The Philosophy of the Upanishads c9.s5.t3.22

c9.s5.t3.22

We saw above how the doctrine of Brahman as the cosmical principle was represented in accommodation to the empirical mode of thought as a creation of the universe in time by Brahman as its first cause. The same spirit of accommodation lies at the basis of the form assumed by the doctrine of Brahman as the psychical principle, viz., that Brahman after having created the universe enters into it as the individual soul. "This universe was at that time not unfolded; but it unfolded itself in name and form. . . . into it that (âtman) entered up to the finger-tips. . . . this therefore which here (within us) is the âtman is the trace (to be pursued) of the universe; for in it the entire universe is known," etc.⁴ The last words prove that the entrance of the soul, as described, into the universe which it has created is merely a metaphor designed to render intelligible the assumed identity of the soul with the first principle of the universe. It then however more and more stiffens into an actual realism, as the following passages show. "Into citadels he entered as a bird, into citadels as a citizen."⁵ "So into these three divinities (the three elements) that divinity entered with this living self, and separated out from one another names and forms.”¹ “After he had practised self-mortification he created this entire universe, whatever exists; after he had created it, he entered into it.”² The same conception, even more realistically depicted, is found as early as Ait. 1. 11, 12:—“And he considered,—In what way shall I enter into it? . . . so he split the crown of the head, and entered through this gate.” The later the realism is, the more pronounced it becomes. Maitr. 2. 6 may serve as an example: Prajâpati created numerous creatures, “these he saw standing unconscious and lifeless like a stone, motionless like the trunk of a tree; therefore he had no joy; and he resolved,—I will enter into them, in order to awaken consciousness within them; accordingly he made himself a wind, and determined to enter into them,” etc.