Upanishads always fascinated me. For those people who are not familiar, Upanishads are the philosophic parts of the ancient Indian Vedas. And Vedas are probably, the oldest available scriptures of the world. While most Indians view Upanishads with lot of reverence, many westerners, which include well known scientists and intellectuals, consider them as the peak of human intellectual endeavors.
I have written many books based on the Upanishads.: Ancient wisdom modern viewpoints, Mom! who is my father? Simple Upanishad stories that reveal profound truths, Upanishads - A Journey into the Unknown, and so on. But these Upanishads seem to be endless storehouse of gems, and one never gets exhausted exploring them.
Several teachers have written great many commentaries on these Upanishads. Even in modern times, there are many swamis who have given hours of lectures on these sacred texts. Among these, one well known Swami recently drew my attention. He a swami from a well-known monastic order. A saintly person, who even has undergone training in top American schools. He specializes in Advaita philosophy, which is at the heart of these Upanishads.
This Swami is quite popular on YouTube, uploading new lecture videos almost every other day. A good orator and crowd catcher. With no disrespect meant to this saintly person, I admit that I am a bit uncomfortable with many of his lectures. The reason being
His lectures seem to contradict the core theme of the Upanishads, which he says are the basis of his lectures.
Sometimes his lectures even seem to deviate from the long tradition to which he belongs.
He appears to mix disjoint ideas and conflicting views, may be in his eagerness to make the topic attractive.
I sincerely felt that, with all good intentions, the swami’s lectures can send wrong message in the long run, not to mention about credibility issues.
Swami’s like this one, motivated me to write one more book on Upanishads, to express my own understanding of these great texts. Current book is part of the series Unsolved mysteries. As the name itself indicates, I don’t claim to put down the final word about many of the puzzling things in these books. I only try to iron out many apparent conflicts, and confusing views of some modern teachers, which don’t really jell well with the original texts.
The title of my new book is “Unravelling the hidden mysteries of the Vedas – Part 2: Amazing Upanishads”.
I start off with clearing some misconceptions about monotheism and apparent polytheism in Hinduism. Hinduism is believed to have originated in the Vedas. That indirectly implies that the Vedas are also polytheistic, and many people who are superficially familiar with the ritual parts of the Vedas, vouch for their being inherently polytheistic. I show how that is not the fact.
I further illustrate how the notion of God is probably a misnomer. Upanishads give a completely new version of the concept of God, which has far reaching effects. Upanishads also have their own notion of ultimate reality.
But this ultimate reality is interpreted by various teachers down the line, in their own way. This has resulted in many ideological differences subsequently. On one hand, we had masters like Buddha, who almost dismissed the concept of God or the soul. On the other hand, there were great teachers like Shankara who stressed on Advaita, or oneness, which excludes the existence of anything, other than God or Brahma.
But Shankara had to bring in the concept of illusion or Maya to answer some of the perceived contradictions in these Upanishads. The concept of Maya has been the Achilles heel of Advaita of Shankara. I feel that the concept of Maya is nonexistent in the entire Upanishads. It is a mystery why Shankara had to invent it!
I explain how the concept of Maya or illusion can render the lofty philosophy of the Upanishads, into a nihilistic one. In a step by step fashion, I show how the Upanishads don’t preach negative view towards life. In fact, they raise the humanity to heights of divinity.
The rest of my book is about how the main theme of the Upanishads namely the Advaita or oneness, can be explained without resorting to concepts like Maya. In doing that, I also show how, the contradictions in theory and practice of many of the Advaiti swamis of today can be ironed out, without conflicting with the core theme of the Upanishads.
All these may appear to be just some intellectual exercises without any practical utility. Towards the end of the book, I show how this concept of oneness – which I call as Advaita sans Maya – has several salutary effects and can uplift the entire humanity as a whole. So, it is neither a purposeless intellectual exercise, nor some idle pastime, not the least, some speculation of ancient people, which are irrelevant today.
The Upanishads do have profound implications on our life and we definitely can benefit a lot from them. All that we need to do is, to relook at the way various thought schools have evolved, and put them in the proper perspective.
This book is currently available both in e-book format as well audio book format. For audio book, I have used Google’s AI technology, which makes best use of multiple characters. For people who are perpetually on the move, I highly recommend the audio version, which is available in some select stores, at amazingly low price.
Please have a look at the universal book link http://books2read.com/VedicMystery2 to see where this book is available, and also to preview/purchase the book. I can assure that, you will have an altogether new view of Upanishads, Indian philosophy, and current Hindu practices. Maybe it will clear out many of the misconceptions created by some modern teachers.
To complete the picture, let me also remind you that, there is a first part of this series. That part is titled Unraveling the hidden mysteries of the Vedas – Part 1: Aliens of the Vedic kind. You may check the Universal book link http://books2read.com/VedicMystery1 to see where that book is available, and also to preview/purchase that book. Even that book is available in audio.
I will be too glad to receive your feedback through book reviews. Please make it a point to write one review where you purchased these books from.
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