Inner Heroes
There is hardly a moment which is free from humankind’s extreme expression of conflict: war. Why this inveterate tendency to fight? Some conceive of a mythological or historical ‘fall’ as the point when the human mind chose the path of desire and discontent over the harmony of paradise. According to another view, a condition of…
Read MoreThe Mundaka Upanishad
satyam eva jayate (truth alone triumphs) [3:6:1] The Mundaka Upanishad is an exposition of the higher knowledge that leads to omniscience. This is not the knowledge of empirical facts, or specialised knowledge of particular subjects. It is the knowledge we value because it satisfies our urge to know the essence of things, in contrast to…
Read MoreHuman Nature – Beyond the Limits
Written by Hari Prasad Shastri in 1951 Descartes found that the fact of the existence of Self is self-evident and needs no proof. It is indubitable: I think, therefore I am. Kant postulates several ideas which he calls a priori, that is, they are not planted in the mind from outside but are natural to…
Read MoreFinding the Divine Element in Oneself
The ultimate good news for us is to be reminded that we are more than the physical and mental being which we appear to be. If we were to literally dissect the body and the mind of a person, and continue to break it down into its constituent parts, what would we find? The same…
Read MoreThere is a Way to Freedom
The supreme benefit of regular and progressive meditation is that it brings to light an element of perfect freedom in our own being. This has been compared to the forming of an opening in our mind, through which the light and peace which are normally hidden in the depths of our being, may pass into…
Read MoreThe Ascent of the Mind
Notes of a lecture given by Hari Prasad Shastri Our aim is the ascension of the mind from its present state of alternation between turpitude, passion-struggle and equilibrium, into the higher state of illumination. The word ascension has no spatial connotation; it just means lifting the mind from one state to another. It is a…
Read MoreHow Can Self and Not-Self Be Connected?
The Thousand Teachings of Shankara, Prose Part, Section Two In the Thousand Teachings of Shankara we find a dialogue between a student and a knower of Truth. The student has thought carefully about the non-dual teachings and come across points which seem to him contradictory or even incomprehensible, and so he approaches the teacher with…
Read MoreHafiz and Mysticism
The poet Hafiz was probably born between 1320 and 1326 in Shiraz in southern Iran, and died there in 1389. Although much studied and analysed, little more is known about him with certainty. He remains almost totally hidden behind his work. [His poems were collected into the ‘Diwan (anthology) of Hafiz’. The numbers in what…
Read MoreSelf-Knowledge Journal – Autumn 2024
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Read MoreThe Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
The Brihadaranyaka is the longest of the Upanishads and provides an in-depth account of how one’s innermost Self is identical with the Absolute as the one and only reality. Overarching the whole text with its three hundred-plus verses is the question: What is the nature of that knowledge which replaces our sense of individuality with…
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