Niralamba Upanishad

ॐ

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Niralamba Upanishad

Shuklayajurveda, a group of Upanishads - pure Vedanta

Om! That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite.
The infinite comes from the infinite.
(Then) accepting the infinity of the infinite (universe),
She remains as the infinite (Brahman) one.
Om! Let there be Peace in me!
May there be Peace in my surroundings!
May there be Peace in the forces that act upon me!

1. I will raise and answer (questions covering) everything that should be known for the elimination of the miseries of living beings immersed in ignorance.

2. (1) What is Brahman?

(2) Who is God?

(3) Who is a living being?

(4) What is Prakriti?

(5) Who is the Higher Self?

(6) Who is Brahma?

(7) Who is Vishnu?

(8) Who is Rudra?

(9) Who is Indra?

(10) Who is the (god) of Death?

(11) Who is the Sun?

(12) Who is Luna?

(13) Who are the Gods?

(14) Who are demons?

(15) Who are evil spirits?

(16) Who are men?

(17) Who are women?

(18) Who are animals, etc.?

(19) What is motionless (sthAvara)?

(20) Who are the Brahmins, etc.?

(21) What is caste (jati)?

(22) What is an act?

(23) What is non-action?

(24) What is knowledge?

(25) What is ignorance?

(26) What is pleasure?

(27) What is pain?

(28) What is heaven?

(29) What is hell?

(30) What is slavery?

(31) What is liberation?

(32) What should be adored?

(33) Who is a disciple?

(34) Who is a sage?

(35) Who is the erring one?

(36) Who is a demon?

(37) What is asceticism?

(38) What is the highest abode?

(39) What should we strive for?

(40) What should be rejected?

(41) Who is a renouncer (sannyasin)?

3. (1) Brahman is the ineffable Spirit. It manifests as Mahat (the Great Sankhyan), the ego, (the elements) earth, water, fire, air and ether – the macrocosm and as actions, knowledge and goals. It is non-dual and free from all adjuncts. It is great with all powers and has no beginning and no end. It can be said to be pure, good, immobile, without qualities.

4. (2) God is the true Brahman, who, depending on his power called Prakriti, creates the worlds and enters (into them) as the internal Controller of Brahma, etc., (He) is Ishvara, since he controls the intellect and the sense organs.

5. (3) A living being (Jiva) is one who, by false imposition, asserts, "I am gross" because of the "name and form" of Brahma, Vishnu, Ishana, Indra, etc. (The Jiva thinks): Although I am one, due to the differences of the causes that give rise to the body, the Jivas are many.

6. (4) Prakriti is only the power of Brahman; it is intelligent in nature and is capable of creating a varied and wonderful world out of (the matrix of) Brahman.

7. (5) The Supreme Self is Brahman only, being entirely different from the body, etc.

8-9. (6-20) Brahma, Vishnu, Indra, (the god) of Death, the Sun, the Moon, the gods, the demons, men, women, animals, etc.; the immobile (sthAvara), the Brahmins, etc.; are that very Spirit (ParamAtma).

10. (21) Neither skin nor blood, nor flesh nor bone, has caste; Caste (jati) is ascribed to oneself by mere use.

11. (22) "I perform actions that are performed through the sense organs" - an action performed in this way, being concentrated only on the Self, is the (considered) action.

12. (23) Action done with conceit as the agent and enjoyer, causing birth, etc., binds; non-action is the obligatory and accidental action - sacrifice, sacred vow, asceticism, gifts, etc., done without the desire for their fruits.

13. (24) Knowledge is the immediate realization, through discipline of the body and sense organs, service to the Teacher, listening, thinking and meditation, that there is nothing but the Spirit, the essence of both subjects and objects, which is unchanging among the changeable, like pots and clothes, the same in everything, their innermost (essence).

14. (25) Ignorance is the illusory knowledge - like a snake in a rope - of Brahman, which is All in all, all-pervading and non-dual. (This illusory knowledge) is associated with the multiplicity of selves based on the multiplicity of the adjuncts of bondage and liberation, namely: positions in life, castes, men, women, the immobile, mankind, (lower) animals and the gods.

15. (26) Pleasure is the blissful state that follows the knowledge of the essence of Being, Intelligence and Bliss. (27) This (Dukkha - pain) is merely the Sankalpa (or thinking) of the objects of worldly existence (or not-Self).

16. (28) Paradise is a connection with the holy.

17. (29) Association with worldly people who are not holy in themselves is hell.

18. (30) Slavery consists in the imagination caused by the beginningless latent impressions of ignorance: “I am born, etc.”

19. Slavery consists in the imagination of immersion in the stream of existence with its proprietary claims on fields, gardens, houses, children, wives, brothers, mothers and fathers.

20. Slavery is the vanity of selfish agency in relation to actions, etc.

21. Slavery is the imagination caused by the desire of the eight powers, anima, etc.

22. Slavery is an imagination caused by the longing for worship of gods, men, etc.

23. Bondage is the imagination (leading to) the practice of Yoga with its eight limbs, Yama, etc.

24. Slavery is the planning of actions and duties associated with castes and positions of life.

25. Bondage is the idea that the Atman has qualities like doubt, fear, etc.

26. Slavery is the planning (acquisition) of knowledge, the performance of sacrifices, vows, asceticism and (giving) gifts.

27. Bondage is the planning of dedicating oneself exclusively to moksha.

28. Slavery is something that arises solely from the imagination.

29. (31) Liberation is the weakening, through the distinction between the eternal and the ephemeral, of the sense of ownership over the objects that give rise to the fleeting pleasures and pains of transient life.

30. (32) Worthy of admiration is the teacher who leads to Brahman, the Spirit that dwells in all bodies.

31. (33) The disciple is the Brahman who remains fully immersed in the knowledge of the world, as erased by the awareness (of its basis, namely Brahman).

32. (34) The sage is the one who knows the essence of Self-Consciousness, which is present in all as their innermost (part).

33. (35) The deluded one is he who is supported by the vanity of egoism in relation to agency, etc.

34. (36) Demonic is the asceticism which is rooted in deep-rooted attachment, aversion, destructive violence, hypocrisy, etc.; which torments itself by performing "repetition of the holy names" and Agnihotra during fasting, and which is impelled by the desire to acquire the power of the gods like Brahma, Vishnu, Indra and Ishana.

35. (37) Asceticism is the burning in the fire of immediate awareness of the falsity of the world of the seed of imagination created by the desire to gain the power of Brahma, etc.

36. (38) The highest abode is the status of Brahman, eternal freedom, including Being, Intelligence and Bliss, beyond the qualities of the internal organ, the sense organs and the vital breath.

37. (39) One should seek the essence of pure Spirit, undefined by space, time and objects.

38. (40) One should reject the idea that the true world is a world other than one's own Self, which is perceived by false sense organs and the intellect.

39. (41) A Sannyasin (mendicant monk) is a wandering independent ascetic who knows definitely, in unspecified concentration (Nirvikalpa Samadhi), "I am Brahman." He comes to this through an experiential knowledge of the contents of the Principal Texts, such as: "Here is no multiplicity"; "All this is Brahman"; "That Thou art," etc.; after renouncing all duties, possessiveness, and ego, and taking refuge in the beloved Brahman. This ascetic is liberated; he is adored; he is a Yogi; he is the Immeasurable; he is Brahman.

Thus ends the Niralambopanishad belonging to the Shuklayajurveda.