The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s7.t1.10

v2.c40.s7.t1.10

We find also in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad⁴ in a verse which occurs with slight variation in the Kaṭha,⁵ a distinct assertion that there is no diversity and that a failure to realize this fact is the source of repeated death. The Īçā emphatically demands that the universe be merged in God, and, moreover, denies becoming and passing away, thus condemning the doctrine of the reality of change; this at least is Deussen’s interpretation,⁶ though it is open to argue that the real sense is merely that the absolute stands above becoming and passing away, which it transcends. In the late Maitrāyaṇīya Upaniṣad⁷ we find the comparison of the absolute with the spark which, made to revolve, creates apparently a fiery circle, an idea which is taken up and expanded by Gauḍapāda in the Māṇḍūkya Kārikā, and which undoubtedly is consistent with the conception of the illusory nature of empirical reality. In other cases adduced by Deussen¹ there is no need to suspect any idea of the world as unreal, the frequent assertion,² that with the knowledge of the self all is known, does not exclude the reality of what is derived from the self; the reality of the absolute may be contrasted³ with empirical reality, which is styled real by man, without making the latter an illusion; when the Aitareya⁴ asserts that the universe is founded in consciousness and guided by it, it assumes its reality, not its merely apparent existence, and, if the elements of being rest on the consciousness and it on the Prāṇa,⁵ we need not suspect any lack of reality in them.