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The Upanishads

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The Upanishads 1 The Upanishads The Upanishads are a collection texts of spiritual teachings, inspirational writing, poetry and philosophy where yoga as we might recognise it is first really described. They were written over a long period, approximately 800 - 500 BCE. They were inspired by the inner vision aspect of the Vedas but reflect a shift in approach to spirituality whereby the ritual and sacrifice element of the Vedas became less important, and was even denigrated as unimportant, and meditation and inner exploration started to be emphasised as the source of true knowledge and understanding. This is perhaps a continuation of the strand of meditative inquiry that archeologists and historians speculate existed in the Indus valley civilisation before the more ritual and sacrifice orientated Aryans arrived from the West. An Upanishad is essentially a ‘teaching’ that has its origins in the oral tradition of direct teacher- student transmission. Its literal translation is something like ‘sitting beside the teacher’. During Vedic times, these teachings weren’t as publicly available as they are now and it was necessary to actively seek out a teacher to hear them. The word is also sometimes described as meaning ‘removing ignorance by revealing truth’ or ‘revealing what is hidden’ or even as ‘secret doctrine’ They are not really philosophy in some respects as they are not presented as logical arguments – they are more presented as meditative insight, inquiry and traditional questions and answers designed to help understand the nature of reality and produce a radical shift in perspective. The view expressed is that there is one underlying reality pervading everything as the creative and sustaining source of all life. Philosophically this view of unity and oneness is known as Advaita Vedanta or non- dualism ( Monism in Western philosophy ) . As opposed to dualism which would tend to separate out spirit and matter and/or energy and matter. There are many Upanishads but 10 or 11 main ones that are generally agreed upon as the most important; these are the ones usually collected together in books as representing the essence of the Advaita Vedanta teachings. The flavour of the Upanishads in general is anti-orthodoxy, anti-ritual, anti-intellectual and pro–experiential carrying the message that the truth at the heart of life cannot be known intellectually or through ritual practices but only through direct perception, inner experience and yoga practices. That said, some of the teachings presented are in the form of questions and answers between a student and a teacher, but with the overall intention to illustrate a vision rather than provide an intellectual answer. This represented something of a shift from the Vedic period where much power was with the priests and their knowledge of rituals and sacrifices to a more empowering idea of individual yoga practice and direct perception available to anyone. The Upanishads are the first texts to clearly mention yoga and begin to describe its practice suggesting that some yogic practices that we would recognise today had already been around for some time. Yoga is primarily described as pranayama and meditation. If there was an ancient asana practice it was probably something pretty different to the modern day. 2 There is little obviously systematized yoga instruction in the Upanishads though some of traditional yoga theory is described. The Maitri Upanishad lists what has become known as the six steps path of Yoga, a precursor to the later more clearly systematized eight steps instruction in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. In the Taittiriya Upanishad the basic idea of the 5 Koshas (5 bodies) theory is laid out which again is explained more clearly in later hatha yoga texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Some of list like and clearly structured yoga/meditation instruction and philosophy as we might more easily recognise it did not really appear in text form until the teaching of the Buddha and Patanjali at a later date. The Advaita Vedanta, non dualist, teachings that are still current today in India and beyond were more fully developed in 800 ACE by Sankara. The core ideas were the same but further insights and explanations from the Buddhist tradition seem to have been included. There are four main styles of expression in the Upanishads: 1. Dialogues with questions and answers. 2. Narration and stories. 3. Similes, metaphors and illustrations. 4. Symbolism. Main ideas, meanings and terms in the Upanishads. The two most central terms in the Upanishads are BRAHMAN and ATMAN. Brahman – translates as something like eternal universal spirit; the underlying force or intelligence behind all of life; whatever it is that is the source or spark of life; truth; love or god. It is essentially the holy grail of philosophers and physicists - ‘the underlying stuff of life’. It is perhaps what the physicists at the Hadron Collider in Switzerland are looking for. Atman- or Self (often represented in English as capital S Self as opposed to small s ‘self’ which is our personality made up from our conditioning). Atman is essentially indistinct from Brahman - it is our own inherent direct connection to Brahman that can only be realised in non-conceptual states of mind. The type of language used to describe it is that it is our own personal connection to truth, our core identity, the centre of our personal spiritual being, perhaps our soul. It is symbolically represented in the Upanishads as a flame living in the heart area; many spiritual traditions speak of the heart as being the seat of our soul or where our essence lies. Some Asian languages have a word meaning heart/mind and meditation is sometimes described as a journey from the head to the heart. In relation to Brahman/Atman a nice analogy comes from T S Elliot and his poem ‘cats’ in which he says all cats have 3 names – one given to them by their owner, one given to them by themselves and one so secret that even the cat herself does not know what it is. In other yogic/Buddhist traditions the same/similar concept is variously described as Purusha (Patanjali ) , Buddha-nature or luminous mind ( Buddhism ) , Rigpa or Clear 3 View (Dzogchen in Tibetan Buddhism) . Aldous Huxley quotes from the Upanishads in his book The Perennial Philosophy , claiming them as part of an underlying common strand running through the world’s spiritual traditions. Characteristics of Atman/Brahman So when we have seen through our conditioning and delusions, and connected with our Atman, are we left with an empty space with no characteristics or a full space with characteristics? The characteristics of Atman/Brahman traditionally described are clear seeing and understanding combined with an all-inclusive unconditional love and compassion, so full in other words. The central point is that Brahman and Atman are one and the same – Brahman is the universal principle and Atman is our personal connection to the universal Neti-neti – literally ‘not this and not that’. This is a very important concept in Indian philosophy generally, and is important in relation to the description of the nature of Brahman. It is often translated as something like ‘not really tangible’ or ‘not fully explainable’. This is important in that it takes away the possibility of the nature of Brahman/Atman being described in a concrete way as some kind of finite entity. The use of neti-neti in relation to Upanishadic concepts means that non-conceptual meditative experiences cannot be placed in overly black and white terms; so no overly entrenched positions can be taken philosophically which tends to remove fundamentalist type attitudes.. (The practice of yoga tends not to produce fundamentalists). This approach has, on the whole, made dialogue and openness a welcome characteristic in this area of Indian culture, spirituality and philosophy with a number of slightly varying viewpoints happily co-existing without too much problem. We can also consider the later approach of the Buddha when it comes to defining the nature of ultimate reality. He had likely been influenced by teachers of Advaita Vedanta on his own journey. He essentially ducked questions asking for definitions of the nature of reality by saying that they were unanswerable and therefore not really worthy of our intellectual time and effort. Perhaps his point was a clever teaching method and essentially a request to stop trying to conceptualise and prove everything and get on with some practice based on what we do know. (We may know some people like this!). Karma and rebirth. Liberation in the future or now? Karma The interconnected, never ending knot of karma. 4 The Upanishads are where the concepts of karma and rebirth appear properly formed for the first time (pre Upanishads the trend was that death meant joining your ancestors). Karma is in essence a cause and effect mechanism operating on many levels including the moral realm – a sophisticated, web-like, holistic process which determines our state of mind/being and creates the filter through which we experience the world and to some extent how the world responds to us. It includes our prior conditioning whether from a previous life and/or the conditions that have come together to form us in this life. In essence positive actions arising out of clear understanding and a positive intention ( i.e. in alignment with how things work/reality/Brahman) produce a positive result, i.e. peace of mind, happiness and a healthy attitude towards life; while a negative action arising out of ignorance/confusion will result in mental suffering, malcontent and a potentially more negative attitude to life. There is both an inner and an outer aspect to the effect of our motivations, thoughts, speech and actions; some outcomes more obviously have a negative or positive effect on our own well-being or state of mind, some on others’ well-being or state of mind; but on closer examination all thought, speech and actions are having an effect in both inner and outer ways.
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