In God Makes the Rivers to Flow; An Anthology of the World’s Sacred Poetry & Prose, Eknath Easwaran has included a selection from the Isha Upanishad and entitled it “The Inner Ruler.”  I have written a series of poem-like reflections based on this selection.  This is the seventh one in the series.

Without and Within

In dark night live those
For whom the world without alone is real;
In night darker still, for whom the world within
Alone is real.  The first leads to a life
Of action, the second of meditation.
But those who combine action with meditation
Go across the sea of death through action
And enter into immortality
Through the practice of meditation.
So have we heard from the wise.
—from “The Inner Ruler” in the Isha Upanishad

Sometimes we glorify a life of action in the outer world.  We seek to do what needs to be done.  We admire those who gut through their difficulties and accomplish their dreams.

We have all dreamed of success of some kind.

We forget the shadow of success, the darkness of depending on circumstances for our happiness.

We believe the delusion that success in the outer world means happiness.

Then, when we do succeed, we find that our happiness doesn’t last.  There are higher peaks to climb.  And, we think, if only we could get to the top of that mountain over there…

Some of us take a different approach.  We seek adventures in the world within.  We seek to connect to the Being that is the Truth of ourselves.

We withdraw from the world of accomplishment, believing that only in meditation and contemplation can we find what’s Real.

Perhaps we expect to find an inner light that outshines the sun.  And perhaps we will, if we go deep enough.

But when we go within, we first find the darkness of the human condition.  We find our greed, our resentment, our anger, our hatred, our fear, our unholy desires.  We find what those who seek happiness in the outer world are running away from.

A life of service transcends dependence on circumstances for our happiness.  It hastens the death of the ego and propels us across the horizon we both longed and feared to cross.

It stills the waters, dissolves the storm.

Then and only then does our meditation bear the ripest fruit, the fruit we have longed to sink our teeth into.

Then and only then do we know the Self as ourselves.  Then and only then do we experience our union with the Divine, which was not born and never dies.

We rediscover Immortality.