Introduction to the Upanishads

This is a decent 15-minute video overview of the Upanishads produced by the Dr Sumit Kesarkar. The video below does not cover Sri Aurobindo’s commentary.  To read that, see the page on Upanishads

The Nachiketa fire sacrifice

It doesn’t matter how great your religion is or how ancient your scriptures are if you will not attempt to independently rediscover the Truths which were discovered by your forerunners.  Much too often, people forget this cardinal dictum and fall into the egoistic trap of boasting of the greatness of their religion without actually living it.  The practice of Yoga provides a pathway for rediscovering the verities recorded in the scriptures such as the Upanishads and Vedas.  This article examines the Nachiketa fire sacrifice as experienced by a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

Vidyas in the Upanishads – part 2

The Upanishads feature  koans for contemplation called Vidyas(literally means knowledge).  They are meant to trigger the mind into perceiving yet another facet of the Divine Reality thereby guiding the aspirant into deeper grades of meditation.   In a previous post Vidyas in the Upanishads, five such Vidyas were covered: Bhuma, Prana, Shandilya, Madhu and Vaishvanara.  The book Supreme Knowledge by Swami Brahmananda [3] lists an astounding 101 Vidyas drawn from the Upanishads.  This post discusses a few Vidyas drawn from this book.

PanchaTattva Dharana : contemplation on the five elements

This post supplements a previous post  Videha Dharana : fixing the mind outside the body, which discussed a method called Videha Dharana as per  Sri Anirvan.   The method is drawn from the Upanishads and can also be called PanchaTattva Dharana or contemplation on the five (pancha) elements (tattva) – namely earth, water, air, fire, ether.   There is a similar technique in the Tantra texts called Bhuta-Shuddhi which is also outlined  here.

Meditation techniques from the Yoga Upanishads

One of the techniques Sri Aurobindo and the Mother recommended for meditation was contemplating on Akasha or Space. This has been discussed in the section on Widening of consciousness. The source of this technique lies in the Yoga Upanishads. Out of the 108 Upanishads, there are 21 which are known as the Yoga Upanishads. These contain various methods of Dharana (i.e. one-pointed concentration). This post contains a brief overview of these techniques as given in the book Dharana Darshan by Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati of the Bihar School of Yoga.

Videha Dharana : fixing the mind outside the body

As discussed in the post Taming the Monkey Mind, the mind in contemplation can focus its awareness on many different objects – be they gross or subtle, within the body or without.  In this post, we will cover one more method called Videha Dharana(fixing the awareness outside the body) which has been briefly mentioned in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and elaborated by Sri Anirvan in his book Inner Yoga.  As we see below, what is noteworthy is that Sri Anirvan’s description of the transformation bears resemblance to some changes in body consciousness that were noted in exchanges between Sri Aurobindo and his disciples.

Links between Vedas, Upanishads, Tantra and Puranas

Sri Aurobindo and his disciples uncovered connections between the Vedas and the later scriptures such as Upanishads, Puranas and the Tantra by tracing the evolution of concepts, use of common verses and the underlying symbolism between these scriptures.  This is a synopsis of their discoveries collated from a variety of sources.

Vidyas in the Upanishads

The Upanishads, besides delineating various spiritual experiences, also give a few hints on sadhana, i.e., paths of spiritual realization. These methods of sadhana are called vidyas. This post outlines this in brief.

The Triple Cord

This post describes the three knots/granthis of mental, vital and physical ignorance that tie our consciousness to the physical world and bind our soul to the superficial personality.  When these knots are broken, our consciousness widens and opens to the cosmic mind, vital and physical.

The Golden Lid or Hiranmaya Patra

The Vedas and the Upanishads speak of a golden lid (Hiranmaya Patra in Sanskrit) which divides the lower rational mind from the higher planes of the Mind above us. This post explains the significance of that Golden Lid in the words of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.