Vedanta
June 10, 2018

Turiya in Māṇḍūkya Upanisad

nāntaḥ-prajñam, na bahiṣ prajñam, nobhayataḥ-prajñam na prajnañā-ghanam, na prajñam, nāprajñam; adṛṣtam, avyavahārayam, agrāhyam, alakṣaṇam, acintyam, avyapadeśyam, ekātma-pratyaya-sāram, prapañcopaśamam, śāntam, śivam, advaitam, caturtham manyante, sa ātmā, sa vijñeyaḥ. - Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad. One of the standard ways in which Upanishads speak of the supreme reality is by means of telling us what it is not. For example in the above verse on Turiya, starts with nāntaḥ-prajñam (not inwardly cognitive), referring to the state of dreams equivalent to the condition of the subtle body. The powers of the mind that we use for functioning like seeing, hearing, speaking are in the realm of…
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Vedanta
June 5, 2018

Avadhūta: His Nature, His Freedom

The Avadhūta Upanishad is a part of the Krshna Yujurveda which describes the nature of an Avadhūta in the course of a conversation between Sankriti and Bhagavan Dattātreya, the first among Avadhūtas. Sankriti asks: "Who is an Avadhūta, what is his state? What are his characteristics? How does he move about in the world" The supreme compassionate Lord Dattātreya replied thus: "The Avadhuta is so called because he is the immutable akshara; he is the most worthy of worship (varenya), he has shaked off all wordly bondages (dhuta-samsara-bandhana); and he is the implied meaning of tatwamasi, hence tattvamasyadi laksya. He who…
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Vedanta
April 21, 2018

Kenopanishat

The Kenopaniṣat says - आत्मना विन्दतॆ वीर्यं विद्यया विन्दतॆऽमृतम् - AtmanA vindatE vIryaM; vidyayA vindatE amRutam meaning, from the Atmah comes Power and Strength, from Knowledge comes Immortality. The Kena is a Mukhya Upanishad embedded in the end of the Samaveda. It deals with discussion of the Brahman which is both with and without any attributes and explains that the various gods, symbolized as forces of nature, both internal and external, has the Brahman as their ultimate and efficient cause. The word kena is a question that the Upanishat asks repeatedly as a means of self inquiring into the root…
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