Part – 1 (Isha)

असुर्या नाम ते लोका अन्धेन तमसा वृताः । 
तांस्ते प्रेत्याभिगच्छन्ति ये के चात्महनो जनाः ॥   —  mantra 3, IshAvAsya upa.

[Meaning:   Those worlds of devils are covered by blinding darkness. Those people that kill the Self go to them after giving up this body. (Translation: Swami Gambhirananda, 1957).]

The Upanishad counters the argument of the Mimamsakars saying that it is not a worthy stand to take, for it is tantamount to killing one’s Atma. AtmA is none other than what the Upanishad has been describing as the Lord. 

How can the Lord be the same as AtmA?

AtmA is the generic name. It denotes the intrinsic nature as explained by Shankara in his commentary on brahma sUtra-s.  Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →