Isavasya Upanishad - 5.Swami Krishnananda

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Tuesday, March 08, 2022. 20:00.

Mantram-1.

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"Om Isavasyam idaṁ sarvam yat kiṁ ca jagatyam jagat,

tena tyaktena bhunjitha, ma gṛdhah kasyasvid dhanam." 

The Upaniṣad begins with the word Isavasyam, and so goes by the name of Isavasyopaniṣad. There are other such examples of this tradition. Kenopaniṣad, for instance, is so named because the very first word of it is kena.

Iśāvāsyam: Īśvara is 1st person singular. So, īśāvāsyam means īśvara resides. Sankaracarya says that the root is it (eit) meaning īṭ; and īṭ means God. So īśāvāsyam can also mean through īṭ. Or, the compound word is split thus: Isa+ avasyam –avasyam means, that alone which is fit to bear or cover, that is (it is), Isvara's temple, the fit place for Him. Another mean­ing is that which is fit to be enveloped by Isvara. Many meanings can be given according to whether it is Isa + vasyam or Isa + avasyam—vasyam fit for Isvara to stay; āvāsyam—that which envelopes the world. Again, Isena +avasyam can mean filled with or dwelt in by Isvara like salt in salt-waters.

We have already said that idam means this world, the whole of creation which is manifest before us. All this is covered by, or filled with God. Whatever is seen or unseen, gross or subtle, effect or cause, the sentient or the insentient, everything is covered by Isvara. He exists as the Sat.

How does He exist as Sat? Is it as water present in a wet cloth? Is the world covered by Him as a cloth over it? Or is it like the pot of the potter? We can interpret the phrase as suits our intellectual way of thinking, or our philosophy. If Isvara is only a causal or a nimitta karana, then He is outside the world like the potter who remains separate from the pot he makes. The clay is the instrumental or upaddana karana, and the potter is only nimitta for the pot and these two are separate factors; also the potter is separate from the pot which is an effect. This is the view of naiyayika and schools belonging to that system of thought. Īśvara is both nimitta and upaddana karana.

Another view is, thatIsvarapervades the world like salt in water. The salt is not visible as salt in salt-water; yet they both are different and separate factors. However, if Isvara is but in the world, then He is limited by time and space. But, His nature is unbroken Existence-Consciousness-Bliss­-Absolute, whereas the world is impermanent, transient and perishable. Isvara is creation,Isvara is the cause of creation—these are the two different viewpoints which different Upaniṣads explain. He is like salt in water, is the view of Viśiṣtāvaita philosophy.

Īsvara is not separate from the universe—this is Advaita philosophy. When Sri Rama asked Sri Hanuman “Who are you?”, Hanuman replied: “deha budhya to dasoham, jiva budhya tvadamsakah; atma budhya tvemevaham ityevam mama nischayah.”

“If you confer the status of a body to me, I am Thy slave; if you consider me as jīva, I am a part of Thyself, an amśam, one cell of Thyself; if you accept me as the ātman, I am Thy own Self. I am homogeneous with Thyself; Thou art the indivisible.” In the same sense, in the light of the meaning of this quotation, God's existence in the world can also be stated to be and explained variously. There is no place where He is not—whether in time or space. He is present in the sentient and insentient. In the latter His sat alone is present; but volition and consciousness are absent. In the insentient, tamas is greatly predominant; still the sat of the insentient, the essence of it, is the essence of the sat of Isvara, indivisible and homogeneous. The sentient possess both sat and caitanya, while only a little ananda is present in them. All living beings, including man, come under this head of the sentient in which Isvara's exis­tence and consciousness aspects are manifest. There is predomi­nance of rajas and tamas, although tamas is a little less in man than in the animals and much less than in the insentient. Man's rajas is so great that there is very little ananda in him. A little ananda does exist in man, for man does experience anandam though to a very feeble extent. When rajas and tamas are destroyed, simultaneously sat rises up and only then ananda is experienced, for sat is ananda.

Isvara exists in everything: yat kim cit—that is everything sentient and insentient, subtle or gross is Isvara. Everything is the body of Isvara and He is connected to the world in the way the soul is connected to the body.

To be continued ...

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