Just this evening before the class, before Arati, I was walking in Central Park,

and I had two distinguished visitors, very senior devotees from Southern California,

John and his wife, Anne.

And John was telling me about Houston Smith,

how Houston Smith, the great scholar of comparative religion,

and the author of that wonderful book, The World's Religions,

which was originally a little politically

incorrectly named the religions of man. Then now, a better name is the world's religions. So how did

he come to Vedanta? He was introduced to these ideas as a scholar of religion by reading Gerald

Hurd, who was at the Tabuco Monastery, the Vedanta Society of Southern California.

And then from Gerald Hurd and also through Gerald Hurd, he met Alda Saxley,

where at that time already was at the Vedantra society of Southern California.

And he, Gerald Hurd told him about this wonderful Swami in St. Louis, which is where Houston Smith was there.

He was teaching Swami Satrakashananda.

So the story goes, the first time Houston Smith went to meet Swami Satrakashananda at this place where

Swami Satakashandah was teaching at that time. There was a class going on on the Upanishads.

And Houston Smith liked it very much and he wanted to pick up one of those Upanishads. So he got a copy of

Katha Upanishad. And he says, Houston Smith says, I went back and read it.

And he said, all the truth, so much truth in so few pages. He was completely sold in the idea and he

loved it. And that's how he comes. There's a wonderful story of how it comes to be so much influenced by Vedantah.

So that is the Upanishad that we are going to take up. A little background. We have already studied the Manduqqqqa Upanishad, which is the sort of the shortest, the most powerful of the Upanishads, sort of the final word on the Upanishad teachings.

So I don't know if it was a wise thing to do, but I decided to start with the Manduqi Upanishan.

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