Isavasya OR Isa Upanisad
Brhadaranyaka Upanisad
Chandogya Upanisad
Taittiriya Upanisad
Aitareya Upanisad
Kausitaki Upanisad
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Kena Upanisad
Katha Upanisad
Svetasvatara Upanisad
The Mundaka Upanisad
Prasna Upanisad
Mandukya Upanisad
Maitri Upanisad
 
Kausitaki Upanisad

Chapter Three

1. OM. Pratardana Daivodasi reached the beloved home of Indra through battle and manly deeds. Indra said to him, ‘Pratardana, choose a boon (uara)

Pratardana said, ‘You choose for me what you not choose for an inferior (avara). You choose.’
Praatardana said to him, ‘know me: I think this is best for a human being, that he should know me. I slew the three-headed son of Tvastr; I gave the Arunmukha sorcerers up to the wolves; breaking many treaties I destroyed the Prahladiyas in the sky, the Paulomas in middle-air, and the Kalakanjas on earth: yet, such though I was, not a hair of mine grows less. If someone knows me, his world does not grow less by any action of his, not by theft, not killing of his father. Thought he has committed any evil, the dark colour does not leaves his face.’

2. He said, ‘I am the breath, the self of awareness: so worship me as immortal life. The life the breath, the breath is the life. As long as the breath dwells in the body, there is life. By the breath one attains immortality in this world: by awareness one attains true resolve. The one who worships me as immortal life attains a full life-span in this world: he attains immortality, imperishability, in the heavenly world.’

Some say: ‘The breaths becomes a unity, or no-one would be able at once to be made aware of a name with speech, a form with the eye, a sound with the ear a thought with the mind: but becoming a unity, the breaths make one aware off these, one by one. When the eye sees, all the breaths see with the mind thinks, all the breaths think with it; when the breath, all the breaths with it.’

‘So it is,’ said Indra, ’but there is a supremacy among the breaths.

3. ‘One lives without speech, for we see the dumb. One lives without the eye, for we see the blind. One lives without the ear, for we see the deaf. One lives without the mind, for we see the foolish. One lives with arms cut off, one lives with legs cut off, for we see it is so. But then breath, the self of awareness, seizes the body, it causes it to stand up (ut-tha): so one should contemplate it as the Uktha. This is all-attainment in the breath is, and what awareness is, the breath is: they is: they dwell in they leave it together.’
This is the seeing of it, this is the knowing of it:

When the person, asleep, sees no dream, he becomes unified in the breath. Speech enters it with all names; the eye enters it with al forms; the ear enters it with all sounds; the mind enters it with all thoughts. When he wakes up, just as sparks from a burning fire might scatter in all directions, the breaths scatter from the self, each to its proper place; the gods from the breaths, the worlds from the gods.

But when the breath, the self of awareness, seizes the body, it makes it stand up, so one should contemplate it as the Uktha. This is all-attainment in the breath. What the breath is, awareness is, and what awareness is, the breath is.

This is the proof of it, this is the understanding of it: when the person, ailing and about to die, becomes weak and falls into unconsciousness, folk say of him, ‘His consciousness has left him: he does not hear, he does not see, he does nor speak with speech, he does not think.’ He becomes unified in the breath. Speech enters it with all names; the eye enter it with all forms; the ear enters it with all sounds; the mind enters it within all thought.

When it leaves the body, it leaves with all these together.

4. Speech releases all names into it: by speech it attains all names. The breath releases all smells into it: by the breath it attains all smells. The eye releases all forms into it: by the eye it attains all forms. The ear releases all sounds into it: by the ear it attains all sounds. The mind releases all thoughts into it: by the mind it attains all thoughts. This is all-attainment in the breath. What the breath is, awareness is and hat awareness is, the breath is. These two live in the body together, and leave it together.

Now we will explain how all beings become one with this awareness.



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