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Upanishadic Symbolism
A certain rationalistic critic divides the Upanishadic symbols into three categories—those that are rational and can be easily understood by the mind; those that are not understood by the mind and yet do not go against reason, having nothing inherently irrational in them and may be simply called non-rational, those that seem to be quite irrational, for they go frankly against all canons of logic and common sense. As an example of the last, the irrational type, the critic cites a story from the Chhandogya, which may be rendered thus: There was an aspirant, a student who was seeking after knowledge. One day there appeared to him a white dog. Soon, other dogs followed and addressed their predecessor: "0 Lord, sing to our Food, for we desire to eat." The white dog answered, "Come to me at dawn here in this very place." The aspirant waited. The dogs, like singer-priests, circled round in a ring. Then they sat and cried aloud; they cried out, "Om we eat and Om we drink, may the gods bring here our food." Now, before any explanation is attempted it is important to bear in mind that the Upanishads speak of things experienced —not merely thought, reasoned or argued and that these experiences belong to a world and consciousness other than that of the mind and the senses. One should naturally expect here a different language and mode of expression than that which is appropriate to mental and physical things. For example, the world of dreams was once supposed to be a sheer chaos, a mass of meaningless confusion; but now it is held to be quite otherwise. Psychological scientists have discovered a method— even a very well-defined and strict method—in the madness of that domain. It is an ordered, organised, significant world; but its terminology has to be understood, its code deciphered. Page 345 It is not a jargon, but a foreign language that must be learnt and mastered. In the same way, the world of spiritual experiences is also something methodical, well-organized, significant. It may not be and is not the rational world of the mind and the sense;, but. it need not, for that reason, be devoid of meaning, mere fancifulness or a child's imagination running riot. Here also the right key has to be found, the grammar and vocabulary of that language mastered. And as the best way to have complete mastery of a language is to live among the people who speak it, so, in the matter of spiritual language, the best and the only way to learn it is to go and live in its native country. Now, as regards the interpretation of the story cited, should not a suspicion arise naturally at the very outset that the dog of the story is not a dog but represents something else ? First, a significant epithet is given to it—white; secondly, although it asks for food, it says that Om is its food and Om is its drink. I n the Vedas we have some references to dogs. Yama has twin dogs that "guard the path and have powerful vision." They are his messengers, "they move widely and delight in power and possess the vast strength." The Vedic Rishis pray to them for Power and Bliss and for the vision of the Sun.1 There is also the Hound of Heaven, Sarama, who comes down and discovers the luminous cows stolen and hidden by the Panis in their dark caves; she is the path-finder for Indra, the deliverer. My suggestion is that the dog is a symbol of the keen sight of Intuition, the unfailing perception of direct knowledge. With this clue the Upanishadic story becomes quite sensible- and clear and not mere abracadabra. To the aspirant for Knowledge came first a purified power of direct understanding, an Intuition of fundamental value, and this brought others of the same species in its train. They were all linked together organically—that is the significance of the circle, and formed a rhythmic utterance and expression of the supreme truth (Om). It is also to be noted that they came and met at dawn to chant the Truth. Dawn is the opening and awakening of the consciousness to truths that come from above and beyond. It may be asked why the dog has been chosen as the symbol
Rig Veda, X. 14-11,12. Page 346
of Intuition. In the Vedas, the cow and the horse also play a
large part; even the donkey and the frog have their own assigned roles. These objects are taken from the environment of
ordinary life, and are those that are most familiar to the external consciousness, through which the inner experiences have
to express themselves, if they are to be expressed at all. These material
objects represent various kinds of forces and movements and subtle and occult and spiritual dynamisms. Strictly
I. THE SEVERAL LIGHTS
The Brihadaranjyaka speaks of several lights that man possesses, one in the absence of another, for his illumination and guidance. First of all, he has the Sun; it is the primary light by which he lives and moves. When the Sun sets, the Moon rises to replace it. When both the Sun and the Moon set, he has recourse to the Fire. And when the Fire, too, is extinguished, there comes the Word. In the end, when the Fire is quieted and the Word silenced, man is lighted by the Light of the Atman. This Atman is All-Knowledge, it is secreted within the life, within the heart: it is self-luminous—vijnanamayah pranesu hrdyantar-jyotih. The progression indicated by the order of succession points to a gradual withdrawal from the outer to the inner light, from the surface to the deep, from the obvious to the secret, from the actual and derivative to the real and original. We begin by the senses and move towards the Spirit. The Sun is the first and the most immediate source of light that man has and needs. He is the presiding deity of our waking consciousness and has his seat in the eye—caksusah adityah, adityah caksuh bhutva aksini pravisat. The eye is the representative Page 347
of the senses; it is the sense par excellence.
In truth, sense-perception is the initial light with which we have to guide us, it is
the light with which we start on the way. A developed stage
comes when the Sun sets for us, that is to say, when we retire
from the senses and rise into the mind, whose divinity is the
Moon. It is the mental knowledge, the light of reason and
intelligence, of reflection and imagination that govern our
consciousness. We have to proceed farther and get beyond the
II. THE FOUR OBLATIONS
The Word has four breasts. The Gods feed on two, SWAHAKAR and
VASHATKAR, men upon the third, HANTAKAR, and the Ancestor
1 Srihadaranyaka Upanishad, V. 8 .i. Page 348 to four Deities, Powers or Presences, whom the sacrificer wishes to please and propitiate in order to have their help and blessing and in order thereby to discharge his dharma or duty of life. Svaha is the offering especially dedicated to Agni, the foremost of the Gods, for he is the divine messenger who carries men's offering to the Gods and brings their blessing to men. Vasatkar is the offering to the Gods generally. Hantakar is the offering to mankind, to our kin, an especial form of it being the worship of the guests, sarvadevamayo'tithi. Svadha is the offering to the departed Fathers (Pitris). The duty of life consists, it is said, in the repaying of three debts which every man contracts as soon as he takes birth upon earth—the debt to the Gods, to Men and to the Ancestors. This threefold debt or duty has, in other terms, reference to the three fields or domains wherein an embodied being lives and moves and to which he must adjust and react rightly if he is to secure for his life an integral fulfilment. These are the family, society and the world and beyond-world. The Gods are the Powers that rule the world and beyond, they are the forms and forces of the One Spirit underlying the universe, the varied expressions of divine Truth and Reality. To worship the Gods, to do one's duty by them, means to come into contact and to be united—in being, consciousness and activity—with the universal and spiritual existence, which is the supreme end and purpose of human life. The second—a more circumscribed field—is the society to which one belongs, the particular group of humanity in which he functions as a limb. The service to society or good citizenship entails the worship of humanity, of Man as a god. Lastly, man belongs to the family, which is the unit of society; and the backbone of the family is the continuous line of ancestors, who are its presiding deity and represent the norm of a living dharma, the ethic of an ideal life. From the psychological standpoint, the four oblations are movements or reactions of consciousness in its urge towards the utterance and expression of Divine Truth. Like some other elements in the cosmic play, these also form a quartet—catur vyuha—and work together for a common purpose in view of a perfect and all-round result. Svaha is the offering and invocation. One must dedicate everything to the Divine, cast all one has or does into the Fire of Page 349 Aspiration that blazes up towards the Most High, and through the tongue of that one-pointed flame call on the Divinity. In doing so, in invoking the Truth and consecrating oneself to it, one begins to ascend to it step by step; and each step means a tearing of another veil and a further opening of the passage.. This graded mounting is vasatkara. Hantakara is the appearance, the manifestation of the Divinity —that which makes the worshipper cry in delight, "Hail!" It is the coming of the Dawn—ahana—when the night has been traversed and the lid rent open, the appearance of the Divine to a human vision for the human consciousness to seize, almost in a human form. Finally, once the Truth is reached, it is to be held fast, firmly established, embodied and fixed in its inherent nature here in life and the waking consciousness. This is Svadha, The Gods feed upon Svadha and Vasat, as these represent the ascending movement of human consciousness: it is man's self-giving and aspiration and the upward urge of his heart and soul that reach to the Gods, and it is that which the immortals take into themselves and are, as it were, nourished by, since it is something that appertains to their own nature. And in response they descend and approach and enter into the aspiring human soul—this descent and revelation and near and concrete presence of Divinity, this Hanta is man's food, for by it his consciousness is nourished. This interchange, or mutual giving, the High Covenant between the Gods and Men, to which the Gita too refers
With this sacrifice nourish the Gods, that the Gods may nourish you; thus mutually nourishing ye shall obtain the highest felicity1
is the very secret of the cosmic play, the basis of the spiritual evolution in the universal existence. The Gods are the formations or particularisations of the Truth-consciousness, the multiple individualisations of the One spirit. The Pitris are the Divine Fathers, that is to say, souls that once laboured and realised here below, and now have passed beyond. They dwell in another world, not too far removed from the earth, and from there, with the force of their
lThe Gita, III-ll. Page 350 realisation, lend a more concrete help and guidance to the destiny that is being worked out upon earth. They are forces and formations of consciousness in an intermediate region between Here and There (antariksa), and serve to bring men and gods nearer to each other, inasmuch as they belong to both the categories, being a divinised humanity or a humanised divinity. Each fixation of the Truth-consciousness in an earthly mould is a thing of joy to the Pitris; it is the Svadha or food by which they live and grow, for it is the consolidation and also the resultant of their own realisation. The achievements of the sons are more easily and securely reared and grounded upon those of the forefathers, whose formative powers we have to invoke, so that we may pass on to the realisation, the firm embodiment of higher and greater destinies.
III.. THE PATH OF THE FATHERS AND THE PATH OF THE GODS
One is an ideal in and of the world, the other is an ideal transcending the world. The Path of the Fathers (Pitryana) enjoins the right accomplishing of the dharma of Life—it is the path of works, of Karma; it is the line of progressive evolution that man follows through the experience of life after life on earth. The Path of the Gods {Devayana) runs above life's evolutionary course; it lifts man out of the terrestrial cycle and places him in a superior consciousness—it is the path of knowledge, of Vidya.1 The Path of the Fathers is the soul's southern or inferior orbit (daksinayana, aparardha); the Path of the Gods is the northern or superior orbit (uttarayana, parardha). The former is also called the Lunar Path and the latter the Solar Path.2 For the moon represents the mind,3 and is therefore, an emblem that befits man so long as he is a mental being and pursues a dharma that is limited by the mind; the sun, on the other hand, is the knowledge and consciousness that is beyond the mind— it is the eye of the Gods.4 Man has two aspects or natures; he dwells in two worlds. The first is the manifest world—the world of the body, the life
1 Karmapa pitrloko vidyaya devalokah (jayyaft)—Brihadaranyaka, 1.5.16. 2 Devalokddadityam. .pitrlokaccandram—Ibid., VI. 2.15.16. 3 Candram mono bhutva—Aitareya, 1.2.4; Manasascandramah-Ibitl., 1.1.4. 4 Diviva caksuratatam—Rig Veda. Page 351 and the mind. The body has flowered into the mind through the life. The body gives the basis or the material, the life gives power and energy and the mind the directing knowledge. This triune world forms the humanity of man. But there is another aspect hidden behind this apparent nature, there is another world where man dwells in his submerged, larger and higher consciousness. To that his soul—the Purusha in his heart only has access. It is the world where man's nature is transmuted into another triune reality—Sat, Chit and Ananda.
The one, however, is not completely divorced from the other.
The apparent, the inferior nature is only a preparation for the
real, the superior nature. The Path of the Fathers concerns
itself with man as a mental being and seeks so to ordain and
accomplish its duties and ideals as to lead him on to the Path
of the Gods; the mind, the life, and the body consciousness
should be so disciplined, educated, purified, they should
develop along such a line and gradually rise to such a stage as And they who are thus lifted up into the Higher Orbit are freed from the bondage to the cycle of rebirth. They enjoy the supreme Liberation that is of the Spirit; and even when they descend into the Inferior Path, it is to work out as free agents, as vehicles of the Divine, a special purpose, to bring down something of the substance and nature of the Solar reality into the lower world, enlighten and elevate the lower, as far as it is allowed, into the higher.
IV. THE TRIPLE AGNI
Agni is the divine spark in man, the naming consciousness in the mortal which purifies and uplifts (pavaka) mortality into immortality. It is the god "seated in the secret heart, who is the possession of infinity and the foundation of existence," as Yama says to Nachiketas.1 Indeed, it was to this godhead that Nachiketas turned and he wanted to know of it and find it, when faith seized on his
1 Katha, 1.1.14. Page 352 pure heart and he aspired for the higher spiritual life. The very opening hymn of the Rig Veda, too, is addressed to Agni, who is invoked as the vicar seated in the front of the sacrifice, the giver of the supreme gifts. King Yama initiated Nachiketas into the mystery of Fire Worship and spoke of three fires that have to be kindled if one aspires to enter the heaven of immortality. The three fires are named elsewhere Garhapatya, Dakshina,and Ahavaniya.1 They are the three tongues of the one central Agni, that dwells secreted in the hearth of the soul. They manifest as aspirations that flame up from the three fundamental levels of our being, the body, the life and the mind. For although the spiritual consciousness is the natural element of the soul and is gained in and through the soul, yet, in Order that man may take possession of it and dwell in it consciously, in order that the soul's empire may be established, the external being too must respond to the soul's impact and yearn for its truth in the Spirit. The mind, the life and the body which are usually obstructions in the path, must discover the secret flame that. is in them too—each has his own portion of the Soul's Fire—and mount on its ardent tongue towards the heights of the Spirit. Garhapatya is the Fire in the body-consciousness, the fire of Earth, as it is sometimes called; Dakshina is the Fire of the moon or mind, and, Ahavaniya that of life.2 The earthly fire is also the fire of the sun; the sun is the source of all earth's heat and symbolises at the same time the spiritual light manifested in the physical consciousness. The lunar fire is also the fire of the stars, the stars, mythologically, being the consorts or powers of the moon and they symbolise, in Yogic experience, the intuitive thoughts. The fire of the life-force has its symbol in lightning, electric energy being its vehicle. Agni in the physical consciousness is called grhapati, for the body is the house in which the soul is lodged and he is its keeper, guardian and lord. The fire in the mental consciousness is called daksina; for it is that which gives discernment, the power to discriminate between the truth and the false-hood, it is that which by the pressure of its heat and light
1 Chhandyogya, IV, 11. 12, 13; V, 18.2. 2 Chhandyogya, IV, 11. 12. 13; V, 18, 2. Page 353 cleaves the wrong away from the right. And the fire in the life-force is called ahavaniya; for prana is not only the plane of hunger and desire, hut also of power and dynamism, it is that which calls forth forces, brings them into play and it is that which is to be invoked for the progression of the Sacrifice, for an onward march on the spiritual path. Of the three fires one is the upholder—he who gives the firm foundation, the stable house where the Sacrifice is performed and Truth realised; the second is the Knower, often called in the Veda jataveda, who guides and directs; and the third the Doer, the effective Power, the driving Energy—vaisvanara.
V, THE FIVE GREAT ELEMENTS
The five elements of the ancients—earth, water, fire, air and ether or space—are symbols taken from the physical world to represent other worlds that are in it and behind it. Each one is a principle that constitutes the fundamental nature of a particular plane of existence. Earth represents the material world itself, Matter or existence in its most concrete, its grossest form. It is the basis of existence, the world that supports other worlds (dhara, dharitri), the first or the lowest of the several ranges of creation. In man it is his body. The principle here is that of stability, substantiality, firmness, consistency. Water represents the next rung—the vital world, the world of life-force (prana). Physiologically also we know that water is the element forming three-fourths of the constituents of a living body and that dead and dry are synonymous terms; it is the medium in which the living cells dwell and through which they draw their sustenance. Water is the veritable sap of life— it is the emblem of life itself. The principle it represents is that of movement, continuity, perpetuity. Fire represents the Heart. It is that which gives the inner motive to the forces of life, it is the secret inspiration and aspiration that drive the movements of life. It is the heat of consciousness, the ardour of our central being that lives in the Truth and accepts nothing, nothing but the Truth. It is the Page 354 pure and primal energy of our divine essence, driving ever upward and onward life's course of evolution. Air is Mind, the world of thought, of conscious formation; it is where life-movements are taken up and given a shape or articulate formula for an organised expression. The forms here have not, however, the concrete rigidity of Matter, but are pliant and variable and fluid—in fact, they are more in the nature of possibilities, rather than actualities. The Vedic Maruts are thought-gods, and Indra (the Luminous Mind), their king, is called the Fashioner of perfect forms. Ether or Space is the infinitude of the Spirit, the limitless Presence that dwells in and yet transcends the body, the life the heart and the mind.
VI. THE SCIENCE OF THE FIVE FIRES
The Science of the Five Agnis (Fires), as propounded by Pravahan, explains and illustrates the process of the birth of the body, the passage of the soul into earth existence. It describes the advent of the child, the building of the physical form of the human being. The process is conceived of as a sacrifice, the usual symbol with the Vedic Rishis for the expression of their vision and perception of universal processes of Nature, physical and psychological. Here, the child is said to be the final fruit of the sacrifice, the different stages in the process being: (i) Soma, (ii) Rain, (iii) Food, (iv) Semen, (v) Child. Soma means Rasa—physically the principle of water, psychologically the principle of delight—and symbolises and constitutes the very soul and substance of life. Now it is said that these five principles—the fundamental and constituent elements—are born out of the sacrifice, through the oblation or offering to the five Agnis. The first Agni is Heaven or the Sky-God, and by offering to it one's faith and one's ardent desire, one calls into manifestation Soma or Rasa or Water, the basic principle of life. This water is next offered to the second Agni, the Rain-God, who sends down Rain. Rain, again, is offered to the third Agni, the Earth, who brings forth Food. Food is, in its turn, offered to the fourth Agni, the Father or Male, who elaborates in himself the generating fluid. Page 355 Finally, this fluid is offered to the fifth Agni, the Mother or the Female, who delivers the Child. The biological process, described in what may seem to be crude and mediaeval terms, really reflects or echoes a more subtle and psychological process. The images used form perhaps part of the current popular notion about the matter, but the esoteric sense goes beyond the outer symbols. The sky seems to be the far and tenuous region where the soul rests and awaits its next birth—it is the region of Soma, the own Home of Bliss and Immortality. Now when the time or call comes, the soul stirs and journeys down—that is the Rain. Next, it enters the earth atmosphere and clothes itself with the earth consciousness. Then it waits and calls for the formation of the material body, first by the contribution of the father and then by that of the mother; when these two unite and the material body is formed, the soul incarnates.
Apart from the question whether the biological phenomenon described is really a symbol and a cloak for another
order of reality, and even taking it at its face value, what is
to be noted here is the idea of a cosmic cycle, and a cosmic
cycle that proceeds through the principle of sacrific. If it is
asked what there is wonderful or particularly spiritual in this
rather naif description of a very commonplace happening that
gives it an honoured place in the Upanishads, the answer is We have, in modern times, a movement towards a more Conscious and courageous knowledge of things that were taboo to puritan ages. Not to shut one's eyes to the lower, darker and hidden strands of our nature, but to bring them out into the light of day and to face them is the best way of dealing with such elements, which otherwise, if they are repressed, exert an unhealthy influence on the mind and nature. The Upanishadic view runs on the same lines, but, with the Page 356 unveiling and the natural—and not merely naturalistic—delineation of these under-worlds (concerning sex and food), it endows them with a perspective sub specie aeternitatis. The sexual function, for example, is easily equated to the double movement of ascent and descent that is secreted in nature, or to the combined action of Purusha and Prakrit! in the cosmic Play, or again to the hidden fount of Delight that holds and moves the universe. In this view there is nothing merely secular and profane, but all is woven into the cosmic spiritual whole; and man is taught to consider and to mould all his movements—of soul and mind and body—in the light and rhythm of that integral Reality.1 The central secret of the transfigured consciousness lies, as we have already indicated, in the mystic rite or law of Sacrifice. It is the one basic, fundamental, universal Law that upholds and explains the cosmic movement, conformity to which brings to the thrice-bound human being release and freedom. Sacrifice consists essentially of two elements or processes:
(i) The offering or self-giving of the lower reality to the higher,
and, as a consequence, an answering movement of (ii) the
descent of the higher into the lower. The lower offered to the
higher means the lower sublimated and integrated into the
higher; and the descent of the higher into the lower means the
incarnation of the former and the fulfilment of the latter. The
Gita elaborates the same idea when it says that by Sacrifice
men increase the gods and the gods increase men and by so
1 The secularisation of man's vital functions in modern ages has not been a success. It has made him more egocentric and blatantly hedonistic. From an occult point of view he has in this way subjected himself to the influences of dark and undesirable world-forces, has made an opening, to use an Indian symbolism, for Kali (the Spirit of the Iron Age) to enter into him. The sex-force is an extremely potent agent, but it is extremely fluid and elusive and uncontrollable. It was for this reason that the ancients always sought to give it a proper mould, a right continent, a fixed and definite channel; the modems, on the other hand, allow it to run free and play with it recklessly. The result has been, in the life of those born under such circumstances, a growing lack of poise and balance and a corresponding incidence of neurasthenia, hysteria and all abnormal pathological conditions. Page 357 VII. THE COSMIC AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL
The Supreme Reality which is always called Brahman in the Upanishads, has to be known and experienced in two ways; for it has two fundamental aspects or modes of being. The Brahman is universal and it is transcendental. The Truth, satyam, the Upanishad says in its symbolic etymology, is 'This' (or, He) and 'That' (syat + tyat i.e. sat + tat). 'This' means the Universal Brahman: it is what is referred to when the Upanishad says:
Isavasyamidam sarvam: All this is for habitation by the Lord; or, Sarvam khalvidam brahma: All this is indeed the Brahman; or, Sa evedam sarvam: He is indeed all this; or, Ahamevedam sarvam: I am indeed all this; or, Atmaivedam sarvam: The Self indeed is all this; or again, Sarvamasmi: I am all.
The Chhandyogya1 gives a whole typal scheme of this universal reality and explains how to realise it and what are the results of the experience. The Universal Brahman means the cosmic movement, the cyclic march of things and events taken in its global aspect. The typical movement that symbolises and epitomises the phenomenon, embodies the truth, is that of the sun. The movement consists of five stages which are called the fivefold sama. Sama means the equal Brahman that is ever present in all, the Upanishad itself says deriving the word from sama. It is Sama also because it is a rhythmic movement, a cadence—a music of the spheres. And a rhythmic movement, in virtue of its being a wave, consists of these five stages: (i) the start, (ii) the rise, (iii) the peak, (iv) the decline and (v) the fall. Now the sun follows this curve and marks out the familiar divisions of the day: dawn, forenoon, noon, afternoon and sunset. Sometimes two other stages are added, one at each end, one of preparation and another of final lapse—the twilights with regard to the sun—and then we have seven instead of five samas. Like the Sun, the Fire—that is to say, the sacrificial Fire—can also be seen in its fivefold cyclic movement: (i) the lighting, (ii) the smoke, (iii) the flame, (iv) smouldering
* Chhandyogya, II, III. Page 358 and finally (v) extinction—the fuel as it is rubbed to produce the fire and the ashes may be added as the two supernumerary stages. Or again, we may take the cycle of five seasons or of the five worlds or of the deities that control these worlds. The living wealth of this earth is also symbolised in a quintet—goat and sheep and cattle and horse and finally man. Coming to the microcosm, we have in man the cycle of his five senses, basis of all knowledge and activity. For the macrocosm, to bring out its vast extra-human complexity, the Upanishad refers to a quintet, each term of which is again a trinity: (i) the threefold Veda, the Divine Word that is the origin of creation, (ii) the three worlds or fields—earth, air-belt or atmosphere and space, (iii) the three principles or deities ruling respectively these worlds—Fire, Air and Sun, (iv) their expressions, emanations or embodiments—stars and birds and light-rays, and finally, (v) the original inhabitants of these worlds—to earth belong the reptiles, to the mid-region the Gandharvas and to heaven the ancient Fathers.
Now, this is the All, the Universal. One has to realise it and
possess in one's consciousness. And that can be done only in
one way: one has to identify oneself with it, be one with it,
become it. Thus by losing one's individuality one lives the life
universal; the small lean separate life is enlarged and moulded
in the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast. It is thus that man
shares in the consciousness and energy that inspire and move
and sustain the cosmos. The Upanishad most emphatically Still the Upanishad says this is not the final end. There is yet a higher status of reality and consciousness to which one has to rise. For beyond the Cosmos lies the Transcendent. The Upanishad expresses this truth and experience in various symbols. The cosmic reality, we have seen, is often conceived as a septenary, a unity of seven elements, principles and worlds, further to give it its full complex value, it is considered not as a simple septet, but a threefold heptad—the whole gamut, as it were, consisting of 21 notes or syllables. The Page 359 Upanishad says, this number does not exhaust the entire range; for there is yet a 22nd place. This is the world beyond the Sun, griefless and deathless, the supreme Selfhood. The Veda also sometimes speaks of the integral reality as being represented by the number 100 which is 99 + 1; in other words, 99 represents the cosmic or universal, the unity being the reality beyond, the Transcendent. Elsewhere the Upanishad describes more graphically this truth and the experience of it. It is said there that the sun has five—we note the familiar five—movements of rising and setting: (i) from East to West, (ii) from South to North, (iii) from West to East, (iv) from North to South and (v) from above—from the Zenith—downward. These are the five normal and apparent movements. But there is a sixth one; rather it is not a movement, but a status, where the sun neither rises nor sets, but is always visible fixed in the same position. . Some Western and Westernised scholars have tried to show that the phenomenon described here is an exclusively natural phenomenon, actually visible in the polar region where the sun never sets for six months and moves in a circle whose plane is parallel to the plane of the horizon on the summer solstice and is gradually inclined as the sun regresses towards the equinox (on which day just half the solar disc is visible above the horizon). The sun may be said there to move in the direction East-South-West-North and again East. Indeed the Upanishad mentions the positions of the sun in that order and gives a character to each successive station. The Ray from the East is red, symbolising the Rik, the Southern Ray is white, symbolising the Yajur, the Western Ray is black symbolising the Atharva. The natural phenomenon, however, might have been or might not have been before the mind's eye of the Rishi, but the symbolism, the esotericism of it is clear enough in the way the Rishi speaks of it. Also, apart from the first four movements (which it is already sufficiently difficult to identify completely with what is visible), the fifth movement, as a separate descending movement from above appears to be a foreign element in the context. And although, with regard to the sixth movement or status, the sun is visible as such exactly from the point of the North Pole for a while, the ring of the Rishi's utterance is unmistakably spiritual, it cannot but Page 360 refer to a fact of inner consciousness—that is at least what the physical fact conveys to the Rishi and what he seeks to convey and express primarily. Now this is what is sought to be conveyed and expressed. The five movements of the sun here also are nothing but the five samas and they refer to the cycle of the Cosmic or Universal Brahman. The sixth status where all movements cease, where there is no rising and setting, no ebb and flow, no waxing and waning, where there is the immutable, the ever-same unity, is very evidently the Transcendental Brahman. It is That to which the Vedic Rishi refers when he prays for a constant and fixed vision of the eternal Sun—-jyok ca suryam drise.
It would be interesting to know what the five ranges
or
levels or movements of consciousness exactly are that make up
the Universal Brahman described in this passage. It is the
mystic knowledge, the Upanishad says, of the secret delight in
things—madhuvidya. The five ranges are the five fundamental
principles of delight—immortalities, the Veda would say—
that form the inner core of the pyramid of creation. They
form a rising tier and are ruled respectively by the gods— Page 361 The third in the line of ascension is the region of Varuna and the Adityas, that is to say, of the large Mind and its lights —perhaps it can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Maruts—this seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations—the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you go beyond, you pass into the ultimate status of the Sun, the reality absolute, the Transcendent which is indescribable, unseizable, indeterminate, indeterminable, incommensurable; and once there, one never returns, never—na ca punaravartate na ca punaravartate.
VIII. HOW MANY GODS?
"How many Gods are there?" Yajnavalkya was once asked.* The Rishi answered, they say there are three thousand and three of them, or three hundred and three, or again, thirty- three; it may be said too there are six or three or two or one and a half or one finally. Indeed as the Upanishad says elsewhere, it is the One Unique who wished to be many: and all the gods are the various glories (mahima) or emanations of the One Divine. The ancient of ancient Rishis 'had declared long long ago, in the earliest Veda, that there is one indivisible Reality, the seers name it in various ways. In Yajnavalkya's enumeration, however, it is to be noted, first of all, that he stresses on the number three. The principle of triplicity is of very wide application: it permeates all fields of consciousness and is evidently based upon a fundamental fact of reality. It seems to embody a truth of synthesis and comprehension, points to the order and harmony that reigns in the cosmos, the spheric music. The metaphysical, that is to say, the original principles that constitute existence are the well-known triplets: (i) the superior: Sat, Chit, Ananda; and (ii) the inferior: Body, Life and Mind—this being a reflection or translation or concretisation of the former. We can see also
1 Brihadaranyaka III.9. Page 362 here how the dual principle comes in, the twin godhead or the two gods to which Yajnavalkya refers. The same principle is found in the conception of Ardhanarishwara, Male and Female, Purusha-Prakriti. The Upanishad says1 yet again that the One original Purusha was not pleased at being alone, so for a companion he created out of himself the original Female. The dual principle signifies creation, the manifesting activity of the Reality. But what is this one and a half to which Yajnavalkya refers? It simply means that the other created out of the one is not a wholly separate, independent entity: it is not an integer by itself, as in the Manichean system, but that it is a portion, a fraction of the One. And in the end, in the ultimate analysis, or rather synthesis, there is but one single undivided and indivisible unity. The thousands and hundreds, very often mentioned also in the Rig Veda, are not simply multiplications of the One, a graphic description of its many-sidedness; it indicates also the absolute fullness, the complete completeness (purnasya purnam) of the Reality. It includes and comprehends all and is a rounded totality, a full circle. The hundred-gated and the thousand-pillared cities of which the-ancient Rishis chanted are formations and embodiments of consciousness human and divine, are realities whole and entire englobing all the layers and grades of consciousness. Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation—the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects —the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations.
1Brihadaranyaka 1.4. Page 363 Now, each one of them in its turn has its own emanations—the eleven Rudriyas are familiar. These are secondary and there are tertiary and other graded emanations—the last ones touch the earth and embody physico-vital forces. The lowest formations or beings can trace their origin to one or other of the primaries and their nature and function partake of or are an echo of their first ancestor. Man, however, is an epitome of creation. He embraces and incarnates the entire gamut of consciousness and comprises in him all beings from the highest Divinity to the lowest jinn or elf. And yet each human being in his true personality is a lineal descendant of one or other typal aspect or original Personality of the one supreme Reality; and his individual character is all the more pronounced and well-defined the more organised and developed is the being. The psychic being in man is thus a direct descent, an immediate emanation along a definite line of devolution of the supreme consciousness. We may now understand and explain easily why one chooses a particular Ishta, an ideal god, what is the drive that pushes one to become a worshipper of Siva or Vishnu or any other deity. It is not any rational understanding, a weighing of pros and cons and then a resultant conclusion that leads one to choose a path of religion or spirituality. It is the soul's natural call to the God, the type of being and consciousness of which it is a spark, from which it has descended, it is the secret affinity—the spiritual blood-relation as it were—that determines the choice and adherence. And it is this that we name Faith. And the exclusiveness and violence and bitterness which attend such adherence and which go by the name of partisanship, sectarianism, fanaticism etc., are a deformation in the ignorance on the physico-vital plane of the secret loyalty to one's source and origin. Of course, the pattern or law is not so simple and rigid, but it gives a token or typal pattern. For it must not be forgotten that the supreme source or the original is one and indivisible and in the highest integration consciousness is global and not exclusive. And the human being that attains such a status is not bound or wholly limited to one particular formation: its personality is based on the truth of impersonality. And yet the two can go together: an individual Page 364 can be impersonal in consciousness and yet personal in becoming and true to type. The number of gods depends on the level of consciousness on which we stand. On this material plane there are as many gods as there are bodies or individual forms (adhar). And on the supreme height there is only one God without a second. In between there are gradations of types and sub-types whose number and function vary according to the aspect of consciousness that reveals itself.
IX. NACHIKETAS THREE BOONS
The three boons asked for by Nachiketas from Yama, Lord of Death, and granted to him have been interpreted in different ways. Here is one more attempt in the direction. Nachiketas is the young aspiring human being still in the Ignorance—naciketa, meaning one without consciousness or knowledge. The three boons he asks for are in reference to the three fundamental modes of being and consciousness that are at the very basis, forming, as it were, the ground-plan of the integral reality. They are (i) the individual, (ii) the universal or cosmic and (iii) the transcendental.
The first boon regards the individual, that is to say, the individual identity and integrity. It asks for the maintenance of
that individuality so that it may be saved from the dissolution
that Death brings about. Death, of course, means the dissolution of the body, but it represents also dissolution pure and
simple. Indeed death is a process which does not stop with the
physical phenomenon, but continues even after; for with the
body gone, the other elements of the individual organism, the Page 365 divine world, the Heaven of the immortals, beyond death and beyond sorrow and grief. It is the hearth secreted in the inner heart where burns the Divine Fire, the God of Life Everlasting. And this is the nodus that binds together the threefold status of the manifested existence, the body, the life and the mind. This. triplicity is the structure of name and form built out of the bricks of experience, the kiln, as it were, within which burns the Divine Agni, man's true soul. This soul can be reached only when one exceeds the bounds and limitations of the triple cord and experiences one's communion and identity with all souls and all existence. Agni is the secret divinity within, within the individual and within the world; he is the Immanent Divine, the cosmic godhead that holds together and marshals all the elements and components, all the principles that make up the manifest universe. He it is that has entered into the world and created facets of his own reality in multiple forms: and it is he that lies secret in the human being as the immortal soul through all its adventure of life and death in the series of incarnations in terrestrial evolution. The adoration and realisation of this Immanent Divinity, the worship of Agni taught by Yama in the second boon, consists in the triple sacrifice, the triple work, the triple union in the triple status of the physical, the vital and the mental consciousness, the mastery of which leads one to the other shore, the abode of perennial existence where the human soul enjoys its eternity and unending continuity in cosmic life. Therefore, Agni, the master of the psychic being, is called jatavedas, he who knows the births, all the transmigrations from life to life. The third boon is the secret of secrets, for it is the knowledge and realisation of Transcendence that is sought here. Beyond the individual lies the universal; is there anything beyond the universal ? The release of the individual into the cosmic existence gives him the griefless life eternal: can the cosmos be rolled up and flung into something beyond? What would be the nature of that thing ? What is there outside creation, out-side manifestation, outside Maya, to use a latter day term? Is there existence or non-existence (utter dissolution or extinction —Death in his supreme and absolute status) ? King Yama did not choose to answer immediately and even endeavoured to dissuade Nachiketas from pursuing the question over which Page 366 people were confounded, as he said. Evidently it was a much discussed problem in those days. Buddha was asked the same question and he evaded it, saying that the pragmatic man should attend to practical and immediate realities and not waste time and energy in discussing things ultimate and beyond that have hardly any relation to the present and the actual. But Yama did answer and unveil the mystery and impart the supreme secret knowledge—the knowledge of the Transcendent Brahman: it is out of the transcendent reality that the immanent deity takes his birth. Hence the Divine Fire, the Lord of creation and the Inner Master—sarvabhutantaratma, antaryami—is called brahmajam, born of the Brahman. Yama teaches the process of transcendence. Apart from the knowledge and experience first of the individual and then of the cosmic Brahman, there is a definite line along which the human consciousness (or unconsciousness, as it is at present) is to ascend and evolve. The first step is to learn to distinguish between the Good and the Pleasurable (sreya and preya). The line of pleasure leads to the external, the superficial, the false: while the other path leads towards the inner and the higher truth. So the second step is the gradual withdrawal of the consciousness from the physical and the sensual and even the mental preoccupation and focussing it upon what is certain and permanent. In the midst of the death-ridden consciousness—in the heart of all that is unstable and fleeting—one has to look for Agni, the eternal godhead, the Immortal in mortality, the Timeless in time through whom lies the passage to Immortality beyond Time. Man has two souls corresponding to his double status. In the inferior, the soul looks downward and is involved in the current of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of grief and sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it looks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the cosmic) and then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The lower is a reflection of the higher, the higher comes down in a diminished and hence tarnished light. The message is that of deliverance, the deliverance and reintegration of the lower soul out of its bondage of worldly ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher and then of its highest Page 367 status. It is true, however, that the Upanishad does not make a, trenchant distinction between the cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same breath, as it were. For in fact they are realities involved in each other and interwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the Individual, forms one single totality and the three do not exclude or cancel each other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to enhance each other's reality. The Transcendence expresses or deploys itself in the cosmos—he goes abroad, sa paryagat: and the cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the particular and the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds itself, aspects itself in a threefold manner. The teaching of Yama in brief may be said to be the gospel of immortality and it consists of the knowledge of triple immortality. And who else can be the best teacher of immortality than Death himself, as Nachiketas pointedly said? The first immortality is that of the physical existence and consciousness, the preservation of the personal identity, the individual name . and form—this being in itself as expression and embodiment and instrument of the Inner Reality. This inner reality en-shrines the second immortality—the eternity and continuity of the soul's life through its incarnations in time, the divine Agni lit for ever and ever growing in flaming consciousness. And the third and final immortality is in the being and consciousness beyond time, beyond all relativities, the absolute and self-existent delight. Page 368 |