Sambodhi 1989 Vol 16

Author(s): Ramesh S Betai, Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 54

When man desires to go nearest to the secrets of the Sell, it should be stripped of all that is alien. Man should thoroughly grasp the real state of his body, mind, ego, dream state ctc. and get his self, stripped of all that is alien to it. The Upanişads probe into these question in the subtlest details. The object is dependent on the subject for realisation. It is therefore necessary to know first lhe individual Self and Atman and then Brahman. When man probes into the Self in this manner, he recognizes its infinity, its absoluteness. An upanişadie mantra statcs :
"When, following his reallzation, one grasps the identity of all (in the Ātman), what attachment or sorrow could be there ?"10 The Self thus becomes universal. That leads man to nniversal consciousness. Radhakrishnan states
“We are obliged to accept the reality of a universal consciousness which cver accompanies the contents of conscious and persists even when there are no contents. This fundamental identity, which is the presupposition of both Self and not-sell, it called the Atman. None can doubt its reality."11
Thus, in his onward march towards perfection, towards self-rcalisation and universal realisation, man starts with his subjective consciousness because he feels that
“The world is too much with us. Our Self is lost in feelings, desires and imaginations and does not know what it really is. Leading the life of mere objectivity, absorbed in the things of nature, cver busy with the active pursuits of the world, we do not want to waste a moment's thought on the first principle of all things-the Self of man."12
Man starts with his Self and ends in the realisation of the universal consciousness. It is an experience of realisation in which ultimately the distinction of subjective and objective is lost. The Self or Ātman is the Universal Brahman. Radhakrishnan has analysed the fundamental problems of the Upanişads with the analysis of the Indra-Brahmā conversation in Chh. Upan, and the three states of the soul followed by the fourth, the turiya in the Māṇdūkyopanişad. The extreme difficulty of this experience is also acknowledged when Radhakrishnan states
"It is impossible for us finite beings to define the character of the ideal reality, though the Upanişads are quite emphatic that it is not a blank. Yet to refute false idcas of the highest and to point the truth that it is no abstraction, they indulge in inadequate concepts."13