Texts

The Upaniṣads, the ancient oral texts within the corpus of the Vedas, are the world’s earliest extant discussions of nonduality. They develop an integrative vision that reveals the hidden connections tying individuals to the world.

Dreams, the act of dreaming, and the elusive identities of the dreamer play a central role in the philosophy of the Yogavāsiṣṭha. Reality in this text is always virtual; nothing has fixity. The only constant is change, tempered and formed according to the principles of karma.

Of all the Vedic ṛṣis (“seers”), the one who literally “pulls on the heart’s strings” is Nārada—the inventor of music, the inspirer of poets, the healer for the broken-hearted.

Among the many subjects that Bhagavad-Gītā (BG) is known for, one is the synthesis of the different Upaniṣadic yoga practices. Due to their terse and often cryptic style, the Upaniṣads’ discourse on yoga reads more like a gloss on the subject rather than an accessible exposition.