01The Message of the Upaniṣads
THE MESSAGE OF THE UPANIṢADS is a study, verse by verse, of three of the principal Upaniṣads, namely, Īśā, Kena, and Kaṭha. The first contains eighteen, the second thirty-five, and the third one hundred and nineteen verses. Though constituting a small portion of the total Upaniṣadic literature, they yet contain a lucid exposition of all the essential ideas of this immortal literature.
Scholars are divided as to the date of the composition of the Upaniṣads. Many of them are agreed, however, that most of the principal Upaniṣads belong to the period prior to the advent of Buddha in the seventh century before Christ. There are over two hundred Upaniṣads, many of them sectarian in character and palpably post-Buddhistic and even post-Śaṅkara.
02The Principal Upaniṣads
The principal Upaniṣads are accepted to be those which Śaṅkarācārya (CE 788-820) chose to comment upon, they are ten in number and enumerated in the Indian tradition as follows: Īśā, Kena, Kaṭha, Praśna, Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍūkya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Chāndogya, and Bṛhadāraṇyaka. According to some scholars, Śaṅkara also commented on an eleventh Upaniṣad, the Śvetāśvatara. In his commentary on the Brahma-Sūtra, he refers to four more, namely, Kauṣītakī, Jābāla, Mahānārāyaṇa, and Paiṅgala.
The Īśā Upaniṣad embodies in its very opening verse the central theme of all the Upaniṣads, namely, the spiritual unity and solidarity of all existence.
The Kena illumines the nature of knowledge by pointing out the eternal knower behind all acts of knowing, and purifies man’s concept of ultimate reality of all touch of finitude and relativity by revealing its character as the eternal Self of man and the Self of the universe.
The Kaṭha holds a special fascination for all students of the Upaniṣads for its happy blend of charming poetry, deep mysticism, and profound philosophy; it contains a more unified exposition of Vedānta than any other single Upaniṣad; its charm is heightened by the two characters of its dialogue, namely, old Yama, the teacher, and young Naciketā, the student.
The Praśna, as its name implies, is an Upaniṣad of questions; each of its six chapters comprises a question asked by each of a group of six inquiring students on various aspects of Vedānta, and the answers given by their teacher, the sage Pippalāda.
The Muṇḍaka, after classifying all knowledge (vidyā) into parā, higher, and aparā, lower, and describing all science, art, literature, politics, and economics — in fact, all positive knowledge, the knowledge of the changeful many — as aparā, and boldly including even the Vedas and all sacred books in this category, proclaims that one knowledge as parā, ‘by which the imperishable changeless reality of the One behind the many is realised’. And the Upaniṣad sings in ecstasy the glorious vision of the One in the many.
In the brief compass of its twelve verses of condensed thought, the Māṇḍūkya surveys the whole of experience through a study of the three states of waking, dream, and dreamless sleep, and reveals the Ātman, the true Self of man, the Turīya or the Fourth, as it puts it, as pure consciousness, eternal and non-dual. It proclaims in its second verse the infinite dimension of man in a pregnant utterance — one of the four mahāvākyas or the ‘great utterances’ of the Upaniṣads: अयमात्मा ब्रह्म (ayamātmā brahma) — ‘This Ātman (Self of man) is Brahman.’ (Mān. 1.2)
The Taittirīya, after majestically proclaiming that ‘the knower of Brahman attains the Supreme’: ब्रह्मविदाप्नोति परम् (Brahmavidāpnoti param) (Tai. 2.1.1), describes the five kośas or sheaths that enclose and hide Brahman, and demonstrates the technique of piercing these sheaths of relativity and finitude with a view to reaching the infinite and the eternal at the core of experience. It also provides a scientific definition of Brahman as ‘that from which all these beings are born, by which, after being born, they live, and into which they merge when they cease to be’.
The Aitareya establishes the spiritual character of the Absolute through a discussion of the nature of the Self of man, and proclaims this truth in another of the four mahāvākyas: प्रज्ञानं ब्रह्म (Prajñānaṁ brahma): ‘Brahman is pure Consciousness.’ (Ai. 3.1.3)
The Chāndogya introduces us to charming truth-seekers like Satyakāma, Śvetaketu, and Nārada, and outstanding spiritual teachers like Āruṇi, Sanatkumāra, and Prajāpati. Through several illuminating teacher-student dialogues, the Upaniṣad helps us to discriminate the reality of being from the appearance of becoming. In a brief utterance of deep spiritual and philosophical import, treated as another of the four Mahavākyas, it sings in refrain the divinity of man: तत्त्वमसि (tattvamasi) — ’That thou art.’ (Ch. 6.8.7) It prescribes a knowledge of this innate divinity of man as the one remedy for the deeper ills of life: तरति शोकमात्मवित् (tarati śokamātmavit)— ’The knower of the Ātman crosses all sorrow.’ (Ch. 7.1.3) In its profoundly human episode of the discipleship of Indra under Prajāpati, it instructs us in the true nature and technique of man’s spiritual quest and the blessings that flow from spirituality. It is an impressive account of man’s spiritual education, his growth from worldliness to spirituality. It points out the limitations of materialism as a philosophy of life and the evils that flow from it.
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka, the longest of the Upaniṣads, is, as its name implies, a big (bṛhat) forest (araṇya) of philosophical thought and spiritual inspiration. Four outstanding personalities illumine its pages — two men and two women — Janaka, the philosopher-king, Yājñavalkya, the philosopher-sage, Maitreyī, the deeply spiritual wife of Yājñavalkya, and Gārgī, the vācaknavī, the ‘gifted woman speaker and philosopher’ who is foremost among the questioners of Yājñavalkya in philosophical debate. The Upaniṣad majestically expounds, through its fascinating dialogues conducted by these outstanding and other lesser personalities, the central theme of all the Upaniṣads, namely, the divinity of man and the spiritual solidarity of the whole universe in Brahman. It contains another of the four mahāvākyas, namely, अहं ब्रह्मास्मि (ahaṁ brahmāsmi)— ‘I am Brahman’, (Br. 1. 4. 10) besides the ayamātmā brahma of the Māṇḍūkya already referred to. It dares to characterize Brahman as ‘the fearless’, and presents its realisation by man as the attainment, here and now, of the state of absolute fearlessness and fullness of delight.
03From Obscurity to Prominence
It goes to the eternal credit of Śaṅkara that, through his masterly commentaries on the principal Upaniṣads, he brought out of obscurity this immortal literature, as also the great Bhagavad Gītā, and made them accessible and intelligible to a wider audience; and that audience has been steadily widening ever since, aided by the contributions of subsequent commentators, thinkers, and sages, until, in the present age, thanks to the techniques of modern western civilization, the whole world has become its actual or potential audience.
Apart from the great western orientalists, whose translations and expositions brought this and other books of the Indian tradition to the attention of scholars in East and West, it was from Swami Vivekananda, the most authentic voice of Vedānta in the modern age, that vast masses of men and women in both the hemispheres became drawn to the spiritual charm and rational strength of this literature and to a recognition of its relevance to man in the modern age. In his lecture on ‘Vedānta and Its Application to Indian Life’, the Swami says (CW. Vol. III, Mayavati Memorial Edition, pp.125-63):
Strength, strength is what the Upaniṣads speak to me from every page. This is the one great thing to remember, it has been the one great lesson I have been taught in my life; Strength, it says, strength, O man, be not weak. Are there no human weaknesses? — says man. There are, say the Upaniṣads, but will more weakness heal them, would you try to wash dirt with dirt? Will sin cure sin, weakness cure weakness?.… Ay, it is the only literature in the world where you find the word abhīḥ ‘fearless’, used again and again; in no other scripture in the world is this adjective applied either to God or to man.… And the Upaniṣads are the great mine of strength. Therein lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world; the whole world can be vivified, made strong, energized through them. They will call with trumpet voice upon the weak, the miserable, and the downtrodden of all races, all creeds and all sects, to stand on their feet and be free. Freedom — physical freedom, mental freedom, and spiritual freedom — are the watchwords of the Upaniṣads.
Śaṅkara’s commentaries on these Upaniṣads, especially on those of their passages pregnant with philosophical and spiritual import, are masterpieces of philosophical discussion illumined by deep spiritual insights. His masterly handling of the Sanskrit language in these commentaries gives us a prose which is marked by brevity and vigour, simplicity and poetic charm.
04What the Upaniṣads Contain
In the Upaniṣads, we get an intelligible body of verified and verifiable spiritual insights mixed with a mass of myths and legends and cosmological speculations relating to the nature and origin of the universe. While the former has universal validity, and has a claim on human intelligence in all ages, the latter forswears all such claim. All positivistic knowledge contained in any literature, including religious literature, is limited and conditioned by the level of contemporary scientific knowledge. Modification, and even scrapping, of much of this knowledge due to subsequent advances has affected the truth-validity of much of man’s literary heritage, including his religious and philosophical ones.
The spiritual insights of the Upaniṣads, however, are an exception to the tyranny of time. Subsequent scientific advances have not only not affected their truth-value but have, on the contrary, only helped to reveal the rational basis of their insights and enhance their spiritual appeal. This is no wonder, because these insights are the products of an equally scientific investigation into a different field of experience, namely, the world of man’s inner life.
05Satyasya Satyam
By sheer speculation on the meaning of the facts of the external world, the Vedic thinkers had earlier arrived at a unitary conception of the universe, at a materialistic monism, through their concepts of avyakta, indeterminate nature, or prāṇa, cosmic energy. But the culminating point of their discoveries was the spiritual unification of all experience in the Ātman or Brahman: ब्रह्मैवेदं विश्वमिदं वरिष्ठम् (Brahmaivedaṁ viśvamidaṁ variṣṭham) — ‘All this manifested universe is verily Brahman the Supreme’ (Mu. 2. 2. 11); इदं सर्वं यदयमात्मा (idaṁ sarvaṁ yadayamātmā) — ’All this (manifested universe) is this Ātman’ (Bṛ. 2. 4. 6); and तद् एतद् ब्रह्म अपूर्वम् अनपरम् अनन्तरम् अबाह्यम्, अयम् आत्मा ब्रह्म सर्वानुभू: (tad etad brahma apūrvam anaparam anantaram abāhyam, ayam ātmā brahma sarvānubhūḥ) — ‘This Brahman is without a prior or a posterior, without interior or exterior; this Ātman is Brahman, the experiencer of everything ‘ (Bṛ. 2. 5. 19).
If everything is the Ātman or Brahman, the universe of name and form cannot be an illusion. The Upaniṣads consider it as māyā; but this does not mean illusion. Māyā is a mere statement of fact, what we are and what we see around us. It refers to the inner contradiction involved in our experience of the world and in our knowledge of it. These contradictions will remain, say the Upaniṣads, so long as we remain at the sensate level, so long as we fail to take into account the Ātman, the Self behind the not-Self, the One behind the many. Yet, all our experiences and knowledge in the sphere of māyā are experiences and knowledge of the Ātman, coming through the sense-organs. Hence they are not illusory, but true.
Man travels, says Swami Vivekananda, not from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from truth that is lower to truth that is higher. Hence the Upaniṣads describe the world of the not-Self as ‘truth’ and the Self or Ātman as ‘Truth of truth’. This is conveyed in a significant passage of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka: तस्योपनिषत् सत्यस्य सत्यमिति; प्राणा वै सत्यम्; तेषाम् एष सत्यम् (tasyopaniṣat satyasya satyamiti; prāṇā vai satyam; teṣām eṣa satyam) — ‘Its (Ātman’s) intimate name is “the Truth of truth”; the cosmic energy (prāṇa) is verily, truth; and This (the Ātman) is the truth of that.’ (2. 1. 20)
Elucidating this Vedāntic idea, Swami Vivekananda says (CW. Vol. V, Mayavati Memorial Edition, p. 272):
There is really no difference between matter, mind, and Spirit. They are only different phases of experiencing the One. This very world is seen by the five senses as matter, by the very wicked as hell, by the good as heaven, and by the perfect as God.
06Inquiry into the ‘Within’ of Nature
Pointing out the reason for this change in the field of search from the external to the internal, which occurred in ancient India, and its significance for human thoughts, Swami Vivekananda says (CW. Vol. III, Mayavati Memorial Edition, pp. 330-31):
Just as the Greek mind, or the modern European mind, wants to find the solution of life and of all the sacred problems of being by searching into the external world, so also did our forefathers; and just as the Europeans failed, they failed also. But the western people never made a move more, they remained there; they failed in the search for the solution of the great problems of life and death in the external world, and there they remained stranded. Our forefathers also found it impossible, but were bolder in declaring the utter helplessness of the senses to find the solution. Nowhere else was the answer better put than in the Upaniṣads: यतो वाचो निवर्तन्ते अप्राप्य मनसा सह (yato vāco nivartante aprāpya manasā saha) — ‘From whence words, unable to reach, come back reflected, together with the mind’ (Tai. 2.4.1); न तत्र चक्षुर्गच्छति न वाग्गच्छति (na tatra cakṣurgacchati na vāggacchati) — ‘There the eye cannot go, nor can speech reach’ (Ke. I.3). There are various sentences which declare the utter helplessness of the senses, but they did not stop there; they fell back upon the internal nature of man, they went to get the answer from their own soul, they became introspective; they gave up external nature as a failure, as nothing could be done there, as no hope, no answer, could be found; they discovered that dull, dead matter would not give them truth, and they fell back upon the shining soul of man, and there the answer was found.
Posing the question how the West, which has undoubtedly been in the forefront of advance in several fields of knowledge from the time of the Greeks, could lag behind India in this field of inquiry these thousands of years, Professor Max Müller answers (Three Lectures on the Vedānta Philosophy, London, 1894, p. 7):
But if it seems strange to you that the old Indian philosophers should have known more about the soul than Greek or medieval or modern philosophers, let us remember that however much the telescopes for observing the stars of heaven have been improved, the observatories of the soul have remained much the same.
07Science and Religion
All science is the search for unity. Vedānta discovered this unity in the Ātman; it followed its own method relevant to this field of inquiry. But it illustrated its conclusions with whatever positive knowledge was available at the time. In recent centuries this knowledge has been advanced radically and vastly by modern science, the impact of which on Vedānta, however, has been most wholesome. In fact, Vedānta hopes for and welcomes further radical advances in modern science by which its own spiritual vision of the One in the many may be corroborated by positive scientific knowledge, so that the spirituality of science and the spirituality of religion may flow as a united stream to fertilize all aspects of human life.
Referring to this fact and hope in his ‘Paper on Hinduism’ read at the Chicago Parliament of Religions on 19 September 1893, Swami Vivekananda says (CW. Vol. I, Mayavati Memorial Edition, p. 15):
All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language and with further light from the latest conclusions of science.
Vedānta is thus both religion and philosophy. As religion, it discovers the truths of the inner world, and fosters the same discovery by others; and as philosophy, it synthesizes this science of the inner world with the other sciences of the outer world, to present a unified vision of total reality, and to impart to human life and character depth of faith and vision along with breadth of outlook and sympathy.
Religion, according to Vedānta, is supersensual knowledge; it is not supernatural, but only supersensual. Vedānta does not speak of any supernatural revelation. What lies within the sphere of the senses is not the concern of religion; nor has it the competence for it, says Vedānta, for that is the field of the positive sciences, the verdict of which will always hold in this field in preference to the verdict of religion. ‘Not even by a hundred statements of the Śruti (body of supersensual knowledge, or scripture), can fire become cold’, says Śaṅkara, because it goes against what has been ascertained by sense-experience and positive knowledge.
On the other hand, the positive sciences have no authority in the supersensual field of experience. They overreach themselves when they pronounce judgements on subjects like soul and God; they may, and often are, competent to provide hints and suggestions; but the inquiry itself is the concern of another science, the science of religion.
Clarifying the position of these two types of sciences, Swami Vivekananda says (CW. Vol. VI, Mayavati Memorial Edition, p. 81):
Religion deals with the truths of the metaphysical world just as chemistry and the other natural sciences deal with the truths of the physical world. The book one must read to learn chemistry is the book of (external) nature. The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart. The sage is often ignorant of physical science, because he reads the wrong book — the book within; and the scientist is too often ignorant of religion, because he, too, reads the wrong book — the book without.
08Śruti and Smṛti
The Upaniṣads are an impressive record of this ‘reading of the book within’. The scriptures of every religion are such records. But all of them, except the Upaniṣads, contain also a good bit of extraneous matter, not only myths and legends and cosmological theories, which the Upaniṣads also contain, but also a large number of rules and regulations, with their do’s and don’ts, to guide the individual and collective conduct and behaviour of their respective followers. The significance of these latter being merely local and temporary, they are not capable of universal application and are not relevant for all time; the fundamental message of all religions, however, derive from their central core of essential spiritual truths which are universal and for all time. The Upaniṣads are the only sacred books which addressed themselves exclusively to the discovery of these essential spiritual truths and to leading man, irrespective of creed and race, to their realisation in his own life.
Indian tradition refers to the Upaniṣads, therefore, as Śruti, as contrasted with another class of religious literature known as Smṛti, including the Dharma Śāstra, to which it wisely left the work of forging social rules and regulations in the past, as it would leave it to the political constitutions and social consciences today. To the category of the Smṛti also belong the sacred books of all the historical religions, which derive their origin and authority from a personal founder. Thus, among India’s sacred books, the Gītā, the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyaṇa, and all the Purāṇas are classed as Smṛtis, besides Manu-smṛti, Yājñavalkya-smṛti, and similar other books of Hindu law. Excepting the Upaniṣads, all other scriptures of religions, in India and outside, contain a mixture of Śruti and Smṛti contents in varying proportions. That is why the Upaniṣads are treated as the one Śruti par excellence.
09The Sanātana Dharma: Its Uniqueness
This explains the very high authority and prestige of the Śruti in the Indian tradition; it derives from the verified and verifiable character of its truths and their universality. Accordingly, the Smṛti is always subordinate to the Śruti in spiritual matters. Smṛtis come and go; they change age after age; but the Śruti, according to the penetrating analysis of Śaṅkara (commentary on the BS. I. 1. 2), contains वस्तुतन्त्रज्ञान (vastutantrajñāna), ‘knowledge of reality as it is’, whereas Smṛti contains पुरुषतन्त्रज्ञान (puruṣatantrajñāna), ‘knowledge depending on the person’, which ‘can be modified or altered by human effort’: कर्तुम् अकर्तुम् अन्यथाकर्तुं शक्यम् (kartum akartum anyathākartuṁ śakyam).
A Smṛti that sustained society in one age may choke it in another age. As the socio-economic conditions change, the laws and regulations too need to be recast and reinterpreted. Otherwise, they result in strangling the social organism. If the bark that protects the tree fails to grow and expand along with the growth of the tree, it will choke the tree; and if it is a living tree, it will shed that bark and grow a new living bark for itself.
Regarding all Smṛtis in general, Ramakrishna’s pithy utterance correctly conveys the Indian idea: ‘Mughal coins have no currency under the (East India) Company’s rule.’
Much of the irrelevance of the world’s religious traditions today proceeds from their inability to separate the Śruti, or the essential, from the Smṛti, or the obsolete, contents, the eternal spiritual truths from the historical socio-political dogmas, in these traditions, and their unwillingness to throw overboard the latter which have ceased to have any currency value in the changed conditions, and their incapacity to forge new Smṛtis in response to the new demands. Referring to this, the mathematician-philosopher, A. N. Whitehead, says (Science in the Modern World, p. 234):
Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. Its principles may be eternal, but the expression of those principles requires continual development.
Historian Arnold Toynbee also stresses this point in his book, An Historian’s Approach to Religion (pp.125-64):
Thus, in our society in our time, the task of winnowing the chaff away from the grain in mankind’s religious heritage is being forced upon us by a conjunction of social and spiritual circumstances. …
In the life of all higher religions, the task of winnowing is a perennial one because their historic harvest is not pure grain. In the heritage of each of the higher religions, we are aware of the presence of two kinds of ingredients. There are essential counsels and truths, and there are non-essential practices and propositions.
The essential counsels and truths are valid at all times and places, as far as we can see through the dark glass of mankind’s experience up to date. …
But at the same time these same higher religions are historical institutions; and they have been making a transit through space-time in which, at every point-moment in their trajectory, they have been encountering the local and temporary circumstances of human life. …
These accidental accretions are the price that the permanently and universally valid essence of a higher religion has to pay for communicating its message to the members of a particular society in a particular stage of this society’s history.
The philosophy and religion that India developed out of the Śruti bears, therefore, a significant title, namely, sanātana dharma, ‘Eternal Religion’. It derives its authority from its truth-character and not from any person, be he a saint or even an incarnation; and the truth-character of a teaching demands that it be verifiable by all, irrespective of dogma, creed, and race, and at all times. It has, however, a high place for saints and incarnations as exemplars and teachers of the eternal truths of religion, and for the promulgators of social laws and regulations, be they holy or gifted individuals, as in the past, or institutions like the national legislatures or international organizations, as in the present.
Throwing light on this unique characteristic of the sanātana dharma as derived from the Upaniṣads, Swami Vivekananda says in his lecture on ‘The Sages of India’ (CW. Vol. III, Mayavati Memorial Edition, pp.125-51):
Two ideals of truth are in our scriptures; the one is what we call the eternal, and the other is not so authoritative, yet binding under particular circumstances, times, and places. The eternal relations which deal with the nature of the soul, and of God, and the relations between souls and God are embodied in what we call the Śrutis, the Vedas. The next set of truths is what we call the Smṛtis, as embodied in the words of Manu, Yājñavalkya, and other writers, and also in the Purāṇas, down to the Tantras.…
Another peculiarity is that these Śrutis have many sages as the recorders of the truths in them, mostly men, even some women. Very little is known of their personalities, the dates of their birth, and so forth, but their best thoughts, their best discoveries, I should say, are preserved there, embodied in the sacred literature of our country, the Vedas. In the Smṛtis, on the other hand, personalities are more in evidence. Startling, gigantic, impressive, world-moving persons stand before us, as it were, for the first time, sometimes of more magnitude even than their teachings.
This is a peculiarity which we have to understand — that our religion preaches an Impersonal-Personal God. It preaches any amount of impersonal laws plus any amount of personality; but the very fountain-head of our religion is in the Śrutis, the Vedas, which are perfectly impersonal; the persons all come in the Smṛtis and Purāṇas — the great avatāras, incarnations of God, prophets, and so forth. And this ought also to be observed that except our religion, every other religion in the world depends upon the life or lives of some personal founder or founders. Christianity is built upon the life of Jesus Christ, Mohammedanism upon Mohammed, Buddhism upon Buddha, Jainism upon the Jinas, and so on. It naturally follows that there must be in all these religions a good deal of fight about what they call the historical evidences of these great personalities. If at any time the historical evidences about the existence of these personages in ancient times become weak, the whole building of the religion tumbles down and is broken to pieces. We escaped this fate, because our religion is not based on persons but principles. That you obey your religion is not because it came through the authority of a sage, no, not even of an incarnation. Kṛṣṇa is not the authority of the Vedas, but the Vedas are the authority of Kṛṣṇa himself. His glory is that he is the greatest preacher of the Vedas that ever existed. So with the other incarnations; so with all our sages.
By Śruti is generally meant the Vedas; specifically, it means the Upaniṣads, they being the Vedānta, the anta, literally the end or concluding portion, but in a deeper sense, the very gist or essence, of the Vedas. The Vedas or Śrutis expound sanātana dharma, which means eternal religion. Indian spiritual tradition holds the Vedas as अनादि (anādi), beginningless.
Clarifying this idea in his address at the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, Swami Vivekananda says (CW. Vol. I, Mayavati Memorial Edition, pp. 6-7):
It may sound ludicrous to this audience how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas, no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul, and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them.
The discoverers of these laws are called ṛṣis (sages), and we honour them as perfected beings. I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very greatest of them were women.
10Meaning of the Term ‘Upaniṣad’
That this is the traditional view is evident from what Śaṅkara says on the etymology of the term ‘upaniṣad’. The term means knowledge received by the student ‘sitting close to’ the teacher. Explaining the derivation of the term in the introduction to his commentary on the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, Śaṅkara says: केन पुनरर्थयोगेन उपनिषच्छब्देन विद्या-उच्यते, इत्युच्यते। ये मुमुक्षवो दृष्टानुश्रविक-विषय-वितृष्णा: सन्त उपनिषच्छब्दवाच्यां वक्ष्यमाण-लक्षणां विद्याम् उपसद्य उपगम्य तन्निष्ठतया निश्चयेन शीलयन्ति, तेषाम् अविद्यादे: संसार-बीजस्य विशरणात्, हिंंसनात्, विनाशनाद् इत्यनेन अर्थयोगेन विद्या उपनिषद् इत्युच्यते। (Kena punararthayogena upaniṣacchabdena vidyā ucyate, ityucyate. Ye mumukṣavo dṛṣṭānuśravikaviṣayavitṛṣṇāḥ santaḥ upaniṣacchabdavācyāṁ vakṣyamāṇa-lakṣaṇāṁ vidyām upasadya, upagamya, tanniṣṭhatayā niścayena śīlayanti, teṣām avidyādeḥ samsārabījasya viśaraṇāt, hiṁsanāt, vināśanād ityanena arthyogena vidyā upaniṣad ityucyate) — ‘By what etymological process does the term upaniṣad denote knowledge? This is now explained. Those who seek liberation, being endowed with the spirit of dispassion towards all sense objects, seen or heard of, and, approaching this knowledge indicated by the term upaniṣad presently to be explained, devote themselves to it with one-pointed determination — of such people, this knowledge removes, shatters, or destroys the avidyā (ignorance or spiritual blindness), which is the seed of all relative existence or worldliness. By these etymological connections, upaniṣad is said to mean knowledge.’
And anticipating a possible objection, Śaṅkara continues: ननु च उपनिषच्छब्देन अध्येतारो ग्रन्थमपि अभिलपन्ति, उपनिषदम् अधीमहे, उपनिषदम् अध्यापयाम इति च। नैष दोष:, अविद्यादि-संसारहेतु-विशरणादे: सदिधात्वर्थस्य ग्रन्थमात्रे असम्भवाद् विद्यायां च सम्भवात्, ग्रन्थस्यापि तादर्थ्येन तच्छब्दत्वोपपत्ते:, आयुर्वै घृतमित्यादिवत्। तस्माद् विद्यायां मुख्यया वृत्त्या उपनिषच्छब्दो वर्तते, ग्रन्थे तु भक्त्या इति। (Nanu ca upaniṣacchabdena adhyetāro granthamapi abhilapanti, upaniṣadam adhīmahe, upaniṣadam adhyāpayāma iti ca. Naiṣa doṣaḥ; avidyādi-saṁsārahetu-viśaraṇādeḥ sadidhātvarthasya granthamātre asambhavād vidyāyāṁ ca sambhavāt, granthasyāpi tādarthyena tacchabdatvopapatteḥ, āyurvai ghṛtamityādivat. Tasmād vidyāyāṁ mukhyayā vṛttyā upaniṣacchabdo vartate, granthe tu bhaktyā iti) — ‘It may be urged that students use the term upaniṣad even to denote a book, as when they say ‘We shall study the Upaniṣad’, ‘We shall teach the Upaniṣad’. This is no fault; since the destruction etc. of the seed of worldliness, which is the meaning of the root sad (in upa-ni-sad), cannot be had from a mere book, but can be had from knowledge, even the book may also be denoted by that term, because it serves the same purpose (indirectly), as when we say that ‘clarified butter is verily life’. Therefore, the ‘upaniṣad’ primarily refers to knowledge, and only secondarily to a book.’
Education involving the student ‘sitting close to’ the teacher means the most intimate student-teacher communion. The higher the knowledge sought, greater is this communion and greater the silence accompanying the knowledge-communication. These values reach their maximum when the knowledge that is sought and imparted is of the highest kind, namely, ātmajñāna or brahmajñāna, knowledge of the Ātman or Brahman, which, as Śaṅkara points out in his commentary on the Brahma-Sūtra (I. 1. 2): अनुभवावसानत्वाद् भूतवस्तु-विषयत्वाच्च ब्रह्मज्ञानस्य (anubhavāvasānatvād bhūtavastuviṣayatvācca brahmajñānasya) — ’finds its consummation in experience (or realisation), since the knowledge of Brahman relates to a reality which is already existing.’
11Truth versus Opinion
One of the fascinating features of the Upaniṣads is love of truth and its fearless quest. Referring to this, Robert Ernest Hume says in his book The Thirteen Principal Upaniṣads (p. 30, footnote):
The earnestness of the search for truth is one of the delightful and commendable features of the Upaniṣads.
In them we are always in the company of earnest students and teachers who discuss the central problems of all philosophy and religion with a sincerity and thoroughness, objectivity and detachment, rare in the history of philosophic thought. The Upaniṣads discovered very early in history what Thomas Huxley refers to as the difference between opinion and truth, between ‘I believe such and such’ and ‘I believe such and such to be true.’ Says Huxley (quoted by J. Arthur Thomson in his Introduction to Science, p. 22):
The longer I live, the more obvious it is to me that the most sacred act of a man’s life is to say and feel, ‘I believe such and such to be true.’ All the greatest rewards and all the heaviest penalties of existence cling about that act.
A belief is true if it has stood, and can always stand, the test of experience, and not because it has been said by a man or written in a book. The essential Vedāntic truths belong to this category; they possess universal validity as they are verifiable by all men. This is forcefully brought out by Śaṅkara in a remarkable passage of his commentary on the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad dealing with the validity of scriptural statements (I. 4. 7): न वाक्यस्य वस्त्वन्वाख्यानं क्रियान्वाख्यानं वा प्रामाण्याप्रामाण्यकारणं, किं तर्हि? निश्चितफलवद्-विज्ञानोत्पादकत्वम् । तद् यत्र अस्ति तत्प्रमाणं वाक्यम्, यत्र नास्ति तदप्रमाणम्— Na vākyasya vastvanvākhyānaṁ kriyānvākhyānaṁ vā prāmāṇyāprāmāṇya-kāraṇam, kiṁ tarhi? Niścitaphalavad-vijñānotpādakatvam. Tad yatra asti, tat pramāṇaṁ vākyam; yatra nāsti, tadapramāṇam — ‘The test of the validity of a sentence is not that it just states something about a thing or about an act. What (is it) then? (It is) its capacity to generate certain and fruitful knowledge. A sentence that has this is valid; while one that lacks it is invalid.’
Such truths are far different from the private beliefs of an individual or a group, a sect or a church, held with all emotional intensity and projected for other people’s acceptance with equal fervour. Such beliefs cannot claim ‘the greatest reward’ because they have not paid ‘the heaviest penalty’ involved in being subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of reason and being thrown open to universal verification. Referring to this unique characteristic of Vedānta, Romain Rolland says (The Life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel, Third Impression, 1947, p. 196):
The true Vedāntic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their co-ordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe.
12The Upaniṣads and Modern Crisis
The modern world is experiencing a far-reaching re-assessment in all aspects of human life and thought. Initiated and sustained by the positive sciences and modern technology, this process began as an intellectual movement but soon developed into a dynamic socio-political force. In its methods and results, it was as much a destructive force as a constructive one. It lifted man from many fears and uncertainties of his primitive past and landed him in new and more gnawing fears and uncertainties. It destroyed many a fable and myth and superstition imbedded in his past traditions, and challenged, and continues to challenge, the credentials of every one of his beliefs and practices in the moral, religious, socio-economic, and other fields of his life.
These are solid gains; but they are not enough; they have “lengthened the ropes” without, however, “strengthening the stakes” as the Bible puts it. The tree of life has branched wide without correspondingly rooting deep. In the modern achievement, the sciences of nature have far outstripped the sciences of man, leaving man puny and unstable, with his centre of gravity always outside of himself. Moral and spiritual values emerge only from the sciences of man.
Referring to this imbalance, the bitter fruits of which are found in the shallowness and sterility of much of modern intellectualism and in the widespread cynicism among the intellectuals, Bertrand Russell says (The Scientific Outlook, pp. 278-79):
Man has been disciplined hitherto by his subjection to nature. Having emancipated himself from this subjection, he is showing something of the defects of slave-turned-master. A new moral outlook is called for in which submission to the powers of nature is replaced by respect for what is best in man. It is where this respect is lacking that scientific technique is dangerous. So long as it is present, science, having delivered man from bondage to nature, can proceed to deliver him from bondage to the slavish part of himself.
This “respect for what is best in man”, and the science which will “proceed to deliver man from bondage to the slavish part of himself”, is what the Upaniṣads developed ages ago in India in her अध्यात्मविद्या (adhyātmavidyā), in her science of the inner world of man, in her “science of human possibilities”, in the words of Julian Huxley.
The intellect on which the light of the Ātman shines is far different from the intellect which is in thrall to the sense-organs. These two groups of sciences — the sciences of outer nature and the sciences of inner nature — need to pool their resources together to advance man on the evolutionary path of total fulfilment.
“Take religion away from human society and what remains is a forest of brutes”, says Swami Vivekananda. Echoing this conviction in the concluding portion of his Autobiography, astro-physicist R. A. Millikan says:
It seems to me that the two great pillars upon which all human well-being and human progress rest are, first, the spirit of religion, and, second, the spirit of science — or knowledge. Neither can attain its largest effectiveness without support from the other. To promote the latter, we have universities and research institutions. But the supreme opportunity for everyone with no exception lies in the first.
Without the spiritual nourishment coming from religion, the phenomenal progress of the modern age has become wobbly in its movement and blind in its course.
13Lead Kindly Light
The “wheel of modern progress” revolves faster and faster decade after decade, and man everywhere is feeling dazed and unable to find his bearings. He finds himself deep in a situation where his past is unrecoverable, his present uncertain, and his future an interrogation. Is this the twilight of a day of hope and cheer ahead, or of a night holding gloom and sorrow in store?
Never in human history has man experienced so much darkness within him in the midst of all-round enlightenment outside of him, so much inner poverty in the context of measureless enrichment without, and so much loneliness in the midst of an environing crowd. The modern crisis is thus essentially a spiritual crisis, and modern man is seeking for light to lead him out of the encircling gloom. His heart today is crying for truth, for light, and for life.
All these facts indicate that the whole of the modern world is in the throes of a silent spiritual revolution. The sentiments of the ancient Vedic prayer are echoed in the silent murmurings, deep searchings, and unspoken prayers of the heart of modern man (Br. I. 3. 28): असतो मा सद्गमय, तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय, मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय। (Asato mā sadgamaya; Tamaso mā jyotirgamaya; Mṛtyormāmṛtaṁ gamaya) — ‘From the unreal lead me to the Real; from darkness lead me to Light; from death lead me to Immortality.’
To convert this twilight into a twilight of dawn and of a brighter day is the challenge facing human knowledge and human wisdom today.
Great thinkers of the past and present have held fast to the conviction that the eternal soul of India has preserved, through the ups and downs of her long history, a perennial message of hope and cheer to all humanity.
In the preface to his book, The World as Will and Idea (Vol. I, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London, pp. XII-XIII), Schopenhauer, writing in the middle of the nineteenth century, has referred to the impact which the Vedānta will in due course have on the West. After stating that the West’s acquaintance with the Vedas, “the access to which, opened to us through the Upaniṣads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones”, he predicted:
I believe that the influence of the Sanskrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century.
Concluding his treatment of India in Our Oriental Heritage (written in 1935), the first volume of his series on The Story of Civilization, the American philosopher and historian, Will Durant, says (p. 633):
One cannot conclude the history of India as one can conclude the history of Egypt, or Babylonia, or Assyria; for that history is still being made, that civilization is still creating.…
It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier, India has sent to us such questionable gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy, and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all, our numerals and our decimal system. But these are not the essence of her spirit; they are trifles compared to what we may learn from her in the future. As invention, industry, and trade bind the continents together, or as they fling us into conflict with Asia, we shall study its civilizations more closely, and shall absorb, even in enmity, some of its ways and thoughts. Perhaps, in return for conquest, arrogance, and spoliation, India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit, and a unifying, pacifying love for all living things.
Swami Vivekananda considered this to be India’s distinctive contribution to the sum total of human progress. In a letter written from America in 1894, the Swami says (CW. Vol. V, Mayavati Memorial Edition, p. 43):
The whole world requires Light. It is expectant! India alone has that Light, not in magic, mummery, and charlatanism, but in the teaching of the glories of the spirit of real religion — of the highest spiritual truth. That is why the Lord has preserved the race through all its vicissitudes unto the present day. Now the time has come.
This conviction of Vivekananda and other thinkers derives its guarantee from the Upaniṣads, and the living spiritual tradition, intellectually strong, scientific, and therefore universal, flowing from them and getting periodically enriched by spiritual giants like Buddha and Śaṅkara, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. The following pages of The Message of the Upaniṣads will, I hope, enable the reader to test for himself or herself the strength and relevance of this conviction and its guarantee.
