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

Chapter One

1. The syllable (aksara) OM is all this. To explain further: what is called past, present and future is all just OM. Whatever else there is, beyond the three times, that too is all just OM.

2. All this is brahman. The self is Brahman. The self has four feet.

3. The first foot is Vaisvanara, with waking as its status, with consciousness turned outward, with seven limbs, with nineteen mouths, eating coarse food.

4. The second foot is Taijasa, with dream as its state, with consciousness turned inward, with seven limbs, with nineteen mouths, eating choice food.

5. When, sleeping, one desires no desire and dreams no dream, that is deep sleep. The third foot is Prajna, with deep sleep as its state, become one, a sheer mass of consciousness, made of bliss, eating bliss, with mind as its mouth.

6. It is the lord of all: it is the knower of all, for it is the arising and passing away of beings.

7. Not with consciousness turned inward, not with consciousness turned outward, not with consciousness turned both ways, not a mass of consciousness, not conscious, not unconscious-folk consider the fourth to the unseen, inviolable unseizable, signless, unthinkable, unnameable, its essence resting in the one self, the stilling of proliferation, peaceful, gracious (siva), without duality (advaita). That is the self: so it should be understood.

8. In terms of syllables, the self is OM. In terms of elements, the feet are the element and the elements are the feet: ‘a’, ‘u’, ‘m’.

9. Vaisvanara, whose state is waking, is the ‘a’, the first element, from ap- (to attain), or from its being the first of all (adimattva): for the one who knows this attains all desires and becomes the first (adi)

10. Taijasa, whose state is dream, is the ‘u’, the second element, from utkarsa (rising up,) or from its being both (ubhaya): for the one who know this raises up lineage of knowledge and becomes equal with it, and there comes to be no one in his family who does not know brahman.

11. Prajna, whose state is deep sleep, is the ‘m’, the third element, from me- (to measure out, to create), or from api- (to merge into, to dissolve): for the one who knows this creates all this and becomes its dissolution.

12. The fourth, without an element, is inviolable, the stilling of proliferation, gracious, without duality. So OM is the self. The one who knows this by self enters the self: the one who knows this.

OM. Gods, may we hear good fortune with our ear! You worthy of sacrifice, may see good fortune with our eyes!

Having praised you with bodies strong of limb,
May we attain, life long, what is ordained by the gods!
May Indra, of great swiftness,
May Pusan, the all-knowing,
May Tarksya Aristanemi,
May Brhaspati ordain well-being for us!

OM. Peace, peace, peace.