Our error crucifies Reality
SRI AUROBINDO
August 1970
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 NEW BODY
''O MOTHER Kali, this time I will eat you up, I will make a fine dish of you, and gorge myself upon it." Well, one need not get disturbed or annoyed or disgusted at these uncivilised words. What else is the holy ceremony of the civilised Christians wherein they eat of the flesh of Christ and drink of his blood? Ramprasad at least like a decent human being proposes to cook and then eat the flesh of his mother: he does not mean to eat raw flesh!
However, cannibalism is a very hoary institution, it is as old as the jungleman; but even the jungleman who indulged in it used to do it in a ceremonial way.
I mean this instinct, or this aberration if you like, has a mysterious footing in human nature. It is perhaps a biological atavism, the anthropologist might say; but I take it as symbolic of a deeper urge, indeed a nobler aspiration, how, we shall presently see.
Page-5
This primitive gesture, even as a physical act, is or at least was prevalent among certain esoteric religious societies. Human sacrifice was a very solemn item in some Tantric ceremonies. What then is the sense, the meaning of this value, so much value being attached to the vile body even in religious practices? Evidently the secret has been given out precisely in the Christian ritual of transubstantiation. It is the mystery of transforming or transmuting the base metal into the noble metal, gold—the mystique of the alchemy with which the ancients were so much preoccupied in their consciousness and pursuit.
The body surely has something to say in the terrestrial existence of creatures, for, not in vain did the Lord come down to inhabit it: the spirit has consented to clothe itself with matter not for the mere fun of it. The Divine must have had some intention, some use for it, not simply to keep it going for sometime in order to do away with it afterwards.
As I said, since the Spirit, the Divine, is immortality, the purpose of material creation must be to make this part of himself also like himself, that is to say, immortal: to make the body too as perfect on earth as the Spirit is in heaven.
First of all, with regard to the goal and the aim, there have been schools which did not subscribe to the ideal of utter rejection and elimination of the world and world-consciousness and therefore to any discipline or realisation of an absolutely extra-corporeal transcendental existence. They posited the truth of a spiritualised body, not merely of a spiritual consciousness. Naturally the question now would be what this spiritual or spiritualised matter would be like. The body as it is, is vile indeed1; even though it is not rejected in toto it has to be changed radically: it is to be changed, sublimated, transmuted into its subtle form. Plato spoke of a form-reality that is behind each physical and material form. The gross material form that we see
1 We may remember in this connection the famous description given by the Sanskrit poet Bhartrihari: "Her breasts are mere lumps of flesh, her mouth a container of spittle and phlegm—" other items are untranslatable—although even this passes in Sanskrit. For Sanskrit being a noble language by nature, tends to ennoble even vile things. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the way in which even the hunchback of Manthra seemed ennobled in the words of Valmiki, But Bhartri-hari's intention was to bring disgust home to the ascetic aspiration.
Page-6
and touch is only matter filling in the form that is there eternally. A sculptor for example, when he has a block of stone before him sees a form imbedded as it were in the stone, and what he does is to let his chisel cut out the stone following the fine of the form that is already there in it. Modern artists too seem to say and do something in the same line. They seek to create the fundamental forms, the basic lines that scaffold the gross substance-body, a kind of pure form, the material content being abstracted or exhausted out of it.
Thus the purification or sublimation of the body would be a kind of dematerialisation, that is to say, the substance part of the body is pumped out of it leaving only the vibration of consciousness, at the most life-consciousness. The cinmaya-deha of the Vaishnavas or the "glorious body" of the Christians means something of this nature. In the Indian tradition, the immortal or everlasting body of Narad, Ashwatthama and Hanuman—the cirañjīvi trinity—are perhaps examples of this mode of transubstantiation. Mortals cannot see them, or the senses perceive, they can be seen and perceived only through the subtler senses, through the consciousness of another level of existence. Such a supra-sensual body becomes naturally immortal, everlasting, free from decay and death.
But there is another alternative which indeed seems to be the real consummation of the world evolution and the supreme fulfilment of man as an earthly embodied being, and that is not to dematerialise matter, but to re-materialise matter, materialise in a new mode. Matter in this line will not be sublimated, subtilised into its ethereal form and substance, but re-created in its true substance with the dross and impurity, the legacy of ignorance and unconsciousness purged out of it, something of the kind Nature, in her ignorant functioning has effectuated in the phenomenon of fossilisation. The material object remains the same, exact in its form, only the substance is changed; a tree, an animal, for instance, maintains the same outward structure but, instead of being built in organic matter it is now made of inorganic matter, the latter replacing, ejecting or swallowing up the former. This is a type of transubstantiation although in a reverse way, for here the object :s
remolded not in a higher but in a lower mode. What is aimed at is a spiritual transubstantiation, that is to say, replacing the mortal material substance by a spiritual immortal substance.
Page-7
What then is this spiritual substance? It is not the mere consciousness of the spiritual being; for there are gradations in this spiritual consciousness, its becomings in many modes. The same spiritual consciousness or spirit-consciousness is expressed, formulated in the spirit-mind, it is further expressed and concretised in the spirit-vital, and finally the same is materialised in the spirit-body. This descent or devolution of the spirit happens in its own line of Light and Truth, not in the other line of ignorance which follows a greater and yet greater darkening and obscuration.
All existence is a mode of vibration, the varieties of existence depend upon the modes or types of vibration. But this vibration has as indicated two broad lines of development, one along the line of the original purity of the spirit, we may say the straight or the chord line, the other along the line of separation and gradual eclipsing of the original Truth, the loop line. Thus we say the pure line of vibration in a certain mode produces the pure mind, another type produces the pure life and yet another the pure matter. You may call this pure matter, new matter. Matter as it is presented in the unconscious creation is not the sole form of matter. Matter can be formed, perhaps is being formed by a special type of concentrated consciousness. The special mode of consciousness that produces the pure, or new, or spirit-matter is the Supermind of Sri Aurobindo. The supermind produces not the mere inconscient dark material matter, but a luminous radiant matter full of the luminosity of the pure consciousness, not a dark precipitate of inconscience, but a shining transparent crystallisation of consciousness.
Modern science speaks not only of Matter but also of a new type of matter, an Anti-matter. We make bold to speak of a third type and name it Supra-matter, even though all the attributes, even some fundamental ones normally given to matter as known to us may not be applicable to either of the two categories mentioned.
A particle of dust is matter, a particle of light is also matter, a point of space with an electric charge or no charge, a point of mere tension in space is also matter, a molecule of lead is matter, so also a molecule of gold. These are all however material transformations of matter, transformations in degree. There are other transformations which lead not merely to a different degree, but to a different kind.
Page-8
Organic matter, the matter in the living cell is not only a change in degree but in kind also. This is because a new principle, a new element has been brought in. Matter has been impregnated with life; matter imbued' or instinct with life builds itself differently, behaves differently from pure matter: instead of mechanistic behaviour it has acquired a living or biological behaviour. And again once more another kind of matter is developed or evolved when mind penetrates matter, infuses into it a new constitution or disposition and new mode of behaviour: the result is the brain cell. To study the peculiarities of the mentalised organic cell has been a very interesting line of research for modern scientists. The phenomenon however does not end here, for matter infused with a still higher mode of existence beyond mind and mentality is also a subject of modern studies: it is para-psychology. It is suggested that not merely the brain cells are open to a further insemination and transmutation but even the cells of the body—the genetic as well as the somatic cells-—can undergo a real sea-change under new conditions of existence, a new consciousness and new mode of living.
Matter under the aegis of ignorance is indeed subject to age and decay and death: for it is mostly made of a dark and obscure substance, but that is not its inevitable destiny: it may very well change into—it is actually moving towards something which is apparently quite its opposite. Yet it will be the same matter, although in a different mode. Instead of mortal matter, we are to have an immortal or immortalised matter—that is to say, spiritualised matter or spirit matter: the two that have been till now contraries and contradictories are not only harmonised but fused into the self-same substance.
The supra-matter or the new matter that will build up the new body will naturally partake of the character and nature of the spirit. Instead of the general properties usually ascribed to matter—inertia, opacity, density, dullness, gradual ebb of substance and energy, i.e. disintegration—the new matter will acquire new qualities of the opposite kind—spiritual qualities. Indeed the qualities attributed to the spirit,
ātman, by the ancient seers will be the very qualities of the new body, luminous and faultless and stainless, ageless and deathless—tat
śukram avranam apāpaviddham ajar am amaram. The material body
Page-9
will be imbued with luminosity, plasticity, mobility, tensibility, lightness and, added to these, a floral loveliness.
Such is the transubstantiation, the divinisation of the body that may be envisaged lying behind the symbolic gesture of Ramprasad and the Christian ritual of Eucharist, the interchange and fusion of the divine material substance and the human material substance.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
Page-10
NATIONALISM AND NATIONALISTS:
BEPIN CHANDRA PAL (Continued)
MAZZINI was the first apostle and prophet of Nationalism in modem Europe. His message of Nationalism was, therefore, necessarily more a matter of faith and intuition than the fruit of any systematised philosophy. There is, no doubt, an unconscious philosophy behind every prophetic intuition, and it was also behind Mazzini's message. But Mazzini did not fully work it out. Indeed, the materials for working out a complete philosophy of Nationalism were hardly present before him. Both Psychology and Sociology are comparatively new sciences; they are even now almost in their infancy. They were practically unknown in Mazzini's time. And it is to these that we mainly owe, what may be called, the scientific basis of Nationalism. The study of social phenomena in the light of evolution, to which we are indebted for the highest generalisations of Sociology, is a very recent attempt. It was hardly known in Mazzini's time. Besides, the East which is but very crudely understood even today, was but barely known in those days. And the fundamental basis of Nationalism, as a universal generalisation in Sociology, is that Absolute Idealism which is the special heritage of the Hindu. Our highest philosophy furnishes a basis for Nationalism which is as yet unknown and unappreciated, to a large extent, in other known cultures and civilisations. Hindu Monism is the philosophical implication of that organic conception of the social life, which is the special contribution of modem Psychology and Sociology. Mazzini was hardly acquainted with this philosophy. The comparative, the historical and the evolutional methods, the special methods discovered by the culture of the nineteenth century, were also practically unknown to him. And it is these that have developed the new philosophy of Nationalism, as we know it today. Lastly, the world also was practically smaller in Mazzini's day than it is now. The East had no doubt been rediscovered long before his time, but the truth that the Eastern peoples also form an organic part of Universal
Page-11
Humanity, representing especial types of human civilisation and possessing capitalised wealth of human culture, scarcely realised even today, was almost absolutely unknown in Europe in Mazzini's time. His profound spiritual insight and his breath of sympathies notwithstanding, Mazzini's vision of Humanity, therefore, hardly went beyond what may very aptly be called White-Manity.
And it is a true conception of Humanity which must always find the real basis and significance of Nationalism. Nationality is a part, Humanity is the whole, Nationalty is the limb, Humanity is the body. Nationality is the organ, Humanity is the organism. The whole is only the interpretation of the parts, the body of the limbs, the organism of the organs. A true philosophy of Nationalism can only be built upon a true philosophy of Humanity. Mazzini's ideal of Humanity was perfect: and his conception of Nationality was also equally sound. No more perfect or sound conception of either exists in our mind even today. But the ideal is a mere form; it waits always to be filled up with the actual contents of our experience. The form and the contents are organically related to one another. And the narrowness of the contents must narrow down the actual application of an ideal, even if it does not destroy its intrinsic breath and universality. This is what actually happened in Mazzini's case. His ideal of Humanity was a universal ideal. It was, as he distinctly put it, the necessary corollary of his faith in God—One God, One Law. His conception of God is essentially monistic. God "is the absolute living Thought, of whom our world is a ray, the universe an incarnation". His conception of Law is essentially organic and evolutionary. It works for an Aim definite in the end, but progressively revealed in its advance towards that final end. Such a Law must needs have some thing by which it can be progressively interpreted and verified. This something is, to Mazzini, Humanity. This conception of Humanity is perfect. It is not a mere abstraction, on the one hand, nor is it a mere mechanical and numerical whole, on the other. It is an organic whole: "the collective and continuous Being, that sums up and comprehends the ascending series of organic creations." It is the nearest approach to our own conception of Humanity. In our language and literature the concept of Humanity is conveyed by Nārāyana. Narayana is the soul of all organic creations—Sarvadehātman
ātmā, the
Witness of all Countless
Page-12
worlds—Akhilalokasāksī, the Eternal Being who pervades the whole of human race, and constitutes their essential unity, and stands behind human history as the necessary logic of human evolution and progress. It is the same Christ-Idea conceived by Philosophical Christianity.
Mazzini's conception of Humanity is perfect, and approaches both the highest Hindu and Christian idea of it. But owing to the limitations of his time and environmeat, he was not able to fully work out this perfect idea in the scheme of his nationalism. Practically his vision did not go beyond Europe. Italy was to be the initiator people; Europe was to be the field of their divine mission. This somewhat limited view was only natural to him. He stood face to face with Europe. His Europe, again, was the Europe as it stood leavened by the French Illumination. The immediate problem before him was the liberation of Italy. The vision that inspired him was that of a rejuvenated Italy, rising to claim once more her old place as the teacher and leader of Europe. He did not realise that Italy had already played out her part, in the reconstruction of European life and thought, through the Renaissance. But whatever might be the place of Italy in this new reconstruction of Europe, Mazzini's general ideal and philosophy of Humanity was, in its practical application, confined to that continent alone. Asia had not yet vitally entered that arena of European thought. Mazzini had hardly any moral and spiritual consciousness of that portion of humanity. His general ideal and philosophy of humanity, though quite capable of as much application to the larger life and more complex problems of Asia as to those of Europe, was, however, practically applied to the latter only. And, therefore, the larger illumination that always follows the application of even universal principles to fresh and wider fields, could not come to the noble, and essentially correct conception of humanity that Mazzini had. His message failed, consequently, to be world-message. The application even failed in Europe. Europe had not been trained and disciplined for this lofty gospel. It had, as yet, very little vital reference to the actualities of the European situation. The French Revolution, for one thing, had not yet completely worked itself out. People still fondly clung to the old message of rank individualism, as a saving principle, in political, economic and social life. The old shibboleths—
Page-13
liberty, equality, and fraternity—still held almost absolute sway over the minds of the "advanced" thinkers and workers in every European country. The conservative elements of Society, everywhere represented mainly by the ruling classes, were deeply distrustful of the new ideas and movements among the people. And they were all over Europe secretly and silently combined in a crusade against the new forces let loose upon society by the French Revolution. Mazzini sees with the prevision that God gives to his prophets, both the limitations of the French gospel as well as a general outline of the new ideal of the world. Not so really his contemporaries. The time was not ripe yet for it. And visions like these, that come to those who are in advance of their age, always remain mere intuitions which, however inspiring and elevating they may be, are yet vague and undefined, like the herald of dawn in the first suspicion of a glow on the Eastern horizon.
Such, indeed was Mazzini's vision of the future dawn. He was like John the Baptist, in the Christian" Dispensation, proclaiming the death of the old era, and preparing the world for a new, the full significance of which even he himself did not completely realise; while the multitudes about him, vaguely apprehensive of a change yet hardly dared to transfer their affections from the old and decadent order to the new ideal held up before them.
Mazzini's conception of nationality, like his idea of humanity was also essentially correct. The terms he uses to express the concept Nationality are perfect, none better has yet been discovered. Nationality, he says "is the conscience of the peoples, their individuality". It is this which assigns to different groups of human units, constituting a nation, their special function in Humanity, their special mission among mankind. This is Mazzini's conception of Nationality and the most modern conception of it has made no advance upon the Mazzinian idea. Yet it seems very doubtful if even Mazzini had fully realised the significance of his own definition of nationality.
Nationality, he says, is the individuality of the people. The comparatively recent researches both in psychology and sociology have imparted a complexity and completeness to the conception of individuality which it never had in Mazzini's days. The individuality of a man or a woman is that undeniable but inexplicable something which differentiates him or her from other men or women. This something is
Page-14
original and organic in the individual. It is not explained by anything that is or can be known concerning the individual. Neither heredity nor environment, which seems to explain a lot, can fully explain these individual differentiations. Children of the same parent brought up in the same way, influenced by the same environments, whether physical, intellectual or moral, develop different individualities of their own. All that we can say is that there is something original and organic in the very make and constitution of different human beings which differentiates them from other human beings, and constitute the essential elements of their individuality. Psychometry is engaged in discovering, if possible the physical basis of human character or individuality. Psychology is investigating the same elements in the mental constitution of the individual. And though the origin and cause of the human individuality lies still, as perhaps it will always do, in the realm of the unknown, its constituent elements are being discovered more and more fully almost everyday. This individuality we now fully recognise, expresses itself, in the first place, in the physical make and movement of different human beings. The general physiological structure is practically the same among all men belonging to any particular race or nation. But there are almost endless variations within this general unity, of physiological types, almost every individual differing from others on some points, either in the angle of the nose, the formation of the cranium or the pigment of the skin. Thus even among the white races, some are blonde, some brunette, some have sharp and some flat features. In some the forehead is broad, the lips thin, eyes large, the nose straight, in others the cranium has a suggestion of
comicality, the lips thick, the nose broad, eyes small, and the whole appearance has the impress of the. criminal and the vicious on it. These physiological differences are oftentimes indicative of moral and mental differences as well. But even without any marked physiological distinctions, there are fundamental intellectual differences between one man and another belonging not only to the same race or nation, or the same social set, but even born of the same parents. These differences are as original and organic as the differences in their physiological structures. Similarly, there are moral differences between individuals. All these are what may be called structural differences, undeniable and inexplicable. And these structural
Page-15
differences really constitute the fundamental basis of what we call the human personality or character.
In defining nationality as the individuality of peoples, Mazzini struck an essentially right note. But what was a happy intuition with him is today almost a scientific truth. And this larger and fuller conception of nationality which we claim is only the result of the advance of our age over that of the great Italian apostle of Nationalism.
Page-16
XXXIV
Body and speech and mind have all one behaviour
through the grace of the Void;
So Darika rejoices on the other shore of the Heaven.
Fixing his consciousness on the unfixable,
Darika rejoices on the other shore of the Heaven.
What is the use of the holy word, what is the use of the holy rite,
what is the use of meditation and dissertation?
Till you merge yourself unflinchingly in the supreme Happiness,
the final consummation remains out of sight.
The wise man enjoys through the senses, equating pleasure and pain:
He makes no difference between himself and others,
Darika cognises only the one Supreme.
A king, a king, a king, you say? But he is bound by ignorance!
Through the grace of Luipada, Darika has
gained all the twelve worlds.
XXXV
So long I lay in perfect ignorance,
Now I have come to understand
through the guidance of a true Guru.
Now the reign of my consciousness is ended:
It has tilted and is sunk in the seas of Heaven.
Now I find all the ten directions are empty;
Even the consciousness is empty, neither sin nor virtue is there.
Bahula has told me of the mystery of Ignorance:
And I drink of the waters of Heaven;
Bhade says: "It is my misfortune,
But I have eaten up the dominion of my consciousness!"
Page-17
Note:
The poet, that is to say, the Siddhacharya, speaks of his experience or realisation of the annihilation of the ego-consciousness resulting in his attainment of the supreme Delight in the Heaven or Nirvana. He says graphically that he has eaten up the entire heap of egoism and adds with a sly witticism that it is a misfortune for the egoism, but it brings him enjoyment to satiation.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
Page-18
SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE WESTERN TRADITION
THIS paper is concerned with the criticism of some essential features of the Western tradition, so we shall not begin by presupposing the ultimate validity of either science or religion. The topic ft admittedly a large one, and so complex that there are any number of dedicated theologians and philosophers of science who would feel it their duty to chop my conclusions to pieces with whatever special axes they chose to wield. They would naturally approach the subject from within the tradition itself and seek to justify their beliefs with that special intellectual acumen for which Western apologists are notorious. But I think that if we take a firm stand outside the tradition, several of the underlying assumptions which it involves can be isolated and exposed to view. We shall consider the intellectual pressures which have resulted from the interaction between science and religion. There are some scholars who consider this interaction to be a key formative factor in the development of Western civilization. We might go further and say that, in its broadest features, this unique civilization can be understood only in terms of the historical responses evoked by the mutual influences of scientific and religious thought. There have been large areas of tension between them, but also a peculiar dependence upon one another. For the Western tradition is basically a divided one—a characteristic which follows from its twofold origin. It inherited its rich cultural legacy from classical Greek and Roman civilization, including the Christian religion which formed an integral part of the later Roman Empire. But the religious and moral wisdom of Christianity was itself derived from Near Eastern source and it can hardly be considered as an indigenous European religion, although many additional elements accrued to it in the course of centuries. Thus Western Man's vision of the eternal was derived from an alien religious heritage. On the other hand, the speculative interest in the natural world, common to much of Greek science and philosophy, was very congenial to the restless and barbaric temperament of the tribal peoples who were destined to play a major role in shaping a civilization quite different in character from that of classical antiquity. This innate naturalistic tendency, with its emphasis on action and
Page-19
dynamic change, was a motive force in the novel growth of science and industrialism in the modern world.
But, before going on, it is necessary to clarify the way in which we are speaking of science and religion. Science will here be taken to embrace all rationally organized knowledge of the natural world. The meaning must be broad enough to include most of what medieval thinkers would call "natural philosophy" (as contrasted with "revealed theology"), as well as the sophisticated methods and techniques of modern science. For the latter, although in many ways a radical breakthrough in man's attempt to understand the natural world, is really continuous with medieval science (which in turn derives from Greek and Indo-Arabic sources). The methods of the scientific tradition, as opposed to purely speculative philosophy, have always been founded upon the results of sensory Observation and have made use of various techniques of rational analysis in order to discover general laws. The truly distinctive characteristics of modern scientific method are (1) a flexible policy of experimentation, (2) greater generality due to an increased emphasis on mathematical analysis, and (3) a pragmatic concern with predictive power and the practical exploitation of scientific knowledge. Science is logically independent of any particular metaphysical theory, but, as we shall see, it developed historically out of the context of Christian theism, and then took on a strongly naturalistic character—naturalism being little else than theism without God.
Religion will mean, in the present context, the body of beliefs and practices deriving from the Bible, (believed to be a Book of Revelation) as interpreted by some authoritative body of Christians. Although there is hardly a doctrinal point which has not been disputed within Christianity by one group or another, we shall try to locate those principles which distinguish it from other religions and constitute, so to speak, its metaphysical presuppositions. We are concerned primarily with the doctrinal aspect of the religion rather than with its various practices. For it is the creed which has always been the main factor in its interaction with science; and the part of the creed which will concern us most is that which formulated the nature of God and His relations with the natural world. If we are to discover the basic pre-suppositions of Western thought, it is here that we should look
Page-20
for them. For, from a very early age, every child in the West is exposed, either directly or indirectly, to these beliefs. They constitute what may be called "the metaphysics of the establishment," and are so widely accepted that they are generally taken by the ordinary man as just plain common sense.
Among these beliefs, the primary one is the Christian concept of God. All the other elements of the religious tradition depend upon that. God is understood to be an eternal personal being, having positive qualities or attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence, who created the world "out of nothing", and then entered into it at a unique moment in history in order to redeem it from the evil into which it had fallen. The fundamental requisite for redemption is to accept God's freely-offered forgiveness, just as creation itself was a free act of God. The relationship between God and the world is thus one of absolute dependence of creature on Creator. The Personal being of the Creator is the source of all order and law in the universe. But the substance of the universe is different from the being of God; and, matter being a separately existing creation, the universe , is considered to be real and not a false appearance or illusion. There is a deep ontological gap between God, whose essence is pure Spirit, and the created world of Matter, so that we may discern a fundamentally dualistic tendency at the very roots of Christian metaphysics. This theological dualism has remained the orthodox doctrine despite a persistent, but mostly underground, movement in the direction of monism.
We can readily notice several characteristic features of this religious philosophy. First of all, it is a rigid and exclusive monotheism which categorically denies the existence of "other gods". There is an austere—even sterilized—quality about it which, however appealing it may be to the narrowly logical mind, makes one suspicious of its direct applicability to the infinitely diverse world of experience. This factor of metaphysical economy was a crucial one in the rise of modern science. It was given a medical formulation in the dictum known as "Occam's Razor", that is, that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. Despite disguised "polytheistic" elements which were always creeping into the orthodox tradition,1 the general trend was to
1 Note, for example, the Doctrine of the Trinity, Angelology and Demonology, and even the worship of the "Virgin Mary" (in a predominantly masculine-oriented religion).
Page-21
relegate them, wherever possible, to the twilight realms of occultism, magic and witchcraft. But, although an important element in a comprehensive conception of reality was lost in the process, the "sterilization" of the tradition proved beneficial to the development of science.
Another characteristic of the orthodox tradition has been its passionate denunciation of pantheism. There is a conspicuous absence in Christianity of the powerful Vedantic insight that all things are essentially divine. Christianity does include a rather vague concept of divine immanence, and there have been some outstanding mystics who stressed it in their teachings; still there always has been a marked effort to separate God from Nature and remove Him to remote metaphysical fastnesses. This attempt to preserve inviolate the transcendent aspect of God, while commendable in itself, has not been carried out in the clear and uncompromising manner that we find, for example, in Shankara; Nor has it been able to rise to a fully integrated view of reality like Sri Aurobindo's. Western theology has never been able to balance the transcendent and cosmic poises of the Spirit in an adequate manner. Instead, the effort culminated, at the beginning of the modern era, in a rigorous Cartesian dualism, where Mind (and God) were totally excluded from Matter; and this prepared the way for the Deism of the Enlightenment—the whole process being intimately connected with the new currents of scientific thought. Since then, the history of Western philosophy has been a vigorous, but not entirely successful, attempt to escape from dualism, usually by either embracing naturalism or resorting to an idealism which places major stress on the operations of the rational mind. Almost alone among modern philosophers, Spinoza made an attempt at integration in terms of a higher principle, but he was generally rejected as a "pantheist."
We might also call attention to a related subject, having to do with the perennial problem of "faith vs. reason", which theism engenders. For if there is a sharp separation between God and Nature, the problem of how we can have knowledge of God becomes an acute one. Nature is open to inspection by the senses, and the materials thus obtained can be organized into logical systems by the reasoning intellect. But God is a spiritual being and is not open to direct sensory observation. Since orthodox Christianity has always
Page-22
been highly suspicious of mysticism and all claims to immediate spiritual experience (although a culminating "beatific vision" is given importance in some quarters), the great burden of divine knowledge has been placed on the already overtaxed powers of reason. Arguments had to be found which could prove the existence of God in an acceptable logical fashion. But the real question, even within orthodoxy, itself, has always been whether reason is capable of building a sturdy intellectual bridge between the world and God. For one must depend either on the Ontological Argument which, even if it were found to be successful, would guarantee only the existence of God (the Perfect Being) and not that of the created world, or on the Cosmological Argument which hinges upon the acceptance of the reality of the natural world, and this is a poor way of establishing the existence of its Creator who is prior to it in being and power. But the reality of both the world and God is essential to Christianity. Thus there seems to be a secretiveness about the Divine Nature—we could almost say with Heraclitus that God loves to hide—and reason finds this quite disconcerting. For Christian theism does not conceive of the world as God's Lila,1 and it has great difficulty in accounting for the existence of imperfection and evil. So it is forced back upon some kind of faith, but it cannot rest completely content with it. Intellectual doubt, which has always been a strong factor in the Western tradition, has continued to play havoc with a faith which is based primarily on the written record of a Revelation restricted to a past era.
The standard reconciliation of faith and reason was given by the medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas. According to his interpretation, no conflict is possible between them, since both are ultimately derived from God. Reason (or science) studies the structure of the natural world which is a revelation of God's power and glory, while faith is reserved for those theological mysteries which are not accessible to reason. The exercise of reason has a more limited sphere than that of faith, but as long as the reasoning is correct it cannot contradict the affirmations of faith. For example, the Incarnation is an article of faith and no amount of logical thinking can prove or disprove it. On the other hand, it would be foolish to attempt to deny a scientific fact
1 Lila = Divine Play. God is engaged in a game of Hide-and-Seek with Himself in the Universe.
Page-23
like the roundness of the earth by an appeal to religious faith. There are also certain borderline cases, such as the belief in the creation of the universe. Aquinas was aware of Aristotle's arguments for the eternity of the world, but he considered them to be inconclusive. He also believed that reason could at most prove that the universe is ontologically dependent upon God, and not that it had a definite temporal beginning. Thus, although the question of a universe, with a finite age has been re-opened in modern scientific discussions the creation of the universe has generally been assigned to the realm of faith.
Another interesting conception, which was inherent in the Judaic roots of Christianity, is that of a cosmic purpose unfolding itself in history. History is taken as a teleological process leading from past creation through the Incarnation toward a future millennium in which there will come into existence "a new heaven and a new earth." Many have been the interpretations of this new of cosmic destiny—we need hardly mention its deeper implications here—but the salient feature for our present purposes lies in God's willing the created world to move in a pre-ordained direction. The concept of a progressive movement in history has been late in arriving on the scientific scene, but it is of great importance for the general understanding of evolutionary thought.
In order to see clearly the impact which all of these religious doctrines have had on the development of science, we shall first look briefly at the world-picture of Medieval Christendom. For this world-picture was the primary object of attack during the rise of the "New Science" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is important to realize that the tensions which have developed between religion and science in modern times were due mainly to the breakdown of a specific cosmological model, rather than to a radical change in methodology or a profound difference of metaphysical orientations. The medieval world-picture was derived mainly from the scientific works of Aristotle and is generally known as the "Geocentric Finite Universe". It was a neatly ordered cosmos with a spherical earth at the center of a nest of solid, transparent heavenly spheres and bounded by an outermost sphere of, fixed stars. All of the spheres revolved uniformly around the stationary earth at the center of the universe.
Page-24
There were no empty spaces within this cosmic system, but the geometrical center had both physical and moral significance. Physically, the laws of motion for the terrestrial and the celestial regions (which were considered to be fundamentally different in structure) were formulated with respect to the center and, morally, Hell was located there, right under our feet. In the empyrean regions beyond the ramparts of the universe, God dwelled with the heavenly hosts; but within its confines everything had its appointed place and fulfilled purpose pleasing to God. It was just the kind of world one would expect to be created by a deity like the biblical Jehovah.
Unfortunately, it did not meet the requirements of medieval astronomical knowledge and was practically useless for scientific purposes. In astronomy, which is always in need of precisely calculated motions and configurations, a complex mathematical theory employing deferent, epicycles and eccentrics (which had been developed by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy) was used with reasonable success. But this system, while accepting the geocentric hypothesis in principle, was very difficult to use and was subject to increasing inaccuracies. It made the simple order of the Aristotelian world a messy affair which was repulsive to the rational mind. Medieval philosophers were content to tolerate it merely as a convenient mathematical fiction necessary to the drudgery of astronomical calculation, but they held that the simpler Aristotelian view gave the real physical structure of the world.
It was this world-picture, accommodated to the practical needs of science and supported by theological orthodoxy, which became the target of the so-called "Copernican Revolution". We must notice certain features of this development which highlight the complicated interplay of religious doctrine and scientific theory. Copernicus was interested, for purely astronomical reasons, in improving the accuracy and reducing the complexity of Ptolemaic mathematics. At the same time, he was inspired by religious motives to bring the scientific theory into closer harmony with an orderly and symmetrical cosmological scheme like the one derived from Aristotle and sanctioned by the Church. He had a strong belief in mathematics as the key to understanding Nature—even where its results appeared to contradict direct observation—and, following certain hints available in ancient Greek
Page-25
sources, he hit upon the heliocentric hypothesis and the idea of a spinning earth. With these innovations he found that he could appreciably simplify Ptolemaic mathematical astronomy and, at the same time, improve upon the rational design and symmetry of the medieval world-model. Although he had planted the seeds of a mighty intellectual revolution which was destined to change the social, economic and political basis of Western society, he was clearly inspired by a theologically-oriented faith in the Order of Nature as revealing the Glory of God. He had little enough evidence to go on, but his strong belief in the rational simplicity of God's creation was decisive. Expert scientific opinion and authoritative religious pronouncement were opposed to him. From a scientific point of view, his theory violated not only naive sense experience but also the then-accepted laws of motion. Scientists always become fussy when a purely astronomical theory seems to contradict the well-confirmed results of a basic science like physics. But, in this case, Copernicus was right and it remained only for Galileo (and later Newton) to supply a new physics which could support the astronomy of a moving earth. From the religious standpoint there was even stronger opposition to his views, since they appeared to contradict certain literally interpreted passages in the Bible—such as the story of the sun standing still for Joshua. It is easy to understand why theologians attempted to classify his work in the same category as that of Ptolemy, that is, as a convenient fiction for the use of mathematicians, but not really true.
It took the West nearly three centuries to assimilate the results of Copernicus' work. With Newton the scientific world-picture became that of an infinite universe of stars which behaves like a great machine. The Industrial Revolution was an outgrowth of this new physical synthesis, and the immense social and political changes that were to follow were signalized by the American and-French Revolutions. Western man's interest in the natural world as revealing God's glory faded gradually into the deliberate and ruthless exploitation of its material resources. Materialism, which, in this context, can be viewed as an extreme consequence of the insistent separation between God and Nature motivated by the theological abhorrence of pantheism, became the dominant philosophy of science. For when God is pushed far enough away from Nature, it is easy to regard Him as an empty
Page-26
abstraction which can be safely ignored.1 The contemporary "God is Dead" movement has arisen as a desperate attempt by several theologians to save whatever is valuable in the religious tradition by a frank recognition of this doctrinal instability.
But there was one idea in the religious tradition which, although obscured by orthodoxy itself, made its reappearance in a new guise in nineteenth century science. This was the idea, mentioned earlier, of historical development, which attained scientific status in the form of the theory of evolution. The "World-Machine" cosmology, when it had finally become established, was easily reconciled with the deistic view that God is entirely outside of the material universe, which is regulated by its own inherent laws. History was considered to be an incidental by-product of the functioning of these laws. There was one element in the received religious doctrine (supported by Aristotelian philosophy) which seemed to fit in particularly well with this mechanistic view, and that was the belief in a hierarchy of fixed biological species with man standing at the top in all his tarnished splendor. The parts of a machine, of course, do not grow or develop in an organic manner. Thus the deeper vision of a cosmic purpose in history was overshadowed by a narrow doctrinal interpretation. But the idea of evolution, despite al) of its areas of conflict with organized religion, was really an opening into a wider and more adequate understanding of the relationship between Matter and Spirit. We cannot consider, in this brief survey, the vicissitudes undergone by the theory of evolution in modern times, but the fact that Sri Aurobindo has brought out its full cosmic significance should convince us of its intrinsic value. Unfortunately, its development in the West has been mainly on the scientific side, and attempts to discover its ultimate significance have been tentative and uncertain. Here again, we find that the situation tends to defeat any possibility of a straightforward resolution of the differences between science and religion. Orthodox religion still has trouble assimilating the concept of man developing from lower forms of life, and it has hardly even considered the possibility and implications of man himself evolving beyond his present
1 Note, for instance Laplace's famous reply to Napoleon—"I have no need for that hypothesis!"—when questioned about the absence of any reference to God in his great book on celestial mechanics.
Page-27
mental status. And science does not concern itself with any factors beyond the merely physical and biological forces at work in evolution. Almost alone among modern Western thinkers, Teilhard de Chardin has made a significant attempt to reconcile science with orthodox religious views, but it is debatable whether a real synthesis can be brought about within the existing conceptual framework.
In conclusion, we shall review and criticize some of the concepts in terms of which Western culture operates both religiously and scientifically. We may notice in passing a basic contrast which is responsible for much of the conflict between science and religion. For science is essentially a progressive movement, carrying within itself the means of its own self-correction. Its theories, as we have seen, are constantly changing and the conclusions put forth are always tentative and subject to modification in the light of new evidence. Although it seeks laws of a relatively permanent nature, it is really concerned with the temporal flux of things and is itself caught up in that flux. Religion, on the other hand, is inherently conservative, and concerned mainly with unchanging principles and eternal values. Its world-picture has changed radically due to the impact of science, but to repudiate a really fundamental religious doctrine is tantamount to denying the wisdom of God. It was inevitable that a body of fixed theological principles, such as those of Christian dogma, should come into open conflict with a rapidly developing scientific tradition like the one we have just been describing. There is clearly the need for a higher philosophical principle which could facilitate the integration of science and religion. But Western philosophers and theologians have failed to supply such a principle. We have end eavoured to indicate, however, that the development of science is at least partly due to the peculiar framework of Western religious beliefs. For the underlying scientific assumption of the orderliness and rationality of the world was largely derived from the Christian conception of God, and was supported by the Scholastic reconciliation of reason with faith. And the scientific preoccupation with material power and technological progress was given full scope by the obliteration of the last traces of God's presence and conscious creative activity in Nature—which was itself a consequence of the dualism at the core of Christian theology. The remarkable fact that one can go through a modern textbook in
Page-28
physics or biology without finding a single reference to God is mute testimony to the success of both science and religion in rooting out pantheism as a major influence in Western culture. It has survived here and there among the poets, but poetry itself has become something of an embarrassment to modern industrial society..
Another consideration relevant here, in which religion and science have, both joined hands, lies in the repudiation of occult cosmology. The basic conception of Nature as a unified system including planes or worlds beyond this manifest physical one was available to the West through Neo-Platonic philosophy and its offshoots; but it was found to be inimical to the development of orthodox religious doctrine and, after a brief revival in the Renaissance, it was totally rejected by modern science. Theologians and scientists still collaborate in voicing their contempt for the vagaries of the Hermetic tradition, Kabalistic symbology, alchemy, astrology, and their derivatives. There were probably good reasons for their rejection in the past, since European occultism has seldom risen above the Faustian lures of the lower vital world. But a great deal of work remains to be done if historians are ever to evaluate properly the influence of this subject on the development of Western thought. It is hard to ignore the possibility that a decisive link between religion and science was lost here. For even though much confusion and dangerous superstition was rooted out of Western culture by its rejection, the West is now suffering badly from the absence of several insights which the occult tradition contained. Pre-eminent among these were (1) a lively sense of conscious powers acting in Nature, (2) the working conception of higher worlds with detailed correspondences between the universe (or Macrocosm) and man (the Microcosm), and (3) a deep appreciation of a Mother-Principle pervading the universe, and its attendant conception of Nature as a field of divine 'potentialities gradually being revealed to the Adept.
Finally, we may briefly consider the peculiarly ambivalent attitude toward Matter in the Western tradition. From one point of view, Matter is a real, intensely evil principle inherent in the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The religious aim of life is therefore to get free of this vicious principle of negation of the Spirit which underlies all suffering and death. This view was more popular in the Middle Ages than it is today, although it forms the shadowy background of
Page-29
some recent theological speculation. But there is a deeper point of view, in which Matter (although imperfect) is a factor of no small importance in God's creative purpose. For, according to the Christian doctrine of creation, God called it forth out of sheer nothingness to serve as the stage for a great cosmic drama. Not only was Matter dignified by divine creation, but it was also destined to be sanctified by God's incarnation in a human body. There are also dim suggestions that a form of spiritualized matter will become the basis of a new world when God's creative purpose has been fulfilled. These religious beliefs, however, have not been sufficient to overcome the vitalistic obsession with material things as the mere fulfilment of desires. This obsession was reinforced by the stress of scientific discovery, which gave man the key to the great stores of physical energy locked in Nature—with the result that materialism of one kind or another has captivated the Western mind. But here also we can see that there is an element in the religious tradition which is very congenial to the interests of science. The success that the West has had in dealing with Matter is ultimately due to the high value placed upon it by both science and religion.
In view of the foregoing considerations, we may well ask whether Western civilization, with the richness of its insights into the reality and cosmic destiny of the created world, can rise out of its prevailing limitations and grow into a greater vision of the unity and spiritual nature of all existence. Even though, in this brief exposition, we have neglected the fields of ethics and psychology, as well as the Christian doctrine of the soul and its destiny—and they would conceivably have had some bearing on our conclusions—we shall attempt a partial answer to this question. On the basis of the preceding discussion I shall have to take a somewhat pessimistic view of the situation. For I doubt that Western society can easily dispense with the concepts which we have been examining. Most people are not even aware that this conceptual background determines the modes in which they accept or reject large portions of their heritage. Basically, even outspoken atheists like Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell were rebellious products of a specific religious environment. They were, it is true, arguing against it, but on its own ground and in its own terms. Of course, many things are possible in time, but I do not foresee any
Page-30
immediate relief for Western Man, except for those few who are able to go beyond their intellectual tradition by a determined turn to a higher life. The rest will continue to be unresposive to a real spiritual call, which will fall mostly on deaf ears.
ROBERT. M. KLEINMAN
Page-31
|
"Why do men want to worship? |
|
| It is much better to become than to worship. | |
| It is the laziness to change which makes one worship." | |
|
THE MOTHER |
|
| Later Mother added the following comment: | |
| "One may not worship only on the condition | |
| of changing, for there are many who want both | |
| not to change and not to worship also!" | |
TWO are required for worship, the worshipper and the worshipped. And worship is based on division, a division into sovereign and subject, master and servant, the lover and the dependant beloved or the high and the low. Division again is implied in creation where the One has become the Many. God desires himself, so 'kāmayata, he sees himself with approbation, tadaiksata, he energises himself, sa tapo'tapyata. This self-adoration of God, this self-estimation of the Divine results in creation.
Why do men want to worship? rather why do they want to adore? They cannot help it. God has adored himself and become man. The cycle has to be completed. Man has to adore and become God. Only, these two adorations are entirely different. Just as the primordial Divine Desire, Kāmakald, in the process of transmission in creation, has taken the form of so many ugly distortions, the Absolute Adoration has been transformed into what is known as worship by men here in the world. Worship, as practised, is the act of adoration vitiated by the idea of division. The very nature of certain parts of the being of man is to adore, no doubt. But adoration should be followed by emulation of the object adored, by changing oneself and then becoming oneself the object of adoration. What is the change meant here? It is a process of giving up one state of being and taking up on oneself another state. The primordial absolute adoration of the Divine results in absolute becoming. Having created, the Divine
Page-32
enters into creation and becomes the very creation; creation results when the Lord lets himself in gay abandon. As the Veda says, it is the great yajna, act of worship, where the Primordial Purusha himself is the victim of the sacrifice. When God so gladly gives himself up to become man, what is it that prevents man from giving himself up to become the Divine? The Divine Adoration culminates in becoming the object of adoration while the human adoration rests content with the worship of the object adored. It is the tamas, inertia, laziness innate in the human being that is the root-cause of this aberration. Knowing full well that unity is its source and sustenance, the whole creation clings to division. Circumscribed, man wants to get at the centre. Entrenched in his narrowness, he would like to cherish the immensities. Indulging in his little pleasures he would love to relish the taste of supreme felicity. He would rather throw the bridge of worship than close the gap between him and God. As the Mother says, it is the laziness to change which makes one worship. And therefore the Mother assures that once the laziness is removed it is possible to have the true consummation. Adoration, if it is sincere and true and burns as a pure white flame, sucihpavdkah, will itself drive the laziness away and rapidly spread to all parts of the being. One learns to give oneself more and more to this consuming passion. All becomes a mounting cone of fire changing and transforming till the adorer becomes the adored. This is the worship in its pure and unsullied form, based on surrender, self-giving and transformation and in the process becoming the Divine. That is why the Tantra says that one should worship God by becoming God, śivo bhutvā śivam yajet.
All those who do not worship in the normally understood sense cannot be taken to be those who would welcome change or transformation, the Mother clarifies. Those who want both not to change and not to worship also, their number is legion. The world is teeming with them. When the Supreme Consciousness descends into creation, it appears in both its positive and negative aspects as knowledge and ignorance; the Supreme Bliss when it descends takes the form of pleasure and pain. Similarly the absolute adoration when it descends into creation is found both in its positive and negative aspects. The negative aspect of adoration is revulsion. The Sanskrit word for revulsion is very significant, jugupsā, goptum icchā desire to protect oneself.
Page-33
The need for protection arises out of fear, fear from a second one. The idea of division is so deep-rooted in creation that each being wants to protect itself from the other, wants to conserve and preserve its individuality. The object of adoration is taken as a challenge, as a threat to the individual existence as none wants to lose himself in adoration. There sets in an attitude of revulsion, hatred and revolt. Like pleasure and pain, adoration and persecution walk hand in, hand in this world. The Saviour of man has to die at the cross.
S. SHANKARANARAYANAN
Page-34
(THE TEN AVATARAS OF GITA GOVINDA)
In the waters of the Great Deluge, serving as a boat
untroubled you up bear the Book of Knowledge.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the body of a Fish. Victory
to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
The earth reposes on your far vaster back, heavily crusted
with scales because of the load upon it.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the body of a Tortoise. Victory
to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
The earth clings to the edge of your tusk, even as the ,
lunar stain is imbedded in the moon.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the body of a Boar. Victory
to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
The digits of your hands are like rose petals but the nails
at the end are like some strange horns, and these have
ripped open the body of the Asura, as through the body of a bee.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the body of a Man-Lion. Victory
to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
A strange Dwarf, you duped Bali with your cunning; the water
touched by your feet purifies human peoples.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the body of a Dwarf. Victory
to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
In the streaming blood of the warrior tribe you have
bathed the world, washed out all its sins, soothed the
burning pain of earthly life.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the form of Parasurama.
Victory to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
Page-35
In the ten directions, to the ten godheads you have
distributed the ten heads of Ravana, as a happy offering desired by them.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the form of the Prince of Raghus.
Victory to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
On your white body you have put on a blue robe that
matches beautifully with the blue Yamuna clinging to you
for fear of being dragged by your ploughshare.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the form of Haladhara (the wielder of the plough). Victory to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
Oh, you condemn the sacrificial rites as ordained by the Holy Scriptures, your heart melting at the sight of animals being slaughtered.
Lo, the Lord has assumed the form of the Enlightened One (the Buddha). Victory to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
To slay the whole host of the Invaders, you have unsheathed
your sword, how frightful, even as a streaming comet!
Lo, the Lord has assumed the form of Kalki.
Victory to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World!
Listen to the sublime hymn that brings happiness and
welfare, the very cream of creation, sung by the poet Jayadeva.
I bow down to Krishna, to his ten incarnations, to him who
saves the Vedas, who bears the world, uplifts the earth, slays
the Titans, confounds Bali, destroys the Kshattriyas, conquers
the son of Pulastya, wields the Plough, who pours out his compassion, to him who routs the Hostiles.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
Page-36
The Bases of Yoga, compiled from the letters of Sri Aurobindo to disciples practising his Yoga, underlines the importance of fundamental requisites like Calm, Peace, Equality, for the commencement of Yoga proper. Some of its sections emphasise the necessity of Faith, Aspiration and Surrender, some dwell on the nature of the difficulties that one meets in the initial stages of sadhana. Others give hints for regulation in matters of food, sex, sleep etc. The Lights on Yoga analyses the planes and parts of the being, the goal that is set for the multiple man, the broad ways of surrender and opening in Yoga and the role of work in this sadhana. More Lights on Yoga, reissued recently after a long break, covers a wider field and takes the aspirant straight into the heart of the Yoga sadhana.
Sri Aurobindo makes it clear that the aim of his Yoga is something more than to realise unity with the Divine, the Brahman. He states that the aim is "to open the consciousness to the Divine and to live in the inner consciousness more and more while acting on the external life, to bring the inmost psychic into the front and by the power of the psychic to purify and change the being so that it may become ready for transformation and in union with the Divine Knowledge, Will and Love. Secondly, to develop the yogic consciousness, i.e., to universalise the being in all the planes, become aware of the cosmic being and cosmic forces and be in union with the Divine on all the planes up to the Overmind. Thirdly, to come into contact with the Divine beyond the Overmind through the supramental consciousness, supramentalised the consciousness and the nature and make oneself an instrument for the realisation of the dynamic Divine Truth and its transforming descent into the earth-nature."
This aim, unlike the other yogas, includes the world-being in its purview. As Sri Aurobindo says, "It is no part of my Yoga to have nothing to do with the world or with life or to kill the senses or entirely inhibit their action. It is the object of my Yoga to transform life by bringing down into it the Light, Power and Bliss of the Divine Truth and its dynamic certitudes. This Yoga is not a yoga of world shunning asceticism but of divine life." This Yoga does not immediately concern
Page-37
itself with the betterment of humanity, though the fulfilment of its aim in the individual sadhaka has its inevitable consequence on the upward evolution of the human race. "Yoga is directed towards God, not towards man. If a divine supramental consciousness and power can be brought down and established in the material world, that obviously would mean an immense change for the earth including humanity and its life."
The very basis of this Yoga is the truth that life is a field for the manifestation of the Divine. If that is so, one may ask, is every man compelled to participate in this Movement? What about those who practice special lines of sadhana and merge into the impersonal Brahman away from the world? Sri Aurobindo answers: "The general Divine Will in the universe is for the progressive manifestation in the universe. But that is the general will—it admits the withdrawal of individual souls who are not ready to persevere in the world."
A question arises. How to know that one is fit for this comprehensive and difficult Yoga? The answer: "As for fitness and unfitness, nobody is entirely fit for this Yoga; one has to become fit by aspiration, by abhydsa, by sincerity and surrender." Incidentally, "A mere restless dissatisfaction with the ordinary life is not a sufficient preparation for this Yoga. A positive inner call, a strong will and a great steadiness are necessary for success in the spiritual life."
It is a Force higher than one's own that does the real sadhana. The practitioner is called upon to keep himself open to the action of the Divine Shakti. It is of course understood that one exercises some discrimination in throwing oneself open to an Agency higher and wider than one's own consciousness. Sri Aurobindo warns: "Openness and, whenever needed, passivity, but to the highest consciousness, not to anything that comes. There must be a certain quiet vigilance even in the passivity. Otherwise there may be either wrong movements or inertia." He adds further: "One must be passive only to the Divine Force, but vigilant not to put oneself at the mercy of all forces. If he becomes passive when he tries to see God in another person, he is likely to put himself at the disposal of any force that is working through that person and his own forces may be drained away towards the other." A common mistake made in the matter is that the seeker is likely to take every impersonal or universal Force as
Page-38
the divine Force. To such Sri Aurobindo points out, "A force may be universal but may be also wrong force: many think they are impersonal and free from ego because they are obeying a force or something bigger than their own personality—but that force or that something may be quite other than the Divine and it may hold them by something in their personality and ego."
Another common mistake, especially among those from the West, is about the identity of the soul which is the pinpoint of the inner life. "They mistake the vital being for the soul, because it is the vital which animates and moves the body. But this vital being is a thing made up of desires and executive forces, good and bad; it is the desire-soul, not the true thing. It is when the true soul (psyche) comes forward and begins to influence and then to govern the actions of the instrumental nature that man begins to overcome vital desire and grow towards a divine nature."
In this Yoga which deals with the whole of human nature, there can be in the very nature of things no fixed set of rules and regulations to be followed by everyone. While the broad lines of sadhana may be the same for all, the way in which each one works out the scheme in his situation may differ from another's in a different stage of development. As Sri Aurobindo says, "In matters of the inner development and the sadhana it is impossible to map out a plan fixed in every detail and say, 'every time we shall stop here, there, in this way, on that line and no other,' things would become so tied up and rigid that nothing could be done; there could be no true and effective movement. Everything depends on the inner condition. To do the right thing in the right way in each case and at each moment, one must be in the right consciousness; it cannot be done by following a fixed mental rule which under some circumstances might fit in and under others might not fit at all. A general principle can be laid down if it is in consonance with the Truth, but its application must be determined by the inner consciousness seeing at each step what is to be done and not done. If the psychic is uppermost, if the being is entirely turned towards the Mother and follows the psychic this can be increasingly done."
But this is not to say that all is to be left free and unregulated, leaving things to be determined and shaped by outer circumstances
Page-39
and events, without any direction from one's own will. Sri Aurobindo clearly writes: "In the most physical things you have to fix a programme in order to deal with them, otherwise all becomes a sea of confusion and haphazard. Fixed rules have also to be made for the management of material things so long as people are not sufficiently developed to deal with them in the right way without rules." "There can be no physical life without an order and rhythm. When this order is changed, it must be in obedience to an inner growth."
If it is the divine Grace that effects the real progress, is it necessary for one to exert oneself, to strive and labour ? In reply Sri Aurobindo says, "The Divine Grace is essential for success in the sadhana, but it is the practice that prepares the descent of the Grace."
Among the things to be guarded against is fear. "Fear is always a feeling to be rejected, because what you fear is just the thing that is likely to come to you: fear attracts the object of fear. Un-happiness weakens the strength and lays one more open to the causes of unhappiness." There should be no fear even if the experiences in the inner life stop or appear to stop. For "an interruption of definite experience may be only a period of assimilation in which one prepares for a new range of experience."
Sri Aurobindo warns against the new-fangled theories of modern psychologists that to indulge a desire is the best way of getting rid of it. He says: "I think you have always had an idea that to give expression to an impulse or a movement is the best way or even the only way to get rid of it. But that is a mistaken idea. If you give expression to anger, you prolong or confirm the habit of the recurrence of anger; you do not diminish or get rid of the habit. ' The very first step towards weakening the power of anger in the nature and afterwards getting rid of it altogether is to refuse all expression to it in act or speech. Afterwards one 'can go on with more likelihood of success to throw it out from the thought and feeling also. And so with all other wrong movements."
The most effective way in these matters is "detachment, to stand back; separate yourself from the desire, observe it, refuse sanction and put a quiet and persistent will for it to cease, calling on the Mother's force at the same time to dissolve and eliminate the greed, desire, attachment, obscurity or inertia. If sincerely,
Page-40
persistently and rightly done, it will succeed in the end, even though it may take time."
Linked with the subject of desire to be rejected is the phenomenon of insanity which is wrongly ascribed to denial of indulgence. If a seeker gets insane, the true explanation is elsewhere. "Those who fall into insanity have lost the true touch and got into the wrong contact. It is due either to some impurity and unspiritual desire with which the seeker enters into the way or some insincerity, egoism and false attitude or to some weakness in the brain or nervous system which cannot bear the Power it has called down into it."
The way to conquer the enemies in Yoga is not by suppression but by rejection. "The ripus cannot be conquered by damana, (even if it succeeds to some extent, it only keeps them down but does not destroy them); often compression only increases their force. It is only by purification through the Divine Consciousness entering into the egoistic nature and changing it that this thing can be done."
Is reading or studies compatible with Yoga? "To read what will help the Yoga or what will be useful for the work or what will develop the capacities for the divine purpose. Not to read worthless stuff or for mere entertainment or for a dilettante intellectual curiosity which is 01"
Concerning the oft-asked question whether one should concentrate in the head or in the heart Sri Aurobindo observes: "There is no harm in concentrating sometime in the heart and sometime above the head.' But concentration in either place does not mean keeping the attention fixed on a particular spot; you have to take your station of consciousness in either place and concentrate there not on the place, but on the Divine. This can be done with eyes shut or with eyes open, according as it best suits you."
It goes without saying that one concentrates where one is naturally drawn—in the head or in the heart. Whatever may be the position in other Yogas, in this line of sadhana there can be no one
Page-41
fixed centre of concentration. When the heart centre is active and the Yoga force is working there, one is naturally inclined to station oneself in the heart. When the working shifts to the mind centre the concentration also shifts along with it. As one proceeds in this Yoga one would experience that without any effort on one's part the consciousness gathers itself at the required centre.
Replying to another question, whether japa should be. done with attention to the meaning of the mantra or without regard to it, Sri Aurobindo answers: "Pranava japa: it is supposed to have a force of its own although that force cannot fully work without the meditation on the meaning. But my experience is that in these things there is no invariable rule and that must depend on the consciousness or the power of response in the sadhak. With some it has no effect, with some it has a rapid and powerful effect even without meditation — for others the meditation is necessary for any effect to come."
On a question of general import regarding prediction of time in events, Sri Aurobindo states: To fix a precise time is impossible except in the two regions of certitude—the pure material which is the field of mathematical certitude and the Supramental which is the field of Divine certitude. In the planes in between where life has its word to say and things have to evolve under shocks and stress, Time and Energy are too much in flux and apt to kick against the rigour of a pre-fixed date or programme."
Before concluding, a few of the statements serving as definitions of important concepts may be usefully given:
Prakrti is the conscious power of the Spirit.
Matter is only energy in action, and energy is force of consciousness in action.
Siva is the lord of tapas. Krsna is the lord' of Ananda, love and bhakti. The Devi is the divine shakti— the consciousness and Power of the Divine, the Mother and Energy of the World.
Sādhanā is the practice of Yoga.
Tapasyā is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature.
Arādhanā is worship of the Divine, love, self-surrender, aspiration to the Divine, calling the name, prayer.
Page-42
Dhyāna is inner concentration of the consciousness, meditation, going inside in samadhi.
Dhyana, tapasya or aradhana are all parts of the sadhana.
Cit is the pure consciousness, as in sat-chit-ananda.
Citta is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thoughts, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.
M. P. PANDIT
Page-43
Indo-English Poetry: a Study of Sri Aurobindo and Four Others. By P. C. Kotoky. Publ. Gauhati University, Gauhati. Pp. 203, Price Rs. 25.00
AFTER explaining the historical background of Indo-English literature generally, the author traces rapidly the growth of Poetry written in English by Indian writers beginning with Kashi Prosad Ghosh in the 19th Century up to the present day marked by two distinct tendencies which he distinguishes as one dominating the Quest group (of which the Writers Workshop is an important constituent) and the other of those following the lead of Sri Aurobindo.
In brief chapters, Dr. Kotoky studies the output of Toru Dutt, Monmohan Ghose, Sarojini Naidu and Harindranath's Chattopadhyay and records their contribution1 to the tradition before proceeding to make a detail analysis of the literary works of Sri
1 Regarding Toru Dutt the author approvingly quotes the tribute of Edmund Gosse: "Literature has no honours which need have been beyond the grasp of a girl who at the age of 21, and in languages separated from her own by so deep a chasm, had produced so much of lasting worth. That 'mellow sweetness' was all that Toru lacked to perfect her as an English poet, and of no other oriental who has ever lived can the same be said. When the history of the literature of our country comes to be written there is sure to be a page in it dedicated to this fragile exotic blossom of song."
Monmohan Ghose: "Monmohan is an example of a pure poet. His poetry is rather aristocratic, or purely aesthetic in temper and intellectual in tone. His poetic output is small just because his sense of standard was high. It was he who first gave Indo-English poetry a European bias. As a poet Monmohan has grace and restraint and shows a genuine poetic quest and a fine and cultivated feeling for poetic values. The two brothers, Monmohan and Sri Aurobindo, between themselves may share the credit of giving Indo-English poetry a distinct status, and Monmohan will suffer in comparison only with this younger brother who was a better scholar, a greater intellectual, and a mightier poet."
Sarojini Naidu: "-Hers is not poetry that stirs the soul to its depths. It is poetry that only charms and delights. Sarojini was not moved to interpret life, 'a clear and happy presentation was her business'. But this presentation does not give us abundance of life; nor does it rise to the level of vision. She gives us only poetry of external life. But what she wrote of that which is transient is beautiful. For this, and for her love of life and colour, her poetry will be long admired."
Harindranath's: "The only Indo-English poet to make a deep probe into Indian life and thought, his main contribution to Indo-English poetry lies in widening its field and enriching its store with a considerable number of fine poems."
Page-44
Aurobindo viz. Poems, Epics, Dramas, Translations. The writer rightly devotes more space and attention to Sri Aurobindo for, as he observes, "It is only with the mature works of this poet that original Indo-English poetry may be said to have begun."
In the prefatory chapter on Sri Aurobindo, the author notes the original approach to Poetry by the "seer and poet" who "may be called a modern approximation of the Vedic ideal of the poet as the Seer of the Truth (kavayah satyadrastārah)." He divides Sri Aurobindo's poetry into three groups viz. that written in England and Baroda; written during the political period and the first few years in Pondicherry; written thereafter.
He writes: "Sri Aurobindo, who cannot be pinned down to any particular tradition of poetry, also defies in his mature poetry all classification in terms of romantic or classical. His characteristic poetry springs from a direct mystic experience which is visional and real to him. This poetry is intuitive and revelatory—it reveals visions, symbolic or mystic. It is also mantric and philosophical... Sri Aurobindo wrote poetry that accepted the transitoriness of the world with all its poignancy and he could dissolve the hard concepts and theories of philosophy into the blood of poetry . The absence, in his poetry, of a direct transcript of his times with all their sad doubts and distractions, may be attributed to his rising above them, although it will not be correct to say that the poet totally ignored them. Confident of man's evolution into the superman, he looked on, beyond the local and the contemporary, to the universal and the eternal; the world was, there, not of the sole interest. It is mainly by virtue of this insistence on man's more glorious future that Sri Aurobindo's later poetry is futurist."
He takes up a number of poems and shows how Sri Aurobindo emerges not as a 'philosophical thinker' but as a 'poet seer of truth'. He quotes Sri Aurobindo's remarks on the treatment of philosophical subjects in poetry. "The poet has emerged here not as a 'philosophical thinker', but as a 'poet seer of truth'. In this connection, his views on the treatment of philosophical subjects in poetry may be quoted with advantage: '...the poet may express precisely the same thing in essence as the philosopher or the man of religion or the man of science, may even give us truth of philosophy,
Page-45
truth of religion, truth of science, provided he transmutes it, abstracts from it something on which the others insist in their own special form and gives us the something more which poetic sight and expression bring. He has to convert it into truth of poetry, and it will be still better for his art if he saw it originally with the poetic insight, the creative, intuitive, directly perceiving and interpreting eye; for then his utterance of truth is likely to be more poetic, authentic, inspired and compelling.'"
After a brief comparison of the poetry and spirit of Sri Aurobindo with those of Rilke and Blake, Dr. Kotoky devotes the longest chapter in his book to the epic Savitri, which has 'forty-nine cantos including the Epilogue and they cover nearly 24 thousand lines in blank verse, thus making Savitri the biggest ever epic in the English language." He shows how this Poem fits in with the anticipations of Abercrombie who wrote: The one thing "which can master the perplexed stuff of epic material into unity is an ability to see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's general destiny." "It is of man, and man's purpose in the world, that the epic poet has to sing; not of the purpose of gods. The gods must only illustrate man's destiny; and they must be kept within the bounds of beautiful illustration." The "amazing image of the sublime mind of Lucretius is exactly the kind of lofty symbolism that the continuation of epic purpose now seems to require—a subjective symbolism."
In the course of his earnest study of the epic, the author writes: "There is, in Savitri, a sense of double time and double action—the terrestrial and the cosmic, corresponding respectively to the legend and the symbol. The conflict, in which the core of an epic lies, has been clearly defined, and raised to the cosmic plane. It is confined to two persons only—Savitri and Death. Though the poet has laid greater emphasis on the cosmic implication of the conflict, he has not neglected the legend which is the. prop of the symbol. The epic should be viewed not in terms of these two separately, but as one integrated whole, for the two planes of the action almost merge into each other...Sri Aurobindo's is a unique epic, and one must think twice before applying to it canons of criticism which are generally applicable to other epics. It is great, not in detail, but
Page-46
in concept, range and depth. Earth and Heaven here unite to liberate mankind."
Among the few reservations made by the writer in the course of his sincere appreciation of Sri Aurobindo's poetry, is his objection to the occasional use of images from Greek and other European mythology in Indian settings. It may be pointed out that, generally, Sri Aurobindo's characters are types evolved in the cosmic evolution and they are heir to the common traditions of mankind without any hard and rigid distinctions, geographical or racial.
A delightful and scholarly study of Sri Aurobindo's Poetry.
M. P. PANDIT
The Message Of Sankara: By Shanti Joshi. Lokbharati Publications, 15-A, Mahatma Gandhi Marg, Allahabad. Pp. 196, Price: Ks. 16.
Discussing the various systems of the Indian Philosophy, the traditional systems, Buddhism, Jainism, etc., the author points out how they fail to meet the situation the modern man is faced with. Dr. Joshi pleads for a "Philosophy that is nearer to life, that could live and flourish amongst humanity. In such a situation, there is no 'place for a world-negating thought, ascctism, escapism and renunciation; no place for inaction, nivrtti mārga and Ashramite life. They all become truths of the cave, they represent fossilised traditions which no longer solve the gnawing problem of the day." And the practical philosophy that the author recommends is the Advaita of Sankara which is interpreted in "new terms". We are not sure if the exponents of Sankara Advaita would subscribe to Dr. Joshi's interpretation of the system. We are quite positive that the writer's reading of Sankara Advaita in the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo is too far-fetched. Perhaps Sri Aurobindo's philosophy may be called Puma Advaita but certainly not the Advaita of Sankara's persuasion.
The truth of the matter, as we see it, is that Sankara's philosophy corresponds to a certain definitive spiritual realisation in the
Page-47
journey of the soul god ward. It has its truth and it shall not be stretched beyond its legitimate field. Each philosophy based upon spiritual experience is perennial and no new interpretation to fit it to changing times is really called for.
M. P. PANDIT
Classical Samkhya by G. J. Larson. Motilal Banarasidass, Delhi 7. Price Rs. 30:
This revised version of the doctoral thesis of the author is to be welcomed for the historical and critical light it throws on the Samkhya System. The book is divided into four main sections. In the first are presented the central doctrines of the Samkhyakarika of Ishwara-Krishna; this is followed by an able summary of the studies on the evolution of the Samkhya philosophy by scholars, Indian and Western. The second section is devoted to a close examination of the development of the Samkhya from the ancient period of the Veda, through the earlier and later ages of the Upanishads, the Epics etc. till it acquired the systematisation given by Ishwarakrishna; a short account of the post-classical developments is also given. In the third section Dr. Larson gives his own considered interpretation of the contents of the Sankhyakarika. What relevance has the philosophy of the Samkhya in the modern context? This is the question raised in the the last section. The author makes an interesting comparison between the main concepts of the classical Samkhya and some of the tenets of Jean-Paul Sartre.
Among the many informative and interesting features of this treatment are the accounts of the various Samkhya Teachers, the points of contact between Samkhya and Buddhism and Jainism, the extent to which the Samkhya was possibly influenced by non aryan inspiration etc. The author approaches the System as a living growth, assimilating healthy winds from all sides, and is alert to its strains in other philosophies, old and new.
A satisfying work fulfilling its objective.
M. P. PANDIT
Page-48
Gayatri S. Viraswami Pathar. College Road, Tiruchirappalli Pp. 163, Price Rs. 3.
There are many Riks common to one or more of the Vedas occurring with slight modifications; but Gayatri is the only Rik that is found unchanged in all the four Vedas. This proves the hoary antiquity of the Gayatri Mantra, which should have been the common heritage of all the seers long before the Vedas were compiled in the present form. The Mantra appears as the tenth Rik in the 52nd Sukta of the Third Mandala of the Rig Veda, the perception of the seer Vishwamitra, son of Gadhi. It is on the deity Savitr, the creative Solar Godhead and runs as follows:
Tat savitur varenyarn bhargo devasya dhīmahi
Dhiyo yo nah pracodayat.
We meditate upon the excellent splendour of the Lord Savitr. May he activate our thoughts.
It is remarkable that generations after generations, people have been reciting this Rik as a prayer. It is still more remarkable that the prayer has not been for cattle, horses, wealth or any worldly goods but for the splendour of the Divine which grants the right consciousness and knowledge. The Mantra addresses the "Radiance issuing from the Supreme source in which is massed all the creative movement of the Uncreate that is the ultimate root of all movements in the creation. Let that light motivate and energise our thought-movements"1 is the soul-filling prayer of the aspiring man.
Sri Pathar quoting profusely from ancient and modern authorities points out that in Manusmriti it has been said: "The father and mother have given birth to him from mutual desire; so that he is born from the womb, let this be known as his physical birth. But that birth which is given, according to the ordinance through the Savitri by the preceptor who has mastered the Vedas, that is the true birth, the unaging and immortal." With the initiation of Gayatri during
1 Sri Kapali Sastriar: Further Lights: The Veda and the Tantra.
Page-49
Upanayan which literally means 'leading near', a person gets a new birth and every year on the day of the Upākarma in the month of Srāvan, he renews his pledge to lay himself open always to the Divine Splendour that will activate his thoughts. On the next day of Upākarma the Mantra is recited a thousand times as a prāyascitta, a reparation for a false past, mithyātīta, and as a preparation for the future, to avoid the possibility of falling into faulty things, dosavatsu apatanīya.
The text for recitation is with the Pranava and the three Vyahritis:
Om Bhūr Bhuvah Svah tatsavitur
varenyam bhargo devasya dhīmahi
dhiyo yo nah pracodayāt
The Mantra being a Vedic Rik has to be recited audibly; not loudly not mentally but upāmsu japa is prescribed. Bhu Bhuvah Svah represent the three planes of physical, vital and mental, the three states, jāgrat, svapna susupti, the wakeful, the dream and the sleep states, the three worlds, earth, sky, heaven, the three Vedas etc. Similarly, Om which is composed of A, U and M denotes the triple principle in creation. All these have been clearly brought out by the author with profuse quotations from Upanishads, Puranas and modern authorities. If Gayatri is used for Prayanama it has to be with seven vyahritis and the Gayatri śiras. The text is Om Bhūh Om Bhuvah Om Svah Mahah Om Janah Om Tapah Om Satyam Om Tat Savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhīmahi dhiyo yo nah pracodayāt Om āpah joytih rasah amrtam brahma bhūr bhuvah svar Om.
The seven vyahritis are the seven worlds, the seven planes of consciousness, the lower and the higher triple with the link world of Light, Mahas.
Writting on Gayatri and Mantra Yoga, the author rightly points out: "A mantra is endowed with divine power. It is divinity itself manifesting in the form of sound. The mantra therefore becomes the Devata." Who is the Devata of the Gayatri Mantra? The Devata is Savitr, the Creative Sun God. As the Mantra is in the Chandas Gayatri, it is popularly known as Gayatri Mantra. Further, the Tan-trics have developed the concept of Gayatri Devi and have ascribed this Vedic Mantra of Suvrya Savitr, seen by the sage Vishwamitra
Page-50
to Gayatri Devi. There are similar traditions. The Vedic Rik "Jātavedase" to the Deity Agni, ascribed to Durga is an instance in point. The Sandhyāvandanam, a ritual based on the Tantric principle of arghya, mārjana, tarpana and japa as now known should have been originally a simple method of invoking Gayatri. The japa of Gayatri should have been the main feature in this worship. There have been later accretions mainly from two concepts, one considering Savitr as the physical sun and the other identifying the person in the solar orb, though said to be Virincinārāyana śankarātman, with Vishnu. So we find tarpana to the nine planets, salutations to the quarters and to Yama, son of the Sun-God as well as nyāsa on the body with the twelve aspects of Vishnu, Kesava etc. and prayers addressed to Narayana, featuring in the worship. Local customs have included other prayers as well.
The author approvingly quotes those who want to simplify this daily ritual so that it may be capable of observance in the stress and strain of modern times.
In the Mantric lore, Gayatri Mantra occupies a very high place. It is the mother of the Vedas, the seed from which all the other Mantras have sprung. So much so, it is said that japa of any Mantra will yield fruit only if it is raised on a secure foundation of Gayatri japa. To prove the greatness of a Mantra, it has to be equated with Gayatri. The worshippers of the Divine Mother, in the form of Sri Vidya, say that the Mantra of 15 letters, Panchadasi, consisting of three parts can be equated to three Gayatris. And each line of Sadhana has its own Gayatri.
And we have for the Supramental Yoga here Sri Aurobindo's Gayatri which runs thus:
Tat savitur varam rūpam
jyotih parasya dhimahi
Yannah satyena deepayet
"Let us meditate on the most auspicious (best) form of Savitr, on the Light of the Supreme, which shall illumine us with the Truth."
Page-51
The seer is Sri Aurobindo, the Supreme, the metre is Gayatri and the Deity is the Supreme Light, the Mother.
This is the Gayatri to invoke the Supramental Sun of the coming dawns.
S. SHANKARANARAYANAN
Tantrik Bauddha Sadhana Aur Sahitya By Nagendranath Upahdyaya. Pub: Nagari Pracharini Sabha, Banaras.
The birth, growth and glory of every society depends a good deal upon the Dharma that actuates it and its literature is a good reflection thereof. In times of disintegraion, the supporting Spirit manifests in special forms and if its responded to, the society revives. This is particularly seen in the history of India: at every critical epoch some great Personality appears on the scene, establishes a new tradition which creates a new literature.
The need for Compassion and Love in the relations of man and his fellow-beings called forth the Buddha. His was a vast heart. He ' aimed at individual upliftment but equally at collective advancement. Dr. Nagendranath propounds in detail, in this book, the service rendered by the Buddhist effort at human welfare through its re-statement and special development of the Tantra Tradition.
The writer makes it clear that the Tantra-sadhana and Doctrine derives its inspiration from the Veda and draws upon the principles of Vedic Yoga in the practice it develops for the attainment it has in view. Both the traditions meet on the esoteric plane. The Bauddha development in the Tantra line do not mark any fundamental deviation from the genuine Hindu tradition. Especially in the fields of Yoga, Dhyana, Jnana, the older teaching countinues uncorrupted.
Dr. Nagendranath casts a wide net in his study of the Mahayana literature and its special features, the Vajrayana, the Kalachakrayana, the Sahajayana etc. His broad understanding and deep scholarship are evident throughout the discussion.
VIJAYA SHANKARANARAYANAN
Page-52
Vol. III No. I
1946
THE SOUL'S ODYSSEY
|
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our Life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar;Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nackedness,But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home...... |
RARELY has a poet—a secular poet, I mean—given utterance to a deep spiritual and occult truth with such clarity and felicity. It is, however, quite open to doubt whether Wordsworth himself was fully cognisant of the truth he expressed; the words that were put into his mouth carry a significance and a symbolism considerably beyond what his mind seemed to have received and understood. The passage may be taken as one more illustration of Matthew Arnold's characterisation of Wordsworth's genius at its best, it is then Nature herself that takes up the pen and writes for the poet.
The deep spiritual truth we are referring to is the Odyssey of the human soul. And it is also an occult phenomenon happening in the world of the inner reality. The Soul's own home is in God, is God; for it is part and parcel of the divine consciousness, it is essentially one in being and nature with the Supreme Reality. It is a nucleus, a centre of individuation, a projection in a particular name and form of the infinite and eternal Being and Consciousness and Bliss on this side of manifestation or evolution. Being in and with the Divine, merged within it, the Soul has at the same time, its own proper domain exclusively its own, and its own inalienable identity. It is the domain where the Soul enjoys its svarājya, its absolute freedom, dwelling in its native light and happiness
Page-53
and glory. But the story changes, the curve of its destiny takes a sudden new direction when it comes down upon earth, when it inhabits a mortal body. Within the body it no longer occupies its patent frontal position, but withdraws, behind a veil, as it were: it takes stand behind or within the depth of the heart, as spiritual practice experiences it. It hides there, as in a cavern, closed in now by the shades of the prison house which its own, body and life and mind built round it. Yet it is not wholly shut out or completely cut off; for from its secret home it exerts its influence, which gradually, slowly, very slowly indeed, filters through—bathes, clarifies, illumines the encasement, makes it transparent and docile in the end. For that is the Soul's ultimate function and fulfilment.
In the meanwhile, however, "our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." A physical incarnation clouds the soul-consciousness and involves loss of memory, amnesia. The soul's travail therefore in a physical body is precisely to regain the memory of what has been forgotten. Spiritual discipline means at bottom this remembering, and all culture too means nothing more than that—that is also what Plato thought when he said all knowledge, all true knowledge consists in reminiscence.
Man, in his terrestrial body, although fallen, because shrouded and diverted from his central being of light and fire, is yet not, as I have said, wholly forsaken and cut adrift. He always carries within him that radiant core through all the peregrinations of earthly sojourn. And though the frontal consciousness, the physical memory has no contact with it, there is a stream of inner consciousness that continues to maintain the link. That is the silver lining to the dark cloud that envelops and engulfs our normal life. And it is why at times, not often, there occurs a crack, a fissure in the crust of our earthly nature of ignorance and a tongue of flame leaps out—one or other perhaps of the seven sisters of which the Upanishad speaks. And then a mere man becomes a saint, a seer, a poet, a prophet, a hero. That is the flaming godhead whom we cherish within, Agni the leader of our progressive life, the great Sacrifice, the child whom we nourish, birth after birth, by all that we experience and do and achieve. To live normally and naturally in that fiery element—like the legendary Salamander—to mould ones
Page-54
consciousness and being, one's substance and constitution, even the entire cellular organisation into the radiant truth is the goal of man's highest aspiration, the ultimate end of Nature's evolutionary urge and the cycle of rebirth.
ORIGIN AND NATURE OF SUFFERING
Suffering there is, some say because the soul takes delight in it: if there was not the soul's delight behind, there would not be any suffering at all. There are still two other positions with regard to suffering which we do not deal with in the present context, namely, (1) that it does not exist at all, the absolute Ananda of the Brahman being the sole reality, suffering, along with the manifested world of which it is a part, is illusion pure and simple, (2) that suffering exists, but it comes not from the soul or God but from the Anti-divine; it is at the most tolerated by God and He uses it as best as He can for His purpose. That, however, is not our subject here. We ask then what delight can the soul take when the body is suffering, say from cancer. If it is delight, it must be a perverse variety. Is it not whole effort of mankind to get rid of pain and suffering, make of our life and of the world if possible, a visible play of pure and undefiled Ananda?
On the other hand we do find that suffering, that is not always mere suffering, it can be turned into a thing of joy; it is a fact proven in the fives of many a martyr and many a saint. Many indeed are those who have not only borne suffering passively but have welcomed it and courted it with happiness and delight. If it is said it is a perverse kind of pleasure, and if one wishes to hang it by calling it masochism, well, we do not solve the problem in that way, we seek to hide it behind a big word, it is at the most a point of view. What agrees with one's temperament (or prejudices) one calls natural and what one does not like appears to him perverse. Another person may have different temperament and accordingly a different vocabulary.
An ascetic chastising himself with all kinds of rigours, a patriot immolating himself relentlessly at the altar of his motherland, a satyāgrahī fasting to death does not merely suffer but takes delight
Page-55
in suffering. He does so because he holds that there is something greater than this preoccupation of avoiding pain and suffering, than this ordinary round of a life made of the warp and wool of enjoyment and disappointment. There is a greater delight that transcends these common vital norms, the dualities of the ordinary life. In the case of the ascetic, the martyr, the patriot, the delight is in an ideal, moral, religious or social. All that can" be conceded here is that the suffering voluntarily courted does not cease to be suffering, is not itself transmuted into or felt as delight but that it is supressed or dominated by the other feeling and consciousness.
True, but even this is an intermediate state. For there is another in which suffering is not merely suppressed but sublimated, wholly transmuted: there is then nothing else but delight, pure and entire. That is the soul state, the state of permanent dwelling in the Spirit. Now we come back to the question why or how does the soul, being all delight, become in life the very opposite of its essential nature, a thing of misery, why does the spirit descend or condescend to take the form of matter: it is an old-world and eternal problem that has been asked and faced and answered in various ways through the ages.
Here is, briefly, how we view the question. The soul accepts a mortal life of pain and suffering, welcomes an apparent denial of its essential nature for two reasons: (1) to grow and increase in consciousness through such experiences — pain and suffering being one variety of the fuel that tends the Fire that is our soul, and (2) to transfer its inalienable purity into Matter, by its secret pressure and influence, gradually transform earthly life into a movement of its own divine state, the state of inviolable Bliss.
All experiences, all contacts with the forms and forces of life and Matter act indeed as fuel to the flame of the soul's consciousness, whether they are good, bad or indifferent, according to some outward view or standard. And in response to the nature and degree of the growth and increase demanded, does the soul choose its fuel, its external mode of life and surrounding. If suffering and misery help to kindle and increase the flame, the soul has no jugupsā, repulsion for them. Indeed it accepts the forms of misery in order to to cure them, transform them, to bring out of them their original
Page-56
norms of beauty and bliss of which they are a degradation and an aberration.
THE SPIRIT OF TAPASYA
Tapasya (Asceticism) is usually understood to mean the capacity to undergo physical discomfort and suffering. We are familiar with various types of Tapasya: sitting in summer with blazing fires all around and the fiery noonday sun overhead (Panchagnivrata); exposing one's bare limbs to the cold biting blasts among the eternal snows, lying down on a bed of sharp nails, betaking oneself to sackcloth and ashes, fasting even to the point of death: there is no end to the variety of ways and means which man's ingenuity has invented to torture himself. Somehow the feeling has grown among spiritual, religious and even moral aspirants as well that the body is the devil, that is to be curbed and controlled with bit and bridle and whip. Indeed the popular view measures the greatness of a saint by the amount of his physical privations.
One seems not to know that the devil cannot be so easily checkmated or beguiled. For it is indeed easy for the body to take punishment, to submit to all kinds of rigours, yet feel as if it is making ample amends and atonement in that way rather than really give up its aborginal instincts and impulses. Often one deceives oneself, succeeds in hiding, in secretly preserving one's unsaintliness behind a smokescreen of the utmost physical Tapasya.
Real Tapasya, however, is not in relation to the body and its comforts and discomforts, it is in relation to the inner being, the consciousness in reacting to the downward pull of the ordinary consciousness, turning and attuning it to the rhythm of higher levels. To oppose the force of gravitation, to move ceaselessly towards purer and luminous heights of being and consciousness, that is Tapasya, Askesis, true asceticism. Virgil the great poet of a diviner order in human life, expressed the idea most beautifully and aptly in those well-known lines, one of the characteristic passages showing his genius at its best:
......Superasque evadere ad auras
Hoc opas, hic labor est—
Page-57
To move out into the higher spaces—this is work, here is labour. Heroism consists in this untiring march upward to more and more rarefied heights. That means the growth of consciousness, its uplifting and expansion, freeing it from the limitations of the ignorant egoistic movement, pressing it forward to the domains of higher illuminations, towards spiritual consciousness and soul-knowledge, towards communion with the Divine, the cosmic and transcendent reality. That is the real work and labour. Bodily suffering is nothing: it is neither a sign nor a test of the ardours of consciousness thus seeking to uplift itself. Indeed, Tapas, the word from which Tapasya is derived, means energy of consciousness, and Tapasya is the exercise, the utilisation of that energy for the ascent and expansion of the consciousness. It is this inner athleticism that is the thing needful, not its vain physical simulcrum—not the one which is commonly worshipped.
IS IGNORANCE AN EXCUSE?
Ignorance is no excuse before the Law. A good citizen is expected to know all the civic laws; whether he actually knows or not does not matter, but if he infringes any, he has to pay the penalty. In life too the same principle holds good. The body remains healthy so long as it obeys the natural laws of health: directly it breaks a law, although it does not do so willingly or consciously, it opens itself to an attack of illness. In the moral domain too, in inner consciousness, generally speaking, there exist unwritten laws—laws of harmony, progress and welfare—which one has to obey, otherwise the result is frustration.
In our kindliness or weakness or ignorance we are apt to excuse a person if he pleads ignorance. We believe the unfortunate erring individual would have done the right thing had he known what it was, But this seems to be a poor study of character and a doubtful statement of fact. It does not suffice, for example, to plead that the intention was good, although the path chosen happen to be faulty because there was not the required amount of knowledge or understanding. Well, we know the way to hell is also paved with good intentions. For the secret of the matter is this: if the intention belongs to the inmost consciousness, if it is the percetption of the soul, then only it cannot lead you astray, at least it will warn you if you turn to the wrong path;
Page-58
but if the intention is mostly cerebral or emotional, then you are likely to take the wrong line, unless that intention is strongly supported by a very clear knowledge and understanding of the forces at play. What we generally call ignorance, especially in the moral and spiritual world, is the shadow or veil cast upon your inner consciousness, your soul perception; with that veil, even if you hold to your ideal mentally with firmness and strive with all your will and nerve taut, you are all the same cut away from the living source and guidance and then whatever you do may lead nowhere or may lead exactly in the wrong track. It is this ignorance, this innocent looking Maya, that waylays your being, whispers to your weaknesses—pride, vanity, ambition, love of power or show—tempts you with wrong inspirations and suggestions; but holding to the purity of your intentions, alone, you do not even perceive how you drift away slowly from the very object of your intentions.
In life it is not understanding or knowledge—knowledge of facts and figures, of pros and cons—that saves: for it is impossible for anyone to command all the data of this nature in order to arrive at a just and correct conclusion. What helps and saves is the instinct, the flair, a spontaneous and immediate perception of what is to be done and what is not to be done. And this is not an impossible or even a rare thing. It means only a certain straightness, sincerity, humility and clarity in the inner consciousness. Life's choices are made by the drive of the soul, not by mental ideas and impulses: and it all depends upon what kind of soul one has.
Page-59