By Victor M Fontane
How the Upanishads solved the differences between the non believers in God like Buddhism, Jainism Samkhya and others and the believers in a God religion like Christians, Islam, etc.
The Upanishads deal with ritual observance and the individual's place in the universe and, in doing so, develop the fundamental concepts of the Supreme Over Soul (God) known as Brahman (who both created and is the universe) and that of the Atman, the individual's higher self, whose goal in life is union with Brahman.
The Upanishads are the philosophical-religious texts of Hinduism (also known as Sanatan Dharma meaning “Eternal Order” or “Eternal Path”) which develop and explain the fundamental tenets of the religion. The name is translated as to “sit down closely” as one would to listen attentively to instruction by a teacher or other authority figure.
At the same time, Upanishad has also been interpreted to mean “secret teaching” or “revealing underlying truth”. The truths addressed are the concepts expressed in the religious texts known as the Vedas which orthodox Hindus consider the revealed knowledge of creation and the operation of the universe.
There are over 200 Upanishads but the most well known or most important are – Katha, Kena, Isa, Mundaka, Prasna, Taittiriya, Chhandogya, Brihadaranyaka, Mandukya, Aitareya, Kaushitaki, Svetasvatara and Maitrayani. All the 4 Vedas are compositions of different texts. Upanishads are in the last section of any Vedas. The Upanishads are the highest phylosophical - spiritual teachings of the Vedas, fundamental spiritual religious Hindu texts. Collectively, Upanishads are Vedanta, the highest teachings or conclussion of the Vedas.
For centuries different religious and philosophical teaching are being defending their position about the existence or non existence of God. For believers, if are challenged there is not clear answer or reason to believe. On what basis do they believe, just on authority, scripture or tradition as traditional religions are based only on faith. Compared to science is called the religion of the gaps which means that things that science can’t explain this gap is filled with God’s work. So, as science is able to explain more and more all phenomena or experiences, God’s gap is shrinking.
For non believers there is no duality as we are the Divinity and we clearly exist so if we are an emanation of God we are of his same nature, the existence of God has not to be proven. However, as humans we have lots of problems, pain, suffering, etc. but is because we forgot what we really are. And that’s the clue, working to awaken our infinite consciousness, find and reunite with God’s infinite consciousness.
Upanishads then conciliates the God’s infinite consciousness of the believers saying is the same awakened infinite consciousness of non believers, Brahma. ‘That Thou Art’ (Tat Tvam Asi), the relationship between the individual and the Absolute.
Allan Watts, philosopher and mystic said: If religion is the opium of the masses, then I must say that the Hindus are the dope. He also told a story about the Upanishads: “God (Brahman) alone existed but sometimes because of this he got bored so he wanted to play, but with whom he is going to play, there is nobody else so he came out with a plan, needs a playmate so he pretended not to be God but someone else, he pretended to be human so he can play hide and seek. Reality is he was playing hide and seek with himself but pretending to be a human. Then problems arose, being so perfect pretending being other he forgot that he is God and got into a lot of troubles, suffering, etc. Now God is seeking God, seeking himself and that’s the game of life that we see everywhere, all the time”.
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