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ISAVASYA UPANISHAD
on the other hand is the Christian "Word", and represents the Trinity based on Love and not on conflict.
The symbol and mantra AUM emerged in Indian scene soon after the mission of St. Thomas the Apostle and were seen only after that time. All early churches in Kerala had used this as the Christian symbol and they appear at the entrance of the seven original churches established by Thomas.
The Bible makes a clear distinction between the Creator and created beings, yet as the invocation affirms Isa never cease to be God, nor can the created be God though it is perfect and complete within itself. Isa did not depend on any preexisting entity separate from himself-no preexisting stuff, no autonomous principles, no other gods. There were no two eternals - Purusha and Prakriti. (God and Nature). God is the source of all being, and non-being. Nothing exists self-sufficiently apart from this God. The creation by Word - Om as the creative principle implies two realities: (1) God is a personal being and not a principle. (2) The world exists by a personal act, namely, an effected word spoken by God.
In all Indian Vedic, Buddhist and Jain religions, gods were just a class within the cosmos and were governed and controlled by the eternal science of the cosmos. These laws were essentially the cycle of birth, decay, death, and rebirth. In a sense it makes Prakriti - the Physical Universe with all its Laws - as the God of gods and man. It is here Isa Upanishad comes in sharp contrast with the previous religions of India. God is absolutely free, and the world, is an absolutely free act by this absolutely free God. God is beyond any cosmic principles which he imposed on it. He is still capable of transforming and recreating it and is in fact doing it. Since the Perfect God created the world, He created it perfect too. If there is decay or death it has to be explained in terms of the God who controls the cosmos. They are there not without a purpose.
It is interesting to note that Isa is the only God mentioned without any reference to the any of the later Hindu gods of Vishnu, Brahma or Siva. Some vedic gods (lower nature forces) are mentioned in the later mantras of 15 to 18. The possible reason is that these other Hindu gods evolved later than the writing of this Upanishad. If this is true this Upanishad was written sometime in the late third
century.
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