“The Beyond Within” by Huston Smith

Selections from the Chandogya Upanishad

Background:  Huston Smith was one of the first American scholars to urge and develop an empathetic attempt to understand non-Western religious traditions.  His aim was not merely that Western students know certain “facts” (such as doctrines and ritual practices) of other traditions, but that they come to “see” what it was like to live within such traditions.  Smith taught at Washington University, MIT, Syracuse, and now lives in a very active retirement in California. 

To appreciate the wide-ranging interests of Smith and to catch a glimpse of what he is like personally, read the interview with him posted on a free-thinking web-site.  For further information, check out another interview with Smith published in an on-line edition of Mother Jones magazine.

In this reading, Smith attempts to provide some preliminary reflections for an appreciation of the advaita (or non-dual) approach to absolute reality as propounded by one major tradition in India.  The primary textual source of this understanding of absolute reality is the Chandogya Upanishad, a text originating during the middle of the first millenium BCE (around the time of Plato and the Buddha and many of the major Hebrew prophets and Confucius and the legendary Lao-tze).

Discussion questions:

Do you agree with the claim that what we really want (315) is unlimited joy, awareness, and being?  Do you agree that it is relatively easy to overcome physical restrictions to joy?  What does it mean to claim that extinguishing our ego expectations (316) would remove all psychological and spiritual restrictions to joy?  Do you find this a valuable or helpful insight?  Why or why not?  Do you believe it is possible to expand our self to the vantage point of eternity?  Why is this not an instance of insufferable egoism? 

Does the claim that we can know everything (316) appear plausible to you?  How would you make sense of such a claim?  Granted your rendering of it, why do you think it is (or is not) a plausible goal?

Does Smith’s suggestions to approach the question of being both spatially and temporally (317) appear plausible to you?  Explain what you think he is getting at and why you hold it may (or may not) be possible.

What is your estimation of the final point of this selection, that Hinduism sees the human self already infinite, but needing to be awaken? (317)  Does Smith’s claim that attaining such an infinite awareness by a human being cannot be explained appear meaningful to you?

Background:  The Chandogya Upanishad teaches that one’s deepest self is one’s atman, and this atman is the absolute unconditioned reality or Brahman.  It attempts to “reveal” this fundamental truth through a series of dialogues, some narrative and others more metaphysical in character.  Click on these links for a more detailed explanation of the meaning of the term “upanishad” and of an examination of the “essential meaning” of the upanishads from a contemporary Indian perspective. 

Discussion questions:

The story from this selection attempts to explore how the master, Prajapati, attempts to convey this insight to some supernatural beings, only one of whom, Indra, finally “really” sees.  What is it that Indra finally discovers? (277-80)

How would you relate this understanding of absolute reality with the way Bonaventure attempts to assist those on the journey?  Are there any similarities?  Are there any differences?