A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India: 2.6. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Friday 22, Aug 2025, 06:00.
Books
Srimad Bhagavad Gita
A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India: 2-4.
Chapter 2: The Upanishads:
Psychology:
Swami Krishnananda.
Post-6.

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7. Psychology:

The individual is envisaged in the Upanishad as a composite of the conscious, subconscious, unconscious and the absolute aspects of consciousness. In the waking state of the mind and the senses the individual is engrossed in an externalised consciousness of physical objects, while in the dreaming state there is an externalised consciousness of mere psychic objects projected out of memory. In the deep sleep state there is a complete overpowering of consciousness by ignorance of everything, a causal condition in which the seeds of dreaming and waking are latent. Transcending these three empirical conditions of the soul, hails the Absolute, Brahman or Atman, which is also immanent in the individual and the cosmos. The Absolute is neither externalised consciousness as in waking, nor internalised consciousness as in dream, nor a negation of consciousness as in deep sleep. The Mandukya Upanishad declares that the Atman is beyond this threefold state of consciousness which is in relation to the gross, subtle and causal bodies of the individual. It is the invisible, non-relative, ungraspable, indefinable, unthinkable, ineffable something which can be designated only as the Atman or the Self, where world-perception ceases and an entirely new perception, impossible to understand, takes its place. This is what is called the fourth state of consciousness in comparison with the three relative states mentioned. It is the aim of the relative to reach the Absolute. The principle of 'I' which asserts itself in all states is the Atman, which is transcendent, but which also pervades everything in the individual and the cosmos. The bearing of the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states of consciousness, called respectively, Vaisvanara, Taijasa and Prajna in the Mandukya Upanishad, to the corresponding cosmic conditions of Virat, Hiranyagarbha and Ishvara is developed in the later systematised Vedanta, which need not detain us here. The Atman transcending the three individual states is declared to be identical with Brahman transcending the three cosmic states. "Tat Tvam Asi"-"That (the Universal) art thou (the individual in essence)." 'This Atman is Brahman', says the Mandukya Upanishad.

The Taittiriya Upanishad makes a further classification of these states into the physical (annamaya), vital (pranamaya), mental (manomaya), intellectual (vijnanamaya) and blissful (anandamaya) sheaths of consciousness. The first sheath operates only in the waking state, the second, third and fourth in the waking and dreaming states, and the fifth in all the three states, though primarily in deep sleep alone. The first sheath constitutes the gross body, the second, third and fourth together form the subtle body and the fifth is the causal body of the Jiva, or the individual soul. The Atman is beyond the five sheaths, though it vitalises every one of them with its presence.

8.Eschatology: 

The Upanishads openly describe the passage of the individual soul, stage by stage, after its shedding of the physical body. It may be mentioned here that, after death, the soul bound by karma may (1) return to this earth, (2) take birth in some other plane than the earth, (3) hang on as a discarnate spirit in any intermediary region (a condition called Preta), (4) go to the region of Pitris (Pitriloka), (5) reach heaven (Svarga), (6) fall into hell (Naraka), or, if it is a highly advanced spiritual seeker, (7) pass through the region of the Sun (Suryadvara), to Brahmaloka, and then attain moksha. This last-mentioned way of attainment is called Krama-Mukti (progressive salvation by stages). Only the absolutely desireless soul (Akama or Nishkama) attains Brahman here itself, without moving to any place, says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. This attainment is called Sadyo-Mukti (immediate salvation).

The soul with desire of some kind or the other departs through the various nerve-passages of the subtle body, while the spiritually illumined soul passes through the Sushumna nerve-current and reaches Brahmaloka, via the shining region of the Sun. The Chhandogya Upanishad describes the stages of the passage of the soul on its way to Brahmaloka. The statements on this subject scattered over through the Upanishads, when grouped in an order, amount to the following description of the path, called Devayana or the path of the gods. The soul reaches the deity of flame (fire or light) and then rises gradually to the deities of the day, the bright half of the lunar month, the six months when the Sun moves to the north, the year, the region of the celestials, Air, Sun, Moon, lightning, the region of Varuna, the region of Indra, the region of Prajapati, and finally Brahmaloka. At the stage of the region of the deity of lightning, the soul is said to be received by a superhuman being (who it is the Upanishad does not say), and he leads the soul to the four higher regions. These gradations are difficult to understand, except as possible stages or grades of the manifestation of the Supreme Being in the individualised contents of the various relative planes of existence.

The soul that is not destined to reach Brahmaloka and has merits enough to go to Pitriloka alone, is said to rise by stages to the deities of smoke, night, the dark half of the lunar month, the six months when the Sun moves to the south, the sky (it does not go to the deity of the year), and the Moon. From here the soul returns through the sky, wind, smoke, mist, cloud, rain and enters grains, herbs, trees, etc., which are consumed by individuals on earth.

The Upanishads hold that the future of a person is determined by his actions, the actions by his volitions and the volitions by his desires. Thus it is evident that on one's desires depends the nature of one's future life. The ignorant are said to reach dark regions devoid of all happiness. Those who are ignorant of the true nature of the Self go to sunless realms covered over with darkness. The doers of good deeds enter into birth in nobler species, while the doers of bad deeds may fall into the wombs of animals or depraved characters. karma, then, decides one's future life. But, as mentioned already, those who are free from karma, due to realisation of the Atman, have no rebirth; their pranas do not depart into space; they become Brahman, here and now.

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Next

9.Practice of Yoga: 

Continued

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