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Mysticism and Indian spirituality
As is well known this search proceeded first into the cosmic dimension and its inspiration must have been derived from the distant echoes of the Vedic cosmological mythology, all pointing in the direction of the original unity as the source of the cosmic diversity. That unity understood to be the source and the directing agency of everything that is was called by Yajnavalkya at a certain stage the imperishable (akṣara, BU 3, 8, 8-11,, but eventually it obtained the name brahman which became universally accepted. When the line of inquiry turned from the cosmic perspective to the inner dimension of man's own personality, brahman was found again lurking behind all life functions and mental faculties, behind the mind and behind the heart (BU 4, 2, 1-7). And in the course of further search it was eventually discovered to be man's very essence, his inner self (atman, BU 4, 2, 4). This was a great discovery which was new to most participants in the dialogues of the older Upanisads, but it was readily accepted. The great unborn atman, the inmost self of man, was identical with brahman, the source and essence of the whole universe and all things.
One could argue that this identification was first achieved as a result of a philosophical speculative process which was then translated into contemplative mystical experience or one can take the opposite view and regard the experience of the unio mystica as primary and as preceding the conceptual under. standing which then followed and led to the brahman-ātman doctrine in its familiar formulation. It is of course equally possible that the two went together. In any event, in the Upanisads we have, side by side, both the experience and the doctrine and we have here, also for the first time, a clear formulation of the ontological nature of the final experience of the true knowledge of the ultimate to know brahman is to be brahman (Mund. U. 3, 2, 9). True knowledge is here understood as being beyond the senses and the intellect. It is a non-dual process of knowing, without the split between object and subject.
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