Isha Upanishad

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Part II: The Field and Instruments of Vedanta

Chapter I

[word] - word(s) omitted by the author or lost through damage to the manuscript that are required by grammar or sense, and that could be supplied by the editors

Historically, then, we have our Hindu theory of the Vedanta. It is the systematised affirmation, the reaffirmation, perhaps, of that knowledge of God, man and the universe, the Veda or Brahmavidya, on which the last harmony of man's being with his surroundings was effected. What the Vedanta is, intrinsically, I have already hinted. It is the reaffirmation of Veda or Brahmavidya, not by metaphysical speculation or inferential reasoning, but by spiritual experience and supra-intellectual inspiration. If this idea be true, then by interpreting correctly the Vedanta, we shall come to some knowledge of what God is, what man, of the nature and action of the great principles of our being, matter, life, mind, spirit and whatever else this wonderful world of ours may hold. In fact, this is my sole object in undertaking the explanation of the Upanishads. The essential relations of God & the world, so far as they affect our existence here, this is my subject. A philological enquiry into the meaning of ancient Hindu documents, an antiquarian knowledge of the philosophising of ancient generations, although in itself a worthy object of labour and a patriotic occupation,—since those generations were our forefathers and the builders of our race,—would not to me be a sufficient motive for devoting much time & labour out of a life lived in these pregnant & fruitful times when each of us is given an opportunity of doing according to our powers a great work for humanity. I hold with my forefathers that this is an age of enormous disintegration & reconstitution from which we look forward to a new Satyayuga. That Satyayuga can only be reconstituted by the efforts of the sadhus, the seekers after human perfection, by maintaining in however small a degree that harmony of man's being with his surrounding & containing universe which is the condition of our perfection. The knowledge

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of the principles of that harmony is therefore man's greatest need and should be the first preoccupation of his lovers and helpers. This knowledge, this perfection is within us and must ultimately be found and manifested by plunging into the depths of our own being, into that karanasamudra or causal ocean from which our beings emerge and bringing out from thence the lost Veda and the already existing future. Within us is all Veda and all Vedanta, within us is God & perfected humanity—two beatitudes that are the same and yet different. But to effect this great deliverance, to push aside the golden shield of our various thought from the face of Truth, to rescue the concealed Purusha, future Man, out of those waters in which he lies concealed and give him form by the intensity of our tapas, let no man think that it is a brief or an easy task in which we can dispense with the help that the wisdom of the past still offers us. We must link our hands to the sages of the past in order that we may pass on the sacred Vedic fire, agnir idyah, to the Rishis of the future. The best beginning for this great inquiry is, therefore, to know what the Vedanta has to say on these profound problems. Afterwards we may proceed to confirmation from other sources.

Three questions at the very beginning confront us. What is the nature of the truth that the Vedanta sets out to teach,—what, that is to say, are its relations to the actual thought and labour of humanity? What are these methods of inspiration and experience by which they arrive at the truths of which they are the repositories? And granting that they are inspired in word & thought, how are we to arrive at the right meaning of words written long ago, in the Sanscrit language, by ancient thinkers with ideas that are not ours and a knowledge from which we have receded? Is it the method of the darshanik, the logical philosopher, that we must follow? Shall we arrive by logic at this knowledge of the Eternal? Or is [it] the scientist and scholar, who must be our guides? Shall grammar and analysis from outside help us? But the scientist does not admit inspiration, the logician does not use it.

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