Isavasya 10 Translation Fantasia

anyad evahur vidyaya anyad ahur avidyaya

iti shushruma dhiranam ye nas tad vichachakshire.

अन्यत् – different; एव – definitely; आहुः – (they) say; विद्यया – by vidyā; अन्यत् – different; आहुः – (they) say; अविद्यया – by avidyā; इति – thus; शुश्रुम – (we) have heard; धीराणाम् – of the wise; ये – who; नः – to us; तत् – that; विचचक्षिरे – explained

One thing, they say, is verily obtained from vidyā, another thing they say from avidyā; thus we have heard from the wise who explained that to us.

Both vidyā and avidyā, in fact, are bondages. Knowledge is certainly a release from the shackles of ignorance, but knowledge itself is a painful limitation upon the Absolute. One may get over the confusions of ignorance with knowledge but, in itself, this will find us only chained by the limitations of knowledge. To transcend both is to reach the state of absolute Perfection.

~Chinmayananda

Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the Knowledge, other that which comes by the Ignorance; this is the lore we have received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding.

By Vidya one may attain to the state of the silent Brahman or the Akshara Purusha regarding the universe without actively participating in it or to His self-absorbed state of Chit in Sat from which the universe proceeds and towards which it returns.

By Avidya one may attain to a sort of fullness of power, joy, world-knowledge, largeness of being, which is that of the Titans or of the Gods;, of Indra, of Prajapati. This is gained in the path of self-enlargement by an ample acceptance of the multiplicity in all its possibilities and a constant enrichment of the individual by all the materials that the universe can pour into him.

~Aurobindo

They say that the result of knowledge is different from the result of ignorance. This, we have heard from the wise, who have explained it to us.

The rishi is talking in humble terms. He does not say, ‘I am saying this.’ He says, ‘This has been explained to me by the wise, from whom we have heard that there are two results.

~Sri M

One thing, they say, is obtained from knowledge; another, they say, from ignorance. Thus we have heard from the wise who have taught us this.

ONE THING: That is to say, the Plane of the Deities. ANOTHER, ETC: The Plane of the Fathers (Pitriloka). THIS: Both rituals and knowledge of the deities. The instruction given in this verse has come down through a succession of teachers.

~Nikhilananda

Indeed what they say by knowledge is different and what they say by nescience is different. Thus we have heard from the wise who reveal that to us.

~Isa Upanishad 10 (tx-aumdada)

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Isavasya 11 Translation Fantasia

vidyāṁ cāvidyāṁ ca yastadvedobhayagṁsaha, 

avidyayā mṛtyuṁ tīrtvā vidyayāmṛtamaśnute. 

विद्याम् – vidyā; च – and; अविद्याम् – avidyā; च – and; यः – who; तत् – that; वेद – known; उभयग्म् – both; सह – together; अविद्यया – by avidyā; मृत्युम् – death; तीर्त्वा – crossing; विद्यया – by vidyā; अमृतम् – immortality; अश्नुते – enjoys, obtains

He, who knows at the same time both vidyā and avidyā, overcomes death by avidyā and obtains immortality by vidyā.

Selfless dedicated work (avidyā) prepares one for contemplation, and through contemplation vidyā is fulfilled in direct apprehension of the Self. Thereafter the perfect one undertakes karma as a sacred satisfying fulfilment of his Realisation and spiritual experience.

Having gained vidyā in this very life, there is a period when we are to live in this world as a liberated soul, a prophet, a God-man. His duty thereafter is not to run away incognito into some secret cave of contemplation, to enjoy the serene joys of his own realisation. On the other hand, he has to fulfil his Self-realisation in and through his activities in the world outside.

~Chinmayananda

He who knows at the same time both Vidya and Avidya, crosses over death by Avidya and attains immortality through Vidya.

In the subsequent verses Vidya and Avidya are used in something the same sense as "faith" and "works" in the Christian Bible; neither alone can lead to the ultimate goal, but when taken together they carry one to the Highest. Work done with unselfish motive purifies the mind and enables man to perceive his undying nature. From this he gains inevitably a knowledge of God, because the Soul and God are one and inseparable; and when he knows himself to be one with the Supreme and Indestructible Whole, he realizes his immortality.

~Paramananda

Knowledge and ignorance, he who knows the two together crosses death through ignorance and attains life eternal through knowledge.

[Shankara] makes out that by the performance of rites we overcome death and by the meditation on deities we attain immortality, which is becoming one with the deity meditated upon.

Vedanta Desika quotes a verse where it is said that by austerity we destroy sins and by wisdom we attain life eternal. 

The knowledge of discursive reason is essential, but it has to be transcended into the life of spirit. Avidya must be transcended in Vidya. Avidya has its place. Without it there is no individual, no bondage, no liberation.

~Radhakrishnan

He who is aware that both knowledge and ignorance should be pursued together, overcomes death through ignorance and obtains immortality through knowledge.

According to verse eleven, it appears that those who harmonize both attain, in the end, the status of a deity and dwell in the heavenly world as long as the cycle lasts, enjoying, as gods, what is called relative immortality.

~Nikhilananda

But one who knows these two together, knowledge and ignorance, crosses death through ignorance and attains life eternal through knowledge.

To understand ignorance means to understand the implications of the meaning of ignorance. And when you have understood that, you are free of death. When you have understood that the Supreme Being which pervades everything, which pervades the entire universe, is no different from your Self, then there is no death for you.

Even a yogi or a rishi who has understood or has taught the Upanishad dies physically. Physical death is there for everyone. But the yogi understands that his inner Self does not die. Therefore, he ‘crosses over death.’ Amrita does not mean ‘to be free from physical death’; it means, ‘to understand that the inner Self or the inner Consciousness does not cease to exist with the demise of the physical body.’

~Sri M

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.

Avidya becomes one with Vidya. By Avidya man passes beyond that death, suffering, ignorance, weakness which were the first terms he had to deal with, the first assertions of the One in the birth affirming Himself amid the limitations and divisions of the Multiplicity. By Vidya he enjoys even in the birth the Immortality.

By immortality is meant the consciousness which is beyond birth and death, beyond the chain of cause and effect, beyond all bondage and limitation, free, blissful, self-existent in conscious-being, the consciousness of the Lord, of the supreme Purusha, of Sachchidananda.

~Aurobindo

There is vidya and avidya and that who knows both together. By avidya, death is overcome and by vidya, immortality is attained.

~Isa Upanihad 11 (tx-aumdada)

Isavasya 12 Translation Fantasia

andhaṁ tamaḥ praviśanti ye’sambhūtimupāsate, tato bhūya iva te tamo ya u sambhūtyāgṁratāḥ.

अन्धम् – blindening; तमः – darkness; प्रविशन्ति – enter into, fall; ये – who; असम्भूतिम् – unmanifest (prakṛti, the primal material cause); उपासते – worship; ततः – than that; भूयः – greater; इव – as though; ते – they; तमः – darkness; य – who; उ – verily; सम्भूत्याग्म् – in the manifest (Brahman meaning Hiraṇyagarbha – see commentary); रताः – devoted

They fall into blindening darkness who worship the unmanifest (prakṛti); but those who devote themselves to the manifest (Hiraṇyagarbha) fall, as though, into greater darkness.

Mantras 12, 13 and 14 are again another triad in which the same idea described earlier has been brought out for the purpose of better clarification. It is so very important that it is necessary for every seeker of Vedānta to understand correctly what is the exact relationship between vidyā and avidyā.

The pair of words used in this section is unmanifest (asambhūti) and manifest (sambhūti). The ‘unmanifest’ would be easier for you all to understand as the impersonal God, and the ‘manifest’ as the personal God.

Just as we have seen that there is no controversy between vidyā and avidyā and that they are complementary to each other, so too, jñāna and bhakti are not contradictory. In fact, each in the lap of the other grows stronger and gets more established.

~Chinmayananda

They fall into blind darkness who worship the Unmanifested and they fall into greater darkness who worship the manifested.

This particular Upanishad deals chiefly with the Invisible Cause and the visible manifestation, and the whole trend of its teaching is to show that they are one and the same, one being the outcome of the other hence no perfect knowledge is possible without simultaneous comprehension of both.

~Paramananda

Into blinding darkness enter those who worship the unmanifest and into still greater darkness, as it were, enter those who delight in the manifest!

There are those who worship the unmanifest. They also enter into darkness, but not as great a darkness as those who worship only the manifest. ‘Worshipping the unmanifest’ means worshipping that which is the cause of the manifest world. The Upanishadic teaching is that one has to transcend both, the manifest and the unmanifest. 

When they speak of the unmanifest they are speaking about the Supreme Reality as a creator, destroyer and so on. It is unmanifest because it is behind the manifestations that we see before us. It is the operator of all that operates. The Upanishad says that you can remain at that level, but the Truth, which is Light, is beyond both, the manifest as well as the unmanifest.

~Sri M

Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Non-Birth, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Birth alone.

Exclusive attachment to Non-Birth leads to a dissolution into indiscriminate Nature or into the Nihil, into the Void, and both of these are states of blind darkness. For the Nihil is an attempt not to transcend the state of existence in birth, but to annul it, not to pass from a limited into an illimitable existence, but from existence into its opposite. The opposite of existence can only be the Night of negative consciousness, a state of ignorance and not of release.

On the other hand, attachment to Birth in the body means a constant self-limitation and an interminable round of egoistic births in the tower forms of egoism without issue or release. This is, from a certain point of view, a worse darkness than the other; for it is ignorant even of the impulse of release. It is not an error in the grasping after truth, but a perpetual contentment with the state of blindness. It cannot lead even eventually to any greater good, because it does not dream of any higher condition.

~Aurobindo

Those who worship the unmanifest fall into a blinding darkness but those who devote themselves to the manifest alone enter as though into a greater darkness.

~Isa Upanishad 12 (tx-aumdada)

Isavasya 13 Translation Fantasia

anyadevāhuḥ sambhavāt anyadāhurasambhavāt, iti śuśruma dhīraṇāṁ ye nastadvicacakṣire. 

अन्यत् – different; एव – definitely; आहुः – (they) say; सम्भवात् – from the manifest; अन्यत् – different; आहुः – (they) say; असम्भवात् – from the ummanifest; इति – thus; शुश्रुम – (we) have heard; धीराणाम् – of the wise; ये – who; नः – to us; तत् – that; विचचक्षिरे – explained

One thing, they say, is verily obtained from the worship of the manifest. Another thing, they say, from the worship of the unmanifest; thus have we heard from the wise who have explained that to us.

Just as in the second mantra of the earlier triad (mantras 9 to 11), here also the ṛṣi is trying to explain to us that what we generally understand by the terms manifest and unmanifest are not exactly what they connote in the technique of self-perfection, but that they have some special significance. This new orientation of the idea is again vouchsafed here as not merely a whiff of the ṛṣi’s own personal opinion, but that it has the sanction of the entire hierarchy of experienced Masters and their worthy disciples.

~Chinmayananda

Indeed what they say by the manifest is different and what they say by the unmanifest is different. Thus we have heard from the wise who reveal that to us.

~Isa Upanishad 13 (tx-aumdada)

Isavasya 14 Translation Fantasia

sambhūtiṁ ca vināśaṁ ca yastadvedobhayagṁsaha,

vināśena mṛtyuṁ tīrtvā sambhūtyāmṛtamaśnute.

सम्भूतिम् – impersonal God; च – and; विनाशम् – personal God; च – and; यः – who; तत् – that; वेद – knows; उभयग्म् – both; सह – together; विनाशेन – by personal God; मृत्युम् – death; तीर्त्वा – crossing; सम्भूत्या – by impersonal God; अमृतम् – immortality; अश्नुते – enjoys, obtains

He who knows that both the unmanifested prakriti and the manifested Hiranyagarbha should be worshipped together, overcomes death by the worship of Hiranyagarbha and obtains immortality through devotion to prakriti.

The result of combining the two kinds of worship described in the text is, first, the attainment of supernatural powers through devotion to Hiranyagarbha, and second, the attainment of immortality (relative) by merging in prakriti. The attainment of this immortality is the culmination of the efforts of a man or a god. It is the highest achievement in the relative universe.

~Nikhilananda

He who worships the impersonal God and the personal God together, overcomes death through the worship of the personal and obtains immortality through the worship of the impersonal.

Here Śrī Śaṅkara takes sambhūti to mean the ‘primordial matter’ (mahat tattvaṁ) which we may call as prakṛti or nature, which is not in its expression an effect but the very cause for the entire manifested prakṛti. By the term asambhūti, Śaṅkara understands as the kārya (effects), the saguṇa Brahman, the conditioned reality. We need not go into the philosophical hair-splitting and exhaust ourselves at present.

One very satisfying explanation I had heard was from my Gurudev, Śrī Swami Tapovana Mahārāja. It beautifully reconciles this confusing contradiction. He suggested to us to recognise sambhūti and sambhava as meaning the birth of a new spiritual life, and asambhūti and vināśam as referring to the cessation and destruction cessation of the creation of new vāsanās and the total destruction of the entire existing vāsanās.

~Chinmayananda

He who knows at the same time both the Unmanifested (the cause of manifestation) and the destructible or manifested, he crosses over death through knowledge of the destructible and attains immortality through knowledge of the First Cause (Unmanifested). 

This particular Upanishad deals chiefly with the Invisible Cause and the visible manifestation, and the whole trend of its teaching is to show that they are one and the same, one being the outcome of the other hence no perfect knowledge is possible without simultaneous comprehension of both.

By work, by making the mind steady and by following the prescribed rules given in the Scriptures, a man gains wisdom. By the light of that wisdom he is able to perceive the Invisible Cause in all visible forms. Therefore the wise man sees Him in every manifested form. They who have a true conception of God are never separated from Him. They exist in Him and He in them.

~Paramananda

He who understands the manifest and the unmanifest both together, crosses death through the unmanifest and attains life eternal through the manifest.

To be absorbed in the world around without turning to the principle at the base of it is one extreme; to be absorbed in the contemplation of the transcendent infinite indifferent to the events of the manifested world because they are likely to disturb inward serenity and self-complacency is another extreme. This verse asks us to lead a life in the manifested world with a spirit of non¬ attachment, with the mind centred in the unmanifest. We must live in this world without being choked by it. We must centre our thoughts in the eternal remembering that the eternalis the soul of the temporal. 

~Radhakrishnan

He who understands the manifest and the unmanifest together, crosses death.

This is said because one could otherwise become one-sided and forget the world and concentrate only on the unmanifest! This is almost impossible because it requires a great deal of physical, mental, and psychological preparation. 

Understanding the unmanifest and the manifest together

means to live where you are, and simultaneously go on with your studies and your search for the Truth, giving enough importance to the manifest as well as the unmanifest, until you begin to understand the truth that the Supreme Being is the only living reality, and is all-pervading.

So, one has to go carefully. Keep the manifest in view, keep the unmanifest in view, balance the two and move forward. When one is completely convinced, then one can drop the manifest. In fact, you do not even have to drop it. Maya pushes you out; you don’t have to even try!

~Sri M

There is unmanifest and the manifest and that who knows both together. By the manifest, death is overcome and by the unmanifest, immortality is attained.

~Isa Upanishad 14 (tx-aumdada)

Isvayasa 15 Translation Fantasia

hiranmayena pātreņa satyasyāpihitam mukham, 

tattvam pūşannapāvṛņu satyadharmāya dıştaye. (15)

हिरण्मयेन - golden; पात्रेण by the vessel (which acts like a lid); सत्यस्य - of Truth; अपिहितम् covered; मुखम् face; तत् - that; त्वम् you; पूषन् O Sun; अपावृणु - do open; सत्यधर्माय - the practitioner of Truth; दृष्टये for beholding

The face of Truth is covered by a golden lid; remove, O Sun that (covering) for me, the practitioner of Truth, so that I may behold It.

It is interesting to note that there are two recensions for this Upaniṣad; the Kāṇva and Mādhyandina. According to the latter this is the last mantra, while the Upaniṣad, as it stands, full with its 18 mantras, is acceptable in the Kāṇva reading.

Prayer in Vedānta is only an attempt of the ego centre to attune itself to the supreme Consciousness in the individual. Addressing the supreme Consciousness, the ego centre in the individual is chanting this mantra. 

The Sun is the centre of the entire universe, itself motionless and inactive and yet by its very presence, it balances the entire movement of the universe around it. Being the nourisher and the source of all energy in the cosmos, it represents in the seeker's inner world - the nourisher and illuminator - the Atman.

As Śrī Śańkara says, it is certainly the last prayer of the dying individual but the individual meant here is the ego centre. We are not to understand it, that it is literally a prayer of the dying old man on his death bed. It is the last prayer of the active spiritual seeker in his meditation seat when he, in his divine effort, is shaking off the last vestige of ego which is lingering to veil the Self in him.

~Chinmayananda

The door of the Truth is covered by a golden disc. Open it, O Nourisher! Remove it so that I who have been worshipping the Truth may behold It.

Referring to the manifestation of Brahman in the sun. The sun is often used as a symbol of Brahman. "That which is Truth is that sun." (Br. Up. V. v. 1-4.) Here the sun includes earth, heaven, and the interspace and is known also by the name of Vyariti. The sun is personified, with earth, heaven, and the interspace as its head, two arms, and two feet. The worship prescribed in this and the following verses is the symbolic worship of Brahman through the sun.

~Nikhilananda

The face of the Supreme Truth is covered by a golden disc. O Pushann, O Surya, O controller of everything, remove this golden disc that covers your face, so that I, who love the Truth, may perceive It!

This ‘golden disc’ that covers the face of Truth is the captivating glamour and glitter of the world. Often, most of us are carried away by the shining ‘golden disc.’ So this prayer is, ‘I can do nothing about this golden-disc except plead; please remove it O Pushann, O Controller, so that I may see you as you are, as the Real Truth!’ 

Since Pushann also means Surya, the Sun-God, the ‘golden disc’ could also figuratively refer to the golden color of the sun when it rises in the morning and sets in the evening. ‘Remove that golden disc so that I may see your face.’ It also means, ‘Remove all the attributes so that I may see you as the Attributeless Supreme Being.’ This is the second interpretation.

The second part of this prayer, which is, ‘I, who am the lover of Truth,’ is important. If one is not the lover of ‘Truth’ then one can be happy with that golden disc alone. One does not want to look beyond it.

~Sri M

Isvayasa 16 Translation Fantasia

pūşannekarşe yama sūrya prājāpatya vyūha raśmin samūha, tejo yatte rūpaṁ 

kalyāņatamam tatte paśyāmi yo'sāvasau puruṣaḥ so'hamasmi.

पूषन् O! Pūsan; एकर्षे Controller; सूर्य O! sole seer; यम Ο! O! Sūrya; प्राजापत्य O! Son of rays; समूह Thy; रूपम् gather form; that; ते - thy; this; असौ this; पुरुषः Prajāpati; व्यूह - disperse; रश्मीन् up; तेजः - light; यत् what; ते कल्याणतमम् most auspicious; तत् पश्यामि - (I) see; यः who; असौ Puruşa; सः - he; अहम् - I; अस्मि am

O! Pūşan (sun, nourisher), O! sole seer, O! controller of all, O! Sūrya, O! son of Prajāpati, disperse Thy rays and gather up Thy burning light, I behold Thy glorious form, the Puruşa within Thee, He am I.

It is to be noted that Lord Sun was the Guru of Sage Yājñavalkya, the compiler of the Śukla Yajurveda Samhitā; and Īśāvāsyopaniṣad belongs to it. The samhita itself was taught to him by Lord Sun. The Sun is the greatest nourisher, disinfector, the 'great filler' who fills life with flavour. 'By Thy grace may I reach nearer the Iśa who indwells everywhere, including Thee,' seems to be here, the cry of the heart at meditation.

Before this final experience of oneness 'He am I', we have been shown how there is a lower state of realisation that 'I behold Thy glorious form', wherein the ego still remains, experiencing a divine exaltation. This state is called savikalpa samādhi. This precedes the final stage of the total end of the ego when the seeker rediscovers himself to be the sought the supreme Self. This stage of experience of oneness is called the nirvikalpa samādhi.

~Chinmayananda

O Pushan! O Sun, sole traveller of the heavens, controller of all, son of Prajapati, withdraw Thy rays and gather up Thy burning effulgence. Now through Thy Grace I behold Thy blessed and glorious form. The Purusha (Effulgent Being) who dwells within Thee, I am He. 

Here the sun, who is the giver of all light, is used as the symbol of the Infinite, giver of all wisdom. The seeker after Truth prays to the Effulgent One to control His dazzling rays, that his eyes, no longer blinded by them, may behold the Truth. Having perceived It, he proclaims: "Now I see that that Effulgent Being and I are one and the same, and my delusion is destroyed." By the light of Truth he is able to discriminate between the real and the unreal, and the knowledge thus gained convinces him that he is one with the Supreme; that there is no difference between himself and the Supreme Truth

~Paramananda

O Nourisher, lone Traveller of the sky! Controller! O Sun, Offspring of Prajapati! Gather Your rays; withdraw Your light. I would see, through Your grace, that form of Yours which is the fairest. I am indeed He, that Purusha, who dwells there.

PURUSHA: Lit., Person. It also refers to the Godhead, who lies in the hearts of all, or who fills the whole universe with life and consciousness.

~Nikhilananda

Isvayasa 17 Translation Fantasia

vāyuranilamamṛtamathedam bhasmāntagṁśarīram,

omkrato smara kṛtagṁsmara krato smara krtagmsmara

वायुः air (prāņa); अनिलम् to the air reduced to ashes; (universal); अमृतम् - immortal; अथ now; इदम् - this; भस्मान्तग्म् शरीरम् - body; ॐ – Om (prolonged sound); क्रतो O my mind; स्मर (you) remember; कृतग्म् - what you did, your deeds; स्मर - (you) remember; क्रतो O my mind; स्मर (you) remember; कृतग्म् - what you did, your deeds; स्मर - (you) remember

Let my prāņa merge into the all-pervading air (and) now let this body be burnt (by fire) to ashes. Om, O my mind! remember, remember what you did! O my mind! remember, remember what you did!.

A man, after the realisation of the Self, will thereafter face death as happily as he would face life and its changing vicissitudes. Thereafter, to him death is not a tragic culmination but, in fact, is a joyous beginning of an immortal existence.

As regards his mind, he cries: 'May you remember all that you have done in the past' meaning, the great achievement, the supreme experience.

Even at the moment of departure let not our mind be distracted by any other thought; let us get ourselves established in the continuous experience of that moment of fulfilment as a human creature.

~Chinmayananda

May my life-breath go to the all-pervading and immortal Prana, and let this body be burned to ashes. Om! O mind, remember thy deeds! O mind, remember, remember thy deeds! Remember!

Seek not fleeting results as the reward of thy actions, O mind! Strive only for the Imperishable. This Mantram or text is often chanted at the hour of death to remind one of the perishable nature of the body and the eternal nature of the Soul. When the clear vision of the distinction between the mortal body and the immortal Soul dawns in the heart, then all craving for physical pleasure or material possession drops away; and one can say, let the body be burned to ashes that the Soul may attain its freedom; for death is nothing more than the casting-off of a worn-out garment.

~Paranananda

Isavasya 18 Translation Fantasia

agne naya supathā rāye asmān viśvāni deva vayunāni vidvān,

yuyodhyasmajjuhurāṇameno bhūyisthām te nama uktim vidhema.

अग्ने - O Agni; नय lead; सुपथा by a good path; राये - wealth; अस्मान् - us; विश्वानि all; देव- O God; वयुनानि ways; विद्वान् - knower; युयोधि – remove; अस्मत् - from us; जुहुराणम् - crookedly attracting; एनः - sin; भूयिष्ठाम् -best; ते - to you; नम उक्तिम् - prayer; विधेम – offer

O Agni! Lead us on to 'wealth' by a good path, as Thou knowest, O God, all the many ways. Remove the crooked attraction of sin from us. We offer Thee our best salutations.

Let bhaktas understand that true Vedānta is no enemy to them; let true Vedāntins come to feel ashamed of themselves when they cry down bhakti in the name of their sacred faith, the religion of Vedānta. At the time of the Vedas, Agni was the God; here the prayer is an invocation to Agni devatā - the fire God.

Here, in this stanza, Lord Agni has been invoked to lead us to wealth. The materialist need not understand that this wealth means the sterling or the dollar! It is not the wealth of the economist that is meant here, but it is the riches of the spiritual seeker that is in the mind of the rsis. Wealth is thus to be understood as standing for bliss or mukti or beatitude. The seeker's death bed request is only for the attainment of the supreme felicity. The rest of the expressions are amply self-evident.

~Chinmayananda

O god Agni, knowing all things that are manifested, lead us by the good path to the felicity; remove from us the devious attraction of sin. To thee completes speech of submission we address.

There is in and behind all our errors, sins and stumblings a secret Will, tending towards Love and Harmony, which knows where it is going and prepares and combines our crooked branchings towards the straight path which will be the final result of their toil and seeking. The emergence of this Will and that Light is the condition of immortality.

This Will is Agni. Agni is in the Rig-veda, from which the closing verse of the Upanishad is taken, the flame of the Divine Will or Force of Consciousness working in the worlds. He is described as the immortal in mortals, the leader of the journey, the divine Horse that bears us on the road, the "son of crookedness" who himself knows and is the straightness and the Truth. Concealed and hard to seize in the workings of this world because they are all falsified by desire and egoism, he uses them to transcend them and emerges as the universal in Man or universal Power, Agni Vaishwanara, who contains in himself all the gods and all the worlds, upholds all the universal workings and finally fulfils the godhead, the immortality. He is the worker of the divine Work. It is these symbols which govern the sense of the two final verses of the Upanishad.

~Aurobindo

O Fire, lead us by the good path for the enjoyment of the fruit of our action. You know, O god, all our deeds. Destroy our sin of deceit. We offer, by words, our salutations to you. 

FIRE: During Vedic times twice-born householders worshipped fire and offered their oblations in it. Fire was considered as the intermediary god through whom oblations to the other gods were made.

The following is adapted from Sankara's commentary: "Some take exception to our interpretation of these verses. We shall now try briefly to answer their objections. The objector asks why one should not, by knowledge, mean the Knowledge of the Supreme Self, and by immortality, the ultimate Liberation. The Upanishad here explicitly lays down, they say, the injunction to pursue together the Knowledge of the Supreme Self and ritualistic worship. The words of scripture are the final authority. Though Knowledge and ignorance (ritualistic worship) are said to produce contradictory results, yet this objection cannot stand in view of the clear statement of the Upanishad referred to above.

"To this objection we answer that Knowledge and ignorance cannot, by any means, be reconciled, because they are contradictory both as to their nature and as to their ultimate result. The cause of ignorance is false identification of Atman with the body and the rest, but true Knowledge is completely different. The result of ignorance is entanglement in the world, and that of Knowledge, liberation from the world. Therefore they cannot be harmonized. It cannot be contended that Knowledge and rituals may be pursued alternately, because no sooner does a man attain Self-Knowledge than his identification of the Self with the body disappears."

~Nikhilananda

A. Chinmayananda on Isa Structure

Chinmayananda on the structure of the Isa Upanishad:

The thought flow in the Īśāvāsyopaniṣad gallops on to its vivid goal in seven distinct waves. Because of the brevity of the expressions, which are made to convey an entire philosophy at once sublime in thought, divine in concept, and scientific in treatment, to a hasty reader the Īśāvāsyopaniṣad would be a confusing medley of rambling thoughts and, perhaps, would seem to contain only some wrecked, half expressed ideas.

This conclusion has become very familiar especially with alien commentators because each new adventurer, reaching the portals of this scripture, gets himself all the more confused because some of the expressions used in the Upaniṣad, though looking familiar, bear in themselves special significance and particular connotations in the context of the stanzas.

In the first wave (stanza-1), an entire chapter of ideas has been summarised by the great teachers to expose the theory of Truth and how it can be gained via the path of renunciation, and how the realised Truth can be maintained and consistently enjoyed through values of life founded upon a complete detachment from all the material glory, passing successes, and flimsy popularity!

In the second wave (stanza-2), the Master indicates the path of action which, according to the seers, must be sincerely pursued by all others who cannot follow the earlier advocated path of renunciation.

In the third stanza (stanza-3), which forms the third wave, it is even hinted that to refuse to walk either of these two paths, is to go astray into an abyss of pain and darkness!

In the fourth swing, comprising of five stanzas (4-8) of the seer’s poetic brush, his word pigments have gathered a transcendental shine to indicate vividly to his students what exactly is the goal of life as indicated in the first stanza, and how one who has gained that goal will thereafter live in his inner world of subjective ‘Truth-experience’.

Immediately following these immortal verses explaining the infinite qualities of the ‘Subject’, the ṛṣi, in the following six stanzas (9-14), is exhausting the fifth wave. Here he indicates to the students that knowledge and action (meditation and worship) are to be taken together, hand in hand, if they are to be coaxed to yield their maximum dividend. Neither of them is to be practised to the exclusion of the other, but they are to be faithfully followed one after the other as a harmonious and integrated programme. Then alone can one of them be reinforced by the other, and in its turn, vitalise the other. Thus, mutually strengthening each other, ultimately the pair takes the individual seeker to the state of Self-recognition, or Self-awareness.

The next three stanza (15-17) together constitute the sixth wave of thought in the scripture, which is a call of the mortal man to the glory of the immortal Self in himself to reveal Itself in the joy of Self-experience.

The last stanza (18) in itself represents the seventh wave of thought. After explaining the highest goal, both the teacher and the taught together pray to the Supreme for guidance and help on the path of Self-development.