A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c2.9.1

c2.9.1

This must verily be the upshot of that Upanishad wherein we are asked to meditate on Brahman as the Reality in the world of Nature and in the world of Mind: *tasyaisha ādeśo yadetad vidyuto vyadyutadā itīti nyamīmishadā ityadhidaivatam; athādhyātmam yadetad gachchatīva cha mano anena chaitad upasmaratyabhīkshṇam saṃkalpaḥ* (Kena IV. 29, 30). With all due deference to Hertel's favourite theme of the identification of Brahman with Fire, we must say that we cannot accuse the Upanishad of not having considered a point which is not the point at issue. The point at issue being the spiritual description of Brahman as a presence or power, it would be an *ignoratio elenchi* on the part of that Upanishad to go into the description of the Brahman as a "World-Soul in which all the other souls ultimately merge." Then, secondly, when Hertel points out that the Kenopanishad dispenses with the necessity of a Spiritual Teacher for the purpose of spiritual realization, that the Self must according to that Upanishad be regarded as capable of being realised simply by internal illumination, and that Umā in that Upanishad does in no way help Indra in realising the Absolute, he forgets entirely to notice the fact that the true rôle of a Spiritual Teacher consists just in the office which Umā has been performing, namely, like a lamp-post on the Pathway to God, of simply directing the benighted wanderer on the path of spiritual progress without herself going it.