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A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s3: III—The Psychological Approach

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s3

Language
English

Contents

III—The Psychological Approach

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12. Let us now proceed to see how the Upanishadic philosophers reached the idea of ultimate reality by the psychological method. In a conversation which took place between King Janaka and Yājñavalkya as reported in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad, we find that Yājñavalkya asked Janaka as to what psychological doctrines he had heard about the nature of ultimate reality. Janaka was a very inquisitive and philosophically inclined king, and he had therefore known all the opinions on that head which had been imparted to him by different sages. He proceeded to tell Yājñavalkya the opinions of these various philosophers. "Jitvan Śailini told me," said king Janaka, "that speech was the ultimate reality." Yājñavalkya answered that this was merely a partial truth. Then king Janaka told him that Udaṅka Śaulbāyana had said to him that breath was the ultimate reality. This also, said Yājñavalkya, was only a partial truth. Varku Vārṣṇi had told him, said Janaka, that the eye was the final reality. This again, said Yājñavalkya, was only a partial truth. Then the king went on to say how Gardabhi-vipīta Bhāradvāja had told him that the ear was the final reality; how Satyakāma Jābāla had said that the mind was the final reality; how Vidagdha Śakalya had told him that the heart was the final reality;—all of which opinions, said Yājñavalkya, were only partial truths (S. 10. a). In this enumeration of the opinions of different Upanishadic philosophers as regards the various physiological or psychological categories as constituting the ultimate reality, and in Yājñavalkya’s rejection of each one of them in turn, there lies implicitly the conception that ultimate reality can be found only in the Self, and not in the accidental adjuncts with which the Self may come to be clothed. This same idea has been developed in the Kena Upanishad where we are told that “the Self must be regarded as the ear of ear, as the mind of mind, as the speech of speech, as the breath of breath, as the eye of eye. Those who know the Self thus are released from this world and become immortal.” “That which speech is unable to give out, but that which itself gives out speech, know that to be the ultimate reality, not that which people worship in vain. That which the mind is unable to think, but which thinks the mind, know that to be the ultimate reality; that which the eye is unable to see, but that which enables us to see the eye, know that to be the ultimate reality; that which the ear does not hear, but that which enables us to perceive the ear, that which breath is not able to breathe, but that by which breath itself is breathed, know that to be the final reality” (S. 10. b.). In this passage we are told that the Self must be regarded as the innermost existence, while all the physiological and psychological elements are only external vestures, which clothe reality but which do not constitute it.

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13. We now come to a very famous parable in the Chhāndogya Upanishad which unmistakably tells us how we must arrive at the conception of the Self-conscious Being within us as constituting the ultimate reality. In a very clever analysis of the psychological states through which a man's soul passes, the author of that Upanishad brings out how the ultimate reality must not be mistaken with bodily consciousness; how it must not be confused with the dream-consciousness; how it transcends even the deep-sleep-consciousness; how, finally, it is the pure Self-consciousness, which is beyond all bodily or mental limitations. We are told in the Chhāndogya Upanishad that the gods and demons were, once upon a time, both anxious to learn the nature of final reality, and they therefore went in pursuit of it to Prajāpati. Prajāpati had maintained that "that entity, which is free from sin, free from old age, free from death and grief, free from hunger and thirst, which desires nothing, and imagines nothing, must be regarded as the ultimate self." The gods and demons were anxious to know what this Self was. So the gods sent Indra and the demons Virochana as their emissaries to learn the final truth from Prajāpati. They dwelt there as pupils at first for a period of thirty-two years, which condition was necessary before a master could impart spiritual wisdom to his disciples. Then Prajāpati asked them what it was that had brought them there.

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Indra and Virochana told him that they had come to him in order that they might know the nature of the Self. Now Prajāpati would not immediately tell them the final truth. He tried to delude them by saying first that the Self was nothing more than the image that we see in the eye, in water, or in a mirror. It was this, he said, which must be regarded as the immortal and fearless Brahman. Indra and Virochana became complacent in the belief that they had understood the nature of the Self. They bedecked themselves by putting on excellent clothes and ornaments, cleaned themselves, looked into a water-pan, and imagined they had visualised the ultimate Self, and went altogether composed in mind. Virochana told the demons that he had been in possession of the ultimate secret, namely, that the so-called Self was no other than the image that one sees in the eye, in a mirror, or in a pan of water, thus identifying the Self with the mere image of the body. The Upanishad tells us how there are a certain set of people who take this as final gospel, which it calls the gospel of the Asuras. There must be a slight reference here to those, who, like the later Chārvākas, maintained that the Self was nothing more than the mere consciousness of body. Indra, however, unlike Virochana, bethought himself that Prajāpati must not have given him the final answer in the matter of the knowledge of ultimate reality. There was this difficulty that pressed itself before him.

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"It is true," he said, "that, when the body is well adorned, the Self is well adorned; when the body is well dressed, the Self is well dressed; when the body is well cleaned, the Self is well cleaned; but what if the body were blind, or lame, or crippled? Shall not the Soul itself be thus regarded as blind, or lame, or crippled"? He thought that there was this great difficulty in the teaching that had been imparted to him by Prajāpati, and so he went back again to Prajāpati to request him once more to tell him what ultimate reality was. Prajāpati advised him to practise penance once more for thirty-two years, and, when Indra had performed that penance, Prajāpati supplied him with another piece of knowledge. "The true Self is he," said Prajāpati, "who moves about happy in dreams. He is the immortal, the fearless Brahman." In fact, Prajāpati told him that dream-consciousness must be regarded as identical with the Self. This seemed to please Indra and he went back; but before he reached the gods, he saw again that there was another difficulty in the information that had been imparted to him.

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him by Prajāpati. "Do we not feel," he asked himself, "as if we are struck, or chased in our dreams? Do we not experience pain, and do we not shed tears in our dreams? How can we account for this difficulty if the Self were to be identified with dream-consciousness"? So he went back to Prajāpati again, and told him that the knowledge which he had imparted to him could not be final, inasmuch as the dream-consciousness seemed to him to be affected with feelings of pain and fear. The true Self could experience neither pain nor fear. Prajāpati saw that Indra was a pupil worthy to know better things, and so he asked him once more to practise penance for another thirty-two years, at the end of which time he imparted to him another piece of knowledge which was yet not the highest knowledge, namely, when he said, that the true Self must be regarded as identical with the deep-sleep consciousness in which there is perfect repose and perfect rest. Indra was satisfied with the answer which Prajāpati had given and returned. But before he reached the gods, he again saw that the real Self could not be identified even with deep-sleep consciousness for the simple reason that in deep-sleep we are conscious neither of our own selves nor of objects. In fact, in deep-sleep we are as if we were only logs of wood. There is neither consciousness of self nor consciousness of the objective world. Feeling this great difficulty in the teaching that had been imparted to him by Prajāpati, he went back again and told him that he could not be satisfied with the knowledge which had been imparted to him, namely that the ultimate Self was to be found in the consciousness of deep-sleep. For, he said, in that state there was neither self-consciousness, nor any consciousness of the objective world; and it seemed as if the soul was entirely annihilated in that state. This could not be regarded, said Indra, as the final wisdom. Prajāpati now saw that Indra by his shrewd insight had made himself worthy of receiving the highest knowledge. So he asked Indra once more, and this time finally, to practise penance for five years again. Indra practised penance for five years, thus completing the round of penance for a hundred and one years. At the end of that period, he went in all humility to Prajāpati and implored him to give him an insight into the final knowledge. Prajāpati said, "Verily, O Indra, this body is subject to death, but it is at the same time the vesture of an immortal Soul. It is only when the Soul is encased in the body, that it is cognisant of pleasure and pain. There is neither pleasure nor pain for the Soul once relieved of its body. Just as the wind and the cloud, the lightning and the thunder, are without body, and arise from heavenly space and appear in their own form, so does this serene being, namely, the Self, arise from this mortal body, reach the highest light, and then appear in his own form. This Serene Being, who appears in his own form is the highest Person." There is here an indication of the true nature of ultimate reality as being of the nature of self-consciousness. That which sees itself by itself, that which recognises itself as identical with itself in the light of supreme knowledge—that must be regarded as the final reality. The final reality, therefore, according to the Chhāndogya Upanishad, is reached in that theoretic, ecstatic, self-spectacular state in which the Self is conscious of nothing but itself. (S. 11). There is a great meaning which runs through this parable. By an analysis of the different states of consciousness, the philosopher of the Chhāndogya Upanishad points out that the bodily consciousness must not be mistaken for final reality, nor the consciousness in dreams, nor that in deep sleep.

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The Soul is of the nature of pure self-consciousness, the Kantian "I am I." Those who mistake the ultimate Self as identical with bodily consciousness are the materialists. Those who identify it with the consciousness in the dream-state rise a little higher no doubt, but they mistake the Self for what the modern Theosophists call the "etheric double." Those, on the other hand, who regard the Self as identical with deep-sleep consciousness also misunderstand its nature, because there is in that state no consciousness either of the object world or of the Self. The true Self could only be the self-conscious Being, shining in his own native light, thinking of nothing but his own thought, the νόησις νοήσεως of Aristotle, the supreme theoretic Being, the eternal Self-spectator.

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14. We have hitherto seen how the philosopher of the Chhāndogya Upanishad arrives at the conception of Self-consciousness as constituting the ultimate reality. We have seen also how the Upanishadic philosophers generally regard God as identical with this pure self-consciousness. The philosopher of the Taittirīya Upanishad gives us certain characteristics of this final reality which enable us to regard his argument as almost an ontological characterisation of reality. "The Absolute," he says, "is Existence, Consciousness, and Infinity" (S. 12. a). In this identification of the Absolute with Consciousness, we have again the real nature of the Ātman brought out in bold relief. Existence to that philosopher means Consciousness. The same idea is repeated elsewhere in the Aitareya Upanishad, where the author of that Upanishad speaks "of the gods of the heaven and the beings of the earth, whether produced from eggs, or embryo, or sweat, or from the earth, everything that moves, or flies, or is stationary—Self-consciousness is the eye of all these. They are rooted in Self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is the eye of the world; it is Self-consciousness which is the Absolute" (S. 12. b). Here we have unmistakably the ontological argument, namely, that ultimate Existence must be identified with Self-consciousness. Thus by a survey of the different approaches to the problem of Reality, namely, the cosmological, the theological, and the psychological, we see that the Upanishadic philosophers try to establish Reality on the firm footing of Self-consciousness. Self-consciousness to them is the eternal verity. God to them is not God, unless he is identical with Self-consciousness. Existence is not Existence if it does not mean Self-consciousness. Reality is not reality, if it does not express throughout its structure the marks of pure Self-consciousness. Self-consciousness thus constitutes the ultimate category of existence to the Upanishadic philosophers.

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