The Times Quotidian

Isha Upanishad, as read by Christopher Isherwood
By Nancy Cantwell

Hollywood was first exposed to the philosophical and religous texts of India when Swami Prabhavananda was charged with opening the Vedanta Society of Southen California (VSSC) in 1930. It was Prabhavananda’s discourses and ministries that attracted southern California cultural luminaries Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Gerald Heard, Henry Miller and composer Igor Stravinsky to Vendanta.

Isherwood went on to collaborate with Swami Prabhavananda translating “The Song of God: Bhagavad Gita”, 1944, “Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (Viveka Choodamani)”, 1947, and “How to know God, the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali”, 1953. Isherwood’s involvement continued when he became Managing Editor of Vedanta and the West, the official publication of the VSSC, from 1943 until 1945. It offered essays by many of the leading intellectuals of the time and had contributions Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, Alan Watts, J. Krishnamurti, W. Somerset Maugham, and many others. Together with Huxley and Heard, Isherwood served on the Editorial Advisory Board from 1951 until 1962.

I knew Christopher Isherwood briefly. I had been a model for his longtime partner Don Bacardy and on one or two occassions was priveledge to join them for dinner at their Santa Monica home. I never got the impression that I was in the presence of an “enlightened” spiritual personality, but I always felt that I was sitting close to a source of great spiritual intelligence.
Here is a sound clip of Christopher Isherwood reading the first 8 verses of the Isha Upanishad (there are 18 total). In Hindu scripture there are Shruti, “revelation”, and Smriti, “tradition” texts. The Upanishads belong to the former and as “shruti” are a continuation of the Vedic revelation. But the Upanishads go beyond Vedic ritualism to teach esoteric wisdom and practices that result in transcendental knowledge. These verses are classic examples of the first Upanishadic teaching keystone; that the transcendental ground of the world is identical with the ultimate core of a human being. The ultimate reality of the universe is absolutely identical with our innermost nature; that is to say, brahman equals atman. The Isha Upanishad is significant amongst the Upanishads for its description of the nature of the supreme being (Ish).

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Desire is the first datum of our conciousness; we are born into sympathy and antipathy, wishing and willing. Unconciously at first, then conciously we evaluate: “This is good, that is bad.” And a little later we discover obligation. “This being good, ought to be done; that being bad, ought not to be done.” – Aldous Huxley

I return repeatedly to Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy. It is a comprehensive compendium of metaphysical thought. It investigates topics ranging from, “Personality, Sanctity, Divne Incarnation” to “Good and Evil” to “Time and Eternity” to “Faith” and “Suffering”. Excerpts from authors include Eckhart, William Law, Chuang Tzu, The Bhagavad Gita, Maitrayana Upanishad, Kabir, Rumi and St. John of the Cross. All of us, who put time aside to contemplate the relationship between Atman, “the personal self”, and Brahman, “the universal Self”, will profit from these readings. In Chapter 1 “That Art Thou” Huxley opens with these words:

“IN STUDYING the Perennial Philosophy we can begin either at the bottom, with practice and morality; or at the top, with a consideration of metaphysical truths; or, finally in the middle, at the focal point where the mind and matter, action and thought have their meeting place in human psychology.”