VEDĀNTΑ

WITH Vedānta we find ourselves in the realm of pure metaphysics, as we have already explained, and it is needless therefore to repeat that it is neither a philosophy nor a religion, although the orientalists seem determined to see one or the other in it, or even both at the same time, as Schopenhauer has done. The name of this final darshana etymologically means 'end of the Veda', and the word 'end' should here be taken in the double sense, which it also possesses in English, of conclusion and goal; in fact, the Upanishads, on which it is essentially based, form the last portion of the Vedic texts, and what they teach, insofar as it can be taught, is the final and supreme goal of the whole of traditional knowledge, detached from all the more or less specialized and contingent applications to which it may give rise in various spheres. Their very title of Upanishads shows that they are destined to destroy ignorance, the root of the illusion that keeps beings fettered by the bonds of conditioned existence, and it also shows that they achieve their purpose by furnishing the means of approaching to the knowledge of Brahma; if it is only a question of approaching this knowledge, that is because it is entirely incommunicable in its essence and can be effectively reached only by a strictly personal effort, which cannot be made up for by any external teaching, however exalted or profound. The interpretation just given is the one accepted by all competent Hindus; it would hardly be reasonable to prefer the unauthorized conjecture of various European writers who would have it that 'Upanishad' means knowledge obtained by sitting at the feet of a teacher; moreover, Max Müller,^[1] even while accepting the latter interpretation, felt bound to admit that it indicated nothing really characteristic and could be just as well applied to any of the other parts of the Veda, since oral teaching is their usual method of regular transmission.

Complete and final knowledge owes its incommunicable character to the fact that the metaphysical order contains ideas that are not susceptible of outward expression, and also to the fact that if it is to be all that it should be, it cannot stop short at mere theory but must imply a corresponding realization; that is why we say that it can only be taught up to a point, and it is evident that this restriction applies in a double sense to both theory and realization, though it is in respect of the latter that the obstacle is most unquestionably insurmountable. In actual practice, so far as theory is concerned, recourse can always be had to some symbolism or other in order at least to suggest possibilities of conception, even if they cannot be wholly expressed, and besides this there are certain methods of transmission that are effected outside and beyond any kind of formal representation, though the mere suggestion of them would appear so improbable to a Westerner that there is no point in attempting to describe them here, which indeed would hardly be possible. It remains true on the other hand that all understanding, even theoretical understanding in its most elementary stages, presupposes an indispensable personal effort and is conditioned by the individual aptitude for receiving knowledge shown by the person to whom the teaching is being imparted: it is quite obvious that a master, however remarkable he may be, cannot understand on behalf of his pupil, and that it is for the latter alone to assimilate whatever is brought within his reach. The reason for this is that all true knowledge, provided it is genuinely assimilated, already constitutes in its own right, if not an effective realization, at least a virtual realization—if it is permissible thus to correlate these two words, which contradict one another only in appearance; otherwise one could not say with Aristotle that a being 'is all that it knows'. As for the purely personal character of all realization, it can be quite simply explained by the following remark, which may appear strange but which is nonetheless axiomatic, namely that a being cannot be other than itself, and that what it is it alone can be; if it is necessary to formulate such primary truths, this is because they are just the truths that are most commonly forgotten, and because they imply much more far-reaching consequences than people of a superficial or analytical turn of mind can ever be led to suspect. What alone can be taught, and incompletely at that, is the more or less indirect and mediate means of metaphysical realization, as we pointed out when speaking of Yoga; and the first, the most indispensable, and indeed the only indispensable means, is theoretical knowledge itself. However, it should also be added that in a metaphysically complete doctrine, theory and realization are never entirely separated; this can be perceived at every turn in the Upanishads, where it is often hard to distinguish what refers respectively to the one and to the other, and where, truth to tell, the same things may refer to both, according to the way they are considered. In such a doctrine, the point of view of realization reacts even on the formulation of the theory, which presupposes it at least implicitly and can never be independent of it, since theory, possessing value only as a preparation, must be subordinated to realization in the same way as a means is kept subordinate to the end in view of which it has been instituted.

All these considerations must be taken into account if one wishes to understand the point of view of Vedānta, or rather its spirit, since the metaphysical point of view, not being any single point of view in particular, can only be referred to as such purely by analogy; moreover, these remarks could be applied with equal force to any of the diverse forms assumed by traditional metaphysics in other civilizations, since metaphysics, for the reasons already given, is one in its essence and cannot be otherwise than one. Too much stress can never be laid on the fact that it is the Upanishads which, forming an integral part of the Veda, represent the primordial and fundamental tradition; Vedānta, in the form in which it has been deliberately extracted from them, has been synthetically coordinated (which does not mean systematized) in the Brahma-Sūtras, the composition of which is ascribed to Bādarāyana; he, moreover, is identified with Vyasa, which is particularly suggestive for those who bear in mind the intellectual function indicated by that name. The Brahma-Sūtras, the text of which is extremely concise, have been the subject of many commentaries, among which those of Shankarāchārya and Rāmānuja are by far the most important; both these commentaries are strictly orthodox, in spite of certain apparent divergencies, which amount really to nothing but differences of adaptation: that of Shankarāchārya more particularly represents the Shaiva tendency and that of Rāmānuja the Vaishnava; the general explanation we have already given on the subject makes it needless to discuss this distinction here, which only has reference to different ways leading toward a single goal.

The Vedānta, being a purely metaphysical doctrine, appears essentially as advaita-vāda or the 'doctrine of non-duality'; we have explained the meaning of this expression when differentiating between metaphysical and philosophical thought. In order to indicate its scope as far as such a thing is possible, it may now be said that whereas Being is 'one', the Supreme Principle, known as Brahma, can only be described as 'without duality', because, being beyond every determination, even beyond Being, which is the first of all determinations, it cannot be characterized by any positive attribute; such is the consequence of its infinity, which is necessarily absolute totality, containing in itself all possibilities. Thus, there can be nothing really outside Brahma, since such a supposition would be tantamount to limiting it. It follows immediately that the world, taking the word in the widest possible sense, that is, as universal manifestation in its entirety, is not distinct from Brahma, or, at least, is distinguished from it in illusory fashion only. On the other hand, Brahma is absolutely distinct from the world, since none of the determinative attributes that belong to the world can be applied to it, the whole of universal manifestation being strictly nil in relation to its infinity; and it will be noticed that this irreciprocity of relationship implies a formal condemnation of 'pantheism', as well as of all 'immanentism'. Moreover, pantheism, if one wishes to preserve for the term a sufficiently exact and reasonable meaning, is inseparable from 'naturalism', which amounts to saying that it is plainly anti-metaphysical; it is therefore idle to look for pantheism in Vedānta, and yet this opinion, ridiculous though it be, is the one commonly put forward by Westerners, even by specialists. Here indeed is something likely to give the Easterners, who are well aware of what pantheism really implies, a high idea of the value of European science and of the intelligence of its representatives!

It is clearly impossible to give even a brief account of the doctrine as a whole; but some of the questions with which it deals, such as for instance the constitution of the human being considered metaphysically, can later be made the object of special studies.^[2] We will pause here over one point only, concerning the supreme goal, which is called moksha or mukti, that is to say 'Deliverance', because the being who reaches it, whatever state he may belong to and whatever his rank within that state, is freed from the bonds of conditioned existence by perfect identification with the Universal: this is the realization of what Islamic esoterism calls the 'Supreme Identity' and it is through this realization, and through it alone, that a man becomes a yogi in the true sense of the word. The state of the yogi is not then analogous with any particular state whatsoever, but it embraces all possible states as the principle embraces all its consequences; he who has reached it is also called jīvan-mukta, that is to say 'delivered during life', by contrast with videha-mukta or 'delivered when out of the bodily form', an expression describing a being for whom realization is only reached (or rather for whom realization, from having been virtual, only becomes effective) after death and the dissolution of the human composite. Nevertheless, in either case, the being is definitely freed from individual conditions, or from all that is comprised by nāma and rūpa, 'name' and 'form', and even from the conditions of all manifestation whatsoever; it escapes the indefinite causal chain of actions and reactions, which is not the case when simply passing to another individual state, even one that occupies a rank superior to the human state in the hierarchy of the degrees of existence. Moreover, it is evident that action can produce no effects except within the realm of action and that its efficacy stops short at the exact point where its own influence ceases; action cannot therefore have the effect of freeing from action nor of leading to the obtaining of Deliverance; indeed, an action, whatever its nature, can only lead to partial realizations, corresponding to certain higher, but still determined and conditioned states.

Shankarāchārya expressly declares that 'there is no other means of obtaining complete and final Deliverance except knowledge; action, not being opposed to ignorance, cannot overcome it, whereas knowledge dispels ignorance as light dispels darkness';^[3] and since ignorance is the root-cause of every limitation, when once this has disappeared, individuality, which is characterized by its limitations, disappears automatically. Moreover, this 'transformation', in the etymological sense of 'passage beyond form', changes nothing in the appearance of things; in the case of the jīvan-mukta, individual appearance naturally continues without exterior change, but it can no longer affect the being whom it clothes once the latter is effectively aware that it is illusory; but it must be added that to be effectively aware of this truth goes far beyond the mere theoretical conception of it. In the passage following the words quoted above, Shankarāchārya describes the state of the yogi in the very restricted measure in which it can be put into words or rather suggested through them; his observations form the real conclusion of the study of the nature of the human being which we alluded to before, by showing the highest possibilities to which that being is capable of attaining, as the supreme and final goal of metaphysical wisdom.