Covering, revealing, inhabiting the Self: Isa Upanishad, mantra 1

by Jenna Lilla PhD

The heart of the Upanishads is the Self, expressed as both a path of Self-knowledge and a
realization of the fullness and potential of the Self. In the Isa Upanishad, the Self is Isa,
as the Lord or Ruler, as inner lord and inner ruler.

The first mantra of the Isa Upanishad expresses, within its compressed form, a profound
insight into the nature of the Self. The eternal truth is expressed in a few mantric
syllables, as is a complete path to enlightenment. One only need meditate on the words,
recite the words, come into a full understanding of the meaning of the mantras. The Self
reveals itself within these sacred syllables, inviting us to inhabit the mantra: Om Isa
vsyam idam sarvam

Mohandas K. Gandhi said, if only the first verse in the Ishopanishad were left in the
memory of the Hindus, Hinduism would live for ever.[1] The first verse expresses a
fundamental insight not only of Hinduism, but of a universal awareness. The verse offers
a religion, a philosophy, a psychology, and a transformation in our very modes of seeing
and perceiving, our means and modes of being.

We might expect and we do find such an eternal truth to be expressed in a rich form,
giving forth a multi-perspectival fullness that transcends any one view. We also find
something unexpected, that each view offers a complete truth in and of itself. Each view
takes us to a realization that may if understood, known, realized transform our own
living sense of Self and world. These mantras transform the relation between the
individual self and the supreme Self, and again between self and world; these
transformations occur in the dynamic movements of transcendence as clarification and
immanence as union or return.

Much of the richness of the meaning of the mantra turns on the interpretation of one
word, vsyam. That word expresses or captures the relation between the divine, as Self
or God, and the empirical world in which the self finds itself. The
term vsyam may mean covered with, enveloped by, dwelling in, or inhabiting.
Vsyam as a word has differing senses that express differing and distinct relations to the
divine. What is in one perspective viewed as envelope or covering is from another
perspective experienced as a place of dwelling. And those differing perspectives may yet
be united in a greater synthesis in which they become moments or poles of a greater
movement.

Two of the most renowned philosophers of the Isa upanishad, Sankara and Sri
Aurobindo express these differing and dialectical views on the meaning of vsyam.
These two philosophers highlight these two different perspectives; these two
perspectives, taken together, form a paradoxical unity that reveals a comprehensive
dynamics of Self-realization.

Mantra 1:
Om Isa vsyam idam sarvam yat ki ca jagatyam jagat | tena tyaktena bhujitha ma
grdhah kasyasvid dhanam

Adi Shankara glosses on this Mantra:

Om. All this (idam sarvam), whatever moves on the earth, should be covered (vsyam)

by the Lord (Isa). Protect your Self through that detachment. Do not covet anybodys
wealth. Or Do not covet, for whose is wealth?

Sri Aurobindo glosses the mantra as such:

All this (idam sarvam) is for habitation (vsyam) by the Lord (Isa), whatsoever is

individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou

shouldst enjoy; lust not after any mans possession.

In the first line of the Mantra, we see a juxtaposition of Isa and idam sarvam, united by
the word vsyam. The word Isa may be glossed as ruler, master, lord. The word Isa
derives from the root is, meaning to rule or have power. Isa is the inner ruler, inner
lord, or inner power. Idam Sarvam means all this. The term is a reference to the
world. Isa andIdam Sarvam are juxtaposed: as supreme Self and all this, as the eternal
and the worldly. Shankara explains the meaning of Isa:

The lord is Paramesvara (Supreme God), the Paramatman (Primordial Self) of all. He

rules everything being the Atman (inner self) of all (translated by Sastri).

Shankara further offers an explanation of Isa in relation to Idam Sarvam:

As the indwelling Self (of all) I am all this; all that is unreal, whether moving or not is

to be covered by ones own supreme Self (translated by Gambhirananda).

Isa and Idam Sarvam, as the two basic poles of being, are united by the word vsyam.
The term, again, means covered with, enveloped by, dwelling in, or inhabiting. The
way in which we understand vsyam expresses a perspective on the nature of the Self in
relation to world.

We might ask: Is Isa, as supreme Self, covered by the world? Or, does Isa as supreme
Self,dwell within the world? With these understandings there emerge two perspectives,
two views, which together may make up an enlightened unity.

Shankara focuses on the first view. Glossing vsyam as to be covered. Shankara asks:
What is to be covered? Idam sarvam yat kim ca, all this, whatsoever that
moves; jagatyam, on the Earth. Aurobindo notes the diversity of meanings, focusing on
the other side of a dialectic. He interprets the word vsyam as a dwelling-place or a
place of habitation [2].

These perspectives are not contradictory; they form a dialectical pair They are
transformations or moments in Self-knowledge. The first moment represents a shift in
consciousness that occurs in relation to all this when we question our attachment to
ignorance and delusion. In this moment the coverings are renounced as that which is
not the Self. Such a renunciation prepares the ground for further transformations in
awareness; moments that can only occur after we have clarified our awareness. In his
commentary on the Isa Upanishad, Shankara offer a description that will assist us in
such a clarification:

All this on this earth differentiated as name, form, and action, this bundle of

modifications, superimposed on the Atman [ones true self] by ignorance, and consisting
in this seeming duality with its distinctions of doer, enjoyer, etc. (translated by Sastri)

For many, arriving at the true self, as Atman, may appear a challenge. And to realize the
supreme Self, as Paramtm or Brahman may even seem more remote. Many
experience themselves occupying a concrete object world. When a person lives in world
of concreteness, objects and object representations are experienced as one and the same.
Clarifying out and distinguishing between ones representation of objects and objects in
themselves is a movement or moment of renunciation.

The first transformation in consciousness, the moment of clarification, is synonymous

with mindfulness: as a distinction of modified and unmodified form; as an awareness of
superimposition; as an awareness of dualistic thought. Through mindfulness we come to
realize the superimposition of our internal representations upon form. We see just how
concretely our representations of self adhere to the world of names and forms. With
such a realization, a new moment emerges in which we may release our attachment to
form, forgo cleavage to name. Shankara continues:

One who is engaged in the thought of the Self as God is bound to renounce the three-

fold desire [of son, wealth, and worlds], and not perform Karma. Tyaktena,means

through renunciation, through detachment (and not by any abandoning thing). For a
son or servant, when abandoned or dead, does not protect one, since he has no
connection with oneself. (translated by Gambhirananda)

Through mindfulness we realize the ephemerality of name and form. Neither son nor
servant, nor wealth, can protect us from the ephemerality of name and form.
Mindfulness of the distinction between the modified and the unmodified gives rise an
awareness of the nature of our inner self. We discover that which is eternal and
unmodified within ourselves: the Self as God. Truth clarifies our relation to name and
form.

The Mantra continues: Bhujithah, protect. Once you have renounced attachment to
desire, ma grdha, do not covet, kasya svid, anybodies wealth, dhanam. For whose
wealth is it? Shankara teaches us:

Do not covet? Why? Whose is this wealth? this question is used in the sense of denial,

because nobody has any wealth which can be coveted The idea is this: Everything has
been renounced through this thought of the God All this is but the Self so that all this
belongs to the Self, and the Self is all. Therefore do not have a hankering for things that
are unreal. (translated by Gambhirananda)

The logic seems clear: if all things belong to the supreme Self, then there is no need to
covet anything. The true wealth, the Self, is intrinsic, a given. All the wealth emerges
from the Self and all belongs to the Self. In realizing the relation between the individual
self and the supreme Self, you realize a wealth beyond measure a wealth beyond name
and form.

Subtle awareness opens the field of knowing, a new truth emerges: the name beyond
names, the form beyond forms. And then, even more subtle, beyond name or form,
awareness opens to the wealth of an eternal unmodifiable truth.

With this realization a deeper wealth emerges, as the infinite wealth of the Self. This
opens the potential for another transformation in the field of awareness. A new horizon
emerges: all this (idam sarvam) is realized as a dwelling-place (vsyam) of the Self.
As Shankara understands: all this belongs to the Self, and the Self is all. Aurobindo
understands this as well.

The whole thought of the Upanishad teaches the reconciliation, by the perception of

essential Unity, of the apparently incompatible opposites, God and the World,
Renunciation and Enjoyment, Action and internal Freedom, the One and the Many,
Being and its Becomings, the passive divine Impersonality and the active divine
Personality, the Knowledge and the Ignorance, the Becoming and the Not-Becoming,
Life on earth and beyond and the supreme Immortality. (CW 17)

The Upanishads are poetic hymns, revealed mantras, realized by visionary seers
calledrishis. One might say that the words of the Vedas, in their original Sanskrit form,
are a direct revelation or transmission of the supreme Self to the individual self, inviting
us home to ourselves. From one perspective, the return home to Self is a return to the
eternal, unbound, unmodified Self that is one with our own in-dwelling self. From
another perspective, the return home to Self is an opening to the wealth of name and
form as the in-dwelling and habitation of the very Self Itself.

The Upanishads are a gift, not only for spiritual seekers, but for anyone with a mind that
seeks Knowledge in clear and compressed form. As Aurobindo tells us, the Upanishads
offer a direct knowledge of a dialectics of Self-realization. Truth is realized as an
essential unity discovered in apparently incompatible opposites.

Footnotes:
1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isha_Upanishad#cite_note-31

2.This interpretation is in alignment with the root of vsyam, vas, which means enter,

or dwell with (in Easwaran).

3.The unity of opposites is a truth which Carl Jung fiercely pursued, and which makes up
the highest aims of his path toward Self-realization.

References:
1.Eight Upanishads, with the Commentary of Sankaracarya, Vol. I by Swami
Gambhirananda, 1957

2.Isa Upanishad, Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, V. 17 (The Isha Upanishad was
translated by Sri Aurobindo in Arya August 1914)

3.The Upanishads and Sri Sankaras commentary by Sitarama Sastri, S, 1898