The Upaniṣads (Sanskrit: “sessions,” lit. “sitting near” (i.e. “at the feet of a guru)”) are the ancient sacred treatises of Hinduism. Written in Sanskrit c.800–200 BCE, the Upaniṣads expand on the Vedas in mostly mystical and monistic terms. The Upaniṣads were passed down through an oral tradition within the priestly social groups and were not written down until the sixth century CE.
The Upaniṣads comprise the concluding portions of the Vedas; hence, they are called Vedānta (“the culmination of the Vedas.”) The major Upaniṣads are the repositories of many of the theological and philosophical ideas that have come to tower over later Vedāntic thought.
The Upaniṣads transcend the chants performed during sacrifices and pose philosophical questions about human existence and man’s place in the cosmos. The conceptions of Brahman (the universal cosmic power) and Ātman (the innate soul of the individual) are fundamental to the understanding of the Upaniṣads.
More than one hundred Upaniṣads were created—the later lesser-known Upaniṣads continued to be composed right down to the sixteenth century. Thirteen of the Upaniṣads are considered the canonical scriptures of Hinduism. The first five of these—Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, and Kauṣītaki—were composed in prose and interposed with verse. The middle five—Kena, Kaṭha, Ῑśā, Śvetāśvatara, and Muṇḍaka—were composed chiefly in verse. The last three—Praśna, Māṇḍūkya, and Maitrāyaṇī—were composed in prose.
The French Indologist Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron first translated fifty Upaniṣads into Latin in 1801–02. The Upaniṣads had a considerable effect on such nineteenth-century philosophers as Arthur Schopenhauer, who asserted that the Upaniṣads were “the fruit of the most sublime human knowledge and wisdom.” The Upaniṣads also came to the attention of American philosophers and writers in the nineteenth century, mainly by way of many threads of the Idealist, Romantic, and Transcendentalist movements of Germany and England.
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Life in the world and life in the spirit are not incompatible. Work or action is not contrary to knowledge of God, but indeed, if performed without attachment, is a means to it.
—The Upanishads
Wherefrom do all these worlds come? They come from space. All beings arise from space, and into space they return: space is indeed their beginning, and space is their final end.
—The Upanishads
Even as the sun shines and fills all space With light, above, below, across, so shines The Lord of Love and fills the hearts of all created beings.
—The Upanishads
Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy.
—The Upanishads
When the mind is silent, beyond weakness or non- concentration, then it can enter into a world which is far beyond the mind: the highest End.
—The Upanishads
Awake, arise! Strive for the Highest, and be in the Light! Sages say the path is narrow and difficult to tread, narrow as the edge of a razor.
—The Upanishads
The Eternal is veiled by the real. The Spirit of life is The Eternal.
Name and form are the real, and by them the Spirit is veiled.
—The Upanishads
As the sun that beholds the world is untouched by earthly impurities, so the Spirit that is in all things is untouched by external sufferings.
—The Upanishads
Even as a great fish swims along the two banks of a river, first along the eastern bank and then the western bank, in the same way the Spirit of man moves along beside his two dwellings: this waking world and the land of sleep and dreams.
—The Upanishads
He who knows that as both in one, the knowledge and the ignorance, by the ignorance crosses beyond death and by the knowledge enjoys immortality.
—The Upanishads
Let a man strive to purify his thoughts. What a man thinketh, that is he; this is the eternal mystery. Dwelling within himself with thoughts serene, he will obtain imperishable happiness. Man becomes that of which he thinks.
—The Upanishads
Whatever is outside this universe is a complete system.This universe itself is also a complete system. Only a complete system can emerge out of a complete system. If a complete system is taken out of a complete system, whatever remains is also a complete system.
—The Upanishads
Meditation is in truth higher than thought. The earth seems to rest in silent meditation; and the waters and the mountains and the sky and the heavens seem all to be in meditation. Whenever a man attains greatness on this earth, he has his reward according to his meditation.
—The Upanishads
The wise devote themselves to the welfare of all, for they see themselves in all.
—The Upanishads
Tat Tvam Asi: “That art thou”: Whatever we see or think about, we are That. We are the ultimate Thou and I in all.
—The Upanishads
Out of abundance and still abundance remained.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Abundance, Dance
As one acts and conducts himself, so does he become. The doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Action
When a person is dying, his voice goes into his mind; his mind into
his breath; his breath into heat; the heat into the highest
divinity. that which is the finest essence – the whole world has
that as its soul. That is Reality. That is Atman. That art thou.
—The Upanishads
There is a Spirit who is awake in our sleep and creates the wonder of dreams. He is the Spirit of Light, who in truth is called the Immortal. All the worlds rest on that Spirit and beyond him no one can go.
—The Upanishads
When a man dies, what does not leave him? The voice of a dead man goes into fire, his breath into wind, his eyes into the sun, his mind into the moon, his hearing into the quarters of heaven, his body into the land cheerfully. earth, his spirit into space
—The Upanishads
Topics: Action
You are what your deep driving desire is.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Desires, Desire
The Spirit is beyond sound and form, without touch and taste and perfume. It is eternal, unchangeable, and without beginning or end; indeed above reasoning. When consciousness of the Spirit manifests itself, man becomes free from the jaws of death.
—The Upanishads
In dreams the mind beholds its own immensity. What has been seen is seen again, and what has been heard is heard again. What has been felt in different places or faraway regions returns to the mind again. Seen and unseen, heard and unheard, felt and not felt, the mind sees all, since the mind is all.
—The Upanishads
The wise see the Lord of Love in the sun, Rising in all its golden radiance To give its warmth and light and life to all.
—The Upanishads
This is the truth: As from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.
—The Upanishads
As an eagle, weary after soaring in the sky, folds its wings and flies down to rest in its nest, so does the shining Self enter the state of dreamless sleep, where one is freed from all desires.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Desires, Desire
The world is the wheel of God, turning round And round with all living creatures upon its rim. The world is the river of God, Flowing from him and flowing back to him.
—The Upanishads
Health, a light body, freedom from cravings, a glowing skin, sonorous voice, fragrance of body: these signs indicate progress in the practice of meditation.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Meditation
The wise should surrender speech in mind, mind in the knowing self, the knowing self in the Spirit of the universe, and the Spirit of the universe in the Spirit of peace.
—The Upanishads
The self-existent Lord pierced the senses to turn outward. Thus we look to the world outside and see not the Self within us. A sage withdrew his senses from the world of change and, seeking immortality, looked within and beheld the deathless self.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Immortality
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