Assignment 1: Individual Self

Self-Introspection and the Upanishads

Pratyusha Nagavarapu, 2nd sem M.A
While trying to understand what exactly the universe comprises, as a modern day thinker and
doer, it comes to mind that the Upanishad tries to absolve the mind of the bigger question and
bring it to the most fundamental of entities. While things like time, space, world, and universe
are concepts that take up some time to relate to, how one thinks about them in the first place is
probably the question that needs to be addressed. Where these things remain uncertain because
we havent experienced them, these things remain uncertain because we havent experienced
them ourselves. Watching movies about things space and what could be out there bring us a step
closer, if that, but that is all. The true experience lies with me, myself, and completely with
myself in the state that I am. And I cannot be surer of anything but what I know, and this is why
maybe the self is such an important aspect to explore as far as the Upanishads are in question.
What could be more certain than our own self? (Mathur 1972, 391) While, in the grand scheme
of things, it does matter what this world is made of, whether we are an important part of it and
whether we are the only part that is aware of what is going on around us, questions that possibly
cannot be experienced by us cannot be explained by us. This, and the fact that the self remains
such an integral part of every little thing done by every single human being, must bring to
thought the question of the self, about what it is and the like. Is the self made of something?
Can the self itself be experienced, as opposed to being the one to experience? Can I call the self
spiritual in nature, something that is to be inferred rather than experienced? The kinds of
questions that crop up in the process of questioning the self might sound self-referential, but very
much relevant to the Upanishads. Forgetting about the world and why it placed as it is, I think
the self is, and always will remain, the question that needs to be asked, even if it is a confusing
one. When one thinks about it, while questioning this entire universe and its existence and then
questioning the self and in turn its existence, one is confounded into feeling a similar sense of
disconcertment. Where I thought I knew about myself, I know as I make arguments that I
probably didnt know it at all.

While the Upanishads try and explain the self, they try to first explain, as I see it, what is not the
self. This seems to be an easy way to first begin the analysis of the self because what is
something, if not what it isnt? The absence of what could make the self, the self, makes me
easily assume that I know the self and its being. For instance, is thinking an act of the self? Does
the self make rational thoughts and perform logical activities and day-to-day decisions that
affect a life? According to the Upanishads, no, it doesnt: An act of thinking as an existential
occurrence is concerned with an object other than itself. [] (Mathur 1972, 392) So thinking is
something that is evoked from an external source, a source that outside or external that stimulates
thought and attention to it. While the self is thought to be an internal device, something that
exists within (within the body, the mind, the skin, the human, Im not sure) but this itself, that the
act of thinking about something is thinking about something external suggests that the self is
internal, inside, and embodied, perhaps.
Where the self comes into question though, automatically comes into mind the question of life,
and hence death. What happens to the self when death comes for the frail human body? I suppose
analyzing the self may bring certain obvious drawbacks, but the major one would probably be
that if the self were mortal as is the human body, so there would be no question of what occurs
one the body disintegrates. Since it is abundantly clear that the self exists, according to the
Upanishads, and as per several stories and metaphors exists in this shell without completely
knowing itself, the Kat ha-Upanishad makes me wonder if it is possible that the self relies on the
non-self, whatever that is, whether it is logic or material body, to completely discover itself.
(Whitney 1890-96, 89-90)
But I find the question that bothers me the most is the question of the self and its characteristics.
Is it possible to wonder about the self for a moment and wonder if the self is to be had, by the
body, mind, or if the body has a self, or if I am myself. When speaking of the self as a literary
device, for example, as in the case of Ganeris argument, I have to wonder if the self, myself,
remains purely unidentified for the fact that I have tried to severely identify it with things and
ideas that make sense to me. It is most possible that the self is a construction, that it could be a
story that the Upanishads are based on, that it is merely this core that is required to be able
deconstruct everything else that human life comprises. (Ganeri 2007, 19) From flesh and blood

to research papers and knowledge, I have all these things, these human things, but do I have a
soul, a self? Do I own it, possess it, or perhaps I identify with it, and it with me, and that is the
reason it exists at all?
Or perhaps there is a simpler explanation to why the self exists, if it exists at all. Perhaps my
enunciating its existence, questioning it, wondering about it brings it, unquestionably, into
existence, and perhaps in my perseverance there will be some answers for what the self is, and if
it is. Practicing this, practicing what is known as the self, will possibly bring this to truth, as
Ganeri suggests in his work, and they remain impeccably related to the soul, the self, as being an
art of this core part of humanity. (Ganeri 2007, 4) While I experience things, I wonder if I
experience myself, and wonder whether I truly know myself as everyone suggests I should do. At
this point questioning its existence seems to be the easiest way to start, and perhaps keeping at it
will produce results of some kind, if not the kind I seek.
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Bibliography
D. C. Mathur, The Concept of Self in the Upanishads: An Alternative Interpretation (Brockport:
University of New York, 1972), 390-386
Jonardon Ganeri, The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of the Self and Practices of Truth in
Indian Ethics and Epistemology (New York: Oxford University Press Inc, 2007), 4-5
W. D. Whitney, Translation of the Katha-Upanishad (USA: The John Hopkins University Press,
1890-1896), 88-93