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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.s2: 16. How is God the Soul of Nature?

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.s2

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16. How is God the Soul of Nature?

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God, the Soul of Nature.

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There is a passage in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka which tells us that God is the Antaryāmin of the universe: He lives inside and governs the universe from within. This doctrine of the Antaryāmin, which is advanced in that Upanishad in the conversation between Uddālaka Āruṇi and Yājñavalkya, constitutes the fundamental position in the philosophy of Rāmānuja when he calls God the the Soul of Nature. Uddālaka Āruṇi asked Yājñavalkya two questions. “Pray tell me,” he said, “what is the Thread by which this world and the other world and all the things therein are held together?” “Pray tell me also,” he continued, “who is the Controller of the Thread of this world and the other world and all the things therein?” These are the two celebrated questions propounded in the passage which we are discussing, namely, the doctrine of the Thread and the doctrine of the Thread-Controller. Yājñavalkya answered the first question by saying that Air might be regarded as the Thread by which this world and the other world and all the things therein are held together. The second question he answered by saying that He alone might be regarded as the inner Controller “who dwells in the earth and within the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth is, who from within controls the earth. He is thy Soul, the inner controller, the immortal. He who dwells in the waters and within the waters, whom the waters do not know, whose body the waters are, who from within controls the waters, He is thy Soul, the inner controller, the immortal.” Thus Yājñavalkya went on to tell Uddālaka Āruṇi that the inner Controller is He who is immanent likewise “in fire, in the intermundia, in air, in the heavens, in the sun, in the quarters, in the moon, in the stars, in space, in darkness, in light, in all beings, in Prāṇa, in all things and within all things, whom these things do not know, whose body these things are, who controls all these things from within. He is thy Soul, the inner controller, the immortal. He is the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the ununderstood understander; other than Him, there is no seer, other than Him there is no hearer, other than Him there is no thinker, other than Him there is no understander; He is thy Soul, the inner controller, the immortal. Everything beside Him is naught" (S. 23. a). In this wise does Yājñavalkya declare the immanence within, and the inner control of the universe by the all-pervading God. In the same fashion does the author of the Taittirīya tells us that "at the time of creation, God entered everything that he created, and after having entered, became both the This and the That, the Defined and the Undefined, the Supported and Supportless, Knowledge and Not-Knowledge, Reality and Unreality—yea, he became the Reality; it is for this reason that all this is verily called the Real" (S. 23. b). This passage also declares the immanence of God in all things whatsoever, even in contradictories, and tells us that what thus comes to exist is the Real. The whole of Nature, therefore, which is God's handiwork, as well as God's garment, is filled and inspired by God who is its inner Controller and Soul.

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17. How is God the Soul of Souls? We are told in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka by the help of a simile which is oft repeated in the Upanishads that "just as the spokes of a wheel are held together in the navel and felly of a wheel, similarly in this Supreme Soul are centred all these beings, all gods, all worlds, all the individual souls—the Supreme Soul is the king of them all" (S. 24. a). In another passage, the same Upanishad tells us, by a change of metaphor, that "just as little sparks may come out of fire, even so from the Supreme Soul all prāṇas, all worlds, all gods, all beings come out. This is to be mystically expressed by saying that the Supreme Soul is the verity of verities; the

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God, the Soul of Souls.

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prāṇas, as well as other things mentioned along with them, are verities, of whom the Universal Soul is the supreme verity" (S. 24. b). In these passages we are told how God may be regarded as the Soul of Souls, and we are also unmistakably told that the Supreme Soul is the Real of the Reals, the verity of verities, the individual souls and the world being themselves verities. This is corroborated by another passage of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka which tells us that God is the All—"both the formed and the formless, the mortal and the immortal, the stationary and the moving, the this and the that......He is the verity of verities, for all these are verities, and He is the supreme verity" (S. 24. c). Both the moving and the stationary are thus the forms of God; this is as much as to say, that God is the Soul of organic as well as inorganic nature. He fills the Souls as he fills the Universe, and controls them both as their inner governor.

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18. What is the doctrine of Immortality corresponding to such a philosophic position? Rāmānuja's main text in this matter is the passage from the Muṇḍaka which tells us that "when the devotee sees the golden-coloured Person who is the all-doer, the all-governor, and the source of the universe, he shakes off both sin and merit, and free from these, attains to divine likeness" (S. 25. a). We have already noticed to a certain extent in the concluding portion of the last chapter how this conception of the immortal life in Rāmānuja compares with the conceptions both of Madhva and Śaṅkara. While, to Madhva, beatitude consists in being lifted up to the region of the deity and coming into his presence, to Rāmānuja it consists in attaining to divine assimilation and in being like him though different from him, while to Śaṅkara it consists in being finally atoned to Divinity and being absorbed in that Divine Life in such a way that no trace of personal existence remains. These conceptions of Immortality are the logical outcome of the philosophical positions advanced by these thinkers. We are not concerned here to discuss which of them seems to us to be philosophically sound, but we are only noting how each of these philosophers finds justification for his theory of the immortal life in the Upanishads themselves. There is a further point in which Madhva and Rāmānuja agree with each other and differ from Śaṅkara. In a passage from the Muṇḍaka we are told that “a man, who has attained to a perfect catharsis from evil, and has his intellect firmly rooted in the principles of the Vedānta, after death goes to the regions of Brahmā, with whom he attains to final absolution at the time of the great end” (S. 25. b). This passage preserves the personal immortality of the souls and keeps them from being absorbed in divinity. Such a “Kramamukti,” as it is called, is not in line with the real philosophical position of Advaitism, which sees in man the possibility of being liberated even while he lives. According to Advaitism, it is possible for man to attain to “Jīvanmukti” as it is called, to become free while living and though living, to say nothing about the state of the soul after man’s death. When a man has realised God, he becomes one with Him, and is absorbed in him. That is the Advaitic position. There is an end of the matter, and the help of no celestial god, however great, need be invoked for carrying such a devotee along with him to the state of liberation at the time of the Great End.

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19. How does Śaṅkara’s philosophy lead to such a view of the immortal life? What are the logical presuppositions of such a doctrine? What, in other words, are the fundamental conceptions of Śaṅkara’s philosophy which ultimately justify such a view of the absorption of the Individual into the Universal Soul? How does Śaṅkara answer the problems which have been mooted in the systems of Madhva and Rāmānuja? A full solution of these questions cannot be attempted here. We can only indicate the lines on which Śaṅkara answers the opposite points of view and constructs an Advaitic philosophy, which is all the while, according to him, based on the Upanishads themselves. From the point of view of the Absolute, *sub specie æternitatis*, Nature and Soul and God are all equally appearances. The Absolute alone is : and Nature and Soul and God are, only so far as they are, the Absolute. But, *sub specie temporis*, there is a Nature, there are the Souls, there is a God. Śaṅkara makes the great distinction between the Pāramārthika and Vyāvahārika views of reality as Kant makes the distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal. It is from the phenomenal point of view that we may say that Souls are different from God; that Nature exists as a *heteros*; that God creates; but noumenally, the Absolute alone exists, and Nature, and Souls, and God are all merged in the Absolute. For him who sees the Ātman everywhere, what difference can ever remain, asks Śaṅkara? All difference vanishes for him. “Theologians may battle among themselves, but the Absolutist battles with none.” It is from this point of view that the truths of the dualistic and the qualified-monistic systems of the Vedānta are both subsumed in the higher synthesis of the monistic. We shall see how Śaṅkara finds justification for such views in the Upanishads.

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The fundamental propositions of Śaṅkara’s Philosophy.

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20. The fundamental platform of Śaṅkarite philosophy is that the universe is one: that there is no difference within it, or without it. From death to death does he go, says the Kaṭhopanishad, who sees difference in this world; non-difference can be perceived only by the highly trained intellect (S. 26. a). Brahman is alike throughout its structure, and the knowledge of any part of it is the knowledge of the whole. When Śvetaketu returned from his teacher's house, proud, self-satisfied, and thinking himself learned, his father asked him whether his teacher had taught him the knowledge of Ultimate Existence, "by hearing which everything that is not heard becomes heard, by thinking which everything that is not thought becomes thought, by knowing which everything that is not known becomes known." Śvetaketu plainly confessed ignorance and requested his father to tell him what that supreme instruction was. Then Āruṇi, his father, told him that, "just as by the knowledge of a lump of earth, everything that is made of earth comes to be known, all this being merely a word, a modification and a name, the ultimate substratum of it all being the earth; that just as by the knowledge of a piece of iron everything made of iron becomes known, all this being merely a word, a modification and a name, the ultimate substratum of it all being iron; that just as by the knowledge of a pair of nail-scissors, everything made of steel becomes known, all this being merely a word, a modification and a name, the ultimate substratum of it all being steel" (S. 26. b), similarly, when any part of Brahman is known, the whole of it is known, the ultimate substratum of it all being Brahman itself, which is self-identical, self-subsistent, and self-known. The implication of this passage is that everything that exists is Brahman.

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This is corroborated also by a passage from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka when in his conversation with his wife Maitreyi, Yājñavalkya said " all this Brāhmaṇa-hood, all this Kshatriya-hood, all these worlds, all these gods, all these beings, in fact, everything that exists is Ātman. Just as when a drum is being beaten, one is not able to grasp the external sound, but by grasping the drum or the beater of the drum, the sound becomes grasped ; just as when a conch-shell is being blown, one is not able to grasp the external sound, but by grasping the conch-shell or the blower of the conch-shell, the sound becomes grasped ; that just as when a lute is being played, one is not able to grasp the external sound, but by grasping the lute or the player of the lute, the sound becomes grasped " (S. 26. c), similarly, in the case of the knowledge of the external world, if one is not able to grasp the external world as it is in itself, by grasping the Mind, or by grasping the Ātman, the external world becomes grasped. This latter statement, of course, is only implied in the above passage, and not explicitly stated ; but it cannot be gainsaid that the Ātman is here compared to the lute-player or the drum-beater or the conch-blower, while the Mind by means of which the Ātman perceives is compared to the lute or the drum or the conch, while the external world is compared to the sounds that issue from these instruments. This is verily an idealistic monism in which the active part is attributed to the Ātman, while the Mind serves as the instrument for its activity. In another passage of the same Upanishad, Yājñavalkya tells Maitreyi that the Ātman is the only knower and that he could not be known by anyone except himself. " It is only when there seems to be a duality that one smells the other, that one sees the other, that one hears the other, that one speaks about the other, that one imagines about the other, that one thinks about the other ; but where the Ātman alone is, what and whereby may one smell, what and whereby may one perceive, what and whereby may one hear, what and whereby may one speak, what and whereby may one imagine, what and whereby may one think ? He who knows all this, by what may anybody know *Him*? He is the eternal knower, by what may *He* be known?'' (S. 26. d). Such a doctrine takes Yājñavalkya perilously near the position of an absolute solipsism from which he tries to extricate himself in his conversation with king Janaka in a later chapter of the same Upanishad when he tells us that ``when it is said that such a one does not see, the real truth is that he sees and yet does not see ; for never is the vision of the seer destroyed, for that is indestructible ; but there is nothing besides him, and outside him, which may be said to be seen by him. When it is said that such a one does not smell or taste or speak or hear or imagine or touch or know, he does all these things and yet does not do them, for never are the olfaction, the taste, the speech, the audition, the imagination, the touch and the knowledge of him destroyed, for they are indestructible ; there is, however, nothing outside him and different from him which he may smell, or taste, or speak, or hear, or imagine, or touch, or think'' (S. 26. e). In this way, does Yājñavalkya extricate himself from the absolutely solipsistic position in which his absolute monism has landed him. The outcome of these passages is, that for the Absolutist there is nothing different from or outside the Ātman, that knowledge of any part of him is the knowledge of the whole, that all causation is ultimately due to him, that everything beside him is an appearance, that he is the only eternal knower, and that it is only when he becomes entangled in the phenomenal acts of perception and knowledge that he may be said to perceive and know, and yet the truth is that he does not perceive and know. The Ātman is the only entity to exist, and there is naught beside him.

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21. Even though metaphysical philosophy may require such a rigoristic conception of the Absolute, for the purposes of religion and for the explanation of the phenomenal existence of the world, a God has to be invented, who, in Māṇḍukyan fashion, should be the lord of all, the knower of all, the inner controller of all, the *fons et origo* of all, the final haven of all. Advaitism does not negate such a conception of God. It requires God just for the sake of the purposes above mentioned; but higher than God philosophically, it regards the conception of the Absolute. God to an Advaitist is the personal aspect of the Absolute, and the Absolute the impersonal aspect of God. It is in this spirit that the Māṇḍukyopanishad makes a distinction between the conceptions of God and the Absolute, and regards the latter conception as philosophically even a higher one. "The Absolute is neither inwardly cognisant, nor outwardly cognisant, nor on both sides together. It is not a cognition-mass. It is neither knower nor not-knower. It is unseen, unpracticable, ungraspable, indefinable, unthinkable, unpointable. It is the essence of the experience of self-identity; in it all this universe ceases. It is tranquil, blessed, and without a second" (S. 27. a). It is true that there are a few positive characterisations of the Absolute in this passage; but the general description of it is, as may be easily remarked, couched only in negative terms. It is impossible for any absolutist philosophy to say anything, and to say at the same time that it is not outside itself.

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However much a rigorously monistic philosophy may describe the Absolute in negative terms, the very negation becomes affirmation, and it cannot rid itself entirely of some positive characterisation at least of the Absolute. It was this that happened in the case of the Upanishadic Absolute. The Bṛihadāraṇyaka describes the Absolute as "the not-gross and the not-subtle, the not-short and the not-long, the not-glowing and the not-shadowy, the not-dark, the not-attached, the flavour-less, the smell-less, the eye-less, the ear-less, the speech-less, the mind-less, the Prāṇa-less, the mouth-less, the un-internal, the un-external, consuming nothing, and consumed by none" (S. 27. b). This is a purely negative characterisation of the Absolute in the Bṛihadāraṇyaka. The Kaṭha mixes up negative and positive characteristics of it, as does the Muṇḍakopanishad. The Kaṭha tells us that the Brahman is "sound-less, touch-less, form-less, taste-less, imperishable, smell-less, beginning-less, end-less, greater than the great and eternal, garnering which one is able to escape the clutches of death" (S. 27. c). The Muṇḍaka tells us that the Brahman is "unpointable, ungraspable, without family and without caste, without eye and without ear, without hands and without feet, eternal, all-pervading, omnipresent, extremely subtle, imperishable, and the source of all beings" (S. 27. d). The typical formulation of the negative characterisation of the Absolute is in the famous formula "Neti Neti," which, as we shall presently point out, is itself interpreted in a negative as well as a positive signification. In most of the passages from the Bṛihadāraṇyaka in which this famous expression occurs, the intended meaning is that the Absolute is characterless and indefinable; that whatever may be predicated of it falls outside it and thus fails to define it. "The Ātman is ungraspable for he cannot be grasped;

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he is indestructible for he cannot be destroyed; he is unattached because he clings to nothing; he is unbound, he does not wriggle, he is not injured...... Know this to be the secret of immortality, said Yājñavalkya to Maitreyi, and forthwith he entered the order of Saṃnyāsa" (S. 27. e). There is, however, one passage from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka where an attempt is made to give a positive connotation to the expression Neti Neti: "It is for this reason that they describe the Absolute as Neti Neti: there is nothing which exists outside it, the Brahman being all-inclusive" (S. 27. f). The inclusive character of the Absolute leads to a transcendental view about it in a later passage of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka where the Absolute is described as full both "of light and not-light, of desire and not-desire, of anger and not-anger, of law and not-law, having verily filled all, both the near and the far-off, the this and the that, the subject and the object" (S. 27. g). We thus see how the Upanishadic characterisation of the Absolute passes from the negative stage of neither-nor, through the affirmative stage of inclusiveness, to the transcendental state of either-or.

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22. What is Śaṅkara's answer to the question of the relation between the Self and the Absolute? It is true that the Absolute sub specie aeternitatis is the only reality; but what can we say about the reality of what we empirically call the Self? Śaṅkara answers that the Self is empirically real, but transcendentally ideal. From the phenomenal point of view, we say that it exists as a separate entity; but transcendentally, it is identical with the Absolute. There are many passages in the Upanishads which support this view of Śaṅkara. The Chhāndogya tells us that "the Self which inhabits the body is verily

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the Brahman, and that as soon as the mortal coil is thrown over, it will finally merge in Brahman" (S. 28. a). In the Śvetāśvatara we are told that "the individual Self flutters like a swan in the wheel of Brahman considering itself and its Mover as separate entities; but it is only when it becomes one with it that it becomes immortal" (S. 28. b). The Bṛhadāraṇyaka tells us that "he who worships the deity as separate from himself is merely the beast of the gods" (S. 28. c). In the Taittirīya an identity is asserted between the person in the Man and the person in the Sun (S. 28. d). The Muṇḍakopanishad teaches the identity of the Soul pent up in the recesses of the human heart with the Supreme Person, and identifies both with the Universe (S. 28. e). Finally, in that oft-repeated instruction which Āruṇi imparts to Śvetaketu, he teaches the absolute identity of the Self and Brahman (S. 28. f). These passages are verily a crux to the non-Advaitic interpreters of the Upanishads. What does Śaṅkara say, again, to the question of Creation? What, according to him, is the relation that subsists between the world and the souls on the one hand and Brahman on the other so far as creation is concerned? To explain creation empirically, Śaṅkara draws upon the Muṇḍakopanishad which tells us that "just as a spider creates and retracts its thread, as the herbs and trees grow upon the surface of the earth, just as from a living person the hairs of the head and the body grow, similarly, from this immutable Brahman does all this universe spring" (S. 29. a); and yet again "just as from a fire well-lit thousands of scintillations arise, and into it are resolved, similarly, from this immutable Brahman manifold beings come into existence and into it are merged" (S. 29. b). As regards the doctrine of Immortality, Śaṅkara asserts the impersonal immortality of the liberated Souls in their final mergence in the Absolute. "Just as rivers, which flow into the ocean, disappear in it after having thrown away their name and form, similarly, the Sage after having thrown off his name and form enters the highest heavenly Person (S. 30. a). " His breath does not expire; being Brahman himself, he goes to Brahman; as a serpent may throw off his slough, even so does the Sage cast off his mortal body" (S. 30. b). This last passage implies also the state of "Jīvanmukti," inasmuch as it asserts that having realised his identification with Brahman even while life lasts, he merges in Brahman when he has thrown off his mortal coil.

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23. We now come to discuss a problem, upon which there has been a great deal of difference of opinion among interpreters of Vedāntic philosophy, namely, problem of the sources of the doctrine of Māyā. There are, on the whole, three different theories which try to account for the doctrine of Māyā, as found in Śaṅkara and later writers, in three different ways: according to the first, the doctrine of Māyā is a mere fabrication of the fertile genuis of Śaṅkara; according to the second, the doctrine of Māyā as found in Śaṅkara is to be traced entirely to the influence of the Śūnyavāda of the Buddhists; according to the third, Śaṅkara's doctrine of Māyā is to be found already full-fledged in the Upanishads, of which he is merely an exponent. To say that the doctrine of Māyā is a fabrication of Śaṅkara is to deny outright the presence of its sources in the Upanishads. To say that it is the outcome of the nihilism of the Buddhists is to give, in addition, merely a negativistic, nihilistic interpretation to the philosophy of Śaṅkara. To say, again, that the doctrine of Māyā is to be

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