What this ultimate realization is, is explained in the ancient Upanishads, believed to have been recorded 5000 years ago. The sages who recorded these Upanishads arrived at this ultimate truth after prolonged meditation or practice of Yoga.
Upanishadic ultimate truth has to do with the origin and existence of this world. Upanishads did not accept the idea that something can come from nothing. They stress that something should have existed a-priory before this world came into existence.
They say that the world we see is only a perceptible form that ensued from a non-perceptible ‘thing’ which they called ‘Sath’.
The word Sath literally means existence. It did not exist but it was existence itself!
Did this Sath create this world?
Upanishads say ‘No’.
In that case, how did the world come into existence?
The Upanishads say that this Sath ‘willed’ to be ‘many’. It did not create the world, but took several forms that we perceive as the ‘world’.
It took the form of various basic elements. These basic elements combined with each other and gave rise to infinitely many complex structures. But these were not sentient.
So, the Sath took the form of individual souls and entered the ‘bodies’ or structures formed out of basic elements. Unlike the structures formed out of the basic elements, these souls are sentient.
In essence, what we see around as world is nothing but myriad forms taken by a single entity called Sath. Upanishads also call this Sath as Atma. We may call it as God if we like.
But unlike the religious concept of God, this God is not something separate from us. Not something that ‘created’ this world. Not something that rules over us. But it ‘is’ each one of us.
It appears to be many, but it is one. Something like multiple simultaneous existences of a single entity. That is why the Upanishads say that that entity is beyond time and space. It can exist in multiple forms all at once. Through each form it expresses itself in a way strictly governed by the form.
This is where the pot space/ free space analogy that we talked about earlier comes handy. Bodies are the pots that make each space within the pot appear to be different from each other, different from the outer free space. Pots give these spaces their unique shape. But beyond these forms, there exists a single space that has neither any shape nor any boundaries.
And the important thing to note is that even these pots or bodies are forms taken by the very same single entity namely the Atma or Sath. That is why Bhagavad Geetha says that the Atma exists in 3 forms. As matter, as individual encased souls, and also as something that is beyond space and time.
If we see beyond these apparent forms, all that exists is a single entity Atma. This is the ultimate realization that the Upanishads talk about.
In the words of Chandogya Upanishad (6.8.7, repeated multiple times later)
“Whatever subtle thing that pervades the entire universe, whatever that livens it up, is the Atma. And all of us are forms of that Atma. This is the ultimate truth”.
“Sa Ya ESHah aNimaa aitadaatmyam idam sarvam, Tat satyam, Sa Atmaa, Tat tvam asi”
Father Uddalaka tells his son that this is the ultimate truth. Once someone realizes this truth, there is nothing more that needs to be known since there is nothing beyond this Atma.
This is the basis of Advaita philosophy of Sankara.
It is a different matter that later Indian philosophers vehemently opposed this interpretation of the Upanishadic words. They believed in a personified God, who ‘created’ the world, who is the ‘master’ of whatever is in the world, much like the way every other religion believed.
These philosophers did all kinds of hair splitting to read their views in the Upanishadic words.
I personally go by the meaning of the Upanishadic words as I explained above, both because I feel them to be obvious and intuitive and also because that is the kind of experience one goes through when one is in a deep state of Samadhi.
In samadhi, all forms, barriers, and differences just vanish and there is just the experience of universalization.
Even the Sages who recorded the reminiscences of their Samadhi experiences in the Upanishads are likely to have gone through the same universalization experiences. It is a different matter though; they were unable to put them in exact words since those experiences are beyond words!
Assuming that this is the ultimate truth and the real outcome of Yoga or meditation, what does that fetch us?
We will discuss that in the next episode.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2019-2020
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