A SHORT PARTIAL TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY ON MAITRI UPANISAD
BY NATARAJA GURU
MAITRI UPANISHAD - 6.4
"LIBERATION IN THE CONTROL OF ONE'S THOUGHTS"
Is there a way of controlling one's thoughts?
The Bhagavad Gita says that it is very difficult.
The mind will not stop with a picture of Krishna...
The Upanishad gives you a serious answer here.
The association of ideas is the main function of the mind...one cannot put a stop to the association of ideas. (Sankalpa-vikalpa mannocahal...)
It is not so easy to teach meditation, but there is a method to meditation- that is the secret.
Source - there is a locus in the psychophysical make-up, a hub - find it... thought becomes extinct in its own source. Put the brake on the source.
You become your thought; you go to the very centre - the hub.
Pratyagatma : it is like burning petrol. Destroy both good and evil in the melting pot, says Vedanta.
“The soul stayed on the soul”: the Self and the non-Self meet somewhere: another secret.
We are attached to something nice; we are attached to that;
How to deal with Sin? Cancel the Self with the non-Self.
Vertical-mindedness is to be cultivated; horizontal-mindedness is to be avoided.
Do not be lazy, be alert and active for meditation, not sleepy.
Come to mindlessness, not concentration - that is only crystal gazing.
The mind must become transparent to itself; it must be abolished.
Knitting the brows is an effort - do not trouble yourself.
Does LSD make you happy or tired?
I won't take it again - time was hanging: when time is longer than you think, that is suffering.
Meditation when time flies is a good meditation - this is a simple test.
"So long..." - the mind must meet its end in the heart, not by chemicals.
Cancel in the heart: that is both knowledge and release.
"Grasp with the inner organ..." - that is all you can do -
suddenly grasp the nature of the Self and the non-Self: it happens.
Understanding is the innermost event.
What about the Bhoktas (pleasure-seekers)? - There is no...without knowledge.
Read the originals. Most people are looking for curiosities.
Washed away by concentration: abolish the mind by making it transparent to itself.
Meditation is cleansing the mind, according to Sankara.
Adjust yourself properly with a guru - it will come to you.
No difference... - the Self and the non-Self have a one-to-one correspondence between them.
You should not discriminate between water and water: do not cultivate duality.
Seeing the duality (finding the difference) is Pravritti Marga (the positive path).
This is Nivritti Marga (the negative path).
The mind is a double-sided organ: put the two sides together and they will trap you from one side or the other.
This is like the two-sided drum of Shiva
- the beating must stop from the two sides at once.
Do not think that you can get this "like that".
It is not humility that is needed, but a willingness to listen.
Otherwise there is nothing.
Who is the good Guru?
How do you know that you have a good Guru?
Even if it is the wrong Guru, your correctness can supply the seed and knowledge can come.
You have to be willing to listen...did he say something subtle?
What's the big idea? We build a bridge...
You have to have two sides - a baby cannot be born without there being a husband.
Similarly, a Guru is needed to supply the theoretical non-Self side...
Do not think that because you are intelligent you will get it;
It is not from the same side - you have to accept it from the other side;
that is all they mean when they say you need a Guru.
MAITRI UPANISHAD - 6.4
"LIBERATION IN THE CONTROL OF ONE'S THOUGHTS"
Transcription verse by verse.
Verse-by-verse playback.
1. You have to know what a source is.
There is a source.
Pralaya prabhava sthanu bija madi (? ED): there is within yourself a root aspect of all functions.
There is a place, a locus, in your psychophysical make-up where everything meets like the spokes of a wheel.
You have to discover that part; then if you can feel that part in yourself, there it will come and join.
Where is the source of desire? ...So, go to that source.
So finding that source is the thing...it is a secret.
2. "Because the real the mind seeks...":
the mind is always seeking what is real, so if you take it to the Self,
it will say the Self is real - there is an Absolute hiding there.
"For one confused...controls": if you do not know to put the brake on at the source, there are all sorts of other false controls that will distract you.
3. "Samsara...mystery": you become your thought; how can you become your thought? If you go to the very centre of your psychophysical makeup, it is like a hub. There pratyagatma is the negative aspect of yourself, it is like setting fire to petrol, or when there is a frying pan filled with oil and it is too hot and suddenly catches fire.
Something like that. When you are meditating intensely at the source, suddenly the pratyagatma is revealed, and that is the way to arrive at the source.
Eternal mystery...
4. "For by tranquillity...one destroys...": both of them are destroyed together - not that you become a sattvik (pure) Brahmin.
People will say: "I become a sattvik Brahmin"
These wrong teachings are all countered by the Upanishads which say that good and evil are to be cancelled.
Some people say you must have "good karma" and then evil will go away.
No, no, that is Vedism: you have to put good and evil together in the melting pot: that is Vedanta.
Eating sattvik food, ritual bathing in the morning, putting on ashes etc., the only good from all this is Brahmanism (religious conformism) - that is not Vedanta.
Many people mix up these two things.
"With soul serene...stayed on the soul": stayed on the soul: that is another secret.
Stay where? It must be established on the soul.
"Delight...enjoys": that means that the Self and the non-Self have to meet somewhere and one is stayed (?) on the other, or is fixed on the other.
5. "As firmly...bond?": there is another secret here...
It looks simple, but it says that we are attached to things.
Supposing you are attached to something nice to eat
- the mind is fixed on that.
In the same way, bipolarity can be attained with the Self and the non-Self
- then everyone will be released from bondage.
The Self must be cancelled against the non-Self.
6. "The mind is...free": so pure mind is verticalized.
The impure (horizontal) mind refers to objects: so the horizontal mind must be avoided and the vertical mind can be cultivated.
7. "By making...freed.": "distraction" means alasya (laziness and distraction):
you have to cultivate a lot of activity for meditation: a lazy man cannot meditate. He must be very, very active and alert, willing to do anything...
an easy chair and sleeping will not do...sleeping is a form of laziness...
meditation is a form of alertness...
They will say: "Oh, yes, I am always meditating when I am sleeping"...these are false Sannyasins (renouncer).
"When unto...estate": come to mindlessness - but people will say:
"concentration of the mind" - there is nothing called "concentration of the mind" - this is all wrong psychology.
How can you concentrate? ..." Gaze at this!"... That is called crystal gazing or hypnotism that is not meditation...
What is meditation? Mindlessness: the mind must be abolished: mano nesham vasanaksharya.
You should not think of mind; a part of the mind becomes transparent to itself, it becomes clear and it is not thinking hard about anything.
A man sitting with knitted brows is not meditating - he is a false Sannyasin.
There is no effort to make - empty your mind.
By making an effort you are only increasing your trouble...
LSD does not make the mind empty because it makes time go more slowly, by definition.
Time hanging is suffering; when time is shorter than you think, it is pleasure.
This is the easiest way to see if you are suffering.
On LSD I felt 32 hours of doing something - too much like work. I am much happier if I am sleeping or meditating normally. It might be as beautiful as you like - but are you suffering or not? The happiness of seeing copper-coloured zinnias is only a detail: what about the time factor?
8. " So long as...words. In the heart it meets its end.": it must meet in the heart; not in any chemical reaction or anything.
It must meet its end and be cancelled out by itself, through itself and in itself.
Then it is all right.
"Both knowledge and release...": you should not say that it is release or knowledge; it is neither the one nor the other. All else is but a string of words: they will say there are all sorts of meditations...that means that they do not know the secret cosmology and psychology of the mind.
The psychology is given here. The Yogis, who have tried to talk about the subject, they give you the proper perspective. Aldous Huxley is not a Guru, he is not necessarily right.
9. "With mind's ...inner organ.": so, grasping something with the inner organ is all that you can do. There is nothing more or less...some people say: "now I have found the secret of the Self and the non-Self": they grasp it with their own inner organ.
That happens suddenly by intelligence - not by chemicals or emotional upsets...understanding is the innermost event. You can try emotional upsets - they are all outside.
"Jñanena pakasya yanjivat": Sankara says it is just like cooking paka without fire. "Without knowledge there is no...."
What about the Bhaktas? What do you know about Bhakti? (Bhakti = devotion.ED)
Ramakrishna is not a Bhakta - if he is a Bhakta he is wrong.
Without knowledge there is no Bhakti... Read the respectable, original books...
There are a lot of books in the railway station bookshop...most people are like that... as intelligent in ten years as they are now...always "looking around" for a swami, one here, one there... are they serious?
Concentration is not gazing, but sustaining - manas shudhi citasya sudheya karma.
Why meditate? Sankara says: only for clearing the mind, not for attaining God.
God does not come by the mind, but by abolishing the mind.
How do you abolish the mind? By making it transparent to itself. How?
That is a technique that is recommended here and contains a secret;
you cannot get this just by some kind of miscellaneous books written for selling fast.
"Impossible...language": he says it is impossible.
"Oneself...inner organ": it will come to you when you are listening properly to a Guru with great attention, when suddenly it will come to you - say: "This is the real path...(unclear)".
10. "In water...discern": NOT discern; you should not see any difference between fire and fire when they are joined: you should not say, "which is the fire that joined the other fire?"
Difference must be cancelled out. See no difference between rainwater and river water; that means that the Self and the non-Self must participate directly, with one-to-one correspondence between them, and not in any other way. “In air one should not discern” - it is not that one should discern.
It is unity that you are seeking, not difference.
You should not discern anything: you should say:" This water I mixed with another is the same; I do not see any difference between them"
So, that is abolishing duality, not cultivating duality. Some say:
"Oh yes, I am so clever I found the difference": that is Pravritti Marga
(the positive path), this is Nivritti Marga (the negative path)
it is very difficult to teach this second Marga.
"So he...everything":
if a man can attain this kind of Self-non-Self transparency he is released -
not by hypnotism or anything; that is a trick.
11. "The mind...mankind...release":
Manoyeva manasyanam karanam banda mokshayoho - the mind is a double-sided organ; it will bind you at one side and release you from the other side; so when you put them together it is like the hour-glass drum that Shiva carries (damaru): it will beat both sides. The beating of both sides must stop; you should not beat both sides.
"For bondage...release": "Objects bound," means horizontally going like that
- it will make bondage. "From objects free" means no sound - it is verticalized;
one absorbs the other.
But I am telling you; there is a subtlety here that cannot be taught...
You will think that you have understood this...do not think it will go so easily
- please be patient and listen to a Guru with full respect and you will get it one day...these things are all to be learned slowly in a certain mood which is very difficult to cultivate: it requires humility - very great humility - not even actual humility, which does not matter- it is a mental attitude of susruha (willingness to listen), not the humility of getting up when someone comes into the room or making namaskaram (salutation) or anything: no - willingness to listen - is this a sensible man telling you something worthwhile?
If you do not believe it, how can you get it? He is telling you something: he says it is a secret - please listen.
Can you get it?
Of course, the same words can come from another guru also,
so how do you know you have got a good guru?"
My answer is: "How do you know you have got a good husband?"
Are you going to wait like Sita for Rama?
You won't get married.... All right, you can wait.
Any husband is good, for the purposes of a baby.
If it is for listening to the truth, only some gurus are good.
But even if it is a wrong guru, your earnestness can supply the seed for your knowledge to come, even from a wrong guru.
It depends upon two sides. Everywhere you have to be willing to listen - with great attention - very deep in your heart.
"What did he say?" Americans will not admit anything subtle:
"we are Peace Corps people!"
You have to have two sides...the baby has to be born from another side
- don't think you can create the baby yourself.
You can try as hard as you like; you cannot make the baby come out of your behind...
It requires a husband; something like that,
It requires a guru, it requires knowing it from another side.
You are the Self side, the non-Self side must be there;
you have to supply the non-Self side; of course, you can supply it yourself...
like artificial insemination...anyhow, something has to be done.
Don't think you can get it yourself, even if you are intelligent. It is a two-sided affair. That is all they mean when they say that a guru is needed: it is not from the same side, you have to accept it from the other side.
THE TEXT OF MAITRI UPANISHAD VI - 34
(FROM HUME: 447 -8)
Liberation in the control of one's thoughts.
On this point there are these verses:
1. As fire, of fuel destitute,
Becomes extinct in its own source,
So thought, by loss of activeness
Becomes extinct in its own source.
2. Becomes extinct in its own source,
because the mind the real seeks!
For one confused by things of sense,
There follow action's false controls.
3. Samsara (illusion) is just one's thought,
Deeds (karman), good and evil, one destroys.
With soul serene, stayed on the soul,
Delight eternal one enjoys!
4. As firmly as the thought of man
Is fixed within the world of sense
If thus on Brahman (the Absolute) it were fixed,
Who would not be released from bond?
5. The mind is said to be twofold:
The pure as also the impure;
Impure - by union with desire;
Pure, from desire completely free!
6. By making mind all motionless,
From sloth and from distraction freed,
When unto mindlessness one comes,
Then that is the supreme estate!
7. So long the mind should be confined,
Till in the heart it meets its end.
That is both knowledge and release!
All else is but a string of words!
8. With mind's stains washed away by concentration,
What may the joy be of he who has entered Atman (the Self),
Impossible to picture them in language!
Oneself must grasp it with the inner organ.
9. In water, water, fire in fire;
In air, air one could not discern.
So he whose mind has entered in -
Released is he from everything!
10. The mind in truth is for mankind
The means of bondage and release:
For bondage, if to objects bound;
From objects free - that is called release!
TRANSCRIPTION OF MAITRI UPANISHAD (VI, 19 AND VI, 20)
VI, 19: " Withdrawn from sense-objects into absence of all thought"
Now, it has elsewhere been said: "Verily, when a knower has restrained his mind from the external, and the breathing spirit (prana) has put to rest objects of sense, thereupon let him continue void of conceptions. Since the living individual (jiva) who is named "breathing spirit" has arisen here from what is not breathing spirit, therefore, verily, let the breathing spirit restrain his breathing spirit in what is called the fourth condition (turiya)(1): for thus has it been said :
That which is non-thought (yet) which stands in the midst of thought,
The unthinkable, supreme mystery!
Thereon let one concentrate his thought
And the subtle body (linga) too, without support.
VI, 20: " The selfless, liberated, joyous vision of the Self (Atman)"
Now, it has elsewhere been said:
"One may have a higher concentration than this".
By pressing the tip of his tongue against his palate, by restraining voice, mind and breath, one sees Brahma through contemplation!
When through self, by the suppression of the mind, one sees the brilliant Self which is more subtle than the subtle; then having seen the Self through one's self, one becomes self-less (niratman).
Because of being self-less, he is to be regarded as incalculable (asamkhya), without origin - the mark of liberation (moksha).
This is the supreme secret doctrine ().
For thus has it been said:
For by tranquility (prasada) of thought
Deeds (karman), good and evil, one destroys!
With soul (atman) stayed on the Soul (Atman)
Delight eternal one enjoys!
VI, 19
There are two breathing spirits...you are asked to think of restraining your prana (breath), called (pranayama) and the jiva (the breathing soul). Then there is the turiya (fourth state of consciousness)..also the linga (subtle body)...you have to find a neutral point between all these: when you meditate there, you are supposed to be doing correct Vedantic meditation.
Swamis write their own textbooks...there is great confusion...better that you keep your mouth shut.
In order to know what teaching of yoga to take seriously you have to have a philosophical background and examine the correct epistemology, methodology and axiology as well as psychology, cosmology and teleology...you can get the proper perspective and insert yourself properly into the context of yoga.
If you do not insert yourself, you do not know which is being joined to which. Yoga means joining something to something else and finding the cancellation point.
What is joined to what? You have to abstract and generalise about your own Self and the non-Self, and how to exactly find that point where the junction can take place.
There are certain metals that can be soldered to other metals because they have a homogeneity between them...the same rule holds good with the mind ...there are certain places where it will join together and articulate, and others where it will not....
If you want Hertzian waves to come, you have to have an electromagnetic wave and an oscillator....you have to join it in a certain way. Similarly in Yoga there are technical points, which depend upon an understanding of these words: jiva, turiya and linga...What is "linga sarira"?
Precise definitions are needed, or else it is just endless talking.
"Withdrawal.... absence of all thought" - How to make all thought stop?
That means emptying your mind. All thoughts must stop....
Thought is based on the association of ideas, and as long as there is association of ideas it is not possible to stop the mind, to stop the association of ideas...
(Guru talks about a porcelain factory, a picture frame, etc.)
The Gita says it is impossible: "...maha baho mano" to stop the mind, even for Krishna, who admits this to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.
Crystal gazing, etc. is all spurious.
If the mind's function is to stop, it must have some higher interest.
If it is completely absorbed in something more interesting than ordinary things - in that subject which is highly interesting - it can stop for a minute. Without that higher interest it cannot be made to stop.
What is that higher interest? It is all brought out here:
The Breathing Self, the Jiva, the Turiya, the Linga Sarira.
These things have to conform to the mechanics involved and you have to first stop the concepts and find the trait d'union or link between concepts and percepts. Then you should think of that link; then go to the denominator side and absorb it negatively and bring it to the focal point. Then by that long practice of abolishing duality in a certain way known to the Upanishads and the great Rishis (sages) - if you follow their advice, you can stop all thought.
"Now ... restrained his mind from the external"
First you should practice pratyahara. You should find something interesting in yourself; you should think of your own childhood, and then external objects will not come...thinking of schooldays and walking as a child...well, then at least to that extent the mind has gone into memory and is not distracted by external things. It is something you are feeling. So that is one way of meditating.
"Verily...(prana) has put to rest objects of the senses"
The arrow of action is jumping from one object of the senses to another...
How do you put it to rest?
Go like that - and find something more interesting inside you.
"Thereupon ...void of conceptions"
Do not look around, shut your eyes...objects will remind you of something else...
you should not look with open eyes...that is called pratyahara.
"Since ... let the breathing spirit restrain the breathing spirit in....(turiya)."
A technical instruction; "breathing spirit" - when you can cut off these things - empty your mind - come to inside feeling, and then you are conscious of the fact that you - that is, life - are functioning... Breathing is a function, like eating...so you go to this function and you tackle it and you say: "I want to breathe so slowly and imperceptibly that I won't even know whether I am breathing outwardly or inwardly".
That means, practice pranayama (control of the breath).
Cancel your ingoing breath with the outgoing breath so you do not feel anything.
You can do that by a little practice...it is only peripherally-minded people who think they are breathing out. The centre of the two breathing processes is a neutral mukhya prana, which is neither breathing outward nor inward. That is the centre of it.
"Since...(jiva, the breathing soul) has arisen from what is not breathing spirit"
It has arisen from something deeper. So go, stilling your mind from external objects...then you come to a place where you can see there is a deeper breathing, a deeper seat of life, and you see that your breathing is a kind of numerator function that remains on top of the ocean, and deeper than the ocean there is no real - something like that: you reach the non-breathing, not the breathing spirit.
"Therefore verily... (turiya)"
"Fourth condition," means pure fourth dimension...independent of any mere movement. It is a deep-seated immobility. It is
the "unmoved mover" of Aristotle in Western Philosophy, an immobile thing, unmoved...so this is immobility; it can sit there.
"Restrain...(turiya)"
Turiya (the "Fourth State" of consciousness) is described in Mandukya Upanishad.
"That which is non-thought...without support"
So the subtle body (linga)...you are allowed to think of it. Why?
Because there must be a Denominator to cancel against the Numerator.
To find the middle without thinking of the negative side is not possible where duality has been completely abolished; that is turiya. Breathing is another function of the Numerator side...calm it...make the outward go into the inward...then you can still your mind. That is called the practice of Yoga.
This is a very good point and you can question Swamis about it… (long talk on the Yoga teachers; three pages)... so, you cannot teach anything.
"Now...one enjoys" (The entire section)
So Niratman is the goal of Yoga...orthodox people will say that "nir-" means "non" - non-atma, and that means Sunyavada (the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness as the ultimate reality)...that is nothing...all the ordinary books say that you should find your soul.
Here it says that the non-soul should be found. How to reconcile that?
This all requires annotation and deep study...you have to scrutinise these words.
"Having seen the Self, through one's self, one becomes self-less (Niratman)"
So the ideal is to be self-less: doesn't this sound like nihilism?
When one is cancelled against one in mathematics, you don't get nihilism, you get one, and that is not zero.
Even math accepts it, you don't abolish anything.
The unity is there; the univocal Absolute is there, this is the difference between Vedanta and the Sunyavada Buddhists.... they say there is Sunya, nothingness - there is a void.
But Vedanta will say that there is One; whatever you do, there is yourself.
Cancellation always gives you one, never Zero.
Zero is a horizontal number; there are transfinite numbers, imaginary numbers, irrational numbers and incommensurables.