kathopanishad-1-2-25-yasya brahma

Commentary by Swami Krishnananda of the great Divine Life Society

Yasya brahma ca kṣatraṁ ca ubhe bhavata odanaḥ, mṛtyur yasyopasecanaṁ ka itthā veda yatra saḥ (1.2.25): Brahmanas and Kshatriyas are the diet of this Great Being. This Great Being eats Brahmanas and Kshatriyas every day. What does this mean? It is symbolic of knowledge and power. The highest knowledge and the highest power are embedded in this great Atman. That is the meaning of saying that it eats knowledge and power embedded in what we call Brahmana and Kshatriya. Brahmanas are supposed to be the repositories of knowledge and wisdom; Kshatriyas are supposed to be the repositories of power and strength. Both these are swallowed by this Great Being, because it is above all knowledge and power. Yasya brahma ca kṣatraṁ ca ubhe bhavata odanaḥ: It is a good meal. Brahmanas and Kshatriyas are its daily breakfast and lunch. Mṛtyur yasyopasecanaṁ: But it cannot digest this easily, so it wants some achar, some condiment. Death is the condiment. When we take a meal we have a little condiment, achar as it is called in Hindi. We eat the meal, whatever it is, chapati, paratha, with a little condiment. And this Great Being takes death itself as the condiment. What a great power! It is staggering, really staggering. It will make us giddy. We are unable to think it, so great and grand it is. Ka itthā veda yatra saḥ: Who can know it? Yama himself is saying, “Who can know it?” Who can know where it is? Great indeed it is! May it bless us.

This is the last verse of the Second Section. The Supreme Being is the repository of knowledge and power, which is here indicated by the statement that the Supreme Being consumes Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, indicating thereby that it is the final ocean of knowledge and power—Brahmana representing knowledge, and Kshatriya representing power. Omniscience and omnipotence are blended in the Supreme Being.

Generally, in this world we exercise knowledge in the form of a power. Some effort is necessary in implementing one’s ability of knowledge in the form of a performance that is called power. Power proceeds from knowledge. In the case of God, something does not proceed from something else. It is one and the same thing that is knowledge as well as power. The very thought of God is also the power of God. The very being of God is also the action of God. In our case, being is not the same as action. We may be sitting, but that does not mean that we are doing something at the time. In the case of God, the very existence is cosmic activity. Existence is action; knowledge is power. They are self-identical in the case of the Almighty, and the statement that it consumes death itself as a pickle shows that it is immortal.

Na mṛtyur āsīd amṛtaṁ says the Nasadiya Sukta of the Rigveda: Immortality and death are like shadows of the Almighty. Well, death may be a shadow, but is immortality also a shadow? We can imagine the transcendence of God when it is held that even the deathlessness that we are thinking of in our mind is transcended in the Almighty essence, because our concept of immortality is the counterpart of mortality. That which is not mortal is immortal. Why do we use such a word? Why should we designate the state of being forever and ever as an absence of death? Has it not got any positive definition? It is like saying “I am free from disease”. Why do we use such words? Why do we not say “I am healthy”? If we say “I am not sick, I have no disease”, it is not a proper definition of a positive condition. We should say, “I am healthy, strong, vigorous. Everything is fine.” But we are using the word ‘immortal’, or ‘deathlessness’. Deathlessness is the absence of death. Now, absence itself is not a positive thing. There must be something positive which can be designated as not just a negation of death or a negation of mortality. That something is, therefore, superior to the concept of the absence of death and the absence of mortality. This is the reason why the great mantra of the Rigveda says it is that of which both immortality and death are shadows. So it consumes death itself. It consumes even the counterpart of death.

Immortality is generally believed to be a long-duration existence. In our childlike way of thinking we imagine that when we become immortal, we will be living a long, long life. Just as we are now living fifty, sixty, seventy years, a hundred years, then we will be living for millions and millions of years. This is what we think the state of immortality is. It is not the case. In the state of immortality we will not be living for a long, long time, because there is no time there. Immortality is also timelessness. Hence, it is deathlessness. So a long, long continuance in an endless duration of time is not God-experience. Therefore, God-experience should be considered as totally transcending, different from just a long, continuous existence in space and time in the world. It is also not negation; it is positive, a positive something. We cannot define God positively. We can only say what He is not, but it is not possible to say what He is. Therefore, in a metaphorical way the Veda mantra says death and deathlessness are shadows cast by That which is the only One. So here is the meaning of this mantra: yasya brahma ca kṣatraṁ ca ubhe bhavata odanaḥ, mṛtyur yasyopasecanaṁ ka itthā veda yatra saḥ. Who can know That?