Summary of the First Seven Chapters of "The Life Divine"

The first seven chapters of The Life Divine constitute one block of statement and argument, which is centred on the human aspiration that is evidenced by the ancient records and by repeated experiences in each epoch of history, including the present one, where science having analysed the externalities of Nature find itself satiated but not satisfied and is preparing humanity to return to its primeval quest and search. That aspiration can be formulated in the formula of God, Light, Freedom and bliss.

The question is whether this aspiration is truly meaningful and whether there are grounds to justify the persistence of that aspiration and whether, considering all facts of existence, considering all possible speculations on meaning and absence of meaning of the known and possible facts and rationally understandable possible facts, as also considering the totality of experiences that can be gained at various levels and states of faculties, − whether in consideration of all the data that we can collect, that aspiration has any chance or inevitability of fulfilment.

In the first place, what is noticed is the evident contradiction between what we see and experience at our ordinary level, which is dominated by the material organisation of consciousness and the ideals which are contained in the formula of the human aspiration. This contradiction can be sharply stated as follows:

Acquisition of knowledge, possession and being of the Divine in an animal and egoistic consciousness;

Conversion of our twilight or obscure physical mentality into the plenary supramental manifestation;

Building of a self-existent bliss where there is only a stress of transitory satisfaction besieged by physical pain and emotional suffering;

Establishment of infinite freedom in a world which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities; and

The discovery of and realisation of the immortal life in a body subjected to death and constant mutation.

The ordinary material intellect considers the present conditions in which we live as a limit of what is possible. Therefore, it concludes that the unrealised ideals are unrealisable and therefore in our argument devoid of rational justification and validity.

The question is whether this argument is conclusive or whether there is a ground to investigate into this contradiction between the actual and the ideal and whether there is a rational way of looking at this contradiction and opposition which would prove that the alleged invalidity of the argument can be surmounted. The answer is that if it takes a deliberate view of the movement of Nature and enquire how Nature acts and develops, we shall find that nature moves by the method of opposition and that Nature works out a harmony and realisation of an ideal by a gradual process of affirmation, negation and synthesis.

The world as we see it consists of innumerable qualities and activities of energy; they are all at work, and each one of them strives at self-affirmation and self-expression, and they all seem to be struggling against each other, as though starting from division and arriving at separative conquest over the others. But the world seems to impose a law by means of which separative sovereignty of each is denied and the resultant is some kind of a combination, but not yet unity, or not yet that unity which can be termed perfect unity. What is achieved is only a temporary unity or a kind of an equilibrium which is broken easily and quickly. But still these forces seem to be striving at an ideal unity.

Ideal unity translates itself into a manifested harmony of perfection; and this perfection manifests itself through sovereignty, maximisation and right proportions of each so as to be mutual in relationships with all the others. It appears that it is towards that ideal harmony that the whole world is in the process of manifestation; and until that is achieved, there is a constant sense of a problem that needs to be resolved. It can, therefore, be said that all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.

This is what we perceive in the manifestation of Matter which strives to manifest Life in Matter and when the manifestation of Life strives after the manifestation of the Mind, and we see farther that the manifestation of the mind confronts problems on every side of manifestation, which shows that mind is attempting to manifest a still higher term of manifestation.

Matter is a term where condition of activity itself seems to be inertia and yet there is in it the manifestation of Life, the very nature of which is activity that is opposed to inertia. The accordance of Life with Matter is one problem of opposites that Nature has solved and yet that problem is still sought to be solved better with greater complexities.

The manifestation of Life, which is in itself not overtly selfconscious or at the best only subconscious or mechanical in its will, arrives at the emergence of conscious mind and conscious will. The accordance of Mind with Life is another problem of opposites in which astonishing results have been produced, and yet still further marvels remain to be manifested. The striving at the mind seems to be working out an animal consciousness not longer seeking but possessed of truth and light, with the practical omnipotence which would result in the possession of a direct and perfected knowledge. These facts prove that the opposition between the actual and the ideal does not invalidate the ideal, but it is a sign that the upward impulse of man is rational in itself; it is only a logical completion of a rule and an effort that seems to be a fundamental method of nature and the very sense of her universal strivings.

This basic argument can be further elucidated by a reference to the following:

l. The fact of evolution and the need to explain the evolution of Life in Matter, and of Mind in Life;

2. The materialistic argument and its premise that physical means of knowledge are the only means of knowledge, and its fallacy consisting of arguing in a circle and a priori rejection of the evidence of supra-physical means of knowledge and the discovery of the supra-physical realities;

3. The fact of cosmic consciousness and experiences of universal matter, universal life, universal mind and universal supermind;

4. The fact of the drive of thought towards synthesis and complete affirmation, and of the drive of life to arrive at the knowledge of its aim to serve with the serene and settled joy and light as well as with a rhythmically discursive energy.

As a result, rationality can not but affirm the rationality of complete synthesis and affirmation; and life can not but drive to cross the limitations so as to arrive at serenity, stability and rhythmical manifestation of energy that is diverse and yet united.

5. The drive of Thought and the drive of Life also tend to harmonise themselves, and both of them seek not only perfection in conception and expression but also in the corresponding experience and realisation of That which correspond to the highest mental Thought and the highest expression of Life.

6. The fact of the discovery that cosmic consciousness, even of the highest consciousness of universal harmony, is not the terminal point of our search;

7. There is still a Beyond, where the stillness and silence opens the gate of the Transcendence, which is experienced as the Spirit described in Upanishad luminous, pure, sustaining the world but inactive in it without sinews of energy, without flow of duality, without scar of division, unique, identical, free from all appearance of relation and of multiplicity, − the pure Self of the Advaitins (the Vedantic Monists);

8. The fact that based on this experience a philosophical thought has been constructed, the system of the denial of the world and of the refusal of the ascetic, − parallel at the other pole to the denial or negation of the materialist;

9. The necessity arises here of comparing and contrasting these two negations, both in respect to their conceptions of the Ultimate Reality and their respective valuation of life and the resultant consequences for the possibility of the fulfilment of the human aspiration and its justification;

10. The debate between the materialist and the ascetic can be summarised as follows:

What justification, of logic or of experience, can be asserted in support of the one extreme can be met by an equally cogent logic and an equally valid experience at the other end.

Materialism like spiritual monism arrives at a Maya that is and yet is not − is for it is present and compelling, is not, for it is phenomenal and transitory in its terms. At the other end, if we stress too much the unreality of the objective world, we arrive by a different road at similar but still more trenchant conclusions − a fictitious character of the individual ego, the unreality and purposelessness of human existence, the return into the non-Being, or the relationless Absolute as the sole rational escape from the meaningless tangle of phenomenal life.

11. These arguments can be seen to be inconclusive, for the rational conclusions remains opposed to each other that demand a reconciliation and synthesis, and the experiences on which these arguments rest are found to be incomplete or valid only at a certain level of consciousness and not at a highest possible level of experience.

12. In the experience of the cosmic consciousness, one perceives at once the Truth of unity and the Truth of multiplicity. Matter reveals itself to the realising thought and to subtlised senses as the figure and body of Spirit – Spirit in itself formative extension, Spirit reveals itself through the same consenting agents as the soul, the truth, the essence of Matter. Both admit and consent each other as divine, real and essentially one.

In the light of this conception we can percieve the possibility of a divine life in the world.

The experience on which the negation of the ascetic is based can still be farther transcended. In that experience, the silent and the active Brahman are not different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying, the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other.

There is, however a view based upon an experience of what has been termed as the Non-Being. But Non-Being is only a word, for what we really mean by this Nothing is Something beyond the last term to which we can reduce our purest conception and our most abstract or subtle experience of actual being as we know or conceive it while in this universe. This Nothing then is merely a something beyond positive conception.

13. As the perfect man would combine himself the silence and the activity, so also would the completely conscious soul reach back to the absolute freedom of the Non-Being without therefore losing its hold on Existence and the universe.

14. Thus after reconciling Spirit and Matter in the cosmic consciousness, we perceive the reconciliation, in the transcendental consciousness, at the final assertion of all and its negation.

15. We thus arrive at the real Monism the true Advaita which admits all things as the One Brahman and does not seek to bisect Its Existence into two incompatible entities, an eternal Truth and an eternal Falsehood, Brahman and not − Brahman, Self and not-self, a real Self and an unreal, a perpetual Maya.

It is true that there is in the world the phenomenon of discord and apparent evil, and this phenomenon must be admitted, but not accepted as our conquerors. The deepest instinct of humanity seeks always and seeks wisely wisdom as the last word of the universal manifestation, not an eternal mockery and illusion, − an ultimate victory and fulfilment, not the disappointed recoil of the soul from its great adventure.

In the light of the highest experience of Sachchidananda, even of unknowable existence, some utter and ineffable Bliss, we are justified in supposing that even the dualities of the universe, when interpreted not as now by our sensational and partial conceptions but by our liberated intelligence and experience will be also resolved into those highest terms.

Until that liberated experience is reached, we need to be supported by an act of faith, but a faith which the highest Reason, the widest and most patient reflection do not deny, but rather affirm. Finally, we arrive at a stage of development when faith will be turned into knowledge and perfect experience and wisdom will be justified.

16. The integral view of the unity of Brahman to which we arrive by the integral realisation of the Brahman affirms that the world-transcendent Brahman embraces the universe, is one with it and does not exclude it, even as the universe embraces the individual, is one with him and does not exclude him. The individual is the centre of the whole universal consciousness, the universe is a form and definition which is occupied by the entire immanence of the Formless and Indefinable.

17. In fact, the conscious manifestation of the Transcendent in the individual is the means by which the collective, the universal is also to become conscious of itself, the continuation of the illumined individual in the action of the world is an imperative need of the world-play.

In the classical Advaitic view, however, the individual soul is one with the Supreme, its sense of separateness and ignorance, escape from the sense of separateness and identity with the Supreme its salvation.

18. But against this view, the question that can be raised is as to who profits by this escape. Not the Supreme Self, for it is supposed to be always an inalienably free, still, silent, pure. Not the world, for that remains constantly in the bondage and is not freed by the escape of any individual soul from the universal illusion. The only answer that we should get is that it is the individual soul itself which effects its supreme good by escaping from the sorrow and the division into the peace and the bliss. There would seem then to be some kind of reality of the individual soul as distinct from the world and from the Supreme even in the event of freedom and illumination.

19. Therefore, in the integral view we make the following propositions:

i. the transcendent, the supra-cosmic is absolute and free in Itself;

ii. but in cosmos it uses its liberty of self-formation to make a scheme of unity and multiplicity;

iii. this multiple unity is established in the three conditions of the sub-conscient, the conscient and the super-conscient;

iv. the starting-point in the sub-conscient unity where cosmic action and cosmic substance are not themselves superficially aware of it;

v. in the conscient the ego becomes the superficial point at which the awareness of unity can emerge;

vi. but because it is bound to surface consciousness, there is a failure to realise the inner identity with the inmost Self and with others;

vii. but when the ego transcends the personal consciousness, it begins to include and be overpowered by that which is to us superconsciousness.

viii. it becomes aware of the cosmic unity and enters the Transcendental Self which here cosmos expresses by a multiple oneness.

ix. the liberation of the individual soul is therefore the keynote of the definite divine action;

x. it is the primary divine necessity and the pivot on which all else turns.

20. Through the liberation of the individual there comes about the manifestation of the infinite Bliss, − Existence, − Consciousness in life and mind and body, − for independent of them it exists eternally.

21. This is the transfiguration intended and the utility of the individual existence.

22. There is an intimate relationship between the universal and the individual. This relationship is, in the world in which we live, is worked out through successive levels of an ascent. In this ascent, the universe and an individual are necessary for each other; they exist by each other and profit by each other.

23. But what is the Universe? Universe is the diffusion of Divine All in infinite space and Time. The individual is its concentration within limits of Space and Time. Universe seeks in infinite extension the Divine totality, it feels itself to be but can not entirely realise; for in extension existence drives at a pluralistic sum of itself which can neither be the primal nor the final unit, but only a recurring decimal without end or beginning. Therefore, it creates in itself a self-conscious concentration of the All through which it can aspire.

That self-conscious concentration is the individual. On the other hand, it is by means of the universe that the individual is impelled to realise himself; he must necessarily universalise and impersonalise himself in order to manifest the Divine in All which is his reality. But even when he most extends himself in universality, he is called upon to preserve a mysterious transcendence something, which can be called the true individual, of which his sense of personality gives him an obscure and egoistic representation. It is a preservation of that individual that enables him to carry out the Divine work for which he has accepted to be the concentration of the universal.

Universalisation is effected through Life, a dynamism the entire secret of which he has to master so that he can disengage in the world of colliding results some supreme order and some yet unrealised harmony.

The individual in whom the potentialities of Life or Life Spirit are centred is pre-eminently Man. Man in his upward journey confronts terms of denials and he can not fathom their essential reality. It is by discovering that the denials are results of his being out of harmony both with what the world is and what he himself should be and is to be. Therefore, it is through this disharmony that the true relationship has to be found.

He has, therefore, to turn Death into a more perfect life, lift the small things of the human limitations into the great things of the Divine vastness, transform suffering into beatitude, convert evil into its proper good, translate error and falsehood into their secret truth. Then the journey will be accomplished and heaven and earth equalised will join hands in the bliss of the Supreme.

This is possible because we have hazarded the suggestion that since all this is one Reality, all that seems to contradict it is none other than that Reality. But we do not perceive that Reality because of some great fundamental error, some possessing and impelling Ignorance. This ignorance has to be annulled; this is the journey of man in the universe, and through this journey we may find some symbols and figures or hints which will help the light of the soul and throw upon the mind some reflection of the ineffable design.

In order to annul the impelling ignorance, we must strive to relate the individual to the harmony of the totality. We discover that there may be mental and supra-mental envisaging of universe which surpass our own.

There are states of consciousness in which Death is only a change in Immortal life, pain a violent backwash of the waters of universal delight, limitations a turning of the Infinite upon itself, evil a circling of the good around its own perfection. To arrive at such stage of consciousness may, for the individual, be one of the most important an indispensable steps of his progress towards selfperfection.

The journey from what we are to those higher states is difficult and may create a disorder and incapacity during the passage, if there is not sufficient preparation.

24. The true goal is only reached when we can group around the right central conception a reasoned and effective knowledge in which the egoistic life shall rediscover all its values transformed and corrected.

25. This process must proceed through a renunciation by the ego of its false standpoint and false certainties, through its entry into a right relation and harmony with the totalities of which it forms a part and with the transcendence from which it is a descent, and through its perfect self-opening to a truth and a law that exceeds its own convention - a truth that shall be its fulfilment and a law that shall be its deliverance.

26. An argument that is advanced is that the transcendence and the abolition of the ego and the dualities are not possible here on earth and in our human life if the terms of that life are necessarily bound to our egoistic valuations. This argument is not valid, because the fact is that the ego and the dualities are not inalienably involved in life which is being manifested on the earth.

It is argued also that man cannot be transcended by any evolutionary process. This argument is not valid, although it is understandable that it is very difficult for the customary mind of man, which is always attached to its past and present associations to conceive of an existence, still human, and yet radically changed in what are now our fixed circumstances. The original Ape could have never been able to conceive the arrival on the earth of an animal who would use a new faculty called reason.

27. But man has not only customary mind but has also the power of reason, imagination, intuition. He is, therefore, able to conceive and envisage his personal elevation beyond his present state into a higher state. He is capable of conceiving knowledge without error, bliss without suffering, power without incapacity, purity without defect and plenitude without limitation. But he attributes these higher states for his Gods or for his heavens. He concludes that all that is possible for man is the conditioned, limited, and precarious knowledge, happiness, power and good.

As against this argument, we find that in the principle of Reason itself there is the assertion of a Transcendence. For reason is in its whole aim and essence the pursuit of Knowledge, the pursuit of Truth by the elimination of error. It supposes a positive, pre-existent Truth towards which through the dualities of right knowledge and wrong knowledge, we can progressively move. Again, the rejection of pain is a sovereign instinct of death a dominant claim inherent in the essence of our vitality.

28. In fact, we do pursue as an ideal, so far as we may, the elimination of the negative or adverse phenomena. And if we arrive at root-knowledge, knowledge of the essential cause of error, suffering and death, we may hope to arrive at a mastery over them which should not be relative but entire.

The ancient Vedanta presents us with that root knowledge and points out that:

a) there is a conception and experience of Brahman, Sachchidananda;

b) the essence of all life is the movement of a universal and immortal existence;

c) the movement of the world is an interplay of energies issuing from the Brahman, where multiplicity permits the interference of a temporary factor, the individual ego;

d) it is the ego which is the factor determining the reactions of error, sorrow, pain, death;

e) by recovering the right relation we may eliminate the ego-determined reactions reducing them eventually to their values;

this recovery can be effected by the right participation of the individual in the consciousness of the totality and in the consciousness of the transcendent which the totality represents.

29. Later Vedanta, however, came to maintain that by getting rid of the ego, we not only eliminate the dualities, but we eliminate along with them our existence in our cosmic movement. But if we adhere to the larger and profounder idea that the ego is only an intermediate representation of something beyond itself, we escape from this consequence. We can then apply Vedanta to fulfilment of life.

Ego is not the cause and condition of universal existence. The essential cause is the Lord, Ishawara or Purusha, manifesting and occupying individual and universal forms. The limited ego is only an intermediate phenomenon for a certain line of development.

Following this line, the individual can arrive at That which is beyond himself and can yet continue to represent That which is beyond himself, as a centre of the Divine and of the Universal Consciousness embracing, utilising and transforming into harmony with the divine all individual determinations.

We have then the manifestation of the divine Conscious Being in the totality of physical Nature as the foundation of human existence in the material universe. We can then have a rational assurance of the process of evolution which will enable man progressively to manifest the Divine in the body.

This is the supreme birth, which material nature holds in itself; of this she strives to be delivered.

The Refusal of The Ascetic

Chapter III: The Two Negations: The Refusal of The Ascetic

But even if we reach the Cosmic Consciousness, we have not yet reached the summit. There is still a beyond. It is transcendent not only of the ego but of the Cosmos itself. That transcendental supports the Universal, − or perhaps only tolerates it; it embraces life with its vastness, or else rejects it from its infinitudes.

Just as the Materialist bases his Philosophy on the ground of the all engrossing experience of matter, even so the Sanyasin, basing on his experience of the all engrossing experience of the spirit declares that spirit alone is real.

Just as the Materialist rejects this experience of the spirit as a dream of the mind or as an abstraction of Thought, and therefore divorced from reality, even so the Sanyasin declares the world as a creation of the Mind and the senses, and even a dream and an abstraction.

Every philosophy tries to argue on the basis of logic and of experience. But surprisingly, what justification, of logic or of experience, which supports one extreme philosophy is met by a justification, of logic or of experience, which supports the exactly opposite stand points of philosophy.

In this situation, the resolution of the conflict can be arrived at only by extension of Consciousness which in its Universality, can unite the two opposing tendencies and arrive at a synthesis in which the truths of the opposing stand points are so reconciled that each of the opposites finds in it a full affirmation and fulfillment.

Let us take the position of the Materialist. He affirms the world of matter on the ground that physical senses experience matter alone, and therefore, matter alone is real. This argument is valid as far as it goes; but does it remain sustainable? We discover, first of all, that the argument of the Materialist commits the fallacy of a vicious circle. It assumes precisely what it sets out to prove, and in the conclusion it reiterates its premise without proving it. That matter is real is of course established by the fact that physical senses can experience only the physical reality. But it does not prove the following statement which is its first premise, namely, that physical senses are the only means of knowledge.

Hence, it can be said that Materialism is a primitive form of thought and it does not go beyond the premise with which it starts. We argue like an uninstructed villager who tries to prove the conclusion by the premise and the premise by the conclusion. There is actually no argument but only unphilosophical statement of the existence of matter and the sole reality of the matter.

However, if the Materialist wishes to prove his position, he can do so only by disproving the existence of the supra-physical or the existence of the supra-physical senses. But that will require extension of consciousness which can enter into supra-physical world and can exercise supra-physical faculties. And the moment this extension of consciousness is effected or even attempted, one finds that matter itself has supra-physical states, which do exist but which cannot be experienced physically. Similarly, there are also senses which are supra-physical. These supra-physical senses can experience the physical world without the aid of the physical organs; it can also bring us into contact with other realities which are supra-physical and which belong to another world.

In fact, human experience and belief have constantly asserted the supra-physical reality and the supra-physical faculties. But in our own times, fresh evidences are increasing to the phenomena of telepathy and similar other experiences. These evidences can no more be resisted unless one remains shut up in the brilliant shell of the past or by minds which are acute but limited through the limitation of their field of experience and inquiry. They are also being resisted by those who confuse enlightenment and reason with the faithful repetition of the formulas left to us from the recent century of the Materialist thought.

It is true that the results of research in telepathy and similar phenomena are yet ill-affirmed because of the imperfection of the methods of the research. But the existences of subtle senses have been found to be true witnesses to physical facts which are beyond the range of the corporeal organs. There is, therefore, no justification to deny when they give report of supra-physical facts which lie beyond the domain of the material world.

When we thus extend consciousness, it becomes possible to affirm that worlds beyond the material world exist, that they have their own laws of formation and movements and their own just and luminous means of knowledge. It is also found that they exercise influence on our physical existence and in our physical body; they have also their means of manifestation and they can communicate their messages to our physical organs and to our physical world.

But once we admit the supra-physical, we are led to affirm the supremacy of experience and of consciousness that is involved in experience. As a consequence, it has come to be argued that the physical world comes to be affirmed only because of consciousness in experience; there is no proof of the existence of anything except through consciousness; it is even argued that the physical world depends for its existence on our consciousness and that our consciousness is the creator of the physical world or of all the worlds of experience.

As against this contention, it is argued that consciousness can’t be regarded as the creator of the physical world existed in the evolutionary history as we know it, as self-existent and that consciousness came into existence much later.

These two arguments have remained in conflict, and they have remained sharply divided not only in their metaphysical positions but also in respect of the effects they have produced in regard to the aim of life which they have attempted to promote.

The materialistic conclusion, when pushed far enough, arrives at the insignificance and unreality in the life of the individual and race. From this two options arise logically. One option is to advocate a feverish effort of the individual to snatch what he may from a transient existence, and to "live his life". Another option is to advocate a dispassionate and objectless service of the race and the individual is a transient fiction of the nervous mentality and the race is only a little more long lived collective form of the same nervous spasm of matter. It will be seen that materialism is like spiritual monism in several respects both look upon the life of the individual and the race as the insignificant and unreal, and both look upon the world as manifested before us as phenomenal and transient, — something that is and yet is not, — a character that characterizes Maya.

Actually, spiritual monism stresses too much the unreality of the objective world and advocates more trenchant conclusion. It advocates very sharply the fictitious character of the individual ego; it advocates also and equally sharply the unreality and purposelessness of human existence. Finally, it proposes the return into the Non-Being or relationless Absolute as the sole rational escape from the meaningless tangle of phenomenal life.

We may ask the question as to how these two positions − materialistic monism and spiritualistic monism can be reconciled or how their respective arguments can be answered with definitive conclusiveness.

When we reflect upon this question, we shall find that we can’t arrive at the required solution by logic arguing on the data of our ordinary physical existence. These data are incomplete; they betray always a hiatus of experience; hence all arguments based on these data are rendered inconclusive. For example, is there any definitive experience among our data of physical existence which would justify as in supposing that our subjective self really depends upon the physical frame and can neither survive it nor enlarge itself beyond the individual body? We have at this stage no definitive experience of a cosmic mind or super mind not bound up with the life of an individual body. In order to arrive at a conclusive argument, the only way left is to institute an extension of the field of our Consciousness or else, we should bring about an incredible increase in our instruments of knowledge.

If our program of extension of Consciousness has to be satisfied, we must be able to bring about an inner enlargement from the individual into the Cosmic existence. It is then that we shall see that the world is not a product of the individual embodied mind but a Cosmic Consciousness. This Cosmic Consciousness is not merely a witness of Cosmic existence but even its Lord who embraces the Universe and works in the Universe as its Immanent Intelligence.

In recent times, the possibility of a Cosmic Consciousness in humanity is coming slowly to be admitted. Modern psychology admits also the possibility of more elastic instruments of knowledge, even though it is still pronounced to be a hallucination. On the other hand, Cosmic Consciousness has always been recognized as a reality and the aim of our subjective progress.

According to the data of the Cosmic Consciousness, we can, when we enter into that Consciousness, continue to dwell upon Universal existence. We can become aware of matter as one existence and of bodies as its formations. Similarly we can also experience life as one existence and mind as one existing of manifesting that oneness in its multiplicity. We can also, if we choose, become aware by rising upwards through many linking stages of a super mind and find that the super mind is the key to all lesser activities. A time can come when we can live in it as we now live today in the ego sense. And when we live in that Consciousness, we find ourselves unified more and more with other minds, other lives, other bodies, and we can even produce effects on the physical worlds and events.

Therefore, one who has contact with the Cosmic Consciousness and one who lives in it, this Cosmic Consciousness is real in itself, real also in its effects and works. It is then that we conclusively find that the world is real precisely because it exists only in Consciousness; for it is a Conscious Energy one with Being that creates it.

But that conscious being with which the Conscious energy is one and which is the truth of infinite super mind, is more than the Universe. That Conscious Being lives independently in its own inexpressible infinity as well as in the Cosmic harmonies. World lives by that; That does not live by the world.

And just as we can enter into the Cosmic Consciousness, even so we can enter into that, into the world — transcending Consciousness and become superior to all Cosmic existence.

It is a rejection of the Universe? In other words, what solution has this universe to the Beyond?

This question arises because at the gates of the Transcendent stands that mere and perfect spirit described in the Upanishads, luminous, pure, sustaining the world but inactive in it, without sinews of energy, without flow of duality, without scar of division, Unique, identical, free from all appearance of relation and multiplicity. This is the spirit described as the pure self by the Vedantic monists, Advaitins. This pure self is the inactive Brahman, the transcendent silence. And it is a fact that the mind when its passes those gates suddenly, without intermediate transitions, receives a sense of the unreality of the world and sole reality of the silence which is one of the most powerful and convincing experiences of which the human mind is capable. It is also possible not only to have the experience and realisation of this silence but even of a greater silence which has been described as the Non-Being. It is on the basis of this perception that has given rise to the second negation; exactly opposite of the first negation, − the materialistic denial. This second negation is of the ascetic; − the refusal which is more complete, more final, more perilous in its effects on the individuals or collectivities that hear its potent call to the Wilderness.

This refusal of the ascetic which declares insignificance and meaningless of individuality and even of Universality that has dominated increasingly the Indian mind since the last two thousand years, — since Buddhism disturbed the balance of the old Aryan World. The sense of cosmic illusion is not, indeed, the whole of Indian thought. There are many other philosophical statements, there are many other religious aspiration. Even the most extreme philosophies have made some attempts to arrive at some adjustment between the spirit and the matter. But the great refusal has tendered to overshadow them all, and its message of the final end of life for all has influenced dominantly all other messages. There has been a further associated doctrine that has been derived from the Buddhistic theory of the chain of Karma which declares that karma is not consistent with liberation, that karma implies bondage, that bondage comes by birth, and the liberation comes by cessation from birth. Therefore all voices are joined in declaring that this world of our cannot ever become a Kingdom of heaven, that Kingdom of heaven is beyond this world in which we live, in the eternal Vrindavan of joys and ecstasies, the Brahmaloka of high beatitude, or else it is the only right thing to go beyond all manifestations in some ineffable Nirvana or where all separate experience is lost in the featureless unity of the indefinable Existence.

This negativistic message has filled many centuries in Indian history and a great army of saints and teachers have contributed to the reiteration of the same lofty and distant appeal which declares: Renunciation is the sole path of knowledge; acceptation of life is the act of the ignorance; cessation from birth is the right use of human birth. This is the call of the spirit which pronounces the recoil from matter. How shall we react to the refusal of the Ascetic?

Our present age in the age of dynamism; it is the age of the affirmation of matter; it is the age of World-affirmation. It is opposed to the ascetic spirit. In this age, therefore, it is easy to criticize asceticism; it is easy to argue that asceticism arises in an ancient race when it gets tired out by its burden, when vital energy begins to fail, and when it is exhausted by its many-sided contribution to the sum of human knowledge and effort. But none of these explanations of the rise of asceticism can be fully justified. The real justification of asceticism serfs upon a truth, and that truth corresponds to a state of Conscious realization which stands at a very summit of our possibility. That state of conscious realization is that of the Brahman, of inactive silence, of silence beyond silence, of the Transcendental, which when entered into suddenly results in a state of stupendous reality of the spirit and vanity or even unreality of all the world-existence. We should not minimize the truth of this experience in its capacity to liberate us from the limitations of our egoistic life.

We should also underline that the ascetic spirit is an indispensable element in human perfection. And even its separate affirmation can’t be avoided so long the human race remains obstinately bound to the insistence animalism. It is only when the race returns from that animalism that exclusive asceticism can cease to be an indispensable element in human perfection.

It is true that the human mind can’t remain forever satisfied by either exclusive materialistic or exclusive asceticism. The human must seek a total affirmation and reconciliation of both terms of existence, of both matter and spirit. We shall therefore seek longer and complete affirmation. In this seeking, we shall perceive that in the Indian ascetic ideal, which speaks of the Vedanta, the great Vedantic formula "One without a second", has not been read sufficiently in the light of that other formula equally impressive formula "All that is Brahman". We shall find that the upward movement of the man to the Divine has not been sufficiently related to the descending movement of the Divine. We shall find that the meaning of the Divine in matter has not been so well understood as its truth in the spirit.

And yet in our complete affirmation we must not minimize the part of the pure spiritual impulse. Just as we have seen how greatly materialism has served the ends of the Divine, so we must acknowledge the still greater service rendered by Asceticism. Just as we shall preserve the truths of Material Science and its real utilities, we shall exercise even greater scruple of right preservation when we deal with this legacy, considering its enormous value, both in itself and for the future.

The Pure Existent (A summary of Chapter IX)

Ordinarily our ego is self-centred and regards the whole universe as a field meant to subserve its interests.

But when we withdraw ourselves from the egoistic preoccupation, we find ourselves in the presence of a vast movement in comparison with which the highest magnitudes that we can conceive of are only petty swarms.

This vast movement seems to care nothing for our egoistic demands and desires. And it seems to have only an ironic smile at them.

And yet in the true account of things, we come to realise that nothing is unimportant in the design of the vast movement.

In a certain sense, we seem to be more important, even though quantitatively we are petty, than huge magnitudes of the world because qualitatively we possess consciousness which huge material bodies do not possess. An ant seems to be superior to the ant-hill.

But this again is the illusion of the quality. Big or small, superior or inferior, strong or weak, have all behind them the same force or energy. There is one, vast movement which is equal, ’Sammam brahman’, in respect of everything in which it is at work.

Perception of this vast movement, without the illusion of quality and quantity is the first necessity, if we are to enquire into what really exists and what is really real.

It is here that we come to a further complication. Just as we find that ego is subordinate to the vastness of the movement, even so, the pure reason asserts that this vast movement is subordinate to the stable Reality. And this perception of the pure reason is further confirmed by the highest experience of the Vedanta which declares the unmoving stable base of the whole universe, the pure stability, ’stánu’, the Pure Existence.

It has, however, been argued that there is no such thing as stability. There is only movement, and what we call stability, is a mere appearance, like the earth which seems to be stable even though it is constantly rotating or when we find our train in which we are travelling to be stationary in a rushing landscape.

But can it be argued that there can’t be stability behind the movement?

If there is a stable existence behind the movement, it must be like the movement, infinite.

We need to be clear about the infinity of the movement. Infinity is imposed upon us because neither reason, nor intuition nor imagination nor experience bears witness to an absolute beginning or an absolute end. Every beginning presupposes anterior beginning, every end opens up to ulterior end.

This infinity is what we call the infinity of space and Time — beginningless and endless extension and beginningless and endless duration.

When we reflect on Space and Time, we are obliged to perceive successive extensions of space and successive movements of time. But succession cannot be sustained without a basis which is non-successive. For succession implies a divison and yet a continuity, and this strange combination can be supported only if succession is a psychological way of dividing an indivisible flow of extension and duration an all-containing point without magnitude and all-containing ever-new moment.

But even this is not the end of the matter. Even the non-successive extension and non-successive duration imply a stable ground or cause, and this cannot itself be of the nature of Space and Time. When we perceive existence-in-itself, space and time disappear.

Are we really sure? Could there not be a mere movement or a mere Nihil — without a supporting base? The pure reason asserts that a pure movement without a stable ground or cause contradicts its perception and therefore cannot be. It is like a stair which is suspended in a void, which cannot be.

If such a Timeless and spaceless existence is, it must be not only infinite but absolute. It is something in which all the characteristics of the movements, — quantity and quality, name and form enter and which is itself self-existent, independent of all that has entered into it and from which it can again manifest as quantity, quality, name and form.

It may be argued that all this is true from the point of view of the pure reason, but we must judge existence not by what reason conceives but by what can be obtained in experience, and it can be again argued that what is experienced is only movement and nothing else.

As against this argument, it can be contended that apart from an ordinary experience, there is a higher and highest experience in which Reality is experienced to be pure existent, stable, one without the second, absolute and infinite, in which the Universe is contained, an experience affirmed in ancient Vedanta.

But what is the relationship between the stable Reality and this movement? If the stable one is the only reality, movement cannot be other than that reality. The Indian answer that Shiva and Kali are one, that this stable reality and dynamic movement are one, is entirely rational because it will be contrary to reason that reality being one, movement could have entered into it from some where else.

We have thus seen what pure reason and highest experience have declared about the pure-existence, sat, we have still to see what the pure reason and the highest existence have to say about the movement and ask whether it is only an inert force like Samkhyan Prakriti or whether it is a conscious force, chit. All the rest will hinge on the answer that is obtained to this question.