Upanishads : "The cream of Vedas"

=========================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday, May 30, 2020. Chapter 2: The Atman-1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. #This final substance is constituted of the essence of everything, and it is our very Self. It is called the Atman. It is the Atman because it is the root substance of all things which are in the position of an effect. The Atman is the substance of everyone and everything. It is the Total Substance of all created beings, and so it is called Brahman. ##The Total Substance is Brahman, and the same thing conceived as the essence of particular beings is known as the Atman. Even as there cannot be a cause behind the final cause, there cannot be an Atman behind the Atman, for the very basic substance is what is called the Atman. The substance should be ultimate, and the Atman is such. ###The ultimate in us is the...

========================================================= ========================================================= Thursday, May 28, 2020. Mandukya Upanishad : Chapter-1. Agama Prakarana ( The Scriptural Treatise ) Sri Gaudapada's glossary : Upanishad Mantram-7. Karika Mantram-s 10 to 18. Karika Mantram-14. ==================================================================== SRI GAUDAPADA Sri Gaudapada - (c. 8th century CE) (also referred as Shri Gaudapadacharya) was a very early guru in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy. He is traditionally said to have been the grand-guru of the great teacher Adi Shankara, one of the most important figures in Hindu philosophy and also believed to be the founder of Shri Gaudapadacharya Math. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karika Slokam : 14. "Sapna-nidra-yuta-vadyau prajnas-tva-svapna-nidraya | na nidraṃ naiva ca sv...

======================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, May 21, 2020. 1. Introduction : 12. ---------------------------------------------------------- 1. #The masters of the Upanishads had a direct experience; and from this experience which is of the general, they drew conclusions on particular consequences in a deductive fashion. When we study the Aitareya and the Taittiriya Upanishads, we will find that both of them adopted the deductive process of reasoning. ##The thought is deductive in the sense that the ultimate conclusion has already been given to us. The nature of the cause need not be investigated by the sweat of one’s brow through inductive reasoning. We can try that method also, of course; but, for the present moment, it is not necessary. ###The Upanishads come to the conclusion of an ultimate generality. This declaration pertains to eternal verities: to the ultim...

========================================================= ======================================================= Sunday, May 17, 2020. Mandukya Upanishad : Chapter-1. Agama Prakarana ( The Scriptural Treatise ) Sri Gaudapada's glossary : Upanishad Mantram-7. Karika Mantram-s 10 to 18. Karika Mantram-13. ======================================================== Sri Gaudapada - (c. 8th century CE) (also referred as Shri Gaudapadacharya) was a very early guru in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy. He is traditionally said to have been the grand-guru of the great teacher Adi Shankara, one of the most important figures in Hindu philosophy and also believed to be the founder of Shri Gaudapadacharya Math. -------------------------------- Karika Mantram - 13. "Dvaitasyagrahanam tulyamubhayoh prajnaturyayoh, bijanidrayutah prajnah sa ca turye na vidyate." --------------------------------- Translation - by word Dvaitasya  =  of du...

=============================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday, May 16, 2020. Post-16. ------------------------------------------------------------ 1. So, sacrifice and austerity; and then you have the most important teaching again, the third one, study under a teacher, a competent master who has trodden the path, who knows the pitfalls, who knows the difficulties, who acts like a physician with you. With these methods the dirt of the mind is scrubbed off, the fickleness is brought down, and the veil covering the Atman is lifted gradually, and the light of the sun of the Pure Spirit will shed its radiance automatically from within one's own self; knowledge will arise from within you. This is why it is said when you know yourself, you know everything. Know thyself and be free: Atmanam vidhi. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. The di...

======================================================= ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday, May 08, 2020. Post-8. ----------------------------------------------------------- 1. #Such determination, if there is in any one of us, the Truth reveals itself automatically. The Truth is seeking us much more than we seek it. As it is wider than our concept of itself, it is a greater force, it calls you. God calls you with greater severity of intensity than we are calling Him. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2. #"Maitreyi, I have told you everything, I am now departing from this place," Yajnavalkya said. #All this teaching to his consort Maitreyi ended with this renunciation. This renunciation is of a different kind. It is called Vidvat Sannyasa. It is not the Sannyasa that people take ordinarily for the sake of knowing something. ##Here, it renounces having already known everything...

======================================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, May 07, 2020. 1. Introduction : 11. ------------------------------ 1. The way in which we can encounter anything is twofold: inductive and deductive. Students of logical intelligence move from particulars to generals, which is inductive reasoning. If it is a movement from the general to the particular, we call it deduction. Both ways are permissible according to the nature of the case. Every day the sun rises in the east. We are seeing the sun rising in the east for days, months and years. We collect the particular instances of the sun rising in the east every day. Then we make a general conclusion: we say the sun always rises in the east. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. But there is a flaw in inductive reasoning. Our conclusions may not be correct. The...

=================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03/05/2020. Post-15. ----------------------- 1. #Austerity is physical, verbal and mental. #You have to be restrained not only in your physical appurtenances but also in the words that you speak and the acts that you do. #That is, it should not cause any kind of disharmony, incongruity in the atmosphere, and towards that end you may manipulate and adjust yourself ably for being a humane individual, a good person, in the sense that your presence does not cause conflict with anyone. #In eating and in other well-known comforts of life, you maintain a minimum to the extent that it is absolutely essential. ##Here also a note of caution has to be exercised, namely, austerity does not mean torture of the body, nor does it mean indulgence. ###The path of the spirit is a via media; the golden mean is the path of spirituality. ---------...