'God' in The Upanishads: 1. God and Self (Isha Upanishad, Stanzas 1 & 4-8)
'God' in The Upanishads: 1. God and Self (Isha Upanishad, Stanzas 1 & 4-8)
From the Vedas to the Upanishads, there is a general movement away from the myths and rituals
of religious worship, towards philosophical questioning. In two of the main Upanishads, the
concept of 'God' figures prominently; but it does so in the context of a reasoned enquiry into the
nature of reality, knowledge and happiness.
Of these two Upanishads, one is called by the name 'Isha', which means 'God' or the 'Lord'. In
Sanskrit, 'ish-' is a verbal root that means both to 'own' and to 'rule'. So, when God is called 'Isha',
it implies that all things belong to God and that they are all governed by God.
The Isha Upanishad adds to this sense of divine belonging and governance, by saying that
everything in the world is 'Isha-vasyam'. Literally, this means that everything is 'for the sake of
God to live in'. The implication is clear. God is not some alien owner or ruler who dominates
from a distance. Instead, God's presence is immediate, in everything. All things belong to that
divine presence, whose home is everywhere. That presence is the single, inner life of the entire
universe. Each thing perceived is just an outer habitation of that one inmost life. From that, all
governance and guidance comes, in all acts and happenings. All things are for its sake.
Our bodies and our minds are no exception. Each body, each mind, each faculty of body or mind,
each physical and mental act belongs to a single, divine presence that is called 'God'. That one
presence lives in each personality. It rules each personality from deep within, beneath all
outward names and forms and qualities.
That divine presence is obscured by our various personal claims, that our bodies and minds are
personal owners and rulers of the life within them. In most of our personalities, there is an
egotistical claim: that the personality belongs to its body or its mind. This claim makes it appear
that our bodies or our minds are in charge, that they decide their acts and rule their personal
experiences. This is a false pretence. It hides the true source from which our decisions and our
experiences arise.
Each person's body and mind are driven instruments. They cannot be the real source of anyone's
experience. If one looks for such a source, it may be conceived as a 'divine presence', beyond
each body and each mind. It is that presence which lives truly, in every one of us. But most of us
misunderstand it, by claiming that we personally own the life within us. Its purity of inner
guidance gets confused, with the personal and petty will of our externally conditioned egos.
So, in the Isha Upanishad, a twofold approach is described. On the one hand, the ego's claims are
surrendered; so that all changing things may be more truly enjoyed, as expressions of a divine
presence. On the other hand, to enable this surrender, a simple question is asked. Whose are
these changing things that appear in the physical and mental world? What is the divine presence
to which they belong?
And the answer is given that such a presence may be realized as atman: the real self that shines
unmixed in everyone and everything, beneath all names and forms and qualities of personality
and world.
untainted by possessiveness,
uncompromised by wanting it.
It is all very well to say that everything is 'ruled by God' or by some ultimate 'self', but what
exactly does that mean? What precisely is this 'God' or 'self', and how does it rule?
An answer is very briefly stated in the Isha Upanishad, stanza 8 (the last stanza translated in part
1 above). Here, 'God' or 'self' is described as pure light, unaffected by bodily constraints. From
that unbodied light, all objectives are determined. God's rule is, quite simply, the rule of
unaffected light.
In the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, this conception is described a little further. Here, there are
many references to 'God': not only as 'Isha' or the 'Lord'; but, more often, as 'deva'. Both Sanskrit
words, 'isha' and 'deva', can he translated as 'God'; but their roots are quite different. Where 'Isha'
implies 'power' and 'domination', 'deva' implies 'light'.
In fact, the Sanskrit word 'deva' is related to the English 'divine'. They each imply the pure light
of heaven, unmixed with the obscurities and the limitations of earthly things. So, while 'deva' can
be translated as 'God', it can also be translated as the 'principle of light'.
That principle is also called 'consciousness'. It is the common principle of illumination in all
experience. In our personalities, it is seen mixed with our limited faculties of mind and body,
where it is found expressed. In the world outside, it is seen mixed with the limited objects and
happenings that our faculties perceive. But in itself, it's quite unmixed, beyond all limitations.
Found thus unmixed, beneath its mixed appearances, it is the same everywhere: the one complete
reality that all experience shows. It is one single consciousness, expressed in everything,
throughout the universe.
This conclusion presents us with an immediate difficulty. If the whole universe expresses
consciousness, then it is all alive. How can we make sense of that? We recognize that
consciousness can be expressed in the feelings, thoughts and actions of living creatures. But how
can we find any such expression in objects that are inanimate, like a rock or a mountain?
The difficulty arises because we think of consciousness as somehow tied to our personal faculties
of mind and sense. Certainly, we do not find such faculties in a mountain or a rock, not even in
some rudimentary form. But is it true that consciousness is tied to any mental or sensual
faculties? Not really. If we take a dispassionate view of our personal faculties, they are only
expressions of consciousness. They depend on it. Not it on them. It is their underlying ground,
beneath their varying activities.
In fact, consciousness and life can be recognized in anything, depending on how we look at it.
On the one hand we can look at something as an object. It is then a piece of world. It's seen by
looking outwards: at some picture of an external world. In such a picture, previous objects of
perception are found pieced together; and the new object is interpreted by fitting it in with them.
But, by thus fitting things together, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, we don't treat them as
alive. Such external fitting builds our pictures of the world, but that alone does not show any
consciousness expressed.
On the other hand, as we interpret our pictures, we have another way of looking at them. We can
turn back from our objective picture-building, to look at something reflectively. Then it is seen
as somehow akin to us. It shows us underlying principles of order, meaning and value. These are
principles we share in common with it, at the depth of our experience. As we understand such
principles in what is seen, we reflect back, into the ground of consciousness that underlies our
pictures and perceptions of the world.
This is how we understand our own actions, thoughts and feelings, when we take them to express
the consciousness we find in each of us. It is also how we understand the actions, thoughts and
feelings of other living beings, as we communicate with them. For all such communication is
based upon a common ground of consciousness.
And we can understand all nature in this way, reflectively: by falling deeper back into our own
experience, to common principles that we find expressed within our personalities and in the
world outside as well.
For example, suppose a scientist examines a rock, and then reflects upon its construction and its
geological location. In this reflection, principles of order get touched upon, as ordered patterns
and structures are seen to have some further meaning and function. Thus, principles of meaning
and function get touched upon, and even lead to principles of value.
All these principles are naturally expressed in the rock and its geological terrain. And they are
understood at the depth of the scientist's mind, by reflecting back there. They underlie the
perceiving mind, and the perceived world as well. They are naturally inherent, in both mind and
world.
When we thus reflect on nature, we treat it as alive. We then stop fitting bits of it into our
imposed pictures. Instead, we listen to what it has to say. By this attitude of listening, we
recognize (at least implicitly) that it expresses consciousness.
In the personalities of living creatures, nature's expression is personal, through personal faculties
of body and mind. In objects like a rock, where no such faculties are found, nature's expression is
impersonal. There nature speaks impersonally, but it speaks all the same. All order, meaning and
value are natural expressions of consciousness, whether in personality or outside world. All
nature is alive, as it expresses consciousness throughout the world.
In this view of nature, all happenings and faculties are included in it. No happening or faculty
remains excluded, to drive nature or to perceive it from outside. In the microcosm of individual
experience, nature includes the perceiving body and mind. In the macrocosm of the external
world, nature includes all bodies and minds, with all their acts and faculties.
Thus understood, nature includes each act that moves things and each perception that makes
things appear. From within itself, nature produces all of its acts and happenings. In this sense, it
moves itself and appears by itself, of its own accord.
But as it moves and manifests itself, it inherently expresses consciousness. That is the source of
all the order, meaning and value which we see in nature. That alone keeps nature regulated and
coherent. Just that makes nature intelligible. That by itself is nature's underlying motivation. As
nature acts, of its own accord, it does so for the sake of consciousness. It's thus that
consciousness is seen expressed.
Since consciousness is pure light, it doesn't wish nature to do anything; it doesn't tell nature what
to do; it doesn't interfere at all in what takes place. As consciousness shines unaffected through
experience, it is the knowing ground beneath all acts and happenings. Unmoved itself by any act,
it is the final ground of our experience. From it, all actions rise. On it, all actions take place.
Back into it, all actions must return and be absorbed. So, naturally, all acts and happenings arise
expressing it.
That is nature's basic inspiration. All nature is inspired, from within, by the very presence of
consciousness, throughout experience. In a fundamental sense, it's only for the sake of
consciousness that anything is done.
In short, consciousness is the unmoved mover, the originating cause of nature's manifestation.
That is the position of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, chapter 6, as translated very freely below.
Here, 'deva' is translated as 'God' or 'divinity' or the 'divine' or the 'principle of light'. 'Isha' is
translated as the 'Lord' or 'ruler' or 'governor'.
Towards the end, stanza 6.20 is interpreted to show a curious ambivalence about the concept of
'God'. The stanza speaks of an 'end to grief ... for those who don't discern "God"'. It says that this
is possible, when people 'roll up space as if it were an empty skin'. This can be interpreted to
mean that space and time are not absolute. Their extension through the world is only a relative
conception that stretches an observing mind from narrow objects to the entire universe.
When our minds are stretched out in this way, the concept of 'God' arises: as a universal
consciousness that encompasses the universe. But when our minds reflect back deeply, beneath
their superficial pictures; then all of space and time is seen enfolded there, in the microcosm of
one's own individuality. The whole extent of space and time thus gets rolled up, and
consciousness is seen unlimited in individual experience. There is no need then to universalize
consciousness, through the concept of 'God'.
In the last stanza (6.23), devotion to a teacher is described as a way of love for the divine. Again,
this can be interpreted as showing an individual approach, to the same truth that is more
universally approached as 'God'.
In everyone's experience,
the world is known through various acts
of mind and body: rising up
from underlying consciousness
to take attention out to world,
and then returning back again
to take in what is thus perceived.
Ananda Wood
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