The One God, Hidden in All

The Shvetashvatara Upanishad comes from the Krishna Yajurveda and is named after the sage who gave this teaching, Shvetashvatara. It opens with the questions of some seekers of Brahman: What is the cause of this world? Where were we born from? By what do we live? On what do we rest? Is the cause time? Nature? Fate? Chance? Or the five elements?

They did not just argue; they meditated. And in meditation they saw that behind everything is the Lord's own power, hidden within its own qualities. That One is the cause of all causes. This Upanishad also sees Brahman as a God who can be loved, here called Rudra, Shiv and Maheshvara.

How is God hidden within us? The Upanishad gives beautiful examples: as oil is hidden in sesame seeds, ghee in curd, water in a spring, and fire in the arani wood. Press the sesame and the oil comes out; rub the wood and the fire appears. In the same way, through truthfulness and spiritual effort, the Divine shows itself within us.

This Upanishad contains the call that Swami Vivekananda quoted at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893: 'Shrinvantu vishve amritasya putrah', hear, O children of immortality! In other words, we are not sinners or weaklings; we are children of the immortal. The sage says, 'I have known that great Person, shining like the sun, beyond all darkness.'

Near its end comes a much-loved line: these deep truths shine in the heart of one who has supreme bhakti for God, and the same devotion for the guru as for God. So our journey through the Upanishads ends by joining knowledge and devotion, the very path that opens out more fully in the Bhagavad Gita.