Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Svetasvatara Upanishada


tasyābhidhyānād yojanāt tattvabhāvād bhūyaś cānte viśvamāyānivṛttiḥ /1.10/
By meditating upon Him, uniting with Him,

through the constant practice of reflecting upon His nature,
one can over come the ubiquitous maya of this world.

***
The one who is without color,
diversified by its union power,
distributes many colors in its hidden purpose,
and into this, its end and beginning, the universe dissolves.

It is divine.
May it endow us with clear intellect.
It is fire; it is the sun; it is air, and it is the moon.
It is the seed; it is God;
it is the waters; it is the creator.

***
What good are the sacred verses,
in the highest heaven where all the gods are seated,
to the one who does not know this?
Those who know this are assembled here.

Sacred poetry, sacrifices, ceremonies, vows,
the past, the future, and what the scriptures declare,
all this the illusion-maker projects out of this,
and in it by illusion the other is confined.

Thus know that nature is illusion
and that the great Lord is the illusion-maker.
The whole world is filled
with beings who are parts of this.

The one who rules over every source,
in whom the universe comes together and dissolves,
the Lord, giver of blessings, divinely loving,
by revering this, one finds peace.

That which is the source and origin of the gods,
sovereign of all, may Rudra, the great seer,
who saw the golden germ when it was born,
endow us with clear intellect.

Who is the master of the gods on whom the worlds rest?
Who is the Lord of the two-footed and four-footed here?
To what god shall we reverently give offerings?

Subtler than the subtle in the middle of confusion,
the creator of all in various forms,
the one embracer of the universe,
by knowing this as kind one attains eternal peace.

It is the protector of the world in time,
the master of the universe, hidden in all creatures,
with whom the seers of God and the gods are joined in union.
By knowing this, one cuts the ties of death.

By knowing as kind the one who is hidden in all things,
very fine like clarified butter, richer than butter,
the one who encompasses the whole universe---
by knowing the divine you may be released from bondage.

This God, the world-builder, the great soul,
always seated in the heart of creatures,
is reached by the heart, by understanding, by the mind.
Those who know that become immortal.

When there is no darkness, then there is no day or night,
no being or non-being, only the kind one alone.
That is the imperishable, the splendor of Savitri;
from that came primal wisdom.

Not above nor across
nor in the middle has one grasped this.
There is no comparison to that whose name is great glory.
Its form cannot be seen; no one ever sees it with eyes.
Those who know it in heart and mind
as living in the heart become immortal.

---english version by Sanderson Beck

OM NAMAH SHIVAYA

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