Hinduism's Language of Liberation
How Yoga and the Upanishads Define Mystical Experiences
Mysticism is the experience of transcendence. It is the feeling of losing oneself, of being part of something greater than oneself. Moments of mystical experience are some of the most profoundly illuminating of a person’s life. They can define a person’s relationship with the Ultimate.
In India’s religious traditions, enlightenment occurs as the culmination of a process of removing oneself from the world and looking inward in meditation. The problem that these traditions identify was the dissatisfaction arising from worldly attachments. The solution is finding stillness within, in states leading to the experience of the divine. Meditation leads to the experience of the unity of all things.
Mysticism in the Upanishads
The Hindu tradition of Vedanta developed to interpret the Upanishads. Vedanta holds that liberation is found when one finds the true Self (atman). This atman is immortal consciousness, free of the taint of the world. The experience of the atman in these traditions is equated with Brahman: when one finds the Self, one finds the divinity inherent in oneself and the world. One sees the entire world and all things within it as part of oneself, and oneself part of all.
The religious traditions of India developed a rich technical vocabulary for mystical experiences. The Mandukya Upanishad taught that there are four states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep, and a state simply called “the Fourth” (turiya) in Sanskrit. This fourth state is one of “neither perception nor nonperception.” It is an extraordinary mode of consciousness, unlike other states. It is a state of transcendence, the result of arduous meditation. The Upanishads often equated this experience with enlightenment.
Mystical States in Yoga
Yoga teaches a disciplines path which aims to bring stillness to the mind. The Yoga Sutras use the Sanskrit term samadhi to identify the transcendent state that results from intensive yoga practice. The term samadhi means “unmoving mind,” indicating the stillness that is the goal of yoga. It can be thought of as a kind of trance or altered state of consciousness.
The Yoga Sutras also identify different kinds of samadhi. The state of savikalpa samadhi, does not obliterate all thought in an experience of nonduality. One still experiences the world as distinct from oneself. In nirvikalpa samadhi, all such distinction is obliterated. All thoughts that divide the world into self and other are gone. There is only the bliss that comes with experiencing union with the Absolute.
The goal of these mystical traditions is to achieve the state of moksha (“release”). This is a state of liberation from the suffering of the world and repeated rebirth in it. One who has achieved this state of release is a mukti, one who is “released” from attachment to the world. These terms indicate something far from being negative, an escape form the world. They indicate an embrace of something greater. Moksha in the Hindu tradition is a union with the ultimate that is the foundation of all things and people.
Sources:
- Olivelle, Patrick, translator. Upanishads. (Oxford University Press, 2008).
- Patanjali. Yoga: Discipline of Freedom. Translated by Barbara Miller. (Bantam, 1998).
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