Earth cannot long resist the man whom Heaven has chosen : Gods with him walk; his chariot is led; his arm is assisted.
SRI AUROBINDO
November, 1964
The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, _ the seas of Ananda. .... Sri Aurobindo.
THE MOTHER'S COMMENTARY
ON
DHAMMAPADA
THE BHIKKHU
It is good to control one's eye, good to control one's ear, good to control one's nose, good to control one's tongue. (1)
It is good to control one's body, good to control one's speech, good to control one's mind; it is good to have control everywhere. The Bhikkhu who has control everywhere is freed from all sorrows. ' (2)
* Based on the Mother's Talks.
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One who has control over his hands, who has control over his feet, who has control over his speech is the best among the self- controlled; he is concentrated in the Spirit, wholly self-absorbed, lone and happy, he is indeed a Bhikkhu. (3)
The Bhikkhu who has his mouth controlled, who speaks after taking thought, who is not pretentious, who moves to the goal and is on the path, possesses a sweet utterance. (4)
The Bhikkhu delights in the Path, he adheres to the Path, he contemplates on the Path, he follows the Path, he never falls away from the Path. (5)
Do not despise your own gain, do not covet others' gain. If one desires others' gain, one never attains consolation. (6)
If one gains a little and does not despise the little gain that is one's own, the gods praise him; for he lives a pure life. and is ever vigilant. (7)
One who has no attachment for any name and form and does not grieve at their disappearance, him they call a Bhikkhu. (8)
One who moves as a friend, who is happy in Buddha's Laws, attains that happy seat of existence where all contingencies cease. (9)
O Bhikkhu, bail out your boat, thus it will become lighter. Even so, cast out your attachments and taints arid you will attain Nirvana. (10)"
Cut out the five1, conquer the other five.2' Concentrate on the five others3. The Bhikkhu who is thus freed in a fivefold way is said to have crossed the ocean waters. (11)
1 Ego, doubt, outward ceremonies, greed, ill-will.
2 Craving for the world of form, craving for the world of the formless, pride, mental restlessness, ignorance.
3 Faith, energy, concentration, attentiveness, meditation, intelligence.
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O Bhikkhu, take to meditation, let there be no delusion, let not your mind wander in objects of desire. Do not be lured and swallow the red hot ball of iron and then get scorched and lament, "Oh, I suffer!" (12)
One without knowledge can have no meditation and without meditation one can have no knowledge. One who has both knowledge and meditation, can reach Nirvana. (13)
The Bhikkhu who has entered the house of emptiness, whose mind is quieted, who clearly distinguishes the Divine Law attains superhuman delight. (14)
Each time he concentrates on the appearance and disappearance of the contingents, he enjoys the happiness and delight of those who have attained immortality. (15)
Such are the very first things for the Bhikkhu who has attained the right knowledge: control over the senses, contentment, self-discipline according to the Code; choosing one among friends who leads constantly a pure life for the good of all. (16)
Be hospitable and courteous and self-contented. So shall you end your suffering. (17)
A flowering plant sheds its withered flowers, even so, O Bhikkhu, shed your attachments, your likes and dislikes. (18)
Quiet in body, quiet in speech, quiet in mind, deep in concentration, all world's desires ended, the Bhikkhu attains perfect Peace. (19)
Move the self by the self, establish the self by the self. Guarded by the self, always mindful, the Bhikkhu dwells in Felicity. (20)
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The self is the master of the self. The self is the refuge of the self. Discipline your self, even as a dealer disciplines
Full of happiness and delight in the pursuit of the Buddha's discipline, the Bhikkhu attains the state of perfect peace, the Felicity that is cessation from all contingents. (22)
The young Bhikkhu who yokes himself to the Buddha-discipline illumines the world even like the moon freed from the clouds. (23)
ONE advice given here is that one should be always benevolent. It should not be taken like any other advice such as is given usually. It says here an interesting, indeed, a very interesting thing. I comment, "Be always benevolent and you will be free from suffering, always contented and happy, you will radiate your quiet happiness".
It is to be particularly noticed that all the digestive functions are extremely sensitive to an attitude that is critical, bitter, full of ill-will, to a sour judgment. Just that only is sufficient to disturb the functioning of your digestion. And it is a vicious circle, the more the digestive function is disturbed, the more you become malevolent, critical, dissatisfied with life and things and people. So you do not come out of it. And there is only one cure, to come out deliberately, out of this attitude, to refuse absolutely to accept it and to impose upon oneself, through constant self-control, the conscious attitude of all-comprehending benevolence. Just try and you will see that you are keeping well much better.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
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WHEN the mind is entirely passive, then the force of Nature which works in the
whole of animate and inanimate creation, has free play; for it is in reality
this force which works in man as well as in the sun and star. There is no doubt
of this truth whether in Hinduism or in Science. This is the thing called
Nature, the sum of cosmic force and energy, which alone Science recognises as the source of all work and activity. This also is the Prakriti of the Hindus to which under different names Sankhya and Vedanta agree in assigning a similar position and function in the Universe. But the immediate question is whether this force can act in man independently of man's individual will and initiative. Must it a ways act through his volition or .has it 5 power of independent operation ? The first real proof which Science has had of the power of action independent of volition is in the phenomena of hypnotism. Unfortunately the nature of hypnotism has not been properly understood. It is supposed that by putting the subject to sleep the hypnotist is able in some mysterious and unexplained way to substitute his will for the subject's. In a certain sense all the subject's activities in the hypnotic state are the results of his own volition, but that volition is not spontaneous, it is used as a slave by the operator working through the medium of suggestion. Whatever the hypnotist suggests that the subject shall think, act or feel, he thinks, acts or feels, and whatever the hypnotist suggests that the subject shall become, he becomes. What is it that gives the operator this stupendous power ? Why should the mere fact of a man passing into this sleep-condition suspend the ordinary reactions of mind and body and substitute others at the mere word of the man who has said to him, "Sleep" ? It is sometimes supposed that it is the superior will of the hypnotist which overcomes the will of the other and makes it a slave. There are two strong objections to this view. It does not appear to be true that it is the weak and distracted will that is most easily hypnotised; on the contrary the strong concentrated mind forms a good subject. Secondly, if it were the operator's
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will using the will of the subject, then the results produced must be such as the latter could himself bring about, since the capacities of the instrument cannot be exceeded by the power working through the instrument. Even if we suppose that the invading will brings with it its own force still the results produced must not exceed the sum of its capacity plus the capacity of the instrument. If they commonly do so, we must suppose that it is neither the will of the operator nor the will of the subject nor the sum of these two wills that is active, but some other and more potent force. This is precisely what we see in hypnotic performance.
What is this force that enables and compels a weak man' to become so rigid that strong arms cannot bend him ? that reverses the operations of the senses and abrogates pain ? that changes the fixed character of a man in the shortest periods ? that is able to develop power where there was no power, moral strength where there was weakness, health where there was disease ? that in its higher manifestations can exceed the barriers of space and time and produce that far-sight, far-hearing and far-thinking which shows mind to be an untrammelled agent or medium pervading the world and not limited to the body which it informs or seems to inform. The European scientist
experimenting with hypnotism is handling forces which he cannot understand, stumbling on truths of which he cannot give a true account. His feet are faltering on the threshold of Yoga. It is held by some thinkers, and not unreasonably if we consider these phenomena, that mind is all and contains all. It is not the body which determines the operations of the mind, it is the mind which determines the laws of the body. It is the ordinary law of the body that if it is struck, pierced or roughly pressed it feels pain. This law is created by the mind which associates pain with these contacts, and if the mind changes its dharma and is able to associate with these contacts not pain but insensibility or pleasure, then they will bring about those results of insensibility or pleasure and no other. The pain -and pleasure are not the result of the contact, neither is their' seat in the body; they are the result of association and their seat is in the mind. Vinegar is sour, sugar sweet, but to the hypnotised mind vinegar can be sweet, sugar sour. The sourness or sweetness is not in the vinegar or sugar, but in the mind. The heart also is the subject
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of the mind. My emotions are like my physical feelings, the result of association, and my character is the result of accumulated" past experiences with their resultant associations and reactions crystallising into habits of mind and heart summed up in the word, character. These things like all the rest that are made of the stuff of associations are not permanent or binding but fluid and mutable. Anityam sarvasamskdrah. If my friend blames me, I am grieved that is an association and not binding. The grief is not the result of the blame but of an association in the mind. I can change the association so far that blame will cause me no grief, praise no elation. I can entirely stop the reactions of joy and grief by the same. force that created them. They are habits of mind, nothing more. In the same way though with more difficulty I can stop the reactions of physical pain and pleasure so that nothing will hurt my body. If I am a coward today, I can be a hero tomorrow. The cowardice was merely the habit of associating certain things with pain and grief and of shrinking from the pain and grief; this shrinking and the physical sensations in the vital or nervous man which accompany it are called fear, and they can be dismissed by the action of the mind which created them. All these are propositions which European Science is even now unwilling to admit, yet it is being proved more and more by the phenomena of hypnotism that these effects can be temporarily at least produced by one man upon another; and it has even been proved that disease can be permanently cured or character permanently changed by the action of one mind upon another. The rest will be established in time by the development of hypnotism.
The difference between Yoga and hypnotism is that what hypnotism does for a man through the agency of another and in the sleeping state, Yoga does for him by his own agency and in the waking state. The hypnotic sleep is necessary in order to prevent the activity, of the subject's mind full of old ideas and associations, from interfering with the operator. In the waking state he would naturally refuse to experience sweetness in vinegar or sourness in sugar or to believe that he can change from disease to health,' cowardice to heroism by a mere act of faith; his
established associations would rebel violently against such contradictions of universal experience. The force which transcends matter would be hampered by the obstruction
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of ignorance and attachment to universal error. The hypnotic sleep does "not make the mind a tabular rasa but it renders it passive to everything but the touch of the operator. Yoga similarly teaches the passivity of the mind so that the will may act unhampered by the sanskaras or old associations. It is these sanskaras, the habits formed by experience in the body, heart or mind, that form the laws of our psychology. The associations of the mind are the stuff of which our. life is made. They are more persistent in the body than in the mind and therefore harder to alter. They are more persistent in the race than in the individual; the conquest of the body and mind by the individual ,is comparatively easy and can be done in the sp ace of a single life, but the same conquest by the race involves the development of ages. It is conceivable, however, that the practice of Yoga by a great number of men and persistence in the practice by their descendants might bring about profound changes in human psychology and, by stamping these changes into body and brain through heredity, evolve a superior race which would endure and by the Jaw of the survival of the fittest eliminate the weaker kinds of humanity. Just as the rudimentary mind of the animal has been evolved into the fine instrument of the human being so the rudiments of higher force and faculty in the present race might evolve into the perfect buddhi of the Yogin.
Yo yacchraddhah sa eva sah. According as is a man's fixed and complete
belief, that he is,—not immediately always but sooner or later, by the law that
makes the psychical tend inevitably to express itself in the material. The will
is the agent by which all these changes are made and old sanskaras are replaced
by new, and the will cannot act without faith. The question then arises whether
mind ,is the ultimate force or there is another which communicates with the
outside world through the mind. Is the mind the agent or simply the instrument ?
If the mind be all, then it is only animals that can have the power to evolve;
but this does not accord with the laws of the world as we know them. The tree
evolves, the clod evolves, everything evolves. Even in animals it is evident
that mind is not all in the sense of being the ultimate expression of existence
or the ultimate force in Nature. It seems to be all only because that which is
all expresses itself in the mind and passes everything
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'through it for the sake of manifestation. That which we call mind is a medium which pervades the world. Otherwise we could not have that instantaneous and electrical action of mind upon mind of which human experience is full and of which the new phenomena of hypnotism, telepathy etc. are only fresh proofs. There must be contact, there must be interpenetration if we are to account for these phenomena on any reasonable theory. Mind therefore is held by the^ Hindus to be a species of subtle matter in which ideas are waves or ripples, and it is not limited by the physical body which it uses as an instrument. There is an ulterior force which works through this subtle medium called mind. All animal species develops according to the modern theory, under the subtle influence of the environment. The environment supplies a need and those who satisfy the need develop a new species which survives because it is more fit. This is not the result of any intellectual perception of the need nor of a resolve to develop the necessary changes, but of a desire, often though nor always a mute, inarticulate and un thought desire. That desire attracts a force which satisfies it. What is that force? The tendency of the physical desire to manifest in the material change is one term in the equation; the force which develops the change in response to the desire is another. We have will beyond mind which dictates the change, we have force beyond mind which effects it. According to Hindu philosophy the will is the Jiva, the Purusha, the self in the Anandakosha acting through Vijnana, universal or transcendental mind; this is what we call spirit. The force is Prakriti or Shakti, the female principle in Nature which is at the root of all action. Behind both is the single Self of the universe which contains both Jiva and Prakriti, spirit and material energy. Yoga puts these ultimate existences within us in touch with each other and by stilling the activity of the sanskaras or associations in mind and body enable them to act swiftly, .victoriously, and as the world calls it, miraculously. In reality there is no such thing as miracle; there are only laws and processes which are not yet understood.
Yoga is therefore no dream, no illusion or mystics. It is known that we can alter the associations of mind and body temporarily and that the mind can alter the conditions of the body partially. Yoga asserts that these things can be done permanently and completely.
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For the body conquest of disease, pain and material obstructions, for the mind aberration from bondage to past experience and the heavier limitations of space and time, for the heart victory over sin and grief and fear, for the spirit unclouded bliss, strength and illumination, this is the gospel on Yoga, is the goal to which Hinduism points humanity.
SRI AUROBINDO
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SRI Aurobindo stands out as one of the greatest of our contemporary Indian philosophers. Out of the fullness of his spiritual experience, in solitude, for over three decades, he has poured forth in verse and prose an imposing metaphysical system embodying a grand ideal, and has outlined the way to attain it. His mystical experience has revealed to him the secret of human existence, the significance of human life and the goal of man.
Sri Aurobindo's rich experience is explained to us in terms of human reason and logical thought. The exposition is the work of a commanding intellect, with a massive and astounding scholarship, that regales the most astute mind and, on occasion, baffles the best of us. In the process of the exposition, he recaptures the dynamism and integral approach to Reality found in the Upanishads and the Gita. His exposition is marked by arguments well sustained, closely reasoned and forcefully expounded. He is, in his own words, "a metaphysician doubled with a Yogi". Our national poet Tagore in 1928 exclaimed on seeing Sri Aurobindo, "You have the Word and we are waiting to accept it from you. India will speak through your voice to the world".
At the end of Sri Aurobindo's memorable trial, Chittaranjan Das concluded his address to the jury with these prophetic words, "Long after this controversy is hushed in silence, long after this turmoil, this agitation ceases, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone, his words will be echoed and reechoed not only in India, but across distant seas and lands."
These words have come true today. The triple sources of his philosophical systems are the scriptures, his intense spiritual experience, and human reasoning which explains it. We get the best exposition of his system in his Life Divine, Synthesis of Yoga, Savitri
of Yoga, Savitri (the epic poem), Essays on the Gita, his translation and notes
of Isdodsyopanisad, and his volumes of Letters.
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We have several accounts of his system from Eastern and Western writers. There are a few learned journals that discuss in their pages the different aspects of his philosophy and the nature of the spiritual discipline he outlined and practised. Pondicherry, the place where Sri Aurobindo lived from 4th April, 1910 to 5th December, 1950, is a spiritual centre for many to pursue the discipline of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga.
The philosophy of Sri Aurobindo is called the Integral Yoga or Purna Yoga. It is a pattern of monism, but not the same as that of Sankara. Ultimate Reality is not a homogeneous Pure-Consciousness that admits of no determination. Reality is rich and all embracing. It is Consciousness-Force, Truth and Bliss. It has three aspects : (1) The pure transcendent aspect, (2) the dynamic apse of and (3) the manifestation aspect. All three represent the Divine in different poises, i.e., the static, the dynamic and the manifestoes aspects.
Sankara's monism does not accord reality to the world of manifestation. There is the distinction between the phenomenal and nominal states. The phenomenal is the bridge we have to cross in order to realise Brahman. By negating the world of Samsara, man realises his true nature of Brahman. In the history of different schools of Vedanta we find the one or the other aspect of Reality explained in a significant manner.
According to Sri Aurobindo, Reality is an Infinite. The logic of Sri Aurobindo's Infinite is not based on the principle of exclusion of the finite. It is as an all-inclusive, rich Infinite. Intellectually, it is difficult to comprehend the nature of Reality that is Infinite.
The human intellect is fragmentary in its functioning and it is bound down by several hmitations. "The intellect can only catch fragmentary representations of the Truth and not the entire thing itself". It cannot give us an integral experience. The nature of the human intellect as well as its conclusions are not absolutely certain. There is variation in degree, relative to the things it studies. It can only give us mediate knowledge and not immediate experience. The final and the only means for the realisation of the Infinite is direct experience. The resulting philosophy, in terms of logic, is the faithful transcription of the direct experience. Logic by itself is a very blunt
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instrument. "It is all blade and no handle". It is futile to seek to realise or comprehend the Infinite in terms of Reason. Reason is " earth-bound and it cannot illumine the Spiritual.
Sri Aurobindo has built a unique system of logic round his concept of the Infinite. He writes, "The logic of the Infinite; is the magic of the finite"; "When we have passed beyond all knowings, we shall have knowledge". The use of reason removes our initial scepticism, but in the end all speculative philosophical systems that solely rely on mere intellect end on an agnostic note. That is the finding of Sri Aurobindo.
He outlines four necessary factors for spiritual realisation. They are : (1) faith in Scriptures; (2) faith in the initiation of the Guru; (3) Utsāha or the earnestness for spiritual realisation and (4) time. The ultimate Reality is seeped dynamically in all and is not immutable. The dynamic Reality has of itself seeped into all the grades of existence. It is found dormant in Matter, Life and in the Mind They are divine manifestations.
"In man, the degree of limitations with which the divine existence is felt is great. He has a free will; he can will his ideas. He can look before and after. Alan has not merely to realise the life divine in-a Transcendent Absolute and merge his individuality in It. Moksha is not the flight into the Transcendent from the snares of the unreal manifestations. It is not the setting aside of all that is other than Brahman by negating it. It is not the partial affirmation of the Transcendent. Moksha, according to Sri Aurobindo, is an 'integral, positive affirmation of all'. It is the mighty attempt to divinise all. It does not exclude any aspect of Reality. Its logic is the logic of comprehensive inclusion and not one of negation.
Sri Aurobindo affirms out of the strength of his mystic experience that the 'contraries' found in Reality are really
complimentaries. The different poises of the Absolute are complementary to one another and are not exclusive of one another. In a celebrated sentence hi The Life Divine,
Sri Aurobindo sets forth the ideal; "To know; possess and be the divine being in
an animal, egoistic consciousness, to convert our twilit or obscure physical
mentality into the plenary supramental illumination, to build peace and a
self-existent Bliss where there is only a stress of transitory satisfactions
besieged by
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physical and emotional suffering, to establish an infinite freedom in a world which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities, to discover and realise the immortal life in a body subjected to death and constant mutation—this is offered to us as the manifestation of God in matter and the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution."
The mind of man or his reason is a limited instrument. It is groping its way and so it cannot give us the knowledge of ultimate Truth. Consciously, man must surrender his will to the Supermind which Sri Aurobindo variously calls the Real idea. "It is a power of Conscious-Force expressive of real being, born out of real being, and partaking of its nature, and neither a child of void nor a weaver of fictions. It is Conscious Reality throwing itself into mutable forms of Its own imperishable and immutable substance."
The Supermind is not the personal God of the theist. It is Divine Will. Its descent alone can transform human existence into divine glory. Man has to stand aside and willingly make room for the descent of the Supermind. The self-emptying must be done before the Divine filling takes place. The Supermind is a divine level of consciousness. It alone can impose a complete and radical reintegration of human personality. It goes without saying that this attainment is not an easy task. There are conditions to be fulfilled for this transformation from the human to the divine. It requires intense spiritual Sadhana. The concept of the Supermind is central to Sri Aurobindo's philosophy.
The ideal of Sri Aurobindo is not the narrow goal of individual liberation. It aims at total transformation. It is the most powerful challenge to māyā-vāda from a contemporary philosopher. Sri Aurobindo describes the beings who are divine as gnostic beings. He pleads for a total transformation of man. Sri Aurobindo's -Yoga is the most comprehensive one. It is a call to unreservedly surrender our obstinate and recalcitrant wills to the Supermind. "It grips the thought, feeling and will of man and, forging them into an organic unity round the soul-centre, lifts them all into the embrace of the Divine. It is a Life-transforming Yoga, purporting to fulfill the Time Spirit by realising the ideal of human unity and divine perfection of human life."
The philosophy of Sri Aurobindo represents a great synthesis
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if the best in the East and the West. It reconciles the pravrtti mārga and the pravrtti mārga into an integral Yoga.
His literary output goes into dozens of volumes. They represent a rich variety and a refreshing originality. In India's fight for freedom Sri Aurobindo was the first to awaken the masses in - Bengal through the fiery columns of his Bande Mataram and Karmayogin. Politics and Idealism are combined in these. Sri Aurobindo made clear to the world the role of India and what she stands for in the comity of nations. His work on the 'Foundations of Indian Culture' is a classic on the subject. He gives the finest counsel to all reformers in these. worlds ; " All that we do or create must be consistent with the abiding spirit of India, but framed to fit into a greater liarmonised rhythm and plastic to the call of a more luminous future ....There cannot be a healthy and victorious survival if we make of the past a fetish, instead of an inspiring impulse."
P. NAGARAJARAO
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CHAPTER IV
PAINTING
From the Renaissance to the Enhghtenment
WE have studied the revolution brought about in science and philosophy from the Renaissance to the time of Newton. We propose now to make a brief and rapid survey of the revolution in the fine arts—painting, sculpture, music and literature—so that we may arrive at a fairly accurate understanding of the general trends of modern culture and civilisation, and something also of the' forces that, emerging from the welter of the present, tend towards the creation of the future.
A detached study of the basic cultural trends has one great advantage that it does not split the ages into discrete compartments, but recognises the historical process as a single, indivisible stream, throwing up various manifestations of its potentialities, some of which may appear as continuous and some as disparate and even contradictory, but all of which are essentially linked together by a subtle relation of inner unity and harmonious development. Our perception of discrepancies and contradictions is due to our inability to grasp the historical process in its totality.
The Renaissance was contained in seed form and had Even begun sprouting in its vital elements in the latter part of the Middle Ages. It was not a complete break away from its parent, but a revolutionary escape from its crumbling structure of decay towards the freshness, buoyancy, and exuberant vigour of a renewed life and youthful vitality. It repudiated not authority, but perverted and palsied authority, and it stressed liberty which, however, often tended to overshoot itself and lapse into licence. It rejected the authority of Aristotle and the Scholastics only to replace it by the
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authority of Plato and other ancient Greek and Roman masters, and betrayed in its method of working much of the characteristics of the School Men. And yet it broke fresh ground, and opened new vistas of progress and perfection. Progress is a continuity from the. old to the new, marked by a shedding off of what has outlived its time and utility and only dodders in its sanctimonious decrepitude, and the taking in of new ideals and forces that create the future. There are always steps of transition even in what appears as an abrupt innovation or a wholesale rejection of the past.
The art of painting touched the highest peak of perfection in the High Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, Mona Lisa, and Virgin of the Rocks, Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, and Raphael's Madonna's are some of the achievements in Western painting that have never been excelled in any of the succeeding ages. The secret of their art, and the real difference between their art and that of the Mediaeval Times was a superb combination of a genuine religious feeling, unfettered by any dogmatic orthodoxy, with a scientific naturalism, which was the distinctive feature of the spirit of Renaissance Modernism. The religious feeling is more pagan than Christian, in that it was unorthodox and unconventional, and, more pantheistic than theistic in the strict Christian sense. Their paintings were religious in theme, but intuitive in inspiration and conception. They were psychological, and not only outwardly realistic. Particularly, in Leonardo's paintings, it is not Nature as our senses see that he portrays, but Nature is made a symbol to express something which was visible to the inner eye of the painter. Though his Mona Lisa is a portrait of the wife of a contemporary Neapolitan, it is not a photographic picture. It is a portrait of universal womanhood, "a perpetual life sweeping together ten thousand experiences," as an art critic has said.
Here, too, we find that this symbolic and scientifically psychological naturalism did not spring, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, full-fledged and mature, out of the heads of the artists of" the High Renaissance. It had its origin in the latter part of the Mediaeval Ages. Even Leonardo's technique of chiaroscuro, which he developed to a remarkable extent, was anticipated by
Mustachio, whose work also breathes a spirit of universalism and is marked by a
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unity of action. Fra Lippo Lippi also gave a psychological treatment to his pictures, and "seems to have been the first to have made the face the mirror of the soul." His most accomplished pupil, Botticelli, further developed the method of psychological analysis, and was mainly concerned in his drawings with the spiritual beauty of the human soul. All this proves that the Renaissance had really begun Jin the closing part of the Mediaeval Ages, and was only a revolutionary advance from the out-worn and effete ways of its theology-ridden, conformist parent. But it carried with it not only the blood of its parent in its veins, but much of its creative talent and fundamental powers in its nature and character.
Michelangelo (1475-1564), a contemporary of Leonardo, was a towering figure of his times, both as a painter and a sculptor. I have already referred to his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. His "Last Judgment" behind the altar of the Chapel is considered to be his most brilliant performance. He had little to do with the outer aspects of Nature, but took as his subject the tragic dignity and nobility of human nature. He represents the ideal of the Greek dramatists, an ideal which had a special appeal to the mind of Renaissance Humanism. Though he took Christian legends as his subject, his treatment of them was pagan. He was inspired by a vision of the universal tragedy of which man is a noble victim.
Next to Michelangelo, it is Raphael (1483-1520) who deserves mention. He represents a most striking humanistic tendency of the age, its direct appeal to the heart of man, not so much by the glory and sublimity of thought or deep and subtle emotion as by the simple beauty of human life and its normal interests. He presents, therefore, a contrast to the tragic pathos of Michelangelo's artistic creations, and was acclaimed as a very popular artist of the times. But he,-too, later, came under the influence of Leonardo's psychological and anatomical methods, and his Madonnas and his portrait of Baldassare Castiglione owe much to Leonardo's genius.
" The palm of popularity then passed on to the Venetian School of painting, and the Venetian painters registered some of the notable achievements of Renaissance art. Titian (1477-1576) and Tintoretto (1518-1594) showed in their distinguished and mature creations traces of the Byzantine technique, and revelled in the splendours of physical
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Nature and the pomp and glamour of the luxurious Venetians. They . took little interest in the psychological and religious preoccupations of the Florentine school. Their success is due to the secular and non-religious themes of their paintings and the introduction of oil .colour. Though they had mastered some of the techniques of the Florentine masters, they preferred to cater to the tastes of the voluptuous Venetians. The Venetian school evinces a definite drift towards the-materialistic predilections of Humanism.
It is interesting to note that Renaissance painting passed through a cross-current of various Humanistic tendencies and is represented by the Florentine, Venetian, Flemish, German Schools- etc.; and though it could not entirely shake off the traces of the Florentine influence, it turned more and more towards the secular and materialistic interests of life. All the schools developed in their native endowments, and contributed something distinctive to the Renaissance art. The forces of the past, present, and future were interacting to produce' what we know as the Modern Art. The break with religion and spiritual values, and the gradual progress towards rationalistic materialism, which we have already seen in the other spheres of the creations of Renaissance Humanism, are also the dominant feature of Renaissance painting. The idealistic, intuitive, spiritually-responsive past, grown dim and clouded in its perceptions and decrepit in body, recedes into the background, and the young, vigorous present, flushed with victory, and waving the standard of revolt, marches towards the conquest of the material world. The Spirit fades out of the mind of man, so that it may more powerfully, because invisibly inspire him to woo and win, and eventually spiritualise Matter. The discovery and revelation of the Spirit in Matter is the mission of the human soul on earth.
(To be continued)
RISHABHCHAND
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READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD
IT was at the court of Janaka.
Monarch of Videha, Janaka was a model man who had covered himself with glory both in the material as well as the spiritual realms. He was a sage in his own right having arrived at great heights of Brahmic realisation and yet ever avid for fresh gains of the Knowledge of the Infinite. He was known for the felicity with which he presided over the destinies of his kingdom in all pomp and regalia, keeping himself all the while steeped in the depths of the Self and radiating the light of the soul in the affairs of the State. Legend has it that once when his attendants rushed to him to announce that the palace was on fire, he refused to leave the work on hand saying "even if the whole of Mithya were on fire nothing of me is burnt". He was revered and loved. Rishis, scholars, minstrels all flocked to to his court, eager to participate, to drink at the fountain of his wisdom in his assemblies which were famous in those days. It was at one of such gatherings on the occasion of a great Yajna conducted by the king that learned brahmanas from states far and wide had gathered.1 Eager to know which of them was the foremost among the knowers and inculcators of Brahman, Janaka announced that he who was most established in the knowledge of Brahman could claim the special prize of the day—a thousand radiant cows with their horns studded each with ten pieces of gold.
Who would come forward ? None of the brahmanas dared to stake a claim. Yajnavalkya, the celebrated teacher, was present.-Casually he turned to his disciple and addressed him : "Samasrava dear, drive home these cattle".
Samasravas drove the cattle home.
' The whole assembly of brahmanas was in consternation. "How dare he style himself as the most Brahman-knowing of us ?" they asked in anger. Aswala, the high priest in the court of Janaka, challenged
1 III. I
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Yajnavalkya : "Yajnavalkya, you are the most Brahman-wise among us, aren't you ?"
"We bow to the Brahman-wise, all that we want is the cows only" replied Yajnavalkya.
Aswala the priest then decided to subject him to severe questioning.
"Yajnavalkya," he asked "all this is pervaded by Death; all is subject to Death. By what means is the Yogamaya, Sacrificer, liberated beyond the reach of Death ? Yajnavalkya is quick with his answer. Inheritor of the Vedic tradition that he is, it comes naturally to him to see 'the solution of the problem of life in the institution of Yajna, Sacrifice, which the Vedic forefathers had built up as the one means of linking up mortal life with the immortal. No doubt by the time of the Upanishads the real significance of the Yajna was already getting obscured to sight behind the growing paraphernalia of ritual. That is why Yajnavalkya does not stop saying that by sacrifice one crosses over Death. He is concerned to underline the inner truth of the ceremony and draw attention to the conditions under which alone the Yajna could be effective for the purpose in view. Now, as is well known, the Yajna is carried on with the help of priests, different kinds of mantras and particular offerings of wealth etc. That the outer ceremony is only the supporting and expressive symbol of an inner proceeding which forms the real life and soul of the performance is indicated by the names chosen for these constituents of the sacrifice. As Shri Kapali Sastriar points out in his Rigveda Bhashya :
"The Ritviks (officiating priests) carry out the sacrificial function in the right place at the right time and help the Yamane (the individual living soul with personality engaged in the sacrifice) throughout from the beginning to the end of the sacrifice. The meaning of its component parts is apt signifying, as it does, the Sacrificers (Yastārah means worshippers also) who worship, yaj, in due season, rtu. There' are four orders or groups of these rtviks in the somayiiga (worship) viz.: hotr, adhvaryu and brqhma....The hotd recites the riks. The summoning of the Gods by means of the riks is accomplished by him. Hence the hotā is the same
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as Summoner, āhvātā. By uttering the riks which manifest the Divine Word, he brings to proximity the Presence of the . Gods. The import is clear in the inner sacrifice. Such a hotd . (summoner) is no human priest, but a Divine Priest. The Brahmanas consider the Divine Being Himself to be the real priest, purohita, placed in front. The yājñikas speak of the three worlds, Earth, Sky and Heaven, as the supporters in front, and Agni, Vayu and Aditya as the Purohitas (Priests) placed in front....That is why Agni is lauded as the 'Divine Ritvik, Hota in the front', in the first rik of the Rig Veda of which Madhuchchandas is the seer. And it is this Agni who is sung hundreds of times in the Veda as the Messenger of the Gods, the Immortal in the mortals.
"The second is the adhvaryu taking his stand on the Yajurveda. He sees to the performance of the yajña by means of the yajñs, leads the other rtviks in accordance with the manual of yajña and it is on him, the active and chief functionary, that the' entire . performance of sacrifice rests ....Though the word adhvara has come to mean sacrifice, yajña, yet in the Veda following the meaning of its component parts-adhvanam rati, gives the path-adhvara is described as journey or pilgrimage. And the diligent adhvaryu is he who desires and takes to such an adhvara journey. Among all the Gods in the form of rtviks it is whe who carries out all the action in the journey-signified by the term adhvara.
"The last is Brahma. He is the Witness of the entire sacrificial ceremony, gives
his sanction for the commencement of the ritual, gives the word of assent, Om (O
Yes) at the appropriate moment and place, moves not from his seat and always
silent . he guards the sacrifice, to the very end of its ceremony, against every
sin of omission or commission, of deficiency or excess of mantra and action in
the ritual. Such, in brief, is the function of the Ritvik Brahma. The inner
sense is obvious; the symbolic meaning is unveiled and clear. He is the God of
the Mantras and in the Veda the Mantra is known as Brahma. Hence- the causal
material of all metrical mantra is pra1Java, known by the syllable Om, the word
of assent. That
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manifests the original word which is the source of all mantra. So it is Brahmanaspati, the deity presiding over the Mantras of all Deities, which depend upon the aforesaid pranava,' that sanctions in supreme silence the inner yajña of the' yajamāna by a single syllable, at the beginning, at the end, all throughout".
A Yajna, says Yajnavalkya, in which the sacrificer is conscious of these inner significances, the true roles of the participants, is the sure means to cross beyond the reach of Death. He declares that the liberation is attained through the hotā, the priest (Ritvik), who intones the Word of call through vāk, the inspired speech of the Summoner, through Agni the ancient priest of call. For the vāk is the real hotr, summoner; the vāk itself is Agni, not only in principle, tattwas, but also in its impulsion; and Agni is the time-honoured hotd, the invoker supreme. When this identity between the hotd, vāk and Agni is realised and made a living . knowledge in the performance of the Yajna, then is attained liberation, absolute liberation.
Aswala proceeds to ask another question : "Yajnavalkya, all this is pervaded by Day and Night, all subject to Day and Night; by what means is the Yajamāna liberated beyond the reach of Day and Night ?" How to get beyond Time, the swallowed of all, the solar time measured by Day and Night ? Yajnavalkya replies that is done through the adhvaryu, the Ritwik who conducts the Yajna, through the eye that sees and holds all in its vision, through Aditya, the Sun-God who presides over the procession of moments and events; for the seeing eye is the adhvaryu who performs; the eye functions because of the source of. light that presides over it, the Aditya; and this Aditya is thus the real adhvaryu who makes possible the successful conduct of the sacrifice. When this identity between the adhvaryu, the eye, and the Aditya is realised and made a living knowledge in the per.formance of the Yajna, then is attained liberation, absolute liberation.
What about lunar time ? asks Aswala, "Yajnavalkya, all this is pervaded by the bright-half and the dark, all is subject to the bright-half and the dark; by what means is the
Yajamāna liberated beyond the reach of the bright-half and the dark ?" Through the
Dhatri who chants the melodies that enspell the gods in their rhythms,
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through prāna the life-force, through vāyu the Air, says Yajnavalkya. For it is the life-force, prāna, that is the propelling power in the chant the real udgatr of the Yajna; and this life-force is again derived from the cosmic Vayu, Air; and Vayu it is who is thus the basic strength of the udgatr, When this identity between the udgatr, the prāna, and the Vayu is realised and made a living knowledge in the performance of the Yajna, then is attained liberation, absolute liberation.
Aswala has another query : "Yajnavalkya, this mid-world is as if without a support. By what support then does the Yajamāna attain to the world of Swar ?"
Yajnavalkya carries the context of the sacrifice still further. He replies : "Through Brahma, the Ritwik who assents, through the force of his mind which receives the supreme direction, through the moon whose healing rays pour the balm of the Spirit." For the pure mind it is that is the real Brahma who receives and gives the password to proceed; and this mind is presided over by the Moon with which it has a corresponding relation; and thus the Moon is in effect the Brahma. When this identity between the Brahma, the donor of the assent, the mind which receives and transmits the Word, and the Moon who presides over both is realised and made a living knowledge in the performance of the Yajna, then is attained the liberation, absolute liberation.
Thus far about liberation. Aswala then turns to the subject of acquirements through sacrifice. For it was understood that the hymns used at different periods of the ritual, the various offerings made at different junctures, all these operated in different directions to evoke different results, secular and spiritual, all to the enrichment of the seeker. It is not necessary for our purpose to go into the full details of the dialogue on this subject. Suffice it to say that Yajnavalkya points out that there are three kinds of Riks, chanted by the
Hotra, those that precede the actual sacrifice; those that accompany its performance and those that are for purposes of eulogy; these three go to win the worlds of the living for the sacrificer. There are also three kinds of hymns of eulogy sung by the Udgatri,—introductory, accompanying and the benedictory—which correspond to the three breaths in the body—prāna
(in-breath), apāna (out-breath) and vyāna (diffused breath)-and win for the
sacrificer the three worlds
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of the earth, the atmosphere and the heaven. Similarly, he refers to three kinds of offerings : those that flame up in their brig lit ness of force, those that reverberate, those that sink down, winning respectively the shining world of the gods, the looming world of the manes and the lower world of men. By which gods is the sacrifice protected ? By the pristine Mind that is close to infinite and a veritable form of the cosmic godhead; by meditating on this truth of the infinity and divinity of the Mind at work in the sacrifice one gains the world infinite.
M. P. PANDIT
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THE young mind was in quandary. On the one hand, grandfather was never tired of telling that "God exists always and everywhere"; the science teacher on the other hand was no less emphatic that "two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time". Who was in the wrong ? Grandfather ? Impossible; how could such a dear thing as grandfather be ever in the wrong ? Not the science teacher either; for did he not make the experiment before your eyes, hot once but many times until you nodded your head to say that you understood everything ? Fortunately, help came from an unsuspected source. The class children were taken to a movie. It was Bhakta Dhruva. The story unfolds; Dhruva is all alone in semi-darkness, in a thick forest. He is surrounded by wild beasts. Thoroughly frightened, you grip the edge of the seat and vicariously suffering with Dhruva's plight your heart goes out in an anguished prayer to God to manifest then and there and save the child before the ferocious beasts decide to eat him up. There is a blinding flash on the silent screen (talkies had not made their debut), and the resplendent figure of Lord Narayana descends from above before the calm, serene-faced lad. There is a thunderous applause and wiping of tears and in the self-same moment your confidence is restored both in the grandfather and the science teacher ! God does exist and He lives somewhere if not everywhere, at any rate, near enough to hear your prayers. Here was a problem neatly solved for the juvenile mind, but it was the beginning of a more serious one— the problem of Space and Time.
Space and Time are the most pervasive features of our normal experience. Probably because of this, our notions of them are all too facile. Space is commonly regarded as something that is'" around Us and above us and Time as something that flows on for ever. Needless to say that this is an idealisation and an over-simplification of the real structure of Space and Time.
For ordinary understanding, Space is defined as an extension in which material objects stand or move; it is also the distance between
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"objects. Time too like Space, is an extension, but an extension of events; it is the measure of duration which holds a succession of Events of all kinds. Space is a static extension for it holds objects and things in a fixed order, whereas Time holds and contains succession of events and movements and is therefore a mobile extension. For a binocular vision Space is an extension in three dimensions—east-west, south-north, up-down. When an object is very far from observer's sight and the binocular vision does not convey the idea of distance, Space is perceived as two-dimensional. Time has, however, only one dimension, i.e. length.
These definitions, satisfactory as far as they go, are quite inadequate to meet the demands of a scientific, philosophic or a metaphysical enquiry. A number of questions arise. Are Space and Time independent of each other or are they related ? Are they finite or are they infinite ? Are Space and Time purely subjective, or unreal, or partly so ? Or have they an objective reality ? How are Space and Time related to the Absolute, or the supreme Spirit or the Atman ? And finally what is the true nature of Time which, in the words of Sri Aurobindo, "presents itself to human effort as an enemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument ?"
There is no denying the fact that the advancement of physical sciences has greatly contributed to the sum of human happiness. It is easy to foresee that this development will not only be maintained but even stepped up; new heights will be scaled and vaster dimensions encompassed. There is no limit to progress. But in so far as any branch of physical science or a purely material philosophy based on it glorifies Mind or Matter exclusively, it is unlikely that science or philosophy will arrive at the true truth of things. Its highest or noblest efforts' are but glimmers, sometimes brilliant, but glimmers nonetheless. The reason for this is obvious; Mind is not the last term; beyond. Mind is an Omnipresent Reality against which science knocks at every turn, in every instance, but as long as it is unwilling "or unable to reckon with this Reality science keeps postulating one theory after another to explain what has remained unexplained. If it was either yesterday, it is Space-Time today, and probably it will be something else tomorrow. ' .
This is so with the concepts of Space and Time. There has
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been an illustrious line of scientists, mathematicians, philosophers and metaphysicians from the earliest times who have treated' this subject exhaustively but it cannot be confidently said that with the utmost stretching of the logical intellect they have finally arrived at the truth of Space and Time. And yet more than 3000 years ago the Upanishad has declared the profound truth : "Brahman is the stable and mobile, the internal and the external, all that is near and all that is far whether spiritually or in the extension of Time and Space". This profound truth is reaffirmed in our own times by Sri Aurobindo:
There is the unmanifest and there is the manifestation, but a manifestation of the Real must itself be real; there is the Timeless and there is the process of things in Time, but nothing can appear in Time unless it has a basis in the Timeless Reality....Space is the self-conceptive extension of the one Being; it is the one spiritual Existence displaying the field of movement of its Consciousness-Force in its own self as Space.
Before pursuing the subject further from the spiritual point of view, it is useful to review briefly a few representative theories, with special reference to Newton's and Einstein's conceptions 01 Space and Time.
Whatever may have been the philosophical attitudes of the Babylonians and Egyptians towards Space and Time they were certainly in possession of systematic methods of measuring them. The Greeks, true to their type, were more interested in the 'why' than in the 'how' of things, and their mathematical study which gave the world Euclidean geometry brought with prominence the concepts of Space and Time. In Aristotle's view, the total space of the universe is finite, though it is infinitely divisible. Space is connected with bodies; there is no space where there are no bodies. The universe consists of earth, sun and the stars—a finite number of bodies. Beyond the sphere of stars there is no space; therefore the space of the universe is finite.
Coming to later times, it is recorded that Nicholas of Cusa was the first modern to discuss the nature of Space and Time. He held that Space and Time originated in the mind of man and represented
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realities inferior to the mind. Giordano Bruno thought that all motion, was relative (which Einstein later established) and denied absolute Space and Time. Leibnitz believed that Space and Time existed only relative to objects and not in their own right. These thinkers thus reduced Space and Time to conceptive and perceptive space and time; physical space and time had no real existence and absolute space was out of the question.1 .
According to Kant Space and Time have no real existence of their own. They are not empirical concepts, i.e. derived from our outward experience. They are a priori representations, Space serving for the representation of external perception and Time serving for the representation of internal perception. In other words, Space and Time are not objectively real; they are only a subjective appearance under which a reality which is itself non-spatial and non-temporal is apprehended by outer senses.
In opposition to these theories Newton assumed that Space and Time were neither dependent on the consciousness nor was one related to the other. Space and Time each existed in its own right. According to his theory, Space is an independent reality, spread out in all directions from moment to moment simultaneously and existing even before the material universe first appeared and ostensibly continuing even after the dissolution of the universe. Time is also a fundamental reality; it is measured by events such as the successive swings of a pendulum or the movement of sun, moon or other heavenly bodies. "Events occupy time very much like body occupies space". Time in its own nature is independent of events.
1 Sir James Jeans classifies Space (also Time) into four categories : I.
Conceptual Space is the space at abstract geometry; it exists in the mind of man
creating it. It may be Euclidean ..or on-Euclidcan, three-dimensional or
multi-dimensional; 2. Perceptual Space is the space of a conscious being who is
experiencing or recording sensation. We feel an object and our sense of touch
suggests that it is of certain shape and size, we see a collection of objects
and our vision suggests that these objects stand in certain relation to one
another. We feel that we can reconcile hese and all other suggestions of our
senses by imagingining all objects arranged in a 3-f411d ordered aggregate which
we then call Space. 3. Physical Sp ace is the space of physics anti astronomy.
Conceptual Space and Perceptual Space are both private spaces, the nonbeing
private to a thinker and the other to a percipient. Science however finds that
the pattern of events in the outer world is consistent with and can be employed
by the supposition that material objects are permanently located in and move
about in a public place which is the .same for all observers. 4. Absolute Space
is a particular type of physical space which Newton introduced to form the basis
of his system of mechanics.
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Newton also postulated the theory of absolute Space and Time. "All objects can be placed in absolute space which remains always similar and immovable and all events can be assigned a position uniquely and objectively in an ever-flowing stream of absolute time". But the assumption of absolute space implies the existence of some fixed points of reference from which to measure the motion. Can these positions be found in the universe ?
Suppose a man travels a distance of ten miles in a motor car along the road, say between two fixed points located on the ground. In the time it takes the car to cover the distance,' the earth carrying the car along with it may have carried the traveller through space 100 miles to the east by its daily rotation round its axis, and may have moved 10000 miles in its yearly orbit round the sun, while the sun, dragging the earth along with it may have moved 100000 miles nearer to the nearest star and 1000000 miles farther away from a distant nebula. All these motions which are equally true and real are however relative to some other moving body. A fixed position in space cannot therefore be located for measurement of absolute motion.
It was not that Newton was unaware of the above difficulty, but he presumed that the remotest parts of the universe were occupied by vast masses which might provide fixed points of reference from which to measure motion while themselves providing standards of absolute rest. In order to save the theory of absolute Space later scientists introduced the concept of Ether, a hypothetical substance, all-pervading and immobile, which could provide the fixed points in space. However, attempts to establish the existence of there have proved largely negative.
With the advent of the theory of Relativity notable changes in the concept of
Space and Time have taken place. Firstly, the Newtonian concepts of absolute
Space and Time are discarded, also the hypothetical ether on which so much hopes
had been placed. This does not mean that. the idea of absolute Space has been
abandoned; only the term "absolute" takes on a meaning different to that
assigned to it by Newton. According to the Relativity theory, Space and
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Time are not absolute and independent terms. Space is relative to Time, Time is relative to Space; both Space and Time are relative to the position of the observer or his instrument. Two events which appear simultaneous to one observer may appear successive to another observer moving differently in Space.
If we could travel in an airplane with a speed comparable with that of light, our length in the direction of motion as measured by an observer on the earth would appear to be contracted, our mass would seem greater, and our time scale slower than usual. But we ourselves should be unconscious of these changes. Our foot rule might have shrunk, but as we and all our surroundings would have shrunk also, we should not perceive the change. Our pound weight might have greater mass but so should we. Our clock might go slower but the atoms of our brains would move more slowly also and again .we should not know. But such motion is only relative, the observer on the earth is moving relatively to us at the same rate as we are to him. Hence we should find on measuring that his scales of length, mass and time are not absolute quantity. Their true physical values are what the measurements indicate. The fact that they are not the same to everybody shows that they can only be defined relatively to one specified observer.
The implication of this is that you cannot really say at what speed a thing is moving; all you can say is how much faster a thing is moving than something else. "There is no difference whatever between not moving at" all and moving steadily at say a million miles an hour as long as everything is moving with you at the same speed. If the earth is dashing through space at twelve miles a second it makes no difference to anything on the earth as long as it meets nothing from "outside the earth."
Thus, according to the theory of Relativity,, each observer has his own Space and Time in which he places events, but the spaces and times of different observers do not vary at random; they vary according to precise equations which depend upon the relative uniform motion of the observers in space. Further, "although different
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observers inhabit different spaces and times they all inhabit the same Space-time". By Space time is meant a fusion of the three-dimensional space with the one dimensional time resulting in 4-dimensional continuum or distance which is called 'interval'. Different observers disagree as to the space separating two events and as to the time separating two events, but they all get the same value for the interval separating two events. This is the four-dimensional distance of two events which is the absolute characteristic of them. It is not Space and time taken separately but space-time which is absolute; in other words, the dimensional continuum is one in which it is impossible to separate Space from Time in any absolute manner. They are so completely interlocked together and so perfectly merged into one that the laws of nature make no distinction between them just as on the cricket field length and breadth are so perfectly merged into one that the flying cricket ball makes no distinction between them, treating the field merely as an area in which length and breadth have lost all meaning.
The Relativity theory further states that the space in which we live is not governed by the laws of Euclidean geometry. It conforms more to the spherical geometry of Riemanns. Thus the universe is curved and finite, not in the sense that the universe has boundaries —it does not stop short anywhere—but in the sense that the surface of a sphere closes on itself and is unbounded. "A traveller on the earth's surface who started out at a particular location and traveller in a straight line would ultimately return to his starting-point, similarly if he traveled long enough with a ray of light around the universe he would perhaps return to his starting-point. Space, boundless to Newton, now seems to be finite, curved by the presence of scattered matter."1
1 We may refer in passing to the views of a few more thinkers on the subject of Space and Time. The list is, of course, by no means exhaustive. Descartes and Spinoza disagree with Newton's emphasis on the absoluteness of Space and Time and the receptacle theory derived from it. Newton's Space and Time are eternal existents and would remain even if emptied of all objects and happenings. But Descartes' Space cannot be empty Space. He contends that Space is essentially an attribute of matter and the essence of Time is duration. In Spinoza's view matter is not an independent substance; it is a modification of Space, Space itself-being an attribute, not of matter as contended by Descartes, but of an infinite substance or extension which people call God. Bergson disparages the concept of static Space and holds that Time is the fundamental, ultimately real creative principle which is absolutely free from spatiality. To cite one more
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We shall now turn our attention to the concept of Space and Time in the light of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. At once the subject assumes considerable practical importance. For whatever can be said in favour of physical sciences and of their achievements in diverse fields of thought and action, most of them suffer from one fundamental drawback—their unwillingness to postulate the existence of an Omnipresent Reality which is the basis or the pivotal point of all relativities. This fallacy vitiates their reasoning and their approach and incapacitates them from the very outset in arriving at an integral Truth of things, with the result the material sciences and their philosophies are full of fumbling and shortcomings and the truths they arrive at are only partial and fragmentary. This is not saying that there have been no spiritual philosophies in the West. Barrow, for instance, affirms that the efficient cause of all things is God. One of the important attributes of geometrical magnitude is that they occupy Space. "What is Space" Barrow asks, and his answer is refreshing : "It is impious to regard Space as real existence independent of God. If we discover the proper relations between Space and God we can truthfully ascribe a real existence of Space. God can create worlds beyond this world hence God must extend beyond matter, and it is just this super-abundance of the Divine Presence and Power that we mean by Space. Time is not a metaphysically independent entity. There is an infinite and everlasting God whose existence beyond the world involves Space and whose continued life before the creation of things in motion involves Time. It is just because they are caught up in the interchangeable divine nature that Space and Time possess that clarity and fixity which make it possible with the exactness by their aid sensible magnitudes and motions". Add he succinctly sums up "Space and Time are nothing but the omnipresent and the eternal duration of God."
(To be continued)
KESHAVAMURTI
view on the subject, Prof. Alexander maintains that Space-time is the primordial reality, the simplest and the most fundamental stuff from which all things have progressively evolved in an ascending order. Thus Space-time gave rise to life, consciousness and Deity. Whilst to many thinkers Space and Time are the creations of mind, to Alexander mind is the creation of Space-time.
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(Contd.)
II
THE Life Divine presents so many avenues of new approaches to problems of man's individual and collective life that it is not possible to deal with all of them in a single exposition. I choose three such : (1) the physical body in the scheme of supramental perfection; (2) the place of material, economic organisation and ethics in the collective life of man from the point of view of The Life Divine; (3) the origin of Ignorance.
One question which might be considered here is the place of the physical body in the scheme of Supramental transformation. The movement of ascent from Mind to Supermind and the descent from Supermind to the mental, vital and physical consciousness brings about the transformation of nature. For example, Mind would function as the Mind of Light, not as at present, a mind subject to half-light and half-darkness. The question is how would it affect the laws of the body ? Is it possible to transform the gross -and seemingly undivine body into a divine body ? Or is there a divine use of the body as there is of mind and life ? Or, metaphysically, if the Spirit has assumed form, a material form, what is the place of Form in the ultimate fulfilment ? Though the Upanishad has not hesitated to state that "Matter is Brahman", the seeker of spiritual life, even the religious man, finds the body a great obstacle and a bondage from which he seeks escape through ascetic rejection and even mortification. Man finds that life manifesting in Matter is compelled to accept grossness and subjection to pain and death, and that Mind in Matter becomes limited, dull and blind. In fact, one finds that Matter, Life and Mind, each one of them, is trying to overpower the other two in life. ,
Matter may be said to be the fundamental element of our earth, it is ignorance incarnate on whose dark background Mind and Life seem to arise. Matter seems only form—without consciousness, a work of brute inconscient energy. The second thing about the working of Matter is its subjection to mechanical laws. It opposes Life and Mind by its sheer inertia and thus renders the conquest of ignorance by them difficult, if not impossible. The third characteristic is that the process of division reaches its culmination in Matter which
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imposes the law of struggle, dissatisfaction, pain and death on the being.
According to Sri Aurobindo the Omnipresent Reality is the basic' truth of the cosmos. The question then comes up : how does matter arise in the One Omnipresent Reality ? Now, what we call Matter is really Energy and the question would be : why does Energy take the form of Matter ? Is it the sense-organism of the individual mind that gives the impression of Matter ? No. It is the Universal Mind that is the creator of Matter. "Matter is substance of one conscious-being phenomenally divided within itself by the action of a universal Mind.1
"Material substance is the form in which Mind acting through sense contacts the conscious Being of which it is itself a movement of knowledge."2 Are not, then, inconscience, inertia, division and death the original and eternal laws of Matter ? Sri Aurobindo says : no, Matter is the creation of Cosmic Mind and for that an extreme fragmentation of the Infinite was needed as the starting-point of substance. Hence, however, one may go on dividing the atom there will always be an infinitesimal particle left, one would never arrive at a void. Subtler and subtler states of Matter exist. Ether as an intangible, "almost spiritual support of Matter exists" but its presence is not detectable. "Matter is Sachchidananda represented to his own mental experience as a formal basis of objective knowledge, action and delight of existence."3
But to our normal experience substance is real in proportion to its solid resistance, to the durability of form. The more subtle the substance the less material the form. If we look at the process of evolution from Matter to Spirit we find "An ascending series of . substance'; when the substance is less bound to the form it is more subtle and flexible. "Drawing away from durability of form we draw towards, eternity of essence". 4
So when the consciousness rises from Mind to Supermind the series of substance from gross material to the subtle spiritual would also undergo a corresponding transformation. If .the Mind and Life underwent a change there is no reason to suppose that the body which
1 The Life Divine, Ch. XXIV p. 217. 2 ibid., p. 220.
3 ibid., p. 219. 4 ibid., Ch. XXVI 26. p. 233.
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is seemingly undivine and gross would remain unchanged. In fact, the present limits of the body are not permanent. They are not "the 'sole possible rhythm of cosmic Nature". Body can be transfigured. In. the words of Sri Aurobindo, "Earh-mother too may reveal to us her godhead".1
Even without any radical spiritual change we find athletes and physical culturists achieving remarkable results by sheer training —feats of endurance and strength that verge on the miraculous. Moreover, under various kind of psychological strains the human body shows ranges of extraordinary capacities.
Science has sounded some potentialities of Matter and it is a truism to say that man's body is living Matter. The powers of man's physical body and senses, in their gross functioning, are very limited; the sense of sight and hearing has a very poor range. But these very senses are capable of far greater ranges of action because they have their subtle forms and powers. Still more remarkable are the hardly tapped powers of Mind. When some of the powers of the Spirit are awakened in man or when man's nature undergoes a transformation by the descent of the Supramental Consciousness, then not only would unknown spiritual powers become active but the very physical consciousness of man would undergo such a change that a far greater degree of immunity from diseases would be attained leading to the conquest of death.
The schools of Yoga in India mention five states of substance, each corresponding to a degree of our being : the material, anna-maya; 2. the vital prānamaya; 3. the mental, manomaya; 4. the ideal, vijñcnamaya the spiritual or beatific, ānandamaya, To each of the grades of the Soul there corresponds a grade of substance; the soul dwells in each simultaneously, there is no isolation. They . are called Koshas or sheaths. Though we are normally conscious of only the physical body, it is possible to open oneself to other bodies; the psychic and occult phenomena we come across in life are due to them. Six nervous centres of life in the physical body, cor-" responding to six centres of vital and mental factlties in the subtle, have been discovered by the yogis and they have found out physical exercises by which. these, now closed, centres could be opened up,
1 The Life Divine, p. 234.
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and man can enter into the higher spiritual life." Our substance does not end with he physical body".1
"The conquest of physical limitations by the power of supramen-' tal substance is possible."
The verse of Swetacwatarea Upanishad (II 12.) shows' that the idea of a divine body was familiar to the seers in the past.
1. "When the fivefold quality of yoga has been produced, 2. Arising from earth, water, fire, air, and space, 3. No sickness, no old age, no death has he, 4. Who has obtained a body made out of the fire of yoga."
A. B. PURANI
1 The Life Divine, Ch. XXVI, p. 239.
* A few quotations from Sri Aurobindo's letters shed light on the question of physical transformation :
1. "There can be no immortality of the body without Supramentalisation- the potentiality is there in the yogic force and yogis can live for 200 or 300 years or more, but there can be no real principle of it without the Supramental."
"Even Science believes that one day death may be conquered by physical means and its reasonings are perfectly sound. There is no reason why the Supramental force should not do it. Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reason why they should not last." (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p. 333)
2. "Death is there because the being in the body is not yet developed enough to go on growing in the same body without the need of change and the body itself is not sufficiently conscious. If the mind and vital and body itself were more conscious and plastic, death would not be necessary." (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p. 333)
3. "Immunity from death by anything but one's own will to leave the body, immunity from illness, are things that can be achieved only by a complete change of consciousness which each man has to develop in himself,—there can be no automatic immunity without that achievement."
(On Yoga II, Tome 2, p. 334)
4. "It (death) has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body. And that principle is there already—it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most difficult thing of all—at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle."
(On Yoga II, Tome 2, p. 334)
5. "Immortality is one of the possible results of supramentalisation, but it is not an obligatory result and it does not mean that there will be an eternal or indefinite prolongation of life as it is. That is what many people think it will be, that they will remain what they are with all their human desires and the only difference will be that they will satisfy them endlessly; but such an immortality would not be worth having and it would not be long before people are tired of it. To live in the Divine and to have the divine Consciousness is itself immortality and to be Sable to divinise the body also and make it a fit instrument for divine works and divine life would be its material expression only." (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p. 337)
6. "The scientists now hold that it is (theoretically at least) possible to discover physical means by which death can be overcome, but that would mean only a prolongation of the present consciousness in the present body. Unless there is a change of consciousness and change of function-ings it would be a very small gain." (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p. 338)
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EDUCATION XV
MENTAL EDUCATION—III
AFTER a rather elaborate treatment of the first phase of mental education, we can now take up the third and the fourth, which are allied to each other. The third phase is, in the words of the Mother, "organisation of ideas around a central idea or a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life." And the fourth is, "thought control, rejection of undesirable-thoughts so that one may, in the end, think only what one wants and when one wants."
Organisation of ideas presupposes a central or dominant idea, which becomes the focal point and directing principle of one's life.-Very few of us have ever thought of or tried to discover what is the real goal of our life and the sole and central aim of our endeavours. We are content to follow the common herd, the ruling trend or the general tenor of our society. Today, because science had made the world physically one, we slavishly imitate the fashions and vogues current in the countries, which we consider advanced on account of their material prosperity and scientific achievements. We are 'other-directed', and not 'inner-directed', as David Riesman says in his well-known book, The Lonely Crowd. This other-directedness is the very negation of the basic principle of democracy, in which each individual is expected to grow and develop freely by the pursuit of his natural bent and idiosyncrasy, unhampered by any repressive social restrictions or compulsive impositions. But the individual, all over the world, in democratic countries as well as in countries which are avowedly socialistic, is fast becoming a social and political robot. It is this disastrous sacrifice of the specific individuality of man to the
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interests and passing vagaries of society even in countries, devote^ in theory to democracy, which gives a sort of irresistible moral appeal to Communism or Socialism. Democratic Socialism, which is flaunted as the best form of government from the standpoint of the welfare of the general mass of mankind, is nothing but camouflaged Socialism or States. It is only by orienting education to 'inner-directedness' and encouraging the child to think for himself, discover and develop his innate aptitudes and capacities, and erect a synthesis of his thoughts and ideas round his distinctive individuality that the world can be saved from the dire consequences of materialistic Communism.
But what the Mother teaches is something much more than a mere 'inner-directed' education. She wants each child, as his mind develops the capacity for general ideas, to seek certitude in his knowledge and an order and harmony in all his thoughts and ideas. Otherwise, his mind would become a clutter of chaotic ideas and errant
thoughts She wants the child's mind to discover the central sense and purpose of human life, and organise and
synthesis all his ideas and thoughts round that central purpose. And what should be this central purpose ? Here the Mother transcends by far all current idealistic notions. It is not humanitarian or social service, none of the accredited ideals of scientific Humanism, that she holds up before the budding mind of the child as the goal of his life. She would have his mind hitch its wagon, not to any physical star, but to the most luminous Sun of which our suns and stars are but pale reflections, tat
jyoti sam jyotih, the supreme creative and preservative Light, Savitri, Pushan.
The child's central idea must first fix itself upon something that is by yond
the customary smallness of normal human life. It must soar beyond the here, the
present, the immediate, and the tangible of earthly existence, and, surpassing
time and space, embrace the vast, the eternal, the imponderable. The higher the
aim the more numerous and complex will be the thoughts and ideas to be organised
round the central, governing idea or ideal. All the normal, habitual welter in
the mind must give place to an order, a harmony, All contradictories must
dissolve by the alchemy of the central idea into coordinated complementariness,
and the Mindy instead of remaining a public place of disparate and contending
thoughts and fancies
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sailing into it from the universal mind of ignorance, must become an organic entity, directing life in the faultless rhythm of a higher and surer knowledge. This mental order should be evolved, not by the in discriminate exclusion of all views and standpoints that contradict those we cherish, but by a large, englobing synthesis of them all.
This ordering and synthesis in the speculative, reflective mind bas to be supplemented by the development and discipline of another faculty of our mind, which the Mother calls the formative or constructive faculty. It is a pity that this important subject has hardly ever been systematically studied in connection with the education of the child. So long as we remain satisfied with the cultivation the speculative mind, the ordering and synthesis, explained above, will suffice. But speculation in itself is something theoretical, abstract, and subjective. It has no hold on life. It cannot translate its knowledge into the concrete terms of life. We know well enough that the brilliant speculative philosophy of the great German philosophers produced little result in German life. Its idealism lived in the clouds, and seldom took root in the soil of our earth. It is for this reason that the other faculty of the mind, the creative or formative, should be carefully cultivated and controlled, so that the central aim remains not only an inspiring ideal in the mind, but gets realised in life: "Control over this formative faculty of the mind," says the Mother "is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible." 1 But there is the need of the greatest caution and vigilance in the exercise of this formative faculty. The speculative mind may, with more or less impunity, admit all thoughts and ideas to see whether they lend themselves to the synthesis already arrived at and render it more rich and complex. But the formative mind has always to pick and choose. It has to the circumspect, critical and selective. It should accord admission only to those ideas which "agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis." It cannot afford to play the host to all; for the risks of indiscriminate choice are sometimes likely to be disastrous. It should observe every thought, every idea, seeking admission into it, and hold it up in the light of the central
1 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Education.
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idea. If it is found to conform to the general pattern of the synthesis, and appears to further and enrich the realisation of the central idea, it should be accepted, otherwise it should be summarily rejected. This process of observation, discrimination, and selection is an essential exercise in mental purification, and will lead to a complete control over our thought and action. We must remember that the function of the mind is not only abstract and theoretical thinking, but organisation and action in life.
In order to illustrate the working of the formative mind and the unpleasant consequences its wrong working may produce, let me quote a few interesting lines from one of the class-talks of -the Mother. "A person following the Buddhist discipline came to me once and said that he had made an experiment; he had formed a being with his thought, he had created something like a Mahatma. He knew and it is a proved fact that these mental formations after a time begin to have a personal life, independently of the author,—although they may be connected with him, yet they are quite independent, in the sense that they have a will of their own. But now he was facing a formidable difficulty. He said : 'Do you know I have formed my Mahatma so well that he has become a personality quite independent of me and comes all the while to trouble me ? He comes, scolds me for this and that, advises me in this matter and that and wants to control my life altogether. I am unable to get rid of him. I find it extremely difficult and do not know how to go about it. As I say my Mahatma has become extremely troublesome. He does not leave me to be at rest. He interferes in all my activities, prevents me from doing my work and yet I know it is my own creation and I am unable to do away with it.' He explained to me how he tried to get rid of the thing. I then told him it was because he did not know the trick. I showed him the process and the next morning he came happy and beaming, saying : 'it has left.' He could not cut the connection; even .then cutting the connection is not sufficient, for the being would continue to live apart and independent. What is needed is to reabsorb what one created, to swallow what was 'put out."1
It is now abundantly clear how much power, both for good and
1 The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part Eight, by Nolini kanta Gupta.
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evil, our thought possesses and how cautious we should be in our use of it. Yadrsī bhāvanā yasya siddhirbhavati tādrsi, which means, as one thinks so one becomes. Only those thoughts should be formed or admitted which can definitely contribute to the accomplishment of our fixed purpose or central aim. Our life cannot be organised and lived in an .integrated and harmonious way without a complete control of our thoughts.
RISHABHCHAND
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LOVE is a glory from eternity's spheres.' It is the force which has entered into the sphere of our sorrow from the supernal regions of Ananda with the great mission of not only bringing together the multitudinous, disparate and divided centres of consciousness but unite them all with their sublime Origin, the One Supreme Consciousness. It envelopes and interpenetrates all the organisation of consciousness waiting for its hour of manifestation and open display and deployment. The inmost psychic being in each human being is the natural and perfect recipient and transmitting agent of this Love. But the other members in the house of the human personality are not so pure in their response to the touch of the divine messenger. Indeed the senses and the lower vital often mistranslate it as lust with its possessiveness, abrogation of the individuahty and dignity of the person in relationship and exploitation for temporary self-gratification and satisfaction of cravings and appetites—qualities which are exactly at the other pole of the divine origin. The higher vital and the true emotional beings register a better note free from vulgarity and so we find the affections in relationships like those between husband and wife, mother and child, brothers and sisters and friends. There is an increasing attempt at self-denial and finding happiness in the happiness of the other person in relationship and in extraordinary moments the self is in complete suspension or laya. . But all these responses of the surface personality, however intense, do not come anywhere near the outbursts of the inner or deeper being —the inner mental and the inner vital. The aching joys and dizzy raptures of these experiences are so unique that the name of Love, is exclusively associated with them and the poets and bards of this*world have glorified its transports in many a song and poem. This is Romantic Love usually experienced in the relationship between man and woman but not necessarily limited to that for k can be felt in the members of the same sex or in relationship with Nature or in the
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adoration of the Hero, Master or Guru. This is a passionate seeking for the Infinite in the Finite so that the outer personality of the beloved is a symbol or manifesting instrument of All-Beauty and All-Love. The inner heart sweeps the mind and the outer person so completely that the lover is often 'thoughtless'. In rare cases the mind pours into the deeper heart and shares all its fine frenzies. A widening
of consciousness which culminates in the complete identification with the beloved is the normal characteristic of this love. A new kind of knowledge develops—knowledge by becoming and being the other person, the knowledge by identity as different from the knowledge by indirect or so-called direct contact of the surface. But the most serious weakness of this love is that it is not the total response of the whole being of the personality. Its heights and depths are achieved by the exclusion of all faculties other than the deeper heart and of all personalities other than the beloved. This love is a tyrant and to make it the end of one's seeking is to miss the inclusive greatness and the transcendent height of Love. The violence of Romantic Love has to be chastened and subdued for it to give place to a Higher Love. Some achieve it by listening to the 'still sad music of humanity'. Others realise it by the Platonic method of ascending in the ladder of Love. In the words of Diotima as reported by Socrates in Plato's Symposium : "This is the right way of approaching or being initiated into the mysteries of love, to begin with examples of beauty in this world, and using them as steps to ascend continually with that absolute beauty as one's aim, from one instance of physical beauty to two and from two to all, then from physical beauty to moral beauty, and from moral beauty to the beauty of knowledge, until from knowledge of various kinds one arrives at the supreme knowledge whose sole object is that absolute beauty, and knows at last what absolute beauty is. This above all others, my dear Socrates, is the region where a man's life should be spent, in the contemplation of absolute beauty. Once you have seen that, you will not value it in terms of gold or rich clothing or of the beauty of boys and young men, the sight of whom at present throws you and many people like you into such an ecstasy that, provided that you could always enjoy the sight and company of your darlings, you would be content to go without food and drink, if that were possible, and to pass your
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whole time with them in the contemplation of their beauty. What' may we suppose to be the felicity of the man who sees absolute. beauty in its essence, pure and unalloyed, who, instead of a beauty tainted by human flesh and colour and a mass of perishable rubbish, is able to apprehend divine beauty where it exists apart and alone ? Do you think that it will be a poor life that a man leads who has his gaze fixed in that direction, who contemplates absolute beauty with the appropriate faculty and is in constant union with it ? Do you not see that in that region alone where he sees beauty with the faculty capable of seeing it, will he able be to bring forth not mere reflected images of goodness but true goodness, because he will be in contact not with a reflection but with the truth ? And having brought forth and nurtured true good
Hess he will have the privilege of being beloved of God, and becoming, if ever a man can, immortal himself." The Platonic Lover at the end of his journey lives under the full blaze of Eternal Beauty and Eternal Goodness. But personality and the universe are not only transcended but rejected and their very rejection is a necessary prelude to the transcendence. There is the other way of the great Christian tradition of transcending Romantic Love outlined in the poetry of Dante in his Divine Comedy. The personality of the Beloved Beatrice guides the evolution all through till she points to the Supreme vision of All-Beauty and All-Love. And after this beatific vision the great lover embraces all in a divine charity and sees the movements of this universe as the manifestation of the Grace of the All-Loving Lord. In this way personality remains all through the way till the end of the journey assisting in the growth of the inner consciousness of the seeker .to become ripe for the divine vision. But this inner "ripeness is all that is aimed at or aspired for. The mind, heart and body undergo here as in the Platonic way whatever incidental change or purification possible or necessary for this end. Both declare that these mortal faculties can never become adequate vessels for the complete expression or experience of the full plenitude of Love supreme. Thus the wise philosopher is
faery to welcome death when it comes and the true devotee of the Lord looks upon death as the hour of liberation from the finite, brittle vessel into the acceptance of the heavenly jar of enduring quality. But Savitri,
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the Mother comes to fulfil the aspiration of these mortal instruments to embody the Divine Love and she does this by accepting all these ways of Love but purifying them even from the outset of their limitations and impurities. The intensity of romantic love, the ascending amplitude and impersonality of Platonic love, the spiritual and transcendent personal grace of Christian love are fused by a divine alchemy and used for the transformation of the earthly tenement to shape it into a fit tabernacle of the Lord.
II
The meeting and union of Satyavan and Savitri blend all the qualities of romantic, platonic and Christian lovers :
"And he saw like one waking into a dream
Some timeless beauty and reality,
The moon-gold sweetness of heaven's earth-born child."
We have here the liberation from the thraldom of the cerebral waking awareness into the visionary gleam, vividness and opening of unknown modes of being of dream, when the Infinite and the Eternal are seen objectively embodied in the beloved. The mystery of the Avatar with her blending of humanity and divinity becomes a sustained realisation. To love is to know by identity and therefore with the authentic undeniable certitude of direct
experience, Pratyaksha. So this avatar is seen by the Eye of pure and absolute love,
preme, as She really is—a fusion of the highest Bliss or Ananda and Chaitanya (Moon) and Satya or the supreme Truth-consciousness (gold). Anandamayi Chaitanyamayi Satyamayi Parame. All these awe--inspiring Values of the higher hemisphere of being, Parardha, have embodied in a form full of Grace and so to contact Her is to experience not indeed the augustness or majesty in an overwhelming sweep but to taste the delectable intimacy of nearness and harmony, sweetness. Grace has wrought the miracle of bringing these eternal verities close to the human consciousness and manifesting them in their most auspicious mode, Kalyana, sweetness. Each faculty in man feels a sense of absolute
fulfilment and joy, sweetness, in dwelling on this
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constant embodiment of Grace, Rupam Kalyanatamam. The divine origin in the Upper Hemisphere, heaven, is patent in every gesture and overture but they seem to be so much naturalised here and now that they belong even to this earth of ours, earth-born. The .supernal splendours are residing in Her frame with such abundance, spontaneity and naturalness that there is no feeling of a self-conscious adult possession of these but a child-like prodigal diffusion. -She seems to be only a joyous and free focal centre, a point of support or transmitting medium of the Supreme Lord, a child.
This divine Lady has fallen in love with the human soul, her own counterpart and consort. For Satyavan is 'the godhead growing in human lives And in he body of earth-beings' forms, He is the soul of man climbing to God In Nature's surge out of earth's ignorance.' He is a 'ray out of the rapturous infinite' and no wonder that the full Orb of Light loves her own emanation. So her chariot hastens with all imaginable speed for fulfilling her ardent aspiration of living for and loving Satyavan. Passing through region and region spacious in the sun and cities like chrysalides in the wide blaze and yellow rivers pacing lion-manned, She comes to the borders gleaming with the grove's delight. A life of love and for love is the most concentrated and absorbing of experiences and in the wake of it and near the beloved all the memories of the past get obliterated or recede into the background. Nay, all other relationships get their fulfilment in love and so the memories of the circumstances with their contexts and contents are forgotten.
"The past receded and the future neared:"
All the familiar scenes of the life in the city of Madra like the white carved pillars, the cool dim alcoves, the thoughtful noontides, brooding solemn trance or the slow moonrise gliding in front of Night slip from the tablets of memory. Even the experiences in human relationships among equals and friends or subordinates and hero-worshippers are forgotten :
"Left far behind were now the faces known,
The happy silken babble on laughter's lips
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And the close-clinging clasp of intimate hands "
And adoration's light in cherished eyes
Offered to the one sovereign of their life."
III
And so Savitri reaches the home of her beloved, her true home, which is in every respect a conrast to her father's house :
"Nature's primeval loneliness was here :
Here only was the voice of bird and beast,—
The ascetic's exile in the dim-souled huge
Inhuman forest far from cheerful sound
Of man's blithe converge and his crowded days."
Those who accompany Savitri take her through a brooding path with the shadow of enormous trunks to the rough-hewn homestead. They give her to the great blind king, Satyavan's father who is now 'a regal pillar of fallen mightiness' and to the 'stately care-worn woman once a queen', Satyavan's mother. In spite of the austerity and poverty of the circumstances of their life, they form together a family of mutual love of the purest kind. The mother "hoped nothing for herself from life, But all things only hoped for her one child Calling on that single head from partial Fate, All joy of earth, all heaven's beatitude". But their love is accompanied with a complete ignorance and oblivion of the threatening dark future that Satyavan is doomed to die in one year. Those accompanying Savitri know because of the prediction of Narada the terrible ordeal of Savitri and so they part from her with 'pain-fraught burdened hearts'.
"Driven by the singularity of her fate,
Helpless against the choice of Savitri's heart
They left her to her rapture and her doom
In the tremendous forest's savage charge."
'The joy of union' in her experience of love coexists with 'the ordeal
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of the foreknowledge of death and the heart's grief. Love has' given her the great courage of accepting the life with the beloved even when the beloved is doomed to premature death.
"All put behind her that was once her life,
All welcomed that henceforth was his and hers,
She abode with Satyavan in the wild woods :
Priceless she deemed her joy so close to death;
Apart with love she lived for love alone."
Love has now become the very centre and circumference of her life.
This is not certainly the life of involvement in the usual intoxicating and paralysing passion of vital love nor is it an emotional entanglement which depletes all the higher energies and aspirations. It is not the love of the mortal caught in the meshes of time and the web of-circumstance, a helpless leaf swayed by the tempest of passion.
"As if self-poised above the march of days.
Her immobile spirit watched the haste of Time,
A statue of passion and of invincible force,
An absolutism of sweet imperious will,
A tranquillity and a violence of the gods
Indomitable and immutable."
The poise of the inner purusha and the higher Atman with their absolute silence is at the background as active as the intense violence of the 'daemon' of love. Romantic Love has been included and " transcended in a higher poise of Platonic impersonality and Christian super personality. Here is the divine alchemy of "Force one with unimaginable rest."
REFERENCE
Savitri, Book VII, Canto I.
M. V. SSEETAUMAN
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ASTROLOGY
A KIND friend has sent me a book on Occultism. Douglas Hunt, the author of his recent work,1 has read much, traveled a good deal—both by body and mind—and obviously has had wide experience of men and things. Having been a teacher for' nearly three decades, he knows how to make his subject interesting. His approach and his presentation of the several aspects of the theme are those of an open mind aware of both the strong points and the weak of the logical intellect and the physical reason. He arrives at no conclusions but leaves each reader to come to his own on the bases of the data he has assembled in these pages. The" variety of topics covered in the discussion is as large as it is interesting. I was particularly attracted by what he has to say on astrology.
One may ask, indeed, what has astrology got to do with occultism. It is a regular science proceeding on verifiable data; it is based on astronomy and mathematics and is laid out with scientific precision. Like most sciences, it deals with the how of things though not with the why. All the same, there are certain features of astrology that do not lend themselves to systematisation e.g. the extent to which the planets affect human affairs, the actual method of their action, and lastly—though not strictly within its field—the means adopted in the ancient traditions to modify if not to change the workings of the planets; they are occult, 'hidden' to the physical eye.
In the first place, is there any proof that astronomical factors have any influence on terrestrial phenomena ? Mr. Hunt makes reference to Prof. Piccardi, Director of the Institute of Physics and Chemistry at Florence, who conducted experiments to ascertain
"chemical reactions under exactly similar conditions of time, heat, outside temperature etc. and has discovered to his surprise that these
1 Exploring the Occult. (Pan Book)
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reactions varied according to the date and place at which they were made. From this he deduced not only that they were in fluerfced by the relative positions of the earth and the celestial bodies, but that the position of the earth must have an influence on our health, our temperament, our thoughts, and our actions, not only individually but collectively."
The author then goes on to mention the studies of Dr. Rudolf Tomaschek, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Munich, and his analysis of the character of the relation that is perceived to exist between astronomical facts and terrestrial events. "The correlation of astronomical facts with terrestrial events is the domain of astrology, be they of physical, chemical, physiological or psychological nature. The truth of such correlations can be demonstrated by statistical methods : that is, the correlations between the positions and aspects of the planets and angles with terrestrial events. Their factual character is beyond doubt."
Is that relation causal or casual ? Men like Dr. Jung hold that the 'stars' do not cause events but are synchronistic with them. But synchronicity does not mean coincidence. Explains Dr. Tomaschek : "According to this view, the totality of events is regarded as an interwoven unity which operates and is operated upon as a whole, so that no single event can be regarded as the cause and another as the effect, but each is correlated with the other. In other words, simultaneous events correspond to one another. Accordingly the celestial bodies would have to be regarded as the hands of a single clock which indicate the total cosmic situation in which our Earth, with everything in it, is involved."
Giving his own analysis of the problem, Prof. Tomaschek considers three possible explanations which are summed up by the author :
"(1) That the celestial bodies actually operate upon terrestrial events,
(2) That the celestial bodies precipitate events which are ripe for
manifestation. (3) That the celestial bodies symbolise organic cosmic forces
which are qualitative functions of time and. space. This last theory seems to
make the greatest appeal to the professor. ' It presupposes an animated
universe, a spiritual coherence of the whole cosmos....This is an attitude which
comes very close to the views of modern natural science.' "
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To put it in our own words, the universe is one Whole. It is an organism and there is a natural relation and interaction among all its constituent members at all levels. Each planet for instance, exerts its influence upon others. Let us not forget, by the way, that the planet is in a position to radiate its influence because it embodies certain cosmic forces or energies; it may not to be alive in the same way as our planet is, but it does represent a formulation or particular forces which have their own part to play in the cosmos. Our earth being a member in this family of the solar system, is naturally subject to the influences of the other member planets, even as they are open to the influence of or influences from the earth. And this planetary influence acts not only upon the earth in a general way but also in an individual way on all that lives on earth, and there too not only physically but also psychically. The influence exercised by any planet is determined, among other things, by the position it occupies at a given moment, vis a vis the rest. The position of the planets at this moment has its own effect on all that comes into being at chips point in time. As pointed out by Jung, "Whatever is born or done at this moment of time has the qualities of this moment of time."
The author cites the results of an investigation carried on by a doctor which revealed a definite relation between the season of birth and the illness of his patients : "To my astonishment, a clear pattern emerged. All my pet asthmatics and bronchial patients were Sagittarians, born between November 23rd and December 20th. ...The ones I never saw were Arians, Tartans or Scorpios... I haven't traded my stethoscope for horoscopes but I do now insist that new patients give me their birthdays."
And of course every one knows that mental patients are most violent at the full moon, that crises in illnesses reach their peak . point on the new-moon days.
The influence of the planetary positions, then, is a fact. Sri Aurobindo observes that there is undoubtedly a constant action of the Universal energies upon the individual energies and the planetary" action could well be one or the first
nodes of this active relation. The question is whether it is determinant or only a sign of determination ? Certainly they are pot the cause of all that all that happens here on earth. "The stars incline, they do not compel." The position of the
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stars indicates the trend in the working of the cosmic forces at the time of the birth of the subject, the time when a destiny is laimched in life on earth; this conjunction of the forces gives a particular direction to the energies that are released at that moment. and the subsequent developments normally tend to follow this impetus. I say normally, because all is not determined by this factor. In fact destiny itself is a fluid proposition which is forming and modifying itself at every moment as a result of the working of forces in the universe. There are two factors that go into its making. One, the impetus of the past energies, karma, or daiua, cumulative effect of previous outputs of energies; the second is human effort, purusa kdra, Destiny is what emerges as a result of the confluence of the two. It is possible to offset daivi up to a certain point by will, by effort which can erect a new karma to dissipate and displace the old. It is only if the particular karma is irreversible, utkata karma, that it has to be gone through, unless there is a super-human intervention from Above-to that I shall turn later. To come back to the point of astrology, its advantage, say is advocates, is that it gives a foreknowledge of what is likely to happen on the basis of definite planetary data. So forewarned, it is possible if one takes appropriate steps "to avert, at least obviate the effects that are indicated. Mr. Hunt observes: "If we know exactly to what actions or situations our 'stars,-planes actually-incline us, we are forewarned, and thus forearmed. Man has a considerable degree of free will, and many occultists have noticed that as a man becomes more highly evolved, so his planets affect him less and less. Nevertheless our horoscopes can quite c1earlys how our strengths and our weaknesses-and to know these is half the battle."
I said that it is possible to change one's destiny. How is that done, it may be asked. Well, the first truth about destiny to which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have drawn repeated attention is that destiny is not something unitary. It is a graded formation like, all fundamental things in creation. There are many layers of destiny, many sources of destiny, in fact many destinies-themselves. Man is made up of so many personalities, so many beings we may say, each with its own destiny and field. The body-has its destiny, the vital has
another, the mental has its own and so on. What results
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in the interaction of all these destinies in force, is the operative Destiny. That which is most dominant gains the upper hand. And what dominates depends upon the level of consciousness that one normally lives in, the particular plane of being from which one usually functions, whether it is the physical, vital or mental etc. This is not merely so in the long-run. Even from moment to moment one can see the truth of this fact. As the Mother emphasises, if I remain at the summit of my consciousness—the highest height I have attained—it is always the best that will happen in all circumstances.
It is possible by shifting one's fulcrum in life from one level of consciousness to another, to bring to bear the workings of a new destiny on the old. This invariably happens when one turns to spiritual life. For then one turns in a new direction, a new dimension is added to the field, a newer Force of the Spirit begins to act and the lines of old destiny loose their sharp nesses. Not only regarding one's own destiny, but another's as well. I know of at least one-authentic case when a certain death was averted by the Japa of the potent mrtyunjaya mantra by an adept in the mantric lore. By means of mantra-sakti, by mearts of one's own tapasyd; intensified soul-power, it is possible to release forces which can interrupt the workings of destiny in another and forge a new one for him. The individual relates himself to a higher will, a Will that transcends the realm of human karma and in proportion to its assumption of the control of his life, the hold of the lower destiny is replaced by the higher working. That is why we see that horoscopes and astrological readings which prove so accurate in cases of some persons fail to do so when they turn to spiritual life
And then there is another great factor which can set" at nought. karma of
any kind, prdrabdha or utakata, And that is the Grace of the Divine. The Grace
whether it acts directly or through the person of one's Guru, comes from the
highest plane, beyond the karmic domain, and it is irresistible. It can
completely set aside, cancel the! karma and negative all astrological
predictions. I cannot forget how
a couple of years ago an astrologer-friend had warned me that I was in for a
serious. illness about a particular date. 'A death-like experience', he
repeated, every time he saw me, though he was kind
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enough to assure that I would scrape though. I told it to the Mother. She looked and laughed; all my clouds melted away. The dsate came and went and I did not have even my usual flu. Later, the Mother asked me with a smile, significantly, if the date had passed I1 I could multiply so many instances in my personal knowledge when death was strongly forecast, the crises actually arrived, but the calamities were averted by the merciful intervention of the Mother who was appealed to. The Mother's Grace, is to my knowledge and experience, the surest dissolvent of our karma, the greatest single determinant of what shall be in the world of today.
PRABUDDHA
1 In fairness to the astrologer-friend I must record that a number of his other predictions, especially on the literary and the financial side, have come remarkably true,
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The Man-Lion (Sri Narasimha) by B. N. Ayyangar. Publishers: Sri Lakshminarasimha Bhakta Mandali, Bangalore.
TN his Preface to this small but thought-provoking book, Man Lion, Swami Adidevananda writes of its author, late Sri B. N. Ayyangar, as a man of unusual gifts and rare scholarship. A self taught and self-made man, Shri Ayyangar rose from an humble position of a clerk to that of an Assistant Commissioner by sheer merit and assiduity. Well-versed in English, Sanskrit and Bengali he had personal acquaintance of savants like Is varchandra Vidyasagar, Dr. Rajendralal Mitra and others who, during this gentleman's visit to the North, received him with evident warmth and affection, and the former even placed his personal palanquin at the disposal of the visitor for being taken round important institutions of Calcutta.
"Man-lion" now published as a monograph is a chapter from the author's scholarly treatise "Essays on Indo-Aryan Mythology"., published by him in two parts in the beginning of the present century. The theme of the book, as its title indicates, has to do with the Avatar of Lord Vishnu as Nrisimha incarnated for the purpose of destroying the demon Hiranyakashipu and the menace of evil and terror he personified. Such conscious descent of Godhead and his active intervention in the affairs of humanity at a critical or crucial stage of its evolutionary progression is what constitutes an Avatar and is vouchsafed to humanity by Lord Krishna, himself a full-fledged Avatar, in the familiar verses of the Bhagavad-Gita : "When
so ever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right I am born from age to age." But we will make a grievous mistake if we fail to understand aright the precise nature and magnitude of the crisis which culminates in the advent of the Avatar, or merely read into the word Dharma an ethical or a moral ideal of a particular period or race, or if we merely attempt at equating the Avatar hood
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with some richly-endowed capacity of a rare individual whose birth -and deeds of an exceptional merit and consequence leave a stamp of his personality in the pages of world history. The crisis which may outwardly appear as a crisis of events is in effect a crisis of consciousness. Humanity having arrived at a particular stage of development must, by gathering all its gains, leap forward to attain a new height, a new status of consciousness. And it finds this leaping forward a most crucial issue of its evolutionary career. There is much that opposes the change; the very Nature that has secretly been preparing the Soul of humanity for the momentous change seems unwilling, as it were, to let the Soul take the plunge or leap across the chasm to a newer vista, a newer experience, a newer consciousness, a newer existence. A crisis is thus reached in the Soul's ascent and need is felt of a new Dharma, not abrogating, but exceeding, the old Dharma to which the humanity was holding on so long and which is now to be over passed.
It is a crisis such as this, which is in its nature more spiritual than ethical or moral, that creates the situation for the great Intervention. And the Divine intervenes, not by a long-range fiat of his omnipotence or by a flashing miracle, but by loosing himself into human birth, by manifesting his divine nature in the human nature, by taking on the burden of terrestrial nature and by bearing it show the way out of it. His is the way to show, to lead and even to suffer; in short :
......"to assist the human march, to hold it together in its great crises, to break the forces of the downward gravitation when they grow too insistent, to uphold or restore the great Dharma of the God-ward law in man's nature, to prepare even, however far off, the kingdom of God, the victory of the seekers of light and perfection, sādhunām, and the overthrow of those who fight for the continuance of the evil and darkness." (Sri Aurobindo-Essays on the Gita)
There are different and divergent versions of the Man-lion Avatar. Raghuvansha
has one version; Vahni-Purana has another; Vishnu-Purana gives a third and the
Bhagaoata a fourth. Perhaps it is the Bhagavata that brings more to the
forefront the demonic
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nature of Hiranyakashipu and his persecution of his son Prahlada whose firm faith and unswerving devotion to Lord Vishnu see him through every form of torture and humility diabolically conceived and perpetrated by his irate father who in his magnified ego is unable to see anything except himself everywhere. 'Where is the lord of the universe other than myself ?' he asks, and threatens to cut off his son's head if he did not show in a trice that God existed in that yonder pillar which he then promptly proceeds to fell with his sword. And from the very pillar Vishnu sprang forth in the form of Man-lion and killed Hiranyakashipu.
The learned author deals with these divergent versions and then gives an account of the whole story of Man-lion with a sustained allegorical significance. There is no doubt that the language of the Veda and of some of the Puranas are plainly symbolic full of figures and representations of things that lie behind the veil. The pioneering work of Sri Aurobindo in this field has led to increasing appreciation of the two-fold meaning of the Vedic hymns and Sacrifice. In their outer sense the hymns embody a system of rituals for propitiation of the gods to secure material gains and prosperity but in their deeper significance these hymns are revelations of a mystic and spiritual experience. Shri Ayyangar seems to have been seized of this truth and with a keen intellect he has attempted to work out an esoteric formula underlying the phenomenal garb of the Man-lion story. Citing etymological references in the Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas, he adduces interesting evidence in support of his conjectures. To mention only a few of them :
1. Hiranyakashipu is no demon at all; he is a great sacrificer and knower.
2. Prahlada is the sacrificial Soma. Soma who is the Life and Light of Sacrifice, is Suta, 'he who is pressed', and Suta means also Son. The Jivatman in order to obtain immortality must become the father of this gladdening Son Prahlada and as that Son in the shape of Soma plant is beaten, crushed, and pressed in order to become the sacred beverage, it is riddled that he was persecuted, but being Amrita the drink of immortality, he does not die.
3. Man-lion means the eternal immortal bodiless spiritual
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state of Knower mentioned in Chhandogya Upanishad as being Uttama Purusha. It is this Upanishadic name, Uttama Purusha,. that has become Purushottama, one of the names of Vishnu. He is the Highest Purusha or Man, evidently because he is the Antaryamin in all Puras, towns, i.e. creatures; and Purushottama when expressed by another word is Nara-Simha, the Best Man, Nara-Sreshtha.
The book is a laudable attempt at esoteric interpretation of Indian mythology. It sets one thinking.
KESHAVAMURT
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