ISHA UPANISHAD IN SIMPLE ENGLISH

 We begin the Upanishad with the invocation:

 AUM

That Brahm whole complete

This world whole complete

This world emerged from that Brahm

Even though the world emerged from Brahm

Brahm, undiminished, still remains whole complete as before.

Aum Peace Peace Peace

Introduction

The Isha Upanishad is also called Ishavasya Upanishad and it derives its name from the opening word of the text of the Upanishad ‘Isha’ meaning God. The Upanishad belongs to the Vajasaneyi School of the Yajur Veda. The Vajasaneyi Collection consists of forty chapters of which the Upanishad is the last, chapter forty. The Upanishad consists of just eighteen verses and is one of eleven principal Upanishads of the Hindu religion.

 The main purpose of the Upanishad is to teach the essential unity of God and the world, of being and of becoming. It is not interested so much in the absolute in itself, in Parbrahm, as in the absolute in relation to the world, as Parmeswara.

 The Upanishad emphasizes the unity of God and the world and the union of the two lives, the contemplative and the active. We cannot have the contemplative life without the active life. The Upanishad teaches that life in the world and life in the Divine Spirit are not incompatible and that it is possible to lead a spiritual life while engaging with the world.

The Upanishad

1     All that moves in this changing world, all that exists in creation, is all enveloped by God who pervades everything in creation.

Know and understand this and seek enjoyment in renunciation.

 Learn to renounce and enjoy life.

 Since God pervades each and every thing in creation, then how can any wealth or any luxury ever be ours?

Therefore, do not covet anything, and especially, do not covet what does not belong to you.

2      Always doing selfless and righteous works, without ever desiring any reward or fruit of those works, and dedicating all works to God, wish to live for a hundred years.

This is the only way by which karma, by which acts and works, will not stick and pollute, by which karma will not bind, and, therefore, will not be a cause for rebirth in this world.

3   People who deny the existence of the Self, of the Atma, they, in a way, become the slayers of the Self.

 Such people spend their entire life in the darkness of ignorance, and after death they go to the dark and sunless worlds of the Asuras or the demons, of those who delight only in the physical life, with no hope whatsoever of redemption.

4      The Supreme Spirit, the Param Atma is one.

Though unmoving, it is swifter than the mind.

 The senses can never reach it as it is ever ahead of them.

 Though Itsef still, it overtakes all those who run or move.

Rooted in and empowered by that very Param Atma, the all pervading air and the cosmic forces support life and the activities of all beings in creation.

5     The Param Atma moves and moves not.

 For those who deny its existence, and for those who do not know it, it is far, far away, unattainable as it were, but for the faithful, for the believers and for those who know the Param Atma, it is very near them and can be easily attained, for It is their very soul.

 It is within all beings and it is outside them as well.

 It is both immanent and transcendent.

6    He who sees all beings in his own self and his own self in all beings, he who sees unity in all creation, for such a one all divisions,  all differences, and all conflicts end, for then he does not feel any revulsion or hatred towards any being, since he himself has become one with them.

7      When one has seen and experienced the harmony of unity with all other beings of creation, when one has seen, known, and experienced the oneness of all beings becoming one with his own self, of all beings merging in him and of him merging in all beings, then that is the end of all his sorrows and that is the end of all his delusions.

8       The Supreme Lord has filled all, He has filled everyone and everything.

 He is without body and without limbs.

 He is pure, never having been touched or tainted by any evil or by any sin.

 He is ever luminous and radiant.

 He is invulnerable, unconquerable.

 He is the Thinker, He is the Seer, and He is the All Pervading and the Self Existent.

 He has through all these endless years created the universe and assigned duties to everything in it and has also distributed all objects in the universe according to their different natures.

9    Those who only worship ignorance, who put their faith only in rituals and works and do them without true spiritual  knowledge, they enter into, and live in blinding  darkness, while those who worship and put their faith only in spiritual knowledge ignoring works, and take delight in it, they enter into and live in still deeper darkness.

10    The wise have explained to us that what results from doing only rituals and works is, indeed, very different from what results from believing only in knowledge.

11    But he who understands both together, the doing of rituals and works, as well as spiritual knowledge, he, by performing rituals and doing his works crosses over death and through right spiritual  knowledge and its understanding he attains immortality and life eternal.

12        Those who put their faith in and worship only the  visible, perishable world, having shapes and forms, they enter into and live in blinding  darkness, while those who put their faith in and worship only the invisible, formless, imperishable Supreme, without truly understanding Him, they enter into still deeper darkness.

13         The wise have explained to us that what results from worshiping the visible world is, indeed, very different from what results from worshiping the invisible Supreme.

14            He who understands the visible, perishable world and the invisible, imperishable Supreme both together, through the understanding of the world he crosses over death and through the understanding of the Supreme he attains immortality and life eternal.

15         The face of truth is hidden behind a shining disc of gold, truth is hidden behind a curtain of gold.

 Remove that disc of gold; remove that curtain of gold, O Lord, so that I, the seeker of truth, may see the face of truth.

16        O Nourisher, O only seer, O solitary traveler, O Sun, O son of the Lord, gather up your rays and withdraw your blinding,  radiant,  light so that I, who thirst for the truth, may see your most beautiful form.

 Whosoever you are, that too am I.

 You and I are but one. You and I are one and the same.

17    O Lord, when death comes my way, may this life enter into the immortal breath, may my life force merge with the cosmic life force.

 Then may this body be consigned to fire and be reduced to ashes.

 O mind, O intelligence, think of all I have done throughout my life.

O mind, Remember all my deeds, O intelligence, remember all that I have done, remember, O mind, remember all my deeds.

18      O Agni, O Fire, lead us along the right and the auspicious path to prosperity and liberation.

 O God, you who know all our deeds, rid us of all deceitful sins and evil.

 We pray to you again and again, O Lord, We pray to you again and again.

                                         End of Isha Upanishad

                                         Aum Peace Peace Peace

KENA UPANISHAD IN SIMPLE ENGLISH

                    KENA UPANISHAD

We begin the Upanishad with an invocation to God.

 INVOCATION

1          O Supreme Lord, May my limbs, my speech, my breath, my eyes, my ears, my strength and all my senses always be vigorous.

2         The All-Powerful Supreme is the Brahm of the Upanishads. May I never discard Brahm. May Brahm never discard me. May there be no discarding. May there be no discarding of me.

3         May the truths that are stated in the Upanishad always live in me dedicated to the self, dedicated to the Atma.

4         AUM PEACE PEACE PEACE          

INTRODUCTION

The Kena Upanishad derives its name from the first word of the Upanishad “kena,” meaning, “by whom”. The Upanishad belongs to the Talvakara Brahmana of the Sama Veda and is also known as the “Talvakara”.

 It is one of the eleven principal Upanishads of the Hindu religion.

The Upanishad has four sections, the first two in verse, in metre, and the remaining two in prose. The portion in verse, deals with the Supreme Brahm, the Absolute Principle underlying the physical world of phenomena, while the prose part deals with the Supreme as Isvara, as God.

The knowledge of the Absolute, the knowledge of Brahm, is the higher knowledge by which immediate liberation, immediate salvation is obtained. This knowledge is possible only for those who are able to withdraw their thoughts from the worldly objects and concentrate on the Absolute.

The knowledge of Isvara or God, on the other hand, which is the lower knowledge, puts one on the path that will eventually lead to liberation, to salvation. The worshipping soul here gradually acquires the higher wisdom which results in him becoming conscious of the identity of Brahm and of him identifying with Brahm leading to his salvation.

The Upanishad is in the form of a dialogue between the seeker student and the teacher guru.

                                                        THE UPANISHAD

                                                            SECTION 1

                          

The student asks the Guru:

Respected Sir, by whose will and directed by whom does the mind light on its objects?

 By whose command does life, at first move?

                      At whose will do people utter their speech?

 And what God is it that prompts the eye and the ear to do their respective functions?

The Guru replies:

The One who does all this is the Supreme Brahm, who is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech, of the speech, the breath of the breath, and the eye of the eye. The wise realize and understand this. They realize that there is a Supreme Eternal Reality, called Brahm which is behind the mind, the life, and the senses, which is behind all these, and which enables all of them to perform their respective functions.

 Then realizing this, they give up all their wrong notions and ideas of their being the doers of all this, of their being self sufficient in this regard and, departing from the world, on their death, they become immortal.

The eye does not go there, Brahm cannot be seen by the eyes, the speech does not go there, speech cannot describe Brahm, nor can the mind go there, the mind cannot comprehend Brahm.

 Since it is beyond the reach of the mind and the senses, we do not know and we do not understand how one can teach or explain Brahm to anyone.

Brahm is other than the known, and it is also other than the not known and the unknown. Indeed, it is above both the known and the unknown.

 So have we heard from the ancients who have explained Brahm to us.

Know Brahm to be that which is not expressed through speech but that by which speech is expressed and not what people here think and worship.

That which is not thought by the mind but by which the mind thinks, know that really to be Brahm and not what people here think and worship.

       That which is not seen by the eye but by which the eyes see, know that in reality to be                                  Brahm and not what the people here think and worship.       

That which is not heard by the ear but by which the ears hear, know that truly to be Brahm and not what people here think and worship.

        That which is not breathed by life but by which life breathes, know that truly to be Brahm and not what people here think and worship.

                                                              SECTION 2

                  

If you think that you have understood Brahm very well, then you know it but slightly, you know it but little, you know only a small part of it, whether you be a mortal being or even a god.

 So even though you think it is known, and also because it is known only partially, only partly, it is required to be investigated by you as a student.

I do not think that I know it well enough, nor do I think that I do not know it at all.

 He, who among us knows it, knows it, and at the same time he does not know that he does not know. Indeed he is ignorant of his own ignorance.

To whomsoever it is not known, to him it is known: to whomsoever it is known, he does not, in reality, know it. Those who know do not speak; those who do not know speak.

 It is not understood by those who think they understand, it is understood by those who think they do not understand it.

                          

When Brahm is known through every state of cognition and consciousness, when it is known in the states of waking, dreaming sleep, and dreamless sleep, then it is rightly known for by such knowledge one attains life eternal, one attains immortality. Through one’s own Self, one gains power, and through wisdom, one gains immortality.

If here on earth, while in this physical body, a person knows Brahm then he realizes the truth and there is great gain, because then he attains moksha, he attains salvation. But if here on earth, while in this physical body, he does not know Brahm, then there is great loss, because then he remains stuck in the cycle of birth and death and does not attain salvation.

 Therefore, always seeking and seeing the Real, always seeing Brahm in all beings, such a wise man becomes immortal on departing from this world.

                                                     SECTION 3

  

It is said that Brahm once conquered for the gods who gloried in that conquest thinking it was a victory won by them alone. They became conceited, and in their conceit they thought: we alone have won this victory which is ours alone as is the greatness on account of this victory.

Brahm saw this conceit of the gods. To rid them of their conceit, Brahm appeared before the gods as a spirit in the sky.

 Seeing him the gods did not know who he was or what his powers were.

They said to Agni, the Fire God: O Jata-Veda go and find out what that spirit is. Agni said: yes and rushed towards the spirit to find out what it was. When he reached near it, the spirit asked him: Who are you and what are your powers?

Agni replied: I am Agni, I am the well known Jata- Veda, the God of Fire. I can burn everything on earth.

Brahm placed a blade of grass before Agni and said: Burn this.

Agni, the Fire God, went with all speed towards it and with all his might, tried to burn the blade of grass but could not.

 He returned, chastened, to the gods and said “I could not find out what that spirit is.”

Then the gods said to Vayu, the God of the Wind(Air): You go and find out what that spirit is. Vayu said ‘yes’ and ran towards the spirit to find out what it was. When he reached near it, the spirit, who was Brahm, asked him: Who are you and what are your powers?

Vayu replied: I am Vayu, I am the famous Matarisvan, I am the God of the Wind and I can blow off everything on earth.

To test him Brahm again placed a blade of grass before him and said: Blow this off.

The Wind God went with all speed towards it, and with all his might, he tried to blow off the blade of grass but he was not able to blow it off.

 Chastened, he, too, returned to the gods and said: I have not been able to find out what that spirit is.

Then the gods went to their chief Indra and said: O Maghavan, now you go and find out who that spirit is.

 Indra said: ‘yes’, and ran towards it but the spirit disappeared from the sky, and in its place, in the same region of the sky, Indra came across the most beautiful Uma, daughter of Himalaya. He asked her: Lady, Who is that spirit?

                                                            SECTION 4

                   

Uma replied: The spirit you saw in the sky is Brahm, and it was Brahm who conquered for you, which victory you thought you had won by yourself and in which all of you have been taking so much pride.

      Then only did Indra realise that the spirit was Brahm.

Therefore these three gods Indra, Agni and Vayu surpass all the other gods for it was they that touched Brahm closely, for it was they, indeed, who were the first to know that it was Brahm.

And, Indra surpasses all the other gods since he was the first among the gods to know, on Uma’s telling that it was Brahm. He was, in fact, the first god to know Brahm.

                Of this Brahm there is this teaching: Brahm is like a flash of lightning or like the blink of an eye. This is the teaching concerning the gods, this is how the Gods see Brahm, He appears before them like a flash of lightning.

Now the teaching concerning the Self: It is this Brahm towards which the mind is always attracted and towards which it appears to move inexorably, and it is by the same mind that one remembers Brahm constantly, and one also exercises his free will.

Brahm, indeed, is the object of all desires, and truly, it is the dearest of all.

 It is to be meditated upon as such.

 Whosoever knows Brahm as such, is sought by all beings, all beings seek such a realized one. He is loved by all.

The Student says to the teacher: Sir, tell me the secret of Brahm, teach me the Upanishad.

The teacher replies: The secret of Brahm has been told to you.

We have taught you the Upanishad.

Austerities, self control and work, all these are the support of Brahm.

 The Vedas are its limbs and truth is the abode of Brahm.

Whosoever knows this, he, indeed, in the end overcomes sin and is firmly established in the Supreme. Yes he is firmly established in the Supreme.

                                         END OF KENA UPANISHAD

                                    AUM PEACE PEACE PEACE            

Isha Upanishad in simple Hindi

Isha Upanishad
The Isa Upanishad is also called Isavasya Upanishad and it derives its name from the opening word of the text of the Upanishad. It belongs to the Vajasaneyi School of the Yajur Veda. The Vajasaneyi Samhita consists of forty chapters of which the Upanishad is the last.