Sunday, June 26, 2005

Peace Invocation
Brihadaranyaka and Isha Upanishads,

In sanskrit,
purnam adah purnam idam
purnat purnam udacyate
purnasya purnam adaya
purnam evavashishyate

literally,
The full, that; the full, this.
From the full, the full arises.
Of the full, the full taken back,
the full alone remains.

in context,
That is all. This is all.
All arises out of all.
Of all, when all is taken in,
what remains is only all.


what exactly this means is,
That (Brahman) is infinite, this (universe) too is infinite. The infinite
(universe) emanates from the infinite (Brahman). Assimilating
the infinitude of the infinite (universe), the infinite (Brahman) alone
is left.
Ramakrishna Math’s publication, The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad,

or
That (The invisible) is the Infinite, This (the visible) too is the Infinite. From the Infinite, the visible universe of infinite extension has come out. The
Infinite remains the same, even though the infinite universe has come
out of it.
Swami Sarvananda, in Isavasyopanisad,

or
Translation:
That is full; this is full. The full comes out of the full. Taking the full
from the full the full itself remains.
Commentary:
Brahman is both transcendent and immanent.
The birth or the creation of the universe does not in any manner
affect the integrity of Brahman.
S. Radhakrishnan, in The Principal Upanishads,

or
The Whole is all That. The Whole is all This. The Whole was born
of the Whole. Taking the Whole from the Whole, what remains is
the Whole.
Swami Sivananda, in The Principal Upanishads,

or
That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take
perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect.
Shree Purohit Swami and W.B. Yeats, in The Ten Principal Upanishads,

or
That world out there, this self in here,
each is reality, complete:
from which arises everything,
to which all things return again,
in which all seeming things consist;
which stays the same, unchanged, complete.

my reference for all these interpretations being -
http://advaita.org.uk/discourses/downloads/interpretingtheupanishads.pdf

2 comments:

Sheece said...

in a vague way this sounds like ashes to ashes, dust to dust...

My interpretation (not very different I guess)

You can add seven to infinity,
You can remove seven from infinity,
But infinity remains constant,
Without any visible difference...

*seven ofcourse is not important

neha said...

yes, infact this is how i was introduced to this shloka! in a maths class!
when we were explained in a high school maths class that finite plus/minus infinite is the same, we were told this 'thoerem' is also mentioned in a shlok.

another point mentioned by our teacher was - in roman numerals two is II (one beside another one, therefore one is seprate from another one) where as in devnagri and now 'arabic' numerals two is 2 (1 just twisted in a different shape)

as far as theories go, i liked his quite a lot :)