Intellectual sympathy can only draw together, the sympathy of the heart can alone unite.
SRI AUROBINDO
| Vol. XXIX. No. 4 |
November 1972 |
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.
EDITORIAL
A PROGRAMME FOR THE SECOND CENTURY
OF THE
DIVINE MANIFESTATION
IT is Integration. I am using a much used, much abused word but it happens to be the word. We have reached a status of consciousness within as distinct units, individual or collective: our effort should now be to co-ordinate, to harmonise the different and differing units or separate elements into a well-knit single whole. That means, the egocentrism that are still left and active are to be exorcised, purified the separative knot has to be dissolved and the true centre of unity to be found the psychic divine centre.
First each element in the individual, each level of his being must find its centre, its soul or psychic base — and then only a co-ordination of all would be possible. Next through the psychic level the general level of the being and consciousness, that is to say, its expression and its field of action should be lifted and raised to a higher potency of poise — the higher the better — towards the higher mind,
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towards the over mental — and beyond.
The Divine Presence in the heart — the central psychic — should not only be felt constantly there in the heart but in all other parts or levels of the being: it must create or awake its figure or norm everywhere so that it can inspire and control directly all activities and movements in a global and total gesture. It has to be an integral dynamic Presence, that is the way of uplifting the poise of the ādhāra, its global existence. The process is first to deepen the Presence, that is from the surface to dive into the inner realm and then float up again into a wider and higher expanse, deeper and deeper means truer and truer truth - nearer the pure fundamental reality - the Eternal and Infinite, the supreme Spirit, the bedrock of existence. Higher and higher means formulations of the Reality in a gradually evolving expansion up the ladders of the physical, the vital, the mental consciousness and towards the higher mental and over mental, indeed towards the Supramental.
(2)
It is not sufficient that the central psychic being comes forward and exercises what is at most a general influence on the other limbs of the being. It should enter into its counter-parts or counter-points — the inherent psychic centres of each part and parcel and make them directly active. The central psychic — self — has its delegated selves everywhere in the global being. Indeed each particle of the being must itself be a psychic or psychicised particle: a consciousness-photon. There is thus a vital photon, a mental photon, a photon of the physical consciousness even as the material photon. And all these in their hierarchic harmonious arrangement shall constitute the global system of the new person.
Even so, there is to be a transmutation of the environment also: the outer objects and circumstances and happenings will be a field — an Einsteinian field — of modulations, pulsations, tensions, of these consciousness-particles of the psychic.
An uplift of consciousness is a natural consequence of the psychic's aspiration. The psychic has the power to call down the rain of higher existence, a wider law of being — higher means, as I have said,
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higher than the highest mental yet achieved by man normally and generally — stepping by the intermediary gradations towards the Supermind.
This, on the whole, is the inherent activity of the inferior or subordinate nature in its aspiration to move upward and transform itself. This activity in us all, it must be noted, is supported, initiated and inspired by the self-action of the higher nature, the descent of the above-mental regions.
(3)
The first definitive and distinctive higher status is that of the Overmind. Its character is a global and entire being and consciousness, a cosmic and universal all-inclusive existence. Each being attains its self and each self lives in every other self and all selves together and at the same time five in each self. The diversities are not abolished — as in the unitary consciousness and being of the absolute Existence, Brahman — variations are maintained as the multiple aspects or modalities of the same single infinite eternal power.
I am now speaking here of sāmrājya-siddhi, the
realisation of the world-empire, the spiritual or Divine Empire. First of course
there is, as the basis of the sāmrājya, the svarājya, the
kingdom or reign of the individual's own self. In effect, the world-empire or
the imperial reign of the Spirit has three gradations. At the outset each
element, that is, each individual human being (we limit ourselves to the human
collectivity at present) has to attain soarājya, self-rule, a perfectly
homogeneous integral spiritual whole in himself: then all such individuals
should achieve integrality with one another. Each lives in and through every
other and all together live in everyone. The whole forms an indissoluble
integral and unitary life. This collective integration means all individuals
have one mind, one vital being, even one physical consciousness, not of course
one material body but still a feeling of the kind. One mind or one vital or one
physical consciousness does not mean everyone has the same identical formations
and movements in these respective regions, but all possess substantially the
same stuff belonging to a self-same unit. A comparison or analogy may explain
and illustrate the point. For
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example, the different parts of a human body form one integrated texture: they are all bound up, united although not fused together, in an inextricable, "inexorable" unity. Action in one part creates a reaction, re-echoes or re-doubles in every other part: they all rise up like one man as it is popularly said, at a single touch. Different in form, different in function, they are identical in their substantial composition, in their fundamental stuff - the organic plasma; even so, the minds of all, their vital movements, their physical movements too, however different and diverse, contrary or contradictory, are in their own respective domains part and particles of the one and the same substance and all together contribute to form, to create a symphony, a grand Beethovensque orchestra.
The next grade of integration in the Divine world-empire comes when not only individuals but groups and collectivities find and establish their own selves — each its svarājya, and all combined in a yet larger and greater organisation: combined and unified they act in a unified and homogeneous living as individuals do in the world aggregate. Although the individual is the basic reality, aggregations and collectivities also are realities, even spiritual .realities in the progressive un fold ment of the cosmic spirit.
(4)
Such a consummation, so complex in composition, so global in scope would be possible only when the above-mental or the over-mental world-consciousness descends into the mental and lower hemisphere and takes possession of it and becomes active and dynamic there. The movement upward, the evolutionary force in nature inclusive of the human aspiration is the spearhead to break through the solid frontier wall of ignorance and inferior consciousness; the luminous point that breaks through is, as I have said, the soul-power, the psychic. That creates the rift in the dense covering through which can pour down the rains and streams of the universal consciousness with its purificatory ablution of the lower nature and consciousness. But this again becomes not only possible but inevitable when this new consciousness contacts openly and directly its master and overlord; the supreme Supramental Consciousness; which is the true
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reality behind pressing down always upon the lower creation, rejecting whatever has to be thrown out, sifting and screening the mixture, sublimating, subsuming all that has to be retained within itself.
The problem, the fundamental problem is not merely to extract the Truth out of its covering of falsehood—in the image of the Upanishads, to pull the inner stem out of its sheath. It is not sufficient to liberate the spirit from the obscuring matter but to instal the spirit in the body of matter and transfigure it into the substance of the Spirit, build it in its own image. It is not sufficient to arrive at the One without the second, the Unitary Unit, but to realise the Unit in its most concrete multiplicity.
To spiritualise Matter does not mean dematerialising Matter! It means rather re-materialising the Spirit. And that is the task of the Supermind and its intermediate and immediate helpers—agents and emissaries—the Overmind and Above-mind.
(5)
The Supermind is of course the last and ultimate or otherwise the first and original support and inspiration of all other levels of being and living. Apart from this fundamental, this one source of sustenance, each intermediary level depends directly and leans upon the one that lies just above it, over-arches it as it were. Thus speaking of the major intermediaries, the Overmind is under the direct control and guidance of the over-arching Supermind. And Overmind itself over-arches, broods over the mind and from behind guides and controls it. The Mind has evolved primarily because of the pressure of the Overmind standing immediately above it in the hierarchy of the grades of existence. And because of this constant ruling presence of the Overmind, the mind in man is a progressive entity unveiling powers lent or delegated to it, sent down into it from the Overmind. The animal, on the contrary, is not a progressive being like man, for the Overmind does not reach it. The animal is not in contact with the Overmind. It is in contact, a somewhat precarious contact, with the Mind. Something of the Mental has made an inroad into him, into his vital texture. It is to be noted that the mind in the animal is of a different kind from the human mind: it is only
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in the domesticated animals, the animals living in the neighbour hood of man, having contact with him, that something of the human mind percolates or is imbibed. As I have said, the human mind has developed and is developing fast, specially in recent years, to an extraordinary degree, in the domain of physical science leading to discoveries that appear so subtle and distant, far off as almost to be out of reach of his normal means of experience. Discoveries of other kinds, hints and intimations with regard to other forms and fields of knowledge and experience are explained most logically and adequately by the fact of an interruption or intervention of another type of consciousness into the present constitution of the human mind. We are referring to the influence of the Overmind, gradually becoming more and more explicit, extensive and effective, the immediately directing power, the guide of the new age. And this naturally because of the operative presence, in and through the Overmind, of the Supramental upon earth and in earth.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
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[Mandate IV, 6]
[Among Sri Aurobindo's Notes on Vedic Hymns is found this valuable exercise of a translation of this Hymn according to Sayana followed by a rendering of his own. (Ed) ]
1. SAYANA: High, very high for us stand, O summoner (or, performer of offering), O Agni, a great sacrificer in the sacrifice (in which the gods are extended).
SRI AUROBINDO: High, yea, very high, stand, O Flame, O offering priest of the journeying sacrifice, be very mighty for sacrifice in the forming of the gods. For thou comets over every thought and thou carriest on its way the thinking mind of the ordered of the work.
2. SAYANA: The intelligent offering priest, the enrapturing Agni of great knowledge is settled among the peoples (the priests) in (for) the sacrifices; he resorts upward to his lustre like the sun; like a pillar he supports his smoke above the heaven.
SRI AUROBINDO: The offering priest inspired of mind has taken his seat in the peoples, Agni, the rapturous, the wise thinker in the gettings of knowledge; he has risen high into light like the all-creating sun; like a pillar he holds up his smoke against the heavens.
(The joy, wisdom, knowledge of Agni in men's gettings of knowledge, he is a high creator of knowledge like the sun; he supports the heavens with his smoke).
3. SAYANA: The (ghee-giving) flame (or ladle?) controlled and very swift (or very old) is wealthy (i.e. full of ghee); he (Agni or the adhvaryu) becomes or goes (round from left) to right; widening the sacrifice; and also the new born post becomes high; approaching, very bright, the axe (?) goes to the animals (or the post excellent etc. and well placed goes to the animals.)
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SRI AUROBINDO: The clear-shining flame of him is reined and swift and opulent (or, delightful), he on this right hand circling widens the extension of the gods ; high like a post of sacrifice, new born, moving, firm on his base and bright he brings the (seeing) herds.
4. SRI AUROBINDO: The altar spread, the fire kindled, the leader of sacrifice pleasing the gods stands high; the offering priest ancient, greatening (the offering), goes like a herdsman thrice round (the cattle).
5. SAYANA: Limited in motion he goes round himself (in his own form), the of freer Agni enrapturing, sweet-voiced, having sacrifice; his lustrous run forded (or like horses); all beings fear when he blazes.
SRI AUROBINDO: He encompasses with himself in his measured motion, the Flame, the offering priest, rapturous, honey-worded, master of truth; his lustres run like horses; all the worlds are in awe when he blazes forth.
6. SAYANA: O fair-flaming Agni, the delightful, predicable (or auspicious) image of thee terrible, pervading on every side, is full-seen, because they (the nights) do not stop thee with darkness nor the destroyers put (create) sin in thy body.
SRI AUROBINDO: O thou Flame of great force (or, fire of force), though thou art terrible as thou goest abroad over the regions, happy and beautiful is the vision of thee; for the nights envelop thee not with darkness nor have the destroyers cast sin into thy body.
7. SAYANA: Of whom, father (of rain), his giving (or, lustre) is not stopped (by anybody); and in whose sending the father and mother (heaven and earth) do not quickly prevail, the purifier like a well-pleased friend shines among the peoples of Manu.
SRI AUROBINDO: The gettings of this begetter of things (or, the light of this begetter and getter of things) cannot be shut in, nor the Father and Mother when he urges. Then shines the purifying flame as the friend, well-based, in the human peoples.
8. SAYANA: Whom the ten sisters coming together (the fingers),
bore, Agni, among the peoples of Manu, like women, Worker
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at dawn, the eater (of offerings), bright, four-faced, like a sharp axe (killing the Rakshasas).
Sri Aurobindo: Twice five sisters who dwell together gave birth to this flame in the human peoples; they like women(?) gave birth to the brighter eater who awakes with dawn, whose face is beauty, he is like a keen axe.
9. SAYANA : These horses of thine, Agni, streaming wonder, red, strength moving, well-going, shining young (or, runners well-formed and beautiful) are called to the sacrifice.
Sri Aurobindo: These bright steeds of thine, O Flame, who streams clear brightness (ghrita), and are red and straight and fair of motion, shining potent stallions, are called in their power to the extending of the godheads.
10. SAYANA: Those rays of thine, overcoming, moving, bright, to be served, go like horses to their goal; they are great sounding like the Maruts host.
Sri Aurobindo: Those illuminings of thee, O Flame, they overpower, they travel, they are keen in brightness, they are active, they move like eagles to the goal, they are many voiced like the host of the Life-gods.
11.SAYANA: O thou who art being kindled, for thee the praise is made; One (the hota) speaks the praise, one (the yajamana) sacrifices; give (wealth): Men desiring (wealth) serve worshipping Agni the caller of the gods speak able (praisable) of man. Sri Aurobindo: The soul-thought is formed, O kindling Flame, for thee; for thee one speaks the word and sacrifices; ordain. Men, the desirers, take refuge in the flame, the priest of sacrifice, with obeissance to the expresser of the human being.
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IT is true that I have by the practice of Yoga attained to the higher spiritual consciousness which comes by Yoga, and this carries with it a certain power. Especially there is the power to communicate to those who are ready or to help them towards that spiritual state which, in its perfection, is a condition of unalterable inner calm, strength and felicity. But this spiritual peace and joy is something quite different from mental peace and happiness. And it cannot be reached without a spiritual discipline.
I do not know whether this has been rightly explained to your Highness. I may say briefly that there are two states of consciousness in either of which one can live. One is a higher consciousness which stands above the play of life and governs it; this is variously called the Self, the Spirit or the Divine. The other is the normal consciousness in which men live; it is something quite superficial, an instrument of the Spirit for the play of life. Those who live and act in the normal consciousness are governed entirely by the common movements of the mind and are naturally subject to grief and joy and anxiety and desire or to everything else that makes up the ordinary stuff of life. Mental quiet and happiness they can get, but it can never be permanent or secure. But the spiritual consciousness is all light, peace, power and bliss. If one can live entirely in it, there is no question; these things become naturally and securely his. But even if he can live partly in it or keep himself constantly open to it, he receives enough of this spiritual light and peace and strength and happiness to carry him securely through all the shocks of life. What one gains by opening to this spiritual consciousness, depends on what one seeks from it; if it is peace, one gets peace; if it is light or knowledge, one lives in a great light and receives a knowledge deeper and truer than any the normal mind of man can acquire; if it is strength or power, he gets a spiritual strength for the inner life or Yogic power to govern the outer work and action; if it is happiness, he enters into a beatitude far greater than any joy or happiness that the ordinary human life can give.
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There are many ways of opening to this Divine consciousness or entering into it. My way which I show to others by a constant practice is to go inward into oneself, to open by aspiration to the Divine and once one is conscious of it and its action, to give oneself to It entirely. This self-giving means not to ask for anything but the constant contact or union with the Divine consciousness, to aspire for its peace, power, light and felicity, but to ask nothing else and in life and action to be its instrument only for whatever work it gives one to do in the world. If one can once open and feel the Divine Force, the Power of the Spirit working in the mind and heart and body, the rest is a matter of remaining faithful to It, calling for it always, allowing it to do its work when it comes and rejecting every other and inferior Force that belongs to the lower consciousness and the lower nature.
I have written so much in order to explain my position and the nature of my Yogic power. I do not usually ask anyone to practise this Yoga, because it is possible only for those who have from the beginning or who develop a strong call to it; others cannot go through it all to the end. Nor do I often go out of my way to help those who are merely in need of some kind of quietude of external nature though I do not refuse to do it in certain cases. My aim is to create a centre of spiritual life which shall serve as a means of bringing down the higher consciousness and making it a power not merely for 'salvation' but for a divine life upon earth. It is with this object -that I have withdrawn from public life and founded this Ashram in Pondicherry (so called for want of a better word, for it is not an Ashram of Sannyasins, but of those who want to leave all else and prepare for this rule). But at the same time I have a small number of disciples all over India who live in their families and receive spiritual help from me even at a distance.
This is all I can answer to your Highness at present. It is for you to decide1 whether what you seek has anything to do with what I have explained in this letter.
1 Alternative words: see for yourself
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SRI AUROBINDO AND THE BHAGAVAD GITA
II. AVATAR AND VIBHUTI
THE most important fact of world history is the Avatar, the in-carnation of God. The fact is recurrent and compelling; it is the impetus, the light and power brought by the Avatar that carries the world through its evolutionary development, the unfolding of its involved splendours. A full understanding of the divine Incarnation is not possible to mankind, but a sincere and growing attempt to understand it is indispensable, for one who would know truly the world and his own place within it, his true nature and the purpose and meaning of all natures, all Nature and all existence.
The Avatar is not just the god-man in a lesser sense, the man who has realized something of divine Truth within himself. He is more than a Knower of Brahman, who has gained release from the lower processes and entanglements; more than the raptured devotee who closes the world out in the glories of the name of God. He is more than the Jivanmukta, the "free-while having", who remains in the world for a time but is not of it; and more than the most consummate Yogin of any kind, who has established some genuine spirituality or soul-radiance within his nature. The Avatar is not the human being risen to God: he is God Himself, come down to assume the human nature for some great purpose; a purpose always the most intimate and urgent, for the growth of mankind and the world.
It is the full human nature he puts on, and not just the physical body, the most outward form; and from this one can see that the term "incarnation" is a crudity, a rough-and-ready makeshift that does not really express the truth of the matter. For a human birth is not just an "encasement in flesh", a soul entrapped in a body like a butterfly in a box or a bird in a cage, to await the time for its release and its flight in the heavenly skies and gardens. It is the mental and the vital nature, as well as the physical, that God must assume: the whole nature of the "three worlds" of the Ignorance; he assumes the evolving soul-nature that sustains these worlds and co-ordinates them, and by his
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presence eventually helps it to come forward and take the lead, drawing men God ward. In the Avatar God becomes a struggling, evolving being, and yet remains God, supreme beyond. Because he puts on the full human nature he must share the human sufferings and difficulties: yet, remaining God, he can resolve them, overcome them, and show the way, giving light and power to his devotees who would follow. In a sense he is the Son of God, come to demonstrate the divine Son ship of every man, and help to its full realization, where it passes to real identity of nature. Because the creation, the manifestation is his own and his very substance, by perpetually recurring, appearing and reappearing, returning always in fuller measure he demonstrates in the fullest and most radically progressive terms his kinship, his Fatherhood and Son ship, his identity: saving, redeeming, and bringing to the apotheosis of Light.
Christianity of course has seen a part of this, and has made the Incarnation its cardinal doctrine. But because it has made it more a doctrine
than a living truth, it has narrowed and to a large extent falsified it. For the
Divine will not be restricted to one appearance and birth in the nature of
mankind, one time and one place. The Avatar indeed does not come so much to
found a new religion as to quicken the divine seeds in human nature. To say this
is not to "deny Christ"; but it is to say that the Christ-manifestation must be
put into perspective. Sri Aurobindo surely respected Jesus or the Christ, and
accepted him as a genuine Avatar of divine Love. The Christ gave a great
impetus, and a great work has grown around it, a great cultural and civilizing
movement in the world, in which even some spirituality has come through the
doctrinaire barriers. But even if this work had been fully Christian it would
have been partial and limited; and now the time for wholly new and greater
things is at hand. The time indeed of doctrinaire and organized religion is over
and done with; it may linger, but its only real efficacy will be in quickening
and help-, ing to cultivate the divine seeds, in helping men to a true spiritual
orientation until they can grow out of creed and dogma, into the living and
infinitely flexible and varied Truth, that is One beyond all possible grasp or
construction of the mind. As God has put on human nature, so humanity must put
on divine nature, and
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Our life is a paradox with God for key.1
Paradoxes are made by the mind, its too rigid approach to things; growing beyond the mind, one lives not in paradoxes and psychological confusion and pain, but in the clarity, bliss and glory of the many that are One, the One that is manifold. For this it is not enough to follow one dispensation or path by creed, the letter of a book or even the spirit of it according to the mind's fumbling and too self-sure ineptness. And beyond this, the line of the Avatars is progressive, and the latest is always the great one; when he comes, the old ways are changed. The "law" may be fulfilled, rather than abrogated; but then it will be found to be a greater and larger law than men had previously been able to understand.
This is not a "cut-and-dried" thing, however, and hitherto different peoples have received different dispensations, with teaching and guidance suited to their natures and stages of development. The Buddha, an Avatar of Peace and Compassion, converted most of Asia, as later the Christ converted Europe; but the later appearance of the Christ does not mean that Christianity has received a divine mission to convert the entire world: nor is there anything in Christianity or divine Wisdom that means that those Buddhists or other "heathen" (the great majority) who have refused to become Christian have contumaciously turned and given themselves to the darkness. Historically Buddhism has been for people more capable of spirituality, Christianity for people relatively barbarous. They have done their work, each in its proper time and sphere of action, and the influences yet remain. That Christianity, for all its emphasis on one historical moment, can hardly afford, in its obtuse intellectualization, to take a fully historical view and thus admit the necessity for the eventual superseding of itself, is only a Christian problem, made by an unfortunately unspiritual approach to things, and has little meaning for the world at large. The world must grow beyond any particular formulation, and even any particular inspiration, however purely received and recorded, from a higher source than humanity. And now there is an increasing consciousness that the world is one world,
1 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book I, Canto IV.
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and a greater dispensation, for all mankind, is at hand.
In Sri Aurobindo's view — a view that must at once recommend itself to a rational man, even without Sri Aurobindo's sanction — the traditional line of the Avatars of Vishnu is an evolutionary development. We have the fish, the amphibian, the higher animalistic and the lower or semi-human developments, until at last we have the full, the truly human status blooming in Ramachandra. From the time of the writing of the Ramayana to this day, Rama and Sita have been the Indian ideal of manhood and womanhood. They represent the triumph of mentality, high-mindedness and the control of the mind over the lower nature; the rule of dharma, an organized way of life with ethical standards, that can hold a truly human society together. Then came the Krishna of the Mahabharata, who troubled, bewildered and offended so many in his time, and has not ceased to bewilder, trouble and even offend: for he came to establish something higher than human morality or ethical fervor, and the shaky mental grasp of things. To the moral man he is an immoral monster; it is to the beginning spiritual man that he appeals. He came to open the way to the spiritual being, the true Self.
It is not that there was no spiritual knowledge or teaching before the advent of Krishna. What the Avatar opens is a larger prospect, and a greater possibility of development among mankind at large. And because men are never equal except in divine essence and are never all on the same level of development, many continue to draw primarily from the older sources, rather than the newer. Thus, though in a sense Rama has been superseded, in a sense he continues his work: for noble ideals of manhood and womanhood remain necessary, and a problematical moral rule or ethical foundation is still the best that much of mankind can rise to. But a larger way has been opened. There is an esoteric Ramayana, for the few, giving Rama a higher spiritual status and his story a higher meaning; but in the Mahabharata is a still higher meaning brought forth or at least adumbrated, and given freely to all readers or hearers. It is the vanguard, the elite of humanity that responds first to the new dispensation, and thus helps to lead the world; but God descends to raise man to Himself, and to assure that sooner or later the whole race may share in a truly divine manifestation, development and life.
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The two later Avatars outside the traditional series, the Buddha and the Christ, came to lead mankind to a spiritual rebirth; that is, to lead that portion of mankind that could or would follow them. They did not do so more than Krishna; rather less so; but they worked in different terms. The Buddha, primarily mental, brought a release into Nirvana and a vision of the immaculate divine purity of existence; the Christ, more devotional and heart-centered, brought a movement of love for God and his creatures (though in historical Christianity most of his creatures have been excluded, the influence of St. Francis of Assisi notwithstanding). Krishna includes both Nirvana and Love, and raises them to the highest spiritual mentality; but still the Buddha and the Christ are Avatars, and have done a necessary and a great work in the world. These two in fact were not so much for India, the spiritual leader and fountainhead, as for the great world outside. The Christ indeed was outside of India altogether; the Buddha did his largest work outside of India, and was eventually absorbed (though perhaps with some loss of richness and flexibility) by the continuing tradition of his country.1 Of still later figures, Chaitanya may be accepted as a partial and intermittent Avatar of divine Love, a worshipper of the other Krishna, the Krishna of Vrindavun, come to raise devotional religion to one of its highest summits; and Ramakrishna may be accepted as at least a partial Avatar working toward the great synthesis that has been perfected by Sri Aurobindo.
In a sense, every man is a divine "incarnation": for the Divine is present in all beings. The world, the manifestation is divine splendour, and the concentrated out flowing of that splendour is the Vibhuti. All superior things are the Vibhuti, each leading thing in its grade. They bring the creation closer to its full divinity, they help in the upward and onward movement; they are concentrations of power and light, they are like magnets drawing the soul. Among men the great geniuses, the leaders in art and literature, religion and culture, the leaders in politics and war who help to establish new and larger developments, the great thinkers and the supreme achievers
1 Sri Aurobindo said that the new age should bring a fuller understanding of Buddhism, or at least a "recovered sense of its meaning"; but as yet there is small sign of this development. (Essays on the Gita, 1,1.)
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of mankind in every sphere, whether of Knowledge, Power, Love or Beauty—men or beings in human form like Alexander the Great, Bach or Empedocles, Leonardo da Vinci or Napoleon, Vyasa and Dante, Homer and Shakespeare—all heroic men, in the sense in which Carlyle used the term—a Mohammed, a Bodhidharma, a Joan of Arc, a Mirabai—all very great men or figures, who shine over others with the compelling divine splendour, are Vibhutis. Arjuna, the great warrior, is a Vibhuti; and the Avatar himself is the Vibhuti, and much more.
And so Arjuna, a Vibhuti of the Divine, stands in the very presence of the Divine Himself, the Krishna of Kurukshetra. But he does not recognize the fact, for it is too much for his yet human consciousness. He accepts Krishna for what he is but the full meaning remains far from his awareness and further from his comprehension. The vastness overwhelms him, and he does not know that the God who is the Preserver is the very same as the God who is the Destroyer: he destroys to preserve, and to carry on the divine venture and process of the world. It is a divine action and not a human that Krishna has come for, and he will strengthen Arjuna to participate in the action, and lead him by his ego and his human nature to his true self that is non-egoistic and spiritual, his true nature that is divine.
In Arjuna the lower nature recoils and despairs, in weakness, confusion and pain: but also it aspires, and the disciple would see the truth, ascend to a higher being, comprehend his teacher, friend and companion, and know how to live and what to do. Krishna, the Avatar, the descent of God, the transgressor of the old dharma for a new fulfilment, the bringer of a greater light to the earth, is his charioteer, his servant: this chariot of the body, vitality and mind indeed is driven by the Lord within and above, not known to the egoistic man. It is by turning and becoming himself the servant that the man grows, to his divine nature. The true aspiring man looks up, to the god-in-mankind: the god comes down, to raise the man to his divine being. Arjuna is told, shown, brought to understand the illusory character of the world as he has seen it, with all his desires and his mental constructions put upon it; more knowledge is imparted to him than he can grasp at once, but he arises firm, knowing that it is possible at once to do a great and necessary work in the world, and
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remain calm above it. He will slay, and not with the egoism even of the high and moral mind. He will take refuge in the Lord, and conquer, doing the work required, adhering to the greater dharma that is the truth of his growing nature and his way of action.
To his Vibhuti the Lord, the Blessed One, sings his song of enlightenment. The lower nature is bound in the Ignorance and moved by the universal forces, like a pot on a wheel, or a man grown dizzy from ceaseless revolving. His growth must be out of his dizziness and his character of clay. The divine guide and lord within must work heavily veiled, until the man is ready. For the making of the true vessel and temple of divinity the co-operation of the human nature is necessary: of the stable and steady man, turned back from the whirling rim toward the hub, the Source. The fuller, more willing and more enlightened the co-operation, the swifter and more certain and sure the task may be, and the completion. The knowledge of humanity is not true knowledge, for the senses and the mind are not sufficient; one must come to higher knowledge in a spiritual awakening, and see that the lower terms are not binding and do not hold. The field of Nature is to be known and mastered, and worked for a greater flowering in the true knowledge and yield of life. One must know that truly he is not bound, he is free, and lives in Light forever. He is to realize this light by mental discrimination, by work, by meditation; he is to turn himself fully to the Lord in adoration, when the fullest return shall surely come. He is to know that one can be injured only by oneself, and that within oneself is one's salvation. It is only rank egoism and subjection to the hold of blind darkness that makes one think that his own overt action is the fundamental thing, and that the fate of the world depends upon it. These warriors have been slain already by the Lord: Arjuna's task is to help carry out the divine decree and action on the earthly plane. The Lord who at once destroys and saves, who is all harshness and all Love, assures his champion that the destruction of the outward form is not the death of the soul that lives forever taking newer forms in a ceaseless progress, growth upward in the divine progression. The purpose, process and meaning of all this is divine, and the human must serve and follow. Arjuna arises, bow in hand, and they drive forward to the clash. The blare of conchs is the signal of the ending of
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a world, which is a new world born.
The fact that the unaccountable Krishna serves as Arjuna's charioteer is itself an affront to the adherents of the old dharma. Even though he has been made a king, Kama, one of the greatest warriors on the other side, has been scorned in public assembly because his father (his putative father) is a charioteer. But though Kama is the son of the very Sun, and half-brother to Arjuna himself, Arjuna must slay him. (That he does not know of the relationship is a mitigation of his sufferings in this tremendous crisis. That Kama does know it before the decisive battle is a part of his own difficult and not inglorious destiny). This is a battle of the universe, in which the strength and purpose of the more than universal Lord prevails. After the battle, that has lasted for eighteen days and nearly destroyed the entire Kshatriya class, Krishna is confronted by the old queen, Gandhari: she sees his responsibility for it all, and un spiritually she blames him and hates him. She in fact dares to curse him: she says that he will cause the destruction of his own people (who have not joined in the war), and that he himself will die obscurely and ignobly. She has been a good woman, by the lights of the time, and her curse must bear fruit. So Krishna tells her: and also he informs her that he has known his death from his birth, that that very destruction of his people is his current task, and that she has made it easier for him. The human cannot follow the divine, cannot comprehend it, must be baffled by it. Only by an entire giving of oneself to divinity, thus fulfilling one's nature and the reason for one's existence, can one understand.
The work of the Avatar is not easy, it is not a radiant and unbroken divine progress and triumph. He is not just God come to inaugurate a new kingdom, as it were, by fiat, for in an evolutionary world this is not possible and would have no meaning. He is God come to spur the difficult, problematical and dangerous evolutionary advance, and give help to those who can or will receive it. And for this he is not just God, come down in his supernal nature: he is God-and-man, and is fully present in both characters. He must experience the sufferings of humanity, and is subject to the persecutions of a malignant self-importance, the unregenerate human nature with all its bad will, the darkness that does not comprehend the light. Humanity does not always welcome its saviors and helpers; it may not
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be willing to admit that it has any need for help or salvation. It resents his presence; it may feel "degraded" in being "dependent", or it may just hate anything greater than itself, or even different from itself. The fate of Jesus is the world's most prominent example of the persecution and suffering to which an Avatar may be subjected; most prominent because it was most external, and so most easily to be seen.
Hard is the world-redeemer's heavy task;
The world itself becomes his adversary,
His enemies are the beings he came to save.1
But in him the human is divine, and he cannot be defeated. His work goes on though it be not recognized. He is not degraded by the utmost of what humanity calls degradation, and though he may not suffer overtly and in the eyes of men he bears the whole cross and pressure of the world's degradation and ignorance within him, to resolve the difficulties and prepare the further advance.
His love has paved the mortal's road to
Heaven: He has given his life and light to balance here
The dark account of mortal ignorance.2
He bears the sufferings of humanity that he may bring it to its divine nature and remake the very world. He comes among us both for a great inner change and a great outward working, and not all the powers of ignorance and darkness can radically defeat him.
And now at hand is a greater Kurukshetra, and in this new age we have the greatest of the Avatars, Sri Aurobindo. Rather we have an unprecedented biune Avatar, Sri Aurobindo and the Divine Mother: the Lord and his Shakti have assumed human nature together to bring down the divine consciousness for the transformation of existence. Krishna the Anandamaya is more greatly at work than ever, from the divine Bliss directing the destiny of the world, the manifestation. We are now at the greatest evolutionary crisis in
1 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book VI, Canto II.
2 Ibid.
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history, the passage from development in the Ignorance to development in the Knowledge; the possibilities are larger now, more glorious and more universal than ever before; and what is required is the fullest will and most strenuous action of humanity, or at least the true elite of humanity, toward the Light and the Beatitude.
JESSE ROARKE
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EVERY one knows that the Mother is unique. It is difficult to find a parallel in history to such a combination of spiritual consciousness and occult Power in one person. It is, however, true that more are drawn to her attracted by this Power than by her spiritual, divine consciousness. Many have sought to benefit in a worldly way with the help of her all-conquering Force. Some have even approached her to teach them the occult science in which she has been a rare adept since her early years.
But the Mother has demurred. Not because she does not wish to part with the knowledge, but because of the dangers inherent in the pursuit of the Occult unless one first fulfills certain conditions. And what are these conditions, I asked.
There is of course the first requirement: one must have no fear. The occult worlds are full of forces and beings that are foreign to human type and a good many of them are dangerous. If one is afraid, they get the upper hand and the consequences are none-too-happy. Whatever the nature of the confrontation, one must not fear. But this can be possible only if one has an inborn courage that can face up to any situation—and that is very rare—or one has absolute trust in the Divine and arms himself with the Divine's protection. This means one is inwardly surrendered to the Divine without reserve. There should be no corner in oneself which is not so given, which does not fully share the faith in the Divine. Even a small part that hesitates or doubts is enough to open the door to disaster. One has to work out the surrender and establish the faith integrally.
These conditions apart, there is the question of relevance. The Mother tells everyone who seeks to practise occultism that one's ideal is spiritual realisation, then Occultism is, to say the least, out of place. Unless one first builds up the spiritual consciousness, it is dangerous to dabble in these matters. As soon as one enters into that field, the vital comes into play; the forces and movements of the occult sphere impinge upon this part that loves adventure and power and one enters the world of falsehood, however glamorous it
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may appear. And that is the end of the spiritual Quest.
Spiritual consciousness and living in that consciousness is the first business of the seeker. All else is secondary. If one is born with some gifts of the occult kind or these powers naturally manifest themselves in the course of one's development, it is best to yoke them to the psychic lead. And that implies purity of motive, sincerity in conforming to the demands of the soul, in a word wielding the occult knowledge and power with a consciousness that is spiritual.
So first to be spiritual, and only secondarily occult—if that be the divine Will.
M. P. PANDIT
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SRI AUROBINDO'S CONTRIBUTION TO PHILOSOPHY
II
SHANKAR AND SRI AUROBINDO*
THERE are three main problems of philosophy:
(1) What is the Reality behind the universe?
(2) Why the world appears out of it? In other words, what possibility is there in it for the manifestation of the world.
(3) What is the ultimate goal of man's life upon the earth?
After thinking and meditating a good deal, the Vedic seers discovered that there is One and only one Reality behind the universe. It is Brahman, Sachchidananda (Existence, Consciousness, Bliss). Everything and being, animate and inanimate, conscient and inconscient is nothing but its manifestation. Though this idea was discovered in the very early stages of the Vedic culture, the difference between Matter and Spirit, Conscient and Inconscient appeared so great to the thinkers of the later period that they were not satisfied with this monistic view. Therefore the Sankhya and Yoga, the Nyaya and Vaisesika, the Mimansa and Vedanta—these six systems of philosophy appeared. The medieval period of Indian philosophy is full of disputes between the philosophers on this subject. It was Shankar who by his forceful and subtle arguments clarified from clouds of doubts and confusions the mental horizon of philosophers and established permanently the sole Reality of Brahman.
But while Shankar was perfectly right in proving the One Reality of Brahman, he was not correct in proving the unreality of the world. He follows Buddha in this line. The solutions, therefore, given by
* The first part of this series was published in the February 1972 issue of The Advent under the heading "My discovery of The Life Divine".
This article is a free rendering of the author's Introduction to his translation of The Life Divine Vol. II. I.
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him of other philosophical problems were partial and imperfect, not complete, absolute and final.
No doubt, there appeared "other philosophies which disputed with more or less force and success the conclusions of these systems but none has been put forward with an equal force of presentation or drive of personality or had a similar massive effect. The spirit of these two remarkable spiritual philosophies—for Shankar in the historical process of India's philosophical mind takes up, completes and replaces Buddha,—has weighed with a tremendous power on her thought, religion and general mentality: everywhere broods its mighty shadow, everywhere is the impress of the three great formulas, the chain of Karma, escape from the wheel of rebirth, Maya".
(L.D.II.V.4)
Sri Aurobindo refers to Buddhism casually here and there only. He attached so much importance to Mayavada that he thought it proper to devote almost the whole of the Part 1 of the second volume of The Life Divine on explaining and examining the main concepts of the Mayavada, Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara, Maya, Avidya, Prakriti, Ignorance, Illusion, Dream, hallucination, falsehood etc., etc. We shall be, therefore, in a better position to understand Sri Aurobindo's contribution to philosophy if, while appreciating Shankar's contribution to philosophy, we may also know the limits and drawbacks of his system. I am therefore examining here in the light of The Life Divine a few main arguments put forward by Shankar and his followers to prove the unreality of the world.
If we read Shankar's mind and ask him this question: when you accept Brahman, the only one Reality, why don't you accept the world to be his real manifestation? he would reply that because it is said in the Upanishads that Brahman is inactive (निष्त्रिय), still (शान्त) stable(कूटस्य) immobile, immutable (अक्षर), unmodifiable, unchangeable (अविकायॅ). If we ask him again that it is also said in the Upanishads that all things are born out of him, exist by him, disappear in him, then why do you not accept that there is a movement of creation, preservation and destruction in him? If Upanishads are the only authority and there it is said in innumerable places that Brahman is both active
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and inactive (तदेजति तत्रैजति, अकसा, सवर्बॅकर्मा),then why do you not accept him both inactive as well as active, static as well as dynamic? He would reply that as Brahman is described in the Upanishads as eternal (नित्य), if there is the least movement in him he would perish like pot, cloth etc. This is the main argument of Shankar upon which the whole structure of Mayavada stands. If it can be proved that a thing can be both active and inactive without perishing, the whole structure will fall down like the house of cards or a wall built out of sand.
Let us now examine as to how far this argument of Shankar is true that if there is any movement in Brahman he would perish like a pot, cloth etc. When a potter makes a pot out of soil, if the pot is not according to his liking he breaks it and makes it again and goes on making and remaking from the same soil hundreds of time till he is satisfied with the form of the pot. In spite of all these movements of making and remaking, the soil does not perish, nor does the pot perish because it remains always potentially or actually in the soil; if once it breaks down, it can be formed again. A blacksmith makes instruments out of iron. If the instruments are broken he melts them and makes again new ones. The gold-smith makes ornaments out of gold; if the ornaments are broken down, he makes second and third time other ornaments out of the same gold. Water by heat becomes vapour and invisible to our eyes and we think that it has perished, but we can gather the vapour and change it into water if we so desired. This does not mean that the soil, iron, gold, water etc. have perished by the I movements and have become non-existent.
According to the theory of existent-effect (Sat-Karya Vada), which has been accepted equally by the Sankhya and Vedanta, everything has two aspects—essence and form. When the soil is changed into pot, it is only its form that is changed, its essence remains unchanged and so the pot is called earthen pot. When ornaments are made out of gold and silver, their essence does not change, only their forms are changed and so the jeweller purchasing or selling evaluates them according to their essence and not to their form. But the un-changeableness of soil, gold, silver, iron etc. is under certain limits. According to the physical science, all things of the world are made out of three electrical particles called electron, proton and neutron, which are again made out of one Energy. The Energy is the essence
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or origin of all things. When pot, soil, gold, iron etc. perish—as we usually call—they assume the form of the Energy. The Energy taking millions and millions of forms millions and millions of times, neither decreases, nor increases, its total amount remains always the same. It is imperishable, as it is ably put by Sir James Jeans:
"The first law of thermodynamics teaches that energy is indestructible, it may change from one form to another but its total amount remains unalterable through all these changes so that the total energy of the universe remains the same."
—The Universe Around Us
According to the Sankhya philosophy all things of the world are made out of five gross elements, earth, water, fire, air and ether, and these are the effects of five subtle elements called tanmatras— smell, taste, form, touch and sound, and these are again the effects of three qualities called Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. These three qualities are called in one word Prakriti or Nature. These qualities, according to the Sankhya system, in spite of their assuming millions and millions of forms neither increase nor decrease nor perish. Sattwa remains always Sattwa, Rajas remains always Rajas, Tamas remains always Tamas. Like the Energy of the physical scientists, their amount remains always the same, as it was before the creation so is now and so much would be after the dissolutions even of millions of creations.
Sankhya system accepts the duality of Nature and Soul. Upanishadic Vedanta going beyond the limits of Sankhya discovered that just as Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas these three qualities are behind the material world according to Sankhya, so behind soul and nature there are three other qualities Existence, Consciousness and Bliss called in one word Sachchidananda Brahman. This is one and the sole Reality behind all things of the world, animate and inanimate, conscient and inconscient.
If pot, cloth etc. will dissolve where will they go? They cannot become non-existent (नाभवो
विधते सत:). They can dissolve only according to the Upanishads in their ultimate cause, the Brahman out of which they were born. Hence there must be some movement in Brahman which brings them forth and afterwards dissolves into it. This
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idea is emphasised by the Upanishads in innumerable places like these: "All existence are born out of Brahman, being born live by him and passing away from here enter into him. As a spider creates cobweb, as vegetables are produced in the earth, as hair, nails, etc. are produced from (the body of) the conscious being so the world is produced from the Immovable Being. As sparks are produced from burning fire similarly various things are produced from the Immovable Being."
From these and many other passages we can know that the Upanishads while they describe Brahman on one side inactive (निष्त्रय), immutable, immovable (अक्षर,अचल) stable (स्याणु), they accept in him movement of creation, preservation and destruction of the world. Therefore the analogy of pot does not prove that if there would be the movement of creation in Brahman, he would perish. Sri Aurobindo, therefore, writes:
"The analogy of pot can tell more convincingly the other way; for the pot is real by right of its being made out of the substance of earth which is real; it is not an illusion and even when it is dissolved into the original earth its past existence cannot be thought to have been unreal or an illusion. Moreover, the pot form is an eternal possibility of earth substance or ethereal substance, and while the substance exists the form can always be manifested. A form may disappear, but it only passes out of manifestation into non-manifestation: a world may disappear, but there is no proof that world existence is an evanescent phenomenon; on the contrary, we may suppose that the power of manifestation is inherent in Brahman and continues to act either continuously in time-eternity or in an eternal recurrence".
(L.D.II.VI.20)
"The silence, the status are the bases of the movement, an eternal immobility is the necessary condition, field, essence even, of the infinite mobility, stable being is the condition and foundation of the vast action of the force of being. The opposition we make is mental and conceptual; in reality the silence of the Spirit and the dynamis of the Spirit are complementary truths and inseparable".
(L.D.II.II.13)
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"The indwelling reality has built the Universe on the principle of the development of one seed into a million different fashions (एकं बोजं यः करोति); if there were not this secure basis which brings it about that nothing changes yet all changes, all Nature's workings and creations would in this play collapse into disintegration and chaos; there would be nothing to hold her disparate movements and creations together. "
(L.D.II.II.17)
"It is perfectly rational to suppose that the eternal status of being of the Reality contains in it an eternal force of being and this dynamis must necessarily carry in itself a power of action and movement, a kinesis; both status of being and movement of being can be real— we must therefore conclude that eternal status and eternal dynamis are both true of the Reality...; the immobile and the mobile Brahman are both the same Reality.
(L.D.II.II.18)
Shankar was so much enamoured with his experience of the static Brahman that in spite of the fact that the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras, the Gita describe the world as real modification of Brahman, he ignored the dynamic aspect of Brahman and tried to explain away such texts and to prove the unreality of the world by giving the examples of dreams and rope-snakes etc.
Let us now see whether these examples do prove the unreality of the world. Ordinarily, we can divide dreams into three categories. Firstly those that are the product of the impressions upon our subconscient mind during the waking state. Secondly symbolic and thirdly inner visions in dreaming state. The first type of dreams are like the impressions of the outer things on the film of a camera. Just as it is possible that due to some defect in the lens or film of the camera the impressions may become curved or partially mixed with one another, similarly due to some disordered state of the mind the impressions may appear confused or disordered in sleep. Hence it is possible that the man who has seen a tiger and a sheep may see in
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dreams the head of a tiger on the body of a sheep and vice versa. But if he has not seen these animals actually in the outer world, he would not see such dreams. A blind man would not see coloured things in dreams. Therefore, just as it is proved from the impressions on the film that such things really exist in the world, similarly from dreams is proved the real existence of the world.
The Second type of dreams are called symbolic. They usually come when our subliminal being is awakened and is active in sleep. These dreams have their significance. They are a sort of occult script which if we could read and understand, could give us knowledge of present and future events and widen our vista of knowledge. For instance, it is said in the Upanishads that if one sees in dreams some woman (and if she had a jar full of water in her hands) there would be success in the work undertaken by the man. Dream psychology is being studied in modern times with keen interest. Just as we cannot say that the script of the mantras of the Vedas and the Upanishads which describe the nature of Brahman and the world is unreal or false, similarly such dreams or the events or things which they signify cannot be said to be unreal or false. In the words of Sri Aurobindo:
"There can come to us the records of happenings seen or experienced on other planes of our own being or of universal being into Which we enter: these have sometimes, like the symbolic dreams, a strong bearing on our own inner and outer life or the life of others, reveal elements of our or their mental being and life-being or disclose influence on them of which our waking self is totally ignorant."
(L.D.II.V.13)
The Third series of dreams are inner visions in dreams. Our subliminal being is open to the universal being. When it is fully awakened it gets exact visions of events that are happening at a distance, in other planes or are going to happen upon the earth in the future. In such dreams, men, houses, places which the man has not seen so far appear with an exact precision. In this state of inner development, very little difference remains between inner visions in dreams and in yogic samadhi. Sometimes same visions are seen in both the states. These
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dreams also cannot be said to be false or unreal.
"Dream becomes a series of thoughts, often strangely or vividly figured, problems are solved which our waking consciousness could not solve, warnings, premonitions, indications of the future, veridical dreams replace the normal subconscious incoherence."
(L.D.II.V.13)
There are other psychic and spiritual dreams in which our inner or subliminal being sees figures of some deity, Sri Krishna, Buddha, Rama or some other gods and receives messages from them. These dreams produce great influence on the life of the percipient. The Mother in her childhood used to see the figure of Sri Aurobindo in her dreams and she was "led to call him Sri Krishna." Being a good painter she drew his picture. When she saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time on 29th March 1914 she "recognised him", by that very picture, "the well known being whom she used to call Sri Krishna". To say that these dreams are false shows an utter ignorance of the occult world.
"If this is a true account of dream experience, dreams can no longer be classed as a mere unreal figure of unreal things temporarily imposed upon our half-unconsciousness as a reality; the analogy therefore fails even as an illustrative support for the theory of Cosmic Illusion. The dream analogy fails us altogether and is better put out of the way."
(L.D.II.V.17)
It is said by the Mayavadins that the Unreal world appears to our senses due to our ignorance of Brahman, just as a snake appears in place of a rope. There an entirely new snake is created due to the ignorance of the rope, and that ignorance is the material cause (upadana) of the snake. Similarly Ignorance of Brahman (not Brahman itself) is the material cause (upadana) of the world. But this analogy does not hold good in the case of the creation of the world for the following reasons: (1) The man who sees a snake in place of a rope, has previously seen real snake somewhere. He has the knowledge that snake contains poison, it bites and by that man dies. He has fear in
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his mind towards it. If these things were absent, if the man had not seen actually existing snake anywhere, this illusion would not arise. Likewise, for the illusory appearance of the world it is necessary that the man must have seen it beforehand. If the world was already existent, the question of its first creation remains unsolved.
Secondly, the snake does not appear in the air or in the indeterminate energy in the form of electron and proton. When these particles take the form of a rope which can be seen by the naked eyes, then only the illusion of the snake can arise. Similarly, the illusion of the world in the form of the sun, moon, earth, etc., can be created only if Brahman had taken some such form which can be seen by the eyes. As Brahman is always indeterminate, formless, beyond the senses, no illusion of the world like rope-snake is possible.
Thirdly, there is some similarity of form between the snake and the rope. Size of the rope may be about one or two yards in length, about one inch in thickness, some curve in its lying on the ground etc. When silver appears in a mother of pearl, shining ness of the two articles is common. But there is not the least similarity between Brahman and the cosmos. Brahman is formless, the world has a form, Brahman is immovable, the world is moving, Brahman is conscious, the world is unconscious. Hence the analogy of the rope-snake-illusion cannot be applicable in the case of the world creation.
Moreover, ignorance is a function of the mind of the jiva, i.e. man, ant, mosquito etc. Jiva, according to the Mayavada, is a reflection of Brahman in mind or inner instrument (अन्तः करणावच्धित्र चैतन्यो जोवः) For the creation of the world out of Ignorance, it is necessary that the jiva and his mind, etc., must be existent, which means that the creation of the world (world-illusion) already is there. In this way Mayavada accepts beforehand that which it is going to -prove. It is a fallacy of mutual-dependence (अन्योन्याश्रय) according to Indian logicians
Moreover, mind by itself can bring before it only the images of the things which he has seen beforehand or somewhat similar to them. But it has no power to create new things. It is possible that some very great yogin by his mental power may create a new body or something new by changing the combination of certain atoms already present upon the earth or by bringing some new substance here from
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some other planes. But he or his mind has no power to create those atoms or that substance. For each and every so called new creation, he has to use the material which is already in existence. We know that power of knowledge is greater than that of ignorance. While the greatest human yogins are incapable to create even an atom, how can we imagine that the ignorance of mosquitoes, ants, dogs etc. has created the earth, sun, moon, sky etc. ? To say so would not be a philosophy but a dogma, not a reason but a blind belief.
It is said by certain Mayavadins that the world is not a creation of the ignorance of the individual jivas but of some other ignorance cosmic in nature, called Avidya or Maya. It can be asked here as to how the Maya came into existence in the pure consciousness of Brahman? The reply is given that the Maya is not created at any point of time. It is from eternity. But in that case, we may say that there would be two eternal realities, Brahman and Maya and so the adwaitism of Mayavada would collapse. It is said by Mayavada in reply that the duality would have been possible if Maya had been eternal, i.e. existing in three times, but it is not so. It was from eternity in the past, it is at present but it would disappear when all the jivas get knowledge of the Brahman and by that knowledge their ignorance disappears; at that time Maya and the world both will vanish. Brahman is eternal because it exists in three times, past, present, and future. Maya is temporary, perishable because it exists in two times, in the past and the present only, not in future, so there is no duality.
But this argument does not help the Mayavada's case. We can imagine the disappearance of Maya and the world by the disappearance of the ignorance of the jivas if their ignorance would have been the cause and the Maya and the world its effect, just as soil is the cause and pot the effect, gold the cause and ornament the effect, so if the soil the cause is destroyed the pot, its effect, will automatically disappear and by the destruction of the cause-gold its effect-ornament would be destroyed. But by the destruction of the pot and the ornament their cause, the soil and the gold would not be destroyed. Similarly, by the destruction of the ignorance of the jivas which is the effect of Maya, the Maya and the world which are the cause, will not be destroyed but remain for ever as they were before. Hence the
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duality of Maya and Brahman will remain.
Moreover, the jivas are only the reflections of Brahman in the inner instrument (antahkarnas). If Maya is capable of creating innumerable number of inner instruments (antahkarnas), and if the ignorance of certain jivas is destroyed and they are liberated, still the Maya would go on creating new antahkarnas. As Brahman is powerless to destroy the Maya and her creations, Maya would be free to continue her creation for all times to come. Hence it would exist in three times and would be eternal, and so the duality of Brahman and Maya cannot be avoided.
Moreover, if Ignorance which is the negation of all things could create such positive things as the sun, moon, earth, iron, gold etc. there should be no difficulty in admitting some kind of knowledge at the basis of the world. It would be more reasonable to suppose it because, we find some order, some law working in the universe. Each movement of atom, sun, moon, living organism shows signs of some intelligent working behind it. While, accepting Brahman as the only reality, we find difficulty in understanding Ignorance at the basis of the world which is Brahman's direct opposite, something foreign to its nature and different from it. But, as Brahman is consciousness, there is no difficulty in accepting knowledge as its nature, its part and parcel and therefore no question of duality arises. This view is supported by a large number of such passages of the Upanishads which describe Brahman as the creator of the world.
He saw, "let me create the worlds, he created the worlds (स ऐक्षत ळोकात्रु सृजा इति, स ळोकानसृजत) He thought that let me become many (एकोऽहं बहू स्याम्). In the Upanishads Brahman is said to be the Truth, Knowledge but nowhere falsehood or ignorance. From this argument we come to the conclusion that Brahman being omniscient created by his all-knowledge-will the real world.
SUMMARY
In the end, summarising our arguments, we may ask the following questions to the Mayavadins:
i) Question: Accepting Brahman the sole reality at the root of the world, why do you not accept the world to be his real creation?
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Reply from him: Real creation needs some creative movement in the cause, as Brahman is described in the Upanishads inactive (निष्त्रिय) immovable (अक्षर), stable (कूटस्थ), therefore the world cannot be its real creation.
2) Question: The Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, the Brahma-sutra have stated in thousands of places that just as a pot is made out of soil, an ornament from gold, curd from milk, similarly the world has been born from Brahman. All these instances show that Brahman is the material cause of the world, and the world his real modification (परिणाम), why do you say, then, that he is the illusory cause and the world unreal, by coining the analogy of rope-snake which is not found in any of the scriptures mentioned above?
Reply from him: Because if there would be the least movement in Brahman, it would perish like pot etc., therefore, the only alternative is to accept Brahman as the illusory cause and the world its illusory creation (विवत्ते) like a snake in a rope.
If this is the correct position of the philosophy of Shankar, the proper reply that a sincere seeker of Truth can give, would be as follows:
All the facts of the world show that the basic Reality must be static as well as dynamic and at the same time imperishable. This fact has been supported fully by the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, the six systems of Indian philosophy and by the latest discoveries of the modern science. Therefore your theory that the Reality would perish if there would be any movement in it is your own mental view based upon your imperfect observation of the facts of the world and against the letter and spirit of the ancient scriptures upon which you proclaim your theory to be based. Your interpretation of the scriptures to suit your own view is a fallacy: in the words of Sri Aurobindo:
"The conscious or half conscious wresting of fact and word and idea to suit a preconceived notion or the doctrine or principle of one's preference is recognised by Indian logicians as one of the most fruitful sources of fallacy."
From this discussion we reach at this perfectly rational conclusion which is in full accord with the Upanishads: Brahman being both static and dynamic, by his Real Knowledge (सत्यं ज्ञानं) Real Idea (सत्य संकल्प) has created the Real world (सत्य जगत्).This view has been accepted
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by Sri Aurobindo as the true solution of the first problem of Philosophy, the ultimate cause of the world. The next problem is why does he create the world. The solution of this problem we shall try to find out in the next article in the light of Sri Aurobindo's 'The Life Divine.'
(To be continued)
K. D. ACHARYA
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SRI AUROBINDO'S PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
ACCORDING to Sri Aurobindo, "The child's education ought to be an out bringing of all that is best, most powerful, most intimate and living in his nature, the mould into which the man's action and development ought to run is that of his innate quality and power. He must acquire new things but he will acquire them best, most wholly on the basis of his own developed type and inborn force." True education, is, thus self-education, a creative process in which man achieves the objectives of his own innate nature and his motivation. The best education that a child can receive is the one which develops every aspect of his personality, which contributes to every aspect of his development, the intellectual, the spiritual, the social and the individual. Indian philosophers believe that the highest element in man is not his mind but his soul, and in this respect they differ from the Western tradition of philosophy which accepts the mind as the highest element possessed by man. Despite his internationalism, Sri Aurobindo was a staunch nationalist. He felt that nationalism should form the basis of every aspect of life within the country. He was convinced that all over the world human beings have the same needs, that knowledge and truth are not the possessions of any one country. But he knew that every nation, and every individual in each nation, had a duty, an innate nature, which compelled him to develop according to this tendency. He therefore argued that any pattern of education evolved for the country should be based on nationalistic principles. He said that the education that we are striving for is an education equipped with an Indian soul, Indian needs and nature, and an Indian culture. It is not an education which looks to the past for faith and inspiration, but an education that evinces faith in the developing and evolving soul of India, in the future aspirations and needs of the country, in its greater glory to be achieved in the future, and over and above all a faith in the abiding universal soul. In his book A System of National Education,
Sri Aurobindo has presented a plan for national education in which he has
expressed his faith in the principle of unity in diversity. He believes that
there
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is infinite variety in nature, and that because of this variety nature prospers. Hence, even if one believes in internationalism, it is impossible to wipe out nationalistic leanings. But it must be remembered that national education does not imply total neglect of modern scientific knowledge and truth. A national education means simply that all the knowledge which is acquired should be clothed in an Indian garb so that it may become a living part of our existence. For this reason he stressed the importance of a national language as the medium of education, although he himself had received his education through English.
In every part of his philosophy Sri Aurobindo has maintained that all human development should follow a natural pattern. This fact must be borne in mind even more tenaciously when thinking about education. Education does not mean filling the child's mind with bits and pieces of loosely coordinated information. It instead lies in inspiring the child to employ knowledge, character and culture as the means of developing his mind and realizing his own nature and soul. Education must assist the educe and as a constantly progressing soul. Hence, the aim of education is to provide all the means that the child needs in order to develop according to his own natural ability. Sri Aurobindo writes, "The true basis of education is the study of the human mind, infant, adolescent and adult."
Sri Aurobindo believes that man and society are two important aspects of the same reality, differentiated merely for convenience of thought. Hence, in discussing the aims of education he has paid adequate attention to the social aspect of education, because he feels that education is not determined only by the psychology of the individual. Education is also a social process. Its objectives are determined by the kind of society we are seeking to create. Sri Aurobindo envisages a divine man and divine society in which both have achieved the level of complete development. He objects to emphasis being laid on any one aspect of man's personality, irrespective of its importance. He is critical of the traditional Indian concept of perfection on the ground that it placed far too much stress on salvation. He believes that both activity and renunciation were equally important, that neither was to be neglected. He is neither an individualist, nor a collectivist, for he believes that man and society are so intimately
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related that they cannot be really separated from each other. Both of them act as media for manifesting a single reality. Man's aim is to achieve perfection, and this involves development as an individual and also as a member of society.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION
Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of education is based on certain fundamental principles, the first that the child has to learn for itself and develop itself, while the educator plays the role of the guide and the friend. The second principle is that education should conform to the specific traits, abilities, ideas and good qualities of the educand. And, for both individual and group alike, nationalism is the basic foundation of all development and progress, while blind imitation of others a sure means of destruction. In Sri Aurobindo's words, "The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use." Hence, every individual and group should prepare a plan for education which is in keeping with its own nature, because this is essential for the perfection both of the individual and of society. A more or less similar kind of theory was put forward by the ancient Greeks and Indians. Self-realization is also a commonly accepted aim of education, although very few thinkers have succeeded in realizing the true nature of the human soul. It must be realized that behind the physical, vital and mental structure of the soul, there is invariably the true soul. Education must aim at the manifestation of this basic element, so that it can bring out all that is finest in mankind.
According to Sri Aurobindo, "The third principle of education is to work from the near to the far, from that which is to that which shall be." This principle is a corollary of the second principle. It is desirable that the curriculum, the general atmosphere in the school, the mode of education, in fact anything concerned with the educative process should conform to the nature of the educand. Education must have an indigenous ideal as well as an indigenous form, the product of the nation. The national plan for education should be based on the nation's past experience and heritage, and it should be imparted through the medium of the national language. But this does not lead
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to the conclusion that one must never borrow anything from other nations. Borrowing or acquiring from others does not necessarily imply the abandoning of one's own things because human beings everywhere resemble each other in their qualities, abilities and capacities, desires and ambitions, mental and physical structures, etc. Hence, Sri Aurobindo did not demand the ostracism of Western knowledge, science and the English language. All that he insisted upon was that these should be given their rightful place in the educational system. As he himself expressed it, "The aim and principle of a true national education is not certainly to ignore modern truth and knowledge but to take our foundation on our own belief, our own mind, our own spirit". Other contemporary thinkers like Tagore, Vivekananda, etc., also subscribed to this principle.
MEDIUM OF EDUCATION
Being a staunch nationalist Sri Aurobindo favoured the use of the national language as the medium of education. He had a keen insight into human psychology which enabled him to see that the child learns everything more facilely when taught through his mother tongue. Besides, knowledge of the mother tongue enabled the child to acquaint himself with the history and literature of his motherland and thus made it easier for the child to understand the life and people around him. Hence foreign languages should be taught only after the mother tongue has been learnt. Most other contemporary thinkers agree with Sri Aurobindo on this point.
CURRICULUM OF EDUCATION
Sri Aurobindo expressed the opinion that the educator's first task was to acquaint the child with the environment in which the latter lived so that the child may develop some interest in the life and sources of knowledge. Every child is born possessed of certain mental faculties and powers. The curriculum for the child's education should be shaped after deciding how these powers can be developed and used properly. The child should be acquainted with the more entertaining aspects of the national literature. In the
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teaching of history the child's instinctive desire for hero-worship can be exploited. Similarly his curiosity can also be exploited in teaching him science. But in general it is not desirable to fill up the curriculum with too many subjects. In determining a pattern of education it must always be kept in mind that the naturalness of education should never be destroyed. All artificiality must be avoided and care must be taken to avoid any one-sided development, repression or a forced motivation. A comprehensive programme should be initiated in order to develop every aspect of the child. That is why Sri Aurobindo feels that mental education should be supplemented by physical, religious and moral education.
It is clear from this brief outline of the various aspects of Sri Aurobindo's educational philosophy that it is a near approximation of the ideal of integral growth. His philosophy is based on his ideal of evolutionism. The object of every activity of man is his development, and the aim of education is the complete development of man. But this ideal is not to be achieved in schools alone. In Sri Aurobindo's opinion, yoga is necessary for the achievement of this ideal, because yoga is the most important and powerful instrument of human development. Complete development is impossible without yoga. Certain yogic exercises can help the educand to concentrate and focus his attention. Merely mental and physical training is not the aim of education. Education must try to put man and society on the path to perfection. In this process a stage comes when formal education fails to help. At this stage one should turn to yoga. Although many educational philosophers may not agree with Sri Aurobindo about the role that yoga can play in the process of education, it is amply evident from the brief sketch of his philosophy of education that he has achieved a fine harmony between the Indian and Western educational philosophies no less than between the ancient and modern ideas on the subject. His educational ideals are clearly founded on strong psychological facts the validity of which cannot be questioned. The pattern of education suggested by him looks after the physical, mental, spiritual, moral and religious development of the individual. He believes that human perfection is impossible unless supported by development of its social aspect, and therefore his theory achieves a synthesis between the development of individual qualities, abilities
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and powers and the development of social qualities. Today the educationists of India are faced with complex problems, and in searching for the solutions they can turn to Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, because he has searched for truth in this sphere with a profound and comprehensive vision. His educational philosophy thus has significance not only for India but for the whole world.
RAM NATH SHARMA
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A NOTE ON TEILHARD AND SRI AUROBINDO
LIKE Sri Aurobindo, Teilhard holds that evolution is essentially an evolution of consciousness and that consciousness has not stopped evolving at the present summit point of evolution. which is man. Beyond the human "reflective" state expressed in separate individuals, Teilhard sees a movement of collective unification resulting in a "co-reflective" state. At its highest, co-reflection will mean a totalised and harmonised mankind functioning as a sort of "super-organism" with a "super-consciousness", a world-wide brain, so to speak, and a world-wide heart. Teilhard calls this culmination a "planetization" of consciousness, as well as "Omega Point." Teilhard considers Omega to mark the presence of the All and he conceives it as not only an emerged perfection but also an already existing Divine Reality which serves at once as a push from behind and a pull from the front, a God Above and a God Ahead. In orthodox religious terms, Teilhard's God is Christ the Prime Mover, Christ the Soul of the World, Christ the Evolver, Christ the Incarnate Word, Christ the Transformer and Diviniser, the Cosmic Christ who is the Gatherer-up of the evolving souls into his Universal Mystical Body which will complete and fulfil evolution in a final plenitude of spiritual being, named the Pleroma.
From the Aurobindonian point of view the Teilhardian Omega Point reached by evolution would be a sort of cosmic consciousness on a restricted scale — more correctly a planetary consciousness set to a human key. The state of being it would represent is a Vishwa Manava, the World-Man in complete unitary and multiple self-expression. To dub it the All or the God Above fused with the God Ahead would be a pseudo-religious exaggeration. Teilhard's Omega Point would be far indeed from Sri Aurobindo's Supermind. And the fulfilled humanity it brings about would hardly be that complete divinisation of mind, life and body which Sri Aurobindo terms "Supramental Transformation". In no respect can Teilhard's Omega Point parallel the realisation of the Aurobindonian Supermind.
Even if it baoadly did so, the final postures of the operation of
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the two would differ. According to Teilhard, when Omega Point is reached after millions of years, there will be an immediate passage from the "ultra-human" into the "trans-human", the totalised consciousness will leave the earth, break out of time and space and be taken up into the Divine Beyond, the Transcendent and there will be the end of history. Sri Aurobindo looks forward to a continuing progression on earth itself, an ever greater fulfilment, the Transcendent embodied more and more in evolutionary terms, perfecting and not annulling them. Following upon Supramentalisation there is the Ananda-embodiment, and there is still a beyond. Nor will Supramentalisation, which will be a radical divine change, come after millions of years. On the individual scale it is not very far off— and, even on the collective scale, within a measurable span of time. Teilhard's vision, starting in sympathy with the modern age's stress on completion here and now, is yet remote-minded and other-worldly in the last analysis. Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga carries to their culmination the dreams and hopes and aspirations of the Time-Spirit. It is magnificently practical and supremely this-worldly.
K. D. SETHNA
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Haribilas Prabhudayal, Chowk, Allahabad |
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GLIMPSES OF SRI AUROBINDO'S VISION
OF THE TASKS AHEAD
''YOUR feeling that there should be a re-integration of Indian culture under modern conditions is quite right; it is the work that has to be done."! This message, one of his last, addressed to Shri K .M. Munshi, may perhaps be taken as Sri Aurobindo's last will and testament to his countrymen. This it may be well to remember, has been the core of his teaching about India right from the Swadeshi days.
"We have yet to know ourselves, what we were, are and may be, what we did in the past and what we are capable of doing in the future, our history and our mission. This", he says in the Karmayo-gin,2 "is the first and most important work. To raise the mind, character and tastes of the people, to recover the ancient nobility of temper, the strong Aryan character and the high Aryan outlook, the perceptions which made earthly life beautiful and wonderful, and the magnificent spiritual experiences, realisations and aspirations which made us the deepest-hearted, deepest-thoughted and most delicately profound in life of all the peoples of the earth, is the task next in importance and urgency Finally, the artistic awakening commenced by that young, living and energetic school which has gathered round the Master and originator, Sj. Abanindranath Tagore, the impulse which this school is giving, its inspired artistic recovery of the past, its intuitive anticipations of the future, have to be popularised and made a national possession."
These things, one might argue, are primarily things of the spirit and the mind. They have their importance, even a capital importance, for without them our life loses all sense of value. Still, there are problems equally insistent, problems of sociology, of economics and politics which if left unsolved might render the higher effort nugatory.
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Above all, the world is upon us and we can no longer keep ourselves shut as in a shell; we have to meet it and master it if we are even to survive. How shall we deal with these?
The answer that Sri Aurobindo gives bears his individual stamp. He insists that our external life no less than the internal must be governed by "the supreme Indian idea of the oneness of all men in God....3 Only, we need to work out thoroughly in life what we have always known in spirit. There and nowhere else lies the secret of the needed harmony between the essential meaning of our past culture and the environmental requirements of our future."*
We have to see how this translates into practice.
Our social structure, says the ardent reformist, is badly in need of an overhaul, a renovation from the roots. To him, Sri Aurobindo's answer is: "We have to treasure jealously everything in our social structure, manners, institutions, which is of permanent value, essential to our spirit, or helpful to the future, but we must not cabin the expanding and aggressive spirit of India in temporary forms which are the creation of the last few hundred years."5
Again, we must get rid of the notion that the economic impoverishment of the nation, a result of the two centuries of British rule, cannot be met by vigorous steps in line with our ancient tradition and in the light of modern knowledge. "Valmiki, our ancient epic poet, includes among the signs of a just and enlightened state of society not only universal education, morality and spirituality, but this also that there shall be none who is compelled to eat coarse food, none who lives a mean and petty slave of luxuries."6 India must get wealth first, she must attain a high economic standard of life. Large scale production can alone bring about the necessary change.
What should be our aim in politics? Politics of the Western pattern, with its violence and strife, its constant recourse to platitudes and sham, is of an extremely rajasic type; it does not suit the genius of India which aims at harmony and peace as the basis of all human endeavour. We shall certainly adopt the means modern science places at our disposal — the platform, the press, the telecommunication systems. We shall hold as sacred the Vedantic ideal of liberty equality and fraternity. But these ideals cannot be put into practice unless the soul in man, the spiritual element in him becomes the
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dominant influence. "Patriotism is true only when it takes count of the spiritual possibilities of the nation and develops them."7
As in our national life, so in the international, our aim must be to receive the external influences and return them to the world transfigured in the light of our deepest spirit. True, "the vast amount of new matter which India has to absorb is unprecedented in her history, but to her it is child's play.... The genius of Japan lies in imitation and improvement, that of India in origination. The contributions of outside peoples she can only accept as rough material for her immense creative faculty."8 India alone of all the nations of the world still preserves the secret of transmuting the base metal of earthly life into the gold of a divine existence. "Mankind has long been experimenting with various kinds of thought, different principles of ethics, strange dreams of a perfection to be gained by material means, impossible millenniums and humanitarian hopes. Nowhere has it succeeded in realising the ultimate secret of life. Nowhere has it found satisfaction.... The work which we have to do for humanity, which no other nation can accomplish, is the spiritualisation of the race."9 India, Sri Aurobindo has repeatedly said, is the guru of the world, and she must rise to the sense of her mission.
To perform the functions of a guru, "a living influence, a living example, a present instruction is needed."10 India must provide the living example of spirituality before her teaching is accepted, her influence grows. But spirituality does not flourish on earth in the void; it needs a firm and wide base of an opulent intellectuality, an opulent vitality, a strong physical foundation.11
Our first necessity, then, "is that the youth of India must learn to think, to think on all subjects, to think independently, fruitfully, going to the heart of things, not stopped by their surfaces.... Let it have not only the minuteness but the wide mastery and sovereignty natural to the intellect of Bharat.... We must begin by accepting nothing on trust from any source whatsoever, by questioning every thing and forming our own conclusions. We need not fear that we shall by that process cease to be Indians. India can never cease to be India...
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if we really think for ourselves".12
But thought alone is not enough; will too is needed, and the strength of heart that translates itself into love and courage. "The heart is the one inspirer of all human actions. In love is the will, the power, the spring of all ennobling human actions.... If our people begin to feel and not merely the animal feelings of hunger and thirst, not merely the necessity of comfort and convenience, but the primal necessity of greatness and glory, they will develop a strength of will which nothing can resist. . .."13 And "we hold that in order to rise, the nation must get into the habit of offering challenges rather than receiving them.... What India needs especially at this moment is the aggressive virtues, the spirit of soaring idealism, bold creation, fearless resistance, courageous attack.... We would apply to the present situation the vigorous motto of Danton, that what we need, what we should learn above all things is to dare and again to dare and still to dare."14
But will and courage without discipline and order and a noble ideal can easily lead a nation astray. It is the ideal of the Kshatriya that must be inculcated into the race. "Loyalty to leader and comrade, devotion to banner and cause, the love and expectation of greatness and truth in others, the pride that makes noble, the playfulness of him who can never be selfish and narrow, these are the qualities of the ideal knight.... The Kshatriya keeps his sinews like iron, his armour bright, and his spirit ever tense for the ideal..."15
All this implies a thorough overhauling of our system of education, not a mere tinkering with details but a reconsideration of its aims and a readjustment of methods to these aims. "It must be an education that for the individual will make its one central object the growth of the soul and its powers and possibilities, for the nation will keep first in view the preservation, strengthening and enrichment of the nation-soul and its dharma, and raise both into powers of the life and ascending mind and soul of humanity. And at no time will it lose sight of man's highest object, the awakening and development of his spiritual being."16 Nothing will be alien to its purpose. Philosophy, Science, Art, Literature, Politics, Sociology, Economics, the care and health of the body, will all be included in its scope, each pursued with one single aim in view, namely, "the revealing and finding of the
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divine Self in man.... It would make the whole trend and aim and the permeating spirit not mere worldly efficiency, but this self-developing and self-finding."17 The principle of its method will be to help "build up men and not machines, — national men, able men, men fit to carve out a career for themselves by their own brain power and resource, fit to meet the shocks of life and breast the waves of adventure."18
Thus equipped and educated, India may hope to carry the message of spirituality to the world. But here she must guard against some dangers.
The first danger comes from her own view of spirituality as it has developed during the last two thousand years and more, — an exaggeration of certain spiritual motifs to the exclusion of others. For instance, the Buddhistic insistence on the goal of Nirvana, or the Illusionist view of the Absolute as the only Real and all else the imposition of a real-unreal Maya on this Absolute, is not the whole of Indian spirituality. The Veda speaks of Maya, but in the sense of a creative and self-limiting power of the Supreme, who has "measured out" the worlds of mind and Life and the worlds of Inconscience and of the Super conscience below and above them. The Upanishadic view of Reality accepts an asat beyond all phenomenal existence which seems to agree with the Buddhistic description of the Nihil, but it is a Non-existence that seems to contain the All; and "all this is brahman" or ultimate reality does not discard as unreal this phenomenal existence. The Gita, our last great scripture of spirituality, speaks of the triple status of the purusa or Lord, the transcendental, the universal and the individual, and of the two Natures, the supreme and the cosmic that rule the universe. All this presupposes the reality of phenomena no less than that of the Absolute.
Sri Aurobindo, basing himself on these supreme records of Indian spirituality and adding to them his own experience and knowledge presents a view of spirituality that is all-comprehensive. "The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is itself real. The reality is
Sachchidananda. But here in the material world he has hidden
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himself in what seems to be his opposites, Non-being, Inconscience and Insentience.... The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine, and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and finally a Supramental consciousness through which we become aware of the Reality, enter into it and unite ourselves with it.... Thus also, the delight of existence emerges from the original insentience, first in the contrary forms of pleasure and pain and then has to find itself in bliss of the Spirit or as it is called in the Upanishads the bliss of the brahman. That is the central idea in the explanation of the universe put forward in The Life Divine."19 This presupposes a graded series of ascending substance, beginning with the Inconscient and rising through Matter Life and Mind and the many intermediate planes of super conscious till it culminates in the all-creative Supermind or Gnosis, the supreme principle through which Sachchidananda manifests. In this view, asat or niruddha is the unmanifest Absolute, Maya in the sense of Illusion is a temporary in look of the Over mind consciousness, all the other spiri tual standpoints become overwhelming experiences of a particular stage in the growth of the seeker's consciousness; all have a basis of truth, none is the ultimate reality.
Indian spirituality will escape its first danger if it accepts this position.
The other danger comes from the Western outlook. To the Western mind steeped in the traditions of European Christianity and the modern secular ideal, it is not at all clear that spirituality is "not a high intellectuality, nor idealism, not an ethical turn of mind or moral purity and austerity, not religiosity or an ardent and exalted emotional fervour, not even a compound of all these excellent things; a mental belief, creed or faith, an emotional aspiration, a regulation of conduct according to a religious or ethical formula are not spiritual achievement and experience."20
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True spirituality recognises the full value of the intellectual, emotional and aesthetic activities of man; but it will permit none to usurp the functions of the others by a sort of "intellectual land hunger."21
"Philosophy is in the Western way of dealing with it a dispassionate enquiry by the light of the reason into the first truths of existence, which we shall get at either by observing the facts Science places at our disposal, or by a careful dialectical scrutiny of the concepts of the reason, or a mixture of the two methods. But from the spiritual viewpoint, truth of existence is to be found by intuition and inner experience and not only by the reason and by scientific observation; the work of Philosophy is to arrange the data given by the various means of knowledge, excluding none and put them into their synthetic relation to the one Truth, the one supreme and universal Realty."22 There is no reason why Philosophy should keep itself tied to the apron strings of physical Science with its restricted domain of inquiry.
Science, in the spiritual view, need not "confine itself to a physical knowledge or to the knowledge of life and man and mind based upon the idea of matter or material energy as our starting-point; a spiritualised culture will make room for new fields of research, for new and old psychical sciences and results which start from spirit as the fir st truth...." 23 Here, the Indian mind, with its long heritage of the spiritual and occult tradition, may open to "the possibility of...working freely in its own nature discovering new methods or even giving a new turn to physical Science."24 The startling experiments of J.C. Bose suggesting the scope and possibilities of sense reaction in plants, illustrating the ancient doctrine of cetano acetanesu, are pointers in this direction.
"Religion is the first attempt of man to get beyond himself.... Its first essential work is to confirm and make real to him his subjective sense of an Infinite on which his material and mental being depends and the aspiration of his soul to come into its presence and live in contact with it."25 As a step to the spiritual change it has a value, indeed a great value for the yet undeveloped physical and vital man. Science and Philosophy need not and "are not bound to square their observations and conclusions with any current ideas of religious
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dogma.... One has sometimes to deny God in order to find Him; the finding is inevitable at the end of all earnest scepticism and denial."26 The spirituality of the future will accept this as a self-evident truth, and expose the utter futility of the wranglings over the details of dogma and creed and church organisation.
"Morality is in the ordinary view a well-regulated individual and social conduct which keeps society going and leads towards a better, a more rational, temperate, sympathetic, self-restrained dealing with our fellows. But ethics in the spiritual point of view is much more, it is a means of developing in our action and still more essentially in the character of our being the diviner self in us, a step of our growing into the nature of the Godhead.... The primitive aim of art and poetry is to create images of man and Nature which shall satisfy the sense of beauty and embody artistically the ideas of the intelligence about life and the responses of the imagination to it. But in a spiritual culture, they become too in their aim a revelation of greater things concealed in man and Nature and of the deepest spiritual and universal beauty".27
In sum, "to get at the Divine and Eternal in himself and the world and to harmonise them" is the true aim and destiny of all the higher powers of man as envisaged by the Indian spiritual ideal.
But how is the spiritual ideal to deal with the lower nature of man, our normal life, which, either in the individual or the society, "is concerned not with good, beauty, spiritual experience, the higher truth, but with interests, physical needs, desires, vital necessities? Its whole principle and aim is to be, to assert its existence, to increase, to expand, to possess and to enjoy."28 To the higher parts, it pays an occasional homage, but it fully reserves the right to its own self-fulfilment on its own lines. The attempt of reason and morality and religion and aesthetics to put a curb on this dangerous but dynamic part of human life has nowhere met with any kind of complete success.
The solution lies, says Sri Aurobindo, "in an awakening to our real, because our highest self and nature, a spiritual self and spiritual nature that will use the mental being which we already are, but the mental being spiritualised, and transform by a spiritual ideality the aim
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and action of our vital and physical nature."29 This "spiritual ideality" will translate itself in the individual as well as the collective life in an insistence on freedom, unity and harmony. "It will not try to make man perfect by machinery or keep him straight by tying up all his limbs.... Its aim will be to diminish as soon and as far as possible the element of external compulsion in human life by awakening the inner divine compulsion of the spirit within and all the preliminary means it will use will have that for its aim.... But the Divine whom he thus sees in himself he sees equally in all others and as the same spirit in all. Therefore too is a growing inner unity with others a necessity of his being, and perfect unity the sign and condition of the perfect life."30
It is for the India of today and tomorrow to decide whether she is going to prepare herself for the tasks which Sri Aurobindo expects her to fulfil if she is to be true to her mission.
SANAT K. BANERJI
REFERENCES
1. Mother India,
2. Karmayogin,
3. Mother India,
4. Ibid.,
5. Karmayogin, loc cit.
6. Thoughts and Aphorisms, p. 32.
7. Mother India,
8. Bandemataram,
9. Flame of Truth,
10. Synthesis of Yoga,
11. The Renaissance in India.
12. "On Original Thinking".
13. Bandemataram.
14. Ibid.
15. Karmayogin,
16. "A Preface on National Education."
17. The Human Cycle,
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18. Bandemataram.
19. Letters of Sri Aurobindo,
20. The Life Divine,
21. The Advent,
22. The Renaissance in India,
23. Ibid.
24. "A Preface on National Education."
25. The Synthesis of Yoga,
26. The Human Cycle,
27. The Renaissance in India,
28. The Human Cycle,
29. Ibid.,
30. Ibid.,
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REVIEWS
Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead on the Nature of God: By Dr. Satya Prakash Singh, Aligarh Muslim University, 1972, Pp. 196.
It is an attempt to bring together in one place the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead on the nature of God, with a view to evaluate them in the context of world thinkers. Three types of arguments are advanced: biographical, historical, and epistemological. It is indeed interesting to note that Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead were contemporaries at Cambridge. As long as they remained there, the author says, none of them evinced interest in Philosophy; they began to produce philosophical works only in their forties or fifties. Historically, the author points out that Whitehead, in his conception of God, makes "a clear departure from the entire western philosophical tradition" and "falls in line with the Aurobindian view which in itself is deep-rooted in the Rigveda Samhita". Epistemologically, their philosophical methods have little in common: while Sri Aurobindo adopts integral yoga as his method, Whitehead favours scientific speculation as his. Whatever the similarities between their thoughts, they are not of the same order, not do they have identical significance.
In comparison, what Sri Aurobindo has achieved holds out a greater prospect for the modern world. One of the admirers of Whitehead remarked: "Whitehead's philosophy generates a moral attitude towards nature, by teaching that there is nothing in the universe that is really and completely dead". The crisis that confronts the modern man is not ethical but spiritual and evolutionary. It is not due to a lack of 'more thought' or 'better mental perspective' that would provide a stronger foundation for ethical values, but really due to the fact that mind has exhausted itself as a frame of reference, and man can no longer act with mind as his centre. The crisis points to the need for a centre far greater than the mind. And Sri Aurobindo rightly tells us that what is urgently needed now is not a change for a better system of ideas, but a complete change of mental consciousness
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itself. It is to bring about a total transformation of mental consciousness that he has offered the method of integral yoga to humanity.
If we believe that on the academic level a sort of intellectual link can be established between the East and the West through a study of Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead, then this work is one step more in that direction. The author claims in his preface precision and compactness to his work. In fact he seems to say what he really means.
J. SHANMUGAM
The Mind: By Sioami Budhananda. Publishers: Advaita Ashram, Calcutta 15. Pp. 112. Price: Rs. I-50.
Before one can control one's mind, one must first know what are the constituents of the subtle organisation that is called mind. The writer gives a good analysis of this set-up according to the Indian system, e.g. manas, sense-mind; ' buddhi, intellect-will; citta, stuff of consciousness, ahankara, egoity, He discusses the various sources of mental activity and draws upon texts like the Yoga sutras of Patanjali, Bhagavatarn, Gita, Vivekachudarnani, to present a scheme to control and direct the movements of the mental faculties. All depends upon the abhydsa, assiduous practice of the di scipline, of observation, discrimination, rejection of the harmful and promotion of the helpful thought-movements. The writer also touches upon the question of the sub-conscient but does not go sufficiently deep into it. He is content to cite from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna the direction to awaken the Kundalini. Perhaps we could add that yogic experience commends the practice of extending the area of conscious mind, of exerting a conscious will upon the sub-conscious to orientate itself in the mould of the conscious parts.
M. P. PANDIT
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Les Hierarchies Spirituelles: By Suzanne- Siauve. Publishers: The French Institute of Indology, Pondicherry.
This is one more useful publication from The French Institute of Indology who have been making the French-knowing people conversant with Indian thought in the realms of literature, religion and philosophy.
The book under review is from the Anuvyakhyana of Madhwa with the texts of verses chosen and commented upon ably in French by the author. The Anuvyakhyana of the Acharya is an exposition of the subtleties (anu) of his tenets, a final synthesis of his thoughts on Brahma Sutra. The essential doctrine of Madhwa is based on duality, the dual nature of the Individual Soul and the Supreme Soul which are not one and the same. As a corollary to the dualistic approach, the Acharya adumbrates in his Anuvyakhyana the essential differences and distinctions. The principle is governed by tāratamya (tāratamasya bhāvah the idea of comparison to distinguish the differences. For example, there is a multiplicity of gods but amongst them Vishnu is the unique supreme god. Lakshmi, his consort, comes only next in rank. Devotion, bhakti, is the only means given to the Individual Soul to approach the Supreme Soul. But devotion culminates in the realisation of the glory and grandeur of the Supreme and an adoration from a respectable distance. The whole existence is like a ladder with rungs high and low, on which the various gods are posited in charge of the cosmic functions. The whole cosmos is governed by a spiritual hierarchy and the individual soul who is in the cosmos is also governed by the same hierarchy. The desire for deliverance is marked by various steps, by gradations in the fruits of action. The realisation also is graded. These tenets of the Acharya are enshrined in the verses that are chosen from the Anuvyakhyana and presented here.
The book is provided with a critical introduction, the translation of the verses being augmented by helpful footnotes. The Appendix rules out categorically any foreign influence, Muslim or Christian on the development of the Dualistic school of philosophy.
S. SHANKARANARAYANAN
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