The Bearded Mystic Podcast
Rahul N Singh host of The Bearded Mystic Podcast explores the Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedanta or Nonduality in a very simple, direct and practical way.
Episodes include discussions into eastern scriptures like The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads etc and discussions about everyday spirituality.
Rahul has been on the spiritual path for over 20 years and has an open-minded approach to spirituality and finds that there is no one size fits all approach.
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The Bearded Mystic Podcast
Why Studying the Upanishads Will Transform Your Spiritual Journey
The Upanishads offer direct communication with consciousness itself, providing a philosophical foundation for the Bhagavad Gita and practical spiritual guidance for modern seekers.
• Upanishadic study connects us with our inner consciousness rather than human interpretations
• The Upanishads provide the philosophical grounding behind the Bhagavad Gita's message
• Eknath Easwaran's translations capture the essence in accessible language for modern readers
• Finding commonalities between spiritual traditions rather than fault-finding leads to deeper understanding
• The first verse of the Isha Upanishad contains the essence of spiritual wisdom
• Recognizing the divine in all hearts naturally leads to compassion and equanimity
• True renunciation happens naturally when desires fall away like autumn leaves
• Everything belongs to the supreme reality, eliminating both pride and covetousness
• This perspective aligns with Nirankari Mission's first principle about being trustees of our possessions
Please subscribe, like, and comment with your thoughts or questions. I'd love to know if you'd like me to continue exploring the Upanishads in future episodes!
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bearded Mystic Podcast, and I am your host, rahul N Singh. Thank you for taking out the time today to either watch or listen to this podcast episode, and we will be today. I want to talk about why, you know, one should keep studying, actually, the Upanishads and why that should be our constant study. I feel that one you will not regret it, as the title of the video says, because once you read the Upanishads, you are not communicating with anything human. You are communicating with consciousness itself, your own inner consciousness. And these words are there to point you back to yourself, back to the true self, back to the Atman and the reason why I feel like we should keep studying the Upanishads. I know a lot of people talk about studying the Bhagavad Gita and I do agree that should be studied too. But why do I say study the Upanishads? Because that holds a philosophical means behind the message of the Bhagavad Gita. Now, for example, there's times, numerous times, where Sri Krishna actually kind of deliberately takes from the Upanishads. One is to show that it's a continuum, it's nothing different. But at the same time it also shows the significance of the Upanishads that in order to live a practical spiritual life. You need to have this philosophy to ground you. You need to have this understanding to ground you and there's nothing better than you know reading the Upanishads and my most. There's two versions I really like, um a lot. One is obviously Swami Nikkalan Daji's um, kind of uh, his Bhagavad Gita and his uh, his Upanishads, the full volume one. That's really good, but the one that I really love the most because I feel like it just speaks to the heart, it gets the essence correct. So it's not sometimes you don't want, you don't need the literal meaning of the Upanishads, because sometimes it then can you know things can get lost.
Speaker 1:But when someone understands the essence of what's being said and then is able to translate that into English, eknath Iswaran is the best translation you can have of the Upanishads and also of the Bhagavad Gita. In my opinion, there's something accessible with the way he words things, with the way he kind of speaks about things. So, yes, you know, obviously there's going to be people who are going to be like, well, you know, we need things to be accurate and and all this, and I agree with that to some degree. But, um, you know, like, for example, some may argue that. Oh well, you know, such and such person has the bhagavad-gita as it is, but as we know, it really isn't as it is. It's been manipulated with and that's the Sanskrit that's been manipulated too. So it's not even a positive thing.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to the I don't know with Ignat Asran's translations, I know with Ignat Asran's translations, even his books I find them to be quite accessible for today's age. And there's something, you see, we live in a world today where it's very easy to say, well, my religion is better than your religion, and we're better and you're not, and there's this undercurrent of kind of competition. And there's this undercurrent of kind of competition. But what Ignat G does very well is he shows the similarities and embraces whatever is similar. That's not saying that he probably doesn't acknowledge the differences. Everyone can see the differences, but you know when our mindset is such and acknowledge the differences. Everyone can see the differences, but you know when our mindset is such. That's why you know a lot of people these days that are, I find their mentality is to fault, find. You know, they always are looking to find faults with something and see something wrong. But recently what I've been trying to do is listen as if I am to discover something new. And this way of thinking brings you to a mind that is able to think, discern. Because I'm able to slow down, because when you're fault finding, you're being critical, but you're not really slowing down to understand. You know, you're quick to find the one fault, then the next fault, then the next fault.
Speaker 1:So, but if you want to study the Upanishads, you have to actually give your mind rest and you have to kind of. You know, just let the Upanishads speak to you. So I'll give you an example. This is in the isha upanishad, so it's the very first verse. This is how ignatisran translates it.
Speaker 1:The lord is enshrined in the hearts of all. The lord is a supreme reality. Rejoicing him through renunciation, covet, nothing. All belongs to the lord. Now, obviously, in this, like we can say, he's talking about sagaganabraman or he's talking about Ishvara, the Upanishad the Lord is enshrined in all, in the hearts of all. It's manifest in everything. But when you say the hearts of all, your heart becomes open too, because you know what. You recognize that the Lord is there within you too. Do you see what I mean here? So when you say in all, even in the people, so when you say in all, even in the people that you don't like, even in the people that do not like you, you see, the lord in them is enshrined, enshrined like a temple that in each heart is a temple of the lord.
Speaker 1:So how would you see a temple of the lord? Would you see the temple of the Lord with disgust or with hatred, or with intolerance? No, you would have a different approach. You will be coming from, you will feel in your heart this sense of calmness, of joy, of tenderness, of gentleness, of sensitivity, and that's what we need more of in this world. You know, um, and you know some people may argue well, you know, but this culture of toxic masculinity, in my opinion, the people that have to prove their masculinity are the most, uh, are definitely not the poster boys of masculinity at all. In fact I would say it's the exact opposite. And uh, but here you know, if you see the lord in all, there's nothing masculine there. The lord neither has a gender. So it's quite clear. Here he says the lord is a supreme reality, but the supreme reality, the most important thing, the own, the. If it's a supreme reality, there's nothing bigger than that, nothing beyond that. So think about, if that's in all, how can you see difference in others? Forget about hating or disliking, or loving or whatever. Just the fact that, how can you see any difference? It's all one, in this very line, you see, it's all one.
Speaker 1:And then rejoicing him through renunciation. So you know, once you have, once you have him, once you have this Lord, this Ishwara, this Brahman, this formless awareness, this Nirakar, do you want anything else? You naturally renounce things. For example, what desires? If you are fully immersed in the rejoicing of this Supreme One, how can you think of anything else? How can you think of another desire? All desires just naturally get renounced. It's not even you have to say, well, I don't want this anymore. No, it just naturally happens. You do not have to say anything, it just drops. And that's true renunciation. When it just drops away, like when a leaf has, when it's autumn or fall, as they say in America, and the leaves turn yellow, brown and they fall away, they drop from the branches, from the twigs, just like that. Your desires are like those leaves. Once you rejoice in the Lord, then these desires will fall away like the leaves fall away from a tree. That's how simple it is.
Speaker 1:And then covet nothing. You know, don't be proud of anything. Why? Because it's not yours, it's all the Lord's. That's the supreme reality, that's enshrined in everything, in the hearts of all. So not just anything with a living heartbeat, but anything and everything, anything living, anything that is manifest in this universe, it's enshrined in that. And therefore, how can you be proud of anything you have or desire, something that other people have? You can't. You can't have any of those things because it all belongs to the Lord, as it says. You can't have any of those things because it all belongs to the Lord, as it says.
Speaker 1:When I was given Brahmagyan in the Nirankarayam mission, the first principle that we are asked to follow is body, mind and material possessions are all a gift from God, from Nirankar, and they are to be treated as such. And you are just merely a trustee, that's all you. And they are to be treated as such and you're just merely a trustee, that's all you are. You know they're on loan to you and literally, that's the first line of the Isha Upanishad, the first principle. And you know, if you thought, and you know we are used to hear growing up that if you follow that first principle, you've mastered spirituality. That's the key to spirituality, and it's true.
Speaker 1:Once you truly say that everything belongs to this formless, to this nirvana, to to god, what are you gonna be proud of? What are you gonna try and have ownership over? How can you have ownership over anything? So that shows that that you know. We all know, like, for example, if this house is in my name or a car is in my name or this computer is in my name, it's temporary. Once I die, once this body goes, then it's not really going to be belonging to me. God knows what will happen to it afterwards and god will know, because it's god's anyway. But again, it all belongs to god. So whoever it goes to is going to god. Yeah, because god is enshrined in all. And and this is why I think this the upanishads should be studied, because once you contemplate upon it, once you think about it, once you have something translatable like this, it just makes absolute sense.
Speaker 1:What I'm going to do in the next couple of videos is, obviously, I just did the first verse of the Isha Upanishad here and we'll probably come back to this, but I'm going to go through the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita by Ignatis Raran and I use a different translation. I did the commentary, but now we're going to go through a different one. We're going to do it a different way and we're just going to see how it's so clear with what he says. But I hope you've enjoyed this episode where we've kind of gone into the first verse of the Yisra'ul Upanishad. If you'd like me to go through the Upanishads, let me know. I'm more than happy to do so and we can definitely do that. So, and we can definitely do that, okay, so, without taking any more of your time, I just want to say thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:If you like this video, do you like it? Comment on it. Please let me know what you think. If you have any questions, let me know. Share this with your friends and family and, most of all, take care, stay safe and see you soon. See you in the next video. Take care, namaste.
