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The Upanishads  The four Vedas end with even later works, called the Upanishads  The Upanishads are a collection of about a hundred written works that record insights into external and internal reality.  It means “sitting near”- suggesting sitting near a teacher  The Upanishads are written primarily in dialogue form, appearing both as prose and as poetry.

Important concepts of the Upanishads

Maya

 It refers to the wheel of life, to the circle of constant rebirth  It suggests strongly that the everyday world is full of change as well as struggle and suffering  The phrase “You only live once” does not apply to Hinduism.  You can be reborn MANY TIMES  But how many would each of us really like? Ten, a thousand, a million? Many of those would inevitably be unhappy.  Sooner or later most of us would want to liberate.

 The wheel of life:  The central figure is Yama- death personified  In his jaws and claws all beings are said to reside  The widest of the circles portrays the six realms of existence - samsara Realms of the gods, anti-gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hells.  Each realm is a potential destination for transmigrating beings, depending on the amount of good or bad karma they have accumulated.

 It means “freedom” or “liberation”  It comes from a root that means “to be released”  It is the ultimate human goal Becoming one’s own self=becoming Brahman