In examining how theology looks at consciousness, adherents of any theology will find us indulging in both generalisations and simplifications, but the aim is to get to the broad thrust of these belief systems. Interested readers can find books in the Bibliography for more detailed readings. The starting point in each case is the origin and nature of consciousness, as well as the issue of mind-matter duality or non-duality.
Abrahamic scripture does not explicitly tackle the link between mind and brain, or the nature of what makes up our mental life. Instead, consciousness is viewed more in its relation to god. Further, consciousness is better represented in Abrahamic theology through the concept of a soul. Whatever each of us defines consciousness as, Abrahamic religions place it in the attributes of a soul. For example, to imagine life beyond death one must imagine that some form of consciousness survives. If the feeling that it is to be like you does not continue after death, then neither does the soul in any meaningful sense. By the same rule, consciousness can be equated in the Abrahamic worldview to free will. The very concept of heaven and hell, or moral judgement, has meaning only if we have free will. In turn, we can have free will only if we have consciousness. Map this to David Eagleman’s CEO-analogy. When the company runs into trouble, the CEO faces public and legal consequences. Similarly, your consciousness faces the consequences of free will after death through your soul.
Mystic elements of both Christianity and Islam deal with the direct experience of god or god-ness. There is much debate over whether this is the experience of god’s presence or a union with god. Which in turn reflects humanity’s ancient debate on duality vs. non-duality. Viewing consciousness in its relation to god limits its exploration. Instead, modern religions find themselves stuck in debates on free will, moral responsibility and apologism to justify the work of men that is exalted as the word of god. To my mind, it is neither incorrect nor controversial to say that ancient Indic religions have given the matter of consciousness far more thought. Indeed, it will do us well to spend some time understanding the depth and diversity of thought ancient Indians gave to the issue of mind.
Prior to becoming the current Prime Minister of India, in an interview with Arnab Goswami on Times Now, Narendra Modi said- “Hinduism is not a religion, it is a way of life.” He could say this because, unlike the Abrahamic religions, Hinduism has neither a definitive text nor a central prophetic figure. This opens it to a wider range of interpretation than Christian or Islamic canon, leading to endless debates on what Hinduism is. In this book I avoid adding my voice to such debates. Further, I will avoid confusion over terms such as Vedism, Brahmanism, Classical Hinduism and others. I will use the terms Hindu and Hinduism in the most general sense possible- barring Buddhism and Jainism, anything that originated east of the Indus river and south of the Himalaya. I will also seek forgiveness for not considering Sikhism, which to my mind is an admittedly admirable distillation of preceding religions.
In his attempt to characterise the Hindu mind, Swami Vivekananda remarked that while the Western worldview understood nature by controlling the outer universe, the Indian worldview did so by examining the inner universe. This broad division in paradigms is echoed in the legend of Alexander’s meeting with an Indian yogi. Both asked each other what they were trying to achieve. Alexander declared that he was out to conquer everything. The yogi confessed that he was trying to experience nothingness.
But like any story, the narratives of history reflect more on the narrator than the characters. For example, the above tale requires us to ignore that there were several opportunistic Indian monarchs both during and before Alexander’s time, or that his tutor was the philosopher Aristotle (who in turn was Plato’s student, and Plato was Socrates’). The Greek mind was not singularly externalised, and the Hindu mind was not singularly internalised. Hinduism’s origins are in the pursuit of conquering the external as much as any Western movement’s. The Rig Veda, Hinduism’s earliest text, shows its composers engaged in a negotiation with the elements and imagined deities- both external factors of influence. This is not to say that the Rig Veda does not have its mystic moments, the Nasadiya Sukta we saw in the previous section is evidence that its composers were asking some very tough questions. But equally does the Rig Veda evidence that these hunter-gatherers lived in strong awareness of their external environment, and the influence it had on their lives. Most Rig Vedic rituals are an attempt to sway nature towards one’s benefit. Even today, the havans and poojas that Hindus conduct are a way to influence external factors.
When we talk of Vedic concepts of consciousness, what we really mean is Upanishadic ones. And this phase in Indian history happened quite in parallel with Buddhist and Jain movements, which in turn were part of the larger shramana movement that commenced after around 900 B.C. (enthusiasts often note the phonetic similarity between shramana and shaman). The shramana movement represents the turning of the Indian eye inwards, and it began the Indian inquiry into mind. What this implies is that any vision of an ancient, utopian society of seers and sages is false. The world that the Upanishads describe is very clearly a city-based culture ripe with weaving, pottery, mining and agriculture. A world where sages exist alongside kings, princes and merchants. Take this verse from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:
“In the beginning, brahman was all this, just one. Being just one, it was not complete. So it created over itself a better form, royalty (kshatra). Nothing is higher than royalty. At a king’s anointing the priest sits below the royalty, and he confers this honour on royalty alone.”
The very next verse goes on to say that even the king, in his highest state, takes refuge in brahman, but it is impossible to imagine this verse in a world before monarchy. In fact, it serves as a direct example of the emergence of power by divine right and the long-running alliance between India’s political and religious leaders. That the world of the Upanishads so closely resembles the world of early Buddhism and Jainism is the single largest factor preventing us from any idealist dating of these texts. Indeed, the material culture of the Upanishads is compatible with archaeology only if we place it around the 6th century B.C. That the profound verses are often found alongside material ones, like those prescribing the treatment of a menstruating wife, should shed us of any persisting illusions of an eternal and infinite Vedic wisdom.
One could still argue that no Upanishad was written in a single go. Vedic and Upanishadic prayers were transmitted orally for generations before the task of recording them in written form commenced. It could thus be possible that the profound segments were from an older, more pristine time while the mundane ones were added by later generations. In the face of such assertions, we must ask what they are based on. No scripture can be taken on internal evidence alone, it must be corroborated with contemporary sources, archaeology and linguistics. When we conduct such an exercise, we arrive at the same broad period outlined in the previous paragraph.
An interesting corollary can help me drive the point home. In previous and later sections, you see my enthusiasm for psychedelics and the beneficial role they can play in our lives. But in his book Breaking Open the Head, Daniel Pinchbeck reminds us of the fact that the ancient Aztecs and Mayans used psychedelics alongside practicing bloody human sacrifice. This should prevent us from painting a naïve picture of humanity and psychedelics. Similarly, the fact that ancient Hindu scriptures show profound insights in parallel with mundane and often regressive concerns should prevent us from imagining a utopian India in history.
Beyond these arguments, we will not involve ourselves in dating individual Upanishads, or in asking how long they were transferred orally before being written down. At the very least, we read those words two thousand years after they were first expressed. This is a yawning gap, one that inevitably throws up variations in interpretation. We are far more likely to interpret the Upanishads through our own cultural filters than through an objective historical lens. Further, the Upanishads work more through riddles and paradoxes than through dogma. Their intent is to direct the mind towards unfamiliar concepts through suggestions and analogy. Together, this means that any two people who read the original Sanskrit texts can come up with different interpretations. Thus it is very likely that in this book we leave out several nuances, a problem compounded by the profoundly flexible and homonymic nature of Sanskrit words. The Upanishads also remind us that the gods love the mysterious and hate the obvious. Seemingly, this is to help us digest their riddling nature. But even a cursory reading of them demonstrates, without doubt, that the Upanishads represent a highly complex and developed inquiry into consciousness. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is a good place to start-
“Exhalation is the sense, and inhalation is the object since inhalation brings us smells. Through the sense of exhalation we create smells.
Speech is the sense, and words are the object. Through the sense of speech we create words. Similarly,
Sight is the sense, forms are the object.
Listening is the sense, sounds are the object.
Skin is the sense, touches are the object.
Limbs are the sense, actions are the object.
Mind is the sense, desires are the object.”
In a methodology highly naturalistic for its time, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad approaches the concept of the self through observation of other, similar processes. In another place, the sage Yajnavalkya gives us this brilliant exposition-
“That which, resting in the breath, is other than the breath. Which the breath does not know, of which the breath is the body.
That which, resting in speech, is other than the speech. Which the speech does not know, of which the speech is the body.
That which, resting in the eye, is other than the eye. Which the eye does not know, of which the eye is the body.
That which, resting in the ear, is other than the ear. Which the ear does not know, of which the ear is the body.
That which, resting in the mind, is other than the mind. Which the mind does not know, of which the mind is the body.”
Yajnavalkya goes on to tell us that the self is the inner controller of these faculties. The unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought-of thinker, the unknown knower. What is other than this, is suffering. Inquiries of this sort, which turn our gaze inward in search of this hearer, thinker and knower, form the initiatory exercises of meditation. When that gaze turns inward and looks for the self, our brain’s self-model tries to look at the self-model from outside. But any view of the self-model is bound to be a part of the self-model! In scientific terms we could say that this is a paradox. Unravelling this paradox within their minds led many ancient Indians to conclude that the self is an illusion—only the model created by an exotically dense cluster of neurons to better navigate its external reality. Given that the purpose of this model is convenience in survival, turning the model onto itself is bound to cause confusion and even disassociation. Note that to these ancient thinkers, the self and consciousness were the same thing. Much like how modern analogies through information computing assert that consciousness is simply how information feels when processed in highly complex ways, the ancient Indians realised that consciousness arises through the brain’s confusion over its infinitely regressing self-model.
A striking fact about Upanishadic thought is its naturalist approach. The Vedic thinkers did not speculate in wild territory, they based their arguments on extrapolation from natural phenomena. The entire Brihadaranyaka Upanishad explores the concepts of self and mind by equating them with other senses such as sight, hearing, taste and touch. At one place, the Upanishad says-
“As a caterpillar, reaching the end of a blade of grass and taking the next step, draws itself together, so the self, dropping the body, letting go of ignorance and taking the next step, draws itself together.”
Analogies such as these remind us that the Vedic worldview was not anthropic. There are as many lifeforms and realms above human existence as there are below. A hundred joys of human beings are said to make one joy in the world of ancestors. A hundred ancestral joys compose one gandharva’s joy, and the sequence progresses similarly to reach one joy in the world of Brahma. Various deities and celestials populate the Vedic cosmos, many of their enterprises having little to do with humans. But in all cases, the human mind is shown as a tool that can help traverse these realms and even achieve transcendence. This is because the human mind is thought to be composed of brahman, which in this context serves as ‘mind-stuff.’ Mind-stuff is essentially the same, regardless of what form it manifests in. This makes it possible for humans to cultivate practices that reveal the true nature of mind-stuff, beyond the form it embodies in living creatures. Echoes of this can be found in shamanistic worldviews as well, which acknowledge the existence of non-material realms both above and below the material plane we inhabit. And in the scientific world, consciousness is often considered a phenomenon, a qualia like colour is. That such parallels exist between human intuition, speculation and experimentation is heartening. It tells us that there could be answers to life’s biggest questions.
In all worldviews, though the body is limited by the rules of spacetime, the self has considerable potential. The Vedics tell us that the self is made of knowledge, mind, breath, sight, hearing, earth, water, air, space, light, darkness, desire, non-desire, anger, non-anger, right, wrong and everything. It is made of both this and that, so as one does, so one becomes. Desire in the self generates will, which powers one’s actions. The actions one commits manifest as what the self gets back-
“He, with his action, is attached,
To that same world to which his mind is bound.
When he reached the end of the action he did here,
He comes back from that world
To this one, to act again.
When all the desires that dwell
In one’s heart are let go,
Mortal becomes immortal.
One reaches brahman here.”
The self is given further power when it is said that all the things a self holds dear- a spouse, a child, riches, cattle, priesthood, royalty, gods- are held dear not for their love but for the love of the self. It is the self that we must see, hear, think of and meditate upon. Another elegant example of the Upanishads’ naturalistic approach to self-knowledge is the comparison of brahman to light. Pure light is undifferentiated, or without attributes. Similarly, pure Brahman is nirguna, without attributes. But when light falls on an object it takes on the shape of that object. It acquires an attribute of form or appearance. The sun is one, but reflects as several when looking at many water bodies. This is what happens to pure, nirguna Brahman to make it saguna-Brahman, or Brahman with attributes. It takes on the appearance of whatever it falls on, and since it falls on several things it seems to be multiple instead of singular. This is another way of saying that consciousness is like light- a phenomenon of objective reality. And like light takes on the form of shapes and colours, consciousness takes the form of people and personalities.
For all its exposition on consciousness, the Brihadarankyaka Upanishad is not positivist alone. It has normative recommendations for how to lead a happy life, and for how to remove sorrow. This is where we find much overlap between Upanishadic and Buddhist thought. At one place the Brihadaranyaka says-
‘When all the desires that dwell in one’s heart are let go,
Mortal becomes immortal. One reaches Brahman there.’
Elsewhere, we are told to follow the threefold path of self-control, generosity and compassion. Doing so brings us closer to the divine voice within us all and ensures unity with bliss. Upanishadic thought insists that the true answers lie within the self, the atman. This is the ideological preference that Swami Vivekananda referred to when he said that the Eastern worldview sought to understand things by the internal universe. And the Aitareya Upanishad tells us that this is how a self is born-
‘In a person, he first becomes an embryo. What the seed is, is energy come together from all the limbs. One carries a self in oneself. When one sprinkles it in a woman, one begets it. That is one’s first birth.
It becomes own self to the woman, just like a limb of her own, so it does not harm her. She nurtures one’s self when it has come here.
She, the nurturer, becomes one to be nurtured. The woman carries the embryo. One nourishes the boy before and after birth. When one nourishes the boy before and after birth, one nourishes oneself, for the continuance of the worlds; for so the worlds continue. That is one’s second birth.
He, being one’s self, is set in one’s place for meritorious actions. Then one’s other self, having done what was to be done and reached his age (the father), departs. Departing from here, he is born again. That is one’s third birth.’
This reveals Upanishadic awareness of the continuance of life, and of the sheer biological truth of reproduction- it is the only means for one to live on. But the Upanishads saw this continuance primarily alone the male line. The woman’s role was of the nurturer and provider of the second birth. But the first and third births, and the ultimate cycle of begetting, departing and rebirthing was carried on by the man. The Kena Upanishad confesses that there is a mystery to consciousness and the self when it says-
‘If you think, I know it well, you know just a little the form of brahman- that part of it which is you and that part of it which is among the gods. I think you should investigate that unknown.’
And this brings us to what is a primary debate not only in Upanishadic thought, but in the philosophy of mind itself- dualism vs. non-dualism. More specifically, are mind and matter inherently separate entities (dualism), or are they but two forms of a singular phenomenon (non-dualism)? In Hindu philosophy these stances are known as dvaita and advaita Vedanta respectively. The Mandukya Upanishad is an important source of advaita, or non-dualist thought. Note the unity of things implied in verses such as these-
‘What is called past, present and future is all just Om. Whatever else there is, beyond the three times, that too is just Om.
All this is brahman. The self is brahman.’
The Mandukya tells us that the self has four feet. The first is the waking state, where consciousness is turned outward. The second is the dream state, when consciousness is turned inward. The third state is deep sleep, where consciousness is sheer mass. And for the fourth state we are told-
‘Not with consciousness turned inward, not with consciousness turned outward, not with consciousness turned both ways, not a mass of consciousness, not conscious, not unconscious- folk consider the fourth to be unseen, inviolable, unseizable, signless, unthinkable, unnameable, its essence resting in the one self, the stilling of proliferation, peaceful, gracious, without duality. That is the self; so it should be understood.’
To this the Maitri Upanishad adds- ‘If a person’s consciousness were as firmly attached to brahman as it is to the sense-realm, would not all be freed from bonds?’
Put simply, advaita Vedanta sees the self as nothing but pure consciousness, which itself is not different from brahman- the ultimate reality. One is not expected to accept this unconditionally, and Vedantic thought lays out several practices and conditions to fulfil, which make it easier for the self to realise these ultimate truths. For one, we must have the ability to discriminate between the real and eternal, or unchanging, and the apparently real but ultimately changing and transitory. Second, we must renounce all desires that distract the mind from its pursuit of truth and self-knowledge. Third, we must have the six-fold qualities of focus of mind, self-restraint, dispassion, perseverance, faith in scripture and attention of mind. Lastly, we must be possessed of longing for freedom and wisdom. It should also be noted that traditional advaita Vedanta places the guru, or teacher, on a high pedestal. We are constantly reminded that the Upanishads must be learnt from a master, and we are to place faith in this master. The master’s role is primary in removing the causes of non-comprehension in a student’s mind.
By now, I hope I have the reader mired in a variety of concepts and unfamiliar terminology, for only this could give a fair representation of the wealth of wisdom and knowledge contained in the Upanishads alone. But for those who have been able to keep up, it bears mention that I’ve been talking only about one school in the six traditional schools of Hindu philosophy- Vedanta. The other five are Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika and Mimamsa. There are both overlaps and conflicts of thought among these schools, and it’s beyond the scope of this book to examine each of these in detail. So we will indulge in broad sweeps again, intended mainly to paint a layman picture of this vast body.
Vedanta, Sankhya and Yoga agree in their epistemology. They defer to three sources of knowledge- perception (pratyaksha), inference (anumaan) and the testimony of reliable sources (shabda). The Vaisheshika school rejects the last of these as a valid source and relies only on perception and inference. The Nyaya school accepts testimony and also adds comparison and analogy (upamaan) as a valid source. The Mimamsa schools accepts this and adds postulation from circumstances (arthapatti) as another epistemological tool. This table makes it clear:
Where the Sankhya thought differs from traditional Vedantic thought is on the matter of consciousness. While Vedanta is traditionally non-dualist and considers pure consciousness to be the same as pure reality, or nirguna brahman, the Sankhya school is strong dualist. It regards reality as composed of two distinct phenomena- purusha, which is pure consciousness, and prakrti, which is matter.
To Sankhya, within a lifeform such as us (jiva), consciousness arises through the fusion of purusha and prakrti. This creates both intellect (buddhi) and ego-consciousness (the sense of I, ahankara). Indeed, not only the consciousness of a lifeform, but all elements of this universe are born through some form of fusion between purusha and prakrti. On purusha, the transcendental self or pure consciousness, Sankhya tells us it is absolute, independent, free, imperceptible, and crucially- beyond any words or explanations. To someone looking for broad sweeps, this sounds quite like the Upanishadic concept of nirguna-brahman. In either case, what this suggests is that the ancient Indians looked at consciousness as a kind of ultimate mystery, one which in its final analysis defied even language. If this is true, then there is nothing in the spirit of their pursuit that differentiates them from the most famous of the ancient Indian commentators on consciousness- Buddhists. We will thus use Buddhism as a template for the remainder of our exploration of India’s inquiry into mind.
Buddhist thought is derived primarily from the question- what is the nature of suffering, and how to overcome it? And the answer to this, Buddhism tells us, lies in a thorough examination of the self, or of one’s consciousness. Like the Vaisheshika school, Buddhism does not accept the authority of testimony and scripture. Only direct perception, inference and experience are accepted in Buddhist epistemology. In his book Mindfulness, a Practical Guide to Awakening, Joseph Goldstein’s translation of a Dhammapada verse aptly summarises the broad view of Buddhism on mind, or on consciousness-
‘About this mind…in truth it isn’t really anything. It’s just a phenomenon. Within itself it’s already peaceful. That the mind is not peaceful these days is because it follows moods…Sense impressions come and trick it into happiness, suffering, gladness and sorrow, but the mind’s true nature is none of those things. That gladness or sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming to deceive us. The untrained mind gets lost and follows these things, it forgets itself, then we think that it is we who are upset or at ease or whatever. But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful…Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind. So we must train the mind to know those sense impressions, and not get lost in them. To make it peaceful. Just this is the aim of all this difficult practice we put ourselves through.’
Lest that daunt us, Goldstein goes on to summarise the intent of ‘this difficult practice’ in four steps-
- Contemplating our experience internally, externally and both. Internal contemplation is mindfulness of our own thoughts, actions and movements. External contemplation refers to a mindful awareness of the words, actions and movements of others.
- Contemplating the nature of impermanence- the arising, passing away and both the arising and passing away in regard to our experience to each object of our awareness. Not seeing the impermanence of all phenomena amounts to ignorance, and comprehending it fully leads to true awakening. These two forms of contemplation, when done right, enable us to-
- Recognise simply what is unfolding moment to moment- without mental commentary- and to remain mindful of what’s happening, and
- Abide without clinging to anything that enters our realm of experience. Taken together, these things and the vast wisdom of Buddhist thought intends to take us to one profound realisation and the source of salvation- Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as I or mine.