Upanishads : "The cream of Vedas"

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, March 29, 2021. 10:48. AM. Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-7. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The law of nature, the law of universality, or we may call it the law of karma in a particular way, has brought about the union of one thing with another thing under certain given conditions, and that seems to be the source of our happiness. The bereavement that we think of, or the loss of objects that takes place, is due to the contrary action of the very same law under the dispensation of its own constitution. Transfer of things from place to place is done according to the law of the universe, and not according to the law of our personal wish. Personal wish has to be subordinated to the universal will of the Supreme, if we are to be happy. So this is a very unfortunate conclusion that we come to when we actually analyse how we love things, why we lov...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, March 28, 2021. 01:04. PM. 1.Introduction -1. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peace Invocation-(Santhi Mantram) Om purnam adah, purnam idam, purnat purnam udacyate; purnasya purnam adaya purnam evavasisyate. Om Santih! Santih! Santih! Om! That is Full. This is Full. From the Full, the Full does proceed. Taking the Full from the Full, the Full alone remains. OM, Peace, Peace, Peace! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In all principles which guide human life, there are two aspects known as the ‘exoteric’ and the ‘esoteric’. The routine of daily life is mostly guided by what we call the exoteric principles which have a working value and a validity within the realm of human action. In this sense, we may say, the values which are called exoteric are relative, ina...

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, March 27, 2021. 11:45.AM. POST-1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I made a brief reference to the natural difficulty that one may feel in understanding the subject of the Upanishads, that difficulty being the nature of the Upanishad discussion itself. It is the subject of the Atman, as this boy mentioned just now, but it is easily said than really understood. All our educational technology these days, as education is generally understood, concerns itself with objects of perception and intellectual understanding. The Atman is not a subject which can be perceived through the sense organs, nor can it be understood intellectually by any kind of logical acumen, the reason being that the Atman is yourself; it is not somebody else. In all courses of knowledge and procedures of study, you place yourself in the position or context of a student, a...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday,  March 26, 2021. 11:18. AM. (Spoken on January 14th, 1973) Post-8. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Om that is referred to in the Mandukya Upanishad is not merely a linguistic chant. It is not a sound that we make through the vocal cords. It is a vibration that is set up. The Upanishad wants to tell us that the universe is nothing but a bundle of vibrations. It is not made up of things, objects, substances, etc. Today people are slowly realising how vibrations are ultimately the essential constituents of even solid things. Light can be converted into matter; matter can be converted into light. We do not say that light is an object like a stone, but that which we call a stone, or a heavy material, is only a concretisation of vibrations of force. Energy continuum is the universe. Om is not merely a sound; it is not a chant, not a language,...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, March 19, 2021. 11:47. AM. Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-6. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So ananda or happiness, which is in the anandamaya kosha, is a limited expression of the universal ananda, which is the essential nature of the Atman. As I mentioned to you, this Atman is also called Brahman, because it is everywhere. The selfhood of Brahman in every particular is defined by the term Atman, and the universality of the same Atman is defined by the term Brahman. So they mean one and the same thing, like the space all-pervading and the space inside a vessel. They do not make any distinction essentially or characteristically. This is the Ananda Mimamsa—the analysis of the nature of happiness and love, etc. We are happy very rarely in life, on account of there being very few occasions when the mind comes back to its own source with the satisfaction...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday,  March 18, 2021. 07:16. PM. (Spoken on January 14th, 1973) Post-7. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Vaishvanara Vidya is a concrete instance of the saprapancha view of the Chhandogya Upanishad, of how the cosmos is to be regarded and contemplated as the body of the Supreme Being, while the teachings of Yajnavalkya, primarily in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, give us the nishprapancha, or the acosmic view of Reality. There is no cosmos in Reality. It is acosmic, super-cosmic.  "Yatra hi dvaitam iva bhavati, tad itara itaram pasyati. yatra tv asya sarvam atmaivabhut, tat kena kam pasyet" (B.U. 2.4.14).  Yajnavalkya tells us that where we have an object in front of us, we can see. Where there is no object in front of us, what do we see? Yenedam sarva? vijanati, ta? kena vijaniyat :  How ...

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, March 12, 2021. 07:24. PM. Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-5. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, what is the meaning of withdrawal of the mind? It means the non-externalisation of the mind. The externalisation of the mind outside was for the purpose of grabbing the object of sense. But, when the purpose is served—when the object has come near us and we have got it—the mind need not think of it. The externalisation of the mind ceases, and a miracle takes place. This miracle is an essential, psychological nature of happiness. When the externalising force of the mind ceases on account of the satisfaction felt by the possession of the object, there is, for a fraction of a moment, a flash of the universality of our consciousness. It may be for a split second, or perhaps less than that. We cannot know how quick...

   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday,  March 11, 2021. 10:21. AM. (Spoken on January 14th, 1973) Post-6. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Vaishvanara aspect of this analysis receives a detailed and elaborate treatment in the fifth chapter of the Chhandogya Upanishad, known as the Vaishvanara Vidya, wherein the glory of the Supreme Being is described, the meditation upon which is said to burn up all sins. In an analogy of this Upanishad, as fire burns cotton into ashes leaving no residue whatsoever, meditation on the Vaishvanara burns up all samskaras, all impressions of the mind, all sins and defects, and makes one Self-realised. From the description of the Vaishvanara given to us in the Chhandogya Upanishad we can also infer the conditions of Hiranyagarbha and Ishvara, which are not specifically mentioned but are implied therein. Hence, the method of meditation in...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tuesday, March  2, 2021. 10:43. AM. Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-4. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If that was the reality, nothing else can be the reality today. That which is real is real in the past, in the present and in the future. So even today, that law persists. When we say that the Atman alone existed, it does not mean that it existed only many years back and that today it does not exist. It is only a way of explaining things to temporal minds which cannot understand, except in a chronological or historical fashion, any narrative that is given. So, even today it is of the same nature. Thus, the Atman in us, the Self in us, even today is non-externalisable. So the consciousness in us which is moving towards the object outside is really a non-externalisable something. Even today it is universal in nature. O...