"As all waters have their meeting place in the sea, all touch in the skin, all tastes in the tongue, all odours in the nose, all colours in the eye, all sounds in the ear, all percepts in the mind, all knowledge in the heart, all actions in the hands. … As a lump of salt has no inside nor outside and is nothing but taste, so has this Âtman neither inside nor outside and is nothing but knowledge. Having risen from out these elements it (the human soul) vanishes with them. When it has departed (after death) there is no more consciousness." Here Maitreyî professes herself bewildered but Yâjñavalkya continues "I say nothing bewildering. Verily, beloved, that Âtman is imperishable and indestructible. When there is as it were duality, then one sees the other, one tastes the other, one salutes the other, one hears the other, one touches the other, one knows the other. But when the Âtman only is all this, how should we see, taste, hear, touch or know another? How can we know him by whose power we know all this? That Âtman is to be described by no, no (neti, neti). He is incomprehensible for he cannot be comprehended, indestructible for he cannot be destroyed, unattached for he does not attach himself: he knows no bonds, no suffering, no decay. How, O beloved, can one know the knower?" And having so spoken, Yâjñavalkya went away into the forest. In another verse of the same work it is declared that "This great unborn Âtman (or Self) undecaying, undying, immortal, fearless, is indeed Brahman."
It is interesting that this doctrine, evidently regarded as the quintessence of Yâjñavalkya's knowledge, should be imparted to a woman. It is not easy to translate. Âtman, of course, means self and is so rendered by Max Müller in this passage, but it seems to me that this rendering jars on the English ear for it inevitably suggests the individual self and selfishness, whereas Âtman means the universal spirit which is Self, because it is the highest (or only) Reality and Being, not definable in terms of anything else. Nothing, says Yâjñavalkya, has any value, meaning, or indeed reality except in relation to this Self[183]. The whole world including the Vedas and religion is an emanation from him. The passage at which Maitreyî expresses her bewilderment is obscure, but the reply is more definite. The Self is indestructible but still it is incorrect to speak of the soul having knowledge and perception after death, for knowledge and perception imply duality, a subject and an object. But when the human soul and the universal Âtman are one, there is no duality and no human expression can be correctly used about the Âtman. Whatever you say of it, the answer must be neti, neti, it is not like that[184]; that is to say, the ordinary language used about the individual soul is not applicable to the Âtman or to the human soul when regarded as identical with it.
This identity is stated more precisely in another passage[185] where first occurs the celebrated formula Tat tvam asi, That art Thou, or Thou art It[186], i.e. the human soul is the Âtman and hence there is no real distinction between souls. Like Yâjñiavalkya's teaching, the statement of this doctrine takes the form of an intimate conversation, this time between a Brahman, Uddâlaka Âruṇi, and his son Śvetaketu who is twenty-four years of age and having just finished his studentship is very well satisfied with himself. His father remarks on his conceit and says "Have you ever asked your teachers for that instruction by which the unheard becomes heard, the unperceived perceived and the unknown known?" Śvetaketu enquires what this instruction is and his father replies, "As by one lump of clay all that is made of clay is known, and the change[187] is a mere matter of words, nothing but a name, the truth being that all is clay, and as by one piece of copper or by one pair of nail-scissors all that is made of copper or iron can be known, so is that instruction." That is to say, it would seem, the reality is One: all diversity and multiplicity is secondary and superficial, merely a matter of words. "In the beginning," continues the father, "there was only that which is, one without a second. Others say in the beginning there was that only which is not (non-existence), one without a second, and from that which is not, that which is was born. But how could that which is be born of that which is not[188]? No, only that which is was in the beginning, one only without a second. It thought, may I be many: may I have offspring. It sent forth fire." Here follows a cosmogony and an explanation of the constitution of animate beings, and then the father continues--"All creatures have their root in the Real, dwell in the Real and rest in the Real. That subtle being by which this universe subsists, it is the Real, it is the Âtman, and thou, Śvetaketu, art It." Many illustrations of the relations of the Âtman and the universe follow. For instance, if the life (sap) leaves a tree, it withers and dies. So "this body withers and dies when the life has left it: the life dies not." In the fruit of the Banyan (fig-tree) are minute seeds innumerable. But the imperceptible subtle essence in each seed is the whole Banyan. Each example adduced concludes with the same formula, Thou art that subtle essence, and as in the Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka salt is used as a metaphor. "'Place this salt in water and then come to me in the morning.' The son did so and in the morning the father said 'Bring me the salt.' The son looked for it but found it not, for of course it was melted. The father said, 'Taste from the surface of the water. How is it?' The son replied, 'It is salt.' 'Taste from the middle. How is it?' 'It is salt.' 'Taste from the bottom, how is it?' 'It is salt.' … The father said, 'Here also in this body you do not perceive the Real, but there it is. That subtle being by which this universe subsists, it is the Real, it is the Âtman and thou, Svetaketu, art It.'"
The writers of these passages have not quite reached Śankara's point of view, that the Âtman is all and the whole universe mere illusion or Mâyâ. Their thought still tends to regard the universe as something drawn forth from the Âtman and then pervaded by it. But still the main features of the later Advaita, or philosophy of no duality, are there. All the universe has grown forth from the Âtman: there is no real difference in things, just as all gold is gold whatever it is made into. The soul is identical with this Âtman and after death may be one with it in a union excluding all duality even of perceiver and perceived.
A similar union occurs in sleep. This idea is important for it is closely connected with another belief which has had far-reaching consequences on thought and practice in India, the belief namely that the soul can attain without death and as the result of mental discipline to union[189] with Brahman. This idea is common in Hinduism and though Buddhism rejects the notion of union with the supreme spirit yet it attaches importance to meditation and makes Samâdhi or rapture the crown of the perfect life. In this, as in other matters, the teaching of the Upanishads is manifold and unsystematic compared with later doctrines. The older passages ascribe to the soul three states corresponding to the bodily conditions of waking, dream-sleep, and deep dreamless sleep, and the Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka affirms of the last (IV. 3. 32): "This is the Brahma world. This is his highest world, this is his highest bliss. All other creatures live on a small portion of that bliss." But even in some Upanishads of the second stratum (Mâṇḍukya, Maitrâyaṇa) we find added a fourth state, Caturtha or more commonly Turîya, in which the bliss attainable in deep sleep is accompanied by consciousness[190]. This theory and various practices founded on it develop rapidly.
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The explanation of dreamless sleep as supreme bliss and Yâjñavalkya's statement that the soul after death cannot be said to know or feel, may suggest that union with Brahman is another name for annihilation. But that is not the doctrine of the Upanishads though a European perhaps might say that the consciousness contemplated is so different from ordinary human consciousness that it should not bear the same name. In another passage[191] Yâjñavalkya himself explains "when he does not know, yet he is knowing though he does not know. For knowing is inseparable from the knower, because it cannot perish. But there is no second, nothing else different from him that he could know." A common formula for Brahman in the later philosophy