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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c7: III. The Fundamental Conception of the Upanishads and Its Significance

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c7

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III. The Fundamental Conception of the Upanishads and Its Significance

1. The Fundamental Conception of the Upanishads

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All the thoughts of the Upanishads move around two fundamental ideas. These are (1) the Brahman, and (2) the âtman. As a rule these terms are employed synonymously. Where a difference reveals itself, Brahman appears as the older and less intelligible expression, âtman as the later and more significant; Brahman as the unknown that needs to be explained, âtman as the known through which the other unknown finds its explanation; Brahman as the first principle so far as it is comprehended in the universe, âtman so far as it is known in the inner self of man. We may take as an example the passages from S'atap. Br. 10. 6. 3, Chând. 3. 14,¹ whose sole fundamental thought consists in this, that the universe is Brahman (*sarvam khalu idam brahma*), and the Brahman the âtman within us (*esha ma' âtmâ antar hṛidaye, etc.*).² Another example is furnished by the story of Gârgya (Bṛih. 2. 1, Kaush. 4), who endeavours in vain to define the Brahman, until finally he is referred by the king to the âtman for its

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¹ Translated in I. 1 pp. 264, 336.

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² Böhtlingk maintains * that I had "not known(!) that esha ma' âtmâ antar hṛidaye is everywhere subject." He himself, however, involuntarily bears testimony to the correctness of my translation, when, immediately after his rendering in § 3, "this my Self in my innermost heart," in § 4 where the same phrase recurs he translates precisely as I do, "this is my Self in my innermost heart."

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* *Berichte der Sächs. G. d. W., 1897, p. 84.

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explanation. The difference between Brahman and âtman emerges most clearly where they appear side by side with one another in brief sayings. The passage Bṛih. 4. 4. 5 may serve as example :—"truly the Brahman is this Âtman" (sa vâ' ayam âtmâ brahma).

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If for our present purpose we hold fast to this distinction of the Brahman as the cosmical principle of the universe, the âtman as the psychical, the fundamental thought of the entire Upanishad philosophy may be expressed by the simple equation :— Brahman = Âtman.

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That is to say—the Brahman, the power which presents itself to us materialised in all existing things, which creates, sustains, preserves, and receives back into itself again all worlds, this eternal infinite divine power is identical with the âtman, with that which, after stripping off everything external, we discover in ourselves as our real most essential being, our individual self, the soul. This identity of the Brahman and the âtman, of God and the soul, is the fundamental thought of the entire doctrine of the Upanishads. It is briefly expressed by the "great saying" tat tvam asi, "that art thou" (Chând. 6. 8. 7 f.); and aham brahma asmi, "I am Brahman" (Bṛih. 1. 4. 10). And in the compound word brahma-âtma-aikyam, "unity of the Brahman and the âtman," is described the fundamental dogma of the Vedânta system.

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If we strip this thought of the various forms, figurative to the highest degree and not seldom extravagant, under which it appears in the Vedânta texts, and fix our attention upon it solely in its philosophical simplicity as the identity of God and the soul, the Brahman and the âtman, it will be found to possess a significance reaching far beyond the Upanishads, their time and country; nay, we claim for it an inestimable value for the whole race of mankind. We are unable to look into the future, we do not know what revelations and discoveries are in store for the restlessly inquiring human spirit; but one thing we may assert with confidence,—whatever new and unwonted paths the philosophy of the future may strike out, this principle will remain permanently unshaken, and from it no deviation can possibly take place. If ever a general solution is reached of the great riddle, which presents itself to the philosopher in the nature of things all the more clearly the further our knowledge extends, the key can only be found where alone the secret of nature lies open to us from within, that is to say, in our innermost self. It was here that for the first time the original thinkers of the Upanishads, to their immortal honour, found it when they recognised our âtman, our inmost individual being, as the Brahman, the inmost being of universal nature and of all her phenomena.

2. The Conception of the Upanishads in its Relation to Philosophy

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The whole of religion and philosophy has its root in the thought that (to adopt the language of Kant) the universe is only appearance and not reality (*Ding an sich*); that is to say, the entire external universe, with its infinite ramifications in space and time, as also the involved and intricate sum of our inner perceptions, is all merely the form under which the essential reality presents itself to a consciousness such as ours, but is not the form in which it may subsist outside of our consciousness and independent of it; that, in other words, the sum-total of external and internal experience always and only tells us how things are constituted for us, and for our intellectual capacities, not how they are in themselves and apart from intelligences such as ours.

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It is easy to show how this thought, which met with adequate recognition first in the philosophy of Kant, but which existed in less clearly defined form from the earliest times, is the basis and tacit presumption, more or less consciously, of all philosophy, so far at least as this name is not made to serve as a mere cloak for empirical sciences. For all philosophy, as contrasted with empirical science, is not content to learn to know objects in their circumstances and surroundings, and to investigate their causal connections; but it rather seeks beyond all these to determine their nature, inasmuch as it regards the sum-total of empirical reality, with all the explanations offered by the empirical sciences, as something which needs to be yet further explained; and this solution is found in the principle which it sets forth, and from which it seeks to infer the real nature of things and their relation. This fact, then, that philosophy has from the earliest times sought to determine a first principle of the universe, proves that it started from a more or less clear consciousness that the entire empirical reality is not the true essence of things, that, in Kant’s words, it is only appearance and not the thing in itself.

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There have been three occasions, as far as we know, on which philosophy has advanced to a clearer comprehension of its recurring task, and of the solution demanded: first in India in the Upanishads, again in Greece in the philosophy of Parmenides and Plato, and finally, at a more recent time, in the philosophy of Kant and Schopenhauer. In a later work we shall have to show how Greek philosophy reached its climax in the teaching of Parmenides and Plato, that this entire universe of change is, as Parmenides describes it, merely phenomenal, or in Plato’s words a world of shadows; and how both philosophers endeavoured through it to grasp the essential reality, τὸ ὄν, τὸ ὄντως ὄν, that which Plato, in an expression that recalls the doctrine of the Upanishads no less than the phraseology of Kant, describes as the αὐτὸ (âtman)

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καθ’ αὑτό (*an sich*). We shall then see further how this same thought, obscured for a time under the influence of Aristotle and throughout the Middle Ages, was taken up again in quite a different way, and shone forth more clearly than ever before in the philosophy founded by Kant, adopted and perfected by his great successor Schopenhauer. Here we have to do with the Upanishads, and the world-wide historical significance of these documents cannot, in our judgement, be more clearly indicated than by showing how the deep fundamental conception of Plato and Kant was precisely that which already formed the basis of Upanishad teaching.

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The objects which lie around us on every side in infinite space, and to which by virtue of our corporeal nature we ourselves belong, are, according to Kant, not “things in themselves,” but only apparitions. According to Plato, they are not the true realities, but merely shadows of them. And according to the doctrine of the Upanishads, they are not the âtman, the real “self” of the things, but mere *mâyâ*,—that is to say, a sheer deceit, illusion. It is true that the term *mâyâ* occurs for the first time in S’vet. 4. 10; and therefore some writers, whose recognition of a fact is obscured by the different language in which it is clothed, have hazarded the assertion that the conception of *mâyâ* is still unknown to the more ancient Upanishads. How in the light of this assertion they find it possible to comprehend these older Upanishads (Bṛihad. and Chând.) they themselves perhaps know. The fact is they are penetrated throughout by the conception which later was most happily expressed by the word *mâyâ*. In the very demand which they make that the âtman of man, the âtman of the universe, must be sought for,¹ it is implied that this body and this universe which reveal themselves to us unsought are not the âtman, the self, the true reality; and that we are under a delusion if, like the demon Viroc'ana,¹ we regard them as such. All worldly objects and relationships are, as Yajñavalkhya explains in Bṛih. 2. 4. 5, of no value for their own sake (as "things in themselves"), but for the sake of the âtman; nay, they exist solely in the âtman, and that man is utterly and hopelessly undone who knows them "apart from the Self" (*anyatra âtmano*). This âtman, he concludes,² is Brâhman and warrior, is space, gods, and creatures, "this âtman is the entire universe" (*idam sarvam yad ayam âtmâ*). As when a man touches the instrument³ he at the same time elicits the notes, so when a man has comprehended the âtman he has with it comprehended all these things:—"Verily he who has seen, heard, comprehended and known the Self, by him is this entire universe known."⁴

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¹ Bṛih. 2. 4. 5: *âtmâ vâ’ are drashṭavyaḥ, s’rotavyo, mantavyo, nididhyâ-sitavyo*; Chând. 8. 7. 1: *so’ nveshṭavyaḥ, sa vijijñâsitavyaḥ*.

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¹ Chând. 8. 8. 4.

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² L.c. 2. 4. 6.

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³ Bṛih. 2. 4. 7 f.

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⁴ Bṛih. 2. 4. 5b.

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Immediately connected with these conceptions, and probably even with this passage from the Bṛihadâraṇyaka, is the expression in the Chândogya Up. 6. 1. 2, where that which in the former place was the climax of a development is assumed and becomes the theme advanced for discussion:—"Dost thou then ask for that instruction, by which the unheard becomes (already) heard, the uncomprehended comprehended, the unknown known?" "What then, most noble sir, is this instruction?" "Just as, my dear sir, from a lump of clay everything that consists of clay is known, the change is a matter of words alone, a mere name,⁵ it is in reality only clay,—thus, my dear sir, is this instruction." Here the manifold change of the one substance is explained as mere word-play, mere name, exactly as Parmenides asserts that all which men regard as real is mere name.¹ Later passages employ language that is based on these conceptions, “nor is this even a plurality,”² and the verses preserved in Bṛih. 4. 4. 19:³

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⁵ *vâcârambhaṇam vikâro, nâmadheyam.*

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¹ τῷ πάντ’ ὄνομ’ ἔσται, ὅσσα βρότοι κατέθεντο πεποιθότες εἶναι ἀληθῆ.

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² Kaush. 3. 8

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³ cp. Kâṭh. 4. 10–11.

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In the spirit should this be perceived,
Here there is no plurality anywhere.
From death to death again he rushes blindly
Who fancies that he here sees difference.

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Apt and striking also is the remark of a later Upanishad⁴ that no proof of plurality can even be offered, “for no proof is possible of the existence of a duality, and only the timeless âtman admits of proof,” (*i.e.* we are incapable of knowing anything outside of our own consciousness, which under all circumstances forms a unity).

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⁴ Nṛisiṃhott. 9.

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It is clear from the foregoing :—(1) That the view which later was most explicitly set forth in the doctrine of *mâyâ* is so far from being strange to the oldest Upanishads that it is assumed in and with their fundamental doctrine of the sole reality of the âtman, and forms its necessary complement; and (2) that this fundamental doctrine of the Upanishads is seen to be in marvellous agreement with the philosophies of Parmenides and Plato, and of Kant and Schopenhauer. So fully indeed is this true, that all three, originating from different epochs and countries, and with modes of thought entirely independent, mutually complete, elucidate, and confirm one another. Let this then suffice for the philosophical significance of the Upanishads.

3. The Conception of the Upanishads in its Relation to Religion

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The thought referred to, common to India, Plato, and Kant, that the entire universe is only appearance and not reality, forms not only the special and most important theme of all philosophy, but is also the presumption and *conditio sine quâ non* of all religion. All great religious teachers therefore, whether in earlier or later times, nay even all those at the present day whose religion rests upon faith, are alike unconsciously followers of Kant. This we propose briefly to prove.

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The necessary premisses of all religion are, as Kant frequently expounds:—(1) The existence of God, (2) the immortality of the soul, (3) the freedom of the will (without which no morality is possible). These three essential conditions of man's salvation—God, immortality, and freedom—are conceivable only if the universe is mere appearance and not reality (mere *mâyâ* and not the *âtman*), and they break down irretrievably should this empirical reality, wherein we live, be found to constitute the true essence of things.

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(1) The existence of God will be precluded by that of space, which is infinite, and therefore admits of nothing external to itself, and nothing within save that which fills it, *i.e.* matter (the most satisfactory definition of which is "that which fills space").

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(2) Immortality will be precluded by the conditions of time, in consequence of which our existence has a beginning in time by conception and birth, and an end in time by death; and this end is absolute, in so far as that beginning was absolute.

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(3) Freedom, and with it the possibility of moral action, will be precluded by the universal validity of the law of causality, as shown by experience; for this requires that every effect, consequently every human action, should be the necessary result of causes which precede the action, and which therefore in the actual moment of action are no longer within our control.

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The question as it concerns God, immortality, and freedom, stands on an altogether different footing if this entire empirical reality, the occupant of space and time, and ruled by causal laws, is mere appearance and not a disposition of "things in themselves," to use Kant's words; or is mere *mâyâ* and not the *âtman*, the "self" of things, as the Upanishads teach. For in this case there is room for another, a higher order of things, which is not subject to the laws of space, time, and causality. And it is precisely this higher order of things set over-against the reality of experience, from the knowledge of which we are excluded by our intellectual constitution, which religion comprehends in faith by her teaching concerning God, immortality, and freedom. All religions therefore unconsciously depend on the fundamental dogma of the Kantian philosophy, which in a less definite form was already laid down in the Upanishads. These last therefore by virtue of their fundamental character lie naturally at the basis of every religious conception of existence.

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By the side, moreover, of this their value for religion in general they have a special and very remarkable inner relation to Christianity, which we cannot state more briefly and clearly than by repeating in the present connection, where this consideration is essential, what has been before said on this subject.¹

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¹ Deussen, *Sechzig Upanishads*, *Vorrede*.

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The Upanishads, it was pointed out, are for the Veda what the New Testament is for the Bible. And this analogy is not merely external and accidental, but is fundamental and based upon a universal law of development of the religious life which is acknowledged on both sides.

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In the childhood of the human race religion enacts commands and prohibitions, and emphasizes them by promises of reward and denunciations of punishment;—it addresses itself to the self-interest, which it assumes to be the centre and essence of human nature, and beyond which it does not go.

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A higher grade of religious consciousness is attained with the knowledge that all actions which depend upon the motives of expectation and fear are of no value for the ultimate destiny of mankind; that the supreme function of existence does not consist in the satisfaction of self-interest, but in its voluntary suppression; and that herein first the true divine reality of ourselves, through the individual self as through an outer husk, makes itself manifest.

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The primitive standpoint of righteousness by works is represented in the Bible by the Old Testament law, which corresponds in the Veda to that which the Indian theologians call the *karmakāṇḍa* (the department of works), under which name is comprised the whole literature of the Hymns and Brāhmaṇas, with the exception of portions intercalated here and there in the spirit of the Upanishads. Both the Old Testament and the *karmakāṇḍa* of the Veda proclaim a law, and hold out the prospect of reward for its observance and of punishment for its transgression. And if the Indian theory has the advantage of being able to defer retribution in part to the future, and by that means to relieve the conflict with experience that raises so many difficulties for the Old Testament doctrine of a retribution limited to this world; it is, on the other hand, the distinguishing characteristic of the Biblical law of righteousness, that it pays less regard than the Indian to ritual prescriptions, and in their place lays greater stress on a habitually blameless course of life. For the interests of human society this advantage is very great. In itself however, and as far as the moral value of an action is concerned, it makes no difference whether a man exert himself in the service of imaginary gods or in that of his fellow-men.

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So long as his own well-being lies before him as the ultimate aim, either is simply a means to this selfish end, and therefore, like the end itself, from a moral point of view is to be set aside as worthless.

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The recognition of this is seen in the New Testament doctrine of the worthlessness of all works, even those that are good, and in the corresponding Upanishad doctrine that altogether rejects works. Both make salvation dependent not on anything done or left undone, but on a complete transformation of the natural man as a whole. Both regard this transformation as a release from the bonds of this all-embracing empirical reality, which has its roots in egotism.

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Why then do we need a release from this existence? Because it is the realm of sin, is the reply of the Bible. The Veda answers: Because it is the realm of ignorance. The former sees depravity in the volitional, the latter in the intellectual side of human nature. The Bible demands a change of the will, the Veda of the understanding. On which side does the truth lie? If man were pure will or pure intelligence, we should have to decide for one or the other alternative. But since he is a being who both wills and knows, the great change upon which the Bible and the Veda alike make salvation depend must be realised in both departments of his life. Such a change is, in the first place, according to the Biblical view the softening of a heart hardened by natural self-love, and the inclining it to deeds of righteousness, affection, and self-denial. It is however, in the second place and side by side with this, the breaking forth upon us of the light of the great intellectual truth, which the Upanishads taught before Kant, that this entire universe, with its relations in space, its consequent manifoldness and dependence upon the mind that apprehends, rests solely upon an illusion (*mâyâ*), natural indeed to us owing to the limitations of our intellect; and that there is in truth one Being alone, eternal, exalted above space and time, multiplicity and change, self-revealing in all the forms of nature, and by me who myself also am one and undivided, discovered and realised within as my very Self, as the âtman.

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As surely however as, to adopt the significant teaching of Schopenhauer, the will and not the intellect is the centre of a man's nature, so surely must the pre-eminence be assigned to Christianity, in that its demand for a renewal of the will is peculiarly vital and essential. But as certainly as man is not mere will, but intellect besides, so certainly will that Christian renewal of the will make itself manifest on the other side as a renewal of knowledge, just as the Upanishads teach. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" is the requirement of the Bible. But on what grounds is this demand to be based, since feeling is in myself alone and not in another? "Because," the Veda here adds in explanation, "thy neighbour is in truth thy very self, and what separates you from him is mere illusion." As in this case, so at every point of the system. The New Testament and the Upanishads, these two noblest products of the religious consciousness of mankind, are found when we sound their deeper meaning to be nowhere in irreconcilable contradiction, but in a manner the most attractive serve to elucidate and complete one another.

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An example may show the value of the Upanishad teaching for the full development of our Christian consciousness.

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Christianity teaches in spirit, even if not always in the letter, that man as such is capable only of sinful, that is selfish actions (Rom. 7¹⁸), and that all good whether of purpose or achievement can only be wrought in us by God (Phil. 2¹³). Clearly as this doctrine—for him who has eyes to see—is formulated not so much in individual expressions as rather in the entire system as such, yet it has been difficult at all times for the Church to rest satisfied with it. She has sought perpetually an opportunity of co-ordinating her own imperfect remedial measures, and of leaving open a side-door for human co-operation,—clearly because behind the sole operative power which makes God the source of all good she saw standing like a frightful apparition the grim monstrosity of predestination. And indeed this presents itself as an inevitable consequence as soon as we connect the Christian conception of the sole agency of God, as profound as it is true, with the Jewish realism adopted from the Old Testament, which sets God and man over-against one another as two mutually exclusive subsistences. In this darkness there comes to us light from the East, from India. It is true that Paul also hints at an identification of God with the ἄνθρωπος πνευματικός (1 Cor. 15⁴⁷), it is true that Kant endeavours to explain the marvellous phenomenon of the categorical imperative within us on the theory that the man as real ("thing in itself") lays down the law to the man as phenomenal; but how slight the significance of these timid and groping essays as compared with the profound and fundamental conception of the Vedânta, which makes its appearance everywhere in the Upanishads, that the God, the sole author of all good in us, is not as in the Old Testament a Being contrasted with and distinct from us, but rather—without impairing his absolute antagonism to the depraved self of experience (jīva)—our own metaphysical I, our divine self, persisting in untarnished purity through all the aberrations of human nature, eternal blessed,—in a word, our ātman.

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This and much more we may learn from the Upanishads,—we shall learn the lesson, if we are willing to put the finishing touch to the Christian consciousness, and to make it on all sides consistent and complete.

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