The last 2 verses of Isha Upanishad are Rishi’s powerful invocations to Gods Surya and Agni who alone can uplift him and open still higher vistas of Light and Power leading to the final goal of Immortality while still living on earth for a full span of life.
Sri Aurobindo on Isha Upanishad – Part 6 Read More »
Explaining verses 15 and 16, which invoke the Sun God, the author illustrates the close relationship that exists between the Upanishads and the Veda.
Sri Aurobindo on Isha Upanishad – Part 5 Read More »
Though outwardly the festival of Durga Puja symbolizes the victory of Truth over falsehood, this 3-part essay explores the festival’s deeper, inner significance concerning the process of individual and cosmic evolution.
Goddess Durga and the Festival of Devi: An Inner Meaning (Part 1) Read More »
The author outlines how the nine forms of the goddess form an ascending hierarchy of shakti or energy rising from the mulādhara, traveling upwards gaining strength and force and momentum with each upward gust and impulsion until it reaches the crown and passing beyond unites with its Lord.
Goddess Durga and the Festival of Devi: An Inner Meaning (Part 2) Read More »
The author, in this part, cites some significant descriptions given by the Mother of her realisations. These passages speak of how Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga takes a giant leap over tradition wherein he is not content with the slaying of a demon or many demons but by their conversion or dissolution for good. But for this not only man but even the gods must collaborate.
Goddess Durga and the Festival of Devi: An Inner Meaning (Part 3) Read More »
A wider view of Indian cultural forms suggests that Rām-kathā continues to thrive as an important influence despite the outer hybridity in Indian popular cultural landscape.
Rām-kathā, a Living Tradition of India Read More »
The featured excerpt is taken from a monograph edited by Shri Kireet Joshi and written by G. C. Nayak, titled “Selected Episodes from Kalidasa’s Raghuvamśam of Kālidāsa” (2010). This monograph is part of a series on Value-oriented Education centered on three values : Illumination, Heroism and Harmony.
Sītā’s Banishment by Rāma in Kālidāsa’s Raghuvamśam Read More »
Sri Aurobindo summarises the essence of verses 9-14 of Isha Upanishad in ‘The Life Divine’: “Through Avidya, the Multiplicity, lies our path out of the transitional egoistic self-expression in which death and suffering predominate; through Vidya consenting with Avidya by the perfect sense of oneness even in that multiplicity, we enjoy integrally the immortality and the beatitude. By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death; by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity.”
Sri Aurobindo on Isha Upanishad – Part 4 Read More »
In this part 3 of our ongoing series, the focus is on verses 6-8 of Isha Upanishad. We are reminded that it is the Brahman that is the origin, the end and the container of the things; creating, he indwells the forms of his manifestation, enjoys variously his thousand abodes. He is the One, the same everywhere. And if each individual formation behaves and acts as if it is a separate entity, different from others, it is because it is clouded in its outer consciousness, it has temporarily lost touch with the unifying knowledge and consciousness at its back—that which sustains it as well as it does all the rest in a common extension.
Sri Aurobindo on Isha Upanishad – Part 3 Read More »
In this part, the author focuses on the first 4 verses of Isha Upanishad. He reminds that this Upanishad addresses itself to the question of world-existence, the problem of harmonising human life and activity with the Reality of Immutable Brahman. The solution it finds is one of the most remarkable found by the ancient Indian mind.
Sri Aurobindo on Isha Upanishad – Part 2 Read More »
We present four brief passages from Sri Aurobindo’s writings done in early 1910. The immense significance of these passages for today’s India can’t be missed.
On Ācāra, Vicāra, Viveka, Jñāna Read More »
In this six-part series, we present an essay by M.P. Pandit which summarises some of Sri Aurobindo’s commentaries on the Isha Upanishad. The first introductory part highlights Sri Aurobindo’s comments on translating the Upanishads, and the errors made by Max Muller and other Indologists who fail to capture the spirit of the scripture because they lack the inner vision of the Truth expressed in scripture.
Sri Aurobindo on Isha Upanishad – 1 Read More »