우파니샤드는 서양철학과 미학의 전통에서 지식의 내용을 형성하는데 지대한 영향을 끼친 철학적 논쟁의 기본 텍스트가 된다. 예이츠는 세상은 변화무쌍한 환영이라서 신과 우주의 직물위에서 춤추다는 사실을 이해할 수 있어서 우파니샤드철 학을 포괄적으로 수용하는 아일랜드, 영국, 유럽 배경의 시인이다. 이런 관점의 수용은 곧 예이츠로 하여금 표피적인 세상의 번잡함에서 벗어나 영원성에 도달하기에 이른다.

예이츠의 신비사상의 형성과 예술의 발전에 영향을 준 요인이 많이 있 지만 이 연구에서 우파니샤드에 초점을 맞춰 접근하였다. 예이츠는 신지학 협회에서의 활동을 통해 우파니샤드를 접하게 되었으며 후기 스와미와의 만남에서 그의 우파니샤 드 이해의 폭은 넓어졌다. 우파니샤드의 중심사상은 범아일여, 업, 윤회, 현실적 삶의 신성함, 해탈을 통한 자유이다. 이러한 우파니샤드 사상은 그의 신비사상을 형성하고 체계화하는데 중요한 토대가 되었으며 그 신비사상과 철학은 바로 비전에 집대성되 어 있다. 또한 우파니샤드 사상은 그의 삶을 바라보는 시각의 변화에도 영향을 주었 다. 후기 들어 그는 현실을 삶의 신성한 곳으로 인정하고 그 현실에서 인간적, 예술적 완성을 모색한다. 현실에서의 인간적 완성은 바로 존재의 통합이며 우파니샤드의 중심 사상인 주관과 객관의 통합 즉 범아일여사상과 일치한다고 할 수 있다.

이글은 예이츠의 비잔티움으로의 항해 를 인도경전인 우파니샤드에 적용해 보는 것이다. 무엇보다도 비잔티움으로의 항해 에서 시인은 변화무쌍한 이 세 계에서 벗어나서 모든 것이 조화롭고 통일되며 변화가 없는 비잔티움으로 가기를 갈 망한다. 그러데 이러한 모습은 우파니샤드에 나타난 브라만과의 소통의 경지와 유사 하다고 볼 수 있다. 영육간의 조화 및 지상계와 천상계 사이의 조화가 이루어지면 브 라만과 하나가 될 수 있다.

This paper is an attempt to discuss Yeats’s ultimate reality. Yeats’s Unity of Being can be said to be similar to the system of Upanishad’s AUM because AUM is the combination of Brahman and Atman. Upanishad’s ascetic realized that Atman, reaching to a state of Turiya, can be Brahman. Subject and object, Atman and Brahman, dancer and dance, and the Four Principles and the Four Faculties also become one in Turiya. As we would identify Atman with our self, Brahman is our self-consciousness. Moreover, if we would identify Atman with our body, Brahman become a cosmos that reveals itself. Yeats understood the Self, the ultimate reality, through Upanishad. His macrocosm was made up of Husk, Passionate Body, Spirit, and Celestial Body and his microcosm was made of Will, Mask, Creative mind, and Body of Fate. In A Vision, the Four Principles, which consists of Husk, Passionate Body, Spirit, and Celestial Body affected individually and complementarily the Four Faculties which consists of Will, Mask, Creative mind, and Body of Fate. Spirit and Celestial Body are mind and its object, while Husk and Passionate Body are sense and the object of sense. Will and Mask are will and its object, while Creative Mind and Body of Fate are thought and its object. The whole system is based upon the belief that the Self falls in human consciousness. Robartes, from self-contained energy of contemplation, encompassed cyclic system in “The Double Vision of Michael Robartes”. He strayed away from the physical world, found his way into the supernatural world, and returned to the physical world again. Robartes's first vision is the state of total objectivity in which no human life exists. It is identical with U of Upanishad and Mask of the Four Faculties. And his second vision is, then, the state of total subjectivity, Sushupti, which unifies subject and thought, object and idea. It is the same as M of Upanishad and Creative Mind of the Four Faculties. However, he momentarily reaches eternity, Turiya, through the multiple contemplation. It is AUM of Upanishad and Body of Fate of the Four Faculties. In Turiya, Brahman and Atman, Buddha and Sphinx, dancer and Helen are integrated into one and accomplish the ultimate reality as a phaseless sphere. In conclusion, Yeats showed Unity of Being in “The Double Vision of Michael Robartes”. His Unity of Being is a kind of Turiya of Upanishad. He attains the Ultimate Reality completely, in which subject and object, macrocosm and microcosm, Brahman and Atman, the Four Principles and the Four Faculties are unified in the space without the time. He achieves the ultimate reality as an eternal instant. This ultimate reality is Yeats’s Unity of Being.

In the paper, "The Anti-self in Yeats's Per Amica Silentia Lunae" published on Dec. 2004, I studied the theory of Yeats's anti-self in the occultic meditation. In "Ego Dominus Tuss," Ille finally found his anti-self. In "Anima Hominis," Yeats said that the saint like Christ and Buddha, and the poets like Dante and Keats attained the anti-self. The anti-self is the opposite of daily self and the egoless self. After leaving the Golden Dawn in 1917 Yeats explored a wide range of meditative traditions such as Zen Buddhism, Upanishads, Tibetan Mysticism and Chinese Taoism. Throughout his poetic career, Yeats defined poetry, and indeed all art, as a form of meditation, as an experience which can reveal the unified "Self," defined by the Upanishads, and unlock its creative energy stored in the "deep of the mind." In "Discoveries," Yeats said that the more he tried to make his art deliberately beautiful, the more he follow the opposite of himself. In this paper I argue that Yeats's anti-self is similar to the "Self" of Upanishads and the Buddhahood of Zen Buddhism. In "The Double Vision of Michael Robartes" the girl dancing between a Sphinx and a Buddha in the fifteenth night is the anti-self of Yeats. In a moment the girl, the Sphinx, the Buddha and the poet himself had overthrown time in contemplation. They remain motionless in the contemplation of their real nature, Buddhahood. Full moon is the light of Samadhi and Turiya which is the forth state corresponding to the whole sacred word "AUM," pure personality, the "Self" of Upanishads. Only when Yeats becomes the anti-self he can be a totally subjective mind, overcome the illusion of duality, and find a "revelation of realty." It is a deliverance that leads simply to seeing things the way they really are, in their most naked reality. The process of spiritual realization is cognitive, for knowledge unites the knower and the known together, reverting to the language of "A Dialogue of Soul and Self," intellect no longer knows/ Is from Ought, or Knower from the Known. "The Self is Brahman": the individual soul is seen to be the universal spirit. When each man realize that his original nature is the eternal spirit, no matter how ordinary he is, he will enter Buddhahood. Like Bodhisattvas who, on the verge of their own enlightenment, vow to hold themselves from that final bliss until all sentient beings are released from the phenomenal world Yeats would like to be an Avalokitesvara in this rag-and-bone shop.