Kenopanishad : ( 18/01/2013. )

20/11/2018 Mantras 4 to 8 Post - 2. The expressions of individuality are always partitioned into the knower and the known. The upasana (devoted worship) of a personal Divinity, no doubt, integrates the mental consciousness, collects its rays, makes it one whole being, raises the individual above the pains of the world. But it is not the same as brahma-sakshatkara (realisation of Brahman), because, in upasana, duality is not destroyed. Every object of upasana is based on purusha-tantra; the nature of the object of upasana depends upon the desire of the upasaka. The objects of upasana, therefore, differ from one person to another; but Brahman cannot differ like that. Brahman is vastu-tantra. Its knowledge is unshaken and dependent on nothing. It is the grand, immobile Self-existence. Upasanas are, therefore, helps, means, to the knowledge of Brahman. But the object of upasana is not Brahman. The nature of the object of upasana is not characterised by pure consciousness, but it ...

29/10/2018 Mantras 4 to 8 Post - 1. Brahmam should be known to be other than what can be expressed by speech, thought of by the mind, seen by the eyes, heard by the ears, or revealed by life’s functions. The nature of Truth can be known through denials alone. We cannot call Brahmam sat, because it is the opposite of asat. It cannot be called asat, because it is the opposite of sat. It cannot be called sadasat, i.e., a combination of sat and asat, because this becomes self-contradictory. It cannot be said to be beyond sat and asat, because this is unintelligible. Thus we are cornered in every way, and all definitions of Brahmam become impossible. The only way of ascertaining it is, therefore, to deny everything that we know through the senses or through the mind. Brahmam is sometimes called in the Upanishads asat or non-existence, because the seers of the Upanishads wanted to make it clear that Brahmam is nothing that exists according to our conceptions of existence. Brahm...

10/10/2018 Mantram - 3. Post - 2. An object can be defined or perceived through its class, quality and action. But the Atman does not belong to any class, and it is devoid of quality and action. Perception and inference fail in their attempt to know the Atman. Perception is private knowledge, valid only to the perceive-rs and therefore not trustworthy. Inference is the result of perception and so it, also, is untrustworthy. Agama or intuition is the only source of valid knowledge. Perception and inference differ in their characteristics in accordance with different places, times, persons, objects and conditions. Intuitive knowledge is not in need of cognitive instruments or any external source of knowledge. The knowledge of everything that is known is the result of the interaction of the natures of the subject and the object. But true knowledge is not the result of any interaction. True knowledge is self-luminous. Hence the Atman is not the unknown also. The Atman is assume...

20/09/2018 Mantram - 3. Post- 1. Neither the eye nor the speech nor the mind can reach Reality. These instruments of knowledge reveal objects, not the subject. The subject is the source from which these instruments proceed like rays. The rays are projected outwards, not inwards.  Even as fire cannot burn itself, the Self cannot know itself through these instruments. The mind wills and determines with respect to what is within the province of its knowledge. But it cannot will and determine with respect to the Self, because the Self is not a substance which can have relations with anything. It is neither the known nor the unknown. It is not the known because there is no means of knowing it. All our means are phenomenal. What is perishable cannot reach the Imperishable. The means of the knowledge of the Self is itself. The Self is the object of its own knowledge. The knower cannot know the knower through any possible means. Omnipresence negates all relationships and ever...

29/08/2018 KENOPANISHAD-1.9.2.3 Mantram - 2.3 Continued .. The Selfhood attributed to the senses, etc. has to be transcended through the negation of their realities. This requires extraordinary courage or dhairya, because it is hard to negate what is experienced as a reality. To realise that the changing of bodies is for one’s good, to know that getting rid of individuality is beneficial, to come to the conclusion that impersonality is the real state of being, to detach oneself from one’s pet forms of experience, is not easy. Faith in Truth means disbelief in phantoms. Immortality and mortality are utter contradictions. We cannot live in God and at the same time live in the world. The world is a nihil in the glory of the Selfhood of Divinity. Transcending this world does not mean casting this world away and going to another superior world. The world is a condition of experience, a mode through which we view reality, a form which we have selected out of the immense Ground of f...

05/08/2018 KENOPANISHAD-1.8.2.2 Mantram - 2.2 Continued .. In the state of waking, consciousness pervades the body, even as fire makes an iron ball red hot, when it is heated. It becomes difficult to distinguish between the fire and iron in that condition. Similarly the body appears to be the Self because of this pervasion of consciousness over the senses and the body. But consciousness is different from the senses and the body, even as fire is different from the iron ball. Self-revelation is the nature of the Self. Because of it the senses reveal to us objects. They die without it. As the sun illumines the world, the Self illumines the mind and the body. Thus it is proved that the body is not the Self and that the mind also is not the Self. Similarly, the prana is not the Self. The prana is the expression of the mind. It is the connecting link between the mind and the body. The flow of prana is regulated by the function of the mind, and the body in turn is controlled by the ...

06/07/2018 Mantram - 2.1 The Self is the hearing consciousness of the ear, and similarly, the consciousness of the other different sense-functions. The organs of hearing, seeing, etc. are not capable of functioning without Self awareness. The nature of the Self can be defined by what it is not and not by what it is. The Self, as it is in itself, is indefinable, because it is devoid of the characteristics that a definition requires. It is not a substance with attributes, nor is it an individual directing the senses, etc. It is nothing to the senses and the mind, though it is everything to itself. Through the acts of deliberation, volition and determination, it is possible for us to infer the nature of the Self. The born, the originated and the compounded substances cannot be explained and accounted for except on the basis of an unborn, an unoriginated and an uncompounded being. The world of experience is the indicator of the existence of an eternal being. The acceptance ...