Principal Upanishads

Minor Upanishads

Maha Upanishad Part 5

V-100. ‘The imperishable Spirit, free from all imaginings and beyond nomenclature, has been assigned designations like one’s Self, etc.

   V-101-102. ‘Transparent like a hundredth part of ether, partless as manifested in those who know, ever aware of the sole Self of all that is pure in empirical life, this Spirit neither sets nor rises; neither rises up nor lies (low); neither goes nor returns; it is neither present nor absent here.

   V-103. ‘This Spirit has a flawless mode (of its own), indubitable and propless.

   V-104. ‘At the very outset, purify the disciple through excellence such as mind’s tranquillity, restraint of sense-organs, etc. Next impart to him the teaching that all this (world) is Brahman, viz., the purified Thou.

   V-105. ‘One who teaches an ignoramus or half-awakened (disciple) that ‘all this is Brahman’ will (in effect) plunge him in an endless series of hells.

   V-106. ‘But a disciple whose intellect has been well-awakened, whose craving for objective enjoyments has been extinguished, and who is free from all ‘expectations’ is rid of all impurities born of nescience; the wise teacher may instruct him.

   V-107. ‘Like its effulgence where there is light, like the day where there is the sun, like the fragrance where there is a flower, so is there a world where there is the Spirit.

   V-108. ‘When the view-point of Knowledge is purged, when (the dawn of) awakening spreads vastly, this very world will cease to appear as real.

   V-109. ‘Established in yourself, you will realize aright the strength and weakness of the flood of my words (of instruction) – (you will realize it) by the highest mode of nescience that spurs the effort to wipe out the sphere of the petty Self.

   V-100. ‘By it (the highest mode of nescience) is won the knowledge that consumes all errors, O Brahmin ! One missile puts another out of action; one flaw destroys its opposite.

   V-111. ‘One poison may be neutralised by another; an enemy may destroy another. Such is the wonderful riddle of elements that pleases through self-destruction !

   V-112. ‘The real nature of this riddle is not perceived. As it is observed, it perishes – observed with the flaming imagination whose content is: ‘in Truth it exists not at all’.

   V-113. ‘He who cherishes with the (creative) and liberating imagination (the thought that) all this is spirit, that the perception of difference is nescience, should renounce this (nescience) in all possible ways.

   V-114. ‘sage ! That ultimate Status which is said to be imperishable is (in truth) not won. Twice-born sage ! Speculate not as to whence this (nescience) has arisen.

   V-115. ‘Speculate rather on: ‘how shall I destroy it ? Once it is dissipated and dispelled you will (renunciation-)cognise that status.

   V-116. ‘That integral status (includes the knowledge) ‘Whence this Maya has come and how it has perished. Therefore try to treat (with remedies) this abode
of diseases (i.e. Maya).

   V-117-118(a). ‘So that she may not subject you again to the sufferings of birth (etc.,). ‘The sea of the Spirit shines forth in one’s Self with its splendid inner vibrations. With certitude meditate inwardly that is homogeneous and infinite.

   V-118(b). ‘The power of the Spirit in the sea of the Spirit is a slightly agitated state of the latter.

   V-119. Like a wave in the sea, that pure Power shines forth there, just as the wind automatically blows in the sky.

   V-120. ‘In the same way, the Self in itself, by its own power, becomes mobile. That omnipotent Deity flashes forth for a moment.

   V-121. ‘Whose potencies of space, time and action are not enhanced (by any means); who is pre-eminently established in her infinitude, being fully conscious of her own essential nature.

   V-122. Un-comprehended, She brings into being a finite form. When that supremely enchanting Deity brings forth that (finite) form.

   V-123-124(a). Other ideas (views), names, number, etc.; follow her. The individual self (‘Knower of the field’) is the designation of this form of the Spirit, O Brahmin; it is the basis of space, time and activity, and its forms are rooted in manifold (mental) constructions.

   V-124(b). ‘He (‘the Knower of the field’) generating latent impressions, again, assumes the form of egoism.

   V-125. ‘The tainted egoism, as determiner, is called intellect, which, imagining forms, becomes the base for cogitation (or mind).

   V-126. ‘With its profuse imaginings the mind slowly is (transmuted into) sense-organs. The wise deem the body with its hands and feet (nothing but) the senses.

   V-127. ‘Thus, indeed, in stages descends the Jiva, bound by the cords of imaginings and impressions, and encompassed by a multitude of sufferings.

   V-128. ‘The potent Spirit, thus degenerating into dense egoism, passes voluntarily into bondage as a silk-worm in its cocoon.

   V-129. ‘And, like a lion in chains, becomes totally dependent finding itself within a net of its own imaginings and nothing more.

   V-130. ‘Sometimes (it operates as) mind, sometimes as intellect; sometimes as cognition; sometimes as (pure) action. Sometimes it is egoism and sometimes it is held to be what is thought.

   V-131. ‘Sometimes it is called Prakriti and sometimes it is held to be Maya. Sometimes it is designated a ‘flaw’ and sometimes referred to as ‘action’.

   V-132. ‘Sometimes it is proclaimed as bondage and sometimes accounted the ‘eight-fold case’. Sometimes it is said to be avidya and sometimes it is identified with ‘desire’.

   V-133. ‘Bearing within itself, as its seeds the fig-tree, this entire empirical sphere that fashions the cords of cravings, the Jiva is verily a tree sans fruits.

   V-134-135(a). O Brahmin ! Like an elephant stuck in the morass, is the mind consumed in the flames of worries, crushed by the python of rage, attached to the waves of the sea of lust, and oblivious of its own grand progenitor (the Spirit): -- rescue it.

   V-135(b)-136. ‘Thus are the Jivas (living beings) phases of the Spirit and established through bringing the empirical sphere into being. Their forms, in lakhs and Crores, have been assigned by Brahma. Numberless (Jivas) were born in the past and even now are being brought forth on all sides.

   V-137. ‘Others also will be born like multitudes of water-drops from a water-fall. Some of them are in their first birth; others have (already) had more than a hundred births.

   V-138. ‘Yet others have (already) had countless births. Some will have two or more births, besides. Some are born as sub-human and super-human beings, gifted with music and Knowledge; some as mighty reptiles.

   V-139. ‘Some of (these living beings) are (to be identified with) the sun, the moon and the lord of waters; others with Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. Some divided themselves as Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Sudras.

   V-140. ‘Others with grass, herbs, trees, with their fruits, roots and winged insects. Jivas are (also to be identified with) trees like the Kadamba, the Jambira, the Sama, Tala and Tamala.

   V-141. ‘And with mounts like Mahendra, Malaya, Sahya, Mandara and Meru; and with the seas of salt water, milk, ghee and sugarcane-juice.

   V-142. ‘And with the vast quarters, and fast-running rivers; some of these sport high above (the earth); some descend and again fly upwards.

   V-143-144(a). ‘Hit ceaselessly by death, as though they are balls hit by the hands, these Jivas are ceaselessly struck down by death as balls are by the hand. Having undergone thousands of births, again, some unwise ones despite (a degree of) discrimination, fall into the turmoils of worldly life.

   V-144(b)-145. ‘The principle of the Self, undetermined by space, time, etc.; by virtue of Its power, just sportively assumes a body spatial and temporal. Possessed of innate tendencies (to manifest) various orders of living beings, Itself is the supreme (Lord and Creator) that becomes the mind, that is unstable and inclined to construction and dissolution.

   V-146-148(a). ‘In the beginning in a moment, the Constructive Power of the Mind fashions the transparent (image of) space inclined to own, as its essence, the seed of sound. Then, becoming dense, by the process of gross vibrations, that mind brings forth the vibrations of air inclined to own the seed of touch.

   V-148(b)-149(a). ‘Of these two space and air, the bases of sound and touch, by intense repetitive frictions, is generated the fire.

   V-149(b)-150. ‘Then the mind enriched by these three including rudimentary form proceeds to the notion of pure liquidity and, instantaneously, becomes aware of the coolness of water followed by the perception of water.

   V-151. ‘The mind thus enriched by such attributes meditates all at once on rudimentary smell; thence arises the perception of the earth-element.

   V-152. ‘Next this body encompassed by the rudimentary elements discards its subtleness beholding in the sky a flash like a spark of fire.
   V-153. ‘Conjoined to the element of egoism and the seed of the intellect, this bee in the lotus of the elemental heart is (now) styled the Puryashtaka.

V-154. ‘Due to intensity of yearning in it, by meditating on a resplendent embodiment, the mind grows grosser as a Bilva-fruit does through the process of ripening.
   V-155. ‘That effulgence in the sky, shining like liquid gold in a crucible, assumes a form with definite contours by virtue of its inherent nature.

V-156. ‘Upwards is the round head; downwards the feet. Of the two sides are the hands and in the middle what functions as the belly.

   V-157(a). ‘In course of time the body (indwelt by the mind) gets fully developed and becomes flawless.

   V-157(b)-158(a). ‘That same divine Brahma, the grandfather of the entire world, gets established in intelligence, purity, strength, energy, forms of knowledge and lordship.

   V-158(b)-160(a). ‘Beholding his own attractive and pre-eminent body, the blessed Lord, the range of whose perception embraces all the three divisions of time, wondered what first would make its appearance in this supreme space whose essence is pure Spirit and whose limits are nowhere.

   V-160(b). ‘Thus wondered Brahma whose vision was as flawless as that of Shiva.

   V-161. ‘In large groups he behold bygone orders of (cosmic) manifestation. Next he recollected them all in the due order of all their attributes.

   V-162. ‘(Then) sportively he fashioned, by (sheer) imagination, variegated living beings with their unique patterns of behaviour – the whole constituting, as it were, a city in the sky.

   V-163. ‘For securing their happy state as well as liberation, for attaining righteousness, love and wealth, he set up Shastras endless and varied.

   V-164. ‘As the existence of the world has been set up by mind in the form of Brahma, it lasts only as long as Brahma; with his destruction, the world too perishes.

   V-165. ‘O best of Brahmins, in reality nothing anywhere, at any time, is born or is destroyed. All that is seen is unreal (neither is nor is not).

   V-166. ‘Give up the idle show of empirical life, a very pit of the serpents of cravings. Knowing this to be unreal, reduce them all to the status of their ground.

   V-167. Vis-à-vis ‘the city in the sky’, whether adorned or not, or the parts of its constitutive case (the nescience), progeny etc., what rationale is there for pleasures and pains ?

   V-168. ‘Sorrow – and not a sense of gratification – is in order as regards wealth and spouse in their nourishing state. Who can have a sense of reassurance here as the nescience of delusion gets more and more entrenched ?

   V-169. ‘Those very (empirical) experiences which, in their abundance, cause a fool to get attached (to this world) are the source, in the case of a wise man, of his dispassion.

   V-170. ‘Therefore, Nidagha, with your awareness of Truth, cultivate indifference to whatever has perished among the activities of empirical life and accept whatever offers itself.

   V-171. ‘The marks of a man of discrimination are spontaneous indifference to experiences that do not come of their own accord and hearty acceptance of those that do.

   V-172. ‘Knowing and resorting to the untarnished middle status between the real and the unreal, neither cling to nor fly from the objective realm, external or internal.

   V-173. ‘The intelligence of a wise and active man, free from attachment and aversion, remains untarnished like a lotus leaf unmoistened by water.

   V-174. ‘O twice-born (sage), if the glamour of objects charms not your heart, then, having grasped what ought to be known (achieved true wisdom), you have crossed the sea of empirical life.

   V-175. ‘In order to win the pre-eminent Status separate, by means of supreme wisdom, the functioning mind from (all) latent impressions as one does a strong scent from the flower.

   V-176. ‘The superior men of discrimination who board the Ship of Wisdom cross this sea of empirical life full of the waters of latent impressions.

   V-177. ‘Those men who know this world as well as what is beyond conform to all things. They neither shun nor seek the ways of the world.

   V-178. ‘The sprouting of mental construction consists in Spirits’ proneness to objects (‘knowables’) – the Spirit that is infinite, that is the Truth of the Self, and that is Universal Being.

   V-179. ‘That very sprouting having lightly come into being gradually fills out, developing into the mind; then it promotes inertness like a cloud.

   V-180. ‘Imagining objects as other than the Self, as it were, the Spirit is transformed into a constructive process, as it were; just as a seed is into a sprout.

   V-181. (Mental) construction is indeed the process of putting together (of constituents); it comes automatically into being and waxes fast unto pain, never unto delight.

   V-182. ‘Indulge not in mental construction; in a state of stability, dwell not on positive existence. Persevere in stopping mental construction. Thus one never again pursues the trail of construction.

   V-183. ‘By the mere absence of imagination, (the process of) mental construction dwindles automatically. (One act of) construction leads to another. Mind battens on itself, O sage !

   V-184. ‘Getting (off construction) abide in the Self. Once this is done, what can prove difficult ? Just as this sky is empty, so is the entire cosmos.

   V-185. ‘Wise Brahmin ! Just as a paddy husk or the black coating on copper, through effort, is destroyed so also may the mental impurities of man.
   V-186. ‘As a grain of paddy, the innate impurity of a Jiva, too, can be destroyed in ample measure. There is no doubt in that. Therefore, strive’.

Maha Upanishad - Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part6