Jñana
Darsanas - philosophic viewpoints on the Upanisads
Key Terms:
  • Brahman
  • Henotheism
  • Impersonal
  • Netti Netti
  • Atman
    • 1) Brahman
    Henotheism: each divinity is a symbolic representation of the impersonal deity.
    Everything that has a name and/or has a form is Brahman.
    The absolute is impersonal.
    Given that it dwells in every part of life not an agent who creates or destroy; he does not do anything.
    How can we describe Brahman?
    Netti Netti - not this not this (Upanisads)
    Brahman is without qualities, unbound, without action, eternal, immutable
    .
    The supreme Self is beyond name and form,
    Beyond the senses, inexhaustible,
    Without beginning, without end,
    Beyond time and space, and causality,
    Eternal, immutable. Katha Upanisad 2.2.2
    Tat tsvam asi (You are That!) Chandogya Upanishad.
    The most famous saying from the Chandogya Upanisad has come to be almost creedal. It is spoken by Uddalaka who is teaching his precocious son, Shvetaketu, about ultimate reality. According to Uddalaka, our perception of the plurality of objects is an illusion of speech.: "just as ... by one clod of clay all that is made of clay becomes known, the modification being only a name arising from speech while the truth is that it is just clay." (6.1)
     

    Thou art that

    Atman and Brahman are one

    I am Brahman

    All this is indeed Brahman

    		ayamAtmA brahma
    tattvamasi
    aham brahmAsmi
    prajnAnam brahma
    Key Terms:
  • Samsara
  • Karma
  • Moksa
    • 2) The Human Condition
    Samsara: one is liable to death -- even in heaven -- in an unending cycle. Birth is followed by change and decay and death and rebirth. The self, atman, is reborn again and again until it awakens to its own ignorance and becomes conscious of its true Self, that Atman is Brahman. Everything is in a constant state of change or flux, including the gods. Change is not capricious or random. It follows the law of Karma.
    The world is the wheel of God,
    Turning round and round with all living creatures upon its rim.
    The world is the river of God,
    Flowing from him and flowing back to him.
    On this ever-revolving wheel of being
    The individual self goes round and round through life after life
    Believing itself to be a separate creature,
    Until it sees its identity with it
    And attains immortality in the indivisible whole. Svetasvatara Upanisad 1.4-7
    Karma: the ethical law of cause and effect whereby every action, thought and deed bears fruit, or reacts, in the immediate or distant future. The law of karma insures perfect justice
    One is always held responsible for one's own deeds. In actuality, the law of karma means that a person is held responsible at any given time for all that he or she has done before. One's present situation is tempered and colored by one's earlier actions which give one certain tendencies, appearances, and characteristics. Individuality, personality, is not created once and for all but is determined at any given moment by all that has come before. Death does not interrupt the flow of karma. A person is by no means free from paying the price of his or her past actions simply because he or she may die. For one is reborn over and over again, endlessly and forever. This is the Hindu idea of Samsara, and it is intimately bound up with the idea of karma.
    Moksa - awakening or enlightenment is attained when one reaches a level of consciousness where no distinction exists between self and Brahman.
    It is like this. When a chunk of salt is thrown in water, it dissolves into that very water, and it cannot be picked up in any way. Yet, from whichever place one may take a sip, the salt is there! In the same way this Immense Being has no limit or boundary and is a single mass of perception. It arises out of and together with these beings and disappears after them -- so I say, after death there is no awareness. Brhadaranayaka Upanisad 2.4.12
    Now, take these rivers, son. The easterly ones flow towards the east, and the westerly ones flow towards the west. From the ocean, they merge into the very ocean they become just the ocean. In that state they are not aware that: "I am that river", and "I am this river". In exactly the same way, son, when all these creatures reach the existent, they are not aware that: "We are reaching the existent". No matter what they are in this world -- whether it is a tiger, a lion, a wolf, a boar,a worm, a moth, a gnat, or a mosquito -- they all merge into that. The finest essence here -- that constitutes the self of this whole world; that is the truth; that is the atman. Chandogya Upanisad
    Mundaka Upanisad
    What is the solution to the human predicament?
    How did this human condition arise? If reality is Brahman monism how did we come to experience reality -- the phenomenal world of diversity and constant change?
    Hindu thought proposes a number of different answers to these questions in six different schools of thought (darsana). We will examine two of these briefly, Samkya-Yoga and Advaita Vendanta.
    Samkhya:
    Key Terms
  • Prakrti
  • Purusa
  • Gunas
    • Reality consists of two irreducible elements: prakrti (matter) and purusa (conscious being). The goal is to recover a blissful, conscious being separate from prakrti.
    Know thou the soul as riding in a chariot,
    The body as the chariot.
    Know thou the intellect as the chariot-driver,
    And the mind as the reins.
    The senses, they as, are the horses;
    The objects of sense, what they range over.
    The self combined with senses and mind
    Wise men call "the enjoyer."
    He who has not understanding,
    Whose mind is not constantly held firm --
    His senses are uncontrolled,
    Like the vicious horses of a chariot-driver.
    He, however, who has understanding,
    Whose mind is constantly held firm --
    His senses are under control,
    Like the good horses of a chariot-driver.
    He, however, who has not understanding,
    Who is unmindful and ever impure,
    Reaches not the goal,
    But goes on to reincarnation.
    He, however, who has understanding,
    Who is mindful and ever pure,
    Reaches the goal
    From which he is born no more.
    He, however, who has the understanding of a chariot-driver,
    A man who reins in his mind-
    He reaches the end of his journey,
    The highest place of Vishnu.
    Higher than the senses are the objects of the sense.
    Higher than the objects of sense is the mind;
    And higher than the mind is the intellect.
    Higher than the intellect is the Great Self.
    Higher than the Great is the Unmanifest.
    Higher than the Unmanifest is the Person.
    Higher than the Person there is nothing at all.
    That is the goal. That is the highest course.
    Though he is hidden in all things,
    That Soul shines not forth.
    But he is seen by subtle seers
    With superior, subtle intellect.
    An intelligent man should suppress his speech and his mind.
    The latter he should suppress in the understanding-Self.
    The understanding he should suppress in the Great Self.
    That he should suppress in the Tranquil Self.
    Excerpt from the Katha Upanishad (Translated by E. Hume)
    Samkhya reasons that every object arises out of other objects.
    Curd is produced by milk; cloth from thread. These are not ultimate causes in themselves.
    We can deductively arrive at an atomic theory, but mind and intellect do not arise from atoms. Their cause is subtler, finer than the effect. The cause itself cannot be material.
    The ultimate cause, prakriti, cannot be perceived only inferred from its effects.
    Prakriti is not purusa. Purusa -- atman -- self -- is Brahman. Purusa is pure consciousness,
    absolute indissoluble, passive without will or knowledge, eternal uncreated and all pervading.
    The state of consciousness that we experience is the result of a mistake, not a sin. Purusa mistakes prakriti for itself. This is a subject-object error. Purusa mistakes itself for the objects of its experience. For example, we say things like, "I feel pain" or "I am hungry," as if the experience of hunger is the experience of purusa. It mistakenly experiences attributes although it is without attributes. In truth, the purusha is the passive observer of these phenomena. Some Samkhya followers, in disagreement with Advaita Vedanta, argue that pure consciousness does not admit even bliss.
    The purusha has cognition but not recognition. It does not categorize or interpret the sensory data of perception. This act of recognition, thinking as we know it, is the activity of prakriti.
    Somehow purusa becomes confused with matter, prakrit, and this gives rise to the phenomenal world, the cosmos as we know it and experience it.
    Prkriti - 3 gunas sattva white - makes for serenity
    rajas - red movement creativity activity
    tamas black quality of inertia laziness
    When this equilibrium is disturbed creation results.
    Creation is described as an evolutionary process that begins first with the manifestation of
    Mahat (the great one)
    gives rise to
    The Buddhi - intellect
    generated
    Then Manas - mind
    produced
    Ahamkara - ego -sense
    leads to
    five sense organs and the five organs of activity
    produce
    five subtle essence five gross elements
    yield
    25 categories.
     
     
    Mahat before this process of evolution is unconscious which once confused with consciousness produced cognition and, subsequently, knowledge.
    How does Samkhya arrive at these ideas? In part from ideas found in the Vedas, that is from testimony, but for the most part, from inference. From matter as we perceive it, we are able to infer that it is composed of finer material than we can perceive. Therefore, they infer that matter is ultimate the gunas. They arrive at the purusha in a manner similar to Descartes, who said "I think therefore I am," but since thinking involves object subject distinction, they conclude that this phenomenal self is not the true self.
    The mistake upon which our ignorance stands is presented in fable form:
    A lioness is stalking a flock of sheep. She jumps at one and at that moment gives birth to a cub and dies. The cub becomes part of the flock; it eats grass and bleats. One day a lion comes and sees a huge lion eating grass and bleating. The flock flees and the lion/sheep with it. The new lion yells stop "you are a lion"
    "No" bleats the lion.
    The new lion takes him to a lake and shows the lion his semblance.
    The new lion roars and the lion/sheep copies him.
    He is a sheep no longer.
    The point is to recognize that this is all a mistake. The realization of identity with Brahman is the goal The true soul is immortal and has its being outside space and time and its connection with the world of matter - the world of Samsara or perpetual flux must be transient and in some sense unreal.
    For the Hindu, life, space, and time is without beginning and unless the way of liberation is found, without end too.
    The path of jnana is through philosophy - through knowledge understanding leads to enlightenment - insight - moksa - release.
    Vedanta (900 B.C.E.)
    Advaita Vedanta: if prakriti and purusa are absolutely different how can they interact?
    Samkhya's answer: prakrit and purusa are like a lame man and a blind man who can harmoniously cooperate to find their way out of a jungle is an analogy.
    Advaita Vedanta's response: matter is only maya (illusion) or avidya (ignorance)
    Shankara's Biography-
    The Philosophy of Sri Sankaracharya: Advaita Vedanta
    Maya corresponds to prakriti of Samkhya; it is a collective hallucination superimposed upon reality. Maya is the force or power which prevents man from realizing his true predicament.
    It is generally supposed that the idea of maya means the world of the senses --the world we experience is merely an illusion. This is technically accurate but misleading.
    For some it is also a magical force that puts a spell over man, keeps him in a trance, seduces him into thinking that this world of here and now, the world of I and mine, is the ultimately real world
    In later Hinduism maya is sometimes portrayed as a goddess who can be at once irresistibly beautiful, on the one hand, and an ugly terrifying shrew on the other
    Maya in psychological terms is our persistent tendency to regard appearances as reality.
    Superimposition:
    From R. Puligandla, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy:
    "The literal meaning of adhyasa is "superimposition," which Sankara defines as "the apparent presentation in the form of remembrance to consciousness of something previously observed in some other thing." As an act, superimposition is our thinking mistakenly that an object has certain attributes which in fact it does not have. In general, we may say that superimposition consists in attributing qualities not immediately presented to consciousness to a thing that is immediately given to consciousness. The classic illustration of superimposition is the rope-snake example. A man steps on a rope in the dark and thinks it is a snake. Here the rope is what is immediately present to consciousness, the snake is an object of past experience, and superimposition is the person's mistakenly attributing the remembered qualities of the snake to the rope. The present experience of the rope and the past experience of a snake are necessary conditions for one to be able mistakenly to claim that which is now experienced is a snake. In other words, the snakelike experience cannot be had in the absence of the rope. But when one brings a lamp and discovers that what one has stepped on is only a rope, one's snakelike experience is recognized as being illusory. In a similar manner, the empirical world arises as a result of our superimposing qualities on the undifferentiated, unsublatable reality Just as under superimposition the rope is experiences as a snake, so also under the superimposition of names and forms reality, which is beyond names and forms, is experienced as the world of appearance. On attaining knowledge of reality, ignorance, maya, and the world of appearances vanish away simultaneously. It is clear by now that superimposition is the source of ignorance. Once can talk about adhyasa in two senses: (1) with respect to particular experiences in the world of appearances and (2) with respect tot he world of appearances in general. In the former case adhyasa is the attribution of qualities remembered to a thing now being experienced. In the latter case, adhyasa is the superimposition of names and forms on the undifferentiated, unitary reality. We might mention here that Samkara also distinguishes between two kinds of ignorance: primordial (universal ignorance) and individual (temporary ignorance). The former has neither beginning nor end, whereas the latter can be ended by the individual's attaining knowledge of the real. Moreover, universal ignorance serves to account for the common empirical world of appearances. " pp. 219-220.
    Another simile:
    The dreamer experiences the dream as real. When he wakes up he realizes that it was only a dream and thinks no more about it. The only difference between eh dream and the phenomenal world is that a dream is an individual illusion of one man whereas the phenomenal world is a collective illusion shared by all souls that have not attained liberation.
    Moksa - not the soul merging into Braham as a river into a stream but it realizes itself as it is: the one Brahman atman. Moksa is when one admits to no distinction between liberated soul and absolute soul.
    ----
    How does one attain enlightenment? Through Sublation: a mental process of correcting errors and rectifying errors of judgment. Reality cannot be sublated: appearance can be sublated.
    Stages of
    1) formal study with a guru of such truths as "thou art that."
    2) reflection on truth until you have become intellectually convinced of this truth
    3) meditation - dyana transform knowledge into direct experience
    Yoga
    The word Yoga is etymologically related to the English work yoke and means union. Within philosophic practice, the term suggests its opposite, the separation of consciousness (purusha) from matter (prakriti) . Yoga is both a speculative school and a praxis. The Yoga Sutra was composed by the Sage Patanjali sometime 50-400 C.E. Some scholars argue for a much earlier date. While the Yoga Sutra is the text of a discrete system of thought, it informs the meditative practices of other systems, in particular, Samkhya.
    Many translations of the Yoga Sutra are available on-line in many languages: On-line English Versions. I am not qualified to recommend one over another, but I find that of Sanderson Beck a coherent translation.
    The Yoga Surta describes eight steps of advanced techniques for those who have already prepared themselves by eliminating mental turmoil and desire. Followers of Yoga practice Hatha Yoga as a preparation for Raja (royal) Yoga.
    As an advanced ascetic technique it aims to do away with normal consciousness for a consciousness that can comprehend the truth.
    Yoga abolishes 1) errors and illusions and 2) psychic experience (ignorance, individuality, passion, disgust, the will to live)
    It can give rise to para psychic experience (siddhis) but this is not the goal: the para psychic should also pass.
    Yoga replaces experience with samadhi
    in samadhi the self becomes detaches from the flux of life
    Yogic technique - two physical components
    Yogic postures and respiratory discipline
    exercises done in preliminary preparation for samadhi exercises
    1) restraints: five not to kill, lie, steal, sex and avariciousness
    2) disciplines: cleanliness, serenity, asceticism, study of yoga
    3) bodily attitudes and postures -- posture becomes perfect when the effort to attain it disappears so that there is no movement in the body and the mind is transformed into infinity"-derived from asceticism found in upanisadic and vedic literature
    sign of transcending the human condition
    refusal to move is to let oneself be carried along on the rushing streams of states of consciousness
    4) pranayama rhythm of respiration refusal to breath non rhythmically follows asana
    penetration of state of consciousness that accompanies sleep
    harmonize three movements: inhalation, exhalation and retention of inhaled air
    5) emancipation of sensory activity form the domination of exterior objects
    6) concentration
    7) yogic meditation dhyana
    8) samadhi
    Samadhi is a state of contemplation in which thought grasps the form of the object directly without the help of categories and the imagination.
    Illusion is done away with.
    Meditation can be interrupted.
    Samadhi is an invulnerable state.
    On Ohm
    Taking as a bow the great weapon of the upanishad,
    One should put upon it an arrow sharpened by meditation.
    Stretching it with a thought directed to the essence of That,
    Penetrate that Imperishable as the mark, my friend.
    The mystic syllable Om (pranava) is the bow.
    The arrow is the soul (atman).
    Brahman is said to be the mark (laksya).
    By the undistorted man is it to be penetrated.
    One should come to be in It, as the arrow [in the mark].
    Excerpt from the Mundaka Upanishad (Translated by E. Hume)
    Illinois Wesleyan University Yoga Information
    B.K.S. Iyengar's Yoga
    Chakras
    Nadis diagrams