The Upanishads

Lead Me from Unreal to Real

The prayer for enlightenment.

This famous prayer asks to be led from ignorance to knowledge, from death to immortality, from darkness to light. It encapsulates the spiritual aspiration of the Upanishads.

Lead me from the unreal to the real. Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to immortality.

This prayer expresses humanity's deepest spiritual longing.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Written about in

• What the Upanishads say about the purpose of life

  The best-known Upanishadic prayer asks for three things: the real rather than the unreal, light rather than darkness, life rather than death. It is a statement of what to want.

• What the Upanishads say about grief

  The prayer asks to be led from death to immortality — not around death, through it. Mourners are handed a request to make rather than a feeling to manage; grief is treated here as a demand for knowledge.