A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s1.1

c8.s1.1

3. We shall first discuss the cosmological approach, and see how it was found deficient. The naive mind of the natural man is likely to consider the forces of nature as ultimate realities; but a deeper speculation and a greater insight into events show that the phenomenal forces cannot be taken to be ultimate realities. This fact is illustrated by a story in the Chhāndogya Upanishad, where we are told how one student, Upakosala, lived for instruction with his preceptor, Satyakāma Jābāla, and served him assiduously for twelve years; how even though the ordinary period of tutelage was over, his teacher would not leave him; how the wife of the teacher asked her husband why it was that he would not leave this one disciple while he had left the others; how, when Upakosala had once gone to the forest, the three sacrificial Fires, whom he had assiduously served in his master's house, rose in bodily form before him; how the first, namely Gāhapatya, told him that the ultimate reality was to be found in the sun; how the second, namely Anvāhāryapachana, told him that it was to be found in the moon; how the last, namely Āhavanīya, told him that it was to be found in the lightning; how, in fact, Upakosala seemed to be temporarily satisfied with the instruction imparted to him by the three Fires; how, when he returned home, his teacher asked him why it was that his face shone as if with spiritual illumination; how the student told him that the spiritual illumination, if at all, was due to the instruction imparted to him by the three Fires; how the teacher replied that the teaching imparted to him by the Fires was deficient and inferior to the teaching which he himself knew; how he ultimately imparted that teaching to his disciple, which consisted in saying that the ultimate reality was to be found neither in the sun, nor in the moon, nor in the lightning, but in the image of the person reflected in the human eye. "It is this image," said Satyakāma Jābāla, "which is the Ātman. It is this image which is fearless, and the ultimate reality. It is this image which brings all blessings. It is this image which is the most resplendent thing in all the worlds. He who knows it to be so will himself be resplendent in the worlds" (S. 1). This passage evidently indicates a regress from the cosmological to the physiological category. Not satisfied with objective existences being regarded as ultimate reality, Satyakāma declares that ultimate reality is to be found in a physiological category, namely, the eye. This, in itself, as we shall see later on, is only an inferior truth, though evidently it has the merit of taking us from the outside world to the physiological sphere. In a similar spirit, in another passage of the Chhāndogya Upanishad, we are told how the light "which shines in the high heavens in transcendent space is the same light which is within man, and of this we have tactual proof, namely, when we feel the warmth in the body, and audible proof when after closing our ears we hear what may be regarded as the thunder of heaven, or the bellowing of an ox, or the sound of a burning fire. He who meditates on ultimate reality as thus dwelling in the human body becomes himself conspicuous and celebrated" (S. 2. a). This same idea is expressed in the Maitri Upanishad when the author of that Upanishad speaks of the ultimate reality in man as being verily the sound which a man hears after shutting his ears (S. 2. b). We thus see that in these passages we have a regress from the cosmological to the physiological categories, namely, the eye, or bodily warmth, or the sound that man hears after closing his ears. The cosmological approach has been tried and found wanting. It seems necessary for the Upanishadic philosophers to halt at the caravansary of the physiological categories¹ before they can proceed to the psychological destination.