Lights on the Upanishads

CONCLUSION

Now we come to the close of this short series of discourses on the central aspect of the Upanishads. The choice of the texts for the headline of each study was determined with an eye to what we consider to be the most important element, the practical side which is the soul of these Teachings. The texts were all chosen deliberately from the Chandog ya with the exception of one from the Katha Upanişad. The reason will be presently made clear. Now that we are concluding this series we shall put in sum the distinctive features of the Sadhanas dealt with as well as the elements common to all of them. The position we have taken up in regard to the Upanishads we shall explain briefly but in precise terms at the close.

It is generally held that two of the major Upanishads, the Isa and the Taittiriya are most valued by Sri Aurobindo and they are a great support to his Teachings. There is considerable truth in this for the reason that the Isha gives us a comprehensive picture of the ultimate Truth, presents a reconciliation of the opposites and closes with an appeal to the Gods of the Vedic pantheon Agni, Vayu, Surya, for the uplift of man; while the Taittiriya gives us a vision of Brahman in the graded existence as Matter, Life, Mind, Vijnana, Ananda. But a caution is necessary here: it is not that Sri Aurobindo’s teachings in general or his Philosophy in particular are based upon these Upanishads or any other scripture for that matter, even the Rig Veda or the Bhagavad Gita. At the same time if he values and writes upon them it is because they are not theories and doctrines but Words of Wisdom based upon Truth-Knowledge, Truths lived which he finds can always be verified by any aspirant in earnest. If he has not taken up the other Upanishads either for commentary or translation it is mainly because they are very lengthy and require lengthier commentaries and partly perhaps because they are not quite compact like the Isa or Kena. And we know that he could not take up even the Täittiriya for commentary. Therefore it is not to be supposed that the other Upanishads in his view are not of importance or less authentic for acceptance as texts recording the Truth-realisations of the sages of the original Vedanta.

While there are other reasons for selecting the passages of Chāndog ya for the elucidation of the chief Sadhanas of the Upanishads, incidentally we have the advantage of studying parts of those texts not dealt with by Sri Aurobindo, thus enabling ourselves to appreciate them in the light of his Yoga and Philosophy in general. But the reason for choosing the Chàndog ya is to show that most of the Sadhanas discussed in the Brahma-sutras are taken from this Upanishad though some of these are mentioned in the Brhadārnyaka also. Again it is the Brahma-sutras much more than the Upanishads and the Gita that later became the field for the commentators to fight out the battles for their respective systems of Philosophy. A word about the Brahma-sutras, though an apparent digression, is useful here; for it is necessary to have a clear conception of their character and position in regard to the Scriptures on the one hand and on the other to the systems of Philosophy established by the Acharyas of later times. The main object of this work of Badarayana is investigation (mimāmsā) into the purport of the textual passages of the Upanishad including thosc which appear doubtful or contradictory and to come to a decisive conclusion. We may note in passing, that there was a threefold division of the śruti into what is called karma-kāņņa, the section dealing with rituals, upāsanā-kānda¹⁵⁶ that dealing with worship and meditation and jāñāna kāņda, that dealing with knowledge. In the Adwaitic tradition of the later Vedantins the upāsanās are drowned in the karma-kāņda and in the commentaries on the upāsanās which form part of the topics in the Vedanta Sutras, they are either treated as subservient to rituals, karmānga, or as some sort of help leading to a gradual liberation, karma-mukti, and therefore, of course, inferior paths meant for the ignorant and the incompetent. Whether the Brahma-sutras themselves proclaim the ultimate Truth as Nirguna, Impersonal, Featureless, the Beyond, the Absolute, and the upāsanās are all inferior ways of the weaklings is a question that has been debated upon for centuries now and the debate is sure to continue as long as dialectics is the be-all and end-all of scholars and pundits. Nevertheless we may draw attention to the undeniable fact, whatever be the gloss and improvements on it, that the Vedanta Sutras conclude with what is called Saguna Brahman, and true to the Scriptures it affirms in the well-known ubhaya-linga topic, based on the Chàndogya text, that Brahman is at once both Saguna and Nirguna, Personal and Impersonal.

This is the purpose of the Chāndog ya chosen for most of the Sadhanas we have discussed in this series. Let us then put in a nutshell the salient features of each of these spiritual disciplines, the Sadhanas of these Scriptures. The Narada-Sanatkumara episode concerns itself with what is called Bhuma Vidya. The discipline aims at the realisation of the Infinite Self beyond the ignorance. Satyakama’s forte is Prana Vidya, the discipline that leads to the conscious union with the creative Energy, Prana, the Tapas of Ishvara, and is, we have noticed, the most dynamic of all the Vidyas of the Upanishads. The Agni-rahasya gives us the Vidya of Shandilya and here the soul is envisaged as Spirit in its relation to its embodiment in life, to its encasement in mind as well as to its Source, Support, Power and Light in the all-pervading Purusha. It is the most comprehensive of all the Sadhanas and begins with the centre of the Spirit as soul, the seat of God—the heart; it takes a survey of and aims at the realisation of the All Spirit becoming the soul in each. The Rishis seek from Ashvapati Kaikeya for a knowledge of the Universal Fire which is the Self in each and the all. This discipline called Vaishvanara Vidya aims at the realisation of the Cosmic Self active in each being and starts, as usual with most of the Upanishadic Sadhanas, with the heart. We have not taken up all the Sadhanas mentioned in the Chhandogya Upanishad but the most prominent of them discussed here are sure to give a general idea of the importance attached to them in these texts and also cover most of the other main Vidyas such as the Dhara or Samvarga as has been shown in the discussion on Prana Vidya. From the Brhadāranyaka we took up for clarification the Doctrine of the Mystic Honey and showed that it reconciles the relative Reality of World-Existence with the Absolute Monsim to which the Brhadāranyaka tends in some of its sections—notably the Maitreyi Brahmana which precedes the section on the Mystic Honey, called the Madhu Brahmana. Even this Upanishad which in some important part is the stronghold for the “Lofty Illusionism ” of the later Vedantins is not wholly in favour of the negation of world-existence but looks upon it as a Creation of Delight, an Existence which subsists by interdependence of the whole and part, a Manifestation which subsists because of the Honey, the Madhu in it. The chief points in the Katha text already discussed need not be repeated here. But there is one fact which must be borne in mind that has a bearing on the Sadhana, the practical aspect which was hinted. As a rule the Upanishads teach that the heart is the seat of the soul, the Self, the Divine Being and there one must enter and commune with and realise the Truth, God or Self, the object of his seeking. The Katha indeed throws luminous suggestions in regard to the actual Sadhana that arrives at the goal. But the subtle truth that no Sadhana is possible at all without faith at the very start shall not be missed. It is well known that Nachiketas was afflicted with doubt when he approached Yama but he had also the faith and says so, “ Teach me, I have faith". In this connection the verses VI. 12-13, are remarkable in that they drive home the fact that It cannot be known by one who does not have the faith that it is there in him. It must be realised within one’s own being as the Presence, as the Manifest in him and then its essential Truth as the Unmanifest dawns on him. The Kațha emphasises the necessity of realising It here in the bodily existence.

The special feature of each of these Sadhanas lies in the viewpoints from which the approach is made towards the ultimate Reality, Atman, God, Brahman full of features or devoid of them. The Bhuma Vidya starts with a strong and constant remembrance, dhruvā smrti, an intuition—not the same as realisation-earned by purification of the stuff of the instrumental being, sättra śuddhi, which is the same as dhātuprasāda, crystalline purity of the temperament. It aims at the realisation of Bhuma, the Plenum, the Infinite Self. The Prana Vidya starts with the Life-principle arriving at its source in the Creative Spirit, the Tapas or the active Consciousness of the Lord. The Shandilya discipline starts with the soul as related to the instruments of life and mind in the bodily existence on the one hand and on the other to the Light, Power and Will of the Universal Self—a most comprehensive vision that takes in a sweep all the complexities of the soul in its various aspects. The Universal Spirit, the Fire in each being and the all, the feeling and realisation in each of its oneness with the Cosmic Self and Cosmic Life is the theme of Asyapati in the Vaishvanara Sadhana. The doubt about the survival of something of man that afflicts Nachiketas is just a surface appearance of the hunger of the soul with which Nachiketas starts and receives the initiation from Yama into the secrets of the Immortal Existence, Manifest and Unmanifest, to be realised in this life before the body falls.

But there is feature common to all the Sadhanas. For there is no mention of the procedure of the particular Sadhana that is expounded, not to speak of the details at all. The Sadhana or Vidya as it is called, is just named after the Teacher or the Initiate or the central aspect of the Vidya itself with a few hints in regard to the object of realisation and its fruit, or even without any hints at all. The reason is not far to seek. For when we carefully go through these texts, ere long we discover the fact that these Sadhanas, these methods of approach were transmitted by the Master to the disciple and verbal instruction when necessary at all to accompany the initiation given, was either not recorded or only briefly hinted at in these Scriptures. And this is so because the real Sadhana begins with initiation and not with oral instruction though the latter may be in some cases helpful giving just a sort of mental satisfaction. This is the central truth of initiation that the Guru gives the method, not the written word, not the spoken word even; but he gives the Word in silence which is a power, an influence that emanates from his being and consciousness so tangibly received and felt that one may say that the Guru himself is born the disciple, while at the same time the latter is the spiritual child of the master. Thus an unbroken succession, santati, of these Vidyas was maintained in the olden times. The Guru, then, is one who has the capacity to reach his realisations to others who seek him for the knowledge. This truth about the initiation is implicit everywhere in the Upanishads and explicitly stated also in some places as when King Ashvapati addresses Aruni and others saying, "I shall make you realise”, to which attention has been drawn in the discourse on Vaishvanara Vidya. Again, quite straightly the sages in the Prashna Upanishad (VI. 8) address the teacher Pippalada in these words: “ Thou indeed art our Father who takes us safe across the other shore of ignorance.” Then there is the famous dictum of these scriptures so often quoted by the Acharyas, “ He knows who has a Guru, acāryavan puruṣo veda". We can take it that it is this fact about the true upadeśa that is elucidated in the utterances of Sri Krishna in the Gita—“The Jnanins who are the seers of the truth shall give the inititation into knowledge. ... The Jnanin is Myself.”

It is beyond doubt that Sadhana was given through initiation by the teacher to the pupil and this accounts for the absence of details or elaborate explanations with which we are familiar in the writings of later treatises on the Sadhana Shastra. And again, one notable fact about the Sadhana of the Upanishads is this that even the most abstract form of Sadhana requires for its consummation some help from outside the range of the personal self. The help is obvious in the case of one having a Guru from the very start as has been already stated. Even in the Bhuma Vidya where the Sadhaka starts on the path with sufficient purity and strength, with a certain settled intuitive grasp of the Truth, it is said Skanda Sanatkumara has to favour him with his help to take him across the other shore of ignorance, sorrow and death. Or we find in the Kena that the Goddess Uma, the universal Matrix has to come to the help of the Gods headed by Indra for the true knowledge of the ultimate Reality, Brahman. Even in the instance of the Atma Sadhana, the Katha and Mundaka texts state that it is the Atman who reveals his own body of Truth) to him who makes an exclusive choice of the Atman. We may note here the interesting fact that the Atman according to these Scriptures has a will to choose, to reveal its body of Truth, thus implying that he is not as mute and absolutely immutable and static as our mind is trained to fancy, not absolutely devoid of the dynamic element, namely, to choose to reveal himself to the exclusive seeker. Or the exclusive seeking itself is the result of the choice that has already been made by the Self. Thus different approaches and their corresponding realisations are mentioned in the Upanishads.

There is another feature common to all these texts. When statements are made either in regard to the disciplines that yield the desired results or to the ultimate Reality which apparently differ, they are not treated as contradictory but are looked upon as authentic, each in its own context. An instance will suffice to show that this is the case. There are texts which proclaim that there are “ Two Purushas unborn, dvau ajau"; again there are others which speak of the Reality as the One Absolute; at times the same text may contain two different statements which may not seem to be in accord with each other. We find that the authors of the Upanishads nowhere refute any of these texts or statements in part as opposed to truth or as unworthy of notice, but on the other hand treat them as authentic because they know they are statements of facts of spiritual experience. They do not even take the trouble of reconciling such statements as are seemingly opposed to one another because they are alive to the fact that all such apparent contradictions have no bases in the realm of the Truth which can be realised in diverse ways through many aspects. It is not that a reasoned reconciliation of the opposites was not known to them as is evidenced in the texts of the Isha Upanishad. The question of attempting a reconciliation yielding a certain amount of intellectual satisfaction did not occupy the attention of the seers and thinkers of the Upanishads, but was left to Badarayana, the author of the Vedanta Sutras. But the commentators who came later on constructed their Systems of Philosophy always based upon a Truth-realisation-as indeed Philosophy in India has always been -sought support for their systems from the Scriptures including the Brahma-sutras. In the process of interpreting the Sutras for their support they have for the most part undone the work of reconciliation undertaken by the author of the Sutras. This was because each commentator found certain texts to be convenient and accorded them a place of honour and prime importance, while those that were found not helpful from their standpoint and quite inconvenient for their philosophical constructions were treated as of secondary value. And this was done in spite of the recognition on their part that these texts as a whole are authentic records of Knowledge gained by the sages of the early Vedantas. The resultant position was inescapable that sheer dialectics led to the ditches, to the trenches of philosophical warfare while knowledge and action, jñana and karma, and latterly, devotion, bhakti, became discordant and warring elements what were and should have been shown to be the elements of concord and peace for a synthetic grasp of these great Scriptures of universal importance.

Our position then in regard to the Upanishads, especially to their practical importance, may be best stated in the words of Sri Aurobindo who finds that each of the realisations is true and the truth of any one need not and does not nullify the truth of any other. “In liberation the individual soul realises itself as the One (that is yet Many). It may plunge into the One and merge or hide itself in its bosom—that is the laya of the Advaita; it may feel its oneness and, yet as part of the Many that is the One, enjoy the Divine, that is the Vishishtadvaita liberation; it may lay stress on its Many aspect and go on playing with Krishna in the eternal Brindavan, that is the Dvaita liberation. Or it may, even being liberated, remain in the Lila or Manifestation or descend into it as often as it likes. The Divine is not bound by human philosophies—it is free in its play and free in its essence.”

One more feature—and this is the last to be mentioned here—common to these Upanishads is that they purport to bring out the truth of the Mantras, the Veda; even for their conclusions, for their announcements, they quote for their support as authority the Vedic seers and their words, the Riks. The appropriateness of the Riks quoted in the Doctrine of the Mystic Honey is an instance in point. The Riks or their seers are very often quoted or mentioned in these texts and this is not due to any kind of Sentimental regard, but due to the fact, that the sages of the Upanishads knew that there were truths of spiritual and occult knowledge embedded in the Vedas. We have already shown in the discourse on the Vaishvanara Vidya that the discipline was directly inspired by the Hymns of the Rig Veda and quoted a number of passages from the hymns addressed to Agni Vaishvanara. Above all, Sri Aurobindo has shown beyond a shadow of doubt that the 15th and 16th verses of the Isha Upanishad which refer to the Golden Lid covering the face of the truth are a just reproduction in the language of the Upanishads of the first Rik of the 62nd Hymn in the fifth Mandala of the Rig Veda. Here we may add that there is hardly any among the major Upanishads which does not make a reference to the Riks or Rishis by way of authenticating their statements.

Now we conclude: our approach to the subject differs in some important respects from that of modern scholarship led by western savants and generally accepted and followed by Indian learning of modern times. Our position in regard to the character and aim of the Upanishads is fundamentally at variance with that taken by scholars in general and to some extent, in one important respect, by indigenous scholarship as well. While it is a fact we admit that the Upanishads are pre-eminently Books of Knowledge, we also hold that it is the Veda that is the source and support of the Upanishads as well as of the Brahmanas which are the Scripture for the ritualists and that it is wrong to treat the Veda, the Mantras as part of the Karma-kanda meant chiefly for the rituals and thus in practice, though not in belief and theory inferior to the Upanishads for purposes of spiritual Wisdom. Again, we hold that the Upanishads are not, in the words of Sri Aurobindo, "philosophical speculations of the intellectual kind, a metaphysical analysis which labours to define notions, to select ideas and discriminate those that are true, to support the mind in its intellecutal preferences by its dialectical reasoning". On the contrary, they are the creation of a revelatory and intuitive mind and its illumined experience and all their substance, structure, phrase, imagery, movement are determined by and stamped with this original character”. Nor are they “a revolutionary departure from the Vedic mind and its temperament and fundamental ideas, but a continuation and development and to a certain extent an enlarging transformation in the sense of bringing out into open expression all that was held covered in the symbolic Vedic speech as a mystery and a secret”.