On Mundaka Upanishad: The knot of a mismarriage that is to be severed

Acharya Prashant
14 min readMar 9, 2022

The following excerpt is from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

भिद्यते हृदयग्रन्थिश्छिद्यन्ते सर्वसंशयाः ।
क्षीयन्ते चास्य कर्माणि तस्मिन्दृष्टे परावरे ॥

bhidyate hṛdayagranthiśchidyante sarvasaṃśayāḥ
kṣīyante cāsya karmāṇi tasmindṛṣṭe parāvare

The knot of the heartstrings is rent, cut away are all doubts, and a man’s works are spent and perish, when is seen That which is at once the being below and the Supreme.

~ Verse 2.2.9

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Acharya Prashant (AP): “The knot of the heartstrings is rent,” hṛdayagranthi, “cutaway are all doubts, and a man’s works are spent and perish, when is seen That which is at once the being below and the Supreme.”

So, there is a condition that’s been talked of, and the result or the signs of that condition. What is the condition? “…when is seen That which is at once the lowest and the highest.” When you see that which is the lowest and the highest at once — not alternately, not consecutively, but at once, concurrently — when you see that, then what happens? The heartstrings are rent open, the doubts are all cut away.

What is this heartstrings stuff? The way it is put is: there is a knot within. What is this knot about? It connects the unconscious with the conscious; it makes you feel deeply connected to the body. That’s the knot. That knot has to be opened for you to be liberated. Else, it is a very unsettling question. How is it possible that immaterial consciousness becomes so identified with the material? How is it possible? So, to just simplistically explain the matter, the sages have said there is a knot within, granthi, and that knot is the cause of a lot of your trouble.

Two beings, two entities of very different natures have been put together for some unknown reason, and this union is hardly of use to the conscious one. This is a kind of wedding. Puruṣa has been wedded to Prakriti, and in between them, there is…

Acharya Prashant