Talk later of the Truth, first rebel against the false || Acharya Prashant,on Katha Upanishad (2019)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:07 Parameswari is asking, "Dear Acharyaji, Pranam.

00:12 In Kathopanishad, the young boy in Echiketa attained the highest wisdom and immortality

00:20 by the virtue of dispassion and the firm resolve to know the truth.

00:27 Unless I resolve to know the Self, there is no other way, it seems.

00:31 Acharyaji, kindly speak on the virtues of determination and dispassion Echiketa had.

00:38 Thank you very much. Loving gratitude. Parameswari."

00:41 Yes, obviously Echiketa had determination and dispassion.

00:52 But do not think of that as merely the stuff this boy exhibited in front of the death god.

01:16 It is common for readers to say that Echiketa's fearlessness and glory lie in standing unperturbed in front of death.

01:42 Not quite so.

01:47 The story of Echiketa is more flesh and blood.

02:05 Story of Echiketa is more like our own story.

02:10 And if it is more like our own story, then we have to keep the encounter with death god aside for a while

02:27 and look at the more mortal aspects of Echiketa's story.

02:36 Echiketa is a mere boy dependent on his father.

02:45 And he has the honesty and the guts to go to his father and say, "of what use is all this that you are doing?

03:04 Who will benefit from these old and sick and milkless cows?"

03:17 I assure you Parameswari, that was more difficult than facing Yamraj.

03:30 We glorify Echiketa's encounter with Yamraj and that keeps things safe for us.

03:44 Glory to Echiketa who stood unflinching in front of Yamraj.

03:51 Nice, because we very well know that this encounter is a myth.

04:00 We very well know that we will never have the occasion in our own life to stand face to face with the death god.

04:10 At least not in the way the Upanishad narrates.

04:15 We all will die, in that sense we all will face the death god one day.

04:22 But not in the way Echiketa faced, not in the way of having a conversation in words and sentences.

04:36 So, nice and safe, say glory to the one who can stand unflinching, unflappable in front of Yamraj.

04:50 I will put it differently Parameswari, I will say glory to the one

05:02 who is dependent on somebody close to him and yet has the guts to utter the truth and the guts to leave his home.

05:18 That's where Echiketa's glory really lies.

05:25 Yamraj is fictitious.

05:29 What danger is there in facing fiction?

05:35 Echiketa's father is not fictitious.

05:38 There is great danger in facing someone real, especially when you are dependent on that real person.

05:55 And at first father who is an influential person keeps dismissing the boy away.

06:13 But Echiketa keeps pestering him.

06:21 Finally, annoyed by the boy's pesky behaviour, the father says, "I am giving you away to death".

06:34 Obviously the father is just uttering some nonsense in a moment of rage.

06:46 The boy has been annoying him.

06:52 The boy has been questioning his moral authority.

06:56 The father does not really want to put away the boy.

07:01 The father just wants the boy to leave him alone and not irritate him.

07:09 After all it's a big ceremony that is going on. Thousands of cows are being given to Brahmins.

07:18 The father is busy overseeing the arrangement and the boy is chasing him.

07:26 And the boy is saying, "Father, hold. What the hell is going on?

07:31 These are useless cows. You are donating them. What is the worth of such a donation?"

07:38 Father is saying, "Stay away. Can you visualize all this?"

07:45 The Kathopanishad does not explicitly tell of all this.

07:50 That which I am narrating consists of a lot of my own construction.

07:59 But this is how it would have happened.

08:04 Naciketa, barely a teenager and he is chasing the father.

08:11 "Father, what really is going on? Look at that cow. Look, look, father, look. Half dead."

08:24 So the father says, "You keep shut."

08:30 The boy does not relent. Finally father says, "I am giving you away to God. Death God."

08:43 And now comes the moment of glory, real glory.

08:47 Naciketa says, "Fine. If you are giving me away to death God, then here I go away to death."

08:57 Parneshwari, that's dispassion, that's determination.

09:07 After that what happens is smooth and natural.

09:15 Naciketa has already cleared the big test.

09:21 Facing Yamraj is the smaller test. Having cleared the big test, obviously he will emerge with flying colors in the smaller one.

09:31 The big test is to leave the home.

09:36 The big test is to give up all dependency.

09:41 And after that obviously you will be blessed with the truth.

09:48 And look at Naciketa. The first thing he asks Yamraj is, "Let my father be alright. Please bless my father.

10:04 Please don't let him stay angry."

10:12 His father has done the unthinkable and Naciketa still has no bitterness.

10:23 He says, "God first of all you bless my father."

10:31 About truth he asks right in the end. That's his final query. What does he ask?

10:38 "Tell me that by which immortality is achieved. What really is immortality?"

10:47 He doesn't directly ask about death. He asks about immortality.

10:54 And Yamraj says, "Boy, you can have expensive toys if you want. You can have the best of foods if you want.

11:10 The latest gadgets if you so please.

11:17 A brand new car for you along with the driving license. It doesn't matter if you are underage. I am the death God you see."

11:28 All that Naciketa could be tempted with was tried.

11:34 It failed on him.

11:36 Parameshwari, that's the test.

11:39 All the knowledge that you find in the Upanishad is easy to get.

11:46 Once you have overcome dependency, once you have stayed true to yourself,

12:00 once you have won over the craving for security, stability, the confines of a comfortable palace,

12:23 the comfort of a regular routine, once you have been able to go beyond all this,

12:35 then the truth is obvious. That is not at all difficult.

12:41 All the great and golden verses that you come across in the Kathopanishad,

12:47 they will spring up right from your heart.

12:54 They will not be distant or difficult anymore.

13:00 You get this. Those verses are the easiest part.

13:06 You start hearing those verses right in your breath.

13:10 They are the easiest part. The more difficult part is right in the beginning.

13:14 The more difficult part is when you ask your father for the truth,

13:22 knowing fully well that he is not in the truth.

13:25 You say, "You, nothing doing. Daddy, what is going on?"

13:30 Daddy says, "Kid, you very well know who provides your pocket money."

13:37 And kiddo says, "Doesn't matter, Papa.

13:40 I am prepared to give up the pocket money. I am prepared to give up the comforts.

13:47 But tell me what is all this cow business?"

13:54 The trouble with most of us, Parameswari, is that we do not cross the first hurdle.

14:13 The death god did not chase Nachiketa.

14:34 Yamraj didn't penetrate into Nachiketa's home, his palace.

14:44 Nachiketa had to take the decision to go beyond the confines and comforts of his home

14:55 and then was born in Upanishad.

14:58 To me, the Upanishad was seeded in the moment Nachiketa accosts his father.

15:13 Even as Nachiketa is leaving the palace, I can see the father calling behind him.

15:25 "Son, I was just joking. What the hell are you doing? I didn't mean it."

15:34 Nachiketa is saying, "It's done. Deal closed.

15:44 Yours is not a palace of honesty.

15:48 Yours is not a palace where I'll be able to break free and stay free of the falls.

15:56 I'm quitting it."

16:01 The father would have initially thought that the son is just kidding.

16:05 Kid's kid.

16:12 But then he sees that he is actually walking away.

16:18 And now the father is trembling.

16:23 The father is going behind the son and saying, "Kiddo, you can have anything that you want.

16:31 You want me to stop this ceremony? I'll stop it.

16:34 Where are you going away? What will you do? What will you live on?

16:39 You have no experience. You have no knowledge.

16:42 What's worse, you have no money."

16:48 Nachiketa is saying, "I'm going."

16:54 Father says, "Alright. The sun is setting. Stay over for the night.

17:02 You can leave tomorrow morning."

17:04 What is he hoping?

17:06 The mood will change overnight. Nachiketa says, "No.

17:11 Not one breath more in this place. Not that I hate this place, Papa.

17:16 I still love you.

17:20 But I have to chart my own course.

17:22 If I keep living on your bread, freedom is not for me."

17:34 That's the Upanishad parameshwari.

17:37 Not the dialogue between Yama and Nachiketa.

17:40 That's how Katha Upanishad is usually presented.

17:44 They say Katha Upanishad is the dialogue between Yama and Nachiketa.

17:50 No.

17:52 Katha Upanishad is the dialogue between Nachiketa and his father.

17:59 After that, the dialogue that ensues, I say is natural.

18:08 It will happen because the bigger hurdle has been crossed.

18:14 So the next thing will happen.

18:16 First things first.

18:18 But the world does not want to put emphasis where it is really due.

18:26 Emphasis has to be put on the first few verses of the Upanishad.

18:36 Emphasis has to be put on the opening scene.

18:39 That's where the Upanishad is really contained.

18:43 Here is someone who in spite of his raw age, inexperience and dependency and emotional attachment,

18:58 is still not prepared to come to a truce with the false.

19:12 Once he has known that he will not get the truth where he is, he just crosses over.

19:22 Crossing over, he meets death.

19:26 It's symbolic.

19:27 Do you understand this?

19:28 That which we call as life, we have defined it as being within the four walls of our house.

19:36 We say I live in my house.

19:39 Don't we say that?

19:42 So, where is life?

19:45 In the safety of the house.

19:48 So, outside the house is death.

19:51 That's what Yamaraja represents.

19:54 The discomfort, the insecurity that a dependent one encounters outside his house.

20:05 No Yamaraja factually exists.

20:10 Naciketa is a fact.

20:12 A boy in flesh and blood.

20:15 In the sense, Naciketa is a fact.

20:18 Yamaraja is not a fact.

20:20 No Yamaraja came to Naciketa in flesh and blood.

20:25 Yamaraja is a symbol.

20:27 Symbol of what?

20:30 Symbol of the insecurity that awaits you when you leave your house.

20:37 Inside the house you say is life.

20:42 The house you sometimes refer to as a living space.

20:46 A space where you live.

20:49 So, outside the house is death for you.

20:51 Especially if you are weak and dependent.

20:57 So, outside is death.

20:58 Oh my God, everything is unknown.

21:01 Strangers are there.

21:03 Who will feed me?

21:04 What will happen to me?

21:07 That is Yamaraja.

21:09 That fear is Yamaraja.

21:11 Naciketa leaves his home and encounters that fear.

21:15 That is his dialogue with Yamaraja.

21:21 Are you getting it?

21:23 Anybody who is truthful will have to cross over.

21:27 Once you cross over, obviously you will meet the one on the buffalo.

21:38 Hmm?

21:45 [Music]

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