The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s4.35

v2.c40.s4.35

On the other hand, there arises in the doctrine of Yājñavalkya a distinct and different element: the self in this view cannot be known at all.⁵ There is no consciousness after death, he explains to Maitreyī, and the grounds of his explanation are that duality is essential for consciousness. The absolute self is unknowable, for there is no duality between it and anything else: the individual self is also unknowable because it must be the activity in knowing, and cannot be the object. The doctrine has echoes in other Upaniṣads,⁶ and it results in fierce attacks on knowledge, which is ranked as worse than ignorance by the Īçā.⁷ The Kaṭha⁸ lays stress on the necessity of turning the eye inwards in contrast to the mere use of the senses to grasp what is external, and insists that the only assertion that can be made of the self is the mere declaration of existence pure and simple. The way is, therefore, clearly open to the development of the doctrine alluded to in the earlier Upaniṣads, but not developed until later,⁹ which seeks by means of processes of physical and psychical disposition to produce the trance condition in which unity with the absolute, the only possible form of knowledge, is arrived at.