Path to Liberation – Selections From the Upanishads, an Ancient Hindu Text, Part 1 of 2

We now present selections from the Upanishads, emphasizing the path to spiritual liberation through self-realization and devotion to the Divine.

“The One who rules alone by His powers, who rules all the worlds by His powers, who is one and the same, while things arise and exist, – they who know this are immortal.”

“That which is beyond this world is without form and without suffering. They who know it, become immortal, but others suffer pain indeed.

That Bhagavat [Supreme Being] exists in the faces, the heads, the necks of all, He dwells in the cave (of the heart) of all beings, He is all-pervading, therefore He is the omnipresent Shiva. That Person (Purusha) is the great lord; He is the mover of existence, He possesses that purest power of reaching everything, He is Light, he is undecaying. The Person (Purusha), not larger than a thumb, dwelling within, always dwelling in the heart of man, is perceived by the heart, the thought, the mind; they who know it become immortal. The Person (Purusha) with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet, having compassed the Earth on every side, extends beyond it by ten fingers’ breadth. That Person alone (Purusha) is all this, what has been and what will be; He is also the lord of immortality; […]”

“The Self, smaller than small, greater than great, is hidden in the heart of the creature. A man who has left all grief behind, sees the majesty, the Lord, the passionless, by the grace of the creator (the Lord).

I know this undecaying, ancient One, the Self of all things, being infinite and omnipresent. They declare that in Him all birth is stopped, for the Brahma-students proclaim Him to be eternal.”

“He, the Sun, without any color, who with set purpose by means of his power (sakti) produces endless colors, in whom all this comes together in the beginning, and comes asunder in the end – may He, the God, endow us with good thoughts.”

“He who does not know that indestructible being of the Rig Veda, that highest ether-like (Self) wherein all the gods reside, of what use is the Rig Veda to him? Those only who know it, rest contented.”