The Isha Upanishad

The Isha Upanishad extends the view that all is clothed in the Lord, and the Lord is clothed in all. The individual movement is part of the universal motion. Resting in this knowing, the Upanishad reconciles all opposition through the essential unity: God and the world, renunciation and enjoyment, birth and non-birth, immortal sight and mortal view, motion and stillness. Isha is an invitation for action in the world, but complete immersion internally with the One. As Aurobindo says, “Enjoyment of the universe and all it contains is the object of world-existence, but renunciation of all in desire is the condition of the free enjoyment of all.”
The awakened soul in its knowing becomes anointed to the truth. Thus it is taught through Isha that action in the world is the great offering and play, to retreat into inaction is to fall into avoidance. Full acceptance of the terms of physical existence and action in the material world, meet full realization of the terms of non-physical existence and inaction in the eternal; then can the individual reside in internal freedom while in the world. Nothing is left to be desired when the awakened one has obtained everything in the Lord.
The One being of whom all is a becoming projects forth our individual expression. Each personality polished to perfection, reflects our divine nature. Each spark of creation reflects this light, and guided by this view, all will see.
Delight recognizes its own variety, and out of its laughter the universe bursts forth. The ignorance and the knowing dance in perpetual spiraling unity; the One ever projecting its play, and the Many a shimmering reflection of its One. Looking into the eyes of God, man in his separateness glimpses the imagination of the Divine in all that he sees; every speckle of creation is a reflection of God’s grinning view. In That, we are His spiral dance. In Avidya our confused Ego mistakenly accepts its viewpoint of the part as the whole; this is the broken reflection that deceives us into believing in limitation. As the vision expands in Vidya, through our knowing, we recognize the entirety of Brahman’s great mirror everywhere we turn, seeing God in every thing.
The purpose of the Lord cannot be fulfilled by following either Avidya or Vidya alone. Those lost in multiplicity fall into blind darkness by turning away from the One. In the ever changing current of Prakriti the soul is lost in separation. Grasping and turning over in each wave of the senses: wanting, claiming, desiring, losing. Those who turn entirely away from the Many, mistake exclusion for transcendence. The many is the Self-projecting Brahman in infinite play and supreme bliss. The ego created by Avidya (ignorance) is the necessary vehicle. Through ignorance of the One, and belief in the multiplicity, the soul travels through the lila of birth/death, having/losing, sorrow/joy and ideally makes right use of karmic experience, finding its way back home.
Thereby, the soul may enjoy the marvels of creation and celebrate the playful mind of God while immersed in the sanctity of the One. When Vidya and Avidya unite, realization is lived. In harmony with the One truth, the Many becomes the melody upon which we ride. The universal song is Brahman, the individual in rhythm keeps perfect rhyme.
{Says Sri Aurobindo: Having realized his own immortality, the individual has yet to fulfill God’s work in the universe. He has to help the life, the mind and the body in all beings to express progressively Immortality and not mortality. This he may do by the becoming in the material body which we ordinarily call birth, or from some status in another world or even it is possible, from beyond world. But birth in the body is the most close, divine and effective form of help which the liberated can give to those who are themselves still bound to the progression of birth in the lowest world of Ignorance.}
Within this gift of birth, the perfect way to perfected living is planted like a seed in each soul. The silence within reveals the understanding that every object holds its own law of eternal being; projecting around it through circumstances all the nudges and reminders it needs to awaken. In the presence of unity and abounding play, this is the living sutra of the Isha Upanishad.