The Upanishads

“When a sage sees this great Unity and his Self has become all beings, what delusion and what sorrow can ever be near him?”

Another key part of the texts’ exploration of Ultimate Reality Within the Individual is the role of spiritual enlightenment. The goal of spiritual practices like meditation is to eventually achieve unity with Brahman through the Atman (See: Index of Terms). At the same time, this passage reveals the role emotions play in spiritual enlightenment, in that it provides “joy” (49) and freedom from “fear” (56).

“There is the path of joy, and there is the path of pleasure. Both attract the soul. Who follows the first comes to good; who follows pleasure reaches not the End.”

The Upanishads emphasize that purity, knowledge, and spiritual practices lead to enlightenment and union with Brahman, speaking to The Importance of Knowledge in Spiritual Liberation. Otherwise, the desire for material goods and pleasures leads one to samsara (103), the cycle of death and reincarnation.

“He who has not right understanding, is careless and never pure, reaches not the End of the journey; but wanders on from death to death.”

The Importance of Knowledge in Spiritual Liberation is reinforced here, as ignorance causes a being to reincarnate. As later detailed in the discussion of Karma (140), one’s actions also determine what kind of being one reincarnates into. At the same time, pure and good thoughts and actions lead to reincarnation into a higher being, or even to a soul breaking the cycle of life and death.

“In space he is the sun, and he is the wind and the sky; at the altar he is the priest, and the Soma wine in the jar. He dwells in men and in gods, in righteousness and in the vast heavens. He is in the earth and the waters and in the rocks of the mountains. He is Truth and Power.”

The Upanishads are clear that piously following the Vedas’ instructions for religious rituals are not enough to achieve spiritual enlightenment and liberation (68). Nonetheless, it is suggested here in the references to the “altar” and “the Soma wine” that rituals carry the symbolic meaning of the spiritual knowledge required for enlightenment. In that sense, rituals still play an important role in the journey toward spiritual liberation.

“He who thus knows the meaning of life, his offspring never dies and attains life everlasting.”

By “offspring,” this passage refers to the soul of an individual. Likewise, “life everlasting” is the result of breaking free from The Cyclical Nature of Life and Death. The “meaning of life” is the spiritual enlightenment that comes from true knowledge of Brahman, achieved through purity and wisdom.

“Imagining religious ritual and gifts of charity as the final good, the unwise see not the Path supreme.”

The Guidance of Ethical Principles are an important aspect of the quest for spiritual enlightenment and ritual. Nonetheless, what the Upanishads describe as “works” (68) are not enough alone. They are deeply linked to both religious ritual, spiritual practices like meditation, and knowledge of Brahman.

“The bow is the sacred OM, and the arrow is our own soul. Brahman is the mark of the arrow, the aim of the soul. Even as an arrow becomes one with its mark, let the watchful soul be one in him.”

Metaphors and allegories are often used to communicate spiritual truths in the Upanishads. This allegory is used to explain how one should approach spiritual and religious practices. Specifically, one should use the mantra OM and have faith and concentration to achieve unity with Brahman.

“[T]hey have in high heaven the reward of their pious actions; but thence they fall and come to earth or even down to lower regions.”

Moral actions and religious actions are a key part of The Importance of Knowledge in Spiritual Liberation and the Ultimate Reality Within the Individual. However, the Upanishads are clear that they are not enough to achieve unity with Brahmin. Instead, they must be coupled with internal actions like working toward contemplation of spiritual truths and internal discipline.

“In truth who knows God becomes God.”

The purpose of spiritual enlightenment is to achieve unity with Brahman. All living beings, including every human, is already a part of the supreme reality that is Brahman. The purpose of spiritual enlightenment is to become fully and truly aware of that unity, which is the meaning of this passage.

“This Atman is the eternal Word OM. Its three sounds, A, U, and M, are the first three states of consciousness, and these three states are the three sounds.”

The process of achieving unity with Brahman is a spiritual and internal journey. The effort requires techniques such as meditation. OM is presented as one way to focus one’s meditations and contemplation toward that end.

“By meditation on him, by contemplation of him, and by communion with him, there comes in the end the destruction of earthly delusion.”

Brahman and the concept of unity with Brahman is often described as a “truth” (141). By contrast, the material world is a distraction and a deception. Only through internal, spiritual contemplation can an individual reach the truth by knowing the presence of Ultimate Reality Within the Individual.

“Let not the arrow in thy hand hurt man or any living being: let it be an arrow of love.”

The emotions of love and joy are an important element in the Ultimate Reality Within the Individual. Love helps one reach an awareness of one’s unity with Brahman, while joy is the result of spiritual awareness. This is why Brahman is described as the “God of love” (94).

“He is pure consciousness, beyond the three conditions of nature, the one who rules the work of silence of many, the one who transforms one seed into many.”

It is important for the Upanishads to present Brahman as encompassing every aspect of reality: Material, mental, and spiritual. Nonetheless, one has to transcend the material or the “conditions of nature” to achieve knowledge of the unity of Brahman.

“This Spirit is consciousness and gives consciousness to the body: he is the driver of the chariot.”

Another metaphor designed to explain the unity of Brahman and its relevance to understanding the human body is the chariot. Specifically, the “Katha Upanishad” also describes the bodily senses as the horses, the Atman as the chariot’s lord, and the mind as the driver who can either steer the chariot well toward enlightenment or badly toward The Cyclical Nature of Life and Death (60).

“Samsara, the transmigration of life, takes place in one’s own mind. Let one therefore keep the mind pure, for what a man thinks that he becomes: this is a mystery of Eternity.”

The Upanishads frequently describe the Ultimate Reality Within the Individual as mainly an internal and mental struggle. This is because the interior shapes what one’s soul becomes, affecting an individual’s fate after death. It especially determines what form a being takes after reincarnation or if they achieve unity with Brahman.

“But it is the consciousness of life which becomes the breath of life and gives life to a body. The breath of life is the consciousness of life, and the consciousness of life is the breath of life.”

The unity represented by Brahman encompasses all space (76) and material things. Still, Brahman also generates the life force behind all living things. Truly understanding that Brahman is both part of and beyond all life and reality is the knowledge that seekers of the truth should strive toward, according to the Upanishads.

“I am the food of life, and I am he who eats the food of life: I am the two in ONE.”

The Upanishads present a series of paradoxes to convey the reality of Brahman. Here, the paradox is that Brahman is a unity that encompasses duality: Brahman is both food and the one that eats it.

“An invisible and subtle essence is the Spirit of the whole universe. That is Reality. That is Truth. THOU ART THAT.”

The seeker of wisdom themselves are not separate from the unity of Brahman. Part of wisdom, according to the Upanishads, is being aware of not only how the universe fits into the unity of Brahman, but how the individual’s own self is also part of the greater unity.

“And even as here on earth all work done in time ends in time, so in the worlds to come even the good works of the past pass away. Therefore those who leave this world and have not found their soul, and that love which is Truth, find not their freedom in other worlds.”

Following The Guidance of Ethical Principles is insufficient by itself to achieve spiritual liberation from the cycle of life and death. This passage explains this is because even one’s good actions and their impact on the world eventually fade. Instead, good acts must be coupled with knowledge of Brahman.

“Know that when the eye looks into space it is the Spirit of man that sees: the eye is only the organ of sight. When one says ‘I feel this perfume’ it is the Spirit that feels: he uses the organ of smell. When one says ‘I am speaking,’ it is the Spirit that speaks: the voice is the organ of speech.”

Brahman includes both one’s body, the force that animates every being, and how a being interacts with the world around them. The course the Upanishads describe is not necessarily achieving unity with Brahman, because every living being is already part of the cosmic unity that is Brahman. Rather, the purpose of spiritual enlightenment is to gain true and full knowledge of how one exists within Brahman.

“When a man is asleep his soul takes the consciousness of the several senses and goes to rest with them on the Supreme Spirit who is in the human heart.”

The Upanishads describe the process of sleeping and dreaming at length. Dreaming is seen as a tangible way in which a soul’s connection to Brahman is revealed. This is also what is meant when the Upanishads declare that in “dreams the mind beholds its own immensity” (72).

“There the Spirit speaks not, yet speaking not he speaks. How could the Spirit not speak if he is the All? But there is no duality there, nothing apart for him to speak to.”

This is another paradox through which the authors of the Upanishads attempt to convey an understanding of Brahman. Specifically, it is the idea that Brahman exists within things that exist and within the absence of anything.

“According as a man acts and walks in the path of life, so he becomes. He that does good becomes good; he that does evil becomes evil. By pure actions he becomes pure; by evil actions he becomes evil.”

This passage is an explanation of how the principle of Karma (140) operates, speaking to the importance of The Guidance of Ethical Principles. Thought and action shape an individual’s mind and soul. In this way, the fate of the soul through either reincarnation or liberation from the cycle of life and death is determined by how one thinks and behaves.