The word Upanishad (upa-ni-shad) consists of, "Upa" means "near;" "ni" means "down;" "shad" means "to sit." Thus, Upanishad is to sit down near the teacher to discuss, learn, practice, and experience. There are some 200 or more Upanishads. Some are lost and are only known about because of being referenced in other Upanishads.

Most of the Upanishads were kept secret for centuries, only passed on to others orally in the form of Shloka (a category of verse line developed from the Vedic Anustubh meter).

Katha-Upanishad is one the 11 principal Upanishads. Its chronology is contested as being between fifth century BCE and 1st millennium BCE.

Katha (Sanskrit: कठ) literally m...

This is a collection of 29 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for April 2015.

Tusculan Disputations (Latin: TUSCULANARUM DISPUTATIONUM) is divided into five books which discuss death, pain, grief, perturbations and virtue. At issue is whether wise people can always be happy regardless of the apparent evil that fortune throws in their way. Andrew Peabody says the A. and M. in the text may stand for Auditor, Adolescens, Atticus or Aulus and Marcus or Magister. Written by Marcus Tullius Cicero. Translated by Charles Duke Yonge.

Jazbury, Yowler and Fluffy are three brave and curious kittens craving adventure. Join them as they accidentally venture into the woods and courageously face off against dogs, rats and strange people.

Anna Katharine Green is now best-known for her popular mystery and detective stories, but she also wrote some excellent poetry.

The prayer and Exclamations, or Meditations, of St Teresa of Avila, recorded in honor of the 500th anniversary of the Saint's birth (March 28, 2015).

Sketching from Nature, Equipment, Colour, Composition, Trees, Skies, Grass, Reflections, Distance -- chapters rich with timeless oil painting advice by a master landscape artist, Sir Alfred East. East had an exceptional ability to capture the individuality of trees, the quiver of their leaves against the sky. “If we look at a photograph, the edges of the trees do not give you the feeling that the tree is a living thing, they are marked with hard precision against the light, like a solid building, and yet at the same time if we see them in Nature we hear the whisper of their leaves and know that they live and breathe. To express that is a greater truth than the camera can reveal,...