A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India: 8. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday 28, July 2026, 08:20.
Books
Bhagavadgita & Hinduism
A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India -7.
Chapter 2: The Upanishads:4.
Swami Krishnananda
Post-8.

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Eschatology: Continued 


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.

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.


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Chapter 3: The Itihasas and Puranas-1.
1.The Rise of the Epics and Puranas
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