bhASyakAra bhagavatpAda Shri Shankara’s exhaustive commentaries on the 10 Major Upanishads constitute the first leg on the journey of imparting the Non-dual Wisdom to an eligible student seeking eternal Freedom (mokSa) from being reborn in the world. They form the Instructional core (upadesha prasthAna) of the Non-dual message. Late Shri Yellamraju Srinivasa Rao (YSR), a well-known Advaitin, gave extensive Talks in Telugu on each of these 10 Upanishads adhering strictly to Shankara’s bhASya (commentary). He also supplemented his discourses on each of the 10 Upanishads with a 90-min Talk summarizing the content of that specific Upanishad (thus a total of about 900 minutes on Summaries).

I rendered into English Shri YSR’s Talks on the Summaries and edited them slightly for brevity etc. I offer them here for the benefit of any interested seeker for his/her personal use only for study, reflection and deep contemplative meditation. They may not be used for any commercial purposes.

Let me also say that if you find any mistakes in the presentation, they will be mine and should not be attributed to Shri YSR. I will be happy to correct the mistakes if they are brought to my notice.

1. IshAvAsya Upanishad:

The IshAvAsya Upanishad, the first of the ten, begins with the word “IshAvAsyam.” Hence it acquired the name IshAvAsya Upanishad. 

ईशा वास्यमिदं सर्वं यत्किं च जगत्यां जगत् । 
तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जीथा मा गृधः कस्य स्विद्धनम् ॥         —  mantra 1, IshAvAsya upa.

[Meaning:   All this-whatsoever moves on the earth-should be covered by the Lord. Protect (your Self) through that detachment. Do not covet anybody’s wealth. (Or-Do not covet, for whose is wealth?) (Translation: Swami Gambhirananda, 1957).]

The entire world is of the nature of the Lord. But the mistake we make is that we perceive the world through ‘name, form and action.’ Name signifies the ‘thoughts’ that arise in the mind. Form stands for all the ‘objects’ perceived by the senses. Action is that which relates the two. There can be millions and millions of thoughts (names), and equally millions and millions of perceived objects (forms). There are innumerable movements and gesticulations done by the motor organs (actions). In other words, name, form and action pervade the world. We are inescapably dependent on the world. We are born in it, we live in it and we die in it. We call our dependence on the world as ‘living’ or ‘life.’ 

But ‘life’ has become a problem for us as it is multifaceted, unending and unpredictable. Consequently, we are unhappy about the way life is. We are forced to live with the ‘me vs. not-me’ perspective which is inherently separative. This separative outlook pushes us deeper and deeper into the cycle of life and death and, as a result, we are unable to free ourselves from the world (samsAra). 

Hence, the IshAvAsya Upanishad cautions us not to perceive the world from the name-form-action frame. It exhorts us to view it from the perspective of the Lord. The viewpoint of the Lord is Oneness or Unity. It is not multiplicity. So, the solution to the problem lies in adopting a changed perspective – from multiplicity to Unicity. It then gives us the scope to free ourselves from being bound to the world. Therefore, whatever little segment of the world we may be noticing, we should not look at it in terms of names, forms or actions but learn to see it as the Lord Himself. Because we are not accustomed to having such a perspective, we have to learn to develop it. 

In other words, we have to abandon our habituated outlook of seeing things to be “different” from our self. It does not mean that we have to run away from the creation. In fact, from the perspective of Advaita, there is no creation. What is, is perception only. According to Advaita, the world we see does not have its own ‘Beingness.’ Beingness is the nature of the Lord Himself. The Beingness Itself, when viewed from our perspective, appears to us as though there is a created world out there. It is an illusory appearance but not an actual creation. Therefore, all that is needed by us to do is to change our perspective. The more we get habituated to perceive things from the perspective of the Lord, the more our separative outlook of seeing through the frame of name-form-action will get eliminated.  

The moment we attain the absolute vision of the Lord, the world will totally disappear. The problem of the cycle of births and deaths (samsAra) will then get automatically resolved. We will experience the entire world as none else than the Lord. We will lose interest in acquiring things. There will be no object that we would wish to possess. All desires evaporate because we do not find a thing which is different from ourselves – everything being of the nature of the Lord. No multiplicity will be perceived. And, all that appears is seen to be already one’s own (as everything being the Lord). It would be meaningless under these circumstances to covet for what is our own!  “What-IS” is already My treasure, My manifestation, and I am Myself the Lord.”

That is the magnificent teaching of the Upanishad. 

However, we wonder whether such a vision, the perspective of the Lord, is practicable for us. We are born in the ‘land of action (karma bhUmi).’ Therefore, action is inescapable for us. Actions are not merely the works that are done with the hands and feet; thinking and speaking are also actions. 

न हि कश्चित्क्षणमपि जातु तिष्ठत्यकर्मकृत् । 
कार्यते ह्यवशः कर्म सर्वः प्रकृतिजैर्गुणैः ॥    — verse 5, Ch 3, Bhagavad-Gita.

[Meaning:  None, verily, even for an instant, ever remains doing no action; for, everyone is driven helplessly to action by the energies born of Nature. (Translation: A. Mahadeva Sastri).]

Not a single moment goes by without doing some action or the other, says Bhagavad-Gita. 

Some of our actions are natural for life and hence unavoidable for us (e.g. breathing, eating, locomotion etc.). In addition, scripture ordains us to perform certain actions. The actions prescribed by the scripture come under three categories – obligatory daily routines, obligatory occasional rituals and intentionally-done actions aiming at some specific result. We are thus burdened by a heavy load of a variety of “must perform” actions.

A question then arises whether it is possible at all for a human being to pursue contemplation on the Lord with focus as s/he is obligated to perform a large number of actions. The Upanishad answers this problem as follows:

कुर्वन्नेवेह कर्माणि जिजीविषेच्छतं समाः । 
एवं त्वयि नान्यथेतोऽस्ति न कर्म लिप्यते नरे ॥    —  mantra 2, IshAvAsya upa.

[Meaning:  By doing karma, indeed, should one wish to live here for a hundred years. For a man, such as you (who wants to live thus), there is no way other than this, whereby karma may not cling to you. (Translation: Swami Gambhirananda, 1957).]

The scripture does not prohibit us from performing the stipulated actions, if our intention is to live a hundred years. But it asks us to perform the actions without forsaking the thought of the Lord. Performing actions and thinking of the Lord are not mutually exclusive. The mind may stay internally focused on the Lord while the actions go on outside. We should keep in mind firmly the thought that “all this is a manifestation of the Lord Himself,” and continue to act. By performing the actions with such an attitude, one will not become vulnerable to the effect of the actions. Actions then cannot bind one to the cycle of births and deaths. That is the only way, avers the Upanishad, to stay unaffected by the results of the actions.

The Mimamsakars (who go by the first part of the Vedas) may argue that it is quite desirable that we should perform meritorious deeds even though our mind may not be focused on the Lord, because such actions yield desirable results in the future. 

(To Continue … Part 2 (Isha))