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Aitareya Upanishad Teachings

A collection of teachings from the Aitareya Upanishad.

The Self being unknown, all three states of the soul are but dreaming – waking,  
dreaming, and dreamless sleep. In each of these dwells the Self: the eye in his dwelling place while we wake, the mind is his dwelling place while we dream, the lotus of the heart is his dwelling place while we sleep the dreamless sleep.



If an individual awake from his threefold dream of waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep, he sees no other that the Self. He sees the Self dwelling in the lotus of his heart as Brahman, omnipresent, and he declares: “I know Brahman”.

That which glows (Sun) is OM.

Who is this Self whom we desire to worship? Of what nature is this Self? Is he the self by which we see form, hear sound, smell odor, speak words, and taste the sweet or the bitter? Is he the heart and the mind by which we perceive, command, discriminate, know, think, remember, will, feel desire, breathe, love and perform other like acts? Nay, these are but adjuncts of the Self, who is pure consciousness.

And this Self, who is pure consciousness, is Brahman. He is God, all gods; the five elements – earth, air, fire, water, ether, all beings, great or small, born of eggs, born from the womb, born from heat, born from soil; horses, cows,  men elephants, birds; everything that breathes, the beings that walk and the being that walk not. The reality behind all these is Brahman, who is pure consciousness.