What is Upanishad?

In conjunction with our weekly knowledge sharing on the Yogasara Upanishad, Guruji shares this interesting story with us:

Q: What is Upanishad?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Sitting close and listening is Upanishad. Upanishad is a collection of discourses of high knowledge, and the manner it was transmitted from a Master to students is very interesting. 

One of the Upanishads beautifully brings this out well. Once a boy went to his father who was also his Guru and asked, 'What is God?' To which the father replied, ‘Food is God’, for everything grows from food, everything is sustained by food and when there is a lack of it, everything dissolves and everything again becomes food. 

So the boy went and thought about it for several months, understood all about food and came back to his father, and again asked ‘What is God?’ The father said, ‘Prana is God’. The boy went, thought and understands all about prana, how it is going in and out of body, how many types of prana there are and read all experiments about prana. He again came back to his father and asked, ‘What is God?’ The father looked at the child’s face, so glowing and so vibrant. The father said, 'Ok, the mind is Brahman, mind is God'. The boy went and thought till he found the ultimate bliss. 

Notice, that the student didn’t complain to the teacher that he was earlier told ‘Food is God’ but later something else. He simply came and again asked the question. So this is an ancient way of teaching, step by step – food, then prana, then the mind, then the inner spirit, then the universal spirit, Bliss. Bliss is Divinity, the space. You are like the space. Then he said, 'There is no difference between you, me and the infinite self. We all are one. The Self, Guru and the universal energy are not different. All are made up of one substance.'

Today if you talk to scientists who study the string theory, who study quantum physics, they will say the same thing that is said in Upanishads. In the Upanishads, it was said thousands of years ago that 'God is not a person, sitting somewhere up in heaven but God is present everywhere. He is omnipresent and omnipotent, the energy of which you are also made of, everything is made up of.' Don’t confuse God to be a person, somewhere sitting up in heaven. Godliness is your own nature. 

God is Vibration. God is Love. God is Truth, Existence. God is Beauty. 

People right through history have told this. Lord Krishna told Arjuna, ‘People think I am a human being but I am not. People confuse the Divine to be a human being. But God is the force, He is energy. That is Divine and not a person.’