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August 9 - September 6, 2024
the fact remains that the Upanishads, while fully at home in the Vedas, offer a very different vision of what religion means. They tell us that there is a Reality underlying life which rituals cannot reach, next to which the things we see and touch in everyday life are shadows. They teach that this Reality is the essence of every created thing, and the same Reality is our real Self, so that each of us is one with the power that created and sustains the universe. And, finally, they testify that this oneness can be realized directly, without the mediation of priests or rituals or any of the
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kind of discursive thinking. It is pure concentration: training the mind to dwell on an interior focus without wandering, until it becomes absorbed in the object of its contemplation. But absorption does not mean unconsciousness. The outside world may be forgotten, but meditation is a state of intense inner wakefulness.
The message of the Katha, which echoes throughout the Upanishads, is to dare like a teenager: to reach for the highest you can conceive with everything you have, and never count the cost.
In haunting words, the Brihadaranyaka declares: You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny. [ Brihadaranyaka IV.4.5 ]
all persons, all creatures, the Self is the innermost essence. And it is identical with Brahman: our real Self is not different from the ultimate Reality called God. This tremendous equation – “the Self is Brahman” – is the central discovery of the Upanishads. Its most famous formulation is one of the mahavakyas or “great formulae”: Tat tvam asi, “You are That.”
Finite things can never appease an infinite hunger. Nothing can satisfy us but reunion with our real Self, which the Upanishads say is sat-chit-ananda: absolute reality, pure awareness, unconditioned joy.
The illusion is simply that we appear separate; the underlying reality is that all of life is one. The Upanishads view the world in grades of significance: as waking is a higher reality than dreaming, so there is a level of reality higher than that. All experience is real.
The ideal of the Upanishads is to live in the world in full awareness of life’s unity, giving and enjoying, participating in others’ sorrows and joys, but never unaware even for a moment that the world comes from God and returns to God.
In this compassionate view life becomes a kind of school in which the individual self is constantly evolving, growing life after life toward a fully human stature. The goal is realization of one’s true nature: not matter, embodied or disembodied, but the uncreated Self:
In all of this, we need to remember that the Upanishads present no system. When, much later, India’s mystics and philosophers did build coherent structures on these foundations, they found they had produced points of logical disagreement. But all understood that in practice such systems come to the same thing; they simply appeal in different ways to the head and heart. No one has explained this better than Sri Ramakrishna, the towering mystic of nineteenth-century Bengal who followed each path to the same goal: these are simply views from different vantage points, not higher or lower and not
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materialism leads us to lose awareness of our inner life, which is bad enough; but to be hypnotized by our own feelings and sensations and forget about others and the world around us is worse. By living in awareness of both these worlds, we can rise above them toward the one Reality.
Or, as Gandhi put it, “There is enough in the world for everyone’s need; there is not enough for everyone’s greed.”
The Lord is enshrined in the hearts of all. The Lord is the supreme Reality. Rejoice in him through renunciation. Covet nothing. All belongs to the Lord.
9–11 In dark night live those for whom The world without alone is real; in night Darker still, for whom the world within Alone is real. The first leads to a life Of action, the second to a life of meditation. But those who combine action with meditation Cross the sea of death through action And enter into immortality Through the practice of meditation.
12–14 In dark night live those for whom the Lord Is transcendent only; in night darker still, For whom he is immanent only. But those for whom he is transcendent And immanent cross the sea of death With the immanent and enter into Immortality with the transcendent. So have we heard from the wise.
2 Perennial joy or passing pleasure? This is the choice one is to make always. Those who are wise recognize this, but not The ignorant. The first welcome what leads To abiding joy, though painful at the time. The latter run, goaded by their senses, After what seems immediate pleasure.
4 Far apart are wisdom and ignorance. The first leads one to Self-realization; The second makes one more and more Estranged from one’s real Self.
24 The Self cannot be known by anyone Who desists not from unrighteous ways, Controls not the senses, stills not the mind, And practices not meditation.
10 When the five senses are stilled, when the mind Is stilled, when the intellect is stilled, That is called the highest state by the wise. 11 They say yoga is this complete stillness In which one enters the unitive state, Never to become separate again. If one is not established in this state, The sense of unity will come and go.
As a caterpillar, having come to the end of one blade of grass, draws itself together and reaches out for the next, so the Self, having come to the end of one life and dispelled all ignorance, gathers in his faculties and reaches out from the old body to a new.
The Self is indeed Brahman, but through ignorance people identify it with intellect, mind, senses, passions, and the elements of earth, water, air, space, and fire. This is why the Self is said to consist of this and that, and appears to be everything. As a person acts, so he becomes in life. Those who do good become good; those who do harm become bad. Good deeds make one pure; bad deeds make one impure. You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.
2.2 “In the beginning was only Being, One without a second. 2.3 Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos And entered into everything in it. There is nothing that does not come from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self. He is the truth; he is the Self supreme. You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that.”
25.1 “The Infinite is above and below, before and behind, to the right and to the left. I am all this. The Self is above and below, before and behind, to the right and to the left. I am all this. 25.2 One who meditates upon the Self and realizes the Self sees the Self everywhere, and rejoices in the Self. Such a one lives in freedom and is at home wherever he goes. But those who pursue the finite are blind to the Self and live in bondage.
Indra lived with Prajapati for another five years. Altogether he lived with his teacher for one hundred and one years, which is why people say, “Even Indra had to live with his teacher for one hundred and one years.” After that time, Prajapati revealed the highest truth of the Self to Indra: 12.1 “It is true the body is perishable, but within it dwells the imperishable Self. This body is subject to pleasure and pain; no one who identifies with the body can escape from pleasure and pain. But those who know they are not the body pass beyond pleasure and pain to live in abiding joy. 12.2 “Like
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12 Know him to be enshrined in your heart always. Truly there is nothing more in life to know. Meditate and realize that this world Is filled with the presence of God.
1 May we harness body and mind to see The Lord of Life, who dwells in everyone. 2 May we ever with a one-pointed mind Strive for blissful union with the Lord. 3 May we train our senses to serve the Lord Through the practice of meditation.
2 The Lord of Love is one. There is indeed No other. He is the inner ruler In all beings. He projects the cosmos From himself, maintains and withdraws it Back into himself at the end of time.
1 May the Lord of Love, who projects himself Into this universe of myriad forms, From whom all beings come and to whom all Return – may he grant us the grace of wisdom.
13 Love the Lord and be free. He is the One Who appears as many, enveloping The cosmos, without beginning or end. None but the pure in heart can realize him.
The learned say life is self-created; Others say life evolved from time. In truth The Lord brought the cosmos out of himself. 2 He is pure consciousness, omnipresent, Omnipotent, omniscient, creator Of time and master of the three gunas. Evolution takes place at his command.
Discover in course of time the divine Principle that all forms of life are one. 4 They work in the service of the Lord and Are freed from the law of karma. 5 Know him to be the primal source of life Whose glory permeates the universe, Who is beyond time and space, yet can be Seen within the heart in meditation. 6 Know him to be beyond the tree of life, Whose power makes all the planets revolve: Who is both law and mercy, yet can be Seen within the heart in meditation.
He is the maker of the universe, Self-existent, omniscient, destroyer Of death, the source and inmost Self of all, Ruler of the cycle of birth and death. May we realize him in our consciousness; There is no other way to conquer death.
17 He is the protector of the cosmos, All glory, all-knowing, omnipresent. How could there be any ruler but he? May we realize him in our consciousness; There is no other way to conquer death.
Gandhi verified that in his own long experience. These are his own words, in his classic account of his discoveries in Satyagraha in South Africa: The world rests upon the bedrock of satya or truth. Asatya, meaning untruth, also means non-existent, and satya or truth also means that which is. If untruth does not so much as exist, its victory is out of the question. And truth being that which is can never be destroyed. This is the doctrine of Satyagraha in a nutshell.
“As the web issues out of the spider And is withdrawn, as plants sprout from the earth, As hair grows from the body, even so, The sages say, this universe springs from The deathless Self, the source of life. 8 “The deathless Self meditated upon Himself and projected the universe As evolutionary energy. From this energy developed life, mind, The elements, and the world of karma, Which is enchained by cause and effect.
2 The Lord of Love is above name and form. He is present in all and transcends all. Unborn, without body and without mind, From him comes every body and mind. 3 He is the source of space, air, fire, water, And the earth that holds us all.
4 The Lord of Love shines in the hearts of all. Seeing him in all creatures, the wise Forget themselves in the service of all. The Lord is their joy, the Lord is their rest; Such as they are the lovers of the Lord.
6 Truth is victorious, never untruth. Truth is the way; truth is the goal of life, Reached by sages who are free from self-will.
Not through discourse, not through the intellect, Not even through study of the scriptures Can the Self be realized. The Self reveals Himself to the one who longs for the Self. Those who long for the Self with all their heart Are chosen by the Self as his own.
Brahman is all, and the Self is Brahman. This Self has four states of consciousness. 3 The first is called Vaishvanara, in which One lives with all the senses turned outward, Aware only of the external world. 4 Taijasa is the name of the second, The dreaming state in which, with the senses Turned inward, one enacts the impressions Of past deeds and present desires. 5 The third state is called Prajna, of deep sleep, In which one neither dreams nor desires. There is no mind in Prajna, there is no Separateness; but the sleeper is not Conscious of this. Let him become conscious In Prajna and
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The ignorant think the Self can be known By the intellect, but the illumined Know he is beyond the duality Of the knower and the known.
4 The light of Brahman flashes in lightning; The light of Brahman flashes in our eyes. 5 It is the power of Brahman that makes 6 The mind to think, desire, and will. Therefore Use this power to meditate on Brahman. He is the inmost Self of everyone; He alone is worthy of all our love. Meditate upon him in all. Those who Meditate upon him are dear to all.
May the Lord of day grant us peace. May the Lord of night grant us peace. May the Lord of sight grant us peace. May the Lord of might grant us peace. May the Lord of speech grant us peace. May the Lord of space grant us peace. I bow down to Brahman, source of all power. I will speak the truth and follow the law. Guard me and my teacher against all harm. Guard me and my teacher against all harm.
O Lord of Love, revealed in the scriptures, Who have assumed the forms of all creatures, Grant me wisdom to choose the path That can lead me to immortality. May my body be strong, my tongue be sweet; May my ears hear always the sound of OM, The supreme symbol of the Lord of Love, And may my love for him grow more and more.
5 If you are in doubt about right conduct, Follow the example of the sages, Who know what is best for spiritual growth. 6 This is the instruction of the Vedas; This is the secret; this is the message.”
6.1 Those who deny the Lord deny themselves; Those who affirm the Lord affirm themselves. The wise, not the unwise, realize the Lord. The Lord of Love willed: “Let me be many!” And in the depths of his meditation He created everything that exists. Meditating, he entered into everything. He who has no form assumed many forms; He who is infinite appeared finite; He who is everywhere assumed a place; He who is all wisdom caused ignorance; He who is real caused unreality. It is he who has become everything. It is he who gives reality to all. 7.1 Before the universe was created, Brahman existed
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10.1 Refuse not food to those who are hungry. When you feed the hungry, you serve the Lord, From whom is born every living creature.
How can this miniscule, fragile body whose size in the Universe is beyond ludicrous be, or contain, such importance? Because, the Upanishads and all the world’s great mystics insist, we are not that fragile body but that which causes it to move, breathe, and be alive: consciousness. In this Upanishad we have one of the four mahavakyas or “great utterances” that later tradition teased out as the sum and substance of their teaching: prajnam brahma, “All reality is consciousness.” And the same consciousness is the life of all: thus we have the explanation for both the sanctity and the unity of
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To be united with the Lord of Love, Imperishable, changeless, beyond cause And effect, is to find infinite joy. Brahman is beyond all duality, Beyond the reach of thinker and of thought.
Let us meditate on the shining Self, The ultimate reality, who is Realized by the sages in samadhi. Brahman cannot be realized by those Who are subject to greed, fear, and anger. Brahman cannot be realized by those Who are subject to the pride of name and fame Or to the vanity of scholarship. Brahman cannot be realized by those Who are enmeshed in life’s duality. But to all those who pierce this duality, Whose hearts are given to the Lord of Love, He gives himself through his infinite grace; He gives himself through his infinite grace. OM shanti shanti shanti
