A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s1.4

c6.s1.4

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.