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THE
LIVING TEACHING OF VEDANTA
OR
What is living and what is dead in vedantic
Thought The criterion of what is living and what is dead has been one of the most vital
concerns of mankind, and in ancient thought all over the world, the criterion is
that if a man knows the real and the true, he lives, and if he does not know
this, he is, as it were, dead (jivat-sava). This criterion is sufficiently
all-embracive for our purpose. But what does this criterion essentially mean? In
other words, the problem is of deciding as to what is real and what unreal. That
reality and living are bound together in an inseparable unity, this certainly is
.the criterion, and it only means that living-ness is the essential
characteristic of reality. A dynamic life based on knowledge is the real life,
and because reality is dynamic, it lives. To separate these two as some
philosophers are to do, would be not to know the truth. To live is to be real. This ought to be the general approach to the problem of Indian thought, and in
this essay, it is applied to the three schools of Vedanta. The Vedantic theory
is peculiarly placed in India. It had absorbed the very best of all the systems,
and is fairly synthetic in its comprehensive adaptation of these systems.
Vedanta began, as
all thinkers of India excepting the scholastic world-builders and word-splitters
started, with the solution of the
problem of individual unhappiness and suffering.1
They rightly held that once the individual knows
1
Athato Brahma Jijnasa, I, i, 1, may be interpreted in this
manner.
the truth of his existence, he would become immortal, and absolutely happy. To
refer this to a metaphysical approach would be in the highest degree utterly
insufficient explanation of Indian thought. At the outset, therefore, the
problem of Indian thought was individual and practical, and not merely
metaphysical. Metaphysics had to enter in, and when it did, it meant that it was
more or less an obtrusion, an inevitable theorising.The ancients had early
enough recognised that there can be no ultimate perfection in the universe,
unless each individual in the universe attained self-realisation, and was
perfect in his knowledge, and complete in his happiness. Since most types of
metaphysics ended in different conceptions of Reality, it was insisted by the
ancients that the world at least should be maintained in an orderly manner, for
which purpose schemes of laws and restrictions were drawn up and run1. Thus,
in Indian thought, one can think as one likes, but one cannot disobey the social
regulations, achara. But such schemes of state-organisation are bound to be
temporary expedients till the final realisation of harmony on the basis of the
self-realisation of all individuals. Really, therefore, the question was not
what the total whole was like, but what the individual was like, ‘knowing which
one may be said to know all.’ To know the Atman was to know the Brahman, and
though the lure of the All was greater than the discovery of each, finally, the
latter became the most important factor in spiritual realisation. Thus the main
problem for Advaita, Visishtadvaita, and Dvaita thinkers was the discovery of
the nature of each individual in his relation to the total All, through the
realisation of the individual of himself.The Advaitic, or the
absolute monistic view in its most characteristic phase is seen in the earliest
exponent of that system, Mandukya1,
which undertakes the investigation into the nature of consciousness.The life of every person
reveals three states of consciousness (avasthatraya), namely jagrat, the
waking, svapna, the dreaming, and sushupti the deep sleeping. By
these three states, our entire life is rounded. We are all wheeled from one
state of consciousness to another in a continuous series. This is the cycle of
samsara, from which we are unable to get out. This is bondage, because the
states of consciousness not only do not give us truth of experience, but also do
not allow us to get out of them. In other words, they are irrational. The waking
and the dream consciousness taken individually as such, are irrational. They
mislead us in our activities and cause confusion and illusion. The deep sleep
state is neither a state of knowledge nor a state of action. It is the state of
quiescence. Behind all these three states, or rather over and above all these
three states, is the real consciousness which functions for its own purposes of
existence and sustains these three. The something of the real that we know and
are aware of even in these three states we owe to the functioning of the highest
consciousness, the turiya, the fourth of our nature. It is truth, reality
and bliss. It is the Atman-consciousness, and is quite unlike the other three in
that it does not divide itself into waking, dreaming and sleeping. It is
continuous and integral, of which the three are parts. But the turiya
does not even accept these distinctions as its parts, constituents or effects.
The Atman, the turiya, does not recognise the trichotomy of its nature. It is
the whole self, integral and therefore complete in its reality. This is the
Advaita-consciousness. This is the Atman beyond which nothing exists either as
of the nature of .the states or as something of which this is an effect. It has
neither a cause, nor does it cause any of these states.Between the three states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping, there is the
possibility of predicating causality, because they seem to succeed each other.
The waking and the dreaming states of individual life reveal this mutual
dependence, the former being as it were a consequence of the latter. Without
imagination one cannot even grasp the knowledge of objects. It is only at a
later state of man’s life the dream becomes predominantly the subjective
after-effect of the objective waking existence. The waking becomes more
important than the dreaming, which is the imaginative effort to know objective
reality. Imagination instead of becoming knowledge becomes memory, and more and
more a ‘reaction - a compensatory mechanism in its function. The third state,
sushupti, is the state of rest for the self. This state is considered by
some thinkers to be the causal state, karana, Prakriti, the beginning of
the subjective and the objective dulality1.
This state of rest then is interpreted by them to be a restive state instead of
a state of rest. Goudapada calls this state, the state of unsettledness or
indeterminateness aniscaya. The three states reveal no coherency with each other, nor could they be
considered to give knowledge directly as the channels through which one can get
at reality. They are not the self, for a self must be capable of coherent
existence, must be capable of initiating living. The waking and the dream
states are receptors of experience in the sense that the waking life of a person
is a reactive and responsive existence to stimuli coming from the objective
world, and the dream is merely the ideational reflex of waking life, and,
therefore, also a reaction dependent upon the environment. A self, on the other
hand, being a creative existence tries to bring about harmony and coherence and
perfection of individual expression.Therefore, it is necessary to recognise that
there is a self because we are creative in spite of being more and more
reactive. The self functions for the most part through the three, or rather two,
states of waking and dream. The self alone is what functions, for it alone can
function, and we are selves more and more when we function integrally and not
when we live merely the reactive experience of the three states which are
irrational and uncreative of true harmony and freedom.
1Samkhya Karika 3. Goudapada points out the
similarity in the subjective sphere what Kapila
had done in the objective, by using similar
appellations. Cf. Goudapada Karika on the
Mandukya. 1.11-13.
It is because the three states of our experience are considered to be the whole
of our existence, and we do not recognise that there is a self, dynamic in its
character, sustaining the three states of existence, we are constantly prone to
commit error and are ignorant of our true life as creative individuals. We are
unhappy because we have a house divided against itself- a waking consciousness
which interferes with the dream or imagination, or an imagination simulating the
waking and the actual. The deep sleep is a period of cessation of these
rivalries, an armistice born out of fatigue, peace, call it what you will. The
fourth, which is the self and not a state of consciousness, recognises none of
these states but simply is. It is the most simple because it is integral. The
waking vanishes in it in the sense that there is then the expressing of the
self, the dream equally vanishes in it because between creating and imagining
there can be no division. The ideal and the actual lose their meaning. There is
no sleep because there is no need for an armistice between the two counteracting
states of existence. The self is therefore neither the cause nor the effect nor
is it in any doubt as to what it shall be or create.This is the central doctrine of the Mandukya Upanishad as seen in the highly
illustrative example of the fusion of the three sounds AUM into one completely
integrated sound OM. Just as the three separately, recognisable sounds A, U, M,
are rounded in the single integral OM losing their separate character, or have
so completely and intimately coalesced within this unity of OM, so also the
three states of our consciousness are also intimately related or rather fused in
the self which is the real unit of Spirit. To say that these three are partials
of the total Self, or that they are states of the whole, would be false
description. It will only lead to illogical ways of thought. This does not mean
that one cannot view them by separating them, but to view them in such a manner
is not conductive to maintaining its integral essence, will be
intellectualisation, to use a much abused word of modern times. In fact, it will
mean an effective way by which one can forget and finally annihilate the whole,
the self. Therefore the perspective of the self cannot be available through
anyone of the states of consciousness for they cannot intimate, much less
interpret, the real quality of the whole which is the Self. The whole is a
different pattern. A new quality reveals itself. It is the absolute, individual,
simple Self. The parts, or states, have no capacity to reveal the self. They are
false in so far as they do not reveal the self, and its character of creative
initiation of action. But in so far as they are integrated with the whole self
in a unique and legitimate way they are real.A careful and intelligent reading of the Mandukya Upanishad along with the
brilliant commentary of Goudapada will reveal that the Advaita of the Upanishads
is not identical with Mayavada. In fact Goudapada criticises the view of
Mayavada by using the arguments of Mayavadic writers against them. If it is said
that the objects of consciousness have a beginning and therefore an end and as
such unreal, it equally follows that having an end involves a beginning ‘- maya
also1. The rule that everything
1.
Cf. Goudapada Karika 17-18. The 17m has to be
taken as Purvapaksha and the 18th as the
Siddhanta of Goudapada who pleads for non-creationism(ajativada).
that has a beginning has an
end is an entirely reversible relation. The self has neither beginning nor end,
has neither a cause nor an effect. It is untouched by anything because it is
simple, complete and whole.Maya is a cognisable
psychological fact of confusion which perpetuates the dissociation of the whole
by fixing one’s attention on the states instead of the whole, on the parts as in
themselves not as related to the whole. Goudapada condemned any dychotomising of
experience, and equally abhorred yielding to causal explanations of
consciousness and of the states. He wanted the integral explanation of the self
which contains every state, within which there is no confusion, no parts as
such. To him between the expression and the expressor, there is possible no
causal explanation, since there can be -no disintegration of consciousness. The
states of consciousness become patent only when there is doubt and unsettledness
as to expression, when there is ‘lag’ of spontaneity or the flow of life. This
‘lag’ occurs when there is abstraction from the expressing, when one clings to
the expression or identifies oneself with one’s expression. When this
identification of the individual with his expression takes place or rather when
one tries to eat upon his past and contemplate it, there arises later on the
problems of causal explanation as to whether the dream or deep sleep or the
waking is the causal prius of individual life. Goudapada answers this by putting
a return query, which shall be born first, the seed or the tree? One cannot
dismiss this argument as infinite regress, and, therefore, as false- an error
into which idealists fumble constantly. It is a fact that seeds produce trees
and trees produce seeds1.
The way of looking at these things is not, therefore, through the distressingly
faulty apparatus of intellectual dialectic, but through an appeal to the fact
that there is a whole within which these functions are carried on. This final
argument is not a refutation of either philosophic realism or idealism, both of
which are content to be abstractionistic or sensationally abstractionistic. They
are content to deal with the dead exudation of experience. It is an argument for
an integral individual life, which means a life of intense expression of the
Self, completely, perfectly, and spontaneously.When there is this free
functioning of consciousness which is integral or Self, there is no division
within. One is at peace within oneself. One is simply happy. This dynamic poise
of being which is intelligence and creation, when it functions within the waking
and the dream with reference to the objects contained therein, does not divide
it self. It functions in both of them with thoroughness and enjoys them fully
without impediment. Mandukya mentions the triumphs of the spirit2 in
the three states of its consciousness, the three planes or levels of individual
life. That is the promise held out to those who becomes selves. It is the
fulfilment of the journey. It is the annihilation of contradiction, bheda,
within and without. Thus the affirmation of the integral self is the truth of
Advaita. Such a self alone can be truth, bliss and dynamic existence. That alone
can stand without confusion and division as the
1. Goudapada
Karika, Alatasanti Prakarana, 13-20.
2. Mandukya
Upanishad, x-xi. Ct. Invention and the
Unconscious, Montmasson, pp. 216-17.
master of Maya. That alone
can be really happy for it does not derive its enjoyment from another. It is not
lonely even when alone. That alone can effectively negate suffering, since it
does not know evolution or purpose, does not know diminution or destruction of
itself. For how can a whole evolve into something that is not a whole? A whole
only can express itself, being a unity. It cannot be a product of another,
cannot be a step to another. It is perfect awareness.Advaita in its purest form and highest
aspiration is concerned, thus, with the individual integral consciousness. It
describes this as an integral spirit which functions and sustains and transforms
the three states which constitute its expressing (dharma) into one
continuous stream of its own expressing completely and” When it is sensible, it
unites itself with objects in the external world; when it is aesthetic it
becomes disinterested or playful contemplation: When it is affective, it is
painful or joyous; when it is moral, it becomes our personal work, we devotes
ourselves to it; when it is mystical it is the devination of the profound
meaning......” perfectly, without any confusion or interference1. It pleads that no individual should cling to anyone of the states
(forms, rupam) as that would begin the circle of ignorance again. But once an
individual recognises his unitary nature, there can be no falling away from
integrality. Every person, therefore, must realise that he is a whole, and not a
series of states, nor even a series of functions nor faculties as the
Alayavijnana theory and the modern behaviorists
1.
Goudapada Karika on
Mandukya iv,98.
describe him to be. The individual in his
unitary or self-character is an exponent or creator of beauty, truth and harmony
which is bliss. This is the truth about all selves. This is the living teaching
of Advaita, eternally valuable to thought and living.Such a truth about the
integral individual may be extended to express the reality and integrality of
the total whole, the Universal All. But the chief danger of such an extension
lies in the absolutely unrecognisable abstraction to which it lends itself. The
followers of Advaita following the lines of Samkhya, which really developed its
metaphysics from the subjective consciousness, wanted to show that the
transcendental contact between the self and Prakriti may be identified with the
beginning of Avidya or ignorance through the over-laying of Maya (conceived as
illusion) on the individual or the universal Brahman so as to bring about this
world of unmeaning falsity. They used the Samkhyan analysis of evolution for the
description of the external world of objects, but finally connected this to a
psychological loss of equilibrium on the part of Brahman. This adaptation of
Samkhyan psychology and metaphysics was certainly facilitated by Goudapada’s
brief but significant commentary on the Samkhya Karika2. Maya becoming identical with the universal Prakriti,
next became a universal defect. What was a psychological fact became a
qualitative metaphysical fiction.
2. Goudapada’s
commentary on the Samkhya is considered to be of
doubtful authenticity. But is significant that
Sarvadarsana Samgraha places Samkhya nearest to
Advaita.
We may affirm that between integrality and
metaphysics there can be no common ground. A metaphysic which asks for
wholeness, a complete geographical planning of reality as if it were a continent
or a planet is asking for something that is not real at all. Again it insists
(and it may not know it) upon a spatio-temporal explanation which can never be
done with a being that has no concern with it - or even refutes. it - for an
integral reality is a whole existence, an entire action, which is the very stem
of spatio-temporal being. Therefore it follows that they belong to it as its
past or history. They belong to the created than to the creating, which is the
self. It would be meaningless to ask then about the integral whether it is a
Universal reality or a particular existence, whether it is the total reality
of finite parts. It would be more right to say that such considerations are of
absolutely no worth to integral existence which is truth, which is individual.
Buddha’s answer to metaphysicians is mainly this.In Advaita the existence of
gods or Isvara is a matter of utter inconsequence - fictions which may be true
or false. Indian seers were more concerned with the living rather than the dead.
History was never their main business. It meant to them only the contemplation
of the dead from which significant inferences may be drawn, or a moral derived.
The reality of the self involves a complete refutation of all metaphysical
speculation qua speculation, all historical retrospect which is a delving into
the past. On the other hand, it affirms the existence of freedom jivanmukti
which is the creative life of spirit, liIa. In so far, then, a self is
prepared to be a unitary existence, it cannot but be of universal significance.
The attainment of selfness, svarupa avadharana is the essence of true
religious experience. This is dynamic existence not Samkhyan passivity, which is
but a thinly-veiled abstract existence of isolation, kevalatva.Later Vedanta of the Advaita-type
has brought much more of the samkhyan futilities to the forefront of its thought
than the germ of spiritual living. As we have shown, Maya really means the power
of expressing. But it was meant to mean the erroneous functioning of an
individual in anyone of the states by clinging to it as if it were the prop of
existence. That is, it is represented to mean the activity of the individual,
who clings to his creations instead of being the unfettered free actor or
expressor of his integral perfection as a self. In other words, Maya is the
tendency to live in the created, to possess and to live in its shadow. This
tendency to live in the forms created previously generates a kind of release
from consciousness, and makes one more and more unconscious, or mechanical. In
order to get rid of this tendency, seriously it has been suggested that all
expressing should stop, and that one should cease to perform action.The real manner by which one
could get over. the defect, namely, the tendency to live in the created is to be
constantly aware of oneself without falling into either agrahana,
non-receptivity, or anyathagrahana, perverse receptivity. These are the
causes of fall from the integral spirituality. Plato similarly holds that the
two primary causes for a man’s fall from his perfection of integral selfness are
ignorance(amathia) and indolence(rhathymia). Indolence is the
effeminate slackness of the soul itself, which falls away from complete
awareness of its archetypal existence at every moment of its life. Alas, the
forms which we have created, physically and psychically, become our destroyers
when we become their slaves, though they are expressions of our creative
activity!Advaita as representing the
integral realisation of the individual, does not mean static identity or
evolutionary illusionism, but dynamic integrality and creative realism. It is
not mere unity but integral unit, simple, undivided, consummate intelligence,
which can tolerate no distinctions. To divide consciousness is to kill it, to
make it static is to petrify it, and to abstract it from its integral nature is
to benumb it. It is an unquestionable principle that consciousness is in
constant peril of becoming unconscious, and this peril can only be overcome when
the individual creatively expresses himself always, rather than responsively and
reactively adjusts himself to the environment. This is the highest
responsibility of the self. This is its truth. This is the intensification of
individual life. This is true morality. In other words, this is the
starting-point of all definitive action which is the revelation of perfection.
II
To achieve the integral
consciousness, the self, which is perfect harmony of the three avasthas, waking,
dreaming, and sleep, in terms of the whole which is the self, is to recognise
the fulness of spiritual life. But man is not spirit alone, but a spirit with a
body that he utilises for his own purposes of action and enjoyment. The body is
dependent on just one self, whose presence within it gives it the status of a
body. From the recognition of the body, it follows that not only the three
states of consciousness need to be integralised in the self, but also the body
with its entire series of functions. The body has been functioning through ages
in terms of the divided experience of the states of consciousness, that it is
now ill-adapted to true living. In its efforts to adapt itself to changing
conditions, it had created or brought into being compensatory mechanisms,
psychograms, and neurograms. To abolish many of these formations and to restore
the true status of the body, it would be necessary once again to assume the
integral nature of body-soul and act. Ramanuja’s greatest contribution lies in
the efficient manner he uses adhyatma yoga for this purpose.1It would be valuable at this stage to mention one problem of absolute
importance. Why are the selves many? Could selves be born at all? The second and
the last questions are specially intriguing,
because we have
1 The
school of yoga paid more attention to the
synthesis of the levels by the control of the
lower levels. Hatha, and Raja Yoga try to
control the pranic, the physical, and the
intellectual levels.
already denied any casual
relation with regard to selves. But these three questions are in fact one only.In a metaphysical sense we may affirm with
the sutra ‘janmadyasya yatah’ that the souls also originate from Brahman. But
spirit can never be born. The tantric theory mentions that Brahman became focal,
bindu, before He manifested himself1 Brahman
tending toWards expression of himself, being spirit ,became infinitely many and
assumed the focal existence of himself in many ways.* The focal points of
Brahman are the Atmans or jivas. Thus the Atman or the jiva is Brahman in
expression. It is a recognised fact in psychology that focalisation of
consciousness is attention, which is the beginning of either thought or action.
It is the beginning of all integral activity. It is the necessary preliminary to
creative activity. To become focal then is the prime necessity on the part of
Brahman the vast and the infinite Being. Being infinitely perfect and possessing
infinite perfections, he is focal in as many ways as there are perfections. Each
perfection of his focalises itself as a self or Atman completely spiritual
* Sri Aurobindo holds that the Divine one
is an eternally manyness. Leibniz held that the
total is a system of monads so interrelated
interiorly. or intensively as to be capable of
being. in each ideally, which presence makes for
the internal appetition towards cleaner and
cleaner perception of the Total, mirror without
confusion and ignorance. This eterni many
represented in infinite perspectives of the
whole which includes the perceiving monad as
well as the perceived whole of monads comes
nearer the focalisation of the Infinite One in
many. Each then is an embodiment of the whole,
within which the whole uniquely seeks clarity
and is at the same moment in the whole.
Evolution too there is but it is, an evolution
in knowledge from confused to clear perception.
All progress is thus from unclear and confused
to Perfect Vision.
Cf.Nadabindu Up. Kashmirian saivism:
Chatterjee. Philosophy of Bhedabheda:
P.N.Srinivasacharya.
and absolutely integral.
Just as in the theory of vyuhas in pancaratra*, the absolute Brahman fulgurates
as Samkarshana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha, who are but his perfect qualities, in
an identical manner it will be necessary to treat every soul, Atman, as a
focalisation of a perfection of Brahman, an amsa of the All-perfect, as a
vibhuti.It may be suggested that
there is creation of the soul here1.
But the apparent creationism of the soul is not really creationism, except in
metaphysical sense. Brahman being dynamic eternally, cannot but be focal
eternally. His infinity of perfections entails his being eternally many. His
spiritual dynamic nature as also his infinite perfections determine his eternal
multiplicity. The immortality of Brahman guarantees the immortality of the souls
as also their uncreated character. The ikshati2,
the desire to be many on the part of Brahman is an eternal desire to express
Himself, to enjoy Himself in expression, and to manifest His perfections which
are the souls. Thus is He the supreme Antaryamin. The ikshati is
the eternal desire. Thus from the very beginning souls existed, and the body
manifests itself for each self according to the perfection each soul has to
express or fulfill.In the foregoing it does not
mean that Brahman is finite, it only means that the infinite is the stem of the
finite, and exists and expresses itself as the finites.
* Pancaratra is the consumnate doctrine of the
five scriptures too, veda, vedanta, samkhya,
yoga and purana
1 Vedanta
sutras ILii.40-43
2 Vedanta
Sutras I.i.4
The desire to manifest
expresses itself first as the ego, with the vibrant (spandana) movement.
This vibratory movement becomes gradually the movement of sound, of touch, of
form or sight, of taste and of smell. The gamut of movement thus finds its
differentiations. Interpreting this description in psychological terms, with
which alone we are .pre-eminently concerned here, the spirit or self, becomes
the concentred existence flowing into action, and as it progresses it fashions
the etheric, the pranic, the neural, the endocrinic, and the muscular and bone
structures of the body.* Thus the entire development of the body is expressed in
terms of the expression of the self, and the consciousness that fashions this
body is the integral focal consciousness which now utilises this for its own
purposes. But the price paid by the integral consciousness in its attempt at
formation of the physical body has been the loss of consciousness due to
automatisation of functions, due to the tendency of the self to live in its
creations. This latter feature had also made some souls not to try to get out of
their prior creations, thus confining them to instinctive and mechanical or
tropistic actions for ever.Thus we find that once there is spirit, that
is dynamic intelligence, it cannot but become monadic, because its main thrust
is towards its own expression (action), and, therefore, the body becomes the one
inevitable formation for the purposes of expression of its perfection. The body
is the perfect instrument of the spirit, and has a perfect right to be, and we
cannot conceive of any spirit without being in action. And thus it follows that
all selves are psycho-physical organisms and not mere psyches. The world of
Prakriti (matter) could be likewise conceived as the body of Brahman.
III
It is exactly at this point
that Ramanuja’s theory comes in. Brought up in the lore of pancaratra he
had accepted the usefulness of the body for the purpose of the Divine. He
maintains without accepting the creationism of the body by the individual self,
that the body ab initio is completely subservient to the self, and
functions for the purposes of the self absolutely, and is in fact an ornament
rather than an impediment. But he also affirms that such an absolute case of
body is only for the Divine Universal Being or God. Our bodies are only in a
lesser degree absolutely ours because we are not aware of our true self, our
archetypal existence. We have not got complete
truth-consciousness. In order to arrive at that truth-consciousness, which is the constant awareness of being, Ramanuja asks us
to surrender ourselves to God, whose consciousness is auspicious and integral.
He affirms that Divine Consciousness would lead us on to absolute perfection,
and happiness. Vedanta Desika,
the most brilliant expounder of Ramanuja’s thought,
in his last and greatest work, Rahasyatrayasara1
expounds the attainment of the Divine Consciousness
by the individual soul through Bhara-nyasa-yoga
(offering of all impediments of body, action, etc.,
* Cf. Garbha Up. and other physiological Upanishads.
1.
Specially in Svanishtabhyadi karana.
to God). When this offering
happens intelligently and constantly, the body becomes more and more a creative
instrument of the Divine Integral Consciousness, more and more aware of its
integral character with the self, and not a source of misery and limitation.
Such then is the goal of the body, which becomes the perfect medium of the
individual self, and the instrument of integral consciousness, the Divine All.Thus it happens that
Ramanuja has already brought into his thought the Universal Being, the
turiyatita which Goudapada and Mandukya thoroughly refrained from speaking
about. Mandukya is being supplemented by the Isavasyopanishad.2Ramanuja does not enter into
discussions concerning the existence of parallelism or interactionism,- those
profoundly modem problems-between the body and the soul. He does not bother
himself with the epistemological questions
of representative perception, or how knowledge of the objects or the
body takes place-at least not with the purposiveness of modem philosophers. He
merely accepts the common-sense position, an entirely unsatisfactory position
according to some thinkers, and says that the fact that the self knows is there,
and the fact that the self has a body to be an effective existence is also
there. The function of the body is to display the perfect workings of the Divine
Consciousness, and not to be an impediment to the spirit.*
2.
It is interesting to note (hat Sri Vedanta
Desika commented only on one Upanishad and that
is significantly the Isa Up.
* Yasya chetanasya yad dravyam, sarvaatmana
svartha niyantam, dharayitum ca sakyam,
yacchesataika svarupam ca tat tasya sariram iti
sarira lakshanam.
Just as Goudapada had shown that the three stages
of consciousness veil the fourth, or rather feed on the fourth without allowing
it to function effectively, and instead of expressing the fourth, impede its
expression by distorting its functioning, and finally forget that there is such
a thing as the fourth, the self or Atman, so also by constant pampering the body
seems to, and, in fact, does, become the only prominent experience, and the self
a mere epiphenomenon. The main intention of Goudapada was to make the integral
consciousness, Atman, the real centre of individual life, Ramanuja’s was to make
the Atman a real being, not merely a body with a soul but a soul with a body.His intention to remove the
primacy which the body had usurped, thanks to carvakas, is the first step in
establishing spirit in the core of our psycho-physical life. But whilst
Goudapada felt that the integral consciousness knew no distinction between its
individual and universal character, to Ramanuja it became very important. He
felt that the Universal integral consciousness has a more satisfactory authority
and assurance from the Upanishads, which because it is universal can be
considered to have more power and perfection than the individual finite self. He
related, therefore, the individual soul and its body to the divine Universal God
in the same manner as the body is related to it. Not only is the body to be made
an instrument of the individual consciousness, but also it must in turn
surrender itself to the Highest Universal Being. There is one continuous action
of the Divine thus established.Thus it comes to this, that
the individual soul becomes an absolute servant of the Universal Being, the
integral self becomes an exponent of the universal purpose: it firmly
establishes its connection with the totality of the perfection of God. It begins
to act as the servant of the Divine Consciousness, dasa, in order that it may
act in consonance with the world-purpose of the creative action of the Supreme
Brahman. Ramanuja thus brought to the forefront the purpose of the Divine
expression or manisfestation, the Lila, the vibhuti. The social-character
of the individual Self is here brought out clearly. The existence of other
selves makes it clear that the individual integral self is not the final
destiny. It is not enough to recognize the individual, it is necessary to meet
to recognize the lila-vibhuti, the world of souls and this recognition
forces one to surrender to the Universal All because that is the only link with
which one can truly relate oneself with another.1Now one may ask whether the transformation
with the help of the total All is not better than the mere transformation
of the individual as a first step, and then
link with the world of souls. Such a question is legitimate, but one must
possess the consciousness of oneself as self* and not merely as a series of
states or functions, or merely as a body with functions of volition,
intellection, emotion, and motion, which are all reactions. One cannot
1 Brih.
Up., ILiv .5. The
turiyatita
conception plays a very important role in the
minor yoga and mystic Upanishads. There the
integral individual self is the turiya and the
Universal All is the turiyatita.
* Rahasyatraya sara Ch.x upayavibhagadhikara
which mentions that atmasaksatkara precedes
Brahmasaksatkara.
be aware of the All unless one is aware of
oneself as a self, as the ultimate unit of existence. Units alone can be, can
act and integrate, and till the unity of individual existence is known or
gained, there can possibly be no relation at
all in the real sense of the term.Secondly, Ramanuja’s view tends, though it does not intend, to place the
Universal a little more distant than the self itself. Intuitive Consciousness,
which is self-consciousness, is the first
recognition of integrality. It makes the several levels of our life spontaneous.Ramanuja’s main intention is to make the
individual organic with the Universal. He makes the body of the individual and
the individual himself the temple of the Divine All. The intuitive consciousness
is the perfect divine consciousness working in the individual as its self, a
focus of the Divine, and as such is the universal consciousness itself. The
question does not arise whether it is the All-the Universal God - that
functions, or the individual self.* We have implicated the Universal in the
individuals, and the individuals are now the body of the Universal Spirit; the
two are related to each other as soul and body, as spirit and its focus, as
prakari and prakara.The
value of Ramanuja’s thesis consists in - his insi tence that the Divine
consciousness, with whom all selves s are eternally integrated is also their
inmost con sciousness and self. It could be
expressed fully and com pletely by the conscious invitation on the part of the
indi viduals by their
* Lord in the Gita mentions that five are the
ingredients of a Cause in each action- and the
fifth is Daivam- daivam tu panchamam.
surrender to the Universal
Spirit. This Univ rsal Spirit is capable of becoming immanent in a more powerful
way than what is usually thought of. That is, he not only pervades and
possesses, but can be made actually to express himself in the self in
completeness.But Ramanuja’s weakness for
placing the Divine outward manifests itself strongly when he creates or rather
accepts another world- the ideal world of Vaikuntha*- where he places God
always, and tries to reconcile His existence within us (antaryamin) by
the theory of pervation of power. These tendency to construct another world of
perfect peace (though the construction of another perfect world was not any more
his than1 others’
special vocation), also made him place the Divine Integral Consciousness both
outside the individual as God, and inside as Antaryamin and more prominently the
former, made him also disembody man in order to make him free in Heaven (videhamukti).
If the world is lila, a perect manifestation of the perfections, infinite and
auspicious of the Divine,
and if the individual body of man is capabl of being
a perfect instrument of the Divine Consciousness as
* Madam Blavatsky: Isis
Unveiled II .p.287 “ The fourth degree of the
Buddhist dhyana, the fruit of samadhi which
leads to the utmost perfection to Viconddham, a
term correctly rendered by Bourunkwouf in the
verb perfected ..”
1.
It is not Ramanuja only that created the heaven
and described it so as to have ‘a hand in the
making of it’ or personally assited at the
origination of the world (ct. S.Radhakrishnan.
Indian Philosophy Voll.p720). Descriptions of
heaven are found to be a fascination hobby of
almost all seers. Plato had his archetypal world
of benches and chairs and truths, which are
‘mirrored’ in this world of phantoms. Dante had
also his medieval heaven.
Ramanuja avers, then it is
legitimate to expect Ramanuja to accept jivanmukti and not merely
videhamukti, freedom in the body, and not freedom only after death. If the
mayavadic fault had been compared with the general’s march up the hill inorder
to march down again, the Visishtadvaitic fault can well be compared to the same,
for it places God inside the individual in order to place Him outside again. Man
gets a body in order to get rid of it as soon as possible and hasten to heaven
to get a better one, since he cannot but have a body of some kind. To have
attempted the problem of transmutation or transfiguration elsewhere is a way of
escaping from the stress of life, and to abandon life even in the imperfect
manner that we know it, is to reach an abstraction however speciously it may be
called the most real and true. Spinoza, the pantheist, was perfectly right when
he affirmed that there is only one whole with all its distinctions, within which
everything lives and moves and has its being. To seek evolution here or purpose
or end, is a frailty of the human mind which wants to believe that there is a
goal somewhere, ‘a far-off event to which all creation moves’, afar and aloof
from the world that we know.If we see the whole with the
vision eternal, sub specise etemitatis-a vision of the perfect integral
consciousness, then every problem of causality, of ends and purposes, vanishes.
One simply is. To attain to an absolute somewhere, absolutely transcendent, a
happy consciousness or happy world. would be merely delusion
and ignorance-a postponement of the problem of
living, and pregnant with all the
possibilities of eternal recurrence.
To see it here and now with that eternal vision is the goal of human life and
personality. Ramanuja’s greatest aspirtion is the establishment of that supreme
spiritual vision, the vision of the whole under the speculum of eternity in the
individual. Hence his affirmation of the Universal integrity of Narayana.In the Advaita we have the
subjective integrity of the individual affirmed, and to understand the
individual as a self, a whole which finds its consummate existence in itself is
freedom. There is no surrender to anything external or transcendental to the
self but to the inner integral consciousness that leads to the expression of
itself. In Ramanuja, this self is in its turn led to surrender itself to the
Universal All which it finds to be its significant source. In both cases is
recognized that integral organization, individual or universal, knows no
development or purpose, but mere expressing of its eternal essence or
perfection. Integral consciousness, individual or universal, is a creator of
harmony or establisher of unity, and never of division and separation (bheda).
The problem raised by Leibniz of the Civitas Dei is a fact inherent
in the very nature of integral consciousness which is universal. The law of
pre-established harmony is the very essence of integral existence of the
individuals. They are necessary to each other and cannot be viewed separately.Spinoza recognized that every body which is in an intimate manner related to a
self, and that an innate parallelism remains between the organic functions and
the psychical functions. But starting as he did with one entire realm of matter
as different from mind, he could not but posit parallelism between them. It was
due to the metaphysical approach that started with the Cartesian dualism that
culminated in the parallelism and its inherent defects of representationalism.
It was only by holding to a psychologism or mentalism that Bosanquet and other
idealists could get rid of dualism, but even then, the subjects-objects
remained, and remain, as incurable aspects of the mind-body problem, reminding
us that though we may run away to altitudes of epistemological mountains, the
ground underneath is the same earth everywhere and trees thrive on the ground
and are never suspended from the sky. As Dr. MacTaggart* showed we need not
trouble ourselves with the world of matter, but should concern ourselves with
the individuals (minds) who people the world. Our business is to find a
metaphysical basis for their harmony. The world with its prallel movements can
be treated as iIIusion-a concern not of us, because time and space do not enter
into us though they may enter into our creations. The problem was in a sense
waived, abandoned, or simply raised and left in despair, or finally some felt
that they had got over it by converting it into one of different kind as they
thought, but which really is the same with a new name.Ramanuja is more right when he linked the mind and body in an inseparable unity
as modes, inseparable again from the total Reality or God. One must only
remember in this connection that it is not merely a metaphorical
* Some Dogmas of Religion.
description, for the nature of the organism must certainly manifest in quite a
different manner from what is available in the human or animal forms. The
definition of the body is whatever substance, mind, matter, forms even, which
subserves the purpose of spirit for the latter’s purposes.** Thus in the
relation of master and servant, it may happen that the servant is merely the
body, an absolute instrument of his master. It does not degrade the individual
when he is acting absolutely as an instrument of an integral consciousness,
provided of course the acts are performed with full understanding and
intelligence. Thus an
integral individual may subserve the purposes of another integral individual or
the Supreme Integral Consciousness and be a body without ceasing to be a self. In spite of these living factors in the philosophy of Ramanuja, viz. The stress
which it lays upon the dynamic character of reality as contrasted with the
staticism to which later Advaita condemned it; secondly, its assurance that the
body is a temple of the integral consciousness which can find its fullest
expression in it, that, at bottom, it is the creation of spirit in action;
thirdly, that this universe of Lila is a world of
delight of Brahman - a thought so purely Indian as contrasted with the pessimism
of the West1,
when it affirms that this spiritual consciousness as such cannot perfectly act
through the medium of this body, that freedom and creation in the fullest sense
are impossible within this body, and must
** Yasya cetanasya yat drayam, sarvatmana
svartha niyantum dharayitum ca sakyam,
yatccheshataika svaroopam ca tat tasyasariram.
1 Cf. Rabindranath Tagore: E. J. Thompson, p.102.
‘The West has never taken this joy into its
belief.’
be expected to happen elsewhere,1 that
is nothing short of a contradiction of its own main positions of value.The inevitable explanation of such
contradictions and logical pitfalls lies in the scripture, and Ramanuja and his
followers do fully utilize the armoury of scripture, just as any one else, to
defend their positions. “Inspite, therefore, of his comprehensive humanism he
forsakes it for the sake of the future he could not contemplate without
sacrificing the present which is the meridian of existence. His concept of the
other. and better world, the ideal and unchanging world of Vaikuntha,
recalls strongly the Platonic world, ‘the Utopia of ’ Ingenuous philosophers
outside history
2. There, in the other world, each individual has an individuality which
marks him out from others.3 But
then he finds that when the individuals are away in the world of terrestrial
existence some must be attending on the transcendent God. And therefore,
Visishtadvaita postulates the existence of eternal selves (nityas) who
attend upon the Lord, such as Garuda, Adisesha, etc. The individuals when they
reach Vaikuntha identify themselves with those permanent inhabitants and take
delight in seeing and enjoying the spectacle of Divine service in the eternal
world and are united in Spirit unchanging calm and beatific,
1 Cf.
Vedanta Sutra. Jagadvyapara varjam, . . . is
intended to mean that man gets all powers except
the creation, sustension, and destruction of the
entire world of creation after he reaches
Vaikuntha.
“Plato was right when he declared that infinite
life on this earth for human beings, even if it
were possible would not be desirable.
1 Cf. Plato holds that the individual
archetypes never make sojourn in this world of
shadows, unlike Ramanuja’s nityas.
2
Kalki, Sir Radhakrishnan: p.66. ‘All men
are exceptional beings...Uniqueness is a quality
which all of us share’.
content to so observe rather than aspire to
assume roles of such eternal Beings. The usual utsavas (festivals) that
are celebrated to the highest Gods are but feeble imitations of the eternal
City, and to attend these festivalsis to partake of the Divine company at least
in the shadow as a foretaste of what might happen when men hasten there.It is easy to exaggerate the
situation and condemn these as fanciful imagery of the best kind, but still
imagery. But at least it does not create a bleak monument of barren minds, the
Absolute. The aim of Lila is to create a world on the pattern of the
Eternal with all its eternal distinctions of functions and purposes which will
not collide or ‘cast a shadow on the face of others’. Ramanuja in describing the
Vaikuntha does not any more than Plato sketch a Utopia. In laying stress
on the factor of Lila, the harmony of existence to which all creation
must move, he is pleading in reality for a world of creative adventure. But as
in the case of the possible perfection of the body here and now, he surrenders
this concept of infinite value to harmonious society no sooner than he has
stated it.It appears that the
after-life is a more pre-occupying concern of the mind here at least than to
affirm and carry out the function of transformation of present existence. Or it
may be due to the fact that the minds of the many are so much blind to the truth
of existence, that Ramanuja turns away to the distance and hopes, hopes which
may, alas, never come true. The perish-ability at least of the body seems to be
a dominant reminder of the other world with all its pregnant hopes hustled into
darkness and the future. Whatever the spiritual riches heaped out of the bottom
of individual realization, they lit the distant shore and not the undergrowth
and the near spaces where one has to walk and work. The kingdom of God is only a
promise to be kept in heaven: the kingdom of God on earth unfortunately
impossible.
IV
It is at this point we come across the last and
the most misunderstood of philosophers, Ananda
Tirtha, Purna Prajna, the fully enlightened.The
doctrine of Dvaita may be taken to be an
affirmation of absolute distinctions. It is the
recognition of individual
difference and the affirmation of practical
experience. We have said that Ramanuja stood for
practical action coupled with the Universal consciousness or at one with the universal
consciousness which is social in its character
involving as it does the many. Since it is the
social Utopia of the Vaikuntha that is
sought to be established in this world of
Lila-history, Madhva went one step farther, and
insisted that this realization of the social
Utopia is entirely grounded on the discovery by
each individual of his functions in the total
whole. This means that the aspiration of the
individuals should not be the assumptions of
identities with
the total whole or with other individuals, but
the maintenance and sustenance of the
distinctions without,
however, sacrificing the harmony. of the whole,
or rather the maintenance of distinctions should
be determined by the harmony of the whole.In
Lila which is carried on under the aegis of
Sprit it is futile to ask for the return to
meaningless homogeneity of the Absolute, which
certainly is no better, if not nothing other,
than the Void, Sunya. It is the business of
individuals to unfold dynamic heterogeneity of
Brahman. The recognition of this heterogeneity
is the beginning of the creative dynamism which
is the society. Later Advaita by its harping cry
to the beginning of creation or the abstract
homogeneity of the One was trying to frustrate
the flow of spiritual life towards the social,
which is the terminus of all individual
existence. Visishtadvaita tried to affirm the
psychological distinctions of the individual and
its eternal character, but its pull was again
backward, and it resiled on the social side to
the primitivity that Advaita counselled, though
it hoped to make good this loss in the great
society after life. Ananda Tirtha continued the
social aspects farther than anyone, and made it
the final expression of the Spirit in Lila. Thus
the true realism of Madhva consists in his
treating the world as real, and as the terminus
of existence wherein the significance of the
Vaikuntha-the ideal-should be brought: It is not
merely the realism of the metaphysical kind that
is valuable, but the truer realism of the living
kind that is of supreme value and
significance.Madhva affirms that every
individual is capable of being happy and free
when he fulfils the law of his being,
svadharma, in the society which is but the
reflection of the divine order, the perfect
Vaikuntha. If here we miss to see the goal of
individual life, which is to become a perfect
exponent of the life we have taken here, then,
it is highly tragic. This acceptance of life as
service of the Divine, the all-sustaining
Vishnu, is the beginning of our true life. This
acceptance alone can lead to the harmony of our
existence with the total whole. This service is
freedom of giving our all to the purpose of God.
In love, thraldom is as glorious as freedom.’
And service is true love.The most important
factor that is to be analysed here is the nature
of the svadharma or the function of the
individual in this world. It is possible to view
svadharma
in three ways, which are not alternatives but
imply each other.
1. A dharma is one’s own function according
to one’s status, caste, profession, accidental
or natural.
2. A dharma is one’s own according to one’s
evolutionary type, such as man, animal, as god,
etc.
3. A dharma is one’s own when it is the
affirmation of one’s eternal inseparable
character or essence, such as intelligence,
activity, unique creative existence, and
integral selfness.
1. The first is a social definition as to
functions which each individual has to perform and pursue if he takes upon
himself such a vocation or is born into it to fulfil his duties. This being born
into a status or caste where the caste has been established as caturvarnya,
four-caste, is feature that has been determined according to Hindu thought by
conduct in previous life. The birth which a man takes is merely a continuation
of the previous life-course he has been pursuing (karma), and to be born in a
particular caste is to have gained that status whch will make the surroundings
or environment conducive to the development he has at heart. In one sense, it
may be said to be the best possible environment he has fallen into or entered
upon, a fact that is determined in a causal manner of determinism or free-will.
Or it may happen by the fiat of God. Or else it may be by implication the form
that an individual as a perfection of the Divine, as an archetype of His
existence, manifests in a definite and individual fashion. Thus the dharma or
function that a man ought to perform for the realization of the true order has
to be realized.2.
The second definition is more individual. Each
individual has a specific distinctive form that cannot be taken away from him.
Each individual possesses a type of body, of man, animal or god. The perfection
of that type consists in following that type to its fullest expression rather
than aspire to be something else, or some other type. In other words, the
aspiration of a horse should be not to become a centaur but to become the
perfect exponent of the horse-type, since perfection is the splendid
exemplification of one’s highest-type. Therefore, each individual should become
the archetype of his existence. Man should strive to exemplify the perfect
Manhood, and not aspire to become the demiurge and God. It is one thing to ask
for being more than oneself as one is, to ask
for perfection of1 oneself
in ones’ own line of
development, quite another to confuse this aspiration
1 ICf. Leibniz, ‘Perfection is measured by the quantity of
essence’.
with the otherness
which is not of one’s type and to ask for a perfection that belongs to quite
another type. If there is confusion
(dharmasankara)
of dharma then there is no progress. This confusion is of the same kind as the
initial confusion as to the integral consciousness where the states of
consciousness usurp the fundamental functions of the integral self, and do not
recognize their limitations. The knowledge of our limitation is the knowledge of
our possible perfection. Whilst Plato suggested the truth that there are
archetypes of every existence in the ideal world, and that these archetypes are
mirrored on the canvas of the temporal, Ananda Tirtha believing in the doctrine
of1 joy
of existence holds that all souls are archetypes themselves who shall manifest
their perfection here and now. The question of possibility does not arise. For
the spirit nothing is impossible. Thus the consummation of each one of the
individuals in the world of Lila is to become actually perfect (not in the ideal
heaven though), a distinction which Absolutists exploited on behalf of
absolutism. Thus every individual as a mind-body becomes a unit, perfect in his
directional strength, and capable of initiation of a course of action uniquely
complementing that of rest.3. The third definition of svadharma is not either the social or the
psychological but it may be identified in
1
Ananda Tirtha holds that some souls are etemally
doomed to perdition. Perhaps he means that some
souls are the archetypes of the ugly and the
sinful. Cf. Croce’s criticism of such negative
types.
metaphysics with
what is called a quality or guna, an adjective describing the essence. It
is the dharma of an individual soul to think, to be integral, to be
intelligent, to be active and creative.We may denote these three
definitions as the social, the formal, and the essential descriptions of the
dharma of an individual. The first two, the social and the formal are
usually mixed up. There is a clear-cut distinction between the individual as an
integral being seeking his completion and perfection according to his innate
tendencies or powers, and the same in relation to the total whole. To sacrifice
the individual purpose for the sake of the total whole, or the society for the
sake of the individual are the two alternatives proposed by
politico-sociological thinkers. Absolutism and liberalism seem to be their only
alternatives. But that is not the right kind of alternative at all. The
alternatives proposed do not give full value to the perspective of the
individual’s life which is expressing itself in terms of temporality. The
individual is a vehicle of an immortal essence, is a channel of spiritual life
moving towards universal harmony. The individuals conceiving their individual
goal as an expression of their ideal perfection and dynamically living it, would
find that the order is not formed by any outer restraint or edict of caste or
birth or vocation but comes into being spontaneously and effortlessly. Then all
individuals function in terms of the internal immortal essence whose goal is the
Human Society of selves. Then the individuals do not see the
2. Communism
and Fascism are developments of the absolutistic
thought in politics
distinctions between the
three different levels of their existence, for they are all fused in one spirit
of purposive and perfecting expression.Summarizing briefly, the
truths or the living factors that have been stressed by the three schools are
firstly, the individual is a dynamic existence and not a divided unity with
chaos within. In other words, the individual is a self, not a series of states.
Secondly, this individual integral self has a wonderful, pliable and perfect
instrument as its body. It is not a barren existence, a ghost floating in the
void, somehow and sometimes caught within the meshes of body and held in
bondage. Thirdly, this individual self-body is a social entity. It has to
exemplify a unique function, a function which is a perfection of the Divine,
inalienable and thoroughly distinct from every other, being an archetype.1 It
also means that there can be only distinct functions and not superiority or
inferiority in functions.To reveal this unique
character in all the three levels of life is to have, in some measure fulfilled
the universal life purpose of Divine harmony or Lila. Thus does the world exist
for the sake of the Lila of God and the freedom of the individuals2 From
the integral self-hood to the integral selfbody, and then the same in relation
to the society which is the nisus of Identity, is the history of the spirit.
Identity of the Universal Brahman manifests itself as the harmony of
1
Sankara, Ramanuja, Ananda Tirtha, and Vedanta
Desika held themselves to be incarnations of
Siva, Adisesha, Hanuman, and Ghantavatar, the
divine bell-avatar. The conclusion that they are
archetypes is irresistible.
2 Lokavatlu
liIa Kaivalyam. ( cf: my paper on this topic in
Journal ofthe Benares Hindu University
Vo1.l1936)
the manifold. This is the
continuous, uninterrupted progress of Advaita to Dvaita understood as the Great
Society-the Utopia of political philosophers.The faults of this last
position are apparent as in the other two. In trying to insist upon the duties
of the station and in the emphasis it places on the ritualistic phase of human
life it has by its very seriousness spoiled the individual and the society to
which he belongs, at one breath. Rites are the beginnings of creative art. True
art is social, and it has a seriousness and a purpose which cannot be described
in terms of the seriousness and the purpose of pedants in art and philosophy.
There is an inner rhythm and vision, a fluid integral character, a throb of
harmony and humanity that reveals the artist that all the formal purposiveness
of the unartistic can never reveal. To divine the archetype and to express it
uniquely so as to contribute beauty and radiate joy, is the uniqueness
characteristic of each self.It is unfortunate that
Madhva’s philosophy which is the highest statement of the goal of man, has not
been understood by most expounders. The destiny and the unique character of
every individual are guaranteed by his theory of eternal distinctions. The
distinctions indeed are perfections. But this beautiful theory has been
surrendered to unhealthy adoration of false values of conservatism, and
ritualism, and prejudice.The one thing which has,
more than any other, contributed to the failure of these systems is that the
individual personalities have been worshipped beyond all measure much to the
detriment of the truth that is behind them. Instead of mutually complementing
their labours, they established unhealthy and nauseating rivalries between them
and their gods. Instead of an integral spirituality coming to its own on all
levels of human experience and unfolding the Unique Society, it has led to the
antithesis of spirituality, pure materialism of forms and ritualism and brute
mechanism of orthodoxy. There is a fatality that
when thought tries to expand and influence many, it simply shrinks into
nothingness. Quantity .and quality refuse to go together. The doctrine of Reason
of Buddha led strangely to the doctrine of licence, indifferentism and nihilism;
the doctrine of integral dynamic consciousness (Advaita) led to a thorough-going
staticism and hypocrisy, the doctrine of an integral individual existence
continuous with the Universal Divine Life to meaningless unworldiness; and the
doctrine of lila, creative Harmony of the Society (Dvaita), to a chaotic mass of
superstition and social rigidity parading itself as orthodoxy. But to know their
living teaching is to be established in integral consciousness or self (sthitaprajna)
which is happiness, action and perfection, that nothing can disturb or
annihilate. It is the service of the Universal God-head, with full knowledge,
for the sake of the realization of universal Beauty (ananda-rasa). This is true
synthetic Yoga, the fulfilment of knowledge and action in devotion, the
bhagavata-dharma of Love of God in each and in All which is known as Lila.To the mind that sees
warily, truth gleams like a star, but how many. And scanning the sky our time is
past, and the Day finds another morning. |
