No sir! The Hindu Ethos is not pessimistic.

 

From individual self to universal Self

In chapter 2, section 4 of Brahadaranyaka Upanishad the ‘Yajnavalkya-Maitreyi dialogue’ follows a strange line of argument that would leave most westerners bewildered -- and that’s because the argument put forward by sage Yajnavalkya would sound outright fallacious to a westerner brought up on western logic and mathematics. (See my previous post)

The question that a westerner would ask: how can a part be equal to a whole, or in other words, how can an individual self be equal to the universal Self that Yajnavalkya wants his wife Maitreyi to understand.

The English readers, especially those who are very particular (or shall I say finicky) about the usage of personal pronouns and reflexive pronouns would say that the guy is putting needless emphasis on pronouns in order to drive his point home. Well, Yajnavalkya has his own style and logic and that’s what we are here to understand. It is so very intrinsic to the Hindu ethos.

Having said that we all love this world, our family, our neighbourhood not for the sake of this world, the family, the neighbourhood etc. but for the sake of our own self, Yajnavalkya proceeds to the next step, a metaphysical one.

Says Yajnavalkya: As the ocean is the merging place of all sorts of water; as the skin is the merging place of all sorts of touch; as eye is the merging place all sorts of colours; an ear is the merging place all sorts of sounds; intellect is the merging place of all sorts of understanding; the universal, impersonal, neutral, absolute, all-pervasive, eternal divinity, the supreme Self (the Brahma) is the merging place of all sorts of ‘selfs’ or Aatma.

As a lump of salt thrown into a pond, says Yajnavalkya, dissolves, dissipates and permeates the pond and its salinity can we felt everywhere. So is the case with this infinite, endless physical reality – an endless homogeneous consciousness. The Self can be felt all around and it stands out distinctively in us. It begins with us and ends with us. It has no independent existence apart from us, thereby meaning that the ‘I’, ‘myself’ and the like designations end with our body only to merge with the universal, impersonal, neutral, absolute, all-pervasive, eternal divinity, the supreme Self (the Brahma).

Having said so Yajnavalkya moves on to his final argument to explain what is meant by the concept Aduvait.

Advait is a Sanskrit term meaning ‘not two’, or as westerners would understand, monism. The word ‘duvait’ in Sanskrit means ‘two’ and the prefix ‘a’ means ‘not’. Thus the ‘a’ prefix added to ‘duvait’ becomes ‘aduvait,’ meaning ‘not two’.

Yajnavalkya tells his wife Maitreyi in his famous Yajnavalkya-Maitreyi dialogue:

“Whence there is duality, thence they smell one another; see each other; hear one another; speak to one other; think of one another; know one another.
When all becomes of the Self -- the Self alone – then who would smell whom? Then who would see whom? Who would listen to whom? Who would speak to whom? Who would think of whom? Who would know of whom?

How does one know the The One, that knoweth all. How, my dear Maitreyi, would one know the Knower?” 

Swami Madhavananda of Shri Ramakrishna Math has translated this sentence as: “Through what should one know ‘That’ because of which all this is known? Through what, my dear, should one know the ‘Knower’?”

I have translated the above passage keeping myself as close to the original Sanskrit syntax as possible so as to highlight the concept behind the word Aduvait, giving enough leeway to the readers to grasp the concept in their own free way.

Translations and commentaries by many authors, including Sanskrit scholars, have done more harm to the Hindu ethos than the vocal antagonists of the ethos.