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    Upanishads: A Journey Into the Unknown : Essence of Timeless Insights Attained Through Deep States of Meditation
    Upanishads: A Journey Into the Unknown : Essence of Timeless Insights Attained Through Deep States of Meditation
    Upanishads: A Journey Into the Unknown : Essence of Timeless Insights Attained Through Deep States of Meditation
    Ebook101 pages2 hours

    Upanishads: A Journey Into the Unknown : Essence of Timeless Insights Attained Through Deep States of Meditation

    By Dr.King

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    About this ebook

    These timeless insights, recorded several thousands of years ago, declare the oneness of not only the human beings – irrespective of cast, religion, gender, race, but also the entire animate and inanimate world. They ask:”How can anyone hate or kill anyone else, when in reality, we are all one in the ultimate sense?” They also provide us a way of experiencing this ultimate truth, the pinnacle of our spiritual journey.
    At the same time, Upanishads don’t advocate abandonment of worldly life. They advise that “one should aspire to live on for full hundred years, enjoying the world; while keeping in mind the oneness of all. So enjoy, but without over indulgence; Acquire wealth, but without snatching someone else’s rightful share. At the same time, keep doing your duty”.
    In a time, riddled with mutual distrust, hatred, violence, and narrow identities, what could be a more apt message than the one given by these Upanishads?!
    This book provides a wonderful insight into the profound wisdom of these ancient texts that make lot of sense in the world we are in today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDr.King
    Release dateMar 9, 2018
    ISBN9781370234059
    Upanishads: A Journey Into the Unknown : Essence of Timeless Insights Attained Through Deep States of Meditation
    Author

    Dr.King

    Dr.King is an avid writer in the nonfictional category. In the past 3 decades he has written several books in the areas of philosophy, Yoga, religious practices, sculpture, gardening, and so on. His books often blend scientific outlook with traditional faiths and practices. His books especially in the area of ancient philosophy succinctly showcase volumes of ancient literature in a condensed form, providing very authentic, insightful and unbiased portrayal. These books are generally characterized as thought provoking, giving an incisive look at the otherwise difficult to understand topics. One can expect to find reliable information, devoid of glorification and hype that is typical in this category.

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      Book preview

      Upanishads - Dr.King

      Prologue

      Religions are meant to unite and not divide. If you look at the core principles of any religion, be it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and so on, you can find an undercurrent of unification and peaceful coexistence.

      Unfortunately, the irony of the day is that these very same religions have become excuses to divide us. They have become sources of hatred, intolerance, and ensuing violence and bloodshed. So much so, that many intellectuals have taken up the cause of eradicating religions, since they view them as the bane of all ills.

      Upanishads are one of the most ancient scriptures. Though the main focus of Upanishads is on one single entity that can be construed as God, they are in no way religious texts. They don’t promote worship of any deity, nor do they talk about any rituals or practices, unlike religious texts. Their purpose is to take the idea of unification to the ultimate.

      They are at the pinnacle of  human thought that unifies not only all human beings irrespective of geography, race, religion, and gender, they even try to unify all living as well as non living beings. Their message is all encompassing. Their goal is collective peaceful coexistence.

      In a world riddled with hatred and violence in the name of narrow religious dogmas, and the authority of poorly understood religious scriptures, Upanishads have a lot to offer. It is amazing how such profound thoughts occurred to our common ancestors millenniums ago, which we, the so called evolved humanity, are in dire need.

      I hope that this book would open up some new thinking and force some of us to look beyond our narrow mental makeup. The world would be a better place to live in.

      F:\my_books\amazon\end_of_chapter.jpg

      Upanishads – A journey into the unknown, nay, unknowable

      F:\my_books\amazon\am_ancient_wisdom\cover_design\cover_logo_old.jpg Upanishads are ancient Indian texts that are supposed to be visions of sages when they were in a deep state of meditation,. These are passed on from generation to generation in a purely oral tradition for more than 3000 years.

      Figure 1 Ancient way of communicating in an oral tradition

      You can find a brief overview of these texts in Appendix. Most of these texts focus prominently on one indescribable entity namely the Ätma or the Brahma – a rough equivalent of God in common parlance. But they describe this entity in a way that using the word ‘God’ may be quite misleading, though I keep using the word God just for convenience.

      It looks quite paradoxical to say that they describe something indescribable! How can someone describe something that is beyond words?

      If you are to describe something that has no similarity to whatsoever you know, something that has no specific attributes, no qualifiers, how do you do that? That is the problem these sages seem to have had when they tried to describe the Ätma in these Upanishads. They have experienced it, but they have no words to explain it.

      To describe anything, we need to use words. We need to talk in terms of things we already know. If you want to describe sea to a person who has never seen a sea, the best you can probably say is that the sea is a vast collection of water, with waves and so on. But that can never match your experience that you had when you actually saw the sea.

      To give another simile, it is like explaining someone who has never tasted coffee, about how coffee tastes. You can know fully about the taste only when you taste it yourselves. No words can express it.

      The sages have experienced the Ätma in their deep states of meditation. But that experience is unparalleled with anything that they might have experienced outside of their meditative states. Can any such thing really exist? Or is it just some sort of weird happening in the brain when one is put in a deep state of meditation?

      I personally believe that such experiences are possible. Long long ago, I used to write short articles in a magazine. These articles were based on some insights I had. But I used to cloak them in what I used to call ‘absurd style’ to make them appear funny. Many of my readers liked these articles for altogether different reasons, but none understood what I originally meant to convey.

      One of my friends, a Vedic scholar who used to read my articles, once told me that my articles have lot of similarities with what is described in the Upanishads.

      In those days I was not at all familiar with Upanishads, let alone write articles based on them. So I jokingly dismissed his observation by saying that May be anyone who lives in a certain way and develops some form of mental makeup, comes up with the same ideas!

      At that

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