Lessons on the Upanishads: 19 - Swami Krishnananda.

Swami Chinmayananda:

Choose yourself this new year! There is a duty towards yourself. To live in self control, to eat, sleep properly, to exercise your body, to maintain a loving and peaceful attitude towards all and to educate yourself more and more in your shastra knowledge, so you can serve well the people around you. Never give up self study. This alone can add more brilliance and clarity to your discourses. 

Worship the lord, meditate regularly. Be a fanatic in performing your daily prayer. Never give it up even for a day l, whether you are travelling or sick. This alone can bring sweetness into your words, and a special insistence in your speech that makes them fly directly into the head heart of your listeners.

Will you choose yourself this new year?

#selfloveisthebestlove #selfcaretip #newyearnewgoals #selfloveheals #selfdiscipline

[new year 2026, self love, self care, self discipline, spiritual practice, prayer, worship, blessings, sadhana, spiritual journey] See less

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Saturday 20, December 2025, 19:00.
Books
Upanishads
Lessons on the Upanishads: 3.5.
Chapter 3: Preparation for Upanishadic Study -5.
Post-19.

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The spiritual concept of work is the great theme of the Bhagavadgita. 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 even work 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 organisation. It is not a political system which constantly requires amendment of laws and regulations. Everything is systematically ordained and, therefore, you need not have any doubt in your mind whether you gain anything at all by doing service in this manner. When you serve your own larger self, which becomes largest when it is a service done to the universe as a whole, virtually you are serving God, because the largest self is God. And it is an expanded form of your own self. This is the point to be borne in mind. This has to be borne in mind again and again because of the fact that this is the subject of the Upanishads.

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Swami Chinmayananda:

Can marriage and spirituality really go together? We often assume that renunciation is the only path to Self-realization but Sanatana Dharma says otherwise. Swipe to read how family life can lead to enlightenment.

What do you think can marriage lead to enlightenment? Comment below!

#marriedlifeisthebestlife #liberation #moksha #marriage #familylife 

[married life, spiritual wisdom, grishatha ashram, spiritual journey, enlightenment, sanatan tradition, Indian culture, spiritual development, sadhana, spiritual practice, chinmaya mission, swami Chinmayananda]

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So this dirt of the mind, so-called, the mala or the impurity that compels the mind to move in the direction of sense objects, can be scrubbed off by work—hard work, service, labour—provided it is in the spirit of a service done to a larger self of one's own self. Then work becomes worship and karma becomes karma yoga.

A discipline of this kind was instituted in earlier days when it was obligatory on the part of students to serve their Masters and learn under their tutelage. Narada, a master in all the arts and sciences conceivable by the human mind, went humbly to the great divine sage Sanatkumara, as it is recorded in the Chhandogya Upanishad.

“I am unhappy, great Master,” said Narada.

“What have you learned already, Narada?” asked the sage Sanatkumara.

“All the things in the world, all the sciences, astronomy, physics, psychology, axiology, aesthetics, ethics, civics, astrology, economics, politics, religions, philosophy—there is nothing that I do not know. But I have no peace of mind,” replied Narada.

The great Master said: “All this that you have learned is only words. You have not gone to the depths of things; the Atman has not been studied. You have only collected words, names and information about the outer structure of things. The name and the form complex of things have been made available to you by the studies that you have enumerated just now, as a series of learning.”

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 its tendency to move in the direction of objects of sense—by duty, by service, by unselfish work— the mind will refuse to concentrate on this subject. It has, as I mentioned, very fleeting ideas, one of which is what I have been enumerating just now.

The other is the incapacity of the mind to fix itself on anything for a long time. Try to think of something for a long time, continuously. Let us see what happens. Go on looking at this tree and thinking only about this tree, and about nothing else. After a few minutes you will think of another tree nearby. You will think of the mountain in front. You will look at the river; you will look at the buildings and at people moving about. Distraction is another malady of the mind. How will consciousness rest itself in its pure subjectivity, which is the Atman, if this fickleness continues for a long time and thus makes it impossible for one to be aware of anything other than what is outside?

But, there is a greater danger—namely, the inability to know why this discipline is to be undergone at all. “What for is all this study, sir, finally? What do I gain?” You bring a business mentality once again: “What do I gain by way of profit?” The mind of the human being is made in such a way that it will not undertake any kind of work, project or activity unless it is told that something will follow. This is exactly what the Bhagavadgita has condemned. You should not expect anything to follow from the pure subjectivity aspect of the work because that which follows, as it were, is a futurity which you are trying to inject into the present. You are creating a conflict between the present and the future. Naturally, there is a difference between the present and the future when we think of the future possibility of attainment, or obtaining an objective far ahead in time as a fruit accruing to the work that we are doing at this moment, in the present. But the Atman is a present; it is not a future. The reason or the rationale behind this study, this activity, is something beyond reason itself. The reason behind the  need for the study of the nature of the Atman is super-rational. What can be more important than your own self? Is any burden of material value superior to your own existence? Has the world any meaning minus you? Let your existence be isolated completely; you will find that the world will stand as a series of zeros or ciphers unless there is a single stroke of a figure that makes sense and which is the Atman who does things.

There is a screen covering the consciousness of this pure subjectivity in oneself. That screen is called avarana, the third defect of the mind. Dross, physical impurity, is removed by karma yoga, or the performance of unselfish action. The fickleness of the mind is subdued by upasana, or devout worship. And avarana, or the veil, is removed by jnana, or wisdom of life. The Bhagavadgita is a standard gospel on the art of karma yoga, unselfish spiritual activity. The epics and the Puranas highlight the path of devotion—bhakti or upasana—love of God. The Upanishads deal with jnana, or wisdom of the Ultimate Reality.

Thus, this teaching that is going to be imparted to you is not to be taken as a diversion from the ordinary regime of life, but as a very serious matter which will polish your personality, chasten your individuality and make you a perfect individual, not only in your own self but also in human society. The teaching is a spiritual discipline; it is not just intellectual information.

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Continues

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