The senses, we are told, are like the strong and mettlesome horses tied to the chariot, which is our body, and pulling the body in different directions to find opportunities for enjoyment and gratification. But the message of the Upanishad, and of all spiritual traditions, is that the journey of life has a higher goal, which will satisfy and fulfil the whole of our nature, and forever. In order for our journey to go smoothly towards that goal, these sense horses need to be carefully guided.

We have acknowledged how the senses are wonderful faculties that give man his knowledge of this multi-coloured world, and that they are divine in origin. But they can also keep his gaze fixed outwards in a hypnotic trance, so that he becomes oblivious of the passing of the precious time and ignorant of the real purpose of life.

In partnership with these senses is the mind itself in its lower, practical aspect. The Upanishad compares the mind to the bridle that is attached to the horses and makes it possible to control and lead them. But the mind in this role, as the link with the sense impressions and their co-ordinator, is itself only an instrument or servant. It is like a sophisticated device that is meant to be ruled and operated by a still higher part of our being, called the intellect. So the intellect is compared to the charioteer, the one who is really driving this chariot of the body along the roads of life. The wise intellect, like a good charioteer, has a precise understanding of the purpose and goal of the journey and how the horses may best be guided to that end. But the unwise intellect that has never consciously practised control of the mind and senses, may allow the mind to exhaust itself in trivialities, just as the unskilled charioteer may allow the horses to go their own way, and eventually go careering off the road into a ditch.

Even so, the intellect itself is not the highest principle which is associated with the inner being of man. Higher than the intellect is the individual soul, which is compared to the owner and master of the chariot. The Katha Upanishad informs us that this individual soul is not different, in essence, from God. The true path of life is meant to confirm the individual soul in the knowledge of its ultimate identity with the supreme. But if the individual soul does not follow the path, it fails to realize its innate divinity. As if under a delusion, the soul comes to identify itself with the lower levels of its being, enjoying and suffering as if it were nothing more than the body, senses, mind and intellect. The practices of the spiritual Yoga are meant to plant in us and mature a sense of power and mastery emanating from deeper and more inward levels of our being.

The Upanishad speaks of ascending grades of experience within the being of man, characterized by increasing refinement and penetration. These grades of experience have a rising order of subtlety, inwardness and pervasiveness. At their peak shines the true Self of man, called the Purusha, or Spirit. This marks the final limit of transcendence and inwardness, and nothing can transcend man’s spiritual Self because it is the ultimate reality...