A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India: 2.7.(ENDS) - Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday 07, Sep 2025, 07:00.
Books
Srimad Bhagavad Gita
A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India: 2-7.
Chapter 2: The Upanishads:

Practice of Yoga,Liberation,The Spirit of the Age.

Swami Krishnananda.
Post-7.

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Practice of Yoga: 

The Upanishads regard the senses which are extrovert as obstructions to spiritual experience. The senses have to be subdued and turned inward for the purpose of yoga. When the five senses of perception, together with the mind, stand in tune with the intellect, and the intellect is not distracted by any kind of objectivation, then one is said to be in the highest state of yoga. Yoga is all-round self-control, and this state does not last long, for it comes and goes, and hence the student is very careful. This is the instruction of the older Upanishads on the art of yoga. The Svetasvatara Upanishad goes to details and advises a steady seated posture, and thereby an attempt to restrain the turbulent senses and the mind which have to be brought from their aberrations outside in the world back to the centre within, the Universal Atman. This is to be achieved by regulation of prana in breathing, and persistent effort in directing the thought rightly, as one does in restraining restive horses. This calls forth tremendous energy and understanding on the part of the student in yoga and no moral weakling can hope to succeed in it. Though in the higher stages meditation can be practised anywhere and at any time it is beneficial in the initial stages to choose a suitable place for commencing the practice of yoga. The place suggested is one that is even, pure, free from gravel, fire, and disturbing features such as noise or sound of any kind, and from annoying elements like mosquitoes, and the like. The place should be pleasant to the feeling, secluded and not tempting to the sensuous urges of the lower nature. As one advances in meditation, visions like those of mist, smoke, sunlight, fire, breeze, light of firefly, lightning, crystal, moonlight, and so on, are possible. These visions are indicative of spiritual progress. When one masters in meditation the natures belonging to the five elements - earth, water, fire, air and ether - one rises, says the Upanishad, above the torments of illness, old age and even death, on account of his having acquired a flaming spiritual body. Then it is that qualities like lightness of body, perfect health, non-covetousness, resplendence of body, fineness of voice, fragrance of personality, etc., manifest themselves. This is said to be the first stage of realisation in yoga. Higher stages are further above. The Yogi, by degrees, unites his soul with Brahman, which is unborn, eternal and omnipresent, by knowing which one is freed from all bondage.

Liberation: 

The soul that is freed from the bonds of world-existence traverses through its physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal vestments and rejoices in the ecstasy of the realisation of Brahman. Here comes the knowledge that the experiencer, the experiencing process and the experienced object or condition are all one. In the words of the Upanishad, the realised soul, in a particular stage, exclaims: 'I am the food and the eater of food; I who am food, eat the eater of food. I have encompassed the whole Universe.

In moksha or liberation all the principles and powers that were confined to individuality get released into their sources or divine essences, which again are merged in Brahman. The individuality, together with its Karmas, gets dissolved in the Supreme Imperishable One. As rivers enter the ocean, casting off their names and forms, the knower enters the Supreme Being, released from bondage. The liberated one enters into the All from every side, and becomes everything.

The Spirit of the Age:

It is often thought by scholars of oriental learning that there is a note of pessimism in the Upanishads and that no pessimistic way of thinking can be regarded as a healthy trend of life. From the short account of the spiritual philosophy of life in the Upanishads that we have presented above, it would be obvious how far removed this charge is from truth. The life of the sages of the Upanishads was buoyant with the joy of the recognition of divinity and sacredness in the world, and the Upanishads laid the foundation for what is commonly known as 'Hinduism' today. The spirit of the Veda Samhitas and Upanishads, as we have observed in this survey, is one of life and not death, of health and not illness, of joy instead of pessimism and sorrow or a sense of world-weariness, which is never the aim and fulfilment of any religious or philosophic view of life.

The criticism is evidently levelled against certain passages in some of the Upanishads which speak of the impermanency of things, the transitoriness of the world and the impossibility of attaining the Absolute by the perishable acts of the mortal individual. If pessimism means the recognition of the inadequacy of empirical knowledge and the observation of the relativity of all things, then, obviously, all philosophy is pessimistic. But, then, this dissatisfaction with the surface view of things is the beginning of wisdom, for reality is not appearance. The Upanishads, thus, constitute the zenith of human thinking, a height it never reached either before or after, and are the glory and treasure of the culture, not only of India, but of the world.

ENDS.

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