The Upanishads

Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) brings to this volume a rare combination of credentials. Trained from a young age in one of the purest Sanskrit traditions in India, he had a deep intuitive knowledge of his own Hindu legacy. He also had a great love of Western literature and was chairman of the English department at a major Indian university when he came to the United States on a Fulbright fellowship in 1959. From the 1960s onwards, Easwaran held classes on mysticism and practical spirituality for a primarily American audience. A gifted teacher, he was able to anticipate the problems that Western readers may have with the concepts underlying the classics of Indian spirituality, and to explain them in fresh and profoundly simple ways. In 1961 Easwaran founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in California, and in 1967, at the University of California, Berkeley, he taught the first academic course on meditation ever offered for credit at a major American university. He continued to teach passage meditation and his eight-point program for spiritual living to an American and international audience for almost forty years. His books on meditation and the classics of world mysticism have been translated into many languages. Easwaran drew on the Upanishads and the other Classics of Indian Spirituality throughout his life for deep inspiration. As Huston Smith writes, “it is impossible to get to the heart of those Classics unless you live them, and he did live them.” Through the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation and its publishing arm, Nilgiri Press, Easwaran continues to reach an ever-growing audience around the world through publications and retreats.

Table of Contents



Foreword 7



Introduction 13



ISHA 51



     The Inner Ruler



KATHA 61



     Death as Teacher



BRIHADARANYAKA 93



     The Forest of Wisdom



CHANDOGYA 119



     Sacred
Song



SHVETASHVATARA 153



     The Faces of God



MUNDAKA 179



     Modes of Knowing



MANDUKYA 197



     Consciousness
& Its Phases



KENA 207



     Who
Moves the World?



PRASHNA 219



     The Breath
of Life



TAITTIRIYA 239



     Ascent
to Joy



AITAREYA 263



     The
Unity of Life



MINOR UPANISHADS  Beads of Wisdom



     TEJOBINDU 283



     ATMA 286



     AMRITABINDU
288



     PARAMAHAMSA 291



Afterword 295



    A Religion
for Modern Times



    by Michael N. Nagler



Glossary 337



Notes 345



Index
377