Time-Steps of the Cosmic Horse: The Contemplative Philosophy of the Great Forest (Brhadaranyaka) Upanishad

Contents: Preface. Introduction. 1. The Image of the Horse. 2. Gods, Demons and Immortality. 3. Self and Self-Becoming. 4. Food. 5. Triplicity. 6. The Book of Honey. Appendix. Bibliography. Index.

The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad is the earliest text in its genre, inaugurating the entire history of Indian philosophy. Commented on by numerous teachers of Vedantic schools, its fertility is not exhausted by any or all of them. Unlike later philosophy, it is not a work of explanation but of contemplative praxis towards cosmic and nondual self-realization. Locating it in a countercultural movement and relating it to the ontological vision of Sri Aurobindo, Time-Steps of the Cosmic Horse is a sustained contemplation on the first chapter of this Upanisad drawing attention to the phenomenology and rhetorical structure of its linguistic action.