A Discussion on Isavasya Upanishad : ( 07/02/2013. )

================================================================ Thursday, 04 Oct 2024. 06:30. Chapter 1: Introduction to the Upanishads 6. Post-6. =============================================================== The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad tells us in one little passage: dvitiyad vai bhayam bhavati (Brihad. 1.4.2).  We can never be happy if there is another person near us. Always we have to adjust ourselves with that person and we do not know what to expect from that person. We cannot keep even a mouse in front of us; we will be very disturbed because the mouse is sitting in front. The mouse cannot do any harm to us, but we do not like the presence of even a little ant. “Oh, another thing has come.” This “another thing” is what is troubling us. The difficulty arising out of the cognition of another is because of the fact that the basic Reality, that unchanging Eternity, has no “another” outside It. Because of the absence of another in the basic reality of our own Self —the Truth o...

========================================================================= Tuesday, 24 Oct 2023. 05:30. Chapter 1: Introduction to the Upanishads 5. Post-5. ========================================================================= The recognition of a spiritual background behind the transitory phenomenauerading in us, which is another way of saying that the Unchanging is present in us. The Infinite is summoning every finite individual. The Unchanging is calling us moment to moment: “Don't sleep, get up!” One of the passages of the Katha Upanishad is uttisthata jagrata prapya varan nibodhata (Katha 1.3.14): “Wake up. Sleeping mankind, stand up!” Are we slumbering? Are we seeing only what we are able to cognise through the sense organs or are we also aware of something that is deeply rooted in our own self? Prapya varan: “Go to the Masters.” Go to the wise ones in this world —masters and teachers and guiding lights of mankind—and nibodhata: “know the secret”. The Bhagavadgita als of l...

========================================================================= Thursday,  18 May,  2023. 06:30. Chapter 1: Introduction to the Upanishads 4. Post-4. ========================================================================= The reality of things is what we are after; unrealities do not attract us. That which perpetually changes and escapes the grasp of our comprehension cannot be considered as real because of the fact of its passing constantly into something else. When we say that things are changing, we actually mean that one condition is passing into something else; one situation gives way to another situation. Why should this be at all? Where is the necessity for things to change and transform themselves? There is also a dissatisfaction with everything in its own self. We would like to transform ourselves into something else. It is not that things are changing only outwardly; we are changing inwardly. There is psychological change, together with physical and natur...

========================================================================= Saturday, May 06,  2023. 06:50. Chapter 1: Introduction to the Upanishads 2. Post-3. ========================================================================= This is a very important point at the rock bottom of our thinking that we have to recognise. If everything is changing, who is it that is telling us that everything is changing? Are we also changing with the things that change? If that is the case, how do we come to know that all things are changing? Logical analysis of this peculiar analytical circumstance tells us that there is something in us which does not change; otherwise, we would not know that things are changing. Now, if oneself—this person or that person—seems to be obliged to recognise something in one's own self that does not seem to be changing because one perceives change in general, we also have to be charitable enough to accept that everyone in the world has this something which does not...

========================================================================= Tuesday, April 25,  2023. 08:30. Chapter 1: Introduction to the Upanishads 1. Post-2. ======================================================================== When we look at the world, we have what may be called a first view of things, and dissatisfaction with the first view of things is supposed to be the mother of all philosophical thinking. If we are satisfied with things, there is nothing more for us to search for in this world. Any kind of search, quest, enterprise, or desire to seek implies that we are not satisfied with the existing condition of things. And, we are quite aware that nobody in this world can be said to be totally satisfied with the prevailing conditions of things—neither in one's own self, nor in one's family, nor in the society outside, nor in anything, for the matter of that. There is always a tendency in the human mind to discover a lacuna in things: “It should not be like this. ...