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Commentary on the Katha Upanishad–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
 How to Either Know or Not Know the Self
Let the student (who is often a “buyer”) beware
“The truth of the Self cannot be fully understood when taught by an ignorant man, for opinions regarding it, not founded in knowledge, vary one from another. Subtler than the subtlest is this Self, and beyond all logic. Taught by a teacher who knows the Self and Brahman as one, a man leaves vain theory behind and attains to truth.”
By “the truth of the Self” is meant both the philosophical, scriptural truth and the direct perception of the truth experienced in meditation. However Yama is at this point speaking more on the side of learning the intellectual truth about the Self, its nature, and its possibility of realization.
We all know the incredible and impenetrable tangle of theologies that constitute what most people think are the religions of the world. The reason for this is simple: most (almost all) teachers of religion are fundamentally ignorant. Ignorant not in the intellectual sense, but in the intuitive sense. Since we do need an intellectual road map to help us in our search for direct experience of the Self, this is a serious matter. For an attempt to figure out the truth of the Self in a purely theoretical manner will only add to the prevailing confusion. We will just become one more voice in the cacophony of ignorant religion or philosophy. Nothing is worse than an ignoramus that believes he has an “inside track.” As Jesus observed: “If the ‘light’ that is in thee be [actually] darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Consequently, it is a most detrimental thing to come into the orbit of an ignorant teacher and accept his words–and even worse to act on them. Some years back there was a most interesting motion picture called Apprentice to Murder. It was based on the actual experience of a man who as an adolescent came into contact with a “wise man” in the southern hills. This man conducted a kind of church whose members studied a nineteenth-century book of what might be called folk magic. He had genuine psychic abilities and really did work miracles. This boy became his student and ended up being jailed as an accomplice in the man’s murder of someone he considered a “black magician.” This is a rather drastic example, but frankly it is much less destructive in the long run than involvement with many contemporary teachers, some of the worst of whom are in the yoga world. To be confused is worse than being merely ignorant, and being flawed and distorted by wrong yoga practices is even worse.
Beyond the intellect
“Subtler than the subtlest is this Self, and beyond all logic,” says Yama. Being subtler than the subtlest, the Self cannot possibly be perceived by any sense–including those of the subtle bodies–or conceived of by even the highest and subtle reaches of the intellect. Yet, the Self can be known. This is possible only when “taught by a teacher who knows the Self and Brahman as one, a man leaves vain theory behind and attains to truth” through the practice of meditation, instruction in which a qualified teacher will give. This really marks out the knowledgous teacher from the ignorant teacher. The ignorant teacher will only expound theory, “proving” what he teaches by intellectual means. The worthy teacher may say much the same words, but will point the student to the means by which he can attain the vision of the Self. He will establish the student in the practice of correct meditation, without which nothing that is real can possibly be known.
A bit more. Yama tells us that the teacher should be one who knows–not a rhetorician or theoretician. Now it is impossible for us to look into the consciousness of a teacher, so how will we know he has real knowledge? We cannot in an absolute sense, but Yama gives us a trait that at least assures us the teacher is not altogether astray: He will affirm the oneness of the Self and Brahman. No matter how cleverly, convincingly, and cutely he may speak, however much he may appeal to our emotions and deluded intellects, if he does not insist on the unity of the Self and Brahman, saying with the Chandogya Upanishad “THAT THOU ART,” he is unworthy and to be turned away from. Unhappily, there are a lot of ignoramuses who appeal to egotistical fools by saying: “You are God.” The true teacher says not that we are God, but that God is us. There is an infinite difference. Furthermore, the real teacher does not just tell us this fact, he instructs in the means to find it out for ourself. These two traits must be present before we even begin to think about accepting a teacher as a valid guide.
The ultimate test of a teacher is our own capacity, made accessible to us by his instruction, to leave all speculation behind and enter into the Reality that is both Brahman and the Self while remaining ever One. Then all the gods and sages will say of us what Yama said of Nachiketa: “The awakening which thou hast known does not come through the intellect, but rather, in fullest measure, from the lips of the wise. Beloved Nachiketa, blessed, blessed art thou, because thou seekest the Eternal. Would that I had more pupils like thee!”
1) Katha Upanishad 1:2:8 [Go back]
2) Matthew 6:23. “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him” (Proverbs 26:12). “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:21). “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22). [Go back]
3) Katha Upanishad 1:2:9 [Go back]
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