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Isavasya Upanisad/God in and as everything
See God in all To Him belong all Know,renounce and rejoice Seek not to possess,nothing is yours.( This short spiritual treatise of just eighteen mantras has inspired great minds for ages.A chapter in Sukla Yajurveda the teachings here point out the Self-the divine Essence-in every one of us.A crisp summary of the Vedanta,this Upanisad shows us the way to rise above all our attachments to the finite objects of the world.The glittering sense objects the sweetest emotions and even the lofty ideals of human life are but a golden dish,covering the face of the Truth.We must avoid all traps of wonderful work (karma,avidya) or charming thought patterns (upasana,vidya) and seek the pure Knowledge.The holy text permits the use of a healthy blend of lower spiritual practices as a stepping stone to the highest Realization.The scripture concludes with some sublime prayers of an advanced seeker.
- GenresSpirituality
155 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
41 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
About the author
Chinmayananda
386 books140 followersChinmayananda Saraswati, also known as Swami Chinmayananda and born Balakrishnan Menon, was an Indian spiritual leader and teacher who inspired the formation of Chinmaya Mission in 1953 to spread the message of Vedanta. The organization, which was founded by his disciples and led by him, has over 300 centres in India and internationally.
He was a disciple of Sivananda Saraswati at Rishikesh, who founded the Divine Life Society. He was later advised by Sivananda to study under Tapovan Maharaj in Uttarkashi in the Himalayas.
He was a disciple of Sivananda Saraswati at Rishikesh, who founded the Divine Life Society. He was later advised by Sivananda to study under Tapovan Maharaj in Uttarkashi in the Himalayas.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 2, 2025
The premise is simple, if not a little unsettling... everything, absolutely everything, is enveloped by a divine consciousness.
This isn't a book... it's a cosmic telegram. At just 18 verses, the Isavasya Upanishad is the ultimate philosophical power-snack. It tells us everything—your coffee, your cat, your car keys—is divine LOL🤣 and then gives you one simple rule for living: do your work, but don't get hung up on the results.
A lightning-fast read that will leave you thinking for days. Recommended for anyone who wants a dose of enlightenment without the thousand-page commitment.
This isn't a book... it's a cosmic telegram. At just 18 verses, the Isavasya Upanishad is the ultimate philosophical power-snack. It tells us everything—your coffee, your cat, your car keys—is divine LOL🤣 and then gives you one simple rule for living: do your work, but don't get hung up on the results.
A lightning-fast read that will leave you thinking for days. Recommended for anyone who wants a dose of enlightenment without the thousand-page commitment.
December 3, 2017
This text offered my first ever exposure to Vedanta. That was two decades ago. Later, I realised that I may have made a mistake, because I couldn't then understand head or tail of it. items. That one was published by Ramakrishna Mission, and I do not recall whose commentary it was.
After all these years, this commentary definitely made a lot more sense, although it is still a tough read. I had to read several verses multiple times and still would just about make sense of it. The beauty of the Sanskrit language is in how it can be interpreted in rich and varied ways.
In this Upanishad, one encounters the classical debate between the path of devotion and the path of knowledge. We are then told that there is no tension between the two paths, in the first place, and shown the way towards a beautiful synthesis of the two.
After all these years, this commentary definitely made a lot more sense, although it is still a tough read. I had to read several verses multiple times and still would just about make sense of it. The beauty of the Sanskrit language is in how it can be interpreted in rich and varied ways.
In this Upanishad, one encounters the classical debate between the path of devotion and the path of knowledge. We are then told that there is no tension between the two paths, in the first place, and shown the way towards a beautiful synthesis of the two.
September 12, 2018
Any commentary written by Gurudev can't go wrong.
This is an Upanishad, helping us live a good life, where paths of action (Karma) and meditation (yoga) can both be followed in conjunction, without under or over doing either.
This is an Upanishad, helping us live a good life, where paths of action (Karma) and meditation (yoga) can both be followed in conjunction, without under or over doing either.
February 7, 2018
“From the Whole, to the Whole, when the Whole is negated, all that remains is the Whole.” The preamble sums up the complex entirety of Advaita Vedanta. I used this version with Swami Chinmayananda’s commentary in a study group and thought it did more to help the student understand the text than other editions.
April 12, 2017
This is a brilliant book. Anyone who has been lucky enough to have received God Knowledge through a True Master will be able to relate and understand this book throughly.
The commentary by Swami Chinmayananda is very apt and to the point.
The commentary by Swami Chinmayananda is very apt and to the point.
October 31, 2020
The last Chapter of the ‘Sukla Yajur-veda Samhita’, the Isavasya Upanishad, is composed of just eighteen stanzas. However, this beguilingly short epic is also one of the most profound of its ilk. The essence embedded, and philosophy expounded, by this Upanishad would easily accommodate innumerable text and reference books. Written in metrical form by the torch bearer of Hindu Dharma, Sri Adi Sankara, the Isavasya Upanishad, for the rustic and the unassuming might sound, and read, at both first glance and hearing, like an incredulous amalgam of contrasting preaching. The mercurial and brilliant Swami Chinmayananda, dissects the profundities of this magnificent work, with a flawless finesse that makes it extremely accommodating for the layman, in his book, “Isavasya Upanishad.” As the Swami himself reveals, “the very theme of this Upanishad is how to realise the identity of the all-pervading Truth, that is, to know the Self within and Brahman without, which means to ‘see’ the Truth in the outer world of plurality, through the disturbing phenomenal world. It seems an attempt to harmoniously reconcile the immortal and eternal controversy between the path of Knowledge and the path of Action.” This attempt to reconcile karma yoga with jnana yoga forms the very bulwark of the Isavasya Upanishad.
There is an uncanny similarity to the tenets propounded by the Isavasya Upanishad and the Bhagavad Gita. Unable to grasp the disequilibria of the Plurality of the world, a distraught Arjuna, is on the verge of abdicating his responsibilities as a warrior price after getting terribly unsettled by the sight of the Kaurava forces arrayed against him. The very thought of piercing the visages of his preceptor, grandfather and cousins with unsparingly sharp arrows assails the innermost recesses of his mind and heart. It takes the clarion call of Krishna to enlighten Arjuna about the path of work, which is as meritorious, if not more, than the path of renunciation. The Upanishads have placed an immense value on the dignity of labour. The path to be traversed by the Karma Yogi is accorded unabashed and unbridled respect and reverence. Hence the uneducated and ill-informed myth that the sole path to salvation and self-realization is the path of renunciation stands dismantled, dismembered and disproved. Abiding by one’s own roles and responsibilities is in itself a sincere penance.
As Swami Chinmayananda informs his readers, for an experience to be consummated in life, there needs to be a conflation of three factors – ‘the experiencer, the experienced, and a set relationship that is to be maintained between the experiencer and the experienced called experiencing.’ The indomitable seers and enlightened ones of the Hindu Dharma, in all their works recognised the sovereignty of the ‘experiencer’ over the ‘experienced’ and the ‘experiencing.’
Man, in the general sense of physiognomy is one undivided personality. However, the flesh and blood visage masks an invisible clash of personalities battling within to gain ascendancy over one another. The physical, mental, intellectual, and spiritual personalities create a confusing clamour with each tugging in different directions enmeshed in their own priorities. These four states possess their own values, ruminate over their own thoughts, desires, and always are engaged in a tussle to unshackle or unfetter themselves in trying to gravitate to a greater pedestal of freedom, peace and joy. “But, if there be a technique by which we can train, discipline and integrate all these wild and madly revolting personalities in us together into one unit, certainly, we can thereafter order much more freedom and happiness for ourselves in the outer world. These techniques are together termed as ‘religion’ by the great seers. What this technique is and how to accomplish it is the main burden of the Upaniṣads, the sacred books of the Hindus. What is the constitution and nature of man and how he should view himself and the world outside; – in short how he should act as the right ‘experiencer’ correctly ‘experiencing’ the true objects to be ‘experienced’ is the secret core of all Upaniṣads.”
The very first stanza of the Isavasya Upanishad encapsulates the entire conundrum of duality and also shatters the entrenched dogmas associated with such a conundrum.
“ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पुर्णमुदच्यते
पूर्णश्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
(Om Puurnnam-Adah Puurnnam-Idam Puurnnaat-Purnnam-Udacyate
Puurnnashya Puurnnam-Aadaaya
Puurnnam-Eva-Avashissyate||
Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||)
Meaning:
Aum! That is infinite, and this(universe) is infinite.
The infinite proceeds from the infinite.
(Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe),
It remains as the infinite alone.
Aum! Peace! Peace! Peace!
This seemingly complex stanza is simplified in a marvelous manner by Swami Chinmayananda with a singularly unique analogy of a ‘ghost in the post’. A weary traveler seeking refuge in a post views a ghost on the post. This visual presentation that encounters the traveler transcends a mere apparition, and possesses a form that although terrifying in nature and intent is perfect in so far as physiology is concerned. However, upon closer examination, to the mighty relief of the traveler or the perceiver, the ghost fades into oblivion and what remains is just the ordinary post. “The ghost was not where the post was not; the ghost was exactly where the post was. In short, the ghost rose from the post, remained in the post borrowing its reality from the post, and merged back in the end into the post.”
Usually when a cause triggers an effect the cause itself undergoes a material or significant transformation. For example, a seed ceases to be one when it sprouts into a plant, a lump of clay loses its identity once it is formed into a pot etc. However, the Infinite does not undergo an iota of transformation even when the finite arises from it. The Upanishad negates the proposition of diminishing of the Infinite when it proclaims, “when this is taken out of that Whole, what remains is again the Whole.”
Swami Chinmayananda also explains that the Upanishads categorise the transformation of man from the base and ignorant one to the Enlightened One through three different stages. “The animal-man stage is the dull insensitive stage of least awareness, and they constitute the slaves, the underdogs, the sensuous and the unprincipled atheists. To them, religion and spiritual practices are meaningless since they are no better in their level of awareness in them than the cow in their backyard. Some of them evolve into the next higher stage of a greater awareness, the man-man stage. These constitute the religious and the true seekers. Our śāstras call this type of men as the adhikārīs, meaning ‘the fit ones’ for spiritual life”. The super-man or the God-man stage is when man ends being a superficial sheath of bones and tissues and becomes the very embodiment of the Self.
“Isavasya Upanishad: God in and as Everything” is a dazzling work by one of the greatest exponents of Vedanta in contemporary times.
There is an uncanny similarity to the tenets propounded by the Isavasya Upanishad and the Bhagavad Gita. Unable to grasp the disequilibria of the Plurality of the world, a distraught Arjuna, is on the verge of abdicating his responsibilities as a warrior price after getting terribly unsettled by the sight of the Kaurava forces arrayed against him. The very thought of piercing the visages of his preceptor, grandfather and cousins with unsparingly sharp arrows assails the innermost recesses of his mind and heart. It takes the clarion call of Krishna to enlighten Arjuna about the path of work, which is as meritorious, if not more, than the path of renunciation. The Upanishads have placed an immense value on the dignity of labour. The path to be traversed by the Karma Yogi is accorded unabashed and unbridled respect and reverence. Hence the uneducated and ill-informed myth that the sole path to salvation and self-realization is the path of renunciation stands dismantled, dismembered and disproved. Abiding by one’s own roles and responsibilities is in itself a sincere penance.
As Swami Chinmayananda informs his readers, for an experience to be consummated in life, there needs to be a conflation of three factors – ‘the experiencer, the experienced, and a set relationship that is to be maintained between the experiencer and the experienced called experiencing.’ The indomitable seers and enlightened ones of the Hindu Dharma, in all their works recognised the sovereignty of the ‘experiencer’ over the ‘experienced’ and the ‘experiencing.’
Man, in the general sense of physiognomy is one undivided personality. However, the flesh and blood visage masks an invisible clash of personalities battling within to gain ascendancy over one another. The physical, mental, intellectual, and spiritual personalities create a confusing clamour with each tugging in different directions enmeshed in their own priorities. These four states possess their own values, ruminate over their own thoughts, desires, and always are engaged in a tussle to unshackle or unfetter themselves in trying to gravitate to a greater pedestal of freedom, peace and joy. “But, if there be a technique by which we can train, discipline and integrate all these wild and madly revolting personalities in us together into one unit, certainly, we can thereafter order much more freedom and happiness for ourselves in the outer world. These techniques are together termed as ‘religion’ by the great seers. What this technique is and how to accomplish it is the main burden of the Upaniṣads, the sacred books of the Hindus. What is the constitution and nature of man and how he should view himself and the world outside; – in short how he should act as the right ‘experiencer’ correctly ‘experiencing’ the true objects to be ‘experienced’ is the secret core of all Upaniṣads.”
The very first stanza of the Isavasya Upanishad encapsulates the entire conundrum of duality and also shatters the entrenched dogmas associated with such a conundrum.
“ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पुर्णमुदच्यते
पूर्णश्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
(Om Puurnnam-Adah Puurnnam-Idam Puurnnaat-Purnnam-Udacyate
Puurnnashya Puurnnam-Aadaaya
Puurnnam-Eva-Avashissyate||
Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||)
Meaning:
Aum! That is infinite, and this(universe) is infinite.
The infinite proceeds from the infinite.
(Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe),
It remains as the infinite alone.
Aum! Peace! Peace! Peace!
This seemingly complex stanza is simplified in a marvelous manner by Swami Chinmayananda with a singularly unique analogy of a ‘ghost in the post’. A weary traveler seeking refuge in a post views a ghost on the post. This visual presentation that encounters the traveler transcends a mere apparition, and possesses a form that although terrifying in nature and intent is perfect in so far as physiology is concerned. However, upon closer examination, to the mighty relief of the traveler or the perceiver, the ghost fades into oblivion and what remains is just the ordinary post. “The ghost was not where the post was not; the ghost was exactly where the post was. In short, the ghost rose from the post, remained in the post borrowing its reality from the post, and merged back in the end into the post.”
Usually when a cause triggers an effect the cause itself undergoes a material or significant transformation. For example, a seed ceases to be one when it sprouts into a plant, a lump of clay loses its identity once it is formed into a pot etc. However, the Infinite does not undergo an iota of transformation even when the finite arises from it. The Upanishad negates the proposition of diminishing of the Infinite when it proclaims, “when this is taken out of that Whole, what remains is again the Whole.”
Swami Chinmayananda also explains that the Upanishads categorise the transformation of man from the base and ignorant one to the Enlightened One through three different stages. “The animal-man stage is the dull insensitive stage of least awareness, and they constitute the slaves, the underdogs, the sensuous and the unprincipled atheists. To them, religion and spiritual practices are meaningless since they are no better in their level of awareness in them than the cow in their backyard. Some of them evolve into the next higher stage of a greater awareness, the man-man stage. These constitute the religious and the true seekers. Our śāstras call this type of men as the adhikārīs, meaning ‘the fit ones’ for spiritual life”. The super-man or the God-man stage is when man ends being a superficial sheath of bones and tissues and becomes the very embodiment of the Self.
“Isavasya Upanishad: God in and as Everything” is a dazzling work by one of the greatest exponents of Vedanta in contemporary times.
August 5, 2021
You don't analyze or review a spiritual text. You simply feel it, experience and soak it in.
August 9, 2020
I have completed the reading of the book.But I am yet to comprehend the book in full.Please let me revise the same once again.I will come back to review the book.
I recommend this book to those who want to find out where is God.Isa Vasya Ida Gum Sarvam.Never covet others property.
I recommend this book to those who want to find out where is God.Isa Vasya Ida Gum Sarvam.Never covet others property.
May 25, 2023
A compact and exquisite text on oneness of all beings.
The theme of this Upanishad is to realize the identity of the all-pervading reality with all beings. Its verses are the briefest exposition on philosophy and each one is an exercise in contemplation.
The Upanishad has 18 verses. The first verse is in itself a miniature philosophical textbook. The goal and the path have been summarized succinctly. This is the central theme of all the Upanishads. The second verse indicates the path of action. Bhagavad-Gita seems to have sprung directly from the spirit of this Upanishad and from this verse in particular. The third verse points out the consequences for the group that has lost its soul. Verses 4-8 describe the ultimate reality and the importance of seeing that reality in all beings. Verses 9-14 reconcile apparently opposite means. The last four verses contain some prayers.
This book also includes six introductory chapters that provide extremely useful material for the correct understanding of the Upanishad.
One must be really very fortunate to be able to study this Upanishad and realize her or his oneness with all beings.
The theme of this Upanishad is to realize the identity of the all-pervading reality with all beings. Its verses are the briefest exposition on philosophy and each one is an exercise in contemplation.
The Upanishad has 18 verses. The first verse is in itself a miniature philosophical textbook. The goal and the path have been summarized succinctly. This is the central theme of all the Upanishads. The second verse indicates the path of action. Bhagavad-Gita seems to have sprung directly from the spirit of this Upanishad and from this verse in particular. The third verse points out the consequences for the group that has lost its soul. Verses 4-8 describe the ultimate reality and the importance of seeing that reality in all beings. Verses 9-14 reconcile apparently opposite means. The last four verses contain some prayers.
This book also includes six introductory chapters that provide extremely useful material for the correct understanding of the Upanishad.
One must be really very fortunate to be able to study this Upanishad and realize her or his oneness with all beings.
December 17, 2023
Isavasyopanishad
I like the provision of padachedh and word meanings. Translation is good. Commentary is elaborate, too much in places adding commentators views not directly connected with matra, though good. Nice to read patiently on the whole. 🙏
I like the provision of padachedh and word meanings. Translation is good. Commentary is elaborate, too much in places adding commentators views not directly connected with matra, though good. Nice to read patiently on the whole. 🙏
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews