00:00Parameshwari is asking, Dear Acharyaji, Pranam.
00:14In Kathopanishad, the young boy in Echiketa attained the highest wisdom and immortality
00:21by the virtue of dispassion and the firm resolve to know the truth.
00:27Unless I resolve to know the self, there is no other way, it seems.
00:32Jayaji, kindly speak on the virtues of determination and dispassion Echiketa had.
00:38Thank you very much.
00:39Love and gratitude.
00:40Parameshwari.
00:41Yes, obviously, Echiketa had determination and dispassion, but do not think of that as
01:08merely the stuff this boy exhibited in front of the death god.
01:24It is common for readers to say that Echiketa's fearlessness and glory lie in standing unperturbed
01:40in front of death.
01:46Not quite so.
02:02The story of Echiketa is more flesh and blood.
02:06Story of Echiketa is more like our own story.
02:16And if it is more like our own story, then we have to keep the encounter with death god
02:26aside for a while and look at the more mortal aspects of Echiketa's story.
02:39Echiketa is a mere boy dependent on his father and he has the honesty and the guts to go
02:55to his father and say, of what use is all this that you are doing?
03:04Who will benefit from these old and sick and milkless cows?
03:21I assure you, Parameshwari, that was more difficult than facing Yamaraj.
03:34We glorify Echiketa's encounter with Yamaraj and that keeps things safe for us.
03:46Glory to Echiketa who stood unflinching in front of Yamaraj.
03:52Nice, because we very well know that this encounter is a myth.
03:59We very well know that we will never have the occasion in our own life to stand face
04:06to face with the death god.
04:11At least not in the way the Upanishad narrates.
04:17We all will die, in that sense we all will face the death god one day.
04:23But not in the way Echiketa faced, not in the way of having a conversation in words
04:33and sentences.
04:37So nice and safe.
04:40Say glory to the one who can stand unflinching, unflappable in front of Yamaraj.
04:52I will put it differently, Parameshwari, I will say glory to the one who is dependent
05:03on somebody close to him and yet has the guts to utter the truth and the guts to leave
05:16his home.
05:17That's where Echiketa's glory really lies.
05:26Yamaraj is fictitious.
05:29What danger is there in facing fiction?
05:33Echiketa's father is not fictitious.
05:38There is great danger in facing someone real, especially when you are dependent on that
05:44real person.
05:55And at first father, who is an influential person, keeps dismissing the boy away.
06:13But Echiketa keeps pestering him.
06:21Immediately annoyed by the boy's pesky behaviour, the father says, I am giving you away to death.
06:34Obviously the father is just uttering some nonsense in a moment of rage.
06:46The boy has been annoying him.
06:52The boy has been questioning his moral authority.
06:56The father does not really want to put away the boy.
07:01The father just wants the boy to leave him alone and not irritate him.
07:09After all it's a big ceremony that is going on, thousands of cows are being given to Brahmins.
07:18The father is busy overseeing the arrangement and the boy is chasing him.
07:26And the boy is saying, father, hold, what the hell is going on?
07:31These are useless cows, you are donating them.
07:34What is the worth of such a donation?
07:39Father is saying, stay away.
07:44Can you visualize all this?
07:45Oh, the Kathopanishad does not explicitly tell of all this.
07:50That which I am narrating consists of a lot of my own construction.
07:59But this is how it would have happened.
08:04He is barely a teenager and he is chasing the father, father, what really is going on.
08:13Look at that cow, look, look, father, look, half dead.
08:24So the father says, you keep shut.
08:30The boy does not relent.
08:33Finally the father says, I am giving you away to God, Death God.
08:44And now comes the moment of glory, real glory, Vaisakheta says, fine, if you are giving me
08:50away to Death God, then here I go away to death.
08:57Parneshwari, that's dispassion, that's determination.
09:07After that, what happens is smooth and natural.
09:14Vaisakheta has already cleared the big test.
09:21Facing Yamraj is the smaller test.
09:23Having cleared the big test, obviously he'll emerge with flying colors in the smaller one.
09:31The big test is to leave the home.
09:36The big test is to give up all dependency.
09:41And after that, obviously, you will be blessed with the truth.
09:48And look at Vaisakheta, the first thing he asks Yamraj is, let my father be alright.
10:01Please bless my father.
10:04Please don't let him stay angry.
10:12His father has done the unthinkable and Vaisakheta still has no bitterness.
10:23He says, God, first of all, you bless my father.
10:31About truth, he asks right in the end.
10:34That's his final query.
10:35What does he ask?
10:38Tell me that by which immortality is achieved.
10:44What really is immortality?
10:47He doesn't directly ask about death.
10:49He asks about immortality.
10:54And Yamraj says, boy, you can have expensive toys if you want.
11:05You can have the best of foods if you want, the latest gadgets if you so please, a brand
11:18new car for you, along with the driving license, it doesn't matter if you are underage, I am
11:24the death God, you see.
11:29All that Nishiketa could be tempted with was tried.
11:34It failed on him.
11:36Parameswari, that's the test.
11:39All the knowledge that you find in the Upanishad is easy to get.
11:46Once you have overcome dependency, once you have stayed true to yourself, once you have
12:03won over the craving for security, stability, the confines of a comfortable palace, the
12:24comfort of a regular routine, once you have been able to go beyond all this, then the
12:37truth is obvious.
12:39That is not at all difficult.
12:42All the great and golden verses that you come across in the Kathopanishad, they will spring
12:52up right from your heart.
12:54They will not be distant or difficult anymore.
13:02You get this.
13:03Those verses are the easiest part.
13:07You start hearing those verses right in your breath, they are the easiest part.
13:11The more difficult part is right in the beginning.
13:16The more difficult part is when you ask your father for the truth, knowing fully well that
13:23he is not in the truth, you say, nothing doing, daddy what is going on?
13:30Daddy says, kid you very well know who provides your pocket money and kiddo says doesn't matter
13:39papa, I am prepared to give up the pocket money, I am prepared to give up the comforts,
13:50but tell me what is all this cow business?
14:03The trouble with most of us Parameswari is that we do not cross the first hurdle.
14:27The death god did not chase Naciketa, Yamraj didn't penetrate into Naciketa's home, his palace.
14:46Naciketa had to take the decision to go beyond the confines and comforts of his home and
14:56then was born in Upanishad.
14:59To me the Upanishad was seeded in the moment Naciketa accosts his father.
15:18Even as Naciketa is leaving the palace, I can see the father calling behind him, son
15:27I was just joking, what the hell are you doing?
15:32I didn't mean it, Naciketa is saying, it's done, deal closed.
15:44Yours is not a palace of honesty, yours is not a palace where I'll be able to break free
15:53and stay free of the falls, I am quitting it.
16:01The father would have initially thought that the son is just kidding, kid's kid, but then
16:12he sees that he is actually walking away and now the father is trembling, the father
16:23is going behind the son and saying, kiddo you can have anything that you want, you want
16:31me to stop this ceremony, I'll stop it.
16:34Where are you going away?
16:36What will you do?
16:37What will you live on?
16:39You have no experience, you have no knowledge, what's worse you have no money.
16:48Naciketa is saying, I am going.
16:54Father says, alright, the sun is setting, stay over for the night, you can leave tomorrow
17:02morning.
17:03What is he hoping?
17:06The mood will change overnight, Naciketa says no, not one breath more in this place, not
17:13that I hate this place papa, I still love you, but I have to chart my own course, if
17:22I keep living on your bread, freedom is not for me.
17:34That's the Upanishad parameshwari, not the dialogue between Yama and Naciketa.
17:40That's how Katha Upanishad is usually presented.
17:44They say Katha Upanishad is the dialogue between Yama and Naciketa, no, Katha Upanishad is
17:53the dialogue between Naciketa and his father.
17:59After that, the dialogue that ensues, I say is natural.
18:08It will happen because the bigger hurdle has been crossed.
18:14So the next thing will happen.
18:16First things first, but the world does not want to put emphasis where it is really due.
18:27Emphasis has to be put on the first few verses of the Upanishad.
18:37Emphasis has to be put on the opening scene, that's where the Upanishad is really contained.
18:43Here is someone who in spite of his raw age, inexperience and dependency and emotional
18:57attachment is still not prepared to come to a truth with the false.
19:13Once he has known that he will not get the truth where he is, he just crosses over.
19:23Crossing over, he meets death.
19:26It's symbolic.
19:27Do you understand this?
19:29That which we call as life, we have defined it as being within the four walls of our house.
19:35We say, I live in my house.
19:39Don't we say that?
19:42So where is life?
19:45In the safety of the house.
19:47So outside the house is death.
19:51That's what Yamaraja represents.
19:53The discomfort, the insecurity that a dependent one encounters outside his house.
20:05No Yamaraja factually exists.
20:09Nachiketa is a fact, a boy in flesh and blood.
20:15In the sense Nachiketa is a fact, Yamaraja is not a fact.
20:20No Yamaraja came to Nachiketa in flesh and blood.
20:25Yamaraja is a symbol.
20:27Symbol of what?
20:30Symbol of the insecurity that awaits you when you leave your house.
20:37Inside the house you say is life.
20:42The house you sometimes refer to as a living space, a space where you live.
20:48So outside the house is death for you, especially if you are weak and dependent.
20:57So outside is death.
20:58Oh my God, everything is unknown, strangers are there, who will feed me?
21:04What will happen to me?
21:07That is Yamaraja.
21:09That fear is Yamaraja.
21:11Nachiketa leaves his home and encounters that fear.
21:16That is his dialogue with Yamaraja.
21:19Are you getting it?
21:23Anybody who is truthful will have to cross over.
21:27Once you cross over, obviously you will meet the one on the buffalo.
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