Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s4: IV—The Significance of Self-consciousness

A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s4

Language
English

IV—The Significance of Self-consciousness

c8.s4.1

15. The great question that now confronts the Upanishadic seeker after truth is: if Self-consciousness is the final reality, how would it be possible for us to realise it? Can bare intellect suffice to give us a vision of this final reality, or is there any other process beyond the reach of intelligence which has the power of taking us within the portals of pure Self-consciousness? The Upanishadic answer is that mere intellect would be lame to enable us to realise pure Self-consciousness. Pure Self-consciousness could only be reached in a state of mystic realisation. Whether

c8.s4.2

Self-consciousness : its epistemological and metaphysical significance contrasted with the mystical.

c8.s4.3

the mystical faculty, which may be called intuition, is higher than, analogous to, or included in the faculty of intellect, whose product all philosophy is, we shall not stop here to consider. It raises a large problem which does not lie within the scope of this work. We shall, however, try to describe it partly in our last Chapter on “The Intimations of Self-Realisation,” where we shall see how it would be possible mystically to realise Self-consciousness. Our answer there would evidently be the super-sensuous and the super-intellectual answer. Intuition, as we shall see, is a superior faculty to either mere sensuous perception, or intellective apprehension. At present, however, we are concerned merely with the “philosophic” aspect of pure Self-consciousness, which may be looked at from two different points of view, the epistemological and the metaphysical. We shall see first what the epistemological aspect of Self-consciousness is according to the Upanishads, and then shall end this chapter by bringing out its full metaphysical significance, reserving the mystical aspect of it for our last chapter.

c8.s4.4

16. Epistemologically, we are told in various passages of the Upanishads, it would not be possible for us to know the Self in the technical meaning of the word “knowledge.” Our readers might bring to mind the fact that Kant equally well regarded Reality, as consisting of God and the Self, as technically unknowable. These were, he said, merely matters of faith. The Upanishadic answer is that it is true that God and the Self are unknowable, but they are not merely objects of faith, they are objects of mystical realisation. Then, again, the Upanishads do not regard the Self as unknowable in the agnostic sense of the word, for example, in the sense in which Spencer understands it. Rather, it is "unknowable" from the standpoint of philosophic humility.

c8.s4.5

(i) The Ātman, say the Upanishadic philosophers, is unknowable in his essential nature. "That, from which our speech turns back along with mind, being unable to comprehend its fulness, is the ultimate reality," says the Taittirīya Upanishad. "That where the eye is unable to go, where neither speech nor mind is able to reach—what conception can we have of it, except that it is beyond all that is known, and beyond all that is unknown!" says the Kenopanishad. The philosopher of that Upanishad says in an Augustinian mood that he who thinks he knows does not know, while he who thinks he doesnotknow does really know. *Cognoscendo ignorari, et ignorando cognosci.* The Kathopanishad in a similar vein says that "the Self is not in the first instance open to the hearing of men, but that even having heard him, many are unable to know him. Wonderful is the man, if found, who is able to speak about him; wonderful, indeed, is he who is able to comprehend him in accordance with the instruction of a teacher" (S. 13. a). We see in all these passages how the Ātman is to be regarded as unknowable in his essential nature.

c8.s4.6

(ii) There is, however, another side to the subject of the unknowability of Ātman. The Ātman is unknowable because He is the Eternal Subject who knows. How could the Eternal Knower, ask the Upanishads in various places, be an object of knowledge? "The Ātman is the Great Being," says the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad "who knows all that is knowable; who can know him who himself knows?" In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad, in various passages, we are put in possession of the bold speculations of the philosopher Yājñavalkya. " That by whom everything is known, how could he himself be known ? It is impossible to know the knower." " It would not be possible for us to see the seer, to hear the hearer, to think the thinker, and to apprehend him by whom everything is apprehended." " He is the eternal seer without himself being seen ; he is the eternal hearer without himself being heard ; he is the only thinker without himself being thought ; he is the only comprehender without any one to comprehend him ; beyond him there is no seer, beyond him there is no hearer, beyond him there is no thinker, beyond him there is no being who comprehends"(S. 13. b.) We thus see that the question of the unknowability of Ātman has another aspect also, namely, that He is unknowable because He is the Eternal Subject of knowledge, and cannot be an object of knowledge to another beside Him.

c8.s4.7

( iii ) But this raises another fundamental question. Granted that the Self is the eternal knower of objects, granted also there is no other knower of him, would it be possible for the knower to know himself ? This very subtle question was asked of Yājñavalkya in another passage of the Bṛhadāraṇyakopanishad, and here again we see the brilliant light which the sage Yājñavalkya throws on the problem. It is possible, he says, for the knower to know himself. In fact, Self-knowledge or Self-consciousness is the ultimate category of existence. The Self can become an object of knowledge to himself. According to the philosophy of Yājñavalkya, nothing is possible, if self-consciousness is not possible. Self-consciousness is the ultimate fact of existence. We see here how boldly Yājñavalkya regards both introspection and self-consciousness as the verities of experience. We also see the nudity of the doctrines of Kant and Comte when they try to deny the fact of introspection. Introspection is a psychological process corresponding to Self-consciousness as a metaphysical reality. Self-consciousness is possible only through the process of introspection. The Self is endowed with the supreme power of dichotomising himself. The empirical conditions of knowledge are inapplicable to the Self. The Self can divide himself into the knower and the known. It is wonderful how Kant should have posited the " I am I " as the supreme metaphysical category, which he called the transcendental, original, and synthetic unity of apperception, and yet should have denied the reality of the corresponding psychological process of introspection. The answer of Yājñavalkya is that Self-consciousness is possible, and is not only possible, but alone real. King Janaka asked Yājñavalkya what was the light of man. Yājñavalkya first said that the light of man was the sun. It is on account of the sun that man is able to sit and to move about, to go forth for work, and to return. " When the sun has set, O Yājñavalkya," asked king Janaka " what is the light of man?" Yājñavalkya said that then the moon was the light of man. For, having the moon for light, man could sit, and move about, and do his work, and return. " When both the sun and the moon have set," asked king Janaka, " what is the light of man?" " Fire indeed," said Yājñavalkya, " is man's light. For having fire for his light, man can sit and move about, do his work, and return." " When the sun has set, when the moon has set, and when the fire is extinguished, what is the light of man?" asked Janaka. " Now, verily," says Yājñavalkya, " you are pressing me to the deepest question. When the sun has set, when the moon has set, and when the fire is extinguished, the Self alone is his light ” (S. 13. c.). Yājñavalkya is here clearly positing what Aristotle called “ theoria, ” the act of pure self-contemplation in which the Self is most mysteriously both the subject and object of knowledge.

c8.s4.8

17. We have seen, hitherto, the epistemological significance of the conception of pure Self-consciousness in the Upanishads. We have seen that the Self is regarded as unknowable in his essential nature, as well as because he cannot be an object of knowledge. We have seen also that he can dichotomise himself and make himself at once the knower and the known. It remains for us now to discourse on what may be called the metaphysical significance of the conception of Self-consciousness. In the preceding Chapter we have seen how the whole field of philosophic thought was torn by the conflicts of the metaphysicians, some regarding the Self as entirely distinct from the Absolute, others regarding it as a part of the Absolute, and yet others regarding the Self and the Absolute as entirely identical. These constitute respectively the fundamental positions of the three great metaphysical schools—the dualistic, the quasi-monistic, and the monistic. Never has any land possibly experienced such bitter and prolonged argumentative battles as were witnessed in India throughout the history of its thought. The question arises : Is there any way out of the difficulty? How is it that each of these different metaphysical schools comes to interpret the same Upanishadic passages as confirming its own special metaphysical doctrines? Shall we not say that the Upanishads are higher than the Commentators? Is there not a common body of metaphysical doctrine in the Upanishads which each of the metaphysical schools has only partially envisaged? Is the utterance of that greatest of Indian philosophers to be regarded as vain, when he said that the Schools may battle among themselves, but yet that Philosophy is above the Schools? May we not find a supreme clue to the reconciliation of these different battling doctrines? We must go back to the Upanishads themselves, with our mind entirely purged of all scholastic interpretation. Let us make our mind a *tabula rasa*, an unwritten slate upon which there is no hurtful imprint of scholastic superstition, and we shall see that there is a clue through the labyrinth and mazes of the philosophic conflicts. It is true that the reconciliation of the different schools must come, if at all, only through mystical experince. It is only in mystic experience that each school and each doctrine can have its own appointed place and level. But it may also be granted to us to look even philosophically at the problem, to go back to the texts of the Upanishads themselves, to arrange them in a serial order of developing philosophical propositions, and finally to see a vista of supreme reconciliation spreading out before us among the battling forces.

c8.s4.9

18. We may arrange the different stages of spiritual experience, as developed in the Upanishads, philosophically interpreted, in a series of five developing propositions. We may regard them as constituting the ladder of spiritual experience with a series of five ascending steps. The first stage of spiritual experience would consist, according to Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad, in realising the Self, in mystically apprehending the glory of the Self within us, as though we were distinct from him (S. 14. a). Now comes the second stage. Another passage from the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad tells us that the Being, which calls itself the "I" within us, must be identified with the Self that is hitherto realised. We must experience that we are really the very Self, and that we are neither the bodily, or the sensuous, or the intellectual, or the emotional vestures; that we are in our essential nature entirely identical with the pure Self. This is the second stage (S.14.b). In the third stage of spiritual experience, we must come to realise, according to Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad, that the Self that we have realised is identical with the Absolute. This same identification of the Ātman and the Brahman, of the Individual Spirit and the Universal Spirit, of the Self and the Absolute, is also proclaimed by the epistolary stanza of the Īśa and its cognate Upanishads, where we are told that the Ātman must be regarded as verily the Brahman, that the Ātman is infinite in its nature as also the Brahman, that the Ātman derives its being from Brahman, that subtracting the infinity of the Ātman from the infinity of the Brahman, the residuum is even infinite. Thus does that epistolary stanza pile infinities over infinities, and, taking the mathematical lead, speak as if when the infinity of the Ātman is deducted from the infinity of the Brahman, the remainder itself is infinite. The inner meaning of this assertion is that we should see that there is no difference between the Self and the Absolute. This constitutes the third stage (S.14.c). Now comes the fourth. If the Being that calls itself the "I" within us is the Ātman according to our second proposition, and if it is to be entirely identified with the Brahman according to our third proposition; that is, in other words, if I am the Self, and the Self is the Absolute; then, it follows syllogistically that I am the Absolute. This is unmistakably inculcated by a passage of Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad, where we are told that we must identify the " I " with the Absolute. Another aspect of the same doctrine is proclaimed in the Chhāndogya Upanishad, where the " Thou " comes also to be " projectively " identified with the Absolute. This constitutes the fourth stage (S. 14. d. ). If now the " I " is the Absolute, and if also the " Thou " is equally the Absolute, if, in other words, both the subject and object are the Absolute, then it follows that everything that we see in this world, Mind and Nature, the Self and the not-Self, equally constitute the Absolute. Whatever falls within the ken of apprehension, equally with whatever we are, goes to make up the fulness of the Absolute. The Brahman according to the Chhāndogya Upanishad is verily the " ALL " (S. 14. e ). To such a giddy height does the philosophic ladder take us on the rising steps of philosophic thought. This is verily the position of Absolute Monism. Whether this state of Absolute Monism is to be merely intellectually apprehended, or mystically realised, depends upon whether we are by nature destined to be merely torch-bearers or mystics in the spiritual pilgrimage. That we should prefer the second alternative will be evident in our last Chapter on the " Intimations of Self-Realisation."

Linked texts (5)