Published On: Sun, Mar 27th, 2016

What is big deal about The Upanishads? How are they different from the books of other religions?

Let us face it. Most Hindus have never read the Upanishads. They know that they are sacred and good and all that.. but have never read a single line of the Vedas or the Upanishads. Many can’t even name the major Upanishads (me including not so long ago). And yet the Upanishads form the core of Hinduism. All Hindu sampradayas (religions) trace their source back to the Vedas and the Upanishads.

Upanishads Thought CurrentsThe Upanishads are the last part of the Vedas and they are the culmination of human thought. The peak understandings of mankind that are valid till date. Isn’t this what all other religions claim?  Well, read this wonderful write-up on how the Upanishads are different.  It is not just that they are authour-less..  or that have been heard and not written..  or that they are the most perfectly pristinely preserved texts in the history of mankind.. or that they are so succinct and poetic… but the fact that they are content-less. And when I say content-less, I mean they don’t give you answers. Dos and Don’ts. They instead generate thought currents and are the source of religions.  Hinduism never gives you an answer. It gives you questions. Questions to which you find your own unique answers and get enlightened.

Each Upanishad gives a thought current. Not an answer. If you contemplate, do manana, engage, with the thought current the Upanishad suggests, you will have the answer. You will have the experiential solution. If you entertain with the thought current of Isavasya Upanishad, the identity crisis will be solved once for all. The pratyakatma-chaitanya-jagrat will happen in you.

If you start celebrating, enjoy, engage with the thought current, they will make the experience happen in you. But you can never open a shop with them. In no Upanishad a conclusion will be given as do and don’t. I am fortunate I am born in a tradition that cannot be made into a franchise.

Every tom dick and harry questions Hinduism. “It is weak because there is no clear cut dos and don’ts”. That is our strength. We are not a religion to be spread. We are the religiousness that is speading everywhere. We are the owners. It is from Hindu tradition. We don’t give dos and don’ts. We give thought currents.

When the thought currents are engaged, when you entertain with the thought currents, you grow a new method of cognizing. A new way of existing. The new way of perceiving. New way of experiencing. That is what I called Divya Sareera. A divine body.

If you entertain the thought current of Kenopanishad you will not get an answer of who created this world. But if you go through the thought current of Kenopanishad you will just KNOW where from this whole thing happened, how it is related to you, how you are related to it, how the whole thing can exist and co-exist in the space of completion.

If you read Katopanshad, you are experientially liberated from the fear of death and any powerlessness related to the fear of death. It only tells you to entertain a certain thought current and through that your whole being will become powerful and make sure you see through death.

Every thought current is experiential. Mahadeva’s breathing is Upanishads. His words are Agamas. Every breath Mahadeva gave is one thought current he wants to produce in you.

The thought currents Upanishads generate in you, experientially liberate you. Sit with this context and understand. It is the thought current you need to celebrate, enjoy. The way it transforms not just your psychology, by the way it transforms your very biology, the very YOU. In your muscle memory and bio-memory.

If you create suffering for yourself with your confusion, wrong analysis and depression – then you picking up some of the dos and don’ts is enough. But if the confusion and suffering is from your mother, from your father then dos and don’ts are not enough. You have to cherish the thought currents of the Upanishads.

In Vedic tradition, examinations are not done by question answer method. That is McCaulay’s method – clerk making. In Vedic tradition all examinations are conducted by the thought-current you carry. The person will be made to speak in the presence of the pundits who have mastered that thought-current. They will see whether he can spontaneously express that thought current for hours or days. Then he has mastered it.

What is real education? If we are teaching the science of completion to our kids, we should be able to guarantee, you can’t get even one lie out of our Gurukul kids. That is what is education. Education is making you the master a thought-current. Which becomes their lifestyle. Which becomes the cognition style. Which becomes their very being.

For hours you cannot speak on a subject unless it has become your thought current, the way you cognize.

Change of thought-current, transformation of thought-current is the success of education. 

Each Upanishad adds a thought current to you. Transformation of thought current is success.

 

Paramahamsa Nithyananda
Introduction to Kenopanishad, Bengaluru Aadheenam