Self is the key to understanding the Hindu ethos As against the Vedas who teach procedures and means to perpetuate your physical existence the Upanishads harp on metaphysics and teach ways and means to perpetuate your Aatma or the ethereal presence. Strangely, the line of arguments in Upanishads mostly starts from the real and in the process jumps to ethereal in the end, leaving a mumuxu like me rather flabbergasted. I take an example from the most revered of all Upanishads , the Brahadaranyaka Upanishad. As the name of the Upanishad ( Brahad means big or extensive) suggests, it is the biggest amongst the 108 upanishads and it covers an array of topics and ethical issues. In one of the chapters, (pronounced Yagyavalkya) ‘ Yajnavalkya-Maitreyi dialogue’ sage Yajnavalkya talks to his loving and intelligent wife Maitreyi to enlighten her about the quintessence of life. Sage Yajnavalkya , so the story goes, had two wives --- Maitreyi and Katyayani . One day Yajnava...

No sir! The Hindu Ethos is not pessimistic. It’s a wide-spread belief among the westerners that the Hindu way of thought, and life, is pretty pessimistic and abhors worldly life. No sir! It is not. On the contrary, it is quite optimistic. It aspires to cling tenaciously to life, enjoy worldly happiness and, therefore, aspires for perpetual existence of one’s self. Take for example the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra of Rig Veda ( 7.59.12) which is one of the most popular and most-sought-after mantra among the Hindus. It prays for the immortality and perpetuity of one one’s self. Noted Indologist Ralph T.H Griffith (1896) translated the mantra in the following words : Tryambaka we worship, sweet augmenter of prosperity. As from its stem the cucumber, so may I be released from death, not reft of immortality. I will try to simplify it a bit more: Oh Lord Shiva!, sweet augmenter of prosperity. As a cucumber is attached to its stem, so am I attached, to death!. I pray thee to releas...