Chapter 8The Veda and the Upanishads · Terms and Verses of the Upanishads

It is quite impossible to say to what they [the seers of the Upa-nishads] were referring in those days.1 We have no longer a clue to their symbolism. But it is meant that the lower worlds are in the higher worlds even as the higher worlds are in the lower worlds — they penetrate each other. E.g. in our system there is a vital mental, several layers of the vital itself, a physical vital and so on in each realm. Everything contains everything else, as it were.

* It is quite probable that the sloka [Katha Upanishad 2.3.4] refers to a going up into higher worlds of felicity and light and this can be called a liberation or release. In later times the idea grew strong that from all these higher worlds return is inevitable and it is only release from all cosmic existence that gives mukti. The Vedic Rishis seem to have looked to an ascent into a divine luminous world or state above the falsehood and ignorance. In the Upanishad the sun is the symbol of the supramental Truth and it is said that those who pass into it may return but those who pass through the gates of the Sun itself do not; possibly this means that an ascent into the supermind itself above the golden lid of overmind was the definitive liberation. The Veda speaks of the Truth hidden by a Truth where the Sun looses his horses from his car and there all the myriad rays are drawn together into One and that was considered the goal. The Isha Upanishad also speaks of the golden lid hiding the face of the Truth by removing which the Law of the Truth is seen and the highest 1 The correspondent asked for an explanation of certain terms in a passage (3.6.1) from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. — Ed.

knowledge in which the One Purusha is known (so’ham asmi) is described as the kaly¯an.atama form of the Sun. All this seems to refer to the supramental states of which the Sun is the symbol.

* The mental realisation [of the one self] does not bring this result [the ending of delusion (moha) and grief (´soka)], the spiritual does.2 In the Vedantic experience “seeing” means also becoming, one is that one self, identified, — all action of Nature seems to one a movement in that one self which is itself not touched by it. Therefore there is no moha or ´soka. That is, when one can keep the experience and when it is complete. Even if one has the experience only as something within while the movements of the vital continue on the surface, yet these movements are felt as external and superficial, not really belonging to oneself — the self within remains untouched, calm, griefless, at peace. If the vital also is transformed into this consciousness, then even on the surface grief becomes impossible.

* Perception is not enough to transform the nature. Pa´syatah.

3 in the spiritual language does not mean only perception. Perception is of the mind and a mental perception is not enough — a substantial and dynamic realisation in all the being is necessary. Otherwise one of three things may happen. (1) The mind perceives oneness but the vital is not affected, it goes on with its impulses, for the vital is governed not by thought or reason but by tendency, impulse, desire-force — it uses reason only as a justification for its tendencies. Or even the vital may say, “All is one so it does not matter what I do. Why should not I seek oneness with others in my own way?” (2) If the mind has a realisation, but the vital does not share in it or distorts it, then also the vital can insist on its own way or even carry the mind 2 The correspondent asked for a clarification of verse 7 of the Isha Upanishad, which ends, “ . . . how shall he be deluded, whence shall he have grief who sees everywhere oneness?” — Ed. 3 This term appears in verse 7 of the Isha Upanishad. — Ed.

along with it. As the Gita says, the senses (vital) carry away the mind even of the sage who sees, as the wind carries away a ship on a stormy sea. (3) The inner being may have the realisation strongly and live in the oneness, calm, peace, but the interior parts of the outer may feel the reactions of desire etc. In this case the reactions are more superficial; but even so rejection is needed till they cease. When all the being lives in the solid realisation of calm, peace, liberation, oneness, then the desires fall away and the necessity of rejection ceases, because there is nothing to reject any longer.

* It [the identification of buddhi with the vij˜n¯anamaya kos.a] is the error that came with the excessive intellectualism of the philosophers and commentators. I don’t think buddhi includes intuition as something separate in kind from intellect — the in-tellectualists considered intuition to be only a rapid process of intellectual thought — and they still think that. In the Taittiriya Upanishad the sense of vij˜n¯ana is very clear — its essence is r.tam, the spiritual Truth; but afterwards the identification with buddhi became general.

* I do not suppose they [the commentators] mean expressly intuition [by buddhi]; they regard buddhi as the means of knowledge, so they include all knowledge in it, and as the vij˜n¯anamaya kos.a is the Knowledge sheath, they think it must mean buddhi. Obviously it doesn’t. The description you have quoted4 evidently means something much higher than buddhi. It is the satyam r.ta ˙m br.hat of the Upanishad — the truth-consciousness of the Veda.