Thoughts on the Upanishads - Isha Upanishads - Shanti Mantra, Verses 1 - 3

Hello, and welcome to the Bearded Mystic Podcast, and I'm your host, Rahul N. Singh. Thank you for taking out the time today to either watch or listen to this this exclusive bonus episode. Today, we are beginning my thoughts on the Upanishads, and this series is exclusively for Patreon, Supercast and Apple subscription subscribers. Before I do begin, there's a few important announcements.

00 AM Eastern Standard Time, there's a free virtual meditation session along with a discussion and Q and A for around one hour. You can find the details in the show notes and video the description below if you're interested in meditating with us as a community. If you're watching this on YouTube, please do like, comment and subscribe to this YouTube channel and do share this new series with your friends and family who you feel really want to deepen their understanding or get acquainted to the Upanishads, which is an amazing spiritual text, one that has inspired me a lot. Today we will be beginning with the Isha Upanishad and what we will go through is the Shanti mantra and we'll go through verse one to verse three. The Shanti mantra is this. Aum! All that is complete, and all this is also complete. It is out of completeness that completeness emanates! When completeness is taken out of completeness, it is completeness that remains! Aum Peace, Peace, Peace! Poorna or what has been termed here as completeness or complete. It can also be defined as fullness or perfect, or even the Infinite. For example, you can say Aum! All that is full and all this is also full. It is out of fullness that fullness emanates! When fullness is taken out of fullness, it is fullness that remains! Aum! Peace Peace Peace! You can read it in any way that you like. Whatever you find comfortable. I like the word complete because no matter what happens, you can't make something incomplete once it's completed. For example, Once you complete a game, yes, you can restart the game, but your game is now complete, it cannot become incomplete. That's why I really like the word, and I think it's a bit better than perfect because perfect has certain connotations which we may not be comfortable with. The essential understanding here is that Brahman is complete and is full. And what's interesting is that Brahman is not referred to by name. It's literally referred to as 'It' or 'That' or 'This'. That's really interesting. The only Real in this is the Formless Awareness, that's the only thing that's complete. That's the only thing that even if you take anything away from It, It still remains as It is. It doesn't change in any way. We can understand that that which is changeless is the only thing Real and the only thing that is complete is the only thing that is Real because there can be no change in what is complete. One thing to note is that every Upanishads begins with their own Shanti mantra. This is the one for the Isha Upanishad. Now when you look into this specific shanti mantra, even here what It's saying to you really is wherever you look, you see the completeness of Reality. Once you come in contact with this Reality, there's no way you can see it as incomplete or different or separate. It is what It is. It does not change and anything that arises from this completeness is also complete. Although this world is changeless, when we see through the eyes of that Completeness, even that world is complete because it's emanating from that Completeness. It's emanating from that Infinite, it's emanating from that Fullness. The Upanishads is and I will say Vedanta is a complete philosophy that is inclusive. Now, going towards the shanti mantra again when it said if you take completeness out of that, which is complete, it still remains complete. That is amazing. Think about it, if you take Fullness out of That, which is full, it still remains full. Imagine the vastness, the Infinite nature of what Brahman is. Imagine that no matter what you take from this Formless, it will always remain full. No matter what happens to your life, That always remains full and your life is always full. These are subtle points. This integrated message that is given in the Upanishads is very, very deep, and this is why this is a Patreon exclusive, because what's covered in here is very difficult for us to talk about in a normal sense, you could say that these teachings are only for a select few and only a select few can understand the purity of what is said here. If we look at Shanti Mantra, it ends with Aum! Shanti Shanti Shanti! Or Aum! Peace Peace Peace! Now, why is Shanti repeated three times? This is the end of the preview for my thoughts on the Upanishads. To listen more, do subscribe to either the Patreon page or to Super Cast or to the Apple Podcast subscriptions. Thank you very much for listening. Do follow me on social media to keep getting updates. You can join the Bearded Mystic Podcast WhatsApp Community Group to continue the podcast discussion. The details are in the show notes and video description below. Please do rate and review the podcast on our website, www.thebeardedmysticpodcast.com. Please do like and comment on this video and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Please follow and subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast streaming app. Let's end with the Soham Mantra and the Shanti mantra. Soham Soham. I am That I am That. Aum Shanti Shanti Shanti Aum Peace Peace Peace. Namaste