Yajnavalkya : Vedic Rishi author of Shukla (White) Yajur-Veda, Shatapatha Brāhmaṇa, the Brihad Aranyaka (with its Upanishad) & the Yajñavalkya-Smṛti.
... the best; they all sat in silence. Then Yajnavalkya stood up, and called upon his band of disciples to take the herd of kine to his home. This created a sensation among the Brahmin crowd. What was this Yajnavalkya doing? How very insolent of him! One of them came up - he was a priest of King Janaka's, Asvala by name. He called out to Yajnavalkya, "Yajnavalkya, do you then happen to be the best among... numerous were the seekers and men of knowledge who had assembled there to see him, Rishi Yajnavalkya suddenly made his appearance. The king greeted the mighty sage with due ceremony and respect, and asked him, "Yajnavalkya, what is the object that brings you here? Is it the acquisition of Knowledge or of kine?" Yajnavalkya said, "Both, my king, — ubhayameva samrāṭ ! " with a smile. There was a previous... was no end to Asvala's questionings; he went on asking and Yajnavalkya gave due reply. This dialogue between Yajnavalkya and Asvala forms a chapter in the Upanishadic Science of Reality. After Asvala had finished, another got up. This was the Rishi Artabhaga of the family of Jaratkaru. The dialogue that ensued between him and Yajnavalkya forms another chapter of the Upanishadic lore. Then arose ...
... all of a sudden people saw Yajnavalkya advancing and telling his disciples to take hold of the herd and drive it home. A hue and cry arose: how is it? How dare he? One came Page 21 forward and asked Yajnavalkya: How is it, Yajnavalkya? Do you consider yourself the most wise in the matter of Brahman? First prove your claim and then touch the cows. Yajnavalkya in great humility bowed down... voice said: That will not do, Yajnavalkya. You cannot get away so easily. Come, sit down and prove your worth. Yajnavalkya had no way of escape. So one by one the sages came up and put questions and enigmas to Yajnavalkya. All he answered quietly and perfectly to their full satisfaction. Towards the end a woman stood up, Gargi, a fair and famous name too. She said: Yajnavalkya;, I shall put two questions... Six Talks III JANAKA AND YAJNAVALKYA King Janaka was a great king and a great sage. He wielded an empire without and equally an empire within: he had realised the Truth, known Brahman. He was svarat and samrāt. A friend and intimate of his was Rishi Yajnavalkya, who also was a sage — in fact, considered to be the greatest sage of the time, a supreme ...
... Then Yajnavalkya stood up, and called upon his band of disciples to take the herd of kine to his home. This created a sensation among the Brahmin crowd. What was this Yajnavalkya doing? How very insolent of him! One of them came up - he was a priest of King Janaka's, Asvala by name. He called out to Yajnavalkya, "Yajnavalkya, do you then happen to be the best among us Brahmins?" Yajnavalkya replied... numerous were the seekers and men of knowledge who had assembled there to see him, Rishi Yajnavalkya suddenly made his appearance. The king greeted the mighty sage with due ceremony and respect, and asked him, "Yajnavalkya, what is the object that brings you here? Is it the acquisition of Knowledge or of kine?" Yajnavalkya said, "Both, my king, - ubhayameva samrat!" with a smile. There was a previous... was no end to Asvala's questionings; he went on asking and Yajnavalkya gave due reply. This dialogue – between Yajnavalkya and Asvala forms a chapter in the Upanishadic Science of Reality. After Asvala had finished, another got up. This was the Rishi Artabhaga of the family of Jaratkaru. The dialogue that ensued between him and Yajnavalkya forms another chapter of the Upanishadic lore. Then arose ...
... announcement. Then all of a sudden people saw Yajnavalkya advancing and telling his disciples to take hold of the herd and drive it home. A hue and cry arose: How is it? How dare he? One came forward and asked Yajnavalkya: How is it, Yajnavalkya? Do you consider yourself the most wise in the matter of Brahman? First prove your claim and then touch the cows. Yajnavalkya in great humility bowed down and said... Page 49 Yajnavalkya. You cannot get away so easily. Come, sit down and prove your worth. Yajnavalkya had no way of escape. So one by one the sages came up and put questions and enigmas to Yagnavalkya. All he answered quietly and perfectly to their full satisfaction. Towards the end a woman stood up, Gargi, a fair and famous name too. She said: Yajnavalkya, I shall put two questions... Vol. 5 Janaka and Yajnavalkya I KING JANAKA was a great king and a great sage. He wielded an empire without and equally an empire within: he had realised the Truth, known Brahman. He was svar āt and samr ā t. A friend and intimate of his was Rishi Yajnavalkya, who also was a sage ― in fact, considered to be the greatest ...
... Gupta - Vol. 5 More of Yajnavalkya LAST time I told you the story of the great Rishi Yajnavalkya. But that was about the later Yajnavalkya when he had become a full-fledged rishi, a guru with an Ashram and disciples. Today I will tell you something of the earlier Yajnavalkya, the beginning of his rishihood, the start of his spiritual... "All these possessions, will they give me immortality?" Yajnavalkya answered: "No, Maitreyee, that they will not give you, it is quite another matter." Maitreyee answered ― uttering a mantra as it were ― "What am I to do with that which does not give me immortality?" So Yajnavalkya had to accept her and allow her to accompany him. Now Yajnavalkya gives his first lesson of spiritual life to Maitreyee:... do." Then Yajnavalkya went to his second wife, Maitreyee; to Maitreyee too he said the same thing as he had said to Katyayani: "Maitreyee, I am leaving this life, I am taking to the spiritual life. I have given to Katyayani her share of my possessions. This is your share." But Maitreyee answered: "Wherever you go, I will follow you, I will also give up the world and its life." Yajnavalkya said: "No ...
... Six Talks IV MORE OF YAJNAVALKYA Last time I told you the story of the great Rishi Yajnavalkya. But that was about the later Yajnavalkya when he had become a full-fledged rishi, a guru with an Ashram and disciples. Today I will tell you something of the earlier Yajnavalkya, the beginning of his rishihood, the start of his spiritual life. You know... "All these possessions, will they give me immortality?" Yajnavalkya answered: "No, Maitreyee, that they will not give you, it is quite another matter." Maitreyee answered — uttering a mantra as it were — "What am I to do with that which does not give me immortality?" So Yajnavalkya had to accept her and allow her to accompany him. Now Yajnavalkya gives his first lesson of spiritual life to Maitreyee:... Finally at the end of the vanaprastha, you pass still beyond and adopt the life of the sannyasi, abandoning everything, concentrating wholly on the Supreme Truth and merging into it. Now our Yajnavalkya in the normal course of things has passed through the stage of brahmacarya, he has also pursued the stage of domestic life and is now at the end of it. He thinks the time has now come to him to ...
... Ushasti Chakrayana, Kahoda Kaushitakeya, and Gargi Vachaknavi. We should also mention Maitreyi, a learned wife of Yajnavalkya, who 'was conversant with Brahman'. One of the famous dialogues in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi. This dialogue occurs when Yajnavalkya is about to renounce the life of a householder for that of a hermit, and he proposes to divide his wealth between... in the Prashna Upanishad. Raikva is the name of the cart driver whom the King Janashruti approached for instruction. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, we have a vivid account of the supremacy of Yajnavalkya. According to the story, Yajnavalkya's guru, Uddalaka Aruni, could not hold his own in a disputation with him in a vast assembly of scholars from the entire Kuru Panchala country which had been summoned ...
... indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, never— na ca punaravartate na ca punaravartate. VIII. HOW MANY GODS? "How many Gods are there?" Yajnavalkya was once asked.* The Rishi answered, they say there are three thousand and three of them, or three hundred and three, or again, thirty- three; it may be said too there are six or three or two or... translation or concretisation of the former. We can see also 1 Brihadaranyaka III.9. Page 362 here how the dual principle comes in, the twin godhead or the two gods to which Yajnavalkya refers. The same principle is found in the conception of Ardhanarishwara, Male and Female, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad says 1 yet again that the One original Purusha was not pleased at being... alone, so for a companion he created out of himself the original Female. The dual principle signifies creation, the manifesting activity of the Reality. But what is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means that the other created out of the one is not a wholly separate, independent entity: it is not an integer by itself, as in the Manichean system, but that it is a portion ...
... their antique diction, but none of them understood what Yajnavalkya and Ajatashatru understood. We shall yet have to go back from the Nature-worship and henotheism of the Europeans, beyond the mythology and ceremonial of Sayana, beyond even the earlier intimations of Yaska and recover—nor is it the impossible task it seems—the knowledge of Yajnavalkya and Ajatashatru. It is because we do not understand... revelation that Yajnavalkya & Ajatashatru saw. We may even be compensated for our descent by a double reward. By discovering the early Vedantic interpretation of Veda, we may pour out a great illumination on the meaning of Veda itself,—to be confirmed, possibly, by the larger & more perfect Nirukta which the future will move inevitably to discover. By recovering the realisations of Yajnavalkya & Ajatashatru... Vedanta. Page 320 But whether this view is sound or unsound, whether we decide that the sense of those ancient writings was best known to the ancient Hindus or to the modern Europeans, to Yajnavalkya or to Max Muller, two things are certain that the Vedantic Rishis believed themselves to be in possession of the system of their Vedic predecessors and that they surely did not regard this system ...
... of truth, Buddha had not, so far, gone beyond the method of the Vedantic Rishis; Yajnavalkya or Pippalada would have so sought in themselves for the truth, received illumination in the same fashion, equally cast that knowledge into well-linked formulae of experience which could be lived and practised. But Yajnavalkya or Pippalada would not have shot the iron bolt of logic on the knowledge they had... by positive questioning and the positive answer to questioning. But, again, the answer to questioning does not move by logic either in its inception, in its process or in its consummation. When Yajnavalkya holds his grand debate with the Brahmavadins at the court of King Janaka, when the proud Balaki vails his pride to the superior knowledge of King Ajatashatru, it is not by the field of logic or with... drashta & to him Veda is drishti; it is spoken to the hearer & he sees, indirectly, through the medium of the word what the seer has seen by the self-vision, directly; to the hearer, Veda is Sruti. Yajnavalkya speaks his knowledge, his adversaries do not dispute it; they, too, see, being themselves habituated to these supreme processes, and the thing seen they silently & without debate acknowledge. If ...
... persists as a vital element in the Upanishads where often there is talk of Brahmaloka and not just Brahman. The context in which Yajnavalkya and Janaka figure with their "That which is free From fear" is, I think, particularly rich in reference to Brahmaloka. Indeed Yajnavalkya is a denizen par excellence of both the Here and the Yonder: with one hand he keeps a hold on the earth and with the ... actually we have the Brihadaranyaka (IV.4.25) saying:"Brahman is indeed fearless. He who knows it as such certainly becomes the fearless Brahman." Again, the same Upanishad (IV.2.4) figures Yajnavalkya exclaiming: "You have obtained That which is free from fear, O Janaka!'" It is curious that, unlike Shankara and his ilk, the Upanishads rarely allude to moksha or mukti , "freedom, liberation" ...
... Kahoda Kaushitakeya, and Gargi Vachaknavi. We should also Page 59 mention Maitreyi, a learned wife of Yajnavalkya, who "was conversant with Brahman". One of the famous dialogues in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi. This dialogue occurs when Yajnavalkya is about to renounce the life of a householder for that of a hermit, and he proposes to divide his wealth between ...
... can go only so far as that faculty can be reasonably stretched and not infinitely – to stretch it to infinity means to snap it. This is the warning that Yajnavalkya gave to Gargi when the latter started renewing her question ad infinitum. Yajnavalkya said, "If you do not stop, your head will fall off." ¹"Sharp as a razor's edge, difficult of going, hard to traverse is that path!" ²"This spirit... precisely because, as I have just mentioned, Gargi sought to shoot up – like "vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself" of which Shakespeare speaks-through the mind alone to the highest truth that Yajnavalkya had to pull her up and give the warning that she risked losing her head if she persisted in her questioning endlessly. For true knowledge comes of, and means, identity of being. All other knowledge ...
... indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, never – na ca punarāvartate na ca punarāvartate. VIII. HOW MANY GODS? "How many Gods are there?" Yajnavalkya was once asked.1 The Rishi answered, they say there are three thousand and three of them, or three hundred and three, or again, thirty-three; it may be said too there are six or three or two or one... translation or concretisation of the former. We can see also ¹ Brihadaranyaka III.9. Page 29 here how the dual principle comes in, the twin godhead or the two gods to which Yajnavalkya refers. The same principle is found in the conception of Ardhanarishwara, Male and Female, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad says¹ yet again that the One original Purusha was not pleased at being alone... alone, so for a companion he created out of himself the original Female. The dual principle signifies creation, the manifesting activity of the Reality. But what is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means that the other created out of the one is not a wholly separate, independent entity: it is not an integer by itself, as in the Manichean system, but that it is a portion, a ...
... a vital element in the Upanishads where often there is talk of Brahmaloka and not just Brahman. The context in which Yajnavalkya and Janaka figure with their "That which is free from fear" (a Rigvedic echo) is, I think, particularly rich in reference to Brahmaloka. Indeed Yajnavalkya is a denizen par excellence of both the Here and the Yonder: with one hand he keeps a hold on the earth and with ...
... seeking any man who might carry in himself the thought of light and the word of revelation, the typical figures and personalities, Janaka and the subtle mind of Ajatashatru, Raikwa of the cart, Yajnavalkya Page 132 militant for truth, calm and ironic, taking to himself with both hands without attachment worldly possessions and spiritual riches and casting at last all his wealth behind... have to concentrate on essence rather than on outer forms. Ideal Teachers In the first place, it is not easy to find in our current times Rishis like Vashishtha and Vishwamitra and Yajnavalkya around whom the ancient system was built. But still, we can make use of the ideal and consider as to how that ideal can be brought nearer to actuality and what conditions of atmosphere, conception ...
... learned Brahmins and great landed nobles; the king's son in his chariot and the illegitimate son of the servant-girl. We have here Janaka, the subtle mind of Ajatashatru, Raikwa of the cart. There is Yajnavalkya, militant for truth, calm and ironic, taking to himself, without attachment, worldly possessions and spiritual riches and casting at last all his wealth behind to wander forth as a houseless ascetic... Apala, Kadru, Vishwavara. 2. The great names that we find in the Upanishads include: Uddalaka Aruni, Gargi Vachaknavi, Janaka, Narada, Pippalada, Prevahana Jairali, Mahidasa Aitareya, Maitreyi, Yajnavalkya, Raikwa, Saunaka, Satyakama Jabala, Sukeshin Bharadvaja. Page 30 learning, knowledge of all the best thought, openness to poetry, art and beauty, an educated capacity and skill in works; ...
... or another for a few days and then you forget. The other day I spoke to you of Yajnavalkya; he gave a better rule that was nearer to the golden rule. What he said in effect was that instead of following these outward rules or formulas you must leave them aside, go within yourself and find your self. Yajnavalkya said: you love Page 35 your neighbour, not because he is your neighbour ...
... Man; or it coincides up to a point with the saying of one of the early teachers of Vedanta, Yajnavalkya, "Not for the sake of the wife is the wife dear" (or, the friend—for the wife is only the first of a list), "but for the sake of the Self (the greater Self, the Spirit within) is she dear." But Yajnavalkya, a seeker of the one (not the plural) Absolute, would not have accepted the implication in ...
... seeking any man who might carry in himself the thought of light and the word of revelation, the typical figures and personalities, Janaka and the subtle mind of Ajatashatru, Raikwa of the cart, Yajnavalkya militant for truth, calm and ironic, taking to himself with both hands without attachment worldly possessions and spiritual riches and casting at last all his wealth behind to wander forth as a houseless... to concentrate on essence rather than on outer forms. Ideal Teachers: In the first place, it is not easy to find in our current times Rishis like Vashishtha and Vishwamitra and Yajnavalkya around whom the ancient system was built. But still, we can make use of the ideal and consider as to how that ideal can be brought nearer to actuality and what conditions of atmosphere, conception ...
... can go only so far as that faculty can be reasonably stretched and not infinitely—to stretch it to infinity means to snap it. This is the warning that Yajnavalkya gave to Gargi when the latter started renewing her question ad infinitum. Yajnavalkya said, "If you do not stop, your head will fall off." 1 "Sharp as a razor's edge, difficult of going, hard to traverse is that path!" 2 "This ...
... or another for a few days and then you forget. The other day I spoke to you of Yajnavalkya; he gave a better rule that was nearer to the golden rule. What he said in effect was that instead of following these outward rules or formulas you must leave them aside, go within yourself and find your self. Yajnavalkya said: you love your neighbour , not because he is your neighbour or brother, but because ...
... who was also accomplished in spiritual knowledge and action. We meet also Ajatashatru with a rich and subtle mind, the great teacher Raikwa, who was in his outward profession a cart-driver, and Yajnavalkya, master of worldly possessions and spiritual riches, who cast at last all his wealth behind to wander forth as a houseless ascetic. We hear of Krishna, son of Devaki, who heard a single word of... From this complexity of the situation, there has arisen in India some universal and general idea of Dharma and certain recognized variations of the formulations of Dharma. The great Smritis of Yajnavalkya and Manu are attempts to codify this Dharma, and although these two are Page 48 themselves in conflict with each other in many respects, they have provided a general background of a ...
... Karmakanda, Sruti & Smriti, but we have never doubted that all these are branches of a single stock. But our new Western Pandits & authorities tell us that we are in error. All of us from ancient Yajnavalkya to the modern Vaidika have been making a huge millennial mistake. European scholarship applying for the first time the test of a correct philology to these obscure writings has corrected the mistake ...
... Dwapara Yuga, attempted to recover their lost heritage partly by reference to the adepts who still remained in possession of it, partly by the traditions of the great seekers of the past Yuga, Janaka, Yajnavalkya, Krishna and others, partly by their own illuminations and spiritual experience. The Chhandogya Upanishad is thus the summary history of one of the greatest & most interesting ages of human thought ...
... seeking any man who might carry in himself the thought of light and the word of revelation, the typical figures and personalities, Janaka and the subtle mind of Ajatashatru, Raikwa of the cart, Yajnavalkya militant for truth, calm and ironic, taking to himself with both hands without attachment worldly possessions and spiritual riches and casting at last all his wealth behind to wander forth as a houseless ...
... politics, 181 her status with regard to man, 90 her subjection, 138 World War I, 124, 125 ,216 World War II , 211 , 238·239 Sri Aurobindo's support o f the Allie 231 , 236, 238 Y-Z Yajnavalkya, 96 Yaska,96 Yoga, 48 ,52,69, 109, 137 , 159 , 186 national Yoga, 93 old system o f, ISO, 194 Sri Aurobindo 's, 144-145, 171 , 189 , 191 ,193-194,201,202,203 yo u t h, the young, 44 , 52 ...
... Vedantic thinkers. Max Miller has understood one thing by the Vedic mantras, Sayana has understood another, Yaska had his own interpretations of their antique diction, but none of them understood what Yajnavalkya and Ajatashatru's understood.... It is because Page 96 we do not understand the Vedas that three fourths of the Upanishads are a sealed book to us. Even of the little we think ...
... . Are mathematical formulae external things—even though they exist here only in the World-Mind and the mind of Man? If not, is Page 559 Russell as mathematician an introvert? Again, Yajnavalkya says that one loves the wife not for the sake of the wife, but for the self's sake and so with other objects of interest or desire—whether the self be the inner self or the ego. 3 Who desires ...
... there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious,—supramental or overmental and submental ranges. When Yajnavalkya says there is no consciousness in the Brahman state, he is speaking of consciousness as the human being knows it. The Brahman state is that of a supreme existence supremely aware of itself, sva ...
... be as a result of contact; but we cannot love by स्पर्श, by mere contact; because contact is temporary in its nature and in its results, and cannot give rise to a permanent feeling such as love. Yajnavalkya well said, "We desire the wife, not for the sake of the wife but for the sake of the Self." Only if we mistake things for the Self which are not the true Self, we shall, as a result, mistake things ...
... all that we give. And this is true even when our self-offering is still to our fellow-creatures or to lesser Powers and Principles and not yet to the Supreme. "Not for the sake of the wife," says Yajnavalkya in the Upanishad, "but for the sake of the Self is the wife dear to us." This in the lower sense of the individual self is the hard fact behind the coloured and passionate professions of egoistic ...
... "the one Fire that goes forth as many sparks"? Are you theoretically bound to interpret every mystical realisation in terms of a fundamental dualism vis-à-vis the Supreme? Poor Vishwamitra and Yajnavalkya, poor Shankara and Ramana Maharshi - they were all deluded in their poise of tat tvam asi ("That art thou")! No doubt, the truth of the final identity of Atman with Brahman is not the only one ...
... amounts to making Hinduism stand or fall by pariahdom. In other words, one would be satisfied even if there were no such spiritual inspiration in the country as breathed and lived in a Vasishtha or a Yajnavalkya, a Chaitanya or a Mirabai, a Tukaram or a Tulsidas, a Ramakrishna or a Vivekananda - provided there were no scheduled classes! One may inquire what sort of life would there be on earth without the ...
... And actually we have the Brihadaranyaka (IV. 4.25) saying: "Brahman is indeed fearless. He who knows it as such certainly becomes the fearless Brahman." Again, the same Upanishad (TV.2.4) figures Yajnavalkya exclaiming: "You have obtained That which is free from fear, O Janaka!" It is curious that, unlike Shankara and his ilk, the Upanishads rarely allude to moksha or mukti, "freedom, liberation" ...
... —Arvan and bore the Titans, —Ashwa and carried mankind. The sea was his brother and the sea his birth place."74 [vi] We shall next refer to a dialogue between Gargi, a woman-mystic and Yajnavalkya, one of the most reputed, and one of the rare mystics who had attained the realization of the integral Brahman, and who was also radical and even militant in the sharpness of behaviour. In the third ...
... churches, temples and mosques. He may endeavour to set his feet on the paths of spiritual experience. He may imitate or live with Agni, Indra, Shiva, Krishna and Christ, sit at the feet of Agastya, Yajnavalkya, Aruni and Buddha, laugh with the sanyasin at the snaring net of Maya and meditate with Shankara on the reality of the Brahman, and yet yearn with Chaitanya for divine love and ecstasy. He ...
... secret. Now you belong to the brotherhood. Welcome, brother! Now, bring your brood in to supper." Grinning, and feeling six feet tall, David herded them in. Page 599 [Though Yajnavalkya seems by far to be the most dominant personality in the Brhadaaranyaka Upanisad, Aruni's power of exposition in the Chandogya is very refreshing. He is easily the most brilliant rishi in the ...
... This led to a certain weakness and poverty in this respect. Perhaps it was due to the necessity of an exclusive preoccupation with and concentration on the inner life. Only one or two Rishis like Yajnavalkya for instance had demanded an equal fullness and power. in the outer as in the inner life. Yajnavalkya's great dictum that he had need for both, ubhayam eva, was indeed uttered in no uncertain terms ...
... also different for each. But even if the outer view sees many goals, the inner vision understands that the goal sought is one and the same for all seekers: it is self-fulfilment. In the Upanishad Yajnavalkya explains to his wife that all is for the self. The wife is for the self, wealth is for the self, love is for the self, happiness is for the self, suffering is for the self, life is for the self, ...
... 156-7 Virgil, 73n. –Aeneid, 73n. WORDSWORTH, 51 –Poems if the Imagination, "To a Skylark", 51n. World War II, 13 YAJNAVALKYA, RISHI, 49-56, 58-9 Yama, 138-9 Yamuna, 148, 266, 286 Page 313 ...
... civilisation; what the moderns have achieved is progress with regard to civilisation, Page 82 that is to say, the outer paraphernalia; but as regards culture a Plato, a Lao-tse, a Yajnavalkya are names to which we still bow down. One can answer, however, that even if in the last eight or ten thousand years which, they say, is the extent of the present cycle, the civilised or cultural ...
... beyond, would it be less selfish and egoistic to enjoy the pleasure of living on a level with humanity with the idea of aiding and uplifting it ? Indeed, in either case, the truth discovered by Yajnavalkya, to which we have already referred, stands always justified, that it is not for the sake of this or that that one loves this or that but for the sake of the self that one loves this or that. ...
... true to say that masses are fundamentally energies or that particles are merely waves. The truth of the matter, here as elsewhere, is global – ubhayameva, in the famous phrase of the great Rishi Yajnavalkya. In other words, values and things are aspects, polarisations of one single reality. Things have values; things are values: things are also things. . Value refers to the particular poise or ...
... certain life-instincts and some broad mental impulsions. And there is not only progress, that is to say, advancement on the same plane, but there is a kind of ascension on a somewhat different plane. Yajnavalkya represented a type of elite which is far away and far other than that of Vivekananda, for example, today. We have described man, especially, modern man as homo fabricus; but that is a particular ...
... our workaday life, though with a spiritual intent and motive. This neo-spirituality which might claim its sanction and authority from the real old-world Indian discipline – say, of Janaka and Yajnavalkya – labours, however, in reality, under the influence of European activism and ethicism. It was this which served as the immediate incentive to our spiritual revival and revaluation and its impress ...
... a mode not of living but of being. India looked above all to the very self in things; and in all her life-expression it was the soul per se which mattered to her, – even as the-great Yajnavalkya said to his wife Maitreyi, atmanastu kamaya sarvam priyam bhavati. The expressions of the self had no intrinsic value of their own and mattered only so far as they symbolised or embodied ...
... salvation beyond, would it be less selfish and egoistic to enjoy the pleasure of living on a level with humanity with the idea of aiding and uplifting it? Indeed, in either case, the truth discovered by Yajnavalkya, to which we have already referred, stands always justified, – that it is not for the sake of this or that thing that one loves this or that thing, but for the sake of the Self that one loves this ...
... and life offer to man for his banquet; and he does not say like the bare ascetic: anyā vāco vimuncatha, "abandon everything else". But even like one of the Upanishadic Rishis, the great Yajnavalkya, he would possess and enjoy his share of terrestrial as well as of spiritual wealth – ubhayameva. In a world of modernism, although he acknowledges and appreciates mental and vital and physical ...
... Wilson, President Woodrow, 413 Wingfield-Stratford, Esme, 13 Witch of Ilni. The, 119,152-53 Woodroffe, Sir John, 491 Wordsworth, William, 176,177,614-15 Yajnavalkya, 416,505 Yeats, W.B.,615ff Yogic Sadhan, 336,380,405 Younghusband, Sir Francis, 17,202 Yugantar (Jugantar), 199, 217-18, 219, 234, 242, 243ff, 247, 284, 288ff, 399 ...
... desire is woven into the very grain of their teaching, as the following references amply testify : (1) In the Brihadaranyak Upanishad, in the course of his elaborate reply to Janaka's questions, Yajnavalkya says that when the desires that are lodged in the heart are eliminated, then the mortal becomes immortal, and even here realises the Brahman. (2) In the Chhandogya Upanishad (IV—10) Upakoshala ...
... equals, "digging" to reach the Sun hidden in the depths of Matter. Gargi, of the Upanishad times, is an example of educated woman of India. In the court of King Janaka of Mithila, when Rishi Yajnavalkya challenged the assembled learned men to beat him in debate, all those who tried had to concede defeat; then it was that Gargi took up the challenge, dared to stand up to the winner and matched argument ...
... genius, pratibhanam, a reflection or luminous response in the mind to higher ideation; the Yogin Page 469 goes beyond to the vijnanam itself or, if he is one of the greatest Rishis, like Yajnavalkya, to the ananda. None in ordinary times go beyond the ananda in the waking state, for the chit and sat are only attainable in sushupti, because only the first five sheaths or panchakosha are yet ...
... as the creator, Master, enjoyer of the worlds, by meditating on whom we shall attain to perfect liberation. Neither Buddha nor Jada Bharata are the true guides & fulfillers of our destiny; it is Yajnavalkya, it is Janaka &, most of all, it is Krishna son of Devaki who takes us most surely & entirely into the presence & into the being of the Eternal. Atman, Brahman, Ishwara, on this triune aspect ...
... 418 Vivekananda, Swami —monastic name of Narendranath Dutta (1863-1902), the most famous disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and one of the great spiritual teachers of modern India. Yajnavalkya —a famous Rishi who figures prominently in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Yoga — 1. joining, union; union with the Divine and the conscious seeking for this union. Yoga is in essence ...
... ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious, — supramental or overmental and submental ranges. When Yajnavalkya says there is no consciousness in the Brahman state, he is speaking of consciousness as the human being knows it. The Brahman state is that of a supreme existence supremely aware of itself, s ...
... Russell is a mathematician? Are mathematical formulae external things even though they exist here only in the World-Mind and the mind of man? If not, is Russell as mathematician, an introvert? Again, Yajnavalkya says that one loves the wife not for the sake of the wife, but for the self's sake, and so with other objects of interest or desire—whether the self be the inner self or the ego. In Yoga it is the ...
... is a mathematician. Are mathematical formulae external things, even though they exist here only in the World-mind and the mind of Man? If not, is Russell, as mathematician, an introvert? Again, Yajnavalkya says that one loves the wife not for the sake of the wife, but for the Self's sake, and so with other objects of interest and desire — ________________________ "We are all prone to the malady ...
... Here, from the largeness and audacity of both imagination and language, we would be inclined to see conjured up, beyond any philosopher, some high figure of spiritual history - the Upani-shadic Yajnavalkya compassing the Self of selves, the Plotinus of "the flight of the alone to the Alone", the wide-searching Eckhart, the manifold adept Ramakrishna or, best of all, our own day's Master of the Integral ...
... relations of Knowledge and Ignorance to the original Consciousness or Superconscience. Page 498 × Prājñā . Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states very positively that there are two planes or states of the being which are two worlds, and that in the dream state one can see both worlds, for the dream state ...
... towards which the practices & strivings of the Vedic Rishis mounted, extricated from the voluminous mass of the Vedic poems and presented according to the inner realisation of great Rishis like Yajnavalkya & Janaka in a more modern style and language. It is used much in the sense in which Madhuchchhandas, son of Viswamitra, says of Indra, Athá te antamánám vidyáma Page 176 sumatínám, “Then ...
... time and here. Depreciation of the Old Yogas As for the depreciation of all the old Yogas as something quite easy, unimportant and worthless, and the consequent depreciation of Buddha and Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual figures of the past, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it? It [ self-realisation ] is not a long process? The whole life and several lives more are often ...
... most foolish and comically ridiculous attitude. As for the depreciation of all the old Yogas as something quite easy, unimportant and worthless, and the consequent depreciation of Buddha and Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual figures of the past, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it? When I asked, "What do they do?", I did not mean physical or mental action. Rather I wanted to know ...
... 157,159,160, 161,175-200,204. 232,527 Xenophon: Cyropaedia, 55, 351, 465,467,483,484 Xerxes, 250,281, 325,331,333, 431,438 Yajnasri Satakarni, 519,584,585 Yajnavalkya, 20 Yadavas, 96 Yadu, 96 Yama, 143,582 Yasdagird, 29 Yāska (see also Nirukta), 130,256, 309-10 Yasodharman, 501-3,504,505, 508-16,600,606 Yaudheyas, 424,425 'Yauna' ...
... FROM THE UPANISHADS BY R.R. DIWAKAR 1.RAIKWA, THE CART-DRIVER—Chhandogya Upanishad 2.SATYAKAMA, THE TRUTH-SEEKER—Chhandogya Upanishad 3.THE BOLD BEGGAR—Upanishads 4.THUS SPAKE YAJNAVALKYA—Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 5.THUS SPAKE UDDALAKA ARUNI—Chhandogya Upanishad 6.THE FIVE SHEATHS—Taittriya Upanishad 7.THE BLISS OF BRAHMAN—Taittriya Upanishad SUFI STORIES BY IDRIES ...
... mechanics, 316 Wells, H. G., 140 Whitehead, A. N., 345-6 Wordsworth, 183, 194 World Review, the, 353 World War I, 101, 373 YADUPATI,91 Yajnavalkya, 160, 167,200,259 Yama, 381 Yeats, 152, 195 Yudhisthira, 93 ZEUS, 24, 123,220,222 Zola, 145 ...
... system of education, and all of them renewed for us the ideal and practice of education that the gurukulas or the ashrams nourished in the days of Vasishtha and Vishwamitra, of Aruni and Yajnavalkya. Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati visualised clusters of teachers spread over the entire breadth and length of the country nestled in groves of woods and trees where pupils could be trained in the ...
... I . (i) The question of India's antiquity (ii) Mohenjodaro and Harappa Page 195 (iii) Upanishad; Ramayana and Mahabharata (iv) Vasistha, Vishwamtira, Lopamudra, Yajnavalkya, Maitreyi Part II (i) Buddha and Mahavira (ii) Buddhism and Jainism (iii) Invasion of Alexander the Great (iv) Chandragupta Maurya (v) Ashoka III ...
... might carry in himself the thought of light and a word of revelation. We meet great personalities like Janaka; we encounter Ajatashatru with his subtle mind, and Raikwa the cart-driver. We meet Yajnavalkya, calm and ironic, who takes into himself both worldly possession and spiritual riches, and who casts away at last all his wealth behind to wander forth as a homeless ascetic. We are astonished with ...
... most foolish and comically ridiculous attitude. As for the depreciation of the old Yogas as something quite easy, unimportant and worthless, and the depreciation of Buddha and Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual figures of the past, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it? Is it not a fact that the mind, vital and physical are integrally woven into each ...
... case was a mode not of living but of being. India looked above all to the very self in things, and in all her life-expression it was the soul per se which mattered to her,—even as the great Yajnavalkya said to his wife Maitreyi, atmanastu kamaya sarvam priyam bhavati. The expressions of the self had no intrinsic value of their own and mattered only so far as they symbolised or embodied or pointed ...
... salvation beyond, would it be less selfish and egoistic to enjoy the pleasure of living on a level with humanity with the idea of aiding and uplifting it? Indeed, in either case, the truth discovered by Yajnavalkya, to which we have already referred, stands always justified, that it is not for the sake of this or that that one loves this or that but for the sake of the self that one loves this or that. The ...
... -"To a Skylark", 232n -(Poems Referring to the Period of Childhaod) -"Lucy Gray", 230n -"We Are Seven", 281n -Prelude, 234n World War, First, 228, 249 Wu Ch' ng- n, 133 YAJNAVALKYA, 5-6, 29-30, 126, 242, 299 Yama, 13, 19-20, 32-5, 157, 159-60 Yeats, W. B., 94n -The Wind among the Reeds, 94n - "The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart", 94n ZEUS, 159, 182 ...
... work-a-day life, though with a spiritual intent and motive. This neo-spirituality which might claim its sanction and authority from the real old-world Indian discipline—say, of Janaka and Yajnavalkya—labours, however, in reality, under the influence of European activism and ethicism. It was this which served as the immediate incentive to our spiritual revival and revaluation and its impress ...
... 195n. -Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, 119n. -Miscellaneous Poems, 132n. -"A slumber did my spirit seal", 132n. -"We are Seven", 195n. World War, 66-7, YAJNAVALKYA,21,134 Yama,44 Yeats,84n. -The Wild Swans at Coole, 84n. -"The Phases of the Moon", 84n. Yudhisthira, 76-7 ZEUS, 25, 98, 253 Page 434 ...
... body alone is man's reality; neither only the earth here nor only the heaven there embodies man's destiny. Both have to be claimed, both have to be lived – ubhayameva samrāt, as the old sage, Yajnavalkya, declared. The earliest dream of humanity is also the last fulfilment. The Vedic Rishis sang of the marriage of heaven and earth – Heaven is my father and this Earth my mother. And Blake and ...
... civilisation; what the moderns have achieved is progress with regard to civilisation, Page 133 that is to say, the outer paraphernalia; but as regards culture a Plato, a Lao-tse, a Yajnavalkya are names to which we still bow down. One can answer, however, that even if in the last eight or ten thousand years which, they say, is the extent of the present cycle, the civilised or cultural ...
... made between culture and civilisation; what the moderns have achieved is progress with regard to civilisation, that is to say, the outer paraphernalia; but as regards culture a Plato, a Laotse, a Yajnavalkya are names to which we still bow down. Page 18 One can answer however that even if in the last eight or ten thousand years which, they say, is the extent of the present cycle, the ...
... This led to a certain weakness and poverty in this respect. Perhaps it was due to the necessity of an exclusive preoccupation with and concentration on the inner life. Only one or two Rishis like Yajnavalkya for instance had demanded an equal fullness and power in the outer as in the inner life. Yajnavalkya's great dictum that he had need for both, ubhayam eva, was indeed uttered in no uncertain ...
... consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious,—supramental or overmental and submental ranges. "5 " When Yajnavalkya says there is no consciousness in the Brahman state, he is speaking of consciousness as the human being knows it. The Brahman state is that of a supreme existence supremely aware of itself, Sway ...
... separativity." All these words signify a state in which the Divine is not only discovered but embraced and served even in the minute details of the ¹ There is, it is true, the legend of Yajnavalkya who wished to possess both the worlds, ubhayameva, and also the Rajarshis (king-sages) and those "liberated in life" (Jivanmuktas); but the exact nature of their integral realisation has not been ...
... asceticism. We remember that Rama, one of the most harmonious spiritual personalities ever born, was no ascetic; nor was Krishna, the embodiment of the most versatile perfection realised in the past. Yajnavalkya had such a wealth of cows as might make an American master dairyman giddy. Janaka, Ajatashatru, Kartavirya—to name only a few—led a robust spiritual life in the midst of material opulence. Buddha ...
... India. Nothing therefore is of happier augury for the future of human solidarity and harmony than the fact that Sri Aurobindo, an Indian among Indians, a Rishi in the tradition of Vamadeva and Yajnavalkya, nevertheless chose English as the natural medium of expression to communicate his thoughts and visions to the world. The appearance of Savitri, therefore, is an auspicious omen ...
... Without their corroboration - or, rather, unless they are made the base - mere intellectual constructions have been dismissed as no more than exercises. Further, the Indian metaphysical thinker - a Yajnavalkya, a Sankara, a Ramanuja - has almost always been a Yogi and a Rishi, one who has armed his philosophy "with a practical way of reaching to the supreme state of consciousness, so that even when one ...
... meaning of the term "atman" as used in Yajnavalkya's expression "ātmanastu kāmāya" — "for the sake of the Self." The first meaning of 'Atman' is, of course, the Self, the Di-vine and that is the higher sense. But the same term means also the ego, the lower self. And man in his ignorance takes this lower sense to be the purport of Rishi Yajnavalkya's teaching and claims on its basis that... 14, p. 130) The same truth, the truth of all love in its multifarious manifestation being in essence love directed to the Divine alone, has been beautifully brought out in Rishi Yajnavalkya's famous dialogue with his aspirant wife Maitreyi as recounted in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. There, the Rishi explains to his wife that"not for the sake of the husband is the husband dear to ...
... soul it sees that Society is only a means, not an end, a passing & changing outward phenomenon, not that fixed, clear & eternal inward standard & goal which we seek. Of Society as of all things Yajnavalkya's universal dictum stands; a man loves & serves Society for the sake of the Self & not for the sake of Society. That is his nature & whatever Rationalism may teach, to his nature he must always return ...
... the chemist have been really fruitful which have helped man practically to master physical nature or to understand the laws of his own life and progress. Whatever moralist or philosopher may say, Yajnavalkya's great dictum remains true that whatever man thinks or feels or does he thinks, feels & does not for any other purpose or creature but for the sake of his Self. The supreme question therefore yet ...
... very parent-like: the child is the parents' property, to be brought up according to his own ideas, not according to her need, her powers, her ____________________ 1. An ironic variation on Yajnavalkya's "one loves the wife not for the sake of the wife, but for the self's sake" (as quoted by Sri Aurobindo in his own letter to Dilip of 27 December 1930). 2. Dilip's niece, Shankar's and Maya's ...
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