Leading a balanced life with understanding

The Manifest is the world which is manifested out of the Supreme Being and the Unmanifest is the cause of this manifestation. The results of worshipping the two are different. One who worships the Unmanifest, who tries to understand the inner core of this manifest world, realises ultimately that the core is his own inner Self and therefore the inner self of all living beings.

The one who worships the manifest world often completely ignores the source and the cause – the unmanifest Supreme Being – and believes that the manifest world is all there is. When sorrow strikes him or death overtakes him, everything is at an end.

When we come face to face with disease or death, then we begin to understand the foolishness of depending on the manifest, because soon it is all going to disappear and we wonder, ‘Is there something permanent, something other than this?’ 

This is the question the Upanishads ask and try to answer or rather try to bring out from us. Dialogue is a very important method of teaching in the Upanishad. If one imposes an answer on someone, that answer will be either ignored or forgotten. The answer must come from within. It is more important to keep a question alive than to get a readymade answer. It all depends on our personal sadhana. As we keep the question alive and do our sadhana, the ‘intellectual’ capacity to answer the question also increases. Introspection is something one should not avoid. Readymade answers, available in books, mean nothing unless they form part of our personal experience. The strength of the Upanishads lies in taking us on to this experience within. That is why they go on to these subtle intellectual acrobatics so that the answer is worked out within oneself. The Ishavasya Upanishad says, ‘Do your karma for a hundred years, don’t run away!

If you do it with the understanding that Supreme Being pervades everything, then the effect of the karma will not touch you. This Upanishad tries to bring about a balance between extreme monastic life, on the one hand and worldly life on the other. 

Understanding the manifest and the unmanifest together means to live where you are and simultaneously go on with your search for the Truth, giving enough importance to the manifest as well as the unmanifest, until you begin to understand the truth that the Supreme Being is the only living reality and is all-pervading.