The Upanishads – love and joy
In the Katha Upanishad there are two clear paths, “There is the path of joy and there is the path of pleasure. Both attract the soul. The two paths lie in front of man. Pondering on them, the wise chooses the path of joy: the fool takes the path of pleasure.”
In my last Blog Edward Carpenter and the message of Love I ended with the central message of the Upanishads;
“The truth of love is the Truth of the universe.”
“Love is undefinable, but we know that love is joy: not indeed a transient pleasure, but an eternal joy of the soul.”
The question, for me, is why we see the two paths, of joy and pleasure, as distinct; as either / or.
The Upanishads themselves tell us life is very much about a bringing together of the material and the spiritual, based on a recognition that we are first and foremost an ‘event’ in the world “we do not live in a world of incorporeal spirits”, “before man can enjoy life he must eat and be alive.” And is pleasure not a key indicator of being alive to the world?
However, The Yoga Sutra tells us that it is not pleasure that is the issue, rather the ‘grasping’ after pleasure, which becomes a recipe for pain. Indeed, I can see that most of my life has been dedicated to a grasping after pleasure. We often talk of the psychological opposites pleasure and pain. My pursuit of pleasure had mostly been a dash from the pain inside. A sticking plaster over unresolved trauma.
Talking therapies did a job of helping me manage my life and understand, intellectually, where my issues came from. But actually releasing that trauma from my body and integrating my intellectual knowledge and body-based knowledge was only possible due to the work I undertook as part of my tantra yogic journey. It wasn’t until I came into contact with Tantra Yoga that I found a road map out of this trauma.
Pleasure then is something to be embraced and savoured; and let go of. Not to be sought and grasped at. We embrace the rise from unconsciousness to consciousness (for only in the consciousness of Joy can we apprehend the reality of divine pleasure). As the Katha Upanishad says, pleasure is transient. But it is a signpost of the joy that awaits us if we are willing to let go of our grasping. And tantra yoga is the path and the map to get us there.
But tantra yoga is not the destination. The destination is Love. And love is ‘the first condition’ for entering the path. Love is not some abstract thing. It is shown through action. It is not the prayer or a practice. It is the works of love we do. We need to bring the work of love into our daily live; into that which we do. This is how we proclaim, as the ISA Upanishad says, “the victory of life.”
Brining it all together
The central message of The Upanishads is YES; a yes to life and to love. OM is to know this central Truth. “The truth of love is the Truth of the universe.” It is a truth, love and joy that is here and now.
Juan Mascaro, who translated The Upanishads and wrote the Introduction, says,
“One of the tasks of education is to reveal the joy of the Infinite which is the joy of love.”
Having spent 30 years in the education sector, this is news to me, but something I am passionate about sharing through Pink Tantra Towards Awakening tantra yoga community for men-who-love-men.
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