Abstract
Implicit in Heidegger’s 1920–1921 Phenomenology of Religious Life is an account of religion as a radical transformation of the very structures of experience. This article seeks to apply that account to a classical Indian discourse on reality and the self, Chāndogya Upaniṣad chapter six. This classical source-text for two thousand years of Hindu theology advocates a new ‘religious life’ achieved through phenomenologically reorienting the very structures of cognition toward the broadest truths of reality, rather than the finite features of the world. The goal is to create a new form of primordial subjectivity with an altered relationship to phenomena, finitude, and the divine. The article proceeds in two parts: The first section brings out Heidegger’s theory of religion through a reading of Heidegger’s 1920 Phenomenology of Religious Life with the help of his lectures, On the Definition of Philosophy, from the previous year. The second section tries to demonstrate the value of integrating traditional textual/historical scholarship in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad with Heidegger’s method. The juxtaposition aims to both (1) foreground the phenomenologically transformative goals of this influential Indian text, and (2) challenge Heidegger’s scepticism about the religious value of metaphysical reflection.
Highlights
Implicit in Heidegger’s 1920–1921 Phenomenology of Religious Life is an account of religion as a radical transformation of the very structures of experience
Life’ described his vision of what the Christian experience can and should be. They contained a broader theory of religion, taking it to be a cultural form that alters the most basic patterns of our experience of the world in such a way that it reorients our sense of identity, values, and behaviour
They demonstrated a ground-breaking method of reading that seeks ‘to penetrate therewith into the grounding phenomena of primordial [religious] life.’. We apply this to a classical Hindu text that aimed to create a new form of experience which alters one’s relationship to phenomena, finitude, and the divine
Summary
The themes in the Phenomenology of Religious Life (PRL) are too many to mention here, but the thread in Heidegger’s method that is most interesting for the religiosity of our Hindu text is the idea that it seeks a radical transformation—a subjective restructuring—of one’s fundamental life-disposition. This transformation is such that the value of living is thereby altered. 73) that he finds in Paul is connected to this basic conception of religion as a transformational practice Those who ‘spend themselves on what life brings them, occupy themselves with whatever tasks of life’ are ‘caught up in what life offers; they are in the dark’ Applied to India it connects richly with classical Hinduism’s interest in self-reflexive awareness, and the mutability of subjectivity’s basic structures (e.g., of subjective focus and attention, scope, speed, cohesion (or fragmentation), and inter-subjective outreach).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
