Spiritual Message for the Day – Knowledge and Power (Brahmana and Kshatriya) by Swami Krishnananda
Baba Times Digest© | 1 December 2014 15.36 EST | New York Edition
Knowledge and Power
(Brahmana and Kshatriya)
Divine Life Society Publication: Commentary on the Katha Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda
The brahmana and kshatriya represent knowledge and power, internality and externality, spirit and matter, consciousness and object. The words brahmin and kshatriya do not signify personalities, but the spirit behind them. In the Atman there is a blending of absolute knowledge and power. “Some philosophers hold that there is no power in the Atman, because power means action, and since He is universal, there can be no question of it, because to us power is always particularised, an exercise of authority. But His is shakti, the capacity; not karma or doing something. The whole universe is a standing example of His power. You know how much force is in an atom; it can blow the world. Then what should be the strength of the cosmos which is full of them? And what should be the power of the Atman who is the controller of their source?
Power is not authority, and knowledge is not omniscience—they are more than that. In the Atman, the existence of one is the existence of the other. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are represented as One, and as Trinity in the Puranas. So also knowledge, power and the transcendence of individuality—symbolised as death being the condiment—are represented in the Atman. The affirmation of individuality is death. But death is not possible in Him, because in His Being all that you conceive of is transcended. To us, existence is regarded as a qualification of something. We say: “I exist” or “you exist”, but in reality, existence is the substance, and is prior to ‘I’ or ‘you’. The predicate, to make sense, is connected to the subject. But general existence is prior to particular existence, which latter is better called formation. In the case of the Atman, existence is general and absolute. This is paramarthika-satta. In it, individuality is ruled out, and so death has no meaning there; death is dissolved in it. “Such Atman—who can know where He really is?”
Excerpts from: Knowledge and Power (Brahmana and Kshatriya) - Commentary on the Katha Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda
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