A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s2.t1: The immanence and transcendence of God

c8.s2.t1.1

The Upanishads are not without reference to the immanence and transcendence of God. There are some passages which declare merely his immanence, others merely his transcendence; others again bring together the two aspects of the immanence and transcendence of God. Thus, for example, we are told in the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad that "God is to be regarded as being present in fire and in water, in all the universe, in the herbs and plants." In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad we are told how God-Ātman is immanent in us from top to toe, as a razor is entirely closed up within the razor-box, or again, as a bird is pent up within its nest. A story from the Chhāndogya Upanishad also brings into relief this aspect of the immanence of God. We are told there how the disciple was asked by his teacher to place a small piece of salt in water at night, and come to him in the morning; how the disciple did as he was commanded; how, when the teacher asked him what had become of the salt, the disciple could not find it out because it had already melted in the water; how when the teacher asked him to taste the water from the surface, then from the middle, and then from the bottom, the disciple replied that it was salt in all places; then how the teacher told him that the salt, even though it seemed to have disappeared in the water, was thoroughly present in every part of it. Thus, verily, says the clever teacher, is that subtle Ātman immanent in the universe, whom we may not be able to see, but whom we must regard as existing as the supreme object of faith (S. 9. a). All these passages speak of the thorough immanence of God. A passage from the Kaṭhopanishad, which reminds us of a similar one from the Republic of Plato, which speaks of the Sun of the world of Ideas, tells how the universal Self is to be regarded as beyond all the happiness and the misery of the world—“like the celestial Sun who is the eye of all the universe and is untouched by the defects of our vision” (S. 9. b). Here the transcendence of God is clearly brought into relief. In other passages, we are also told how God is to be regarded as having “filled the whole world and yet remained beyond its confines.” “Like the fire and the wind which enter the world and assume various forms, the universal Ātman is immanent in every part of the universe and protrudes beyond its confines.” “Verily motionless like a lone tree does this God stand in the heaven and yet by Him is this whole world filled.” This is how the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad declares the transcendence and immanence of God (S. 9. c). We see from all these passages how God-Ātman is to be regarded as having filled every nook and cranny of the Universe, and yet having overflowed it to a limitless extent. In any case, the God in the universe is to be regarded as identical with the Self within us : it is only when this identification takes place that we arrive, according to the Upanishadic philosophers, at the ultimate conception of Reality.