Unit 13 · Devotion, Vision and the Upanishads

Chapter 9 of the Gita has a grand title in many editions: the yoga of the royal knowledge and the royal secret. In it Krishna speaks of himself as the one in whom all beings rest, like the great wind that moves everywhere yet rests in space (9.6). He describes himself as father, mother and support of the world.

The chapter’s heart is bhakti, loving devotion. Krishna says that those who worship him with devotion are in him, and he is in them (9.29). The path is not hidden behind hard learning. It is a relationship of love and trust, which many Hindus practice through prayer, song and offering.

Vaishnava readers see chapter 9 as the Gita turning toward its center. Advaita readers, who hold that the self and Brahman are one, read devotion as a strong step toward knowledge. Both schools treasure the chapter, but they place it differently in the whole. Students should describe both without ranking them.

Gita 9.26 is one of the best-loved verses among Hindus. Krishna says that whoever offers him with devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, he accepts that offering of love from one whose heart is pure. The gift is small. The love is what matters.

This verse shapes daily puja, worship with offerings, in many Hindu homes. A family may offer a flower, a little water, or fruit before a murti, a sacred image, at a home shrine. Temples such as the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago in Lemont receive similar offerings every day.

Readers point out that the verse makes worship open to the poor as well as the rich. It does not ask for costly rituals. The next verse, 9.27, widens it further: whatever you do, eat, offer or give, do it as an offering to me. Here bhakti and karma yoga meet, since all ordinary action becomes an offering.

Gita 9.30 says that even a person who has done great wrong, if they worship Krishna with undivided devotion, should be regarded as good, because they have resolved rightly. Verse 9.31 adds that Krishna’s devotee does not perish. Many readers find hope in these verses.

Verse 9.32 says that women, vaishyas and shudras, and even those of low birth, can reach the highest goal by taking refuge in Krishna. Many devotees read this as a strong statement that devotion is open to everyone, whatever their gender or birth. Bhakti saints later made the same point in song.

Critics, including many Hindu scholars today, point out that the verse also shows the social ranking of its time, since it names these groups as needing special assurance. Readers weigh both sides. A careful student notes what the verse opens up and what it takes for granted, and names who reads it which way.

In Gita 11.8 Krishna gives Arjuna a divine eye, since ordinary eyes cannot see this form. Sanjaya then describes the sight to the blind king. Verse 11.12 says that if the light of a thousand suns rose at once in the sky, it might resemble the splendor of that great being.

The form is called the vishvarupa, the universal form. Arjuna sees the whole universe, with its many parts, gathered in the body of the God of gods (11.13). He sees many arms, bellies, mouths and eyes, with no beginning, middle or end. He bows his head and folds his hands.

Devotees read chapter 11 as a revelation of Krishna’s divine nature. Many Hindu homes and temples have paintings of the vishvarupa, and it is shown with deep reverence. Scholars often describe the chapter as a theophany, a text in which a deity is said to appear to a human being.

Arjuna asks the fearsome form who it is. In 11.32 Krishna answers that he is Time, grown mighty, the destroyer of worlds, come here to sweep people away. Even without Arjuna, he says, none of the warriors in the opposing armies will survive. Verse 11.33 tells Arjuna to rise and be only the instrument.

The verse became famous in the United States through J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led the Los Alamos laboratory. In a 1965 television interview he recalled that, after the first atomic test in 1945, he thought of the line "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." That was his own wording, from his reading of the Gita in Sanskrit, not Arnold’s or Telang’s.

Readers debate what the verse means. Many Hindu commentators read kala, time, as the power that brings all things to their end, and Arjuna’s part as surrendering his ego. Others connect the verse to hard questions about responsibility in war. The same line carries very different weight for different readers.

In Gita 11.41 to 11.44, Arjuna apologizes. He says that he used to call Krishna "friend" casually, joking with him at meals and at rest, not knowing his greatness. He asks forgiveness as a father forgives a son, a friend a friend, a lover the beloved.

Then in 11.45 and 11.46 he says he is glad to have seen what no one saw before, but his mind is shaken with fear. He asks to see the familiar four-armed form again. Krishna returns to that form and then to his gentle human shape, and Arjuna says his mind is restored (11.51).

The chapter ends in 11.54 and 11.55 by saying that this form can be known and seen only by undivided devotion. Many readers notice the movement: from friendship to awe and back to a love that now knows more. Devotional readers see this as the pattern of bhakti itself, closeness joined to reverence.

Chapter 12 is short and much loved. In 12.13 to 12.20 Krishna describes the devotee who is dear to him. Such a person hates no being, is friendly and compassionate, free from possessiveness and ego, the same in pain and pleasure, and forgiving. It is a portrait, not a rule list.

The list goes on. The devotee is content, self-controlled and firm in resolve. The world is not troubled by this person, and this person is not troubled by the world. They are the same to friend and foe, in honor and dishonor, in heat and cold. Each group of verses ends with a refrain: that devotee is dear to me.

Readers often compare this list to the portrait of the sthitaprajna in chapter 2. Both describe steadiness. But chapter 12 adds warmth: friendliness, compassion and love. Many Hindu teachers use chapter 12 as a guide to character, and it is often memorized by students in Gita recitation contests.

Near the end of the Gita comes a verse many call its final word. In 18.66 Krishna says: giving up all dharmas, come to me alone for refuge; I will free you from all sins; do not grieve. The last phrase echoes Krishna’s first words in chapter 2, which told Arjuna not to grieve.

Readers disagree about "giving up all dharmas." In the Sri Vaishnava tradition of Ramanuja, the verse is called the charama shloka, "the last verse," and read as teaching complete surrender, called prapatti, to God. In Shankara’s Advaita reading, giving up dharmas points to giving up the sense of being the doer, so that knowledge can arise.

Other readers, including Gandhi, read the verse as asking for inner surrender while still doing one’s work, since Arjuna does go on to fight. All three readings cite the same Sanskrit words. The verse is a good example of why commentaries matter: a short line can carry a whole school’s teaching.

Teachers often sum up the Gita as three margas, or paths. Karma yoga is the path of action without attachment (Gita 2 to 6). Jnana yoga is the path of knowledge of the self (Gita 2, 4, 13). Bhakti yoga is the path of loving devotion (Gita 9 to 12). Chapter 18 draws them together.

This map is a helpful teaching tool, but it is a reader’s map, not a heading in the Sanskrit. Scholars note that the paths overlap in the text. Action is done as an offering, which is devotion. Devotion leads to knowledge. Knowledge makes action free.

Different schools draw the map differently. Advaita readers often put knowledge at the top. Vaishnava schools often place devotion at the center. Many modern teachers, like Vivekananda, stressed that different paths suit different people. A student can describe each map and notice what verses each one depends on.

After 18.66, Krishna asks in 18.72 whether Arjuna has heard with an attentive mind and whether his confusion is gone. In 18.73 Arjuna answers that his delusion is destroyed, his memory regained, his doubts gone, and that he will do as Krishna says. The student has become ready to act.

Then the narrator returns. Sanjaya tells the blind king that he thrills again and again as he remembers this wondrous dialogue and the form of Krishna. The Gita’s last verse, 18.78, says that where Krishna and Arjuna are, there will be fortune, victory and right conduct.

Right after the Gita, the Mahabharata goes back to the war. The battle lasts eighteen days, and nearly everyone dies. Readers notice this frame. Some see the Gita as teaching how to act in a tragic world. Others see its inner teaching as standing apart from the story around it.

The Upanishads are Sanskrit texts that form the last layer of the Vedas. The earlier layers are the hymns, the ritual manuals and the forest texts. The Upanishads turn from ritual to questions about the self, the world and what is ultimately real. For this reason tradition calls them Vedanta, the end or goal of the Veda.

Hindu tradition counts more than a hundred Upanishads, but about thirteen are called the principal or early ones. They include the Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, Katha, Isha and Mundaka. Scholars usually date the oldest, the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya, to about the 7th or 6th century BCE, and others such as the Katha to later centuries BCE.

Hindus who follow the Vedas regard the Upanishads as shruti, "what was heard": revealed texts, not composed by human authors in the ordinary sense. Scholars describe how the texts were composed and passed down orally in different schools of Vedic priests. Both views are part of the story students should know.

Many Upanishads are not lectures. They are conversations. A son asks his father. A wife asks her husband. A boy asks the god of death. A student sits near a teacher. The word upanishad is often explained as "sitting down near," though scholars debate the exact meaning.

When you read a dialogue, ask three questions. First, who asks and who answers? The asker’s situation shapes the teaching. Second, what does the teacher do: tell, show, test or tell a story? Third, what image carries the idea: salt, a seed, a chariot, a river?

These questions help because the Upanishads rarely give a definition and stop. They show an idea working in a scene. A careful reader follows the scene, writes down the image, and then asks what the teacher wants the student to see. You will use these three questions all through this chapter.

The Katha Upanishad opens with a sacrifice. A man named Vajashravasa is giving away his possessions, but the cows he gives are old and dry. His young son Nachiketa is troubled and asks, "To whom will you give me?" He asks a second and third time. At last his angry father says, "To Death I give you."

Nachiketa goes to the house of Yama, the lord of death, who is away. The boy waits three nights without food. When Yama returns, he feels he has wronged a guest, and offers three wishes, one for each night. This is how the Upanishad sets up its teaching.

Nachiketa’s first wish is that his father be calm and welcome him home. His second is to learn a fire ritual that leads to heaven. His third is the great question: when a person dies, some say he exists and some say he does not. I want to know this. The rest of the Upanishad is Yama’s answer.

Yama does not answer at once. He says even the gods had doubts about this question, and he asks Nachiketa to choose another wish. He offers sons and grandsons, cattle, horses, gold, a long life and a great kingdom, even lovely companions with chariots and music.

Nachiketa refuses. These things last only until tomorrow, he says, and they wear out the senses. Wealth cannot make a person content. Keep your horses and your songs. The wish I choose is the one I asked. Yama is pleased. He has tested the student and found him ready.

In Katha 1.2 Yama teaches that there are two things, the good, shreyas, and the pleasant, preyas. Both bind a person to action. The wise choose the good; the foolish choose the pleasant for the sake of comfort. Many Hindu teachers use this pair when they speak about choices young people face.

One of the most famous images in the Upanishads comes in Katha 1.3. Yama says: know the self as the rider in the chariot, and the body as the chariot. The intellect, buddhi, is the charioteer, and the mind is the reins. The senses are the horses, and the objects of the senses are the roads they run on.

Yama explains what the image means. A person without understanding, whose mind is never held firm, has senses like wild horses that do not obey the driver. A person with understanding, whose mind is held firm, has senses like good horses. Such a person reaches the end of the road.

Students may notice that the Gita also uses a chariot, with Krishna as Arjuna’s driver. Scholars often compare the two images. The Katha’s chariot is inside every person. Readers across Hindu schools use it to talk about self-control, and it is often drawn in Hindu children’s books.

Chandogya Upanishad chapter 6 is a series of lessons from Uddalaka Aruni to his son Shvetaketu. Each lesson uses an everyday example: clay and pots, bees and honey, rivers and the sea. Each one ends with the same words. This refrain appears nine times, from 6.8.7 to 6.16.3.

The refrain says that the finest essence is the self of all that exists. It is the real. It is the self. That art thou, Shvetaketu. In Sanskrit the last phrase is tat tvam asi. Tradition counts it as one of the four mahavakyas, the great sayings of the Upanishads.

What does it mean? Teachers of Advaita Vedanta read it as saying the self, atman, is identical with Brahman, ultimate reality. Teachers of other Vedanta schools read it as saying the self belongs to Brahman and depends on it, but is not the same. You will study these readings in depth in unit 15.

In Chandogya 6.12, Uddalaka asks for a fruit of the nyagrodha, the banyan tree. He has his son break it and asks what he sees. Tiny seeds, the son says. Break one. What do you see? Nothing at all, sir. The seed’s inner core is too fine to see. The scene is short, but every step matters.

The father answers that from this fine essence which you do not see, this great banyan stands. Believe it, my dear, he says. Then comes the refrain: that fine essence is the self of all; that art thou. The lesson moves from the visible tree to the invisible source.

The banyan is a fitting choice. It is a huge tree whose branches send down roots, so one tree can look like a forest. The image teaches that something great can come from something too small to see. Readers note how the teacher lets the student discover the "nothing" himself before naming it.

In the next lesson, Chandogya 6.13, Uddalaka tells his son to put a lump of salt in water and come back in the morning. In the morning he says: bring me the salt you put in the water. The son looks, but cannot find it, because it has dissolved. The lump seems simply gone.

Taste the water from the top, the father says. How is it? Salty. Taste from the middle. Salty. Taste from the bottom. Salty. The salt is everywhere in the water, though you cannot see it. So too, the father says, you do not see the real here, but it is here.

The image adds something the seed did not. The seed showed something too small to see. The salt shows something present everywhere at once, known by taste rather than sight. Many teachers use the salt lesson to explain how the Upanishads picture Brahman as present in all things.

The Isha Upanishad is very short, only eighteen verses. It is found as the last chapter of the Vajasaneyi Samhita of the White Yajur Veda. It takes its name from its first word, isha, "the Lord." Many Hindus know its opening verse by heart. It is often chanted at the start of study.

Isha 1 says that all this, whatever moves in the moving world, is to be covered or pervaded by the Lord. Then it gives advice: enjoy through renouncing, and do not covet anyone’s wealth. The Sanskrit phrase tena tyaktena bhunjitha, "enjoy by what has been given up," puzzles and delights readers.

How can a person enjoy by renouncing? One reading: if the world belongs to the Lord, a person can use and enjoy things without grasping them as "mine." Gandhi said that if all the Upanishads were lost and only this verse remained, Hinduism would live on. He read it as a call to simple living and trusteeship.

Isha verses 6 and 7 turn from the world to the one who sees it. A person who sees all beings in the self, and the self in all beings, does not shrink away from anything, or, as some translate, feels no hatred. When all beings have become one’s own self, what delusion or grief can there be for the one who sees that oneness?

These verses link the Upanishad’s big idea to how a person treats others. If the self is in all beings, then harming another is like harming oneself. Many Hindu teachers, and some Jain and Buddhist writers with their own reasons, connect this kind of seeing to compassion.

The Gita has a close parallel in 6.29, which describes the yogi who sees the self in all beings and all beings in the self. Readers compare such passages across texts, a practice called intertextual reading. It shows how ideas travel from the Upanishads into the Gita.