The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c11.65

c11.65

Into the maze of difficulties and inconsistencies which opens out here we need not go. The manifold modifications, adjustments, and the trimming down of the main thought which the Upanishads are driven to undertake belong to philosophy rather than religion. According to the Upanishads' own definition of the *ātman*, everything that these works undertake to say about anything other than the *ātman* is mere figure of speech, and every definition of the *ātman* itself is also figure of speech. Every definition is necessarily stopped by the words: "No, No" (*na neti*). The Brahma has no attributes (*nirguṇa*). Yea, the Hindu when in the proper mood, advancing straight to the last consequence, looking neither to the right nor to the left, denies the possibility of knowing Brahma altogether. Tremendous paradox this, considering all depends upon the intuition of this very conception. In a conversation with his wife Maitreyī¹ the great thinker Yājnavalkya asserts that there is no consciousness after death, because there must be two in order that one should see the other, smell, hear, address, understand, recognise the other. "But if one has himself become *Ātman* (that is, "Self") by means of what and whom should he then see? By means of what and whom should he then smell, hear, address, understand, recognise?" In brief and dry language, being himself the subject, and there being no object, there is no cognition nor consciousness.