As contrasted with the mechanical mind that seeks to analyze and put together the separate parts to form a whole as in the case of a machine, the organic mind does not find that the analysis will help the reconstitution of the whole.  Reality is much less a machine than it is an organism.  Machines are inventions which are dependent on the two fold processes of making parts of a whole and of a whole that works through the parts.  Indeed an invention is an activity of making a whole by making parts.  No doubt the whole is not merely a sum of its parts but that which has a particular activity or function which is not contained in any one of the parts as such.  A clock or a motor car is not seen in the screws and bolts or springs.  Therefore Indian  Thought spoke of a whole avayavi which is more than the sum of its parts avayavas.

 

The human organism is not a machine.  .It is not made out of given parts.  It has growth and expansion.  The whole is not merely greater than the sum of its parts but is that which controls and sustains and utilises all parts for its own purposes.  At the beginning the purposes of the whole may look as if they are for the preservation of the parts also.  Secondly, it is seen that each part is a whole involving intricate functions and when out of the whole capable of living its own life.  Therefore the human organism or for that matter any organism is a whole of organism which range from the minutest to the vastest.  To quote Ronald Collin “We have had to suppose a philosophical Absolute in which swam so to speak, infinite number of galaxies.  Similarly within our own galaxy or Milky Way swam innumerable suns.  Within our solar system swam planets.  Upon the surface of our planet, the Earth, swam the world of organic life.  Within this world of organic life swam individual man, within man cells, within cells molecules, within molecules electrons.”  (Theory of Celestial Influence.  p.242). There is an organic interdependence between all this vast Absolute, which presents a pattern of all-organized existence.  It is clear that ‘Each world or cosmos is incommensurable which the one which contains it.  It disappears in the greater one, becomes invisible in relation to it.  The higher cosmos contains infinite possibilities for the lower, is god for the lower….”(ibid.)  In this sense every world may be taken as absolute or as god for the smaller scale of entity.  Yet man, by his extraordinary complex nature, is apparently endowed with the power of apprehending not only the world immediately above him-that is the world of organic life of which he forms part-but many higher worlds, the Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way, and he can even philosophically suppose an Absolute of absolutes.  So that man has many absolutes or gods from which to choose”(ibid)

 

This is a vast picture of the Universe as Organism, in its actual condition.  All indeed are interrelated in one manner of subsumption, absorption and growth.  These three principles are operative-the higher order includes or subsumes, reorganizes and orientates the lower which merges into it.  The higher self or God or Consciousness is different in a radical manner from the lower in so far as it integrates and shapes the lower in so far as it integrates and shapes the lower according to its own law of being.  Remarkable studies in this process have been made by the Ouspensky School as well as the Bergsonian schools.  The logical principles involved in the concept of the Organic are (i) the organism is supported and organized and utilised by a conscious self for its own purposes.  (ii) An organism cannot be without a conscious self.  (iii) The conscious self that organically operates the organism is higher than that which it organises because it is seen that lower selves can be organized for their own sake of survival by the higher.  Therefore, the lower becomes the ‘body’ of the higher Self.  This may go on ad infinitum till we arrive at the Highest Self which supports the totality of Nature or selves and is called the Philosophical Absolute.  It is true that normally we find that a body is that which is a body only till a self resides and operates in and through it, and disintegrates when the self departs from it.  This disintegration is in one sense a fall to a lower condition, which prepares for a regrouping of the same into a new organism.

 

The principal of subsumption, reorganization and growth and existing for the purposes of the consciousness or Self which so does subsume the other elements or organisms or consciousnesses or selves is absolutely necessary to recognize as the principle of integrative action.  That the higher consciousness will do this in the light of its own vast resources of inner being is a fact that has to be clearly recognized.

 

Any unification of the mental, vital and physical life cannot merely juxtapose these and hope for the best.  An inherent difficulty exists in their mutual relationship, which is inevitable for the three are in a sense inseparable even like the three forces of sattva (that which makes for being) and rajas (activity) and tamas (passivity or static being).  Existence is the challenge between activity and passivity, and it is in the supreme balance of the system of the organic (samana) or the homeostasis there is found the principle of organic synthesis or system.  To interpret then this dynamic process of Reality in terms of mechanical inventiveness is to apply a lower principle to explain a higher principle.  Indeed the Consciousness of a higher order is such that its laws are not apparent to the lower and indeed which may appear to be contradictory to its own.  In other words, it is in the organic that we discover levels of consciousness which differ from each other radically but none-the-less characteristics of it, and we also find the actual integrativeness which our logic of the mechanical mind or intellect or ignorance refuses to recognize or is chary of accepting.

 

The organicistic views of reality then take seriously the fact of life and growth and subordination of life to life, of mind to mind, of matter to life and mind and so on

 

The recognition of this organic order or hierarchy of being is very important.  It may be one way by which we can conceive of a dynamic growing Absolute or System that is capable of revealing real existences and values, which absolute idealism has been unable to do.

 

Through the organic conception we return from barren intellect to Being; from dialectic of oppositions and polar opposites to integration of systems of growth.  Biological science indeed has shown the way towards psychical integration or rather has pointed out the principle of subordination, absorption and transformation in being, function and unity which entail growth or development.  But there is one important feature also that has to be recognized.  The fact of degeneracy,decay , and ‘entropy’ so to speak which leads to death of the organism.  It is precisely the ideal of organic reality to seek transcendence over this decaying and disintegrative tendency of organism by a will to reorganise itself in higher systems of longer duration.  Such is the concept of Real again.  It is just one more step to the logic of the Infinite which is the promise of a further goal of philosophy.

 

The Divine Evolutionism has to include the truths of both the organic mind and the Infinite Consciousness –Being.

 

The integration of all the lower planes of being in and through the organic principles of subsumption, organization,enjoyment for the purposes of the higher leads through degrees of organizations in the very texture of the organism.  The very many systems of the body, such as the bonal, muscular, glandular, nervous , lymphatic, and circulatory, with all their different  kinds of cells in continuous change is a revelation of the oneness-manyness principle from the microcosmic and intra-cellular to the whole.  The unity as well as diversity progress in an integrative manner and reenforce and support each other.  If this so in the lowest pattern of existence even in the Ignorance, it is in the conscious organization of our consciousness with higher consciousness of higher worlds or Gods that helps the ascent to a higher kind of being or life.  A transcendence over the human does not mean the disintegration of the organic evolution.  No mean the disintegration of the organic evolution.  No doubt it is kept an open question as to whether the person who so evolves as a member of a higher or highest Consciousness would develop a higher type of organism or higher mechanisms in his present organism that would reflect or reinterpret or creatively respond to the higher worlds.  The supersensory or para-sensory facts of life do lend some promise of such developments.  It would yet be limited to the lower by the drag that may be placed on the higher powers even as the vital and the physical and lower mental of ours acts as limiting and interferent principles over our own present higher mental intuitions.  A higher than the human consciousness or radically different from it, would demand a discarding of the many organs of the present human or perhaps entail different creative functions for the same.  The Infinite is an ever advancing and pregnant Reality throwing up immense Realisations.

 

II

LOGIC OF THE ORGANISM

 

The Samkhyan seer developed an inductive logic of causality mainly.  But the implicit recognition of the threefold forces or qualities of organic prakrti such as Sattava, rajas and tamas gives a cue into the logic of the logic of the organism. These three are described as Harmony or existence as organic unity (sattava ), the motion or activity or origination or agitation, and the rest or the end of activity, or laziness.  The first is said to be of the nature of illumination or light, the second of redness and the last as darkness of black. Sattava is white, rajas is red and tamas is black. In all prakrti or organic being(Nature) these  three processes are present.  Rajas is Activity, Tamas is its opposite and these two are blended into Sattava or becoming.  Hegel was conspicuously the one philosopher who propounded a logic of two forces called Being and Non-being resulting in the synthesis called becoming, which in turn becomes the being for the next movement.  Growth of the organic life is seen to be comprising the processes origination, sustention which is the preservation of that which is born from dying at once by resisting death, and the third force that leads to death.  This in turn leads to another birth or rebirth.  The Hegelian view postulated only two force opposed to one another.  The organic requires a third force that regulates the two and brings about the synthesis.

 

There is an illustrative story of the three functions in a mythological form in the Mahabharata.  Brahma the creator was given the work of creating life (rajas) and Rudra was given the job of destroying.  So as soon as Brahma created Rudra was destroying so much so Brahma found that he was not able to create at all any thing.  He was naturally sore and appealed to the supreme Godhead that if creating is given to Rudra  he will be spared the sorrow of finding his creation destroyed no sooner than born. When Rudra was given this creation work then compassion came Godhead that every creature in this world should be given a duration-a period of life so that nothing will be killed at once but only at the end of the period allotted to each creature.  Man was accorded one hundred years.  Thus came the third force the Sattva that determines the duration.  Vishnu became the upholder of this force or what we call as living .

 

This mythical story illustrates the basic necessity to have triple forces- being and non-being and living.  Though all things are stated to have these three forces or gunas or threads yet it is in the organic part and that the third force plays an important part and that is closest to the soul or spirit or the purusa

 

Naiyayika Logic is entirely devoted to the ascertainment of the pramanas and the use of those for determining the ultimate categories. However, the interest in ascertaining truth or reality is apparently secondary to the logic of debate.  Not nyaya but tarka seems to be aim of all thinking.  Logic was thus reduced to the level of art of debate.  The categories of tarka, jalpa, chala, nigrahsthana show the means adopted to win a victory in debate.  So too vitanda.  The attempt to modify or purify the processes of tarka have been very many and properly designated as hair-splitting.

 

            The true forte of Nyaya system lies in its attempt to give a logical explanation of the process of relationship between the dravya and its adjectives necessary for description and definition of a thing.  Further it also aims at defining the relationship between the whole and the parts – the manner of their unification and the division.  Avavyava-avayavi-bhava or whole and part becomes acutely incapable of being explained in respect of the organic or life processes.  Thought seems incapable of penetrating into the nature of life – the origination, sustenance and destruction or end.  These processes are continuous at every instant of life growth or life history.

 

            Nyaya logic and of course the Vaisesika logic are useful in respect of determining mechanical relationships or external relations.  They refer to mathematically divisible parts also such as atoms or points without extension or further divisibility.  Logically atomism has been rightly said to describe the naiyayika logic.  But the goal of interpreting reality as a whole has been beyond it.  Its application has been very much reduced in scope.  It cannot become a universal logic.  The logic of the Whole or wholes has not been successful and the interpretation of human experience has been unsuccessful.

 

            Naiyayika logic further is deductive though it gives concession to inductive procedure in the discovery of vyapti (universal middle term) that connects the Subject with the Predicate as the Logic of Aristotle.  Its analysis of the vyabhicara and other fallacies is indeed very valuable but the field of application seems to be the field where external relationship is dominant - the field of the non-living.

 

            The espousers of the Organic theory of reality (sarira-sariri-bhava) following the logic of Naiyayikas have not elucidated the dynamic and continuous operation of the principle of Spirit that supports, sustains, regulates the manifold parts of the organic whole by the involved forces of time and growth and breath, mind and sense and motor activities.  They were content to state that sarira is not to be defined as something that is destined to disintegrate when life or spirit goes out of it.  Though the Visistadvaita realized that the spirit is the self that upholds the entire organism as a unity and it is a conscient being supporting and maintaining it and enjoying it exclusively, yet a logical form for that was not given.

 

            The Samkhyan system as well as the later Vedantic systems which admit the three force or triguna nature of phenomenal reality and prakrti, really shows that thought does not move merely in terms of thesis and anti-thesis of which the synthesis is a third but shows that the third is more the point of truth.  When two polar opposites clash truth is said to result from the clash, whether it is in debate or discussion or seminar or symposium, provided one is looking out for that truth or reality emerging from the clash of the opposites.  Rationally emerges as a result of the irrational impacts.  We begin to see reason as the debate proceeds.  The judicial process is one such organized institution for discovering truth.  Similarly the organic logic is the logical procedure of the emerging organism which sustains itself by discovering truth or tatva.  It is in the purification of this logical process the possibility of realization of man’s freedom from irrational forces arises.

 

            In the Samkhyan system the logic of experience demanded the acceptance of three forces or modes of activity alone.  In the puranic mythology also the threefold forces or qualities were held to be sufficient to explain the organic processes of origination of birth, of sustention or destruction (janma-stema-bhanga).  A fourth category was however needed – the soul or conscient spirit by Samkhya.  This was to explain the experience of the enjoyer of these three forces.  It was the awareness of the organic that demanded one who was other than the three.  There was also the necessity to explain the condition of what happens after death which may heraid the birth in another form.  This may be karma or some desire (kama) for further experiences not exhausted in the organism that has tensed to with and this needed a fourth entity – a soul or purusa.  Thus beyond the being and non-being and synthesis there has to be a desire or purpose which becomes apparent as a different type of consciousness that is associated with the triple forces operating within the frame work of the organism made by their functions.  The individual seeks to surmount the defects of the triple movements (tridodas) and seeks to enjoy their interplay (Bhoga) but discovers that they always produce misery as the consequence of enjoyment of their functioning.  This consciousness is pure thought that awakens the transcendence or movement towards it liberation from the organic itself.

 

            Visisitadvita Organism however claims that the Divine supra-Prakritic category which is pure transcendence has the power of holding or supporting the organic at all levels as well as the inorganic.  All this world is His body – both the moving and the unmoving, inorganic or inconsistent and the organic conscient.  Thus one discovers the God-head as the supreme One category that sustains and utilizes and enjoys all for His own transcendent purposes.  This reveals that the sarira need not be just something that disintegrates but that which is unified and functioning as One organic with God – as the unity of God, soul and Nature.

 

            The Divine has both the immortal as well as the mortal as His body and as such the term sarira as derived from the root siryate iti sariram is not fully correct.  It is not its true import.  Sarira bhava emphasizes the use of the body for the purposes of the self and as exiting for that soul’s enjoyment.  However, some Visistadvaitins consider that sesatva or dependence on the self is the characteristic of the body.  Sri Ramanuja while recognizing the dependence of the body on the soul within it emphasizes the superiority of the soul or self for whom this body exists.  In a sense he realizes that whatever might have been the first state of the body the final and perfect condition of the body is to be means of enjoyment of the self – Sariram adyam khalu dharma sadhanam – the body verily is to be protected for the fulfillment of one’s dharma.

 

            Thus the Organic is a series of different kinds of bodies each becoming more and more appropriate to the Divine enjoyment and the perfect body is that which is entirely existing for Him alone and for none else.  Whereas in our case the body has a double loyalty to God as well as ourselves, when the individual soul also realizes that it is a body of God then the whole organism comprising both the triple sattva-rajas-tamas prakrti and the soul the conscient being in the former, there is perfect tranquility and existing for God.

 

            This condition is also the state of peace with Nature and other souls as a whole.  Every individual lives for God, by God and in God, and is at peace with the One supreme.  A philosophy of Society or Sangha is thus possible which internally unites all that are externally discrete.  But mutual organic relations may develop in a different manner than what we usually have under the rational and psychical order, as is seen in the samghas of rational religions or humanistic analogical organisms of the idealists including the Bosanquetian variety of absolute idealism.