Know God and all fetters will falls away.
No longer identifying yourself
With the body, go beyond birth and death.
All your desires will be fulfilled in him
Who is One without a second.

Know him to be enshrined within your heart
Always. Truly there is nothing more
To know in life. Meditate and realize
The world is filled with the presence of God.

Fire is not seen until one firestick rubs
Against another, through the fire remains
Hidden in the firestick. So does the Lord
Remain hidden in the body until
He is revealed through the mystic mantram.

Let your body be the lower firestick;
Let the mantram be the upper. Rub them
Against each other in meditation
And realize the Lord.

Like oil in sesame seeds, like butter
In cream, like water in springs, like fire
In a firestick, so dwells the Lord of Love,
The Self, in the very depths of consciousness.
Realize him through truth and meditation

The Self is hidden in the hearts of all,
As butter lies hidden in cream Realize
The Self in the depths of meditation,
The Lord of Love, supreme reality,
Who is the goal of all knowledge.

This is the highest mystical teaching;
This is the highest mystical teaching.

—From the Shveteshvatara Upanishad



From The Essential Mystics, edited by Andrew Harvey (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996). Used by arrangement with HarperSanFrancisco, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.