Being three lectures delivered at the
University of Allahabad
by
SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA
A DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY PUBLICATION
Fourth Edition: 1997
(2,000 copies)
World Wide Web (WWW) Edition : 1999
Website: http://www.divinelifesociety.org/
This WWW reprint is for free distribution
© The Divine Life Trust Society
Published By
THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY
P.O. Shivanandanagar—249 192
Distt. Tehri-Garhwal, Uttaranchal,
Himalayas, India.
CONTENTS
The present publication brings out the substance of the three lectures
delivered by Swami Krishnananda at the University of Allahabad, on an
invitation received from the hon’ble Vice-Chancellor, requiring
that the students be addressed on the essentials of culture and a life
of knowledge. These discourses were given on the 7th, 8th and 9th of
November, 1960, and they cover the foundation of Indian Philosophy and
a practical application of it in one’s daily life. The Appendices
provide a statement on the leading points in the technique of living
an Integral Life, and an effective method that could be implemented
in the Educational Process.
It is the fond hope of the Swamiji that this unique example set forth
by the Allahabad University in feeling the necessity to work for rousing
in the minds of students a consciousness of the Higher Life be emulated
by the other Universities also. Knowledge is not mere accumulation of
facts, and is meaningless if it is divested of that light which illumines
the basic demands of human nature. Education and culture make the true
Man, and towards this end are the efforts through this publication directed.
THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY
“Culture is a progressive transfiguration of nature, a creative
activity of the evolving mind of man to approximate itself to perfection,
so far as it is possible for it with the knowledge and energy with which
it is endowed at a given level of life. The individual is neither a
body merely, nor only a mind. The human individual, at least, is a composite
structure, a complex of physical forces, vital urges, emotional stresses,
moral aspirations and rational needs. Nothing that does not comprehend
these in its compass or contribute to the training and development of
these aspects can be called an integral culture. Culture is the reflection
of the soul in man, and it is complete in proportion as it answers to
the original, viz., internal perfection. Pure thought, decent speech,
nobility of character, impartial love, truthfulness, honesty, straightforwardness,
forbearance,—such virtues as these are, therefore, the natural
insignia of right culture, which can be regarded as an index of self-fulfilment.
Culture implies voluntary self-restraint for the attainment of a higher
goal” - Swami Sivananda
What man needs is not philosophy or religion in the academic or formalistic
sense of the term, but ability to think rightly. The malady of the age
is not absence of philosophy or even irreligion but wrong thinking and
a vanity which passes for knowledge. Though it is difficult to define
right thinking, it cannot be denied that it is the goal of the aspirations
of everyone. It is not that anyone would deliberately wish to think
wrongly, and wrong thinking, is that attitude of the mind, where the
false is mistaken for the true. This is a deep-rooted prejudice which
it is hard for most people to eradicate. Error has become so much a
part of man’s thinking that there seems to be no one in position
to point it out. One cannot, at the same time, be a judge and also a
party summoned for examination. It is necessary that some effort has
to be put forth in tackling the problem in its core.
There is often a complaint that today the world has lost all philosophical
or religious consciousness and that there is no receptivity to higher
values. In this connection it is always forgotten that the higher values
do not suddenly fall from the skies and they have to be inculcated into
the mind with some care. It is impossible that consciousness can reject
truth, for the two are inseparably related to each other, and, in their
highest states, the two are one. What is needed is the presentation
of truth in a proper form, fitted to the particular stage in which human
consciousness finds itself. What is said should be neither too much
nor too little, but suitably adapted to a given situation of the human
mind.
This means that the educational method varies for the different levels
and, though the same truth can be taught to all, it cannot be taught
to everyone in the same way. Methods of instruction differ, though the
truth does not vary. Our present-day education has become a failure
because of the wrong methods adopted in stuffing the student’s
mind with information that cannot be easily digested. Education is not
accumulation of information but assimilation of reality by degrees.
When educationists forget this fundamental truth behind the educational
process, education becomes a travesty and life a meaningless adventure.
This is exactly the condition in which most people find themselves to
day and there cannot be remedy unless a vigorous attempt is made to
come face to face with the main point in question.
There is also a complaint that life is very busy and there is no time
for philosophy or religion. But philosophy and religion are not activities
which require time,—they are not works to be done but identical
with right thinking, which does not require of one time. Just as one
does not require time to exist, though time may be needed for doing
something, the question of lack of time does not arise in the case of
an effort to think rightly. It is like maintenance of health, which
is more a natural condition to be aspired for than a business to be
dealt with or executed.
Teachers of philosophy and religion have been persistently making the
mistake of suddenly commencing to teach the outer forms rather than
the essence of this knowledge. What the students require to be told
in the beginning is not Plato, Kant or Sankara; Hinduism, Buddhism,
or Christianity, but the rationality behind the structure of existence
and life as a whole, a systematic envisagement of the actual facts of
life in their completeness and their ultimateness, so that the real
problem before us is faced both inwardly and outwardly, at a single
grasp. It may be called, if we would so like it, the philosophy and
psychology of religion, understood in its proper sense, and not in terms
of the schools of thought in the history of philosophy or the forms
of practice in the history of religion. It should always be remembered
that the student’s mind is to be approached with caution, for it
rejects what it cannot understand or absorb into its constitution.
To be rational is not to be dogmatic but sympathetic and tolerant.
Toleration is the mark of real religion. It is impossible to have one
religion for the whole world in its outer form, though its essence and
content are one, even as we cannot have a common form of diet for the
whole world, though it is true that everyone needs food. Religion is
not so much practice of form as living of its essence. When this is
achieved, true culture emerges.
It is my intention to present to modern students certain broad outlines
of the fundamental principles that can pave the way for world-understanding
and conduce not only to social prosperity but also personal solace and
real freedom which everyone seeks. I have attempted to lay in this book
the foundations of that impersonal meaning on which the personal forms
of philosophy and religion are constructed. I shall regard myself as
amply rewarded if the studentworld finds here profound suggestions for
deep thinking and research.
Swami Krishnananda
Sivanandanagar,
lst March, 1968
We say we live in a world, because we perceive and experience certain
phenomena which impinge on our senses and make us feel that we are in
an objective environment. This supposed environment in which we appear
to be placed is felt by us to be a complex situation that influences
not only our individual personalities but also other individuals whose
existence we observe intuitionally, as it were. We are aware, by analysis,
experiment and observation, that broadly speaking, we have three avenues
of knowledge, two of which are in direct relation to our normal world-experience,
and one is unknown to most of us. These channels of perception are sense,
reason and intuition.
Sense-perception reveals to us that we are in a world from which we
are cut off as knowing subjects. The world, again, is separated from
us as a non-intelligent principle placed in the context of an object
which is differentiated from the knowing subject in that the latter
is endowed with a principle which we call intelligence, while the former
is apparently bereft of it. And how do we perceive the world through
our senses?
Any cautious intellect will be able to understand that the special
feature that we observe as characterising anything in the world is change.
Change appears to be the order of things. Everything moves, flows is
in a state of becoming. We have never seen, nor have we any chance of
seeing, anything in this world, that is not subject to some kind of
transformation or the other. Even our bodies, our senses, nay, even
our own minds exhibit this subjection to the inexorable law of change.
In short, we are in a process, not being.
And how do we know that there is change? The obvious answer would be
that we see it. But here we have to raise a question, as rational beings
who will not be easily satisfied by a dogmatic statement that there
is change just because we see it. A truly great person is he who has
the patience and the ability to first investigate himself, his power
of knowledge and his fitness for judging the nature of things. Are we
correct in assessing the value of the phenomena that we observe through
our senses? What is the standard of correctness? When we say that everything
in the world changes, do we also include ourselves in all that changes?
Now, just imagine: can we know that something changes or is in a state
of transformation, if we ourselves are a part of this observed flux?
Can there be knowledge of change if the knower himself changes with
the change? The fact that it is possible for us to recognise such a
thing as movement or process shows that we somehow find ourselves standing
as witnesses of what we observe. For the observer himself cannot be
observed, and change itself cannot be its own knower. We say that a
river flows, because the bed of the river itself does not flow, and
we do not flow with the waters but stand as witnesses on the bank. This
is an observation easy of understanding, that we cannot know the distinction
between one part of a process and another unless we, as observing intelligences,
are able to bring together the two distinguished parts by a link of
understanding or consciousness which cannot belong to any one of the
parts, and which, yet, has to be equally present to both the parts.
The knower is different from the known.
Extending this observation to the entire world of perception, we come
to the conclusion that, if at all it should be possible for us to know
any such thing as a world,—its contents and diversities,—we
have to accept, by implication, that our consciousness should be at
least as wide as what we know, and this consciousness cannot be subject
to separation or isolation as the perceptible objects are. Here we come
to the crux of philosophy, the pivot of true scientific thinking. Are
we in a world of truth?
And what is truth? A great philosopher-saint of ancient India, Swami
Vidyaranya, has observed in his great work, the Panchadasi: Satyatvam
Badharahityam—Truth is that which stands the test of the principle
of non-contradiction. What is never seen to change at any time, what
is not subject to transcendence by any kind of experience, what is not
dependent on anything else, what is its own proof and requires not other
proof to establish its existence, is truth. Truth is that which is absolutely
necessary to account for our experiences in life, and which, when negatived
or abrogated, contradicts all experience, and cuts the ground from under
our feet. Truth is the ultimate Reality of the universe, internal as
well as external,—gross, subtle and causal.
As students of modern science, and as enlightened persons interested
in studying the advances of present-day researches in the realm of physics,
you would be acquainted with the fact that science today has surpassed
the old view that the world is made up of crass material stuff, or that
it is really diversified in the manner we ordinarily see with our senses.
Once upon a time we were told that the constituents of the physical
world could be reduced to less than a hundred ultimate principles,—call
them chemical substances. Later came the discovery that these substances
are not really ultimate but could be reduced to minuter elements called
atoms which were supposed to differ from one another in certain specific
characters they possessed. But research did not end here. Today we are
said to be placed in a mysterious universe of forces, of electrical
charges, of dynamic powers which are discovered to be the essence of
even the atoms. Even the pluralistic notions involved at the present
moment in the concept of the stuff of which the atoms are made are slowly
getting narrowed down to the recognition of an immanent energy which
is supposed to be the matrix of all things, the essence of the world,
of our own bodies. We are in a world of energy, in which there cannot
be any further differentiation, and which is not merely the cause of
the substances of the world but is itself the real substances. We are
told that this energy is called light when it has an impact on the retina
of our eyes, is called sound when it impinges on the eardrum, is itself
taste, touch and smell in accordance with the senses by which we come
to feel its presence. It looks, of course, a wonder that we assert our
own segregated bodily existences, with their passions and prejudices,
while intellectually we are made to conclude that even our bodies are
in essence parts of the cosmos of forces. And if we have to believe
in what we understand to be the truth, we have no right even to think
as individual personalities. We are the cosmos!
Well, let us agree that we are in a universe of energy, as the latest
developments in modern physics would indicate. But what is the nature
of this energy? what is it made of, and what do we mean by energy? Is
it a quantitative substance, an object with dimension, and has it any
quality, without which we can know nothing at all? You know, we usually
say that something is seen because we observe a quality in it, a character
which enables us to differentiate it from another. Has the cosmic energy
of the scientist any such perceivable quality? If it has either a quantity
or a quality it should be a material substance, and has to be known
by something other than itself, viz., an illuminating intelligence.
Here it will not be out of place if I make a reference to a habit that
is prevalent among man which makes out that even intelligence is an
off-shoot of matter. Now, such a contention really defeats itself, because
it involves a self-contradiction. Is matter identical with or different
from intelligence? If it is one with intelligence, then what prevents
us from assuming that there is only intelligence and no such thing as
matter devoid of it, especially as it is very clear that we cannot even
assert the existence of matter without an intelligent mind? On the other
hand, if matter is different from intelligence, what is it that distinguishes
matter from intelligence? Is this differentiating principle matter itself,
or is it intelligence? For, there cannot be a third thing. If the difference
is matter, then we have to find out the difference between this first
difference and intelligence, which argument would lead to an infinite
regress. If the difference is intelligence, we will find ourselves in
no better predicament, for, again, there would be an infinite regress.
Moreover, it is incorrect to think that intelligence, whose essential
illuminating character is quite different from the nature of matter,
can be its effect. The cause should be at least as rich as the effect.
If there is intelligence in the effect, it should be present in the
cause, also. Matter would itself be then conceived as a reservoir of
intelligence.
More careful physicists like Arthur Eddington and James Jeans have
perforce jumped from the land of physics to that of metaphysics. Eddington
comes to assert a general or universal consciousness, a universal mind-stuff
of the universe; and to Jeans the world is more like a huge mathematical
mind manifesting itself, than anything else. The great genius of modern
science, Albert Einstein, the discoverer of the theory of relativity,
takes us, by the implication of his discovery, to a realm where our
ordinary space and time are not, and our objects lose their significance
and meaning in a vision integrating our experiences in an incredible
manner. He was forced in his later years to accept, by feeling, the
presence of a pervading intelligence which staggers human thinking and
makes human speech dumb. We are in such a world, a world of mysterious
truths which we cannot comprehend. Here we revert from science to philosophy.
The methods of philosophy are usually certain developments of the logical
methods of thinking and rationalistic processes of thought. Our faculties
of understanding, thinking, feeling and willing are, however, found
to be subject to certain fixed categories, such as quantity, quality,
relation and mode, or, to put it concisely, space, time and cause. On
a careful examination it is seen that, even as the findings of science
are not ultimately reliable due to their being influenced by the changing
characteristics of the senses of perception and the instruments of observation,
the philosophical method, as it is usually understood by many, is not
free from certain types of subjection to outward laws. It may be that
these restrictive laws are so intimately related to the constitution
of the mind that it is ordinarily impassable to distinguish between
the operation of these laws and the ways of thinking. But, nevertheless,
it is a restriction to the fuller freedom that is necessary to make
any categorical judgment of truth. For we can never see, or hear, or
even think anything outside the limitations imposed on us by the presence
of such fundamental categories of phenomenal experience as space, time
and causation. The moment we think, we think in terms of space, quantity,
extension and succession. This is an old prejudice of the mind, which
it is not able to overcome. This inseparable relation that is mysteriously
established between our essential modes of thought and the laws restricting
them goes by the names of relativity, phenomenality, and the like. And
under these circumstances, truth unchangeable cannot be known. Truth
can brook not limitation of any kind, for it is established not on any
other proof of knowledge or mode of perception, but in itself.
The foregoing analysis reveals the fact that our entire waking experience,
being confined to the heavy operations of the categories of the understanding,
or thinking, is unsuited to any genuine attempt at the discovery of
truth. Our dream-experience fares no better: it is, in the structure
of its activities, similar to the waking experience. Unfortunately,
we know of no other conscious human experience than waking and dreaming.
Thus it is that we often hear it said that truth is not given to the
human mind. Profounder methods of philosophy, such as those adumbrated
in the system of the Vedanta, take into consideration the deeper implications
of the state of deep sleep, which has been very unwisely set aside by
most of the Western philosophers in their analyses. We are bereft of
all consciousness in the state of dreamless sleep, we cannot know ever
our own existence then. But that we do exist in sleep cannot be gainsaid.
Our existence here seems to be asserted notwithstanding the absence
of the consciousness of existence! But if you think carefully you will
notice that no assertion of any kind is possible without some sort of
consciousness. And yet, what is it that makes us affirm ourselves in
sleep? Definitely, not direct perception. We have a memory of having
slept and of our having existed prior to our falling asleep. Yesterday
I was, and today I am,—thus does the individual assert itself.
A phenomenon of this type discloses the fact of there being a connecting
link between the state preceding sleep and the one succeeding it. The
prior and the later states being involved in consciousness, we cannot,
as we have already observed above, suppose that the link between them
can be an unconscious principle. The link, too, has to be a conscious
one. We never assert that we are ignorant beings in our essence; even
a stupid man does not wish to be called so. The essence of intelligence
is continuously affirmed, even unwittingly.
Further, that we have a memory of sleep shows that a kind of perception
was going on even in sleep, for there can be no memory without a previous
perception, and no perception can have a meaning unless it is attended
with consciousness. If memory has a meaning, the conscious perception
that ought necessarily to lie antecedent to it cannot be denied. We
had consciousness, and we existed as consciousness in deep sleep; but
we knew it not. Some mysterious darkness was veiling us. And this veil
is nothing but the inactive latency of the possibility of objective
experience in terms of the phenomenal categories described above.
The Vedanta, thus, takes us beneath the surface and makes us dive into
an ocean where we discover the pearl of truth, the truth that we are
essentially not only conscious existences but consciousness itself.
We are not beings possessing consciousness as an attribute of ourselves,
for then we would be reduced to unconscious bases of a conscious attribute.
This cannot be, because the knower can never be said to be an unconscious
principle. The knower ought to be consciousness, not even a mere possessor
of consciousness as a quality. Our existence then, is an indescribable
splendour surpassing all light and radiance known to us in this world.
Saints and sages point out that words are not meant to describe the
transcendent Being, for all speech, together with the mind, is in the
position of an after-effect and cannot be expected to illumine its own
cause and presupposition. This consciousness, which is our primal essence,
cannot be conceived to be limited in any way for the very idea of the
limitation of consciousness would prove that consciousness is beyond
limitation. The idea of a boundary proves that there is simultaneously
the idea of the existence of something outside the boundary. To set
limits to consciousness would be a self-contradiction; the limitation
cannot be outside the purview of consciousness. Consciousness is infinite.
The consciousness of the continuity of our personalities through the
various vicissitudes and changes of life goes to prove that it itself
is changeless. The fact that it is indivisible proves that it is infinite.
To know this, then, is to know truth. This alone can be the great uncontradictable
experience. This we really are. In knowing this we know
ourselves as we truly exist. This defies all diversity, and, consequently,
all desire, attachment, hatred, anger prejudice, and the like.
In this connection it would be profitable for you if I recall to your
memory an interesting system of philosophy expounded in recent times
by the famous professor, Alfred North Whitehead, on the basis of the
discoveries made by Einstein in his theory of relativity. It is the
opinion of Whitehead, not a mere fantastic belief but a rational conviction,
the things in the world do not exist as localised bodies or static substances
in a three-dimensional space, but are really certain phases of force
entering into one another and forming a marvellous completeness wherein
everything is a cause and an effect at the same time from different
points of view. In an interrelated cosmic family we cannot say which
is dependent on what, for all are mutually included, and nothing is
independent. There can be no being but only becoming and process in
this world of relativity. The Vedanta, however, goes above the concept
of Whitehead and envisages the Eternal Being existing at the background
of the world process. In fact, the conclusions of the theory of relativity
shift the entire position of scientific thinking and even the commonplace
method of popular philosophy, and brings about a reorientation in the
conception of matter, motion and force. The discovery that perceptions
depend on the position and velocity of the observers makes it impossible
for one to state anything as an invariable truth about the things of
the world. Curiously enough, the observers themselves would be relative
to one another, and there would be none to observe even the fact of
relativity! Here we rise to a tremendous intuition, above all thought,
and visualise an incredible infinite which ought to be the real Observer
of the whole universe of relativity. The ‘ingressive evolution’
of Whitehead gives a hint to a terrific unity underlying all evolutionary
process. Whitehead himself does not seem to have noticed the great significance
of his system,—it points to something beyond what he intended to
tell us. We are lifted to the eternal, the immortal.
Let me make the matter clear to you by another observation. You are
acquainted with principle of gravitation, a law by which bodies attract
one another in a particular manner. The centres of gravity should be
relative, because there is attraction of everything towards everything
else, under the governance of the same law. Not only material objects
and masses of matter but even we as bodies are relative centres of gravity,
determining one another in characteristic as well as existence. That
there is an internal relationship among bodies, which is exhibited in
the form of gravitation and attraction, indicated that the bodies of
the universe are in some mysterious way held together by a single force—we
may call it the universal centre of gravity. Unless such a centre is
accepted, the system, the order and the method observed in the working
of the universe cannot be explained. Mystic philosophers are used to
say that this cosmic centre is everywhere, with its circumference nowhere.
We may call this the God of the universe, if we so wish.
We know the world; but what about that by which we know it? How can
we know the knower? The great sage, Yajnavalkya, prominent in the Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad, makes a significant reference in his immortal instructions
to his consort, Maitreyi, to the awe-inspiring existence of the Self
which is the seer and the knower of all things, but which itself cannot
be an object of anyone’s knowledge. This Self is not an element
among many others in the world, for it is the observer of the elements.
The two different elements—beginning from two common objects up
to the individual as set against the universe,—cannot be known
except by a consciousness which is all-embracing. The intimacy that
subsists between the knower and the known is accounted for by the objects
being phases of Vishayachaitanya, or consciousness in a state
of configuration. We understand, then, that matter is nothing but spirit
discerned by the senses.
A great French philosopher once sat contemplating on the problem of
human experience, on the methods of arriving at truth, and on the possibilities
of confronting errors at every step in this hazardous attempt. He thought:
May be that I do not see clearly, nor think rightly. It may be that
I am forced by some imp to think wrongly and to observe imperfectly
and distortedly. It is likely that nothing that I see or know is certain
or capable of being designated as an uncontradictable truth. Everything
may be doubtful. I may doubt the existence of my body, of the world
or even the validity of the very processes of my thought. There is only
a sea of doubt, nothing else. Well, accepting this position tentatively,
can I come to the conclusion that the true state of affairs is that
there is only doubt, doubt about even my own self, and nothing beyond?
Though it may be a fact that I have the right to doubt or disbelieve
everything, I have definitely not warrant to doubt that I doubt. The
fact of doubting itself cannot be doubted. The doubter is indubitable.
The doubter exists as an uncontradictable fact. I am, and this cannot
be doubted.
And I know that I am finite. I have an innate feeling that I have to
be perfect, that I should achieve unconditional perfection. Naturally,
this means that I should be unrestricted and be wanting in nothing.
In short, I wish to possess the infinite, and I can conceive of it as
an idea. Now, this idea of perfection, of infinitude, has arisen in
me, and this idea, being an effect, must have a cause which is at least
equal to it. The idea arises from me, and therefore I am the cause of
it. The idea, having relevance to the infinite, presupposes my own existence
as having a similar relevancy. An idea of the infinite cannot be supposed
to arise from a finite cause. I should be essentially infinite. We may
give this stupendous Being any name, it matters little. That there is
an intimate relation between the essence of the subjective knower and
the reality of the objective universe cannot be doubted. In fact the
two are one and form a unitary being. Reality is non-dual.
For purpose of clarity in understanding, we may explain the constitution
of the universe as in many respects similar to that of our own body.
Our body is not an indivisible whole; it is made up of discrete organisms,
called cells. Each cell is different from the other, with gap in between,
and yet we have a definite feeling that we are one impartite personality.
The consciousness that is immanent in us as a single being is responsible
for this feeling. Such a feeling expanded to the cosmos would be the
feeling of God. This God-consciousness stands opposed to the individual
body-consciousness in that the latter has an object to be known outside
it, while the former is an integral fullness, a plenum outside which
nothing can be. In the assertion of the cosmic I, everything existent
or conceivable is included.
A great hymn of the Rig-Veda, called the Purusha-Sukta, or the Hymn
of the Cosmic Man, visualises in a grand poetic image the Supreme Being
as endowed with thousands of limbs, thousands of heads, eyes, feet,
and so on. All that was, is and shall be is said to be comprehended
within this Almighty Purusha. The idea behind this majestic vision is
that the universe is one body, and even as the different limbs of our
body are integrated in our personal and individual consciousness, the
different limbs of the universe—including our own bodies,—are
integrated as sublimated essences in the Almighty, whom we call God,
Isvara, the Essence, the Substance, the Reality, etc. A correct understanding
of the significance of this concept of truth will at once reveal to
us our position in the universe, our relation to others, and our supreme
duty in life. What can be a higher duty and a responsibility than to
strain every nerve of ours in attaining this consummation of our existence
in the Absolute! Where can be a goal other than this for us to achieve
in the different walks of our life? Viewed in this way,—and there
can be no other way worth the name,—the foremost duty of the human
being is anything that is directly or indirectly connected with the
realisation of this highest end. We live for this, we move towards this,
and we have our being in this. When we know this, and this feeling enters
deeply into our hearts, we live the true life, and we are blessed.
We noticed that our essential Self is the highest reality. Even doubt
and denial of it really affirm it. In our ordinary external life we
are prone to believe that our eyes are the seers of objects. This is
the uncritical opinion of the common man. But it is not difficult to
perceive that the eyes by themselves have not the power to know things
independently. The matter comes into high relief in the states of dream
and deep sleep, when, even if the eyes be kept open, nothing external
can be seen or observed. No sense-organ seems to function in these states.
The ears, even if they are kept open, cannot hear sounds. If we place
a few particles of sugar on the tongue of a sleeping man, he will produce
no reaction and have no taste of it. The very existence of a body is
then, for all practical purposes, negatived. The reason, as you will
immediately understand it, is that the mind in these two states is withdrawn
from the body and maintains no contact with the senses of knowledge.
When the mind pervades and activates the senses, they seem to work as
intelligent agents of knowledge. But then they are deprived of relation
with the mind, they lose all their value. The mind is the real perceiver,
and to it even the sense organs, such as the eyes, stand in the position
of objects.
But deeper analysis has shown us that even the mind has an objective
character, inasmuch as it is seen to be deprived of all life in the
states of swoon and deep sleep. It is intelligent when it is awake but
non-intelligent when it is made to wind up and adjourn its activities.
A consciousness higher than the mind enlivens it and gives it meaning.
The mind is a psychological organ, not a metaphysical principle. It
is on account of the relative activities of the mind that we have a
diversity of experience in the world. It is the mind that creates a
gulf between the objects and our reactions to them, between existence
and value. This distinction is made not only in respect of the things
of the outside world but also the different aspects of our own personality,
viz., the physical body made up of the five gross elements,—earth,
water, fire, air and ether—; the vital body consisting of the vital
forces and the organs of motor activity; the mental body consisting
of the faculties of understanding, feeling, willing, memory and the
like, together with the five senses of perception; and a primal causal
element which is experienced by us in the state of deep sleep. For purpose
of simplicity we may use the term mind to designate all the psychological
functions together. The manner in which the external world is felt by
the mind is very much dependent on the latter’s constitution and
inherent shortcomings.
The above thesis is amply demonstrated in the several experiences of
our daily life. Take for example a mother’s attitude to her son.
It appears that the son of an old mother had to go abroad on military
service and did not return home for several years. A rumour seems to
have been spread that the son passed away in a foreign land, and the
shocking news broke the heart of the mother. The fact, however, was
that the news was unfounded and the son was alive. Just imagine the
situation wherein the condition of the son is the cause of psychological
experience by the mother. It is not that the health and the life of
the son is the cause of the happiness of the mother, for, if that were
so, the mother, in the instance cited, ought to have been happy, because
nothing untoward had actually happened to the son. Nor can it be said
that the sorrow of the son, or even his death, is the cause of the sorrow
of the mother, for the mother would have been quite happy even if the
son were dead, if only that news would not reach her. What, then, is
the central pivot of a conscious experience? Not so much an external
object or an event as an internal feeling and a reaction.
The philosophy of the Vedanta makes a distinction between existence
as such and the experience of any type of existence. We may say, if
we would like, that a fact or an existence is absolute so far as it
goes, and a subjective experience of it is relative. Human life is a
psychological process, and not an Immutable existence. A knowledge of
the functions of the mind is essential to understand life in its fullness.
In the observation of the mind we can have no instrument, such as the
ones we use in observing, measuring, examining or cleaning outward things.
The mind is the student as well as the object of study, when life as
a whole is the theme that we wish to investigate and comprehend. In
a famous image given in the Kathopanishad, the inner self of man is
compared to a lord seated in a chariot, the body to the chariot, the
intellect to the charioteer, the mind to the reins, the senses to the
horses pulling the chariot, and the objects of the senses to the roads
along which the chariot is driven. The Upanishad gives a caution that
the supreme state can be reached only by him who has as his charioteer
a powerfully discriminative intellect which directs the restive horses
of the senses with the aid of the reins of the mind, and not by any
one else who may have a bad charioteer. The meaning of this analogy
is that the human individuality and personality are outer forms and
instruments to be properly used by the inner directive intelligence
towards the great destination of life, and not be taken as ends in themselves
or mistaken for reality as such.
Not only the body and the senses but even the self conceived as a limited
individual centre of consciousness is a process of intense activity,
moving, changing and evolving incessantly. The individual self is the
basis of knowledge as well as action. Due to confinement to a spatial
existence the individual self is dominated over and harassed by certain
urges, felt within itself, pointing to certain external objects and
states. The desire for food, clothing and shelter, for name, fame, power,
sleep, and sex, often appears in the human individual as a violent force
which cannot be easily subdued or even intelligently controlled. These
deep-rooted urges are an immediate consequence of the self’s restriction
to a dualistic perception of the world and an arrogation of ultimate
selfhood to itself, while the truth is otherwise. The individual has
a morbid habit of unconsciously asserting itself as the centre of experience
and considering the other contents of the universe as adjectives or
subsidiary elements meant to bring satisfaction to it in some way or
the other. In this respect, we should say that all forms of human knowledge
are different types of activity to achieve certain ends other than themselves.
Man never is, he is always to be. This predicament is, as it would be
clear, a corollary of the feeling that we are localised entities forming
a mechanical whole, which we call the universe, of which it seems that
we can never have a simultaneous knowledge. Our perceptions are always
in a series, we know things one after another, and not at one stroke.
We never see one and the same picture at two given moments in a cinematographic
projection, but yet we seem to see a continuity of the existence of
forms on account of a very quick succession and motion of the pictures.
Strictly speaking, we never see one and the same thing in a particular
act of perception, but the rapidity of the psychoses is so tremendous
that there is an illusion of the perception of a static existence. And
above all, there is that absolute Self behind all mental functions,
from which these draw sustenance, and borrow existence as well, as light.
Every action, viewed in this light, becomes a symptom of the restlessness
of the relative consciousness in any of the human sheaths in which it
is enclosed. There is an unceasing attempt on its part to break boundaries,
to overcome all limitations and to transcend itself at every step. The
environment called life in which it finds itself is only an opportunity
provided to it to seek and find what it wishes to have in order to exceed
itself in experience in the different stages of evolution. The universe
is a vast field of psychological experience of multitudinous centres
of individuality for working out their deserts by way of objective experience.
The universe is another name for experience by a cosmic mind, of which
the relative minds are refractive aspects and parts. The desirable and
the undesirable in life are nothing but certain consequences which logically
follow the whimsical and unmethodical desires of the ignorant individuals
who know not their own ultimate destination. What is desirable today
need not be so tomorrow, and today’s painful experience may be
a blessing for the future. It does not mean that all that we want is
always the good. We often grope in darkness and find a cup of poison
which we avidly drink, while we are really in search of some soothing
food to appease our hunger. There is no error in the world or the objects;
it is in the painful fact that we have no knowledge of what is really
good for us. It is not enough if a physician knows merely that a particular
drug has the power to suppress a particular ailment, he has also to
know what other reactions the drug will produce in the living organism.
In our life, the mind has to act as its own physician, and in this work
it has to exercise great vigilance born of right perception. No thought,
feeling or willing can be said to be healthy when it is not in consonance
with the health and peace of the universe as a whole. That we are members
of a single undivided family demands that we have to be mutually co-operative,
and think and act in terms of mutual welfare, which, in the end, is
the welfare of the whole. When this knowledge is not given to the mind,
it acts blindly and errs with the idea that what appears to bring a
temporary sensation of pleasure to it is the true and the good. When
it does not learn the lesson of life by enlightened reason, it has to
learn it by pain.
The mind, in the Vedanta philosophy, is conceived not as any independent
entity opposed to matter, as is the case in several systems of Western
philosophy, but is understood to be an aspect of the material principle
itself appearing in a more rarefied form. The psychology of the Vedanta
is a highly scientific methodology evolved out of the fundamental concept
that the supreme reality is Absolute Consciousness and anything that
may seem to be opposed to it can only be a phase of itself. The fivefold
base of objective perception, viz., sound, touch, form, taste and smell,
is found to be inseparable from and reciprocally related to the senses
of knowledge working under the direction of the mind. The theory of
the Vedanta is that the mind, constituting mainly the functions of understanding,
thinking, feeling, remembering and willing, is the resultant of the
collective totality of the purified forms of the essences of the five
substrata of sensations enumerated above. The sympathy that is observed
between sensations and their objects is thus explained by the fact that
the cause of the appearances of the two are essentially the same. Not
only this. There is the presupposition of the greater truth that at
the background of the mind, the senses and their objects, there is the
Absolute itself as their very reality. The Vedanta psychology is a direct
consequence of its basic metaphysics which lays down that existence
is non-dual. It is on this foundation of the ultimate inseparability
of the knower and the known that we have to envisage the law governing
the universe and regulating individual and social life.
The highest law is accordingly conceived as Dharma based on Rita and
Satya. Rita and Satya are two terms that occur originally in the Vedas,
signifying the eternal cosmic order and the same as manifest in the
diversified world. Dharma is nothing but one’s duty as an individual
stationed in the cosmos, as its integral part. This at once explains
by implication one’s duty as an individual stationed in the cosmos,
as its integral part. This at once explains by implication one’s
duty towards family, society, the nation and the world at large. The
fulfilment of this Dharma is expected to be achieved not in a slipshod
way or by leaps and bounds, but in a gradual manner following closely
the evolutionary process of the cosmos. Material welfare, the enjoyment
of desires and relations to society are given due consideration and
are equally regulated by Dharma which, at the same time, works with
Moksha or the ultimate realisation of the infinite as its aim. Dharma
is the ethical value, Artha the material and the economic value, Kama
the vital value and Moksha the infinite value of life. As the infinite
included all the finites, the aspiration for Moksha naturally implies
the fulfilment of the ends of the other desires and the execution of
all other duties in life. This sublime aspiration arises in the mind
when it has an inherent feeling of ‘enough’ with the things
of the world. This is the ‘divine discontent’ which acts as
a forerunner of the struggle of the spirit to grasp and know itself
in the Absolute. It is here that true knowledge dawns.
Ordinary psychological experience is usually marked off from a life
of spiritual insight. The path of the pleasant is differentiated from
the way of the good. What the senses report to us need not necessarily
be the true or the good. Often they give us false intimations and involve
us in tantalising mirages which recede from us as we try to approach
them. It is because of this unfortunate predicament that we go on experimenting
with one object after another, seeking final satisfaction, but do not
find it anywhere. This fruitless pursuit continues until thinking of
benefit in terms of separateness discovers until its own futility and
gives way to a search for peace in terms of more and more integrated
realms of being. The individual expands to the family, the family to
the community, the community to a wider society or the nation, the nation
to the whole world, and the world to the cosmos, wherein the process
of expansion finds its limit and begins to turn inward into the centre
of experience which, in the end, is recognised to be identical with
the Supreme Being. Bearing this in mind, the sage of the Upanishad warns
us with the great rule of life that everything shall desert us if we
consider it to be different from our own essential self. As we have
already noticed, nothing in this world can be considered to be merely
a means to the satisfaction of another, for in this mutually-determined
whole there are only ends, not means. The Bhagavad-Gita states that
all pleasures that are born of the contact of the mind and the senses
with the external are wombs of pain, for outward contact is not the
way of contacting reality. The dissatisfying consequence of sense-gratifications,
the fear that usually attends upon them, the chances of getting addicted
to the habits and impressions produced by such pleasures, and the inevitability
of the rise of further desires and greater distractions, in addition
to the wearing out of the senses, should rouse in the man of discrimination
a consciousness of the higher life.
No action is seen to fully bring to us the intended result, because
it is bound up with several factors not under the control of the actor.
It is meaningless to think that a divine way of living is not the usual
way and that it is some mystic segregation and introversion not normally
connected with life. This misconception arises on account of a misunderstanding
of what spiritual life is and the aim of life should mean to us. When
every type of action is visualised as a process of the universal activity
of God, or the Absolute, individual and personal agency drops out from
the scene altogether. Behold the soul-stirring dictum of the Bhagavad-Gita,
that the wise one should always maintain the feeling that the agent,
the process and the result of action are only modes in the universal
design. Here becomes explicit the truth of the saying that we are to
regard ourselves as only instruments and not the real doers of any action.
This is Karma-Yoga, that master technique of converting every work into
duty and a veritable self-sacrifice, self-dedication and self-consecration
in the beatitude of God. And Karma-Yoga is said to be based on Buddhi-Yoga
or the art of right understanding, the understanding that man is ever
in a state of attunement with God. Even the springs of instinctive action
are found ultimately to be rooted in a distortion of the desire for
self-possession in the completeness of the Divine. Only, instinctive
action suffers and labours under the ignorance that the body and the
mind have an existence isolated from other bodies and minds. This misery
is Samsara, the aberration of the soul from itself, and the searching
for itself in the not-self, the phantom and the imagination.
The reason why we think and feel as we do or act as we are accustomed
to, lies in the why and how of individual existence itself. The body
and the mind receive a universal sustenance, they are not only maintained
but even constituted by an ocean of force which appears to manifest
itself in spatio-temporal configurations. Our central urge is to overcome
spatial limitations and temporal restrictions in an experience which
is self-dependent, self-determined and perfect in itself. This state
is referred to in the Upanishad as the Plenum of Felicity, where one
sees nothing else, hears nothing else and understands nothing else.
It is also said that should be considered transient and paltry in which
one sees something else, hears something else and understands something
else than the Self. Under these circumstances it would be mere vanity
and a futile attempt to try to arrogate reality to any personality or
individuality. This self-arrogation is termed selfishness, and is a
folly.
In this mysterious cosmos, which is more like a reverberating chamber
where every little sound is loudly heard everywhere and in which there
can be no such thing as privacy, every thought, however feeble it may
be, announces itself spontaneously and gets recorded in the subtle realms,
never gets destroyed, and is repaid in a befitting manner. Every thought
is a tiny ripple, a wave in the sea of existence, and has a claim to
exist and be evaluated as any other thing existent or conceivable. Everyone
of us, therefore, has at his background infinite support, infinite help,
infinite sympathy, if only we would be careful enough to evoke it, by
being aware of it. The unity of religions, the concord of philosophical
thought, the meaning of universal brotherhood and the necessity for
universal love in life is here explained, and we are now able to recognise
it not as a fancy, a dogma, a creed or a tenet, but as the one law of
life, the rule of individual and social survival, the principle and
significance of our very existence.
Every bit of thing in the world, from the lowest to the highest, every
little thought, feeling and action has to be viewed, judged and evaluated
in the light of the unitary law that we have thus discovered as relentlessly
operating within us and also outside us. True morality is the determination
of the lower by the higher, the envisaging of every step that we take
as a necessary precondition of the next step. Life in the world is a
means which, when it evolves itself completely, takes the shape of the
end, and the end is already present at every stage of the developing
process of the means. The world is thus teleological and not mechanical.
We, individuals inhabiting this universe, are held together not as pebbles
or stones forming a heap but as organic parts which are inseparably
related to a living whole that cannot be cut or divided without being
mutilated and destroyed. Our social relations, which have a deeper meaning
than is seen on the surface, should apprise us of the existence of a
universal Self, and of our duty to it in all the strata of life. In
our perceptions we perceive it, in our feelings we feel it, and in our
actions we stumble upon it every moment, though we, at the present state
of ours, are not endowed with an adequate knowledge of it. Human psychology
is a study of the mental behaviour of the human individuality, and this
individuality is, as we have observed above, a conglomeration of certain
involuntary urges that seek satisfaction in things they know not. The
only saving factor is the higher reason which sometimes points to a
higher life above them. We cannot be profound psychologists possessed
of an understanding of the hidden implications of our behavior unless
we have patience enough to listen attentively to and intelligently sympathise
with the clamouring cries that are heard from within ourselves. We cannot
cure our illness without knowing why we have fallen ill, and psychology
as it is understood in the present Western sense of the term has not
the requisite apparatus to fathom the depths of the human personality,
it being confined to observed phenomena that are presented to the intellect
which often merely plays second fiddle to the ignorant senses. Reason
should also be able to know its limitations, and also the reason why
it should be so limited. Our present-day psychological analyses cannot
be the last word in the field of inner research, for we have other means
of knowledge than mere sensation. The mind, when it is disturbed by
the revolting noise of the senses, cannot properly reflect in itself
the true state of affairs. When the five senses of knowledge stand fixed
together with the understanding and the faculty of thinking, and the
intellect does not oscillate, that, they say, is the supreme state,
declares the Kathopanishad. That, again, is called the condition of
Yoga wherein the consciousness does not get objectified through the
avenues of the senses, and the mind rests in itself. Yoga is at-one-ment
with the Infinite. No science of the mind or study of the inner behaviour
of the human being can be exact and meaningful when this mighty truth
is lost sight of, and the endeavours at right knowledge are confined
to the belief that what we see with our eyes is the all. Far from this
is the goal we are seeking, and we require an altogether different education
to be able to appreciate this point of view.
The Yoga system, especially that propounded by the sage Patanjali,
is a masterly science of psychology. We are asked to control the modifications
of the mind-stuff in order to be able to have clear perception and true
insight. Patanjali points out that we become normal only when we cease
from thinking in terms of forms of the mental modification and begin
to adopt quite a different way of perception. In other words, we have
to rest in our own selves, first, in order that we may be healthy and
also have a healthy perception of things. All types of objective thinking
are considered in our system of Yoga as certain diseased conditions
of consciousness, for in these states the consciousness is not-in-itself.
Whenever it is not in a state of rest in itself it gets identified with
the forms of the mind, and assumes for the time being their spatio-temporal
shape. In this empirical process the individual consciousness often
comes in conflict with other such centres in the forms of other persons
who have their own special modes of self-identification with other types
of mental transformations. Human misery has its roots in this self-contradiction
born of ignorance of the structure of the perceptible diversity and
its basis in the One.
A successful life, and a happy life, is possible only when one is able
to adjust and adapt the different sides of the personality in a harmonious
way and the entire personality with the others that form the constituents
of the world. In this sense, life is an art. What does an artist do?
He has a definite idea of an end to be executed and achieved, he collects
the necessary material as means for the purpose, and arranges the material
in a methodical and harmonious manner. He selects the proper requisites,
removes what is unshapely, adds what is necessary, and brings about
a system and completeness in his work in consonance with the nature
of the purpose in view. This is the case with great works of art, whether
architecture and sculpture, painting and drawing, or music and literature.
The essence of art is the arrangement of material to produce rhythm,
symmetry, order, fullness, and a sense of perfection so far as the mind
can conceive of it. We have to arrange the pattern of life, with its
forces of the outward Nature and inward impulses, so that there may
not be any jarring element or inharmonious appearance unsuited to the
purpose of realising the equilibrium of the universe as reflected in
our personal lives, in the life of society, the community, the nation
and the world. We do not belong merely to ourselves, not even merely
to any particular society or country, but we are citizens of the universe
to which we owe a tremendous duty. And this duty is nothing but feeling
and acting in a way that may not negative or violate the truth that
the essence of the universe is an indivisible fullness. This art of
self-adjustment with the entire creation is called Yoga. It is an art
that appeals to the being within, which is also without, at the same
time. Yoga is an art insofar as any successful practice of it demands
of us a sort of genius and uncommon insight which cannot be expressed
in mathematical or logical terms. But Yoga is also a science in the
sense that it follows certain fixed laws and its principles are eternal,
irrespective of class, creed, place and time. It is the knitting together,
as it were, of the various springs of thought and action to form a connected
and beautiful fabric in the universal scheme. It is the science of peace,
of inner delight, and it requires that at one and the same moment we
have to be at peace not only with the different levels of our being
but also with the various strata of external life. A happy man who has
been able to lead a successful life is one who is thoroughly friendly
not only with the structural demands of his own body, mind, emotions,
and intellect but also with the different elements that go to form the
world outside. The Yoga system, by its technical terms, Asana, Pranayama,
Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi, expresses in a highly mystic
way the need for perfect discipline of the body, the vital forces, the
senses of perception, the functions of the mind, the intellect and the
reason from the standpoint of the universe taken as a whole. Life is
a preparation for self-accusation, a training ground for the individual
to transfigure itself in a self-dedication to the Absolute Reality.
Some have compared this earthly life to a temporary halting of pilgrims
in an inn, which is not the destination but only a means of help in
the journey. We are not to take the experiences of this life as ends
in themselves but as processes of self-advancement and chastening of
the inner spirit for a higher fulfilment. Our joys and sufferings, our
exhilarations and griefs, our prejudices and ideals are not to be valued
as realities in themselves but as certain conditions which we have to
overstep, and which will mean nothing to us when transcend in a deeper
wisdom. Our present life is a flow of events, and nothing that changes
can be called the real.
Herein comes into high relief the significance of the teaching that
we have to perform actions without regard for their fruits, because
the fruits are not in our hands, they are determined by the ultimate
law of the universe, which, in the present condition of our minds, we
can neither understand nor follow. Our duty is to act, act in the right
way, bearing in mind that we are fulfilling an inviolable and unavoidable
imperative, not forced upon us by any outward mandate, but by the law
of our own being, to ignore which would be nothing short of folly. To
work with any fixed ulterior motive beforehand would be like naming
a child before it is born. The position is that no one can clearly envisage
or understand the nature of an effect which would follow a particular
action. That we glibly talk of fixed results of visible causes and hope
for desired ends of our actions only shows that we have a very narrow
outlook and forget the fact that nothing in this interrelated universe
is absolutely self-dependent but requires the co-operation of infinite
centres of force for it to come into being at all. Just take a concrete
example. I say that a book placed on a table has the table as its support.
Am I right? Perhaps you would say I am. But we do not stoop to think
here that the table itself is supported by the floor. And where is the
support for the floor? It is perhaps kept fixed by certain beams placed
crosswise beneath it, which again are supported by walls, the walls
being supported by the foundation, and the foundation by the earth.
Is the position of the earth self-dependent? No. The earth’s position
and motion are governed by the attraction of other planets in relation
to itself, and we should not forget here that the planets are held in
position by the terrible gravitational force of the sun. The whole solar
system is said to be rushing with a great velocity to another destination
in the vast ocean of Milky Way. Where are we, and where is the book
placed on the table? The existence of things is really marvellous, and,
surely, our life is precarious. What right have we, then, under these
circumstances, to expect what we have in our minds? We can be justified
in hoping only for that thing which is sanctioned by the unitary law
of the universe taken as a single whole.
The Bhagavad-Gita, for example, exhorts us not to have attachment to
things. Obviously, any outward attachment is not permissible in the
scheme of things as they truly are. To which object am I to be attached,
when everything outside me is inseparably related to me, and we all
mutually inclusive and determined in this magnificent home of God’s
creation? Where is that special endowment of reason, of which man so
much boasts, when he acts as an animal in thinking that he can have
special attitudes to particular objects and yet hope to be let off scot-free?
Every action has a reaction which comes with an equal force of nemesis
and retribution, for every action is a sort of disturbance produced
in the equilibrium of the universe, and the universe shall ever maintain
its balance by rebutting the force of disturbance created in its being
in the form of an action of thought. How marvellous is life, how grand,
how just, and yet how relentless!
The correct spirit with which we have to work in this world is one
of self-sacrifice and surrender to the Supreme Cause of all things.
As a famous verse has it, whatever there is as this vast world, visible
or heard of,—all this is pervaded inside and outside, throughout,
by the Eternal Spirit
y:cc: ekWc:jj:g:ts:v:üö
dáSy:t:ð Â:Üy:t:ð|ep: v:a .
Ant:b:üehÁ: t:ts:v:üö vy:apy: n:aray:N:H esT:t:H ..
yacca ki¤cajjagatsarvaü
dç÷yate ÷råyate.api và |
antarbahi÷ca
tatsarvaü vyàpya nàràyaõaþ sthitaþ ||
Another verse tells us that we have to see the immanent Divine in earth
and water, in the mountains and the flame of fire, and that the whole
world is nothing but the appearance of God.
j:l:ð ev:\N:ØH sT:l:ð ev:\N:Øev:ü\N:ØH
p:v:üt:m:st:kñ .
jv:al:m:al:akÙl:ð ev:\N:ØH s:v:üö ev:\N:Øm:y:ö j:g:t:Î ..
jale viùõuþ
sthale viùõurviùõuþ parvatamastake |
jvàlamàlàkule
viùõuþ sarvaü viùõumayaü jagat ||
The correct perception is designated as Ishvaradrishti, the practice
of the presence of God in each and everything, in every quarter and
cranny, everywhere, and at all times. The essence of the Gita teaching
is this, that the universe is the body of God, nay, it is God Himself
appearing to us through our senses, the mind and the intellect, that
there is nothing outside of God ever existent, that man is bound to
have prosperity, victory, happiness and lawful polity when he acts with
this consciousness,—with the deep feeling that he is an instrument
in the hands of the Absolute, that his actions are really not his but
Its, and that suffering is inevitable the moment he cuts his consciousness
off from the Divine. The happy and the normal life is, therefore, the
Divine life.
This is a grand concept, and this the goal. But there are certain lesser
aspects in our life which we cannot ignore if we are to be successful
in our different endeavours for perfection. First, we have to use our
emotions properly and adjust them in such a way that they do not create
any discord in life’s harmonious process. Second, we have always
to attempt to make a fuller use of our personalities than we actually
do in states of misconception, prejudice and ignorance. There has to
be brought about a complete reorientation of our ways of thinking, in
the light of eternal facts amidst which we exist. There is that absolute
necessity to bring about in ourselves those necessary changes, now and
then, to attune ourselves to the vast universal environment. Think properly
about yourselves, and understand your position in the expanse of the
environment around you,—whether it is family, the community, the
country, or the world. Face your weaknesses with an adamantine will,
but know also your strengths, and use them to adapt yourselves to the
circumstances in which you find yourselves to the circumstances in which
you find yourselves at any given moment of time. In this you have to
be very diligent, sincere and honest. Remember, always, that what is
important is not so much what you are, as to what extent you know why
you are what you are, and how much you endeavour to improve yourselves
in the right direction. Of course, do not be in a hurry. Understand
well before you take a step. There cannot be a right attempt without
a clear-cut ideal before it, and directing it. A race horse put to a
plough or a plough horse put to race will not lead to any substantial
result. We have to know our powers, our knowledge, and go only so far;
not further.
If you are emotionally healthy, you will find that you will be comfortable
with yourselves, and would not need the company of a crowd, or even
of other persons related to you. No doubt, this is only one aspect of
the question, because the most well adjusted person should be comfortable
and perfectly at ease either way. Watch yourselves in a crisis, and
detect what you are. You can know your weaknesses when you are thwarted,
opposed, threatened or when you find yourselves in danger. You can also
know your buried desires and urges, your cravings and fears, when you
are put to such a test. The training of the emotions and the development
of strength within, however, is not difficult for one who has a genuine
conviction that he is backed up at all times by a mighty Power that
works everywhere in the cosmos, and that he has nothing to fear. This
faith should be born of conviction, enlightened understanding, and a
real love for the Supreme Being. This is self-mystery, by which one
can invoke incredible powers to function at any time in one’s life.
Do not have inner conflicts. Such conflicts are mostly results of the
inability to fulfil the basic instinctive urges, which, again, is due
to ignorance of one’s hidden capacities and of the way by which
to utilise properly the facilities provided under the conditions in
which one is placed. You have to know clearly (1) what ought to be done,
(2) what is capable of being done, (3) what has been done already, (4)
why something has not been done yet, and (5) how to overcome the obstacles
in a reasonable manner. This means that you have to be master of your
own psychology. A successful life includes physical, emotional, intellectual
and moral fitness based on an integration of being in all its degrees,
inwardly as well as outwardly. Know yourselves as higher than you now
are. Summon the reserve forces which lie latent within, and use them
for the constructive work of building the structure of life which is
not merely yours, but of everyone, equally. When the diversity of beings
is beheld as rooted in the One, and as having proceeded from the One,
then does one attain to Perfection, says the Bhagavad-Gita. But the
achievement of this end is hard, though possible for everyone. It demands
inner toughness born of a perfect moral nature. A capacity to love and
to serve all with the feeling of the presence of a common element behind
everyone, to be truthful and honest and straightforward at any cost,
to be able to feel for others as one does for oneself, not to do to
others what would not be desirable for oneself, to have always a concern
for the good of the whole world and not merely of a restricted group
of persons, not to attempt at appropriating things which do not lawfully
belong to one self, to be perfectly continent and restrained in thought,
word and deed, to be able to look at the world with a cosmic vision,
and to act at all times with this consciousness, is the requisite qualification
demanded of a truly cultured person and a seeker of Truth. We are neither
wise nor right when we lose sight of this meaning of the educational
process and act in a way that is not warranted by this vision of perfection.
But success is near at hand, if only we would have a rightly directed
will. And it is for our own good. Let us pray in the sublime words of
the Upanishad:
Lead us from the unreal to the Real,
Lead us from darkness to Light,
Lead us from death to Immortality.
The attempt to achieve perfection begins with the consciousness and
application of the immediate reality that is presented to the senses.
That which is definitely known to be existent in the normal human state
of consciousness is the body situated in a world of plurality. The maintenance
of the body in harmony and of the proper relation of the body with the
external world is the first empirical concern of man. It should be the
duty of a seeker of perfection to be careful to see that the body is
not out of its balance in any way, at any time. The health of the body
is of great importance in one’s endeavour to utilise one’s
power in the quest of truth. External purity and observance of the laws
of hygiene are not to be neglected if the body is to be maintained as
one’s friend and helper. Saucha is the basic rule of sound
health. This must include the system of partaking of diet of a suitable
quality, in a suitable quantity, at a suitable place and suitable time.
Mental health and physical health are, generally, interdependent.
The practice of the moral law and ethical conduct will pave the way
to the maintenance of a sound mind in a sound body. Passions and disturbing
emotions disbalance the system and ruin the health of a person. A mental
disturbance means the irrhythmic distribution of the vital energy and
the disturbance of the nerves. This leads to the illness of the body.
A good aspiration towards a non-selfish end is the prerequisite of a
good programme of life. The early stages of one’s life should be
spent in the pursuit of knowledge, service of the teacher, self-control
and austerity. At this stage one should not concern oneself with the
duty and the business of the world, which are likely to draw one’s
attention away from the primary duties which one is expected to fulfil
at this time. The moral law which includes the canons of truthfulness,
love and continence should become the guiding factors in the expression
of one’s thought, word and deed. Contentment, joy and devotion
to the ideal of one’s life bring about the health of the mind as
well as of the body. One’s ideal of life should be that which never
perishes in time and is never contradicted by anything else. To know
what this ideal is one requires the aid of an able teacher.
When one undergoes the process of education, no other factor in life
should interrupt or interfere with this process. The process of education
should be such that it includes in a balanced way all the sides and
layers of the human nature,—physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual.
Physical health, intellectual understanding, moral integrity and spiritual
wisdom are what lead to the ultimate perfection. The different intellectual
sciences which are taught in the universities of today are a feeble
apology for the integral education that is necessary for the attainment
of perfection. No education which neglects certain important aspects
of human life can be complete and worth its name. A well-adjusted and
balanced study of the essential human nature should constitute real
education. After one is well-educated, one must direct one’s consciousness
and intelligence to the analysis of experience and knowledge of truth.
Understanding, willing and feeling are the three faculties in man which
have to be taken as the means to the practice of the method of approach
to the truth. Some make use of all these faculties in a certain proportion
in their march to perfection. Others take to an exclusive method which
transforms the other methods into itself, or keep them away as subservient
elements.
The method of feeling is faith. Faith in God is the standard way, for
some, of reaching perfection. Love of God and service of God through
His manifestation as the universe is the principal path. Faith does
not question and reason, but accepts the testimony of the teachers and
the scriptures in believing that the omnipresent God is the one Reality
of the universe. This acceptance of the cosmic presence of a spiritual
Being as the supreme Lord of the universe implies an attitude of reverence
and love on the part of the devotee towards such a Being. The human
emotions are not destroyed here but are turned towards God and thus
sublimated. God is loved as a father, a mother, a son, a friend, a husband
or a master. The world becomes a pointer to God, and worldly love an
indication of the presence of God-love. The world is the body of God.
Nothing is to be ultimately rejected. Everything is to be loved as a
step to God-realisation.
The path of the will is the austere method of determination and decision
in regard to the way and the goal. The will bases itself either on faith
or on understanding. Will based on faith is different from will based
on understanding, and the two wills constitute two different paths to
perfection. The will that is based on faith concentrates itself on the
Supreme Being which is accepted as an act of faith. As God is everywhere
and the mind of man is characteristic of a behaviour which is contrary
to the fullness of God, the mind should be checked and its modifications
completely transformed in a higher Being. Contrary modifications are
opposed with their contradictories or replaced by others of a more beneficial
nature, or the modifications of the mind are fixed on God and given
a transcendental touch of the philosopher’s stone of the infinitude
of experience. Matter is separated from Spirit through contemplation
on the essential distinction between the two and on the independence
and absoluteness of the Spirit. The power of the will is such that it
either completely excludes from consciousness all forms pretending to
exist outside the Infinite or absorbs them into the consciousness of
the Infinite. Thus the will is a way to perfection.
The path of the understanding is the rational method of investigation
of experience. Here the understanding and the will become one and the
will becomes another name for the movement of the force of the understanding.
The experience of one’s finitude implies the existence of the Infinite.
The nature of the Infinite is opposed to that of the individual. God
is accepted not merely because the scriptures have made mention of Him
or because the teachers believe in Him, but because one’s own experience
and understanding become self-contradictory in their expressions when
the Intelligent Infinite is not accepted, and also because the infinite
consciousness comes to be the logical deduction of the inmost experience
of the finite individual. The longing for the infinite and the perfect
is ingrained in the deepest recesses of everyone. The sense of the presence
of the Infinite becomes the indicator of and the guide to the achievement
of perfection.
Contemplation on the idea of the Infinite is the way. The objects of
the universe are the phases of Consciousness. The Existence of the individual
is on the same level of reality as that of the other individuals. The
subject and the object are related to each other as complements, and
one is not superior or inferior to the other in the degree of the manifestation
of Reality. Contemplation should therefore take the form of an assertion
of the conscious Reality of the universe as a whole. Here the universe
ceases to be a material presentation but discloses its true nature of
consciousness. The knower and the known sink into a Reality larger than
what they reveal at present. The individual becomes the specimen of
what is systematically going on in the cosmos, and the one purpose of
contemplation and meditation is to attune the individual’s processes
to the cosmic process.
This attainment does not consist in any action of the body, but in
an attitude of the mind. It is the intense affirmation in consciousness
of the supreme validity of the indivisibility of the truth of the universe.
This conscious affirmation of absoluteness should be continued until
its actual realisation. The practice should be continuous and should
be attended with an intense devotion to the ideal, based on clear perception
and understanding. The deep and prolonged meditation on the Absolute,
in this way, leads to perfection.
The necessary implications of the processes of meditation described
above are absence of hatred, cultivation of universal love, freedom
from attachment, peace of mind, self-control, turning away from desires,
fortitude and a deep sense of service,—all based on correct understanding
and introspection. The nature of the way is determined by the nature
of the destination to be reached. The end very much influences the nature
of the means. The end is the evolution of the means; the means is a
relative representation of the end. The characteristics of the end are
reflected in those of the means, and by this standard one can judge
the genuineness and correctness of the means. The end is the consummation
of the process or the means, and the means is an indication of the characteristics
of the end. The Infinite is reflected in every individual, and hence
no action on the part of the individual can afford to be completely
isolated from the universal processes going on within the Infinite.
The path to perfection is the recognition, by degrees, of the presence
of the Infinite in every moment of the individualised processes of the
universe.
Education is the process of the gradual and systematic summoning of
the tendency in the human being to the realisation of perfection. As
the concept of perfection is unclear in the initial stages, the approach
to the mind of the public, in this direction, has to be initiated with
immense patience and care. When we deal with persons, we are really
concerned with minds, and hence all successful approach in life is psychological.
We have, first of all, to place ourselves in a position where we can
appreciate sympathetic thoughts and feelings of people. For this purpose,
we may classify society into three categories: (1) the student, who
includes the child and the adolescent; (2) the man of the world or active
society, including the youth and the middle-aged man; (3) the retired
person, including all those who do not lead an active life but are in
the evening of their age. Social regeneration has to keep in view all
these stages of life and provide for their respective inner demands.
For the present we may confine ourselves to the minds of the budding
generation, viz. the student population, for we have to begin the work
of reformation and the regeneration of society at the stage of the student,
when the mind is flexible and amenable to the educational process. Here
we have to start from the standpoint of the taught and not merely
of the teacher. Education is not a process of merely emptying
out the mind of the teacher by pouring its knowledge into the minds
of students, but feeling of their needs and supplying them with the
proper thing, at the proper time, in the proper manner. A teacher, thus,
has to be a good psychologist and should not regard teaching as a kind
of business with the students. The teacher should have the capacity
to make himself liked by the minds which need teaching. This pleasant
process of the imparting of knowledge is education.
In these days, neither the students nor the teachers are happy with
the educational process, because it has been forgotten by the authorities
concerned in the department that education has to be physical, intellectual,
emotional, moral, active and spiritual, all at once, in a way beautifully
fitted to the conditions in which one, is placed. The technique of education
should take into consideration the average of the intelligence-quotient,
health, social conditions, etc. of the students. It should also concentrate
itself on methods for bringing about and effecting (1) the development
of personality, (2) an adequate knowledge of the world, (3) an adjustment
of self with society, and (4) a realisation of the permanent values
of life.
By development of personality what is meant is the wholesome building
up of the individual, not only with reference to the internal states
of body, mind and intellect, but also in relation to the external world
reaching upto the individual through the different levels of society.
In this sense, true education is both a diving inward and a spreading
outward. Knowledge of the world is not merely a collection of facts
or gathering information regarding the contents of the physical world
but forms a kind of insight into its inner workings as well, at least
insofar as one’s inner and outer life is inextricably wound up
with them. With this knowledge it becomes easy for one to discover the
art of adjusting oneself with society. This adjustment is not possible
in any appreciable degree for one who has not acquired some amount of
knowledge of the spiritual implications of the structure of human society.
The aim of the education of the individual in society is the realisation
of life’s values,—personal, social, civic and even universal,—all
mutually related and determined by a common goal to which these are
directed.
Above all, we cannot start teaching students without our understanding
the purpose of education. Many a Hindu, for example, has allowed himself
or herself to be proselytised for different reasons. One such reason
consists in the prospects of economic uplift and raising of social status
which the converters promise to these poor souls who have been unfortunately
relegated to the unwanted section of Hindu society, by somehow depriving
them of the facilities to improve themselves economically. The second
reason is the baneful practice of untouchability and pollution by touch,
which certain orthodox groups cultivated for a long time and which has
not completely died out even today. Now the question arises: Why should
have these things happened? Why should there be suppression and untouchability
etc. in human circles? The answer is: lack of proper education.
But what is proper education? Bearing in mind the essentials of the
process enumerated above, it should be added that though education should
be an immensely practicable affair, we should not think that the practicability
of a thing consists in what is called ‘succeeding’ in life
in any political sense of the term, because one may manoeuvre to succeed
for some time, as one does in business, for instance, but be extremely
unhappy within, in spite of the so-called ‘practical’ success.
This happens because here we have only a soulless practicality of affairs,
bereft of the sap of life which sustains it. Though, when we occupy
a house, we are not always conscious of its foundation, nor is the foundation
visible to the eyes, it goes without saying that the whole edifice stands
on the foundation. Likewise human success in life may look beautiful
like a decorated and furnished building, but it cannot stand if it is
not firmly fixed on a strong base. Our purpose here would be to have
some idea as to what could this foundation of life’s education
be.
Education is for living life and not to suffer it. It is a wrong concept
of the basis of life that has led to the defective structure of the
present educational system. It is not necessary that religion in the
orthodox sense or Dharma as the conservatives understand it should
be proclaimed in the schools. The right type of education should have
a very broad outlook and exceed the limits of parochial religions or
the cult of any class of society and should be free from the prejudices
of caste, creed and colour. The present-day system of education is thoroughly
unsatisfactory, for, while it rejects all religion in the name of secularism,
it rejects also the essentials of human aspiration and makes education
a dead mechanism which has to be operated by a living being from outside.
Education is not a machine to be driven by an external impulse but constitutes
a vital process which has life in it and grows of its own accord when
the soul is poured into it. The bread-earning education has to
become a life earning education, for the latter, in addition to supplying
bread, shall also supply man with a soul to live by.
The erroneous construction of the educational basis is, then, grounded
on a mistaken concept of life’s values. The world we live in is
believed to be a solid mass of matter. Even our own bodies are seen
to be parts of the physical Nature governed by mechanistic laws, which
alone appears to be all that is real. It has become a commonplace today,
especially in the universe of science, that life is strictly determined
by the law of causality which rules over the entire scheme of the world.
We are told that distinctions that are supposed to obtain between such
realms of being as matter, life and mind are superficial and are accounted
for by the grades of subtlety in the manifestation and spreading of
particles of matter. Even the organism of the human body which appears
to defy the laws of the machine of the universe as envisaged by science
is explained away as only one of the many forms of the workings of the
forces of matter which is the ultimate stuff of all things. It is said
that even mind is only a subtle, ethereal exudation of forces of matter.
The human being is reduced to a speck in the gigantic structure of the
cosmos. Behaviourist psychology with its materialistic implications
gives a finishing touch to this doctrine of the mechanistic view of
life.
The fact that man is not merely a humble cog in the deterministic machine
of a relentless world and that the essence of man is a spiritual principle,
co-extensive with the Universal Spirit, was easily discovered in the
course of human evolution. Those in India, educated under the scheme
of Macaulay, however, continued to move along the ruts of a so-called
modernism of thinking, a rationality of approach and a scientific attitude
of life, so much spoken of in these days. People began gradually to
shed their spiritual legacy and started to strut proudly under the unseen
yoke of a culture wedded to a secret achievement of suzerainty over
them. It is this fatal tendency of thought that has to be counteracted
by right means of education today.
A correct appreciation of human values is essential before introducing
any suitable method of education. It is impossible to solve the problem
of the educational method so long as the authorities feel satisfied
that the body of man is the final word about him. The mistake seems
to be not so much with the students as with those concerned with act
of teaching, for the students, under the current which flows before
them, move with it from an early age. We have to observe with regret
that one of the reasons why, for example, some Hindus are willing to
change their religion is because they are dissatisfied with the promises
of their own religion and the way in which their religion treats them.
Apart from the pernicious practice of physical segregation in the form
of untouchability and the intellectual assumption of superiority on
the part of a few of the classes of society, a sort of false and inadequate
values in religion have been responsible to a great extent in causing
a schism between man and man in the country. There is the natural instinct
to visualise the better in an unknown promise of the future and, like
the calf which moves from one place to another in search of the distant
greens which it sees with unclear eyes, one is tempted to undergo a
conversion of faith. Essentially, what is needed in religion is its
understanding by its followers. Often the cry ‘save us from our
friends’, seems to have a meaning. The foolish friend is worse
than a knowledgeable enemy. The Pundits of the Hindu religion
and the scholars who do research in its fields have been both moving
in blind alleys, the one clinging to rigid tradition and blind faith
and the other to an arid rationality, though untenable. It is not true
that we have nothing to learn from the West, as some conservative Hindus
may hold, for we have to respect the change of times and the need for
a revaluation of values. Indian culture has survived due to its flexibility,
when other ancient cultures have died out due to their rigidity. It
is also not true that Indian religion is mere superstition, myth and
fable, as some modern scientific thinkers in oriental learning seem
to think. The good is to be taken from wherever it is found, for knowledge
is the aim of education, and not dogmatic clinging to unsound conservatism.
It is necessary to write a small textbook on the constitution of man
in the Universe in such a simple way that it could be understood even
by children of a primary school. It may begin with simple questions
and answers, stories and even small plays which can be enacted on the
stage. The book should contain information on the structure of the human
personality in relation to outer Creation in a readable and intelligible
manner. It should also deal with the fundamentals of human conduct on
the basis of this relation of man to Creation. Not only this; some knowledge
should be provided of the aim of such conduct on the part of human beings.
These things should be said without saying things like philosophy, ethics,
teleology and such phrases which are the jargons of the schools of thought.
No stereotyped phrases or technical terms should ever be used in such
a book. In fact, these should be avoided, because now one is concerned
with the primary standard of education where technicality of any kind
is to be carefully set aside. The lessons may abound in apt stories
and simple plays intelligible to beginners. This may form the background
of a preliminary booklet on the fundamentals of life.
There should be three or four textbooks in a graded series of this
nature, suitable to the primary, elementary, high school and college
standards of education. The books should be written in such a way that
students should be able to take interest in the subjects and cherish
a faith that they are going to be benefited by the study. The high school
and college levels should gradually introduce advanced learning.
In the textbooks for higher classes, which will outgrow the elementary
teachings, stories, etc. of the early stages, the student may be introduced
to the great heritage of India in the form of its deep culture. The
spiritual-cum-temporal import of the hymns of the Vedas, such as the
Purusha-Sukta, the Mandukya-Upanishad, the conversation between Yajnavalkya
and Maitreyi in the Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad, the suggestiveness of
the Creation theories of revelation like the Aitareya-Upanishad, the
epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and the basic gospel of the
Bhagavadgita should find a proper place in the higher stages of education.
An acquaintance of the student with the immortal heroes of India, like
Rama and Krishna; sages like Nara-Narayana, Vasishtha, Vysa, Suka, Dattatreya,
Jadabharata, Vamadeva, Uddalaka, Yajnavalkya, Parasara, etc; India’s
great rulers like Prithu, Marutta, Ambarisha, Mandhata, Sibi, Harischandra,
Dilipa, Bhagiratha, Raghu, Aja, Dasaratha, Janaka, Rama, Yayati, Bharata,
Yudhishthira, Vikramaditya, Asoka and the like, is essential at a particular
stage. Short life sketches of teachers like Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva,
and saints like Gauranga, Nanak, Tukaram, Jnanesvar, Mirabai, Surdas,
Tulasidas, Kabirdas, Purandaradas, etc., should be provided in suitable
places. The contributions to India’s cultural revival by Swami
Vivekananda, Swami Ramatirtha, Swami Dayananda, Swami Sivananda, Annie
Besant, Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo and Dr. S. Radhakrishnan should
be brought home to the minds of students, particularly in the college
level. To give a broader vision of culture in general and to point out
the unity underlying human aspirations, a separate section may be devoted
to the lives and teachings of Buddha, Mahavira, Christ, Mohammed, the
Sufi saints and the Sikh Gurus.
Teachers should, at the background of their minds, keep behind education
the fourfold aim of human existence,—Righteousness in all its stages
and forms (Dharma), economic independence (Artha), emotional
satisfaction (Kama) and spiritual realisation (Moksha),
as the principal incentive to all human activity. This view-point should
be constantly maintained at the teaching level, so that the purpose
of education may not be missed on the way to the achievement of tangible
results. It is also necessary to remember that without some standard
of self-control (Yama-Niyama), which has to be properly defined
at any given situation, the curriculum of studies is not going to be
flawless. This is a rule to be observed both by the teacher and the
taught. The educational career is a holy pursuit. Its sacredness should
never be profaned by indulgences of the subhuman urges. The intellectual,
volitional, emotional and active sides of human nature should all receive
adequate attention. No one side should be stressed at the expense of
the others. Else, there is likely to be a revolt of the neglected aspects
at some later stage. The relation between the inner and the outer realities,
the psychical nature of man and the physical and social nature of the
world, should be harmoniously maintained at every stage of teaching.
Let not the teacher think that the student is an instrument that can
be operated merely by external pressure. This would be a gross blunder.
For the student is a living being, a human individual, with outer desires
and inner aspirations not yet properly articulated. Ignorance of this
fact has led to the grievous condition of the present-day educational
institutions. The individual (Vyashti) and the universal
(Samashti) are organically related and not mechanically dovetailed.
The mechanistic view of education held by Western educationists and
imitated almost everywhere nowadays forgets the life element present
in the bodily structure of man and his environment. Education has concern
with life, mind and intellect and the theory that these are exudations
from the bodily mechanism is the erroneous knowledge imported from Western
psychologists. The individual, family, community, nation and the world
at large are quantitative extensions of the set-up of the individual’s
bodily existence, but it is to be remembered that these outer forms
have their inner being hidden from the physical eye but asserting themselves
perennially as a universal spirit which speaks out in various languages
of mind and intellect the same message of the integral value of the
entire existence. The law of action and reaction, called Karma, the
laws of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and sociology, of the
moral urge and of political history, are all different affirmations
of this eternal truth. Holding this in view the ancient teachers in
India instituted the order of the four classes of society (Varnas),
to harness wisdom, power, material and labour into a single force of
progressive human society. This institution had also the advantage of
preventing class rivalry and competition, and substituting it with cooperation
and mutual respect of values. The institution of the stages (Ashramas)
of life revealed the ultimate purpose of all existence pressing itself
forward in every stage of life,—of the student, the man of the
world, the mature philosopher and the one who has attained insight into
universal life. The last stage is the culmination of human endeavour
and its needs have to be reflected in everyone of the preceding steps.
This is India’s grand vision of perfection.
The Western yoke on India has left an impact which always insists that
whatever modern science says alone is right. Unfortunately, this is
not true, for the field of science is sensory, on which are founded
experiment and logic, and today the boasts of science are slowly getting
exploded as false and vainglorious. One is told that man comes from
the ape, that one’s ancestors were untutored tribes, that the past
history of one’s land is the story of animal-men roaming wildly
in jungles, that life began with fungi which grew on earth millions
of years ago, and that hunger and sex exhaust the psychic urges of humanity.
Contrast with this the sublime wisdom of the masters who proclaimed
that the world was originally involved in the universal being of God,
that life, mind and reason are evolutes which spring back to God in
a gradual self-realisation, that history also records the lives of mighty
sovereigns and great sages whose personalities manifested the cosmic
order of justice, truth and knowledge, that our life is a faint pointer
to the latent potentialities for a vaster life in eternity and infinity
and that our aspirations are indicators of what we are in ourselves
essentially. There is no reason why spiritual intuitions should be mere
fancies and only scientific findings be correct. We are already in an
age where the very foundations on which science is based are being doubted
and are regarded as questionable hypotheses. Sense, reason and intuition
are three stages of knowledge, the succeeding one being more inclusive
and nearer to reality than the preceding.
Care has, however, to be taken in ensuring that in our enthusiasm,
the relative merits of the Eastern and Western cultures are not missed
but duly recognised. Neither should a total abrogation of the foreign
nor a lowering of the dignity of the indigenous culture be resorted
to even by mistake. Cultures stand or fall in accordance with their
ability to meet the needs of human nature in the changes of time. Physical
education and instruction in the science is a necessity, especially
in this century, and this knowledge should be imparted in the regular
modern manner of educational discipline in the Institution, coupled
with a touch of the personal element in teaching. This latter aspect
is more important in the educational process than the way in which it
is likely to be appreciated by many.
Teaching is a more difficult task than learning, for the student has
mostly to imitate the teacher and do what he says, while the teacher
has to take the original initiative and the trouble of understanding
the mind of the student. But we should not imagine that the role of
the student is one of mere submission, for the faculty of judgment is
present in everyone, though it is incipient in the student. Teaching
is a process in psychology and calls forth not only superhuman patience
but also infinite understanding on the part of the teacher.
Apart from the curriculum of teaching in the arts and sciences, there
should be provision for recreation, excursion, pleasant exercise and
open-air living. Contact with Nature is as important as lessons in the
classroom. A student should not, if possible, be allowed to mingle with
persons who are likely to disturb the educational career. A screening
away of the student from communal or political movements is essential.
Hostel arrangements in the schools would help much in isolating students
from undesirable contacts. A distinction may be drawn, if necessary,
between residential scholars and day scholars, as it is done even now
in certain Christian colleges. Residential education would come near
the system of Gurukulavasa, where students are not allowed to
contact even their parents and relatives during the period of education.
All these things may be a little difficult where poverty is rampant
and facilities for living are scanty, particularly in our country. It
is here that the well-to-do should come forward and help the implementation
of true education. The premises and the atmosphere of the school should
be clean and attractive so that the mind receives a subtle impact of
an elevated mood while one is in it. The dignity of the behaviour of
the teachers, the restriction of their conduct purely to educational
work, and their unselfishness of motive, add much to the perfection
of the course of education. As far as possible, the school should be
away from cities and not in the thick of the crowd, which may have an
undesirable effect on the minds of students. They must have to breathe
pure air, both physically and psychologically.
It is difficult to control the emotions of the younger generation.
Regimen and discipline should be mollified by adequate entertainment.
Educational and cultural film shows may form a part of occasional programmes.
Music and dance of an elevated nature, as also familiarity with the
arts of sculpture and painting exert a good influence on the emotion
and give it a mild satisfaction. It is to be seen that the emotions
are not allowed to grow wild either by too much restriction or by too
much enjoyment. Emotions have to be canalised towards the culture of
the spirit which seeks its manifestation in the form of life in the
world. A satisfactory training in noble living cannot be given in a
few years alone. The basement has to be laid at the first standard of
education and the work of construction should continue at least upto
the Higher Secondary School level, which would ensure training for about
twelve years, the minimum period fixed in the tradition of Gurukulavasa.
Charging the high fees from students may deter large sections of people
from availing themselves of such benefit. Poverty is a great hindrance
to progress everywhere. The richer classes should come forward and help
the working of this system, for the country is not going to be freed
from mental slavery and ignorance of culture by educating merely the
sons and daughters of a few aristocrats in its different corners. To
enable this method of education reach at least the majority, funds are
obviously necessary, for the teachers have to be paid well to prevent
them from falling into indifference and corruption. More important still
is to find proper teachers. Much spadework has to be done in the beginning,
and adequate funds invested for the purpose. It is a question of the
blending of the intellectual, economic, moral and spiritual powers.
All these have to be combined into a single force, as it was done in
ancient India by a loving co-operation between the sages and rulers.
Summing up, certain features may be reiterated, which go to make for
success in the educational process. Firstly, the building of the school
or the college should be architecturally attractive and stately, catching
one’s spirits and elevating them spontaneously. Unclean, slovenly
and ill-maintained sheds have a depressing effect on the mind, even
without one’s knowing it consciously. Secondly, the premises of
the institution should be perfectly clean and one should be able to
breathe an air of health when one steps into it. Thirdly, the institution
should be away from the atmosphere of the city and be in natural surroundings,
untouched by the busy, community life and also the communal and political
atmosphere of urban areas. Fourthly, the authorities should manage to
enshrine an atmosphere of seriousness, solemnity and sublimity in the
premises of the institution. Fifthly, there should be a neatness of
conduct between teachers or professors and students and a mutual sense
of affection and trust between them has to be established, so that the
whole institution becomes a fraternity dedicated to a common purpose.
Sixthly, there should be a comprehensive and methodical layout of the
curriculum of studies in the different classes. Seventhly, suitable
textbooks have to be prepared embodying the subject of the curriculum.
Eighthly, as obedience to the principals of the institution is compulsory
in every case, it should be seen that he sets a practical example to
others by his ideal personal demeanour, impartiality of treatment and
devotion to the ideal of the institution. Ninthly, it should be a rule
that trainees cannot go out of the premises of the institution during
the ‘spread-out’ of the school or college hours, without permission
of the concerned authority. Tenthly, attempt should be made to run as
many residential schools as possible, so that the ancient system of
Gurukulavasa may once again be revived, and students are not
allowed to contact outsiders during the whole period of their educational
career. Finally, the authorities of the institution should succeed in
infusing confidence in the students as to the genuineness of the interest
which they have in the welfare of the latter.
All this work is a difficult aim, but it can be achieved with effort.
