Would anyone like a free copy of the Upanishads? I'm feeling generous!?

Question

Somehow I ended up with 2 copies of this book. It is a collection of some of the Upanishads. It's official title is:

"The Wisdom of the Hindu Mystics: The Upanishads: Breath of the Eternal"
The Principal Texts Selected and Translated from the Original Sanskrit by Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester

It has the following Upanishads in it:
Katha
Isha
Kena
Prasna
Mundaka
Mandukya
Taittiriya (selected portions)
Aitareya
Chandogya (Selected portions)
Brihadaranyaka (Selected portions)
Kaivalya
Svetasvatara

It's used. If you'd like it, state your reasons for wanting it, and let me know where to send it. If it is in the US, I'll pay the shipping. It's just a little book, so it shouldn't be too much. You can click "contact heron by the sea" to email me your mailing address if you'd like it.

I'll choose the person who can make the best case for why you'd like it. ;-)

I just figure no reason to hoard 2 copies.

Martin - it is extreme, but I understand the marriage as completely symbolic. The cobra represents the Lord Shiva. So she is in essence saying she is marrying God - that is, she is devoting her entire love and life to God, rather than having loyalties split between God and a human husband. I think that you must understand it in that way. And it is beautiful for that reason.

Answer 1

If you highly recommend it as a good translation of the Upanishad, I would gladly like to receive it. You needn't give it to me for free, I will gladly pay you for it and the shipping. The only version of the Upanishads I have is not very good at all. It only has five of the Upanishads in it and most of the book is "Translator's Commentary". The book was translated by a Christian missionary so the version tends to use Christian terminology (and the Translator's Commentary, which takes up half of the book, is full of "how the Upanishads compare to the Bible"). Its an awful translation! :( I probably should have known better since the first version of the Bhagavad Gita that I bought was from the same company and it failed to translate a great deal of the Sanskrit (so in the middle of sentences would be Sanskrit phrases, but then no translation of what it meant). Thankfully the head organizers of the satsang I attended got together and got me a copy of the version they use (which is the one that was translated by Christopher Isherwood & Swami Prabhavananda). It's a very good version that I am so thankful to be able to read. That said, if your Upanishads was translated by Swami Prabhavananda then I have great hopes that the translation does a great deal of justice to the Upanishads and well worth the read.

I don't feel comfortable posting my address, etc, here, but you can contact me for that (just click 'contact gabriel_zachary). I do live in the US (Oklahoma). I hope you find a good home for the book (even if not with me...afterall if God intends for me to have it, then it'll be, if not then atleast I now have heard of the book and if you give me your recommendation of it being a good book, then I won't hesitate to buy it at a later date)

Peace be with you,

Nate

Answer 2

We'll if you want to get the most insane feeling of your life some it out of a bong. It's a lot smoother so you won't cough as much and the feeling is crazy compared to a joint or pipe. When you do it make sure you are with some friends, got some good munchies, got some netflix, and a comfortable spot and it's literally the best thing in the world. I earn you when you do it you will feel really weird like out of this world. You feel tall and when I was watching a movie you basically laugh at everything. Me and my friend always get the same feeling. When we are watching a movie we both thought for sure we have saw that movie before and we thought we new what was going to happen next but the next day I watched it again and it was totally different. When your high it feels so much more fun. If your not panicking ( trust me don't i did the first time and freaked out) it's the best thing in the world.

Answer 3

Regarding Martin's post:


British woman ‘marries’ dolphin, tying the net after 15-year courtship
JERUSALEM - Sharon Tendler met Cindy 15 years ago. She said it was love at first sight. This week she finally took the plunge and proposed. The lucky "guy" plunged right back.

In a modest ceremony at Dolphin Reef in the southern Israeli port of Eilat, Tendler, a 41-year-old British citizen, apparently became the world's first person to "marry" a dolphin.

Can we call it standard Christian belief??

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10694972/

Some superstitions are prevalent everywhere in the world.

And people do absurd things, not given in scriptures or their religious beliefs. It is their personal choice .

In India you will get that tribals sometimes marry their Daughters to trees etc to ward off evil fortune.

But it does not mean that they had to follow that husband for the rest of their life. In fact they can marry another man without divorcing this first husband. In most of such cases they think that omen indicates early widowhood. So they pass off the bad luck this way. And then girl can get marry a normal man without the bad luck.

About Martin's another story about dog:

A nine-year-old tribal girl in eastern India has married a stray dog as part of a ritual to ward off an "evil spell" on her, Indian newspapers have reported.
The tribe elders said the marriage would not affect the girl's life, and that she would be free to marry again later and did not need to divorce the dog.

"It will not spoil her future. We will marry her off to eligible bachelor when she grows up," the girl's mother told AFP.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3004930.stm

Martin has been posting these two cases for 4 months now.

He just want a chance to bash Hinduism anyhow.

Answer 4

That's very kind of you but I've already read portions of those books online and can read the rest of them from my computer at any time.

http://www.hindunet.org/upanishads/

I have a question for you. What do you think of the recent news story from India where a woman married a Cobra in a Hindu ceremony and at the end of the article it mentions another woman who married a dog?

Do you think that's in line with the teachings from the Hindu books?

BHUBANESWAR, India (AFP) - A woman who fell in love with a snake has married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests in India's Orissa state, reports said.

Bimbala Das wore a silk saree for the ceremony Wednesday at Atala village near the Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar.

Priests chanted mantras to seal the union, but the snake failed to come out of a nearby ant hill where it lives, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said on Friday.

A brass replica snake stood in for the hesitant groom.

"Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way," Das, 30, told the agency.

"Whenever I put milk near the ant hill where the cobra lives, it always comes out to drink.

"I always get to see it every time I go near the ant hill. It has never harmed me," she added.

Villagers welcomed the wedding in the belief it would bring good fortune and laid on a feast for the big day.

Snakes and particularly the King Cobra are venerated in India as religious symbols worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.

Das, from a lower caste, converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra, the world's largest venomous snake that can grow up to five metres.

"I am happy," said her mother Dyuti Bhoi, who has two other daughters and two sons to marry off.

"Bimbala was ill," Bhoi told local OTV channel. "We had no money to treat her. Then she started offering milk to the snake ... she was cured. That made her fall in love."

Das has moved into a hut built close to the ant hill since the wedding.

Earlier this year, a tribal girl was married off to a dog on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.

Answer 5

You're too kind, but I already have a nice translation of the Upanisads. However, as long as you're giving away Eastern texts... I could really use a copy of The Tattvartha Sutra. :-)

Answer 6

I'll e-mail you, and if you like my answer, you can send the book to me...along with 10 points. :)

Answer 7

No.

Answer 8

No thanks.