Part I

The name Veda (or, as in the plural, Vedas) literally means Wisdom or Science, but is given, technically, to the oldest literature of the Indian people. This literature, going back to thousands of years before the beginning of the Christian era, consists traditionally of two definite groups, known as Mantras, which are the primary compositions, and Brahmanas, which are a sort of illustrative commentary on the Mantras. In the following pages, too, the name will be used in the same traditional sense, meaning the whole collection of both the Mantras and the Brahmanas, and therefore including, of course, the famous ten or twelve Upanishads.

Neither in the Mantra nor in the Brahmana portion are the Vedas a systematic treatise on the Vedic view of life that is to be presented here. Yet all the elements of this view are to be found scattered in the different parts of the Vedic literature and have been gathered together and treated systematically by various writers from very early times. What is to follow here is a similar, though very brief, treatment of the Vedic material on the subject. This treatment follows, moreover, the general traditional understanding of the matter, but in a manner which is intended to facilitate its comprehension by those not specially acquainted with the ancient way, of viewing life. The Vedic view of life, then, both as reflected in the literature of the Vedas and as followed in India to this day, may be summarized as follows:

There is nothing absolutely stable, nothing permanently abiding, in the whole of the objective universe, which is but a system of ceaseless "goings on" (jagati, collective movement) with everything in it continually moving and changing (jagat).

This ceaseless movement in the universe, however, is not merely a mad dance; there is method in it and the movements are arranged in groups and "made to dwell" (avasya) within limits and for periods of various lengths, so as to give them what looks like stability, more or less enduring.

What gives the systems of movements this apparent stability, orderly arrangement, and regulated sequence is not any property of the movements themselves, but is something other than the movements, being a power that rules them (ish) and "makes them dwell diversely" and in order.

The exact nature of this power, whether feeling or unfeeling, conscious or unconscious, intelligent or unintelligent, whether absolutely stable and abiding or only apparently so—all this cannot possibly be definitely known nor can the power be directly contacted by way of the movements. Indeed, the movements themselves are cognized not directly but only inferentially as the cause of the sensations which alone are experienced directly and intimately. The power ruling the movements is thus doubly and impenetrably veiled from us by the sensations directly experienced and by the movements inferred as the sources of the sensations.

A Direct Approach

But while our entrance to the core of things by way of the senses is thus effectually barred, there is nevertheless a gateway of direct approach to what lies beyond the veil of sense perceptions and even beyond the movements, and, standing there, imparts that apparent stability and order which we experience in regard to the ever-fleeting show of the objective universe. This gateway of entering directly into the heart of things is, however, one which can be discovered only if we turn our attention away from the objective universe and dive down deep into what constitutes the subjective nature of every one of us as an individual. "Nowhere else is there a way of reaching" the heart of the universe.

It is true that, in regard to what we are as individuals subjectively, equally as in the objective sphere, all is movement. We find that our bodies as well as our thoughts, feelings, ideas, and all mental states, i.e., all that conglomerate vaguely called the mind or soul—all these are continually moving and changing; in all of them there is nothing whatsoever that is absolutely stable and permanent.

Still we have a feeling—an illusory feeling, no doubt—that even though we, as individuals, be only ever-shifting aggregates of "mental states" and "complexes" and equally ever-hanging aggregates of bodily cells, we are yet somehow stable and abiding entities, so that every one of us has the experience: "I am one and the same person yesterday, today, and the day after—the same John Smith from childhood to death." And illusory as is the feeling of stability and continuity in regard to the ever-changing complex of an individual ego or soul, this illusion, like all others, must have a basis in fact and in an actual experience of the fact. This fact is to be found in the presence—as the ground of our existence, and back of all mental states and all physical aggregates, and, as it were, wrapped up in them as in so many coatings (kosha)—of an entity that does not change, and is, therefore, a timeless Being (sat). And we have the direct experience, however vague, of this Being in the uttermost depths of our existence: we feel that we are. In the Vedic language, this Being, in the aspect that constitutes the ultimate Self and ground of our existence, is called Atman; but in translating Atman, as used in this connection, by "Self" one has to bear clearly in mind that "Self" here is not anything like what is generally understood by the English words "mind," "mental states," or even "soul" and individual "spirit." The "Self," as an equivalent of the ultimate Atman in man, is other than all mental states, other than even "spiritual" states, such as feelings of love, joy, charity, and the like, insofar as these also come and go, grow and decay, and are subject to change. The Atman is what substantiates these mental and spiritual states, so that they are then felt and experienced as the individual ego or "I."

Small Yet Great

As the Atman or ultimate Self in the individual, this ever-abiding, timeless Being is "smaller than the small" (anor aniyan), that is, infinitely small, and has no measurable magnitude. Anything that has a magnitude which can be measured, no matter how small the magnitude—anything, in other words, which is not either infinitely small or infinitely great—is perishable, is not abiding. There is no example anywhere in the universe of a thing of measurable magnitude which is at the same time ever-abiding and absolutely stable. And because the ultimate Being is stable, this Being, as Atman or the ultimate Self in man, is magnitudeless, is smaller than the smallest. And because the Atman in the individual is smaller than the smallest, is like a point (anu), we feel the Atman to be nowhere, located at no definite spot, and yet, as it were, everywhere in the body. Atman, the ultimate Self of man, seems to be present wherever attention, i.e., a particular mental function or movement, is directed.

At the same...