Upanishads : "The cream of Vedas"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, July 24, 2021. 11:20. AM. GOD, THE UNIVERSE AND THE INDIVIDUAL - 10. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Philosophy leads us up to a certain stage of thinking; not to the Ultimate Truth. Philosophy trains the intellect in order to recognise its own limitations. It can only make us understand how much we can know in the universe and what we cannot know. The limit of the reasoning power is revealed by philosophy. But the Upanishads do not stop there, with mere reason or with understanding. They reveal the relation among the principles of God, the world   and the individual. Only Aparoksha-Anubhava, or immediate experience, can reveal the truth of this relation.  It is non-relational experience, without a relation betwe...

====================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sunday, July 25,  2021. 11:48. AM. Chapter 6: Some Light on Yoga - 4. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The space-time factor is nothing but a force of externality; that is all we can say about it. We cannot say anything more than that because it is involved in our experience. Space and time are part and parcel of our experience itself and, therefore, we cannot say anything about them. Yet, this much can be understood of them: They are expressional habits of the mind, they are the factors which pull consciousness in a particular direction called externality, and yoga practice is nothing but the subdual of the character of the mind from its movement in terms of space and time. So the control of the mind, or withdrawal of the senses, is a very difficult t...

===================================================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday, July 24, 2021. 11:20. AM. GOD, THE UNIVERSE AND THE INDIVIDUAL - 9. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This leads us to another philosophy which is called objective idealism, which explains the existence of the Cosmic Mind independent of the subject and objects. The Cosmic Mind is the creator of the whole universe, and the individual minds are parts of it. The individual mind’s perception need not be correct. It is coloured by the constitution of the individual. The Cosmic Mind is the cause of the whole universe with the different planes of its existence—causal, subtle and material. This universe which is the creation of the Cosmic Mind presents itself as an object before the individual consciousness. When it becomes the object of th...

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, July 17,  2021. 8:48. PM. Chapter 6: Some Light on Yoga - 3. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is true that the Absolute is everything. The Supreme Being is manifest as all these things. Even the wall that we see in front is the Absolute manifest. But, and a terrible ‘but’ indeed, there is some great mistake in our notion about this wall. We have again to bring to our memory the selfhood character of the Absolute. The Absolute, or Brahman, is the Atman; it is not a vishaya, or an object of sense. So when we look upon this wall as an object outside, it has ceased to be the Absolute, though it is true that ultimately, in its essence, it is that. The mistake is not in the substance of the object as such, or the astitva or existence of the object, but in the nama and the rupa, the na...

  Ramayana month begins from 17th of july 2021. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, July 9, 2021. 8:54. PM. GOD, THE UNIVERSE AND THE INDIVIDUAL - 8. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. An attempt at attaining to the truth of experience takes us through two ideas-the subjective and the objective. The subjective idea considers things as purely mental or idealistic. The universe, according to it, is an externalised form of mind or idea. But, it will be clear that this is not a tenable position. Experience shows that the object of consciousness is not more real or more unreal than the experiencing idea or consciousness. If the idea of the perceiver is to externalise itself as something in the universe, there must be a basis for it.  We have objective perception in dream-experience. We have a dream-space, a dream-time and dream-objects. It may be said that all that we perceive i...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, July 10,  2021. 8:43. PM. Chapter 6: Some Light on Yoga Practice.-2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Kathopanishad there is a hint given to us as to how we can practise yoga. There are one or two verses in the Kathopanishad which give the sum and substance of the practice of yoga, which is also the same yoga explained in greater detail in the system of Patanjali. The Kathopanishad says in these verses that the subtle essences of objects are superior to the sensory powers; they are higher in their degree and in quality. Higher than these essences of objects is the mind; higher than the mind is the intellect; higher than the intellect is the cosmic intellect called Mahat, also called Hiranyagarbha. Higher than that is the peaceful undifferentiated causal state called Avyakta. Higher than that is supreme Absolute, Purusha. The same Upanis...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, July 9, 2021. 8:54. PM. GOD, THE UNIVERSE AND THE INDIVIDUAL - 7. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The conception of God in the Upanishads is of special significance. The God of the Upanishads is the Antaryamin, the Indwelling Presence in the Universe. This God is different from the God of the Nyaya and the Vaiseshika philosophies, who is entirely cut off from the universe of manifestation; the God of the Yoga philosophy, who has no intelligible relation to the principles of Purusha and Prakriti, and is not the ultimate goal of the aspirations of individuals; or the God of certain theistic schools, who is different from the manifested universe and the Jivas, though he is considered to be omnipresent and the existence of every...

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, July 01,  2021. 8:06. PM. Chapter 6: Some Light on Yoga Practice.-1. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Why are we so far away from the Absolute, is also a question. The Supreme Being, or Absolute, is transcendent to our level. This transcendence, which we call Brahman or the Absolute, is manifest through space and time by way of externalisation; and in the process of externalisation, the selfhood of experience is gradually lost. The greater the externalisation, diversification, expression, manifestation outwardly towards objects in space and time, the greater is the loss of selfhood. The more we are conscious of an external object, the greater is the loss of self-consciousness. As we noted earlier, in all attachments to objects of sense there is a transference of self to the object, so that we lose ourselves first in order that we ...