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In the context of gaining an insight into the process of knowledge, the perception
of things, the knowledge of the world, we had to undertake an inquiry into
the circumstance in which the individual is placed in this world, our placement
in this universe. It was in this connection that it became necessary for
us to have some sort of an outline knowledge of the doctrine of creation—cosmology.
Brahman, the Supreme, becomes Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha, Virat, a theme we touched
upon last time. What we call Virat in Sanskrit is, practically, the consciousness
that animates the physical cosmos. As there is an intelligence within us,
there is an intelligence in the universe.
Our intelligence is not only in one part of our body. It is pervading the whole
of our personality and our being. We are conscious in every cell of what we
are. That is why we assert that the body is the ‘me’. As our consciousness
pervades the whole of our individuality, there is another consciousness which
pervades the whole cosmos. This eminent consciousness, hiddenly present in
the whole universe, is Virat. It is difficult to describe what Virat is—just
as we cannot say what we are. We are not any of the limbs of the body, because
we are all things that the body is. Likewise, the Virat is not any particular
thing in the universe, but all things in the universe.
Yet, we know that we are not merely the body. When we say “I have come”,
we do not mean that our body has come. There is something which is significant
behind our statement that “we are” or that “we are doing
something”, etc. We always have a subconscious feeling that we own the
body, or we have entered into the body, or we are utilising the body as an
instrument, etc., though this fact is not consciously operating in the mind.
We always say “my body”. We never say “I am the body”.
Some such situation operates, prevails, in the universe. The consciousness
that pervades the cosmos is inseparable from the cosmos, in the same way as
our consciousness cannot be isolated from our body and our personality. In
a famous Sanskrit text on philosophy called the Panchadasi, there is a verse
which tells us that God’s creation commences with the will to manifest,
the ideation to become manifold, and is complete with the manifestation of
Virat through the processes already mentioned, the intermediary stage of which
is called Hiranyagarbha.
But, God’s creation does not bind us. God never does any unjust thing.
God is not interested in hurling us into sorrow. Then, from where has sorrow
come? Why are we so much grieved? This is a mystery; and, it is a mystery because
we do not know how we have fallen from the Virat. In theology this is the famous
doctrine of the fall of man, the angel becoming mortal and becoming self-conscious
as the body.
It is not possible for us to know how we have fallen, because the moment we
are aware as to how this has happened we shall revert to the original condition.
Some inscrutable weapon of nature wields a force upon us in such a way that
we are not enabled to turn back and see what is behind us. We can see only
what is ahead of us, in front of us. We are tightly chained, as it were, as
the analogy of the cave given by Plato in his Republic makes out.
The prisoners are chained so tightly in the cave, which is dark, that they
cannot turn back and see what is light. They can only see the shadow in front
of them. Natural forces prevent us from looking back and seeing the source
from where we have come. Our necks are stiff and our eyes are turned outwardly
to what is ahead, and not to what is behind. The very need for seeing or perceiving
arises because of this fall, this pit of consciousness, this isolation of us
from the whole.
When the act of separation takes place, a blow is dealt on the individual,
as it were, with such force that it becomes unconscious. If someone is hit
on the head with vehemence, that person will fall down in an unconscious state.
The isolation of the individual from God, the Universal Being, is such a stroke
dealt on the individual that it falls unconscious—dead, as it were. We
have those reminiscences every day, by going into deep sleep. We are reminded
again and again, daily, that this stroke has been dealt upon us. We are wretched
beings; this is being told us every day, as a prisoner may be told every day, “You
are a prisoner, you are a prisoner, you are a prisoner,” so that he becomes
worse and worse by listening to this declaration of his circumstances. The
condition of sleep into which we fall every day tells us what we really are.
We are bundles of ignorance, and it prevents us from knowing anything above
it. It is a dark screen, a heavy cloud hanging over us.
What we call the intellect, the reason, the mind, the senses, and anything
that is our endowment as individuals is what is reflected through this screen
of ignorance, and not the original consciousness. We are not seeing or knowing
things through a speck of Virat-consciousness. There is a distinction between
the consciousness present in us and the consciousness that is in the cosmos,
qualitatively, because the consciousness of Virat is original, and ours is
a reflection. The reflection loses the originality of the cause from where
it has come, as the reflected sun has not the heat or the burning capacity
of the sun, although the reflection looks like the original. When consciousness,
pure and pristine—Virat in its essentiality—passes through the
prism of this ignorance, it is deflected into individualities and becomes topsy-turvy
in a specific sense, so that we see, like in a mirror, the left as right and
the right as left. The cause looks like the effect, and the effect looks like
the cause.
The universe, from where we have come, looks like an object of sense. Nothing
can be worse for man. The so-called individuality of ours, the jivatva, is
a chip of the whole block of the universe. We have fallen from the whole. The
Virat-consciousness, which is latent in this universe—our mother and
father which Virat is—that Virat we are gazing at, with our eyes, as
this physical universe.
But, there is no such thing as knowing the Virat as an object of sense. Such
a thing is impossible, because the universe is not an object of anybody. Since
everybody is a part of the universe, no one can see it as an object; yet, we
manage to look upon it as if it were an object. Here is the secret behind the
failure of all scientific observations and even logical philosophies. Science
and philosophy in the academic sense cannot take us to reality, because scientific
methods based on observation and experiment take for granted that the world
is outside consciousness, which it is not. The observing scientist is a part
of that which he is observing and, hence, no observation can become complete
or correct. Every discovery is superseded by a further discovery, so that we
never come to an end of scientific knowledge. We can never catch the truth,
for the reason mentioned.
Logical academic philosophy, also, is not in a better position. Insofar as
logic is based, to a large extent, on sense perception, certain things are
taken as hypotheses. Even logic accepts the distinction between the subject
and the object, the seer and the seen, the knower and the known, yourself and
the world, though this distinction does not obtain, finally, in the nature
of reality. So, logic is inapplicable to reality, and science is inadequate
to the purpose. Therefore, our perception of the world is an erroneous recognition
of what is ahead of us, in front of us.
All perception is descriptive, and not an insight into the nature of things.
When we look at an object, we are not looking at it as it is in itself. This
is a phenomenal world. The object that is seen by our eyes, or contacted by
the senses, is known as it appears to the senses—even as a person putting
on spectacles with specialised lenses will see the objects only as conditioned
by the makeup of the lens, and not as it is in itself. The nature of the glass
will decide upon the nature of the object seen through the glass.
The whole of our individuality is like a glass which we have put on, which
our true consciousness is wearing, through which it beholds the universe. As
we have decided that we are just bodies only, and individuals, and through
this lens of individuality consciousness penetrates and beholds reality outside,
we behold the world as constituted of individualities like our own selves.
All perception, in the epistemological sense, is far, far removed from a true
insight into things. Thus, a distinction has to be drawn between sense perception
and insight or intuition. ‘Intuition’ is an English word which
actually means an entry into the object—through the whole of our being,
to the whole of the object. The entirety of us contacts the entirety of the
object—not through sensation, but through a commingling of being. Being
enters being.
What we call yoga as the union, par excellence, is the union of our being with
the being of the object, whatever be that object. It can be a table or a desk,
a pencil or a fountain pen, or a wristwatch, or a human being, or any blessed
thing in the world. We can enter into it, and be that. It is then that we gain
a mastery over it; and, we have full control over it, because we have a knowledge
of it—knowledge which not sensory, phenomenal, externalised or mediate,
but is inside it, immediate, non-contactual, and is a commingling of the Self
with the Self. This is samadhi in the language of yoga, sakshatkara,
or actual Realisation of the true nature of the object—insight, and complete
mastery.
Knowledge and power go together where knowledge is identical with the being
of what is known. Otherwise, we have no control over anything in the world.
We cannot have any say in any matter in this world, because everything in the
world is independent of us. We have already declared the independence of everything
in the world by saying that they are outside us. Therefore, we have no connection
with them, and all our relationships with things and persons in the world is
an artificial makeup. It is artificial because we have decided that they are
really outside and they are not part of us. Anything that is not a part of
me is not my friend and, therefore, I have no say in the matter of that friend
who is only apparently so.
But the world resents this attitude, as a part of our body may resent our thinking
that it is not us, as it may happen in paralysis, schizophrenia and such illnesses
where the body parts split themselves off psychologically, and the one appears
as many—falsely, not in fact or in reality. Hence, all of our knowledge
is phenomenal knowledge, untrue knowledge, finally—not an entry into
reality, not reliable in the end. We know nothing; we are ignoramuses, finally.
Even our philosophical learning and scientific knowledge are, therefore, not
of any utility when the time for them comes. So, in this study of epistemology,
or the theory of perception, what we finally understand by analysis is that
any mediate knowledge of objects we gain through the operation of the senses
is conditioned by space-time and the limitations of the mind itself.
Our social life is a child born of this erroneous knowledge. Our family relations,
our community life, and every blessed thing that we can call social is brittle,
finally—like glass. It can break at any moment of time, and that is why
we have no real contact and friendship or relationship with anybody for all
time to come. Nobody is our friend for all times. Such a thing is not possible,
because the world is made in such a way; at least, we have accepted that the
world has been made in such a way. As our knowledge, which is perceptional,
is far removed from the reality of things, all our social relationships based
on this knowledge also lose their sense, finally. Nobody belongs to us, and
we belong to nobody in this world.
Nothing is our belonging. We have no property whatsoever. Nobody can own a
thing which is outside oneself and with which one has no contact and relationship,
as it has been accepted by this epistemological knowledge which holds that
things are totally outside. There is a contradiction in our way of living in
the world. Life is a contradiction because, on the one hand, we want a sort
of intimate relationship with things; on the other hand, we have openly declared
that things have no connection with us. Otherwise, there would be no need for
the senses to struggle so hard to come in contact with objects. We are friends
and enemies of people at the same time. We are double dealers, artificial in
our living, and sorrow is the consequence. We know why we are unhappy in the
world by a sort of analysis of our own selves and our relationships with things
and the world as a whole.
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