Spirituality-dr.commander Selvam

performed and is made up of Mantras and Brahmanaas. The later deals with Upasana or meditation and has Aranyakas inside them for the benefit of those who have resorted to the quiet habitat of the forest to pursue their spiritual Quest. Out of the 108 Upanishads, several Acharyas like Adi Sankara have commented upon only 10. These are Isavasya, Kena, Katha, Aitareya, Brihadaranyaka, Prasna, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Chandogya and Mundaka. Many savants like Swami Vivekananda and Swami Chinmayananda have also popularized these. They all deal with highest category of philosophy and metaphysics. Therefore, there is a general impression that all Upanishads are texts of Hindu Philosophy. This is not true. There are Upanishads which even tell you how to wear the sacred ash, how to worship a particular God and so on. However, majority of them deal with methods of Yoga and Renunciation (Sanyasa).Let me take a few of Atharva Veda Upanishads for our discussion.

27. Gopalatapini 28. Krishna 29. Hayagriva 30. Dattatreya and 31. Garuda .” The 31 Upanishads belonging to the Atharva Veda are

1. Prasna, 2. Mundaka, 3. Maandukya, 4. Atharvasira, 5. Atharvasikha, 6. Brahajjabala, 7. Nrsimhatapini, 8. Narada Parivrajaka, 9. Sita, 10. Sarabha, 11. Tribadvibhutimahanarayana, 12. Ramarahasya, 13. Ramatapini, 14. Sandilya, 15.Paramahamsaparivrajaka, 16.Annapurna, 17.Surya, 18. Atma 19. Pasupatabrahma 20. Parabrahma 21. Tripuratapini 22. Devi 23. Bhavana 24. Bhasmajabala 25. Ganapati 26. Mahavakhya

Prasna Upanishad

“In Sanskrit, Prasna means question. This book consists of six questions and their answers, hence the name. It is in the form of question-answers. Except first and last questions, all other questions are actually a group of smaller subquestions. As narrated in the beginning of this Upanishad, Six pupils interested in knowing divinity or Brahman come to sage Pippalada and ask questions of great spiritual importance. Pippalada asks them to take up penance of one year. Upon completion of penance, they again come to sage and asked questions, and then the sage answered their questions.”

Mandukya Upanishad

“For the very reason that it explains the esoteric meaning of the fundamental syllable Aum of Hindu spiritual tradition, the Upanishad has been extolled greatly. The Muktikopanishad, which talks about all other Upanishads, says that if a person cannot afford to study all the hundred and more Upanishads, it will be enough to read just the Mandukya Upanishad. According to Dr.S. Radhakrishnan, in this Upanishad we find the fundamental approach to the attainment of reality by the road of introversion and ascent from the sensible and changing, through the mind, which dreams, through the soul, which

Siddhi Times USA 9