The Spirit of Hinduism   God   OM ityetad aksaram idam sarvam; OM is the syllable, OM is the Universe; all that was, all that is, all that will be is OM. With this pregnant confession of faith Hinduism begins its interpretation of the Universe. Metaphysical systems arise and metaphysical systems fall; Hegel disappears and Kant arrives; Pantheism, Theism, Atheism pursue their interminable round, and there is no finality. Then Science comes and declares the whole vanity, for all is physical and there is nothing metaphysical save in the brain of the dreamer; and yet tho' Science has spoken still there is no fi

God and Immortality   Chapter I   The Upanishad   The Upanishads stand out from the dim background of Vedic antiquity like stupendous rock cathedrals of thought hewn out of the ancient hills by a race of giant builders the secret of whose inspiration and strength has passed away with them into the Supreme. They are at once Scripture, philosophy and seer-poetry; for even those of them that dispense with the metrical form, are prose poems of a rhythmically mystic thought. But whether as Scripture, philosophical theosophy or literature, there is nothing like them in ancient, mediaeval or modern, in Occidental

Nila Rudra Upanishad   First Part   Translation     1. OM. Thee I beheld in thy descending down from the heavens to the earth, I saw Rudra, the Terrible, the azure-throated, the peacock-feathered, as he hurled.     2. Fierce he came down from the sky, he stood facing me on the earth as its lord,—the people behold a mass of strength, azure-throated, scarlet-hued.     3. This that cometh is he that destroyeth evil, Rudra the Terrible, born of the tree that dwelleth in the waters; let the globe of the stormwinds come too, that destroyeth for thee all things of evil ome

Chhandogya Upanishad   Chapter I   and the first section     1. Worship ye OM, the eternal syllable. OM is Udgitha, the chant of Samaveda; for with OM they begin the chant of Sama. And this is the exposition of OM.     2. 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, Rigveda the essence of Speech, Sama the essence of Rik. Of Sama OM is the essence.     3. This is the eighth essence of the essences and

'Kena and Other Upanishads' by Sri Aurobindo - Page 1 of 50 Note on the Texts     Note on the Texts   KENA AND OTHER UPANISHADS comprises Sri Aurobindo's translations of and commentaries on Upanishads other than the Isha Upanishad, as well as translations of later Vedantic texts, and writings on the Upanishads and Vedanta philosophy in general. Translations of and commentaries on the Isha Upanishad are published in Isha Upanishad, volume 17 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO. Sri Aurobindo's work on the Upanishads occupied more than twenty years, from around 1900 until the early 1920s. (One translation was revised some twenty-five years a

The Mandoukya Upanishad   Before which one repeats the Mantra.     OM. May we hear what is auspicious with our ears, O ye Gods; may we see what is auspicious with our eyes, O ye of the sacrifice; giving praise with steady limbs, with motionless bodies, may we enter into that life which is founded in the Gods. Ordain weal unto us Indra of high-heaped glories; ordain weal unto us Pushan, the all-knowing Sun; ordain weal unto us Tarkshya Arishtanemi; Brihaspati ordain weal unto us. OM. Peace! peace! peace!     1. OM is this imperishable Word, OM is the Universe, and this is the exposition of OM.

The Great Aranyaka   A Commentary on the Brihad Aranyak Upanishad _____   Foreword   The Brihad Aranyak Upanishad, at once the most obscure and the profoundest of the Upanishads, offers peculiar difficulties to the modern mind. If its ideas are remote from us, its language is still more remote. Profound, subtle, extraordinarily rich in rare philosophical suggestions and delicate psychology, it has preferred to couch its ideas in a highly figurative and symbolical language, which to its contemporaries, accustomed to this suggestive dialect, must have seemed a noble frame for its riches, but meets

'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