Transfer of Consciousness: How to enter into another's body?

According to Eastern Mysticism and Tantra it is very much possible to transfer one's consciousness from one body to another which will give new insights into our understanding of Consciousness and this phenomena is perfectly in accordance with the dualistic model of Mind and Body. Although practices like Phowa are considered to be the path of the Left it is very much important to study them as it provides empirical evidence for the existence of soul and consciousness independent of the human body proving that physicalism is false which many stupid scientists stubbornly adhere to.

Dialogue between Shankara and Mandana Mishra's wife

After debating for over fifteen days, with Mandana Misra's wife Ubhaya Bharati acting as referee, Mandana Misra accepted defeat. Ubhaya Bharati then challenged Adi Shankara to have a debate with her in order to 'complete' the victory. She asked him questions related to sexual congress between man and woman - a subject in which Shankaracharya had no knowledge, since he was a true celibate and sannyasi. Sri Shankracharya asked for a "recess" of 15 days. As per legend, he used the art of "para-kaya pravesa" (the spirit leaving its own body and entering another's) and exited his own body, which he asked his disciples to look after, and psychically entered the dead body of a king. The story goes that from the King's two wives, he acquired all knowledge of "art of love". The queens, thrilled at the keen intellect and robust love-making of the "revived" King, deduced that he was not their husband, as of old. The story continues that they sent their factotums to "look for the lifeless body of a young sadhu and to cremate it immediately" so that their "king" (Shankracharya in the king's body) would continue to live with them. Just as the retainers piled Shankracharaya's lifeless corpse upon a pyre and were about to set fire to it, Shankara entered his own body and regained consciousness. Finally, he answered all questions put to him by Ubhaya Bharati; and she allowed Mandana Misra to accept sannyasa with the monastic name Suresvaracarya, as per the agreed-upon rules of the debate.

Esoteric Teachings of Tibetan Tantra

According to Tantra there are three different teachings of the Transformation practices: the special Transformation Yoga; the Teaching of the self-mind (or soul) entering into another's corpse; and the teaching of expelling another's soul from his body so that one's consciousness may enter this body. All these three Transformation practices require, first, the capability of closing the nine gates by words; second, the mastery of Vase Breathing, by means of which all the pranas of different organs are gathered and entered into the Central Channel; third, the mastery of Tumo, whereby the small Ah-word of the red-element in the navel center is able to attract and hold the wisdom Hūṃ word (which is the rider of the subtle prana) at the Heart Center. This is said in the Tantras of Vajra Dakini and of Gdan-bzhi and in their common commentary Bhaba Bhad-ras; and in the Tantra of G’a-sbyor and its commentary, the Fruit-Bearing Pith-Instruction.

I believe that in both cases, whether the self-consciousness enters into the corpse or into another's living body, a special prana performance is required in addition to the requirements and qualifications mentioned before. The details may be found in some other sources.

It would be difficult to benefit sentient beings on a great scale with a low-born human body; therefore, it is desirable to have a human body of high class to accomplish the undertaking. Because the possession of a sick, aged, crippled body would handicap self-improvement as well as altruistic deeds, one resorts to the Yoga of Entering Another's Body to procure a fair and healthy body.

According to gurus there are three requirements for practicing this Yoga: first, the person who intends to practice this yoga must have an infinite compassion for all sentient beings; he must be absolutely sure that great benefits and boons for sentient beings will be achieved if he performs this yoga; he also must have mastered both prana and mind. A yogi who meets these requirements and conditions may then proceed to a very secluded, sheltered place. He should dispense with all distracted thoughts, keep away from all wordly activities, prepare the offerings, and establish the altar for the patron Buddha. With all these arrangements made, he should then engage himself in meditation under strict Confinement of Contemplation104.

Then he should prepare a Mandala painted black as the supporting-platform and put a human skull on it. In the center of the human skull a Hūṃ word should be clearly written with a white stone (chalk). Visualizing himself become the Patron-Buddha, he then recites and meditates on the prayer of Seven Wishes of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. Then the yogi visualizes a Hūṃ word in the center of the heart, and, when the exhalation goes through the right nostril, he should think the Hūṃ word comes out along with the exalted air and enters into and is identified with the Hūṃ word in the skull. Meantime the yogi should hold the air outside as long as possible. When he cannot hold it any longer, he slowly takes the air in. Then he exhales and visualizes as before. Continuing this practice for a while, the yogi will see the skull shake, jump and move—these are the signs that will appear.

The yogi may now proceed to the actual transformation of soul. First, he should procure a fresh corpse with no signs of decomposing, not being dead from any injuries or disease; or he may procure a clean and fresh corpse of cattle or any livestock. Then he washes the corpse with clean water, decorates it with pleasing ornaments, and places it well on the Mandala in a sitting position. Then, the yogi visualizes the Hūṃ word which symbolizes the mind, both in his own heart and that of the corpse. He then arouses his prana to drive the Hūṃ word out through his right nostril and through the corpse's left nostril into the Hūṃ word at the Heart Center. If the yogi practices this again and again, the corpse will start to breathe and to regain its senses. When these signs take place, the yogi should know his performance is effective and should (temporarily) stop the practice.

When the yogi is ready to carry out the real performance, he should release himself from the Confinement and go out to find a qualified and fresh corpse, bring it back, and place it on the Mandala facing him. Having decorated the corpse, the yogi then visualizes the self-Yidam-body and lays aside the attachment to the vulgar human body. He then reminds himself that all Dharmas in the cosmos are magic-like and illusory. Now it is time for him to cut off all vulgar, fallacious thought, as well as delusory habitual thinking, and render his body as an offering to the gurus and guards.

With great earnestness, he should pray them to protect him from all evil hindrances and influences. Then the yogi should clearly visualize both himself and the corpse transformed into Patron Buddha and vividly visualize the Hūṃ word in the Heart Center of both. Then the yogi contacts the air-gate of the corpse and actuates his prana to drive the Hūṃ word in his Heart Center out through his right nostril and into the Hūṃ word of the corpse through its left nostril. At this time the yogi should pull up all his strength to aim at the Hūṃ word of the corpse with his prana-mind. By means of this exercise, the corpse will begin to breathe and jerk, etc. Whereupon, the yogi's friendly companions should take care of him, foster him with proper food for half a month in a solitary place. Until the yogi can stably live with the new body, he should not appear before people. In order to express his gratitude to the deceased one, the yogi should perform the Offering Rituals, such as the Ritual of Tsa Tsa and the Ritual of Burning Performances. With this new human body, the yogi should devote himself to the welfare of sentient beings on a great and broad scale.

These instructions were given by gurus. Thus, the instruction on the Yoga of Entering Other's body which are based on the genuine contents of (several) Tantras and their commentaries has now been given here without wavering ambiguity.

God is both a murderer and a saviour

I have been concentrating way too much on the concept of Pleroma in my posts and many people might think that I am a dualist. So in order to clear out those misconceptions I am going to unleash the real Kraken in this post. I am concentrating too much on the concept of Pleroma rather than talking about Non-dualism because that's a path of attaining Non-dualism which people have forgotten, very few people take that road to reality nowadays and I emphasized on Pleroma so that people can see and understand how radically different the concept of Non-dualism really is than what you hear from spiritual gurus or from New Age fellows. I stressed on Pleroma so that people can understand the true implications of the idea of Non-dualism.

What if I am going to say to you that Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela are equivalent to Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and Abu Bhakr Al Bhagdadi?

The former and the latter persons are equivalent to one and another because they are neither responsible for the good and evil actions that they did or committed. Mahatma Gandhi was not a Mahatma and neither was he a great human being and nor Adolf Hitler was a bad human being. Now one might ask how is Adolf Hitler not a bad human being when he was responsible for the death of millions of Jews? This is where the whole world slips. According to the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Valentinianism and the pagan mystery religions we human beings really have no free will, we are not in control of our lives, everything we dream of, think of and possess is not really ours.

Just as the Demiurge secretly moved by Sophia thinks that he acts alone the same also with human beings.

- Excerpt of Theodotus, Valentinian Christian

God is really the demon of Rene Descartes who deceives us into falsely believing that this world is real, that these bodies are ours, deceiving us that the voice which speaks inside us is us, deceiving us into believing that the psyche or the character is what make us who we really are only to wake up to realize to the truth that the dreams which we are chasing all our lives are not truly ours but instead it was someone else's to begin with. Its like we all are being set up to fight, to kill and to love each other without being aware of the fact that none of our thoughts are truly originating from us.

Western psychology has a very loose definition for the concept of Pride or Ego but in the traditional Indian psychology "Ego" is directly identified with God. In fact this is the whole essence of the Gayatri verse that many people chant it blindly today that God is the one who stimulates our thoughts.

• God is the one who makes us commit sins and he is also the one who brings the wrath upon us for those sins.
• God is the one who murders people and he is the one who saves us.
• God is both evil and good.
• God is both heat and cold.
• God is both fire and water.
• God is both love and hate.
• God is both moral and immoral.
• God is both our enemy and our friend.
• God is both omnipresent and he is also omniabsent.
• God is omnibenevolent and he is omnimalevolent.
• God is omniscient and he is omniweak.
• God is the one who sends us to hell and he is the one who sends us to heaven.
• God is the one who makes us cry and he is the one who makes us laugh.
• He is the one who forces us to take revenge upon others and he is the one who makes us to forgive those who do bad to us.
• God is the one who make us commit adultery and fornification and he is the one who makes us be loyal to our husbands or wives.
• God is the one who makes us fall in love and he is also the one who breaks our heart.
• God is the one who brings famine and drought and he is also the one who brings harvest and rain.
• God is the one who implants bombs at Churches, Mosques and at Temples and he is the one who sends aid to those who are killed at those places.

Can you see where am I going with this? To make you guys understand the real message out of this I have to quote the words of a great Quantum Physicist, Erwin Schroedinger who was deeply immersed in the Upanishads and contemplated its true implications.

"Our perceiving self is nowhere to be found with in the world picture because it itself is the world picture."

- Erwin Schroedinger, From Science to God by Peter Russell

Nārada Muni continued: What I referred to as the chariot was in actuality the body. The senses are the horses that pull that chariot. As time passes, year after year, these horses run without obstruction, but in fact they make no progress. Pious and impious activities are the two wheels of the chariot. The three modes of material nature are the chariot’s flags. The five types of life air constitute the living entity’s bondage, and the mind is considered to be the rope. Intelligence is the chariot driver. The heart is the sitting place in the chariot, and the dualities of life, such as pleasure and pain, are the knotting place. The seven elements are the coverings of the chariot, and the working senses are the five external processes. The eleven senses are the soldiers. Being engrossed in sense enjoyment, the living entity, seated on the chariot, hankers after fulfillment of his false desires and runs after sense enjoyment life after life.

Ego is a much more higher concept than Intelligence and the casket of Intelligence by itself cannot do anything without someone from behind stimulating our thoughts and that chariot driver is none other than Ego or God or in terms of Advaita Vedanta, it is Ishvar.

Now are we really in this world picture? Think about it, if none of our thoughts, our inner voice, our tastes, desires, dreams, our looks and characters are not truly ours then is there anything left that makes us who we are.

We all are prisoners of the cave whose souls are caught up in this world and this world is the cave of Mithras, now we have got two choices after realizing this truth, we can take the blue pill and continue to lead our lives experiencing all the pain, joy, sorrow, torments, insults, injustice, abuses, love, hate, kindness and cruelty that life has to offer us or take the red pill and escape from this world and realize who we really are.

There is no doubt that our souls are captivated in this world otherwise what's the whole point of trying to attain salvation. Now many believers of Advaita Vedanata have a false notion that they have already become Brahman or God since Non-dualism insists that "Thou are Brahman or God". They find the view that Brahman is caught up in this world and is being subject to suffering irreconcilable with the view that Brahman is all knowing and all blissful.

If Jiva is Brahman according to Advaita are Advaitics deluding themselves by believing that Brahman is not in bondage with nature (prakrithi)? Doesn't this prove that Brahman is vulnerable to corruptibility of ignorance?

A question which I asked on Quora just to let people know that they have misunderstood Advaita Vedanta if they already thought that they have become God or Brahman since Advaita Vedanta says so.

We must accept the fact that our souls are caught up in this world and we are still in duality and not falsely believe that we have become one with God when we are not truly there yet. Remember, to attain Non-dualism one must ascend to all the higher heavens just like the apocalypse of Saint Paul and how he went high up to the Ogdoad to meet the Holy Father and just like the Egyptian priest in Mithras liturgy ascended to various heavens to finally meet King Helios Aion Mithras in order to receive immortality. That's how crazy the idea of Non-dualism really is, if you think you can attain Non-dualism by meditating silently at the footsteps of the Himalayas then you are wrong. You have to be the next Saint Paul of Tarsus or at least get caught up in some of the higher heavens because only a pure soul can pass over the guardians of the heavens.

Most people are just embarrassed to hold such a view of Non-dualism in this 21st century age, everyone wants to talk about Quantum Physics and science so that somehow it gives them some kind of credibility and more respect to their shitty ideas by mentioning some scientific words and by the invocation of few reputed scientists. Sorry jackasses if you want to attain Non-dualism you need to be the next Dante or the next Carl Gustav Jung, you need to rise up to the Ogdoad and meet the Holy Father in the heavens, that's how crazy it is so don't even imagine in your dreams that you know Brahman or God just by reading a few Upanishads and texts of Shankara and trying to find parallels to it from Modern Physics.

Carl Gustav Jung, the famous psychologist and Gnostic cracked this mystery through his studies of the Nag Hammadi Library which we can verify from his Red Book and the Seven Sermons to the Dead. (The Spiritually dead refers to the orthodox Christians).

                                

Seven Sermons to the Dead

Sermo II

In the night the dead stood along the wall and cried:

We would have knowledge of god. Where is god? Is god dead?

God is not dead. Now, as ever, he liveth. God is creatura, for he is something definite, and therefore distinct from the pleroma. God is quality of the pleroma, and everything which I said of creatura also is true concerning him.

He is distinguished, however, from created beings through this, that he is more indefinite and indeterminable than they. He is less distinct than created beings, since the ground of his being is effective fullness. Only in so far as he is definite and distinct is he creatura, and in like measure is he the manifestation of the effective fullness of the pleroma.

Everything which we do not distinguish falleth into the pleroma and is made void by its opposite. If, therefore, we do not distinguish god, effective fullness is for us extinguished.

Moreover god is the pleroma itself, as likewise each smallest point in the created and uncreated is the pleroma itself.

Effective void is the nature of the devil. God and devil are the first manifestations of nothingness, which we call the pleroma. It is indifferent whether the pleroma is or is not, since in everything it is balanced and void.

Not so creatura. In so far as god and devil are creatura they do not extinguish each other, but stand one against the other as effective opposites. We need no proof of their existence. It is enough that we must always be speaking of them. Even if both were not, creatura, of its own essential distinctiveness, would forever distinguish them anew out of the pleroma.

Everything that discrimination taketh out of the pleroma is a pair of opposites. To god, therefore, always belongeth the devil.

This inseparability is as close and, as your own life hath made you see, as indissoluble as the pleroma itself. Thus it is that both stand very close to the pleroma, in which all opposites are extinguished and joined.

God and devil are distinguished by the qualities fullness and emptiness, generation and destruction. Effectiveness is common to both.

Effectiveness joineth them. Effectiveness, therefore, standeth above both; is a god above god, since in its effect it uniteth fullness and emptiness.

This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by its name Abraxas. It is more indefinite still than god and devil.

That god may be distinguished from it, we name god Helios or Sun. Abraxas is effect. Nothing standeth opposed to it but the ineffective; hence its effective nature freely unfoldeth itself. The ineffective is not, therefore resisteth not. Abraxas standeth above the sun and above the devil. It is improbable probability, unreal reality. Had the pleroma a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation. It is the effective itself, not any particular effect, but effect in general.

It is unreal reality, because it hath no definite effect.

It is also creatura, because it is distinct from the pleroma.

The sun hath a definite effect, and so hath the devil. Wherefore do they appear to us more effective than indefinite Abraxas.

It is force, duration, change.

The dead now raised a great tumult, for they were Christians.

Sermo III

Like mists arising from a marsh, the dead came near and cried: Speak further unto us concerning the supreme god.

Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas. Its power is the greatest, because man perceiveth it not. From the sun he draweth the summum bonum; from the devil the infimum malum; but from Abraxas life, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil.

Smaller and weaker life seemeth to be than the summum bonum; wherefore is it also hard to conceive that Abraxas transcendeth even the sun in power, who is himself the radiant source of all the force of life.

Abraxas is the sun, and at the same time the eternally sucking gorge of the void, the belittling and dismembering devil.

The power of Abraxas is twofold; but ye see it not, because for your eyes the warring opposites of this power are extinguished.

What the god-sun speaketh is life.

What the devil speaketh is death.

But Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word which is life and death at the same time.

Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness, in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible.

It is splendid as the lion in the instant he striketh down his victim. It is beautiful as a day of spring. It is the great Pan himself and also the small one. It is Priapos.

It is the monster of the under-world, a thousand-armed polyp, coiled knot of winged serpents, frenzy.

It is the hermaphrodite of the earliest beginning.

It is the lord of the toads and frogs, which live in the water and go up on the land, whose chorus ascendeth at noon and at midnight.

It is abundance that seeketh union with emptiness.

It is holy begetting.

It is love and love’s murder.

It is the saint and his betrayer.

It is the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness.

To look upon it, is blindness.

To know it, is sickness.

To worship it, is death.

To fear it, is wisdom.

To resist it not, is redemption.

God dwelleth behind the sun, the devil behind the night. What god bringeth forth out of the light the devil sucketh into the night. But Abraxas is the world, its becoming and its passing. Upon every gift that cometh from the god-sun the devil layeth his curse.

Everything that ye entreat from the god-sun begetteth a deed of the devil.

Everything that ye create with the god-sun giveth effective power to the devil.

That is terrible Abraxas.

It is the mightiest creature, and in it the creature is afraid of itself.

It is the manifest opposition of creatura to the pleroma and its nothingness.

It is the son’s horror of the mother.

It is the mother’s love for the son.

It is the delight of the earth and the cruelty of the heavens.

Before its countenance man becometh like stone.

Before it there is no question and no reply.

It is the life of creatura.

It is the operation of distinctiveness.

It is the love of man.

It is the speech of man.

It is the appearance and the shadow of man.

It is illusory reality.

Now the dead howled and raged, for they were unperfected.

Jung is speaking the same thing in terms of Gnostic terminology as what Erwin Schroedinger said that we are nowhere to be found within this world picture and that all the dualities of life is carried out by the supreme God Abraxas.

But do we really have the choice even to take the blue pill or the red pill, isn't it true that even that is preordained by God. Then how can we say that it is by our effort and by our works of the Law that we attained redemption. Did we? Really? This is where the grace of God comes into the picture. Obviously such a God is not worthy of worship who turns us away from him and at the same time brings the wrath upon us for not loving him when we have absolutely no freedom over the choices that we make.

Our only hope and belief is to believe that this God is good and he will free us from this bondage through his grace for us. In fact this is the belief in the pagan mystery religions that God is preparing all of us to make ourselves free from bondage so we must stop weeping for every small things that goes along with our lives.

There is no concept of Devil in the pagan mystery religions and also in the Upanishads and the Vedas. Now in a typical Christian environment all the good things would be attributed to God and all the evil things that happens in one's life would be attributed as done by the Devil. This is not our view, according to us both Good and Evil is carried out by the Supreme God for everything is working according to the Will of The Father and our true self is nowhere to be found with in this world picture.

All our souls have the potential within themselves to become God but the potential in us can only be extracted by God alone through his grace for us, he has to bring us to his feet and he has to make us pray for him and he has to show us the real truth as to who we really are.

Where then is boasting?

Isn't this the death of Ego and the emergence of the truth of Non-dualism that "I am God, God and I are One"?

Cracking the code of the mystery-religions

I'm currently reading the latest 25 books I purchased a week ago, and some library books:

o Hellenistic myths and mystery religions

o The controversy over Copenhagenist quantum mechanics

o Tenseless (illusory) time

o Several ~$85 books on determinism, including in Stoic thought

o Rethinking "Gnosticism": An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category

The Gnostics, like the mystery initiates, understood the threat of block-universe fatalism to human freedom, and were motivated mainly by hating such a metaphysically disempowering jail cell of "astrological" cosmic determinism, and by *wanting* and *attempting* to find a way of transcending, in some sense, the frozen space-time cosmos.  

Whether they succeeded, in some sense, at transcending the ego-killing trap of illusory/frozen time is a matter of debate and a matter of investigating the notion of transcendence.  All the hatred and loathing of my block-universe idea exhibited by some contemporary Gnostics only serves to confirm the plausibility of my portrayal of how the ancients had mixed feelings about the Fatalism they perceived and believed in.

I'm not interested in truth per se, but by making sense out of mystery-experiencing.  I'm constructing a simple, consistent model of how our personal power of will and self-control sits with respect to the time dimension, and how the ancients experienced initiation in the mystery religions.  The ancients were concerned above all with the problematic metaphysical aspects of personal freedom.  

We cannot say, with low-level detail, that their myths had only one meaning, regarding our metaphysical freedom or lack of it, or our transcendence of metaphysical unfreedom.  But we can certainly say that the Gnostics and mysteries had one high-level, overarching meaning: grappling with the problematic nature of personal metaphysical freedom.   

Each Gnostic group or thinker, and each mystery tradition, and each myth, may have drawn different conclusions or told the religious story in different ways, but there is one commonality across all this diversity: they all were concerned primarily with the problematic nature of personal metaphysical freedom.  When certain contemporary Gnostics rail against my model of the frozen block universe, they only add support to the above thesis of what concern, what issue, what *problem* unites all the variant traditions of the diverse Gnostic groups and mystery traditions.  

I have cracked the code, penetrated the mysteries, and solved the puzzle, by identifying the question, the problem, what was really at issue.  The way to finally make sense of the various Hellenistic myths in an encompassing way is through reading them as encoded allegories of mystic-state encounters with the problematic nature of personal metaphysical freedom.  Cries by certain Gnostics against the frozen block-universe model only strengthen this thesis.  

o  Is the universe in fact frozen, with time being illusory? 

o  Is our power and freedom a frozen illusion as well? 

o Can we meaningfully transcend such deathly freezing or rock-embedding of the entire time axis? 

o  Is there a legitimate and coherent way that we can, like Mithras, exit from the rock-womb and become legitimately free?  

These are matters for debate and do not overthrow the value of my model of time and personal control, as a fundamental and basic model to consider as a hypothesis and reference point that all initiates must know.  No one should believe that time is an illusion, along with our personal power to author our own future, but *everyone* should *know* this idea as a fundamental hypothesis and point of reference. 

        - Ego death.com - Hellenistic Mystery Religion

Integral Advaitism by Sri Aurobindo

Earlier I made a post titled "The philosophical differences between Advaita, Buddhism and Samkhya" where I said that it was Shankara who took us out from the repeated onslaught of Buddhist philosophy and re-established the doctrine of Advaita all over India but if anyone had noticed carefully I said that even Shankara was too influenced by Buddhist philosophy and introduced his theory of Mayavada or illusionism into the Vedas and the Upanishads which is in complete variance with Indian philosophy which always considered the creator and the world to be real.

This post is just about that which refutes Shankara's theory of Mayavada or his theory of superimposition, a refutation which results in a wide range of implications for Indian philosophy which would place it along side Neo-platonism and Neo-platonic Christianity on a much firmer ground by embracing the philosophical position of Platonic realism. This is the reason why I'm a strong platonic realist and not an idealist or a scientific realist. Its also the same reason why I have not given up my works and has taken up celibacy or sannyasa ashrama.

Sri Aurobindo, the great mystic was the first to raise his strong voice against Shankara's theory of Mayavada and criticized him relentlessly through his voluminous works on the Vedas and especially on one important Upanishad of all which is the Isha Upanishad which forms the very soul of my research and my life.

Sri Aurobindo's criticism of Mayavada or the doctrine of Illusionism by Shankara based on Isha Upanishad

Sri Aurobindo takes an all out attack on Shankara's theory of Mayavada using Isha Upanishad as his main scriptural source and I love every point he makes in his criticism.

The main obstacle that stands in the way of accepting the straightforward meaning of the Isha Upanishad and rightly understanding its inner truth about the Brahman, the Self and the Divine, is Mayavada, Illusionism, preached by Shankaracharya and the commentary he wrote on this Upanishad. The one-pointed drive towards withdrawal that is Illusionism and the much-praised inaction of the Sannyasi are completely at variance with the Isha Upanishad. If the meaning of the slokas is strained and tortured to give an opposite sense, the solution of this quarrel becomes impossible. The Upanishad in which it is written: “Doing verily works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years”, and again: “Action cleaves not to a man” — the Upanishad which proclaims with courage: “Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone”; and again says: “By the Birth one enjoys Immortality”, how can that Upanishad be reconciled with Mayavada, Illusionism and the path of withdrawal? A highly erudite person, who was possibly the chief sponsor of Monism in South India after Shankara, expunged it from the list of the twelve Upanishads and installed the Nrisimhatapini in its place. Shankaracharya was not so daring as to alter the prevailing canon. The Upanishad was a “Sruti” (heard scripture), and Illusionism was a subject for inquiry in the “Sruti” and as such, he assumed, the meaning of the “Sruti” could not but be favourable to real Illusionism.

Even though I am from South India I completely agree with Sri Aurobindo here because one has to speak the truth and criticize the mistakes made by anyone even though he or she is an highly famous and a reputable person. No hard feelings here and we agree with everything Shankara says except his theory of Mayavada or his insistence that only Brahman is real and the world and God are unreal. This doctrine of Mayavada put forward by Shankara around 6th century has destroyed the all important Indian philosophy of Purva Mimamsa (deals with Vedic rituals) which is as important as Uttara Mimamsa (Vedanta - enquiry about Brahman) because one cannot exist without the other and this lack of knowledge of Purva Mimamsa and the Vedas is the main reason for all the confusion which exists in understanding the relationship between Ishavara, Prakrithi, Purusha and Jiva in Advaita which many followers face.

The truth has been buried under the carpet for well over 5000 years which is a very long time and this change of perspective has global ramifications because it shows that we have to seriously consider the Vedas and the Vedic deities in it to fully understand the true integral Advaita of the Vedic rishis as they viewed it who gave equal importance to both a personal God with innumerable qualities and an impersonal God without qualities. For many whose main mode of acquiring knowledge is through Logic and reason this is highly unacceptable as both of these concepts are contradictory notions and forces one to make the wrong conclusion that either one view has to be false and the other view has to be wrong but as Aurobindo says the great seer rishi Yajnavalkya at each step tramples at the Law of Contradiction and in each sloka announces its invalidity; he finds in the secret heart of the opposites the place for the reconciliation and harmony of their contradiction.

God is beyond logic and reason and yet many meta-physicians  try to understand metaphysical concepts like God through logic and reason despite the fact that Kant destroyed the synthetic priori knowledge of metaphysics centuries ago and William of Ockham who postulated the occam's razor was himself a theist and he seems to have said that "only faith gives us access to theological truths. The ways of God are not open to reason, for God has freely chosen to create a world and establish a way of salvation within it apart from any necessary laws that human logic or rationality can uncover."

Very few people are aware of the traditional interpretation as to how the Isha Upanishad came into existence in this world. It was actually revealed by the Sun God who is the master of the Vedas and the supreme God of the universe.

According to traditional accounts, Yājñavalkya was the son of Devarāta and was the pupil of sage Vaisampayana . Once, Vaisampayana got angry with Yājñavalkya as the latter argued too much to separate some latter additions to Yajurveda in being abler than other students. The angry teacher asked his pupil Yājñavalkya to give back all the knowledge of Yajurveda that he had taught him.

As per the demands of his Guru, Yājñavalkya vomited all the knowledge that he acquired from his teacher in form of digested food. Other disciples of Vaisampayana took the form of partridge birds and consumed the digested knowledge (a metaphor for knowledge in its simplified form without the complexities of the whole but the simplicity of parts) because it was knowledge and they were very eager to receive the same.

The Saṃskṛt name for partridge is "Tittiri". As the Tittiri (partridge) birds ate this Veda, it is thenceforth called the Taittirīya Yajurveda. It is also known as Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda or Black-Yajurveda on account of it being a vomited substance. The Taittirīya Saṃhitā thus belongs to this Yajurveda.

Then Yājñavalkya determined not to have any human guru thereafter. Thus he began to propitiate the Sun God, Surya. Yājñavalkya worshipped and extolled the Sun, the master of the Vedas, for the purpose of acquiring the fresh Vedic portions not known to his preceptor, Vaiśampāyana.

The Sun God, pleased with Yājñavalkya penance, assumed the form of a horse and graced the sage with such fresh portions of the Yajurveda as were not known to any other. This portion of the Yajurveda goes by the name of Śukla Yajurveda or White-Yajurveda on account of it being revealed by Sun. It is also known as Vajasaneya Yajurveda, because it was evolved in great rapidity by Sun who was in the form of a horse through his manes.The rhythm of recital of these vedas is therefore to the rhythm of the horse canter and distinguishes itself from the other forms of veda recitals. In Sanskrit, term "Vaji" means horse.

Yājñavalkya divided this Vajasaneya Yajurveda again into fifteen branches, each branch comprising hundreds of Yajus Mantras. Sages like Kanva, Madhyandina and others learnt those and Śukla Yajurveda branched into popular recensions named after them.

Every one cites the Isha Upanishad and interprets the text as though he is an all knowing god without showing any sensitivity, humility and thought to understand how the Shukla Yajurveda tradition interprets this particular Upanishad from the traditional point of view.

The Isha Upanishad introduces to us the integral spiritual realisation and the principle of the integral yoga; within a short space it resolves many difficult problems. It is a śruti replete with sublime, profound and fathomless significances. This Upanishad, concluded in eighteen slokas, explains in these small mantras many major truths of the world. Such “infinite riches in a little room” can be found only in this śruti.

Synthesis of knowledge, synthesis of dharma, reconciliation and harmony of the opposites form the very soul of this Upanishad. In Western philosophy there is a law called the law of contradiction, according to which opposites mutually exclude each other. Two opposite propositions cannot hold good at the same time, they cannot integrate; two opposite qualities cannot be simultaneously true at the same place and in the same instrument. According to this law, opposites cannot be reconciled or harmonised. If the Divine is one, then however omnipotent He might be, He cannot be many. The infinite cannot be finite. It is impossible for the formless to assume form; if it assumes form, then it abrogates its formlessness. The formula that the Brahman is at the same time with and without attributes, which is exactly what the Upanishad also says about God who is nirguṇo guṇī, with and without attributes, is not admitted by this logic. If formlessness, oneness, infinity of the Brahman are true, then attributes, forms, multiplicity and finiteness of the Brahman are false; brahma satyam jaganmithyā, “the Brahman is the sole reality, the world is an illusion” — such a totally ruinous deduction is the final outcome of that philosophic dictum. The Seer-Rishi of the Upanishad at each step tramples on that law and in each sloka announces its invalidity; he finds in the secret heart of the opposites the place for the reconciliation and harmony of their contradiction. The oneness of the universe in motion and the immobile Purusha, enjoyment of all by renunciation of all, eternal liberation by full action, perpetual stability of the Brahman in movement, unbound and inconceivable motion in the eternal immobility, the oneness of the Brahman without attributes and the Lord of the universe with attributes, the inadequacy of Knowledge alone or of Ignorance alone for attaining Immortality, Immortality obtained by simultaneous worship of Knowledge and Ignorance, the supreme liberation and realisation gained not by the constant cycle of birth, not by the dissolution of birth but by simultaneous accomplishment of Birth and Non-Birth, — these are the sublime principles loudly proclaimed by the Upanishad.

Unfortunately there has been a great deal of unnecessary confusion regarding the meaning of this Upanishad. Shankara is generally recognised as the most important commentator of the Isha Upanishad, but if all these conclusions are accepted, then Mayavada, the Illusionism of Shankara, sinks in the bottomless ocean. The founder of Mayavada is incomparable and immensely powerful among the philosophers. Just as thirsty Balaram brought to his feet the Yamuna unwilling to alter her course, by dragging and pulling her with a plough, so also Shankara, finding this Upanishad destroyer of Mayavada and standing across the path toward his destination, dragged and pulled the meaning till it agreed with his own opinion. One or two examples will suffice to show the miserable condition to which this Upanishad has been reduced by such treatment.

For a more deeper understanding of the differences between our integral Advaita and Shankara's Advaita please read Integral Advaitism by Sri Auorbindo by Ramachandra Mishra. I am very much happy that whatever I was arguing for well over five years or so slowly everything is reaching its fruition. But the job is not completed yet we still have to revive the Vedas, Neo-platonism and Neo-platonic Christianity and master it completely by uncovering the great mysteries hidden inside them.