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Isa or Isavasya Upanishad derives its name from
the first word
of the first verse of the same Upanishad. The word
"Isa" means the Lord of the Universe. the Upanishad begins
with the majestic and triumphant declaration that the whole universe
is inhabited by God and belongs to Him. The Upanishad contains
some important concept of Hinduism which are also found in the
Bhagavadgita. They are:
1. We should live with the awareness that God is supreme and
all pervading Lord and that we are part of His immense
existence.
2. Since God is the true Lord of the Universe and every
movement (action) in the universe happens because of Him, we
should perform our actions without desires and with deference to
God.
3. We should be vary of actions that hurt us spiritually and
lead us to the demonic worlds. In the Bhagavadgita Lord Krishna
enumerates the demonic qualities that lead men to worlds of
darkness.
4. The self is transcendental, immortal and beyond the mind
and the senses.
5. We should have the discrimination to know both knowledge
and ignorance, truth and untruth, the unmanifest and the
manifest to attain eternal life.
The last three verses of the Upanishad evoke certain pathos as
we read them. They deal with death and the departure of the soul
from the body. They are chanted during the cremation
ceremonies.
The Upanishad gives a very convincing and logically acceptable
argument as to why we should live in this world and perform our
duties without any attachment. The argument is simple. Since the
whole world is inhabited by God and He is the dynamic force in all
the dynamics of the universe, nothing belongs to us here and no
action can be truly performed by us on our own.
To covet what does not belong to us and to assume the doership
of what we really do not do are part of the delusion we all suffer
from. Therefore, goes the argument, we should wish to
live in this world for a hundred years, performing our duties, but
without claiming any rights of ownership of either the deeds or
of the things.
The Upanishad is the 40th chapter of the Vajasaneya Samhita of the Yajur
Veda. Mahatma Gandhi extolled the spiritual message contained in
the first verse of this Upanishad. Apart from other ideas he found
in it, he was particularly impressed by its " message of universal
brotherhood- not only brother hood of human beings but of all living
things."
Suggested Further Reading
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