A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

Upanisads passim: Maitri Up., V, 2 and II, 5, “ In the beginning this world was a Dark-Inert (tamas) . . . that proceeds to differentiation (visamatva) . . . even as the awakening of a sleeper.’”’ That is Eckhart’s “ passive welling up”: “the beginning of the Father is primary, not proceeding,” “ the Father is the manifestation of the Godhead,” I, 268, 267 and 135. Just as also, microcosmically, “‘ Without a doubt, consciousness is derived from the unconscious” (Wilhelm and Jung).

Now as to “ One’’: an intelligible distinction can be made between the inconnumerable Unity of God “ without a second,” the Sameness of Godhead, and the Identity, Deity, of God and Godhead, mivta and amiirta Brahman : “between the pillars of the conscious and unconscious .. . all beings and all worlds,” Kabir, Bolpur ed., II, 59; “ One and One uniting, there is the Supreme Being,” Eckhart, I, 368. That these are here “ rational, not real’ distinctions (Eckhart, I, 268) appears in the fact that “ One”’ can be spoken equally of Unity, Sameness, and Identity : God, Godhead, Deity, is not a distinction of Persons. On the other hand, “‘ One’ cannot be said of the Trinity as such. These distinctions, necessarily and clearly made in exegesis, when literally interpreted, become definitions of sectarian points of view, theistic, nihilistic, and metaphysical’: in bhakti-vada the Unity, in Sainya-vada the Sameness, in j#ana-vdada the Identity are respectively paraméarthika, ultimately significant. In Sakta cults there survives an ontology antedating patriarchal modes of thought, and the relation of the conjoint principles is reversed (viparita) in gender: here Siva, inert, effecting nothing by himself, represents the Godhead, while Sakti, Mother of All Things, is the active power, engendering, preserving, and resolving, Ja is not “his”? but “hers.” In “mysticism” there is an emotional realisation of all or any of these points of view. In reality, ‘‘ the path men take from every side is Mine,” Bhagavad Gita, 1V, 11; “In whatever way you find God