Upanishads : "The cream of Vedas"

======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 01/11/2019. Chapter-1 1. Introduction-3. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An instinct is an intelligent seeking on our part for the purpose of the achievement of a goal. An instinct is not a blind and chaotic urge that arises in ourselves; it is a rational, purposive movement which is unintelligibly conducting itself towards a particular aim, and when we cannot understand the rational background of the instinct, we call it irrational. But if we can understand the purposive movement of the instinct, it becomes logical, and there would be then no distinction between these two. And why is it that we have an instinct for social life? Why do we wish to come together and form bodies, whether it is a rel...

======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31/10/2019. Post-3. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this world, to fulfil different desires, you have to employ different means. There, a single means is enough to give you the happiness of everything – not one thing after the other, successively, but simultaneously, instantaneously. In your current state, if you have one pleasure, you cannot have another pleasure at the same time, and if you want to have a third kind of pleasure, the first two must go. Thus, you cannot have varieties of pleasure at the same time because of the conditioning factor introduced by the sense organs in such experience. Your senses do not give you simultaneous knowledge of anything. When one thing is happening, anot...

======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 30/10/2019 1.3 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Katha Upanishad is one of the esoteric appendices to a section of the Vedas known as the Brahmanas. A particular Veda has a particular Brahmana and it has also a concluding esoteric exposition known as the Upanishad. The Katha Upanishad is such an esoteric, mystical, spiritual exposition appended to a Brahmana of the Krishna-Yajur-Veda. This Upanishad has within it implanted the wisdom of the entire life of man woven into a story of a great seeker of Reality we know as Nachiketas. This is the story of a great aspirant called Nachiketas; how this young lad aspired for the highest Reality of life and got an access into it through the working of myste...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29/10/2019. 3. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If anything is dear and lovable, the thing that is loved is not actually loved, it is not dear. The Self in the object is what is actually attracting. The Self in the object attracts the Self in us and then the object looks attractive. It is not the object that is attractive, because a corpse cannot attract anybody, a dead body does not attract. It is the life principle that attracts, the Selfhood in the object is attracting. The beauty and the grandeur of the life principle, it is that which attracts. Where is this Selfhood? Again the question arises – everywhere! There are varieties of selves. The lowest is the physical self – 'I am comi...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28/10/2019. 10. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Having said this, Yajnavalkya retired. This is a famous conversation in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad called Yajnavalkya-Maitreyi Samvada: conversation between Yajnavalkya the sage and Maitreyi, his consort. No teaching can go beyond this. This is the highest pinnacle of human thought. All philosophy is crushed into the essence of this teaching. However much we may think philosophically, our mind will not go beyond this thought. Indian thought has reached its peak in this teaching of Yajnavalkya, recorded for us in his conversation with Maitreyi. Can we attain this state? This question will arise in your mind. Why should you ask such a question?...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23/10/2019. The Sacrifice and the Aspiration, Part 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Para-1. Sri Aurobindo translates Katha Upanishad, First Cycle, First Chapter, Verses 1 through 6: “Vajashravasa, desiring, gave all he had.  Now Vajashravasa had a son named Nachiketas.  As the gifts were led past, faith took possession of him who was yet a boy unwed and he pondered: ‘Cattle that have drunk their water, eaten their grass, yielded their milk, worn out their organs, of undelight are the worlds which he reaches who gives such as these.’  He said to his father, ‘Me, O my father, to whom wilt thou give?’ A second time and a third he said it, and he replied, ‘To Death I give them...

======================================================================= -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20/10/2019. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.Critical Realism : The theory of critical realism is that the percept of the individual is neutral and the real object presented in experience is different from the percept. The datum in experience through the senses is different in quality and reality from the true object which is in the external universe. There is thus a dualism between the actual percept of the senses and the reality behind the sense-experience. There is what is called the universe of the subject and the universe independent of experience by the individual. Reality is not known through sense-experience. What is known is private to the individuals and what is there in fact in the ...

======================================================================= ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19/10/2019. Mandukya Upanishad : Chapter-1. Agama Prakarana ( The Scriptural Treatise ) Sri Gaudapada's glossary begins : Karika Mantram-s 10 to 18. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mantram-11. "karya-karana-baddhau tavishyete visva-taijasau. prajnah karana-baddhas-tu dvau tau turye na siddhytah." karya = the effect; karana = the cause; baddhau = conditioned by; tau = are both; ishyete = concidered to be; visva-taijasau = visva and taijasa; prajnah = prajna; karana-baddhah = conditioned by the cause alone; tu = but; dvau tau = both of them; turye = in turiya; na siddhytah = do not exist. Translation :  Visva and Taijasa are conditioned by cause and effect. But Prajna is conditioned by cause alone. These two (cause and effect) do not e...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18/10/2019 (Spoken on January 14th, 1973) Post - 5. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The waking consciousness, the condition in which we are at present, is that state of consciousness where it is in relation to physical objects. The confrontation of consciousness in the waking condition is with physical things, the physical universe. We are struggling to find a proper relationship of our consciousness with the world outside. The activities of life, all the enterprises of whatever kind in which we may engage ourselves in the waking condition, are a struggle of consciousness to recognise a balance between itself and the object. This is waking life. We are busy throughout the day in various profe...

======================================================================= ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17/10/2019. 3. The Nature of the Self-1. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Atman, being the presupposition of all acts of understanding, feeling and willing, is not known to any individualised knower, and so it appears as a mystery, a Wonder of wonders, awe-inspiring. To many, this Atman is difficult to hear of, to many others, even when heard of, it is difficult to understand. Wonderful is the teacher of this; blessed is the obtainer of this; wonderful is the knower of this, who is taught by a blessed teacher. The Atman cannot be known if it is taught by an inferior teacher, even if it is thought of in various ways. Only when the Atman is taught by one who is identical with the Atman (i.e., ...

========================================================================\ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16/10/2019. (Spoken on June 19, 1972) 3. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The father of Nachiketas is supposed to have cursed the boy: “Go to death. The devil be with you!” Some such imprecation was cast upon the lad in a moment of fury by the father, as we are told in the Upanishad.  Sometimes we tell people, “Go to hell!” Now, those words were literally taken by Nachiketas. Or, we may interpret the passage of the Upanishad as meaning that Nachiketas actually died. The words of sages have tremendous power. Curses have force, and maybe the lad died because of the curse of the father, which was engendered by anger due to an impertinent remark made by the boy on his observation of an erroneo...

======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15/10/2019. 6. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The mind of the human being us usually characterized by three defects, and any kind of self-discipline implies the avoiding of these defects somehow or other, the stubbing out of the defect-ridden personality of the individual. In Sanskrit this three-fold defect of the human mind is called Mala, Vikshepa and Avarana. Mala means dirt, something like a thick coating over a clean mirror, preventing reflection of light in it. Dirt is that which covers the essential nature of an object, like a thick coating of dust, etc. on a mirror. There is some such thing covering the mind of the human being also, on account of which correct knowledge is not reflected i...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14/10/2019. Chapter-1 1. Introduction-2. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We, generally, do not go deep into these matters. Mankind, unfortunately, is averse to go into the depths of any question. We like to float on the surface in every kind of activity of ours. Whatever be our walk of life, we seem to be content merely by glossing over things without going into the profundity of the issues on hand. But no problem is merely a surface issue; every problem is as wide as life itself. We can imagine how vast and how immense in magnitude human life is, and our concept of duty cannot be ‘smaller’ than that. There is something in us which is vitally connected with everyone else. But for this fact,...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13/10/2019. Post-2. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yo veda nihitam guhayam parame vyoman so'snute sarvan kaman saha brahmana vipascita (Tait. 2.1.1). This is an oracle in the second section of the Taittiriya Upanishad which gives us the secret of the final attainment of bliss and freedom. This satyam jnanam anantam brahma, this Supreme Truth-Knowledge-Bliss-Infinity is, of course, as has been mentioned before, everywhere. It is also hidden deeply in the cave of your own heart – nihitam guhayam. Guha is the cave, the deepest recess of your own being. That is verily this Ultimate Being. You have to be very cautious in not allowing this thought to slip out at any time – namely, your deepest ...

======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12/10/2019 The Secret of the Katha Upanishad -1.2 : Swami Krishnananda 1. Discourse -2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Everyone has been caught in this network of things called the world, right from creation up to the present day, and we have no reason to believe that the future generation will not be so caught. The pattern of life is not merely a location of objects for our enjoyment, for our likes and dislikes. The pattern of existence is a tremendously well thought-out involvement, externally as well as internally. The more we probe into the mystery and the structure of this involvement of the world, the more we begin to admire the wisdom of the Maker of things. It is not a simple structure. ...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11/10/2019. 2. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is not intended for everybody. It is a cosmic meditation. In the Chhandogya Upanishad we have cosmological meditations which are wonderful by themselves. But in the Brihadaranyaka we have the cosmic meditation. The whole thing is transcendent, beyond ourselves. How would we think of anything that is beyond ourselves? Even when we think of self, we place it within ourselves. My self is inside me. But this great admonition of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says the Self is not within us – it is within everybody, within everything, within all the worlds and the universes. In all space and all time, the Self is there. Can an...

======================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10/10/2019 9. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yatra tv asya sarvam atmaivabhut, tatra kena kam pasyet, tatra kena kam jighret, tatra kena kam manvita, tat kena kam vijaniyat? vijnataram are kena vijaniyad (Bri.U. 2.4.14): Who will know the knower?  Who will think of the thinker? Who will understand the understander? Who will be conscious of consciousness?  Yad vai tan na pasyati, pasyam vai tan na pasyati. You will be wonderstruck. What kind of thing is being told? No knowledge of anything? All-knowing and yet not knowing anything outside? Knowingly It knows not anything, not-knowing, It knows all things. It knows all things because It alone is everywhere. It does not...