The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s12.15

v2.c40.s12.15

In truth the aims of the Brahmans were bent on things which are not ethical at all, immediate profit on the one hand, or, on the other, the closer realization of the absolute in which they believed, and which they desired to appreciate in full enjoyment. The ideal is embodied in the most curious forms. Knowledge in the Upaniṣads is essentially profitable,² and by no means for spiritual ends alone. He who knows the world as fivefold obtains it; he who knows Indra as without a rival has no rival; the possessor of knowledge cannot be injured by an enemy; neither the northern nor the southern mountains can prevail against him, and his foes die around him, an idea found in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa.³ It is an easy step to the result already seen; knowledge obliterates evil; one who knows may consort with even the murderer without being contaminated.⁴ With a strange contrast to Sokrates who held that the wise man would necessarily be good, we are repeatedly assured that knowledge relieves man from worrying as to whether he has done wrong or right in any matter.⁵ Entry into the absolute is accompanied by the casting aside of good and evil deeds, which are transferred on one view to one's relatives or foes respectively.⁶ With an anticipation of modern idealism, and in the true spirit of mysticism, good and bad may be regarded as imperfect concepts for which there is no proper place in the absolute; if speech were not, neither right nor wrong, true nor false, good nor bad, pleasant nor unpleasant, could be known.⁷ The absolute self is unsullied by evil to which he is external; an etymology proves it; for he is called the person, Puruṣa, since he burned (*uṣ*) up evil before (*pūrva*) all these worlds.⁸ In uniting with him the individual parts utterly from good or bad.⁹ We see this even in sleep, for in it neither evil nor good attaches itself effectively to the self.¹⁰ When we are told¹¹ that the world is truth, there is no ethical implication, for it is plain that there is here merely an assertion of the reality of the universe, the word Satya conveying both senses, and in the theistic Çvetāçvatara¹² the description of the lord as the bringer of right and the remover of evil is due to the confusion, there constant, between the personal deity and the absolute. The emancipated self possesses autonomy, but it is not an ethical state;¹ it is merely a condition of unhindered power, the ideal of a despot, the state of the man who goes up and down these worlds, eating what he desires, assuming what form he desires.²