Kena Upanishad FOREWORD AS THE Isha Upanishad is concerned with the problem of God and the world and consequently with the harmonising of spirituality and ordinary human action, so the Kena is occupied with the problem of God and the Soul, and the harmonising of our personal activity with the movement of infinite energy and the supremacy of the universal Will. We are not here in this universe as independent existences. It is evident that we are limited beings clashing with other limited beings, clashing with the forces of material Nature, clashing too with forces of immaterial Nature of which we are aware not with the senses but by the mind. The Upanishad ta

KAIVALYA UPANISHAD THE FIRST MANTRA KAIVALYA UPANISHAD Om. Ashwalayana to the Lord Parameshthi came and said, “Teach me, Lord, the highest knowledge of Brahman, the secret knowledge ever followed by the saints, how the wise man swiftly putting from him all evil goeth to the Purusha who is higher than the highest.ˮ Page – 415 Commentary THE Lord Parameshthi is Brahma — not the creator Hiranyagarbha, but the soul who in this Kalpa has climbed up to be the instrument of creation, the first in time of the Gods, the Pitamaha or original and general Prajapati; the Pitamaha, because all the fathers or special

CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD chapter one : section 1 Worship ye OM, the eternal syllable, OM is Udgitha, the chant of Sama-veda; for with OM they begin the chant of Sama. And this is the exposition of OM. Earth is the substantial essence of all these creatures and the waters are the essence of earth; herbs of the field are the essence of the waters, man is the essence of the herbs. Speech is the essence of man, Rig-veda the essence of Speech, Sama the essence of Rik. Of Sama OM is the essence. Thi

ISHA UPANISHAD ISHA UPANISHAD All this is for habitation¹ by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any manʼs possession. Doing verily² works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this; action cleaves not to a man.³ ¹There are three possible senses of vasyam, “to be clothedˮ, “to be worn as a garmentˮ and “to be inhabitedˮ. The first is the ordinarily accepted meaning. Shankara explain

MANDUKYA UPANISHAD MANDUKYA UPANISHAD OM is this imperishable Word, OM is the Universe, and this is the exposition of OM. The past, the present and the future, all that was, all that is, all that will be, is OM. Likewise all else that may exist beyond the bounds of Time, that too is OM. All this Universe is the Eternal Brahman, this Self is the Eternal, and the Self is fourfold. He whose place is the wakefulness, who is wise of the outward, who has seven limbs, to whom there are nineteen doors, who feels and enjoys gross objects, Vaishwanara, th

             Indian Literature                                          THE arts which appeal to the soul through the eye are able to arrive at a peculiarly concentrated expression of the spirit, the aesthesis and the creative mind of a people, but it is in its literature that we must seek for its most flexible and many-sided self-expression, for it is the word used in all its power of clear figure or its threads of suggestion that carries to us most subtly and variably the shades and turns and teeming significances of the inner self in its manifestation. The greatness of a literature lies first in the greatness and worth of its substance, the value of its thought and the beauty

    II   A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture         A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture    WHEN we try to appreciate a culture, and when that culture is the one in which we have grown up or from which we draw our governing ideals and are likely from overpartiality to minimise its deficiences or from overfamiliarity to miss aspects or values of it which would strike an unaccustomed eye, it is always useful as well as interesting to know how others see it. It will not move us to change our viewpoint for theirs; but we can get fresh light from a study of this kind and help our self-introspection. But there

             

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE                   THE FOUNDATIONS OF INDIAN CULTURE comprises under a single connecting title the series of articles that appeared in the Arya from December 1918 to January 1921 in the following sequence: “Is India Civilised?”, “A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture” and “A Defence of Indian Culture”. These articles were later revised by the author.         The essay “Indian Culture and External Influence” which appeared in the Arya of March 1919 was also included in the first edition as it bears on the same subject.         THE FOUNDATIONS OF INDIAN CULTURE was first published in book-form in 1953 by the Sri Aurobindo Library, New York

    Indian Culture and External Influence   Indian Culture and External Influence                                   IN CONSIDERING Indian civilisation and its renascence, I suggested that a powerful new creation in all fields was our great need, the meaning of the renascence and the one way of preserving the civilisation. Confronted with the huge rush of modern life and thought, invaded by another dominant civilisation almost her opposite or inspired at least with a very different spirit to her own, India can only survive by confronting, this raw, new, aggressive, powerful world with fresh diviner creations of her own spirit, cast in the mould of her own spi