Monday, August 26, 2013

KENA UPANISHAD 4:4 [a flash of lightning]

By that foregoing message in which That, the lightning, lights completely in fact, and in a flash closes completely, thus is the divinity of nature.


tasyaisha aadesho yad etad vidyuto vyadyutadaa itiin nyamiimishadaa iti adhidaivatam


Note: This is another one of those slokas in which Shankara dominates the translations. It appears to me that he used the analogy of the winking of an eye to illustrate the actual analogy given in the sloka itself of a flash of lightning lit and then closed. But almost all translations incorporate Shankara’s illustration into the text itself. I can’t see it that way. What I do see is the importance of this understanding: That is seen in a flash of lightning; That is the flash of lightning; That lights the flash of lightning; and the flash of lightning is the sudden nature of enlightenment.

No comments:

Post a Comment