THE HEARTBEAT OF THE ABSOLUTE Talks on the Ishavasya Upanishad

Truth is hidden in light; where there is truth, there will surely be only light.

“We live under a great illusion in life - as if many things are ours - but in fact nothing is ours,” says Ishavasya Upanishad. All feelings and emotions in life come from some unknown shore, hunger arises, sleep comes; in the morning waking comes, and in the evening eyes began to close again. Childhood comes and passes away, youth comes and passes away, then old age comes along. “There is nothing in this world of which you can claim to be the doer.” Everything belongs to existence, to the whole. That is why it is called Ishavasya, because everything ....is permeated by godliness. This book is the English translation of Osho’s commentary on Ishavasya Upanishad, a seven days’ talks in Hindi language given by Osho to a live audience at a meditation camp.

The upanishads divide man into two categories as “the killers of the self” and “the knowers of the self.” The Upanishad calls the person who goes on living in ignorance, without even knowing himself, a killer of the self and the person “a man of knowledge” who knows one’s own self. Because someone who knows his own self knows everything, knows the whole. When someone knows himself, he becomes a mirror, and when that happens everything is reflected in him. This Upanishad is telling us to be a mirror.

The sage of the Ishavasya Upanishad says that those who tread on the path of ignorance certainly wander in darkness; but those who walk on the path of knowledge wander in even deeper darkness. In Osho’s words “ awareness of ignorance leads one to knowing, but the accumulation of knowledge leads one into great darkness.”

The Upanishads declare that immortality will be attained through vidya, true knowledge i.e. ‘knowledge of the self’ which is not merely knowledge, but knowledge that transforms one’s life in the same instant it is known. Avidya means material knowledge, “knowledge of the other”. 

Ishavasya Upanishad both begins and ends with this sutra: “That is the whole, this is the whole;/ the whole arises out of the whole,/the whole derives from the whole,/yet the whole remains whole./Om peace, peace, peace.” The sage of this sutra says that each and every single individual, each and every atom is not a part of the whole, it is the entire whole. According to Osho everything is contained in this sutra just like everything is contained within the sky, and the sky is not contained within anything else. 

This book consists of 13 chapters in 330 pages. The missing part in this translation is the uniqueness of Osho’s language . some of Osho’s observations are given below:

Nobody but the stupid has ever claimed to be wise.

The ignorant will destroy the happiness of meeting, and the wise will destroy the pain of separation.

We postpone a good action, but the bad one we do immediately.

Someone from whom you attain an awareness of your ignorance is the master, not the one from whom you receive knowledge.

Tail-piece:

Diogenes went to the academy where Plato was teaching. At that moment a student got up and asked Plato to define ‘man.’ Plato said, “Man is a two-legged animal without feathers.” Standing behind the teacher, Diogenes was listening, and he laughed loudly when he heard this definition. He then went out, caught a cock, and plucked all its feathers and brought the cock into the class and said, “Here is your definition of man. It has no feathers and has two legs.”