“If I am responding to this Upanishad, it is simply because I have fallen in love with it. This, one of the shortest Upanishads, Atma Pooja, is a rare phenomenon. So – something about this rare Upanishad, why I have chosen to talk about it.

     “Firstly, it is the shortest, it is just seedlike – potent, pregnant with much in it. Every word is a seed with infinite possibilities, so you can echo it and re-echo it infinitely. And the more you ponder over it, the more you allow it to go in, the more significance will be revealed. These seedlike words show that they were found in deep silence. Really, this looks strange, but this is a fact. If you have less to say, you will say more. If you really have something to say, you can say it in a very few lines, few words – even a single word may be enough. The less you have to say, the more words you will have to use. The more you have to say, the fewer words you can use.

     “Now it has become a known fact to psychologists that words are used not to say, but to hide. We go on talking because we want to hide something. If you want to hide something, you cannot be silent because your face may say it, your silence may indicate it, the other may become suspicious that you are hiding something. So a person who has to hide something will go on talking continuously. Through words you can deceive; through silence you cannot deceive.

     “The Upanishads really have something to say, so they say it in seed form – in sutras, in aphorisms. This Upanishad has only seventeen sutras. They can be written on a half page. This whole Upanishad can be written on one postcard on one side, but it has a very potent message. So we will take each seed word and try to penetrate it, to be in a living response with it. Something may begin to vibrate in you, and it can begin because these words are very potential, they have much. If their atoms could be broken, great energy would be released. So be open, receptive, in a deep trust, and let the Upanishad work.”