Upanishads

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Upanishads

The Upanishads are a set of philosophical and didactic religious texts from India, the central lessons of which have been regarded by many as presenting some of the most fundamental elements of contemplative and mystical Indian religious sensibilities in general. The Sanskrit word upani?ad —built on the root ?ad ("sit") with the prefixes upa and ni ("nearby")—is consistent with the traditional understanding that these texts originally were lessons given to students sitting at the feet of a learned master. The most influential of the Upanishads were composed in Sanskrit in both verse and prose form between the eighth and the second centuries b.c.e.; lesser-known works of this genre appear as late as the sixteenth century c.e. The major Upanishads have been translated into virtually all of the world's major languages and have become objects of study and sources of inspiration for people around the world.

European readers were introduced to these texts through the translation of fifty Upanishads into Latin by Anquetil Duperron in 1801–1802. They had considerable effect on such nineteenth-century philosophers as Arthur Schopenhauer, who maintained that the Upanishads were "the fruit of the most sublime human knowledge and wisdom." They also came to the attention of American philosophers and writers in the nineteenth century, primarily via various strands of the Idealist, Romantic, and Transcendentalist movements of Germany and England. (The opening lines of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1857 poem "Brahma" closely paraphrase verses from the Ka?ha Upanishad.) Interest in the Upanishads grew in the United States after such events as the visit by the Hindu philosopher-monk Swami Vivekananda, who was an influential participant in the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, and by the subsequent founding in 1898 of the Vedanta Society, which was one of the first Hindu-based religious organizations to be established in the United States. Selections from the Upanishads now regularly appear in courses offered by American colleges and universities, and their teachings often guide the spiritual practices of contemporary individuals and groups in the United States influenced by classical Indian thought.

Teachings of the Upanishads

There are many Upanishads, and they all present their own sets of teachings. Nevertheless, there are some core themes that find expression in the Upanishads as a whole. The central lesson of the Upanishads centers on the notion that all of the many and various beings in the constantly changing world are infused with and inwardly supported by a single, subtle, pervasive, powerful, and abiding divine presence that stands as the ultimate and true reality. Because it is the ground of all being, the essence of the absolute abides hidden, as it were, within all beings. A related and key lesson, therefore, is that the subtle essence of the human being is identical to the essence of the single and eternal world soul.

The Upanishads refer to this ultimate reality by several terms. Earlier Upanishads tend to call it brahman (hence Emerson's poem "Brahma") or atman. Brahman applies more typically to the pervasive nature of the godhead (the word literally means "expansive, powerful, great"). Atman refers to the presence of the absolute at the deepest level of one's being (atman literally means "self"). The two terms often appear in translations as Brahman and Atman, capitalized to mark the ultimacy of the unitary world soul.

Some of the later Upanishads teach that this Brahman or Atman is actually God, who resides deep within the heart of all beings. These theistic Upanishads variously identify God as Shiva ("the benevolent one"), Vishnu ("the pervasive one"), or the universal Goddess, the latter known by a number of names.

No matter what it is called, the ultimate ground of all existence is said by the Upanishads to be unified and indivisible. It is the "inner guide," "hidden mover," and "finest essence" of all things. The Ch?ndogya Upanishad repeatedly proclaims tat tvam asi, "thou art that"—the "that" here referring to the world soul and the "thou" referring to one's truest self, the self that is Atman. Similarly, the Ch?ndogya Upanishad declares that "the whole world is Brahman," while the B?had?ra?yaka Upanishad notes that "Truly, the Brahman is this Atman" and leads the seeker to realize "I am Brahman."

These four lessons—"thou art that," "the whole world is Brahman," "the Brahman is this Atman," and "I am Brahman"—form what tradition has come to call the mah?vakyas, the "great teachings" of the Upanishads. The Ka?ha Upanishad notes that when one realizes the identity of inner self with the world soul, then one "is released from the jaws of death."

Upanishadic perspectives find succinct expression in these verses from the ??a Upanishad:

[the divine self] moves. it moves not. it is far. it is near.
it is within all things, and yet it is outside all. one who regards all beings as within the self and the self as within all beings never turns away from him.
for one in whom all beings have become none other than the self of the knower: then what delusion, or what sorrow can possibly befall that one who sees the unity!

The Upanishads admit the difficulty of knowing an ultimate reality that is not defined or limited by time, space, and the particularities of personality. The Ka?haUpanishad describes the path leading to this knowledge as "like a razor's edge." (The British writer Somerset Maugham drew on this phrase for the title of his 1944 novel The Razor's Edge, about a doctor's spiritual search.) The Upanishads hold that this eternal, divine presence within can be known through attentive listening to teachings given by one who has fully realized the identity of Brahman and Atman; through sustained contemplation of the deeper, inner dimensions of one's life; and through the spiritual practice of meditation. That the reverential turn inward to find the divine presence within through meditation is an important and effective spiritual practice is represented in the ?vet??vatara Upanishad:

those who were skilled in the practice of meditation saw the autonomous power of the divine, hidden within its own qualities. . . .
the eternal one that rests in the self should be known; for, truly, there is nothing higher than this to be known.
. . .
just as the form of fire is not visible when latent in its source, but may be found over and over again by use of friction, so . . . by practicing meditation one may see the divine, hidden, as it were. . . .
holding one's body steady, and bringing the senses and the mind into the heart, one should practice meditation.

Upanishadic views in general recognize the value of the heart as the seat of the soul and abode of the divine presence that similarly dwells within all things, so it is to their hearts that the sages taught their disciples to turn. Indeed, to reach the true heart, and thus the divine self that dwells therein, is said to embrace all that exists. The Ch?ndogya Upanishad encourages seekers to remember:

truly, as far as the space of this [universe] extends, that far extends the space within the heart. within it are held both heaven and earth, both fire and air, sun and moon, lightning and the stars. whatever of him there is, and whatever there is not all of that is held within the heart.