Meditation and Dreams: Share your experience

[sesame]

The Main Upanishads are:

1. Aitareya Upanishad from Rigveda
   
2. Kena Upanishad from Samveda
   
3. Chandogya Upanishad from Samveda
   
4. Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad is the most important, from White Yajur Veda
   
5. Svetasvatara Upanishad is from Yajur veda (my fav)
   
6. Katha Upanishad from Yajurveda
   
7. Taittiriya Upanishad is from Yajurveda
   
8. Isha Upanishad from White Yajurveda
   
9. Mundaka Upanishad from Atharva veda
   
10. Prashna Upanishad comes from Atharva veda
    
11. Mandukya Upanishad is essence of all upanishads***, Atharva veda

Originally Posted by GRH

The names are currently escaping me, but last night I read the "Food to Joy" Upanishad as well as the "Six Questions" Upanishad that is oft paired with the Mundaka. The "Food to Joy" was an in particularly good read.

Food to Joy Upanishad? What Upanishad is that? To which Veda does it belong? I have never heard of it!

[sesame]

Acting is more or less a common factor of life!

A holy man once told me that we are all pretending most of the time. We are performing in front of our relatives, friends and even to ourselves!

We hide our real thoughts and feelings from everyone. We are afraid or ashamed of other people, or may be we dont want to hurt them. So we put up an appearance of happiness and harmony even though our opinions dont concur.

"Doubt whom you will, but never yourself."
If we doubt our own beliefs, we can no longer continue with our lives in a usual manner. There will be a great conflict or mental breakdown. To avoid this, the mind, which is a conglomerate of thoughts, and quite inventive, adapts a strategy to continue usual life. It starts pretending to itself and starts denying the disrupting issues, as if they dont exist. It is with great control over the mind, can we dare to face the Reality of ourselves.

There is constant strife inside every one of us!
Sometimes we notice it from afar, or we miss the whole internal drama.
I am in control! These are my own thoughts. I am the doer.
Who controls whom? If you are in control of your mind,
then, who are you? Does the body control the mind?
Or is it the mind that controls the body?

[GRH]

Alright, I read Taittiriya (From Food to Joy) and Prashna Upanishads the other night. The "From Food to Joy" is derived from a little subtitle thing the author had written in, that stuck in my mind a lot better than the Indian name. Last night I began the Chandogya.

[sesame]

Read Sri Aurobindo's 10 upanishads. Nothing can be better than that. He was not only a good author but a Highly accomplished Yogi. He understood first hand what he was saying. Indians consider him as a Rishi, sage, seer; the same as the authors of the Upanishads.

Read the translation of Swami Sishya Samvad if you can find one. Dialogues between the Master and Disciple. The master being the great Yogi Swami Vivekananda and disciple Saratchandra Chakraborty. Its philosophy in motion and the language is just like me and you conversing! Its that simple! The english name is "Talks with Swami Vivekananda".

[ila]

Originally Posted by sesame

Read Sri Aurobindo's 10 upanishads.

Sesame, what are the upanishads? I have seen you mention them several times in the last few days. This is the first time I have ever seen the term and I would like to know more.

[sesame]

Upanishads are solid chunks of direct esoteric knowledge.
Straight from the Seer's mouth. No mediators! The most powerful Yogis of ancient India put down their feelings, hints and realizations about the Infinite Omnipresent Impersonal God in the Upanishads. You may consider Upanishads as the essence of all Vedic knowledge. There are 4 Vedas. The principal Upanishads are derived from the 4 vedas. Later Gists of Knowledge about various disciplines of philosophy such as Yoga, came to known as Upanishads. Like the Yoga-Sara-Upanishad, etc. But they are considered lesser to the eleven I have mentioned above.

Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad is the most significant and perhaps one of the Largest of the Upanishads. Brihath= Large, Aranyaka= Forest life (of the Yogis). Upanishad, the word needs clarification.

Upa + ni +sad.
Upa= nearness, or reaching somewhere or knowing about something.
Ni= with clarity, uncloudedness, certainty;
sad or sath= Truth, Unwavering, Unshakable, Everlasting. Sat is a root word synonymous to Om or Tath or That meaning God impersonal.

If we add them up, Upanishad means Clearly Knowing God.

Later on, Upanishads came to be regarded as the basis of pure Lore, collectively called the Vedanta philosophy.
Veda =To know, Anta= end. The end of Veda= the essence of Veda. It primarily includes Upanishads & Gita.

Indian Knowledge

Yogishwara ==> Veda (undifferentiated) ==> Upanishads ==> 4 Vedas ==> Ramayana, Mahabharata epics ==> 18 Puranas ( Bhagavat Purana = imp) ==> Tantras

Yogishwara = Yoga Adepts of unimaginable capacity
Yoga + Ishwara. Ishwara= supreme master or god.

[sesame]

Veda

Many thousands of years ago, the Vedas were in undifferentiated form. And it was verbally propagated from Master to Disciple. The master uttered it and the disciple memorised it. No written manuscripts were there. Everything was retained in memory, generation after generation. So vedas were also called Sruti= to listen.

Even earlier, it was not even uttered. The Guru directed the disciple to go through rigorous austerities and mental exercises. The student became aware of the Truth within himself. Truth is self evident!

In each veda, there were 4 parts: Samhita (for esoteric rituals), Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishad. The Knowledge part became the Upanishads. As the memory and retention power of human beings became poorer in later ages, Philosophers couldnt remember all of the veda. So, Sage Vyasa divided Veda into 4 parts. Rik, Sama, Yajuh and Atharva. The Atharva part was not counted among the Vedas by some of the Philosophers. So some called Veda as Tri-Vidya = Three Knowledges. Its interesting to note that Ayurveda and early Tantra originated from this neglected Atharva Veda. Yoga was always there in the Vedas and the Upanishads. Seer Patanjali, himself a Yoga Adept, organised and compiled it. He also left very insightful hints in it about Alchemy, Surya-siddhanta (Solar science) and molecular evolution. The time of Patanjali is exactly 1000 years before Adi Shankaracharya (805 AD).

Seer Vyasa cut out the 4 vedas, clearly compiled the Upanishads, wrote the epic Mahabharata and the historic-storyline-volumes called Puranas, packed with philosophy hidden behind stories. Vyasa came many thousands of years ago. Its very interesting to note, that Vyasa is one of the six immortal Yogis in Hindu philosophy. He was the grand master or most knowledgable sage of the Dvapara age. He is still alive, so they say! :D

[ila]

Thanks sesame. This is all very interesting. It would seem to me that there is more than a lifetime of study in all the Upanishads. This then leads me to the question of whether or not it is self study or do one have someone to guide him/her through all this learning? If so is it formal teaching as in classroom study or informal one on one teaching? There is so much to learn.