moksha Archives | Neel Burton

The Upanishads and the Search for the True Self

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Who am I? This is perhaps the oldest and deepest question in philosophy. More than two and a half thousand years ago, the sages of the Upanishads rose up to it. Their meditation, often conveyed obliquely in the form of stories, remains one of the most striking and illuminating in the history of human thought.

The Story of Indra

In the Chandogya Upanishad (c. 7th century BCE), Indra, king of the Vedic gods, and his nemesis, Virochana, king of the asuras (anti-gods), go to the ashram of the creator god, Prajapati, to learn the secret of Atman (the Self).

Prajapati takes them both in, and, after 32 years, summons them and tells them that Atman is the reflection of the self in the pupil of the eye. Satisfied with this answer, Virochana returns to the asuras, who take to venerating the bodily self.

But Indra is not so sure, and goes back to the ashram. After 32 more years as a brahmacharya (celibate student), Prajapati tells Indra that Atman is the dream self.

Still full of doubt, Indra is made to wait another 32 years, before being told that Atman is the unconscious self.

When Indra protests that no good can come of this knowledge, Prajapati keeps him for five more years and, after a total of 101 years, finally tells him the secret of Atman.

If Atman is neither the waking self, nor the dreaming self, nor the sleeping self, then what is Atman?

By having Indra wait for what is the natural lifespan of a wise person, Prajapati is making the point that the deepest truths cannot simply be taught, but must painstakingly be learnt. Wisdom is not something that can simply be handed over. It demands patience, perseverance, and, above all, the willingness to question even the answers one has already received. Virochana was content with appearances; Indra sought the truth behind them.

The Upanishads return to this mystery again and again. In one Upanishad, Indra spends a lifetime seeking the Self. In another, the same mystery is pursued by a very different seeker.

The Story of Nachiketa

The brahmin (priest) Vajashravasa purports to be sacrificing everything he owns, but his son Nachiketa notices that he is only offering up those cows that are old, lame, or otherwise unproductive.

Nachiketa repeatedly taunts his father, saying, “I too am yours! To which god will you offer me?” In a fit of rage, Vajashravasa cries out, “To Yama himself!”

Taking his father at his word, Nachiketa descends to Yama’s abode. But the god of death is out, and the boy is made to wait for three days without food or water. When Yama returns, he offers the brahmin boy three boons to atone for his lack of hospitality.

For the first boon, Nachiketa asks for peace between himself and his father when he is returned to the old man. Yama happily grants this.

For the second boon, he asks to learn the fire sacrifice, which he performs to Yama’s satisfaction.

Finally, for the third boon, he asks to be told what comes after death.

Yama replies:

Here, even the gods of yore had doubt. Indeed it is not easy to know—subtle is this matter—O Nachiketa, ask for some other boon. Press not this on me; give this up for me… Ask for centenarian sons and grandsons, many cattle, elephants, gold and horses. Ask for wide extent of earth and live yourself, as many autumns as you like.

But Nachiketa resists the riches of the world, saying that man is not to be satisfied with wealth: “If wealth were wanted, we shall get it, if we only see thee.”

Impressed by the boy, Yama agrees to tell him the Secret of the Self, which persists beyond the death of the body.

After a time, Nachiketa bids farewell to Yama and returns to his father as a jivanmukta, that is, one who has achieved moksha (liberation) in this life.

Whereas Indra’s trial was patience, Nachiketa’s was temptation. Both the god and the boy proved themselves worthy of the knowledge they sought.

The Secret of the Self

One seeker waited 101 years. Another contended with Death himself. Both sought the same truth.

What did Yama tell Nachiketa? And what, in the Chandogya Upanishad, did Prajapati finally tell Indra?

“Atman” is often translated into English as “soul” but does not include the individual or cognitive aspects of the Judeo-Christian soul and, for this reason, is better translated as “Self.”

In Hindu thought, the individual aspects of the Judeo-Christian soul, such as ego, mind, reason, emotion, and desire, are subsumed under the jivanatman (“life-breath”), or jiva for short.

Whereas the jiva, the personal self, is enmeshed in the world, the Atman is detached from this contingent life and incarnation. And whereas the jiva is ever-changing and evolving, the Atman, the universal Self, is steadfast and immoveable.

In the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, the jiva and Atman are compared to two inseparable birds sitting in a tree (the body). One bird, the jiva, gorges on the sweet and bitter fruits of the tree, while the other, tasting of neither, calmly looks on.

The Atman is neither the waking self, nor the dreaming self, nor the sleeping self, as Indra had been led to believe, but pure consciousness, or witness-consciousness, and of a kind with the supreme soul, Paramatman, which is either Brahman or an aspect of Brahman.

There is something within us that witnesses every thought without itself becoming a thought, every emotion without itself becoming an emotion. Our bodies change, our memories fade, our personalities evolve, yet the simple fact of awareness remains. The sages of the Upanishads identified this silent witness with the Atman.

In all living things, Atman is the spark of life, or light of consciousness, that ignites and illumines all else for the time that it remains embodied. It is the eternal core of a living being, which, in death, leaves it for another form, or, at long last, returns to the infinity of Brahman.

If the Self, the Atman, is made of the same stuff as the world, then self-understanding and self-control become means of understanding and controlling the world and existing on a higher plane.

In the Katha Upanishad, Yama tells Nachiketa:

Subtler than the subtle, greater than the great, in the heart of each living being, the Atman reposes. One free from desire, with his mind and the senses composed, sees the glory of the Atman and becomes absolved from grief.

Knowledge of the Self can be attained through the practice of yoga, which Yama defines for Nachiketa as ‘the firm holding back of the senses’.

This is the first recorded mention of ‘yoga’ in something close to its modern sense—and it is put into the mouth of Death himself.

Yama warns Nachiketa to be watchful, ‘for yoga comes and goes.’

More than twenty-five centuries later, the question that drew both Indra and Nachiketa remains our own. We spend much of our lives identifying ourselves with our bodies, our ambitions, our possessions, our memories, even our thoughts. The Upanishads invite us to look deeper. Beneath everything that changes, they suggest, lies something that does not: the silent witness, the Self, which is not merely ours but one with the universe.

Whether one accepts this vision or not, it remains one of humanity’s most beautiful and profound meditations on the oldest of all philosophical questions:

Who am I?

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Why Rebirth Is Worse Than Death

The wheel of Samsara — The wheel of samsara has a curious parallel in Greek mythology: the wheel of Ixion.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Article substantially revised on 14 August 2026.

Whenever I tell people that I’ve written a book on Indian thought, the conversation often turns to reincarnation. ‘How wonderful,’ said a neighbour, ‘if people never really die.’

I replied, ‘Actually, reincarnation, even into a higher station, is a kind of punishment. The aim is not to come back. The aim, you might say, is to have a proper death.’

In Indian thought, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth is called samsara. The problem is not that we die, but that the cycle goes on. Liberation—moksha in Hindu traditions, nirvana in Buddhism—consists in escaping it.

The wheel of samsara has a curious parallel in Greek mythology: the wheel of Ixion. For trying to seduce Hera, Ixion, king of the Lapiths, was bound to a winged, fiery wheel that spins for all eternity in Tartarus. In both traditions, the horror is not death, but to be unable to come off the wheel.

Even Hindus and Buddhists sometimes forget this, and hope, modestly, to be reincarnated into a slightly easier life, perhaps with a faster Wi-Fi. The principle bears explaining, and one way to do that is through the prism of Buddhist thought.

The Doctrine of Dependent Origination

The Buddha was struck by human suffering and spent years trying to understand its causes and the means to overcome them.

An early insight that led to his enlightenment is the Doctrine of Dependent Origination, according to which life is a continuous process of change, with every instance of change having manifold causes and effects. This means that all things are conditioned by other things, so that all things are interconnected.

Suffering arises from a craving for permanence; but all permanence is an illusion that, in time, can only lead to pain and disappointment.

The other, brighter side of the coin is that, if all things are conditional, and subject to change, then so too is suffering.

The Doctrine of Dependent Origination extends even to the self. Buddhism famously denies the existence of an eternal, unchanging soul or atman. What we call the self is a changing constellation of causes and conditions—body, consciousness, sensations, perceptions, dispositions…

But if there is no enduring self, what is reincarnated? The Buddhist answer is not a soul or substance, but a causal continuity. One life gives rise to another rather as one flame might light another. The second flame is neither the same flame nor entirely another.

The Four Noble Truths

It is said that, upon enlightenment, the Buddha understood the Four Noble Truths, which he outlined in his first sermon in the deer park at Sarnath:

Suffering (dukkha) is inherent in all life.
The cause of all suffering is desire.
There is a natural way to eliminate all suffering.
The Noble Eightfold Path is that way.

The first truth, dukkha, acknowledges the unsatisfactory nature of existence. The second truth, samudaya (origin), attributes a cause to this suffering, namely, desire. The third truth, nirodha (cessation), posits a state that is free from suffering. And the fourth truth, marga (path), points to the method for achieving that state.

Although usually translated as ‘suffering’, dukkha refers more broadly to the inherently impermanent and unsatisfactory nature of all things, including the pleasant ones—for, really, it is on account of them that we suffer most.

Nirodha is also referred to as nirvana (‘blown out’, as in a candle), indicating that, rather than a positive state, nirvana is more of a negative state of absence of desire. Nirvana is the state of wishing for nothing, not even nirvana—a state akin, in that respect, to the deepest sleep, or death.

This is the reverse of my neighbour’s fantasy of reincarnation. The object is not to secure an endless succession of lives, but to extinguish the craving that drives the wheel.

Wisdom and Liberation

If the cause of dukkha is desire, the cause of desire is ignorance—pointing to knowledge or wisdom as the way forward. With proper perspective, there would be no desire, and so no suffering—and no (re)birth, which is the outcome of desire, and the source of all suffering. ‘Rebirth’ is a misleading term: had it been called ‘re-death’, people would look upon it very differently.

Does this mean that people ought to refrain from having children? No, insofar as being born is an opportunity to escape being born. The purpose of life is to provide us with an opportunity to escape it, by achieving wisdom. Otherwise, we shall have to try again, and again. It is said that on the night of his enlightenment, the Buddha remembered hundreds of thousands of his former lives. The world is either an aberration or created for the edification or purification of soul or consciousness. Creation is, maybe, God’s form of exercise.

Unfortunately, wisdom is hard to attain, because it runs counter to everything we have learnt and everything we love, including the thing we love most, our self. On top of that, it confronts us with everything we fear, not least death and impermanence. For these reasons and more, it takes long practice and training to attain wisdom, and even longer practice and training to hold on to it in the face of temptation, fragility, and adversity.

Coming Off the Wheel

With desire firmly under control, everything becomes a lot better and a lot easier. In an absence of desire, why lie or steal, or be envious or greedy? Or why be anxious, or angry, or depressed? The opposite of envy is not merely an absence of envy, but shared joy and admiration. The opposite of greed is not merely an absence of greed, but decency and generosity. The opposite of anger is not merely an absence of anger, but compassion. The opposite of anxiety is not merely an absence of anxiety, but tranquillity. The opposite of depression is not merely an absence of depression, but wisdom.

Seen in this light, reincarnation is not a promise that saves us from death. It is the problem from which wisdom is meant to save us. The aim is not to live for ever, nor even to return in happier circumstances, but to become wise enough at last to step off the wheel—and, as I told my neighbour, to die once and for all.