A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c9.t1.3

c9.t1.3

15. We must not fail to take account, however, of a phase of the theory of the moral ideal as propounded in the Upanishads. This is the theory of what we may call Supermoralism, the state of being beyond good and bad, the ethical counterpart of the metaphysical theory of Absolutism. There is, however, a distinction between the supermoralism of Bradley and Nietzsche on the one hand, and the supermoralism of the Upanishads on the other. Neitzsche's supermoralism affects only the superman, who, in the possession of absolute strength, defies, and therefore rises above, all conceptions of good and bad. The Bradleyan supermoralism affects only the Absolute, which in its absoluteness is to be regarded as being beyond both good and bad. On the other hand, the Upanishadic supermoralism affects the Individual as well as the Absolute, and the Individual only so far as he may be regarded as having realised the Absolute in himself. The passage from the Kathopanishad which tells us that "the Absolute is beyond duty and beyond non-duty, beyond action and beyond non-action, beyond the past and beyond the future," supported likewise by the passage from the Chhāndogya Upanishad which tells us that "the bodiless Ātman is beyond the reach of the desirable and the undesirable" (S. 15. a), has its counterpart in the passage from the Muṇḍakopanishad which tells us that "the Moral Agent shakes off all conceptions of merit and demerit, that is, in other words, goes beyond the reach of virtue and vice, and good and bad, when he has attained to divine assimilation after realising the golden-coloured Being who is the lord and governor of all" (S. 15. b). Similarly, we are told in the Bṛihadāraṇyakopanishad that the Ātman who lives in the citadel of our heart, and who is the lord and protector of all, grows neither great by good actions nor small by evil actions (S. 16. a), while he who contemplates upon this Ātman himself attains a like virtue, when his greatness ceases to grow by good actions, or diminish by bad actions (S. 16. b). These passages tell us that the Moral Agent goes beyond the reach of good and bad, when and only so far as he has attained to likeness with, or becomes merged in, the Ātman, who is himself, metaphysically speaking, beyond the reach of good and bad.