UPANISHADS
Upanishad upa (near)
and shad (to
sit), meaning “sitting down near”; inspired by the action of sitting at the
feet of an illuminated teacher to engage in a session. There is an attempt in
these texts to shift the focus of religious life from external rites and
sacrifices to internal spiritual quests in the search for answers. Probably
between c. 800 BCE and c. 500 BCE, some people during this time decided to
engage in the pursuit of spiritual progress, living as ascetic hermits,
rejecting ordinary material concerns and giving up family life. The Upanishads
are commonly referred to as Vedanta. Vedanta has been interpreted as
the "last chapters, parts of the Veda" and alternatively as
"object, the highest purpose of the Veda".
All Upanishads
are associated with one of the four Vedas; various philosophical theories in
the early Upanishads have been attributed to famous sages such as Yajnavalkya,
Uddalaka Aruni, Shvetaketu, Shandilya, Aitareya, Balaki, Pippalada, and
Sanatkumara. Women, such as Maitreyi and Gargi participate in the dialogues and
are also credited in the early Upanishads. There are some exceptions to
the anonymous tradition of the Upanishads. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad,
for example, includes closing credits to sage Shvetashvatara, and he is
considered the author of the Upanishad.
More than 200 Upanishads are known, but 14 are the most important:
Isa, Kena, Katha, Prasna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya,
Brhadaranyaka, Svetasvatara, Kausitaki, Mahanarayana and the Maitri. These texts
are found mostly in the concluding part of the Brahmanas and Aranyakas and
were, for centuries, memorized by each generation and passed down orally.
The Upanishads tell us that the core of our own self is not the
body, or the mind, but atman or “Self”. Atman is the core of all creatures,
their innermost essence. It can only be perceived by direct experience through
meditation. It is when we are at the deepest level of our existence. Brahman is
the one underlying substance of the universe, the unchanging “Absolute Being”,
the intangible essence of the entire existence. It is the undying and
unchanging seed that creates and sustains everything. It is beyond all
description and intellectual understanding.
Two
different types of the non-dual Brahman-Atman are presented in the Upanishads.
The one in which the non-dual Brahman-Atman is the all-inclusive ground of the
universe and another in which empirical, changing reality is an appearance
(Maya). The Upanishads describe the universe, and the human experience, as an
interplay of Purusha (the eternal, unchanging principles,
consciousness) and Prakṛti (the temporary, changing material world, nature). The
Purusha manifests itself as Ātman (soul, self), and the Prakrti
as Māyā. The Upanishads refer to the knowledge of Atman as
"true knowledge" (Vidya), and the knowledge of Maya as
"not true knowledge" (Avidya, Nescience, lack of awareness, lack of
true knowledge). In the Upanishads, Māyā is the perceived changing reality and
it co-exists with Brahman which is the hidden true reality. Maya, or
"illusion", is an important idea in the Upanishads, because the texts
assert that in the human pursuit of blissful and liberating self-knowledge, it
is Maya which obscures, confuses and distracts an individual.
One of the great insights of the Upanishads is that atman and
Brahman are made of the same substance. When a person achieves moksha or
liberation, atman returns to Brahman, to the source, like a drop of water
returning to the ocean. The Upanishads claim that it is an illusion that we are
all separate: with this realization we can be freed from ego, from
reincarnation and from the suffering we experience during our existence. Moksha,
in a sense, means to be reabsorbed into Brahman, into the great World Soul.
Along with the Bhagavad Gita and
the Brahmasutra,
the mukhya Upanishads (known collectively as the Prasthanatrayi
– three main sources for all schools of Vedanta) provide a foundation for the
several later schools of Vedanta, including two influential monistic schools;
Buddhism and Jainism.
No comments:
Post a Comment