Upanishads : "The cream of Vedas"

 ==================================================================== ====================================================================== Wednesday, December 29, 2021. 7:00.PM. Maharishi Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 5.   ========================================================================= "Do not talk much about it," Yajnavalkya tells some of the questioners in the assembly of Sage Janaka. "Do not talk much about it." And one Shakalya went on arguing, "Where is its location, where is it located? Where is the heart located? Yajnavalkya said "Hey, don't ask too much lest your head may fall off." "Tell me the great Purusha that is declared in the Upanishads. If you don't understand this, your head will fall just now." And he did not know the Purusha in the Upanishads that well, and robbers took the head away. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

 ====================================================================== ======================================================================= Saturday, December 25 2021. 6:00. PM. The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 9. (Spoken on June 19, 1972). ======================================================================= Paryapta-kamasya krtatmanas tu :  If there is no desire, what will happen?  If we want nothing, then what is rebirth?  Rebirth is only the materialisation of desire. If there is no necessity for the materialisation of desire on account of the absence of desire itself, there is no rebirth.  Paryapta-kamasya krtatmanas tu. Krtamais one who has fulfilled himself completely on account of the cessation of desire for objects of the senses.  Ihaiva sarve praviliyanti kamah : Desires melt here itself like camphor that is burnt without any residue. There is a merger of the soul here itself into the Spirit. There is no travelling or movem...

 ====================================================================== ===================================================================== Sunday, December 19, 2021. 7:00.PM. Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 4.   Discourse-4. ====================================================================== You must read the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, especially the Second and the Fourth Chapters where Yajnavalkya pours the highest wisdom on Maitreyi and King Janaka, till they become stunned completely. "Go on, Yajnavalkya, say further, I will give you a thousand cows as big as elephants. Go on, tell me further, further. I am not satisfied. You are raining nectar on me. Go on, Yajnavalkya." It would be good if we had been present there in that audience. Oh, how blessed it would be! Nectar flowed from the words of Sage Yajnavalkya, and the highly satisfied King said, "Go on, go on further, great Sage, further! I am not satisfied. I'm giving you thousands of cows as...

 ===================================================================== =================================================================== Wednesday, December 15 2021. 8:00. PM. The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 8. (Spoken on June 19, 1972). ==================================================================== What is this Beyond?  Yama does not give a direct answer; he evades the answer, though it looks that he was giving the answer.  Instead of giving the answer directly, he says something else. What does he say?  The very first thing that Yama speaks is śreyaś ca preyaś ca manuṣyam etas tau samparītya vivinakti dhīraḥ (Katha 1.2.2):  Nachiketas, two things will come to every person – every person, without exception. The good as well as the pleasant, both will come. I have offered the pleasant before you, and you have rejected it. I am happy. I have a true disciple before me. All the best conceivable pleasantries in the universe I have offered ...

=================================================================================== ================================================================================ Thursday, December 09, 2021. 8:00.AM. Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 3.   Discourse-3. ================================================================================= These are some of the various forms in which the Self finds itself cosily, and seems to be attracting everything everywhere. It is the Self that is attracting the Self in different connotations, in various areas of application. Here we are placing ourselves in a rather dangerous zone. We are habituated again and again to think that the Self cannot be anywhere else than inside us. By 'us' we mean this body! What else can the 'I' be except this body? "I am going tomorrow to Gujarat." – Who is speaking this? Which self is speaking? It is the bodily self that is speaking. This habit cannot be escaped from. Now, the Upanis...

 ============================================================================= ================================================================================ Sunday,December 05 2021. 8:00. PM. The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 7. (Spoken on June 19, 1972) ============================================================================== Such is the feeling of Nachiketas. Nachiketas shall not be satisfied with any other thing than this question: What happens to one when he is absorbed into the Beyond? Does one exist or does one not exist? Well, the best Guru has found the best disciple. It is impossible to evade the question anymore. Pointedly Nachiketas presses forward this question. “I shall not be satisfied with any other thing than the answer to this question that I put before you: What happens to the soul when it is absorbed?” Now, this is, concisely speaking, the initial difficulties which we have to face when we tread the path of the Spirit. We are not to be gi...

 ====================================================================== ======================================================================= Monday, November 29, 2021. 8:00.AM. Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 2.   Discourse-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 anyone close one'...

 ====================================================================== ====================================================================== Tuesday, November 23 2021. 8:00. PM. The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 6. (Spoken on June 19, 1972) ===================================================================== Lord Yama says, “Into the mysteries of this universal fire, Vaishvanara, whom the Vedanta speaks of as Hiranyagarbha or the creative force, Sutratma, into the mystery of this Universal Being I hereby initiate you, Nachiketas. You shall glory in this universe as long as this universe lasts; immortal shall be your fame, everything shall be your possession, you shall lack nothing, you shall neither sweat nor sorrow, and neither shall you die. You shall be magnificently ruling over the realm of the cosmos as long as the cosmos lasts. Are you happy? Are you satisfied? What else do you want? The whole world is with you, society is your friend, the world is in harm...

 ======================================================================= ===================================================================== Saturday, November 20 2021. 9:00. PM. The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 4. Swami Krishnananda (Spoken on June 19, 1972) Discourse - 5. ======================================================================= This encounter came before this master spirit Nachiketas also. After three days' discipline of fasting, Yama appeared before Nachiketas. “My dear child, you have been fasting for three days. I am very sorry. What do you want from me?” asked Lord Yama. Then we have the real Upanishad describing the history of the march of the spirit to its destination. What does the lad say?  What does the spirit speak?  What does Nachiketas beg of Yama?  He asks first of all that he may be set in harmony with the law that operates in the world. “May my father not be angry with me, and may he recognise me when I go back.” Th...

 ========================================================================= ======================================================================= Saturday, November 20, 2021. 6:00.AM. Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - 1.   Discourse-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 Hi...

 ======================================================================== ===================================================================== Saturday, November 13, 2021. 7:00. PM. The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 4. Swami Krishnananda (Spoken on June 19, 1972) POST-4. ======================================================================= ======================================================================= The mind is the index of our nature, as they say, while the mind is the ruler of the subtle body. It is the king in this realm of the astral personality of ours. Unless that is disciplined, fasted down, the body, poor thing, is nowhere. The bodily discipline assumes a significance only when the subtle body, the real force within the physical body, is disciplined. That is the second day's fast. But that alone will not do. We are much more than what our mind is. This is what ordinary psychology cannot detect, that we are more than what the mind is. Psycholog...

 ========================================================================= ======================================================================== Monday, November 8, 2021. 9:00. PM. The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 3. Swami Krishnananda (Spoken on June 19, 1972) POST-3. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, those three days passed by the spirit of Nachiketas before the palace of Yama have a tremendous significance on the path of the spirit. They are not four days or seven days, but only three days, and Yama is absent for three days. The starvation of the spirit is implied here as, for example, we have a famous saying of Christ given to us in the New Testament: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” It is not poverty of economic existence, but poverty of the spirit; starvation and fasting of the spirit in its threefold entanglement is what is meant by Nachiketas' three days of fasting....

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deepavali at Chinmayamission   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, November 8, 2021. 9:00. PM. The Kathopanishad: A Wondrous Epic of the Spirit : 2. Swami Krishnananda (Spoken on June 19, 1972) POST-2. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 mankind in its completeness. The human spirit is in search of the Supreme Spirit, and in this quest there is a very peculiar encounter which seems to be unavoidable. The Lord of Death is to be faced before we come face to face with the Spirit Supreme. In ...