Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, August 2002

An article based on the notes taken down by Mr. Gilbert Vaillant during lectures delivered at Centre Vedantique Ramakrichna, Gretz, France, in the 1950's by Swami Siddheswarananda on the Mandukya Upanishad. The notes have been translated and edited by Andre van den Brink. The Vedanta Kesari will publish three separate articles based on the notes.

The Mandukya Upanishad is a philosophy of the Totality of existence, which is not the same as the sum total of a number of separate entities or data added together. It seeks the knowledge of that Totality, which endeavours to solve the greatest problem of philosophy: the contradiction between life and death.

In non-duality there are no relations: there is only the one reality. That is why the Mandukya Upanishad speaks of Asparsha Yoga, the yoga of 'no-contact', of 'no-relation'. This is in contrast to everyday-life, which consists of relations and rapports only. The problems in the life of an individual are always relational problems. It is only through relations and rapports that we can have knowledge, normally speaking. This we ought to keep as a keystone for the study of the Mandukya Upanishad: all is rapports.

Perhaps the most important mental artifice for establishing rapports is causality. Causality is a principle which is established by our intelligence in order to find an explanation via relations and rapports. It is also a given fact of our education, of our culture. From early childhood each human being has been conditioned by the principle of causality, and thus it has become a universal principle. Nevertheless, it is only through the intelligence of our imagination that we have created such a universal principle in order to be able to interpret and manage our every-day world. The notion of a primary cause is only an idea born from the need to understand. The numerous gods of Hinduism represent only that one idea: the search for the cause--God (in religious terms). It is very difficult to eradicate the notion of a cause.

In religion, once we have been caught by the principle of causality, there are the ideas of immanence and transcendence. We then believe that there is the one reality and that that is a transcendental state. In that state, a 'fall' takes place, and then, in that fall, the manifestation takes place, and so on. From an early age we have been nourished by that theological dualism, and we don't even ask ourselves whether such an idea is really correct!

The Mandukya Upanishad, on the other hand, is a metaphysics leading to wisdom, to knowledge. In it there is no redemption, no God, no sanctity, no transcendence, no mysticism, no esoterics. There one does not run to the forests in order to attain the final samadhi. This metaphysics is reserved for very few people and therefore in India this teaching was given behind closed doors so as not to confuse other people.

The problem of cause and effect is well presented in the example of the clay and its forms, which is found in the Chhandogya Upanishad: Brahman, the one reality, is the clay. No one is able to perceive clay as such: we always see only forms of clay--where there is form, there is clay, and where there is clay, there is form. Thus, as an 'observer', we can never go and stand outside the one reality; being a form of clay, we are inescapably part of the Whole and, as such, we will never be able to 'grasp' the Whole. As an individual we are indissolubly connected with the one reality; we cannot objectify the reality nor abstract ourselves from it as a subject. As no form of clay can exist apart from clay, so also no material or mental form can stand outside the reality. In this sense the idea of a separate, independent personality--however much unique in itself--is an illusion.

In terms of cause and effect we can never experience the cause, Brahman, as an object. What we see are always the effects only, even when the effects (the forms of clay) cannot be distinguished from their cause (the clay), as in the case of a substance that is constantly changing, but which remains unknown in itself. Our error is that we are trying to find a cause apart from the forms. Brahman, the one reality, is being known through the forms by means of the metaphysical insight, just as the clay is known through its forms, for the clay and its forms are inseparably one.

The evolution idea, the idea of 'progress', tells us that form A precedes and, therefore, is the cause of form B which we are seeing now, and so on. This is an error: the so-called cause is always the one and the same reality (clay). The same applies to the practice of spirituality: 'realisation' or 'liberation' is not the 'product' (effect) of a foregoing, personal effort (cause), however much it may take its legitimate place.

Also one should always try to get rid of the notion of a substratum, of a separate, more or less concrete base serving as a 'ground' cause. Shankara's theory of superimposition (adhyasa) of the reality as presented in the classic example of the piece of rope which is being mistaken for a snake, is a concession to the presupposition of causality. Nobody ever experiences ignorance or unreality directly. It is always only afterwards, through memory, that we speak of unreality or of error--so always in relation to an experience in the past. The notion of reality persists through all of our perceptions and experiences: the clay remains clay under all of its forms. The Mandukya Upanishad places a time-bomb under the pre-supposition of causality.

However, in order to record and communicate the experience of our perceptions, we attribute certain sound-symbols to them--their names. The names are like labels which enable us to indicate objects and ideas. Through the emotional value of a name we maintain a certain rapport, a certain relationship with an object or idea.

First we have the idea that an object is presenting itself as an independent, separate reality. Nevertheless each object is but a form, the essence of which remains unnameable--just as in the example of the clay. Next, we attach, through tradition or convention, a name to the form of the object, which we are able to communicate via a common language. The name (nama) is the 'naming' (and therefore defining) element, and the form (rupa) is the element 'named' (the defined). It is said that it was only after the fall, when Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (the knowledge of relativity brought about by polarisation through opposites--maya), that they started to give names (definitions) to the things.

In the perception of a table, for example, there is only the perception of its total instantaneousness (just as in the perception of a dream). We first have a direct perception of the table, then the idea 'table' comes to our mind. Next we try to analyse the experience of that perception: We put the idea 'table' (the name) on one side, and the object (the form) on the other side. Through the power of abstraction we make a separation between the table and the name of the table, that is to say, with our imagination we mentally attribute an independent existence to the name of an object. That way all names are recorded and stored in the mind, to be processed into a more or less complex structure which we experience as an 'inner' world of our own. With this complex we identify ourselves indirectly and retrospectively through the memory, so as to derive a sense and meaning from it as a person.

With one single effort, push aside the illusion that name and form may be seen separately. Name and form are indissolubly linked to each other as the mental and physical aspect of one and the same reality. From the Totality of Time the names are as much a manifestation within time-duration as are their forms: the name has no superiority over the form, or the form over the name. He who knows through realisation that, in reality, there is no difference between name and form, is liberated.

The notion of unreality, of illusion or of ignorance, consisting of name and form, is felt only in relation to a foregoing experience. With the realisation of the metaphysical insight all rapports collapse into the non-dual one.