Meditation According to the Upanishads - 13. Swami Krishnananda

======================================

--------------------------------------------------------------
18/04/2020.
Spoken on January 14th, 1973)

-------------------------------------------------------------

1.

#So this is the glory of the Upanishads, the meditation on the Vaishvanara, meditation on Hiranyagarbha, meditation on Ishvara, meditation on Pranava or Omkara as cosmic vibration in its connection with Reality, all for the single purpose of Brahma-sakshatkara, or the realisation of the Supreme Being.

------------------------------------------------------------------

2.

#We have gathered for a discussion of the nature of meditation, the various ways that we can employ for concentrating the mind and harmonising it for the purpose of purifying it so that it may become more and more free in its operation. 

##The practice of meditation is, therefore, a very vast and elaborate technique of dealing with aspects of our consciousness in various ways and freeing it from its relationship with objects because the thought of an object is bondage. 

*One of the minor Upanishads tells us that poison is not poison; thinking of objects is poison. 

###Why is it so? The reason also is given there in the second half of the verse. If we drink poison, only one life is destroyed, but if we think of objects, we may destroy several lives. That means to say, we may have to pass through various series of births.

------------------------------------------------------------------

3.

#So the meditation process is a gradual method of freedom of consciousness from its entanglement in objects, and later on an acquisition of control over the object. We get freed from its clutches first and then acquire a mastery over it. 

##In the beginning there is a withdrawal, and then there is a return to the very same object from which we withdrew ourselves so that we may possess it in reality, not possess it artificially as we tried earlier through mere sensory perception. Possession of a thing is artificial in sensory perception, whereas it is real in realisation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

4.

#Thus, we conclude a survey of various methods of meditation. I hope you have taken points in your diaries of all these methods right from the Kathopanishad onwards, the Bhagavadgita, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Upanishads. 

##From all these the essentials have to be culled and brought into operation according to the convenience and temperament of each person’s mind. It is not that everyone can think in the same fashion. 

###This is a wide dish that is served before you, of which you can take whatever you like, but put them properly in harmony so that they may become fit instruments for the mental operations in your meditation.

This Subject Concludes here.

=========================================