BY M. YAMUNACHARYA, M.A.

The modern world is rapidly drifting towards an unprecedented disaster. No doubt the problems that face the world today are apparently economic and political. But the malady is too deep-rooted to yield to economic and political solutions. What is needed is a radical and wide-spread change in the outlook of individuals composing a nation and its leaders. The disease seems to be mainly due to the gradually loosening hold of the modern man over spiritual ideals. All the trouble has arisen out of the spiritual bankruptcy of modern communities. While creeds and churches continue to sway their conventional influence over a large number of people, they have left them uninfluenced in the deeper aspects of life. To the majority of the educated, religion of this sort is anathema. And it is rightly so. They do not satisfy the modern man. Foundations of religious faith are further undermined by such doctrines as that of Sigmund Freud who speaks of the future of religion as the future of an illusion. He applies his theory of dreams as wish-fulfillment to religion also, and regards religion as a phantasy.

Sciences have partly contributed towards this state of things, but science as such cannot be responsible for the narrowness in our range of interests. If anything, science in its higher aspects has deepened the sense of mystery of things and is gradually gliding into mysticism. What survives is the relic of scientific dogmatism of the 19th century which prided itself on its materialism. Recent researches into the nature of matter have left matter dematerialised. The outlook of such distinguished men of science as Sir James Jeans, Sir Arthur Eddington and Prof. Max Planck is a distinctive contribution towards widening the scientific outlook. Max Planck stresses the "passionate desire for a comprehensive philosophy of the world; a desire which looks for satisfaction in groping attempts turning in every direction where peace and refreshment for a weary spirit is believed to reside." (‘The Philosophy of Physics,’ p. 111) The excessive departmentalisation of knowledge is yielding to the shifting frontiers of each science. Physics is making inroads into chemistry, and chemistry into biology, biology into psychology, psychology into philosophy, and philosophy into religion. Psychic research has a share in the breaking down of certain prejudices of the scientific mind. It is but right that it should be so. If reality, which we seek to understand, is one then the knowledge of that reality must perforce be one. The departmentalisation and specialisation which is necessary up to a certain point for the purpose of an inevitable concentration on minute problems must receive the corrective from the synthetic vision of the philosopher. The deeper the scientist goes into his particular branch of investigation, the clearer is the apprehension of the mutual inter-relatedness of knowledge. As Prof. W. McDougall remarks, "That disastrously lop-sided development of science is a consequence of our lack of wisdom and a sign of our need for more and better Philosophy." (‘Human Affairs,’ P. 343)

The old scientific habit of explaining the higher with reference to the lower, as, for example, the explanation of the biological in physico-chemical terms and the psychological in terms of the physiological, as in Behaviorism, must yield place to the new outlook which is gradually dawning on our men of science, viz., the recognition of one system of reality interwoven and inextricably interwined with the physical, biological and psychological elements. The study of any one aspect of reality divested of other aspects is the study of an abstraction. The time is come for the concreteness of science to be restored to it. This is the task of philosophy. Henri Bergson maintains that the fragmentation of holdings of the sciences is due to the inherent nature of intellect which breaks up, divides and analyses reality, and revels in its static abstractions. A purely intellectual interpretation of reality must be corrected and supplemented by an intuitive realization. The absolute can be given only in an intuition which gives us intact the all-togetherness of reality. The wholeness and systematic character of the absolute is also emphasised by idealist philosophers like Bosanquet and Bradley. We have in a way here the meeting of extremes in contemporary philosophy. A similar notion dominates Smuts’ philosophy of Holism.

The interpenetration of the knowledge of facts and the experience of values must lead to a new synthesis. Religion and philosophy, which belong to the realm of values, must be restored to their proper place in the scheme of human education. The notion that religion is a delusion and mysticism is all moonshine is due, according to Dr. A. N. Whitehead, to the divorce of science from the affirmations of our aesthetic and ethical experience." The activation of the sense of spiritual values and the restoration of the true religious outlook alone can save the world from irreparable disaster. The saint must be recognised as a valuable factor in civilisation. The mystic and the savant must come into their own, but not the sort of mystic who has retired from the world. The medieval religious outlook which was mainly authoritarian must yield place to a modern religious outlook which recognises the value of science as the dissipator of superstitions and which uses the scientific method of experimentation in spiritual matters. The essence of true religion is mysticism. Mystics are above creeds and sects, dogmas and doctrines. They are scientists in the laboratory of spirit. They are experimentalists in spiritual life. Mysticism may be looked upon as the scientific method in religion. The striving after a mystical life will restore to us our sense of eternal values which alone can save civilisation from crashing. Mysticism places in our hands an instrument by which we can purge institutional religion of its dogma and mere ceremonialism. Mysticism touches the deepest springs of life. The transvaluation of values that we need so badly today is possible only by the revival of the mystical outlook which is complementary to the scientific outlook. Mysticism alone can satisfy "persons who, while feeling the necessity of religion, are perplexed by the shape in which it comes before them." (Bosanquet: What Religion Is.)

Just as the pioneers of science struggled against odds in the early history of science to vindicate the scientific outlook we need pioneers in the realm of spirit to dare to live the mystical life and show to the world the only way to salvation. India was a land which held aloft the torch of spiritual life. Even today the light is dim but not extinguished. One shudders to think that the world perhaps will have to go through the valley of the shadow of death, trial and tribulation before it is ready to receive the message of the ancient wisdom which is India’s great heritage.

BACK