Kshurikopanishad, Kshurika Upanishad belongs to the Krishna Yajurveda and contains 22 mantras, and of course the last two are the phalam. So, the entire Upanishad has 24 mantras, belonging to the Krishna Yajurveda. 'Kshurika' means a small knife, a cutting knife. The Upanishad is named as 'Kshurika Upanishad' because like a small knife is used to cut, the techniques, the philosophy, the teaching of the Kshurika Upanishad also cuts the bondages, cuts the obstacles on the path of yoga. It removes various difficulties, obstructions on the path of meditation. That is how the cutting ascender with a tool, the Kshurika. This is a wonderful Upanishad explaining the exact correct method, techniques of practicing many of well-known practices that are common in the field of yoga.
Yoga Adhikaraha - the Upanishad opens with Adhikara - the eligible criteria of the practitioner:
Om kṣurikāṁ sampravakṣyāmi dhāraṇāṁ yogasiddhaye |
Yaṁ prāpya na punarjanma yogayuktasya jāyate. ||1||
Vedatattvārthavihitaṁ yathoktaṁ hi svayaṁbhuvā |
Niḥśabdaṁ deśamāsthāya tatrāsanamavasthitaḥ || 2||
That is, the Kshurika that is the knife, the meditation, the focusing of the mind, the mind itself is treated or made as a Kshurika to cut its own bondages. The mind itself will be cutting its own bondages for the attainment of the yoga, and the import of the Vedas, the sayambhu is the attainment level. What are the techniques explained in the Kshurika Upanishad? The very common well-known practices: asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and Samadhi. Then the yoga sadhana, adhikari and the results of the samadhi this is how the Upanishads proceeds, opening up with the practice of asana and pranayama:
Vedatattvārthavihitaṁ yathoktaṁ hi svayaṁbhuvā |
Niḥśabdaṁ deśamāsthāya tatrāsanamavasthitaḥ || 2||
Kūrmo'ṅgānīva saṁhṛtya mano hṛdi nirudhya ca |
Mātrādvādaśayogena praṇavena śanaiḥ śanaiḥ || 3 ||
Pūrayetsarvamātmānaṁ sarvadvāraṁ nirudhya ca |
Uromukhakaṭigrīvaṁ kiñcidbhūdayamunnatam || 4 ||
Prāṇānsan-dhārayettasmin-nāsābhyantara-cāriṇaḥ |
Bhūtvā tatra gataḥ prāṇaḥ śanairatha samutsṛjet ||5 ||
It means how asana and pranayama are to be practiced. A wonderful opening, clarity for many of the yoga sadhakas, yoga practitioners, yoga teachers, yoga students. How an asana and pranayama have to be practiced? 'Nishabdham', 'desham asthaya' - one should sit in a secluded, silent place taking a suitable posture.
Then Kūrmo'ṅgānīva saṁhṛtya mano hṛdi nirudhya ca withdraw the sense of organs just like a tortoise withdraws its limbs, controlling the mind and the heart. Then one should fill his entire body by degrees, shanai shanaihi, with twelve matras. You should always remember a matra, whenever it is referred to in yoga, especially in the context of pranayama it is a unit of time, in the time of inhalation and time of exhalation. The Upanishad puts it Mātrādvādaśayogena praṇavena śanaiḥ śanaiḥ slowly, slowly, slowly inhaling for twelve matras, along with the omkara, pranava i.e. a manasika omkara japa while inhaling for twelve matras. For all our convenience, we can easily say one matra is a second or one and a half second. Then after that, filling that omkara with the forty-eight mantras of vayu in all and after blocking up all the doors that means shutting the entire body free from all the disturbances, it is to be stabilized, fixed - sthiram sukham as Maharishi Patanjali describes in the Yoga Sutras. Then the prana is going inside without any jerks. Steadily it is going inside. Then gently 'śanairatha samutsṛjet' means slowly, gently exhale. This is how pranayama and asana have to be practiced. It clears all our doubts, and all our concepts, ideas, and techniques. Because, the Kshurika Upanishad's practice of asana and pranayama or the practice of the Kshurika dharana, concentration has a cutting knife as a tool.
Then Pratyaharaha – 'Sthiramātrādṛḍhaṁ kṛtvā aṅguṣṭhena samāhitaḥ |
Dve gulfe tu prakurvīta jaṅghe caiva trayastrayaḥ ||
All the sense organs are controlled, pratyahara it is. The mind and prana are firm and strong. It is so strong. The two ankles and the two shanks and fixing the three i.e. the two thighs and the ankles and the spine are fixed. It means a meditative posture, relaxed and a meditative posture. In the two knees, similarly, in the two thighs and the two made up of the anus and the male organs, the muladhara, the fixing and withdrawal of three mentioned above should be made. This means the mind, the prana, and the subtlest form of the mind are withdrawn from these parts of the body, from the toes, from the feet, from the heels, from the ankles, from the calf muscles, from the knees, from the thighs, then from the buttocks, then from the hips, that is the manipura region. Then withdraw the mind and the prana and allow it to flow into the nadis, the sushumna nadi surrounded by the dasha nadis, the ida, the pingala, and the others.
The Upanishad beautifully describes the astral, the mental, the psychological, the subtle form of our self, various colors involved in that is also beautifully described by that, the various varanas: tatra, raktaca, pitaca, krishna, tamra, vilohitaha - it calls it - the red, the yellow, the black, the copper, the brown and so on, the subtler and the subtler dimensions. Slowly as the prana and the mind are moving upwards.
Then the daharapundarika in the Vedanta scriptures as it was told, the red blood lotus, then the prana and the mind are taken up to the vishuddha chakra. It is from the muladhara, manipura, swadhishtana, then the anahata and into the vishuddha it is, and ajna, and into the sahasrara. As we are aware, the energy points shakti bindus, then the prana bindus, pranic points, then the nadi bindus, the channels of the prana converging, meeting points, meeting points of the channels of the prana from the muladhara, swadhishtana, manipura, then the anahata, vishuddha, ajna and the sahasrara, intertwining with the major three nadis: the ida, the pingala and the sushumna. Consciously the prana and the mind is withdrawn from the lower parts of the body and consciously experiencing, feeling its flow into the subtler levels, subtler stages, and subtler forms of our existence. This is the pratyahara level, as it is withdrawing from the external and getting into the internal, withdrawing from the gross, entering into the subtler, that is the pratyahara. Then the dharana, dhyana and the Samadhi:
Tadbhittvā kaṇṭhamāyāti tāṁ nāḍīṁ pūrayanyataḥ |
Manasastu kṣuraṁ gṛhya sutīkṣṇaṁ buddhinirmalam || 11 ||
Pādasyopari yanmadhye tadrūpaṁ nāma kṛntayet |
Manodvāreṇa tīkṣṇena yogamāśritya nityaśaḥ || 12 ||
Indravajra iti proktaṁ marmajaṅghānukīrtanam |
Taddhyānabalayogena dhāraṇābhirnikṛntayet || 13 ||
Ūrvormadhye tu saṁsthāpya marmaprāṇavimocanam |
Caturabhyāsayogena chindedanabhiśaṅkitaḥ || 14 ||
Tataḥ kaṇṭhāntare yogī samūhannaḍīsañcayam |
Ekottaraṁ nāḍīśataṁ tāsāṁ madhye varāḥ smṛtāḥ || 15 ||
The practice of dharana has been explained in this beautifully. The various methods is all withdrawing from the body level, and concentrating on the internal levels. This is dharana. From the physical, emotional, even from the pranic level the mind is withdrawn and consciously trained into the deeper and higher levels. That is the dharana, dhyana, and finally that is the samadhi level - dharana, dhyana, and samadhi.
We should all remember that this is a simple practice of a deep shavasana practice or an advanced shavasana practice, or even from the normal simple yoga nidra practice to a very deep advanced yoga nidra practice. All these levels and states of these practices, shades of these practices of shavasana from the simple, normal, gross, restful shavasana to a highly advanced meditative shavasana, from a simple relaxing and meditative yoga nidra practice to a very highly advanced practice of the yoga nidra practice is what is explained in the Kshurika Upanishad. It is cutting off from all the attachments, it is cutting off from all with which we are associated, it is cutting off from all that we feel we are, and that is the practice, Kshurika it is. This cutting, freeing ourselves, all the knots have been cut.
bhidyate hṛdaya-granthiś chidyante sarva-saṁśayāḥ as the Upanishad puts it elsewhere. That is how the Kshurika Upanishad describing asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and finally the samadhi level, where even the prana, awareness of the flow of prana and the mind, even in the sushumna is withdrawn. It is all used as vehicles. And finally moves out, flows out, frees itself from all this, and that is the final level of the mind and the prana freed from all the nadis, including the sushumna, and getting one with the all-pervading base, the root, and the existence that is the Brahman. In the pranayama methodology, it has been termed as the Brahmarandhra. It is called Brahmastithi and has been described beautifully.
'Yoga Sandhanam tad adhikaricha' and slowly, 'shanai shanaihi, nishabdham desham astitaha, nishangaha saanga yogam nirpekshaha, shanai shanaihi.'
That is the 21st mantra, beautifully describes how carefully the mind has been taken through the Ashtanga Yoga into the nirvikalpa samadhi. It has been brought and placed or allowed to move to that particular state.
Then, samadhi phalam, the last mantras, are about the fruits of the samadhis. It gives another imagery here that like a hamsa, like a swan, bringing us under the lotus stalks, the roots of the lotus without any hesitation rises to the skies and cuts its pond. See beautifully, the swan which moves in the waters of the lotus pond, rises from the waters, cuts the bondage of the lotus plants, even the stalks of the lotus roots, and flies away. This is how the mind and the prana fly into the akashaha, chidakashaha, brahmatashaha. That is the explanation of samadhi given in the Kshurika Upanishad.
Beautiful imageries are given, wonderful techniques have been presented, an excellent methodology has been described, and also for all our normal practices, for our corrections in our asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, and dhyana, and even for the subtler layers of our practices, the Kshurika Upanishad is extremely useful with its proposition to cut all our bondages and to be free to be in the world of freedom. Let us learn more from other Upanishads and let us practice the techniques given in the Kshurika Upanishad. Aum Shanti Shanti Shanti:
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मुक्तसंग्ङोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वित:।
सिद्धयसिद्धयोर्निर्विकार: कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते ॥१८.२६॥
Freed from attachment, non-egoistic, endowed with courage and enthusiasm and unperturbed by success or failure, the worker is known as a pure (Sattvika) one. Four outstanding and essential qualities of a worker. - Bhagwad Gita : XVIII-26
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