Essence of the Upanishads - Wisdom of India 3rd Edition by Eknath Easwaran Paperback

About the Book

Through his interpretation of one important Upanishad, an ancient wisdom text, Eknath Easwaran shows how the timeless Indian tradition offers guidance on how to live today. Lyrical, dramatic, and inspiring, the Katha Upanishad presents the core ideas of Indian mysticism in a mythic story all can relate to -- the adventure of a young hero, Nachiketa, who passes into the kingdom of Death in search of immortality. The King of Death tests his resolve, but the teenager stands firm, demanding answers to the age-old questions, "What is the purpose of life? What happens to me when I die?" Death emerges as the perfect spiritual guide -- direct, uncompromising, and challenging. Easwaran's approach to the Katha is both practical and universal. He explains key Sanskrit terms like "karma" and "prana, " illustrating them through everyday anecdotes and entertaining analogies while placing Indian spirituality into the broader context of world mysticism.

Book Synopsis

The Katha Upanishad embraces the key ideas of Indian mysticism in a mythic story we can all relate to - the quest of a young hero, Nachiketa, who ventures into the land of death in search of immortality.

But the insights of the Katha are scattered, hard to understand. Easwaran presents them systematically, and practically, as a way to explore deeper and deeper levels of personality, and to answer the age-old question, "Who am I?"

Easwaran grew up in India, learned Sanskrit from a young age, and became a professor of English literature before coming to the West. His translation of The Upanishads is the best-selling edition in English.

For students of philosophy and of Indian spirituality, and readers of wisdom literature everywhere, Easwaran's interpretation of this classic helps us in our own quest into the meaning of our lives.

About the Author

Eknath Easwaran (1910--1999) is respected around the world as an authentic guide to universal wisdom.

Author of the best-selling Classics of Indian Spirituality series, Easwaran had both a deep intuitive knowledge of his own Hindu legacy and a love of English literature. He was chairman of the English department at a major Indian university when he came to the United States on a Fulbright fellowship in 1959.

From the 1960s onwards, Easwaran held classes on mysticism and practical spirituality for a primarily American audience. A gifted teacher, he was able to anticipate the problems that Western readers have with the concepts underlying Indian spirituality, and to explain them in fresh, contemporary, and profoundly simple ways. Throughout his life, he drew on the Upanishads and the other Indian classics for inspiration. As Huston Smith writes, "It is impossible to get to the heart of those classics unless you live them, and he did live them."

In 1961 Easwaran founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in California, and in 1968, at the University of California, Berkeley, he taught the first academic course on meditation ever offered for credit at a major American university. He continued to teach his method of passage meditation and his eight-point program for spiritual living to an American and international audience for almost forty years. His twenty-seven books on meditation and the classics of world mysticism have been translated into twenty-six languages.

Through the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation and its publishing arm, Nilgiri Press, Easwaran continues to reach an ever-growing audience around the world through publications and retreats.