This is the first issue in a new series titled ‘Streams of Sādhanā’, and focuses on the theme – Concentration and Focus. As is the practice at Renaissance, the current issue explores the theme in a multi-dimensional manner, since Integral Yoga does not leave out any aspect of life. Readers will find here explorations into the topic from the perspectives of spiritual sādhanā, study and mental development, overall well-being, and more.
Read the first story in this new series on Indian scriptures and find out about the rule of mutual keeping, and the one who does not need keeping.
Kireet joshi in his book ‘Glimpses of Vedic Literature’ summarises the essence of Bhriguvalli from Taittiriya Upanishad and emphasises that Food or Matter is also a manifestation of the Divine which should not be rejected but instead be mastered.
Nolini Kanta Gupta’s summary of the Triple Agni described in several Upanishads is followed by the Mother’s explanation of the triple aspiration.
The last 2 verses of Isha Upanishad are Rishi’s powerful invocations to Gods Surya and Agni who alone can uplift him and open still higher vistas of Light and Power leading to the final goal of Immortality while still living on earth for a full span of life.
Explaining verses 15 and 16, which invoke the Sun God, the author illustrates the close relationship that exists between the Upanishads and the Veda.
Sri Aurobindo summarises the essence of verses 9-14 of Isha Upanishad in ‘The Life Divine’: “Through Avidya, the Multiplicity, lies our path out of the transitional egoistic self-expression in which death and suffering predominate; through Vidya consenting with Avidya by the perfect sense of oneness even in that multiplicity, we enjoy integrally the immortality and the beatitude. By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death; by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity.”
In this part 3 of our ongoing series, the focus is on verses 6-8 of Isha Upanishad. We are reminded that it is the Brahman that is the origin, the end and the container of the things; creating, he indwells the forms of his manifestation, enjoys variously his thousand abodes. He is the One, the same everywhere. And if each individual formation behaves and acts as if it is a separate entity, different from others, it is because it is clouded in its outer consciousness, it has temporarily lost touch with the unifying knowledge and consciousness at its back—that which sustains it as well as it does all the rest in a common extension.
In this part, the author focuses on the first 4 verses of Isha Upanishad. He reminds that this Upanishad addresses itself to the question of world-existence, the problem of harmonising human life and activity with the Reality of Immutable Brahman. The solution it finds is one of the most remarkable found by the ancient Indian mind.
In this six-part series, we present an essay by M.P. Pandit which summarises some of Sri Aurobindo’s commentaries on the Isha Upanishad. The first introductory part highlights Sri Aurobindo’s comments on translating the Upanishads, and the errors made by Max Muller and other Indologists who fail to capture the spirit of the scripture because they lack the inner vision of the Truth expressed in scripture.