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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s1: I—Empirical Psychology

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s1

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I—Empirical Psychology

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2. We must, however, bear in mind that Empirical Psychology is a science of recent growth, and thus we must not expect to find a full-fledged empirical investigation of mental science in the days of the Upanishads. We must, on the contrary, be content with what little information is supplied to us under that head in the various Upanishads. The Upanishadic philosophers believed that the mind for its formation was dependent upon alimentation. The mind was supposed to be manufactured out of the food that we take (S. I. a). "The food that we eat", says a passage, "is transformed in three different ways: the heaviest part of it becomes the excrement, that of medium density is transformed into flesh, and the subtlest part goes to form the mind" (S. i.b). "Just as in the churning of curds, the subtlest part rises up and is transformed into butter, so when food is eaten, the subtlest part rises up and is transformed into mind" (S. i. c). Later, even in the days of the Bhagavadgītā, we find that the three different mental temperaments, the Sāttvika, the Rājasa, and the Tāmasa were supposed to be due to the different kinds of food that we eat (XVII.8-10). When once it was believed that the qualities of the food consumed formed the quality of the mind of the consumer, it was natural to insist, in the interest of the highest morality, upon a kind of katharsis in alimentation. "When the food is pure," says a passage (S. 2), "the whole nature becomes pure; when the nature becomes pure, memory becomes firm; and when a man is in possession of a firm memory, all the bonds which tie a man down to the world become unloosed. It was because he (Nārada) had his impurity destroyed, that the venerable Sanatkumāra pointed out to him the way beyond darkness". The way which leads us beyond darkness, therefore, must be sought for in purity of alimentation, which involves in its train the purity of mind.

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3. One of the acute observations which these ancient seers made concerns the fact that in the process of attention we always hold our breath, and seem neither to breathe out nor to breathe in. When we speak, we neither expire nor inspire (S. 3. a). When we do an action which involves voluntary effort, as, for example, "producing fire by rubbing two sticks together, or running a race, or bending a bow and stringing it, we neither exhale, nor inhale" (S. 3. b). Our attention in such acts is concentrated on the action itself, and it cannot be diverted to such subsidiary processes as those of breathing out and breathing in. This is what in the Kaushitaki Upanishad is called the "inner sacrifice", which goes after the name of its discoverer, the sage Pratardana, and is called the Prātardana sacrifice. Pratardana said, that while a man is speaking, he is not able to breathe, and therefore may be said to sacrifice his breath in his speech; on the contrary, while a man is breathing, he is not able to speak, and may be said to sacrifice his speech in his breath. "These two endless and immortal oblations," said Pratardana, "man offers always, whether waking or sleeping. All other oblations have an end, for they consist of works. Knowing this, the ancient sages did not offer the ordinary sacrifice" (S. 3. c). In this passage, a justification is found for not performing the ordinary sacrifice when one knows that an inner sacrifice is ever going on inside him.

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4. Another curious observation which these seers made may be mentioned in passing. This concerns the analysis of the emotion of fear. It is only when a feeling of otherness gains lodgment in us (S. 4. a) that we come to entertain the emotion of fear. The primeval Ātman feared, as he was alone; but "on finding out that there was no other person whom he should fear, he became fearless; for it is only from (the idea or existence of) a second that fear proceeds" (S. 4. b). It is in this way that all feeling of fear departs from a man who recognises his own true Self, because this recognition implies that beside his own true Self there is no other entity which might cause fear.

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5. Another very important point in connection with the psychology of the Upanishads is the conflict manifested in the Chhāndogya Upanishad beween the respective claims for primacy of the Will or the Intellect. Here we have in brief the indication of a future quarrel between Voluntarism and Intellectualism. The following passage most eloquently describes the stress which the seer first lays on Will as the primary reality: "All these therefore......centre in will, consist of will, abide in will. Heaven and earth willed, air and ether willed, water and fire willed. Through the will of heaven and earth, rain falls; through the will of rain, food wills; through the will of food, the vital airs will; through the will of the vital airs, the sacred hymns will; through the will of the sacred hymns, the sacrifices will; through the will of the sacrifices, the world wills; through the will of the world, every thing wills. This is Will. Meditate on Will. He who meditates on Will as Brahman......he is, as it were, lord and master as far as Will reaches—he who meditates on Will as Brahman" (S. 5). The seer of this Upanishad is evidently imbued with the all-pervading power of Will. It seems that this passage among others must have influenced the philosophy of that admirer of the Upanishads, Schopenhauer, who laid so much stress on Will as the Ding-an-sich. We may compare the following passage from The World as Will and Idea (Book I). "If we observe the strong and unceasing impulse with which the waters hurry to the ocean, the persistency with which the magnet turns ever to the north pole, the readiness with which iron flies to the magnet, the eagerness with which the electric poles seek to be reunited, and which, like human desire, is increased by obstacles; if we see the crystal quickly take form with such wonderful regularity of construction,......if we observe the choice with which bodies repel and attract each other,......if we observe all this, I say, it will require no great effort of the imagination to recognize, even at so great a distance, our own nature. That, which in us pursues its ends by the light of knowledge, but here, in the weakest of its manifestations, only strives blindly and dumbly in a one-sided and unchangeable manner, must yet in both cases come under the name of Will." According to the doctrine which is common to this Upanishad and Schopenhauer, the whole world seems to be filled with the force of will; and "what appears as *motivation* in human beings is the same as what appears as *stimulation* in the vegetative life and as *mechanical process* in the inorganic world"—motivation, stimulation, and mechanical process being different manifestations of the same force of Will.

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6. As against this primacy of Will, the seer of the Chhāndogya Upanishad goes on in the very next section of that work to affirm the primacy of Intellect. The affirmation of Will is the thesis, to which the seer opposes the affirmation of Intellect as the antithesis: "Intellect is better than Will. For it is only when a man thinks that he wills..... All these centre in Intellect, consist of Intellect, abide in Intellect. Therefore, if a man does not think, even if he knows much, people say of him, he is nothing......But if a man thinks, even though he knows little, people indeed desire to listen to him.

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Intellect is the centre, Intellect is the self, Intellect is the support of all these. Meditate on Intellect. He who meditates on Intellect as Brahman ......... he is, as it were, lord and master as far as Intellect reaches—he who meditates on Intellect as Brahman" (S. 6. a). The seer of this Upanishad is here definitely asserting the supremacy of Intellect over Will: Voluntarism here makes way for Intellectualism. This conclusion is supported by another passage from the Maitri Upanishad, where the writer speaks of the mind in its reflective aspect as being the fount and source of all mental modifications whatsoever: "He (man) sees by the mind alone; he hears by the mind; and all that we call desire, will, doubt, belief, disbelief, resolution, irresolution, shame, thought, and fear,—all this is but mind itself" (S. 6. b).

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7. This intellectualistic way of thought finds its culmination in the Aitareya Upanishad, where, by a bold stroke of genius, the seer of that Upanishad makes a noteworthy classification of the various mental functions, at the basis of which, he says, lies Intellection. This passage is remarkable as being the earliest contribution to a classification of mental states: "Sensation, perception, ideation, conception, understanding, insight, resolution, opinion, imagination, feeling, memory, volition, conation, the will-to-live, desire, and self-control, all these are different names of Intellection" (S. 7). It is remarkable that the seer not merely mentions the different levels of intellectual experience such as sensation, perception, ideation, and conception, as different from one another, but also recognises the other two characteristic forms of experience, feeling and volition; makes a distinction between volition which need not involve the idea of activity, and conation which does; as well as recognises the processes of imagination and memory. Finally, the intellectualistic trend of thought in the seer is apparent from the way in which he makes Intellect the fount and source of all mental activity whatsoever.

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8. It is no wonder if this intellectualistic psychology makes room for an idealistic metaphysics. The intellectualistic seer of the Aitareya Upanishad is an idealist as well. In the very section that follows the one we have quoted, the author goes on to point out how Intellect is the backbone, not merely of psychical functions, but of reality itself: "This god Brahmā, and this god Indra,.........these five great elements (earth, air, ether, water, fire),.........creatures born from the egg, from the womb, and from perspiration, sprouting plants, horses, cows, men, elephants, whatsoever breathes whether moving or flying, and in addition whatsoever is immovable—all this is led by Intellect and is supported on Intellect. The world is led by Intellect. Intellect is the support. Intellect is the final reality" (S. 8. a). This is as outspoken an Idealism as Idealism can be. The author says that all the movable and immovable objects in this world, all those creatures which walk or fly, all the elements and gods exist by virtue of intellect and in intellect. This is in the very spirit of Berkeley who says in his "Treatise," "All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world have not any subsistence without a mind; that their being is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit:—it being perfectly unintelligible and involving all the absurdity of abstraction to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a Spirit". Of like import is the passage from the Maitri Upanishad which tells us that it is the inner self which governs "external" existence, that, in short, the inner Prāṇa is the source of the existence of the Sun—a knowledge, which, the passage says, is given only to a few (S. 8. b).

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