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The World has witnessed many attempts to see,
understand and interpret Reality. These attempts
have proceeded from several levels of knowing,
and understanding and interpreting it, since
reality is not only multi-faced but also multi-levelled;
it is not known through the senses alone but is
also understood by reason, and interpreted by
conduct and activity and intuition. It is no
wonder therefore, that there have been, and are,
many ways of knowing, understanding and
interpreting it, each of which is ambitious
enough to attempt a total comprehension of that
Reality. It is undoubtedly true that the more
modest of these seekers after truth are content
to confine knowledge to the limits of their
day-to-day activity, whatever these limits might
be. Therefore, some seek to know only about
solids and metals, and some others know only
about liquids and so on. Thus there have
developed many sciences - bits of knowledge
limited to the spheres of interest, activity and
utility. Such knowledge, requisite for proper
adjustment to the environment, is valuable for
life,and within its limits, absolute. Biological
sciences alongside physical sciences, social
sciences alongside political sciences, have been
existing from the dawn of speculative interests
- perhaps even prior to the latter. In one
sense philosophical knowledge might be said to
attempt a comprehensive single theory to embrace
both. Philosophy thus demands a type of mind
different from the scientific, in so far as its
interest is to know, understand and interpret
the whole range of human experience, sometimes
exceeding it. Thus whilst scientific knowledge
is aimed at by most people for better adaptation
and adjustment to the world around their
immediate vicinity, and not the knowledge of the
whole of Reality, Philosophy aims at this latter
alone. A scientific mind is different from the
philosophic mind. Despite the utility of science
towards philosophical comprehension, the
philosophical approach seeks to apprehend
Reality as a whole, and as it is in itself. True
to definition, philosophy is the love of
knowledge (sophia) which is experience of
Reality by an attempt to live for it, in it and
by it. It is what Spinoza called as living and
moving and having one's being in God or Reality
in its All-ness. This is undoubtedly a great
aim.
There are many approaches - realism for
example. Realism means to know, understand and
interpret the world of Nature as a plural world
comprising parts - infinitely divided and
capable of being analysed (taken apart into
pieces). It sees differences infecting and
characterising all reality, sensory as well as
rational analyses, and seeks to synthesise the
plurality of elements and apprehend the
principle of their unity.
There is the approach of idealism which
postulates that all reality is mental or
mind-dependent, if not mind-made. This may hold
that all reality is a unity or One, but it can
as well hold that it is a unity in multiplicity
or a multiplicity in unity, both being mental.
It may also hold that the multiplicity is
derived from the One, or that the multiplicity
is the appearance, real or illusory, of the one
spirit or the Absolute. Idealisms range from
romantic idealism to abstractionistic
rationalism. In any case philosophers who uphold
the reality of mind or Reason have invariably
been idealistic.
There is another approach called the
Mystical, which concludes that Reality is
trans-rational and could only be grasped by
transcendental intuition which is superior to
the feeling of aesthetic individualism.
Mysticism has, of course, infinite protean
forms, but the main philosophical trend of
mysticism lies in its intuitive grasp of reality
as a whole, both in its single Oneness and in
its infinite manyness in the One. It is
trans-rational in the sense that the logic of
mystic experience is not capable of being fitted
into the neat dialectic schema of reason.
Therefore, it appears at one end to be
irrational and at the other end to be
trans-rational, carrying a supreme con-viction
or axiomatic reality or truth in its
deliverances.
From sense to reason and from reason to
intuition seems to be the levels of our passage
to Reality.
Each of these approaches yields a Vision or
Pattern and shape of Reality. Thus darsanas are
framed. Indian thought presents the Reality in
the three-fold way of Perception-dependent
formulation of Reality (including super sensory
perception), Reason-dependent formulation of
Reality (as dualism), and Intuition-dependent
formulation of Reality (as one in many, One is
duality, One in its transcendent Oneness). They
are Vaisesika, Samkhya, and Vedanta, each with
its relative darsana, such as Nyaya, Yoga and
Mimamsa.
The so-called Heterodox systems depend on
intuitIve sources other than the Veda, but they
are also capable of being classed under the
broad triple heads, Realism (pluralism),
Rationalism (dualism) and Intuitionism
(integralism). Buddhism leads towards
transcendental intuitionism; Jainism leans
towards synthetic intuitionism; realising the
relativism of the plural standpoints, whereas
the tantras have always sought to bridge the
gulfs between intuitions of several layers and
levels of reality by the supreme activity of
integration (carya) and doing (kriya).
The problem of man has been the conquest of
misery; attainment of liberation, perfection,
positive bliss and immortality have of course
been other aims which have mingled with the
first. The whole Darsana has to provide means to
the attainment of goals of man (Parama
purusarthas).
The question would be whether a new darsana
is at all needed, since the other Darsanas are
there to satisfy man's needs. It is clear that
teachers of the Vedanta have all along taught
that the four purusarthas of man have been
satisfactorily gained through the pursuit of the
Vedamarga. The paths of karma and jnana taught
by them are said to help the attainment of both
happiness here and in the hereafter. Beatitude
is also had by following the path of the Veda
and its upangas (subsidiaries).
The darsanas that have sprung out of the
Vedas may be said to be the six systems - nyaya,
vaisesika, samkhya, yoga and the two mimamsas.
Though each one of them claims to be a whole
exposition or system yet we can discern the
emphasis made in respect of the world of Nature
in the first two darsanas, the psychology of
human being in the next two, whilst the last two
darsanas deal with the transcendental reality
that sustains, through works and through
knowledge, the realities of nature and soul.
Therefore the three modes of approach are
clearly discernible - the adhi-bhautika, the
adhyatmika and the adhi-daivika, and one is
expected to study all the six systems (darsanas)
in order to arrive at the Vedanta - the
conclusive purport of the Veda. Other sciences
have all helped to elucidate the Vedic Vision.
Similarly the Puranas and the Itihasas have
helped to explain and expatiate on the teachings
of the Vedic Vision.
The Buddhistic approach, in a way, seems to
have only emphasised the need to seek the
spiritual attainment of the Vedic rsis or the
Brahmanas. The goal was only the
parama-purusartha, liberation or moksa, rather
than an understanding of Reality as such, not
even of oneself, except in so far as one is a
creature of misery and bondage. Similarly the
Jaina approach, while recognizing the multiple
nature of Reality, emphasised the psychological
need to dissipate or dissolve the karma-matter,
or throw it out of oneself, in order to become a
free one. They did not aim at the metaphysical
knowledge of Reality - their concern was more
practical, in the one direction of attainment of
liberation or moksa.
The Vedic Vision embraced all reality, and
while recognizing the supreme validity and
emphasis of moksa over other things, it also
discerned that Reality has to be known in all
its aspects, integrally, in its transcendent
nature as well as in its immanent nature and
form. Real freedom would entail the recognition
of both the worlds or spheres of Being as the
field of freedom. To have attained a partial,
though by no means primary, Vision of the
Beyond, is in itself a great excellence.
However, the necessity to attain that Beyond
which can explain and sustain the here and all
is no less an imperative of consciousness.
Therefore, no new darsana other than the
Vedic Vision seems to be called for. The Vedic
Vision, however well preserved by the many
expositions of great acaryas, yet unfolds no
unified Vision (Samanvaya), though with some
effort and grace we might arrive at a
harmonisation of the several visions. At the
present juncture, this is being done by
intellectual giants through an awakened and
independent reason. A more disciplined and
dedicated reason which does not yearn at
revolutionary interpretations is perhaps more
the need rather than the skeptical and
casuistical reason enthroned today as the novum
organum. Therefore, there is an attempt to hold
that the goal is to arrive at that very
instrument of vision which the Vedic rsis
possessed, that divine eye (divyacaksus) which
will reveal the eternal reality in all its glory
and fullness. The question would yet arise
whether, after all, the rsis did possess that
Vision; and to this question divergent answers
are given by evolutionists and perfectionists or
eternalists. The decision here again cannot be
by speculative reasoning but by a decisive
approach to the Vision itself - a Vision that is
dependent upon an attainment and a possession of
the mystic insight, intuition, and revelation,
even like that of the Vedic rsis or seers.
Since this insight was somehow lost or fell
into disuse in the course of ages, the necessity
to regain that has become imperative. Perhaps,
once this insight becomes the normal mode of
apprehension of Reality, it would be possible to
assess the claims of the modern thinkers and
that of the Ancient Seers. Firstly, we have yet
to determine whether the modern thinkers have
evolutionarily, arrived at that height of Vision
of the Real, or have only devaluated reality to
appearance and the neat patterns that their
empiricism, pragmatism and instrumentalism had
instructed. The claim made by modern seers to
have advanced beyond the rsis has to be looked
into more closely. Exceptional circumstances
have produced geniuses, but genius has not
become the common property or endowment of man.
So long as there is lack of the higher kind of
reasoning, of intuition, there is bound to be
relative blindnesses in perception, reasoning
and even intuitions.
The development of these perceptions and
intuitions is the basic need which must be felt
in the depths of one's being, and this is what
will ultimately determine our Visional
possibility.
Darsana requires preparation to see, and see
rightly through the proper instruments of seeing
and knowing. This is a preparation for realising
one's goal. The preparation to connect oneself
with Reality in its vastest and minutest forms
is itself Yoga. It is the yoking of oneself to
the task of realising, visioning, Reality. It is
to shut out all other aims and goals. In one
word it is dedication (diksa).
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