall not be subject to death anymore, because we shall have the vision of death much before we return to the world. This is the meaning of Nachiketas having confronted death and wanting to come back to the world unscathed and unaffected by the turmoil characterising the world. This is an inner, secret, mystical meaning which may be read into this verse, apart from the exoteric meaning which is obvious to everybody.

Yathā purastād bhavitā pratīta auddālakir āruṇir matprasṛṣṭaḥ, sukhaṁ rātrīś śayitā vītamanyus tvāṁ dadṛśivān mṛtyumukhāt pramuktam (1.1.11). Yama gives a reply to this request of the boy Nachiketas. “Granted. As your father was loving and affectionate towards you before you came here to me, so will he be loving and affectionate to you even when you go back after having been released by me. In the same way as he was, so shall he be in the future also. After having seen you come back from my realm, his anger will totally vanish. He shall be happy to see you.”

This is another verse which has a similar internal meaning as the earlier one, complementary to the internal meaning attached to the earlier verse, signifying that the principle of death will free us from its clutches provided that we transcend the limitations of the human personality and become supermen.

We have supermen in this world. Bhagavan Sri Krishna was a superman. The Avataras of Vishnu are all symbols of supermen. The Incarnations and the Avataras that we speak of in the religions of the world are supermen. They could walk on this earth and also keep their heads high in the heavens. They think through the heavens but walk with their feet on the earth; such are supermen. That is, they have a direct contact with the two worlds at the same time, the deathless and the death-ridden, whereas people who are ordinary men, not supermen, have no consciousness of a heavenly existence and do not think like heavenly beings. They think like mortals, and their thoughts are overcome by anxieties, vexations and constant distractions, giving no peace in this world even for a moment.

No human being can have real happiness in this world because we are involved in a fluxation of the movements of nature, the world as a whole, and like a straw that is being driven by the flood of a river without any control over itself, we seem to be moving in this world of nature which is helplessly driving us as a shepherd is driving sheep. Such a predicament will no longer be ours if we overcome the defects of human nature by freeing ourselves from passion, greed, anger, and desires of every kind, and cleanse our personality with the knowledge of there being such a connection between the mortal and the immortal. That is to say, we shall be able to live in the world as gods verily walking on earth. Then the world shall not be anymore an inimical presentation before us. It shall be friendly, affectionate, loving.

So the great Lord says, “Go back, and you shall have no problems anymore.” This much is briefly the import of the first boon. Great is the consequence of even this first boon. To be a superman is not an ordinary achievement, but there is something more than being a superman. There are greater secrets than the secrets mentioned already. What are they?

“May I ask you, great Master, another thing which is a different boon altogether, far superior to the one which you were good enough to grant to me? I shall spell out the second boon. Please condescend to grant it to me,” asks Nachiketas. This is something more difficult, deeper, wider and grander than the earlier one.

Svarge loke na bhayaṁ kiṁ ca nāsti na tatra tvaṁ na jarayā bibheti. ubhe tīrtvā aśanāyā pipāse śokātigo modate svarga-loke; sa tvam agniṁ svargyam adhyeṣi mṛtyo, prabrūhi taṁ śraddadānāya mahyam, svarga-lokā amṛtatvam bhajanta, etad dvitīyena vṛṇe vareṇa (1.1.12-13): Nachiketas speaks. “I have heard, O Master, that there is a heavenly world of deathless beings. Na tatra tvaṁ: You are not there. It means that death is not there. And no one there is afraid of old age. The gods in heaven are said to be free from old age and death. There is birth, childhood and youth. There are only three conditions of life there—birth, childhood and youth—but no decay, no old age, no death. I have heard that such a realm exists. There is no fear in that kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is free from fear of every kind; this is what I have heard. Hunger and thirst do not torment people there. They are not actually people; they are called angels, gods. Freed from every kind of grief, the denizens of heaven enjoy life perpetually. What is this heaven? Where does it exist? What is its dimension, and what is the reason for the denizens, the citizens, the occupants of that region to be so happy, free from the sorrow of old age and death? Please instruct me in the knowledge of that particular sacrifice, the fire sacrifice, by the performance of which I shall be able to attain to that heaven where glory is the heritage of everyone. No sorrow of any kind will be there. Please instruct me into this vidya, the secret knowledge of a great unknown sacrifice, because it is difficult to imagine what kind of sacrifice it could be which can transform a mortal into a deathless being in the heavenly world. It is not known to people because had it been known to everybody, all would have performed that sacrifice. The world would have been depopulated and there would be overpopulation in the kingdom of heaven. That does not take place because no one in the world knows what it is.”

Now, when we read this, we should not be under the impression that we will get this knowledge merely by reading these two verses. The writer of the Upanishad has been careful to tell us that such a knowledge was granted to Nachiketas without telling us what that knowledge is.

“So great Master, you know this great vidya, this art, this science of this sacrifice. I am full of faith. I eagerly seek this knowledge. Please tell it to me, because one who attains to that heavenly world enjoys deathlessness. May I also be blessed with that boon. This is the second boon. Will you kindly give it to me?” asks Nachiketas.

Pra te bravīmi tad u me nibodha svargyam agniṁ naciketaḥ prajānan, anantalokāptim atho pratiṣṭhāṁ viddhi, tvam etaṁ nihitaṁ guhāyām (1.1.14): The great Master speaks, “I shall gladly give it to you. Take it. My dear boy, listen carefully to what I am saying. This heavenly universal fire is now the object of your quest, and I know what it is. I shall grant this boon to you in the form of instruction in this knowledge. What happens if you gain this knowledge? Do you know? Endless will be the suzerainty that you will gain. Power unlimited will be in your possession, and you will be established in the very root of the world—pratistha.”

Actually, according to the commentaries, this pratistha, or the root of the world, is the Virat, or the Vaishvanara-tattva, which is also known as the Vaishvanara-agni, details of which meditation are described in the Fifth Chapter of the Chhandogya Upanishad. This great root of the world, the knowledge of which will make one endowed with immense power and endless suzerainty, is not just spread out outside. It is also in the deepest recesses of one's heart.

The secret of this wisdom is indirectly revealed, though not clearly and publicly, when it is told to us that this universal root of the world is also in the heart of every person. The secret lies here, that the attainment of this universal suzerainty is tantamount to acquiring control over one's own self because it is the essence of our own being, while it is also the essence of the whole world outside. How would we envisage it? The difficulty is in the method of adjusting our mind, or consciousness, for the purpose of this great meditation.

As I mentioned, the Chhandogya Upanishad goes into great detail in regard to this subject. Some learned people, six in number, went to Ashvapati, a great Master, who was the king of that country. They were all already well learned, in a way they were brahmasrotriyas, but they had great difficulties. They had doubts in their minds as to what this universal Atman is. How would we think the universal Atman in the mind? When we use the word 'universal', we imply that it is as large as the whole of creation, or even larger than that. This means to say that is very, very far from us, unimaginably remote. But at the same time, it is said that this unimaginably distant so-called something, dimensionless infinity, we may say, is inside us. This is a startling feature of this instruction. “If you say it is within me, I understand something is inside me. Or if you say it is everywhere, I also understand that. But if you bring these two features together, I cannot understand.” So these great men had to go to Master Ashvapati, and he gave them the secret of this meditation. Yama, the Master who teaches Nachiketas here in this Upanishad, mentions once again that the root of the world—which is the cause of unlimited rulership of the whole world, of the cosmos—this root is within us.

Lokādim agniṁ tam uvāca tasmai, yā iṣṭakā, yāvatīr vā, yathā vā. sa cāpi tat pratyavadat yathoktam; athāsya mṛtyuḥ punar evāha tuṣṭaḥ (1.1.15). Now, having uttered these words, the great Master initiates the boy into the secret of this sacrifice. The origin of the universe, which is the supreme Vaishvanara fire, is told to Nachiketas. Lokādim agniṁ tam uvāca tasmai: The origin of all things, which is the fire of the sacrifice, is clearly told: how many bricks are to be there in the altar of this sacrifice, what types of bricks are to be used for this altar, and how one is to commence the actual oblations in the sacrifice. Yā iṣṭakā, yāvatīr vā, yathā vā: How, what kind, and how many—all these things were mentioned.

Actually, it will be very clear that these bricks cannot be made of earth. Though symbolically the word 'brick' is used here for the construction of the altar in the sacrifice, it cannot be a material brick because of the fact that the sacrifice, which is the subject of this verse, does not seem to be a material offering. The object of attainment is non-material because it is everywhere, and inside us also. These bricks are nothing but certain patterns of thinking. They are modes of thought, adjustments of consciousness, and processes of conditioning oneself. These are the bricks, and a tremendous type of initiation is necessary for this. To conceive a universal that is inside us, our consciousness has to be adjusted in such a way that is ordinarily a total impossibility. So these bricks are not material substances weighing some kilograms; they are bricks of consciousness.

When this instruction was given, every word was repeated by Nachiketas. “Do this, do this, this way, this way,” Lord Yama said; and Nachiketas repeated it: “Yes, yes, yes. I understand, I understand, I understand.” Sa cāpi tat pratyavadat yathoktam: As was told, so was repeated word for word by Nachiketas. Great thing! A tremendously earthshaking knowledge is described here very, very briefly—so briefly, so secretly that the ordinary, shackled mind cannot make any sense of this. Great purification is necessary even to grasp the import of what this vidya is. Nachiketas understood it, practised it, and conquered death. This is the Upanishad for conquering death.

Tam abravīt prīyamāṇo mahātmā varaṁ tavehādya dadāmi bhūyaḥ. tavaiva nāmnā bhavitāyam agniḥ, sṛṅkāṁ cemām aneka-rūpāṁ gṛhāṇa (1.1.16): Having been pleased with the way in which Nachiketas received this vidya, Yama speaks. “I shall bless you with another boon which is not one of the three—a fourth one, as it were. In future this vidya will be called Nachiketas vidya. That is, your name will be immortalised from this day onwards.” As we dedicate a building in the name of some great personage or call a road by somebody's name, etc., this vidya specially granted by Yama to Nachiketas was hereafter known as Nachiketas vidya, or Nachiketas agnividya. Tavaiva nāmnā bhavitāyam agniḥ: “This vidya will be known by your name in future, and I shall give you a garland full of colourful constituents.”

What is this garland? The Upanishad does not tell us what the garland is made of. It cannot be a flower garland. It also may not be a garland of jewels. It is a secret, mystical garland. Here the commentators come to our aid when they say that this garland of many hues, contours and colours mentioned in this verse is actually the knowledge of the mystery of life and death, of the process of karma itself. One of the greatest secrets of the world is the mystery of karma—how actions produce complementary reactions, what kind of fruit is the outcome of what kind of action that we perform, and what is actually the connection between birth and death. We know these words, but their actual import is difficult to immediately grasp. Why is it necessary for us to be born? If we had not been born, what is the harm? Having been born, why should we die? If we do not die, what is the harm? And why should every action produce a reaction? These are the multifaceted hues of life in this world. The secret of this is also given here in the form of a garland—mystical, invisible, unsubstantial, intangible. Power and glory are attached to this spiritual garland. This is what the commentators tell us. The secret of life and death and karma is also granted. This is a new kind of boon that was granted—a fourth boon, as it were.

Triṇāciketas tribhir etya sandhiṁ trikarma-kṛt tarati janma-mṛtyū, brahmajajñaṁ devam īḍyam viditvā nicāyye'māṁ śāntim atyantam eti (1.1.17). Yama speaks further, “Any person who has performed the sacrifice of Nachiketas three times, and anyone who has been inwardly united through this knowledge which is secret, which is threefold in its nature, overcomes birth and death.”

What is the threefold knowledge, the threefold getting united? We have to look to the commentators here again because the words are too mystical. They do not give an overt meaning. The three-times performance is identified with the practice of a kind of meditation which consists, first of all, in receiving knowledge from a preceptor, then contemplating it inwardly in one's own mind, delving deeply into it, and converting that knowledge into the very being of one's own self, which is sometimes known as sravana, manana, nididhyasana. This is one meaning that commentators attach to the passage “he who has thrice performed the Nachiketas sacrifice”; or we may literally say it means one who has performed it three times and has been inwardly united through instruction by means of the Vedas, the Smritis and the Masters, which is also a meaning that has been read into it by commentators because the original itself is too mystical and its meaning is not obvious. Knowledge comes to us through the Vedas, the Smritis, and the observation of great people. This is the threefold unity to be inwardly achieved by the study and acquisition of the knowledge of the highest scripture, which is the Veda, and the secondary scripture, which is the Smriti, the law of ethics and morality, and the lives of saints, the conduct of the Masters.

Thus, one who has performed the Nachiketas sacrifice in a threefold manner, and has performed the three duties, is free from death. Yajna, dana, tapas are the three words that we have in the Bhagavadgita. The greatest duty of the human being is yajna, dana, tapas. We have gone into the meaning of these three words on other occasions, so I shall not repeat them now. These three are said to be the study of the Veda, the performance of sacrifice, and giving in charity. These three meanings are available to us in the Chhandogya Upanishad, but to make it less complicated, we may take it as yajna, dana, tapas in the language of the Bhagavadgita. Great conditions are put here: thrice performing, in a threefold manner, and getting inwardly united by three means of knowledge, and performing three duties—yajna, dana, tapas. Such a person is free from death. He overcomes birth and death. He becomes omniscient by knowing this, the root of the universe, Vaishvanara, which is rooted in Brahman.

Brahmajajñaṁ devam īḍyam: having known this adorable God of the cosmos who was born of Brahman. We know the gradation of the manifestation of the Supreme Being as Brahman, Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat. We are now discussing the power and knowledge of the Virat as the Vaishvanara-tattva, knowing which, one becomes the Lord of the universe, and are describing it here as being born of Brahman. Knowing this, one becomes endowed with eternal peace: brahmajajñaṁ devam īḍyam viditvā nicāyye'māṁ śāntim atyantam eti.