Week 7 The Upanishads

The Indian Classics go back 4,000 years. The first books to refer to yoga are the ancient Tantras, later the Vedas and then in the Upanishads yoga takes a more definable shape.

Upanishad means sitting down near, and the Upanishads are records that were kept of sessions of teaching where the student would be sat at the feet of the teacher. Each Upanishad is complete and their purpose was to inspire.

The sages of the Upanishads peeled away personality like an onion, layer by layer and they found nothing permanent in the mass of perceptions, thoughts, emotions, drives and memories. Yet when everything individual was stripped away, an intense awareness remained –this was what they studied -I think we may acknowledge this as our essence.

Today the main focus is on 10 principal Upanishads

The Upanishads look inward, they focus on knowing the mind, meditation, pure concentration

Yoga was defined as a complete integration of consciousness

For the sages Self realization meant health, vitality, long life and a harmonious balance of inward and outward activity.

The sages of the Upanishads learned to make a science and art and craft of insight, something that could be mastered and then taught to others.

There is a still world that is always present in the depths of the mind. It is the deepest, most universal layer of the unconscious. It you can become aware of this state, then the teaching from the Upanishads claim that you will be who you truly are, free from the conditioning of body and mind, not limited by outside influences.

A famous Upanishad that you may have heard quoted

'You are what your deep driving desire is

As our desire is, so is your will

As your will is so is your deed

As your deed is so is your destiny'

Bhihadaranyaka IV 4.5

The Upanishads have been translated many times, This extract was taken from The Upanishads introduced and translated by Eknath Easwaran.