A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c9.s4.2

c9.s4.2

14. The photic or auditive experiences which we have referred to above, though they may be called the harbingers of a full-fledged realisation to come, do not yet constitute the acme of Self-realisation. One very celebrated passage of the Muṇḍakopanishad tells us that the Ātman cannot be realised except by one whom the Ātman himself chooses : before such a one does the Ātman reveal his proper form (S. 22. a). This is verily the doctrine of Grace. It implies that man's endeavours after a full-fledged realisation of God may always fall short of the ideal, unless Grace comes from above. It is only when the Ātman chooses the saint for the manifestation of his supreme glory that the mystic will be able to perceive Him. It is only then that the golden-coloured Being of the Chhāndogya Upanishad who can be seen on the Sun, "with golden mustaches, and golden hair, and who shines like gold up to his very toes," can come to be identified, as by the sage of the Īśopanishad, with the Being within oneself (S. 22. b). It is only then that the Individual Spirit can become one with the Universal Spirit. The Śvetāśvataropanishad tells us that "just as a mirror which is cleaned of its impurities becomes lustrous and capable of reflecting a lustrous image, even thus does the mystic see Himself at the height of his spiritual experience and reach the goal of his endeavour. Just, again, as with the help of a lamp one is able to see an object, similarly by the help of the Individual Self he sees the lustrous Universal Self, who is unborn, who is the highest reality, and who is beyond all existences" (S. 22. c). The mystic imagery implied in the above quotations from the Śvetāśvatara is made absolutely clear in the teaching of the great sage Maitri who imparted to his disciple "the highest secret of the Upanishads" when he said that at the acme of spiritual expreience the mystic sees his own form in a flood of supreme light arising from within himself, which indeed constitutes the realisation of the immortal and fearless Ātman (S. 22. d).