UPANISHADS:THE SCIENCE OF HUMN POSSIBILITIES 

  An in-depth perusal of the contents of all Upanishads reveals the homogeneity of the principal theme underlying an apparent diversity of presentation. It is true that these philosophical treatises often extol many apparently differing conceptions; one Upanishad may emphasize certain ideas or certain views more than the rest; some of them seem to specialise in a particular topic. Such differences in perceptions are unavoidable as these are revelations that occurred to different sages over a period of time, each of them trying to express what he realized in his inimitable style. However the central theme of all Upanishads is Brahma Vidyā and the ways and means of achieving it. An important feature of Upanishads is that these are reports of the insights that occurred to ancient Indian sages and saints who were ‘not builders of systems but recorders of experience’.

     Brahma Vidyā or Atma Vidyā: The science that is elaborated in Upanishads deals with God, world and man, the eternal curiosities of human mind. Upanishads (Vedānta) presented God as Sat-chit-Ᾱnanda, pure existence or Truth, pure Consciousness and pure Bliss. That is, in other words, the infinite Brahman. All Upanishads emphasize only one aspect and they are all engaged in only one task: to prove that “Just as by the knowledge of one lump of clay we have the knowledge of all the clay (and its modifications) in the universe, so what is that knowledge knowing which we know everything in the universe?” The central theme of all Upanishads is the ‘spiritual unity and solidarity’ of all existence.

    Although the fundamental theme of Upanishad doctrine is god-realization and thereby attaining the ultimate, everlasting liberation from all human miseries, certain ideas emerge as central to the teaching of almost all Upanishads. The most important of them are the value of knowledge (jñāna) and the need for complete detachment (vairāgya).  To the great Ṡankara Bhagavatpada these two aspects represent ‘the two wings that are indispensable for the spirit to sour to the heights of spiritual  splendour .