Five Upanisads: Isa Kaivalya Sarvasara Amrtabindu Atharvasira in Bloomington, MN

The Upaniṣads are an integral part of Vedas, they represent a branch of the primordial Tradition and constitute the essence of
Vedanta
itself. The expression
(end of the
Vedas
) should be understood in the double meaning of ‘conclusion’, as the Upaniṣads are the last part of the
Vedic
texts, and of ‘purpose’, because what is being taught is the ultimate goal of Traditional Knowledge. The central theme of the
Upanisads
is the quest for the Ultimate Reality, they therefore represent Metaphysics in its real sense. This type of research is not an end to itself, for the Upaniṣads represent ways of contact and tools of realization; to this end they indicate a concise and complete sequence that concedes little or nothing to the analytical mind. The five
presented in this text –
Isa
,
Kaivalya
Sarvasāra
Amrtabindu
, and
Atharvasira
– are commented extensively by Raphael. In his commentary, Raphael frames and broadens all the various points in the context of the traditional
Advaita
(Non-duality) teaching, and thus provides the western mind with the key to the comprehension of their symbolic, figurative, and analogical language.