A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s1.4.1

c8.s1.4.1

5. The cosmological approach has been tried and found wanting in favour of either of physiological or psychological categories. But it does not by any means follow that the cosmological speculations of the Upanishadic philosophers did not lead them independently to the positing of Absolute Existence. If we look deeper, we shall find in them the same kind of cosmological proof for the existence of the Absolute, as we find, for example, in the history of Greek Philosophy. A passage of the Taittirīya Upanishad declares that behind the cosmos there must be an existence which must be regarded as responsible for its origin, sustenance, and absorption: “that from which all these beings come into existence, that by which they live, that into which they are finally absorbed, know that to be the eternal verity, the Absolute" (S. 4. a). And, again, a cryptic formula of the Chhāndogya Upanishad declares that a man must compose himself in the belief that the world has come out of, lives in, and is finally absorbed in the Absolute. The philosopher of this Upanishad expresses this whole conception by means of a single word *tajjalān*, which means that it is from the Absolute that the world has sprung, it is into it that it is dissolved, and it is by means of it that it lives (S. 4. b).