On Veda
THEME/S
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The age of Mysteries has come to be acknowledged as a common feature among some of the most ancient cultures of the world. Whether in India or in Chaldea, in Egypt or in Greece, in Atlantis or in some previously extant but now submerged islands of ancient times, there seemed to have flourished people with knowledge of secret truths. There was, undoubtedly, even a pre-Vedic age and a pre-Chaldean age, during which there seemed to have developed remarkable experiments and explorations leading to discoveries of momentous importance
The results of these discoveries seem, however, to have been lost in some developments of the past, or they seem to have been assimilated—probably very much diminished in the content and import—in some traditions of religion or of philosophy. It is thus difficult to determine what exactly was the knowledge that the ancients possessed, and what exactly was their real achievement and their contribution to the advancement of mankind.
There is, however, available in India, the most ancient record, known as the Veda, a composition of a unique and accomplished character, the language of which is mysterious and ambiguous, betraying some possible secret. There is no doubt that the Veda preceded the Upanishads, which are themselves very ancient. There is no doubt also that the Veda speaks of 'pitarah’, of the 'forefathers', and of their achievements in glorious terms. It seems, therefore, that we have in the Veda a record of some very ancient times (supposedly of 10,000 B.C. or of 5,000 B.C.), which might give us a clue of at least the Indian age of mysteries, and it might help us also in imagining or inferring what might have been the mysteries known and practised in other parts of the world.
There are, of course, historians who would like to convince us that the ancient times were barbaric, and that it would be vain to look for 'knowledge' or 'wisdom' in the traditions or records of those barbaric times. They would, of course, grant that these
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barbarians had some kind of religion, but this religion, they would maintain, had no profundity in it. They treat the history of religion as a kind of a logical development, of a gradual refinement and clarity, starting from animism and spiritism and superstitious magic to the present-day universal religions of monotheism, or theism or of existentialism. They would refuse to grant that there could have ever been in those ancient times anything better than any animistic or spiritistic practices or beliefs, or anything better than fetishism, totemism or tribal polytheistic cults or traditions. According to them, a hierarchical and systematic polytheistic religion was itself a later development, parallel to the political developments of early nations. To find, therefore, among the ancient records beliefs comparable to civilized and developed notions of pantheism or deism or theism would be, according to them, an impossibility.
This interpretation is being proved to be inadequate as larger data are being increasingly brought to light. It is true that the very ancient man was a barbarian, an infra-rational being, dominated almost exclusively by the needs of the physical, unillumined impulses and a mentality subject to physical senses. But at the same time, it has now come to be accepted that the infra-rational man is not wholly infra-rational, and that even he has some kind of implicit reasoning and a more or less crude supra-rational element. And it is not unlikely that at a certain stage of development, the infra-rational age may arrive at a lofty order of civilization. It may have great intuitions of the meaning of general intention of life, admirable ideas of the arrangement of life, a harmonious, well- adapted durable and serviceable social system, and a religion which will not be without its profundity. It is true that in this stage, pure reason and pure spirituality would not govern the society or move large body of men, but they may come to be represented by individuals at first few, but growing in number in due course. This may well lead to an age of great mystics, if spirituality happens to predominate. These mystics may find an atmosphere and surroundings suitable for delving into the profund and still occult psychological possibilities of our nature. It is true, again, that the favorable circumstances may have great limitations, and that these mystics would not be able to influence any large or even a considerable number of people. Even, they may be required to keep their deeper discoveries secret and impart them only to a small number of initiates. But they may also succeed in
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providing some powerful clues through which the popular barbaric mind may have a possibility of getting admittance, under certain conditions of development, into some intimation of the secrets. In some such development, we may find mystics of profound knowledge existing and flourishing as a secret minority of initiates in the midst of an overwhelming population of the barbaric mentality. Some such thing seems to have happened in the pre-historic India. And as secrets of the Veda are now being studied and understood, we feel how the composers of the Veda constituted a minority of the initiates, and how still they were able to give a peculiarly and uniquely spiritual turn to the whole future trend of the civilization.
Admittedly, the ancient barbarians looked upon the universe with some kind of animistic or spiristic feeling. It is true that to him, the most important things were the phenomena of Nature, the sun, the moon, stars, day and night, rains and storms and lightnings. To him, the world seemed to be peopled by unseen powers and by the earthly animals and birds and creatures of various kinds. It is natural, therefore, that the wise one living in company of the barbarian, and wishing to keep a safe line of communication with him to express his own knowledge would speak of these phenomena of Nature. But he would speak of them in a symbolic way. This would happen more imperatively if the wise one knows that there is no fundamental contradiction between the real truths of the universe and the apparent manifestations of these truths through the physical phenomena of Nature. Some such thing again seems to have occurred in the age in which the Veda must have been composed.
There seem to be three main grounds on which we are led to conclude that the Veda contains a huge mine of wisdom. First of all, and this is the most fundamental ground, the Veda reveals its full consistent meaning, only when its language is interpreted through certain keywords, which are ambiguous, and while they mean something very ordinary, in one sense, they mean something very extraordinary in another sense. To take only one example, the word go means a cow, in one sense, but it also means light, in another sense. Now it is found that if the word go is interpreted to mean cow in the Veda, it serves well up to a certain point, but this interpretation breaks down at some most crucial points, and thus on this line of interpretation the Veda might seem to be incoherent, bizarre, or meaningless. But, if this word is understood in the sense of spiritual light, it fits in fully and consistently in all the varied contexts throughout the Veda. This is only one illustration,
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but it has been possible to show, as has been shown by Sri Aurobindo in his book On the Veda, that the Veda has a secret wisdom, and that this secret pertains to the realm of deeper truths of existence. Secondly, the Upanisads, which came after the Veda, and which are universally acknowledged to be records of deep knowledge, declare the sacredness of the Veda. The thinkers of the Upanishads refer to the Veda as the highest authority for their own sublime utterances. They quote the Vedic verses as supporting citations, stating 'this is the word which was spoken by the Rig Veda' (tad esha richabhyukta). Thirdly, the Veda has been regarded as the highest source of knowledge throughout the long history of Indian tradition, and the entire line of orthodox systems of philosophy refers to the Veda as the highest indisputable authority of knowledge and truth.
It is also noteworthy that the poets of the Vedic verse were described by themselves as the hearers of the truth (kavayah satyasrutayah). They did not look upon themselves as a sort of superior medicine-men and makers of hymn and incantations to robust and barbaric tribe, but as seers and thinkers, rishi dhira. They themselves announced that their utterances had secret meaning, and that they revealed their whole significance only to the seers (kavaye nivachanani ninya vachamsi). The poetical form, the poetical rhythm and the poetical word in which the Vedic knowledge has been expressed are themselves consummate, and it is evident that their excellence, their force and their beauty betray some high and sustained inspiration. If we read this poetry without any false presumptions, we shall find that it is a sacred poetry sublime and powerful in its words and images, though with another kind of language and imagination than we now prefer and appreciate. We find that it is deep and subtle in its psychological experience and that it is stirred by a moved soul of vision and utterance.
Let us take the following example, and try to hear it directly in its purity:
States upon states are born, covering over covering awakens to knowledge: in the lap of the mother he wholly sees. They have called to him, getting a wide knowledge, they guard sleeplessly the strength, they have entered into the strong city. The peoples born on earth increase the luminous (force) of the son of the White Mother, he has gold on his neck, he is large of speech, he is as if by (the power of) this honey wine a seeker of plenty. He
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is like pleasant and desirable milk, he is a thing uncompanioned and is with the two who are companions and is as a heat that is the belly of plenty and is invincible and an overcomer of many. Play, O Ray, and manifest thyself. (Rig. Veda, V.19)
Or again in the succeeding hymn,—
Those (flames) of thee, the forceful (godhead), that move not and are increased and puissant, uncling the hostility and crookedness of one who has another law. O Fire, we choose thee for our priest and the means of effectuation of our strength and in the sacrifices bringing the food of thy pleasure we call thee by the word ... O god of perfect works, may we be for thee felicity, for the truth, revelling with rays, revelling with heroes.
And finally, let us take the bulk of the third hymn that follows couched in the ordinary symbols of the sacrifice:
As the human* we set thee within us, as the human we kindle thee, O Flame, O Seer-Puissance, as the human offer sacrifice to the gods for the seeker of the godheads. O Flame, thouburnest in the human creature when thou art satisfied with his offerings; his ladles go to thee unceasingly, O perfect in thy birth, O presser out of the running richness. Thee all the gods with one heart of love made their envoy; O seer, men serve and adore thee in their sacrifices as the godhead. Let mortal man adore the Will, the divine, by sacrifice to the powers divine; but thou, O Brightness, shine out high-kindled; enter into the home of the Truth, enter into the home of the bliss.
That obviously is a mystic and symbolic poetry and that is the real Veda, which when disclosed with the right key reveals itself as the ancient book of wisdom.
But what exactly is the content of the wisdom in the Veda? To this important question we shall now turn next.
*The godhead descending into man assumes the veil of humanity. The god is eternally perfect, unborn, fixed in the Truth and Joy; descending, he is born in man, grows, gradually manifests his completeness, attains as if by battle and difficult progress to the Truth and Joy. Man is the thinker, the god is the eternal seer; but the Divine veils his seerhood in the forms of thought and life to assist the development of the mortal into immortality.
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HOME
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The Mystic Fire
Veda is fundamentally a record of experiences of intuition and revelation. These experiences are varied, and they belong to various stages of development and exploration. The Veda records not only the experiences of the poets who have composed the hymns of the Veda, but also the experiences of the ancestors (pitarah, poorvajanah). Veda thus describes the knowledge contained in the pre-Vedic tradition as also the Vedic tradition proper.
Among the four Vedas (Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, and Atharva Veda), the Rig Veda is pre-eminent. According to one tradition, Atharva Veda was a later addition. The Rig Veda consists of 10 Mandalas (parts) and each Mandala consists of a number of Suktas, and each one of the Suktas consists of a group of verses.
The largest number of hymns are addressed and related to Agni, the mystic fire. This fact is significant, and it provides the central key to the treasure of the Vedic knowledge. Agni, like many other Vedic terms, has many meanings. It means fire, it means aspiration, force of consciousness, an urge, mounting and burning askesis. As we study the Veda deeply, we find that Agni is not only a principle of physical fire, but it stands much more constantly and thoroughly for the psychological principle of Will-Force. The Vedic poets make it abundantly clear that they regard the whole universe vibrant with a secret Will-Force, of which physical fire is only one outer manifestation, which can be used as a symbol in-an attempt to bring the physical mind nearer to a sense and feeling for something that is deeply and profoundly present and dynamic in the universe.
Agni, according to the Vedic knowledge, is also the force of evolution, which pushes always forward, and breaks the tenebrous layers of Inconscience (tamas) and Matter (annam) and delivers the pulsating Life-Force. It is that which causes growth, and which increases the power, and which forges and welds relations among vegetations plants and herbs, and which pushes forward the
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greater forces of. Intelligence, which forms and builds complex organizations in which Mind can be lodged and made to vibrate effectively so as to make the material form not only conscious but even self-conscious. Agni is in itself a conscious will that acts as intermediary between the physical world (bhoor) and the intermediate worlds (bhoovar) and the higher world (swar). Agni is described also as the messenger, who has a free access to all, and can communicate the intended message to any destination.
The Vedic seers have discovered that Agni is not only an impersonal force of will or aspiration, it is also a being, a God, who presides over all the psychological activities that relate to will, force, action, energizing. Agni can be contacted, he can be approached, he can be invited, he can be made active within us and within the universe. The Veda describes through its hymns not only the nature of Agni, but provides the exact vibratory sounds by which a dynamic contact with God Agni can be established. For, according to the Vedic poets, a sound or a certain secret set of vibrations tunes exactly with the vibrations which are appropriate to the vibrations of invisible psychological forces and entities. The Veda provides these secret sets of vibrations. The very hymns, their sounds, their specific measures are themselves these secret sets of vibrations. They are the mantras, the inevitable rhythmic expressions bearing the vibratory sounds packed with forces of realizations. These mantras invoke the deity and give the knowledge by which one can submit in admiration and devotion to the deity.
Mantras are thus not only expressions of knowledge, but they are also vehicles of devotion. They are also vibratory forces of dynamism and action. They contain the secret methods of art of action. Thus, the mantras are a wide synthesis of Jnana Yoga, the Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga and Mantra Yoga.
Agni symbolizes also the inner and true soul or our psychic being. We find in the Veda several references to this symbolism. The Rig Veda speaks of 'the boy suppressed in secret cavern'. (V.2.1). There is also in the Rig Veda this cryptic description, 'The son of heaven by the body of the earth' (III.25.1). There are some other descriptions also: 'He is there in middle of his house' (1.70.2). 'He is as if life and the breath of our existence, he is as if our eternal child' (1.66.1). He is 'the shining king who was hidden from us' (1.23.14). In the following verse, the Rig Veda brings out more
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clearly its secret knowledge of the nature and function of the psychic being symbolized by Agni:
Oh Agni, when Thou Art well borne by us Thou becomest the supreme growth and expansion of our being, all glory and beauty are in Thy desirable hue and Thy perfect vision. Oh Vastness, Thou art a multitude of riches spread out on every side. (Rig Veda, 11.1.12.)
It is important to note that the knowledge concerning the soul was in later times obscured, and except in the Upanishads and in some rare descriptions of the later philosophical or spiritual records, we have mostly ambiguous, confusing or misleading statements on this subject. Some later philosophies like Buddhism or Illusionism look upon the soul as a conglomeration of tendencies and Karma, which ultimately have to be extinguished. For them there is no reality of the soul-entity. Some others look upon the soul as an entity constituted by desire and other elements mixed with evil, which need to be and which can be purged out by a process of purification leading to the soul-realization. Some others still look upon the soul as a mere static presence or a static witness. They do not consider the soul as a principle of growth or as a leader of evolution. Some philosophers have spoken of the soul as one with the Supreme, others have thought of it as eternally different from the Supreme. There are still others who consider the soul to be inconceivably at once different from and identical with the Supreme. Some philosophers speak of the soul as Jiva meaning individual that is cosmic in nature. Some others speak of the soul as a Chaitya Purusha, meaning the individual that individualizes our existence on the earth. There are thus various views, and often conflicting notions are stated together causing much confusion and obscurity. It is for this reason that it is important to underline the pregnant and cryptic statements that we get in the Veda on this subject and try to understand and experience this luminous knowledge.
Agni also represents in the Veda the warmth and heat which is the basis of supramental transmutation. In fact, the heat released by combustion and other chemical reactions as also by the greater energy liberated by nuclear fusions and fissions is only the physical translation of a fundamental spiritual phenomenon which the Vedic seers know quite well. Agni represents that fundamental
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spiritual phenomenon, viz.,the action of the spiritual Fire in Matter. 'Oh Fire', says the Vedic verse, 'other flames are only branches of Thy stock.... Oh Agni, Oh universal Godhead, Thou art the navel knot of the earths and their inhabitants; all men born Thou controllest and supportest like a pillar. . . . Thou art the head of heaven and the navel, of the earth. . . . Thou art the power that moves at work in the two worlds.' (1.59). Again, in another verse, we find the following invocation of Agni in these words: That splendor of Thee, Oh Fire, which is in heaven and in the earth and in the plants and in the waters, and by which Thou hast spread out the wide mid-air is a vivid ocean of light which sees with a Divine scene.' And in the fourth verse of the seventh Sukta of the third Mandala of the Rig Veda, we have this cryptic but deeply significant description of Agni: 'Agni has entered earth and heaven as if they were one.
It is to be noted that the Vedic seers seem to have known that it is Agni that welds the supreme light and matter, and it is, therefore, Agni which can lead by its penetration into the cells of the body ('by entering heaven and the earth as if they are one') to the transformation of body.
It is thus clear that Agni is recognized by the Vedic seers as of fundamental importance in man's journey. Agni is the aspiration, and as such it is the priest (Purohita) that kindles the fire of aspiration and initiates man's journey. Agni is the soul, that which guides from within and illumines the path of the journey. Agni is the all-pervading energy and heat in the earth and in the heaven and it has the secret power of uniting the light of the heaven and the heat of the matter. It is thus the secret power of physical transmutation.
At its highest Agni is not merely the heat or the energy, not merely the soul, not merely a God, it is an aspect of the Supreme God-head itself. Verily, it is one of the sacred Names of the Supreme Divine Himself.
It is this Agni that is invoked by the Vedic seers at the beginning of the journey, and throughout the journey. This is one of the deep secrets of the Vedic knowledge. 'Aspire first', the Veda reveals to us in effect, 'burn within, kindle the Fire daily and for ever. It is this aspiration that will bring the Response from the Supreme and will lead to the fulfillment and perfection.' This is the initial but all- comprehensive message of the Veda.
But what about the journey itself? To this we shall turn next.
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The Human Journey
Agni is not only the fire of the sacrifice, the fire of the journey of life, the élan of evolution, but also it is its leader and priest (purohita). Agni leads man in his search of the Truth (satyam). It is he who connects man with the cosmic forces and with all the gods of the three worlds (triloka), of earth (bhur), mid-world (bhuvar) and heaven (swar). At the head of swar is Indra, the god of Illumined Intelligence. It is Indra who shows man the path to the still higher realms and to the Supreme Reality. He cannot be over- passed, says Indra himself, in a colloquy between him and Agastya, a Rishi, who is impatient to shoot beyond to the Supreme, but finds Indra obstructing his path. 'I am your friend', says Indra to Agastya, 'I am not obstructing your path, but I am here on the path to take you to the Supreme. Why do you not invite me to your sacrifice?' Indra complains. Agastya understands, he invites Indra, and accepts to be led by him. In this short colloquy,"' we have a very meaningful description of one of the secret experiences recorded in the Vedas.
But before one can reach the Supreme or the Supreme Light, (Savitri), one has to cross the four Guardians, the four Kings guarding the light of the Truth. These are the four gods, Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman and Bhaga. They are to be embraced and to be fulfilled before they lead the seeker to his goal.
Varuna represents vastness, infinite wideness, limitlessness. The Truth that the Veda worships is infinite, it is spaceless and timeless and yet is all Space and Time. This truth cannot be possessed without the widest wideness in our consciousness and in our being. In narrowness and in divisions, truth cannot be caught, and it escapes from all limitations, from all angularities. The seeker of the Vedic knowledge is therefore asked to break all narrowness, all divisions, all oppositions, all conflicts. He has to learn to comprehend and to contain all, all without limits. He has to
*Rig Veda, 1-70.
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grow in the wideness of Varuna, worship him and be as wide as he is. Varuna answers the seeker, helps him and liberates him into the wide spaces of infinite being and prepares him to perceive all the infinities of the. Supreme Light. The consciousness of man is broken by the mighty invasion of Varuna, and Varuna is fulfilled in man, who ceases to be mere mental and consents to be supramental.
But this is-not enough. Mitra, the lord of Harmony is also to be fulfilled. The seeker must learn the secret of relations, know the threads that bind each to all and all to each. He must learn to be the friend of all creatures, of all men, of all gods. With the wideness of Varuna, he must combine the harmony of Mitra; wideness and relationships are both to be mastered. The Supramental Light is wideness but not empty of contents or relations. Hence the necessity of the union of Varuna and Mitra. And the seeker must serve these two gods, fulfill them, embody them and grow into their image.
But eyen this is not enough. In all human endeavor, there is the stress and strain of effort. There is a struggle, and it is through struggle), through intense effort, that the narrowness is overpassed, that the conflicts are resolved, wideness is achieved, harmony is established. One must have therefore the capacity for the highest effort, the intensest tapasya, a perfect mastery over all that needs to be done. Aryaman is the god of this mastery. Through him the highest effort is accomplished. He is total endurance. Without this endurance, we are like the unbaked jar, which will be broken at the touch of the Supreme Light. It will not be able to hold the nectar of immortality. The jar, our instrument, our body, our entire being, has to be baked, baked fully by the heat and austerity of Aryaman. He has to be worshipped, he has to be possessed, he has to be fulfilled. He prepares us, along with Varuna and Mitra, for the possession of Supreme Light.
But there is still Bhaga to be fulfilled. The Supreme Light is joy and we must learn not only the intensest effort but also the highest degrees of enjoyment. We know ordinarily the enjoyment of pleasure of the vital and of the physical. Even at the lower level the intense pleasure becomes an excitement and our balance is lost. We are not able to bear the pressure of enjoyment. Not many know the enjoyment of thought and of perception and of intuition, of beauty, of love, of ecstasy. All these enjoyments are to be known, experienced, possessed and fulfilled. But there are higher and
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still higher enjoyments. The Supreme Reality itself is a supreme enjoyment. Bhaga represents this supreme enjoyment. He is the god who presides over enjoyments, who is the eternal aspect of the joy of the Divine. He is to be approached, and -in unity with Varuna, Mitra and Aryaman, he has to be embodied.
In his upward journey, the seeker then proceeds to Savitri, the lord of the Supreme Light, the sun in which 'all the gods unyoke their horses', the supreme in which gods cease to be entities and become His aspects.
This marks the victory of the Aryan seeker. He is now in the very home of the gods (swe dame). This is the home of the Truth, the Right and the Vast (satyam, ritam brihat). This is the supramental Truth-Consciousness (Sat-Chit). It is that by which reality expresses itself, and in which expression, even the Idea-Expression, is the concrete body of the Truth itself. It may therefore be described as the Real-Idea.
The Vedic seers seem to speak of primary faculties of the Truth- Conscious' soul: They are Sight and Hearing, the direct operations of an inherent Knowledge describable as Truth-vision and Truth-audition. It is these operations which are reflected from far off in our human mentality by the faculties of revelation and inspiration. This truth-consciousness is comprehensive, knows all, because it is all. It knows all in its universality and also in every detail of particularity. Light is here one with Force, the vibrations of knowledge with the rhythm of the will and both are one, perfectly and without seeking, groping or effort, with the assured result.
It is in this consciousness that is contained the honey, the nectar of delight. It is this honey (madhu) which is packed in the chariot of the Ashwins. The Ashwins, the divine twins, are the physicians of the gods who heal by the pourings of this nectar. It is this honey, soma, that is drunk by the gods and it is this soma drunk by the human seekers that gives to them immortality (amritam).
This, in brief, is the basic human journey of the Aryan described in the Veda. But there is still a further secret of which the Veda speaks, the secret of a further journey which is described through cryptic and ambiguous phrases and through somewhat incomprehensible legends.
To this secret we shall turn next.
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The Deeper Secret
There is in the Veda the legend of the Cow and of the Angirasa Rishis. This legend, if properly understood, brings out a deeper secret.
The legend is simple. The Cows have been lost and the Angirasa Rishis are in search of these lost Cows. The sacrifice is to be performed, and the Angirasas have to chant the true word, the Mantra. Indra of all the gods is invoked. Indra comes down to help with his thunderbolt in which enter the powers of all the gods. Indra is the hero and fighter, and the battle is waged against certain powers, the Dasyus and the Panis. Sarama, the heavenly hound runs forward and finds out the Cows in the cave of the Panis. Indra strong with the Some-wine and the Angirasas, the Rishis, who are his companions, follow the track, enter the cave or violently break open the strong places of the hill, defeat the Panis and drive upward the liberated herds. The conquest is effected, and although Indra has done it once for all in the type by means of the Angirasas, yet he repeats the type continually even in the present. He is constantly the seeker of the Cows, 'gaveshana', and the restorer of the stolen wealth.
There are several variations of this legend in the Veda. Sometimes there is no reference to Sarama or the Angirasas or the Panis. Sometimes Agni is referred to as the God who breaks up the dark cave and restores the lost radiances. Sometimes both Agni and Indra have been described as having joined together in the battle over the Cows. 'You two warred over the Cows, O Indra, O Agni.' (VI.60.2) Sometimes it is Agni and Soma who are referred to as having joined together in the battle. 'O Agni and Soma, that heroic might of yours was made conscient when you robbed Panis of the Cows.' (1.93.4). Sometimes the Ashwins also are credited with the same achievement. 'You two (Ashwins) open the doors of the strong pan full of the kine.' (VI.62.II). Brihaspati is, however, more
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frequently the hero of this victory. 'Brihaspati, coming first into birth from the great Light in the Supreme other, seven-mouthed, multiply-born, seven-rayed, dispelled the darknesses; he with his best that possesses Stubha and the Rik broke Vala into pieces by his cry. Shouting Brihaspati drove upwards the bright herds with speed the offering and they lowed in reply.' (IV.50.4&5). And again in VI.73.1&3 we have the following: 'Brihaspati who is the hill- breaker, the first born, the Angirasa. . .. Brihaspati conquered the treasure (vanuni), great pens this god won full of the kine.' Sometimes the Maruts also are associated in this action. Pushan also (the Increaser, a form of the Sun-god) is invoked for the pursuit and recovery of the stolen cattle. 'Let Pushan follow after our kine, let him protect our war-steeds.... Pushan, go thou after the kine. . . . Let him drive back to us that which was lost.' (VI.54.5.6.10). And in the hymn of Madhuchhandas (I.II.5) we have this striking image that gives a clue to all the variations of the legend, while addressing Indra, 'Oh lord of the thunderbolt, thou didst uncover the hole of Vala of the Cows; the gods, unfearing, entered speeding (or putting forth their force) into thee.'
In order to understand the deeper secret of the Veda, this legend of the lost Cows and of the Angirasa Rishis seems to promise us a key. Now the important word that is used for the Cow is go. But the word 'go' has also another meaning, viz., light, and it is this meaning which gives us the clue. The legend of the lost Cow is really about the lost light. The Vedic Rishis seem to suggest that there has occurred in the world process an event whereby the spiritual light has become obscured or has become concealed, and that this event has a relationship with an action of Panis, the sons of darkness. This concealment of light does not amount to the cancellation of light. There is no destruction of light. But there is none- theless an effective covering of light. This covering is the Night of Darkness, but there is in it a secret light, which is the cherished possession of the forces of darkness, described as Dasyus and Panis, of whom Vritra and Vala are the Chief leaders. This is the distinctive feature of the Vedic idea of evil and darkness. For in this view, evil and darkness have in their deepest profundities their own cure. It is true that according to the Veda, evil and darkness have to be combated, but the end of the combat is not merely the destruction of evil and darkness, but also the recovery and manifestation of the light which is concealed in them. In other words,
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the light is not only to be discovered and possessed at the supreme height, in Swar and in Surya Savitri. The discovery of the light in Surya Savitri is followed and completed by the discovery and uncovering of the light in the very depths of darkness, of Inconscient, tamas: It seems that the whole legend of the Angirasa Rishis, who are described in the Veda as pitarah, forefathers, is a parable of a momentous effort and war waged by them in their search of the light that 'is at the end of the tunnel of darkness. It has been affirmed through this legend that one meets in the process of this discovery an opposition from the armies of Vritra and Vala, but also help from the gods. The gods, according to this legend, can be invited by a sacrifice, which in its inner significance, means the kindling of the inner aspiration, Agni. Each ,god can be invoked by a specific word, a Mantra, and the gods, when activised by the power of the Mantra, operate effectively in a war with the forces of darkness. Gods are thus partners of men in their struggle and battle. This battle has not only an upward movement but also a downward movement. Every step of conquest presents a gate leading to a further and a darker depth, requiring a greater and intenser help of the gods.
Thus, there is in the Veda the affirmation of the possibility of the recovery of the Sun that is lying in the darkness. It is said that the Sun, 'that Truth', was the thing found by Indra and the Angirasa in the cave of the Panis. By the rending of their cave, the Veda declares, the herds of the divine dawn which are the rays of the Sun of Truth ascend the hill of being and the Sun itself ascends to the luminous upper ocean of the divine existence, led over it by the thinkers like a ship over the waters till it reaches its farther shore.
In simple terms, the light is one, it is the same everywhere. It is not merely there above, it is also here below. In fact, the distinction between the above and below is itself a false distinction. It is true that ignorance is an effective phenomenon, but it is also . something which can be effectively destroyed, so that the light above and the light below are both realized as the one identical light. Spirit above is not the only light. Matter below is also that very light, and matter too can be pierced by which the light which is concealed in its bosom can be made manifest. This is the deep secret of the Veda, and it is that which is held as a promise for an eventual realization in the history of the earth.
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Significance of the Upanishad
The Veda and the initiates who were admitted to the secret of the Veda represented a lofty and consummate achievement secured by means of an intense and rapid cultivation of intuitive and suprarational capacities and faculties. But the general mass of people in the midst of which this great and surprising Vedic phenomenon took place were evidently primitive and infra-rational, dominated by the needs of the body and limited to the engrossing demands of the physical mind. What was important for this mass of people was the Vedic ritualism, its ceremonies and the institution of sacrifice. In due course of time, this ritualism grew and developed 'into an elaborate and complicated system. It over-burdened the inner core of the Vedic secret, and it became increasingly difficult to penetrate through the crust of the outer ceremonies and acts to reach the inner heart of the true and living Vedic knowledge.
The inner Vedic knowledge was a kind of a synthesis of the spiritual and the physical, and this provided a fine balance and a graded ladder connecting the material and spiritual poles of existence. In this scheme, the outer ritual and ceremonies reflected the sunshine of the highest and profundest spiritual knowledge, and thus they were not a mere artifice or a misleading or imprisoning super-structure. They provided, on the contrary, a meaningful gate of entry for the physical mind of man to undertake the long journey of a true and balanced spiritual-material culture. The great achievement of the Vedic period was indeed the marvellous training that it provided to the physical mentality to admit the impress upon it of the brilliant rays of the spiritual light and to look upon men and the universe as a symbol of some deeper realities intensely worthy of adoration and worship.
But there is in the constitution of man, between the two extreme poles of the spiritual and the material, a gradation of powers and faculties of the vital and mental with their multiple seekings, motivations and aspirations, and a time must come in the development
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of any human social aggregate when these intermediate seekings of the vital and the mental would assert themselves and demand for themselves a larger and larger room for their activities and their rule. During this time there would naturally occur a confusion and dis-balancement in the original synthesis and organization of life. This would also cause a crisis, and in this crisis, there would occur exaggerated claims of outer ritualism creating a sharp conflict between itself and the rushing seekings and claims of the vital and mental powers. In this period of conflict, the spiritual nucleus of the old synthetic knowledge would tend to be exiled or thrown into a remoter and remoter background, with a possibility even of its being forgotten. If we study the history of the ancient periods of the early civilizations of Chaldea, Egypt, Greece, we find that there did occur during such a critical period of their history an-eclipse of the power and hold of the knowledge of the secret Mysteries of spiritual and occult knowledge. This eclipse proved there to be total, and even in Greece, where the light of the Mysteries continued for some time, through Pythagoras, Stoics, Plato and Neo-Platonists, there came about finally a cleavage between the old and the new and there arose a dominantly vital and mental civilization in which the knowledge of the old Mysteries hardly played any role.
A similar thing could have happened also in India. In fact, it almost happened. At a time it seemed as though the inner core of the Vedic knowledge would be lost for ever and that India would begin a career of an exclusive vital and mental civilization. But this loss was greatly prevented, because there arose during the transitional period a remarkable movement, the parallel of which is not to be found in the history of any other ancient civilisation. For there occurred in India at this critical period of transition an intense and pristine search among larger and larger circles of people to recover the inner core of the Vedic knowledge, not merely through the preservation of tradition but by a consuming zeal of a psychological and spiritual practice. And through some of the passages of the Upanishads, we have brief glimpses of the picture of that extraordinary stir and movement of spiritual enquiry and passion for the highest knowledge. These passages present to us the scenes of that period of transition. We find there the great sages sitting in their groves ready to test and teach the seeker. We find princes and learned Brahmins and rich nobles going about in
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search of knowledge. The king's son in this chariot is in search of the spiritual secret. We have here a moving description .of the intensity of Satyakama, the illegitimate son of the servant girl, seeking any man who might carry in himself the thought of light and the word of revelation. We meet here the typical figurers and personalities like Janaka, the great king who was also accomplished in spiritual knowledge and action. We meet also Ajatashatru with a rich and subtle mind, the great teacher Raikwa, who was in his outward profession a cart-driver, and Yajnavalkya, master of worldly possessions and spiritual riches, who cast at last all his wealth behind to wander forth as a houseless ascetic. We hear of Krishna, son of Devaki, who heard a single word of the Rishi Ghora and knew at once the Eternal. We see the Ashramas, the courts of kings who were also spiritual discoverers and thinkers and the great sacrificial assemblies where the sages met and compared their knowledge. We see here how in this critical moment the soul of India was born and how arose this unparalleled stir and seeking that secured for India a new line of spiritual resurgence and provided to all the posterity an unfailing fountain of spiritual waters that have poured themselves into all lines of inquiry and expression, not only those of religion and philosophy but even of science, art, literature, architecture and polity.
If India stands as a unique spiritual civilisation and if India has been able to keep some illuminating light burning even in its darkest period of inertia and ignorance and prevented the collapse of this mighty and profound culture, it is because of the strong foundations that were laid in this remarkable period of the transition.
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The Veda and Indian Culture
The aim of life that the people are inspired to pursue determines the fundamental direction of their culture. From this point of view, it is necessary to examine what exactly was the aim of life proposed by the Veda and how it influenced-the direction of the Indian culture.
According to one view which has been held largely by the western scholars and their Indian disciples, India has been governed by four important ideas, namely, (a) that this world is a constant flux (samsara), (b) that there is no substantial meaning in it, (c) that this world is, in the final analysis, an illusion, and (d) that the best course for man is to arrive, as soon as possible, at a state of vairagya, a turning away from the world, and to renounce the world and its activities in order to seek a Transcendental Reality or Existence which is in its nature or essence entirely different from the qualities and categories of the world of our ordinary experience.
It has, therefore, been held that Indian culture has been negative and pessimistic.
But as we read the Veda, which has been held as the source of the inspiration of the Indian culture, we find that it presents a dynamic interpretation of the world and assigns to action in the world a profound meaning and significance. It enjoins upon man to act rather than to renounce his activities. It places before man a method of action which has been discovered after a long and intense search by the Vedic seers. This method of action recognizes a secret relationship between the manifest and occult energies and actions that lie behind all that we physically see and experience. This relationship, it is held, is that of an interchange and, which is characteristically described as yajna, sacrifice. The Veda holds that the entire world is, in fact, a massive Energy flowing according to rhythm, which is that of an interchange between force and force, will and will, action and action. The Veda seizes
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upon this fundamental fact and points out that if man consciously follows the law of interchange and pursues it to its highest end, man will discover a state of being and power of action that remains always stable and integrated even though multiply varied and dynamic. This is the truth underlying the Vedic concept of the fundamental relationship between the earthly life, the supra-terrestrial life and the Supreme Reality, the supreme Purusha.
In practical terms, the Veda prescribes that every action of man should be a sacrifice offered by him to higher and higher forces and beings, to the devas and ultimately to the Supreme Being itself.
The world is thus not conceived as an illusion, although it grants that there is in this world an ignorance through which illusions are created in the world, and as a result of which our own view of the world is illusory. But the world itself, the movement of the world itself is not, according to the Veda, an illusion. Action of man, therefore, is not an illusion; it has meaning, and significance. Man is, therefore, not to renounce action, but on the contrary, he is to intensify his action until all his actions become a constant sacrifice offered to the Supreme.
There is no doubt that it was this emphasis on action and this insistence on action to be performed as a sacrifice that have provided a dynamic potency to the Indian culture. The secret of action that was discovered in the Veda seems to have been preserved in the age of the Upanishads, although there seems to have grown also a powerful tendency in some quarters to place knowledge in opposition to action, and to regard the former as superior to the latter. Nonetheless, we find that the Upanishadic wisdom recognized the meaningfulness of action and its spiritual and material utility. 'Kurvanneva iha karmani jijivishet shatam samah', (one should aspire to live a hundred years while performing actions here itself) that is what is declared by the Isha Upanishad, which is the most compact enunciation of the quintessence of the Upanishadic teaching. The same insistence on action is to be found in the Gita where Sri Krishna expounds his greatest gospel of Karma Yoga, the path of action that leads to the union of man with the dynamic Will of the Supreme. It is, in fact, in the Gita that we find a comprehensive and abundant exposition of the principle of sacrifice (not ritualistic sacrifice) and of the method of performing actions as a sacrifice to the Divine.
The richness and opulence of life that was developed and
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organized on a huge scale and upto an exceptional degree of excellence could be explained only on the basis of the great aim that was put forward by the Vedic rishis who perceived the inevitable connection between the dynamism of life and the ultimate fulfillment of man. It is true that the Vedic goal of life was only a prevision and a luminous seed, and therefore, capable of diverse developments and even inadequate and distorting translations during the succeeding ages. Thus, the later description of the Veda as a Karma Kanda, the science of action, as opposed to Jnana Kanda, the science of Knowledge, is an example of a diminutive understanding of the real purport of the Veda. It is also true that Poorva Mimamsa, one of the six orthodox philosophies of India, which came to represent the Vedic tradition, and which even today underlies most of the ritualistic and ceremonial practices of the Hindu orthodoxy, was also a specialized development of the profound truths of the Veda. But it must be noted that the Indian culture developed its dynamic life on some inborn intuition which was injected very powerfully at the very source in the early Vedic times and this has enabled India to build not only an astounding and exceptional structure of religion, philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and sciences of various kinds and skills and technologies of innumerable varieties, but also huge and powerful edifices of empire and statecraft and commerce and industry and opulence and richness and enjoyment in minutest detail of life. To say, therefore, that India has been governed by pessimism and by illusionism contradicts the very spirit that permeates the astonishingly dynamic culture of India.
It is true, however, that illusionism did play a role. It is true that there was a trend of thought and attitude which tended to look upon the world as a field of suffering and ignorance, and, therefore, something that must be rejected in order to achieve some supreme and perfect reality or state. But this trend became fully explicit only at a later stage after the sixth century B.C. The gospel of inaction and pessimism did become a predominant influence, and it was this that was responsible for a great weakening of the dynamic impulse of the Indian people. Even today's weakness of India can largely be traced to that influence.
But it must be stressed that the pessimistic tendencies had always to fight against other contending philosophies which gave a predominant or even exclusive importance to action and dynamism
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of life. Rejection of the world as an illusion and as a lie was challenged by several great and powerful exponents of the Vedanta.
If we ask, however, as to how the negative and pessimistic tendencies could at all succeed to become predominant, we shall find that India has been a special field of the search of the meaning of life, and that in this search it has not hesitated to affirm and experiment with hypotheses or propositions which are negative even to the highest degree. If we study this question in the historical perspective, we find that the Veda recognizes that there are three terms of existence which need to be put in an order of right relationship. These three terms are the supra-cosmic, the supraterrestrial and the cosmic-terrestrial. The supra-cosmic is the supreme ineffable, (that moves and moves not) which is at once Kshara and Akshara, the dynamic and the static, and which is the supreme Mystery. The Veda recognizes that the terrestrial life is dependent upon the supra-terrestrial, which again is dependent on the supra-cosmic. The Vedic rishis discovered the laws and secrets of how man, the terrestrial being, could build his life by connecting himself consciously his relationships with the supra- terrestrial and supra-cosmic existence. The Vedic seers saw that the human life cannot be founded firmly in perfect relationship with the supra-terrestrial and the supra-cosmic without developing to a high level of perfection of the human action arid human faculties of thought, will, emotions. The Veda, therefore, emphasized the need for an all-around perfection of the human body and of the human mind as also of the innumerable human energies of impulsion and motion. The Veda discovered the means of this development and laid down a system of an ordered and gradual development of the human instrument so as to secure a progressive balance and harmony of growth and enjoyment of the human personality. The Vedic system of education perceived the need to accept and assimilate all aspects of human life, and it perceived at the same time/ the need for a balanced growth, as opposed to the extreme insistences of the development of one aspect or tendency at the expense of some other aspect or tendency.
The Veda spoke of the possibility of perfection and of the integral perfection, and it spoke of this perfection as the state of immortality, amritam. But there is an important question in regard to which we do not find a clear and unambiguous answer. This question is: Can the integral perfection and immortality be fully
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established and manifested in the terrestrial physical life or is it something that is attainable, finally, by shedding the physical life?
There are indications to show that the Vedic rishis had a vision and experience of the possibility of realizing perfection and immortality even in the terrestrial physical life The .Veda speaks of the forefathers who have, according to it, reached this goal. But when we try to fathom deeper in search of the secret of this terrestrial perfection, we find ourselves arrested and we feel that there is something missing, something that still remains to be discovered and realized. It seems that the Veda, which is a record of the lofty adventure, is not a closed book, leaving nothing for the posterity for a new and further research. There is still something which the Veda is still in search of and which still needs to be enquired into. As the Veda itself declares, 'The priests of the world climb thee like a ladder, O hundred powered. As one ascends from peak to peak, there is made clear the much that has still to be done'.
(brahmanas tva shatakrata
ud vamsham iva yomire.
Yat sanoh sanum aruhad
bhuri aspasta kartvam)
It seems, therefore, that the central question of Indian Culture has been to ask as to how it is possible to realize integral perfection in the terrestrial life and in physical body itself. This question was, it seems, answered in the Veda in a seed form. It even seems that it was realized that this aim was very difficult to achieve, and that it could probably be realized only with a Supreme effort in the terrestrial physical life. Because of the difficulties of this supreme effort, there seems to have been a tendency to assign greater and greater importance to the supra-terrestrial achievements in preference to the terrestrial ones. And in due course, there seems to have crept a powerful tendency to assign a subordinate value to the terrestrial life and to look upon the supra-terrestrial achievement as of lasting importance. In course of this development, more and more attention came to be paid to the methods and means by which one could escape more and more rapidly and easily from the labors of the terrestrial life. Only those labors and works came to be recognized which were indispensable for building up perfection
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in supra-terrestrial life. It is not surprising that this course of development could at one stage end up in the discovery of a state of experience or of being that would enable the individual to achieve the quickest escape from the world and its works.
Indeed, the methods of certain systems of yoga professed to give us precisely these very means of the most rapid escape from the world into a state of Nirvana, or of the inactive Brahman. They propounded the view that the terrestrial life is a result of Ignorance and of Desire and that it is an unending cycle of action (Karma) propelled by desire. It is here that we find the emergence of an attitude and approach to life which are in conflict with those which were developed and nourished by the Vedic teaching. in practical terms, this conflict can be explained as the one between the balanced growth, on the one hand, and exclusive and specialized growth, on the other. Whereas the Vedic approach underlined the need of the balanced growth of personality and of culture, the negative teaching preached a rapid and exclusive path by which the individual and the race could escape as rapidly as possible from the burdens and responsibilities of the terrestrial physical life.
If we are to understand Indian culture properly, we need to underline this conflict. It may be said that the foundations of Indian culture were laid by the Vedic approach. This approach required that the individual and social life of man should be so organized that the physical, vital and mental powers are helped to grow towards their perfection by means of a graded process which would provide to each stage of development the requisite station and stability as also the necessary drive for progress to higher and higher stations of activity and growth. This process was, according to the Veda, put in harmony with the requirements necessitated by the fact that our natural physical, vital and mental capacities and faculties are inter-twined with the powers and capacities and beings of the supra-terrestrial planes, and these again with the supra-cosmic reality. Thus the Indian culture based upon the Vedic ideal has a very wide and comprehensive basis, and it has a number of ladders of advancement, with varied programmes of integration of powers and capacities joining the terrestrial, the supra-terrestrial and the supra-cosmic into one vast and complex whole. This Vedic culture flourished not only for centuries but for millennia, and some of the high points of
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achievement of this culture are to be found in the ancient literature of India, particularly that of epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata). But since the 6th century. B.C., there was introduced a current of culture which created confusion and a disbalancement in the vast organization of the balanced growth rooted in the teachings of the Veda; According to this disbalancing current, there is no need for balanced and graded development and for a vast and harmonious o-growth of the varied powers of the physical, vital and mental capacities and faculties. What was necessary was that each individual should be enabled as rapidly as possible to understand that the terrestrial labor of man was fundamentally meaningless and that he should develop only those capacities and powers which enable him to come out as soon as possible from the entire terrestrial life so as to enter into a supra-cosmic or acosmic Nirvana or Immobility.
With the introduction of this new current, Indian culture has suffered and there has come about in India a confusion of the ideals and progressive incompetence in dealing with the practical needs of human life.
It is not easy to suggest a solution by which the confused tangle of multi-dimensional Indian culture can be resolved. It has sometimes been suggested that India should go back to the Veda and to the Vedic ideal. On the other hand, the conditions of modern life are quite complex. There have entered into Indian life during the last one millennium certain motives of life which demand their own fulfillment or at least their right place in the totality of the cultural life of this vast sub-continent. Moreover, there has been an immense development of science and technology all over the world, and there is not only a rising tide of materialism but an effective invasion of materialistic culture. All this requires a new knowledge and a new power that could put all the elements of human culture, all the possible perfections of man on the earth into a new order of harmony and integration. As we saw earlier, the Vedic ideal itself was aluminous seed, but there intervened some deficiency which ultimately permitted the growth of negativism and pessimism. Thus, even while emphasizing the immense value of the Vedic ideal, and even while stressing the need to assimilate in the present hour the vast richness of the great Vedic culture, with all its positive results that have developed through the ages, we must underline the need to go forward and to
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hew a new path which would provide us the key to the perfectibility of the terrestrial and physical life.
Not only in India, but all over the world, there has been a dichotomy and opposition between the spiritual life and physical life. There has been the rejection of Matter by those who uphold the ideal of spiritual life, and there has been the rejection of the Spirit by those who uphold the ideal of a perfect physical life. It seems now as though these rejections have brought us through their consequences to a point in Thought and in Life where we are necessitated to look afresh and to question the facile proposition that Spirit and Matter are irreconcilable realities. We need to ask the question: What is Matter? We need to ask: What is Spirit? It is possible that the reality is neither the one nor the other, but something in which both are truly one.
Very likely we shall make a surprising discovery enabling us a new invention by which man in the world can be refashioned in a way that has so far not yet been conceived, or even if conceived to some extent, not conceived fully or realized.
In the direction of some such search seems to lie the path of the further progress of the Indian culture. This is the direction that has been explored in our own times by Sri Aurobindo, and this exploration gives us an assurance that Indian culture will provide a new guidance to the entire human race.
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The Teacher and the Pupil
Ancient India conceived an intimate relationship between education and life. It looked upon education as a preparation for life and considered life a process of continuing education. It studied life in all its aspects and attempted to apply psychological principles and truths of life to education. One important consequence was to fix for education certain life-long objectives that require life-long effort to achieve and realize. These objectives were summarized in a triple formula which gave a wide and lofty framework to the ancient system of education.
Lead me from falsehood to truth.
Lead me from darkness to light.
Lead me from death to immortality.
This formula proved to be so potent that it governed the Indian system of education for ages. Even today, remote as we are from that ancient ethos, we refer to it constantly for fresh inspiration.
To the ancient thinkers and sages, the ideals of truth, light and immortality constituted a triune unity, each subsisting in the other. Truth meant to them not an isolated fact, but one vast unity of the Objective Fact in which the multiplicity of facts and phenomena finds its essential oneness. Light meant to them a state of plenary consciousness in which essence and multiplicity is comprehended in a vast, undivided, unified and integral concentration. That state of consciousness in which the reality of unity and oneness is
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comprehended was found by them to be an imperturbable and imperishable state of immortality, a state in which one can permanently dwell and through which one can effectuate extraordinary transmutations of the process of the mind, life and body.
That Objective Fact, self-luminous and imperishable, which comprehends multiplicity in oneness, was named variously in the early records of Indian knowledge. The Veda, the earliest record, described it as the 'One Existent which the Wise call by various names' (ekam sad, vipra bahudha vadanti)* The Upanishads, the later records, describe it sometimes as sat, the Pure Existent, and sometimes as asat, the Non-Existent or the ineffable that transcends any particular description. The Upanishads also describe it as the Unknowable, an indefinable 'x', the Brahman, That (tat), the other which can be seized only by a process that dismisses every description by pronouncing 'not that, not that' (neti neti). The largest positive description the Upanishads gives of that 'x', that Something Else, is Sachchidananda (the conscious and delightful Existent).
The Upanishads admit clearly and unambiguously that the knowledge of the Sat or the Brahman is neither intellectual nor anti-intellectual. Indeed, it is beyond the grasp of the senses, atindriyam but it is still buddhigrahyam*,* seizable by the intellect. Pure Reason, it may be said, has the idea of essence, and by developing this idea, can arrive at some concept of the Brahman, even though Brahman is more than essence. However, according to strict criteria, knowledge is determined both through idea and through direct, abiding and undeniable experience. The strength of the Vedic and Upanishadic assertions is that they were arrived at by centuries of experiment in discovering and practising certain profound methods by which the Objective Fact, the Substance, that Multiple One, the simple-complex, the mysterious 'x' the Sat or the Brahman can be seized and known in direct experience.
It is said that existence is what we knock into; it is something we cannot think away, it stands and cannot be obliterated. But in normal experience, our subjective apparatus imposes its own categories on the object of experience, and we are thus prevented from experiencing the truly existent object—if, indeed, there is such a thing. We experience, to use Kant's terminology, quantity, quality, relation and modality, in addition to two forms of intuition. Space and Time. But we fail to experience the Object-in-itself, the
*Rig Veda. Mandela I, Sukta 164, Verse 46.
**Gita,VI.21.
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Existence-in-itself. The question is whether we can remove the blinders of our subjective mental consciousness, look freely at truth, and experience in a state of total objectivity the reality as it is.
The ancient Indian educational theory affirms that if, is possible to -transcend the limitations of sense-bound experience and reason-bound consciousness, and that the most fundamental object of education is to prepare the pupil to free himself from those limitations and attain that level of knowledge where he can dwell permanently in existent reality, in light and in immortality.
The early Indian educators made a distinction between Vidya and Avidya, between the knowledge of Existence-in-itself, in its totality and multiple manifestation, and the knowledge of multiplicity alone, without the comprehension of the underlying unity. And it was laid down that the aim of education, of life-long education, was to lead the individual to the knowledge which liberates from the limitations of Avidya, Sa Vidya ya vimuktaye.
If we study the Veda and the Upanishads in a truly scientific spirit, unprejudiced by any a priori dogma that the human limitations of consciousness cannot be transcended, we shall find that the authors of these ancient records were themselves true scientists and experimenters. Those thinkers and seers devoted all their energies to the study of human psychology so as to discover the methods by which we can attain freedom from our ordinary limitations. This discovery was the most significant achievement of ancient India. As Sri Aurobindo pointed out, '. . . the seers of ancient India had, in their experiments and efforts at spiritual training and the conquest of the body, perfected a discovery which in its importance to the future of human knowledge dwarfs the divinations of Newton and Galileo, even the discovery of the inductive and experimental method in Science was not more momentous..."
This discovery was the discovery of Yoga. The ancient seers made a distinction between religion and Yoga. Religion is a matter of belief, rituals and ceremonies, even though it may involve an inner practice of moral and spiritual discipline. Yoga, on the other hand, focuses on psychology and on developing the psychological faculties and powers by which the highest Object of Knowledge can be experienced. To the Yogin, what matters is that direct
Sri Aurobindo' The Upanishads, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.
vol. 12, p.6
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experience, attained by psychological enlargement, psychological purification and psychological revolution. Just as physical science starts with the natural phenomenon of lightning and utilizes various means to generate, control and distribute electricity on an increasing scale, even so Yoga takes up the ordinary psychological functioning of body, life and mind and discovers methods by which these psychological functionings can be brought to their highest pitch and then generated, controlled and used at will for the objects in view.
There were, indeed, specializations. Hatha Yoga, for example, concentrated on the subtle workings of the body, and by means of controlling and purifying these workings achieved astonishing results, not only of physical health and vigor but even of preparing the individual for deeper spiritual realizations. Raja Yoga specialized in dealing with mental vibrations and discovered methods by which the stuff of consciousness can be controlled and brought to a state of complete stillness in which the Object of Knowledge stands out clearly and luminously. The Yoga of Knowledge, the Yoga of Divine Love and the Yoga of Action took up, respectively, the workings of cognition, affection and conation, and arrived at extraordinary experiences of higher levels of consciousness and their corresponding objects of knowledge.
Those ancient seers also made a distinction between Yoga and philosophy. Philosophy was restricted to mean intellectual reasoning about the ultimate source of things or intellectual transcription of spiritual experience. It was recognized that Yoga transcended intellectual methods of thought and attempted to revolutionize the ego-bound operations of thinking, feeling and action so as to arrive at a new and heightened functioning of the higher self, the Atman or the Brahman.'
In spite of its specialized domains and crowning realizations, yogic research constantly strove to combine various systems of
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, it is said: "Therefore let the seeker, after he has done with learning, wish to stand by real strength (knowledge of the Self) which enables us to dispense with all other knowledge' (iii,5,I). In the same Upanishad, it is said again, 'He should not seek after the knowledge of the books, for that is mere weariness of the tongue' (iv,4,21). Describing the, higher Self, the Taittiriya Upanishad says: 'Before whom words and thought recoil, not finding him' (ii,4). The Kama Upanishad declares: 'Not by teaching is the Atman attained, nor by intellect, nor by much knowledge of books' (i,2,23).
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Yoga for purposes of arriving at synthetic and composite results. The Veda itself represented a certain kind of synthesis. Upanishadic seers made further research, recovered the Vedic Yoga, and brought about a fresh synthesis. Yoga, like science, was 'never looked upon as a closed book; like science. Yoga encouraged fresh quest and fresh realizations. Yoga came thus to be recognized as a science par excellence.
We have in the records of the Vedas and the Upanishads the names of those who developed this great science of yoga. The generic name is Rishi, the illumined seer, standing above the world and yet uplifting it by his upward gaze, unruffled concentration and compassionate wisdom. It was the Rishi who came to be acknowledged as the teacher and revered as Guru or Acharya. It is to the Rishi that the pupils went in search of training and knowledge, and the ancient Indian teacher-pupil relationship came to be determined by the profound and even inscrutable ways by which the teachers and pupils. Gurus and Shishyas, developed their modes and methods of exploring knowledge, discovering the aim and meaning of life, and practicing disciplines for arriving at psychological perfection.
The names of the Vedic Rishis still reverberate in the Indian atmosphere, inspiring veneration and obeisance—the names of Vishwamitra and Vashishtha, Vamadeva and Bharadwaja, Madhuchhandas and Dirghatamas, Gritsamada and Medhatithi." Some of the prose Upanishads have a vivid narrative which restores for us, though only in brief glimpses, the picture of that extraordinary stir and movement of enquiry and passion for the highest knowledge which made the Upanishads possible.
We see here how the soul of India was born, and we come to recognize the Vedas and Upanishads as not only the fountainhead of Indian philosophy and spirituality, of Indian art, poetry and
These great names are those to whom various parts of the Rig Veda are attributed. The Rig Veda, as we possess it, is arranged in ten books. They are called Mandalas. Six of the Mandalas are attributed each to the hymns of a single Rishi or a family of Rishis. Thus the second Mandala is devoted chiefly to the Suktas of the Rishi Gritsamada, the third Mandala and the Seventh Mandala to Vishwamitra and Vashishtha, respectively, the fourth to Vamadeva, the sixth to Bharadwaja. The Fifth is occupied by the hymns of the house of Atri. Other Mandalas contain the hymns of several Rishis and Rishikas. The prominent names of Rishikas in the Rig Veda are: Romasha, Lopamudra, Apala, Kadru, Vishwavara.
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literature, but also of Indian education and of the Indian tradition of teacher-pupil relationship.
The most important idea governing the ancient system of education was that of perfection, for developing the mind and soul of man. Indian education aimed at helping the individual to grow in the power and force of certain large universal qualities which in their harmony build a higher type of manhood. In Indian thought and life, this was the ideal of the best, the law of the good or noble man, the discipline laid down for the self-perfecting individual. this ideal was not a purely moral or ethical conception, although that element pre-dominated; it was also intellectual, social, aesthetic, the flowering of the whole ideal man, the perfection of the total human nature. We meet in the Indian conception of best, shreshtha, the most varied qualities. In the heart benevolence, beneficence, love, compassion, altruism, long-suffering, liberality, kindliness, patience; in the character courage, heroism, energy, loyalty, continence, truth, honour, justice, faith, obedience and reverence where these were due, but power too to govern and direct, a fine modesty and yet a strong independence and noble pride; in the mind wisdom and intelligence and love of learning, knowledge of all the best thought, openness to poetry, art and beauty, an educated capacity and skill in works; in the inner being piety, love of God, seeking after the highest, the spiritual turn; in social relations and conduct a strict observance of all social obligations as father, son, husband, brother, kinsman, friend, ruler or subject, master or servant, prince or warrior or worker, king or sage. This ideal is clearly portrayed in the written records of ancient India. It was the creation of an ideal and rational mind, both spirit-wise and worldly-wise, deeply spiritual, nobly ethical, firmly yet flexibly intellectual, scientific and aesthetic, patient and tolerant of life's difficulties and human weakness, but arduous in self-discipline.
The ancient Indian system of education developed as a part of the general system of Indian culture. This system at once indulged and controlled man's nature; it fitted him for his social role; it stamped on his mind the generous ideal of an accomplished humanity, refined, harmonious in all its capacities, ennobled in all its members; but it placed before him too the theory and practice of Yoga, the theory and practice of a higher change, familiarized him with the concept of a spiritual existence and sowed in him a
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hunger for the divine and the infinite. The pupil was not allowed to forget that he had within him a higher self beyond his little personal ego, and that numerous ways and disciplines were provided by which he could realize this higher self or at least turn and follow at a distance this higher aim according to his capacity and nature, adhikara. Around him he saw and revered the powerful teachers who practised and were mighty masters of these disciplines.
In the Indian system of education, there was a great deal of emphasis on discipline. The life of the pupil began with a resolve to impose upon himself the ideal and practice of Brahmacharya, which meant not only physical continence, but a constant burning aspiration for the knowledge of the Brahman. This one ideal uplifted the physical, vital and mental energies in unified concentration to achieve self-knowledge and self-mastery. For this reason, the pupil came to be called the Brahmacharin, one who has resolved to follow the discipline of Brahmacharya. Vratam charishyami—I shall resolutely follow my vow, is what the pupil resolves when he embarks upon his journey of discipleship.
Pursuit of truth was a part of the discipline of Brahmacharya; so also was the pursuit of kindliness, harmony and love, ahimsa. Practice of renunciation of the sense of personal possession of things and relations, renunciation of covetousness that leads to theft and collection of personal possessions, were also part of a pupil's self-discipline. In addition, the pupil was expected to develop purity—purity of the body, purity of emotions and purity of thought.
Swadhyaya (self-study) was the corner-stone of the pupil's discipline and method of learning. The pupil was expected to develop extraordinary powers of memory, imagination and thought. The predominance of oral tradition necessitated the cultivation of the power of memory; the high content of philosophical and spiritual knowledge necessitated the cultivation of subtlety and complexity of thought; the natural setting of the Ashrams and Gurukulas in the open forest, where nature could be an intimate friend and companion, necessitated the cultivation of the power of inner communion, imagination and natural delight.
That the life of the pupil was vigorous and rigorous cannot be doubted. But it must not be supposed that there was any absence of mirth and joy. In some of the accounts of life in the Ashrams re is ample evidence to show that the system of education was
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flexible, free from the rigidities found in the lecture and examination-oriented system in which our present system of education is imprisoned. A good deal of individual attention was paid to every pupil. The teacher was not expected to demand from the pupil more than the highest effort of which he was capable. The teacher varied his method with each pupil, and education was devised to suit each individual's need of growth and development. In Abhijnana Shakuntalam, Kalidasa gives a beautiful portrayal of the Ashram of Kanva, a great Rishi revered by common people and kings alike. In this Ashram there were both boys and girls, and while the atmosphere was surcharged with tapasya, self-discipline, there was also fun and frolic among friends. No feeling of rigidity is portrayed in this beautiful drama. There is, rather, restrained charm, joy and beauty. Other accounts, too, such as those in the Ramavana and the Mahabharata, describe the color and warmth of the interplay of the forces of human nature, and give examples of how the teacher dealt with this interplay with gentle firmness guided by mature experience and wisdom*
The teacher, the Rishi, was the seer who had lived the fullness of life and had often led the life of a householder. In some accounts the Rishi's wife was also a Rishi in her own right and lived in the Ashram along with her husband, providing material care for the pupils. The Ashram was veritable Gurukula, where the pupils were loved and cared for as members of the Guru's family.
In those times the task of the teacher was to awaken more than to instruct. It was understood that true knowledge depended on the cultivation of powers of concentration, which in turn depended
"In the Mahabharata (i.70), there is a description of Kanva's hermitage. It was situated on the banks of the Malini, a tributary of the Sarayu River. Numerous hermitages stretched round the central hermitage At this Ashram, there were specialists in each of the four Vedas; in Phonetics, Metrics, Grammar, and Nirukta. There were also philosophers .well-versed in the science of the Absolute. There were logicians. There were also specialists in the physical sciences and arts. In this forest university, the study of every available branch of learning was cultivated. In the Ramayana (vi,126; ii, 90-2), we have an interesting description of the hermitage of Rishi Bharadwaja at Prayaga. This hermitage was one of the biggest of the times. The Ashram was equipped with stalls to accommodate the royal elephants and horses; there were mansions and palaces and gateways. A separate royal guest house was furnished with beds, seats, vehicles, coverlets and carpets, stores of food. The Ashram also entertained its royal guests with performances by musicians and dancing girls.
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upon great quietude of the mind and absence of demands of impatient and hurried work. It was also acknowledged that some of the greatest truths needed to be practised by voluntary choice and persistent, dedicated discipline. The system of education provided ample opportunities for the pupil to experience the significance of free-choice, particularly the choice between the good and the pleasant, shréyas and préyas. What was discouraged was personal indulgence or undisciplined preference; but the very object of education implied free choice at every important stage of a pupil's growth. In other words, freedom of choice and an increasing experience of spiritual freedom blended together in that system of education.
It is sometimes argued that the ancient Indian tradition gave too much importance to reverence to the teacher.' It is contended that the teacher was unduly placed on the highest pedestal and that this developed authoritarianism in the teacher and slavishness in the pupil. How shall we meet this criticism? What truth lies behind it? In the course of history, when the Rishi came to be replaced by the Pandit, the illumined seer by the erudite scholar, there was quite often a tendency on the part of the Pandit to arrogate to himself the natural power, authority and influence of the Rishi, and this did injure the tradition. Further degeneration came about when the pandit was replaced by ordinary sophists, debaters and bookish teachers. At the same time, it must be said that the good Pandits and ordinary teachers refrained from arrogating to themselves the authority of the Rishi. Indeed, the ideal we find in the ancient Indian system is that it is not only by obediently serving the teacher but also by repeated and full questioning that the pupil can gain the right knowledge, pari prashnena, pari sevaya.
Actually, reverence for the teacher was enjoined upon the pupil for three main reasons. In the first place, Indian culture and consequently the Indian system of education strove to subordinate the demands of the ego to the demands of society, of the world and of the higher self. An attempt was made to create systems and practices—through rule, tradition or other means—by which the demands of the higher self were given a predominant position. In
One well-known verse speaks of C7uru as Brahma, as Vishnu and as Maheshwara. He is equated with the Supreme Absolute Being.
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fact, not only the teacher, but the mother and the father and even the guest were given a place of high reverence. As the Taittiriya Upanishad says: Matri devo bhava, pitri devo bhava, acharya devo bhava, atithi devo bhava. ('Let thy father be unto thee as thy God, and thy mother as thy Goddess whom thou adorest. Serve the master as a God, and as a God the stranger within thy dwelling.')
The second reason was that the Rishi represented not only a mature worldly and scholarly wisdom but also a high spiritual realization, and thus was to be doubly revered. In modem days, where knowledge is easily available through books and other means of communication, our full appreciation of knowledge is likely to be considerably diminished. Thus we may not be able to understand, why the Guru was assigned high and exceptional reverence. But we must note that the Vedic and Upanishadic periods were marked by an intense quest for new knowledge. There was, as it were, an unquenchable thirst, and only the thirsty know what gratitude is due to the one who quenches the thirst. In that context, then, reverence for the teacher was not something imposed upon the pupil; the real seeker became psychologically impelled to revere anyone who had knowledge and could transmit it effectively to him. This was particularly true when the knowledge sought after was not only pragmatic and intellectual but spiritual. For among all human endeavours, spiritual endeavour is the most difficult, beset with the greatest difficulties. In certain circumstances, the pursuit of spiritual knowledge requires vigilant direction and guidance. Spiritual search is like a search in a virgin forest, and the law of that search exacts from the seeker the highest price of self-sacrifice and consecration. The guide and teacher on the spiritual path, therefore, deserves the highest reverence. The intricacies and hazards of the spiritual endeavour are known to the teacher, and it is often unwise to reveal them to the seeker in advance. Spiritual discoveries and realizations imply major psychological surgery. These operations the pupil cannot perform by himself; a teacher is needed. And just as a doctor demands from the patient a high degree of trust and obedience, so does the teacher of the spiritual path.
But there is a third reason for the reverence demanded of the pupil for the teacher. The Indian educational and yogic system recognized that the real teacher is the supreme Brahman seated within oneself,, and sooner rather than later, the seeker must discover the inner teacher and the inner guide.
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The necessity for the pupil to have the external word or the external guidance of a teacher is then seen to be a concession to human limitations. We require external aids until we realize the true inner Aid. This being the case, the external teacher comes to represent to the seeker the Supreme Brahman. Therefore, the reverence due to the Supreme is offered by the seeker to the external teacher. On his part, the external teacher, if he knows his true position, looks upon his task as a trust given to him from above. He realizes the relativity of his importance. Knowing that the real teacher is seated within the pupil, he hands over the .task of guidance to that inner guide as soon as possible. Until then, he devotes all his energies to one single aim, the flowering of the pupil's faculties and the awakening of the inner guide seated within the pupil's heart. It is to such a teacher that the ancient tradition of India assigned highest reverence.
The good teacher is not content with his own self-knowledge. He constantly seeks fresh knowledge and attempts to share it with other seekers. His prayer is that of the Rishi in the Taittiriya Upanishad, who says:
May the Brahmacharins come unto me. Swaha!
From here and there may the Brahmacharins come unto me. Swaha!
May the Brahmacharins set forth unto me. Swaha!
May the Brahmacharins attain to peace of soul. Swaha!'
The good teacher as conceived in the ancient system of India interweaves his own life with the life of his pupils. He aspires and prays not for himself alone but also for his pupils. Togetherness is the watchword of the good teacher.
He prays:
Together may He protect us,
Together may He possess us,
Together may we make unto us strength and virility;
Taittiriya Upanishad, Shikshavalli, chapter 4.
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May our study be full to us of light and power.
May we never hate.'
And what is the advice that the good teacher gives to his pupils? He says, 'Speak truth, walk in the way of thy duty, neglect not the study of knowledge. Thou shalt not be negligent of truth; thou shalt not be negligent of thy duty, thou shalt not be negligent of welfare; thou shalt not be negligent towards thy increase and thy thriving; thou shalt not be negligent of the study and teaching of the highest Truth'.
During the Vedic and Upanishadic periods, and even later, there was an emphasis on the pursuit of an integral aim of life, which determined the discipline of integral education. Both the material and spiritual poles of being had their place in this system. The ancient Sanskrit adage, shareeram adyam khalu dharma sadhanam (a sound body is the veritable instrument of the pursuit of the ideal law of life) underlined the importance of physical education. There was also a clear recognition that the fullness of physical, vital and mental culture was necessary for arriving at spiritual perfection. And if we study the Yoga of the Veda in its inmost significance, we find that there was an intense research into the possibilities of spiritual manifestation in physical life. There was a secret knowledge that the highest light is contained in the darkest caves of the physical or the inconscient, and that one must descend into the depths of darkness to recover that highest light. In practical terms, this implied not rejection of physical and material life but an intensive cultivation and transformation of that life.
It is true that there was a gradual deviation from the original Vedic conception of life and education. Much of it was recovered by the seers of the Upanishads, and the integrality of spirit and matter was preserved in some of their teachings. But already a kind of exclusivism had become manifest during the Upanishadic Age. Later, sharp distinctions came to be made between Spirit and Matter, and a denunciation of material life became more and more predominant. The call of the spirit and a recoil from matter characterize powerful movements of Indian thought. This affected the educational system, and the original impulse of integral education was lost. The consequences have been disastrous, and today we are in a deep crisis.
Taittiriya Upanishad, Brahmanandavalli, chapter I.
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But is it a question merely of recovering that original impulse? Are we to propose revivalism? This is a matter of controversy. Although what was valuable in the ancient system should be preserved and developed, if we examine the spirit of the Indian Renaissance and the task it has set out to accomplish, we find that a mere revival of the old will not suffice; we shall have to admit new elements and new attitudes which are valuable for preparing the future humanity.
The Indian Renaissance strove for an India that is genuinely Indian and genuinely universal. India became free not only for itself but for the sake of humanity. Free India has to take up the deeper problems that today confront humanity as a whole. As Sri Aurobindo points out:
Mankind is passing today through an evolutionary crisis in which is contained the choice of its destiny.
It is in that context that Sri Aurobindo undertook a program of research involving the discovery of new knowledge in the light of which a new synthesis relevant to the needs of today and tomorrow can be created. The secret of that synthesis, as pointed out by Sri Aurobindo, is the manifestation of Spirit in Matter, leading to an unprecedented perfection and even a mutation of the human species. Sri Aurobindo's discovery of the Super-mind and its possibility of full operation in physical life may be regarded as the most significant gift of renascent India to humanity's effort to overcome its crisis.
This has also a momentous consequence for education. The new education that must be built should be a new kind of integral education that will aim at organizing that discovery in more and more concrete forms. This is a matter of continuing experimentation and research*
* In Appendix I some passages are presented from the Veda and the Upanishads which will provide a few glimpses of the aspirations and realisations of the Rishis, who were teachers, and of the early system of Indian concept of education.
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The Rishi and the Society
It is difficult to assess the immensity of the influence that the Vedic rishis exercised over the people in the midst of whom they lived and with whom they had direct or indirect contact. But there is no doubt that the Vedic rishis were held in highest esteem by people of all categories and that their advice was sought and implemented so readily that they were able to cast the early forms of social life in some flexible mould so as to secure progressive unfoldment and development of culture on some sound and original lines over the centuries and millennia.
Three important points may, in this regard, be noted.
I. In the first place, the image and ideal of rishihood was so strongly impressed upon the society that the rishi has been held throughout the ages as the object of the highest reverence. The word of the rishi, whether of the past or of the present, has had always an authority greater than that of any other leader of the society. Even the law of the state was very often obeyed and accepted by the people only when it received sanction from the rishi. Often, the word of the rishi had an automatic authority of the law of the state. Many rapid changes in society were effected in certain important periods of Indian history, not by any struggle of the people or by any legislative process, but simply by what the rishi said or advised.
II. There was an explicit recognition in the society of a distinction between the rishi and the priest. The mark of the rishi is that he has lived in fullness the human life and experienced the true truth of man and the universe. He lives in the truth and hears the truth and reveals the truth and the limitations of time and space do not apply to him. At the highest, the rishi has the knowledge of the past, of the present and the future, possessed of trikalajnana and trikaladrishti (the knowledge of the three times, past,
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present and future, and the perception of the three times). The rishi has not only the knowledge but he has also the wisdom. The rishi is not only a man of contemplation but also a warrior, a hero, capable of handling the most difficult situations of human life and giving an unambiguous and sure guidance. The rishi is not a mere transmitter of tradition, but he can, if necessary, break the tradition and establish the new. The rishi was not merely a scholar, often he was not a scholar at all, but he could command knowledge whenever needed. He was not a mental being, but one who had transcended the limitations of the mental consciousness and had a direct access to superior modes of knowledge and action. All this was recognized by masses of people throughout the Indian history, and it is-a significant fact that throughout the ages India has thrown up a long and unbroken line of rishis of various orders (even among the rishis there are recognized gradations), and there is hardly a period in which there have not been at least a few rishis recognized and revered by the people.
III. The rishi alone was and has been recognized as the real teacher, the guru. He alone has the authority and power to mediate between the seeker and the supreme Object of seeking. He has the power of evocation, and he can, if he so chooses and feels necessary to break the seals of the seeker's consciousness, lead him to the direct experience of the reality. He has the right word of instruction and the right mantra of initiation. He is himself an example of the ideal that he places before the seeker, and he has a spontaneous power of influence, not indeed of any external authority or arrogant arbitrariness, but that which flows from his inmost being to the inmost being of the seeker. He is, in fact, a teacher because he does not teach, he is simply a channel of the real Teacher who is seated in the heart of every living and thinking being. He is a brother of brothers, a child leading the children.
Such has been the concept of the rishi as the teacher in Indian culture. And those who practised teaching but did not reach the stage of rishihood were not accorded the highest reverence that is due to the guru. They were acharyas, but not rishis. The acharyas were respected for their learning, for their proficiency, for their special standing in their respective disciplines of knowledge and art, but they received the highest reverence only when they rose to rishihood. The rishi was the ideal even for the acharyas, and every
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teacher has been enjoined in Indian culture to grow progressively into the image of the rishi.
A remarkable feature of the institution of the rishi is the special place accorded to the rishis by the rulers, politicians, statesmen and administrators. Rishi was to them not merely a spiritual preceptor but also an adviser in regard to state policy and state affairs. The rishi was approached by them for counsel and his counsel was accepted. And this determined the major developments of the political and social activities and institutions. Often rishis presided over the special sacrifices as Rajsuya and Ashavmedha. And there are traditions of rishis acting as permanent political advisers. In fact, there arose in India an arrangement whereby rishis became as a rule principal advisers or ministers, and they exercised supervening influence in kings' councils.
It was from this arrangement that, as varna system became more and more pronounced, there grew a tradition of Kshatriya king and a Brahmin minister. The Kshatriyas represented the qualities not only of courage, heroism, but also of power and strength, and ambition and desire for rule. The Kshatriyas represented, predominantly, the principle of vital force, and it was known in Indian psychology that the vital force, if left unbridled or untransformed, could easily become a source of mis-adventure and even of destruction. Happily, the Brahmin as a minister provided to the Kshatriya king the right guidance and inspiration which the pure intelligence of intellect and intuition can give. For the Brahmins, even when far below the Rishis in their attainments, represented the qualities of the clarity of the intellect and wise intuitive perception as also wide knowledge of sciences and arts and of affairs and men. The Brahmin often lacked the drive and intuition and force of action, and thus he needed as his complement the Kshatriya, just as the Kshatriya needed the Brahmin as his complement. This combination of the Brahmin and Kshatriya in regard to political power and activity constituted a wise and powerful element in Indian culture, and this was certainly one of the important factors in the stability and ordered progress of many kingdoms and states that flourished from age to age. This system was not without its defects, and there were often rivalries between the king and the minister for supremacy. But, on the whole, these rivalries were a part of the natural friction among powerful personalities. In due course, however, the tradition began to break and after the first
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millennium of the Christian era, this system operated only in some parts and only for short periods from time to time. New systems of political organization were introduced, and after centuries, under the British rule, an alien way of rule and administration prevailed over most parts of India.
It is, however, important to note that the basic Vedic idea of the rishi as the seer and knower and as a guide of the individual and collective life has remained alive, at least to a certain degree, even in the present-day India. And there is even today an imagination and conviction in some deep recesses of Indian thought and feeling that there cannot be right and wise and ideal governance of society unless the rishi or a group of rishis guide and exercise political power. In some such conviction, Indian culture is today seeking, mostly secretly, to bring to the surface the wisdom and guidance of the rishis.
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The Veda,
Intuition and Philosophy
The influence of the Veda is remarkably perceptible in the development and growth of Indian science, art, literature and philosophy. It has been affirmed that the Veda contains a vast body of scientific knowledge and that it anticipates even the most modem ideas of Physics, Chemistry and Astronomy. It is true that it is difficult to prove this affirmation since such a proof would require a vast and difficult research. But there is no doubt that among many possible interpretations of the Veda there could be a possible line which could open up various clues and deliver to us some startling conclusions which would prove that the Vedic seers had by some special methods of knowledge known what the modem science has now discovered or is still groping to discover. In any case, it is true that the Indian scientists who developed astonishing ideas and concepts of Mathematics, Astronomy, Medicine and Physics and Chemistry refer to the Veda and Vedantic knowledge as the source of their inspiration and knowledge.
In regard to philosophy, Veda occupies a very special position. The Indian system of philosophy that specializes in logic and epistemology (Nyaya Philosophy) distinguishes between various means of knowledge, and affirms that the Veda itself is the supreme means of knowledge. And this is the position which is accepted by all the other philosophies which claim to have been derived from the Veda. These philosophies include, apart from Nyaya, also Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Poorva Mimamsa, Uttara Mimamsa and the varied interpretations of the philosophy of the Uttara Mimamsa, notably the philosophies of Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhwa, Nimbarka, Vallabha, Chaitanya and others.
The Veda is also known as Shruti. The word 'shruti' literally means that which is heard. Now it has been contended that the Vedic knowledge is a result of a special hearing. This hearing is not
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sensual, but it is something which occurs when all senses are withdrawn and when even thought process is silenced and surpassed. It is a phenomenon that occurs on a plane of consciousness known as that of Intuition (a word which hardly connotes what it is intended to connote).
In other words, it has been held that intuition is a means of knowledge that is distinguishable very clearly from the knowledge derived by senses or by reasoning or by analogy. The knowledge derived by intuition is not only direct but it springs from the identity of the subject and the object which are related to each other in the process of knowledge. This process does not need to depend upon the exercise of the senses. This knowledge sees even when eyes are closed, it hears even when ears are sealed. Again, this knowledge is not ratiocinative. It does not strive to arrive at a conclusion on the basis of premises and by the help of some universal principles. This knowledge is immediate, there are no premises in this process. The conclusions are themselves the states of experience intimately identical with the objects of knowledge. Finally, this knowledge is not open to fallacies, doubts or errors, since these deficiencies belong only to senses or to the processes of reasoning. The intuitive knowledge is, therefore, regarded as authentic and true. Just as the light of the sun can be proved only through light itself, even so the light of this knowledge can be proved through this very light. This knowledge is, therefore, also known as swayam prabha, self-luminous.
It is affirmed that the entire gamut of the Vedic knowledge is intuitive. It is self-luminous and true.
On this basis, it has been held that the Vedic knowledge is authentic and authoritative. Also, when there are disputes arising from conflicts of sense-observation and of diverse philosophical reasonings, they can all be resolved by referring to the authentic knowledge of the Veda.
An important element of Indian philosophy which admits the Veda as an authority is that it does not accept the conclusions of philosophical reasoning as conclusive, unless they are supported also by the pronouncements of the Veda. Indian philosophy, therefore, considers Shruti as a conclusive criterion of truth. Thus we find Indian philosophers adducing philosophical arguments in support of their philosophical point of view, but their final argument is always a statement from the Veda. And it is this
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statement from the Veda which brings the debate to the final end.
It is necessary to distinguish between the authority that is assigned to the Veda in Indian philosophy from the authority that is assigned to dogma.
It is true that both of them claim unquestionablity and both of them claim superiority to reason. But while the authority of dogma cannot be verified in any fresh or repeatable experience, the authority of the Veda can, it is held, be verified in a fresh and repeatable experience, even in an abiding experience. Thus when it is said that Indian philosophy admits Shruti as the final authority, what is really meant is that Indian philosophy admits experience intuitive experience as the final authority.
This subject of the authority of the Veda in Indian philosophy is extremely important, and as a matter of a purely philosophical discussion, it is a highly controversial issue. Much of this controversy is due to the fact that in course of history, Veda did come to be used as an unquestionable dogma.
It is this tendency to reduce freshness of intuitive knowledge to a body of dogmatic revelations that produced a reaction among some of the robust minds and spirits in India. Thus there arose in India a very powerful anti-Vedic tradition, and there are a number of philosophies which refuse to accept the authority of the Veda. The important among them are the philosophies of Jainism, Buddhism, Charvaka.
It must be said, however, that the Vedic seers themselves did not regard their own experiences to be used dogmatically. The Vedas themselves are a record of experiences and they were never intended to be a dogmatic authority. The Upanishadic seers did not look upon the Veda as a dogma. They endeavoured to compare their experiences among those of the contemporaries and of the Vedic forefathers. Fortunately, this tradition of comparison and verification of the Vedantic knowledge did not die away completely. And thus it was possible in India to continue spiritual research and to arrive at new spiritual truths. And it seems that it is this tradition which has now begun to gain ascendancy and the future of Indian philosophy is sure to break a new ground that will affirm intuitive experience as an authority and superior means of knowledge but which will reject it as any binding dogma.
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The Veda and the concept of Dharma
The Veda has been regarded as the foundation of Indian Culture and the Rishis of the Veda have been revered throughout the ages in India as having heard the truth and revealed it and thus given perennial wisdom to guide the development of the future.
One of the most dominant ideas of Indian culture has been that of Dharma, and this has been a consequence of the Vedic discovery of the Rita, the Right. According to the Vedic Rishis, there is, at the summit of consciousness, a power of action which arranges forces and activities of the universe by an automatic harmony of relationships, movements and results. The right law of this automatic harmony is the Rita. The Rita itself is founded in the truth of the Reality and of the universe, (satyam), and its field of action is the totality which is the infinite vast (brihat). It is by the discovery of the Rita that, according to the Vedic Rishis/ the human consciousness is delivered from the crookedness of the ignorant mental action. The actions of truth are direct and straight and the law of this directness and straightness is the Rita. There is no groping in the Truth-consciousness, and there is no attempt at inventing devices for initiating and accomplishing any action. Thus, when the Truth-consciousness is achieved, there is automaticity and spontaneity of action as also the right rhythm of action. Since the action of Truth-Consciousness is automatic and spontaneous, it cannot be fixed by any arbitrary rule of the mental intelligence or by any pragmatic or utilitarian necessities of individual or collective life. The Rita, therefore, cannot be prescribed or circumscribed by any legislation or any man-made law. Rita is, indeed, the right law of action, but it issues from the vast consciousness of the truth, and it is thus superior to any human standards of action or any laws of the individual and collective life.
It is this idea of Rita which lay behind the governing ideas that determined the organization of the varied aspects of life in India. Fundamentally, it gave rise to the predominant tendency to place
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the law of the truth as the sole law to which the individual and the collectivity are called upon to give their ultimate allegiance. Thus there came about in India an organization of human life in which each individual and collectivity was given the freedom to develop in accordance with the law of the truth; even the state authorities could legislate, but the legislation itself had to be in accordance with and in subservience to the law of the truth. This is what is meant by the law of Dharma and this is significance of the superiority that was ascribed to Dharma in determining the individual and collective life.
It is true that, according to the Vedic Rishis, Rita had to be discovered by each individual and that Rita could not be formulated in the form of rigid law. There are, however, certain universal harmonies, which once discovered, could become guidelines of action for those who had not yet directly experienced the Truth Consciousness. These guidelines were to be found in the Veda itself, and they were expressed, tacitly or explicitly, as revelations and given to people in their varying capacities of receptivity as direct lines of approach to the truth either through a discipline or spiritual practice or through symbolism or through significant ritualism of the sacrifice. Thus there was no one uniform formulation of the law of the harmonies, and yet, there was a kind of coordination and an ascending gradation laid down for a progressive approach to the right law of action.
It is from this complex scheme and formulation that the later idea of Dharma grew and developed. As the original idea of Rita could never be rigidly fixed, even so, there could not be in India any one fixed formulation of Dharma. In a certain sense, Dharma has always remained some indefinable thing. Thus although Dharma has been upheld as the highest non-legislative law which even the highest state authorities had to obey, there is no where in India one fixed and uniform formulation of Dharma. Indeed/there have been several formulations and in many respects these formulations themselves have been in conflict with each other, and there are attempts even to reconcile this conflict resulting in some new flexible and synthetic formulation of law. From this complexity of the situation, there has arisen in India some universal and general idea of Dharma and certain recognized variations of the formulations of Dharma. The great Smritis of Yajnavalkya and Manu are attempts to codify this Dharma, and although these two are
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themselves in conflict with each other in many respects, they have provided a general background of a common formulation of the basic idea of Dharma. But this codification itself was never regarded as absolute, and although in later times they came to be applied rigidly, there were always supervening claims of the unformulated Dharma. In fact, we find in most catholic teachings such as those of the Gita an injunction to transcend all Dharmas and to surrender to the highest Truth and to the Supreme Divine.
Dharma is indeed a law or a guideline to prevent human beings from falling into crooked ways of the ordinary and unbridled demands of impulses, desires, ambitions and egoisms. That is why, Indian culture enjoined upon individuals to restrain the life of desire for enjoyment and for personal profit under the control of the uplifting law of Dharma. Thus we find in India, the prevalent idea that Kama and Artha, passion and personal gain are only the first elementary motives of life for the ordinary man and that they are not to be ends in themselves. Kama and Artha. are to be superseded by Dharma. The individual is asked to grow out of passions and impulses and his selfish and egoistic interests to reach the life of ideal law of Dharma.
But even Dharma is not, according to Indian culture, the highest stage or motive of human life. For Dharma itself is not something fixed or rigid. And even if the initial stages of the pursuit of Dharma are guided by some fixed and acceptable code of conduct and action and behavior, the individual has to discover Swadharma, one's own specific law of the right rhythm of self-development. For Indian culture recognizes that every individual has his own specific dharma, the peculiar and individual law of the rhythm of his growth appropriate to his own individual functions and special combinations of his qualities and capacities. Thus the life of Dharma has to be a life of inner search, a life of self-knowledge. And when one begins to deal with himself, he discovers series of rhythms and ascending lines of Dharma. The individual is asked and allowed by the Indian culture to follow his swadharma to its own extreme limit, and at the height of this pursuit the individual discovers the real truth of himself, the true spiritual stuff of himself and also the true spiritual way of action, which cannot be bound by any previously formulated law of Dharma. This is the inner meaning of spiritual liberation, or moksha, which is placed before the individual as the superior or supreme aim of life.
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There was a period in Indian history when the insistence on Dharma and the insistence on spiritual liberation as the higher and highest motive of life was at its peak. Such was the period that we find described in the Ramayana and Mahabharata. In later period, this insistence became weakened. But it was never entirely lost. It is true that the idea of Dharma itself became distorted and ill-conceived, and came to be imposed rigidly upon people and upon castes with some kind of brutality and intolerance. Thus, the inner kernel of Dharma, its inspiring force, its subtlety and its flexibility—all these suffered. But there always remained a deeper idea of Dharma available to individuals and communities who dared to revolt against the limiting and falsifying impositions of ill-conceived Dharma.
It must be admitted that the concept of Dharma although derived from the Vedic concept of Rita, was nonetheless its diminution, and it was inevitable that it could not remain for long a dynamic ideal. It broke down much earlier in the field of collective life, and even though it still continues to be respected and even practised to some extent by individuals in their individual life, it has betrayed its weaknesses and self-contradictions since the last several centuries. And under the impact of foreign invasions, particularly since the British introduced and imposed upon India the commercial scheme of values, there has arisen a tremendous confusion. In the renascent India there has been a new search and even attempts to revive the old scheme of values and of Dharma, but they are not found to be relevant and applicable to the present conditions.
This is where India is today. It is able neither to leave its old image nor to cast itself perilously in the image of the modern West. It is a state of suffocation, and yet the inertia inherited by it since the last several centuries is so great that there is not even a sufficient effort emerging from this suffocation.
This condition cannot last long, and we are forced to ask if the solution lies, not in return to Dharma, but in returning to the original Rita. But there is also a deeper question as to whether there was any special reason which necessitated the deviation or diminution of Rita at early stage of our history into Dharma, and later on into its fall. The question is if this special reason does not hold good even today. Or else it could be that the Vedic Rita itself was not sufficiently explored and fixed in life with sufficient knowledge
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and force. If so, there is an urgent need not only to rediscover the Rita but also to explore some new lines which still remained untraced in the past. In some such effort seems to be an answer to the smothering crisis of the present-day India.
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Dharma and Fourfold Social Order
An important feature of the organization of Indian life was the complex and subtle arrangement of human life through four orders of communal life and four stages of individual life.
The human life was conceived as a process of gradual growth, and provisions came to be made in each stage of growth so as to stabilize that stage and to lead it gradually to the next higher stage. Thus, four major stages came to be recognized and each stage was presented with a set of ideals to be pursued and fulfilled. Each stage had its own dharma. These four, namely, brahmacharya (continence of student life), grihastha (balance of enjoyment and performance of duties appropriate to the householder), the vanaprastha (the preparation to leave ordinary life by enlargement, by travel, and by detachment, symbolized by dwelling in the forest), and sanyasa (final renunciation of ordinary life for the exclusive pursuit of spiritual life), were conceived as psychological stages of a large and flexible framework for the growth of the individual. And the general conditions of social life were so organized as to provide to each individual the necessary help needed by him at a given stage of his growth. This was further facilitated by the recognition of four types of temperaments among people with corresponding social functions, resulting in four divisions of the people in a composite social life. These four, the Brahmin (with the temperament that seeks knowledge and fulfills itself in the function of the teacher), the Kshatirya (with the temperament of power, courage, action and heroism which fulfills itself in the function of the ruler and the administrator), the Vaishya (with the temperament of mutuality, harmony and inter-change that fulfills itself in the function of commerce and inter-relationships), and Shudra (with the temperament of technical skill, service and physical labor), were the recognized types, each one requiring a stable field of education, experience and expression. Each type had its own dharma, and each had the suitable means of growth not only
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within its own limits, but also beyond to rise higher to the next ascending type of temperament and function. This was the original idea of varna, and at a certain stage of human civilization, this system provided not only psychological satisfaction but also some kind of a harmonious functioning of the social whole.
At the root of all this lay the original distinction made by the Vedic Rishis between the initiate and the non-initiate, between the one who was fit to receive the secret knowledge and revelation and the one who was too gross to receive the secrets of initiation. The Vedic Rishis recognised that the human being needs preparation before he can bear higher knowledge and culture. To prepare the individual was itself a subtle art of education, and the educator himself has to be the one who is not only an initate but also the accomplished, the Siddha, the Rishi. The important idea that developed in Vedic system of education was that of adhikara. Adhikara meant a special qualification to receive education and training at a given stage of development which would also be appropriate for the preparation to rise to the next higher stage of development. Thus the higher knowledge could be imparted only to those who had the necessary qualification or adhikara for it. But there was also a recognition of the possibilities for each individual to obtain higher and higher stages of adhikara by means of self-development and self-culture. In the original Vedic concept, there was no rigidity and no final prohibition against any one in the pursuit of the highest knowledge. It only underlined the need for gradual development, balanced development, and comprehensive development.
The original concept of the chaturvarna (four orders) was in the Veda symbolic and spiritual. The Purusha Sukta of the Veda speaks of the four orders as having sprung from the body of the creative Deity (Purusha), from his head, arms, thighs and legs. In the Vedic idea, the four orders represented the Divine in four aspects, the Divine as knowledge, the Divine as power, the Divine as production, enjoyment and mutuality, and the Divine as service, obedience and work.
In later times, however, there did enter rigidities and prohibitions and the whole system ultimately declined into rigid classifications and into codes of privileges and prohibitions. The Ashram system (the system of stages of life) broke down much earlier, the varna system (the system of classification in society) continued a
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little longer, but it began to crystallise itself and gradually degraded itself into a rigid caste system.
The caste system is still persistent. It is true that this system has come to be regarded as pernicious and injurious to the individual and to the society, and attempts have been made to get rid of this system, but there has been much failure.
Attempts are sometimes made to replace the caste system by the original and flexible system of varnas, but they too do not seem to hold out any promise of success.
Modern times are fast and there is in every field an accelerated speed of development. The society has, therefore, to be developed on lines on which accelerated growth as also integrated growth are facilitated to the maximum. This requires a new social organisation not developed at any time in human history. The survival or revival of the past is neither desirable nor practicable. Even according to the Indian theory, the system of varna (classification of society into fourfold order) does not belong either to the periods of man's highest attainment or to the eras of his lowest possibility. It is neither the principle of his ideal age of the perfected Truth nor of his iron age (called in Indian terminology Kaliyuga). In other words, the varna system is appropriate only to the intermediate ages of man's cycle in which he attempts to maintain some imperfect form of his true law. There are at least two such intermediate ages recognised by the Indian sociologists. They are called the Treta and the Dwapara. In the former, the social order is maintained by will power and force of character, and in the latter, by law, arrangement and fixed convention. In both these ages, man is developed and educated by fixing and emphasising the general prominent part of his active nature. But this does not aim at the education and development of the integral man. And as soon as those intermediate ages are crossed, as in the present age, there is-a constant pressure for the accelerated and integrated growth of man. It is true that the present age makes upon man this demand by creating states of disorders Or anarchy of our being. Nonetheless, the demand is clear and it can be fulfilled only by an attempt at a new order in which each individual is given opportunities and facilities to develop on his own line of development towards his integral fullness.
It is clear, therefore, that what is needed today, not only in India but everywhere else too, is a radical attempt at a new order.
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In any case, Indian culture has reached a stage where what is needed is not a revival of the past, but a radical renewal.
In this process of renewal what was pre-figured in the Vedic wisdom of the need to perceive the Spirit in Matter and Matter in Spirit can and will undoubtedly play a major role. But what was pre-figured in the Veda needs not only to be rediscovered but also experimented upon by a new and potent wisdom, if there is to be a new birth of Indian culture. There is thus the imperative need to seek deeper and newer wisdom. And this seems to be the inevitable line of the immediate development of Indian culture.
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Spirituality and Indian Culture
The history of India would remain enigmatic, particularly, the remarkable phenomenon of the continuity of Indian culture through the millennia would remain a mystery if we do not take into account the role that spirituality has played not only in determining the direction other philosophical and cultural effort but also in replenishing the springs of creativity at every crucial hour in the long and often weary journey. It is true that spirituality has played a role in every civilization and that no culture can claim a monopoly for spirituality. And yet, it can safely be affirmed that the unique greatness and continuity of Indian culture can be traced to her unparalleled experimentation, discovery and achievement in the vast field of spirituality.
Indian culture has recognized spirituality not only as the supreme occupation of man but also as his all-integrating occupation. Similarly, the entire spectrum of Indian culture,—its religion, ethics, philosophy, literature, art, architecture, dance, music, and even its polity and social and economic organization,—all these have been constantly influenced and moulded by the inspiring force of a multi-sided spirituality.
The distinctive character of Indian spirituality is its conscious and deliberate insistence on direct experience. It affirms that deep within the heart and high above the mind there is accessible to our consciousness a realm of truths, powers and ecstasies that we can, by methodised effort of Yoga*, realize in direct experience, can even hold permanently, and express in varying degrees through our instruments of the mind, life and body. This affirmation has
"Yoga is a comprehensive system of concentration, passive and dynamic, leading to living contact, union and identity with realities or Reality underlying the universe, with appropriate consequences in our nature and action, individual and cosmic. In recent times. Yoga is often misrepresented to be identical with Hathayoga, a system of physical and subtle exercises, which is only a specialisation, and a dispensable one, of the real comprehensive system.
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conditioned the entire development of religion in India and has introduced in the body of religion the recognition that direct experience of the spirit is far superior to dogma, belief and ritualism, and that dogmatic religion can and must ultimately be surpassed by experiential spirituality.
Consequently, the history of Indian spirituality and religion shows a remarkable spirit of research, of an increasing subtlety, plasticity, sounding of depths, extension of seeking. There have been systems of specialization and also conflicting claims and counter-claims, but the supervening tendency has been to combine, assimilate, harmonize and synthesize. In the past, there have been at least four great stages of synthesis, represented by the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, and the Tantra. And, in modem times, we are passing through the fifth stage, represented by a new synthesis, which is in the making.
It is impossible to describe Indian spirituality and religion by any exclusive label. Even in its advanced forms, it cannot be described as monotheism or monism or pantheism or nihilism or transcendtalism, although each one of these is present in it in some subtle or pronounced way. Even the spiritual truths behind the primitive forms such as those of animism, spiritism, fetishism and totemism have been allowed to play a role in its complex totality, although their external forms have been discouraged and are not valid or applicable to those who lead an inner mental and spiritual life. It is this complexity that bewilders the foreign student when he tries to define Indian spirituality and religion in terms and under criteria that are not born of the Indian experiment. But things become easier once it is grasped that the fundamental point of reference is not the outward form of a given belief and practice but the spirit behind and the justifying spiritual experience.
Indian scriptures and records abound with the statements and descriptions of varieties of spiritual experience. But there are three central spiritual experiences in terms of which all these varieties can be readily understood. The first is that of the individual in a state of complete detachment from all movement, dynamism, activity. In this state, the individual finds himself in an utter passivity and inactivity, but also of a complete luminosity and discrimination between himself as an eternal witness (sakshin), free from the sense of ego and the activities of Nature in the universe. This
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experience is the basis of the Sankhya philosophy. The second experience is that of the eternal and infinite Reality above Space and Time in which all that we call individuality and universality are completely silenced and sublated, and the experiencing consciousness discovers itself to be That Reality (tat sat), one, without the second (ekam eva advitiyam), entirely silent and immobile, the Pure Being, so ineffable that even to describe it as Being is to violate its sheer transcendence. This experience has given rise to the philosophy of Adwaita (Non-Dualism), in particular that of Illusionistic Adwaita, which proclaims that only the Brahman is real, and the world is an illusion. The third experience is the one in which the individual and cosmos are found to be free expressions of the Supreme Reality (Purushottama) which, although above Space and Time, determines Space and Time and all activities through various intermediary expressions of itself. This experience and some variations of it form the basis of various theistic philosophies of India. These theistic philosophies are those of qualified monism (Vishishtadwaita philosophy), integral monism (Poornadwaita philosophy), dualiatic philosophy (Dwaita philosophy). These experiences, when permanently established give liberation (moksha), and it is this which has in India been regarded as a high consummation of man's destiny upon earth. But, more importantly, the ancient ideal as given by the Vedas, Upanishads and the Gita, was to achieve an integrality of all these experiences, to combine utter Silence with effective Action, to be liberated from ego and yet at the same time to be a free living centre (jivanmukta) of luminous action that would aid the progressive unity of mankind (lokasangraha).
This integral ideal was to be realized in its integrality not only by a few exceptional individuals but also by increasing number of people, groups, collectivities, even on massive scale, through a long and conscious preparation and training. This great and difficult task has passed through two main stages, while a third has taken initial steps and promises to be the destiny of India's future.
The early Vedic was the first stage; the Purano-Tantric was the second stage*. In the former, an attempt was made to approach the mass-mind through the physical mind of man and make it familiar
*"The date of the Vedic age is controversial, but according to a conservative hypothesis, its origins are dated 2000 B.C The Purano-Tantric age can be regarded to have extended from 600 B.C. to 800 B.C
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with the Godhead in the universe through the symbol of the sacrificial fire (yajna). In the latter, deeper approaches of man's inner mind and life to the Divine in the universe were attempted through the development of great philosophies,* many-sided epic literature (particularly Ramayana and Mahabharata), systems of Puranas and Tantras,** and even art and science. An enlarged secular turn was given, and this was balanced by deepening of the intensities of psycho-religious experience. New tendencies and mystic forms and disciplines attempted to seize not only the soul and the intellect, but the emotions, the senses, the vital and the aesthetic nature of man and turn them into stuff of the spiritual life. But this great effort and achievement which covered all the time between the Vedic age and the decline of Buddhism, was still not the .last possibility of the spiritual and religious evolution open to Indian culture. A further development through the third stage was attempted, but it was arrested as it synchronized with a period of general exhaustion, and, in the eighteenth century, which can be regarded as the period of dense obscurity, the work that had begun seemed almost lost.
The aim of this third stage was to approach not only the inner mind and life of man, but to approach his whole mental, psychical and physical living, his totality of being and activity, and to turn it into a first beginning of at least a generalized spiritual life. Philosophers and saints such as Sri Chaitanya (1485-1533) and others of the 15th and 16th centuries belong to this stage. There
*Particularly, the six systems, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Poorva Mimamsa and Uttara Mimamsa and their numerous interpretations and commentaries. These 6 systems are Vedic systems or philosophy. There developed also Buddhism and Jainism and their numerous philosophical systems which did not accept the authority of the Vedas. Similarly, Charvaka philosophy, the philosophy of materialism, which also developed during this period, was entirely anti-Vedic.
"There are 18 Puranas. Each Purana has five parts: (1) creation of the world, (2) destruction and recreation of the world, (3) reigns and periods of Manus, (4) geneology and Gods, and (5) dynasties of solar and lunar kings.
While Puranas are Vedic, Tantras are Vedic only indirectly, and they are called Agamas. We do not know the exact number of Agamas, but it is estimated that there are 64 of them.
"Tantras are devoted to the methods of utilising the dynamic energies of life in order to open up the doors of the Divine Power for a triumphant mastery over the world-activities.
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was also during this period a remarkable attempt to combine Vedanta and Islam or of establishing lasting communal harmony. In particular, the work of Guru Nanak (1469-1538) and of the subsequent Sikh Khalsa movement was astonishingly original and novel. The speciality of this third stage was an intense outburst and fresh creativity, not a revivalism, but based upon a deep assimilation of the past, a new effort and a new formulation. But the time was not yet ripe, and India had to pass through a period of an eclipse, almost total and disastrous.
Happily, the 19th century witnessed a great awakening and a new spiritual impulse pregnant with a power to fulfill the mission of the work that had started in the third stage. Great and flaming pioneers appeared. Raja Rammohan Roy (1836-1886) and Swami Vivekananda (1862-1902) to name just two of them, and through their work the entire country was electrified not only spiritually but even socially and politically. India became renascent, and there began to develop a capacity for a new synthesis, not only of the threads of Indian culture but also of world culture. Nationalism came to be proclaimed as the new spirituality, and this nationalism was right from the beginning international in its spirit and sweep. Not an escape from life, but acceptance of life, integration of life and transformation of life by an integral spirituality this ideal came to be felt and expressed in various ways and through various activities of the renascent India.
Gradually, it has become evident that this new movement has to do not merely with India but fundamentally with the essential problem of Man and his future evolution. It is becoming clearer that Man is a field of interaction between Matter and Spirit/that this interaction has reached a point of criticality, and that this criticality demands a new knowledge, an integral knowledge of Matter and Spirit.
This is the task which Free India has begun to perceive as central to her real fulfillment. It is significant that we have in India a most comprehensive statement of this task in the luminous writings of Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), who has been described by Remain Rolland as 'the completest synthesis of the East and the West'. Sri Aurobindo has declared that man is a transitional being, that his destiny is to be the spiritual superman, and that the present hour is the hour of his evolutionary crisis in which his entire life, his very body, must undergo an integral spiritual
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transformation, not indeed by an escape into some far-off heavens, but here, in this physical earth itself, by a victorious union of Spirit and Matter. This, he has declared, is not an issue of an individual but of collectivity, not an issue of Indian spirituality and culture, but of the entire world's upward aspiration and fulfillment.
It must be noted that in this task of universal importance, India, the East, has received from the West a collaboration of incalculable magnitude and value. For it is from France that the Mother (Madame Mira Alfassa (1878-1973) came to Sri Aurobindo and made India her permanent home in order to collaborate with him and to fulfill this task of integral transformation. The work that she has done is not yet sufficiently known, but we find in her the highest heights that Indian spirituality has reached, and we feel that the near future will show the revolutionary effects of her work for humanity, for its lasting unity and harmony, and for its transmutation into super-humanity.
Indeed the renascent spirituality of India opens up new vistas of experience and research. It transcends the boundaries of dogma and exclusive claims of Truth. It is not opposed to any religion, but points to a way to a synthesis and integrality of spiritual experience in the light of which the truth behind each religion is understood and permitted to grow to its fullness and to meet in harmony with all the others. The important thing is to turn the human mentality, vitality and physicality to the realm of spiritual experiences and to transform the human mould by an over-widening light of the Spirit. In this perception, even scepticism, agnosticism and atheism have a meaning and value as an indispensable stage for a certain line of mental development. But here too the dogma and denial behind the doubt and atheism have to be surpassed, and whether by rigorous methods of philosophy and science or by a deeper plunge into deeper experiences, a way can be opened to transcend the dogmatic refusal to seek and to discover. It is in this direction that we seem to reach a point where a fruitful synthesis of science and spirituality can be effectuated.
The renascent spirituality is all-embracing and is deeply committed to undertake all activities of human life and to transform them. It has begun to influence literature and art and music, education and physical culture. Even social and economic and political fields are being taken up, not indeed to cast them once again
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into some rigid formula of a religious dogma but rather to liberate them and to inundate them with a spiritual light and motive and to restructure them by a gradual evolution so that they may breathe widely and freely the progressive harmonies of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Thus is it that the old forms of society, casteism and all the rest, are being broken and there is a fresh search for new forms, plastic and flexible, to permit the highest possible perfectibility of the individual and the collectivity to blossom spontaneously and perpetually. In the ultimate analysis, it is through such a vast and potent change in the social milieu that the total man can be uplifted to his next stage of evolutionary mutation.
It is in this context that India views the great social-political upheavals of the recent times as a sign and a promise of the coming of the New World. It views modem man's concern for the collective life as something unprecedented. The experiments that have been heralded by the great revolutions have contributed to the re-making of the collective life of Man.. It is felt that these experiments will continue to grow until the highest and the deepest in the individual and the collectivity are brought forward in the task of the new transformation. It is in this direction that the new spirituality seems to be moving. It is in this direction that the new philosophies are likely to flower. India has already taken this new direction and it hopes to place the fruits of this new endeavor at the service of mankind for its highest welfare.
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