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Īşha Upanishad
The Īşha Upanishad is
almost identical to the fortieth and last chapter of the Shukla
Yajurveda Samhita associated with the great sage Yājňavalkya who
is also prominent in the Bŗhadāraņyaka Upanishad.
It is one of the earlier Upanishad preserving the images and
symbols of Veda Samhitās.
This is
an important Upanishad known for its synthesis of work,
knowledge and devotion, which are often considered as if
incompatible. As Sri Aurobindo states:
"The Īşha Upanishad
in its very inception goes straight to the root of the
problem the seer has set out to resolve; he starts at once with
the two supreme terms of which our existence seems to be
composed and in a monumental phrase, cast with the bronze of
eight brief but sufficient words, he confronts them and sets
them in their right and eternal relation. īşhāvasyam idam
sarvam yatkincha jagatyām jagat. īsha and jagat,
God and Nature, Spirit and World, are the two poles of being
between which our consciousness revolves. The double or biune
reality is existence, is life, is man. The Eternal seated sole
in all His creations occupies the ever-shifting universe and its
innumerable whorls and knots of motion, each called by us an
object, in all of which one Lord is multitudinously the
Inhabitant. From the brilliant suns to the rose and the grain of
dust, from the God and the Titan in their dark or their luminous
worlds to man and the insect that he crushes thoughtlessly under
his feet, everything is His temple and mansion. His is the
veiled deity in the temple, the open householder in the mansion;
for Him and His enjoyment of the multiplicity and the unity of
His being, all were created and they have no other reason for
their existence. For habitation by the Lord is all this,
everything whatsoever that is moving thing in her that moves.
The problem of a perfect life upon earth, a life free from those
ills of which humanity seems to be the eternal and irredeemable
prisoner and victim, can only be solved, in the belief of the
vedāntins, if we go back to the fundamental nature of
existence; for there alone can we find the root of the evil and
the truth of the remedy. They are here in the two words īşha
and jagat. The inhabitant is the Lord; in this truth, in the
knowledge of it by our minds, in the realization of it by our
whole nature and being is the way of escape for the victim of
evil, the prisoner of limitation and death. On the other hand,
Nature is a fleeting and inconstant motion preserved by the
harmonious fixity of the laws which govern her
particular motions. This subjection and inconstancy of
Nature is the secret of our bondage, death, limitation
and suffering. We who entangle ourselves in the
modalities of Nature must realize, if we would escape from her
confounding illusion, the other pole of our existence,
unqualified Spirit or God. By rising to the God within us we
become free and stand liberated from the bondage of the world
and the snare of death. For God is freedom, God is immortality.
mŗtyum tīrtva amŗtam ashnute. Crossing over death, we
enjoy immortality, even when we are living.
See also Māhāvākyās.
Kena Upanishad
In all the Upanishads, the aim is
an individual quest, i.e., the attainment of the supreme
Brahman. Is it a purely selfish endeavour? What is the use of
the person who has mastered this knowledge to the community?
Kena
Upanishad definitively
answers this question. It tries to remove from the popular mind
the misconception that the quest for the Brahman excludes any
possibility of happiness. It gives a description of the status
of immortality which is attained by the aspirants. It declares
that Brahman in its nature is "That Delight", tad vanam. vana
is the vedic word for delight or delightful, and "tad
vanam" means the transcendent Delight, the all-blissful
Ananda of which the Taittirīya Upanishad regards as the
highest Brahman.
Then it
answers the main question posed earlier. The knower of Brahman
becomes a centre of the Divine Delight shedding it on the entire
world and attracting all to a fountain of joy and love and
self-fulfillment in the universe.
Kaţha Upanishad It is
metrical Upanishad. In popular literature, it is portrayed as
giving the "secret of death". Normally when one mentions death,
one expects some information on related topics like rebirth. But
this Upanishad has only one or two verses on the topic of
rebirth. On the surface, it looks like any other Upanishad
giving a way for realizing Brahman. But a deeper view gives a
different picture.
The look deals with the three
boons of the God of death Yama to the aspirant Nachiketa. The
name Nachiketa means one who is not conscious, i.e., one who is
not aware of the depth of the questions he is asking. The
commentators on this Upanishad usually ignore the first two
boons and concentrate only on the third. But pondering over the
replies of Yama to all the three queries of Nachiketa gives a
different picture. Sri Kapāli Sāstry has written a masterly
essay on this topic connecting it to the Rig Vedic hymn (10.135)
also dealing with Yama.
The third boon chosen by Nachiketa
is: "There is this doubt that when a man has passed away, some
say, 'he is' asti iti eke and some, 'this he is
not' na ayam asti iti chaika. Taught by thee, I would
know this". Different interpretations arise for the meanings
assigned to the words "he", "this".
The
Upanishad stresses the idea that everyone should attain this
state of immortality or attains the ONE before the death of the
physical body. A person who does not do so is compelled to be
reborn. What about a person who has already achieved this
status. The popular new is that he/she has merged with the
infinite and the separative individual consciousness is lost as
a river loses its individuality when it joins the ocean.
However
the Upanishad has a different view as declared in VI. 4.
iha chedashakad boddhum prak
sharīrasya visrasah
tatah sargeşhu lokeşhu
shariratvāya kalpate.
"If one has been able to apprehend
(It) here before the body drips down. Then one is fit for
embodiment in the worlds (that are his creations)".
If one
knows Him (the One) here before the body withers away, then he
lives in the Light; surviving Earth-life and being in
consciousness with the ONE of whom all world-existence is his
embodiment, he is competent to shine forth as an embodied centre
of that immortal Light, the Purusha, the ONE.
It is interesting to note how the
three commentators Max Muller, Shankara and Madhwa have altered
the text to get the meaning they prefer. For details, see the
book, "Light on Upanishads" or "The Collected Works: Vol. 1" by
Sri T.V. Kapāli Sāstry.
Praşhņa Upanishad
This is an Upanishad made up of
answers to six questions by six students who stay with the
teacher for a year before posing the questions.
It has an interesting section on
the syllable OM and concludes:
"To the earth the Rigveda leads,
to the skies the Yajurveda, but the Soma to THAT of which the
sages know. Thither the wiseman resting on OM attains to the
Supreme Quietude where age and fear are cast out by
immortality".
Mundaka Upanishad
It is a metrical Upanishad
belonging to Atharvaveda dedicated to the monk with the shaved
head munda, the aspirant toward immortality in the monist
path. It is a later Upanishad (3.1.1) repeats the famous verse
with two birds originally in Rigveda Samhitā (1.164.20) and
Atharvaveda (9.9.20). Shvetāshvatara Upanishad (4.6). It has
many oft-quoted mantrās.
1. satyameva jayate, nanŗtam
only Truth wins, not falsehood
2. nayamatma balahinena
labhyah (3.2.4)
The self is not won by one who is
devoid of strength.
3. nayamatma pravachanena
labhyo na medhaya na bahuna shrutena
yamevaisha vŗņute tena
labhyas tasyaişha ātma vivŗņvate tanum svām
(3.2.3)
The self
is not won by exegesis, nor by brain-power, nor by much learning
of scripture. Only by him whom it chooses can it be won; to him
this self unveils its own body.
4. tatedat rcha abhyuktam
This is THAT declared by Rig Veda.
5. yam yam lokam manasā
samvibhāti vishuddhasatvah kāmayate yamshcha kāmān
Whatever world the man whose inner being is purified sheds the
light of his mind upon, and whatsoever desire he cherishes, that
world he takes by conquest and those desires.
Māndūkya Upanishad
It is a brief Upanishad which
focuses on the three states of consciousness waking, dream and
dreamless sleep and the one, the fourth beyond, the turiya.
It is the foundation for the thought of Sri Shankaracharya and
the Karika of Gaudapada.
See also the essay, ‘Om in
Upanishad’.
Aitareya Upanishad
This Upanishad belongs to the
earlier or Vedic period.
It deals with the problem of
creation or more specifically manifestation. It begins with the
phrase.
ātma va idameka evagra āsīt.
In the beginning the spirit was
One.
Also it contains the formation of
the first human being. 'Fire became speech and entered into the
mouth. . . .'(1.2.4)
This is the basis for the later
sankhya philosophy.
It contains an interesting
anecdote about the superiority of spirit over other aspects like
eye or ear or the breaths like apāna.
parokşhapriya hi devaĥ
(1.3.14)
The Gods
love the indirect way, i.e., Gods express their basic powers via
symbols.
The section (3.2) gives a
comprehensive view of the 16 aspects of the consciousness or
eternal wisdom prajnānam.
samjňānam
: concept
ajňānam
: will
vijňānam
: analysis
prajnānam
: wisdom
medha
:
intellect
dŗşhti
: vision
dhŗti
:
continuity of purpose
mati
: feeling
manīşhā
: understanding
jūtiĥ
:
pain
smŗtih
: memory
sankalpa
: volition
kratu
: operation of thought
asuĥ
: vitality
kāmaĥ
:
desire
vasha
: passion
See also
the essay Mahāvākya.
Taittirīya Upanishad
It is well known for two important
teachings. It describes the five sheaths characterizing the
human personality. The supreme knowledge is obtained by
mastering these sheaths.
"The knower of Brahman reaches
that which is supreme.
This is that verse which was
spoken "Truth, knowledge, infinity the Brahman".
He knows that hidden in the
secrecy of the Supreme Ethers
Enjoys all desires along with the
wise-thinking Brahman". (2.1)
Its other important aspect is its
pragmatic attitude towards wealth. It describes a teacher who
has a fund of knowledge ready for distribution, i.e., he wants
to start a school for distributing his knowledge. He prays for
the students and the necessary teachers to come there. He prays
for the necessary physical resources of wealth, food, shelter,
raiment etc., in (1.4.2). "āvahanti vittanvana. . . ."
Again as
mentioned in the earlier quotation (2.1) it does not regard the
presence of desire itself in a man as evil. It declares that a
person who has realized Brahman enjoy all the desires.
Nowhere in the Veda is it declared
that "poverty is a virtue". A sannyāsin does not take a
vow of poverty. What he vows is, "s/he will accept everything
the Divine gives joyfully". He enjoys the tasty food given to
him; he also enjoys the food given to him which others may
regard as tasteless.
For more details on this
Upanishad, see the essays ‘Om in Upanishad’, ‘Exposition of
Bliss’ and ‘Knowledge of Brahman’.
Bŗhadāraņyaka Upanishad
(The great āraņyaka)
This
Upanishad along with Chhāndogya is voluminous. It is the
concluding part of the 14th Kanda of the Shatapatha Brāhmaņa
associated with the Shukla Yajurveda. As Sri Aurobindo states
'It is at once the most obscure and the profoundest of the
Upanishads, offers peculiar difficulties to the modern mind. If
its ideas are remote from us, its language is still more remote.
. . . . . extraordinarily rich in rare philosophical suggestions
and delicate psychology . . . . . "
"The Upanishad begins with the
statement: "OM. Dawn is the head of the horse ashva
sacrificial". It gives a symbolic description of the horse.
Originally Ashva meant "being, existence, substance".
From the sense of speed and strength, it came to mean, "horse".
The word is therefore used to indicate material existence and
the horse (the image conveyed by the name) is taken as the
symbol of Universal existence in annam matter. The horse
is symbolic and the sacrifice is symbolic. We have in its an
image of the Virat Purusha, of the Yajniya Purusha, God
expressing himself is the "material universe". (Sri Aurobindo)
Popular expositions of the
Upanishad refer to the great "debate" in the forest on the
nature of self. Actually a series of questions are posed to the
great sage Yājňavalkya by a number of aspirants. On receiving
their answers, the questioners do not contradict the sage, but
go on to other questions. Yājňavalkya is giving them his
spiritual experience, not simply his speculations. The aspirants
pose different types of questions to elicit knowledge about
different experiences. One of the prominent persons in this
spiritual setting is the lady sage Gargi.
Another frequently quoted part of
it is the teaching of Yājňavalkya to the King Janaka. The self
is described as, "not this, not this", neti, (4.4.22).
This Upanishad discusses
brilliantly in various chapters the methods of realizing
Brahman. There it is stated that, it is not possible to have an
intense quest for Brahman and also lead a householder's life.
Persons interested intensely in the realization renounce their
homes and take to a mendicant's life, i.e., live by begging,
bhikshacharyam charanti (4.4.22), (3.5.1). These passages
are quoted to show that works and a quest for knowledge are
incompatible.
Of course, this Upanishad has
passages which offer a different or corrective view. The entire
chapter (2.5) deals with the doctrine of Madhu or honey.
"Everything is pervaded by the bliss or honey. This earth is
like honey to all beings and all beings like honey to the earth.
...... This knowledge is the means for attaining
immortality...... The underlying unity is brahman . . . . .''
This Upanishad has a section
(6.3.6) glorifying the famous gāyatri mantra in Rigveda
addressed to the deity Savitŗ. A ritual is given which
combines this gāyatri verse with the famous mantrās of
madhu or mystic honey in Rigveda [RV (1.90.6-8)].
Also see the essay on the ‘Madhu
Vidya’, also ‘Mahāvākya’. See also the essay on ‘anecdotes’ for
information o Vedic society and Satyakāma Jābāla.
Chhāndogya Upanishad
The Upanishad begins with the
following sentence which offers a clue to its content.
"Om is the syllable (the
imperishable one); one should follow after it as the upward song
(movement); for with Om one sings (goes) upwards; of which this
is an analytical expression".
"Thus its subject is the Brahman,
but the Brahman as symbolised in the OM, the sacred syllable of
the Veda, not therefore the pure state of the Universal
Existence only, but that existence in all its parts, the waking
world and the dream self and the sleeping . . . .; the right
means to win all of them, enjoy all of them and transcend all of
them is the subject of Chhāndogya". [Sri Aurobindo]
It contains two of the famous
statements or Mahāvākya:
a) tat tvam asi; You are
that.
b) sarvam khalu idam brahma;
Everything is brahman
These statements are to be
understood in their most concrete sense. When I am talking to a
person, be it a friend or foe or stranger, I should believe that
s/he is brahman himself who has put on that particular garb or
form which appears to be limited. The person in our front may
not be nice; still we have to respectfully handle the meeting.
It does not mean that we should be subservient to everyone or
openly say, " I do not know anything". All that is required is
that we should handle the meeting with complete awareness.
It has also several famous
spiritual practices or Vidyas such as Shandilya Vidya, Prāņa
Vidya, Sanatkumara's exhortation, Indra and Virochana's
studentship etc. The subsection Mahāvākyās gives more
information.
See the essays on ‘Om in
Upanishads’ and ‘Viashvānara Vidya’. See also the essay on
‘anecdotes’ for four anecdotes of this Upanishad. |
