Today, we begin the interpretation of the Kenopanishad in the context of health and healthcare, for the purpose of bringing greater clarity and healing to our world. Upanishadic knowledge is knowledge that has to be gained by sitting close to the teacher, in a mental posture of receptivity and openness. It is a way of organizing and investigating the world that requires self-questioning and insight, which are also the prerequisites of the health system we truly deserve.
In this spirit, the student approaches the teacher, and asks:
Who directs the mind to its object? Who directs the physiological energy to act? Who directs speech? What directs the eye? What directs the ear?
Interpretation
When you hear a person speak, you know the quality of their mind. When you hear a person's questions, you immediately know the quality of their thought and the knowledge base they speak from. The above questions coming from the mind of the student indicate a highly perceptive and subtle mind. The student doesn't just ask why the mind perceives objects, but is so specific as to ask how the mind actually moves towards the object of perception! The same student is not satisfied enough by the idea of energy to assume that energy automatically acts. No! This bold student wants to know more! What directs even energy to act? Then that same mind crosses over from the mental to the physical and asks what it is that directs even the eye and the ear.
Now stand back and look at the quality of the questions being asked. If you look hastily, you may think these are unscientific questions, even vague questions, but in fact they are the very opposite! These are the questions of a mind that has already studied the standard answers and has found them lacking. From a health perspective, can imagine that such a mind already has a graduate-level understanding and even a medical school-level understanding of physiology and a rudimentary understanding of philosophy. In fact, we ask similar questions in medical school. How does the ear hear? How does the eye see? We know that it is not the ear itself that hears; otherwise, a deceased person would still be able to hear!
When we scientifically inquire further, we say that the ear transmits pressure waves from the environment through the ossicles and ultimately through the vestibulocochlear nerve, shooting pulses of electricity in the form of ions that flux along the nerve to the auditory center of the brain. It is only then, after those signals are decoded by the brain, that we actually hear something. But this student is not satisfied with that explanation, as detailed as it may be! The student is asking what directs the ear to hear. Saying that some miracle happens in the brain to convert ion flux into sound doesn't cut it.
The student further demonstrates their high level of education and competence when they cross over from asking about mind and physiological energy to asking about the eye and the ear. Why does this demonstrate exceptional competence? Because it is clear that this student has entertained and explored the function of both the subtle aspect of us in the form of mind and the gross aspect of us in the form of body, represented here by the eye and the ear. Regardless of whether we are talking about the subtle or the gross, the question the student asks is the same: What directs these? Such a student has no time for answers that come from a perspective of mind-body duality, or fundamental difference between mind and body. They have already gone past that and are asking questions of the highest caliber.
Such a student of extraordinary intellect approaches the right teacher or researcher, not just anyone, because there's a good chance that most people are not going to understand the question, or would even ridicule it! In the example of our society, it would not be the MD, PhD, Master's degree, or any other official title that necessarily qualifies a person to answer the questions that need to be asked to bring a deeper understanding of ourselves–and therefore health–to our world. After all, that level of education has not sufficed so far to stem the current tide increasing acute and chronic disease, hence the state of healthcare. Past successes are important and of course granted, but that is not the need of the hour now! We must stand up and ask what is needed now, not what worked in the past! Rather than a standard cadre of experts, it would be a person who has investigated themselves and has found the bridge connecting and merging the subjective and objective perspectives, the subtle and the gross, that would be ready to translate that knowledge into anatomical, physiological, and practical understanding.
Imagine if we had this level of discernment in healthcare! Imagine if researchers were not satisfied with simply listing a series of events, whether macroscopic at the level of gross sense organs or microscopic at the cellular level. Such series' do not explain the causative factor that each one of us can recognize within ourselves. In fact, it simply makes us seem abstract to ourselves! As important as ion flux is, how many of us can personally identify with ions rushing into a cell? There is absolutely a critical need for such knowledge, but what is the other side of that coin? Such knowledge by itself cannot be a substitute for direct experiential knowledge of the finest nature that gives us a foothold to directly influence mind and body.
Let us–all of us, including doctors, patients, nurses, administrative staff, politicians, researchers, and the general public–be like this student. Let us ask deep, penetrating questions coming from a foundation of high-quality study, not merely high-quantity study or repetitive study. A new solution and a better solution requires deeper knowledge and likely new knowledge. There is no way around this! Let us not be satisfied with superficial responses. And, importantly, let us approach the right people to ask the right questions.
The right setting, the right inquiring and educated mind, the right partner for inquiry and dialogue, and the courage and daring to ask the questions that need to be asked: These are the prerequisites of health and a true health system hinted at in the early lines of this magnificent text.
So begins the Kenopanishad, set on its course by a brilliant intellect thirsting for deeper knowledge of healing. Tomorrow, the teacher responds.
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