Dr. ShuddhanandaBharati

The Secret of Upanishads

ASSAEditions

Editor’s Notes

Upanishad is the ‘Knowledge Mine’ of Bharat. All the Reli-gions that arose in our Country are based on Upanishads;the propagandists of Advaitha, Dvaitha, Visishtadvaita allthe three, chant the Upanishads. In Upanishad, the humanlife, and the secrets of the Soul that shines with divinity, iscontained. Filtering all those, Yogi ShudhdhanandaBharatiyar describes them in this Book called ‘The Secret ofUpanishads’. In this book, he has given line by line expla-nations for all the four Upanishads Isha, Kena, Katha, andPrasna. For the others too we desired to publish Swami’sdelineations. Paper shortage became an obstacle. Eventhen the wisdom gems from those shine at the end of theBook. If God’s mercy befalls on us, we desire to publishthe delineations of Brahmasutras and Rig Veda too like this.

May the Tamils encourage our effort.The Abode of Bharat Energy

A warm thank you to M. Kumar Srinivasa Nagaraja Raofor this beautiful translation and to Phyl Stewart for herhelp on the preparation and for the preface of this book.

It is a real pleasure for me to present The Secret of theUpahishads to you. Thank you to Dr. Shuddhananda Bharatifor having transmitted The Secret of the Upahishads to us.With the blessing of Aum Shuddha Shakti Aum.

Christian Piaget

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Courage!

The night is through,The chain of slaveryIt is already broken -I am full of courage!

Peace in the morning,A golden sun risesLike a lion superhumanTo accomplish my dream.

A hopeful smile,Docile as a childWho plays in the infiniteWith a fiery star.

My journey is over;I enjoy time;The universe is my nest;Of eternal spring.

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Song of Unity

Unite. Unite, Unite, Oh SoulsUnite and play your rolesUnite in mind, unite in heartUnite in whole, unite in partLike words and tunes and sense in songLet East and West unite and live longTrees are many; the grove is oneBranches are many; tree is oneShores are many; sea is oneLimbs are many; body is oneBodies are many; self is oneStars are many; sky is oneFlowers are many; honey is onePages are many; book is oneThoughts are many; thinker is oneTastes are many; taster is oneActors are many; the drama is oneNations are many; the world is oneReligions are many; Truth is oneThe wise are many; Wisdom is oneBeings are many; breath is oneClasses are many; college is oneFind out this One behind the manyThen life shall enjoy peaceful harmony

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Peace Anthem

Peace for all, peace for allFor all the countries peaceJoy for all, joy for allFor all the nations joyA rosy morning peaceA smiling summer joy (Peace for all)

All for each and each for allThis is the golden ruleLife and Light and Love for allFor all that live our love (Peace for all)

Work and food and clothes for allEqual status for allHealth and home and school for allA happy world for all (Peace for all)

No idle rich, no more beggarsAll are equal workersNo more tears, no more fearsThe heart is full of cheers (Peace for all)

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No atom scare, no fat mammonNo room for war demonLike leaves in trees, like rays in the sunWe are one communion,One Divine communion (Peace for all)

The good in you is good for allYour life is life for allThe God in you is God for allYour love is love for all (Peace for all)

For he or she or it or restThis collective life is bestThis Universal Life is bestNorth or South, or East or West (Peace for all)

Peace for plants and birds and beastsFor hills and streams and woodsPeace in Home – land and air and seaDynamic peace we see

Peace for all, peace for all

Immortal Peace for All

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Swami Shuddhananda Bharati

There is but one God for the whole worldAll bodies are but temples of God

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Presentation of Dr. Shuddhananda BharatiMay 11, 1897 – March 7, 1990

The wise one to the cosmic ageAlthough more than 90 years old, in his school in the southof India, Kavi Yogi Maharishi (great divine visionary, wisepoet) Dr. Shuddhananda Bharati worked like a young manof twenty. When he was asked his age, he answered, “Myage is Courage!” The Yogi wrote several hundred works inEnglish, French, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Sanskrit; andfive thousand songs, and fifteen hundred poems in French.The magnum opus of the man conscious of the presence ofGod in him, Bharata Shakti, (in 50,000 verses) described hisideal: only One Humanity living in communion with onlyOne God in a transformed world! Bharata Shakti is a monu-mental and unique work. The Yogi depicts the essence ofall the religions, of all the prophets and saints, all theapproaches of yoga and all the cultures on an allegoricalfabric. It is a book for any age that all spiritual researchersand all nations should read and meditate on. His commit-ment is summarized in his book celebrating his life, L’AmePèlerine (Pilgrim Soul). The three poems mentioned in theopening express perfectly his ideal. His mantra, Aum Shud-dha Shakti Aum, nourishes our souls and guides our stepstoward the inner joy – Ananda. It means: the light of Graceand power of the pure supreme Almighty bless us withpeace, happiness and prosperity! Let the beauty and great-ness of the soul of Dr. Bharati Shuddhananda bloom andscent the entire Earth with its divine message and spiritualand unifying benefactor!

Editions ASSA

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With the blessings of Shuddhananda Bharati

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The Secret of Upanishad

1. The knowledge of Brahman

Upanishad is one of the best divine sayings of the world. Itis indeed the crown of knowledge of the Vedas, the motherspring of the philosophies of the Vedanta. The BhagavadGita is verily the Kamadhenu (the divine cow that accom-plishes whatever we wish) called Upanishad, from whichLord Krishna milked and fed the calf Arjuna. Upanishad isthe knowledge of Brahman. Brahma vidhaapnotiparam (onewho has knowledge of Brahman only attains greatness) isits explanation. It is only by making the knowledge ofBrahman into definite, minute aphorisms that Vyasa Bha-gavan presented them to us as Brahma Sutras.

All the knowledge of the sages of the country of Bharat(India) shines in the form of Upanishad. The society ofBharat itself has Upanishad as the root and its experience asthe fruit. Upanishad is verily the Ganga of knowledgewhich arose from the hearts of sages, the great men ofspiritual wisdom, while they were in the steady, peacefulstate, in solitude, in a state of meditation with concentra-tion and contemplation and while in a state when the fra-grance of auspiciousness blossomed.

That Ganga of knowledge will be flowing as long as theworld exists. Initially, it was unwritten Vedas; it came leap-ing from heart to heart and crawling in the ‘teacher−disci-ple’ tradition. Later, it prospered in the form of palmleaves. Now coming in print, it has spread all over the

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world, in different languages. The world knows that Indiameans the Upanishad country. All the greatness of this coun-try spreads out as this Ganga of knowledge. All the heartsof those who scoop and drink it become springs of wisdom.

Schopenhauer, the German of spiritual wisdom, reapedbenefits from reciting the Upanishad. He said “There is nouseful book like Upanishad in the world; it is that which isthe consolation of my life”. Emerson scooped and drankthe knowledge of Upanishad. Max Müller averred “Upan-ishad is the peak of inner knowledge; studying that only isthe joy of my life”. In today’s world, there is no country orwise man who has not praised that book. The Tamils alsoshould clearly understand The Secrets of the Upanishadsclearly and receive benefit from it. That eagerness onlymotivated this attempt. There are many old and new com-mentaries for Upanishad.

What is written here is a firm explanation of the experience.

The VedasThe Veda is the most ancient treatise in the world; eventoday it remains as a mine of knowledge which giveswithout drying up, even as you go on scooping.

Vedas means knowledge – the inner knowledge where dis-tress vanishes and joy grows. Vedas are divine flowers thatblossomed in the hearts of sages possessing total knowl-edge. Their fragrance bestows immortality. The explana-tions of the inner soul experiences of the great sages Atri,Marichi, Angirasa, Parasara, and Bharadwaj are verily theVedas. The Veda is the sea with boundless knowledge. It is

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the key note of music (heard through grace of spiritualknowledge). It was Vyasa Bhagawan who put it insequence, arranged it in the proper order and presented itto human society. It seems the name Vyasar itself meansone who arranged, one who joined in proper order.

Vyasar was black in colour, born to Parasara and Satya-vati, brought up in an island. Therefore, he was called asKrishna Dwaipayanar (the one of the black island). It isdue to him only that our Vedas and epics and ancient leg-ends are available to us, tiding over time, benefiting useven today. Salutations to Vyasa Bhagawan!

Vyasar (Vyasa) divided the Vedas into four treatises as Rig,Yajur, Sama and Atharvana. He taught them to four stu-dent sages Paila, Vaisampayanar, Jaimini, and Samantu, inthat order. Through them, in the teacher-disciple tradi-tion, the Vedas were being established. In the course oftime, it separated into several shakas (branches). It becameRig 21, Krishna Yajus 64, Shukla Yajus 15, and Sama 1000,Atharvana 510 branches. In these branches, those whichare now existing are only a very few. The Vedas compriseof two types, the Samhitas and Brahmanas. Samhitas aresongs of the religious sacrifices. Offering the egotism tothe desire for grace is the true religious sacrifice.

The explanations of mantras, the method of presentationof mantras of religious sacrifice, Upanishads, ancient leg-ends, epics, Kalpas (ethics of life), song and moral philoso-phies will all be contained in the Brahmanas.

One part of Brahmanyam is Aranyakam (treatise on theforest). It is only in that that the secrets of Upanishads arecontained. The Vedas are of two parts. The Canto of Fruit

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of Deed describes the following of moral and practicalprinciples of deeds and religious sacrifices. It is the Cantoof Spiritual Knowledge which clearly gives details of thepossession of Self.

Now it is the Upanishad knowledge as the Canto of Spiri-tual Knowledge which has earned the respect of theworld. The human being is the intellect of Pure Soul. Theone that takes him to the vicinity of Pure Soul and givesbliss is Upanishad alone. It seems Upanishad means being inthe vicinity of salutation, removing the doltishness andbestowing the knowledge of Brahman. That which rose inthe heart of the Yoga Siddhars shows the path for the finalfulfilment of the Pure Soul.

The remaining Upanishads which are available to us areonly 108 in number. In those, only a few are appreciated asthe divine words of pure sages by learned men. In those,Aithreyam belongs to Rig Veda. Taitreeyam, Katha, Shwe-tasvatharam and Naarayanam belong to Krishna YajurVeda; Isham, Bruhataranyam and Jaapaalam belong toShukla Yajur Veda; both Kenam and Chandogyam belongto Sama Veda, and Mundakam, Mandookyam and Pras-nam belong to Atharvasikai. They existed even before Bud-dha. People say the others came later.

In our country, there are several religions; all these havethree schools called Advaita, Vishistadvaita and Dvaita.For these three, Sankaracharya, Ramnaujacharya andMadhwacharya respectively shine as the preceptors. Theyare called the Three Religious Acharyas. Accepting andrespecting ten Upanishads, they have written elaborate

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commentaries on those. They have stated it as a Sanskritverse too.

Isha Kena Katha Prasna Munda Mandookya titiri:Aithareyam ca ChandogyamBruhadaranyam tatha

They are called the Dasopnishads (ten Upanishads)

The substanceThe sages of the Upanishads lived as complete beings in theknowledge of God; they were guides to the complete life.They are those who experienced the world as aboundingin Brahmam and life as the spring of bliss. Man, withblemishes removed, mixing with the Pure Soul whichabounds in self and attaining immortality is the substanceof Upanishads. In one phrase – life of celestials – is alonethe benefit of Upanishads.

“Oh! Man! Awaken inside and rise, realise yourself; youare Brahmam. That itself is everything; that is more atomicthan the atom itself, greater than greatness, spreading outand pervading everywhere; its abundance is only theworld. It shines in the cave of your heart. That is the PureSoul. That only is called Self; realisation of self is PureSoul; its expanse is everything. Arise, wake up, realise,and rejoice”. This is verily the roar of the Upanishads.

End of the knowledge of Brahman

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2. Ishavasaya Upanishad

The GodThe God, the life, the world – these are the three entities.God is the Supreme entity, Brahmam; Vedas refer to it as‘That’; its expansion and completion is the worldly life;Veda refers to the worldly life as ‘This’. One lamp lit byanother lamp glows like the previous one. By that, theglow of the former will not reduce. ‘That’ is full; ‘This’also is full. The supreme entity which is ‘That’ is perfec-tion, full, total matter. ‘This’ too, which is resplendentwith power of knowledge of ‘That’, and the World of‘This’ life are its fullness, its perfection. From that perfectentity only the perfection which is ‘This’ was born. Evenafter taking the fullness, which is ‘This’, from the perfec-tion, ‘That’ remains perfect. Let us call ‘That’ whole mat-ter Aum. If that perfect entity is realised, there is alwayspeace. Peace, only peace.

It is the objective indeed of the Upanishad that man reachesthe state of completeness, attains the state of equanimitywith purity, maturity, having no bond and relationship,and gains peace. This is the mantra for ‘That’; this is theUpanishad’s truth which is the peak gem.

Om poornamada! poornamidamPoornaat poornamudachyatePoornasya poornamaadaayaPoornamevaavashisyateOm Shaanti! Shaanti! Shaanti!

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1. All the entities that function in the world reside insideGod only; everything is His abundance.

Eesha vaasyam idagam sarvamYat kincha jagatyaam jagat

This is the first knowledge that man has to realise. Withthis knowledge, the egotism of “Mine, I, for me only” willbe destroyed. Any material is neither the personal belong-ing nor public property. All are the belongings of God’sgrace; the feeling that giving and taking is His is born,since each and every matter is His completeness, the loftyfeeling of oneness of respecting everything as His abun-dance will grow. It is this thought which is the basis forthe life of human friendship and love. Through this feel-ing, the intellectual wisdom of sacrifice of living for publicwelfare with no selfish thoughts will come.

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