Shvetashvatara Upanishad

1. Part 1

   1.1Students of sacred knowledge ask big questions: Is Brahman, the ultimate reality, the cause of everything? Where do we come from, what keeps us alive, and where are we going? Who rules over our lives in both pain and joy?
2. 1.2The students wonder if the cause of everything is time, nature, fate, chance, the elements, or a conscious person. None of these alone, or even together, seems to stand on its own, and the individual self also seems powerless over good and bad things.
3. 1.3Wise people who practiced deep meditation found the answer. They saw that God's own power is hidden inside the world's qualities, and that one God is in charge of all the other possible causes, like time and the self.
4. 1.4The sages describe God as a great wheel, made of many parts in groups of three, sixteen, fifty, twenty and eight. The wheel has one rope with many strands and moves along three roads. The picture shows that the whole complicated world turns on God.
5. 1.5Life is pictured as a wild, winding river. Its streams and springs are the five senses, its waves are the five breaths of life, and its source is the mind. Its rapids and whirlpools are the many kinds of pain and suffering people go through.
6. 1.6All beings live inside a huge turning wheel of life. The soul flutters about like a restless bird as long as it thinks it is separate from God, who turns the wheel. When God blesses it, the soul becomes free from death.
7. 1.7What the scriptures praise most is the Highest Brahman, the one ultimate reality. It holds a group of three within it. It never perishes and is a safe support. Students who come to know what is inside this world become devoted, merge into Brahman, and are not born again.
8. 1.8God holds everything together, both what changes and what never changes, both what is seen and what is unseen. The soul feels trapped because it must live with the results of its actions. When it comes to know God, it is freed from everything that binds it.
9. 1.9Three things have always existed. There is God, who knows everything and is strong. There is the soul, which does not yet know and is weak. And there is nature, through which each person gets the results of their deeds. Behind them all is the endless Self, present in every form but not acting itself. Whoever understands these three knows Brahman.
10. 1.10Matter, the stuff of the world, wears away. God, here called Hara, does not die. The one God rules both matter and the soul. By meditating on God and becoming one with him, all false appearances finally come to an end.
11. 1.11When a person truly knows God, all chains fall away, suffering ends, and birth and death stop. Meditating on God can bring a third state after death, power over everything. But only the one who stands alone is truly satisfied.
12. 1.12The reality that always rests inside you is the one thing worth knowing, and nothing beyond it needs to be known. Everything is made of three parts: the one who experiences, what is experienced, and the ruler over both. All three together are Brahman.
13. 1.13Fire is hidden in wood. You cannot see it, but it is there, and you bring it out by rubbing sticks together again and again. In the same way, the Self is hidden in the body and is brought out by repeating the sacred sound Om.
14. 1.14Make your body like the bottom stick and the sound Om like the top stick. Keep rubbing them together through meditation. Then you will see the shining God, like a spark that was hidden in the wood.
15. 1.15Oil is hidden in seeds, butter in cream, water under dry riverbeds, and fire in wood. In the same way, God is found hidden inside yourself, if you search for him with honesty and self-discipline.
16. 1.16God fills everything, the way butter is spread through milk. You find him through knowing yourself and through self-discipline. This is the Brahman the Upanishads teach.

17. Part 2

    2.1This begins a prayer to Savitri, the sun god. It says Savitri first gathered his mind and thoughts, found his light, and brought fire above the earth.
18. 2.2With focused minds, we place ourselves under the guidance of the god Savitri so that we may find happiness.
19. 2.3The worshipper prays that Savitri, who reaches the gods and heaven with his mind, will help the gods make a great light shine.
20. 2.4The wise followers of the great sage focus their minds and thoughts. Savitri, who alone knows the right order of things, arranged the prayers. Great is the praise of Savitri.
21. 2.5The worshipper says the old prayer should be joined with new praise. He hopes his song will travel far like the sun's path, so that all the children of the Immortal in heaven may hear it.
22. 2.6Where the sacred fire is lit by rubbing, where the breath is held still, and where the sacred Soma drink flows, there the mind comes alive and becomes ready for meditation.
23. 2.7With the help of Savitri, the sun god who inspires, let us love Brahman, the ancient highest reality. If you make your home in Brahman, your path through life will not harm you.
24. 2.8A wise person sits with chest, neck and head straight and steady. He turns his senses and mind inward toward the heart. Then Brahman is like a boat that carries him across all the floods of fear.
25. 2.9The meditator should control his breathing, keep his body still, and breathe out gently through the nose. The mind is like a chariot pulled by wild horses, so a wise person must always keep a firm hold on it.
26. 2.10Meditation should be practiced in a clean, level place without stones, fire or dust. It should be a pleasant spot with soft sounds, water and shade, easy on the eyes, with places to shelter.
27. 2.11When someone practices Yoga, the first signs that appear in the mind are visions like mist, smoke, sun, fire, wind, fireflies, lightning and a clear moon. These show that the practice is moving toward Brahman.
28. 2.12When earth, water, light, heat and space arise and the fivefold quality of Yoga appears, a person who has gained a body made by the fire of Yoga no longer suffers sickness, old age or pain.
29. 2.13The first results of Yoga are a light, healthy and steady body, a clear face, an easy voice, a pleasant smell and less waste from the body.
30. 2.14A metal mirror covered in dust shines again once it is cleaned. In the same way, when a person sees the true nature of the Self, his deepest being, he becomes content and free from sorrow.
31. 2.15When a person uses his own true Self like a lamp to see Brahman, he comes to know the God who was never born and lasts forever. Knowing this God, he is freed from everything that binds him.
32. 2.16This God fills every direction. He was the first one born, called Hiranyagarbha, the golden source of creation, and he is in every womb. He was born and will be born again, and he stands behind every person, seeing everything.
33. 2.17The speaker bows to the God who lives in fire, in water, in plants, in trees, and in the whole world. Praise and worship to that God!

34. Part 3

    3.1There is one Lord who holds the world like a net and rules all the worlds by his powers. He stays the same while things come into being and exist. Those who know him become immortal.
35. 3.2There is only one Rudra, a name for God here, with no second. He rules all the worlds by his powers and stands behind every person. He creates and protects the worlds, and at the end of time he gathers them back into himself.
36. 3.3The one God has eyes, faces, arms and feet everywhere. When he makes heaven and earth, he shapes them together with his arms and wings, like a smith at a forge.
37. 3.4Rudra is the great seer and lord of all, who makes and supports the gods and who first gave birth to Hiranyagarbha, the golden source of creation. The speaker prays that he give us good thoughts.
38. 3.5The speaker prays to Rudra, who lives in the mountains, to look at us with his kind and blessed face, not his frightening one, a face that shows no harm.
39. 3.6The speaker asks Rudra, lord of the mountains, to make the arrow in his hand bring blessing instead of harm. He begs him not to hurt people or animals.
40. 3.7Beyond all this is the High Brahman, vast and hidden inside every living body, and alone covering everything. Those who know it as the Lord become immortal.
41. 3.8The teacher says: I know the great Person, shining like the sun, beyond all darkness. Whoever truly knows him goes beyond death. There is no other way.
42. 3.9This Person fills the whole universe. Nothing is higher than him or separate from him, and nothing is smaller or bigger. He stands alone and steady, like a tree rooted in the sky.
43. 3.10The highest reality lies beyond this world. It has no shape and no suffering. People who come to know it go beyond death, while those who don't keep suffering.
44. 3.11The Lord (Bhagavat) is present in every face, head and neck, and lives deep in the heart of every living being. Because he is everywhere, he is called Shiva, the one who is present in all places.
45. 3.12This Person (purusha, the inner spirit of all) is the great Lord. He sets everything in motion and can reach everything. He is pure light, and he never wears out or grows old.
46. 3.13The divine Person lives inside every human heart and is pictured as no bigger than a thumb. We can come to know him through our heart, thoughts and mind. Those who truly know him go beyond death.
47. 3.14This verse pictures the divine Person as having a thousand heads, eyes and feet. He wraps around the whole earth and still reaches beyond it.
48. 3.15The divine Person is everything that exists: all that has been and all that will be. He rules over eternal life, and he is also every living thing that grows by eating food.
49. 3.16The divine reality has hands, feet, eyes, heads and ears everywhere. It surrounds and holds everything in the world.
50. 3.17The divine reality has no senses of its own, yet it shines through the work of all our senses. It is the ruler of all, and the safe place where everyone can turn for shelter.
51. 3.18The spirit lives in the body, which is like a town with nine gates. Like a bird, it flutters outward into the world. This same spirit rules the whole world, everything that stays still and everything that moves.
52. 3.19The divine Person grasps without hands, moves fast without feet, sees without eyes and hears without ears. He knows everything that can be known, but no one fully knows him. He is called the first, the great Person.
53. 3.20The Self is smaller than the smallest thing and greater than the greatest, and it hides in the heart of every creature. A person who has let go of all sorrow sees this glorious, calm Lord, and this happens through the Lord's own grace.
54. 3.21The speaker says he knows this ancient one who never grows old, the Self of all things, endless and everywhere. Teachers of sacred knowledge say he is eternal, and that in him the cycle of being born again comes to an end.

55. Part 4

    4.1God is like the sun, which has no color itself yet brings out endless colors. With his power (shakti) and on purpose, he makes the world. Everything comes from him at the start and returns to him at the end. The verse prays that he will give us good thoughts.
56. 4.2The one Self is fire, the sun, the wind and the moon. It is the starry sky, the water, and the creator gods. All these are really that one reality.
57. 4.3Speaking to God, the verse says: you are woman and man, young boy and young girl. You are the old man walking slowly with a stick. You are born facing every direction.
58. 4.4Speaking to God, the verse says: you are the dark-blue bee and the green parrot with red eyes. You are the storm cloud, the seasons and the seas. You have no beginning because you are endless, and all worlds are born from you.
59. 4.5This riddle speaks of one unborn female being, red, white and black, who is all of one kind yet gives birth to many offspring. One unborn male being loves her and lies beside her. Another one leaves her while she is busy eating what is there to be eaten.
60. 4.6Two birds, close friends who never part, sit on the same tree. One eats the sweet fruit. The other just watches and does not eat.
61. 4.7A person sitting on that same tree feels sad, confused and lost because he feels powerless. But when he sees the other one, the Lord, who is calm and content, and knows his greatness, his sadness goes away.
62. 4.8What good is the Rig Veda to someone who does not know the eternal, sky-like Self it speaks of, the highest one in whom all the gods live? Only those who know this Self find real contentment.
63. 4.9God, the maker, brings out everything from himself: the holy verses, the rituals, the past and the future, and all that the Vedas (the oldest sacred books of India) speak of. The individual soul gets tangled up in this world through maya, God's creative power that makes the world appear.
64. 4.10Nature (Prakriti) is like the maker's art or magic (Maya), and the great Lord is the maker. The whole world is filled with parts of him.
65. 4.11There is one God who rules over every cause, in whom everything comes together and comes apart again. He gives blessings and is worthy of worship. A person who truly sees him enters lasting peace.
66. 4.12This is a prayer to Rudra, a name for God, who creates and supports the gods. He is the great seer who watched Hiranyagarbha, the first created being, be born. The prayer asks him to give us good thoughts.
67. 4.13God is the ruler of the gods. All the worlds rest in him, and he rules over all creatures with two feet and four feet. The speakers say: let us offer our worship to him.
68. 4.14God is finer and more hidden than the smallest thing. He creates everything in the middle of chaos, takes many forms, and surrounds all things. He is called Shiva, "the kind one." Whoever knows him gains peace forever.
69. 4.15God has always guarded this world. He is the lord of all and hides inside every living being. The great sages and the gods are joined in him. Whoever knows him breaks free from the chains of death.
70. 4.16Shiva, the blessed God, is hidden in all beings. He is like the thin, rich layer that rises to the top of clarified butter, and he surrounds everything. Whoever knows this God is set free from everything that binds him.
71. 4.17God, the maker of all, the great Self, always lives in a person's heart. He is known through the heart, the soul and the mind. Those who know him become immortal.
72. 4.18When this inner light rises, there is no day or night, and no being or not-being. Only Shiva, the blessed one, is there. This is the eternal, holy light of Savitri, the sun god, and the ancient wisdom came from it.
73. 4.19No one can grasp God from above, from the side or in the middle. There is no picture or likeness of him. His name is Great Glory.
74. 4.20God's form cannot be seen, and no eye can see him. But people who know him with heart and mind, living in their heart, become immortal.
75. 4.21A worshipper comes to God trembling and says, "You were never born." He prays, "O Rudra, let your kind face protect me forever."
76. 4.22The worshippers pray to Rudra, who could be fierce, not to harm their children, grandchildren, their own lives, their cows or their horses. They ask him not to kill their men in anger, since they always call on him with offerings.

77. Part 5

    5.1In the highest Brahman, the endless and undying reality, both knowledge and ignorance are hidden. Ignorance passes away, but knowledge lasts forever. The one who rules over both is someone else: God.
78. 5.2The one God rules over every cause and every form. In the beginning he held in his thoughts the wise, fiery son, and he wished to watch him as he was born.
79. 5.3God spreads out the world like a net again and again in many ways, and then draws it back in. The great Lord also created other rulers, and he rules over all of them.
80. 5.4The sun lights up every direction: above, below and across. In the same way, the one holy God rules over everything that can grow from a seed.
81. 5.5The one God rules over everything. Because of him, the seed of the universe grows into its true nature. He makes all things different and decides all their qualities.
82. 5.6This truth is hidden in the Upanishads, which are hidden inside the Vedas. Brahma, the first created being, knows it as the seed of all. The ancient gods and poets who knew it became one with it and became immortal.
83. 5.7The individual soul takes on qualities and does actions that bring results. It enjoys or suffers what it has done, and so it moves from life to life in many forms. It is driven by the three Gunas (the basic qualities of nature: calm, restless and dull) and travels the three paths of different rebirths.
84. 5.8This individual soul is described as no bigger than a thumb, yet bright like the sun. It has a sense of 'I', thoughts, a mind and a body. It can also seem as tiny as the point of an animal driver's stick.
85. 5.9The living soul is unimaginably tiny, like a hair's tip split into a hundred parts and then split a hundred times again. Yet the same soul is also infinite.
86. 5.10The soul is not female, not male, and not neither. It only seems to be one of these because of the body it is joined to.
87. 5.11Through thoughts, touch, sight and desires, the soul takes on different bodies in different places, one after another, according to its deeds. It is like how a body grows from the food and drink it takes in.
88. 5.12The soul takes on many bodies, heavy or subtle, according to its own qualities. Because of its actions and its bodies, it appears as one being and then another.
89. 5.13God has no beginning and no end. He creates everything in the middle of chaos, takes many forms and surrounds all things. Whoever truly knows him is set free from every bondage.
90. 5.14God can be grasped by the mind, but he is not the body, which is just a 'nest'. He is Shiva, the happy one, who makes what exists and what does not, and creates the elements. Those who know him have left the body behind.

91. Part 6

    6.1Some thinkers are confused and say that Nature or Time causes everything. But it is God's greatness that keeps the great wheel of the universe turning.
92. 6.2God always surrounds this world. He knows everything and is the master even of time. At his command creation unfolds as earth, water, fire, air and space.
93. 6.3After creating and then resting, God joins the soul with matter. He combines them with one, two, three or eight things, and with time and the subtle powers of the mind. The sentence continues in the next verse.
94. 6.4God starts all actions made of the three qualities of nature and puts everything in order. When it all ends and is destroyed, he goes on, because he is truly different from everything he made.
95. 6.5God is the beginning and causes the soul to be joined to the body. He is beyond past, present and future, and he is whole, without parts. We see him this way after we first worship him, the source of all, as living in our own mind.
96. 6.6God is beyond the world, which is like a great tree, and beyond time, yet the world turns because of him. He brings good and removes evil. He is the lord of joy, deathless and the support of all, and he can be known as living within oneself.
97. 6.7Let us come to know God, the greatest lord of all lords, the highest of all gods, the master of all masters, the ruler of the world, who is worthy of worship.
98. 6.8Nothing is known that God produces as an effect, and nothing caused him. No one is equal to him or greater. His high power shows itself in many ways, and his strength and knowledge are part of his very nature.
99. 6.9No one in the world is God's master or ruler, and no mark can show him. He is the cause of everything and the lord of all the senses. He has no parent and no lord.
100. 6.10Like a spider covering itself with its own threads, the one God covers himself with the world he draws out of nature. The speaker prays that this God will let us enter Brahman, the ultimate reality.
101. 6.11There is one God hidden in every living being. He is everywhere and is the inner self of all beings. He watches all actions and is the silent witness, untouched by any qualities.
102. 6.12God is the one ruler behind many things that seem to act on their own but really do not. He turns one seed into many things. Wise people who find him within themselves have lasting happiness, and no one else does.
103. 6.13God is the one lasting thing behind everything that lasts, and the mind behind every mind. Though he is one, he answers the wishes of many. Whoever comes to know him, through careful thinking (Sankhya) and spiritual practice (Yoga), is set free from everything that binds them.
104. 6.14In God's world, the sun, moon, stars, lightning and fire give no light of their own. God is the true light. Everything else shines only because he shines.
105. 6.15God is like a single bird in the middle of the world, and like the sun's fire that has set into the ocean. Whoever truly knows him goes beyond death. There is no other way.
106. 6.16God made everything and knows everything. Nothing caused him. He is even the master of time. He rules nature and people and the three basic forces of nature (the gunas). He is the reason we are held in this world, the reason the world exists, and the reason we can be set free.
107. 6.17God is immortal and always present. He knows all and guards this world. He rules it forever, because no one else could.
108. 6.18The speaker says: wanting to be free, I turn to God for safety. God is lit by his own thoughts. He first made Brahma, the creator god, and gave him the Vedas, the holy scriptures.
109. 6.19This God has no parts and does no actions. He is calm, with no fault and no stain. He is the best bridge to a life beyond death. He is like a fire that has burned up all its wood.
110. 6.20People could roll up the sky like a sheet of leather sooner than they could end their suffering without knowing God. Knowing God is the only real end to misery.
111. 6.21The wise sage Shvetashvatara, through his hard spiritual discipline and by God's grace, taught this highest and holiest truth about Brahman, the ultimate reality. He taught it to the most dedicated seekers, and the gathered sages approved it.
112. 6.22This deepest secret of the Upanishads, taught long ago, should not be given to someone who has not controlled their desires. It is only for one's own son or a true student.
113. 6.23When these truths are taught to a person with a noble heart, who loves God deeply and loves their teacher (guru) as much as God, the truths will truly shine and become clear to them.