Upanishads : "The cream of Vedas"

======================================================================= ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12/09/2019. Mandukya Upanishad : Chapter-1. Agama Prakarana ( The Scriptural Treatise ) Sri Gaudapada's glossary begins : Karika Mantram-s 10 to 18. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mantram : 10. "Nivrtteh sarvaduhkhanamisanah prabhuravyayah advaitah sarvabhavanam devasturyo vibhuh smrtah." Nivrtteh = free from; sarva duhkhanam = all miseries; Isanah = the Lord; prabhuh = omnipotent; avyayah = immutable; advaitah = non-dual; sarva bhavanam = all entities; devah = effulgent; turyah = turiya; vibhuh = all-pervading; smrtah = is considered.       "In that which is indicated as the changeless and the Supreme Lord, there is a cessation of all miseries. It is...

======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11/09/2019. Post -1. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1 "Idam brahma, idam kshatram, ime lokah, ime devah, imani bhutani, idam sarvam yad ayam atma." "This Source of knowledge; this source of power; all these worlds; all these gods; all these beings – All this is just the Self." This proclamation is like a Brahma Astra that Sage Yajnavalkya is discharging against every kind of attachment one can conceive in this world. It is somewhat easy to accept that God is everywhere. It becomes easy because we always externalise the location of God, however much we may try to universalise Him. The idea of location in space does not leave us so easily. God is everywhere, this is what we gener...

 =======================================================================  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10/09/2019 The Secret of the Katha Upanishad -1.1 : Swami Krishnananda Discourse No. 1.1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Om saha navavatu; saha nau bhunaktu; saha viryam karavavahai; tejasvi navadhitamastu; mā vidvishavahai; Om santih; santih; santih Om! May He protect us both, (the teacher and the taught). May He cause us both to enjoy protection. May we both exert to find out the true meaning of the scriptures. May we never quarrel with each other. Let there be threefold Peace. Om. Peace! Peace! Peace! It is the wish of several seekers who have come to participate in the Sadhana Week this year that during this holy occasion a concise presentation be made of the principles expounded i...

======================================================================== --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 09/09/2019. Post-1. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1 Until now, we have been passing through the foundational doctrine of the Upanishads – namely, the nature of the Ultimate Reality. What is there, finally? In several ways we have been told that whatever is there, finally, can be only a single Reality and it cannot be more than one. This concept was corroborated by a famous mantra that I quoted from the Rig Veda Samhita – ekam sat: "Existence is one only." The Ultimate Being is Existence. Being and Existence mean the same thing. That which exists cannot be more than one. 1.2 Everything has to exist, in some form or the other. Trees exist, stones exist, you exist, I exis...

 =======================================================================  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 08/09/2019. The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The lectures on the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads were delivered by Swami Krishnananda a few years back during the annual session of Sadhana Week at  Rishikesh. The theme of these discourses centres round the cosmological narrative of the Aitareya Upanishad and the psychological analysis of the Taittiriya Upanishad. The importance of this revealing subject would be amply clear to anyone who recognises the significance of the psychophysical structure of the human individual in relation to the universe or creation as a whole. Thus, this detailed study forms not merely an entertaining...

=======================================================================  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 07/09/2019. 5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To repeat once again what I told you a few minutes before, this tendency is present in everything and everyone. Therefore the study of the Atman is not study of something somewhere – it is the study of everything. I hope you catch what I'm saying. The study of the Atman is the study of the essence of everything anywhere because of the fact everything everywhere has this Atman. There is an Atman in all things in the sense that they maintain an identity-consciousness of themselves. So the Atman has a peculiar characteristic of being just what it is; that it to say, it cannot be an object of anyone. The self-identity aspect of consciousness, which i...

========================================================================= --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 06/09/2019. (Spoken on June 19, 1972) 2. We are told at the outset that Nachiketas was obliged to confront a mysterious, terrific power whom we mythologically know in India as Lord Yama, the Lord of Death. He was forced to encounter this Lord, and in this story of Nachiketas’ approach to Yama, we are told in the Upanishad that when the lad approached the gateways of the palace of Yama, the Lord was absent. He was not to be seen for three days. Three days and three nights did Nachiketas pass, without even water, waiting for the coming of the Master whom he had to meet, and from whom he had to receive boons of various kinds. These three days mentioned in the Upanishad are also of great mystical significance. Nachiketas stands for the human spirit, as Arjuna in the Bhagavadgita stands for...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 05/09/2019. 2. The Good and the Pleasant  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.1 "The good is one thing and the pleasant is another."    They have different aims, and they drag a person from different directions. Of these two, he who chooses the good obtains blessedness, but he who chooses the pleasant falls from his aim. The good is that which leads one to God or the Absolute. It gives the freedom of Moksha or liberation from Samsara. It is not pleasant, because it is against body-consciousness. It destroys what is pleasant and, hence, is rather painful.  The pleasant, on the other hand, is intimately connected with the body, and prevents a person from choosing the good. One falls down from one's aim if on...

======================================================================== ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  04/09/2019 (Spoken on January 14th, 1973) 4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These features of analysis given in the Upanishads are brought together into a focus in the Mandukya Upanishad, which is perhaps the most important of all the Vedantic texts from the point of view of Vedantic sadhana. It is said that for the liberation of the soul, the Mandukya alone is sufficient because that gives us the quintessence of Upanishadic teaching. The external and the internal are brought together here in a universal analysis. The main method of meditation according to the Upanishads is given to us in the Mandukya Upanishad. It is too short and, therefore, difficult of an easy analysis unless it is studied together with the comparative statements made in re...

 =======================================================================  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03/09/2019 8. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  8.1 After having said this much, Yajnavalkya continues by saying, “After departure, there is no consciousness.” “I cannot understand,” Maitreyi says. “What are you saying, ‘There is no consciousness’? You are confusing me by saying this.” “No, Maitreyi. I am not confusing you. You do not understand what I am saying. When I say there is no consciousness, I mean that when the consciousness departs from this individuality of the bodily personality, there is no particularised consciousness.” 8.2 To us, all consciousness is psychological consciousness; to us, every consciousness is sensory consciousness. When we make a statement like “I ...