The Religions Book

may be mistaken for a snake, or

vice versa. Further, a person may

know it is possible to be fooled by

what is seen, heard, or touched—

but what if the whole enterprise

of gathering information from the

senses is itself a form of illusion?

An unknowable Brahman?

The Upanishads had taught

that there is a single ultimate

reality, Brahman, with which

the innermost self, the atman,

is identified. However, the

problem is that Brahman is

not an object of sense experience

because it is not part of reality

(as worldly objects are)—it is

reality itself. Ordinary objects

can be known because they are

distinguished from one another

by qualities that the senses can

detect. Brahman, by contrast,

because it has no physical

attributes, cannot be grasped

by rational interpretation of what

is known through the senses.

So what should be made of

the idea of a supreme being, or

of the divinities used in religion?

There appears to be a profound

difference between what the

Upanishads have to say in terms

SEEING WITH PURE CONSCIOUSNESS

IN CONTEXT

KEY FIGURE

Adi Shankara

WHEN AND WHERE

788–820, India

BEFORE

6th century BCE The

Upanishads describe Brahman

as the ultimate reality.

4th century BCE The Greek

philosopher Plato contrasts the

objects of sense experience

with reality itself; in some later

Platonic thought, this ultimate

reality becomes identified with

a “transcendent One,” or God.

2nd century CE Nagarjuna

founds the Madhyamaka

school of Buddhist philosophy,

which is centered on the key

idea of emptiness.

AFTER

13th century Soto Zen aims

to go beyond awareness of

the world of sense experience

with the development of

pure consciousness.

118

T

hrough the work of

the Indian philosopher

Adi Shankara, a branch

of Hindu philosophy known as

Vedanta (“the end of the Vedas”)

developed in the 9th century. It

sought to systematize and explain

material found in the ancient

scriptures of the Vedas, and to

explore the nature of Brahman

as discussed in the philosophical

works, the Upanishads (the last

section of the Vedas).

There are various branches of

Vedanta, but the one established

by Shankara is called Advaita

(non-dualist) Vedanta. It states

that there is only one reality, even

if we may experience it in different

ways. This non-dualist belief

lies in contrast to later forms of

Vedanta in which the deity

assumes a personal role.

Shankara argued that human

reason is limited to the objects

of sense experience: that is, it

is not possible to get outside or

beyond the senses to see the world

as it really is. Even within the

world of experience it is possible

to be mistaken, because all sensory

knowledge is ambiguous. To use

Shankara’s example, a coil of rope

Our knowledge of the world comes via

the senses, so it is always liable to error.

Absolute reality is not known

through the senses.

We know Brahman—absolute reality—

not through our senses but directly,

as identical with the atman,

our inner self or soul.

The world of our conventional

knowledge is an illusion.