kathopanishad-2-2-12-eko vaśī

Commentary by Swami Krishnananda of the great Divine Life Society

Eko vaśī sarva-bhūtāntar-ātmā ekam bījam bahudhā yaḥ karoti, tam ātmastham ye’nupaśyanti dhīrās teṣaṁ sukhaṁ śasvataṁ netareṣaṁ (2.2.12): The one controller, the all-pervading Atman, single, undivided, indivisible, appears as this manifold universe, as we may appear manifold in dream. To the wise who behold the Atman abiding in the soul, to them belongs real happiness, and not to anyone else. Permanent happiness belongs only to those who have realised the Atman in their own being, and not to those who run after objects.

Happiness and peace are the subjects of mantras twelve and thirteen. To whom does happiness belong? And who is it that can have real peace? Happiness and peace belong to those, says the Upanishad, who are able to recognise the Atman in its purity as the single Source of the multitudinous variety, and the Substance of all the forms that seem to fill the universe. The Upanishad is tending to describe the unfolding of the world with its evolutionary and involutionary activity, and the Center of the universe tending to ramify into the nama-rupa prapancha, the name-form world.

But happiness is not for those who pursue the objects of the world. All pleasures are created, or brought about, by the union of the senses with objects. We have heard of the term ‘sensation’, but it is rare for people to deeply think what it means. Unfortunately for us, happiness is a form of sensation, and sensation is a stimulation generated by the repulsion taking place when senses come into contact with objects. It is repulsion rather than union. These experiences, falsely taken for union, can even be brought about by the mind contacting objects directly, without the help of the senses. The eyes get stirred into activity in perception, and so is the case with the other senses. This irritation is like the morbid irritation which the body experiences during illness. But when we get used to a particular sensation it becomes normal to us, like getting accustomed to alcoholic drinks. A person used to alcohol will not feel anything if he takes a small quantity. This is the effect of the habit. Habits become values, significances and realities, so much so that we become subjected to them. Instead of our controlling them, they begin to control us.

These habits and such experiences to which we are accustomed in the world of forms constitute the world, all which are regarded as realities, and sensation appears as concrete objects, like the thoughts of dream appear as solid objects. Desires, feelings, etc., concretise themselves into solid objects, and we get real experiences from non-existing objects. So to have a real experience, objects are not necessary. On the other hand, even when there is real existence of objects we may not experience them, as in sleep, swoon and death. So whether the formations outside are real or not, we can have an experience, because what is necessary for experience is sensation, and not an object. Sensations are certain impacts on our nerves, though the objects outside may act as agents in the generation of a sensation. But if we can create those sensations by an inner technique, we can have the experience without objects.

What we want is an experience, whether or not objects exist. This is the cause of our unhappiness, because we do not really come in contact with objects. A real union can never happen. One thing cannot become another thing; otherwise, there would be only one thing. Until we become the object and the object becomes us, there can be no real union. Therefore, possession or enjoyment is an imagination, not a reality. The whole world is drowned in sensory happiness, but because of the fundamental defect—the impossibility of one possessing or enjoying the other—happiness does not belong to those who have not sought the Substance within all. Happiness belongs to that One Thing.

If the senses are to withdraw themselves from all contact then there can be real happiness, because contact is not the way of happiness. The Gita says ye hi saṁsparśajā bhogā duḥkhayonaya eva te (B.G. 5.22): All pleasures that are contact-born are sources of pain because in contact we do not come into real union with what we want. Physical contact is not union, and as long as union does not come about, there cannot be real happiness. When diversity gives place to unity in whatever degree, there is happiness to that degree. We are in a world of imaginary happiness or unhappiness brought about by the contact of the senses, conveyed through the nerves to the mind. No one can be happy who has not entered into the substance of the object.