Contents: Preface. Prolegomena: 1. The Vedic Literature and the place of the Upanishads in it. 2. The Canonical Upanishads. 3. The Vedic Karmakanda and Jnanakanda and their age. 4. The teachers and the teachings of the Upanishads. 5. The Upanishads and the later philosophical systems. 6. The methods of Upanishadic study and the plan of the present work. I. New Knowledge or Brahmavidya: 7. New knowledge and its methods. 8. The recognized sources of knowledge and their inadequacy. 9. Preparations for new knowledge. 10. Sravana or instruction by a competent teacher. 11. Manana or meditation. 12. Nididhyasana or absorption. 13. Yoga and new knowledge. 14. The special features of new knowledge. 15. Illumination and its characteristics. II. The problems of one and the many or the problems of Brahman, the Jiva and the world: 16. The metaphysical approach to the problem of reality. 17. Psychological approach to Brahman. 18. Cosmological and transitional approaches to Brahman. 19. The nature of Brahman. 20. Cosmogony or the creation of the world. 21. Further development of Upanishadic Cosmogony. 22. Psychogony or the creation of the Jiva. 23. Brahman and the world--Pranama or Vivarta? III. Man, his constitution and life: 24. The constitution of man--his psycho physical organs. 25. Psychology of conscious states and the nature of consciousness. 26. The Upanishadic Scheme of Life. 27. The doctrine of Karman. 28. The ethical problems. IV. Death and after: 29. Death and its problems. 30. The doctrine of transmigration. 31. The proof, of transmission. 32. The doctrine of Moksha or liberation. Epilogue.

"There is a wide-spread belief that the tradition of spiritual life which was developed within the Upanishadic circles with its insistence upon self-conquest, contemplation, and direct God-Vision, the three essential elements of Upanishadic Mysticism, is a mere relic of the past, having no points of contact with modern life. But this belief if entirely unfounded. The old tradition has not lost its compelling force in the modern word: it continues to exercise its mysterious power over all who submit to its influence, producing God-intoxicated and saintly characters like those of old. In the lives of Ram Mohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Ram Tirtha, to mention only a few names well-known in India, we find the same old scale of values and the same old concentration on the things of sprit.

In studying the philosophy of the Upanishads the author has followed a new method. This method starts from the most central fact in the teaching of the Upanishads, viz., their mysticism, and in the light of mystic experience sifts out their essential teachings and combines them into a synthetic whole, with such division and groupings as these teachings may require for purposes of a systematic philosophy treatment.

It has therefore, the merit of presenting the philosophy of the Upanishads in a newer and truer perspective." (jacket)