ASPECTS OF REALITY

S. RADHAKRISHNAN

“The Upanisads give us a hierarchy of different grades of reality down from the all-
embracing absolute, which is the primary source as well as the final consummation
of the world process. The different kinds of being are the higher and lower
manifestations of the one absolute spirit. While the absolute is in all finite things and
permeates them, the things differ in the degree of their permeability, in the fullness
of the reflections they give forth. We see that though the same reality is seen in the
star, in the stone, in the flesh, and in the soul, still it is seen more fully in the living
beings than in the non-living, in the spiritual life than in the intellectual.
((Philosophy of The Upanisads, p.75-76).

“The ecstasy of divine union, the bliss of realisation tempts one to disregard the
world with its imperfections and look upon it as a troubled and unhappy dream. The
actual fabric of the world, with its loves and hates, with its wars and battles, with its
jealousies and competitions as well as its unasked helpfulness, sustained intellectual
effort, intense moral struggle seems to be no more than an un-substantive dream, a
phantasmagoria dancing on the fabric of pure being. Throughout the course of
human history, men have taken refuge from the world of stresses, vexations and
indignities in the apprehension of a spirit beyond”. (The Principal Upanisads, p. 78)

“The prayer to 'lead us from unreality to reality, from darkness to light, from death to
immortality' assumes the distinction between reality, light and immortality and
unreality, darkness and death. If this aspect of spiritual experience were all, the
world we live in, that of ignorance, darkness and death would be quite different from
the world of underlying reality, the world of truth, light and life. The distinction
would become one of utter opposition between God and the world. The latter would
be reduced to an evil dream from which we must wake up as soon as possible”.

“Indifference to the world is not, however, the main feature of the Upanisads.
Brahman, the completely transcendent, the pure silence has another side. Brahman
is apprehended in two ways. Both the Absolute and the Personal God are real, only
the former is the logical prius of the latter. The soul when it rises to full attention
knows itself to be related to the single universal consciousness, but when it turns
outward it sees the objective universe as a manifestation of this single consciousness.
The withdrawal from the world is not the conclusive end of the spiritual quest. There
is a return to the world accompanied by a persistent refusal to take the world as it
confronts us as final. The world has to be redeemed and it can be redeemed because
it has its source in God and final refuge in God”. (TPU, p. 79).
“The assertion that with the knowledge of the Self all is known does not exclude the
reality of what is derived from the Self. To seek the one is not to deny the many. The
world of name and form has its roots in Brahman, though it does not constitute the
nature of Brahman. The world is neither one with Brahman nor wholly other than
Brahman. The world of fact cannot be apart from the world of being. It exists only in
another form”. (TPU, p.80).

“The world is the creation of God, the active Lord. The finite is the self-limitation of
the infinite. No finite can exist in and by itself. It exists by the infinite. If we seek the
dynamic aspect we are inclined to repudiate the experience of pure consciousness. It
is not a question of either pure consciousness or dynamic consciousness. These are
the different statuses of the one Reality. They are present simultaneously in the
universal awareness”. (TPU, p.81).

“The many are parts of Brahman even as waves are parts of the sea. All the
possibilities of the world are affirmed in the first being, God. The whole universe
before its manifestation was there. The antecedent of the manifested universe is the
non-manifested universe. God does not create the world but becomes it. Creation is
expression. It is not a making of something out of nothing. It is not making so much
as becoming. It is the self-projection of the Supreme. Everything exists m the secret
abode of the Supreme. The primary reality contains within itself the source of its own
motion and change. Every existence contained in time is ontologically present in
creative eternity. The Supreme is both transcendent and immanent. It is the one,
breathing breathless. It is the manifest and the un-manifest, the silent and the
articulate. It is the real and the unreal”. (TPU, p.82).

“The Absolute is not a metaphysical abstraction or a void of silence. It is the absolute

of this relative world of manifestation. What is subject to change and growth in the
world of becoming reaches its fulfillment in the world of the Absolute. The Beyond is
not an annulling or a cancellation of the world of becoming, but its transfiguration.
The Absolute is the life of this life, the truth of this truth”. (TPU, p.85).

“The world of multiplicity is out there, and has its place, but if we look upon it as a
self-existing cosmos, we are making an error. While the world process reveals certain
possibilities of the Real, it also conceals the full nature of the Real. The world has the
tendency to delude us into thinking that it is all, that it is self-dependent, and this
delusive character of the world is also designated maya. Maya, is concerned not with
the existence of the world but with its meaning, not with the factuality of the world
but with the way in which we look upon it”. (TPU, p.89).

“Before the rise of knowledge, duality is misleading but when our understanding is
enlightened, we perceive that duality is more beautiful than even non-duality”
(Bhagvad Gita, p.64).