A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c9.s2.7.3

c9.s2.7.3

on the other hand, we are told in another passage of that same work (III. 42), that just as God is beyond all senses and mind, similarly He is beyond even this faculty of Buddhi or Intuition. But when words fail to exactly describe the nature of the Faculty of God-realisation, it may become serviceable psychologically to "invent" a term, to call it either Buddhi or Intuition, and then to make it responsible for the vision of God. The Upanishads, however, take yet another turn, and look at the question of God-realisation not from the psychological but from the moral point of view. The Muṇḍakopanishad tells us that "it is only when a perfect katharsis of the whole moral being takes place by the clearness of illumination, that one is able to realise the immaculate God after meditation ; for He can be attained neither by sight, nor by word of mouth, nor by any other sense, nor by penance, nor by any actions whatsoever" (S. 17. a). Of like import is that other passage from the Kaṭhopanishad which tells us that "it is only when the whole moral being is purged of evil that one is able to realise the greatness of God" (S. 17. b). We prefer to understand the reading "Dhātuprasāda" instead of "Dhātuḥprasāda" in the above passage, for to our mind the idea of Dhātṛi or Creator is absolutely irrelevant to the passage and can only be illegitimately smuggled into it, the purification of the moral being yielding quite a necessary and legitimate sense.