The Katha Upanashads of the Vedas

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The Katha Upanashads of the Vedas

Understanding the Katha was at first a bit of a challenge for me, after I got through the first few paragraphs, I began to understand the deeper meaning that they try to convey. After I finished them I was filled with feelings of joy, understanding, complacency, and most importantly an overwhelming sense of unity. I know that to truly understand them in their entirety, it would require not only reading them countless times but also living every word of them.

The first paragraph was interesting to me in the fact that Vajasrabasa believed he could get away with only sacrificing the most useless of his possessions. The fact that his son, Nachiketa was able to understand the sacred texts more than himself is simply beyond me. When Vajasrabasa gave Nachiketa to Death it was sad in the fact he seemed to do it so carelessly, but then again I don’t think that he should be growing up with someone of his father’s character.

When the boy waited for three nights I could barely imagine what he felt during that time. When Death eventually arrived, I was shocked at its hospitality and willingness to offer such a magnificent gift as three “boons.” This made me think that one thing that I would truly like to be able to do, simply the chance to stand in the presence of any god. When I finished the story though I realized that god is nowhere and everywhere at the same time, and that it is everything and nothing. I have tried to find a way to explain many of my personal thoughts and beliefs, but I have always had an extremely difficult time trying to put them into words.

When Death began to explain the secret of immortality, I was hooked from then on. Death speaks of “living in the abyss of ignorance yet...

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...his I came to truly understand the essence of reincarnation, I had a somewhat different view on it. I hadn’t ever considered the different planes of existence, it had never really occurred to me to question the realms of existence. Until, a few days ago I thought of life as only as the plane of mortals and the plane of the immortal. I was driving with a friend out to the beach, along the way I was thinking about it, and I realized that if I thought about Brahman as pure white light, and the different planes of existence being represented by the rainbow of colors that all blend together, but are still separate it made complete sense. The rainbow is simply made up of scattered white light that infinitely reflects and changes form, just as Brahman is moving and flowing in everything forever changing form.

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The Katha Upanashads of the Vedas

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