Ethical Values from Ishopanisad

Ethical Values in Ishopanisad-Conclusion

2011-02-18T09:10:00.003-08:00

Ethical Values in Ishopanisad-
CONCLUSION
It will be seen that there are many gems of ethical values in Ishopanisad, which are still relevant
in modern times. It   begins with the statement 'whatever exists in this world is enveloped by

the Supreme and by renunciation and absence of possessiveness , we should enjoy the bounties

Provided y Him,without coveting what does not belong to us.   Balanced view of

wealth,signifying non-accumulation and sharing of God-given resources is a significant concept

in the prevailing social orderwith wide-spread inequalities existing in the society and the

world at large.

The Upanisad is also of immense significance, as it contains a concentrated view of the essential Vedic philosophy and the choicest Ethical Values and forms the foundation of Vedantic System of thought. It highlights the divinity of man, as well as all His manifestations in nature.  Oneness of the Soul and God, and the value of both faith and works(Action) as means of ultimate attainment are the leading themes of this Upanishad, emphasising that works alone, even the highest, can bring only temporary happiness and must inevitably bind a man unless through them he gains knowledge of his real Self. To help him acquire this knowledge is the aim of this Upanishad.  It shows the way the Upanishad describes the non-material aspects of the Supreme Being, as ‘One who walks but does not walk’. It is a way of relating how the Lord has no material qualities, but has all spiritual qualities and characteristics.   May i conclude with the hope that all of us shall endeavour to cultivate the significant ethical values stated in Isha Upanisad, to lead a more contented and spiritual life, leading to intimate and intense awareness of Self. With my Best wishes for the Spiritual journey.

vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Agne naya supatha raye: Lead us on to 'wealth' by a good path

2011-02-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

Lead us on to'wealth' by a good path

अग्ने नय सुपथा राये अस्मान विश्वानी देव वयुनानि विद्वान्।

युयोध्यस्म ज्जुहुराणमेनो भूयिष्ठां ते नम उक्तिं विधेम ॥१८॥

Agne naya supatha raye asman
Visvani deva vayunani vidvan,
yuyo-dhyas-majjuhu-rana-meno
bhuyistham te nama uktim vidhema (18)

"O Agni!Lead us on to'wealth' by a good path, as Thou knowest, O God, all the many ways. Remove the crooked attraction of sin from us. We offerThee our best salutations.(SwamiChinmayananda)

O Adorable God(Agni),may Thee lead us along the wholesome path for our prosperity, since O Lord, Thou art in the knowledge of all our actions. May Thee cleanse us of the sin that forces us astray. With humility, we offer thee our most reverential homage.

This is the last Mantra of Isha Upanisad.According to Aryan heritage man has to seek the support of God even after doing his best efforts., which has been sought here. The Upanisad, which started from the first wave 'tyagten bhunjitha ma gridah kasya -savidhnam' concludes with this last wave with a beautiful prayer 'to lead us to the right path to prosperity,abjuring treading wrong path of sin'. God's (Ishwara's) guidance is sought in following the right path and remaining away from sin here.The devotee(sadhak) having done his best efforts takes refuge in Him for raye i.e.wealth, prosperity, including 'the riches of a spiritual seeker.', for attainment of the supreme felicity. It is, thus, an active dynamic spiritual giving up to Him and a becoming into the new awareness.

vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

ॐ क्रतो स्मर कृत स्मर Om krato smara krtagm smara

2011-02-17T01:27:00.000-08:00

वायुर्निलममृतमथेदम भस्मानतम शरीरम।

ॐ क्रतो स्मर कृत स्मर क्रतो स्मर कृत स्मर ॥१७॥

Vayur-anilam-amrtam athedam
Bhasmantagm sariram,
Om krato smara krtagm smara
krato smara krtagm smara (17)
" Let my Prana merge into the all-pervading air(and)now let this body be burnt(by fire)to ashes.Om,Omy mind!remember, remember, what you did! Oh remember, remember, what you did!" (Swami Chinmayananda)

Vâyur-anilam-amRitam athedaM, bhasmântaM sHarîram,

AUM krato smara kRitaM smara krato smara kRitaM smara. 17.

"The Breath of things is an immortal Life, but of this body ashes are the end. OM! O Will, remember, that which was done remember! O Will, remember, that which was done remember."( Sri Aurobindo)

After the experience, 'He,the Purusa within thee I am', what would be the condition of such a perfected Master atthe time of his death?When the ego-centre has meged itself in the SupremeAwareness, what would be its attitude towards the possessions like body, prana,mind, intellect, etc.? Such questions have been answered here by the great Rsi. While the Soul is immortal, the body is burnt to ashes, after death. A man, after the realisation of Self, will face death happily, and his only cry would be that his prana should merge with theall-pervading air(Vayu) and that his body must go back to the dust from which it has come. As regards his mind, he cies,'May you remember what you did in the past, including the great achievement, the Supreme experience.After all, our memory is always about our own most intense experiences, and it has been advised to remember Om, the holy name of God, alongwith what has been done in the past. Reciting 'OM' will not come automatically,unless practised intensely during life-timeby the devotee(sadhak).

vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

The Purusa within Thee, He am I

2011-02-17T00:02:00.000-08:00

THE PURUSA WITHIN THEE (HE) I AM

पूषन्नेकर्षे यम् सूर्य प्राजापत्य व्यूह रश्मीन समूह।

कल्याणतमं तत्ते पश्यामि यो सौ पुरुषः सो हमस्मि ॥१६॥

Pusanne karse yama surya praja patya,
Vyuha rasmin samuha tejah
yatte rupam kalyana-tamam tatte pasyami
yo'sa-vasau purusah so;ham-asmi (16)

"O Pusan(Sun, Nourisher), O Sole Seer, O Controller of All, Surya, son of Prajapati, disperse Thy rays and gather up Thy burning light.... I behold Thy gloriousform....the Purusa within Thee, He am I"(Swami Chinmayananda)

"O Nourisher (pūṣan), the sole Seer (ekarṣi), O Controller (yama), O Sun (sūrya), offspring of Prajāpati, spread forth thy rays! Gather thy brilliance (tejas)!, What is thy fairest form—that of thee I see. He who is yonder, yonder Person (puruṣa)—I myself am he."

" O Fosterer, O sole Seer, O Ordainer, O illumining Sun, O power of the Father of creatures, marshal thy rays, draw together thy light; the Lustre which is thy most blessed form of all, that in Thee I behold. The Purusha there and there, He am I.."(Sri Aurobindo)
According to Swami Chinmayananda,the philosophical import of this prayer is suggestive of various qualifucations ( like Nourisher,Sole Seer, the Controller of All,etc. ) of the Lord Sun, which equallly apply to Atman, the spiritual centre in man.According to the prayer, the prayerful ego- the completelly integrated inner personality of the individual at (the height of )meditation, when the mind and intellect are transcended - meets Truth in silence to become itself the Truth in its subjective experience.'By Thy grace may I reach nearer the Isha who indwells everywhere, including Thee' seems to be, here, the cry of the heart at meditation. The idea that theSpirit is is to be experienced in an intimate subjective experience(anubhava) is clearly brought out by this declaration' He am I, the Purusha within Thee.' The Sadhak (devotee) cries at that stage that he is not a body-conditioned individual that he thought he was, in his ignorance, but now that the wisdom has dawned, he realises that he is nothing but the Pure Awareness, 'the one resides in Him, the Purusha.' Theman, who realises Godhead isnomore aman, but is a God upon earth,walking temporarily in the form of that man. When the ego ends, there is a blaze of perfection, (as if) the Divine re-incarnates.

'I am the Purusha in Thee'(Purusah aham asmi). is, in contrast what is said earlier (in Mantra 3) that those who identify with theirbody-mind vehicles are 'destroyers of the Self'(Atma-hanah), ever bound to the wheel -of - change. Whensuch an individual, through' dedicated activities'( karma) purifies himself, and through renunciation(tena tyaktena)comesto enjoy 'All this is the Lord'(Ishavasyam idagm sarvam), hemustnowcry out that I am no more the one who 'destroyed the experience of the Self'(Atma-hanah) in a sunless realm(asurya lokah), but 'I am indeed,He, the Self,(Purusah Aham- asmi). In SwamiChinmayananda words, ' the wave that has realised itself, understands and experiences the ocean...Man experiencing God-head is himself the immortal God.'

vedaprakasha
http://www.ethialvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Unveil the Truth covered with Golden Lid

2011-02-16T05:32:00.000-08:00

UNVEIL THE TRUTH

हिरण्यमयेंन पात्रेण सत्यस्यापिहितं मुखं।

तत्वं पूषन्नपावृणु सत्यधर्माय द्रृष्टये ॥१५॥

UNRAVEL THE TRUTH

Hiranmayena pâtrena satya-syâpi-hitaM mukham,

tat tvaM pûSanna-pâvRinu satya-dharmâya drstaye. 15.

"The face of the Truth is covered by a golden lid, remove. O Sun that (covering) for me,the practioner of Truth, so that I may behold It."(SwamiChinmayananda)

"O Sun God! (representing the God in general) The luminous and attractive face of truth is hidden by a golden disc. Unveil it for my vision (the one who is in search of truth)."(Sri Aurobindo)

The world -of -objects and their glittering fascinations seems to envelop theTruth,which the Practioner of Truth is ultimately seeking.In this prayer raised to the effulgent form of the Lord seeking His Grace and Blessing to remove the golden veil that hides true vision of Truth. Isha Upanisad that started with 'clothed by by the Isa in all this', must end in this prayer unto the Nourisher, Sustainer: O Lord!unveil the Reality to me, as if pleading, 'May i pierce through the golden lid covering the Truth,and experience the Supreme Immutable Reality.'
According to Swami Chinmayananda, "Prayer in Vedanta is only an attempt of the ego-centre to attune itself tothe Supreme Consciousness in the individual.. The word 'pusan' in this verse represents the Seeker's inner world- the Nourisher and Illuminator, the Atman. The ego-centre is to die when it relises its real nature, the Self. It is the last prayer of theactivespiritual seeker in his meditation-seat when he, in his divine effort, is shaking off his last vesture ofego which is lingering to veil the Self in him."
The devotee(sadhak) declares that the Truth should reveal Itself unto him for he is himself a practioner of Truth.' This is very significant as the seeker's goal isTruth, his path isTruth, which is laid over with Truth at every step. And, as a dedicaed devotee, he has a right to demand that 'Unveiling of Truth' for him.
(To be contnd.)

vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinisopanisad.blogspot.com/

Sambhuti (Manifest) vs.Asambhuti (Unmanifest)

2010-09-08T03:13:00.000-07:00

Sambhuti(Manifest) vs.Asambhuti(Unmanifest)

अन्धं तमः प्रविशन्ति ये सम्भूतिमुपासते।

ततो भूय इव ते तमो य उ संभूत्या रताः ॥12॥

Andham tamah pravisantiye' sambhutu-mupsate.
tato bhuya iva te tamo ya u sambhu-tyagm ratah(12)

"They fall into  blindening darkness who worship the Unmanifested (Prakkrti);
but  those who devote themselves to the Manifested (Hiranyagarbha) enter into   greater darkness"(Swami Chinmayananda)

Mantras 12 to 14 are again another triple stanzas through which the same idea described earlier( cf.Mantras 9to11) has been brought out for better classification,so that that every Vedantic seeker understands   correctly what is the exact relationship between Vidya and avidya, and that they are not mutually conflicting ideas and   are rather complimentary   to each other, being undertaken in an intelligent sequence. First, action(avidya) as dictated by our desires,in order to bring us out of our inertia (tamas)into an active mentality of sprightly enthusiasm(rajas), and, thereafter, through a pursuit of desireless activity,onecan gainpurification of one's mind and intellect, as a preparation for meditation. Lateron, through steady and diligent meditation, the seeker gains the fulfilment of knowledge(vidya).

The same idea is now being described here using another set of words asambhuti(Unmanifest) and Sambhuti(Manifest), which we generally understand as Impersonal God and Personal God respectively.
Among the devotays has been a lot of controversy upon the relative merits of worshipping or meditating upon the Personal and the Impersonal God. The controversy has now come down to our times as to whether Jnana or Bhakti is supreme. To make us understand that our controversy is meaningless, the Upanisad here is giving   enough thoughts  in its truth- declarations, as Janana and Bhakti are not contradictory, each in the   lap of the other growing stronger and gets more established.

अन्यदेवाहुः संभवादन्यदाहुरसंभवात।

इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद विचचिक्षिरे ॥13॥

Anyad-evahuh sambhavat anad-ahur-asambhavat,
iti susruma dhiranam ye nastad vica-caksire(13)

"One thing theysay,is verily obtained from the worship of the manifest. Another thing,they say, from the worship of the unmanifest;thus have we heard fromt he wise, who have explained that to us." (Swami Chinmayananda)

It will be seen that just as in the second stanza of the earlier triplet (Mantras 9 to 11),here also the Rsi is trying to explain that what we generally understand by the terms manifest and unmanifest are not exactly what they connote in the technique of Self-perfection,but the terms have some special significance. Further, that   such an orientation of the idea   has the sanction of the entire hierarchy of experienced Masters   and their worthy disciples.

संभूतिं च विनाशं च यस्तद वेदोभयम सह।

विनाशेन मृत्युम तीर्त्वा सम्भुत्या मृतमश्नुते ॥14॥
Sambhutim ca vinasam ca yastad  saha ,
Vinasena mrtyum sambhutya- ' mrtam-asnute.(14)
"He who worships   the Impersonal Godhead   and the Personal Godhead together, overcomes death through the worship of   the Personal and obtains immortality through the worship of the Impersonal." (Swami Chinmayamanda)

Just as in   the last stanza of   the earlier triplet, the same ideas   are expressed only with   the terms changed from vidya and avidya to the 'personal' and the 'impersonal' God being used. Besides, it   has got its own pregnant extra suggestions as well. The controversy between Bhakti and   Jnana is pefectly proved to be empty and hollow by the suggestions contained in this mantra. It is rather suggested here that these two are complimentary instead of being contradictory, and are to be practised in a sequence. While going up,you cannot jump to higher stairs without first crossing   the lower ones. Similarly, a sadhak at the initial stage of his sadhana(meditation) cannot/may find it difficult t o concentrate on the Impersonal without first concentrating on the Personal God(Ishta or Guru). Thus, devotion to a Personal God   with a form and name is as much important for reaching the higher meditation, as continuous and    intense meditation upon the formless Reality isnecessary for the greater realisation of the Self.
In such an intelligent sythesis of bhakti and Jnana together, the result would be,in the Rsi's own words, that we will be able to get over the sorrows of death,meaning the sorrows of finitude, due to our faith and devotion to the Lord; while our evolution would be fulfilled completely as a result of our highe rmeditation upon the formless Reality. Accoring to Swami Chinmayananda," A mere meditation upon the Absolute in itself,though can give a subjective experience of the Self, the Jivan-mukta state cannotbe peaceful and tranquil without the firmholdon the life-belt of a staunch and unshakable love(prema) and devotion(Sradha) forthe Lordofthe Heart."
"A mere Vedantic perfection does not make a man fit to live in the community of men and work in the field of avidya to redeem his generation from the mental and intellectual dustbin into which it has fallen. For cultural renaissance, the great Master   will have to face different types of challenges in which he can find his equilibrium and poiseonly when he    is efficiently    guided and continuously rejuvenated by his limitless devotion to the Lordof his heart."Sri Ramakrsna Parmahamsa's might and glory was his experience of the Self,but his life's poise and equanimity were the special blessings of his beloved Mother Kali of Daksinesvara. Sankara,the redeemer of Hinduism, shall eternally shine out in time and space because of his super human perfection and experience of the Self, and yet he could face his opponents along the length and breadth of India,and carve out a renaissant India crowned with the best of its culture,because of his staunch and unquestionable faith in the Goddess of Learning,Mother Sarada.

Swani Chinmayananda has cited a very satisfying explanation given by his Gurudev,Sri Svami Tapovanaji Maharaj, about the terms sambhuti and sambhava,to recognise them as the 'birth of a new spiritual life', and asambhuti and vinasam as referring to'the cessation and destruction' - cessation of the creation of new vasanas and the total destruction of the entire existing vasanas. In this sense sambhuti, asambhava and vinasam are all pointing to the same spiritual condition.. They mean the annihilation of all material wants and consequent absence of rebirth into this mortal plane in order to exhaustthe existing vasanas. This explanation of sambhuti,the choosing and,therefore, the becoming ofaLife Divine,and asambhuti, the cessation of all undivine activities pursued when living as a helpless slave to a thousand passions - beautifully reconciles the seeming contradiction in this mantra.

To conclude, a jnani who has the devotion of a Radha alone can live the life of a true Parthasarathi and
guide the chariot of his era to a sure success and victory over the demoniac forces of decadence ,adharma and stupor into which history has fallen.

( This research-based endeavour is based on the discourses   on Ishopanisad by Swami Chinmayananda)

vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Vidya and Avidya(contnd)

2010-09-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

VIDYA AND AVIDYA(CONTND.)

अन्यदेवाहुर्विद्यया न्यदेवाहुर्विद्यया।

इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ॥10॥

Anyad-evahur-vidyaya anya-dahur-avidyaya,
iti susruma dhiranam ye nastad vica-caksire(10)

" One thing,they say,is verily obtained from Vidya,another thing they say from Avidya;thus,we have heard from the wise who explained that to us."(Swami Chinmayananda)

Here,the great Rsi is trying to elaborate the idea of Vidya and Avidya, and give it a new touch of orientation and a revolutionary re-statement,declaring that the popular notion about these two terms is not all the truth.The results of vidya and avidya are different from each other, each of them serving a definite purpose. Having stated this,the Rsiimmediately addsthatthisopinionisnotaproductofofhis own intellect,but that this is what he has 'heard from the wise who explained that to us.' This is a very significant statement,as in Hinduism we accept some statement only when it has stood the testoftime and repeated subjective experience   of generation of sages.Hinduism,thus,is not the product of a single Prophet,but is the wisdom-declarations rising from th eexperienced bosoms of realised Masters, which have been relived by generations of disciple-class. A truth that has been tested and found fit upon the touch-stoneof life by repeated generations alone is acceptedby the Aryan-devotees.
According to Swami Chinmayananda,"Both vidya and avidya,in fact,are bondages.Knowledge is certainly a release from the shackles of ignorance,but the knowledge itself is a painful limitation upon the Absolute. One may get over the confusion of ignorance with knowledge but,in itself,this will find us only chained by the limitations of knowledge.To transcend both is to reach the state of Absolute Perfection.
After prefacing thus,in the following stanza,we get a correct indication of the exact import and mutual relationship that is to be maintained between vidya and avidya.

विद्यां चाविद्यां च यस्तद वेदोभयम सह।

अविद्यया मृत्युं तीर्त्वा विद्ययामृतमश्नुते ॥11॥

Vidyam cavidyam ca yastad vedo-bhayagm saha,
avidyaya mrtyum tirtva vidyaya-mrtam-asnute(11)
" He,who knows at the same time both Vidya and Avidya,overcomes death by Avidya and obtains immortality by Vidya." (SwamiChinmayananda)

In explaining the great theory of' 'action and inaction' the Rsis have given this pregnant mantra to their Aryan generations. In the firststanza,they condemned both vidya and avidya as guiding us only to a dark age when one pursues one to the exclusion of other.Thereafter, quoting the greater Rsis of earlier periods, the Seer is now summarising how they are to be pursued in a happy sythesis. Synthesis of material activity(karma)and spiritual knowledge(Jnana) has often been advocated by the modern teachers of synthesis. Here, it is said that he,who combines in himself/herself both vidya and avidya together, would overcome 'death by avidya' and obtain 'Immortality by vidya'.
They must be considered as serially connected: Selfless dedicated work(Avidya) preparesone for contemplation,and when through contemplation Vidya is fulfilled in direct apprehension ofthe Self, thereafter the Perfect One undertakes karma as as a sacred satisfying fulment of his realisation and spiritual experience.
Modern environment is full of feverish activity - social, communal, national and international,and many among us are the blind advocates ofactivity. Many are leaders and many others are the potential ones, as perceived by them. Despite of all these leaders and their leading, the world,as such, is gasping forward from confusion to despair and steadily and systematically tottering from despair to disaster! The diagnosis and the cure are contained in the secret depths of this very pregnant mantra.
Without Vidya, to act in the outer world of avidya is almost impossible,and unprofitable as well. Without knowing the rhysthm and harmonyofthe entirecosmos which unite togetherthe plurality,toactin the world of multiplicity would add to the existing confusion prevalent in the world. Leaders and workers are striving to bring about   unity,harmony,peaceand joy in the world, while they themselves have not realised any one of these in themselves! With an ill-adjusted instrument of disharmony and discord,no musician,however great and willing, can strike out even a single note of perfect beauty and mastery!
This Mantra says that certainly the experienced knowledgeof the Self(Atma-jnana) would give us Eternal Liberation and Immortal Existence; for,thereby we shall discover that we are not the body-mind-intellect equipment   to which belongs the irreparable change called death.Mortality is the tragic fate of the matter; Immortality is the blissful nature of the Spirit.

But having gained Vidya in this very life,we are supposed to livei n thisworld as a liberated soul, to fulfil his self-realisation in and around through his activities in the world outside.Earlier,wehave seen in verses ssix and seven,that Self-realisation is not only the experience   that one's own Self is divine,but   this realisation can be complete only when one realises that his one'sown Self in the Self-in-all.Unless we include and incorporate in our Self-experience the pluralistic world of imperfection also,the realisation cannot be called complete. Rooted in the knowledge of our own Self,the Self-realised sage or Seer becomes the most potent fator in the world to carve out for it a destiny of unquestionable brilliance and success.
No doubt, an individual who has thus worked in the world in organising humanity and in rehabilitating his generation in the greater values of life, eternally comes to live in the memory ofthe world,carving out for themselves to remain, as it were,eternally on the surface of the globe. Buddha and Sankara,for example,as mortals gave no easy walk over to .death . These and greatMasters, having worked for the uplift of society,have entered into the warp ofthe social fabric of the generation to follow to such an extent, that posterity could not willingly let die their memories and contribution. Besides, such great of realisation 'overcome death' that   is caused   by Ignorance(Avidya). Death can frighten only him who mis -understands himself to be the body, but to him, who has realised that he is the Atman, death is only one of the meaningless delusory changes in his body - zone with which he maintained a sense of possessiveness during his days of ignorance.

The phrase 'And obtains immortality by Vidya' is quite significant. Mortality,afterall, is the fate of matter and not the destiny of the Spirit. Swami Chinmayananda has very beautifully added,"the potmay breakand destroy the pot-space; butthe 'space'in the potisneitherbroken nor overmade; it isthe all-pervading space,ever-the -same. Similarly,birth and death,decay anddisease,bondageand liberation,sorrowand joy, success and failure, etc.,are all experiences available only to the ego- centre,and by themselves are but delusion-created appearances. This is realised whenthe Pure Awareness comes to flashout,as it were, through the matter-envelopments. The ego ends, where'Godhood-experience'starts."
The mortal,minus his ego,is the Immortal Truth. When the seeker, through meditation, transcends all his identifications with his body,mind and intellect- he comes to rediscover himself/herself to be the Pure Atman, and to him, thereafter,there can be no-rebirth nor the chain of   Karmic effects to bind him down
to the wheels of samsara. Naturally,he gains,in the language of our experience of mortality,the state of Immortality.
(To be contnd.)
Vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Vidya and Avidya

2010-09-04T01:28:00.000-07:00

VIDYA and AVIDYA

अन्धं तमः प्रविशन्ति ये विद्यामुपासते।

ततो भूय इव ते तमो य उ विद्याया रताः ॥9॥

Andham tamah pravisanti ye vidyam-upaste,

tatobhuyaiva tetamoyauvidyayagmratah(9)

"They who worship Avidya(rites) alone enter blindening darkness,and they,who are engaged in Vidya(meditation)veily fall, as though,into an even greater darkness."

' Knowlege versus Action' has been the eternal problem with every generation of thinkersThere is an eternal lingering doubt as to whether a life of action or a life of meditation is the ideal way of living. In this stanza,the Rsi has opened up the problem,by defining this problem of outward activity vs.inward contemplation are avidya and vidya , which also connote karma(avidya) and upasana(vidya). Generally speaking, those who are keeping themselves engaged exclusively in a field of ritualistic activities certainly find themselves reaching thicker delusions.

According to Swami Chinmayananda," Ritualism(karma)can be undertaken only when one is whipped by desire for the fruits thereof.When the yajnas and yagas, the ritualistic portion of the Vedas, are performed with an ardent desire for supremacy or for ampler sensuousness,from the Rsi's standpoint, the individual is spiritually falling into the'blinding darkness'. Again,those who are following the path of upasana or leading an introvert life,mediating deeply, seeking nothing but the all-pervading Reality,they seem to fall as though into a still greater darkness, because such of the hasty and unprepared mediators may overdo the negation aspect of the technique of meditation and reach a destination of blind non-existence ! Here, the term'as though a greater darkness' is very significant; it is not really darkness." However, according to Sri Sankara,vidya means jevata-jnana,leading to the abode of the devata,and avidya is ritualistic karma, leading to the joys of heaven(pitrloka).Probably,the context here demand that we should take vidya to be 'higher meditation' and avidya to be 'all sadhanas' that prepare one,by exhausting one's existing vasanas, to have a peaceful mind that can readily be brought to the seat of meditation.

Vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

(To be contnd.)

The Atman(Self) Defined

2010-09-02T06:55:00.000-07:00

The ATMAN(SELF) DEFINED

स पर्यगाच्छक्रमकायव्रणम स्नाविर शुद्धमपापविद्धम।

कविर्मनीषी परिभुः स्वयंभूर्याथातत्थ्यतो र्थान व्यदधाच्छाश्वतीभ्यहः समाभ्यः ॥8॥
Sa paryagac-chukram-akayam-avranam
asna-viragm suddham-apapa-viddham,
kavir-manisiparibhuh svayam-bhuh yatha-tathyatab
arthan-vyadadhac-chasv-tibhyah samabhyah(8)

"He,theAtman,isall-pervading, bright,bodiless,scatheless,withoutmuscles,pure,unpiercedby evils,wise,omniscient, transcendentand self-existing.Healoneallottedtheirrespectivefunctions(duties)tothe variouseternalyears(Creators)."

Here is a complete and exhaustive definition,if not a word-painting of the Eternal, atleast as sufficient amount of data to give a sincere student/sadhak an intuitive understanding of the all-comprehensive factor called the Life or Atman. The great commentator Sankara has frequently used this stanza and the expression therein in his commentaries to indicate the Self in us.

That (Self) is all-pervading, radiant, bodiless, soreless, without sinews, pure, untainted by sin, the all-seer, the lord of the mind, transcendent and self-existent. That (Self) did allot in proper order to the eternal Prajapatis known as samvalsara (year) their duties.

The word paryagat means’gone abroad or went around’, which transpires that the Self went to spread itself everywhere, meaning that the Self is all-pervading and extend beyond all limitations. Sukram declares the Self to be bright, being the very light-giving principle in our intelligence. Akayam (bodiless) indicates the Self or pure life as ‘bodiless, having no connection with the matter envelopments, generally constituted of the great five sheaths. It is no more a prisoner in the body, all its identifications have ended forever. The expression ‘scatheless and without muscles’ signifies that it has no physical body at all, and, therefore, no disease can come there. The term ‘suddha’ (pure) indicates that the Atman has no causal body since it is untouched by sin. The Self is immaculate (apapa-viddham). Thus, the Atman is neither the physical nor the subtle nor the causal body, transcending them all is the Self, Eternal and Perfect.. It is positive factor with all the dynamic qualities of Life.

Swami Chinmayananda has declared the nature of the Self in following series of phrases:
The Self is the Seer- a declaration that the Life-spark in us isthe real vitality behind our senses with their perceptions. In fact,if the Life-principleis removed from the sense organs,they become impotent to register any impression of their objects. They function only,when oresided over by the grace of the Self. None of the activities of perception,feeling or thinking can be experienced by usif we arenot 'charged' by the Life-principle in us.
Omniscient- The Self is considered omniscient, All- knowing(manisi). The Self in us as the one Consciousness   is the eternal 'knower' in all bosoms. The Atman is certainly transcendent,beyond the realm of the finite. Transcending the finite,liesthe domainof thattranscedent Self.

Self-existing(Svambhu) - Our intellectcan function only in three definite fields of activity called,time,space and causality.Cause-hunting is the great avocation of the intellect. However,the causation-hunting-intellect will have   to be checkmated at some particular point by a great   grand supposition only   to stem the tide of its own wasteful flow. Thus,philosophically,we have   to accept that there was a first cause, which in its never-ending flow of changes,has brouhgt about the entire world of   existing plurality. But the Ultimate Cause must,in itself, be uncaused by any other cause than itself. This is Svayambhu meaning self-sprung,i.e.self-existing. It isnotborn out of 'a something',but It is self-born, Self being the first cause, not in itself the effect of anycause..

To conclude, the stanza,while  referring to all the above qualities   to Isha, can also be considered   to paint the idea of the seeker (sadhak) wholly becoming one with the Pure, Bodiless, Luminous, Incorporeal, Immaculate,Brahman, the Eternal Reality. The Rsi says loudly that it is this Self or Pure Consciousness that is the power and strength behind the laws of all natural phenomena, because of the unquestionable authority behaind the Lawgiver and His Law,That authority,might or power belongs to the Supreme Reality, the Self.

vedrakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

A Self-realised Atman-ko mohah kah soka ekatva-manu-pasyatah

2010-09-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

A SELF-REALISED ATMAN

यस्मिन्सर्वाणि भूतानि आत्मैवाभूद विजानतः।

तत्र को मोहः कः शोकः एकत्वमनुपश्यतः ॥7॥

Yasmin sarvanibhutaniatmaiva-bhudvijanatah,
tatra ko mohah kah soka ekatva-manu-pasyatah(7)

"When, to the knower,all beings have become one in his own Self(Atman),how shall he feel deluded thereafter? What grief can there be to him who sees oneness everywhere?"(7)
                                                                                                                    (Swami     Chinmayananda)
In the previous Mantra,the Rsi explained to us the glory of Self-realisation in a language of negative assertions. We were only told that the individual will have no more any repulsion against or hatred for anything in life. But here, the same idea hasbeen explained to us with more emphasis and practical assertions. A man of Self-relisation, who has understood in his own vital experience that he is not a separate individual living as opposed to others,but in his/her essential nature,he/she is nothing but the harmony or unity,that underlines all seeming discord or plurality(which are considered asa scum upon the Reality). He, who has thus relised his oneness with the entire,can no longer have the ordinary tossings of the mind arising out of the ordinary psychological tensions created through delusion (moha)orgrief(soka).
According to Swami Chinmayananda, "grief is the lanaguageofdelusion.The amount of grief in an individual'slifeis directly proportional to the amount of delusion in him/her. In his essential nature, he is All-Bliss. Unity or Harmony is Bliss. But in delusion, when he cognizes plurality and discord, there arises in him, the experience of grief This delusion creates grief,and more the delusion,more the grief.
To get away from grief is the goal of life sought by every   living creature, whether man or animal.Moksha or liberation is the transcendence of the individualbeyond the frontiers of sorrow. This Mantra exhorts that beyond the shores ofsighs and sobs,lies the land of realisation whence the Knower experiences in his own Self, the entire universe to be one, which is nothing but his own Real Nature.
The pot-space can disard all his sense of limitations,imperfections and sorrows only when it rediscovers itself to be nothing but the universal space. Each individual wave will have its ownsorrows ofbirth, growth, decayand death only when it considers itself separate fromothers'but,on its realisation that it is nothing but the ocean in its essential nature, all its sorrows end,an nomore shallit have its own delusory ideathat it is separatefrom others. Where there is no delusion,there is no grief, as the grief is the expression of delusion.

Thus, to conclude,   such a man/woman( Saint )of Realisation,experiencing his own Self shining out through every name and form,expressing Its own dynamism through every circumstance,happy or sorrowful, is eternally in unison with harmony and rhythm amidst the discordant noise of life. To him are the greatest potencies,the greatest joys,and the amplest   successes in life.Even the heaviest sorrow cannot shake him eveen a wee-bit.(Cf. Yasmin sthito na duhkhena gurunapi vicalyate(wherein established,he is notshakenevenby the heaviest sorrow- Bhagvad Gita VI-22).
(This research-based endeavour is based on Swami Chinmayananda's Discourses on   Isha Upanisada)

Vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Ethical Values in Ishopanisad- Introduction

2010-08-27T01:00:00.000-07:00

Introduction

Ethical Values in Ishopanisad- Introduction

ईशावास्यं इदं सर्वं यत् किञ्च जगत्यां जगत।

तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः मा गृधः कस्य स्विद् धनम् ॥1॥

Om Isavasyam-idagm sarvam yat-kinca jagatyam jagat,
ten tyaktena bhunjitha, ma grdhah kasya svid dhanam.(Isha.I)

“All this, whatsoever moves in this universe, including the universe itself moving, is indwelt or pervaded or enveloped or clothed by the Lord. That renounced, thou shouldst enjoy; covet not any body's wealth."

Introduction

The Isa Upanisad (which forms the fortieth Chapter in the Vajaneya Samhita of Sukla- Yajur Veda) begins with the statement that whatever exists in this world is enveloped by the Supreme and that it is by renunciation and absence of possessiveness that the soul is saved. Isha Upanishad or Ishavasyopanishad is one of the principal Upanishads consisting of only eighteen verses, but of immense significance. It contains a concentrated view of the essential Vedic philosophy and the choicest Ethical Values. The subject matter of the Upanishad, as of all the Upanishads, is spiritual, profound, and all comprehensive. It forms the foundation of Vedantic System of thought. It highlights the divinity of man, as well as all His manifestations in nature. It conveys to us the knowledge of the seers who have had experienced the spiritual solidarity and unity of all existence.

This Upanishad derives its title from the opening words Isa–vasya, “God–covered.” The use of Isa (Lord)–a more personal name of the Supreme Being than Brahman, Atman or Self, the names usually found in the Upanishads–constitutes one of its peculiarities. Oneness of the Soul and God, and the value of both faith and works as means of ultimate attainment are the leading themes of this Upanishad. The general teaching of the Upanishads is that works alone, even the highest, can bring only temporary happiness and must inevitably bind a man unless through them he gains knowledge of his real Self. To help him acquire this knowledge is the aim of this and all Upanishads.

It is also considered quite auspicious to recite this Isha Upanishad, which produces not only insights into our spiritual position and identity, but also the proper energy from the sound vibrations to invoke purity in the atmosphere as well as realizations in our consciousness. It shows the way the Upanishads describe the nonmaterial aspects of the Supreme Being, as when it describes Him as ‘One who walks but does not walk’. It is a way of relating how the Lord has no material qualities, but has all spiritual qualities and characteristics. By understanding this, one can begin to perceive the spiritual truths of which the Upanishadas speak.

Vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinvedas.blogspot.com/

http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Yastu syarvani bhutani atmanye...

2010-08-22T00:28:00.000-07:00

YATSU SARVANIBHUTANI ATMANYE...

यस्तु सर्वाणि भूतान्यात्मनेवानुपश्यति।
Yastu syaarvâni bhûtâni âtmanye-vânupasHyati,

सर्वभूतेषु चात्मानं ततो न विजुगुप्सते ॥6॥

Sarva-bhûteSu câtmânam tato na viju-gupsate.(Isha. 6).

“He who constantly sees everywhere all existence in the Self and the Self in all beings and forms, thereafter feels no hatred for anything.” (Swami Chinmayananda)

This verse explains more vividly than ever in any other Upanishad about the state of perfect tranquility gained by a Self-realized stage,and,as such, this stanza has been oft-quoted and repeated in books and heard from platforms. This is the benefit accrued to an individual by realising this uniform and all-pervading Reality behind the multiplicity and plurality that we cognise around and about us. It is certainly worthwhile for all seekers to remember constantly this verse with all its implications and import in their mind. Swami Chinmayananda has advised that " I would suggest that even those who do not know much of Samskrta would some how or other memorise this stanza,maintaining an association of the meaning with the sounds,and would keep it as a ready antidote for all their inner poisons of mental agitations and intellectual unrest.". How can the multiplicity of life delude the one who sees its unity?

"Self-realisation is never complete by a mere recognition of the intrinsic divinity or perfection in the Self, within which includes the Self expressing in the pluralistic world.To realise one's own Self is to realise at once its oneness with the All-Self. To realise the nature of a wave is to realise not only the nature of all waves,but the very nature of the ocean.Life being one and unbroken, to experience the Life-centre within us ,is to experience at once the Life-centre everywhere." The one who has thus realised the core of all beings as the core of in himself , and his own Self as the Self in every name and form,he is a sage, a prophet,a God-man,a true leader of the people,and a guiding power in the universe." (ibid).

In realising thus,,the individual gets permanently divorced from all his mental ideas of repulsion, shrinking ,dislike,fear,hatred and such other perversions of feelings, which arise from the sense of division and plurality.When all the hatred(jugapsa) has dried away from the mind,the individual experiences an unbroken state of tranquility,thereafter, an all types of circumstances, favourable or unfavourable, in his worldly existence. Sri Aurobindo has explained( in his commentary on Isa Upanisad) this idea vividly: "jugupsa is the feeling of repulsion caused by a sense of of want of harmony,between one'sown limited self-formation, and the contacts of external, with consequent recoil of grief,fear,hatred, discomfort,and suffering.It is the opposite of attraction which is the source of desire and attachment.Repulsion and attraction removed,we have samatava." A tranquil mind is as potent as God;the more we gain this inward tranquility(samatva),the more joyous and effective our lives become.

Vedprakash

www.ethicalvaluesinishaopanisad.blogspot.com

The Atman's Paradox

2010-08-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

The ATMAN'S PARADOX

तदेजति तन्नैजति तद्दूरे तद्वन्तिके।
Tadejati tannaijati tad dûre tadvantike,

तदन्तरस्य सर्वस्य तदु सर्वस्य बाह्यतः ॥5॥

tadan-tarasya sarvasya tadu sarva-syâsya bâhyata. (Isha 5).

"The Atman moves and It moves not; It is far and It is near;

It is within all this, and It is also outside all this".(Swami Chinmayananda)

The perceptions are always relative. Similarly, viewing the motionless Spirit of Life from and through the world of agitations, the Spirit Itself looks as though It moves,and yet, in Its real nature,It moves not.
This verse reinforces the fact covered in the last stanza that the Supreme Consciousness is 'all pervading.' It moves- yes, the matter, vibrant with the touch of life,flutters and trembles,sighs and sobs,moves and acts,accomplishes and enjoys. The 'ghost'shows signs with its wizardly hands and its horrid face grins at the deluded; but the 'post', which is the reality behind the 'ghost-vision' of the dusk,'That moves not.' The pure awareness of Consciousness,the Life-principle in all beings, in its all-pervading essential nature, neither moves nor acts. Established in Its own glory,It revels in Its own existence. The ocean,in relation to the waves, is surging, seething,heaving,roaring; but in its own true nature,the ocean is not the waves alone, and it is tranquil and peaceful,motionless and majestic in its own depth, calmness and serenity. So too,with life as such, the Atman, in its all-pervading nature,is motionless,and It neither acts nor works. The boat moves,but never the lake.

'It is distant and it is near' ----This alone can be definition of All-pervading. The Indian State is all -pervading, as far as the frontiers of this country define it. Similarly,the Pure Consciousness, the Supreme Reality, being All-pervading, It is at once near and the most distant. For the enlightened ones, the Self is the nearest, occupying the centre of their own individual personality. Nothing is, in fact,so near to us, as our own Self. But,to others the Reality is indeed very far from their realisation!!

In fact, the whole Ishavasya Upanisad is a loud message to the humanity at large in general, and to the true Hindu in particular, to desist from becoming merely self-centered, to the utter neglect of his life in the outer world, and his relationships with the comity of nations and happening around him.
The Self is not only to be realised in the centre of our own individual life, but is to be experienced as the same everywhere. Pure Consciousness is homogeneous and all-pervading and,as such, the Self cognised here is the same as the Self experienced as revelling there. Not only is the Atman the central core of the spirituo -physical personality in the seeker, but the same Consciousness is the very substratum for the entire perception of the universe. Thus, to consider this Self to be only within and live a life of pure introversion is a negation of Truth, which is condemned from the Hindu scriptural standpoint.

vedprakash

www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com

The Self - Atman-the Supreme Reality

2010-08-21T02:51:00.000-07:00

The SELF- ATMAN-THE SUPREME REALITY

अनेजदैकं मनसो जवीयो नैनद्देवा आप्नुवन पूर्वमर्षत।

aneja-dekaM manaso javîyo, nainad-devâ âpnuvan- pûrva-marsat,

तद्धावतो न्यानत्येति तिष्ठत तस्मिन्नपो मातरिश्वा दधाति ॥4॥

tad-dhâvato-'nyâna-tyeti tisthat, tasmin-napo mâtarisHvâ dadhâti.( 4).

"The Self is the motionless one, swifter than the Mind, The devas (senses) could not overtake;It ran before before them. Sitting, It goes faster than than those who ran after It. By It ,Matarsiva(the element Air) supports the activity of all living beings"(Isha 4).(Swami Chinmayananda).

^{That One, though motionless, is swifter than the mind. The senses can never overtake It, for It ever goes before. Though immovable, It travels faster than those who run. By It the all–pervading air sustains all living beings.}
^{This verse explains the character of the Atman or Self. A finite object can be taken from one place and put in another, but it can only occupy one space at a time. The Atman, however, is present everywhere; hence, though one may run with the greatest swiftness to overtake It, already It is there before him. Even the all–pervading air must be supported by this Self, since It is infinite; and as nothing can live without breathing air, all living things must draw their life from the Cosmic Self.}

^{We have now four continuous verses(4 to7) where description of the Supreme in terms of Its qualities of the Self has been done, which constitute the fourth wave-of-thought. The Atman or the Self is motionless, says the Isha Upanisad, which is neither the inability or impotency of the Supreme. It is indicative of only all pervasiveness of the Supreme Reality. Motion is a change in time and space. The Atman cannot(and need not) move because it is all-pervading. The Reality can not and need not move anywhere because there is no spot wherein It is not already existing.The Isha asserts that the Self is swifter than the mind. The Self runs faster because the Reality in the form of existence is already there, before the mind could contemplate. In short,the Self is discussed here as All-pervading in terms of motion and speed. By denying the former and asserting the latter,the Rsis are explaining to us the Consciousness or the Self,is a factor which in Itself is 'motionless speed'. Consciousness is All-pervading,it can not move,and nothing that moves in the universe (Ishavasyamidgam sarvam) can ever move except in a medium of Consciousness.}

The sense-organs cannot ovetakethe Self, as they can only perceive their objects, functioning only in the field of consciousness. The sense-organs and the sense-objects spring from and exist in the Self,and so they cannot,in their functions ever remain totally away from the Self, the medium of their existence,the field of their activities.

The Self,thus, is not only all-pervading,but it is the very substance and dynamism in all movements and the very force behind everything.Presided over by the Self alone,can allthe transactions of life take place. Self is Life; without It everything is dead and non-existent. The idea has ben more vividly brought out in the closing line of the verse, when the Rsi declares that the Matarisva(Lord of the Atmosphere- Air) supports the activities oflife,having derived its Life-force and vigour from this great and all-pervading Reality. According to Sri Sankara,Matarisvar efers to the individuality(jiva)and water(apah)here means karma. Then it would mean that all activities of all individualised personalities are always within the Self.

^vedprakash

^{http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/}

Results san Renunciation or Action

2010-08-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

RESULTS OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION

असुर्या नाम ते लोका अंधेन तमसा वृताः।
Asûryâ nâma te lokâh andhena tamasâ vritâh,

ता स्ते प्रेत्याभिगछन्ति ये के चात्महनो जनाः ॥3॥
Tâgmste pretyâbhi-gacchanti ye ke câtma-hano janâh. (Isha 3).

"Sunless are those worlds, and enveloped in blindering gloom to which all those people , who are slayers of their own Souls go, departing from here".(Swami Chinmayananda)

The great Master of Upanisad declares here that having been born as man, an individual (or society or community or nation), who refuses to live either the ' the life of renunciation/meditation' (cf. verse 1)or ' the life of intense and continuous activity'(cf. verse 2), is to be considered as a suicide. Such an entity must necessarily come into fall into an abyss of darkness and despair, experiencing a terrible down-turn in its cultural and spiritual eminence. If a community is neither willing to live the higher values nor be efficient in its constructive material program, such a generation should slowly decay into darkness, having lost its soul, and to face the sorrows of dark age. Such people are considered the 'slayers of their Souls' (Atma-hanah), or Self-destroyers, who kill the Divinity in themselves, will go to the 'sunless worlds',when they leave their bodies

Thus, with this Mantra(verse) the third 'wave of thought' indicates brilliantly the consequences for individual entities without following the 'Path of Renunciation'(verse 1) or the alternate 'Path of Action'(verse 2) .

vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Path of Karma (righteous deeds)

2010-08-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

PATH OF KARMA(RIGHTEOUS DEEDS)

कुर्वन्नेवेह कर्माणि जिजीविषेच्छत समाः।

एवं त्वयि नान्यथेतो स्ति न कर्म लिप्यते नरे ॥2॥

kûrvan-neveha karmâni jijîviSec-chatagM samâH,

evaM tvayi nânya-theto'sti na karma lipyate nare.( Isha 2)

"Performing verily, work in this world should one desire to live a full hundred years. This alone is right, for there is no other right path. Action never clings to a man following this path" (Isha.2)

For the coveted goal set out in the first verse, the pilgrim needs a lot of mental and intellectual calibre,a man of renunciation, with discriminating capabilities, a strong will and an indomitable faith in himself.However,many among us have ample desire for wealth, for relationships,and for glory and recognition. The Scripture says that such persons having inclinations towards the world, are to practise sincerely and diligently, the life of Action. If we study the history of mankind with detachment, we observe that noble and eternal values of life,when negated and flouted, the generation tumbles down into wreckage, and their revival is almost always directly proportional to the sincerity,intensity and strength with which the rising generation adopts the nobler and enduring values of philosophical and religious perfection.

Thus,the great Rsis have anticipated the result of action,inaction and unaction.According to them, unaction - a seemingly physical inactivity which wears a thick veil covers the extreme inner activity(sattva),the latter being the sublimest, which attitude is for the seekers on the 'Path of Renunciation' and 'Knowledge'. The opposite 'Inaction' is external and internal morbidity,inertia and sloth(tamas), which activity kills the generation. Action is the dynamic and conscious work, either to fulfil a given and known desire,or to enjoy the very activity itself as its own goal(rajas ). Thus, we should immediately take to a dynamic and conscious program of activity and should steadily walk the 'Path of Action', and be dedicated to the 'Path of Karma'.In the words of Swami Chinmayananda, 'In case you are not able to live the life of God-vision achieved through renunciation,then do certainly desire to live a full hundred years of productive selfless work.'

The expression, 'kurvan eva' performing,verily,work alone'(karmani eva), is indeed very important and powerful. It amounts to saying that having been born as a man, there is no other go but to work,especially if you strongly desire to live verily(jijiviset eva) a full hundred years(satagm samah eva). Thus, the Isha have glorified sweat and toil to the highest pinnacle of recognition as service. The ‘dignity of labour consists in service’ is a fact no where else so openly declared and so religiously glorified as in the Hindu scriptures. Dedicated and noble work alone can polish the animal-man to a state of true culture and right discipline. Man is not born to revel in idleness. Nature will whip the tamasic on to the road of right or wrong activity(rajas), and gradually evolve him to sattva, a state of joy with action-oriented performance. Swami Chinmayananda has opined, 'Here is a stanza, which declares that he,who cannot afford to live the noblest life of (total)renunciation and self-restraint,must unavoidably live a life of intense activity,striving his best to fulfil allhis desires through sweat and toil,and must teach himself to live in appetising enthusiasm all his life- 'a full hundred years' in the service of man and in the glorification of the Lord."The Isha Upanisad repeats: 'Thus, it is right for thee and not otherwise than this.' The one who thus intensively plunges into life - eager and anxious to meet daily challenges,and at every turn doing his best to meet each challenge with truth and purity as his standard of values - to such a one,actions do not cling. Bhagavad Gita also exhorts :'Therefore,engage yourself in doing Karma only'(BG IV-15).

'Na karma lipyate nare'(Action never taints such aman) signifies that our actions cannot affect us, if the work is done with a spirit of detachment,coupled with the joy of dedication to our work. LordKrsna alsosaysin the Gita(IV-24) that workcan never contaminateHim,asHe works with detachmentand total selflessness. Even otherwise, along periodofsuch activities,undertaken in a spirit ofdetachment,toalargeextentcleansesthe mind of its impurities like desires, ttachments, hatred,selfishness, jealousy,greed,etc. Such a purifiedmindalone can havethe required intellectual temperand spiritual stability topursue the pathof righteousnessthrough intense and high editation.
If one should desire to live in this world a hundred years, one should live performing Karma (righteous deeds). Thus, thou mayest live; there is no other way. By doing this, Karma (the fruits of thy actions) will not defile thee. If a man still clings to long life and earthly possessions, and is, therefore, unable to follow the path of Self–knowledge (Gnana–Nishta) as prescribed in the first verse, then he may follow the path of right action (Karma–Nishta). Karma here means actions performed without selfish motive, for the sake of the Lord alone. When a man performs actions clinging blindly to his lower desires, then his actions bind him to the plane of ignorance or the plane of birth and death; but when the same actions are performed with surrender to God, they purify and liberate him.

Thus,while the first wave of thought(in verse 1) explained to us the 'Path of Renunciation' (tyagten bhunjitha)and realisation(Isha vasyamjagadamsarvam),the second wave(verse 2)has exhorted us to wish for a full hundred years of vigorous life,spent inloving service of man and seeking Him in and through the joys of 'selfless activities'.
( This research-based endeavour has been attempted on Swami Chinmayananda's Discourses on Isavaya Upanisad)
vedaprakasha
www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com

Isha's Peace Invocation Prayer-Om pUrNamadah pUrNamidam...

2010-08-17T22:38:00.003-07:00

Peace Invocation(Prayer):Isopanishad Invocation (Prayer)

ॐ पूर्ण मदः पूर्ण मिदं पूर्णात पूर्ण मुदचत्ये,

पूर्णस्य पूर्ण मादाये पूर्ण मेवावशिश्यते॥

om purnam adah purnam idam, purnat purnam udacyate

purnasya purnam adaya,purnam evavasishyate (Isha Upanisad: Invocation Prayer)

This is an innocuous looking verse for which someone once said: "Let all the Upanisads disappear from the face of the earth - I don’t mind so long as this one verse remains." In Isavasyopanisad, the text begins with this SantipAta payer : "OmpUrNamadah pUrNamidaM..." :

" That is whole; this is whole; From that whole this whole came;

From that whole, this whole removed, What remains is whole."

Idam, This;PurNam, the single noun in the verse, is a beautiful Sanskrit word which means completely filled - a filledness of which is wholeness itself, absolute fullness lacking nothing whatsoever. Adah, which means ’that’, and idam, which means ’this’, are two pronouns each of which, at the same time, refers to the single noun, pUrNam; PUrNam adah - completeness is that, PUrNam idam - completeness is this.

Adah, that, refers to something which is remote , not available for direct knowledge. Adah, refers to a jnEyavastu,a thing to be known, but remains to be known upon destruction of the remoteness.

Idam, this, refers to something not remote but present, here and now, immediately available for perception, something directly known or knowable. Traditionally, however, idam has come to have a much broader meaning. Idam indicates all driSya, all seen or known things. All adah, called ’that’ become ’this’ as soon as their thatness, their remoteness in time, place or knowledge is destroyed. It is in this sense that the SantipAta "pUrNamadah." uses idam.

The first verse of IshAvAsyOpaniSad, following the SantipATa makes clear that idam is used in the traditional sense of all driSya, all known or knowable things:. IshAvAsyaidam sarvam yat kinca jagatyAm jagat ;. all this, whatsoever, changing in this changing world...
So when the verse says pUrNam idam, "completeness is this", what is being said is that all that one knows or is able to know is pUrNam, which means completeness, absolute fullness, wholeness.. If pUrNam is total fullness which leaves nothing out, then ’this’ cannot be used to describe pUrNam because ’this’ leaves something out. What? The subject. ’This’ leaves out aham, I, the subject.

Adah, That
Since idam, this, has been used in its traditional sense of all knowable objects, here or there, presently known or unknown, the only meaning left for ’that’ is to indicate the subject. Idam, this, stands for everything available for objectification. What is not available for objectification? The objectifier - the subject. The subject, aham,I, is the only thing not available for objectification. So, the real meaning of adah, that, as used here in contrast to idam,this, is aham, I. If that is so, how can adah, that, mean aham, I? Am I remote? I am certainly not remote in terms of time or place. I am always here right now. But perhaps I may be remote in terms of knowledge. If in fact I do not know the true nature of myself I could be a jnEyavastu, a to-be-known, in terms of knowledge. Because it is only through the revelation of shruti (scripture functioning as means of knowledge) that I can gain knowledge of my true nature, it can be said that, in general ,the truth of aham is remote in terms of knowledge - something that is yet to be known.
’That’ so used as ’I" means AtmA, the content of truth of the first person singular, a jnEya-vastu, a to-be-known, in terms of knowledge.When that knowledge is gained, I will recognize that I, AtmA, am identical with limitless Brahman - all pervasive, formless and considered the cause of the world of formful objects.

PUrNam adah - completeness is I, the subject AtmA, whose truth is Brahman, formless, limitlessness, considered creation’s cause; PUrNam idam - completeness is all objects, all things known or knowable, all formful effects, comprising creation.pUrNam, completeness, brooks no exclusion whatsoever. The nature of pUrNam is wholeness, completeness,limitlessness.

There cannot be pUrNam plus something or pUrNam minus something. It is not possible to add or to take away from limitlessness. The nature of pUrnam being what is, ’that’ pUrNam must include ’this’ pUrNam; ’this’ pUrNam must include ’that’ pUrNam.Therefore, when it is said that aham, I, am pUrnam and idam, this,is pUrNam, what is really being said is that there is only pUrNam.

Aham, I, and idam, this, traditionally represent the two basic categories into one or the other of which everything fits. There is no third category. So if aham and idam, represent everything and each is pUrNam , then everything is pUrNam. Aham, I is pUrNam which includes the world. Idam this, is pUrNam which include me. The seeming differences of aham and idam are swallowed by pUrnam - that limitless fullness which shruti (scripture) calls Brahman.

However, my every day experience is that I am a distinct entity separate and different from idam jagat, ( this world of objects )which I perceive. My experience is that I see myself as not the same at all as idam, this. When I hold a rose in my hand and look at it, I, aham, am one thing and idam, this rose I see, is quite another. In no way is it my experience that I and the rose are the same. We seem quite distinct and separate. Because shruti tells me that I, aham, and the rose, idam, both are limitless fullness, pUrNam. Furthermore, it is not my experience that either I or the rose are, in any measure, pUrNam, completeness - limitless fullness. I seem to me to be totally apUrNah, unfull, incomplete, inadequate, limited in all sides by my fellow beings, by the elements of nature, by the lacks and deficiencies of my own body and mind. My place and space are very small; time forever crowds me; sorrow dogs my path. I can find no limitless fullness in me. No more does there seem to belimitless fullness in this rose even now wilting in my hand, pressed by time, relinquishing its space; even in its prime smaller and less sturdy than the sunflowers growing outside my window. It is my constant experience that I, aham, and all I perceive, idam, are ceaselessly mutually limiting one another. Thus, PurNam, completeness, absolute fullness, must necessarily be formless. PurNam cannot have a form because it has to include everything. Any kind of form means some kind of boundary; any kind of boundary means that something is left out - something is on the other side of the boundary. Absolute completeness requires formlessness. Sastra (scripture) reveals that what is limitless and formless is Brahman, the cause of creation, the content of aham, I. Therefore, given the nature of Brahman by shruti, I can see that pUrNam is another way for shruti to say Brahman. Brahman and pUrnam have to be identical; there can only be one limitlessness and that One is formelss pUrNam Brahman.Thus, the verse is telling me that everything is pUrNam. PurNam has to be limitless, formless Brahman.

Vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Īsha's Resolution of the Opposites and The Principle of Īsha Upanishad

2010-08-04T23:55:00.001-07:00

Īsha's Resolution of the Opposites and The Principle of Īsha Upanishad:

In Īsha Upanishad, there are certain pairs of OPPOSITES intermingled in the eighteen verses of the Upanishad , which need resolution, in tune with the basic principle of the Upanishad.The principle followed throughout is the uncompromising reconciliation of uncompromising extremes. We are confronted with the terms like the World, Enjoyment, Renunciation Action, Knowledge , the One and the Many, Birth, death,the knowlesge and Ignorance,etc. and in later verses , a more and more secondary position has been given, exalting the opposite series, God, Renunciation, Quietism, the One, Cessation of Birth, the Knowledge until this trend of thought culminated in Illusionism and the idea of existence in the world as a snare and a meaningless burden imposed inexplicably on the soul by itself, which must be cast aside as soon as possible. It ended in a violent cutting of the knot of the great enigma.
This Upanishad tries instead to get hold of the extreme ends of the knots, disengage and place them alongside of each other in a release that will be at the same time a right placing and relation. It will not qualify or subordinate unduly any of the extremes, although it recognizes a dependence of one on the other. Renunciation is to go to the extreme, but also enjoyment is to be equally integral; Action has to be complete and ungrudging, but also freedom of the soul from its works must be absolute; Unity, utter and absolute, is the goal, but this absoluteness has to be brought to its highest term by including in it the whole infinite multiplicity of things.

So great is this scruple in the Upanishad that having so expressed itself in the formula "By the ignorance having crossed over death, by the knowledge one enjoys Immortality"(Verse 11) that life in the world might be interpreted as only a preliminary to an existence beyond, it at once rights the balance by reversing the order in the parallel formula "By dissolution having crossed over death by birth one enjoys immortality", and thus makes life itself the field of the immortal existence which is the goal and aspiration of all life. In this conclusion it agrees with the early vedic thought which believed all the worlds and existence and non-existence and death and life and immortality to be here in the embodied human being, there evolvement, there realizable and to be possessed and enjoyed, not dependent either for acquisition or enjoyment on the renunciation of life and bodily existence. This thought has never entirely passed out of Indian philosophy, but has become secondary and a side admission not strong enough to qualify seriously the increasing assertion of the extinction of mundane existence as the condition of our freedom and our sole wise and worthy aim.

The Conscious Lord and Phenomenal Nature

Phenomenal Nature is a movement of the conscious Lord. The object of the movement is to create forms of His consciousness in motion in which He as the one soul in many bodies can take up his habitation and enjoy the multiplicity and the movement with all their relations. This is also the view of the Gīta and generally accepted.

Renunciation and Enjoyment: तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः

Real integral enjoyment of all this movement and multiplicity in its truth and in its infinity depends upon an absolute renunciation; but the renunciation intended is an absolute renunciation of the principle of desire founded on the principle of egoism and not a renunciation of world-existence. This, again, is the central standpoint of the Gita, which, however, admits also the renunciation of world-existence. The general trend of Vedantic thought would accept the renunciation of desire and egoism as the essential but would hold that renunciation of egoism means the renunciation of all world-existence, for it sees desire and not Ananda as the cause of world-existence. This solution depends on the idea that desire is only a egoistic and vital deformation of the divine Ananda or delight of being from which the world is born; by expiration of ego and desire Ananda again becomes the conscious principle of existence. This substitution is the essence of the change from life in death to life in immortality. The enjoyment of the infinite delight of existence free from ego, founded on oneness of all in the Lord, is (probably) what is meant by the enjoyment of immortality.

Action in Nature and Freedom in the Soul

Actions are not inconsistent with the soul's freedom. Man is not bound by works, but only seems to be bound. He has to recover the consciousness of his inalienable freedom by recovering the consciousness of unity in the Lord, unity in himself, unity with all existence. This truth would, again, be generally admitted, but not the conclusion that is drawn from it. This done, life and works can and should be accepted in their fullness; for the manifestation of the Lord in life and works is the law of our being and the object of our world-existence.

The One Stable Brahman and the Multiple Movement

What then of the Quiescence of the Supreme Being and how is persistence in the movement compatible with that Quiescence which is generally recognized as an essential condition of the supreme Bliss?

The Quiescence and the Movement are equally one Brahman and the distinction drawn between them is only a phenomenon of our consciousness. So it is with the idea of space and time, the far and the near, the subjective and the objective, internal and external, myself and others, one and many. Brahman, the real existence, is all these things to our consciousness, but in it ineffably superior to all such practical distinctions. The movement is a phenomenon of the Quiescence, the Quiescence itself may be conceived as a Movement too rapid for the Gods, that is to say, for our various functions of consciousness to follow in its real nature. But it is no formal, material, spatial, temporal movement, and only a movement in consciousness. Knowledge sees it all as one, ignorance divides and creates oppositions where there is no opposition but simply relations of one consciousness in itself. The ego in the body says, "I am within, all else is outside; and in what is outside, this is near to me in Time and Space, that is far." All this is true in present relation; but in essence it is all one indivisible movement of Brahman which is not material movement but a way of seeing things in the one consciousness.

Being and Becoming

Everything depends on what we see, how we look at existence in our soul's view of things. Being and Becoming, One and Many are both true and are both the same thing: Being is one, Becomings are many; but this simply means that all Becomings are one Being who places Himself variously in the phenomenal movement of His consciousness. We have to see the One Being, but we have not to cease to see the many Becomings, for they exist and are included in Brahman's view of Himself. Only, we must see knowledge and not with ignorance. We have to realize our true self as the one unchangeable, indivisible Brahman. We have to see all becomings as developments of the movement in our true self and this self as one inhabiting all bodies and not our body only. We have to be consciously, in our relations with this world, what we really are, —this one self becoming everything that we observe. All the movement, all energies, all forms, all happenings we must see as those of our one and real self in many existences, as the play of the Will and Knowledge and Delight of the Lord in His world-existence.

We shall then be delivered from egoism and desire and the sense of separate existence and therefore from all grief and delusion and shrinking; for all grief is born of the shrinking of the ego from the contacts of existence, its sense of fear, weakness, want, dislike, etc.; and this is born from the delusion of separate existence, the sense of being my separate ego exposed to all these contacts of so much that is not myself. Get rid of this, see oneness everywhere, be the One manifesting Himself in all creatures; ego will disappear; desire born of the sense of not being this, not having that, will disappear; the free inalienable delight of the One in His own existence will take the place of desire and its satisfactions and dissatisfactions.Immortality will be yours, death born of division will be overcome. [In the ordinary view all this would be admitted, but the practical possibility of maintaining this state of consciousness and birth in the together would be doubted.]

The Active Lord and the indifferent Akshara Brahman

The Inactive and the Active Brahman are simply two aspects of the one Self, the one Brahman, who is the Lord. It is He who has gone abroad in the movement. He maintains Himself free from all modifications in His inactive existence. The inaction is the basis of the action and exists in the action; it is His freedom from all He does and becomes and in all He does and becomes. These are the positive and negative poles of one indivisible consciousness. We embrace both in one quiescence and one movement, inseparable from each other, dependent on each other. The quiescence exists relatively to the movement, the movement to quiescence. He is beyond both. This is a different point of view from that of the identity of the Movement and Quiescence which are one in reality; it expresses rather their relation in our consciousness once they are admitted as a practical necessity of that consciousness. It is obvious that we also by becoming one with the Lord would share in this biune conscious existence. [In the ordinary view the jiva cannot exist in both at the same time; his dissolution is into the Quiescence and not into unity with the lord in the action and inaction.]

Vidya and Avidya

The knowledge of the One and the knowledge of the Many are a result of the movement of the one consciousness, which sees all things as one in their truth-idea but differentiates them in their mentality and formal becoming. If the mind (manīşhi) absorbs itself in God as the formal becoming (paribhu) and separates itself from God in the true Idea (kavi), then it loses Vidya, the knowledge of the One, and has only the knowledge of the Many which becomes no longer knowledge at all but ignorance, Avidya. This is the cause of the separate ego-sense.

Avidya is accepted by the Lord in the Mind (manīşhi) in order to develop individual relations to their utmost in all the possibilities of division and its consequences and then through these individual relations to come back individually to the knowledge of the One in all. That knowledge has remained all along unabrogated in the consciousness of the true seer or Kavi. This seer in ourselves stands back from the mental thinker; the latter, thus separated, has to conquer death and division by a developing experiences as the individual Inhabitant and finally to recover by the reunited knowledge of the One and the Many the state of Immortality. This is our proper course and not either to devote ourselves exclusively to the life of Avidya or to reject it entirely for motionless absorption in the One.

Birth and Non-Birth

The reason for this double movement of the Thinker is that we intended to realize immortality in the Birth. The self is uniform and undying and in itself always possesses immortality. It does not need to descend into Avidya and Birth to get that Immortality of Non-Birth; for it possesses it always. It descends in order to realize and possess it as the individual Brahman in the play of world-existence. It accepts Birth and Death, assumes the ego and then dissolving the ego by the recovery of unity realizes itself as the Lord, the One, and Birth as only a becoming of the Lord in mental and formal being; this becoming is now governed by the true sight of the Seer and, once this is done, becoming is no longer inconsistent with Being, birth becomes a means and not an obstacle to the enjoyment of immortality by the lord of this formal habitation. [This is the stumbling-block to the ordinary philosophies which are impregnated with the idea of the illusoriness of the world, even when they do not go the whole way with the Māyavāda; Birth, they would say, is a play of ignorance, it cannot subsist along with entire knowledge.]

This is our proper course and not to remain for ever in the chain of birth and death, nor to flee from birth into a pure non-becoming. The bondage does not consist in the physical act of becoming, but in the persistence of the ignorant sense of the separate ego. The Mind creates the chain and not the body.

Works and Knowledge

The opposition between works and knowledge exists as long as works and knowledge are only of the egoistic mental character. Mental knowledge is not true knowledge; True knowledge is that which is based on the true sight, the sight of the Seer, of Sūrya, of the Kavi. Mental thought is not knowledge, it is a golden lid placed over the face of the Truth, the Sight, the divine Ideation, the Truth-Consciousness. When that is removed, sight replaces mental thought, the all-embracing truth-ideation, mahas, veda, dŗşhti, replaces the fragmentary mental activity. True Buddhi (vijnāna) emerges from the dissipated action of the Buddhi which is all that is possible on the basis of the sense-mind, the Manas. Vijnāna leads us to pure knowledge (jnāna), pure consciousness (chit). There we realize our entire identity with the Lord in all at the very roots of our being.

But in Chit, Will and Seeing are one. Therefore in Vijnāna or truth-ideation also which comes luminously out of Chit, Will and Sight are combined and no longer as in the mind separated from each other. Therefore, when we have the sight and live in the Truth-Consciousness, our will becomes the spontaneous law of the truth in us and, knowing all its acts and their sense and objective, leads straight to the human goal, which was always the enjoyment of the Ananda, the Lord's delight in self-being, the state of immortality. In our acts also we become one with all beings and our life grows into a representation of oneness, truth and divine joy and no longer proceeds on the crooked path of egoism full of division, error and stumbling. In a word, we attain to the object of our existence which is to manifest in itself whether on earth in a terrestrial body and against the resistance of Matter or in the worlds beyond or enter beyond all world the glory of the divine Life and the divine Being.

(This is based on ‘Īsha Upanishad’ by Sri Aurobindo, published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust)

vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Nature of Supreme Being in Isha Upanishad

2010-07-23T01:18:00.000-07:00

NATURE OF SUPREME BEING

ईशावास्यं इदं सर्वं यत् किञ्च जगत्यां जगत।

तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः मा गृधः कस्य स्विद् धनम् ॥1॥

Om îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat,

tena tyaktena bhuñjîthâ mâ gRidhaH kasya sviddhanam. Isha Upanishad: 1

"All this,whatsoever moves in this universe, including the universe itself moving,is indwelt or pervaded or enveloped or clothed by the Lord . Tthat renounced, thou shouldst enjoy; covet not anybody's wealth."

The Isha Upanishad is significant amongst the Upanishads for its description of the Nature of Supreme Being. ‘Isha’presents a monist or non-dual perspective of the universe, in that it describes This Being as "unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated" (verse 8), one who "moves and does not move', who is 'far away, but very near as well'" and who "although fixed in His abode is swifter than the mind" (verses 4 and 5).The text then asserts the oneness of the supreme self;"For the enlightened one all that exists is nothing but the Self" and asks; "So how could any delusion or suffering continue for those who know this oneness?"
The later verses take the form of a series of prayers requesting that the speaker be able to see past the supreme light or effulgence in order to understand the true nature of the Supreme Lord. It shows the way the Upanishads describe the non-material aspects of the Supreme Being, as when it describes Him as ‘One who walks but does not walk’. It is a way of relating how the Lord has no material qualities, but has all spiritual qualities and characteristics. By understanding this, one can begin to perceive the spiritual truths of which the Upanishadas speak and exhort.
This Upanishad starts with the phrase: ‘Isavaasyam itham sarvam’. This Upanishad derives its title from the opening words Isa–vasya, “God–covered.” The use of Isa (Lord)–a more personal name of the Supreme Being than Brahman, Atman or Self, the names usually found in the Upanishads–constitutes one of its peculiarities. Oneness of the Soul and God, and the value of both faith and works as means of ultimate attainment are the leading themes of this Upanishad. The general teaching of the Upanishads is that works alone, even the highest, can bring only temporary happiness and must inevitably bind a man unless through them he gains knowledge of his real Self. 'To help him acquire this knowledge' is the aim of this and all Upanishads.
The Seer of the Upanishad has opened this Upanishad with this daring statement of the Sublimest Truth: îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat. Vasyam is a pregnant word in Samskrata with unlimited suggestiveness with multitude of meanings,the root 'vas' meaning 'clothing', 'inhabiting', 'enveloping',or 'pervading'. The great Rsi exclaims that 'all this'(idgam sarvam)-that we are perceving through our sense-organs or our mind and intellect-is indwelt by the Spirit which is the Lord of the world-of-perception. In every entity in the world-of-objects the Spirit indwells, permeating everywhere in Its homogeneous all-pervasiveness. Spirit muffled in matter is the living being.Matter is but an equipment through which Truth expresses Itself in the 'dynamic-'life',as known to all of us.But, in reality,beneath it all,pervading everywhere is the very kernal of Life,the Spirit or the Self,which is the Lord of these matter habitations.The Lord is, thus, omnipresent as the Governor (of all environments), Ruler(over all sense activities), Monitor(in all mental and intellectual functions). And yet, we are not conscious of this Lord! This is a great tragedy, which is to be ended. ' Allow not this darknessof ignorance to shroud the Light of Truth. Bring out the Lord to envelop the phenomenal world,and this in His Infinite Light, let the experience of multiplicity be, to the enlightened seeker, a vision clothed in celestial Light Divine', seems to be the silent import here.(SwamiChinmayananda). 'When properly analysed and logically revaluated,each one of us can end all our mis-apprehensions,and the Spirit shall emerge out of all our mental projections and the consequent inner confusions'.(ibid). We perceive all things with the Lord through his Divine Presence everywhere. When the consciousness is firmly fixed in God, the conception of diversity naturally drops away; because the One Cosmic Existence shines through all things. As we gain the light of wisdom, we cease to cling to the unrealities of this world and we find all our joy in the realm of Reality.

Om îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat: The Isha Upanishad opens with a monumental phrase in which, by the above eight brief and sufficient words, two supreme terms of existence are set forth in their real and eternal relation: Isha is wedded with Jagati, God with Nature, the Eternal seated sole in all His creations with the ever-shifting Universe and its innumerable whorls and knots of motion, each of them 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. He is the veiled deity in the temple, the open householder in the mansion and 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." (Maharishi Aurobindo) .
"This relation of divine Inhabitant and objective dwelling-place is the fundamental truth of God and the World for life. This practical relation of the Soul to its world thus selected by the seer as his starting-point is from the beginning and with the most striking emphasis affirmed as a relation ...of lordship and freedom on one side, of instrumentality on the other, Soul in supreme command of Nature, God in untrammelled possession of His world, not limited by anything in its nature of His nature, but free and Lord. "(ibid)
Since it is the object of the Upanishad to build up a practical rule of life here in the Brahman rather than a metaphysical philosophy for the satisfaction of the intellect, the Seer of the Upanishad selects inevitably the practical rather than the essential relation of God and the world as the starting-point of his thought, use, and subordination rather than identity. The grammatical form in vasyam expresses a purpose or object to be fulfilled, in this instance the object of habitation, the choice of the word isa implies an absolute control and, therefore, an absolute freedom in that which has formed the object, envisaged the purpose.
Nature, then, is not a material shell in which Spirit is bound, nor is Spirit a roving breath of things ensnared to which the object it inspires is a prison-house. The indwelling God is the Lord of His creations and not their servant or prisoner, and as a householder is master of his dwelling-places to enter them and go forth from them at his will or to pull down what he has built up when it ceases to please him or be serviceable to his needs, so the Spirit is free to enter or go forth from its bodies and has power to build and destroy and rebuild whatsoever It pleases in this universe. The very universe itself It is free to destroy and recreate. God is not bound; He is the entire master of His creations."(ibid).

"The word Isa, starting forward at once to meet us in this opening vibration of the Seer's high strain of thought, becomes the master tone of all its rhythms. It is the key to all that follows in the Upanishad. For not only does it contradict at once all mechanical theories of the Universe and assert the pre-existence, omnipotence, majesty and freedom of the transcendent Soul of things within, but by identifying the Spirit in the universe with the Spirit in all bodies, it asserts what is of equal importance to its gospel of a divine life for humanity, that the soul in man also is master, not really a slave, not bound, not a prisoner, but free - not bound to grief and death and limitation, but the master, the user of grief and death and limitation and free to pass on from them to other and more perfect instruments. If then we seem to be bound ...by a fixed nature of our minds and bodies, by the nature of the universe, by the duality of grief and joy, pleasure and pain, by the chain of cause and effect or by any other chain or tie whatsoever, the seeing is only a seeming and nothing more. It is Maya, illusion of bondage, or it is Lila, a play at being bound. The soul, for its own purposes, may seem to forget its freedom, but even when it forgets, the freedom is there, self-existent, inalienable and, since never lost except in appearance, therefore, always recoverable even in that appearance."(ibid).

This is the first truth of Vedanta assumed by the Upanishad in its opening words and from this truth we must start and adhere to it always in our minds, if we would understand in its right bearing and complete suggestion the Seer's gospel of life:That which dwells in the body of thine is God, Self and Spirit; the Spirit is not the subject of its material but the master; the soul in the body or in Nature is not the prisoner of its dwelling-place, but has moulded the body and its dharmas, fixed Nature and its processes and can remould, manipulate and arrange them according to its power and pleasure.

Idam sarvam yat kinca, the Seer has said, emphasizing the generality of idam sarvam by the comprehensive particularity of yat kinca. He brings us at once by this expression to the Adwaitic truth in Vedanta that there is a multitude of objects in the universe, (.. even, a multitude of universes), but only one soul of things and not many. Eko'calah santanah. The Soul in all this and in each particular form is one, ...one in the multitude of its habitations, ... God sits in the centre of this flux of the universe, eternal, still and immutable. He pervades its oceanic heavings and streamings; therefore, it endures. Nature is the multiplicity of God, Spirit is His unity; Nature is His mobility, Spirit is His fixity; nature is His variation, Spirit is His constant sameness. These truths are not stated at once; the Seer waits himself to the statement of the unity of God, and the multiplicity and mobility of Nature; for this relation in opposition is all that is immediately necessary to base the rule of divine living which it is his one object in the Upanishad to found upon a right knowledge of God and existence."(ibid).
"The self , then of every man, every animal and every object, whether animate or inanimate, is God; the soul in us, therefore, is something divine, free and self-aware. If it seems to be anything else, - bound, miserable, darkened, - that is inevitably some illusion, some freak of the divine consciousness at play with its experiences; if this Soul seems to be other than God or Spirit, what seems is only a name and a form or, to keep to the aspect of the truth here envisaged, is only movement of Nature, Jagat, which God has manifested in Himself for the purpose of various enjoyment in various mansions, - it is an image, a mask, a shape or eidolon created in the divine movement, formed by the divine self-awareness, instrumentalized by the divine activity. Therefore ,He is "this man and yonder woman, a boy and a girl, that old man leaning on his staff, this blue bird and that scarlet-eyed." We have, asserted in the comprehensiveness of the phrase, not only an entire essential omnipresence of God in us and in the world, but a direct and a practical omnipresence, possessing and insistent, not vague, abstract or elusive. The language of the Sruti is thus trenchant and inexorable. We must exclude no living being because it seems to us weak, mean, noxious or vile, no object because it seems to us inert, useless or nauseous. The hideous crawling worm or snake no less than the beautiful winged bird and the strong or gracious forms of four-footed life, the dull stone and foul mire ... no less than the man, the divine fighter and worker, are motions of the supreme Spirit; they contain in themselves and are in their secret reality the living God. This is the second general truth of Vedanta which arises inevitably from the pregnant verse of the Seer and, always present to him in his brief and concentrated thinking, must also accompany us throughout our pursuit of his sense and doctrine.
God is one; Self, Spirit, Soul is One; even when It presents Itself multitudinously in Its habitations as if It were many souls and so appears in the motion of Nature, Its universality and unity are not abrogated nor infringed. In all there is That which by coming out of Its absorption in form of movement, recovers Its unity. As the soul in man, though seeming to be bound, is always free and can realize its freedom, so, though seeming divided, limited and many, it is always universal, illimitable and one and can realize its universality and unity."(ibid). Thus,this creature born in a movement of time and bound in an atom of Space, is really in his secret consciousness the universal Spirit who contains the whole universe of things and dwells as the self of all things in these myriad forms of man and bird and beast, tree and earth and stone which my mind regards as outside me and other than myself. In the name of myself God inhabits this form of my being - but it is God that inhabits and the apparent "I" is but a centre of His personality and a knot in the infinite contents of His active world-existence. My ego is a creation of the Jagati in a form of mind; my Self stands behind, possesses and exceeds the universe.

This is Spirit in relation to Nature, one in multiplicity, the Lord of nature and process, free in the bound, conscious in the unconscious, inhabitant, master and enjoyer of all forms and movements of life, mind and body. Nature in relation to Spirit is its motion and the result of its motion, jagatym jagat, phenomenon and everything that exists as phenomenon, universe and everything that constitutes universe. There are two terms in this brief and puissant formula, jagati and jagat. The second, jagat, is particular and multiple and includes whatsoever is separate existence, individual thing or form of motion, yatkica; the first, jagati, is general and indicates both the resultant sum and the formative principle of all these particular existences, sarvam idam yat kinca. Sarvam idam is Nature regarded objectively as the sum of her creations, jagati is Nature regarded subjectively and essentially as that divine principle, expressed in motion of being and observed by us as force or Energy, which generates all these forms and variations. ... It is movement of energy in Existence which is active, which determines forms, which generates appearances of finite being and brings about phenomena of Becoming as opposed to fixed truth of Being. Therefore, every objective existence in the world and all subjective forms, being forms of Existence in motion, being inconstant, being always mutable and always changing, progressing from a past of change to a future of change, are not truly different beings at all, but becomings of the one and only Being; Each is the result of its previous motion, stands by this continued motion and if that motion were pretermitted or its rhythm disturbed, must change, disintegrate or transmute itself into some other form of becoming.
"Spirit or God is eternal Being, Nature in its sum and principle is the becoming of God and in its particulars a mass of His becomings, real as becomings, falsely valued as beings. The knowledge of the Upanishads takes its stand on this supreme distinction of being and its Becomings; we find, indeed, in this Upanishad itself, another and more convenient collective term used to express all that is here defined as yat kinca jagatyam jagat, - one which brings us straight to this great distinction. The soul is Atman, Being; everything else is sarvabhutani, all becomings or.. all things that have become. .. as inclusive of all existences whether they are animate or inanimate, self-conscious or veiled in consciousness....the tree, flower and stone no less than the animal, heaven and wind and the sun and rain no less than man, invisible gas and force and current ... within its all-embracing formula."God is the only Being and all other existences are only His becomings; the souls informing them are but one Spirit individualized in forms and forces by the play and movement of Its own self-consciousness.(ibid).

We see, then, whose this energy is and of what this universe is the motion. But , there begins to emerge clearly another truth which the Upanishad Seer leaves in shadow for the present and only shapes into clear statement in his fourth and eight couplets; he emphasizes in the fourth verse the unity of Soul and Nature; the stillness and the motion are not separate from each other, not one of them Brahman and the other an illusion, but both of them equally the one sole Existence, which moves and yet is still even in its motion, tad ejati tamnaijati, anejad ekam manaso javiyas. In the eightth verse he indicates that Brahman and the Lord are not different from each other or from the motion, but are the reality of the motion as the motion itself is the play of the stillness; for to tad ejati, That moves, comes as an echo and response, sa paryagat,... Nature is motion of the Spirit, the world is motion of God; but also Nature is Spirit in motion, the world is God at play.All our inefficient envisagings of the world, all our ignorant questions fall away from this supreme Vedantic conception. We cannot ask ourselves, "Why has God brought about this great flux of things, this enormous and multitudinous world-movement? What can have been His purpose in it? Or is it a law of His nature and was He under an inner compulsion to create? Who then or what compelled Him?" These questions fall away from the decisive and trenchant solution, isa vasyam jagat. He has no purpose in it except habitation, except delight, an ordered and harmonized delight, - therefore, there is what we call universe, law, progression, the appearance of a method and a goal; but the order effected feels always its neighborhood to the grandiose licence of the infinite and the harmony achieved thrills at once with the touch of the Transcendent's impulse to pass out of every rhythm and exceed every harmony. For this is a self-delight which in no way limits or binds Him; He has brought it about and He conducts it in perfect freedom; there is no compulsion on Him and none can compel Him, for He alone exists and Nature is only a play of time-movement in His being, proceeding from Him, contained in Him, governed by Him, not He by it or proceeding from it or coeval with it and therefore capable of being its subject, victim or instrument. Neither is there any inner compulsion limiting He either as to the nature of the work or its method. The movement of the universe is not the nature of God, nor are its processes the laws of God's beings; for Spirit is absolute and has no fixed or binding nature. God is supreme and transcendent and is not bound by state, law or process, - so free is He, rather, that He is not bound even to His own freedom. The laws of Nature, as we have seen, cannot be laws of being at all, since Nature itself is a becoming; they are processes which regulate the harmonies of becoming, processes which are, in the Vedic image, chandas, rhythms of the movement and not in their own being rigid, inexorable and eternal because self-existent verities; they are results of the tendency to order and harmony, not sempiternal fetters on Existence. Even the most fundamental laws are only modes of activity conceived and chosen by Spirit in the universe. We arrive then at this farther all-important truth:
"Nature is a divine motion of becoming of which Spirit is the origin, substance and control as well as the inhabitant and enjoyer. Laws of Nature are themselves general movements and developments of becoming and conditions of a particular order, rhythm and harmony of the universe, but not inexorably preexistent or recognizable as the very grain of existence. The Laws of Evolution are themselves evolutions and progressive creations of the Spirit."(ibid).

We get the fuller statement of the truth in the fourth verse of the Upanishad, tad amtarasya sarvasya tad u sarvasyasya bahyatah; That, the inexpressible Reality of things, is within this universe and each thing it contains, but equally it is outside of this universe and each thing that it contains, - outside it as continent, outside it as transcendent. The omnipresent Inhabitant of the world is equally its all-embracing continent. If form is the vessel in which Spirit dwells, Spirit is the sphere in which form exists and moves. But, essentially, It transcends form and formation, movement and relation, and even while It is inhabitant and continent, stands apart from what It inhabits and contains, self-existent, self-sufficient, divine and eternally free. Spirit is the cause, world is the effect, but this cause is not bound to this effect . Na ca mam tani karmani nibadhnanti, says the Lord in the Gita; I am not bound by these works that I do, even while I do them. The soul of man, one with God, has the same transcendence and the same freedom.
Spirit contains, dwells in and transcends this body of things. It acts in the world but is not bound by Its actions. The same essential freedom must be true of this soul in the body, even though it may seem to be confined in the body and compelled by Nature's results and its own works. The soul in us has the inherent power not only of becoming in this outward and waking consciousness what it is in reality, the continent of the body which seems to contain it, but of transcending in consciousness all bodily relation and relation with the universe...(ibid).
It is not enough, however, to know the inner fact and the outer possibility of our freedom; we must also look at and take into account the apparent actuality of our bondage. The debit side of the human ledger must be taken into the reckoning as well as the credit account. The explanation and seed of this bondage is contained in the formula jagatyam jagat; for, if our freedom results from the action of Spirit in Nature and of Nature in Spirit, our bondage results from the action of Nature on all that she has created and contains. Every mundane existence is jagatyam jagat, not a separate and independent motion by itself, but part of and dependent on the universal movement. From this dependence by inclusion derives the great law that every form of things engendered in the motional universe shall be subject to the processes of that particular stream of movement to which it belongs; each individual body subject to the general processes of matter, each individual life to the general processes of vitality, each individual mind to the general processes of mentality, because the individual is only a whorl of motion in the general motion and its individual variation, therefore, can only be a speciality of the general motion and not contradictory of it. The multiplicity of God in the universe is only a circumstance of His unity and is limited and governed by the unity; therefore, the animal belongs to its species, the tree, the rock and the star each to its kind and man to humanity. .. This generality, this pressure of tyrannous insistence is necessary in order that the harmony of the universe may be assured against all disturbing vibrations. It is the bulwark of cosmos against chaos, of the realised actuality against that inconstant and ever-pulsating material of infinite possibility out of which it started, of the finite against the dangerous call and attraction of the Infinite."(ibid).
The unity of God governs His multiplicity; therefore, the more general motion of Nature as representative of or nearest to that unity governs the multiple individual products of the movement. To each motion its law and to each inhabitant of that motion subjection to the law. Therefore, Man, being human in Nature, is bound first by Nature, then by his humanity.But because God is also the transcendence of Nature and Nature moves towards God, therefore, even in Nature itself a principle of freedom and a way of escape have been provided. Avidyaya mrtiyum tirtva. For, in reality, the motion of Nature is only the apparent or mechanical cause of our bondage; the real and essential cause arises from the relation of Spirit to Nature. God having descended into Nature, Spirit cast itself out in motion, allows Himself as part of the play ...and seems to accept on Himself in the principle of mind isolated from the higher spiritual principles, her absorption in her work and her forgetfulness of her reality. The soul in mind identifies itself with its form, allows itself apparently to float on the oceanic stream of Nature and envisages itself as carried away by the current. Spirit veils itself from Mind; Ish wraps Himself upon jagat and seems to its own outer consciousness to be jagat. This is the principle of our bondage; the principle of our freedom is to draw back from that absorption and recover our real self-consciousness as the containing, constituting and transcendent Spirit."(ibid).

"Spirit, absorbed in the motion and process of Nature, appears to be bound by the process of becoming as if it were law of being; it is, therefore ,said to be bound by Karma, that is to say, by the chain of particular cause and effect, the natural chain of active energy and its results. But by drawing back upon itself and ceasing to identify itself with its form, it can get rid of this appearance and recover its lordship and freedom. Incidentally, the soul of Man by drawing more and more towards God, becomes more and more Ish and can more and more control the processes of becoming in himself and in others, in the subjective and in the objective, in the mental and in the material world."(ibid).

The ideal of Tyaga, this consummation has been constantly praised and held up before us in this country as the highest ideal of man and his only path to salvation. But even if for the few this goal be admitted, yet for the majority of men it must still and always remain God's ultimate purpose in them to realise Him manifest in the world, - since that is His purpose in manifestation, -- and not only and exclusively unmanifest in His transcendental stillness. It must be possible then to find God as freedom and immortality in the world and not only aloof from the world. There must be a way of escape provided in Nature itself out of our bondage to Nature. Man must be able to find in Nature itself and in his humanity a way of escape into divinity and freedom from Nature, avidyaya mrtiyum tirtva. This would not be possible if God and Nature, Brahman and the Universe were two hostile and incompatible entities, the one real and the other false or non-existent. But Spirit and Universe, God and Nature are one Brahman; therefore ,there must always be a point at which the two meet; their apparent divergence in consciousness must be somewhere corrected in consciousness, Nature must at some point become God and the apparently material universe stand revealed as Spirit.

In the profound analysis of the human soul built by the ancient Vedantic thinkers upon the most penetrating self-observation and the most daring and far-reaching psychological experiments, this point of escape, this bridge of reconciliation was discovered in the two supramental principles, Ideal Consciousness and Bliss Consciousness, both of them disengaged from the confusions of the mind involved in matter...The old Vedantic Yogins, not satisfied with observing the surface activities and ordinary processes of our subjective nature, penetrated farther, analyzed, probed, discovered hidden forces and extraordinary activities by which our whole active mentality could be manipulated and rearranged ... pressing yet farther towards the boundaries of existence they discovered whence this energy proceeded and whitherward this stir and movement tended and worked. They found beyond the manifest and obvious triple bond of body, life and mind, two secret states and powers of consciousness which supported them in their works - they discovered a principle of ideal consciousness, vijnana, which saw Truth face to face and unerringly, looking on the sun with unshaded eyes, and a principle of all-blissful power and being which possessed in itself, by the very right of its eternal existence and inalienable nature, right joy, right awareness and right action as the very self-atmosphere of its manifestation in the universe. Above this inferior trilogy of matter, life and mind (Annam, Prana, Manas), there is a superior trilogy of Infinite Being, Force and bliss (Sat, Chit, Ananda) accessible to us and working on us inhabitants of the lower spheres from the symbol of divine beatific consciousness, the Ananda-tattwa, as its throne of world-rule, the home and fortress of the divine Master, and employing as its distributing and arranging minister the truth-seeing idea mind to feed, supply and compel the activities of the lower being.The principle, "To each motion its law and to each inhabitant of the motion subjection to the law" is crossed and corrected by this other principle, "Each motion contains a tendency towards the motion above it and to each type of becoming, therefore, there comes in the progress of time the impulse to strain beyond the mould it has realized to that which is higher than itself."(ibid).
In this complex arrangement of Nature where is man's exact position? He is a mental being housed in a vitalized body and he tends through pure idea towards divine beatitude. Now just as matter informed with life, no longer obeys the processes of matter only, but, even while it affects life-processes, is also affected by them and finds its complete liberation in the conquest of matter by life, just as mind in a life-body is affected, limited and hampered by vital and bodily processes, but still governs them and would find its own liberation and theirs in the perfect conquest of life and matter by mind, so, since this mental being is really a soul imprisoned in mind, its perfect liberation comes by rising out of the mould of mind through pure idea into beatitude; escaping into beatitude, this mental existence is able to liberate the whole lower system of being by renewing every part of it in the mould and subjecting every part of it to the process of that which we have now become. The mould and process of Ananda is freedom, God, bliss, immortality, universality, and these, therefore, are the laws of being, the dharmas, the sum of a divine beatific existence which we put on by rising out of mental ego into infinite Ananda. The motion of pure Idea, vijnana, is the door of our escape in Avidya; for it is the kingdom within us of Truth and Illumination, domain, in the Vedic symbol, of the god of the Sun, the prophetic Apollo, the burning and enlightening Surya. Sa no dhiyah pracodayat.(ibid).

We are a double birth, God the Spirit, God in Nature, Ish and Jagat. In Nature we are bound in our consciousness, because we are there a whorl of its motion, a wave in its sea; in Spirit we are free, for there we are a part of nothing, but one with the indivisible Spirit. But this double is really biune. God, unbound by His divisibility, unbound by His indivisibility, weds the One to the Many in the play of His consciousness, in His ineffable beatitude. There God and Nature meet, Vidya and Avidya embrace each other, our real freedom governs and uses consciously our apparent bondage, the bliss of Transcendence joins hands with the bliss of manifestation, God shows Himself in humanity and man realizes himself as divine.(ibid)

Thus,the joy of that reconciliation dwells in the Immortality to which the Vedanta is our guide and its starting-point is the recognition by mind of the one Lord in all bodies, the one Spiritual Being in all becomings, atmannam sarvabhutesu. Since it is the all-blissful Lord who dwells within and Nature is for His habitation and enjoyment, then a state of Nature which is a state of bondage, sorrow-pursued, death-besieged, wrestling with limitations, is convicted of being only a temporary mask and a divinely willed starting-point for the Energy confined in the triple bonds of mortal Mind, Life and Matter to work out its own immortal freedom. The object of life is self-liberation, the only aim of human existence consistent with the dignity and fullness of our being is the escape through Nature to God, out of grief, bondage and death into joy, freedom and immortality. Avidyaya mrtyum tirtva vidyayamrtam ansnute.

vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Ethical Values from Ishopanisad

2010-07-20T00:41:00.001-07:00

Balanced Attitude Towards Wealth

ईशावास्यं इदं सर्वं यत् किञ्च जगत्यां जगत।

तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः मा गृधः कस्य स्विद् धनम् ॥1॥

Om îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat,

tena tyaktena bhuñjîthâ mâ gRidhaH kasya sviddhanam. 1.

The Isha Upanishad present a balanced view towards wealth like all other social and ethical values. In its very first verse 'tyagten bhunjitha' it warns against coveting wealth. It rather explains the real status of wealth in life,suggesting that wealth is not a real value, being external to life. We treat wealth as our possessions,but in reality it is not our own, as it remains external to our being. Its value is only an instrumental value as a means to higher ends of life. It can serve as a valuable resource only when it is integrated with a spiritual attitude towards life. Thus, spiritualisation of wealth and other means of life is the opening gospel of Isha Upanishad.

Common happiness being the objective test of spiritualisation of wealth, such an attitude of economic value can be construed as economic socialism, which alone can ensure social justice. There is no place for greed and personal aggrandisement in such an economic view. Hence,the Isha Upanishad advises economic contentment with the rider of abandonmentof greed.

Moreover, verse 15 towards the end of Isha Upanishad indicates the likely illusion if the opening gospel is not followed:
hiranmayena patrena saryasyaplitaM mukham
tat tvaM pu Sannapav Rinu satyadharmayad RiSTaya(Isha-15)
" The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid,that do thou remove,OFosterer, for the law of truth, for sight."

Amassing of wealth makes a man vain and deludes him away from truth. Infatuation of wealth blinds one's vision of truth. It has been stated that a cup or cover of gold conceals the truth from his vision. It is only vision of spiritual reality or grace of God ,which can remove this golden covering and can help a truth-loving man to see the truth. This can be possible only when one visualises the world as a kingdom of God and enjoys things with contentment but without greed, as a sacred gift from God, with full understanding that the wealth of the world is not his property and it is also not his integral being. Afterall,whose wealth it is all this? None.except His.
This balanced economic view enshrined in the Isha Upanishad first presents this principle of right economic adjustment, which can also be conducive to spiritual salvation,and then in the end it also indicates the delusion which results from lust/infatuation of wealth and also the need of dispelling this delusion for realisation of truth in life. Thus,this view of Isha Upanishad reconciles material life with spiritual salvation of man..
All this proves the moderate economic view of the Upanishadic sages, which is 'tyagten bhunjitha' i.e. enjoy with contentment but abjuring greed. Such a view presents a restricted and qualified recognition of economic value,which is, ultimately, in consonance with the spiritual view of life.

vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

tyagten bhunjitha; Isa.1

2010-06-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

ईशावास्यं इदं सर्वं यत् किञ्च जगत्यां जगत।

तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः मा गृधः कस्य स्विद् धनम् ॥1॥

tyagten bhunjitha; Isa.1
The general impression that the Upanisads require world denial is not quite correct. Isha Upanishad insists on a spirit of detachment. (tyagten bhunjitha; Isa.1), which is not indifference to the world.and not abandonment of objects but non-attachment to them. We do not raise ourselves above the world by contempt for the world. It is the spirit of equanimity which is insisted upon. To be tranquil is to envy no man, to have no possessions that another can take from us, to fear none.

When the Hindu thinkers ask us to adopt samnayasa or relinquishment of home and possessions, to accept the three great renunciations, consecrated in the three vows, evangelical counsels of poverty, obedience and chastity, they point to self- denial as the root of spiritual life. Again, Spirit of renunciation does not mean neglect of social duties. Rare fruits of spirit ripen on the soil of detachment. We should release ourselves from selfish likes and dislikes. The Divine can not use our mind and body, so long as we wish to use them for our own ends. Detachment is opposed to attachment, not to enjoyment. Enjoy through renunciation (' tyagten bhunjitha' ) is the advice of the Isa Upanisad.

Good and evil do not depend on the acts one does or does not., but on the frame of mind one has. The good man is he who concurs with the divine purpose, and the bad man is he who resists it. If one’s mind is good, one’s acts will be good. Our attempts should not be so much external conformity as inward cleansing. From goodness of being good will and good works flow. When the soul is at peace , the greatest sorrows are borne lightly. Life becomes more natural and confident. Changes in outer conditions do not disturb. We let our life flow of itself as the sea leaves or the flower blooms.

Vedprakash
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/

Ethical Values from Isha Upanishad

2010-06-14T01:18:00.000-07:00

ईशावास्यं इदं सर्वं यत् किञ्च जगत्यां जगत।

तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जिथाः मा गृधः कस्य स्विद् धनम् ॥1॥

îsHâ vâsyamidaM sarvaM yat kiñca jagatyâM jagat,

tena tyaktena bhuñjîthâ mâ gRidhaH kasya sviddhanam. 1.

"All this, whatever moves in this universe, including theuniverse itself moving is indwelt or

pervaded or enveloped or clothed by the Lord.. That renounced thou shouldst enjoy. Covet not r anybody's wealth."

There are many such gems of ethical values In Isha Upanisad, which are still relevant in modern times. Let us explore them together.
vedaprakasha
http://www.ethicalvaluesinishopanisad.blogspot.com/
.