Doctrine and experience in the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita. A study of the possible relationship between doctrine or statements about supreme reality and man's experience of any such being

Abstract

The purpose of this enquiry is to determine what relation might exist between Doctrine, or statement about Supreme Reality, and Experience of It. To this end, teachings about deity, the claimed sources of knowledge of It and the content of such experience have been examined, prior to considering what relation might exist between the two. The thesis is, therefore, considered that knowledge of Supreme Reality is derived from the experiences of the self, whether objective or subjective, empirical or mystical, and especially from an increasing self-knowledge and the accompanying moral, social and spiritual awareness. The underlying assumption is that Doctrine is primarily an assertion and summary of such Experience and that, if it is to possess any degree of authority, it must clearly be related to experience. Doctrine is, therefore, considered to be centrally-initiated and involving the whole self, and, as knowledge of the self increases , so the Ood-concept grows and develops, from a philosophical Absolute, with basically metaphysical attributes, to a Personal God rooted in man's affective and volitional nature, as Creator perhaps, but more especially as Father, Helper and Friend. In his self-understanding, in particular, then, man discovers and comes to know the Reality which is immanent but yet transcendent, in a synthesis of experience and a progressive articulation of life as an orientation towards that which ultimately transcends* Doctrine, then, is subject to change and development but also to limitations necessarily imposed by a certain conceptual ambience and religious milieu; by the significance end relevance of an earlier or later illative process and by the standpoints and culture of the age in which any experient lives.