Stephen Phillips, "The Metaphysics of Meditation: Sri Aurobindo and Adi-Sakara on the Isa Upanisad" (Bloombury, 2024)
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What is Stephen Phillips’s book about and why does it matter?
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Welcome to New Books in Philosophy, a channel on the New Books Network. I'm Malcolm Keating, and today we'll be talking to Stephen Phillips, author of The Metaphysics of Meditation, Sri Arubindo and Adi Shankara on the Isha Upanishad, published in twenty twenty four by Bloomsbury Academic Press. Welcome to New Books in Philosophy, Stephen.
Well, thank you for having me.
Yeah, absolutely. Let's let's dive in with you giving us a kind of a high-level overview of what this book is about. And the title, obviously, it's about meditation, about metaphysics, and about these two Vedantins, Arubindo and Shankara, on this very important Upanishad. Um can you give us a snapshot of what you're doing in the book?
The Isha Upanishad is uh A central Upanishad both for the metaphysics of a school of classical Indian philosophy known as Vedanta, which has legs to this day, and also for yoga, in particular the practice of meditation aimed at a certain kind of mystical experience. Yeah. So uh the Isha Upanishad is uh written in verse, and so it's it reads like a meditation manual, but it also has this uh uh a dimension of metaphysical reflection that is picked up by both the ancient commentator or which say classical commentator Shankaracharya who lived in the eighth century and by a very modern yogin who writes in English uh Aurobindo uh who lived from Uh he m was born in eighteen seventy two and died in nineteen fifty.
So uh uh uh these two uh take the Upanishad very seriously, as have many Vedantins uh uh over the the centuries. I mean it's not it's maybe not the most important Upanishad out of the twelve or thirteen so-called classical or early Upanishads. uh that inspire both vedantic metaphysical reasoning or speculation and yogic practice, meditative practice. Uh it may not be the most important, but it's certainly in the top few. Uh and it's also quite short and manageable. It's only 18 verses. It's easy to get a grip on. Uh and uh and and it has uh and it's it's a high level of poetry. Some of its verses present uh uh what we might call koons, uh uh um uh uh a ideas that are supposed to help one um achieve a higher consciousness, uh by I think frustrating perhaps rational thought, uh, though though I must say, um
Both of these great commentators, uh, Shakur. have no trouble uh fleshing out the rational dimension and and and making sense of it all. But there is a very important doctrine of the unknowability of um Brahman. The word Brahman in Vedanta philosophy is understood as something like an absolute or even God. though you have to be very careful there because there's so much so much sort of theological baggage that comes with that particular word.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Stephen Phillips’s book about and why does it matter?
0:00–10:14
2
How do Aurobindo and Shankara each interpret the Isha Upanishad?
10:14–19:26
3
What metaphysical problems arise from the doctrine of Brahman’s unknowability?
19:26–29:00
4
How does the book address the problem of evil within Advaita Vedānta?
29:00–38:28
5
Why are translation choices crucial for understanding Sanskrit philosophy?
38:28–48:00
6
What role do poetry and aesthetics play in the meditation‑metaphysics link?
48:00–57:47
7
What future research does Phillips plan after this book?
57:47–1:00:53
8
How does the conversation conclude and what are the key take‑aways?
1:00:53–1:00:53
Speakers
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