"Devatmashakti"
Deva: the God of religion; self-luminous; knowledge;
Atma: the Self of philosophy; emotions;
Shakti: the Energy of science; will.
This universe is nothing but the Ultimate Principle as it appears to our intellect.
The points of resemblance between the river and the universe, which make the metaphor suggestive and significant, are as follows:
(l) as the river water comes from the sea and goes back to the sea, the universe springs from God and goes back to Him.
(2) As the river is full of potential dangers to the unthinking masses living on its banks on account of possible floods, so is the world capable of mischief to men absorbed in it; but, then, just as the river contributes to the prosperity and convenience of people who make use of it for irrigation and communication, the world also helps the spiritual evolution of those who have the right outlook on it.
(3) The waters of the river always change but yet keep a unity because of the banks; so also the universe is full of change, but it keeps up an appearance of unity within the limits of its banks of time and space situated in the bed of causation.
(4) As the waters of the river are not different from the ocean, the universe is not different from God in the absolute sense.
A greater difficulty is as to how to reconcile the doctrine of grace with the doctrine of Karma or self-effort. Here also the difficulty can be overcome if we understand that the grace of God is bestowed on a person only after he has reached the limits of self-effort.
The Mantra describes the various stages of realization:
knowledge through scriptural study etc.,
waning of ignorance,
cessation of future births,
continuous consciousness,
and becoming one without a second
which is the same as the fulfillment of all desires
and attaining universal lordship.
Ghee or butter, which forms the very essence of milk, exists in it in the form of very minute and invisible particles. Only the process of churning can make it manifest. So also God is the subtle essence of the world, but He remains invisible to us until we feel His presence through spiritual practices.
This Divinity,
who created the universe
and who pervades everything,
always dwells in the hearts of creatures.
They become immortal who realize Him.
He is neither female, nor male, nor neuter. Whatever body he assumes, he becomes identified with that.
That Supreme Divinity
who created both Life and Matter,
who is the source of all arts and sciences,
who can be intuited by a pure and devoted mind --
realizing Him, the blissful, the incorporeal and the nameless, one is freed from further embodiment.
The [seeker] understands that his physical body is a combination of the five elements, and that his real self is separate from them, and that as such he is not affected by disease, old age or death, which are inseparable from all material things that are by nature always subject to change. He throws off his physical body into the fire of Yoga, and takes up, as it were, a new individuality purer than the previous. His physical body itself, he knows, does not change its essential character as matter, whatever changes it may undergo. Matter remains indestructible, so also the soul which is separate from it.
Three paths:
Dharma (righteousness),
Adharma (unrighteousness)
and Jnana (knowledge).
It may also mean the three well-known paths along which the soul proceeds after the death of the gross body. These are:
Devayana (the path of the Gods),
Pitriyana (the path of the Fathers)
and Tiryanmarga (the path to lowest births)
Intellect: The intellect and the heart referred to here are the two most important aspects of human personality. The individual soul, which is of the same nature of the Supreme Being, looks otherwise because of the limitations of these, its manifesting mediums.
Cause of their combination: This cause is God. Had it not been for God who guides the individual in his choice, he would not have been able to choose for himself.
It should be known that energy assumes various forms such as earth, water, light, air and ether at the command of Him
who is the master of Gunas
and the maker of time,
who is omniscient,
who is Pure Consciousness itself,
and by whom all this is ever enveloped.
(The Gunas are tamas (darkness & chaos), rajas (activity & passion), and sattva (beingness & harmony).
Knowing Him who is
the origin and dissolution of the universe --
the source of all virtue,
the destroyer of all sins,
the master of all good qualities,
the immortal,
and the abode of the universe --
as seated in one's own self,
He is perceived as different from, and transcending, the tree of Samsara as well as time and form.
Only when men shall roll up the sky like a skin, will there be an end of misery for them without realizing God.
(Compare Swami Tyagisananda's translation here to Mascaro's in #9 of the Excerpts section above.)
Through the mere instrumentality of time etc.: The idea seems to be that though God is the ultimate force at the back of the world process indicated by the expression 'unites the principle of Spirit with Matter, with one, with two, etc.,' yet His hand is invisible, and to a person who seeks some natural explanation of things, time, inherent property of things, etc., appear to be all-sufficient explanations. Really they are only the instruments through which the Divinity works.
The purpose of the Mantra seems to be to stress the cosmic grandeur of the Deity, as well as His uniqueness as the Transcendent and the Absolute, and at the same time to emphasize that in spite of all this He reveals Himself, both in His personal and impersonal aspects, in the heart of one who meditates on Him in the true spirit.
Previously Meditating: The implication is that the loving contemplation and worship of the Deity is the necessary preliminary step for realizing Him both as the Personal God with attribute and as the Impersonal Absolute. The necessary mental fitness for Jnana or realization of the Absolute and the identity of the self with It, is born of loving worship and contemplation of the Personal Deity. According to many great authorities, including Sri Ramakrishna and the Bhagavadgita, this very realization is bestowed on the devotee, who wants it, by the God of love out of His infinite grace. In the words of Sri Ramakrishna, this monistic realization is like a master placing a faithful and beloved servant of his on his own seat of authority, and calling him his very self.
This Mantra is only another striking expression of the great Vedantic doctrine that the clue to the nature of the Deity lies in one's own heart. The self of man is the best reflector of the Divinity, and if He is discovered as immanent in the self, He is also simultaneously realized as transcending Nature. Thus the Mantra emphasizes the simultaneity of the realization of Him as the Immanent and the Transcendent.
No sign etc.: There is no syllogism that can logically demonstrate the existence of God. He is essentially known through revelation and spiritual realization, and the function of logic or reason is only to relate the knowledge thus gained with the rest of our experience.
Commentary by Swami Tyagisananda.
Svetasvatara Upanishad.
Ramakrishna Math
Mylapore, Chennai, INDIA
Kindle Edition, 2022
Is exposing myself to the Svetasvatara Upanishad
(and to other ideas from foreign religions)
dangerous to my Christian faith?
First of all, let me say I understand the question. I struggled with it intensely as a young man.
Nothing Svetasvatara teaches is necessary to our salvation. We are saved through Jesus Christ alone. If you find yourself worrying excessively about whether to proceed, as a Pastor I encourage you not to. Take refuge in what you know to be true in Jesus, and don't expose yourself to outside sources. I do not judge.
If you are inclined to go on and read, despite worry, well and good. Let me share a few observations as you start the process.
First of all, no one knows exactly when this Upanishad or any of the others was produced. Ancient South Asian society reckoned time differently than contemporary North Americans do. The consensus dates I've encountered in my study indicate this document came about from 400 to 800 years before Christ.
As such, this Upanishad is not anti-Christian, or un-Christian, or even non-Christian. It is pre-Christian, existing as it did before Jesus was ever born on this Earth. It stands in the same relationship to Christ and His revelation as all other pre-Christian writings, including the Greek philosophical works. If we believe as St. Augustine did that "All truth is God's truth," then we can read such works with an open mind, informed by the Truth as revealed in Christ.
There are areas within the Upanishad and its later interpretations that are incompatible with Christian faith. In places, Svetasvatara implies pantheism, monism or "Advaita Vedanta" as the commentators call it. This claims that God and the universe are ultimately one and the same.
This contradicts the Christian doctrine of Creation, which teaches that God makes the universe, but that the universe is not God. As my wife would instantly agree, I am not god. I never have been god. I'm convinced that no quantity of spiritual practice could ever turn me into god. Though my illustration is far too simple to do justice to Advaita Vedanta, it gives us a rule of thumb as we proceed.
What blurs or erases the line
between God and God's creation
is not acceptable
from a Christian perspective.
A biblical Christian cannot be a pantheist. Yet
Swami Tyagisananda, whose commentary I have excerpted on this page, scrupulously avoids insisting that the pantheist position is the only one available. He outlines in depth both the pantheist position, which contradicts the Christian doctrine of creation, and the dualist position, which does not.
The dualist position, called panentheism in Western theology, holds that God creates all and is in intimate relationship with all. Yet God remains God and the creation remains the creation. As the good Swami points out, when those who love God are absorbed in God's ecstatic love, the hair-splitting between pantheists and dualists becomes pointless. What matters is the love, bliss, and freedom poured out into the soul and into the world in that moment.
With that as a backdrop, there is much in this Upanishad that points directly to Christian understandings.
Svetasvatara insists on the unity of God, for instance, behind the various worldly understandings. It affirms the Word as proceeding directly from God, and as forming the foundation of all that exists.
The Upanishad also insists that the human person cannot move toward God unless God Himself makes it possible. We would have no idea of who God is, no clue as to where to seek, if God did not choose to reveal Himself.
"Had it not been for God who guides the individual in his choice, he would not have been able to choose for himself," Tyagisananda says.
This foreshadows Paul's word in
1 Corinthians 12:3:
"...no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit."
Furthermore, God's love fills the universe and makes life livable. God's love awakens the human soul and fulfills it. God's love draws us into the relationship that transforms. This points directly to John's word in
1 John 4:10:
"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
Svetasvatara in effect prophesies something that in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ has become concrete and manifest.
The Upanishad insists that God's grace underlies human liberation from beginning to end.
Tyagisananda addresses the relationship between God's grace and the human response to it, saying,
"A greater difficulty is as to how to reconcile the doctrine of grace with the doctrine of Karma or self-effort. Here also the difficulty can be overcome if we understand that the grace of God is bestowed on a person only after he has reached the limits of self-effort."
So, in this writer's opinion, a Christian can thoughtfully and prayerfully study this Upanishad and other such pre-Christian works with an open mind and heart, keeping in mind the primacy of the Gospel and working through areas where conflicts appear in light of it. Perhaps the best argument in favor of studying this particular Upanishad is the sheer power of its words. The word in it I find most powerful and helpful is this:
"When a man knows God he is free.
His sorrows have an end."
To that end, may God open this Christian heart to know Him more and more, until not simply my sorrows but the sorrows of all who suffer have an end. And may He illumine us along the way with moments in which we see His unmerited Presence in our midst, sustaining us in our grace-led journey toward Him.
