THE UNIVERSAL AND THE PARTICULAR

WE are a creation and part of the Absolute Reality. We have to acknowledge the rule of
universal law. That is where the foundation of our existence lies, deep down belowand
also up in the infinite space. Our strength lies in being held firm in the clasp of the
comprehensible world, and in the fullness of its community with all the existence. That
is the Truth, the Absolute Reality, the Brahma. But at the same time I am also separate
from all. There I have broken through the cordon of unity and stand alone as an
individual. I am absolutely unique, I am I, I am incomparable. The whole weight of the
universe cannot crush out this individuality of mine. I maintain it in spite of the
tremendous gravitation of all things. It is small in appearance but great in reality. For it
holds its own against the forces that would rob it of its distinction and make it one with
the dust.

This is the superstructure of the self which rises from the indeterminate depth and
darkness of its foundation into the open, proud of its isolation, proud of having given
shape to a single individual idea of the architect's which has no duplicate in the whole
universe. If this individuality be demolished then though no material be lost, not an
atom destroyed the creative joy which was crystallised therein is gone. We are absolutely
bankrupt if we are deprived of this speciality, this individuality, which is the only thing
we can call our own; and which, if lost, is also a loss to the whole world. It is most
valuable because it is not universal. And therefore only through it can we gain the
universe more truly than if we were lying within its breast unconscious of our
distinctiveness. The universal is ever seeking its consummation in the unique. And the
desire we have to keep our uniqueness intact is really the desire of the universe acting in
us. It is our joy of the infinite in us that gives us our joy in ourselves.

That this separateness of self is considered by man as his most precious possession is
proved by the sufferings he undergoes and the sins he commits for its sake. But the
consciousness of separation has come from the eating of the fruit of knowledge. It has
led man to shame and crime and death; yet it is dearer to him than any paradise where
the self lies, securely slumbering in perfect innocence in the womb of mother nature.

It is a constant striving and suffering for us to maintain the separateness of this self of
ours. And in fact it is this suffering which measures its value. One side of the value is
sacrifice, which represents how much the cost has been. The other side of it is the
attainment, which represents how much has been gained. If the self meant nothing to us
but pain and sacrifice, it could have no value for us, and on no account would we
willingly undergo such sacrifice. In such case there could be no doubt at all that the
highest object of humanity would be the annihilation of self. But if there is a
corresponding gain, if it does not end in a void but in a fullness, then it is clear that its
negative qualities, its very sufferings and sacrifices, make it all the more precious. That
it is so has been proved by those who have realized the positive significance of self, and
have accepted its responsibilities with eagerness and undergone sacrifices without
flinching.
In the first place we must keep in mind the fact that man is never literal in the
expression of his ideas, except in matters most trivial. Very often man's words are not a
language at all, but merely a local gesture of the dumb. They may indicate, but do not
express his thoughts. The more vital his thoughts the more have his words to be
explained by the context of his life. Those who seek to know his meaning by the aid of
the dictionary only technically reach the house, for they are stopped by the outside wall
and find no entrance to the hall. This is the reason why the teachings of our greater
prophets give rise to endless disputations when we try to understand them by following
their words and not by realising them in our own lives. The men who are cursed with the
gift of the literal mind are the unfortunate ones who are always busy with the nets and
neglect the fishing.

In the typical thought of India it is held that the true deliverance of man is the
deliverance from avidya, from ignorance. It is not in destroying anything that is positive
and real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative, which obstruct our
vision of truth. When this obstruction, which is ignorance, is removed, then only is the
eye lid drawn up which is no loss to the eye.

It is our ignorance which makes us think that our self, as self, is real, that it has its
complete meaning in itself. When we take that wrong view of self then we try to live in
such a manner as to make self the ultimate object of our life. Then are we doomed to
disappointment like the man who tries to reach his destination by firmly clutching the
dust of the road. Our self has no means of holding us, for its own nature is to pass on;
and by clinging to this thread of self which is passing through the loom of life we cannot
make it serve the purpose of the cloth into which it is being woven. When a man, with
elaborate care, arranges for an enjoyment of the self, he lights a fire but has no dough to
make his bread with; the fire flares up and consumes itself to extinction, like an
unnatural beast that eats its own progeny and dies.

In an unknown language the words are tyrannically prominent. They stop us but say
nothing. To be rescued from this fetter of words we must rid ourselves of the avidya, our
ignorance, and then our mind will find its freedom in the inner idea. But it could be
foolish to say that our ignorance of the language can be dispelled only by the destruction
of the words. No, when the perfect knowledge comes, every word remains in its place,
only they do not bind us to themselves, but let us pass through them and lead us to the
idea which is emancipation. Thus it is only avidya which makes the self our fetter by
making us think that it is an end in itself, and by preventing our seeing that it contains
the idea that transcends its limits. That is why the wise man comes and says, 'Set
yourselves free from the avidya', know your true soul and be saved from the grasp of the
self which imprisons you.

We gain our freedom when we attain our truest nature. The man who is an artist finds
his artistic freedom when he finds his ideal of art. Then is he freed from laborious
attempts at imitation, from the goadings of popular approbation. It is the function of
religion not to destroy our nature but to fulfil it. The Sanskrit word dharma which is
usually translated into English as religion has a deeper meaning in our language.
Dharma is the innermost nature, the essence, the implicit truth, of all things. Dharma is
the ultimate purpose that is working in our self. When any wrong is done we say that
dharma is violated, meaning that the lie has been given to our true nature.

But this dharma, which is the truth in us, is not apparent, because it is inherent. So
much so, that it has been held that sinfulness is the nature of man, and only by the
special grace of God can a particular person be saved. This is like saying that the nature
of the seed is to remain enfolded within its shell, and it is only by some special miracle
that it can be grown into a tree. But do we not know that the appearance of the seed
contradicts its true nature. When you submit it to chemical analysis you may find in it
carbon and protein and a good many other things, but not the idea of a branching tree.
Only when the tree begins to take shape do you come to see its dharma, and then you
can affirm without doubt that the seed which has been wasted and allowed to rot in the
ground has been thwarted in its dharma, in the fulfilment of its true nature. In the
history of humanity we have known the living seed in us to sprout. We have seen the
great purpose in us taking shape in the lives of our greatest men, and have felt certain
that though there are numerous individual lives that seem ineffectual, still it is not their
dharma to remain barren; but it is for them to burst their cover and transform
themselves into a vigorous spiritual shoot, growing up into the air and light, and
branching out in all directions.

The freedom of the seed is in the attainment of its dharma, its nature and destiny of
becoming a tree; it is the non-accomplishment which is its prison. The sacrifice by which
a thing attains its fulfilment is not a sacrifice which ends in death; it is the casting-off of
bonds which wins freedom. When we know the highest ideal of freedom which a man
has, we know his dharma, the essence of his nature, the real meaning of his self. At first
sight it seems that man counts that as freedom by which he gets unbounded
opportunities of self-gratification and self-aggrandizement. But surely this is not borne
out by history. Our revelatory men have always been those who have lived the life of
self-sacrifice. The higher nature in man always seeks for something which transcends
itself and yet is its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this sacrifice its
own recompense. This is man's dharma, man's religion, and man's self is the vessel
which is to carry this sacrifice to the altar.

We can look at our self in its two different aspects. The self which displays itself, and the
self which transcends itself and thereby reveals its own meaning. To display itself it tries
to be big, to stand upon the pedestal of its accumulations, and to retain everything to
itself. To reveal itself it gives up everything it has, thus becoming perfect like a flower
that has blossomed out from the bud, pouring from its chalice of beauty all its
sweetness.

The lamp contains its oil, which it holds securely in its close grasp and guards from the
least loss. Thus is it separate from all other objects around it and is miserly. But when
lighted it finds its meaning at once; its relation with all things far and near is
established, and it freely sacrifices its fund of oil to feed the flame. Such a lamp is our
self. So long as it hoards its possessions it keeps itself dark, its conduct contradicts its
true purpose. When it finds illumination it forgets itself in a moment, holds the light
high, and serves it with everything it has; for therein is its revelation. This revelation is
the freedom which Buddha preached. He asked the lamp to give up its oil. But
purposeless giving up is a still darker poverty which he never could have meant. The
lamp must give up its oil to the light and thus set free the purpose it has in its hoarding.

This is emancipation. The path Buddha pointed out was not merely the practice of self-
abnegation, but the widening of love. And therein lies the true meaning of Buddha's
preaching.When we find that the state of Nirvana preached by Buddha is through love,
then we know for certain that Nirvana is the highest culmination of love. For love is an
end unto itself. Everything else raises the question 'Why?' in our mind, and we require a
reason for it. But when we say, 'I love,' then there is no room for the 'why'; it is the final
answer in itself.

Doubtless, even selfishness impels one to give away. But the selfish man does it on
compulsion. That is like plucking fruit when it is unripe; you have to tear it from the tree
and bruise the branch. But when a man loves, giving becomes a matter of joy to him, like
the tree's surrender of the ripe fruit. All our belongings assume a weight by the ceaseless
gravitation of our selfish desires; we cannot easily cast them away from us. They seem to
belong to our very nature, to stick to us as a second skin, and we bleed as we detach
them. But when we are possessed by love, its force acts in the opposite direction. The
things that closely adhered to us lose their adhesion and weight, and we find that they
are not of us. Far from being a loss to give them away, we find in that the fulfilment of
our nature.

Thus we find in perfect love the freedom of our self. That only which is done for love is
done freely, however much pain it may cause. Therefore working for love is freedom in
action. This is the meaning of the teaching of disinterested work in the Gita. The Gita
says action we must have, for only in action do we manifest our nature. But this
manifestation is not perfect so long as our action is not free. In fact, our nature is
obscured by work done by the compulsion of want or fear. The mother reveals herself in
the service of her children, so our true freedom is not the freedom from action but
freedom in action, which can only be attained in the work of love.

God's manifestation is in his work of creation, and it is said in the Upanishad,

Knowledge, power, and action are of his nature they are not imposed upon him from
outside. Therefore his work is his freedom, and in his creation he realizes himself. The
same thing is said elsewhere in other words: From joy does spring all this creation, by
joy is it maintained, towards joy does it-progress, and into joy does it enter.' This means
that God's creation has not its source in any necessity; it comes from his fullness of joy;
it is his love that creates, therefore in creation is his own revealment.

The artist who has a joy in the fullness of his artistic idea objectifies it and thus gains it
more fully by holding it afar. It is joy which detaches ourselves from us, and then gives it
form in creations of love in order to make it more perfectly our own. Hence there must
be this separation, not a separation of repulsion but a separation of love. Repulsion has
only the one element, the element of severance. But love has two, the element of
severance, which is only an appearance, and the element of union which is the ultimate
truth. Just as when the father tosses his child up from his arms it has the appearance of
rejection but its truth is quite the reverse. So we must know that the meaning of our self
is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless
realization of yoga, of union; not on the side of the canvas where it is blank, but on the
side where the picture is being painted.

This is the reason why the separateness of our self has been described by our
philosophers as maya, as an illusion, because it has no intrinsic reality of its own.it looks
perilous; it raises its isolation to a giddy height and casts a black shadow upon the fair
face of existence; from the outside it has an aspect of a sudden disruption, rebellious and
destructive; it is proud, domineering and wayward, it is ready to rob the world of all its
wealth to gratify its craving of a moment; to pluck with a reckless, cruel hand all the
plumes from the divine bird of beauty to deck its ugliness for a day; indeed man's legend
has it that it bears the black mark of disobedience stamped on its forehead for ever; but
still all this is maya, envelopment of avidya it is the mist, it is not the sun; it is the black
smoke that presages the fire of love.

Imagine some savage who, in his ignorance, thinks that it is the paper of the banknote
that has the magic, by virtue of which the possessor of it gets all he wants. He piles up
the papers, hides them, handles them in all sorts of absurd ways, and then at last,
wearied by his efforts, comes to the sad conclusion that they are absolutely worthless,
only Fit to be thrown into the fire. But the wise man knows that the paper of the
banknote is all maya, and until it is given up to the bank it is futile. It is only avidya, our
ignorance, that makes us believe that the separateness of our self like the paper of the
banknote is precious in itself, and by acting on this belief our self is rendered valueless.
It is only when the avidya is removed that this very self comes to us with a wealth which
is priceless. For He manifests Himself in deathless forms which His joy assumes. These
forms are separate from Him, and the value that these forms have is only what his joy
has imparted to them. When we transfer back these forms into that original joy, which is
love, then we cash them in the bank and we find their truth.

When pure necessity drives man to his work it takes an accidental and contingent
character, it becomes a mere makeshift arrangement; it is deserted and left in ruins
when necessity changes its course. But when his work is the outcome of joy, the forms
that it takes have the elements of immortality. The immortal in man imparts to it its
own quality of permanence.

Our self, as a form of God's joy, is deathless. For his joy is amritam, eternal. This it is in
us which makes us sceptical of death, even when the fact of death cannot be doubted. In
reconcilement of this contradiction in us we come to the truth that in the dualism of
death and life there is a harmony. We know that the life of a soul, which is finite in its
expression and infinite in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its
journey to realize the infinite. It is death which is monistic, it has no life in it. But life is
dualistic; it has an appearance as well as truth; and death is that appearance, that maya,
which is an inseparable companion to life. Our self to live must go through a continual
change and growth of form, which may be termed a continual death and a continual life
going on at the same time. It is really courting death when we refuse to accept death;
when we wish to give the form of the self some fixed changelessness; when the self feels
no impulse which urges it to grow out of itself; when it treats its limits as final and acts
accordingly. Then comes our teacher's call to die to this death; not a call to annihilation
but so eternal life. It is the extinction of the lamp in the morning light; not the abolition
of the sun. It is really asking us consciously to give effect to the innermost wish that we
have in the depths of our nature.

We have a dual set of desires in our being, which it should be our endeavour to bring
into a harmony. In the region of our physical nature we have one set of which we are
conscious always. We wish to enjoy our food and drink, we banker after bodily pleasure
and comfort. These desires are self- centred; they are solely concerned with their
respective impulses. The wishes of our palate often run counter to what our stomach can
allow. But we have another set, which is the desire of our physical system as a whole, of
which we are usually unconscious. It is the wish for health. This is always doing its work,
mending and repairing, making new adjustments in cases of accident, and skilfully
restoring the balance wherever disturbed. It has no concern with the fulfilment of our
immediate bodily desires, but it goes beyond the present time. It is the principle of our
physical wholeness, it links our life with its past and its future and maintains the unity
of its parts. He who is wise knows it, and makes his other physical wishes harmonise
with it.

We have a greater body which is the social body. Society is an organism, of which we as
parts have our individual wishes. We want our own pleasure and licence. We want to
pay less and gain more than anybody else. This causes scramblings and fights. But there
is that other wish in us which does its work in the depths of the social being. It is the
wish for the welfare of the society. It transcends the limits of the present and the
personal. It is on the side of the infinite. He who is wise tries to harmonise the wishes
that seek for self-gratification with the wish for the social good, and only thus can be
realize his higher self. In its finite aspect the self is conscious of its separateness, and
there it is ruthless in its attempt to have more distinction than all others. But in its
infinite aspect its wish is to gain that harmony which leads to its perfection and not its
mere aggrandizement.

The emancipation of our physical nature is in attaining health, of our social being in
attaining goodness, and of our self in attaining love. This last is what Buddha describes
as extinction - the extinction of selfishness. This is the function of love, and it does not
lead to darkness but to illumination. This is the attainment of bodhi, or the true
awakening; it is the revealing in us of the infinite joy by the light of love. The passage of
our self is through its selfhood, which is independent, to its attainment of soul, which is
harmonious. This harmony can never be reached through compulsion. So our will, in the
history of its growth, must come through independence and rebellion to the ultimate
completion. We must have the possibility of the negative form of freedom, which is
licence, before we can attain the positive freedom, which is love.

This negative freedom, the freedom of self-will, can turn its back upon its highest
realization, but it cannot cut itself away from it altogether, for then it will lose its own
meaning. Our self-will has freedom up to a certain extent; it can know what it is to break
away from the path, but it cannot continue in that direction indefinitely. For we are
finite on our negative side. We must come to an end in our evil doing, in our career of
discord. For evil is not infinite, and discord cannot be an end in itself. Our will has
freedom in order that it may find out that its true course is towards goodness and love.
For goodness and love are infinite, and only in the infinite is the perfect realization of
freedom possible. So our will can be free not towards the limitations of our self, not
where it is maya and negation, but towards the unlimited, where is truth and love. Our
freedom cannot go against its own principle of freedom and yet be free; it cannot
commit suicide and yet live. We cannot say that we should have infinite freedom to
fetter ourselves, for the fettering ends the freedom.

So in the freedom of our will, we have the same dualism of appearance and truth - our
self-will is only the appearance of freedom and love is the truth. When we try to make
this appearance independent of truth, then our attempt brings misery and proves its
own futility in the end. Everything has this dualism of maya and satyam, appearance
and truth. Words are maya where they are merely sounds and finite, they are satyam
where they are ideas and infinite. Our self is maya where it is merely individual and
finite, where it considers its separateness as absolute; it is satyam where it recognizes its
essence in the universal and infinite, in the supreme self, in paramatman. This is what
Christ means when he says, 'Before Abraham was I am.' This is the eternal I am that
speaks through the I am that is in me. The individual I am attains its perfect end when it
realizes its freedom of harmony in the infinite lam. Then is its mukti, its deliverance
from the thraldom of maya, of appearance which springs from avidya, from ignorance;
its emancipation in cantamcivamadvaitam, in the perfect repose in truth, in the perfect
activity in goodness, and in the perfect union in love.

Not only in our self but also in nature is there this separateness from God, which has
been described as maya by our philosophers, because the separateness does not exist by
itself, it does not limit God's infinity from outside. It is his own will that has imposed
limits to itself, just as the chess-player restricts his will with regard to the moving of the
chessmen. The player willingly enters into definite relations with each particular piece
and realizes the joy of his power by these very restrictions. It is not that he cannot move
the chessmen just as he pleases, but if he does so then there can be no play. If God
assumes his role of omnipotence, then his creation is at an end and his power loses all
its meaning. For power to be a power must act within limits. God's water must be water,
his earth can never be other than earth. The law that has made them water and earth is
his own law by which he has separated the play from the player, for therein the joy of the
player consists.

As by the limits of law nature is separated from God, so it is the limits of its egoism
which separates the self from him. He has willingly set limits to his will, and has given
us mastery over the little world of our own. It is like a father's settling upon his son some
allowance within the limit of which he is free to do what he likes. Though it remains a
portion of the father's own property, yet he frees it from the operation of his own will.
The reason of it is that the will, which is love's will and therefore free, can have its joy
only in a union with another free will. The tyrant who must have slaves looks upon them
as instruments of his purpose. It is the consciousness of his own necessity which makes
him crush the will out of them, to make his self-interest absolutely secure. This self-
interest cannot brook the least freedom in others, because it is not itself free. The tyrant
is really dependent on his slaves, and therefore he tries to make them completely useful
by making them subservient to his own will. But a lover must have two wills for the
realization of his love, because the consummation of love is in harmony, the harmony
between free-dom and freedom. So God's love from which our self has taken form has
made it separate from God; and it is God's love which again establishes a reconciliation
and unites God with our self through the separation. That is why our self has to go
through endless renewals. For in its career of separateness it cannot go on for ever.
Separateness is the finitude where it finds its barriers to come back again and again to
its infinite source. Our self has ceaselessly to cast off its age, repeatedly shed its limits in
oblivion and death, in order to realize its immortal youth. Its personality must merge in
the universal time after time, in fact pass through it every moment, ever to refresh its
individual life. It must follow the eternal rhythm and touch the fundamental unity at
every step, and thus maintain its separation balanced in beauty and strength.

The play of life and death we see everywhere - this transmutation of the old into the
new. The day comes to us every morning, naked and white, fresh as a flower. But we
know it is old. It is age itself. It is that very ancient day which took up the newborn earth
in its arms, covered it with its white mantle of light, and sent it forth on its pilgrimage
among the stars.

Yet its feet are untired and its eyes undimmed. It carries the golden amulet of ageless
eternity, at whose touch all wrinkles vanish from the forehead of creation. In the very
core of the world's heart stands immortal youth. Death and decay cast over its face
momentary shadows and pass on; they leave no marks of their steps - and truth remains
fresh and young.

This old, old day of our earth is born again and again every morning. It comes back to
the original refrain of its music. If its march were the march of an infinite straight line, if
it had not the awful pause of its plunge in the abysmal darkness and its repeated rebirth
in the life of the endless beginning, then it would gradually soil and bury truth with its
dust and spread ceaseless aching over the earth under its heavy tread. Then every
moment would leave its load of weariness behind, and decrepitude would reign supreme
on its throne of eternal dirt.

But every morning the day is reborn among the newly - blossomed flowers with the
same message retold and the same assurance renewed that death eternally dies, that the
waves of turmoil are on the surface, and that the sea of tranquillity is fathomless. The
curtain of night is drawn aside and truth emerges without a speck of dust on its
garment, without a furrow of age on its lineaments. We see that he who is before
everything else is the same to-day. Every note of the song of creation comes fresh from
his voice. The universe is not a mere echo, reverberating from sky to sky, like a homeless
wanderer - the echo of an old song sung once for all in the dim beginning of things and
then left orphaned. Every moment it comes from the heart of the master, it is breathed
in his breath.
And that is the reason why it overspreads the sky like a thought taking shape in a poem,
and never has to break into pieces with the burden of its own accumulating weight.
Hence the surprise of endless variations, the advent of the unaccountable, the ceaseless
procession of individuals, each of whom is without a parallel in creation. As at the first
so to the last, the beginning never ends - the world is ever old and ever new.It is for our
self to know that it must be born anew every moment of its life. It must break through
all illusions that encase it in their crust to make it appear old, burdening it with death.
For life is immortal youthfulness, and it hates age that tries to clog its movements - age
that belongs not to life in truth, but follows it as the shadow follows the lamp.

Our life, like a river, strikes its banks not to find itself closed in by them, but to realize
anew every moment that it has its unending opening towards the sea. It is as a poem
that strikes its metre at every step not to be silenced by its rigid regulations, but to give
expression every moment to the inner freedom of its harmony. The boundary walls of
our individuality thrust us back within our limits, on the one hand, and thus lead us, on
the other, to the unlimited. Only when we try to make these limits infinite are we
launched into an impossible contradiction and court miserable failure.

This is the cause which leads to the great revolutions in human history. Whenever the
part, spurning the whole, tries to run a separate course of its own, the great pull of the
all gives it a violent wrench, stops it suddenly, and brings it to the dust. Whenever the
individual tries to dam the ever-flowing current of the world-force and imprison it
within the area of his particular use, it brings on disaster. However powerful a king may
be, he cannot raise his standard of rebellion against the infinite source of strength,
which is unity, and yet remain powerful.

It has been said, By unrighteousness men prosper, gain what they desire, and triumph
over their enemies, but at the end they are cut off at the root and suffer extinction. Our
roots must go deep down into the universal if we would attain the greatness of
personality. It is the end of our self to seek that union. It must bend its head low in love
and meekness and take its stand where great and small all meet. It has to gain by its loss
and rise by its surrender. His games would be a horror to the child if he could not come
back to his mother, and our pride of personality will be a curse to us if we cannot give it
up in love. We must know that it is only the revelation of the Infinite which is endlessly
new and eternally beautiful in us and gives the only meaning to our self.
 BRAHMATMAKYATA
1. The Rg Veda represents the earliest phase m the evolution of religious
consciousness where we have not so much the com-mandments of priests as the
outpourings of poetic mids who were struck by the immensity of the universe and
the inexhaustible mystery of life. The reactions of simple yet unsophisti- cated
minds to the wonder of existence are portrayed m these joyous hymns which
attribute divinity to the striking aspects of nature. We have worship of devas,
deities like Surya (sun), Soma (moon), Agni (fire), Dyaus (sky), Prthivi (earth), 1
Maruts (storm winds), Vayu (wind), Ap (water), Usas (dawn). Even deities whose
names are no longer so transparent were originally related to natural phenomena
such as Indra, Varuna, Mitra, Aditi, Visnu, Pusan, the two Asvms, Rudra and
Parjanya.
2. The Vedic Indians were sufficiently logical to realise that the attributes of
creation and rulership of the world could be granted only to one being. We have
such a being in Praja-pati, the lord of creatures, Visva-karman, the world-maker
Thus the logic of religious faith asserts itself in favour of monotheism This
tendency is supported by the conception of rta or order. The universe is an
ordered whole; it is not disorderliness. If the endless variety of the world suggests
numerous deities, the unity of the world suggests a unitary conception of the
Deity .
3. The most remarkable account of a superpersonal monism is to be found in the
hymn of Creation (10.129. It seeks to explain the universe as evolving out of One.
But the One is no longer a god like Indra or Varuna, Praja-pati or Viiva-karman.
The hymn declares that all these gods are of late or of secondary origin. They
know nothing of the beginning of things. The first principle, that one, tad ekam, is
uncharacterisable. It is without qualities or attributes, even negative ones To
apply to it any description is to limit and bind that which is limitless and
boundless. 'That one breathed breathless. There was nothing else '.
4. It is not a dead abstraction but indescribable perfection of being. Before creation
all this was darkness shrouded in darkness, an impenetrable void or abyss of
waters,3 until through the power of tapas or the fervour of austerity, the One
evolved into determinate self-conscious being. He becomes a creator by self-
limitation. Nothing outside himself can limit him. He only can limit himself. He
does not depend on anything other than himself for his manifestation. This
power of actualisation is given the name of maya in later Vedanta, for the
manifestation does not disturb the unity and integrity of the One. The One
becomes manifested by its own intrinsic power, by its tapas.
5. The not-self is not independent of the self. It is the avyakta or the unmannifested.
While it is dependent on the Supreme Self, it appears as external to the individual
ego and is the source of its ignorance. The waters represent the unformed non-
being in which the divine lay concealed in darkness We have now the absolute in
itself, the power of self-limitation, the emergence of the determinate self and the
not-self, the waters, darkness, para-prakrti. The abyss is the not-self, the mere
 potentiality, the bare abstraction, the receptacle of all developments. The self-
conscious being gives it existence by impressing his forms or Ideas on it The
unmamfested, the indeterminate receives determinations from the self-conscious
Lord. It is not absolute nothing, for there is never a state in which it is not in
some sense. 1
6. The whole world is formed by the union of being and not-being and the Supreme
Lord has facing him this determination, this aspiration to existence. Rg Veda
describes not-being (asaf) as ljrag 'with outstretched feet' like a woman in the
throes of childbirth 1 As the first product of the divine mind, the mind's first fruit,
came forth Manaa, desire, the cosmic will, which is the primal source of all
existence. In this hym, 'the wise searching m their hearts, have by contemplation,
discovered the connection between the existent and the non-existent' s . The
world is created by the personal self-conscious God who acts by his intelligence
and will.
7. This is how the Vedic seers understood in some measure how they and the whole
creation arose. The writer of the hymn has the humility to admit that all this is a
surmise, for it is not possible for us to be sure of things which lie so far beyond
human knowledges. This hymn suggests the distinction between the Absolute
Reality and Personal God, Brahman and Uvara, the Absolute beyond being and
knowledge, the super-personal, super-essential godhead in its utter
transcendence of all created beings and its categories and the Real manifested to
man in terms of the highest categories of human experience. Personal Being is
treated as a development or manifestation of the Absolute.
8. In another hymn/ the first existent being is called Praja-pati, facing the chaos of
waters. He impregnates the waters and becomes manifest in them m the form of
a golden egg or germ, from which the whole universe develops. He is called the
one life or the soul of the gods. Hiranya Garbha is the first born determinate
existent while Brhma Isvara, Absolute God is in the realm of the transcendent.
The world is said to be a projection, emission or externalization of the ideal being
of God, of the eternal order which is eternally present in the divine wisdom.
9. The Purusa Sukta repeats in concrete form the ideal of a primeval being existing
before any determinate existence and evolving himself in the empirical universe.
The being is conceived as a cosmic person with a thousand heads, eyes and feet,
who filled the whole universe and extended beyond it, by the length of ten fingers,
the universe being constituted by a fourth of his nature. The world form is not a
complete expres- sion or manifestation of the divine Reality, It is only a fragment
of the divine that is manifested in the cosmic process. The World-soul is a partial
expression of the Supreme Lord.
10. Creation is interpreted in the Vedas as development rather than the bringing into
being something not hitherto existent. The first principle is manifested m the
whole world. Purusaby his sacrifice becomes the whole world. This view prepares
for the development of the doctrine which is emphasised in the Upanisads that
the spirit in man is one with the spirit which is the prius of the world. Within this
world we have the one positive principle of being and yet have varying degrees of
existence marked by varying degrees of penetration or participation of nonentity
by divine being God as Hn avya-garbha is nothing of the already made. He is not
an ineffective God who sums up m himself all that is given .
11. The Upanisads are vehicles more of spiritual Rumination than of systematic
reflection. They reveal to us a world of rich and varied spiritual experience rather
than a world of abstract philosophical categories Their truths are verified not only
by logical reason but by personal experience. Their aim is prac- tical rather than
speculative Knowledge is a means to freedom. Philosophy, biahma-vidya, is the
pursuit of wisdom by a way of life.
12. The word used in the Upanisads to indicate the supreme reality is brahman It is
derived from the root brh 'to grow, to burst forth. ' The derivation suggests
gushing forth, bubbling over, ceaseless growth, brhattvamSamkara derives the
word 'brahman' from the root brlialt to exceed, ahiayana and means by it
eternity, purity. For Madhva, brahman is the person in whom the qualities dwell
in fullness, brhantohyasmtngunah. The real is not a pale abstraction, but is
quickingly alive, of powerful vitality.
13. The Upanisad affirms that Brahman on which all else depends, to uhich all
existences aspire, Brahman which is sufficient to itself, aspinng to no other,
without any need, is the source of all other beings, the intellectual principle, the
perceiving mind, life and body It is the principle which unifies the world of the
physicist, the biologist, the psychologist, the logician, the moralist and the artist.
The hierarchy of all things and beings from soulless matter to the deity is the
cosmos. Plato's world-architect, Aristotle's world-mover belong to the cosmos. If
there is ordered development, progressive evolution, it is because there is the
divine principle at work in the universe. Cosmic process is one of universal and
unceasing change and is patterned on a duality which is perpetually in con- flict,
the perfect order of heaven and the chaos of the dark waters
14. Word is the active expression of character. The difference between the conception
of Divine Intelligence or Reason and the Word of God is that the latter represents
the will of the Supreme. Vac is Brahman. 5 Vac, word, wisdom, is treated in the
Rg Veda as the all-knowing .The first-born of Rta is Vac The Logos is conceived as
personal like Hiranya-garbha 'The Light was the light of men ' 'The Logos became
flesh '
15. The Supreme is generally conceived as light, jyotiramjyotih, the light of lights.
Light is the principle of communication.Hiranya-garbha is organically bound up
with the world Himself, a creature, the first-born of creation, he shares the fate of
all creation in the end 9 But livara is prior to the World-soul 10 The principle of
process applies to God While he is the expres- sion of the non-temporal he is also
the temporal livara.
16. Brahman is not merely a featureless Absolute. It is all this world.Vayu or air is
said to be manifest Brahman, pratyaksam brahma The SvetdivataiaUpamsad
makes out that Brahman is beast, bird and insect, the tottering old man, boy and
girl Brahman sustains the cosmos and is the self of each individual Supra-cosmic
transcendence and cosmic universality are both real phases of the one Supreme
In the former aspect the Spirit is m no way dependent on the cosmic manifold, m
the latter the Spirit functions as the principle of the cosmic manifold The supra-
cosmic silence and the cosmic integration are both real The two, mrguna and
 saguna Brahman, Absolute and God, are not different Jayatirtha contends that
Samkara is wrong in holding HasXBrahman is of two kinds —
brahmanodvairupyasyaaprdmdmkatvdt * It is the same Brahman who is
described in different ways.
17. The personality of God is not to be conceived on the human lines He is not to be
thought of as a greatly magnified person. We should not attribute to the Divine
human qualities as we know them.' Wc have (1) the Absolute, (2) God as Creative
power, (3) God immanent in this world. These are not to be regarded as separate
entities They are arranged in this order because there is a logical priority The
Absolute must be there with all its possibilities before the Divine Creativity can
choose one. The divine choice must be there before there can be the Divine
immanent in this world. This is a logical succession and not a temporal one The
world-spin I must be there before there can be the world.
18. The Absolute conceived as it is m itself, independent of any creation, is called
Brahman When it is thought of as having manifested itself as the uni- verse, it is
called Vtraj, when it is thought of as the spirit moving everywhere in the universe,
it is called Hvranya-garbha , when it is thought of as a personal God creatmg,
protecting and destroying the universe, it is called IsvaraIsvara becomes Brahma,
Vtsnu and Siva when his thfee functions are taken separately 1 The real is not a
sum of these It is an ineffable unity in which these conceptual distinctions are
made These are fourfold to our mental view, separable only in appearance If we
identify the real with any one definable state of being, however pure and perfect,
we violate the unity and divide the indivisible The different standpomts are
consistent with each other, complementary to each other and necessary m their
totality for an integral view of life and the world If we are able to hold them
together, the conflicting views which are emphasised exclusively by certain
schools of Indian Vcdanta become reconciled.
19. Absolute being is not an existing quality to be found m the things It is not an
object of thought or the result of production. It forms an absolute contrast to, and
is fundamentally different from, things that are, as is in its way nothingness It
can be expressed only negatively or analogically It is that from which our speech
turns back along with the mind, being unable to comprehend its fullness. 1 It is
that which the tongue of man cannot truly express nor human intelligence
conceive Samkara in his commentary on the Brahma Sutra 1 refers to an
Upanisad text which is not to be found in any of the extant UpanisadsBahva,
asked by Baskah to expound the nature of Brahman, kept silent. He prayed,
'Teach me, sir ' The teacher was silent, and when addressed a second and a third
time he said- 'I am teaching but you do not follow The self is silence.'3
20.Negative characters should not mislead us into thinking that Brahman is a
nonentity While it is non-empincal, it is also inclusive of the whole empirical
world The Absolute is des- cribed as full both of light and not-light, of desire and
not desire, of anger and not-angcr, of Ww and not-law, having verily filled all,
both the near and the far off, the this and the that. '» Negative and positive
characterisations arc given to affirm the positivity of being.
21. To say that the nature of Brahman cannot be determined does not mean that it
has no essential nature of its own We cannot define it by its accidental features,
for they do not belong to its essence There is nothing outside it As no inquiry into
its nature can be instituted without some description, its sva>upa or essential
nature is said to be sal or being, cxt or consciousness and ananda or bliss 1 These
are different phrases for the same being Self-being, self-consciousness and self-
delight are one. It is absolute being m which there is no nothingness It is absolute
consciousness in which there is no non-consciousness It is absolute bliss in which
there is no suffering or negation of bliss.
22. The distraction between Brahman in itself and Brahman in the universe, the
transcendent beyond manifestation and the transcendent in manifestation, the
indeterminate and the determinate, nirgunogunl, is not exclusive. The two are
like two sides of one reality The Real is at the same time being realized.
23. The word 'atman' is derived from an 'to breathe.' It is the breath of life.
1GraduaEy its meaning is extended to cover life, soul, self or essential being of the
mdividual.Sarhkara derives atman from the root which means 'to obtain' 'to eat
or enjoy or pervade all.' 1 Atman is the principle of man's life, the soul that
pervades his being, his breath, prana, his intellect, prajM, and transcends them.
Atman is what remains when everything that is not the self is eliminated. The Rg
Veda speaks of the unborn part, ajo bhagah3 There is an unborn and so immortal
element in man,4 which is not to be confused with body, life, mind and intellect
These are not the self but its forms, its external expressions. Our true self is a
pure existence, self-aware, unconditioned by the forms of mind and intellect.
When we cast the self free from all outward events, there arises from the inward
depths an experience, secret and wonderful, strange and great. It is the miracle of
self-knowledge, dbna-jfid'tia.s Just as, m relation to the universe, the real is
Brahman, while name and form are only a play of manifestation, so also the
individual egos are the varied expressions of the One Universal Self. As Brahman
is the eternal quiet underneath the drive and activity of the universe, so Atman is
the foundational reality under- lying the conscious powers of the individual, the
inward ground of the human soul. There is an ultimate depth to our life below the
plane of thinking and striving 'The Atman is the super- reality of the jiva, the
individual ego.
24. In the early prose Upanisads, atman is the principle of the individual
consciousness and Brahman the superpersonal ground of the cosmos. Soon the
distinction diminishes and the two are identified. God is not merely the
transcendent numinous other, but is also the universal spirit which is the basis of
human personality and its ever-renewing vitalising power Brahman, the first
principle of the universe, is known through atman, the inner self of man In the
Satapatha Brahmana 1 and the ChandogyaUpanisad 2 it is said 'Verily this whole
world is Brahman,' and also 'This soul of mine within the heart, this is Brahman '
'That person who is seen in the eye, He is atman, that is Brahman '3 God is both
the wholly other, transcendent and utterly beyond the world and man, and yet he
 enters into man and lives in him and becomes the inmost content of his very
existence.
25. The ecstasy of divine union, the bliss of realisation tempts one to disregard the
world with its imperfections and look upon it as a troubled and unhappy
dream .The actual fabnc of the world, with its loves and hates, with its wars and
battles, with its jealousies and competitions as well as its unasked helpfulness,
sustained intellectual effort, intense moral struggle seems to be no more than an
unsubstantive dream, a phantas- magoria dancing on the fabnc of pure being
Throughout the course of human history, men have taken refuge from the world
of stresses, vexations and indignities m the apprehension of a spirit beyond The
prayer to 'lead us from unreality to reality, from darkness to light, from death to
immortality' assumes the distinction between reality, light and immortality and
unreality, darkness and death. If this aspect of spiritual experience were all, the
world we live in, that of ignorance, darkness and death would be quite different
from the world of underlying reality, the world of truth, light and life The
distmction would become one of utter opposition between God and the world.
The latter would be reduced to an evil dream from which we must wake up as
soon as possible.
26. Indifference to the world is not, however, the mam feature of spiritual
consciousness Brahman, the completely trans- cendent, the pure silence has
another side. Brahman is appre- hended m two ways. Both the Absolute and the
Personal God are real, only the former is the logical prius of the latter. The soul
when it rises to full attention knows itself to be related to the single universal
consciousness, but when it turns outward it sees the objective universe as a
manifestation of this single consciousness. The withdrawal from the world is not
the conclusive end of the spiritual quest. There is a return to the world
accompanied by a persistent refusal to take the world as it confronts us as final.
The world has to be redeemed and it can be redeemed because it has its source in
God and final refuge m God.
27. The assertion that with the knowledge of the Self all is known 1 does not exclude
the reality of what is derived from the Self When the AUarcyaUpanisad asserts
that the universe is founded in consciousness and guided by it, it assumes the
reality of the universe and not merely its apparent existence To seek the one is
not to deny the many The world of name and form has its roots in Brahman,
though it does not con- stitute the nature of Brahman 2 The world is neither one
with Brahman nor wholly other than Brahman The world of fact cannot be apart
from the world of bemg From one being no other being is born It exists only m
another form, samsthanan- tarcna.
28.The world is the creation of God, the active Lord. The finite is the self-limitation
of the infinite. No finite can exist in and by itself It exists by the infinite If we seek
the dynamic aspect we are inclined to repudiate the expenence of pure conscious-
ness. It is not a question of either pure consciousness or dynamic consciousness
These are the different statuses of the one Reality They are present
simultaneously in the universal awareness.
29. The many are parts of Brahman even as waves are parts of the sea All the
possibilities of the world are affirmed in the first being, God The whole universe
before its manifestation was there The antecedent of the manifested universe is
the non-manifested universe, 1 e God God does not create the world but becomes
it. Creation is expression It is not a making of something out of nothing It is not
making so much as becoming It is the self-projection of the Supreme Everything
exists m the secret abode of the Supreme 2 The primary reality contains within
itself the source of its own motion and change. Every existence contained in time
is ontologically present in creative eternity. The Supreme is both transcendent
and immanent. It is the one, breathing breathless, tad ekam, antdavatam. It is the
manifest and the unmanifest, vyaktdvyaktdh, the silent and the articulate,
iabddiabddh. It is the real and the unreal, sad-asat,3
30.The Absolute is not a metaphysical abstraction or a void of silence It is the
absolute of this relative world of manifestation What is subject to change and
growth in the world of becoming reaches its fulfilment m the world of the
Absolute. The Beyond is not an annulling or a cancellation of the world of
becoming, but its transfiguration The Absolute is the life of this life, the truth of
this truth.
31. The world of multiplicity is out there, and has its place, but if we look upon it as a
self-existing cosmos, we are making an error.3 While the world process reveals
certain possibilities of the Real, it also conceals the full nature of the Real Avidya
breeds selfishness and becomes a knot m the heart which we should untie before
we can get possession of the Self in the recesses of our heart 4 The
PrahiaUpamsad tells us that we cannot reach the world of Brahman unless we
have shaken off the crookedness in us, the falsehood (anrtam) in us, the illusion
(maya) in us.
32. The world has the tendency to delude us into thinking that it is all, that it is self-
dependent, and this delusive character of the world is also designated maya. m
the sense of avidya. When we are asked to overcome maya, it is an injunction to
avoid worldhnessLet us not put our trust in the things of this world. Maya, is
concerned not with the existence of the world but with its meaning, not with the
factuality of the world but with the way in which we look upon it.
33. The natural sciences, physics and chemistry, anatomy and Physiology, psychology
and sociology treat man as an object of inquiry. They show that man is a link in
the chain of living beings, one among many.He has a body and a mind which
belong to him, but his self is not derived from any of these, tnough it is at the root
of them all All empirical causalities and biological processes of development
apply to his outer being, but not to his self The physical, the biological, the
psychological and the logical aspects are aspects of his nature, his kosas, as the
TaitttriyaUpanisad calls them. There are great possibilities of empirical
investigation, but man is more than what he knows about himself.
34. There does not seem to be any suggestion that the individual egos are unreal.
They all exist only through the Self and have no reality apart from It. The
insistence on the unity of the Supreme Self as the constitutive reality of the world
 and of the individual souls does not negate the empirical reality of the latter. The
plurality of individual souls is admitted by the Upamsads. The individuals do not
resolve themselves m the Universal Absolute so long as the world of
manifestation is functioning. The released individuals know themselves as the
Self and not as the psycho-physical vehicles which are animated by the Self and
so are incarnations of the Self. These vehicles are causally determined and are
subject to change.
35. Intelligence is engaged in discursive reasoning and reaches a knowledge which is,
at best, imperfect, through the processes of doubt, logic and skilful
demonstration it reflects on the data supplied by manas or the sense-mind with
its knowledge rooted in sensations and appetites. At the intellectual level we
grope with an external vision of things, where objects are intrinsically separated
and opposed to one another. We are bedeiged by error and incapacity. Integral
knowledge possesses is its objects truly and securel y. Nothing is external to it.
Nothing is other than itself. Nothing is divided or in conflict within its all-
comprehensive self-awareness. It is the means of knowledge and knowledge
itself.
36. If the real is misconceived as an object of knowledge, it cannot be known.
Empirical objects may be known by outer observation or inner introspection But
the self cannot divide itself into the knower and the known. Logical reasoning is
incapable of comprehending tbe living unity of God and man, the absolute and
the relative. Logical incapacity is not evidence of actual hnpossibihty. Reality
unites what discursive reason is incapable of holding together. Every atom of life
is a witness to the oneness and duality of God and the world. Being can never be
objectified or externalised. It is co-inherent and co-existent in man. It is
unknowable because we identify existence with objectivity This is true, to a
limited extent, of purely external things like tables and chairs. They are net to be
reduced to sensations or concepts arising in the knowing mind.
37. But spiritual reality is not revealed in the way in which objects of the natural
world or principles of logic are appre- hended. Yajfiavalkya tells us that the self is
its own light when the sun has set, when the moon has set, when the fire is put
out. It is our deepest being behind the vestures of body, life, mind and intellect.
Objectivity is not the criterion of reality, but the criterion is reabty itself revealed
in our very being. We ask for a criterion of knowledge on the assumption of a
duality between the knowing subject and the known object. If the object appears
alien and impenetrable, then the question of knowing it becomes a problem. But
no object can be set in opposition to the spirit and so the question of criterion
does not arise.
38.True knowledge is an integral creative activity of the spirit which does not know
anything external at all For it everything is its own life Here there is identity,
possession, absorption of the object at the deepest level Truth m spiritual life is
neither the reflection nor the expression of any other reality It is reality itself
Those who know the truth become the truth brahma-vid brahmaivabhavatt It is
not a question of having an idea or a perception of the real It is just tie revelation
 of the real It is the illumination of being and of life itself It is satyam, jfiatum
Knowledge and bemg are the same thing, inseparable aspects of a single reality,
bemg no longer even distinguishable in that sphere where all is without duality.
39. Reality is a fact, and facts are apprehended by intuition, whether perceptual or
non-perceptual The divine primordial reality is not a fact of the empirical world,
and yet as the central spiritual fact we must have a direct apprehension of it Our
logical knowledge can give us indirect approximation to it but not a direct grasp
of it. 1 The seers of the Upamsads not only have deep vision but are able to
translate their visions into intelligible and persuasive speech. They can do so only
through hints and images, suggestions and symbols, for they are not susceptible
of adequate expression.
40.The Upanisads distinguish between a-pardvidya, lower knowledge and para vidya
or higher wisdom While the former gives us knowledge of the Vedas and the
sciences, the latter helps us to gain the knowledge of the Imperishable * The first
principle disguises itself.3 In the Brhad-aranyakaUpamsad, the self is seen as the
reality of reality 4 The reality of the world is the empirical; the true reality is the
atman, the self which the empirical reality conceals A distinction is made between
the taiower of texts and the knower of the self in the Chandogyaupanisad.
41. The Brhad-aranyakaUpam§ad teaches that, while those who put their trust in the
intellect cannot attam to a knowledge of Brahman, yet there is an apprehension
of His being by those who are childlike.5 BdVya includes humility, receptivity or
teachableness and an earnest search The writer asks us to give up the pnde of
learning, pdnditya. A self-denial which includes our intellectual pnde and power
is demanded Purity of intellect is different from congestion of it To attain purity
of vision, we require a childlike nature which we can get by tranquillising the
senses, simplifying the heart and cleaning the mind.
42. It is through quietening the strivings of the will and the empirical intellect that
the conditions are realised for the revelation of the Supreme m the individual
soul 'Therefore having become calm, subdued, quiet, patiently enduring and
collected, one sees the Self just in the self.
43. Vidya and avidya are two ways of apprehending Reality. Both are forms of
relative knowledge and belong to the mani- fested universe Knowledge
formulated logically is not equiva- lent to a direct and immediate apprehension of
the Real. Whatever words we use, whatever concepts we employ, fall short of
reality 1 The anubhava is "beyond all manifestation and is complete in itself
Vtdya. stresses the harmony and mterconnections of elements which make up the
world; avidya the separateness, mutual independence and strife. Vtdya helps us
to appreciate intellectually the intelligible ideas about the nature of the Divine
ground and the nature of the direct experience of it in relation to other
experiences. It indicates the means by which we can attain Brahman.
44. Such a system of theological doctrine points out that there is nothing mtrmsically
self-contradictory about the postulate of religion, viz the divine reality, and that it
is also empirically verifiable if only we are willing to submit to a discipline. The
theological knowledge or vidya is different from the experience or amibhava of it
 The experience is recorded as a pure and direct intellectual intuition in sruh.
When we reflect on the experiences or their records and reduce them to a rational
order we have smrti. While the first is the domain of metaphysical principles, the
second applies these principles to individual and social conduct Vtdya is nearer
the truth than avtdyd.
45. When we refer to Absolute Brahman, we emphasise the illumined quiescence, the
non-objective consciousness in which there is a total extinction of sorrow and
evil, the pure bliss infinitely surpassing all human joys, far exceeding the power
of man to conceive This very insight makes the self one with the Supreme and all
existences. Only we are no more bound to them in a false relation. In our
transfigured consciousness where our egoistic individuality is absent, we are not
divided from others hut feel one with them. Our real self is no more the
individual, mental being, but is one with the Self behind the mental forms of all
other selves. Our body, life, mind are no more binding, but become the
transparent vehicle of our divine consciousness. When that end is reached we are
a true becoming of the Divine, a free movement of the Universal Spint. Our body,
life and mind, we feel, are one with the cosmic body, life and mind * Our spirit
fills the whole world By knowing the eternal we understand the true nature of
God, the world and the individual.
46. Possessing the immortality of non-birth, the redeemed self still assumes, by free
volition an individual form in the mani- fested world. Birth is a becoming of the
Supreme m the cosmic being. This becoming is not inconsistent with Being. It
becomes a means and not an obstacle to the en)oyment of Me eternal. To be
released from the chain of birth and death is not to flee from the world of
becoming. Bondage does not consist in the assumption of birth or individuality,
but m the persistence of the ignorant sense of the separate, selfish ego.
47. It is not the embodiment that creates the bondage but the frame of mind. To the
free spirit life has no terrors. He wishes to conquer life for God. He uses the world
as the mould and condition for the manifestation of his spiritual freedom. He
may assume birth for the purpose of helping the world. 1 There will be
individualisa- tion without an ego-sense The play of the individual conscious-
ness can take many forms, assume many aspects and poises All through,
however, he lives in the truth of the cosmic play with no delusion, released from
ego, in full control of the manifested.
48.The individual soul is eternal. It endures throughout the cosmic process. It
commences at birth as the inheritor of the previous person and survives physical
death in an altered form. For the self that has realised perfection the body ceases
to be a burden. He lives in the flesh but not after the flesh.
49. The individual is an aspect of the Transcendent in the universe and when
liberated from all limitations, he acts with his centre in the Supreme. The inner
peace is manifested in the joyous freedom of outer activity. He will be at work in
the world though he cannot wish to do any evil. He can do any action
disinterestedly. The desires of those whose thoughts are fixed on the Supreme do
not bind. The ChandogyaUpanisad and Bhagvadgita distinguishes desires that
 bind from the desires that liberate, and speaks of the Supreme Self as desiring
and purposing truth.
50.Again and again, the Upanisads stress that we should see all existences in the Self
and the Self in all existences. Even as the Supreme is all these existences, we also
should acquire the right relation to the world. Perfect fulfilment of our
individuality means the perfect fulfilment of our relations with the world and the
other individuals. We are called upon to over- come not only our separate egoistic
existence but also our life in a paradise of self-absorbed bliss. The perfected soul
cannot look with indifference on the sufferings of the imperfect, for they are also
his own self. He would work to lift them into freedom It is not now a function of
altruism but is the life divine, the integral way. He will work until all beings in the
manifested world are fulfilled. The liberated individuals are released from their
individuality at the close of creation.
51. Unfortunately different aspects have been exclusively emphasised so as to give
rise to the impression that the Upani- sads do not give us any single coherent
view.It is suggested that in the Upanisads the true doctrine is that the Real, the
thing-in- ltself, is empty of content and all positive views are deviations from it
caused by the inability of man to remain at the high level of abstract thought,
postulated by the distinction between the thing-in-itself and the appearance and
the natural tendency to apply empirical categories to the thing-in-itself. The
absolu- tists and theistic views of the Upamsads are not exclusive of each other
Sankara and Ramanujaemphasise different aspects of the teaching of the
Upanisads.
52. Symbols belong to an order of realm different from that of the Reality which they
symbolize. They are used to make the truth intelligible, to make the unhearable
audible. They are meant to be used as tangible supports for contemplation. They
help us to reach awareness of the symbolized reality. Some of these symbols
employed by religion are common. fire and light arc usually adopted to signify the
ultimate reality. it means that the minds of people are formed similarly and
experiences of people do not difier much from one part of the world to another
Even conceptions about the origin and nature of the world often agree, though
they arise quite independently. The images are all framed to mediate between the
Supreme Absolute and the finite intelligence. The individual is free to select for
worship any form of the Supreme.
53. The Supreme is to be comprehended only by a supreme effort of consciousness.
This knowledge cannot be expressed at the level of thought except through
symbols. The symbols ate not entirely subjective. The relativity of the symbols
does not destroy either our capacity to discover the truth or our faith in the
existence of objective reality. It is true that different objects appear differently
from different points of view, but the validity of the different points of view need
not be denied. Statements about reality are definitions of the relationship
between those making them and the reality which they are describing. Symbols
have a meaning, and this meaning is objective and shared The bearers of the
 meaning may be psychological states, separate existences, not even identical in
then: qualita- tive content, but meanings can be studied and understood.
54. Our minds are not detached from the circumstances of time and place. Full truth
can be known only by a mind of transcendent rationality. The conception and
expression by men of the reality which is universal, can only be partial according
to the diversities of race and character. As the Upanisads lay stress on spiritual
experience and psychological discipline, they do not insist on any one set of
dogmas, rites or codes. They are also aware that we may touch different aspects
of the spiritual experience when we attempt to define it. We may use any symbols
and methods which help to bring about a change of consciousness, a new birth.

55. Whatever be the form we start with, we grow to the worship of the one Universal
Spirit immanent m all .* The worship of the determinate form is recommended as
a preparation for the apprehension of non-determined Reality. Narada Bhakti
Sutra tells us that the true devotee becomes a fulfilled being,im- mortal and
content 1 Even the released perform image worship by way of sport. 1 There is a
danger that the emotions of awe and reverence are likely to be treated as ends in
themselves. They prepare for spirituality. Devotion ultimately leads to the
knowledge of one's essential nature. For Ramanuja bhakti is a type of knowledge.

56. Any form of worship which falls short of complete self- naughtmg will not take us
to the umtive life Faith, devotion, surrender are the means to it Each individual
has to achieve insight by his own effort after long and persistent practice 1 When
the veil of intellectual knowledge, of avidya, is swept aside, a flood of light breaks
upon the awakened soul and a vision of the Universal Self is achieved This self is
present, real and concrete even as a physical object is present to the physical eye

57. The Supreme is not so much an immanent God as an experi- enced God, felt as an
inward principle of power and new being m life. When we rise in contemplation,
when there is the vision of the Supreme which is entirely beyond the power of the
soul to prepare for or bring about, we feel that it is wholly the operation of God
working on the soul by extraordinary grace.

58. In a sense all life is from God, all prayer is made by the help of God's grace, but
the heights of contemplation which are scaled by few are attributed in a special
degree to divine grace. After the vision the light may fade, darkness may afflict
the soul, but the soul can never lose altogether what it has once seen. Our effort
thereafter shall be to renew the experience, make it the constant centre of all our
activities until the completely real is completely known.

59. We are heirs of a richer heritage than most of us are aware of. The life of the
people of spirit, from the beginning until now, has a great deal to offer us. If we
cut ourselves away from the rich treasury of wisdom about man's aspirations on
this earth which is available to us from our own past, or if we are satisfied with
 our own inadequate tradition and fail to seek for ourselves the gifts of other
traditions, we will gravely misconceive tbespint of religion. Loyalty to our
particular tradition means not only concord with the past but also freedom from
the past.

60. The living past should serve as a great inspiration and support for the future.
Tradition is not a rigid, hidebound framework which cripples the life of spirit and
requires us to revert to a period that is now past and beyond recall. It is not a
memory of the past but a constant abiding of the living Spirit. It is a living stream
of spiritual life.

Indian schools of thought are thus broadly divisible, from this standpoint, first into two
groups—one, which assumes that reahty is confined to what is given m common
experience and may therefore be descril^ as positivistic or 'Empirical; and the other ,
which regards the realm of being as by no means exhausted by such experience and
acknowledges a unique pramana for knowing what lies beyond. The latter ^oup isliffain
dmsiBTe intotwo classes—one, which believes that individual insight is ultimately
adequate for a knowledge of the transcendental realm: and the other, which seeks the
aid of revelation for it . These may together be described as intuitionalistic. if we bear in
mind the interpretation given of revelation above. Both alike mean that ultimate
philosophic truths are neither deduced solely from premises taken for granted, nor
logically constructed on the basis of mere common experience, but are directly seen.

The systems as ordinarily reckoned are six, viz. Nyaya, Vaisesika , Sahkhya , Yoga,
Purva-mimamsa, and Uttaramimamsa or Vedanta These are often grouped by twos,
taken in order, since they are allied to each other and we shall follow, this grouping in
our treatment of them. The systems forming the last pair, however, are not so closely
akin in their theoretical aspects, at least, according to some: and we shall therefore
‘t reat of them separately. They are the systems which are directly based on the Veda.
Tb^remaining four doctrines aIs5,~Tn their present form, declare allegiance to the
Veda, although they put thei r own interpretation upon it : but it is doubtful
whetheT”they were Vedic from the begmning of their history. Having in view this, their
later feature, they also are described as orthodox. To these we have to add titree more,
viz. MatenaJismT (a later phase of naturahsm). Jainism and Buddhism whicb,'
as systems, explicitly reject the authority of the Vedas and are heterodox. We tehall first
consider them briefly under the head of "iion-Vedic schools.” But before taking them up,
it wtU be useful to refer to fwo features which are common to all of them, Vedic and
non-Vedic. excepting only Materialism. Hiriyana
EIP 45-46