The Philosophy of the Upanishads c7.s3: 3. The Conception of the Upanishads in its Relation to Religion
The Philosophy of the Upanishads c7.s3
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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.