माण्डूक्योपनिषद्
Māṇḍūkya Upanishad
OM and the Fourth: The Self That Is Fourfold
OM is this imperishable Word, OM is the Universe, and this is the exposition of OM.
The Māṇḍūkya is an Upanishad of twelve verses, and its whole substance is a map of the Self. It sets beside each other the three states we know, the waking, the dream and the deep sleep, and declares that the same Self lives in all three and is yet the Fourth, beyond them, to which the sacred syllable OM points. Sri Aurobindo left no commentary on it, and it is well to say so at once. What we have from his hand is a rendering into English made about 1900, the incomplete translation of Gaudapada's Kārikās with Shankara's commentary, made in the years 1900 to 1902, and the use he makes of its psychology through The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga and his letters; several chapters of the first two carry its verses as their epigraphs.
The Gateway will keep to those materials. It will not put into his mouth a commentary that he did not write, but will let the mantras speak and lay beside them the passages in which he tells us, in his own words, what the three states and the Fourth are.
Sri Aurobindo’s writings on it · 1
The text · 12 passages
Translation by Sri Aurobindo.