Monday, August 3, 2009

MAJOR UPANISHADS

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MAJOR UPANISHADS

MAJOR UPANISHADS







  1. ISHA UPANISHAD





  2. KENA UPANISHAD





  3. KATHA UPANISHAD





  4. PRASNA UPANISHAD





  5. MUNDAKA UPANISHAD





  6. MUNDAKA UPANISHAD





  7. TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD





  8. AITARIYA UPANISHAD





  9. CHANDOGYA UPANISHAD





  10. BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD





  11. SWETASVATARA UPANISHAD





  12. KAIVALYA UPANISHAD













MINOR UPANISHADS







  1. PARAMAHAMSOPANISHAD





  2. ATMOPANISHAD





  3. AMRITABINDUPANISHAD





  4. TEJABINDUPANISHAD





  5. SARVOPANISHAD





  6. BRAHMOPANISHAD





  7. ARUNEYI UPANISHAD





  8. KAIVALYOPANISHAD









 





#AMRITABINDUPANISHAD









ISHA UPANISHAD





 





 





 





 





 





 





Life in the world and Life in the spirit are not incompatiable. Work

or action is not contrary to knowledge of God , but indeed, if performed without

attachment, is a means to it. On the other hand, renunciation of the ego, of

selfishness-not of life. The end, both of work and of renunciation, is to know the self

with in and brahman with out, and to realize their identity. The self is Brahman, and

Brahman is all.





Filled full with Brahman are the things we see,





Filled full with Brahman are the things we see not,





From out of Brahman floeth all that is:





From Brahman all - yet is he still the same.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





KENA UPANISHAD





The power behind every activity of nature and of man is the power of Brahman. To

realize this truth is to be immortal.





May quiteness descend upon my limbs,





My speech, my breath, my eye, my ears;





May all my senses wax clear and strong.





May Brhaman show himself unto me.





Never may I deny Brahman, nor Brahman me.





I with him and he with me- may we abide always together.





May there be revealed to me,





Who am devoted to Brahman,





The Body truth of the upanishads.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





 





KATHA UPANISHAD





 





The secret of immortality is to be found in purification of the heart, in meditaion, in

realization of the identity of the self


with in and Brahman without. For immortality is simply union with God.





OM . . .





May Brahman protect us,





May he guide us,





May he give us strength and right understanding.





May love and harmony be with us all.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





PRASNA UPANISHAD





Man is composed of such elements as vital breath, deeds, thought, and the senses - all

of them deriving their being from the


self. They have come out of the self, and in the self they ultimately disappear - even as

the waters of a river disappear in the


sea.





OM . . .





With our ears may we hear what is good.





With our eyes may we behold thy righteousness.





Tranquit in body, may we who worship thee find rest.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





OM . . . Hail to the supreme self!





 





MUNDAKA UPANISHAD





Since the manifold objects of sense are merely emanations of Brahman , to know them in

themselves is not enough. Since


all the actions of men are but phase s of the unversal process of creation, action alone

is not enough.





The sage must distinguish between Knowledge and Wisdom. Knowledge is of things, acts, and

relations. But wisdom is of


Brahman alone: and beyond all things ,acts, and relations, he abides foreever.To become

one with him is the only wisdom.





OM . . .





With our ears may we hear what is good.





With our eyes may we behold thy righteousness.





Tranquit in Body,may we who worships the find rest.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





MANDUKYA UPANISHAD





The life of man is divided between walking , dreaming, and dreamless sleep. But

transcending these three states is


superconscious vision - called simply The Fourth.





OM . . .





With our ears may we hear what is good.





With our eyes may we behold thy righteousness.





Traquit in body , may we worship thee find rest.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD





MAN , in his ignorence , identifies himself with the material sheaths that encompass

his true Self. Transcending these , he


becomes one with Brahman, who is pure bliss.





OM . . .





May Mitra grant us peace !





Varuna grant us peace !





Aryama grant us peace !





May Indra and Brihaspati grant us peace !





May the all - prevading Vishnu grant us peace !





Hail to Brahman !





Hail to thee, thou source of all power !





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





AITARIYA UPANISHAD





BRAHMAN , source, sustenance, and end of the universe, partakes of every phase of

existance. He wakes with the waking


man, dreams with dreamer, and sleeps the deep sleep of the dreamless sleeper; but he

transcends these three states to


become himself. His true nature is pure consciousness.





,h3> May my speech be one with my mind, and my mind be one with my speeach.





O thou self - luminous Brahman, remove the veil of ignorence from before me, that I may

behold thy light.





Do thou reveal to me the sprit of the scriptures.





May the truth of the scriptures be ever present to me.





May I seek day and night to realize waht I learn from the sages.





May I speak the truth of Brahman.





May I speak the truth.





May it protect me.





May it protect my teacher.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





CHANDOGYA UPANISHAD





BRAHMAN is all. From Brahman come appearances, sensations, desires, deeds. But all

these are merely name and form.


To know Brahman one must experience the identity between him and the Self, or Brahman

dwelling with in th lotus of the


heart. Only by souldoing can man escape from sorrow and death, and become one with the

subtle essence beyond all


knowledge.





,h3> May quiteness descend upon my limbs,





My speach, my breath, my eyes, my ears ;





May all my senses wax clear and strong.





May Brashman show himself unto me.





May I never deny Brahman , nor Brahman me.





I with him and he with me - may we abide always together.





May there be revealed to me.





Who am devoted to Brahman,





The Holy truth of the upanishads,





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD





The Self is the dearest of all things, and only through the Self is anything else dear.

The Self is the origin of all finite


happiness, but it is itself pure bliss, transcending definition. It is beyond feeling and

beyond knowledge, but it is not beyond


the meditation of the sage.





OM . . .





Filled full with Brahman are the things we see,





Filled full with Brahman are the thins we see not,





From out of Brahman floweth all that is;





From Brahman all - yet is he still the same.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





Leadme from the unreal to the real.





lead me from the darkness to light.





Lead me from death to immortality.





SWETASVATARA UPANISHAD





 





KAIVALYA UPANISHAD





The sage who by faith, devotion, and meditation has realized the Self and become one

with Brahman, is escapes from


rebirth, sorrow, and death.

















May Brahman protect us.





May be guide us.





May be give us strength and right understanding.





May love and harmony be with us all.





OM . . . Peace -- Peace -- Peace.





PARAMAHAMSOPANISHAD





This upanishad elaborately portrays the characteristic marks and ideals of the knower

of truth when he reaches the highest


stage of life. It also speaks of the duties of those sannyasins who are on the way to

knowledge.





Every upanisahd begins and ends with a shanti - patha or invocation of peace , or an

expiatory prayer to the deities for the


purpose of averting all evil and being in peace with the universe , which alone is

conducive to perfect calmness and


concentration of the mind needed for the study of such a subtle subject as the Self.





ATMOPANISHAD





After Brahma had propounded to the Devarshis, in the preceeding Discourse of the

Atharva-Veda , the truth about rebirth,


Angiras shows in this Upanishad , the way to be from rebirth , from the bondage of Samsara

, once for all , to those who so


desired , by inclucating the Highest Atman , who is ever taintless and beyond all bondage

of birth and death. Angiras was


one of the seven Rishis , a Prajapati or prognator of mankind , and one of the ten

mind-born sons of Brahma. Besides


being regarded as the priest of the Gods, and Lord of Sacrifices he was also a teacher of

Brahmavaidya.





The method adopted here is what is technically called SHAKACHANDRANYAYAHA : - The maxim of

the bough and the


moon. Just as the moon , though immensely distant from the bough of the tree, is pointed

out to a child as the moon on


the bough, because she appears to be contiguous to it , even so the paramatman - thiugh He

has really no relation with this


body and the mind , still for the sake of ease to the learner - is first pointed out

through the body and the mind, which are


called here, the Outer and the Inner Atman respectively , child-mind. Thus by leading the

seeker after truth step by step, the


real nature of the Atman is disclosed.





AMRITABINDUPANISHAD





Of the five Bindu Upanishads , namely the NADABINDU, BRAHMABINDU, AMRITABINDU,

DHYANABINDU AND


TEJABINDU, the Amritabindu occupiess a very important place sufficiently justifying its

title - which literally means "A


drop of nectar " - by its felicitous combination of a loftness of sentiment with a

directness of expression. Thus, though it is


small in bulk it is neverthless a drop from the fountain of eternal life itself , potent

to cure the manifold ills of Samsara , or


the endless rotation of birth and death.





The texts of Brahmabindu and the Amritabindu Upanishads are vetually the same , with

slight alterations in the wording


here and there , Taking into concideration the subjectivity of our experience of the

outside world, the Amritabindu


Upanishad inclucates, first, the control of the mind in the shape of desirelessness for

sense-objects, as the most effective way


to the attainment ofliberation and realisation of the One Who is knowledge and Bliss

Absolute. Then it sets forth in an easy


and convincing way the real nature of the soul and the realization of the highest truth

which leads to unity. Thus the central


theme of all the Upanishads - viz that the Jiva and Brahman are eternally one, and that

all duality is a mere


superimposition due to ignorance - finds a clear and forceful emphasis in these terse,

epigrammatic.





TEJABINDUPANISHAD





The Tejabindupanishad is the last of the five Bindu Upanishads forming part of the

Atharva-Veda. It conceives the


Supreme Atman dwelling in the heart of man, as the most subtle center of

effulgence.revealed only to Yogis by


supersensuous meditation. After stating the disciplines which the Truth-seeker must

undergo in order to master that most


difficult but the only process of supreme realisation, the Tejabindu sets forth, in the

highest philosophical conceptions, the


nature of That which is to be medicated upon, and realised in essence, that is to say,

Brahman, the Absolute, and points out


in conclusion some of the disqualifications which the student must shun if he desired to

be "one of those who make the


inaccessable" and reach the goal, the absolute freedom of the soul.





 





SARVOPANISHAD





The Sarvopanishad is appropriately spoken of as the quintessence of the Upanishads,

being a concise and at the sametime


highly elequent presentation of the concentrated wisdom, bearing on the main points at

issue, of the Vedanta philosophy.


The Upanishad opens with questions as to the nature of the twenty-three fundamental

topics, and furnishes the answers to


them, in a consecutive order, to the end. Starting with bondage and Moksha and their

causes, the seeker after truth is


treated to a fine and delicate discrimination of the various gross and subtle states, in

and through which the soul seems to


appear within us, because of its Upadhis. Indicating the real nature of the soul and

dealing with the niceties of the ideas


conveyed by each of the worlds of Mahavakya Tat-Tvam-Asi ( That thou art ), Tthe Upanishad

seeks to point out the


identity of the Jivatman with the Paramatman or Supreme Brahman which is spoken of as the

Essence of Truth,


Knowledge, Infinitude , and Bliss, and concludes by an attempt at defining Maya, thus

completing as it were the circle in


order to show what causes the bondage and how it can be broken once for all. From the

point of happy definitions of the


most difficult and important terms in the phraseology of vedanta philosophy within the

smallest compass, this Upanishad


holds a distinct position of its own, and is worthy of our best attention.





BRAHMOPANISHAD





The Self is the dearest of all things, and only through the Self is anything else dear.

The Self is the origin of all finite


happiness, but it is itself pure bliss, transcending definition. It is beyond feeling and

beyond knowledge, but it is not beyond


the meditation of the sage.





OM . . .





Filled full with Brahman are the things we see,





Filled full with Brahman are the thins we see not,





From out of Brahman floweth all that is;





From Brahman all - yet is he still the same.





OM . . . Peace - Peace - Peace.





Leadme from the unreal to the real.





lead me from the darkness to light.





Lead me from death to immortality.





ARUNEYI UPANISHAD





 





KAIVALYOPANISHAD


This is another Upanishad belonging to the Atharva-Veda. The commetator Narayana calls it

the Brahma Shatarudriya,


(i.e) the Shatarudriya which glorifies the unconditioned Brahman as opposed to the

personal God Shiva, who is glorified in


the other shatarudriya which forms a part of the Taittriya Samhita. It is at once clear,

concise, and poetic, and withal,


highly philosophical. All this makes it one of the most valuable among the monor

Upanishads. The story form is an apt


device to make the subject easily intelligible as well as to give a predegree to teachings

inculcated. Ashvalayana was a


teacher of the Rig-Veda.



 

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