Upanishads : "The cream of Vedas"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, May 31,2021. 8:17.PM. Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-13. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The universe is not bifurcated into the object and the subject, as we imagine. It is one total Being, and one who knows this in direct realisation is the liberated being. Such a person crosses the bondage of the five sheaths. “Sa ya evam vid”: He knows, who knows this in actual experience and realisation by deep meditation.  “Etam annamayam atmanam upasankramya, etam pranamayam atmanam upasankramya, etam manomayam atmanam upasankramya, etam vijnanamayam atmanam upasankramya, etam anandamayam atmanam upasankramya, etat sama gayannaste.”  He is in the universal bliss and ecstasy of exclamation and cannot find words to explain what he feels at that time. It is as if the whole ocean has entered him and is inundating him from all sides, and he has become one...

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, May 30, 2021. 11:38.AM. 2. EXISTENCE AND VALUE : ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The problem of reality has direct bearing on that of existence and value. Existence is what is independent of everything else, different from relations of every kind. Value is the nature of existence as it is related to a perceiving subject; it is the manner in which an external existence becomes a content of an internal consciousness.  An object as cognised or perceived is, therefore, a value, and not an existence as such. But the true nature of the object, without being related to a cogniser, is its existence. The problem of perception involves the determination of the nature of existence and value. For, on this depends the worth of perceptive knowledge.  What do we really perceive? Is it only an illusion, an error, or is it a fact in itself? Do w...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday, May 29, 2021. 10:41.AM. Post-7. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The great master said, "All this that you have learned is only a word; you have not gone to the depths of things – the Atman has not been studied. You have only collected words, names, information about the outer structure of things, the name and the form complex of things has been made available to you by your studies that you have enumerated just now, as a series of learnings." Likewise in the Upanishads we have instances of great seekers humbly moving towards sages and saints for the purpose of making themselves fit to receive this knowledge. Even after achieving considerable success in purifying the mind of this dross of the tendency of the mind to move in the direction of objects of sense, by duty, by service, unselfish work, t...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, May 21, 2021.06:52.PM. 1.Introduction : -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human life is a composite continuum of varying phases of consciousness, of different processes of thought. It comprises a few links in the long chain of development, a few rungs in the lofty ladder of evolution. It is a series of conditions, becomings, events, which ever stretch beyond themselves and point to something remote, something wider and yet unattained. Life is, therefore, an ever-increasing organisation of consciousness, never resting in itself, never satisfied, but always hoping to be completed in a state of existence which is dimly foreshadowed in the present experience of the individual. Every condition of experience appears to be real and complete when it takes the role of being the one immediately above that which is directly bein...

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, May 20,2021.07:37.PM. Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-12. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inside the physical objects we have molecules; inside the molecules we have atoms; inside the atoms there are the electrons, neutrons, protons and what not. Then we have the universal continuum of electric energy. That is the substance of all these little things that we see as bricks and trees and mountains, etc. The variety of things that we see in this world is nothing but the configuration or formation of this continuum of energy which is universally spread out everywhere in creation as the only substance existing. Likewise, there is one substance continuously permeating throughout the cosmos—not merely permeating, but existing as everything in the cosmos; that is the substance of things. That substance is itself aware of its own being. That is called...

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, May 19, 2021. 06:38.PM. 1.Introduction - 6. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Upanishad promises us a freedom which is above the turmoil of all earthly existence. It can make us happy perennially under every condition, even after death—not merely in this life. In fact, the Upanishad assures us that death is not a bar, and not a fear. There is no such thing as death as we think of it. It is another kind of process which is intended for the chastening of the soul in its march towards a greater perfection; and perfection is what we ask for, not pleasure. This is what the Upanishads tell us, on which the Brihadaranyaka contemplates in vast detail. To people who study this Upanishad at random, it may appear to be a hotch-potch of contents, as it incorporates diverse ideas, many thoughts, and several schools of thought are impregnated into t...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, May 18, 2021. 06:54.PM. Post-6. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The spiritual concept of work is the great theme of the Bhagavadgita, which is another subject. The whole theme of the Bhagavadgita is how we can conduct our activity in the sense of a transmutation of all its values into spiritual worship. Actually, service is not service done to anybody else – that term 'else' must be removed from the sentence; it is service done to a larger area of one's own self. This idea can be planted in one's own mind by doing service of any kind, whether it is service of Guru, service of mankind, or work even in an office without laying too much emphasis on the salary aspect, etc.  If the administration is well managed, the salary will come of its own accord – you need not cry for it; and this universe is a well-managed organization. It is...

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, May 11,2021.05:47.PM. Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-11. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now in all these realisations, there was a little bit of externality. Whatever be the expanse of this experience in its cosmic manifestation, there is still a sort of externality in it. That externality should also go completely into universal subjectivity. That had not taken place yet. So, after the realisation of the cosmic understanding, mahat tattva, again he went to the father and said, “Teach me Brahman.” The father said, “Meditate further and realise for yourself.” Then he realised “anandam brahmeti vyajanat”: Bliss is Brahman. The constitutive essence of Reality is happiness. It is not objectivity; it is not an attribute, and it is not a thing. So now we come to the essential point of the Upanishad and the essential aim of life itself. We are in sea...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, May 10, 2021. 05:48.PM. 1.Introduction -4. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Upanishad begins with a startling exposition of the very methodology adopted in the Upanishads. The method of the Upanishad is secret, esoteric and intended to go into the meaning of an action which is otherwise exoteric. The Vedas have one aspect, namely, the ritual aspect, the aspect of sacrifice, performance of religious ceremony, by the application of the Mantras of the Samhitas, as expounded in the section known as the Brahmanas.  The Aranyakas go to the contemplative side of the Brahmanas, and tell us that a sacrifice need not necessarily be outward. It can also be inward; and the inward is as powerful as the outward. It can even be more powerful than the outward ritual. The ritual that is performed by the mind, say the Aranyakas, is more powerful in the pr...

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, May 09, 2021. 07:04.PM. Post-5. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you serve people, you are to bear in mind always the reason why this service is done at all. Mostly, the reason is buried underneath. We have social reasons, political reasons, economic reasons, and family considerations when we do any work in the form of service of people. But service which is spiritually oriented is not a social work or a political activity, or it is not connected even with a family maintenance. It is actually a service done to your own self. How is it?  You may put a question. In what way is service of people, for instance, a service to my own self?  Because you have to remember the few words that I spoke to you a little before – your essential being is also the essential being of everybody else. So the people that you see outside, the world ...

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, May 04,2021.02:41.PM. Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-10. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The universal material is not the Ultimate Reality. This was what Bhrigu realised by deep meditation. He entered further inside into the substance behind the physical universe and came to experience that subtle vital energy permeating the whole cosmos as Reality. It is called prana. “Prano brahmeti vyajanat.” Earlier we studied the five sheaths in an individualistic fashion, which are experienced in a cosmical fashion by deep meditation. The individual is a cross section of the universal. Whatever is in the universal we will find in the individual, but in a minute, microscopic manner. The five sheaths are individual as well as cosmic. When we regard ourselves as this physical body alone, then we will have a notion only of the individual five sheaths. These...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, May 05, 2021. 08:26. AM. 1.Introduction -3. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The seers of the Upanishads were bent upon entering into the kernel of Reality by casting off all vestures which condition human life, and attaining a kind of attunement with it. The unconditioned was plumbed and experienced. So, in a way, we may say that the Upanishadic texts are records of exclamations and experiences of Masters who set themselves in tune with the ultimate Truth. Such are the Upanishads. It is a very strange word, —‘Upanishad,’—which is supposed to mean a secret knowledge, not to be imparted to uninitiates or the common public who are wedded to the exoteric approach only, who are totally conditioned in their life, and who cannot rise above the bias of sense-life and social regulations. Hence, the Upanishadic wisdom was kept very secret. It was never give...