Learnings from Isa Upanishad

I studied Isa Upanishad on March 30th, 2008. This is an excellent writing with the commentary of Shankaracharya. I have noted down the learnings over here for easy reference and fast review.

Isa Upanishad has three special features.

(a) The Referent described here is fully Theistic.
(b) Reality of the world is expressly mentioned.
(c) An active life with performance of prescribed Karmas is given importance. Escape from one's duty is not accepted.

Verse 1: He who is the supreme Ruler and supreme Self of all is the Lord. For as the indwelling soul of all, He is the Self of all beings and as such rules all. He, who is thus engaged in the thought of the Self as God, has competence only for renouncing the three kinds of desire and not for karma. You who have renounced desires, do not cherish any desire for wealth. Do not long for anybody’s – either your own or somebody else’s wealth. Nobody has any wealth which can be coveted. All this has been renounced through this thought of the “Lord”, “All this is but the Self”, so that all this belongs to the Self, and the Self is all. Therefore, do not have any hankering for things that are unreal.

The self is to be saved through firm devotedness to the knowledge of the Self after the renunciation of the threefold desire.

Verse 2: The ordinary and ignorant persons are called the killers of the Self. Because of this fault of slaying the Self, they are subject to birth and death.

Verse 6: This is a matter of experience that all revulsion comes to one who sees something as bad and different from oneself, but for one who sees only the absolutely pure Self as a continuous entity, there is no object that can be the cause of revulsion.

Verse 7: Sorrow and delusion happen to the ignorant man who does not perceive the seed of desire and actions, but not to the man who realizes the oneness, of the Self which is pure like space.

Verse 8: The first purport of the Vedas is devotedness to knowledge after renouncing all desires. And the second purport of the Vedas is that, in case this devotedness to knowledge is impossible for the man of ignorance, there should be continuance in the path of duty, which fact is stated in the second verse thus: “By doing karmas, indeed, should one wish to live.”

The works are meant for a man who is ignorant and hankers after results. Ignorance and desires are the characteristics of a man devoted to work. So the result of this work is the creation of seven kinds of fruits and continuance in a state of identification with them under the idea that they are the Self. For those who have realized the Self by renouncing the threefold desire, there can only be continuance in the Self Itself, as opposed to the continuance in the path of karma.

Verse 9: Vidya and Karma are very often enjoined to be performed separately by men of different tendencies; and separate results are enjoined for them. This would not have been so, if either formed part of the other.

Verse 10: The world of Gods is (won) through meditation and the world of Manes is (won) through karma.

Verse 11: Following good learning is found during explanation of verse 11:- The impression on (created on the mind) by merit, demerit, etc., acquired in a previous birth, as manifested at the time of death, is called nature – From Sankara’s commentary on the Gita, XVII. 2.

Know “Maya” as Prakrti (material cause) and the great Lord as the possessor of Maya.

There is no possibility of combination between the knowledge of the supreme Self and karma.

The co-existence of knowledge and karma is absurd.

When knowledge arises, karma vanishes.

When to the man of realization all beings become the very Self, then what delusion and what sorrow can there be for that seer of oneness? Since ignorance is impossible (for such a man), karma, which originates from ignorance, is also impossible.

Therefore, the combination (of karma) is with meditation and not with the knowledge of the supreme Self.

HE WHO KNOWS THESE TWO, VIDYA AND AVIDYA, TOGETHER, ATTAINS IMMORTALITY THROUGH VIDYA, BY CROSSING OVER DEATH THROUGH AVIDYA.

Vidya = Worship or meditation
Avidya = Karma = Rites

Vidya and avidya i.e. meditation on deities and rites, he who knows these together, knows them as things to be performed by the same person; for that man alone, who thus combines (the two), there occurs the successive acquisition of the two goals in the same individual. Through avidya i.e. through rites such as Agnihotra, death rites and meditation induced by one’s nature (Nature as explained above); crossing over – over both these which are called death; through vidya, the meditation on the deities; one attains immortality, identification with the deities, that very fact of becoming one with the gods being called immortality.