Yuva Bharati – March 2018

40 / March 2018 / Yuva Bharati

Upanishad says, “Those who walk the path

of ignorance (namely that of ritualistic

works) go to pitchy darkness; while those

who walk on the path of knowledge

(without action) go to greater darkness

skill. Ignorance leads to one result while

knowledge leads to the other. This is

what we have heard from the sages who

have told us about the nature of ignorance

and knowledge. But, he, who knows both

the path of ignorance and the path of

knowledge together, by his knowledge of

the one is able to cross the bund of death

and by his knowledge of the other to

attain to immortality (Isavasya Upanishad

mantras 9 – 11).

This important quotation from the

Isavasyopanishad tells us the way of

synthesis out of the conflicting claims

of works and knowledge. On the one

hand mere works are insufficient, on the

other mere knowledge is insufficient.

The Purva mimamsa which advocates

the one and the Uttara mimamsa which

advocates the other, may both be said to

take partial views. As against both these,

the Isavasyopanishad tells us that he who

knows how to reconcile the claims of both

works and knowledge is able to extricate

himself from the evils inherent in either

and to enjoy the advantages of both by

going beyond both of them.

In later times there was a very great

conflict among one school maintaining

that absolution could be attained only by

means of works – and knowledge itself be

regarded as work – and a second school

saying that absolution could be attained only

by a combination of knowledge and works

and the third maintaining that absolution

must be attained only by knowledge. But

the Isavasyopanishad goes beyond them in

asserting that both knowledge and works

are to be negated in the higher synthesis

of realization. A bird could not fly in the

heaven merely by one wing, but only by

means of both wings together.

Similarly, the Isavasya says that man must

reconcile the claims of both knowledge and

works to be able to soar in the regions of

the Infinite, the synthesis of soaring being

even superior to the fact of equipoise,

we thus see how the Isavasyopanishad

puts forth a theory which later became

the pilot of the doctrine of the moderate

mimamsakas, supporting as it does neither

the doctrine of the ultra mimamsakas nor

that the ultra – vedantists.

[R.D. Ranade – A constructive survey of

the Upanishadic philosophy (Page 140 –

141)].

It is important to note that a passage from

the Isopanishad (Isavasya Upanishad – 2)

tells us that we should spend our life-time

in doing actions, the actions that are here

implied have no further range than possibly

the small circumference of sacrifice and

further, the way in which even in the midst

of a life of action, freedom from contagion

with the fruit of action may be seemed

is not here brought out with sufficient

clearness. It is only later in the Bhagawad

Gita, that we see how even in the midst

of the life of action, actionlessness may

be secured, only if attachment to action is

annihilated once for all and no calculating

desire is entertained for the fruit of action.