"The Upanishads ... are one of the noblest and such a lot encouraged books on this planet; in them, the total of the Indian knowledge is already contained; later academics may yet extend and touch upon them, yet not at all departed from this unique treasure of wisdom." ... "The Upanishads train the knowledge of Atma, the perfect Self of all beings; an analogous divine existence which Philo of Alexandria later known as the emblems, the Divine brain, the collective religious attention of our universe. They let us know that, whereas every one folks could seem to be a wanderer and exile, lonely, desolate in our global of shadow and of sorrow, we're actually neither by myself nor desolate, yet undivided, unseparated rays of the common Self, the trademarks. what's had to safe our immortality—an immortality that's nonetheless conditional, till this victory is won—is the conclusion of our oneness with the superb Self. The Upanishads convey how, step-by-step, we might mount the golden stairs; they let us know what we needs to depart at the back of; what we needs to achieve, as we tread the small, previous direction; what we needs to in achieving; with the promise that we will within the fullness of time be initiated into the fullness of that everlasting, common superb Self of all beings.
"The entire target in their teachings is that this: to indicate the trail during which the private self may perhaps win immortality and divinity, through turning into united with the better Self, which continuously possessed immortality and divinity."—Charles Johnston

The current quantity represents the paintings of a life-time, the Magnum Opus of Charles Johnston. it's the end result of over 4 a long time of constant attempt to translate and remark upon the hidden knowledge of old India. during this quantity, the reader will locate the center and soul of India, the rules of the Vedanta philosophy, the source-wisdom that used to be later embodied within the teachings of such exalted sages as Krishna, Badarayana, Gaudapada and Sankaracharya.

Originally published in theosophical magazines—The Oriental division Papers & The Theosophical Quarterly—between the years 1892 and 1931, those translations and commentaries have ultimately been gathered and arranged right into a unmarried quantity. as well as those, a number of articles at the Indian knowledge culture are incorporated, either to introduce the translations and to complement them. the scholar will locate Johnston’s commentaries drawing comparisons and correspondences among the hidden knowledge of the Upanishads and the knowledge embodied by way of the world’s spiritual traditions in addition to the trendy philosophies of Kant, Schopenhauer and others, or even to the trendy sciences of physics and astronomy. those commentaries shape a bridge for us during which we could stroll progressively from our humble sleek wisdom to the deep and undying knowledge of the sages of old.

"Traces of the lessons that have turn into recognized to us as Theosophy are present in the documents of all historical religions in either hemispheres, yet nowhere are those teachings so totally, lucidly and profoundly recorded as within the oldest Upanishads and this is often actual not just of enormous generalizations, just like the doctrines of rebirth and liberation, but in addition of these extra specific and recondite doctrines which come progressively to the data of scholars who persist with a distinct line of research and paintings. in order that, within the Upanishads, we have now a useful facts of the antiquity and authenticity of either normal and specific doctrines, a warrantly not less than 3 thousand years previous, and, almost certainly, a great deal older. And if the Upanishads lend this useful help to our sleek teachings, it really is, however, actual, that with out those glossy teachings, a lot that's such a lot profound and of maximum price within the Upanishads is hardly ever intelligible, in order that one could learn the normal translations with out gaining any notion of the that means, or perhaps the presence, of these specific teachings which we've spoken of. It used to be, consequently, essential to learn and translate, the Upanishads, within the gentle of Theosophy."—Charles Johnsto