Musings on Shvetashvatara Upanishad

5^th verse has everything in multiple of five:

पञ्चस्रोतोम्बुं पञ्चयोन्युग्रवक्रां पञ्चप्राणोर्मिं पञ्चबुद्ध्यादिमूलाम्।

पञ्चावर्तां पञ्चदुःखौघवेगां पञ्चाशद्भेदां पञ्चपर्वामधीमः ॥ ५

A river begins at single/multiple source, follows a path called course and ends at mouth/mouths.

Source/Tributary of this river :

Ear, Eyes, Nose, Tongue and skin are five sources of this river. Like water comes from different sources in a river similarly sound, sight, smell, taste, touch flows into it.

Reason of its course:

Earth, water, fire, air and ether decides its course. Like the river which flows through Mountains, plain and different terrain and its course is decided by the terrain its passes.

The soul living through different births for millions of years, take different births. Finally, it reaches the ocean which is its destination.

Waves of river:

The five pranas prana, udan, samana, vyan, udan are the waves of river. Like the current of river shows its dynamism, similarly the pranas moving through the universe.

Origin of the river:

The source of a river or stream is the original point from which the river flows. It may be a lake, a marsh, a spring or a glacier. This is where the stream starts.

The perception obtained by combing the fives source with mind is the origin. Till the mind is in waking state, people can perceive taste, smell, hear, see and feel.

Whirlpool in river:

Desires , Anger, greed , attachment, egoism .

A quickly rotating mass of water in a river or sea into which objects may be drawn, typically caused by the meeting of conflicting currents.

Rapids in river:

Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep slope causes increase in water velocity and turbulence.

Five kinds of misery are sorrow of womb, birth , old age, disease, death .

Types of river:

They are 50.  Not sure what they are , Acharya Shankara says they are kleshas .

Smallest Cooking Guide

You are from India !
You are a foodie !

You must master the art of cooking . You will not get the rich taste of spices and the vegetable cooked in water curry anywhere else  . Indian food is as diverse as  India , rich in taste and fulfilling . These are the spices which made India under foreign rules for centuries . What they wanted else then to trade our spices!

Indian cooking is as complex as meditation .  Not the complex it seems at first , but not as easy for novice too . The basic ingredient of Indian cooking are the panchtattva . You need fire the fire to cook . It must contain some water , oil . The earth grown millet, cereals or pulse . The love and emotion for the person you are cooking for is the ether . It is almost impossible to escape from the fumes and flavors which is the air element .


If you want to make any curry . Simply heat some oil in the pan , and put some whole spices like cumin , bay leaf , dried red chili etc in small quantity.  The whole spices gives unique flavour to food .Let it become red for some time . Then add the live spices like onion , garlic , ginger etc . If the stuff you are cooking gets cooked before the vegetable or meat you are trying to cook , then it does makes sense to fry these live spices . Now mix the main ingredient you want to cook and add the spice and salt to it .

Now the Rice cooking is easiest . Just boil the rice in enough water till it gets cooked . It will take time to be expert in cooking rice , so that you do not need to throw water after cooking .

Making Roti/Dosa and chapati are most difficult stuff . You need some flour and kneed it in right way and leaving it to right time .  After the perfect round shape and proper making takes some time to learn .Better to learn it with person who is expert in making these .

 But for now curry and rice will work !