So, does Vedanta, the Upanishads to be precise, help find a way to that supreme? If there is a way, can I formulate it as a method by which one can find one’s ‘true-self’?
Yes and no!
Yes, because the way that the Upanishad discusses it and says that actually there is no way. This means when one understands clearly that the only way is to make the mind still or to allow the mind to settle down or to become still and not get caught up in the confusion of this or that or this against that. Also, when the mind is calm–beyond the tempest of its passions and desires–in that utter stillness the ‘truth’ comes into being. One understands one’s true reality. It is as if all the impurities, all the agitations, all the modifications of the mind have been wiped out and the essence remains in its absolute purity. This essence is the ‘self’; the ‘true-self’. Well, anything other than that is considered by the Upanishad to be a ‘non-self’, which means ‘that which is not true’!
The great Rishi Patanjali, discussing this in his ‘Yoga Sutras’, defines yoga as ‘yogas chitta vritti nirodhah’ which means ‘yoga is the stilling of the mind’. Yoga is the stopping of all the modifications of the mind. Yoga is freeing the mind from all its distractions, and when it becomes absolutely quiet, that state is called ‘Kaivalya’.
I would now like you to take a look at what the word ‘Upanishad’ means.
Upa – Ni – Shad.
It is as if all the impurities, all the agitations, all the modifications of the mind have been wiped out and the essence remains in its absolute purity.
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