Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes from the Upanishads (Sacred Books of Hinduism)

The Upaniṣads (Sanskrit: “sessions,” lit. “sitting near” (i.e. “at the feet of a guru)”) are the ancient sacred treatises of Hinduism. Written in Sanskrit c.800–200 BCE, the Upaniṣads expand on the Vedas in mostly mystical and monistic terms. The Upaniṣads were passed down through an oral tradition within the priestly social groups and were not written down until the sixth century CE.

The Upaniṣads comprise the concluding portions of the Vedas; hence, they are called Vedānta (“the culmination of the Vedas.”) The major Upaniṣads are the repositories of many of the theological and philosophical ideas that have come to tower over later Vedāntic thought.

The Upaniṣads transcend the chants performed during sacrifices and pose philosophical questions about human existence and man’s place in the cosmos. The conceptions of Brahman (the universal cosmic power) and Ātman (the innate soul of the individual) are fundamental to the understanding of the Upaniṣads.

More than one hundred Upaniṣads were created—the later lesser-known Upaniṣads continued to be composed right down to the sixteenth century. Thirteen of the Upaniṣads are considered the canonical scriptures of Hinduism. The first five of these—Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, and Kauṣītaki—were composed in prose and interposed with verse. The middle five—Kena, Kaṭha, Ῑśā, Śvetāśvatara, and Muṇḍaka—were composed chiefly in verse. The last three—Praśna, Māṇḍūkya, and Maitrāyaṇī—were composed in prose.

The French Indologist Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron first translated fifty Upaniṣads into Latin in 1801–02. The Upaniṣads had a considerable effect on such nineteenth-century philosophers as Arthur Schopenhauer, who asserted that the Upaniṣads were “the fruit of the most sublime human knowledge and wisdom.” The Upaniṣads also came to the attention of American philosophers and writers in the nineteenth century, mainly by way of many threads of the Idealist, Romantic, and Transcendentalist movements of Germany and England.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by The Upanishads

The self-existent Lord pierced the senses to turn outward. Thus we look to the world outside and see not the Self within us. A sage withdrew his senses from the world of change and, seeking immortality, looked within and beheld the deathless self.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Immortality

He who knows both the transcendent and the immanent, with the immanent overcomes death, and with the transcendent reaches immortality.
—The Upanishads

Life comes from the Spirit. Even as a man casts a shadow, so the Spirit casts the shadow of life, and, as a shadow of former lives, a new life comes to this body.
—The Upanishads

In dreams the mind beholds its own immensity. What has been seen is seen again, and what has been heard is heard again. What has been felt in different places or faraway regions returns to the mind again. Seen and unseen, heard and unheard, felt and not felt, the mind sees all, since the mind is all.
—The Upanishads

Like a ball bated back and forth, a human being is batted by two forces within.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Conflict

As an eagle, weary after soaring in the sky, folds its wings and flies down to rest in its nest, so does the shining Self enter the state of dreamless sleep, where one is freed from all desires.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Desire, Desires

Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity.
—The Upanishads

As a spider emits and draws in its thread, As plants arise on the earth, As the hairs of the head and body from a living person, So from The Eternal arises everything here.
—The Upanishads

The Spirit filled all with his radiance.
He is incorporeal and invulnerable, pure and untouched by evil.
He is the supreme seer and thinker, immanent and transcendent.
He placed all things in the path of the Eternal.
—The Upanishads

What is here is also there; what is there, is also here. Who sees multiplicity but not the one indivisible Self must wander on and on from death to death.
—The Upanishads

Health, a light body, freedom from cravings, a glowing skin, sonorous voice, fragrance of body: these signs indicate progress in the practice of meditation.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Meditation

When the mind is silent, beyond weakness or non- concentration, then it can enter into a world which is far beyond the mind: the highest End.
—The Upanishads

Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear.
—The Upanishads

Know the Self as Lord of the chariot, the body as the chariot itself, the discriminating intellect as the charioteer, and the mind as the reins. The senses, say the wise, are the horses; selfish desires are the roads they travel.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Selfishness, Self-love

The wise devote themselves to the welfare of all, for they see themselves in all.
—The Upanishads

The Lord of Love is before and behind. He extends to the right and to the left. He extends above; he extends below. There is no one here but the Lord of Love. He alone is; in truth, he alone is.
—The Upanishads

You are what your deep driving desire is.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Desires, Desire

As when rivers flowing towards the ocean find there final peace, their name and form disappear, and people speak only of the ocean, even so the different forms of the seer of all flows towards the Spirit and find there final peace, their name and form disappear and people speak only of Spirit.
—The Upanishads

There is a Spirit who is awake in our sleep and creates the wonder of dreams. He is the Spirit of Light, who in truth is called the Immortal. All the worlds rest on that Spirit and beyond him no one can go.
—The Upanishads

It is not the language but the speaker that we want to understand.
—The Upanishads
Topics: Understanding

The wise should surrender speech in mind, mind in the knowing self, the knowing self in the Spirit of the universe, and the Spirit of the universe in the Spirit of peace.
—The Upanishads

Wherefrom do all these worlds come? They come from space. All beings arise from space, and into space they return: space is indeed their beginning, and space is their final end.
—The Upanishads

Life in the world and life in the spirit are not incompatible. Work or action is not contrary to knowledge of God, but indeed, if performed without attachment, is a means to it.
—The Upanishads

When a person is dying, his voice goes into his mind; his mind into
his breath; his breath into heat; the heat into the highest
divinity. that which is the finest essence – the whole world has
that as its soul. That is Reality. That is Atman. That art thou.
—The Upanishads

The world is the wheel of God, turning round And round with all living creatures upon its rim. The world is the river of God, Flowing from him and flowing back to him.
—The Upanishads

You are what your deep, driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.
—The Upanishads

There is something beyond our mind which abides in silence within our mind. It is the supreme mystery beyond thought. Let one’s mind and one’s subtle body rest upon that and not rest on anything else.
—The Upanishads

As pure water poured into pure water becomes the very same, so does the Self of the illumined man or woman verily become one with the Godhead.
—The Upanishads

Imperishable is the Lord of Love. As from a blazing fire thousands of sparks Leap forth, so millions of beings arise From the Lord of Love and return to him.
—The Upanishads

The cosmos comes forth from The Eternal, and moves In Him. With His power it reverberates, Like thunder crashing in the sky. Those who Realize Him pass beyond the sway of death.
—The Upanishads

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