The Upanishads echo in my genes and I dance to their tune.
I know some of what this means and will know the rest soon.
In these there's a magical world, a place quite apart;
That stills the turmoil in my mind & glows in my heart.
I close my eyes & walk awhile,
In their wisdom, timeless, true.
In ancient words, without guile,
I find the Real, and so will you.
Isha Upanishad (Yajurveda):
I take a strainer every night & pour my emotions in.
The pure I place in my heart and dross in the bin.
I covet not what’s not mine
A d focus only on the divine.
Kena Upanishad (Samveda):
As I greet the rising sun, to my gurus I humbly pray.
I thank them for all that’s done & am ready for the day.
I seek ‘kena’ the root cause – whence comes my mind.
In the Divine, the source of my senses I find.
Katha Upanishad (Yajurveda):
Like Nachiketa, I visit death, and find in it life anew.
I invoke it in every breath, and seek what’s True.
The very name, Nachiketa, does say,
Come what may I won’t decay.
We too are that, you and I.
We’ve to seek, we’ve to try.
Prashna Upanishad (Atharvaveda):
When questions arise in my mind, Guru Pippalada whispers there.
Dwell in Atman & you’ll find the answer to your prayer.
Meditate upon the sacred Om
And you’ll reach your real home.
When I do that in my heart,
I can’t tell Om and me apart.
Mundaka Upanishad (Atharvaveda):
Saunaka & Angiras, sages two, guide us here,
They raise us to the upper sphere.
Down below we don’t sing,
We’re golden birds up here.
Om is the bow, Self the arrow
And at Brahman we aim.
When we strive, we arrive
And find, we're the same.
Mandukya Upanishad (Atharvaveda)
“Who am I”, I ask again & again,
Awake, asleep and in my dreams.
Why's reality so far from plain?
Why isn't all as it seems?
When truth is unfurled,
We find Om is the World.
And we, too, are one
With All-That-Is,
The lambent kiss of divine bliss.
Taittriya Upanishad (Yajurveda):
Sage Trisanku reminds the seeker true,
Pure light is who’s the real you.
Brahman is bliss
And born of it are you & I.
We’ll become one with it,
When our egos die.
When I learn & I teach,
I take & give back what I can.
All dark corners my light must reach,
That's what I plan.
Aitereya Upanishad (Rigveda):
I know all knowledge is divine,
And I must learn from everyone.
Only then will this world be mine
And I’ll be ALL under the sun.
There was a time when Atma alone,
In the cosmic darkness shone.
Then through it all arose,
As its poems and its prose.
The key to the mystery of the universe, beyond our power & pelf,
Is to be found in our own inner self.
Chandogya Upanishad (Samveda):
Uddalika’s words echo in my mind
All comes from naught & ends there.
In this 'nothingness' I’ll find,
What I seek everywhere.
In “Om!” is the music of the World,
In it we’ll find Truth unfurled.
Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad (Yajurveda):
Beyond matter and energy the world is Brahma
And the Knowledge True.
Everything is a part of the One,
And must not be seen as two.
And so,
I sleep well, and come the dawn, I’m ready to face the devil’s spawn, for every day, I can say:
Complete in myself, fully free,
I am all that I can be.
I am That all the time.
I am its prose, I am its rhyme.
Not for me pilgrimages galore,
Or visits to seers door.
Wherever I look, there I am,
My holy land is where I am.
Kishore Asthana