A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s1.6

c8.s1.6

Then suddenly sprang before Indra one very beautiful celestial damsel, from whom Indra inquired what that Great Being was, which had made its sudden disappearance from before him. Then that damsel told him that it was Brahman, and said further, that it was due to the power of the Brahman that the gods had gained victory over the demons, and not to their own personal power. God Indra was shrewd enough and understood that the power of the gods was only a manifestation of the power of the Absolute. It was on account of this humility, which made it possible for him to go to Brahman and touch him nearest, that he became the foremost of the gods. " It is verily the power of Brahman which flashes forth in the lightning and vanishes again. It is the power of Brahman which manifests itself as the motion of the soul in us and bethinks itself" (S. 5. a). This parable tells us that all physical as well as mental power is to be regarded merely as a manifestation of the power of Brahman. We thus see how the philosopher of the Kenopanishad arrives cosmologically at the conception of an unmanifested Power which lies at the back of the so-called manifest powers of nature and mind, and which must therefore be understood as the primary reality.