Recitation by Christopher Isherwood

The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over;
thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard. —Katha-Upanishad, 3.14

So begins Somerset Maugham’s bestselling twentieth century novel The Razor’s Edge (1944),  whose main character gives up a life of privilege in search of spiritual Enlightenment. Maugham himself visited Ramana ashram where he had a direct interaction with Ramana Maharshi in Tamil Nadu, India in 1938. But, it is said that Maugham received his inspiration and direct translation for this epigraph from Christopher Isherwood, with whom he had become acquainted through The Vedanta Society’s Hollywood Hills center. This reading by Isherwood of the Katha Upanishad is of special note. It is translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester. From the CD liner notes: “We used to listen to Chris read this scripture in the early morning in the temple of the Vedanta Society on Vivekananda’s birthday. Needless to say, this translation is our favorite.”

The Katha Upanishad and Yoga.
The Upanishads represent a shift from the early Vedic texts, whose thinkers focused on rituals formulas, prayer and song, sacrifice and ceremony and those connections to the cosmic spheres. By placing its emphasis on the physiological make up of man, esoteric knowledge, and ontological inquiries into cosmic realities, the Upanishads and in particular the Katha Upanishad set the stage for the self-transformative alchemy that becomes the practice of Yoga.

The Katha Upanishad (commonly assigned to the forth or fifth century B.C.E.) is the first instance when we see a recognizable tradition of Yoga emerge. Within this poetic text there lies the first descriptions of the fundamentals of a yoga practice; the preparation of the body and the cultivation of stability in the mind that steel the aspirant for the discoveries of consciousness. The story unfolds as a conversation between a young, but spiritually endowed Naciketas and Yama the God of Death. Seeking the knowledge of the mysteries of life after death, Naciketas is initiated by the God Yama onto the path of emancipation. He is instructed in the practice of involution, the climbing of consciousness to ever higher levels of being, the transcendental self and the psychospiritual work that prepares the yogi for the event of grace. Reminiscent of the Baghavada Gita’s (500-200 B.C.E.) classic dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna that occurs in a chariot, so the poetic metaphor of the charioteer is used by Yama to instruct Naciketas of man’s relationship to the Higher Self.

Chapter 3, 3-9
Know the self a rider in a chariot,
an the body, as simply the chariot.
Know the intellect (buddhi) as the charioteer,
and the mind (manas), as simply the reins.

The senses, they say, are the horses,
and the sense objects are their pastures;
He who is linked to the body (atman), senses, and mind,
the wise proclaim as the one who enjoys (bhoktri).

When a man lacks understanding,
and his mind is never controlled;
His senses do not obey him,
as bad horses, a charioteer.

But when a man has understanding,
and his mind is ever controlled;
His senses do obey him,
as good horses, a charioteer.

When a man lacks understanding,
is unmindful (amanaska) and always impure;
He does not reach that final step,
but gets on the round of rebirth.

But when a man has understanding,
is mindful and always pure;
He does reach that final step,
from which he is not reborn again.

When a man’s mind is his reins,
intellect, his charioteer;
He reaches the end of the road,
that highest step of Vsihnu.

And here exactly we find the first instance of the word Yoga used in context with its definition. A precise mapping for the explorer on the path to enlightenment.

Chapter 6.10-11,
When the five perceptions are stilled,
Together with the mind.
And not even reason bestirs itself;
they call it the highest state.

When the senses are firmly reined in (dharana),
that is Yoga, so people think.
From distractions a man is then free (apramatta),
for Yoga is the coming-into-being,
as well as the ceasing-to-be.

Here is an excerpt from My Guru and His Disciple where he shares an aha! moment, a discovery that allows him to move forward with the translation of the Bhagavad Gita text. What starts out as a pedantic laborious effort at transcription turns into poetry.

And then—it was really amazing—I saw in a flash what to do. I ran back to my room with the manuscript.

Our version began: “Oh, changeless Krishna, drive my chariot between the two armies which are eager for battle, that I may see those whom I shall have to fight in this coming war. I wish to see the men who have assembled here, taking the side of the enemy in order to please the evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra.”

In about half an hour, I had turned this into:

Krishna the changeless,
Halt my chariot
There where the warriors,
Bold for battle,
Face their foeman.

Between the armies
There let me see them,
The men I must fight with,

Gathered together
Now at the bidding
Of him their leader,
Blind Dhritarashtra’s
Evil offspring:
Such are my foes
In the war that is coming.

I brought this back and showed it to them, and they were both excited. I’m excited myself, because it opens up all sorts of possibilities, and I now realize how horribly bored I was with the old translation. I don’t see my way clearly yet, but obviously this method can be applied throughout the book. There should be several different kinds of verse, and I think I can vary the prose style too. We are going to Aldous this evening, to discuss the whole thing with him. — Christopher Isherwood, October 1943

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).