MAN AND THE INFINITE
By D. V. GUNDAPPA
Is
the universe around us and inclusive of ourselves no more than a casual welter
of blind forces, with no intelligent aim or significance, or has it a meaning
and a value for us? The question was provoked by an article by Dr. W. T. Stace
entitled “Man Against Darkness” in the Atlantic Monthly for September
1948, and was discussed in a symposium in the November issue of that journal by
(1) B. I. Bell asking “Is it Really That Dark?, (2) C. F. Hibbard confirming
“the Principle of God”, (3) E.H. Edwards querying “How can we Deny God?”, and
(4) J. C. Perkins directing attention to “the Quest for Basic Values”. This
article seeks to set out a Hindu's view of the points raised in the discussion.
Is
there a purpose in the Universe?
There
are three parties to the question: (1) The Universe, (2) Its Maker
(hypothesizing one for the sake of argument) called God, and (3) the
Questioner.
The Universe, as all can see, is a miscellany of beings and not a single unitary entity. Its purposes–if any–may therefore possibly be as numerous and diverse as are minds or intelligences in it. It is also possible that the intelligences of its several creatures are in several stages of evolution–from complete dormancy to rational awareness–so that it is impossible that the entire Universe can produce any single and precise statement of purpose as being fully and finally its own at any specified moment. Further, if we would grant that the Universe is a thing created, it should follow that the quarter to which we have to turn for light as to its purpose, if there be any, is its Creator. How should a mere creature know the mind of its mysterious parent?
Next
as to its Maker: When we postulate the existence of a Creator, we admit by
implication that He possesses a mind or an intelligence as the active principle
of His workmanship. The neuter pronoun ‘IT’ (Sanskrit Tat) is perhaps
more accurate in our reference to the Creator than either the more usual ‘He’
or the less usual ‘She’. If there be a Creator, IT must be
deemed to be an Absolute Power,–under no obligation to any one. If IT has a
purpose or design in view, IT is not bound to disclose that motive to anybody.
IT may have no purpose at all. What purpose has a child in view when it is
playing,–other than the purpose of enjoying the fun of the play itself? Indeed,
it is the nature of the child in the cradle, when it is awake, to be active
with its little eyes and tiny hands and legs. What plot or plan can it possibly
contemplate? The principle of intelligence within it must express itself. That
is all the truth of the child’s activity. The little one cannot simply bottle
up its energy, and must exude it for sheer self-relief. Analogous to it may be
the activity of the Creator,–the mere process of self-expression, the mere joy (lila)
of self-articulation. An ancient Vedic sage said: “World-activity is the nature
of God. It is His self-existent characteristic. He does not seek anything
from it. What could He want who has in Himself all powers and all
means of satisfying all wants,-He whose wish is no sooner formed
than fulfilled?”
God
may have not one purpose, but many purposes. For each separate being in the
Universe, there may be a different purpose set; and that purpose may be changed
for each from moment to moment. What is needful for each man then is to find
out what exactly the purpose in relation to him may be. On a vast playground
where many elevens are engaged in the game, it is more important that each
individual player understands his position and part than that he should hear
about what is happening in remote parts of the field.
Then,
let us think of the third party to the question,-the Questioner. No single
questioner is the whole Universe. No body of questioners, however large and
however well-informed, can count themselves the whole of it. How should a mere
part know the secret of the whole? The whole is an Infinity; the questioner is
a finite speck of it. How should he know the purpose of what is so far larger than
himself? Secondly, why should he know,–more than that he is just a ripple on
the bosom of the ocean of the Infinite?
The
very fact that Dr. Stace and his critics are both alike worried about the
existence of a purpose in creation–the scepticism of the first as well as
affirmation of the second–is some ground for holding that the idea of a purpose
or an object is not foreign to the mind behind the universe or the will of the
Creator. A great deal of what science has discovered for us is the reign of
order and system and law in the life of the universe. Without laws making for
regularity and sequence in natural phenomena, life must be impossible. What
makes life worthwhile and planable for man is that which the scientist is able
to glean from the workings of the elements of nature. But if life should be
lived to good purpose, we should see it in its relation to Reality or pure and
perfect principle of being,–life against the background of absolute esse.
Now the point to note is that Reality or the realm of esse comprehends
within itself not only the visible universe, but also an inmeasurable beyond.
What our physical senses can perceive is not the whole of what is. There
are unimaginable stores of energy and power lying hidden here, there and
everywhere, inaccessible to the microscope and the test-tube of the scientist.
The Creator–the Power that manifests itself as the analysable and calculable
universe–does however not exhaust itself in that act. The Vedic seers have it
that “the beings of the universe make up just a fourth part of God, the
All-Pervasive Being; three parts of IT are invisibly lodged in immortality,–in
Heaven.” What exists really is thus, in its fullness, a mixture of the manifest
and the unmanifest, the measurable actual and the immeasurable potential. If we
would understand the significance of life in all its bearings, we have to
reckon with the metaphysical as well as with the physical, with the
transcendental as well as with the material. The scientist thus undoubtedly has
a function to perform in the economy of our life; but he cannot hope to fill
the whole of it. There are offices in it which he must be willing to let others
fill. Among these others are poets, philosophers and practitioners of the
disciplines of the soul, which is the central life-principle in each one among
us,–the principle that designates itself as ‘I’ in every living being.
Dr.
Stace is apparently an impatient man. He is in a hurry to hear the verdict of
science on the ultimate problems of being. But science has still a long race to
run to arrive anywhere near the post. Great scientists have, without doubt,
covered large tracts of what once was terra incognita in the realm of
Nature and garnered much precious knowledge for us. But every one of them has
at last found himself brought up against an impenetrable iron curtain. His
telescopes and microscopes and arc-lamps and X-ray apparatuses have proved of
no avail there. But, is that enough reason for us to conclude that the search
is over and in vain? Is it not possible that there are instruments of other
kinds to be tried? It is in that other direction that the scientist has to look
for light to glimpse that region which his accustomed instruments have not
helped him to penetrate. In sober truth, the methods and the instruments of the
scientist are objective. But what Professor Stace asks to see is a vision not
susceptible of objectification. Nor is that vision exclusively a matter of
subjective speculation. It can be attained only by means of a subject-object
continuum,–that is, through the integration of the sense of ego and the
non-ego, through the abolition of all distinctions of ‘mine’ and ‘not-mine’, In
other words, it is the commingling of the individual with the universal,–the
mergence of the creature in the Creator via the Creation. This
realization of man’s oneness with ALL that there is, is not a process of simple
ratiocination and intellectual apprehension, as are the concepts of
mathematics. It is to be acquired through hard and long continued disciplines
of the soul. It calls for a training of emotions and an enlarging of fields of
self-sacrifice. It is passing beyond the notions of dualism like good and evil,
beautiful and ugly, sweet and bitter, and reaching such a state of
mind-intellect-fusion in which one is able to feel as though one were verily
the inner pervasive spirit of the whole universe and could contemplate the play
(lila) of life-forces, unruffled and calm, as if one were a distant and
disinterested spectator, desiring nothing for himself, because there is no
‘self’ to count as his own, apart from the Infinite Being at play around him.
To experience this is the highest of felicities. It comes as the fruit of the
sublimation of all human faculties. Words are vague and inefficient to depict
it in its fullness. For each man that has known it, it is an individual
possession of his own. No communism and no socialism are possible in the pure
realms of the spirit. The value of all social and institutional life is merely
as part of a course of discipline for it.
If
the scientist would see the ultimate Truth of life Universal, he should put
more emphasis on what he has yet to find out than on what he has already found
out.
A
purpose there is in life and in the Universe. But it is there not for God to
satisfy or seek satisfaction of, but for man to understand and fulfill
for his own benefit. That purpose at its highest is for the individual to come
into unison with All Life, through the identification of his inner self with
the animating spirit of the Universe.
What
is the Universe? In essence, it is the incarnation of God or the Supreme Being.
To that Being belong inexhaustible vitality and incessant vibrancy. It
continuously exhibits Itself in creation. This process of the
Being’s self-exhibition is Nature. Nature is the kinetization of the powers
latent in the Being. From that operation issue the shapes and
substances and forces and pressures which make our universe; and the apparent
variousness of the contents of the universe creates the illusion of there being
a hundred thousand various things in existence, each looking as though it had
nothing in common with another. The One appears as the Many. Without such
multiplicity in being, there can be no play and no enjoyment of being. But with
multiplicity comes the illusion (Maya) that divides creature from
creature and man from man, and generates conflicts as well as affiliations
between them. To get back from these contradictions of the universe to the
unison and peace which belong to the original Being should be the aim and
purpose of the wise.
It
helps no one to dismiss the Hindu view as Pantheism. That is a word having
varieties of meaning. It is better to study a view or an idea before attaching
a label to it. The core of the Vedic philosophy is the faith that the universe,
including its observer, is the embodiment–but not the exhaustive embodiment–of
the Supreme Being or God. But we the worldlings do not see it as God. A great
deal which makes the creation of God seem a home of the ungodlike and a
battlefield of blind forces–a great deal that makes God look either powerless
or reckless–prevents our seeing Him in His handiwork. These other-than-God and
anti-God aspects of the universe are but appearances; and it is the appearances
that constitute the play–the masque that turns being into acting–Into
play-acting. The multifariousness of the universe–the separateness of bodies
and minds, the distinctness of life-centres, the diversity of
individualities–creates the illusion of division in existence, narrowing down
the realm of each soul to the walls of the body and giving rise to egoism and
conflict. Maya or the mask of illusion which is part of Nature’s
handiwork engages its own progenitor in a game of blind-man’s buff. It is the
Creator’s own self-amusement (lila). It is the sport of good and evil
and of all such pairs of contraries (dvandva) which stirs life and keeps
up movement in the world.
To
learn to pierce through the mask of Maya to transcend the dualities and
contrarieties of life, to catch the vision of the unity of. Being which is God,
and to re-value the things of the world in the light of that vision, to pass
from the changeful to the changeless, is the supreme purpose for man; and to
serve as a school for it is the implied purpose of the universe. It is the
Mayic world that quickens man’s hungers and calls up his ego. It stirs a
hundred passions in his breast; it coaxes him and teases him; it foils his
enterprises and renews his hopes. It irritates and angers him; and it defeats
him and sets him either storming in rage or whining in despair. All that is
schooling for the soul.
So
to restrain yourself and regulate your relations with the world that your
inward annoyances and conflicts are reduced an your fellow-beings are helped
towards a similar harmony, to achieve law and order amidst the caprices and
chaos encouraged by Nature, to enrich life around by subduing desire
within,–such is the true law (Dharma) of good life. Live, but live so as
to contribute to the true riches of life for others. This means that you should
develop a sense of values based upon a discernment of the Good and the Durable.
(Sat). The only Being that is everlasting and ever-dependable is God.
All values must therefore be conceived with reference to that supreme source of
the Good.
Walking
along the streets of temptation and trial, man learns gradually
to keep his eye from distractions on the right and on the left. All fleshly
impulses and sensual provocations are worked out and exhausted in the course of
his traffickings with the world,–through years and ages; and then come
equanimity and peace. The passing shows of the world then cease to disturb him.
The soul within and without is then the only reality to him. All else is worn out
and melts away like mists after sunrise. Such a tranquil, passionless mind,–not
tinged by thoughts of ‘mine’ and ‘thine’–is the instrument that can enable man
to see the vision of True Being divested of the veils of creation.
There is a science of the spirit just as there is a science of the stars or of the earth. There is an inner eye in man which needs education for metaphysics, just as there is an outer eye that needs education for astrophysics. Searching among other phenomena. Dr. Stace should not complain that he does not understand noumena. Nature is both kindly and cruel. She feeds only to kill. She attracts only to mock at. But, is that not what makes the play? It is a challenge to man’s sensibility. Can he look beneath the surface? Has he learnt to comprehend the spiritual substratum of life? Has he a scale of values for the world based upon the truth behind the world? Does he care for morality? Has he put himself to the trouble of searching for the foundations of morality?
The
Veda teaches that the Universe is the house of Lord God and that man is a guest
in it,–indeed a servant of it. Does he behave like a good
guest? The good guest does not swagger or assert. He is grateful to receive
what is offered him and would make no cry or complaint about what is not. He is
friendly with neighbours at the table and careful with
crockery. He practises restraint and is full of good cheer. Above all, he
conducts himself as one who has no claims to make, but only awaits favours. How
will it be today if men and women and communities and nations cultivated this
attitude?
All
forms of religious devotion including concentration on symbols, ritual, prayer
and fast and the counting of the rosary–all great poetry and music and art–and
all the duties of citizenship, and all rigours of law and social convention,
have for their common motive the training and preparation of the soul of higher
and yet higher altitudes of life
spiritual, the peak of which is the vision of Universal Being.
In
Europe and America, Philosophy has largely been an exercise for the
intellect,–like mathematics or logic. Professors there ask for the jumping
pole of a formula or an argument so that, by one neat leap taken with it, they
could land themselves at the centre of life’s mystery. But life is more than
intellect. It is at its core a spiritual fact. The sages of India, therefore,
ask for the training of all the faculties and the regulation of all the
impulses of man. Effort of the intellect is by no means counted superfluous. It
is indeed insisted upon. But it is by itself held to be insufficient. It must
be supplemented by efforts of the will and the imagination,–the will to tear
down the bright silken prison-screens of the petty individual self, and the
imagination to see and feel your own self as one with the limitless expanse of
life around. All this means daily and hourly conduct. It is the practice
of Philosophy in living. Such a unified effort of intellect and will and
imagination ca be possible only with certain inhibitions of sense-hungers and
their reactions. Life has a physical basis and that basis must first be put in
order if the mind-intelligence faculties should function as they should. Hence
the value of ascetic abstinences. Hence the insistence of non-greed and
renunciation of material riches and the practice of universal
benevolence. Hence the inculcation of fortitude and calm in
the presence of misfortune and adversity. All is the Lord’s and nothing is
yours. You are but a trustee in relation to what it pleases Him to put in your
hands. If such be one’s attitude, is it possible one will ever be in a hurry to
rush to war? It is the practice of moral self-discipline that can give the eye
of intellect the clarity and the keenness needed for the vision of the one
indivisible Infinite.
A
second point of difference between the Hindu and his brother of the West is in
that, while the latter habitually seeks God outside of himself, the former is
taught to see the ray of God’s light in his own being. God is to the Hindu the
all-pervasive life-principle. He therefore has no need of an external witness
to the workings of God. His own existence is a witness, and what could be more
indubitable or more convincing? God’s voice is in your very heart-beats. God is
an inescapable Presence. It is an ever-potent Immanence discernible by men with
cultivated souls. Every soul is a centre of an endless succession of circles of
living. The Vedic word for God (Brahman) means literally ‘the Great
Being’–the one Reality which is greater than everything man can know or think
of–which therefore holds within its womb everything existent–which at the same
time is so subtle that it resides within the womb of the minutest thing in the
universe. To prompt and persuade and teach and enable man to sense this Truth
of truths is the purpose of the lovely-frightful, half-responsive and
half-enigmatic pageant of the universe.
The
world is the soul’s gymnasium. Attracting and thwarting, challenging and
evading, cajoling and defying, a bait in one hand and a hook in the other,
Mother Nature plays with man. Bringing into the field an infinity of resources,
she calls up the infinity of his hidden resistances. He strives awhile and then
slackens; he sees success within reach and falls down dazed when stretching out
the arm to grasp it. Now he seems to prevail and now he retreats. Never wholly
winning and never fleeing from the battle, he carries on the wrestling play
with the universe from day to day and from hour to hour, ceaselessly,
eternally. “For whose good” would ask Prof. Stace. To the player’s own good. To
the onlooker’s good too. Are we not glad to live, even as we ask whether life
has a purpose? Making new adventures and meeting new trials, Man the
infinite-phased develops his own soul’s muscle and sinew, so to say: he goes on
so building up his inner strength that one day the challenge of the world will
be to him no trail at all. That strength is his new scale of values,–a new
focal point for his eye. He has come to realize that the great mighty play of
universal forces is after all a play: that comedy and tragedy are mixed in it
so that the play may be of interest: that there are limits to the significance
of the parts assumed in a stage-play: that to take things too seriously is to
invite misery to oneself,–which again would be an extension of the
play-illusion. The experienced actor, creates illusions for others and is
himself not subject to them. So is the man who, having observed what
shadows our earth’s shows are, has learnt to value the real and the
lasting above the apparent and the momentary. To him nothing really is but the
ONE, the complex One, the myriad-shaped multi-motional alone.
Nothing can infatuate him, nothing can frighten, nothing surprise, nothing
enslave and nothing upset him. He has thrown out the earthy toxins which make
life a fitful fever for the soul. No more struggle for him: for he has
passed beyond the barriers erected by the sense of Self. No more hate
and no more anger for him: for he has transcended the seeming duality of being.
No more for him the temptation to acquire and enjoy and possess: for he holds
and shares all with all and through all. The pairs of opposites which divide
and disturb life–good-and-evil,
right-and-wrong, mine-and-another’s–are
only for him who is conscious of the presence of some one beside himself in
creation,–some possible rival or
contestant to be feared. Whom can that man fear or hate who sees All as One,
who finds himself in others and others in himself?
The
little pleasures and brief joys which make life seem a worth-while business and
renew our interest in it from moment to moment, and but for which there would
be no incentive for our return to the struggle day after day, are but a
foretaste of the Infinitude of the Good that lies hidden somewhere, possibly
everywhere, for us to discover for ourselves. Our happy experiences are
the sea-spray blown towards us by the winds of the potencies of our own deeds (Karma)
from the boundless and invisible ocean of the Great Being (Brahman). That
Great Being is the archetype of all that we value and hold dear in the
universe–Truth and Goodness and Beauty and Power–including that vision of the
Unity of various-seeming Things which can satisfy the query: “Is there a
purpose in the Universe?” We are dwellers in the neighbourhood, so to speak, of
an invisible forest-grove. We catch the fragrance of flowers wafted by the wind
and think it a miracle and a mystery because the trees and the creepers are not
accessible to our eye. Love and life-hunger and the impulse for knowledge are
master-mysteries in the perennial mystery of life; and the science which can
give us the key to them is not physics or physiology, but the science of
soul-culture. It is the constant practice of the identification of oneself with
the All. It is the personal realization of the oneness of individual life with
life universal. This is subjective ethic, not objective logic. Let him, who
would see into the heart of creation, first look into his own heart.
The highest of
joys is the joy of peace; and peace comes to him who has trained the inner to
an attitude of indifference to the difference in the outer, who has abolished
for himself all sense of distinction between the inner and the outer, and to
whom equanimity has become habitual by the long-sustained practice of the
presence of the One-Without-a-second everywhere and at all times.