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VEDANTISM

The Vedanta school of philosophy is generally held to represent the highest flight of the Oriental philosophical thought. It dates far back in the centuries of the past, the best authorities generally holding that it was founded about 700 b.c., although even then probably founded upon older teachings. It embraces many minor schools under its general class, being in fact one of the most catholic of the philosophies. As Max Muller says: “The Vedanta philosophy leaves to every man a wide sphere of real usefulness, and places him under a law as strict and as binding as anything can be in this transitory life; it leaves him a Deity to worship as omnipotent and majestic as the deities of any other religion. It has room for almost every religion; nay, it embraces them all. Other Oriental philosophies do exist and have some following, but Vedanta has the largest.”

The Vedanta philosophy is the extreme of absolute idealism. By “absolute idealism” is meant the philosophical conception that denies the existence of the phenomenal world apart from the universal mind. Absolute idealism denies the existence of material objects, holding that their appearances are merely ideas of the universal mind. In the Vedanta, the highest phase of Hindu philosophical thought, the teaching is that the Absolute, Brahman, or the Divine Mind is “an absolutely homogeneous, pure intelligence or thought, eternal, infinite, changeless, indivisible.” This being the case, it becomes necessary for the Vedantin to account for “the appearance of the phenomenal world, with its succession of change, and its plurality of souls.” But the Vedantin does not shrink from the responsibility, but faces it boldly. He accounts for the world of phenomena upon the theory of maya (illusion) arising from avidya (ignorance). But this ignorance and illusion is held to be universal, and not confined to individuals. The individual is bound by it until the scales fall from his eyes, and he sees the truth of the Oneness. An ancient Vedanta teacher, living many centuries ago, said: “The entire complex of phenomenal existence is considered as true so long as the Brahman and the Self has not arisen, just as the phantoms of a dream are considered to be dreams until the sleeper wakes.” Thus the existence of the phenomenal world, while apparently real, is but the fiction of an illusory dream. It seemingly exists, while the state of ignorance persists, for, as Tennyson says: “Dreams are true, while they last .”

Max Muller has said:

“Vedanta holds a most unique position among the philosophies of the world. After lifting the Self or the true nature of the Ego, Vedanta unites it with the essence of Divinity, which is absolutely pure, perfect, immortal, unchangeable, and one. No philosopher, not even Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, or Schopenhauer has reached that height of philosophical thought.…None of our philosophers, not excepting Heraclitus, Plato, Kant or Hegel, has ventured to erect such a spire, never frightened by storms of lightnings. Stone follows upon stone, in regular succession after once the first step has been made, after once it has been seen that in the beginning there can have been but One, as there will be but One in the end, whether we call It Atman or Brahman.”

Arising from this extreme theory of absolute idealism, we may see the various modern doctrines of idealism, from Berkeley to the modern schools of New Thought. The basic principle is that “All is Mind,” and that all the phenomenal universe must exist as ideas, dreams, or pictures in that mind.

Edward Carpenter says:

“We see that there is in man a creative thought-source continually in operation, which is shaping and giving form not only to his body, but largely to the world in which he lives. In fact, the houses, the gardens, the streets among which we live, the clothes we wear, the books we read, have been produced from this source. And there is not one of these things—the building in which we are at this moment, the conveyance in which we may ride home— which has not in its first birth been a mere phantom thought in some man’s mind, and owes its existence to that fact. Some of us who live in the midst of what we call civilization simply live embedded among the thoughts of other people. We see, hear, and touch those thoughts, and they are, for us, the World. But no sooner do we arrive at this point, and see the position clearly, than another question inevitably rises upon us. If, namely, this world of civilized life, with its great buildings and bridges and wonderful works of art, is the embodiment and materialization of the thoughts of Man , how about that other world of the mountains and the trees and the mighty ocean and the sunset sky—the world of Nature—is that also the embodiment and materialization of the thoughts of other beings, or of one other Being? And when we touch these things are we also coming into touch with the thoughts of these beings?”

The Vedanta is then seen to be based upon the fundamental thought that there exists but One Reality, and that, consequently, all else that seems to exist is but maya or illusion. This One reality is called “Brahman” or “That,” the latter term being applied by some of its philosophers who hold that no name should be applied to the Nameless One. Brahman is held to be “beyond qualities or attributes; beyond subject or object; the efficient cause of the universe in its mental and material appearance; creator and created; doer and deed; cause and effect; self-existent; absolute; infinite; eternal; indivisible and immutable; all that is, ever has been, or ever will be.” Max Muller states the Vedanta philosophy in a nutshell when he says: “ In one-half verse I shall tell you what has been taught in thousands of volumes: Brahman is true, the world is false; the soul is Brahman and nothing else .”

“The Vedantist holds that there being but One, and that one being Brahman, there can be nothing else than Brahman; hence, the phenomenal universe, including the idea of individual souls, is mere maya or illusion; the universe being but an idea in the mind of Brahman —a mere reverie, meditation, or daydream of the Absolute One. This then is the essence of the Vedanta, the remainder of the teachings being but an attempt to work out the how of the manifestation of the illusory universe which arises from “Maya, the inexplicable illusion, self-imagined, that is illusorily overspread upon Brahman.” It is taught that “the total period of the creation, existence, and death of the universe is but as the twinkle of an eye to Brahm.”

The position of Christian Science is that the Divine Mind images and idealizes only the things and qualities which, like itself, are pure and perfect; and that therefore all that is not pure and perfect cannot be the idea of the Divine Mind, but must, on the contrary, be the product of “mortal mind” and, therefore, must be unreal, untrue, illusion, error, lies. This position is also taken by many of the independent metaphysical cults of the day, who have come under the influence of the Christian Science teachings, and who have appropriated some of its fundamental ideas. But differ as may the modern schools, their fundamental premise is that “All is Mind,” and when they so assert they place themselves in the direct line of inheritance with the teachings of the Vedanta and the still older schools of Hindu thought from which the Vedanta itself sprang. Idealistic Monism is older than recorded Hindu history, and undoubtedly had its origin among the earliest races on earth, the names and histories of which have passed from human memory. These “newest” thoughts of the so-called “New Thought” of the day are in reality the very oldest thoughts of the race . Verily, “there is nothing new under the sun.”