The chariot we all are riding

In the previous episode we were talking about the chariot allegory. Allegories are visual depiction of some abstract ideas. The Nachiketa’s story we have been discussing for the last few weeks uses a chariot allegory to explain what we actually are and what relation we have with our body.

It says that our body is like a chariot.

In the passing, I would like to mention that there is a well known – well known in the west – allegory in the ancient Greek philosophy attributed to the Greek Philosopher Plato. That allegory has some similarities to the current allegory we are talking about. But there are differences.

Let us leave it at that and return to our Upanishadic chariot allegory.

What are the horses that draw this chariot? Our sense organs are the horses that draw this chariot. These sense horses draw the chariot on the path of sense pleasures. If we leave them uncontrolled, they drag us along the path of sense pleasures.

As the boy Nachiketa pointed out in a previous episode, moving on the path of sense pleasures has a problem. Uncontrolled sense pleasures deplete our energies. Not only that, we develop more and more craving for those pleasures that can never be fully satiated.

Further, there is an end to all these pleasures both because of the limitations of the body as well as that of the external things that are needed to provide those pleasures.

So these sense horses need to be restrained. The Manah or the coordinating aspect of the Mind that we talked about in the last episode is the rein that controls these sense horses.

But the Manah by itself is devoid of any discretion. A rein needs someone to pull it when required. It is the Buddhi that holds this rein. Buddhi is the discriminatory aspect of our Mind. So Buddhi is like the charioteer. It is the Buddhi that guides the chariot of our body in the right direction.

We have the chariot, horses, rein and also the charioteer. What use of all this if there is no rider? There got to be a rider who uses this chariot, the one who is the master for whose purpose all this mechanism exists.

Who is this rider?

The Upanishad says that it is the soul that is actually the rider. The body is just a chariot used by this soul to move on. The chariot, charioteer, reins, horses are all meant for the sake of this master i.e the soul.

If the master or the soul chooses to, he can move the chariot after sense pleasures, or he can with the help of the charioteer, rein in the horses and move on an altogether different path.

Death is the event of this rider disembarking the chariot. It is not the death of the rider, but just a disassociation of the rider with the chariot once for all.

The chariot or the body being material in nature would then gradually disintegrate and take on another new material form. But the soul being non material, does not perish even when it disembarks the body chariot.

What happens to this soul when it gets down from the chariot or leaves the body? That was exactly the question our boy Nachiketa asked Yama in the story we have been discussing.

That is a big puzzle!

We will see what Yama says in reply, in the next episode.

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A story of Nachiketa from Katha Upanishad, which is part of Yajur Veda. Upanishads are concluding parts of ancient Indian Vedic scriptures believed to be at least 5000 years old. The interpretation is by Dr.King (Copyright © 2019 Dr. King).