Upanishads : "The cream of Vedas"

================================================================ Friday, 01 Aug 2023. 06:30. Chapter 4: Cosmology-6. ================================================================ The senses of knowledge—seeing, hearing, etc.—are the manifestations of the mind, just as the organs of action are the manifestations of the prana. While the organs of action are in the pranamaya kosha, or the energy body, the senses of knowledge are in the manomaya kosha, or the mental sheath. They are internal because they are conscious in some way, whereas the prana is not conscious; it is simply active. The manomaya kosha, or the mental sheath, acts in collaboration with the vijnanamaya kosha, or the intellectual sheath, which also works with the aid of the senses of knowledge, so that we may say the intellect, the mind and the senses of knowledge form a single family. They are a single group, and they work together. This is the highest point of individuality conceivable. We are now on the intellectual ...

Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF), research wing of Chinmaya Mission Worldwide. Adi Sankara Nilayam, Veliyanad, Eranakulam, India, Kerala welcometocif@chinfo.org Chinmaya International Foundation (CIF) Vibrant Onam celebrations at CIF 🌼🌸 ✨ Festivities began on ‘Atham’, with daily garden-fresh flower arrangements- pookkalams enthusiastically put together by the staff. A special Onakkodi (new outfits) distribution for the entire staff on August 24 reinforced the feelings of togetherness and joy! The celebrations picked up steam with the entire CIF family, along with students from the residential Puja Vidhanam Course, coming together on August 26 for a cultural showcase. Decorating of a beautiful pookkalam was followed by Thiruvathirakali dance and Ona Paattu songs by the staff. The Puja Vidhanam Course and CVV students even enacted a beautiful musical on the Vamana and Mahabali story – depicting the origin of Onam. Everyone was so overwhelmed that they literally showered the Vama...

================================================================ Wednesday, 30 Aug 2023. 07:00. Article Scriptures Upanishads Post-7. ============================================================== The scripture says that, in the beginning, the Vedas did not exist. In the Krita Yuga, the golden age as we call it, the Vedas did not exist; only pranava existed. That religion was not Hinduism, Christianity, etc. Hamsa was the name of the religion of Krita Yuga. Hamsa means just love of God. It is not love through some 'ism' – this community or that community – no communities existed in Krita Yuga. It was total man loving total God, and OM was considered as inclusive of all the three Vedas. From Akara, Ukara and Makara, Prajapati is supposed to have extracted the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda and Sama Veda. The three Padas of the Gayatri Mantra are supposed to be extractions of the three Vedas, and are also supposed to be embedded in A-U-M, so that all the Veda is inside OM – all three Vedas...

  ================================================================ Tueday, 29 Aug 2023. 06:15. Article Scriptures (Spoken on June 19, 1972) Post-2. ================================================================ Death is the greatest fear that we have before us. Among all the dreads in nature, death is the greatest. The highest punishment is hanging. We cannot conceive of anything worse than that. And the fear that is attended with the concept of death is also associated with the notion of self-extinction. The fear of death is the same as the fear of self-extinction, the abolition of oneself, the complete negation of one's personality. The cessation of one's being is what is implied in death. The father of Nachiketas is supposed to have cursed the boy: “Go to death. The devil be with you!” Some such imprecation was cast upon the lad in a moment of fury by the father, as we are told in the Upanishad. Sometimes we tell people, “Go to hell!” Now, those words were literally taken ...

================================================================ Monday, 28 Aug 2023. 08:00. Mantras-9, 10,  11. Post-8. ================================================================ andham tamah pravisanti yo'vidyam upasate, tato bhuya iva te tamo ya u vidyayagm ratah (9) anyad evahur vidyaya anyad ahur avidyaya, iti susruma dhiranam ye nas tad vica-cakasire (1O) vidyam cavidyam ca yas tad vedobhayam saha, avidyaya mrtyum tirtva vidyaya-amrtam asnute (11 =============================================================== These mantras have to be understood properly. It is difficult to understand the real import of these mantras. Commentators give all kinds of possible meanings, and each commentator expounds the meaning from his own point of view. For, the mantras lend themselves to all those meanings and interpretations. From the view point of Ramanujacarya and Madhvacarya, the Mimamsakas, the Naiyayikas, and the Bhakti school there are various interpretations, each from the point ...

========================================================================= Sunday, 27 Aug 2023. 06:40. CHAPTER 4: AN ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF THE SELF SECTION 3: THE SPACE WITHIN THE HEART Post-36. ========================================================================= SECTION 3: THE SPACE WITHIN THE HEART The capacity to fulfil a desire is actually the power of the vision to find out where the object of desire is and what connection the object has with one's own self. The lack of this vision in respect of the object of desire is the impediment which acts as an obstacle to the fulfilment of the desire. Desires are really the visions of consciousness which act in different ways, in different levels of experience. When, due to the locking up of consciousness in a particular level of experience, it cannot visualise what is outside it or beyond it, then it becomes difficult for it to come in contact with the objects of its desires. Mantram-1. "Ta ime satyah kamah anrtapidhanah, ...

=================================================================== Saturday, 26 Aug 2023. 06:15. Article  Scriptures The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad   Post-7. ==================================================================== This sage, Yajnavalkya, is very famous in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Very powerful person was he. I can tell you a little story as an example of how powerful he was. Yajnavalkya was one of the disciples of a sage called Vaisampayana, and Vaisampayana was the promulgator of the Yajurveda Samhita. There are four Vedas – Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda. Yajurveda was the prerogative of this particular sage called Vaishampayana. They say there was a conference of sages on a mountain, and they stipulated a condition – all the invitees should come. If any invitee did not come, he would incur the sin of killing a Brahmin. This Vaisampayana somehow or other could not attend that conference. He had some other occupation that day, and the sin came u...