Hindu mysticism/ S.N Dasgupta

LECTURE I
Sacrificial Mysticism
1. Rig Veda and Atharva Veda, the earliest religious
documents of the human race. Their probable dates.
2. Atharva Veda consists mainly of hymns, of charms,
and of incantations. Rig Veda consists mainly of
hymns and of prayers for prescribed rituals.
3. Nature of Vedic ritualism.
4. Strictest accuracy in the performance of all ritual
istic details was deemed indispensably necessary for
realising the fruits of the sacrifices; since reason
was unable to discover why this should be so, the
hymns and the ritualistic directions were above rea
son and therefore had no author; they were self-ex
istent and eternal.
* 5. The entire Vedic literature was conceived as being
only a body of commands. This conception of com
mands did not imply any commander.
6. The mysterious,powers of the sacrifices can produce
all kinds of physical advantages.
7. The mysterious conception of Vedic commands.
8. Simple prayers of the primitive sages of the Vedas
show how deeply they were impressed by the in
explicable phenomena of nature which led them to
believe in deities presiding over these phenomena.
9. Revelation in the Vedic sense. The Vedic com
mands are impersonal, infallible, and eternal.
10. Reason must be subordinated to Vedic revelation.
and truths discovered by reason should be attested
by reference to the Vedas.
11. Definition of mysticism.
12. Special features of sacrificial mysticism.
13. Development of sacrificial mysticism into substi
tution-meditations.
14. Some forms of substitution-meditations are found
even now in India amoig certain sections of the
people.
15. The development of substitution-meditations marks
a new stage of advance towards the liberation of
thought from the narrow limitations of sacrificial
mysticism. Loose generalisation of thought made
such an advance possible.
16. How the substitution-meditations contributed towards
the development of the idea of Brahman, the supreme
reality, as the identity of being, thought and bliss.
17. How the monotheistic Vedic hymns c(Hitributed to
wards the formation of the concept of Brahman.
18. The mysterious force of sacrifices and the idea of
Brahman.
19. The dawn of a quest of Brahman.
20. Transition from the worship of deities to the highest
realisation of truth and reality, the Brahman.
21. The rise of the Upanishad literature, i^ich deals .
with the growth and development of the concept of
Brahman, also called the Vedanta.
LECTURE II
Mysticism of the Upanishads
1. Monotheistic hymn of Hiranyagarbha.
2. Though monotheistic passages arcf found in the sac
rificial manuals, the emphasis is nevertheless almost
wholly on the sacrificial system.
3. The science of Brahman is based wholly on the fact
that the spiritual needs of man always tend to transcend
the limitations of his mundane necessities.
Modern civilisation tends to stifle this higher call of
man by seducing him to earthly desires. The story
of Prajapati and Virocana.
4. The story of Maitreyi and Yajnavalkya illustrates
the spiritual longing of man in Maitreyi's craving
for immortality.
5. The highest state of immortality is a supra-conscious,
ineffable state of mystic experience, where there is
not the duality of the knower and the known.
6. The supra-conscious experience underlies our so-called
personality as its background, essence or truth—as
the true self which is dearest and nearest to us and
for which everything is dearer to us.
7. This experience is ultimate and fundamental in its
nature—the ultimate reality, as the ground of all
things.
8. This quest after the highest reality which is also our
ultimate intuitional experience—^a belief in a superior
impersonal principle, the inmost essence of man, which
enlivens our thoughts, actions and feelings is the
chief feature of Upanishad mysticism.
9. The story of Naciketas and "what becomes of man
after death." Philosophical quest of truth preferable
to a life of mundane comforts.
10. Growth of materialistic civilisation leads us away
from the transcendent spiritual ideals of life.
11. The highest spiritual essence can be realised only by
inner intuitive'contact and not by logical reasoning.
12. The fundamental essence of man is the inner illu
mination of pure thought, which is also the ultimate
principle underlying all things.
13. This immortal essence cannot be grasped by intellect,
but only realised by superior intuition, and this is
the mysticism of the Upanishads.
14. There is another and different line of thought which
conceives Brahman as the supreme lord who moves
our life and sense faculties to activity.
15. A mythical story to illustrate the fact that all nat
ural objects, such as fire, wind, etc., derive their re
spective functions and power from this supreme
lord.
16. Yet this supreme creator and sustalner of the uni
verse, and the inner controller of us all, is in some
other passages spoken of as having become the vis
ible many of the universe though he is in Himself
17. The dualistic tendency of God, soul and the world,
is very prominent in some passages, while side by
side with it there are many passages of an apparently
pantheistic import.
18. Yet the Upanishads seem to emphasise very strongly
the view of ineffable and ultimate experience realised
by direct intuition.
19. Interpreters of the Upanishads differ as to which of
these strains of Upanishad thought is most funda
mental. But in the life of a true Upanishad mystic
all the apparently contradictory lines of thought find
an untold harmony and - expression incomprehensible
to logical thought.
20. The mystic experience in the Upanishads can be at
tained only through the most rigorous moral discipline
of self-abnegation, self-control and peace, by untiring
and patient search and by inner intuitive vision of the
spirit. The highest state is absolutely indescribable.
LECTURE III
Yoga Mysticism
1. Perfecting of moral life is indispensable for the real
isation of Upanishad truth, and references to selfcontrol
are found in some of the Upanishad passages.
2. Modes of sense-control prevalent in India since at
least 700 or 800 B. C.
3. Story of a hypnotic trance in the Mahabharata.
4. The root of most forms of Indian mysticism is its
theory of the self as pure consciousness and the ulti
mate principle of all that exists.
5. The concept of "I" and the true self.
6. It is difficult for modern Western people correctly to
understand and appreciate the spiritual aspirations of
the great sages of ancient India—so different are the
physical and social environments of the restful hermi
tages of ancient India from the modern centres of
civilisation of Western countries.
7. Spirit and mind distinguished. The ultimate aim is
to break the bondage of the mind.
8. Mind grows through conscious and subconscious im
pressions and states, and yoga consists in the ces
sation of all mental states.
9. The seer is sensitive to the slightest pain, and his
aim is to uproot all pains and future possibilities.
10. The great positive virtues which a yogin must prac
tice.
11. Indispensable moral acquirements of a yogin.
12. In addition to these, a certain course of bodily and
mental discipline is also considered indispensable.
13. Various bodily practices, including breath control,
etc., have to be undertaken to stop all movements of
the body, voluntary and involuntary.
14. Some of the processes of purifying the body by in
ternal washings.
13. The aim of yoga concentration by which the mind is
steadied is different from ordinary concentration. By
it the mind becomes fixed in an object, and for the
time all mental functions of differentiation, associa
tion, etc., cease—absorptive concentration or samadhi,
16, Gradual advancement on yoga lines through faith and
energy,
17, The intuitional knowledge of prajna—final destruction
of the mind necessary for the liberation of the
spirit.
LECTURE IV
Buddhistic Mysticism
1. Detachment from antipathy and attachment, supreme
self-control, and absolute desirelessness considered
indispensable by yoga for the liberation of the spirit.
2. Legendary account of the way in which the Buddha
was led to the path of yoga.
3. The way to Nirvana as absolute extinction of the
mind is through absolute desirelessness, right disci
pline, and yoga concentration.
4. Difference between the system of the Buddha and the
system of Patanjali with regard to the ultimate goal.
5. Goal as Nirvana and as the absolute liberation of the
spirit.
6. Belief in Nirvana is the basis of Buddhist mysticism.
7. The idea of liberation and the idea of essenceless
I Nirvana are very similar to each other.
8. A digression in the way of referring to other forms
of mysticism, as, for example, a belief in tapas, as
ceticism and self-mortification as able to lead to our.
highest realisation.
9- Different types of ascetics.
10. Supernatural power ascribed to tapas or self-mortifi
cation.
11. Tapas as*self-mortification contrasted with tapas as
the power of endurance of physical privations and as
self-control.
12. The Buddha found the old course of excessive selfmortification
and rigor undesirable and took to a
moderate course.
13. Virtues of universal friendship, compassion, etc.
14. In the Hindu scheme of virtues, caste virtues and
caste duties oftentime narrowed the scope of universalism.
15. Universal friendship was the active creed in Mahayana
Buddhism.
16. Different grades of Buddhas.
17. Story of Aryadeva's universal compassion.
18. The career of a Bodhisattva.
19. The virtues of a Bodhisattva.
20. The moral progress of a Bodhisattva.
21. Universal good the ultimate aim of the Bodhisattva.
LECTURE V
Classical Forms of Devotional Mysticism.
1. Yoga ideal of individualistic perfection.
2. Hindu system of life not individualistic, but based
on a caste system of the social order.
3. Hindu system of caste duties.
4. Philosophy of the Gita emphasises the need of the
dedication of all actions and their fruits to God.
5. Self-surrender to God is the ideal of the yogin of the
Gita.
6. The itjeal of love of God in the Puranas.
7. Ramanuja's conception of love of God as ceaseless
contemplation of God.
8. Bhakti or devotion to God is found to be a revival
of the yoga method in later times.
9. Love of God as a supreme emotion in the Bhagavata
Purana.
10. Special features of the path of Bhakti contrasted
with the older path.
11. For whom is the path of devotion intended?
12. Vallabha's definition of Bhakti; his doctrine of prapatti
or self-surrender.
13. The doctrine of prapatti contrasted with the doctrine
of Bhakti of the Bhagavata.
14. Mysticism in the emotion of Bhakti.
15. Love of God an indispensable factor of religious psy
chology.
16. Place of reason and emotion in religion.
17. Passion for God as illustrated in the life of Chaitanya
of Bengal.
18. The legend of Krishna.
19. Chaitanya's life.
20. Chaitanya's passionate love of God.
LECTURE VI
Popular Devotional Mysticism
1. God as great and God as the dearest.
2. Spiritualisation of the events of Krishna legends and
vicarious participation in the life-drama of Krishna.
3. God as father and mother.
4. Different concepts of Bhakti.
5. Vallabha's notion of Bhakti as pushti.
6. How human love becomes divine.
7. Candidasa's ideal of the transformation of human
love into divine.
8. Love of God in South-India, in the songs of the
Alvars.
9. Relation of the old Bhakti .school to the new school
of Bhakti—Khecar, the teacher of Namdev.
10. Essence of Namdev's teachings.
11. Tukaram and his hymns of devotion.
12. Love of God in the North-Indian saints.
13. Kabir, his reformatory spirit and his love of God.
14. Love of God a great leveller.
15. Some hymns of Kabir showing his reformatory zeal.
16. Some hymns of Kabir illustrating his views on purifition
and his great intoxication for God.
17. The mystic Rui Das.
18. The mystic Mira Bai.
19*. Mira Bai's hymns illustrating her great love of God.
20. The mystic poet and Saint Tulsidas.
21. Mystic feelings of the people in general who are often
illiterate.
22. The value of spiritual longing cannot be expressed
in terms of utility.