Mukunda Mala Stotra 31 – 2 The mantra that bypasses and surpasses the intellect

sakalam upanishad-vakya-sampujya-mantram: The mantra that is worshiped by all the Upanishads

Transcript

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Mukund Mala Stotra Mantra 31 Part 2 Sakalam Upanishad Vakyasam Pujya Mantram So, Kulshikar Maharaj is describing that the holy name is worshipped in all the Upanishads Sakalam Upanishad Vakyasam Pujya Mantram This is a mantra that is worshipped in all the Upanishads.
So the Upanishads generally refer to the Absolute Truth in impersonal terms. They talk about the Absolute Truth in terms of how the one is without form, without hands, without qualities, without activities. The purpose of this impersonal description is to help the conditioned souls become free from imposing their materialistic presumptions on the transcendental spiritual forms, qualities, activities and reciprocations of the Lord.
But the Upanishads ultimately point to a personality, the transcendental personality of Godhead. As Krishna also confirms, Krishna’s Bhagavad Gita is the essence of all the Upanishads. It is like the milk of a cow.
And the essence of all Vedic knowledge, including Upanishadic knowledge, is told in the Bhagavad Gita to be, वेदैश्चि सर्वईर अहमेव विद्धिवाय, all the Vedas, I am to be known. So the Upanishads describe the Absolute Truth indirectly and abstractly. But ultimately their purpose is to help the conditioned soul reach that Absolute Truth, that is Krishna.
So they are in this way, not directly revealing, but indirectly worshipping the Absolute Truth. But that Absolute Truth is non-different from the Holy Name of that Absolute Truth. So Krishna is non-different from His Name.
So, Shri Lata Mipad writes, in the purport of the section where Krishna is urging us to go beyond the three modes, यामिवाम् पुष्पिताम् वाजिमं त्रईगुण्निविशयावेदा, 2.42.43.44 in the Bhagavad Gita, that the highest Vedantin is one who relishes the Holy Name of Krishna. Because the Vedantic analysis may help us to differentiate between matter and spirit, but the Holy Name can go beyond this distinguishing between matter and spirit, to helping us develop attachment to spirit and detachment from matter. And that dual purpose is the ultimate objective of the Upanishads.
So, chanting may seem to be a very simple activity, I am just sitting at one place and uttering a few words, but it is profound in its potency, and not just in terms of the fact that we are contacting Lord, but the fact that it is achieving something that is difficult to achieve, even by rigorous and prolonged intellectual study of the complex and subtle meanings of the Upanishadic passages. So, saying absolute truth, who is so difficult to know through the Upanishads, makes himself so easily accessible to us through his Holy Name. And if we don’t have much intellectual capacities, then the Holy Name offers us a bypass, a quick way, that enables us to reach the same destination that one can go to after the rigorous study of the Upanishads.
And if we do have intellectual capacities, still the Holy Name enables us to apply what we learn through intellect, by enabling us to become attached to Krishna and detached from matter. So, in this way, the Holy Name is the ultimate gift of all the Upanishads. And we, Shri Prabhupada and Lord Chaitanya, have given us that essence to all of us in Kalyuga, most of us who do not have the time or the capacity to study the abstruse Upanishadic messages.
They have mercifully given us that essence in the form of the Holy Name. And by chanting this Holy Name attentively, we can get what years and decades and lifetimes of Upanishadic study will only indirectly hint at. That is the glory of the seemingly simple act of chanting.
Shri Harinam Prabhu Ki Jai