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Why Study Upanishad?
The Upanishads reveal the highest truth – that the divine principle (Brahma) and every one of us (Atma) are one. Understanding this, and owning this vision through contemplation and inquiry, leads to our life’s highest fulfillment. Insecurity ends. Love, peace and compassion characterize our thoughts, words and deeds.
When our intellect is ripe, the truth revealed by Upanishads destroys our ego instantly. Erasure of the ego is the essence of spirituality.
Shri Ramana Maharshi says:
If the ego rises, all else will also rise; if it subsides, all else will also subside. The deeper the humility with which we conduct ourselves, the better it is for us. If only the mind is kept under control, what matters it where one may happen to be?
A ripe intellect is ready to let go of all baggage that is the past. It does not cling to any idea of superiority, inferiority, being merited or being a sinner. It is ready to discern and distinguish between the true and the false. Such a pure intellect leaves the false way without resistance and moves in the true direction gracefully. A revelation from the Upanishads, like “tat tvam asi” (Thou art That, you are one with the divine), facilitates such an intellect to dissolve individuality and experience undivided expanse of pure existence-awareness.
When our intellect (buddhi) is not ripe, we are soaked in the past. Our attachments confine us to a limited sphere of egoistic thought. We are then interested in ‘becoming’ somebody, something. That keeps us on an endless wild goose chase.
Are Upanishads of any help to us even when our mind is impure? The second level of teachings supplied by these sacred compositions does come to our rescue.
In the journey of life, our body is the chariot. Our mind is the reins. Senses are the horses. The driver is no other than the intellect. The essential point is to keep the horses on the right track. “Keep your senses under check,” exhorts one of the Upanishads (Katha 1.3.6) for example.
These books of wisdom urge us to give up false ways of living, marked by undue attachment to pleasure, habitual emotional (over-) excitements or by scattered thinking (lacking in focus). “Unless you desist from bad conduct, you will not attain this Self through right seeing,” says a text (Katha 1.2.24).
Upanishads are thus for living rightly. In right living alone we enjoy healthy relationships and true inner peace.
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Swami Chidananda
January 7, 2014