'Kena and Other Upanishads' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50 Taittiriya Upanishad   Shiksha Valli   Chapter I     Hari OM. Be peace to us Mitra. Be peace to us Varouna. Be peace to us Aryaman. Be peace to us Indra & Brihaspati. May far-striding Vishnu be peace to us. Adoration to the Eternal. Adoration to thee, O Vaiou. Thou, thou art the visible Eternal and as the visible Eternal I will declare thee. I will declare Righteousness! I will declare Truth! May that protect me! May that protect the Speaker! Yea, may it protect me! May it protect the Speaker. OM Peace! Peace! Peace!   Chapter II  

A Commentary on the Kena Upanishad   Foreword   The Upanishads are an orchestral movement of knowledge, each of them one strain in a great choral harmony. The knowledge of the Brahman, which is the Universality of our existence, and the knowledge of the world, which is the multiplicity of our existence, but the world interpreted not in the terms of its appearances as in Science, but in the terms of its reality, is the one grand and general subject of the Upanishads. Within this cadre, this general framework each Upanishad has its smaller province; each takes its own standpoint of the knower and its resulting aspect of the kn

The Religion of Vedanta   If it were asked by anyone what is this multitudinous, shifting, expanding, apparently amorphous or at all events multimorphous sea of religious thought, feeling, philosophy, spiritual experience we call Hinduism, what it is characteristically and essentially, we might answer in one word, the religion of Vedanta. And if it were asked what are the Hindus with their unique and persistent difference from all other races, we might again answer, the children of Vedanta. For at the root of all that we Hindus have done, thought and said through these thousands of years of our race-history, behind all we are and seek to be, there

Section Three   Incomplete Translations and Commentaries   Circa 1902 ­ 1912     Svetasvatara Upanishad   Chapter IV     1. He who is one and without hue, but has ordained manifoldly many hues by the Yoga of his Force and holds within himself all objects, and in Him the universe dissolves in the end, that Godhead was in the beginning. May He yoke us with a good and bright understanding.     2. That alone is the fire and That the sun and That the wind and That too the moon; That is the Luminous, That the Brahman, That the waters, That the Father and

Evolution in the Vedantic View   We must not however pass from this idea,1 as it is easy to pass, into another which is only a popular error,—that evolution is the object of existence. Evolution is not an universal law, it is a particular process, nor as a process has it any very wide applicability. Some would affirm that every particle of matter in the universe is bound to evolve life, mind, an individualised soul, a finally triumphant spirit. The idea is exhilarating, but impossible. There is no such rigid law, no such self-driven & unintelligent destiny in things. In the conceptions of the Upanishads Brahman in the world is not only Prajn

Chapter Three   The Hostile Forces and Hostile Beings   The Existence of the Hostile Forces   The hostile forces exist and have been known to Yogic experience ever since the days of the Veda and Zoroaster in Asia (and the mysteries of Egypt and Chaldea and the Cabbala) and in Europe also from old times. These things of course cannot be felt or known so long as one lives in the ordinary mind and its ideas and perceptions —for there there are only two categories of influences recognisable, the ideas and feelings and actions of oneself and others and the play of environment and physical forces. But once one begins to get the inner view of thing

Chapter Three   The Overmind   Overmind and the Cosmic Consciousness   Overmind is the highest source of the cosmic consciousness available to the embodied being in the Ignorance. It is part of the cosmic consciousness —but the human individual when he opens into the cosmic usually remains in the cosmic Mind-LifeMatter receiving only inspirations and influences from the higher planes of Intuition and Overmind. He receives through the spiritualised higher and illumined mind the fundamental experiences on which spiritual knowledge is based; he can become even full of intuitive mind movements, illuminations, various kinds of powers and illumined light, liber

Chapter Two   Classification of the Parts of the Being   Different Categories in Different Systems   1. The soul and the psychic being are practically the same, except that even in things which have not developed a psychic being, there is still a spark of the Divine which can be called the soul. The psychic being is called in Sanskrit the Purusha in the heart or the Chaitya Purusha. (The psychic being is the soul developing in the evolution.) 2. The distinction between Purusha and Prakriti is according to the Sankhya System —the Purusha is the silent witness consciousness which observes the actions of Prakriti —Prakriti is the force of Nat

Section Three   Destiny, Karma, Death and Rebirth     Chapter One   Fate, Free Will and Prediction   Destiny   Each follows in the world his own line of destiny which is determined by his own nature and actions —the meaning and necessity of what happens in a particular life cannot be under stood except in the light of the whole course of many lives. But this can be seen by those who can get beyond the ordinary mind and feelings and see things as a whole, that even errors, misfortunes, calamities are steps in the journey, the soul gathering experience as it passes through and beyond them until it is ripe for the tran

Chapter Two   The True Being and the True Consciousness   The True Being   The true being may be realised in one or both of two aspects —  the Self or Atman and the soul or antaratman, psychic being or Caitya Purusa. The difference is that one is felt as universal, the . other as individual supporting the mind, life and body. When one first realises the Atman one feels it separate from all things, existing in itself and detached, and it is to this realisation that the image of the dry coconut fruit may apply. When one realises the psychic being, it is not like that; for this brings the sense of union with the Divine and dependence upon it