Every age demands a
new interpretation
of experience. A new
interpretation
however is not
usually undertaken
except when the
already ready made
traditional or
conventional or old
patterns of
interpretation no
longer could satisfy
one’s own
conscience so to
speak in respect of
explanations of the
new facts that swim
into one’s ken.
The rationalist or
intellectual line of
approach has been to
follow the method of
conservatism and
seek to exhaust
every way by which
the facts could be
explained with its
sets of axioms and
precedents of
solutions. There is
excuse for it. If it
does not explain, it
rationalizes and,
even as in morals,
there is a large
amount of casuistry.
We can instance the
case of
fundamentalists in
religion and
determinists in
science.
The experiential
approach, when it
does not run to the
other extreme of
revolutionary
thinking,
realises the
experience of the
new factors, or the
emergence of new
situations, and
demands a new act of
philosophising.
This, it may at once
be stated, may
appears to reflect
the
‘instrumentalist’
method of
knowledge which
again feels in
reason or intellect,
an omnipotent tool
of
philosophising,
albeit of life also.
And there need be no
contradiction
between life and
intellect.
A new interpretation
has become
imperative: this
every one knows to
be necessary because
old ways of
‘knowing’ or
interpreting the
world around
us, have not
the capacity to
satisfy our present
needs. The
instrumentalists or
pragmatic way of
knowledge through
action is indeed
valuable because it
has a close
relationship with
facts. But even a
‘will to believe’ in
the capacity or
ability of reason to
rise up to tempo of
discoveries and
inventions and
industrial
situations and
technology, has led
to severe shocks on
our will. An
indomitable will, of
course, goes a long
way. The burden of
civilization however
is not so much the
presence of new
patterns of cultures
emerging in the
context of
discoveries and
modern science, but
the tardy Nature of
human ability to
cope up with them.
The significant
question then for
action as well as
philosophy is our
intellect capable of
effectively coping
up with the
situation brought
about unconsciously
by science,
unconsciously in the
sense that applied
science did not
anticipate the many
consequences in
their turn, other
than what they
originally
anticipated?
It must be
remembered that
glorious discoveries
and still more the
inventions of
science that have
made us understand
the nature of the
physical universe in
a manner that one
would have simply
brushed aside as
sheer impossibility,
are due to the
precise and
deliberate and
patient workings of
intellect logically,
and yoked to the
observations and
experimental
methods, also
products of
intellect or reason.
Reason and
experience yoked
together had
undoubtedly
triumphed over the
inanities of both
partners. How then
do we justify the
search for another
way of
knowledge than
reason? This is the
question that one is
bound to hear for a
long time Intellect
can solve our
problems, and
rational approach or
scientific approach
to the problem of
life and truth (at
least truths
necessary for
life ) is the
best and not any
abandonment of it in
favour of
superstition and the
irrational methods
of thought and
action dependent on
such ‘knowledge’ as
may be given by
them.
There are very
serious thinkers of
this kind, be they
the realists and
pragmatists or
idealists. The
Ultimate test of any
truth is consistency
or coherency with
the intellectual
order and senate
order or action or
verifiability or
fruit.
As has been stated
the victories of
intellect are
stupendous.
Intellect has
widened the horizon
of man’s mind and
extended the
dimensions of
space and
time ‘infinitely’.
It may perhaps be
even granted that
its empire would
still extend what
with the
possibilities of
space-travel. The
sensate world has of
course always and
recently suffered
eclipse, for
ultra-sensory and
extra-sensory
phenomena are coming
into the picture of
modern man’s facts.
Will intellect solve
these as indeed it
has in a measure
solved the sensate?
As instinctive
responses have not
helped to solve the
problems of extended
experience, and
intellect was
devised by
evolution for
meeting the new
fields of sensation
and action so too
the extra-sensory
and extra-conscious
fields of
life enforce the
evolution of a
higher than
intellect tool of
knowledge and
action. This
evolution of a
higher-than-intellect
being seems to be
implied by the
logic of growth and
expansion and is not
merely a speculative
or imagined need. It
is not a poetic
anticipation or a
dreamer’s fantasy,
though it must be
confessed that true
sankalpa may
inform their
fantasies, which
years of hard
travail of research
and experimentation
had tended to
confirm as
possible.
The crux of the
matter then is: Do
we need a
philosophy which
would lean on the
old crutches of
intellect and mere
sensate methods of
science and end up
with the new
techniques of
‘probabilities’
replacing
certainties or
hypotheses, or/and a
philosophy that
would
not brush
aside the new
emerging
awarenesses (
or are they old but
brushed-aside
awarenesses
) of fields of
knowledge beyond the
pale of the sensate
? At the beginning
let us concede that
we might employ new
techniques to
investigate the new
fields of
supernormal
experiences. The
fact has been
conceded that this
is not so easy or
simple a matter.
Sciences deal with
particulars and
determine in fields
of human experience
laws only on the
basis of calculation
of probabilities –
thanks to the
growing employment
of statistics called
a science
paradoxically. The
yearning for
certainty may be an
ideal dream and for
lack of better
guidance from
thought as it is
working in the
fields of human
relations and
activities we may be
satisfied with the
‘reliable ‘ but not
the indubitable,
the probable and
precarious
contingency of the
possible. Certainty
is a promise never
to be kept except
perhaps in the
circumscribed realm
of mechanical
phenomenon.
But truth is an
ideal value in the
sense that it is
what can satisfy the
fullest and final
yearning of man for
certitude.
So too beauty and
love and knowledge.
It would be perhaps
legitimate to note
at once that these
so called
ultimate values are
integral to one
another and imply
one another.
There are inherent
contradictions in
the logic of the
intellect which make
it impossible to
help
realise the
ideal values of
life. However much
humanists may try to
discover the
potentialities of
intellect and a
logic of
integration or
synthesis for it,
intellect’s
preoccupation with
one aspect of life
alone, and its
inveterate bent
towards analysis as
the means to
understand
synthesis, its
incurable obstinacy
in the use of
atomistic or
fragmented sensory
experiences as such
unfit it for the
task of ‘philosophy’
which is the
apprehension of
Reality as such as a
whole and all
elements as organic
within it.
Intellect is
governed by (and
manifests in human
beings however
advanced )
the logic of the
finite mind which
however is aware of
its limitations and
finitude. It does
not know or even
become aware of the
nature of the
Infinite and
Whole : it is
a terra
incognata.
The presence of
mind or
intellect higher
that the finite mind
and intellect is not
a speculation but a
real thing: and some
of the world’s
greatest literature
which deal with ‘
eternal things ‘ or
felt to be eternal
presents the
features of the
workings of such an
overmental
mind. Such an
overmental
mind has certain
broad features :It
seems to be acting
or working through a
process of insight
which no amount of
analysis or
synthesis or putting
together of facts or
even observation can
even suggest. Its
directness and
immediacy and
validity are beyond
mind, though its
presence has been in
smaller measure seen
to be present in all
processes of life,
animal and human. A
steady dependence on
this
overmental
sense or
intuition or insight
had produced some of
the most significant
works of poetry and
philosophy and
religion, which have
the self certifying
character or
validity for
consciousness. This
is also the basic
assumption of
rationalism which
depends on
‘axiomatic
‘ nature of
truth for its
starting point. That
may explain why the
deductive method
was adopted so as to
‘govern ‘ and
condition the entire
process of thinking
whose natural habit
is to forget this ‘
system ‘ of
insights.
This
overmental
need was stressed by
Bergson and
unconsciously by the
irrationalists
of course on grounds
of both practicality
and pure
cognitivity
or knowledge. A
critique of
intellect,
invaluable in
itself, would yet
not be sufficient,
and even a
modification of
intellect through
seeking a
transcendence from
its mechanical
practicalness
and trenchant
dichotomies would
not meet the
situation.
Not
that efforts
are wanting on the
part of pragmatic
philosophers and
sociologists to
rehabilitate
intellect as a
function devised for
social action taken
in its broadest
sense; it has become
apparent that
Western
Philosophy has come
to a state of
futility. Western
Philosophy has
culminated through
the technological
bent given to it by
science in an
unprecedented
condition of
insufficiency and
incoherence.
It is not strange
that it should have
discovered logical
positivism or
linguistic logic and
semantics
-
which Indian
thinkers long ago
anticipated in their
derision of logical
pugilists and
grammarian-dialecticians.
Grammatic
knowledge is no
substitute for real
knowledge or
knowledge of
Reality as All or
Whole, which alone
can be a saving
knowledge.
Knowledge is a means
to liberation from
all finitude, and as
means it implies a
sense of
efficiency or
practical
usefulness. Indian
thought has really
never served this,
though what it
really served was
the use of knowledge
for life as it is
lived as merely the
cycle of earning and
spending, birth and
death, winning and
losing and so on.
Thus we return to
the condition of
having to
reinterpret the
problems of life in
the West; and the
East may profitably
help solving the
problems.
Would it not be
sufficient if we
just taught Vedanta
to the West? Would
it fill the gap or
prove an incentive
to
philosophise
with the
possibilities of
giving a
satisfactory account
of Reality with all
its new discoveries
and protean changes
brought about by
technological
advance of the
atomic age? The fair
answer cannot be
favourable to
Vedanta as it is
today.
Indian
Philosophy has had a
long history even as
western Philosophy
had, perhaps a
longer one. In its
history there are
clear evidence of
different levels and
scales of thinking
and being and
adapting to the
world around. Indeed
this is a
significant fact
that several systems
of thought and
realisation of
liberty (this
‘pragmatic’ of
philosophy was never
forgotten) had
endeavored to
present systems of
reality which took
into consideration
several types
of humanity determined
by the pursuit of
ends. Indeed
philosophies of
Nature as well as
philosophies of
soul, and philosophy
of the Whole or the
Greatest that
includes both, thus
entailing approaches
to the conception of
Reality from the
physical, psychical
and total or
spiritual had
flourished. The
Vedic including the
Upanishadic
thought and function
have been taken from
the Spiritual point
mainly though it did
define the nature of
soul and Nature from
its standpoint. It
was in fact a true
and parallel
incentive that made
the
Jaina system
seek
a comprehensive
and synthetic point
of view but it was
found to be a
quasi-intellectual
standpoint. Here we
find that the
systems or
darsanas,
though intrinsically
capable of being
derived from the
large
overmental
standpoint of the
Vedic seers who said
to be the founders
of these systems,
later on at the
hands of the
interpreters or
Sutrakaras even
and
Vrittikaras and
Bhasyakaras,
suffered an
intellectual
treatment, and
gradually this
treatment turned out
to be translating in
a queer way the
Vedic intuition or
the
Rishi-intutions.
The definition of
philosophy as a
consistent or
persistent
intellectual attempt
to explain reality
seemed to take
philosophy out of
the field of
experience, or
restrict it to the
field of sensate
interpretation or
interpretation of
sensate experiences
alone. All
knowledge proceedings
from the known to
unknown became
restricted to the
knowing of the
supersensory or
transcendent to
sense in terms of
sense – a proceeding
that could not but
lead to
anamolous and
paradoxical results.
Philosophy in
turning to
illuminate
experience in terms
of popular language
and experience
tended to foredoom
itself to failure.
The traditional
interpretations of
the sutras of
several
darsanas
unfortunately record
this
intellectualising
of supersensory
experience and thus
render the luminous
truths granted by
the use of
a
overmental
vision dark and
obscure and indeed
definitely
unintelligible and
contradictory to
sensate experiences
governed by the ends
of physical security
and advance.
Knowledge surely is
related to ends (Purusarthas),
and is to be indeed
interpreted in their
terms. This is a
truth that would
demand
consideration. But
to have
a knowledge
of the highest end
of man would include
the understanding
and attainment of
all in terms of that
enlightenment.
Vedic knowledge as
gleaned from the
Upanishads that
teach the
Ultimate Nature of
Reality and its
relationship to the
soul and Nature in
terms of
Spiritual Identity
left a gap so to
speak, and this gap
has unfortunately
not been able to be
filled by our
finite rationality
or rationality
devoted to finite
ends, namely
physical security
and pleasure and
pseudo-liberty of
social dharma or
law. Indeed dharma
in the earliest
period had reference
to ritual work of
the Divine, but
later it had become
the interpretation
of social conduct so
as to facilitate the
pursuit of ends, the
most diverse and
divided, according
to station, type and
birth. This too is
an intellectual
finite process
albeit not
characterized by
mere division and
conflict. It was
based on cooperation
and recognition,
rather too
realistic, of the
basic existence of
differences that
demand a unity. All
this showed that the
earlier
darshanas
fulfilled a limited
function, and even
in that they failed
when they began to
communicate their
truths in the
language of the
common man or for
the purposes of the
understanding and
emancipation of all
men from ignorance.
By the very same
token it became
impossible for all
men to emancipate
themselves from the
language of
ignorance – which is
the application of
language belonging
to a particular
level of awareness
and scale of
perceptions to
levels of awareness
and scales of
perception below it.
The popular slogan
in the democratic
age of emancipating
all, which every
reformer or idealist
(sometimes mystics
also enter this
group and perhaps
even encourage such
possibilities) is
all to the good and
commendable, but it
does not work, and
perhaps works when
it does yielding
paradoxical results.
Double-talk then
seems enforced on
the mystic but it
may not always or in
every case turn out
to be a case of
cheating or
hypocrisy. Provided
the seer is of major
character and
stature, the
communication of
knowledge to the
lower mental
being or mental
being is creative of
a condition when it
can rise up to the
overmental
realisation.
Suggestion or
creative suggestion
and symbolism and
use of myths and
parables are
implicit in the use
of language of a
different kind. It
is the teacher of
realisation
or
realised
being who can
perform this
satisfactorily. But
when higher truths
are interpreted
atomistically
and literally
without the backing
of the creative
suggestion then it
becomes a grave
cause of ignorance.
Philosophy of this
interpretative kind
or scholastic type
tends to promote
rather than remove
ignorance and
cultivates a
security of
knowledge that is
profoundly
disturbing.
Obviously Sri
Krsna
referred to them by
his significant
phrase –
panditamaninah.
Professor Popper’s
criticism of
Plato in his major
work ‘Open Society’
misses a great point
due mainly to his
incapacity to
perceive the
different levels of
awareness between
men and the double
talk would be
seriously taken
exception of when it
happens on the same
plane of experience,
such as politics or
economics or law.
Surely ends do not
justify the means
but the question is
not one of ends and
means but one of
growth from the
levels of
submental,
lower mental to the
mental and to the
overmental
levels of
experience. Even
within the same
field of experience
it is well known
that some of the
most advanced
techniques and
interpretations of
science are
incommunicable and
popular
magazine-writings of
great discoveries
would testify to the
mystifying nature of
the jargon used. The
climate created by
propaganda can be
seriously
mischievous and
confusing or lead to
self-deception.
Thus it would be
necessary to state
at once that Indian
Philosophy had
tended to scholastic
formalism and has
hardly affected the
life of the people.
A new revaluation of
its material is
necessary, and it
cannot be on the
plane of
intellectual
rationality to which
western philosophy
has more seriously
attached us during
the past one
century.
Thus to conclude our
preliminary survey
of present
tendencies in
philosophy, we can
state that firstly,
philosophy has
tended to discard
its universal
function; secondly,
it has tended to
limit itself to the
deliverance of
sensate intellect as
that which can give
us a knowledge and
realisation of
the entire Reality;
thirdly, it has been
unable to explain a
large part of
Reality and
committed a mistake
comparable to the
other serious
mistake of dealing
with the worlds of
diverse experiences
as a play of Maya or
illusion or
phenomenon; fourthly
it has sought to
make intellect just
a function of
practical activity
in a world that is
constantly
developing new
patterns of
knowledge and
community, and has
ceased to consider
the vaster arena of
Being, which thanks
to developing
concern for psychic
phenomena and
extrasensory
perceptions and
yogic experiences
has to be taken
consideration in
interpreting this
fragment of Reality.
The logic of the
finite mind is
seriously unsuited
for purposes of the
synoptic and organic
nature of the Whole
and the Infinite.
Transcendent
values are values of
the higher
consciousness and
even the very cogent
explanations and
interpretations of
the Philosophy of
the Spirit by
Hegel and
Bendetto
Croce leave the vast
bulk of being out.
The
darsanas in
India are not in
better condition.
The recent interest
revived in
Buddhism and its
values have not been
radical enough and
the interest seems
to be rather
referable to other
causes than its
sufficiency as a
metaphysic of
Reality or Society
even or even
Freedom.
Modern Indian
Philosophers
undoubtedly have
been seized with
these considerations
and have been
actively and even
creatively
interpreting the
ancient Indian
Philosophical
schools. But the
climate of
interpretation is
for them the
understanding of the
West and exposition
is based on the
technique of western
exposition with
intellectual
categories. Thus
intuition or
Sruti is
something is but an
intensified or
universalised
intellect and is
capable of leading
to Direct
knowledge or
saksatkara.
But we have already
pointed out that
this cannot be for
the
overmental is
not just the
universalisation
of and
intensification of
intellect but a
radically different
and interior knowing
by identity.
In an age of
confusion of tongues
it is that serious
thinkers try to see
their way either by
a return to the past
or to an insight
into the future
guided by the goals
that seem to be
desirable. In the
fields of
philosophical
thought, we can see
the methods of ‘return’,
and a careful seeker
can find that with
certain explainable
differences the old
ideas return in new
garbs. In India
however it is the
effort to
rehabilitate the
past thought of the
Upanishads, of the
Bhagavad
Gita, of the
Vedas, and the
yogas of
karma,
jnana, and
bhakti and
Rajayoga and
so on. In every case
it has not been
possible to
reinstate the old,
for the simple
reason that the
world or the
zeit
geist has
changed.
It must however be
said that these
forerunners in the
Indian scene had
done something that
is of inestimable
value. They
anticipated the
crises(not a single
crisis but many) of
the modern situation
and ‘planned’ to
guide the change;
and the work of Ram
Mohan Roy,
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda,
Rabindranath,
Dayananda
Sarasvati,
Mahatma Gandhi and
Sri
Aurobindo,
and Ramana
Maharshi and
others at the
present day can be
said to prepare the
dynamic of cultural
change that does not
seriously imperil
the eternal values
of the past. It is
not a resurgence of
the Old but the
traditional coming
to steady the
present confusion of
cultural
interactions
resulting in the
chaos both in the
individuals and the
world. The urge to
recover the ancient
heritage or the
demand to experience
the truths of
Being enunciated by
the ancient thinkers
or both have not a
little contributed
to the spurt of
philosophical
activity. It can
also be said that
both the processes
have been taking
place. Professors
like
Dr.Radhakrishnan
had begun writing
Indian philosophical
interpretative
treatises and
stimulated an
eagerness to know
the ancient past:
Men of the stature
of Sri Ramana and
Sri
Ramdas or
Sivananda
have stimulated an
eagerness for
experience or
Yoga or Mystic
Realisation(Anubhava),
and the work of Sri
Aurobindo
seems to fall into
both classes. A
profound
knowledge and
scholarship of the
language and
literature of
Ancient India the
Vedas, Upanishads,
Tantras, both
Vaisnava and
Sakta, The
Itihasas and
classical
sanskrit
literature, had made
for the sweep of
scholarship that is
one of genuine
understanding. His
efforts to translate
or understand the
Upanishad and the
Mantras of the Veda
through his own
personal experience
led to his serious
undertakings in
Yoga. Thus
anubhava and
sruti met in
his person. One
could almost say
that nothing that
Sri
Arubindo
wrote
savours of
the mere scholar or
the grammarian : nor
should it be said
that it is mere
poetry or
imaginative
reconstruction or
lyrical
raphsody.
There is a profound
experience of the
integral
consciousness which
he discovered in his
Yoga, to which he
grants the name
Vijnana (
supermind ).
Indian Psychology
had in the
Upanishadic
period itself
discovered levels
and scales of being
and named them.
Knowledge of these
scales of being
meant cognitions of
several kinds and
laws of perception.
An intellectual
objective
methodology would
have, as it in fact
did, misunderstood
all these. Indeed we
see even now how
certain
psychological terms
have lost their
distinctions and
become wooden
lexicographical
synonyms. The
flexible and fluid
nature of language
suited to the
similar nature of
Mind or Soul and
Spirit no longer
could do anything
but a denotative
function. Sri
Aurobindo’s
first effort one
feels was to search
for the inner deep
psychological import
of Vedic
experiences and
language and the
starting point was
made in the
Adhyatmika method
of interpretation.
It is certainly not
like the higher
criticism of the
Bible in the West
where
spiritual experiences
had to stand the
test of the sensate
intellectual or
scientific crucible.
The contributions in
this regard were
surely amazing, and
we have yet in India
and elsewhere to
know more about it
and continue the
work so gallantly
begun. One must
hasten to add that
it cannot be done
with the help of a
new dictionary of
terms but by a
consistent endeavor
to achieve the
integral
consciousness and
then focus that as
an instrument of our
understanding. The
usual ways of
applying merely his
technique without
the stature or poise
of integral
consciousness could
only repeat the
failure of the past
in the sphere of the
darsanas.
Spiritual literature
requires to be
investigated in the
only way that is
open to man, that is
through his awakened
consciousness of the
higher powers of
man, beyond the
pragmatic
rationality that is
man’s reason today
all the world over.
It is this
truth that Sri
Aurobindo emphasized
and by his
interpretation of
the Rig
Veda Mantras and the
Upanishads and the
Gita showed
not only to be
possible but the
only testament of
inestimable value to
spiritual
evolution.
Indeed his synthesis
on Yoga is a marvel
of exposition of the
several lines of
Yoga and every one
who has the patience
to go through any
one of the chapters
would already be in
the presence of one
who touches the
central or key word
of
realisation.
Anubhava of
the Integral
Reality or the
Transcendent
Absolute Reality is
not a dream of
darsanikas
but a possibility
within one’s
lifetime. It is
surely a dynamic way
of presenting the
oldest and eternal
Reality (which
almost seems to have
faded in these days
of sensate
empiricism and
utilitarian ethics
into the distance)
by saying that the
Experience of
Absolute or Integral
Reality can be had
by the proper method
of using the
adequate
pramana. It
is being
realised more
and more that
micro-organisms
cannot be perceived
with the help of
naked eyes, nor can
macro-bodies. Proper
instruments are
necessary, and in
the psychic field
and of
spiritual evolution it
is indeed the
preparation of the
mind and body to be
able to develop the
vijnana or
supermind even
as the human being
uses ( do all do
this ?) the
jnana and
citta or
buddhi.
This leads to the
question of
Pramanas and
Sri
Aurobindo discusses
this very luminously
in his Introduction
and exposition of
the
Kenopanishad
and the Life Divine.
There is no use in
merely quarrelling
with one's tools or
limit oneself to
one’s available
organs or tools.
There is creative
necessity to evolve
higher and finer
organs or tools.
This is truer of
spiritual life and
evolution than the
biological and
physical.
It is not of course
intended to do
anything more than
grant to
sruti a
position that they
have been amenable
to higher than the
practical
consciousness known
as reason.
Nor does
anubhava mean
the practical
verification of a
sensate
consciousness as in
the case of
scientific
hypotheses seeking
verification in the
fields of the
physical and other
sciences. The
anubhava
of the saint
verifies undoubtedly
the truths of the
Sruti;
so too the
supramental
anubhava
verifies the Vedic
truths
iand gives
meaning to them too
in the application
of those truths in
Yajna
or
Brahmana.
The
svatah
pramana theory
or theory of
self-validity
comprises then the
fields of mantra-brahmana
and Upanishad, and
despite the
‘directness’ the
‘immediacy’ or
‘self-evident’ force
of the Vedic
utterances, they
demand verification
in their experience
by the seeker (whose
qualifications have
been prescribed) in
his knowledge, Works
and attainment of
Bliss or
fulfillment.
If for one thing
alone Sri
Aurobindo could
be said to be the
father of future
philosophy this
discovery of the new
Organon of
knowledge the
Supermind,
it would be correct.
Undoubtedly there
will be efforts to
rehabilitate the
fortunes of
intellect and
science of the
sensate, but as
already pointed out,
intuitive insight
and
supramental
apprehensions of
Reality which are of
the universal and
the organic
integral, will play
a major part in
dynamic philosophy.
No longer will the
sciences with their
atomised
thinking and
perceptual processes
and
compartmentalised
and divided
knowledges so
nicely described by
Indian seers as ‘avidyas’
play any significant
role. Nor can a
synthetic mind so
called that tries to
put together even in
a consistent way the
results of the
sciences even
including humanistic
hopes ever really be
an integral mind,
thinking and acting
and living and
feeling not merely
individually wholly
but with the Reality
as a Whole. Sri
Aurobindo’s “Life Divine”
expounds clearly the
movement and
nature and function
of the
Supermind in
the future of
mankind.
Sri
Aurobindo himself
reveals in his
various works and in
the practical
guidance of the
spiritual evolution at
his Ashram the
supermental
integrality to be a
different kind of
‘integrality’ which
no intellectual
synoptic or
synthetic can catch
upto.
The dynamics of
Evolution has been
one of the most
important scientific
facts of the
century. Not that
some kind of
explanation was not
always available :
creationism and
evolutionism, in
India known as
arambhavada and
parinamavada,
sought to explain
the existence of the
world and its
process. Darwin and
his followers have
scientifically
explained certain
other features of
this process of
evolution: the
motive or purpose of
evolution the
process of
evolution as a
gradual ascent (
rather than
descent ), and
growing need to
‘will’ an evolution
hereafter or plan an
evolution rather
then merely abide by
the natural
evolution, are all
significant. A
speculative
mind would have
jumped as indeed we
witness in the
writings of Fichte
and
Nietszche to
the anticipations of
the coming race of
super men, endowed
with higher powers
hidden to and in man
at present.
Theosophy spoke of
the next root-race
to come almost at
the beginning of
this century. The
idea of
Superman therefore
is not new : it was
anticipated. But it
was a mere ideal. It
cannot be said that
Sri
Aurobindo merely
sought to give it
the sanction of his
Yoga. Herbert
Spencer, wrote his
speculative
philosophy : Henri
Bergson finally
anticipated in his
modified finalism
that the world is
for the making of
the Gods who are
mystic
‘open’-society-men,
in whom the creative
evolution would
discover a new
frontier though not
the Ultimate or the
final end.
The synthesis, if it
has to be so called
of the
Divine Evolutionism,
is a unique one.
There is of course
the descent of
Spirit ( as
Prakriti of
the
Samkhya )
reaching up to a
plane of being that
is
veriest
matter in which the
spirit is secret and
occult. The
establishment of the
planes of Being
culminating in
Matter having been
accomplished, in
which the Oneness of
the Spirit has
discovered its
manyness, the
return or the
Ascent (called
Evolution) is made
through the many
linking up in an
organic history
matter, life and
mind and so on. Let
it be granted for
man that he is the
last term of
evolution so far,
but his own mind
enforces because of
its limitations and
sense of bondage and
limitations brought
home to it in its
sufferings and
defeats, a further
step. The
development of the
ego to its level of
consciousness now
enforces its
discarding the
practical ego for
the purposes of
higher consciousness
or higher evolution.
Evolution is of
consciousness and
the secret of
evolution is the
linking up in
unity the diversity
: it is the play of
oneness-manyness
in disjunctive unity
and conjunctive
division.
A close student of
Indian
Philosophy looking
at the
darsanas
will find the
splendid and
brilliant
suggestiveness
underlying their
readings, thanks to
the subtle
suggestions of the
supramental
metaphysics and
psychology of Sri
Aurobindo.
Thus in the field of
interpretation of
the
darsanas as
in his Vedic
interpretations, Sri
Aurobindo recovers
for the student of
Philosophy the
instrument by which
he can discern the
unity and
meaningfulness of
apparently
contradictory
notions so detailed
by the recent
commentators.
It is true that Sri
Aurobindo is
opposed to
Mayavada,
as a serious mystic.
Mayavada is
precisely the
intellectual
dialectic that it
inherited from that
so called ‘Doctrine
of Reason’ of
the Buddha ( there
used as a limited
instrument to get
rid of attachment to
sensate and
perishing fleeting
experiences ), and
but for the
supreme attachment
of
Advaitins to
the Absolute, it
would have led
Advaita to
the very haven of
nihilism or
scepticism.
In an age where
intellect gets
unduly worshiped,
Mayavada can
not be distinguished
from
sunyavada
dialectics: and
added to it the
climate of
immoralism or
utilitarianism
removes the one
safeguard that early
buddhism provided.
Today unless Mahatma
Gandhi’s ethics can
be rehabilitated in
the minds of all the
citizens of India,
the doctrine of
Buddha revived as
purified, Vedanta,
will not lead to any
spiritual development
or even social
amelioration.
It is however not
enough to provide
ethical safeguards
alone. For ethical
norms get their real
basis in the
spiritual goal of
being. A being that
is impoverished of
all the richness of
values and
culminates in a
negation neither can
be real goal nor be
an incentive. It may
be true to say that
the values of Good
and truth and
Intelligence or
Saccidananda
get more and more
definite and
definable in new
contexts and
consciousnesses and
as such incapable of
being defined with a
set of frames that
our present ends and
needs have defined
for us. The eternal
yearning for
perfection and the
awareness that
impinge on man’s
consciousness of a
higher and fuller
perfection and being
when he has
traversed the
evolutionary
journey is
sufficient enough to
justify the hope
that a constant ‘transvaluation
of values’ is
necessary. Beyond
Good and Evil have
significance for
this unceasing
ascent of life and
it is precisely this
awareness of higher
ends that makes
definition of higher
realities
imperative. The
ethics without
metaphysics even
like a Religion
without God is
Hamlet without the
prince of Denmark.
But a great
reconstruction of
the nature of
knowledge as it
infiltrates our
consciousness in the
fields of ethics,
politics and
economics on the one
side and as it would
modify the
conceptions
entertained in the
fields or
matter (physics) and
biology (life) and
other sciences can
never be adequately
achieved except when
one is trained in
such an apperception
of the Whole. One of
our present problems
is precisely how
best to consolidate
the science which
have tended to fall
apart and not merely
diverged and indeed
developed mutual
contradictions and
conflict. No sooner
than this was
perceived there
would happen an
attempt to swing
back, despite
resistance’s of
specialists and
extremists.
There are very
fruitful lines of
development
envisaged in the
fields of psychology
of the individual
and social
development and the
more mundane
activities of man
which would demand
in the years to come
the operations of
the
Supramental
consciousness. There
is always a serious
difficulty when men
forget that the
ideals of social
unification and
political and
individual
development do not
pull together.
Liberty, fraternity
and equality have
been dynamic
mantras of the
modern age and the
attempts to
incorporate them all
in the context of
the individual and
his co-members and
the society has
entailed several
paradoxical projects
of adjustment,
compromise and
cooperation, despite
the intellect having
devised the ready
method of dialectic
of ideas and forces
economic and
cultural. The
Philosophy of
Spirit demanded a
new formulation, and
indeed is today one
of the basic needs.
Every new age is
ushered in by the
emergence of a new
idea provided it is
capable of being
accepted as the
significance of
one’s life and
being. The Mantra of
the New Age is
Supermind according
to Sri
Aurobindo and
its fruit is the
Life Divine. A new
level of
consciousness develops
its own technique of
manifestation in and
through the
individuals who
surrender to that
Ideal. It is
something that would
make the potent and
real ideals of
human dignity such
as liberty,
Equality and
Fraternity integral
to individual
personality and
united Society, so
much so these no
longer would appear
as ideals but
spontaneous
responses and
activities in the
lives of all
individuals. If it
could be achieved in
the life of a
community of persons
it would in the
process of time be
the living reason of
the world community
and all.
It is perhaps
necessary to refer
to a criticism
against this
‘expansive
metaphysic’ since it
affirms the
existence of higher
levels of
consciousness beyond
the human. Whether
we like it or not
the view that this
‘expansive’
metaphysic would be
unintelligible to
the large mass of
mankind trained in
practical methods of
fragmentary living
and survival, or
hedonistic ethics,
may be true. However
in a sense even the
superstitions of the
ages seem to have
percolated into the
very intellectual
sensate minds and
express the mystical
trans-sensate and
trans-intellectual
truths of higher
mind. In India this
is especially true.
Its effective loss
in the West has been
the cause of much of
the misery that
dialectical thinking
or thinking in
opposites, has
unfortunately
produced. It is not
without a lot of
justification that
Sri
Aurobindo contrasted
the basic genius of
the East with the
West.
There is always a
danger in trying to
be acute or too
optimistic about the
results. Sri
Aurobindo had
done one important
thing and that is to
show how the
supramental
interpretation of
the ancient
traditions have to
be carried out, and
how it attempts to
solve the problems
so very pressing on
mankind as a result
of the phenomenal
developments in
almost all fields of
knowledge entailing
superior
intelligence in
respect of ends and
means. In a sense
when ‘men seem to be
hastening unknown
ends’ in the
language of Dr.
Radhakrishnan,
even any light
thrown on the future
is welcome. The
supramental
may at first begin
as one way and may
by the results turn
out to be the only
way.
It is not necessary
to hold that Sri
Aurobindo has
given a complete
picture of the
supermind or
its activities and
functions. It has
been conceded that
it is the beginning
of a great expanse
of the zone above
the world of
Ignorance. There are
perhaps further
zones of being
beyond the
supermind. We
are already aware of
the
overmental
and other higher
levels of mind which
are intermediate.
But it is a
fundamentally
unified mind and
beyond ignorance
completely. It can
become a future mind
of mankind by its
descent in the
evolution of the
individuals. The
zone is very vast –
veritable
Brahmanda and
its powers of
universal Nature.
Sri
Aurobindo has
opened up that vast
terrain of
illimitable
possibilities free
from the ignorance
which has haunted
all that is of
evolution up to and
including
homosapiens.
The future of
Philosophy no longer
would be just one
history of Western
Philosophy or of
Indian Philosophy
but a truly
universal philosophy
– not merely a study
of comparative
philosophies or
religion or ethics
and anthropologies,
- carried on by
superminds,
as Sri
Aurobindo has
described with
larger goals and
more serious
endeavours of
Human Unity and
Culture.
Sri
Aurobindo a
superman with a
supermind,
indeed is the father
of future universal
philosophy.
