kathopanishad-1-2-12-taṃ durdarśaṃ

Commentary by Swami Krishnananda of the great Divine Life Society

Taṁ durdarśaṁ gūḍham anupraviṣṭaṁ guhāhitaṁ gahvareṣṭham purāṇam, adhyātma-yogādhigamena devam matvā dhīro harṣa-śokau jahāti (1.2.12): “That thing about which you are querying me is impossible of perception. Difficult is the vision of this great Truth. Very deeply hidden is that Truth. In the deepest recesses of one’s own heart can this Truth be recognised. It is in the cave of the heart, or the cave of the cosmos, as you may call it; macrocosmically or microcosmically it is the deepest essence of everything ever outwardly conceived.” Gahvareṣṭham purāṇam: “It is the most ancient repository of all values, earthly as well as celestial. Such a great thing it is, impossible to perceive.” Adhyātma-yogādhigamena devam matvā dhīro harṣa-śokau jahāti: “This impossible-to-perceive Truth has to be known through the yoga known as adhyatma yoga. This great God, the God of all gods, the Real of reals, can be attained by the practice of adhyatma yoga, the yoga of the Self. The unitedness of the self with the Self, the manner in which the lower self of a person gets identified with the higher dimension of itself, the way in which the Atman gets united with Brahman, the manner in which the individual identifies himself with the cosmos, the way in which the subject melts into the object, these are some of the characteristics of adhyatma yoga. Know that great joy through this wonderful yoga known as adhyatma yoga.” This verse is also difficult to understand. “Knowing That, the great hero, the spiritual hero, abandons both the joy and the grief of this world. Neither is he exhilarated at anything he will gain, nor is he depressed by anything he appears to lose.”