Some questions just can’t be answered by direct perception or reasoning (Upanishads...)

Many people quote their religious scriptures to answer fundamental questions, God being one of them. In most religions, it is the God who revealed these scriptures.

Upanishads depend on the visions of the sages, the visions they had when they were in a deep state of meditation. Since these visions cannot be conveyed as they are, Upanishads employ allegories or artificially created scenarios to explain them. One of the Upanishads namely the Shwetäshvatara Upanishad has this scenario.

Once, a group of sages gathered, seeking to answer the following fundamental questions.

1. What created this world?
2. What created living beings?
3. What sustains our existence?
4. What controls our miseries?

Different sages posited different causes – time (sequence of happenings over a period of time, as if with no apparent cause other than time), properties of fundamental elements, inherent laws of nature, random phenomenon etc. to answer these questions. They argued that sentient souls in conjunction with one or more of these causes, answered all these questions.

But the fundamental question that still remains is - “What governs all these things to make them work in unison?”  The inert elements can’t operate on their own. Nor the sentient soul, that is incapable of alleviating its own suffering, can control everything. If it could, it would have freed itself from all suffering. 

Reasoning reaching its limits, these sages resorted to deep meditation. In the meditative state, these sages experienced the one prime cause that is behind all these apparent causes. They called that prime cause as Ätma or Brahma.

What the Upanishad is trying to convey is that the root cause of our existence, sustenance, as well as the decider of our happiness and miseries is the prime force Ätma or Brahma. Call it God if you wish.

As some modern rationalists argue – does this not lead to endless regress? If Ätma or the God is the prime cause, then what is the cause that created Ätma? And what about that which created that which created Ätma …, and so on.

We will see that in the next post.

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