KathaUpanishad
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
• It is beyond the smallest of atoms.<br />
ananya-prokte — a teacher who is non-different i.e. has realised his essential<br />
identity with Paramātman, having personal and immediate experience, he is lifted<br />
above sectarian disputes.<br />
There are several different readings for this rather abstruse verse:<br />
It may also simply mean; “taught by some one other than the inferior mentioned<br />
earlier, i.e. a superior person who knows the truth. Or taught by another — someone<br />
other than oneself, i.e. By some skilful teacher.'<br />
Some other rendering by Non-dual (Advaita) scholars;<br />
Advaita considers the Saul of Man as identical with the Supreme Brahman the<br />
Paramatman.<br />
(a) “When the (supreme) Self, that is non-different from, and is, one's very Self<br />
is properly taught; there is nothing else to be known. For the realisation of the unity of<br />
the Self is the culmination of all knowledge. Therefore, as there is no knowable,<br />
there remains nothing to be known here”.<br />
(b) “When the theory of the non-dual Self is taught followed by realisation, there remains<br />
no further transmigration; for liberation which is the result of that realisation,<br />
follows, immediately”.<br />
(c) “When the Self is taught by a teacher who has become identified with the Brahman<br />
that he teaches, there is no “non-realisation”. To the student, the realisation, "I am that<br />
(Self)", dawns, just as it did in the case of the teacher.”<br />
The Qualified Non-dual Visiṣṭ<br />
ṣṭadvaita interpretation is:<br />
For Ramanuja, the understanding, which a person gets about the Self when taught by<br />
one who has realised Brahman is impossible to get when taught by a person of<br />
inferior capacity who has not realised Brahman. But the realisation spoken of cannot be<br />
"identity with Brahman” as Shankara thinks, because if there is only One ātman and<br />
One Brahman which are both identical then realisation would mean the total and<br />
exclusive non-perception of difference. Therefore, who would teach and who would be<br />
the taught? It would in fact be like one teaching one's self while looking in the mirror!<br />
58