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CONTENTS

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Traditional Wisdom

This Month

Editorial: Consciousness as Light

Prabuddha Bharata—100 Years Ago

Lead Kindly Light Prof. Vijaya Kumar Murty

The Self and the Atman Swami Satyamayananda

Dancing Shiva and the Self-creating World Dr Beatrice Bruteau

From Intellect to Intelligence: Taking the Quantum Leap

Dr Sampooran Singh & Dr Kanwaljit Kaur

The Idea of Light

Religion and Practical Spirituality: Living the Ideal of Highest Humanism

Dr Sudipta Das

Karma Yoga at the End of the World Pritha Lal

Reviews

Reports

Internet edition atwww.advaitaashrama.org

Cover: Sunset over the Garhwal range, Himalayas. Quote from Swami Vivekananda (CW 3.353).

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A monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896

rabuddhaPbharataor AwAkened IndIA

3 PB-NOVEMBER2006

November 2006

C Traditional Wisdom cJYOTIË: LIGHT

Æt{wJk ßgtur;rlorn;k =]Ngu fk bltu srJ²k v;gÀôJà;& >rJˆJu =uJt& mblm& mfuU;t YfkU f{U;wbrC rJ grà; mtÆtw >>A steady light, swifter than thought, is sta tioned among mov ing be ings to show theway to happiness. All the devas, be ing of like mind and like wisdom, pro ceed rev er ently to wards the one In tel li gence. (Rig Veda, 6.9.5)

ygk htuag=h¥atu h¥atltu~gk Jtmg=TÔg];ul vqJeo& >ygbeg; }U;gwrÉChˆJi& ôJrJo=t ltrClt aMorKv{t& >> He, shin ing, caused to shine what shone not; by Law he lighted up the dawns. Hemoves with steeds yoked by eter nal or der, mak ing men happy by the (char iot-) navethat finds the sun light. (6.39.4)

;ôg bÆgu bntlrÉlrJoˆJtraorJo J;tubwF& > mtu~d{CwrÉJCsrà;²ªttnthbsh& fUrJ& >>mà;tvgr; ôJk =unbtvt=;jbô;fUbT > ;ôg bÆgu Jr—rNFt yKegtuÆJto ÔgJrô:;t >>lej;tug=bÆgô:t rJ‘w¨uFuJ CtôJht > leJthNqfUJútàJe ve;t CtôJÀgKqvbt >>;ôgt& rNFtgt bÆgu vhbtÀbt ÔgJrô:;& > m c{Ñt m rNJ& m nrh& muà={& mtu~Gh& vhb& ôJhtxT >>In the midst of that (nar row space of the heart or sushumna) is the undecaying,all-know ing, omnifaced, great fire, which has flames on ev ery side, which con sumesand as sim i lates food, and which warms the body from the in sole to the crown. At thecen tre of this fire is a flame, the col our of shin ing gold, sub tler than the sub tle, daz zling like a flash of light ing amidst dark clouds, slen der as the awn of a paddy grain, serv ingas an il lus tra tion for subtelty. Paramatman (the su preme Self) dwells in the mid dle ofthat flame. (Al though thus lim ited) It still is Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, Indra, the Self-lu -mi nous, the Im mu ta ble, the Su preme. (Mahanarayana Upanishad, 13.9–12)

One who can de tach one’s mind from ma te rial things will see the ef ful gent light ofBrah man and Its pres ence in ev ery thing. (Swami Vijnanananda)

11 PB - NOVEMBER 2006

Vol. 111 NOVEMBER 2006 No. 11

PRABUDDHA

BHARATAArise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached!

Wrút²;std{;ŒtËgJhtrªtctuÆt; >

� This Month �Light and con scious ness are so in te gral to

our ex is tence that we hardly no tice, much less try to un der stand them. And when we do, weare greatly in trigued by the in sights they of fer. Our focus on this theme begins with Con -scious ness as Light.

Prabuddha Bharata—100 Years Ago pro -vides a per cep tive ac count of Swami Viveka -nanda’s ap pre ci a tion of art.

Light is syn on y mous with life. Not onlydoes it sup port all or ganic ac tiv ity, it alsomakes per cep tion pos si ble. Fur ther, light issynonmous with mean ing and sym bolic ofthe Spirit. The gross, the sub tle, and thecausal—light per vades all. Prof. Vijaya Kumar Murty, Chair, De part ment of Math e mat i caland Com pu ta tional Sci ences, Uni ver sity ofTo ronto, gives us an il lu mi nat ing over view of the idea of light in Lead, Kindly Light.

The no tion of the self, though cen tral toour per son al ity, has al ways been a mat ter ofde bate. Phi los o phers, psy chol o gists, neuro -physiologists, lit ter a teur, and art ists have alltried to study and in ter pret the hu man self intheir own ways, but the self has stoutly re -sisted any de fin i tive ob jec tive char ac ter iza -tion. Swami Satyamayanandaji, a mo nas ticmem ber of Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata, pro -vides us a glimpse of this ab sorb ing sub ject inThe Self and the At man.

Shiva as Nataraja, the Di vine Dancer, has al -ways fas ci nated think ers as well as cre ative art ists and writ ers. Danc ing Shiva and the Self-cre at ing World uses this im ag ery to ex plore the con -scious ness that un der pins the world. Not onlydo the ‘cre ativ ity’ and ‘gen er os ity’ of Shiva’s ges -tures hint at the pro cess of evo lu tion of con -scious ness, they also guide us to wards a gen u ine

re al iza tion of our own con scious selves. The au -thor, Dr Beatrice Bruteau, is a mem ber of theVedanta Cen tre of At lanta and an ad junct pro -fes sor at the Di vin ity School, Wake For est Uni -ver sity, Winston-Sa lem.

The spir i tual and in tu itive di men sions ofhu man in tel li gence have lately been in fo cus. But what ex actly is the dif fer ence be tween this in tel li gence and our or di nary in tel lect; and isa tran si tion to the deeper as pects of in tel li -gence pos si ble? These is sues are ad dressed inFrom In tel lect to In tel li gence: Tak ing theQuan tum Leap by Dr Sampooran Singh, for -mer Di rec tor, Ter mi nal Bal lis tic Re search La -b o ra tory, Chandi garh, and Dr KanwaljitKaur, Mem ber, In dian Phar ma co log i cal So ci -ety.

We also share in this is sue the in ter est ingre sponses from our read ers to The Idea ofLight, the po etic co nun drum posed byHiranyagarbha in our Feb ru ary num ber.

Dr Sudipta Das, Head, De part ment of So -

ci ol ogy, South ern Uni ver sity, New Or leans, takes a fresh look at the con cept of hu man ism from the spir i tual point of view and showshow gen u ine lived spir i tu al ity is in sep a ra blefrom hu man ism at its best. Her arc ticle is ti -tled Re li gion and Prac ti cal Spir i tu al ity: Liv ing the Ideal of High est Hu man ism.

Na ture pro vides us con stant re mind ersabout its in trin sic or der and har mony, andbeck ons us to a liv ing that is in con so nancewith it. Nature can also pro vide hints on spir -i tual life. Smt. Pritha Lal, Or ga ni za tional Be -hav iour Spe cial ist, Nu Skin En ter prises,Provo, tells us about one such in sight that wecan have from the ways of the pen guins inKarma Yoga at the End of the World.

PB - NOVEMBER 2006 12

Consciousness as LightEDITORIAL

The key con cepts that ini ti ated the rev o -lu tion ary change wrought in our world- view by the the o ries of rel a tiv ity per tain

to the na ture of light: that light, as a sig nal, is in -dis pens able to any pro cess of ob ser va tion, thatthe ve loc ity of light is in de pend ent of the mo -tion of its source, and that the speed of light setsa limit to speeds that can be at tained in our ob -serv able uni verse.

The fact that all mo tion is rel a tive may wellhave been ob vi ous to the an cients. But the factthat space and time are not only in ter re lated inform ing the warp and woof of our ob servedworld, but are them selves sub ject to changewith the speed of the ob server and the masses ofob jects as so ci ated with them fol lowed di rectlyfrom the dis cov ery of the re mark able prop er tiesof light. Light, there fore, not only ‘lights up’ the uni verse for us, thus mak ing for the most fun -da men tal of our per cep tions, it ac tu ally de ter -mines the very fab ric of the ob served uni verse.If light had had a dif fer ent set of prop er ties, wewould have been in a different world.

There are other ways in which light chal -lenges tra di tional modes of thought. For in -stance, its dual na ture—par tic u late as well aswave-like—pro vides strong em pir i cal ev i dencefor the co ex is tence of op po sites. Not only doesthis call into ques tion the com mon pre sup po si -tions of ra tio nal thought, it also re minds us thatpar a doxes are struc tured into the very frame -work of nature.

The ini tial dis cov ery of the wave-na ture oflight in the sev en teenth cen tury it self caused ami nor up heaval in sci en tific think ing. Lighthad till then been thought of as par tic u late; andall waves known at that time were me chan i calin na ture, de pend ing on a phys i cal me dium forprop a ga tion. Sound waves were a case in point.It took nearly three cen tu ries of re search be fore

it came to be ac cepted that light did not re quirea medium for propagation.

Light and sound are pro to types of elec tro -mag netic and me chan i cal waves, and in the eyeand the ear we have the spe cial ized sys tems totrans duce these waves into vi sion and hear ing.True, we have other sense or gans—the chemo -recep tors that make for taste and smell, and themechanoreceptors me di at ing touch—but it islight and sound that largely shape our per cep -tual as well as con cep tual worlds.

Most of us have a spe cific pref er ence for ei -ther vi sual or au di tory in put—some of this isin nate and the rest cul ti vated. We may not evenbe aware of this pref er ence. This dif fer ence may get ex ag ger ated in those with ‘pho to gra phic’mem ory, who can see a text but once and re -mem ber it, or in the shrutidhara, who have ex -cep tional rec ol lec tion of what ever they hear. Ifwe are ob ser vant we may no tice our own pref er -ences—some of us are more com fort able gath -er ing new in for ma tion from books and vi su alswhile oth ers find it eas ier to re mem ber lec turesor au dio re cord ings. Those given to upasanaand med i ta tion may be better aware of theirnat u ral ori en ta tion: some find vi su al iza tion ofim ages easy while oth ers pre fer to dwell on theman tra as a sound sym bol. Ei ther way, we in ter -nal ize the ex ter nal world and its vi brat ing en er -gies to con struct our own vi sion of re al itywithin our con scious ness. Both light and con -scious ness are crit i cal to this con struc tion.

The study of con scious ness is a principalcon cern of Advaita Vedanta. The pri macy ofcon scious ness is one of its cen tral ten ets. If lightde ter mines the way the ex ter nal world is struc -tured in our con scious ness, it is con scious nessthat im parts re al ity to this struc ture. There have al ways been strong pro po nents of ma te ri al -ism—from the In dian Charvakas and Greek


ma te ri al ists to mod ern neuroscientists—whobe lieve that con scious ness can be shown to be ade riv a tive of the phys i cal ac tiv ity of the brain.But there is no de fin i tive ev i dence for this todate. The other vi a ble al ter na tive, which hasbeen ex ten sively elu ci dated in Vedanta, is thatcon scious ness is an en tity sui generis—the veryes sence of sub jec tiv ity, re sis tant to any form ofob jec tive as so ci a tion. This lat ter is the rea sonwhy it is not ame na ble to the meth ods of theob jec tive sci ences.

Sub jec tiv ity in its most ex treme form couldtake the form of sub jec tive cre ation or drishti-srishti-vada, a view ad vo cated by the Advaiticthinker Mandana Mishra. This view had itscoun ter part in the Bud dhist Vijnanavada schoolwhich held vijnana, con scious ness or cogni tions, to be the only philo soph i cally ten a ble re al ity. Asmen tal im ages are our sole vi sion of ex is tence,there is no hard and fast way of sep a rat ing ob jec -tive per cep tions from imag i na tive col ourings.There is also no de fin i tive in de pend ent cri te rionto prove that our per cep tions are not our cre -ations as in a dream (af ter all, the dream worldap pears real and ‘ex ter nal’ as long as we aredream ing). An ex treme form of so lip sism wouldeven sug gest that this world and its ob jects (in -clud ing our selves) have been dreamt into ex is -tence by a ‘uni ver sal mind’. It is only the high de -gree of ap par ent co her ence in the ex ter nal worldand the nat u ral dis tinc tion of ‘in ter nal’ and ‘ex -ter nal’ that our mind and senses make for us thathas pre vented a large scale es pousal of this ex -treme form of drishti-srishti-vada.

A less ex treme and more widely ac ceptedVedantic po si tion views the world as de rivedfrom con scious ness, though there are di ver gentopin ions on how a non-re la tional en tity likecon scious ness could give rise to a multipartite,ob jec tive uni verse. The Advaitic the ory of maya is es sen tially an ac knowl edge ment of the factthat this gen er a tion of the space-time-cau sal ityma trix from pure con scious ness is re sis tant toany log i cal ex pla na tion sim ply be cause our log i -cal cat e go ries are themselves part of this matrix.

Tra di tional Advaita has been con cerned

more with the sub jec tive re al iza tion of purecon scious ness, our real self, than with the studyof the cor re lates of con scious ness in the ob jec -tive world. Its cos mog ony may be shown tohave some loose par al lels to the cur rently stan -dard cos mo log i cal model (the big bang), butwhile the lat ter is de rived from ob ser va tional as -tron omy and ex per i ments in par ti cle phys ics,the for mer is a purely con cep tual structurebased on the Upanishads.

The Tan tras and the school of Kash mirShaivism have es pe cially dwelt upon the cat e -gory of cos mic en ergy (Shakti) as an as pect ofcon scious ness, and have elab o rated on the var i -ous as pects of Shakti and their man i fes ta tions.The ul ti mately non-dual cat e gory of Shiva-Shakti man i fests as the var i ous as pects of know -l edge, will, emo tion, and ac tion as well as theob jec tive phys i cal world, which there fore hasalso the dual prop erty of en ergy and con scious -ness.

Mys tics of all times have sensed this in sep a -ra bil ity of power and con scious ness and havebeen wit ness to the con scious ness per vad ingeven ap par ently in sen tient ob jects. In the words of Acharya Abhinavagupta: ‘It is Shiva Him self, of un im peded will and pel lu cid con scious ness,who is ever spar kling in my heart. It is His high -est Shakti Her self that is ever play ing on theedge of my senses. The en tire world gleams asthe won drous de light of pure I-consciousness.In deed, I know not what the sound “world” issup posed to re fer to.’ Sri Ramakrishna once re -marked: ‘The di vine Mother re vealed to me inthe Kali tem ple that it was She who had be come ev ery thing. She showed me that ev ery thing wasfull of Con scious ness. The image was Con -scious ness, the al tar was Con scious ness, the wa -ter-ves sels were Con scious ness, the door-sillwas Con scious ness, the mar ble floor was Con -scious ness—all was Consciousness.’

Con scious ness is there fore as crit i cal to thecon struc tion of the uni verse as is light. It is inun der stand ing con scious ness that we are likelyto un der stand the fun da men tals of this con -struc tion.


582 Prabuddha Bharata


Prabuddha Bharata—100 Years AgoNovember 1906

In the year 1900 [Swami Vivekananda] at tended the Paris Ex po si tion in which var i ous fig ures rep re -

sent ing the arts of sculp ture and paint ing were ex hib ited. The Swami had a copy of the il lus trated

re port of the Ex po si tion and in it he pointed out one par tic u lar piece of sculp ture. There were two

fig ures, one of a man and the other a woman. The man rep re sents a sculp tor, or more prop erly an

art ist. His right hand with the nec es sary tools is placed care lessly on the knee of the woman and with

the left hand he un veils her face and is charmed by the beauty ex posed to his view. Be low the fig ures

is writ ten “Art et Na ture.” Here the Swami re marked that it would have been better if it were named

“Art un veil ing Na ture.” The art ist un veils the beauty of na ture to the un ini ti ated gaze. Just as the same

hu man face mir rors dif fer ent ex pres sions according to the in ner feelings of the heart, so the same

land scape wears dif fer ent as pects and re veals dif fer ent hid den ideas to the art ist. To her be loved

wor ship per, the art ist, Na ture yields up the trea sures of her in fi nite beauty. The Swami said that the

art ist catches some of the fleet ing graces of coy Na ture and gives them per ma nence. This is the ini -

tia tive work of an art ist. ... Thus the art ist must have preconceived a per fect idea of the re la tion be -

tween Art and Na ture, and then pro duced this mas ter-piece. Who ever will thus find out the links of the

in ner and the outer world, will also be able to give as per fect an ex pres sion to them as the above art -

ist; and thus from the outflowing of eter nal beauty from the in ner to the outer world, the poet, the

painter, the sculp tor, makes his se lec tions, concretizes and ex presses them in the above way for the

ben e fit of hu man ity. This, the Swami said, is the high est and no blest mis sion of all art ists. …

In his con ver sation with Max Muller, In dian ar chi tec ture was one of the topics. The pro fes sor

was of opin ion that in the Bud dhist ar chi tec ture there was some re sem blance to the Greek and, as

the Greeks had com mu ni ca tion with In dia at that time, it seemed prob a ble that In dia was in flu enced

by Greece. The Swami re torted by say ing that, if the mere pres ence of some Greeks in In dia was the

only proof that In dian ar chi tec ture was in debted to the Greek, the ar gu ment might prove the other way

and it might with equal force be said that Greek architecture was in flu enced by In dian. For, the sculp -

tures of the Bud dhist pe riod have no re sem blance what ever to those of the Greeks. The lat ter ex cel in

the rep re sen ta tion of the ex ter nal, while In dian sculp ture rep re sents the in ner na ture al most at the

sac ri fice of the ex ter nal. The Greek sculptor is very ex act in the mi nut est de tails of anat omy, while the

In dian al most com pletely over looks it to ex press var i ous men tal as pects. …

Here in In dia the Hindu as well as the Mahommedan ar chi tect never fails to give an ac cu rate ex -

pres sion to some idea or other. While trav el ling in Rajputana, Swamiji was very much struck with the

beauty and the per fect ex pres sion of a tomb at Alwar. While vis it ing the Taj at Agra, he re marked, “If

you squeeze a bit of these mar bles, it will drip drops of Royal Love and its Sor row. Peo ple say Cal -

cutta is a city of pal aces, but the houses look much like so many boxes placed one upon the other!

They con vey no idea what ever. In Rajputana you can still find much pure Hindu ar chi tec ture. If you

look at a Dharmasâlâ, you will feel as if it calls you with open arms to take shel ter within and par take

of its un qual i fied hos pi tal ity. If you look at a tem ple, you are sure to find di vin ity bloom ing in and about

it. If you look about a ru ral cot tage, you will at once be able to com pre hend the spe cial mean ings of its

dif fer ent por tions, and that the whole struc ture bears ev i dence to the pre dom i nant ideal of the owner

thereof. This sort of ex pres sive ar chi tec ture I have seen else where, only, in It aly.” He had also a great

ad mi ra tion for Ital ian art. —Priya Nath Sinha

Lead, Kindly LightPROF. VIJAYA KUMAR MURTY

The fab ric of our life is wo ven withthreads of light. We are alive be cause ofthe sun’s light. We can move around

and func tion be cause of this light. Plants liveand syn the size their food by the power of sun -light. We burn an cient sun shine in coal and oil,and we wear sun shine in cot ton and wool. Wedrink sun shine in our or ange juice, and we eatsun shine in our veg e ta bles. The en tire fab ric ofour life is in deed wo ven with threads of light.

There are other sources of light be sides thesun, such as the moon, fire, and lamps. How -ever, the moon’s light is but the sun’s light re -flected, and fire and lamps burn fuel which de -rive their en ergy from the sun.

Varieties of Light

See ing with the eyes is one kind of vi sion,and it is me di ated by light. We can in ter pret vi -sion much more broadly. As a pre lim i nary, we

can say that any thing that helps us to per ceive isa kind of light. Thus, sound and touch are kinds of light. We know how those who do not havethe use of their eyes can be trained to guidethem selves by sound and touch. The fa mousau thor and ed u ca tor Helen Keller, who wasdeaf, dumb, and blind, learnt to hear, speak,and see through touch. In her book See ingHands, she speaks of her hands as light. She sawthe world with the help of her hands. Throughher hands, she also dis cov ered mean ing, andmean ing is a kind of light. She de scribes themo ment when she un der stood the mean ing ofthe word ‘wa ter’: ‘The mys tery of lan guage wasre vealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-rmeant the won der ful cool some thing that wasflow ing over my hand. That liv ing word awak -ened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free!’

Mean ing is a tre men dous form of light. We know how Viktor Frankl held on to his life and

san ity dur ing his in tern ment in a Nazicon cen tra tion camp by fo cus ing onfind ing mean ing, even in the midst ofter ri ble suf fer ing. He spent the rest ofhis life talk ing and writ ing about theim por tance of mean ing, and even de -vel oped a form of ther apy, called logo -therapy, based on find ing mean ing inlife.

In tel li gence is also a kind of light.When we don’t know some thing, wesay, ‘I am in the dark about it.’ When wefind some one who is very in tel li gent, wesay, ‘That per son is bril liant.’ When wewant some one to ex plain some thing tous, we say, ‘Can you please throw somelight on this sub ject?’ Light is as so ci atedwith, and is sym bolic of, knowl edge.

A smile is a kind of light. In hisbeau ti ful hymn on Sri Ramakrishna,


Lighting up our lives: the Sun

Swami Premesh ananda writes: ‘tava hasi rashikirana barashi; thy de light ful smile lights up(even the do main be yond the mind).’

Kind ness and gen er os ity are kinds of light.Through kind ness and gen er os ity, we give lightto oth ers and also to our selves. We are able tosee in side oth ers and we are able to un der standand com mu ni cate with them. In words ofAntoine de Saint-Exupery, from his Lit tle Prince:‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is es sen tial is in vis i ble to the eye.’

Hope is a kind of light. When we havenoth ing else to hang on to, it gives us strengthand di rec tion. Faith is also a kind of light. In the Old Tes ta ment (Isa iah, 50.10), it is writ ten:‘He who walks in dark ness, to whom no lightap pears, let him trust in the name of Yahweh,let him rely upon his God.’

The name of God, the man tra, is a kind oflight. Sri Sarada Devi says that by the rep e ti tionof the man tra one learns how to con duct one -self.

If we an a lyze all of the above va ri et ies oflight, we find they can be broadly clas si fied asbased on ei ther ra tio nal aware ness or feel ing. Inboth cases, light makes us aware of some thing.That is, it makes per cep tion pos si ble. It is re -mark able how fun da men tal light is, not only toour sur vival, but also to our cul ture, our lan -guage and our think ing.

Light and Perception

We gave a pre lim i nary def i ni tion of light assome thing that helps us to per ceive. But this re -quires re fine ment. Sup pose we stand in front ofa mir ror. Cer tainly, the mir ror helps us to seeour selves—but is it light? In fact, if we stand infront of a mir ror in the dark, we will not see ourre flec tion. Thus, the mir ror by it self does noten able us to see, but acts as an in stru ment. Thisforces us to re fine our def i ni tion of light.

We are used to think ing that at the or di -nary level of per cep tion, light is the key fac tor.How ever, though we need light to see, ex ter nallight is not suf fi cient. Oth er wise, there wouldnot be traf fic ac ci dents in day light. Also, peo ple

who wit ness a crime dur ing the day time wouldnot have dif fi culty in giv ing de tailed de scrip -tions of the per pe tra tors. It is not only light thatis needed. The mind has to be pres ent. If we areab sent-minded, light will shine but we will notsee. There has to be an in ner light that is vis i bleto the mind. Ideas, and the un der stand ing theyen gen der, are a kind of light.

Light and Life

Light and life are in sep a ra ble. Swami Vi -vek a nanda said, ‘We are lamps, and our burn -ing is what we call “life”.’1 We need light to liveand to guide our selves prop erly through life.Ev ery one at tend ing a late-night thea tre is ableto get up and leave the hall at the end of theshow with out bump ing into any thing. But itbe comes a lit tle more dif fi cult if the hall is indark ness. Sim i larly, we need light to nav i gatethrough life with out bump ing into things andhurt ing our selves.

What gives us light? In gen eral, we try tobor row light from oth ers. We try to find peo plewho will show us the way. We are led by theopin ions of oth ers and by pub lic opin ion. Webe have as we think we ought to be have. We areafraid to be iso lated or alone, so we be have in aman ner cal cu lated to show that we be long to agroup. We con form to what we per ceive to bethe norm. When this is done on a large scale, italso de fines the norm and ‘the proper way’. Wecan all look into our own life and re flect on theex tent to which we do this in or der to ‘fit in’.

Is this wrong? Should we in stead re bel andbe come non-con form ists? Even non-conform -ism is a kind of con for mity. Some peo ple wantto prove that they are in de pend ent and non-con form ists. Non-conformism it self be comes akind of fash ion. But if one de vi ates even a lit tlefrom the cur rently fash ion able form of non-conformism, one is iso lated. Real non-con -formism is to think ra tio nally and clearly, andto act based on that think ing. Some times ourac tion will be in con so nance with the main -stream, and some times it will not. If we can notthink in this way, then let us ad mit that we

Lead, Kindly Light 585


dress, eat, and be have as we do be cause we wantto be long to a group.

It is not only in ac tion, but even in think ing that we want to con form. Na tion al ism some -times cir cum scribes the in de pend ence ofthought even of bril liant schol ars, what to speak of the pop u lar me dia. In con tra dict ing that,one runs the risk of be ing branded un pa tri otic.

Then there is the pe ren nial de bate be tweensci ence and re li gion, the two high priests. Wego to the church of one or the other. Ei ther weare ‘be liev ers’ and so de cry sci ence, or we are‘sci en tific’ and there fore do not ac cept any re li -gious spec u la tion.

The se cu rity we de rive from be long ing to agroup, though, ex acts a heavy tax from us. AsPlato said, the price that we pay for si lence, fornot think ing for our selves, is to be led by fools.And as the Upanishad says, it may very well belike the blind lead ing the blind, with both end -ing up in the ditch.2

What is the foun da tion for this? What isbe hind our de sire to be long to a group? Firstly,we do need guid ance. It would be the height ofar ro gance to think that we can do ev ery thing byour selves. Sec ondly, we are all in ter de pen dent.There fore, we must take into ac count the viewsand feel ings of ev ery one. How ever, nei ther ofthese means that we should fol low any thingwith out full aware ness and full re spon si bil ity.

Sources of Light

If we must be led, then we should seek theguid ance of those who have light. The firstplace to look is within our selves. Our mind canguide us. If we learn to re flect, we will get lightto guide our selves. The Bhagavadgita (2.49)says, ‘buddhau ùaraîam-anviccha; take ref uge in your abil ity to think.’ If we can de velop the ca -pac ity to re flect and think, we will get a lot oflight from within our selves. We will have amind that is not car ried away by fash ion or pas -sion and which can see clearly.

Re flec tion is aided by the power of con cen -tra tion. Swami Vivekananda says: ‘In mak ingmoney, or in wor ship ping God, or in do ing

any thing, the stron ger the power of con cen tra -tion, the better will that thing be done. This isthe one call, the one knock, which opens thegates of na ture, and lets out floods of light.’3 Hestates that the dif fer ence be tween an i mals andhu mans, or be tween one hu man be ing and an -other, is in the power of con cen tra tion. It is saidthat New ton could hold a thought for days un -til it un rav elled it self and re vealed new se crets,new light.

But that is not all. There is a sub tler lightthat even the mind can not see. Rather, this light is what il lu mines the mind. It can not be seen bythe mind, but it can be felt. This is the light ofspirit.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad re counts afas ci nat ing con ver sa tion be tween the sagesYajna valkya and Janaka. King Janaka raises theques tion: what serves as light for a man whenthe sun and moon have set, fire has gone out,and speech has stopped? The spirit (self) servesas light, an swers Yajnavalkya.4

What is spirit? We can not ex actly de fine it,but we can say what it is not. It is not ma te rial,and it is not psy cho log i cal. Again, in re sponseto Janaka’s ques tion ‘What is the spirit?’ Yajna -valkya re sponds: ‘The self-ef ful gent light with -in the heart.’

Light as a Symbol of Spirit

Light has been a sym bol of the spirit in alltra di tions. We say that a per son who has di -rectly ex pe ri enced spir i tual re al ity is ‘il lu -mined’. The an cient Gayatri man tra is a prayerfor our un der stand ing to be il lu mined. In theBi ble (Gen e sis, 1.1–3), it is re corded that ‘Inthe be gin ning … God said, Let there be light:and there was light’. In the Zend Aves ta of theZo ro as tri ans is the prayer ‘I be seech thee, Owis dom, for the clear pro jec tion of light’.5 Thefirst hymn of the Rig Veda is an ad o ra tion of lu -mi nous Agni, the sac ri fi cial fire—the well-wisher of the com mu nity.

The Mundaka Upanishad (2.2.9) states:‘Hiraîmaye pare koùe virajaó brahma niøkalam;tacchubhraó jyotiøáó jyotis-tad-yad-átma-vido



viduë; The stain less, in di vis i ble Brah manshines in the golden in ner most sheath. It isall-pure. It is the Light of lights. It is that whichthey know as the in most self.’6 The KathaUpanishad says: ‘Tasya bhásá sarvam-idaóvibháti; Through Its ra di ance, all this shines.’7

In the Isha Upanishad, there is a prayer of feredat the time of death to the be ing within the sun:‘Hiraîmayena pátreîa satyasyápihitaó mukham;tattvaó péøann apávìîu satyadhar máya dìøôaye;The face of Truth (Brah man in the so lar orb) iscon cealed by a golden disc. Do thou, O Sun,open it so that I who have been wor ship pingTruth may be hold It.’8

Swami Vivekananda, in his ‘Hymn of Cre ation’, writes‘Ver ily, the Sun is He, His theray, Nay, the Sun is He, and He is the ray.’9

In the Gita, when San jayasees the cos mic di vine form ofKrishna, he ex claims, ‘If thelight of a thou sand suns were toblaze forth all at once in the sky, that might re sem ble the splen -dour of that ex alted Be ing.’10

And Krishna him self says,‘Jyotisám-api taj-jyotis-tamasaëparam- ucyate; I am the light of all lights, be yond all darkness’(13.17). Sim i larly, Christ said,‘I am the light of the world’ and‘Ye are the light of the world.’11

Bud dha said, ‘The light of truth has il lu mined my be ing.’ Andin our times, Sri Ramakrishnaspoke in very clear terms aboutthe lu mi nous na ture of spir i tual re al ity. He said:

I had the im me di ate knowl -edge of the Light that isMother. … It was as if thehouses, doors, tem ples and allother things van ished al to -gether; as if there was noth ingany where! And what I saw was

the bound less in fi nite Con scious Sea of Light!How ever far and in what ever di rec tion I looked,I found a con tin u ous suc ces sion of Ef ful gentWaves com ing for ward, rag ing and storm ingfrom all sides with a great speed.12

He de scribed his vi sion as a ‘lu mi nous sea ofCon scious ness’. It is in ter est ing to note thatwhen Sri Ramakrishna had that ex pe ri ence, hewas not con tem plat ing light. Rather he wascon tem plat ing on the form of the Di vineMother. In other in stances also, we find that his vi sions are as so ci ated with light. For ex am ple,when he had the vi sion of Sri Chaitanya, he sawhim as a ra di ant youth.



‘I had the immediate knowledge of the Light that is Mother.’

AD

AP

TED

FR

OM

BIS

WA

RA

NJA

N C

HA

KR

AV

AR

TY

Those that as so ci ated with Sri Ramakri -shna also had such ex pe ri ences. Swami Sarada -nanda de scribes the un usual ex pe ri ence of Hri -day, Sri Rama krishna’s nephew:

One night Hriday saw the Mas ter go ing to wardsthe Pan cha vati. Think ing that he might re quirehis waterpot and towel, he took them and fol -lowed him. As he was go ing, Hriday … saw …that the Panchavati was il lu mined by the lightcom ing out of [Sri Ramakrishna’s] body. …Tak ing all this to be an op ti cal il lu sion, Hridayrubbed his eyes again and again, ob served all thesur round ing things in their nat u ral state andlooked at the Mas ter once more. … He re peat -edly saw the Mas ter in that lu mi nous form. Ex -tremely amazed at it, Hriday … looked at hisown body and saw that he too was an ef ful gentbe ing made of light.13

Sri Ramakrishna him self says, ‘The moreyou ad vance to ward God, the less you will see of His glo ries and gran deur.’14 Af ter var i ous vi -sions of names and forms, the as pi rant ‘seesonly Light with out any at trib utes’ (853). ‘Atlast he sees the In di vis i ble Light and merges inIt’ (354).

Swami Vivekananda says, ‘We put ourhands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.Take the hands away and there is light; the lightex ists al ways for us, the self-ef ful gent na ture ofthe hu man soul.’15

Though we may not have ex pe ri enced it di -rectly our selves, we can be con vinced on em pir -

i cal grounds that spir i tual re al ity is con nectedto light. The great souls that we have justquoted lived at dif fer ent times and at dif fer entplaces, yet all tes ti fied to the na ture of Re al ity aslight. We have no ev i dence that they were incom mu ni ca tion with each other, which addsgreater strength to their tes ti mony.

Principles of Spiritual light

Just as in the field of op tics, we can for mu -late cer tain laws of light, sim i larly, from SriRamakri shna’s words, we can dis cern four prin -ci ples about spir i tual light: (i) Spir i tual re al ity is light, but not the light that is per ceived by thesenses. (ii) It is the spir i tual light that is man i -fest ing as per ceived light. (iii) Spir i tual light isre flected in vary ing in ten si ties. (iv) Spir i tualdis ci plines make us aware of that light. Let uscon sider each of these in turn.

Spiritual Light Is Not Material

About spirit, Sri Ramakrishna says, ‘It isLight, but not the light that we per ceive, not ma -te rial light.’16 What makes spir i tual light dif fer -ent from per ceived light? There are three as pects:

(i) Spir i tual light is un chang ing, while ma -te rial light is chang ing. Be cause per ceived lightis chang ing, it is al ways ac com pa nied by dark -ness. Sri Rama kri shna says, ‘He who is aware oflight is also aware of dark ness’ (288). All that isper ceived is clothed in the du al ism of perceiver

and per ceived. The outer light waxes and wanes. But the in ner light is un chang ing. This is re ferred to in the Gita as køara and akøara.

(ii) Spir i tual light is self-lu mi nous,while per ceived light de rives its light fromsome other source. Per ceived light is ei -ther re flected from an other source, or, asin the case of the sun, is gen er ated by con -sum ing fuel. But spir i tual light is not gen -er ated, nor is it re flected. It is the very na -ture of Be ing; it there fore shines of it self:svayaó prakáøate. Thus, it can not be per -ceived in the usual dualistic sense ofperceiver and per ceived. By what light can



Concealed is the ‘Face of Truth’

be known that which isthe source of all lights? Sri Rama krishna gives thepar a ble of the nightwatch man who goesaround the en tire pre -mises with a bright light.He can see ev ery one andev ery thing, but none cansee his face. For that, onehas to re quest him to turn the light onto his ownface.

(iii) Spir i tual light islove it self. Just as the ra -di ance of the sun con sists of heat and light, spir -i tual ra di ance con sists of love and aware ness.This light is not an im per sonal ra di ance. Thereis no con di tion on this love. Sri Ramakrishnasays, ‘One man may read the Bhágavata by thelight of a lamp, and an other may com mit a forg -ery by that very light; but the lamp is un af -fected. The sun sheds its light on the wicked aswell as on the vir tu ous’ (102). We may ask whythere is good and evil in the world. But these areour clas si fi ca tions. It is like ask ing the sun whythere is dark ness. The sun will not un der standwhat you are talk ing about. For the sun, there isonly light. Dark ness is the lack of per cep tion oflight. Swami Vivekananda says, ‘The vi bra tionof light is ev ery where’.17

Spiritual Light Manifests as Perceived Light

It is this same spir i tual light that is man i -fest ing as per ceived light, even though it can notbe per ceived with the eyes. Sri Ramakrishnasays, ‘[God] is the Sun of Knowl edge. One sin -gle ray of His has il lu mined the world with thelight of knowl edge. That is how we are able tosee one an other and ac quire var ied knowl -edge.’18 We have al ready stated that all per -ceived light is bor rowed: ei ther by re flec tion orby con sump tion of fuel. If all per ceived light isbor rowed, there has to be an ul ti mate source.The light of Spirit is the light of all lights—jyotiøám-api taj-jyotië. So, by what light can it

be il lu mined? Though itcan not be per ceived, itcan be felt. We can see its re flec tion, as it were.This is what Christmeant when he said ‘Noone co mes to the Fa therex cept through me.’ Itcan be glimpsed through rev e la tion. All rev e la -tions are par tial; and yeteach is a pointer to theReal. That is why SriRamakrishna could say‘as many rev e la tions

[faiths], so many paths; jato mat tato path.’

(To be con cluded )

References

1. The Com plete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1–8, 1989;9, 1997), 7.38.

2. Katha Upanishad, 1.2.5.3. Com plete Works, 2.391.4. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.3.1–7.5. Zend-Aves ta, Yasna 28.1.6. Mundaka Upanishad, 2.2.9.7. Katha Upanishad, 2.2.15. Also Shvetashvatara

Upanishad, 6.14, and Mundaka Upanishad,2.2.10.

8. Isha Upanishad, 15.9. Com plete Works, 4.497.

10. Bhagavadgita, 11.12.11. John, 8.12; Mat thew, 5.14.12. Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna the

Great Mas ter, trans. Swami Jagadananda (Ma -dras: Ramakrishna Math, 1983), 1.163.

13. Great Mas ter, 1.316–17.14. M, The Gos pel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans.

Swami Nikhilananda (Chennai: RamakrishnaMath, 2002), 177.

15. Com plete Works, 2.356.16. Gos pel, 307.17. Com plete Works, 2.42.18. Gos pel, 174.



From whom all gloom and dark ness havedis persed;

That ra di ant Light, white, beau ti ful

As bloom of lo tus white is beau ti ful;

Whose laugh ter loud sheds knowl edge lu mi nous;

Who, by un di vided med i ta tion,

Is real ised in the self-con trolled heart:

May that Lordly Swan of the lim pid lake

Of my mind, guard me, pros trate be fore Him!

—Swami Vivekananda

The Self and the AtmanSWAMI SATYAMAYANANDA

Ex plain to me the Brah man that is im me di -ate and di rect—the self that is within all.1

Few would not have come across the sadsight of a men tally hand i capped per sontry ing to make sense of the world around

him or her. The in de ci pher able gib ber ish, er -ratic ges tures, unfocussed eyes, and un kemptlook tell their own story. We are apt to pass such peo ple by as un for tu nate vic tims of na ture, butthey may also chal lenge our no tions of per son -al ity and self. In fact, it is pre cisely for this rea -son that men tal ill nesses have al ways been as so -ci ated with su per sti tion, ta boo, and blackmagic. Ex or cists, faith heal ers, and sha manshave been of fer ing prayers, mut ter ing sa credchants, sprin kling holy wa ter, and re sort ing towhip ping and other forms of tor ture to ex or cisethe spir its that rad i cally trans form the per son al -ity of the af flicted. Hu man ity, from the rus ticto the fa nat i cal, is still not rid of such be liefs,though to day, we are apt to look at all these‘doc tors’ as mis guided, and get men tal ill nesstreated with med i cines, ther apy, and sup port.

The at ti tu di nal change to ward men tal ill -ness is the re sult of spec tac u lar ad vances inneurochemistry, neuropsychiatry, and re lated

dis ci plines, fa cil i tated by so phis ti cated scan -ning tech niques and bioassays. But it would bein cor rect to say that the old meth ods to cure themen tally chal lenged were to tally wrong. Theyhad their mea sure of suc cess. More im por -tantly, they were based on con cep tions of theself prev a lent in those com mu ni ties as much asours are on currently prevalent notions.

Neu rol ogy, psy chol ogy, and psy chi a try areclosely al lied in their study of nor mal and ab -nor mal minds. Ge netic re search ers try ing toun der stand brain func tion at the deeper mo lec -u lar level have also joined this study. Iron i cally,some of these stud ies have re vealed a large greyarea be tween nor mal and ab nor mal func tion inwhich many peo ple live with out even be ingaware of it. More alarm ingly, to day’s so ci ety,moulded on sci ence and tech nol ogy, is giv ingrise to greater stress, de pres sion, ten sion, lone li -ness, and bore dom. This is ac tu ally act ing like acat a lyst for seemingly virulent mental illnesses.

Mod ern neu ro psy chi at ric re search has stilla long way to go. An swers to all the big ques -tions in sci ence and con tem po rary phi los o phyde pend upon a co her ent ex pla na tion of thebody-brain-mind ar chi tec ture. It is su per flu ous to add that it is the no tion of the self that makesev ery thing co her ent to us. Even as hu manknowl edge wid ens, we are of ten forced to lookbe yond sci en tific pa ram e ters in try ing to un der -stand the na ture of the self. It is here that East -ern cul tures have been pro vid ing fresh leadsthrough their age-old insights.

Rummaging for the Self

It is ob vi ous that brain le sions and dis easesdis tort the per sonal and so cial iden ti ties of theaf flicted. It is also com mon ex pe ri ence that per -sonal and so cial iden tity is grad u ally re stored inthe pro cess of cure. Stand ing on this com mon


The Human Brain: 300 million feet of wiring

ex pe ri ence, nu mer ous sci en tific dis ci plines andin nu mer a ble spe cial ists are prob ing the hu manbrain and ca jol ing it to give up its se crets. Thishas gen er ated a lot of an swers that have in turnchurned out more ques tions. The mys tery ofthe in ter ac tion be tween brain and mind seemsto be get ting ever more tan gled. Ide al ists averthat the mind works the brain; Ma te ri al ists saythat the work ing of the brain gives rise to themind, and so are minutely seeking its biologicaland chemical basis.

The brain is a com plex struc ture. With ahun dred bil lion cells (neu rons), each with athou sand to ten thou sand loosely con nectedsyn ap ses (con nec tions be tween neu rons), itmakes for an es ti mated three hun dred mil lionfeet of wir ing. The ce re bral cor tex, the ba sis ofour higher men tal func tions, is a thin con vo -luted layer of grey mat ter with a com plexsix-lay ered cel lu lar ar chi tec ture. These lay erspro cess im pulses that are re spon si ble for cog ni -tion, in tel li gence, mem ory, vo li tion, and otherhigher hu man func tions. It is also some wherehere in this lab y rinth that the sense of self ap -pears to be con structed, though opin ion is di -vided re gard ing the ex act lo ca tion. Some re -search ers be lieve that the sense of self can not bepinned down to any spe cific lo ca tion but de -pends on global brain func tion. Oth ers say thatthis search is like chas ing the will o’ the wisp, for the self is an il lu sion. It is much like look ing fora ghost or spirit or soul, which is just not go ingto be found. In this con text it must be men -tioned that one Bud dhist school of thought says that the well-known self is ac tu ally a ‘non-self ’or an ‘il lu sion of self ’, and that this non-self,anatta, is con stantly chang ing, be ing mouldedand remoulded, with no abid ing re al ity to it.But this view is not ni hil is tic; it shows a higherpath, a higher di rec tion and goal, in nir vana.

Cases in which the Self is Inferred to Exist

Most neu rol o gists and psy chol o gists do not, how ever, re pu di ate the con cept of self. To psy -chol o gists the self is cen tral to the hu man per -son al ity. It is the self that ties mem o ries and per -

cep tions to gether, makes for a dis tinct iden tity,and ne go ti ates in ter per sonal re la tions. Manydis ease states ac tu ally high light this cen tral ity ofthe self. Ep i lepsy or sei zures can tem po rarily al ter the self-no tion of in di vid u als, or in case of ma jorsei zures can ac tu ally knock the vic tim un con -scious. But af ter the sei zure is over, things nor -mal ize; the per son picks him- or her self up, andcon tin ues just as be fore with the pre vi ous pat tern of liv ing and self-iden tity in tact.

Al tered per cep tion of the self is cen tral tomost neu ro ses and psy cho ses, and this se ri ouslyhand i caps the pa tient. In Cotard syn drome—arare ni hil is tic de lu sional state—peo ple canthink and talk nor mally but are emo tion ally cut off and be lieve them selves to be dead or non ex -is tent. In other de lu sional states per sons mayfeels them selves as made of glass, or even imag -ine they have been turned into a tree, an an i mal, or a bird, or into some other per son. In all thesecases the pa tient can re cover with treat ment, orthe downslide may be ar rested con sid er ably,with the old self returning.

That mem ory is of crit i cal im por tance tothe no tion of self and that mem ory has a phys i -cal ba sis in the brain is dra mat i cally dem on -strated in Alz hei mer’s dis ease. The neu ral de -gen er a tion that oc curs in this dis ease leads tofor ma tion of non-func tion ing plaques in thebrain, which in ex o ra bly robs pa tients of theirmem ory and per sonal iden tity. These ex am plesstress the fact that the self is not a chimera.

The Two Selves: Inner and Outer

Some psy chol o gists and neu rol o gists sug -gest that there is a ro bust ‘core self ’, also calledthe ‘prim i tive self ’, in ev ery hu man, with an ad -di tional ‘au to bio graph i cal’ or ‘ex tended self ’shaped by life ex pe ri ences. Or di narily, the waywe think of our selves makes for our no tion ofper sonal iden tity. Per sonal iden tity is an elab o -rate struc ture, con tain ing both con scious andsub con scious el e ments de rived from our know -l edge, rec ol lec tions and dis po si tions. This is the ex tended self. It is frag ile. The core self, thoughchar ac ter ized as ro bust, is also found to change

The Self and the Atman 591


and is given to lapses. These two as pects of theself more or less co in cide with the dis tinc tionthat psy chol o gists make be tween ‘self as ob ject’and ‘self as pro cess’. The for mer is thephenomenological self, which cov ers at ti tudes,per cep tions, and mem o ries, and which re -sponds to the ex ter nal world from its own frame of ref er ence. The ag gre gate of these re sponses— the in di vid ual’s think ing, feel ing and will ing—con sti tute the pro cess that makes for the ob -served iden tity.2

The Self in the Brain

Neu rol o gists have been try ing to lo catespe cific re gions in the brain that me di ate iden -tity. They have es pe cially been look ing at ar easthat deal with the rep re sen ta tion of body-space. A study has im pli cated the right an gu lar gyrus,lo cated be hind the right ear, as of im por tance in the con struc tion of phys i cal iden tity. This areapro cesses con tin u ous in puts from the vi sual,ves tib u lar (per tain ing to bal ance) andsomatosensory sys tems and could in fact be part of a larger rep re sen ta tional sys tem. An otherstudy has ze roed in on an area in the tem po rallobe which seems to be in volved in the high estlev els of body rep re sen ta tion. Here too, it is be -lieved, phys i cal iden tity could ac tu ally be there sult of the com bined func tion of sev eral neu -ral cen tres, and is there fore more likely a chang -ing pro cess than a fixed en tity. Yet an otherstudy, us ing ad vanced SPECT (sin gle pho tonemis sion com put er ized to mog ra phy) scans,sug gests that the por tion of the pa ri etal lobecalled ori en ta tion as so ci a tion area (OAA) is re -spon si ble for mak ing the sharp dis tinc tion be -tween self and non-self. This area also re quirescon tin u ous sen sory in puts to do its job. Thusthere are sev eral can di dates for the neuralcorrelate of the self, and there is no clear con -sen sus among experts on this issue as yet.

The Creation of Self with Every Perception

All brains are pre-wired in a sim i lar man -ner, but (and this is a big but) there are markedvari a tions in in di vid ual brain func tion. There

are also sex-re lated dif fer ences in brain anat omy and phys i ol ogy. More over, the brain is a plas ticor gan and is con tin u ally be ing moulded by ex -ter nal in flu ences. One study speaks of the ‘coreself ’ as the ‘self of the pres ent mo ment’. In thewords of neu rol o gist An to nio Damasio: ‘Thiscore self is a tran sient en tity rec re ated for eachand ev ery ob ject with which the brain in ter -acts.’ This may be a new line of think ing in neu -rol ogy, but is ac tu ally a key con cept in KshanikaVijnanavada, an im por tant an cient Bud dhistschool of phi los o phy. This school pos its the selfas a chain of mo men tary con scious ness, each element of which is but tran sient and ‘in sub -stan tial’.

Stim uli en ter ing the brain first passthrough ar eas me di at ing sub con scious pro -cesses. Af ter this pro cess ing, the im pulses rise to the con scious level. As a per cep tion rises to thecon scious level, it is ap pro pri ated by the self,giv ing rise to the sense of ego ism. In the wordsof Swami Vivekananda: ‘We have, then, twoplanes in which the hu man mind works. First isthe con scious plane, in which all work is al waysac com pa nied with the feel ing of ego ism. Nextco mes the un con scious plane, where all work isun ac com pa nied by the feel ing of ego ism.’3

Disappearance of the Self

We have re corded some use ful in sights into



Neuronal network: mouse cingulate cortex

MA

RK

MIL

LER

the con struc tion of the self. But these con -structs can lie shat tered with the mere rup tureof a blood ves sel, a vi ral at tack, or an over dose of al co hol, drugs, tran quil lizers, or an aes the sia. Insleep and swoon too the self ap pears dis solved.Is it held in abey ance, does it un dergo tem po -rary hi ber na tion, or does it dis in te grate? Is there an other as pect of the self that we are ig no rantof ? The con ti nu ity of the self is clearly not af -fected by sleep or tem po rary ep i sodes of un con -scious ness. In cases where brain func tion ismore se ri ously af fected, the ex tended self andthe core self may suc ces sively lose their in teg -rity, ul ti mately leav ing only an un dif fer en ti ated sub jec tive aware ness which may be very dif fi -cult to as sess ob jec tively.

It is this sub jec tive realm that has beenelud ing the grasp of all our ad vances in im ag ingtech nol ogy. Brain scans may be able to trace the neu ral cor re lates of con scious ness, but con -scious ness per se is yet to yield an image. Vedan -tic phi los o phers point out that the neu ro log i calself (core, ex tended, or the un dif fer en ti atedsub ject) is an ob ject of thought and not thethinker; the brain can be ex posed and seen, butthe self is a sub ject—per sonal, pri vate, and hid -den. When we think of the self, it is not the sub -jec tive self that we cognize but an object ofthought.

Prana as the Greatest

Ac cord ing to In dian phi los o phy it is Prana, the life force or vi tal force, that keeps the bodyfunc tional. The Chhandogya Upanishad un der -scores this point through a charm ing al le gorythat is used for the pur pose of med i ta tion onPrana: the ‘Old est and Great est’. A dis puteonce arose among the sen sory-or gans as to whowas su pe rior. Find ing no so lu tion, they re -paired to their fa ther Prajapati (the lord of crea -tures) to set tle the dis pute. ‘He is the great estamong you on whose de par ture the body ap -pears to be most de spi ca ble’, re plied Prajapati.Speech was the first to leave its abode in thebody and go into vol un tary ex ile for a year. Onre turn, it en quired how the oth ers had man aged

in its ab sence. The other or gans re plied: ‘Just asthe dumb, with out speak ing; liv ing with thehelp of Prana, see ing through the eye, hear ingwith the ear, think ing with the mind.’ Speechre-en tered the body dis ap pointed. Next the eyeand the ear left in suc ces sion. They too were dis -ap pointed to dis cover that ex cept for blind nessand deaf ness the body was all right. Then themind went out. When it re turned and madeanx ious en qui ries, the sense or gans cho rused,‘We lived as chil dren with un formed minds do,with out think ing—liv ing with the help ofPrana, speak ing with the tongue, see ingthrough the eye, hear ing with the ear.’ De -jected, the mind re-en tered too. Now it wasPrana’s turn to leave. As it pro ceeded to de part,it ‘pulled out the other or gans as a spir ited horse pulls out the pegs to which its legs have beentied’. It didn’t re quire fur ther per sua sion to de -cide the win ner. The sense or gans and mindunited in prayer to Prana: ‘Be our ruler, you arethe great est, please do not de part.’4

The Self as Distinct from the Physical Self

It is clear that even if the sen sory and mo toror gans along with the mind are dys func tional,life can and does go on. Can Prana then be theul ti mate experiencer, the mas ter in the body?The In dian phi los o phers thought oth er wise.Prana, with all its di men sions, is not only in sen -tient but, be ing an ag gre gate, is also not classedas an in de pend ent en tity in In dian phi los o phy.If Prana is not the ul ti mate experiencer, what is? A meta phys i cal self can not be part con sciousand part un con scious; nor can it be cir cum -scribed by Idealism or Materialism.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad has an in -struc tive an ec dote to il lus trate why Prana iscon sid ered dif fer ent from the ex pe ri enc ing sub -ject.5 Ajatashatru, king of Kashi, is ap proachedby the proud or a tor Balaki, who wishes to in -struct him on scrip tural truths. Balaki con sid ers Prana, the cos mic En ergy (termed con di tionedBrah man in the Upanishads) as the Self andstarts in struct ing the king about this. But theking was al ready fa mil iar with all the dif fer ent



as pects of this cos mic En ergy (from that as so ci -ated with the sun to that re sid ing in the heartand in tel lect) that Balaki wishes to explain.Balaki is soon re duced to be ing Ajatashatru’sstu dent. The king then leads him to a sleep ingman whom he hails with the well-known ep i -thets of Prana. Noth ing hap pens. Ajatashatruthen pushes the man re peat edly till he awak ensand gets up. Ajatashatru has made his pointwith out a word of explanation. The in abil ity ofPrana to re spond to his call de spite be ing ac tiveand the lack of re sponse from the phys i calframe to an iso lated touch were point ers to con -scious ness be ing a dis tinct en tity. SriShankaracharya, in his com men tary on thisman tra, ob serves: ‘There fore it is proved thatthat which awoke through push ing—blaz ingforth, as it were, flash ing, as it were, and comefrom some where, as it were, ren der ing the bodydif fer ent from what it was, en dow ing it withcon scious ness, ac tiv ity, a dif fer ent look,etc.—is an en tity other than the body.’6 Theking then raises that fa mous ques tion: ‘Whenthis be ing full of con scious ness was thus asleep,where was it then and whence did it thus comeback?’ and proceeds to explain.

Two States of the Atman

The At man—that is the Vedantic term forself—has two as pects: con di tioned and un con -di tioned. In its un con di tioned state it is Brah -man, ab so lute and non-dual. The con di tionedstate in volves com plete iden ti fi ca tion with thebody, mind, senses, and life, mak ing it em pir i -cal, as it were. This is termed maya. And this ishow the At man ap pears to be well or ill, asleepor awake, and so on. Just as sun light pass ingthrough dif fer ent col oured glasses ap pears dif -fer ently col oured, so does the At man ap pear af -fected by its conditionings. Thus the exper -iencer, the con di tioned At man, ap pears to behand i capped when in a body with a de fec tivebrain. Again, it is only the sub tle conditioningsof the self that are re spon si ble for its trans mi gra -tion. In re al ity, the At man nei ther co mes norgoes, for it tran scends the lim i ta tions of body

and mind. In re al ity we are not iden ti cal withour bod ies; but at the same time our bod ies aredeeply in volved in the pro cess of self-aware ness. We are custodians of the limitless within thelimited.

The Location and Activity of the Self

The At man, the Brihadaranyaka Upani -shad tells us, is ‘iden ti fied with the in tel lect, theManas [mind] and the vi tal force, with the eyesand ears’, and so on.7 ‘When this be ing full ofcon scious ness is thus asleep, it ab sorbs at thetime the func tions of the or gans through itsown con scious ness, and lies in the Akasha (su -preme Self) that is in the heart’ (2.1.17). Fromthere, on awak en ing, ‘it co mes back along thesev enty-two thou sand nerves called Hita whichex tend from the heart to the whole body’(2.1.19). ‘The heart is the seat of the in tel lect[buddhi]’, says Acharya Shankara, and clar i fies:‘the in ter nal or gan [antahkarana], and theother or ex ter nal or gans are sub ject to that in tel -lect. … There fore in ac cor dance with the in di -vid ual’s past ac tions the in tel lect in the wak ingstate ex tends, along those nerves in ter wo venlike a fish-net, the func tions of the or gans suchas the ear to their seats, the outer ear etc., andthen di rects them. The in di vid ual self per vadesthe in tel lect with a re flec tion of its own man i -fested con scious ness. And when the in tel lectcon tracts, it too con tracts. That is the sleep ofthis in di vid ual self. And when it per ceives theex pan sion of the in tel lect, it is wak ing ex pe ri -ence. It fol lows the na ture of its lim it ing ad -junct, the in tel lect, just as a re flec tion of themoon etc. fol lows the na ture of the wa ter and so forth.’8

The Transitory and the Fundamental Self

There def i nitely is a map of the body’s con -fig u ra tion in the brain that har mo nizes all ex pe -ri ences of the in di vid ual. The an gu lar gyrusmen tioned be fore is im pli cated also in the phe -nom e non of phan tom limb syn drome. An am -pu tee con tin ues to ‘feel’ the am pu tated limb be -cause of the pre vi ous map of the limb’s con fig u -



ra tion in the brain. This body rep re sen ta tionand other neu ral cor re lates of con scious ness arenot static. But this work ing idea of self, how ever dy namic it may be, can not sat is fac to rily an swersome fun da men tal philo soph i cal ques tions.Hu man val ues, eth ics, dig nity, knowl edge, be -hav iour, be liefs, hopes and as pi ra tions—allpresuppose a permanent self.

The Nature of the Atman

Af ter mov ing over the rough ground ofday-to-day ex pe ri ences, trac ing the twisted andbumpy tracks of neu rol ogy and psy chol ogy,and at tempt ing to as cend the high peaks of In -dian phi los o phy and meta phys ics, one mightjust be tempted to throw in the towel. For tu -nately for us, the words of the BrihadaranyakaUpanishad are like the sun break ing throughthe mist of con fu sion: ‘Ex plain to me’, saysUshasta to Yajnavalkya, ‘the self that is withinall.’ ‘This is your self that is within all.’ ‘Whichis within all, Yajnavalkya?’ ‘That whichbreathes through the Prana is your self that iswithin all …’ Yajnavalkya goes on to de scribethe At man as tak ing care of di ges tion, me tab o -lism, and other or ganic func tions. Ushasta isnot sat is fied: ‘You have in di cated it as one maysay that a cow is such and such, or a horse is such and such. Ex plain to me the Brah man that isim me di ate and di rect.’ Ushasta’s ex hor ta tion isjus ti fied, for the self re ferred to in Yajnavalkya’sstate ments ap pears no dif fer ent from the em -pir i cal self, sub ject to birth, growth, trans for -ma tion, dis ease, de cay, and death. ButYajnavalkya lays to rest such spec u la tion withan em phatic as ser tion of the At man that is un -con di tioned and ab so lute: ‘You can not see thatwhich is the wit ness of vi sion; you can not hearthat which is the hearer of hear ing; you can notthink that which is the thinker of thought; youcan not know that which is the knower ofknowl edge. This is your self that is within all;ev ery thing else but this is per ish able.’9

This is that truth be yond the em pir i cal pa -ram e ters of sci ence that we need to seek, in di -

vid u ally as well as col lec tively. The MundakaUpanishad says: ‘There are two types of knowl -edge, the higher and the lower.’ The lowerknowl edge com prises the ob jec tive sci ences and ‘the higher is that by which the im per ish ableAt man is known’.10 This re al ity, the in fi nite,eter nal, pure, and non-dual At man, can also bethe sub ject of study like any sci en tific search orex per i ment; only this study has its own meth -od ol ogy and takes a good deal more time andpreparation.

We need to strive to bring the eter nal truthof Advaita (non-du al ity) to bear upon the many chal leng ing is sues that we face; we need to strive to trans late the At man’s self-aware ness in thebrain into con crete ac tion in the world, es pe -cially in the field of men tal hy giene. Were ourre la tion ships and in sti tu tions based on theknowl edge of the At man’s per ma nence and sta -bil ity, a saner age with saner in di vid u als wouldbe ush ered in. ~

References

1. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, trans. SwamiMadhava nanda (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama,2004), 3.4.1.

2. Hiram E Fitz ger ald and El len Stummen, De -vel op men tal Psy chol ogy (Il li nois: Learn ing Sys -tems, 1972), 107.

3. The Com plete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1–8, 1989;9, 1997) 1.180.

4. Chhandogya Upanishad, trans. Swami Gam -bhir ananda (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama,1997), 5.1.6–12.

5. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 2.1.1–15.

6. Shankaracharya’s com men tary in Brihadaran -yaka Upanishad, 2.1.15.

7. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.5.

8. Shankaracharya’s com men tary in Brihadaran -yaka Upanishad, 2.1.19.

9. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 3.4.1–2.

10. Mundaka Upanishad, trans. Swami Gambhir -ananda (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 1995),1.1.4–5.




Dancing Shiva and the Self-creating WorldDR BEATRICE BRUTEAU

Shiva Nataraja is my fa vour ite im age forthe To tal Real. Shiva, as such, is un der -stood to be the Ab so lute, the In fi nite. But

Shiva danc ing is the cos mos, the mov ing fi nite.And the in di vid ual (hu man be ing), the wit -ness-agent, is their one ness. The im age re minds us that the dance is noth ing but the dancer inmo tion. It is not a sep a ra ble prod uct ofthe dancer’s ac tiv ity in the way that a pot is separate from thepotter.

I will urge here that theworld is not an il lu sion, amis take, an ac ci dent, atest ingground, or adevil’s play ground. It isin deed a di vine dance, agodly word. It evolves, ithas cre ativ ity and rules ofits own, it is n’t a fin ishedprod uct. Con scious ness, thedi vine Spirit, is grow ing in it.This makes the fuller ex pres sionof di vine val ues more and morepos si ble, and it is as par tic i pantsin this pro cess that the re spon si -bil ity of in di vid u als and their col -lec tives co mes more and more to the fore. Thegoal of life is not to es cape from the world intoheaven or nir vana but to nur ture the ex pres sivedance, to en able it more and more to say the di -vine word, to bring con scious ness to greater re -al iza tion of the one ness of the Ab so lute and itsdance/word. In this con text I will de velop somede tail about the evo lu tion, the con scious ness,and the re spon si bil ity.

The Absolute and Its Gestures

There is a fa mous rep re sen ta tion ofShiva-Shava-Shakti: as a dead body (Shava),

from which rises a wak ing body (Shiva), onwhich dances a vig or ous body (Shakti). WhenShiva is in con tact with Shakti, Shiva awakes;with out this con tact, Shiva is shava, a corpse.The mes sage is that Shiva, the ab so lute ground ofBe ing, has two as pects: the shava as pect, with -drawn from the world, tran scend ing all ac tiv ity,

all de scrip tion, with out name or form, in -fi nite; and the shakti as pect, the full

ac tiv ity of the world, ex pressed,man i fested, en gaged, full of

names and forms of all de -scrip tions, fi nite but con -stantly chang ing, grow -ing, evol v ing nov el ties.

The im por tant point to grasp is that both as -pects, the Ground astran scend ing all form and

the Ground as ex pres sive in all form, are real and pos -

sessed of im mea sur able value.In deed, they are two as pects of

one Be ing. This is the ‘nondual’truth. The var i ous forms of whichthe world is com posed are de pend -ent on the tran scen dent form less

Ground; while the lat ter is not de pend ent onany thing. It is nec es sary Be ing, absolute Be -ing—not rel a tive to any thing else, hav ing noop po site, no en vi ron ment, no com par i son.Nev er the less, the world-forms, each con tin gent upon the Ground, are them selves noth ing butthe ac tual Ground it self in the act of ‘ex press -ing’. This is why the im age of the Dancer is soapt.

Of the Ab so lute noth ing can be said thatim plies ref er ence to an other be ing. But somethings can be said on the un der stand ing thatthey are strictly them selves; there is no need to

make ref er ence to any thing else to make cleartheir re al ity, their mean ing, and their value. For in stance, in the Upanishadic tra di tion we speakof Sat-Chit-Ananda: Be ing, Con scious ness,and Bliss may be af firmed of the Ab so lute onthe un der stand ing that they them selves are ab -so lute and im ply no ref er ence or de pend ency.In the West ern tra di tion we speak of the tran -scendentals, them selves nec es sary and un -grounded: Be ing, Unity, Truth, Good ness, and Beauty. Plato, for in stance, spoke of ‘the Goodin it self ’, ‘the Beau ti ful in it self ’. It also has tobe un der stood that these are not ab strac tionsdrawn from ex pe ri ence of lim ited things andrel a tive val ues. Maimonides, for in stance, wasso con cerned that we not ap ply to God the kindof ‘good ness’ that we con trast with ‘bad ness’,that he pro posed that we not call God ‘good’ atall. But these transcendentals are meant as theac tu al i ties them selves which ex press as the lim -ited and rel a tive and con trasted things of theworld. The fact that we can ‘know’ thetranscendentals is an in di ca tion that we our -selves have the ‘nec es sary be ing’ aspect of reality as well as the relative and contingent aspect.

Fol low ing the meta phys ics of the Dancer,we can say that the things and re la tions of theworld are the ‘ges tures’ of the ab so lute Ground.The Ground ‘ges tures’—dances—be cause thetranscendentals are ‘dif fu sive of them selves’.Good ness would not be good ness if it did notcom mu ni cate good ness. Built into the veryground of Ex is tence is this dif fu sive, com mu ni -ca tive, ex pres sive char ac ter. The Shakti-Shiva is God’s ec stasy. Ec static danc ing rep re sentsGod’s cre ative, self-ex pres sive be ing-good ness-beauty com mu ni cat ing as pect. As Good ness isnec es sar ily com mu ni ca tive of itself, so God isnecessarily ecstatic.

The dance con sists of a va ri ety of ges tures.The ges tures are par tic u lar be ings and the re la -tions among them. They are fi nite, de fin able,rel a tive, con tin gent. Nev er the less, they are theAb so lute’s self-ex pres sion. The the sis here isthat it is er ro ne ous to op pose the world to theGround/God. God has no op po site, and the

world is God in ec stasy. It is il lu sion to thinkthat the world has no Ground, and equally il lu -sory to think that it is other than the Ground. Ifthere were any thing ‘other than’ the Ground,the so-called Ground would not be the groundof ev ery thing. ‘Oth er ness’, like ev ery re la tion, is strictly inapplicable to the Ground.

But it is nec es sary that God be ex pres sive,and it is God who is ac tively do ing the ex press -ing, and there fore the world is real and valu able. It is God’s own ‘in ten tion’, self-orig i nated ac -tion. It is not an ac ci dent on the part of the Void (though that may well be in volved in how it isdone1), and it is not an il lu sion on the part ofthe hu man perceiver (though per cep tion is fil -tered and framed2). And it is cer tainly not thein ven tion of a de ity who wants to test peo ple tosee whether they de serve rewards or pun ish -ments.

The world is God’s in ten tion, kavannah,some thing mean ing ful in which in vest ment isbe ing made. En ergy is be ing com mit ted to it, avalue is be ing sought in it—in this case, that theworld should in deed be ex pres sive of the unity,truth, good ness, and beauty of the ab so luteGround. The world is to re al ize it self as the end -lessly evolv ing forms of gen er ous and cre ativebe ing-shar ing. The goal of the den i zens of theworld such as our selves, there fore, is not to es -cape the world but to help create the world.

It is a self-cre at ing world. When the cre -ative Ground ex presses it self, it in ev i ta bly ex -presses cre ativ ity. And the self-dif fus ing qual ityof the transcendentals also char ac ter izes theworld. Cre ativ ity and gen er os ity are qual i ties ofthe world from the very be gin ning and con -tinue to char ac ter ize the way the world evolves.The ‘gen er os ity’ shows in the way force-fieldsare ex tended in space and com mu ni cate theirpar tic u lar forces to what ever re cep tive en ti tieslie within their ef fec tive ranges. In deed, ‘gen er -os ity’ shows in all cos mic acts of com mu ni ca -tion of en ergy and in for ma tion. And ‘cre ativ ity’shows in the way new prop er ties arise from thein ter ac tions of par tic u lar be ings. Pro tons sharetheir strong-nu clear force (gen er os ity) and ac -

Dancing Shiva and the Self-creating World 597


cord ing to their num ber man i fest as quite dif -fer ent el e ments (cre ativ ity). These dif fer ent at -oms gen er ously share their elec tro static forcesand cre ate novel mol e cules. The interactivitiesof mol e cules con sti tute ‘liv ing’ in an enor mousva ri ety of forms, and liv ing be ings form or gan -isms by sym bi o sis of dif fer en ti ated or gans andtis sues, and fi nally there arise com mu ni ties ofthese or gan isms in eco sys tems. Cre ativ ityshows both in the nov elty of the whole ness ofthe in ter act ing en ti ties and in the dif fer en ti a -

tion of tasks—and consequentlyof forms—within the wholeness.

Ev ery time a new level of en -ergy-shar ing un ion is formed, awhole new kind of world co mesinto be ing: el e men tary par ti clesshare their char ac ter is tic en er giesand make at oms; at oms share

and form mol e cules; mol e cules com mu ni cateto con sti tute liv ing cells; cells co op er ate as or -gan isms and or gan isms as com mu ni ties. Andeach time such a new level of or ga ni za tion isgained, there is more nov elty, un pre dict abil ityof what the un ion will be like and be able to do,and more irreducibility to its com po nents.Each level has ul ti mately to be un der stood in itsown terms, just as its most sig nif i cant in ter ac -tions will be with its peers, other wholes of thesame level.

Each ad vance, by unit ing the en ti ties of thepre vi ous level, ex hib its a greater va ri ety of el e -ments united and of re la tions uni fy ing them.This is its com plex ity. It also ex hib its in creas ing ‘con scious ness’ be cause there is at each step amore in tense un ion and greater in ter de pen -dence of the el e ments and pro cesses in volved.Fur ther more, there is a greater in dis pens abil ityof each com po nent and each in ter ac tion withthe en vi ron ment, and all of this means greateror ga ni za tion of stim uli (in com ing en ergy andin for ma tion) and re sponses (out go ing en ergyand in for ma tion). The tighter or ga ni za tionmeans more centredness, more integration, ofthe whole entity.

And all of this, to gether with the in creased

va ri ety of in ter ac tions with the en vi ron ment,means an in crease in ‘free dom’, more al ter na -tives and greater de lay be tween stim u lus and re -sponse while in ter nal pro cess ing is go ing on,and thus, fi nally, more spon ta ne ity, more orig i -nal ity—as dis tin guished from mere re sponse— of be hav iour. And all along there has beenincreasing consciousness.

The Evolution of Consciousness

The par al lel evo lu tion of com plex ity andcon scious ness is the idea made fa mous by Pi erre Teilhard de Chardin, es pe cially in his The Phe -nom e non of Man.3 Com plex ity ad vances byunit ing en ti ties and dif fer en ti at ing forms andfunc tions among them. And con scious ness ad -vances by open ing more chan nels of in ter ac tion with the en vi ron ment and de vel op ing more op -er a tions on re ceived in for ma tion. Even tu allythese in ter nal op er a tions form closed loops in -de pend ent of com mu ni ca tion with the ex te -rior, and con cepts, mem o ries, an tic i pa tions,pro jec tions, and such purely in ter nal mat tersbe come the in te grat ing func tions of the or gan -ism, the seat of unity and whole ness. When thecon cept of ‘con scious ness’ is formed to la belcer tain in ter nal events, an other loop is closedand the be ing is said to be ‘self-con scious’, thatis, conscious of being conscious. Consciousness itself becomes the object of consciousness.

But who is the sub ject of this con scious ness? Who is it who is ‘con scious’? the body? thebrain? We hu mans have the sub jec tive ex pe ri -ence of be ing con scious. Do other kinds of be -ing also have some ver sion of this ex pe ri ence?Why should there be sub jec tive ex pe ri ence? Itseems that the brain/body com plex can re ceivein for ma tion, pro cess it, and act on it with outbe ing sub jec tively aware of do ing so. So whyshould con scious ness have evolved? What usedoes it have?

Ques tions such as these have led somebrain/con scious ness sci en tists to sug gest thatwe might put aside the at tempt to give a full ac -count of con scious ness in terms of material- energetic move ments. Con scious ness it self may



be a ‘prim i tive’, some thing on its own,not a de riv a tive or an epiphenomenonof some thing else.4 This could bethe case even though there arematch ing par al lels be tweenob jec tive ob ser va tions andsub jec tive ex pe ri ences. Teil -hard’s idea was that con -scious ness is like a ‘lin ing’ forthe fab ric of ma te rial or ga ni -za tion, go ing all the way backto the or i gin of this uni verse.How could it be oth er wise?Where would you draw theline be tween the con sciousbe ings and those un con -scious? and on what grounds?

If we re flect on this sug ges -tion of the primitivity of con scious -ness, we may find a very gen eral def i ni -tion of con scious ness to be help ful, some thing that would cover even the ear li est and sim plestof cos mic in ter ac tions. Sup pose we say thatcon scious ness is the abil ity se lec tively to de tectrel e vant fea tures of one’s en vi ron ment and tore spond to them ap pro pri ately, plus the abil ityto de tect that this be hav iour is go ing on. If apro ton is in close enough range of an other pro -ton, it ‘feels’ the strong force be tween them:that is, it moves to ward the other, it acts in away that in di cates aware ness of the pres ence ofthe other and of the na ture of the re la tion shipbe tween them. If it is too far away for the strongforce to be ef fec tive, it will ‘feel’ and re spond interms of the elec tro static force and move awayfrom the other pos i tively charged par ti cle. It de -tects the pres ence of the other, the dis tance, and the now rel e vant re la tion ship. Is this min i mal‘con scious ness’—be ing able to re ceive in for ma -tion from your ap pro pri ate en vi ron ment andre spond to it ac cord ingly? Does this amount to‘know ing’ that the other is there, even know ingwhere, and know ing what it is, and know inghow to re act to it (not that it has any choice),know ing what is go ing on in your sig nif i canten vi ron ment? Later on in the cos mic evo lu tion,

‘en vi ron ment’ would in clude yourown body, its out side and its in -

side, and men tal ity it self. Andthis aware ness would be anout growth from the min i malabi l ity that was there from thebe gin ning.

Wher ever there is fini -tude, there will be re la tion,and con scious ness is aware -ness of the pres ence of re la -tion. With out this ‘aware ness’ there would not be ‘re la tion’.This is what it would mean tode clare that ‘con scious ness’ isa prim i tive, an orig i nal in-it -self form of be ing. It is es sen -

tial to the na ture of the fi nite, re -la tional, interacting world.

But if this min i mal con scious nessevolves into hu man con scious ness, with its con -cepts and its aware ness of the in fi nite, the tran -scendentals, the di vine, the forms, the nondualon tol ogy, then are the min i mal and in ter me di ate de grees of con scious ness the ‘ex pres sions’ of ‘in -fi nite con scious ness’? Is ‘in fi nite con scious ness’ac tu ally pres ent in us all, as the tran scendentalsare, ex press ing it self ac cord ing to the de gree ofcom plex ity of re la tions of the be ing of which it isthe in te rior ‘lin ing’? When it knows that it iscon scious, then has it burst through some crit i cal thresh old and re al ized that it is it self theGround—in this par tic u lar form—and has itthus tran scended its own fi nite na ture in an ec -static move ment that is the re cip ro cal of the di -vine Dancer’s orig i nal ec stasy?

If so, then the hu man be ing—or any be ingca pa ble of such tran scen dent ec stasy—knowsit self to be a mem ber of a great ‘fractal’ or ‘ho lo -graphic’ ex pres sion of a sin gle pat tern that car -ries all the char ac ter is tics of the max i mal whole -ness at ev ery scale of its com pounded or ga ni za -tion.

Some peo ple have had vivid ex pe ri ences ofthis. Here is an ac count by Han Shan, a Chi nese Mahayana Bud dhist: ‘Sud denly I stood still,



Ma. Se.

filled with the re al iza tion that I had no bodyand no mind. All I could see was one great il lu -mi nat ing Whole, om ni pres ent, per fect, lu cid,and se rene. ... Af ter the great som er sault, thegreat Void is bro ken through. Oh, how freelycome and go the myr iad forms of things!’ Hereis an other, from Master Hsueh Yen:

As I was just go ing to sit down, some thing brokethrough abruptly be fore my face as if the groundwere sink ing away. I wanted to tell how I felt, but I could not ex press it. Noth ing in this world canbe used as a sim ile to de scribe it. ... I looked up atthe sky and down at the earth. I ac tu ally felt thatall phe nom ena and man i fes ta tions, the things Isaw with my eyes and heard with my ears ... allflowed out from my own bright, true, and mar -vel lous Mind.5

We are now in a po si tion to pro pose thatthere is yet an other way of stat ing this nondualthe sis: The To tal Real is both sub jec tive and ob -jec tive. Re al iza tion of the in fi nite Ground ex -press ing it self is the sine qua non of our spir i tuallife. But be cause the pro jec tion of the world isthat Ground’s own in ten tional act, de vel op -

ment of the world is alsoour vo ca tion. This is whythe Zen Ox-Herd ing Pic -tures pass through theempty cir cle and end withthe re-en try into world-com mu nity life with gifts

to share. Our per sonal sub jec tive spir i tual at -tain ment is not the whole story. There is alsothe ob jec tive at tain ment of the world to con -sider. The hu man be ing there fore makes a dou -ble ef fort: to re al ize one self as the Ab so lute inac tion, and to join with oth ers to con tinuemak ing the created order a worthy expressionof the absolute Goodness.

Spiritual Practice and the Critical Shift in Consciousness

There is one prac tice we could all un der -take that would work on both of these ob jec -tives. It co mes from Psalm 16: ‘I have placed the di vine Pres ence be fore me al ways.’ We can feel

free to ma nip u late the trans la tion to suit ourown out look: ‘I sense the To tal Real around meal ways’, ‘I look for God in ev ery one and ev ery -thing’, ‘I seek and find the di vine Pres ence inmy self and in all else.’ Re ally prac tis ing do ingthis is transforming.

In our Shiva lan guage we would say thatShiva-Shakti is the Life-En ergy in ev ery thing;there is di vin ity in all. The tri par tite In te gralYoga en ables us to man i fest this. Jnana Yogaun der stands it. This is what we have been do ing above, ex plain ing the meta phys ics that un der -lies our ev ery day lives. We have to be clear onthis be cause if we make as sump tions abouthow-things-are that sup port be liefs in sep a ra -tion, scar city, in se cu rity, and fear, we will neverat tain the dou ble goal pro posed. Many peo plewho take up the spir i tual life in a se ri ous way donot like to do ‘head-work’, but head-work isnec es sary; it is part of the make-up of the hu -man be ing, and it ad dresses part of the re al ity of‘what-Is’. It can not be ne glected, be cause out of the way we perceive and think come the wayswe feel and act.

If we look at the world with the in ten tion of de vot ing our selves to help ing it be come an ex -pres sion of the ab so lute Good ness, we will seethat it needs a good deal of work. The mul ti -tude of ills from which we suf fer do not need tobe listed, but it can be help ful to ob serve themclosely enough to see that most of them arisefrom ef forts of hu man be ings to dom i nate other peo ple and the en vi ron ment. Dom i na tionmeans de ter min ing for other be ings whetherthey may ex ist, where and how they may ex ist,what they may do, what their roles are to be,what their value is, how they are to re late toother be ings, what their names are. Why dopeo ple feel im pelled to do this? It looks like am -bi tion, ar ro gance, pride, ag gres sive ness, butpress ing deeper into those feel ings we find in se -cu rity, be lief in scar city—of ma te rial and so cialgoods—and ex is ten tial fear. We ex pe ri enceour selves alone and pow er less in Be ing. Oth ersare truly ‘other’, alien to us. We are not safe, wecan not pro tect our selves, can not trust. We are



sep a rate selves. What be ing we have we try tose cure by mak ing it dif fer ent from oth ers: I am I to the ex tent that I am not-you, and yousimilarly are not-I. We mutually negate oneanother.

To find our selves as the Ab so lute in ac tion,as part ners in the great work of Creation, thiswhole line of think ing, feel ing, per ceiv ing hasto shift. If we start at the bot tom, with the mu -tual ne ga tion, we re place it with mu tual af fir -ma tion: I am I by af firm ing you, by giv ing youen ergy-to-be, will ing you well. This at onceover comes the sense of sep a ra tion and en ablesus to be deeply en gaged in one an other’s lives.Not be ing aliens, we are able fi nally to love onean other: the neigh bour is ac tu ally seen as pro -foundly re lated to my self and so I can will thewell-be ing of the neigh bour as my self. Andthen there is no lon ger need to pro tect, pro -mote, ad vance my self over any other or need totry to turn the other to my ad van tage. We canhave com mu ni ties of friend ship and co op er a -tion in stead of eco nomic/po lit i cal sys temsbased on com pe ti tion, hos til ity, and dom i na -tion.6

Fine. But how do we make that crit i cal turn from mu tual ne ga tion to mu tual af fir ma tion?Where do we get the free dom from in se cu rity to be able to do that? It has to come, as the Bud dha said, from right views and right ef forts, fol -lowed by all sorts of right ac tions. This is whysee ing the To tal Real as Danc ing Shiva—or itsequiv a lent un der any other met a phor—is theplace to start. Per haps the story of Je sus, theJew ish Hasid, the de vout one, can be helpful.

We are told that on the oc ca sion of his bap -tism Je sus had a deep re al iza tion of the na ture of things. The event is re lated in con ven tionalJew ish id i oms: he felt the heav ens were openedto him, the Holy Spirit of God de scended onhim as a dove, and he heard a heav enly voice.What the voice said was: ‘You are my be lovedoff spring; I take de light in you.’

Now this was not ex actly news. The book ofDeu ter on omy (14.1) had said plainly: ‘You arechil dren of God.’ It was, in fact, some thing that

‘ev ery body knows’. Nev er the less, the storyshows us a man who was sud denly struck by this,who was awe stricken, who re ally heard it and saw the dif fer ence it would make if we all could re al -ize its foun da tional truth. This is what hap pensin jnana. You see some -thing that has been be -fore your face for ever, see it for the first time, see itdi rectly, in it self, in itsfun da men tal re al ity.This act of see ing is in tel -lec tual in tu ition: know -ing di rectly, not by sen -sory or emo tional ex pe ri -ence, not as de rived from some other ideas, butin its own orig i nal ex is ten tial re al ity.

And what the whole story about Je susshows us is some one see ing in this way and thendraw ing con clu sions from the in sight, and thenputt ing these con clu sions into ac tion. The in -sight and the ac tion are the re sponse to the dou -ble vo ca tion to re al ize your self as the Ab so lute’sdance-ges ture and to unite with oth ers in fur -ther ing the cre ation as God’s self-ex pres sion. Iin ter pret the story as show ing that he re al izedon the deep est level that ev ery be ing is an ‘off -spring’ of God; we are all ‘be loved chil dren’, inwhom the ab so lute Ground—the Dancer—the Par ent ‘takes de light’. (To be con cluded )

References

1. B Bruteau, God’s Ec stasy: The Cre ation of aSelf-Cre at ing World (New York: Cross road,1997), 69–77, esp. 71 and 76.

2. B Bruteau, The Psy chic Grid: How We Cre atethe World We Know (Wheaton IL: Quest,1979), esp. chap. 4.

3. Pi erre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phe nom e nonof Man (New York: Harper, 1961).

4. God’s Ec stasy, 156 ff.

5. B Bruteau, What We Can Learn from the East(New York: Cross road, 1995), 68–9.

6. For the dom i na tion to friend ship turn, see BBruteau, The Holy Thurs day Rev o lu tion (Mary -knoll NY: Orbis, 2005).



From Intellect to Intelligence: Taking the Quantum Leap

DR SAMPOORAN SINGH AND DR KANWALJIT KAUR

The hu man brain is a part of the ob jec tiveworld and can be in ves ti gated ob jec -tively. The hu man mind is how ever a

sub jec tive en tity. There is no prob lem moremys te ri ous than the mind-brain-body in ter ac -tion. Mod ern sci ence has not made it less in -trac ta ble. Rather, it has added a new ur gencyand also a new poi gnancy to it.

In deal ing with sub tle phe nom ena in thewak ing state of mind, we have to rec og nize thefact that the act of ob ser va tion is ac com pa niedby an in ev i ta ble dis tur bance which al ters thestate of the ob served sys tem in an un pre dict able man ner. What is ob served is dif fer ent fromwhat was be fore the act of ob ser va tion. Ob jec -tive mea sure ment and ver i fi ca tion can there -fore no lon ger be ab so lute tests of re al ity.

Many em i nent sci en tists—in clud ing Al -bert Ein stein, Werner Heisenberg, ErwinSchro dinger, and Ar thur Ed ding ton—havestum bled upon an other mode of know ing: di -rect, in ti mate, in tu itive (in sight ful), or ‘the un -der stand ing of life di rectly, in stead of in the ab -stract, lin ear terms of rep re sen ta tional think -ing’.1 The mind-brain-body sys tem makes aquan tum jump from ra tio nal ity to in tu ition,and this trans for ma tion is not gov erned by rea -son or an a lyt i cal logic. The quan tum jump is atiny but ex plo sive leap of en ergy from one sys -tem to an other in a frac tion of a sec ond. Thisnew or der can not be found in mat ter; rather, ithas to be traced to the minds of the physicists.

Life is a mys te ri ous whole. It is non-frag -men tary in di vis i ble whole ness wher ever it ex -ists. It is in fi nite, im mea sur able, and eter nal. Itis a sci en tific ex plo ra tion or a pil grim age in it -self. The aim of hu man life is to un der take in ner trans for ma tion. This pre sup poses a will ing ness

to live, and a will ing ness to ob serve life man i -fest ing in mul ti di men sional forms with an openor re cep tive mind. Open ness or re cep tiv ity im -plies that in wardly we are not pre oc cu pied withany other ac tiv ity dur ing the act of per cep -tion—see ing, or hear ing, or any thing else. Theaim of hu man life is to make a quan tum jumpfrom the in di vid ual wak ing state of con scious -ness (which is ‘suc ces sive con scious ness’) to theaware ness of whole ness, the one ness of life(which may be called ‘simultaneous con scious -ness’ or ‘life field’).

Rea son or ‘in tel lec tual con struc tion’ is apre cious ca pa bil ity thrown up by evo lu tion and is the source of much hu man prog ress in cul ture and civ i li za tion. In spite of this prog ress overun count able mil len nia, hu man ity has failed tore solve psy cho log i cal im bal ances and eco log i cal cri ses man i fest ing in the ris ing waves of vi o -lence and crime, re li gious fun da men tal ism,eth nic con flicts, and cor rup tion, as well as in in -creas ing un em ploy ment, pov erty, hun ger, mal -nu tri tion, and health cri ses. Re cent chal lengesin clude ter ror ism, hi jack ing, and drug traf fick -ing. All ap peals to achieve full dis ar ma ment and per ma nent peace; all dec la ra tions by No bel lau -re ates; all res o lu tions of the Pugwash Con fer -ences; all proc la ma tions of the In ter na tionalPhy si cians for the Pre ven tion of Nu clear War(IPPNW); all pro nounce ments of eminentscientists, philosophers, and mystics have fallenon the deaf ears of humanity.

Al bert Ein stein, the great est phys i cist ofthis age, ob served that (i) the hu man psy chedur ing the first few de cades of the twen ti ethcen tury got heavily con di tioned and lost its sen -si tiv ity; and (ii) this loss of sen si tiv ity is lead ingpeo ple to self-de struc tion and self-an ni hi la tion.


Psy cho log i cal im bal ances (an ger, fear, envy,greed, and so on) have en dan gered ev ery formof re la tion ship: be tween dif fer ent in di vid u als,be tween hu mans and otheror gan isms, and be tween hu -mans and the en vi ron ment.Hu man ity stands now atthe edge of an abyss of to talan ni hi la tion. The ex tinc -tion of life is at the very coreof human anxiety.

Limitations of the Intellect

The Prob lem of Du al ity: The mind di vides it self into sub -ject and ob ject. The seer(sub ject) and the seen (ob -ject) are within the same en -ergy web, so there is shar ingof en ergy; and both get mu -ti lated in the pro cess. Wecould write this as Ob ject (Fact) + Sub ject (Re -called Mem ory) ® Mu ti lated Fact + Mu ti lated

Mem oryFrom pure per cep tion (fact), we pro ceed toiden ti fi ca tion and rec og ni tion, and this dis torts the pure per cep tion to mu ti lated per cep tion.Knowl edge is in vari ably in di rect per cep tion.This is be cause of the sub ject-ob ject du al ity. Asthe dualistic ap proach has be come so in grained, and be cause the er ror of du al ism is at the veryroot of intellection, it is next to im pos si ble toup root it through intellection.

The brain con structs dis torted im ages andthen stores them as fre quency and am pli tudein for ma tion (knowl edge), and this is calledcon di tion ing. The brain has been trained orcon di tioned to in ter pret be hav iour pat terns. Ithas been con di tioned to de duce con clu sions,ana lyse, com pare, eval u ate, and ar rive at judg -ments. It is meant for re ceiv ing data (which isdif fer ent from the per cept, and is there fore in -ac cu rate), pro cess ing, in ter pret ing, and re act -ing to it. Knowl edge, there fore, is nei ther theresult of, nor can lead to, direct perception.

Our thoughts are in di vid ual ex pres sions ofthe col lec tive past, or ga nized and stan dard izedby so ci ety. Think ing is a me chan i cal move -

ment. It is a re ac tion of thepast to the pres ent chal -lenge. We live with a set offalse per cepts, ide als, mo -tives, and de sires, and areun aware of the truth. This is the ba sic lim i ta tion of thein tel lect. And this is leadingus into an abyss.

The chal lenges fac inghu man kind are not in theex ter nal world, but are em -bed ded in the con di tionedmind-brain-body sys tem—in past ex pe ri ence andknowl edge. All our con di -tion ing is amal gam ated, or -ga nized, and stan dard ized.This leads to loss of the el e -gance of hu mil ity and in no -

cence. Par a dox i cal though it may seem, it isknowl edge that is hold ing the whole world toransom.The Con fines of Knowl edge: (i) Knowl edge isnever at the core of growth or de vel op men tal ef -forts. It is re pet i tive, mech a nis tic, and per tainsto the past. In tel lect and rea son can not trans -form the con di tioned psy che be cause the in tel -lect is at the same level as its conditionings. Psy -chol o gists af firm that knowl edge (in for ma -tion), thought struc tures, ide als, be liefs, andcon cepts are in ca pa ble of transforming thebasic human psyche.

(ii) No hu man prob lem, no prob lem of hu -man re la tion ship, can ever be fully re solvedthrough mere knowl edge or thought at the ce -re bral level. Knowl edge does not re sult in a di -rect ap pre ci a tion of others. Peo ple can never behappy and at peace with them selves and in lovewith fel low hu man be ings un less they be comeaware of the ho mo ge neous in di vis i ble whole -ness of life.

(iii) What we call know ing is only a chain

From Intellect to Intelligence: Taking the Quantum Leap 603


A Quantum Leap

of re ac tions and or ga nized struc tural pat terns.(iv) Geared only to knowl edge, hu mans

lose their per cep tive sen si tiv ity at an ac cel er ated pace and become ir ra tio nal. This is why wehave be come ex tro verted and di vorced fromRe al ity. We are los ing the gift of in tu ition andspon ta ne ity. We need to rec tify this er ror andlive in symbiosis with nature.The Spec trum of Con scious ness: In a rad i cal leap of ge nius, Max Planck pro posed that en ergy is notcon tin u ous, but is trans ferred in dis crete pack etsor quanta. Fritjof Capra men tions that ‘the hu -man mind is ca pa ble of two kinds of knowl edgeor two modes of con scious ness. These have beentermed as the ra tio nal and the in tu itive. … Thepat terns sci en tists ob serve in na ture are in ti -mately con nected with the pat terns of theirminds—with their con cepts, thoughts and val -ues.’ Our nor mal wak ing con scious ness or ra tio -nal mode of con scious ness con structstime-space-cau sa tion ma tri ces in quick suc ces -sion, and this we call ‘suc ces sive con scious ness’.The or der of the uni verse is the or der of ourminds. The mind has the ca pac ity to make aquan tum leap from suc ces sive con scious ness to‘si mul ta neous con scious ness’, or to a non-dualor non-con cep tual frame of ref er ence. Non-du -al ity is at a higher quan tum en ergy po ten tial, as it were, when com pared to the dualistic frame ofref er ence. So in tu ition has a higher en ergy po -ten tial than thought or mem ory. The art of liv -ing con sists in at tain ing higher and higher lev elsof con scious ness. In ‘in tel li gence’, con scious nessis at its high est po ten tial.

The Benediction of Nature

Na ture, in its bounty, has a hid den po ten -tial em bed ded within it—a non-dual and non-con cep tual frame of ref er ence within the mind.Al bert Ein stein had ob served that ‘ob jec tive ob -serv ing and un der stand ing’ brings about a mu -ta tion of the hu man psy che. Max Planck, wholaid the foun da tions of quan tum me chan ics,wrote: ‘It is a fact that there is a point, one sin gle point in the im mea sur able ex panse of mind and mat ter, where sci ence, and there fore ev ery

causal method of re search is in ap pli ca ble, notonly on prac ti cal grounds, but also on log i calgrounds, and will al ways re main in ap pli ca ble.This is the point of in di vid ual aware ness.’2

The foun da tion of cre ativ ity is em bed ded inthat sin gle point in the ‘im mea sur able ex panse of mind and mat ter’, and this is the point of our ‘in -di vid ual aware ness’. All great dis cov er ies havearisen from the realm of our in di vid ual aware -ness. This aware ness is time less, so sub jec tive sci -en tific en quiry is not a ce re bral ac tiv ity in volv ing gath er ing of in for ma tion, but a quest in time less -ness, in the realm di vine. The foun da tion of hu -man life is not knowl edge, but in tu ition.

The em i nent as tron o mer Edwin Hub blehad this to say on in tu ition: ‘The world of pureval ues, that world which sci ence can not en ter,has no con cern what so ever with prob a bleknow l edge. The fi nal ity—eter nal, ul ti matetruth—is ear nestly sought. And some times,through the strangely com pel ling ex pe ri ence ofmys ti cal in sight, a man knows be yond the sha -dow of a doubt that he has been in touch with are al ity that lies be hind mere phe nom ena. Hehim self is com pletely con vinced, but he can notcom mu ni cate the cer tainty. It is a pri vate rev e -la tion. He may be right, but un less we share hisec stasy, we can not know.’3 It is ev i dent that onewho per ceives the in tu ition may be right, butone can not com mu ni cate the cer tainty. It is apri vate rev e la tion.

This sug gests that we will have to tran scend rea son to go be yond ce re bral ac tiv ity and dis -cover a qual i ta tively dif fer ent move ment of en -ergy (the ‘un con di tioned en ergy’) within our -selves. This is to go be yond the knowl edge andex pe ri ence that con di tion us. This un con di -tioned en ergy is syn er gis tic with but in de pend -ent of ce re bral en ergy, thought, knowledge,and experience.

Intelligence

If we ob serve the move ment of thought and sound with out in ter fer ing in their flow, then we are at ten tive. From the experiencer and thedoer, the analyser and the in ter preter, we bring



our selves to the state of ob ser va tion. To ob serve is to be at ten tive with out a choice. It is ob ser va -tion through non-re ac tive at ten tion. We haveto ed u cate our selves in this fac ulty of ob ser va -tion: to look at a thing but not eval u ate it.

The art of ob jec tive ob ser va tion and un der -stand ing is at a higher ‘en ergy po ten tial’ than thenor mal psy cho log i cal mode of mind (which in -volves con sid er able dis si pa tion of en ergy), so itre sults in a quan tum leap from the dualisticframe of ref er ence to the non-dual and non- con -cep tual frame. This non-dual frame is time less.

Spirituality

Spir i tu al ity in volves un der stand ing of thecon di tioned mind (the ma te rial con tent of con -scious ness) and also the ap pre hen sion of un -con di tioned en ergy; so it is the sci ence of thewhole ness of life. It aims at self-ac tu al iza tion orunfoldment of the hid den hu man po ten tial.Spir i tu al ity is fun da men tal, ob jec tive sci ence isde riv a tive. An in te gra tion of sci ence and spir i -tu al ity is the key to the survival of hu man kind.

In spir i tual sci ence, the em pha sis is on theact of per cep tion, the qual ity of the in stru ments em ployed for per cep tion, and the qual ity ofcon scious ness be hind per cep tion. Spir i tu al ityin volves ex plo ra tion of the ‘max i mum en ergypo ten tial’ of con scious ness. Both sci ence in itsmost lib eral form and spir i tu al ity have a non-au thor i tar ian approach.

Spir i tu al ity deals with that con scious nesswhich is eter nal, in fi nite, im mor tal, self-ex is tent, called the Spirit, Self, Brah man, the Di vine, orsim ply Con scious ness. All spir i tual life is, inprin ci ple, a growth into di vine liv ing. True spir i -tu al ity is not to re nounce life, but to make lifeper fect through di vine in tent. In gen u ine spir i -tu al ity, con scious ness is freed of its ma te rial con -tent (or ego). This leads to an aware ness of thedi vine pres ence in all things, al ways, for Con -scious ness is a time less sin gu lar ity.

We need to live con stantly in the pres enceof the Di vine, in the feel ing that it is this pres -ence which moves us and is do ing ev ery thing.Com mu nion with the Di vine, the Eter nal, the

In fi nite, is a hap pen ing; it is not a re sult of ourac tions. The un cov er ing of this se cret is not ahu man achieve ment; it is some thing that hap -pens when hu man be ings re lax all their condi -tionings and con front the mys tery of life in ut -ter hu mil ity, in ut ter na ked ness of the psy che.Only then does this mystery uncover itself.

The Principle of Objectivation

Ex clu sive Na ture of Ob jec tive Sci ence: Around1947, Erwin Schrodinger pro posed the ‘prin ci -ple of objectivation’. He wrote, ‘With out be ingaware of it and with out be ing rig or ously sys -tem atic about it, we ex clude the Sub ject of Cog -ni zance from the do main of na ture that weendeavour to un der stand.’4 He added, ‘Mindhas erected the ob jec tive out side world of thenat u ral phi los o pher out of its own stuff. Mindcould not cope with this gi gan tic task oth er wisethan by the sim pli fy ing de vice of ex clud ing itself—with draw ing from its con cep tual cre -ation. Hence the lat ter does not con tain its creator’ (131). He also quoted Charles Sher -ring ton: ‘The ma te rial world has only been con -structed at the price of tak ing the self, that is,mind, out of it, re mov ing it; mind is not part ofit; ob vi ously, there fore, it can nei ther act on itnor be acted on by any of its parts’ (128).

The em i nent Brit ish neu rol o gist JohnEccles pierces the sen sory il lu sion with somestar tling but ir re fut able as ser tions: ‘I want youto re al ize that there is no col our in the nat u ralworld and no sound—noth ing of this kind; no



In the very act of in ter pret ing the uni verse, we

are cre at ing the uni verse. Through our mean -

ings we change na ture’s be ing. Man’s mean -

ing-mak ing ca pac ity turns him into na ture’s

part ner, a par tic i pant in shaping her evo lu -

tion. The word does not merely re flect the

world, it also cre ates the world. … Through us,

the uni verse ques tions it self and tries out var i -

ous an swers on it self in an ef fort—par al lel to

our own—to de ci pher its own be ing.

—Da vid Bohm

tex ture, no pat terns, no beauty, no scent …’5 Inshort, none of the ob jec tive facts upon whichwe usu ally base our ap praisal of re al ity is fun da -men tally valid. He also em pha sized the need ‘todeal sci en tif i cally with the ne glected area of in -ner con scious aware ness’. Wills Har man added, ‘Our daily ex pe ri ence of re al ity is our own con -scious aware ness.’6

Schrodinger em pha sized the same pointwhen he said that ‘our world pic ture (is)“colour less, cold, mute”. Col our and sound,hot and cold are our im me di ate sen sa tions;small won der that they are lack ing in a worldmodel from which we have re moved our selves.… The physical world pic ture lacks all thesen sual qual i ties that go to make up the Sub -ject of Cog ni zance. The model is colour lessand sound less and unpalpable.’7 The world ofsci ence is neu tral to eth i cal and aes thetic val ues.

There is no en ergy in ter ac tion be tween theob jec tive world and the purely sub jec tive do -main of Con scious ness, be cause thought can -not cross the ‘event ho ri zon’ of the phys i calworld.8 Phys i cists call the bound ary whichsharply de mar cates phe nom ena oc cur ring at orbe low the speed of light the ‘event ho ri zon’. Itsep a rates the ‘time-field’ from the time lessrealm. The speed of light is an ab so lute en -tity—one of na ture’s enig matic phys i cal con -stants. It is like a wall that no ob ject can crashthrough. As we ap proach the wall, time slowsdown, mass in creases, and space con tracts.8 Sohow does one bridge this gap between theobject and the subject?Sub jec tive Re search: The the ory of Yoga tells usthat if ob ser va tion of ‘ob jec tive truth’ is con tin -ued long enough, then this ob jec tive truth (theda tum of ob ser va tion) goes into abey ance andsub jec tive truth is per ceived. The uni ver sal con -scious ness ob serves it self through it self. It is bymeans of this ex pe ri ence that the sub ject at tainsto whole ness of life. And this re al iza tion canhave re mark able ef fects.

Liv ing in the pres ent, the now, heals, andliv ing in the past and in du al ity sup presses hu -man kind’s per cep tive sen si tiv ity and en hances

dis ease. Ob ser va tion of ob jec tive facts with outjus ti fi ca tion or con dem na tion re leases tre men -dous energy.

Ac cord ing to neuroscientist Karl Pribram,‘Brain sci ence must deal with the aware ness ofaware ness. It could no lon ger af ford to shut outthat part of the world which we call sub jec tive.’9

Roger Sperry, who won the No bel Prize inPhys i ol ogy and Med i cine in 1981, has also fo -cussed on ‘the ne glected area of sci ence, thestudy of hu man sub jec tive ex pe ri ence’. Hepointed out that ‘in stead of re nounc ing or ig -nor ing con scious ness, the new in ter pre ta tiongives full rec og ni tion to the pri macy of in nercon scious ex pe ri ence as a causal re al ity’.10 Heun der scored the ho lis tic func tion ing of thebrain: ‘When the brain is whole, the uni fiedcon scious ness of the left and the right hemi -spheres adds up to more than the in di vid ualprop er ties of the sep a rate hemi spheres.’ Hisstud ies raised the is sue of con scious ness in anew way: ‘When parts come to gether in a newwhole, this new whole ex hib its fea tures—emer -gent prop er ties—that can’t be pre dicted as arule from the parts, and cannot be explained interms of the parts.’

Wilder Pen field, the pi o neer ing Ca na dianbrain sur geon, ob served that the fact that themind can sur vive brain trauma and func tionun der an aes the sia points very strongly to thesep a rate ex is tence of the mind. Pen field came to the con clu sion that ‘it is the mind which ex pe ri -ences and it is the brain which re cords the ex pe -ri ence’.11 He was of the opin ion that the mindmust be a kind of in vis i ble en ergy-field that in -cludes the brain, per haps even con trols it. Hewrote, ‘To sup pose that con scious ness or themind has lo ca tion is a fail ure to un der standneurophysiology.’12

The Uni ver sal Con scious ness, the Re al ity,or the ‘life-field’ heals, be cause it has the di men -sions of whole ness: cre ativ ity and spon ta ne ity,non-vi o lence, beauty and har mony, love andcom pas sion. Man has to choose be tween heal -ing and an ni hi la tion, be tween the Bud dha(wis dom) and the bomb (self-destruction).



Insight: The Intuitive Mode of KnowingGa li leo Galilei taught us that the un crit i cal

ac cep tance of sense data from the en vi ron ment, some thing which merely adds to our mem orystore, is in suf fi cient for un der stand ing na ture.He taught us that pur pose fully de signed ex per i -ments are of vi tal im por tance in un cov er ingtruths hid den in na ture. He asked ques tions ofna ture and suc ceeded in re ceiv ing an swers di -rectly from na ture.13

The phi los o pher of re li gion Alan Watts ad -vo cated ‘let ting go of ex pec ta tion’ and amaz -ingly found that this was enough to free him:‘For quite sud denly the weight of my own bodydis ap peared. I felt that I owned noth ing, noteven a self, and that noth ing owned me. Thewhole world be came as trans par ent and un ob -structed as my own mind. The prob lem of lifesim ply ceased to ex ist.’14

Ein stein too ex pe ri enced mo ments of com -plete lib er a tion from space-time bound aries:‘At such mo ments one imag ines that one standson some spot on a small planet gaz ing in amaze -ment at the cold and yet pro foundly mov ingbeauty of the eter nal, the un fath om able. Lifeand death flow into one, and there is nei therevo lu tion nor eter nity, only Be ing’ (280). Hewrote to a friend, ‘I feel my self so much a part of all life that I am not in the least con cerned withthe be gin ning or the end of the con crete ex is -tence of any par tic u lar per son in this unendingstream’ (303).

Al ex an der Koyre wrote that in the world ofsci ence ‘there is a place for ev ery thing, there isno place for man. … Two worlds: this meanstwo truths, or no truth at all. This is the trag edyof mod ern mind which “solved the rid dle of theuni verse”, but only to re place it by an other rid -dle: the rid dle of it self.’15 Herman Weyl ob -served, ‘Sci en tists would be wrong to ig nore the fact that the o ret i cal con struc tion is not the onlyap proach to the phe nom ena of life; an otherway, that of un der stand ing from within, is open to us. … This in ner aware ness of my self is theba sis for the un der stand ing of my fellowmen’(311).

Ac cord ing to No bel lau re ate Ilya Prigogineand Isabelle Stengers, ‘It is phys ics that pre sup -poses an ob server within the ob served world.Our di a logue [the di a logue be tween sci enceand spir i tu al ity] will be suc cess ful only if it iscar ried on from within na ture’ (218). Both uni -ver sal Con scious ness and the sub jec tive di men -sion are ‘within nature’. The ob jec tive world isper ceived only in a me di ate fash ion, but uni ver -sal Con scious ness is aware of ‘ab so lute sub jec -tiv ity’ and the ‘sub jec tive world’ in a non-me di -ate fash ion. But the way to ab so lute sub jec tiv ityis through the ob jec tive realm. So sub jec tive sci -ence must flow through the ob jec tive sci ences.This is the ba sis of the ‘sym bi o sis of sci ence andspir i tu al ity’ for which hu man kind has beenwait ing for un count able mil len nia. ~

References

1. Ar thur Ed ding ton, cited in Ken Wilber, TheSpec trum of Con scious ness (Quest, 1982), 40.

2. Max Planck, ‘Where Are We Go ing?’ in Syn -the sis of Sci ence and Re li gion (Mumbai: TheBhaktivedanta In sti tute, 1988), 183.

3. Edwin Hub ble, ‘The Na ture of Sci ence andOther Lec tures’, in Syn the sis of Sci ence and Re li -gion, 119.

4. Erwin Schrodinger, What is Life? (Cam bridge,1967), 127.

5. Deepak Chopra, Age less Body, Time less Mind(New York: Three Rivers, 1993), 12.

6. Syn the sis of Sci ence and Re li gion, 201.7. What is Life? 128, 148.8. Roger Sperry, cited in Deepak Chopra, How to

Know God (Rider, 2000), 271–2.9. Ken Wilber, The Ho lo graphic Par a digm and Other

Par a doxes (Boul der: Shambhala, 1982), 17.10. Syn the sis of Sci ence and Re li gion, 199.11. How to Know God, 217, 215.12. Fred Alan Wolf, Tak ing the Quan tum Leap

(Harper and Row, 1981), 244.13. Hideki Yukawa, Cre ativ ity and In tu ition (To -

kyo: Kodansha, 1973), 111.14. Age less Body, Time less Mind, 297–8.15. Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Or der Out

of Chaos (Ban tam Books, 1984), 35–6.




The Idea of Light

In Feb ru ary, we pub lished Hiranyagar bha’spoem The Idea of Light, and asked you foryour views on it. The va ri ety of re sponses

dem on strates that a poem, or any text, is opento var i ous in ter pre ta tions. What does it mean?It seems to de pend on who is read ing it!

Our re spon dents tack led the co nun drumin var i ous ways. Let us see what they had to say.

Light is Sat-Chit-Ananda

Nirmala Solanky Venkateswaran, of Chen -nai, writes:

Light to me means the pri mor dial prin ci -ple, tattva-satchidananda, out of which all theworlds and uni verse are man i fested.

The salt doll went to mea sure the sea butmelted into it and never re turned to re port.

One in ig no rance, hav ing a bloated egowith its var i ous friends like dis trust, doubt, andother neg a tive emo tions, can not have a glimpseof that ‘Aware ness’, as I would like to call sat -chid ananda.

To Shoot: when the ego is tic bat tal ion triesto erase that ‘Aware ness’ through var i ous mech -a nisms, the con trary only hap pens, pro videdone is sin cere in one's [spir i tual] ef forts. The‘aware ness’ only gets sharp ened and be comesone- pointed, elim i nat ing all negativity. Thusthe one who went to change the light gotchanged him self. The thin line dis ap pears andthe par ti cle of bright light gets merged with theOcean of Light.

Am mu ni tion: When one rises to the level of‘Aware ness’ above the mind-in tel lect-ego andtries to undo the thin line sep a rat ing oneselffrom the ocean of Truth, it is the same tattva(prin ci ple) that be comes sharp am mu ni tiontoo—just as elec tric ity makes ice in a re frig er a -tor, heats wa ter in a gey ser, gives light through abulb, and breeze through a cooler. While shoot -ing the Light, that tattva or ‘Aware ness’ be -comes a part of it, in stead of de stroy ing it.

In the womb of the bright Golden Yel lowOne (Hiranyagarbha) everything is pos si ble!

Vivekananda is the Ammunition

S Jaya Sree, of Chennai, al ludes to the pen -e trat ing na ture of the words of a seer of Truth:

When we are im mersed in worldly thingswe can not rec og nize the light in side us. Whenwe en ter into ab so lute life (spir i tual life) we canfind the same light in side us. The guru has toshoot his spir i tual power from heart to heart; only then can we re cog nise that light (God); it is ev ery where. ...

In this uni verse ev ery ob ject has its ownlight. Only the grades are dif fer ent. So we haveto ‘arise and awake’ that light in side us with am -mu ni tion. Swami Vivekananda’s words are likeam mu ni tion (bul lets) which will shoot out our

The Conundrum

Some one left a light on up stairs.

Some one went up to turn it off and never

came back, but the light was brighter.

Some one fol lowed him with his sor row,

and came back empty-handed.

Some one wanted to lose her sor row, too,

but did n’t trust it enough to let it out

of her sight.

Some one kept search ing the dark for the

light.

Some one tried to shoot out the light, but

the am mu ni tion was light, too.

Some one thought she would rec og nize

some one else when the light was

right, but it al ready was.

Some one was sell ing the idea of light,

but the light was n’t in cluded.

Some peo ple went to change the light,

but try ing to get to it changed them.

Some one claimed to be the light, but the

light only winked when he died.

ig no rance and awaken the light.

The Great Guru

Asankha, of Chigago, writes a story sug -gested by the poem:

In a par tic u lar vil lage, word spread that agreat spir i tual guru had come and had made histem po rary shel ter on a hill top. The ‘light on up -stairs’ re fers to this vis it ing guru.

As word spread about the vis it ing guru andhis great wis dom, peo ple be came cu ri ous andstarted vis it ing him to find out more about it.

A se nior stu dent from one of the ashramasof the vil lage felt a lit tle ego tis ti cal. He thoughtof chal leng ing the vis it ing guru's knowl edge.How ever, when he met that guru and talked tohim he re al ized that the guru's light was brighter, that he could learn a lot from that guru; he thusde cided to stay with the guru.

An other stu dent went to the hill top andmet with the guru and his fel low stu dent. How -ever, he did n't want to stay with the guru andthe first stu dent, so he came back with out gain -ing any fur ther knowl edge from the guru.

An other per son thought of ask ing for theguru’s help to dis pel her sor row. How ever, shedid n't trust enough and dropped the idea.

There was one per son who started pre par -ing his ig no rant que ries to get un der stand ingfrom the great guru.

One very knowl edge able per son had fullfaith in the teach ings of his own guru andthought of chal leng ing the vis it ing guru. How -ever, af ter meet ing the guru he rec og nized that itwas his own guru from whom he had ac quiredspir i tual wis dom long back. Thus, ‘light’ here re -fers to the spir i tual wis dom of a guru and ‘am -mu ni tion’ re fers to the same spir i tual wis dom ofan ini ti ated dis ci ple of that guru. And hence theam mu ni tion is noth ing but the same light.

An other per son guessed the vis it ing guru to be one of the great gu rus she had heard about,but her guess was not right. How ever, she re al -ized that the vis it ing guru was no less than theones she had thought him to be.

As the main topic of con ver sa tion was spir i -

tu al ity in those days, a per son who thoughthim self to be a great guru started sell ing his own knowl edge of spir i tu al ity; but he spoke noth ing close to ac tual wis dom.

Some gu rus, out of their ego tism, thoughtof show ing the vis it ing guru that they knewmuch more than he. But when they held dis cus -sions with the vis it ing guru, they ended uplearn ing a great deal from him.

The last per son falsely claimed that hisknow l edge was equal to that of the vis it ingguru. The lat ter just shirked the false claim andthe ac cus ing per son left crestfallen.

Vedanta

Hemant Vishnu Potdar, of Wai, makes aline-by-line Vedantic anal y sis:

1. Sages, who re al ized the At man, put itfor ward as the su preme goal of hu man life.Light is At man (or Brah man).

2. Bud dha dis carded the Ve dic con cep -tions. He at tained nir vana and thus never cameback to be re born. But later Shankara gave abrighter form to Vedanta.

3. Not all who fol low the path get suc cess in this very life.

4. Some peo ple also want hu man ity to gobe yond sor row, but don't trust enough the goalof lib er a tion (by which the world dis ap pearsfor ever) to be able to at tain it.

5. Un wise peo ple go for the un real(non-At man) in or der to get the Real (Ex is -tence-Con scious ness-Bliss or At man).

6. ‘Con tact is pos si ble be tween two thingsof the same spe cies.’ In the case of At man, thereis noth ing but the At man itself of its own spe -cies. So, if some one has ‘to shoot out’ (re al ize)the At man, he or she will have to use the At manas the means or ‘am mu ni tion’. At man can bere al ized only by the grace of the At man. It canalso mean that At man can be re al ized only bythe At man itself.

7. Some peo ple think that hu man ity, whenit has pro gressed ‘suf fi ciently’, would rec og nizean ul ti mate goal which is other than lib er a tion.But the prog ress in this re gard has al ready

The Idea of Light 609


reached its fi nal stage which has given the mes -sage ‘Thou art That’.

8. Some peo ple try to ex press the idea of At -man in words and thought. But the At man al -ways re mains out of reach such at tempts. AsShankara says, ‘The word At man and the con -cept At man don't touch the At man’.

9. The At man is said to be very ‘cor ro sive’.Though At man is change less, a per ma nentchange takes place in the one who knows It, as is said in the Upanishads, ‘The knower of Brah -man be comes Brah man’.

10. Peo ple hav ing body-con scious ness be -have as if their bod ies are as per ma nent as the At -man. Such peo ple, when they die, get an otherbody through which the At man func tions again.

The Hiranyagarbha

B K Mittal and Prabha Mittal of Rishi kesh, analyse the poem in this way:

1. When an en light ened soul leaves thebody, he is fully con scious and leaves a mark inthe shape of light on the Cos mic Mind—Hir -an ya garbha.

2. Those who fol low the path as shown bythe en light ened soul also do not come back, asthey join the same light of con scious ness; theyturn it brighter be cause it is now more than one.

3. Those who fol low the light along withtheir trou bles, im mersed in sor row, do notreach the goal and so come back empty-handed, as they re main in the fet ters of birthand death.

4. For those who fol low to get rid of theirsor row or trou bles, yet whose trust is notenough to en sure re lease, the light re mains outof sight.

5. The At man is known by the At man it -self—so de clare the Upanishads: and this isGrace. And so they keep search ing in the darkfor the light of con scious ness.

6. Shoot ing out the light is ob tain ing aglimpse of That—the pure con scious ness—and rep re sents those who have fol lowed theright course. Hav ing a glimpse of That, theyreal ize that the am mu ni tion—the light they



En light ened Liv ing

From an cient times hu man be ings havebeen en light ened through di vine pow ers con -se quent upon their strong and de ter minedwills. Suc cess was se cured af ter many tests offaith and this has cre ated an im mor tal des tinyfor fu ture gen er a tions.

Re mem ber Dhruva; he was slighted by hisstep-mother, per formed tapasya, and wasguided by Narada to en light en ment. Godblessed him to be the pole star, dhruva nak -shatra. Saints like Tulsidas, Kabirdas, Surdas, Ma -hatma Gan dhi, and Christ have also en light ened hu man ity.

In the nine teenth cen tury Sri RamakrishnaParamahamsa en light ened Narendra, trans -form ing him into Swami Vivekananda for theen light en ment of the world. This was the meet -ing of truth, faith, and esoterism with in tel lectand ra tio nal ism. Of these two leg end ary fig ures one was wrapped in Puranic truth, took eventhe ex ter nal forms of re li gion to be valid andwanted to keep them in tact, and was keen onprov ing all the spir i tual prac tices of an cient In -dia to be true; the other was ea ger to cutthrough the di a lec tics and ex ter nal bonds ofre li gion. Ramakrishna did not take any thingfrom Narendranath, but yes, he made Viveka -nanda out of the lat ter by pour ing into him hisspir i tual power and tran scen dent vi sion. Onespark is suf fi cient to light a fire and show thepath to en light en ment.

It is in ter est ing that Maulana Ab dul KalamAzad, the re puted free dom fighter and firstmin is ter of ed u ca tion in in de pend ent In dia, wasan ar dent ad mirer of Sarmad, the na ked saintwho was be headed by Aurangzeb. Sarmad’s en -light en ing in flu ence shaped Azad’s world- viewon the un der ly ing unity of all re li gions of theworld. This is ev i dent in Azad’s Tarjuman- ul-Quran and Wahdat-e-din. It has been pointedout that Sarmad, through his po etry, co mes outcleaner and more loyal and true to God thanhis per se cu tor: ‘O Sarmad, shorten your com -plaint, of two choices take one; ei ther sur ren -

were us ing—was the same Con scious ness. Theknower and the known be come one.

7. Some have pre-con ceived no tions aboutthe light, that it would be dif fer ent from them -selves, and that they would recognize it when itwould ap pear. They fail to do so, be cause it isthe same con scious ness—Ex is tence-Knowl -edge and Bliss that is within them. Who is to re -cog nize whom?

8. Those who try to ex plain the light—thepure con scious ness—are un able to do so, as it isin ex press ible and un ex plain able: so light wasnot in cluded in any explanation.

9. Those who went with the idea of chang -ing the light, they came back changed. Thosewho fol low the search for Truth—the light — normally find that they have changed them -selves, as their per spec tive of things is trans -formed.

10. Those who claim that they have knownthe Truth, the light, have not known it ei ther,be cause once you know, you don't comeback—this is the state of nirvikalpa sam adhi. So at the time of death the light only winks and theclaim ant leaves the body with out leav ing anytrace. The person ends up in Hiranyagarbha,per haps to man i fest again at proper time.

The Light of Knowledge

T A Menon, of South Kalamassery, makesthe fol low ing anal y sis:

The Light is so bright that I could in ter pretIt in only one way. Light in deed is chit— aware -ness—the light of knowl edge—Self. The sixthline brings out the uni ver sal ity and ab so lute na -ture of the Self as the only Re al ity. As sat, theRe al ity (or Ex is tence), is also chit, the light ofknowl edge or aware ness; even an idea of ne gat -ing it can be only through that aware ness itself.The ex is tence of the Self be ing a pre con di tionfor any idea what so ever, the idea of ne ga tion isit self ab surd—a re duc tio ad ab sur dum.

1. The Self is self-ef ful gent (svayam praka -sha) and beginningless (anadi), and has no cre -ator. ‘Some one’ in di cates the un know able na -ture of its or i gin and ‘up stairs’ is fig u ra tive.

The Idea of Light 611


der your body to the will of your friend or of fer to sac ri fice your soul.’

Azad wrote that the path of God in ev erycor ner of the world was iden ti cal. ‘The HolyQuran tells that all the proph ets God sent, nomat ter at what times or in what part of theworld, all gave the same les son: alamgir qanun-e-sa’adat, mean ing God’s uni ver sal law of fe lic ity. This law is the wor ship of God through amal-e-saleh, deeds of pi ety.’

The idea of en light ened liv ing was given tohu man be ings by Bhagavan Shiva. We see theholy Gan ga on his head and a snake around hisneck. Mother Gan ga is the source of life whilethe ser pent is the sym bol of death. Sim i larly, the mouse and the pea cock—the vahanas (mounts)of Ganesha and Kartika (the chil dren of Shiva)are arch en e mies. So are the bull (Nandi) andthe lion, the vahanas of Shiva and Parvati. Butthey all co ex ist peace fully. Be liev ers also saythat there is am ri ta (nec tar) on Shiva’s tonguebut visha (poi son) colours his throat blue. Sothe my thol ogy of Shiva il lus trates a very im por -tant truth about life—the co ex is tence of op po -sites.

While search ing for truth Gandhiji dis cov -ered that ‘Truth is God’ in con tra dis tinc tion tothe an cient wis dom ‘God is Truth’. Hu mans aresparks of life, the sum to tal of which is God. Wemay adopt dif fer ent paths to reach that com -mon goal but these dif fer ent paths should in noway be come rea sons to give up our ba sic unitywhich is su preme. We must not be like the frogin the well, think ing that our re li gion alone rep -re sent the whole truth, and that all oth ers arefalse. So, if Sikhs or Hin dus de prive them selvesof the truths in the Quran and Mus lims are un -aware of the jew els that lie in the Hindu andSikh scrip tures, they have de nied them selvesthe right to an en riched and en light ened life.While find ing our own truth in our own dif fer -ent faiths, wor ship ping in dif fer ent shrines, ad -dress ing God by dif fer ent names, we must notal low our dif fer ences to take over the ba sic uni -ver sal re li gion of hu man ity.

—Shiv Dass Kashyap, Bareilly

2. The rishi ex plored the Self and mergedwith it, and faith in Self be came more el o quent.

3. One dis tressed sub mit ted to the rishi im -plic itly and was lib er ated.

4. No moksha with out vairagya. One can -not be lib er ated with out de tach ment from thema te rial world.

5. Self is elu sive to the mind that seeks itout wardly.

6. Even the thought to ne gate the Self onlyre af firms the Self, for the thought is in aware -ness which is the Self itself.

7. The ego seeks the Self as dis tinct from it -self, like a sub ject seek ing an ob ject, but thenon-dual Self is eter nal and un chang ing, sup -port ing the ego itself.

8. The Self is un qual i fied, in de scrib able,and uni ver sally pres ent in all, and is be yondsell ing and buy ing (krayavikrayatitam).

9. The ra tio nal ists (yuktivadins) tried todis prove the Self, but yukti (rea son) is de rivedfrom the Self; by ap ply ing it prop erly one willre al ize the Self.

10. The ego thought that it is the Self; butnever re al ized that it was it self an ephem eralman i fes ta tion of the eter nal and uni ver sal Self.

What Did the Author Mean?

We may well won der what Hiranyagarbha, the au thor of the poem, had in mind when hewrote it. Well, we asked him to tell us about it.He pro tested, humourously, that a poet can notdi vide him self into two and be come a com men -ta tor on his own poem. Then he ca pit u lated,and of fered the fol low ing thoughts. His in ter -pre ta tion, though, is no more ‘cor rect’ than theoth ers; each per son, in deed, will re spond in heror his own, unique way, to cre ate mean ing forhim- or her self.

1. Some one re al ized the truth.2. Some one, a scoffer, like maybe St Paul or

Jagai, got so close to a saint that they be cameone. And, in the pro cess, the lat ter added hisown tiny bit of lus tre to the Lord.

3. Some one wanted what the saint had, and fol lowed him, his heart full of a bur den of sor -

row, and when he came back he was with outthe sor row be cause the saint had taken it away.

4. An other per son, see ing the trans for ma -tion of the pre vi ous per son, wanted to be cometrans formed as well. So she, too, went to visitthe saint, car ry ing her own bur den of sor row.But, alas! She had be come at tached to her sor -row, and could n’t let it go. Her ego, you couldsay, en joyed hav ing the iden tity of a vic tim. Soher visit to the saint had n’t yet borne fruit.

5. An other seeker was look ing for God inthe wrong places. Did n’t he know that the lightof God shines brightly, and can not be hid denun der a peach bas ket? He should have beenlook ing where there was more light, in stead ofun der all those peach bas kets. In other words,he needed scrip ture, holy com pany, and reg u lar sadhana. It was n’t enough to just root aroundin phi los o phy, psy chol ogy, or the ol ogy.

6. Some one was an gry at God and tried toharm Him. But the joke was on her, be cause she was think ing of God and thus she went to Godin her thoughts.

7. Here is a seeker who is wait ing, asRamakrishna said, for the waves to die downbe fore tak ing a dip in the ocean. She is wait ingfor the right teacher to come along, she is wait -ing for con di tions to be right. But this eter nalmo ment is al ready per fect for tak ing up thespir i tual life—and since it’s eter nal, it’s the only mo ment she’ll ever have.

8. A man call ing him self a guru kept drop -ping God’s name and hint ing that he knewHim well. And all you had to do was pay him.The only prob lem: he was a fake, and God wasfar away.

9. They wanted to use re li gion for theirown pur poses. How ever, God’s bright ness il lu -mi nated them de spite them selves. In otherwords, they had taken a step to wards Her, andShe took ten to ward them.

10. In other words, no one can claim to bethe only way, the only life, the only light. Oth -ers have seen God in the past, and oth ers are en -joy ing the Lord’s bless ing now. No one has amo nop oly on God, the heart of all. ~



Religion and Practical Spirituality: Living the Ideal of Highest Humanism

DR SUDIPTA DAS

We must work and con stantly do good, be cause it is a bless ing to our selves. That isthe only way we can be come per fect.

—Swami Vivekananda

Religion and prac ti cal spir i tu al ity are dis -tinc tive, yet over lap ping path ways toliv ing the ideal of high est hu man ism.

The strug gle to ad here to the goal of ideal liv ingin an im per fect world is in deed for mi da ble.Swami Vivekananda once re marked that theworld is like a dog’s curly tail that can never bemade straight. This hu man in tran si gence is ap -par ent more than ever to day in the re lent lessacts of un bri dled ter ror ism and cru elty per pe -trated per son against per son. The odds againstat tain ing to ideal liv ing or per fec tion thus seemal most in sur mount able un der the pres ent cir -cum stances. Yet, on deeper re flec tion, the goalof achiev ing per fec tion in hu man life can neverbe com pro mised. Why not? Be cause hu manbe ings are em bodi ments of di vin ity. As SwamiVivekananda says, ‘Each soul is po ten tially di -vine. The goal is to man i fest this di vin itywithin.’ So the pur pose of hu man life is to be -come per fect, like God. This di vine pur pose ispri mor dial and sa cred. It is pos si ble that a fewpos i tive rip ples cre ated by ex em plary re li giousand spir i tual ac tion can open the flood gates ofmoral re form, and bring about a re vival of hu -man val ues. The more we re main cog ni zant ofthe prac tice of re li gion and spir i tu al ity as the ax -ial forces of ideal liv ing, the more will we fos terthe spread of the moral im pulse of hu man ism,and cause it to pre vail in our lives. Only thencan the su preme goal of spir i tu al ity or per fec -tion in hu man life be come at tain able for all as acon sum ma tion of the di vine will. The re al iza -

tion of the prin ci ples of the high est hu man ismor one ness with God is the only way for the re -demp tion of hu man kind in this tur bu lenttwenty-first cen tury.

Defining Religion and Spirituality

To be gin with, the con nec tion be tween re -li gion and prac ti cal spir i tu al ity needs to beiden ti fied. Re li gion may be de fined as the in -stru ment through which hu man ity wor shipsGod; re li gious wor ship is usu ally per formed inthe sanc tity of the prayer room in the home, orat the tem ple. On the other hand, prac ti cal spir -i tu al ity may be de fined as the ex ten sion of re li -gious wor ship be yond the bound aries of theprayer room, through work or self less ser vice tohu man ity, as a part of daily liv ing. Thus, wor -ship, as an as pect of ideal liv ing, may be a pro -cess un der taken through a con junc tion of rou -tine re li gious wor ship in the home or tem pleand daily work of any kind, ded i cated to God as wor ship.

Of ten, re li gion and spir i tu al ity are con cep -tu al ized as be ing syn on y mous and with out sig -nif i cant dis tinc tions. Many con sider daily re li -gious wor ship like prayer, med i ta tion, cer e mo -nial ob ser vances, fast ing, chant ing, sing inghymns, or read ing scrip tures to be ex pres sionsof prac ti cal spir i tu al ity. There is an in cli na tionto be lieve that one’s spir i tu al ity is man i festedthrough the prac tice of re li gious aus teri ties athome or in the tem ple. Though the idea thatspir i tu al ity may ra di ate out of the prayer roomthrough hu man i tar ian or dis in ter ested ser viceslies dor mant in the sub con scious or un con -scious minds of most re li gious as pi rants, still,one may ask, how many of us ac tu ally pur sueour daily liv ing with the con scious ness that


work is wor ship? Once we leave the pre mises ofthe shrine or tem ple, our en gage ments in thejig saw of worldly ac tiv i ties fol low a pre med i -tated path of ser vice to self-bound in ter ests. In a word, we in stinc tively build an iron wall be -tween the spirit of the prayer room and thespirit of work in the ex ter nal en vi ron ment, seg -re gat ing one from the other as two un re latedphe nom ena. The vis i ble lower self is di vorcedfrom the in vis i ble higher self or spirit by ourown con scious ac tions. But if we were to con -nect our re li gious wor ship with our wholeearthly ex is tence, with its pleth ora of ac tiv i ties,mak ing the lat ter also wor ship of God, ourstrug gle to live the ideal of the high est hu man -ism would be con sid er ably eased. To achievethis con nec tion, deep re li gious in tro spec tionand persistent self-evaluation for spiritual stim -u la tion and advancement are essential. Re li gi -ous contemplation and spiritualized actionneed to be performed concurrently if we are tomake our lives meaningful and ideal.

From Religion to Spirituality

We learn from our re li gious scrip tures thatspir i tu al ity is the nat u ral ex pres sion of a per -son’s re li gious con vic tions. But the twin con -cepts of re li gion and spir i tu al ity are so deeplyin ter twined that it may never oc cur to us howone leads to the other. Or, per haps many of uscon duct our daily re li gious wor ship quite me -chan i cally and with out any con tem pla tion ofour fun da men tal re li gious goals. We never re -ally ask our selves how re li gion pre pares theground for spir i tu al ity. Let us ask our selves,‘Are we ben e fit ting from our prac tice of re li -gion, and how? How are we, or are we at all, liv -ing our re li gious ide als? How do we find out ifour re li gious endeavours are mean ing ful? Inwhat ways can we prove to ourselves that we aremaking spiritual progress in our lives?’

The prac tice of re li gion be comes mean ing -less if we do not mould our selves into better hu -man be ings and dem on strate our in ner trans -for ma tion through acts of spir i tu al ity in ourdaily life. We must de velop an en dur ing spir i -

tual con scious ness, to un der gird our worldlyun der tak ings with the prin ci ples of ideal liv ing.The goal should be to ac tu ally live our re li giouside als. Only then can we as hu man be ings tran -scend from a lower to a higher, and fi nally to the high est level of hu man ism; this would be per -fectly hu mane evo lu tion. The stead fast pur suitof truth and self less love in all our un der tak ingsare goals worth liv ing for, all the more so tocoun ter vail the cri sis of the spirit en demic in the mod ern world.

Myriad Faces of the Divine

The fo cal point of re li gion is com mu nionwith God. How do hu man be ings con cep tu al -ize God? Who is God? God holds a myr iad iden ti ties. God may be con ceived as form less oran thro po mor phic, male or fe male, dis tinctfrom hu mans (du al ism) or em bed ded withinhu mans (non-du al ism). Ev ery in di vid ual imag -ines God in the way that will best stim u late thatper son’s in ner de vo tion. Many de fine God asthe Su preme Be ing and Cre ator, who loves andcares for each one of His cre ations. ManyHindu dev o tees wor ship God as the Di vineMother. It is the mother who ex presses the pur -est and most nat u ral love for her child, ac cept -ing and pro tect ing it in ev ery re spect. The childin stinc tively feels closer to the mother fromwhose womb it took birth; the um bil i cal con -nec tion lives on long af ter the cord is phys i callysev ered. In ac cor dance with this nat u ral in ti -macy be tween mother and child, God is con -cep tu al ized as Mother, al ways lov ing, for giv ing, and sus tain ing Her chil dren. In a word, the idea of God as Mother engenders a sense of securityand strength in the devotee-child.

Though in di vid u als may con cep tu al izeGod in myr iad ways, God al ways stands foruni ver sal prin ci ples such as ab so lute Truth,Love, Pu rity, and Per fec tion. The in tent of re li -gious prac tice is to evoke the same lofty char ac -ter is tics in men and women, and guide them to -wards be com ing per fect be ings. This is pos si bleonly when we in ter nal ize our spir i tual ideal;only then may our wor ship have any mean ing



or im pact on our lives. In the words of a re li -gious sa vant, ‘This is why re li gion is of ten de -scribed as the sci ence of “be ing and be com ing”,a sci ence of moral growth, a shaper of char ac -ter.’ Al though re li gion is cen tred on be lief, itsva lid ity lies in gen er at ing only be liefs that aregood and pos i tive, and by its nat u ral mer itsstim u lat ing good thoughts and good ac tions inits fol low ers. Thus, shap ing good men andgood women gives religion its credibility andsignificance.

True re li gion guides hu man ity to up lift ingex pe ri ences and brings about the mir a cle of hu -man trans for ma tion. It pu ri fies peo ple and re -veals their in nate di vin ity. This is ac com plishedthrough con tem pla tion, and through ser vicechar ac ter ized by self less ness, com pas sion, hu -mil ity, and moral strength. If re li gion is prac tised with de vo tion it will jus tify it self by ef fect ing amore hu mane evo lu tion of hu man ity. It may not be free of theo log i cal dis putes re gard ing the na -ture of God and the like, but it re veals its po ten -tial through its mir a cles: the trans for ma tion ofsin ners into saints. Valmiki, the au thor of theRamayana, is a case in point. A da coit by pro fes -sion, he was trans formed into a great saint by fol -low ing the in struc tions of a ce les tial sage. An -other ex am ple is the no to ri ous Angulimala, whowore a neck lace made from the fin gers of his vic -tims. He in tended to make the Bud dha his vic -tim, but the Bud dha trans formed him, and hebe came a monk and later a saint.

The Lamp of Our Lives

The practice of re li gion be comes a com mit -ment to the high est prin ci ples of hu man con -duct. It en gen ders self-dis ci pline and a deeppro cliv ity for ad her ing to moral prin ci ples. Atruly re li gious be ing strives to ac quire thesequal i ties, re al iz ing that God, the Mother,wishes us to cul ti vate such at trib utes as part ofHer wor ship. This is re li gion at its best. It pro -vides the key to the un lock ing of one’s di vin ity;it trans forms one’s char ac ter. When one con -stantly thinks that one is a child of God, one be -comes a child of God, pure and un blem ished. So

re li gion may be con ceived as the lamp of ourlives, guid ing us to wards the unfoldment of ourin nate per fec tion by pre scrib ing moral and spi -r i tual dis ci plines. Re li gion of fers a moral andspir i tual view of life. It im pels us to re al ize oursu prem acy over self and ex ter nal sur round ings.We must prac tise re li gion in such a way that itwill shape our lives to wards be com ing per fecthu man be ings.

From Lower Truth to Higher Truth

In the life of the lay dev o tee, re li giousendeavours nor mally be gin with prayers for thewell be ing of one self and one’s fam ily and kin. Prayer calms the mind and grad u ally ex pandsone’s spir i tual ho ri zon to em brace the wel fareof all be ings, not just of one’s earthly kin. Soprayers and other re lated rit u al is tic ob ser vancesthat are cen tred on the lower self have the power of grad u ally clean ing one’s in ner im pu ri ties;tran scend ing them, one is en abled to em bracehigher thoughts and ex alted pat terns of be hav -iour. One needs to have lesser ex pe ri ences totran scend them and have greater ex pe ri ences.In this way, the prac tice of re li gious cere moni -als co mes into play. Their per for mance is im -por tant in re li gious wor ship in so far as it helpsto dis ci pline the mind and fo cus it on the de itybe ing wor shipped. How ever, re li gious sa vantshave cau tioned that re li gious cere moni als mustnot be per formed in ex cess of their use ful ness.In Swami Vivekananda’s words, ‘It is good tobe born in a church, but it is bad to die there.’

Re li gious pa ro chi al ism and su per sti tionsen gen dered through ad dic tion to rit u als andcere moni als are det ri men tal to spir i tual life.Such a fo cus ends in in tol er ance, self-cen tered -ness, and in sen si tiv ity that mu ti late re li gion’sin trin sic func tion of up lift ing the hu man mindand soul. Those con gre ga tions that har bour fa -nat i cism or big otry and seek shel ter un der theman tle of re li gion to jus tify their ni hil is tic con -duct ought to be iden ti fied and re jected as spu -ri ous in sti tu tions den i grat ing the true pur poseof re li gion. Holy wars waged by re li gious fun -da men tal ists through out his tory are cases in


Religion and Practical Spirituality: Living the Ideal of Highest Humanism 615

point. The aim of re li gion is to mould andunify, not to de stroy. Re li gion strength ens it self not through con flict and an ar chy, but througha har mo ni ous con fed er a tion of hu man is ticvalues aiming for God-realization. Religiousfundamentalism and isolationism make peopleimperfect. Thus, religion can also unmake aperson if it is practised in a wrong way.

Re li gion gives hu man ity an ideal—theideal to con quer hu man im per fec tions. Re li -gion also en dows hu man ity with the will to liveup to that ideal. The hu man will is mouldedthrough prayer and med i ta tion, which are twovi tal limbs of re li gion. They en able one to dis -cover one’s real iden tity. These ex er cisesawaken the pure or higher self—the well springof di vin ity that lies dor mant within one’s be -ing—and lead us to one ness with God and withall ex is tence. As Swami Lokeswarananda haswrit ten, re li gion is not a dec la ra tion of in ten -tions; it is ac tion to ful fil those in ten tions. If thein trin sic pur pose of re li gion and re li gious prac -tice is un rec og nized, and we con tinue to cher ish self-centredness and in dif fer ence to ward therest of the world, we are rendering only lipservice to our religious intentions.

The ul ti mate achieve ment of ded i cated re li -gious prac tice is spir i tu al ity. The con cept of spir -i t u al ity is de rived from the ex is tence of the‘spirit’, which rep re sents the es sence of the hu -man per son al ity, the core of one’s be ing. Spir i tu -al ity is em bod ied in the awak en ing of the Self,the Spirit—that is, the re al iza tion of one’s spir i -tual iden tity. When this hap pens, the self iden ti -fies it self with ev ery liv ing be ing. The Spirit ispri mor dial; it stands su preme. Ac cord ing to theBhagavadgita, the body is like a piece of cloth,which is dis carded when worn out; it is the Spiritthat is per ma nent, and it uses the body for itsown pur pose in the way that it chooses. A spir i -tual as pi rant strives to scale the Ab so lute through moral and spir i tual growth.

Spir i tual life helps one grow better andstron ger till one finds one self com pletely freefrom the fet ters of ego that limit one’s be ing. Atthis stage, one dis cov ers the well spring of joy ly -

ing deep within one self that is con stant and un -af fected by ex ter nal changes. The Con stant, the Eter nal, is in laid in the in stant, the tem po ral.The aware ness of the true na ture of the Self alsore veals the self less ness of the Self, which is but an -other face of Per fec tion.

Life as Divine Communion

Spir i tual ad vance ment im pels a per son toac cept life with all its bur dens and wor ship Godin all be ings and in all things. Herein lies thesig nif i cance of prac ti cal spir i tu al ity, which mayman i fest through daily work ded i cated en tirelyto God. This is the se cret of karma yoga. SriSarada Devi re minded her dis ci ples that work isan es sen tial part of one’s earthly ex is tence. It isthrough work alone that one can break asun derthe bonds of karma; only then will one be freefrom de sires. That is to say, one must first ex pe -ri ence bond age be fore one can over come it. Ifwe can per ceive our daily re spon si bil i ties as part of the Di vine Will, then we can more eas ily cul -ti vate de tach ment to wards them and ‘work tore move the suf fer ings of the world.’ If one ded i -cates one’s ac tiv i ties to God, there will be no de -sires or at tach ment as so ci ated with the out come of the ef fort.

The Hindu scrip tures teach that any kindof work should be per formed with de tach mentto yield the best re sults. Work as wor ship is asgood as prayer. Hin du ism ac cepts this en tire ex -is tence as sa cred and part of the Di vine. If ev eryworldly ac tiv ity is ded i cated to the Su preme Be -ing, what ever one does be comes spir i tual. Ev ery ded i cated act moves one closer to God. In asim i lar vein, Ramaprasad ide al izes ev ery act asan act of wor ship to God in his en chant inghymns. Life, then, is ac tu ally a long prayer ofcom mu nion with God. In this re gard, SriSarada Devi’s life stands un par al leled as amodel of spir i tu al ity lived and not preached. She brought the high est truths of re li gion and spir i -tu al ity into daily prac tice, and her life re mainedone of long prayer—pow er ful, pen e trat ing, and si lent—that she ded i cated to the spir i tual well-be ing of her chil dren.



Fruits of Practical SpiritualityPrac ti cal spir i tu al ity is clearly wrought into

one’s vis i ble na ture—in one’s be hav iour withoth ers, in one’s life style, in one’s phi los o phy oflife. One can hardly de fine the pa ram e ters ofprac ti cal spir i tu al ity, be cause its scope and di -men sions are so vast. Qual i ties like hu mil ity,self less ness, and moral cour age; scin til lat ingacts of ded i cated hu man ser vice; high-mindedcon tem pla tion in ev ery sphere of ex is tence; andthe re lent less pur suit of truth are mod els ofprac ti cal spir i tu al ity. Swami Vivekananda’s lifeis one of the fin est ex am ples. He scaled the acme of spir i tu al ity and man i fested it through hisself less ser vice to his coun try and the world.Swamiji could not help be ing what he was,good ness and pu rity per son i fied. And that in -deed is the real na ture of spir i tual peo ple—thatthey can not help be ing what they are. Ve rac ity,hon esty, and in no cence be come their con stantna ture. Spir i tual peo ple keep grow ing, and themore they grow in spirit, the more they iden tifythem selves with the wel fare of oth ers. They feelthe joys and sor rows of oth ers as their own.They help all with rev er ence and hu mil ity, con -sid er ing it a privilege that they are able to helpothers. Only such people live the ideal of thehighest humanism.

Swami Vivekananda’s thoughts were fullycen tred on hu man ity. He says, ‘The only Godto wor ship is the hu man soul in the hu manbody.’ Again, ‘No books, no scrip tures, no sci -ence can ever imag ine the glory of the Self thatap pears as man, the most glo ri ous God that ever was, the only God that ever ex isted, ex ists, orever will ex ist.’ ‘My mis sion is not Ramakri -shna’s nor Vedanta’s nor any thing but sim plyto bring man hood to this peo ple.’ And, ‘May Ibe born again and again, and suf fer thou sandsof mis er ies so that I may wor ship the only Godthat ex ists, the only God I be lieve in, the sumto tal of all souls—and above all, my God thewicked, my God the mis er a ble, my God thepoor of all races, of all spe cies, is the spe cial ob -ject of my wor ship.’ He saw God in ev ery one,poor, rich, good, and evil, and strug gled to

arouse peo ple to man i fest the perfection em -bed ded within them.

‘Ex pan sion is life’, says Swamiji. Hu manscan be their own mas ters and over come all dif fi -cul ties that will come in their path in the pro -cess of grow ing. It is re li gion which gives peo ple the self-con fi dence and the will to re main un -daunted by all the tri als and trib u la tions in their lives. Strength, cour age, and self-con fi dence—these, ac cord ing to Swami Vivekananda, con -sti tute the es sence of re li gion; all other thingsare pe riph eral. The growth is not phys i cal orma te rial; it is moral and spir i tual. Ac cord ing toSwamiji, if there has been one Bud dha orChrist, there can be many more. Each soul ispo ten tially di vine: a hu man be ing is not just ahu man be ing, he or she is a god, and must makethat di vin ity man i fest through moral and spir i -tual growth. ‘Be like the ar row that darts fromthe bow and pierces its ob ject’, so says SwamiShivananda on the goal of the spir i tual as pi rant. A spir i tual as pi rant never wa vers from the goal.When the ze nith is reached, one be comes ‘a cir -cle with its cir cum fer ence no where and cen treev ery where’. There fore, we may iden tify hu -man ism as the ex clu sive and high est pre rog a tive of hu mans. There can be no other per spec tive.

‘Not Me, Thou’

Sri Ramakrishna also beck ons hu man ity toas pire for the high est hu man end. What is thishigh est hu man end? Ac cord ing to Sri Ramakri -shna, it is God-re al iza tion. God-re al iza tion isan ex pe ri ence which com pletely changes an in -di vid ual. One be comes iden ti fied with the cos -mos, the whole, the in fi nite, all and ev ery thing.In Sri Ramakrishna’s dis course, the ex pe ri enceis like that of the river that loses its iden tity as itflows into the sea, and be comes the sea—that isto say, one be comes one with oth ers, with ev -ery one and ev ery thing, ‘from the Su preme Be -ing to the tiny blade of grass’. This re al iza tionpre vents any iso lated iden ti fi ca tion of the self.The small self with the ego of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ isfalse; the higher Self which is one with ev ery oneis par a mount. Sri Ramakrishna was the epit -

Religion and Practical Spirituality: Living the Ideal of Highest Humanism 617


ome of the high est hu man ism. What a dis ci plesaid of Christ par al lels Sri Ramakri shna’s life:‘In him was life; and the life was the light ofmen.’ He was ho li ness per son i fied, and hechose the pur est path of wor ship, ren der ing hischild-like love to his Divine Mother in hissearch for God-realization and perfection.

How do we de fine per fec tion? SwamiLokeswarananda has ex plained per fec tion as‘Not me, Thou’, which is the feel ing of one nesswith all ex is tence. The an cient seers con tendedthat per fec tion co mes when one sees that thereis a com mon thread run ning through ex is tence, how ever di verse it might ap pear. When one sees this unity of ex is tence, one can not hate or fightoth ers. One can only love, help, and serve, andfind real hap pi ness in hu man is tic liv ing. Thepoint here is that re li gious striv ing should stim -u late the aware ness of ‘Not me, Thou’, which isthe key to self-con quest and per fec tion. Bud -dha, Christ, Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi, SwamiVivekananda, and other spir i tual gi ants il lu -mine the pages of re li gious his tory as God-menand -women, as mod els of per fec tion. Their hu -man ity was con stant and in fi nite. In par tic u lar,Ramakrishna and Sarada Devi’s lives havetaught us that hap pi ness de pends on ‘be ing’and not on ‘hav ing’. The beauty and love thatwas in trin sic to their self less ness ra di ated out -ward to sanc tify the lives of others. ‘Not me,Thou’ stands as a sacred mantra for humanredemption.

Actualizing the Human Paradise

The great est prob lem in the pres ent age ishu man re la tion ship. Our re la tion ships are mu -ti lated by sus pi cion, jeal ousy, in dif fer ence, an -ger, and ha tred. Hu man ity is de mented by itsown rest less ness and ego, as well as ig no rance ofthe pur pose of its ex is tence. The Gita says,‘Man is his own friend as well as his foe.’ There -fore, un der the can opy of re li gion, we shouldstrive to rise above the mun dane world ofself-cen tred re la tion ships to the high est spir i -tual level through good thoughts and good

work. We know that there is no short cut to per -fec tion; one has to strug gle down an al mostend less path to achieve it. Po lit i cal and so cialleg is la tion can not re form one from the in side.One’s in ner trans for ma tion has to emergethrough years of spir i tual strug gle. Though hu -man ity has taken great strides in con quer ing itsnat u ral en vi ron ment as a prag matic end, its realtask to wards con quer ing the in ner self and itsin sa tia ble de sires has been strangely over -looked. The con quest within ought to be theideal and the goal, as well as one’s pri or ity, how -ever insuperable the task may seem. And hardwork is the only way to achieve perfection.

Thus, in the fi nal anal y sis, re li gion re flectsits glory through prac ti cal spir i tu al ity. Re li gionsus tains the moral fi bre of so ci ety, and re li giousstriv ing pro pels hu man ity to wards the man i fes -ta tion of its di vin ity through acts of prac ti calspir i tu al ity in daily liv ing. Re li gion and spir i tu -al ity mir ror and re in force one an other. In short, re li gious prac tice breeds spir i tu al ity in an in di -vid ual. A per son who ad heres to truth and mo -ral ity as his or her con stant goal be comes en -dowed with a new kind of dig nity that no levelof ma te rial suc cess, schol ar ship, or pro fes sionalat tain ment can give. Thus, our wor ship oughtto be chan nelled through prayer, rit ual, andcontemplation to shar ing and car ing in ourdaily lives in truth ful, self less, and com pas sion -ate ways. We can ac tu al ize our par a dise righthere on earth through our acts of prac ti cal spir i -tu al ity. Re li gious ide als need to be in ter nal izedthrough the prac tice of daily re li gious wor shipand then ap plied to daily liv ing as spir i tual ac -tions. This is the high est hu man ism. There is,there fore, a com pel ling need for spawn ingsweep ing re li gious and spir i tual en thu si asmthat will spread re li gious ide als like an ep i demicand help nav i gate hu man ity to wards this idealof high est hu man ism. The fa cade of the hu manego has to be eter nally purged to bring the self -less spirit alive and to con scious ness. Liv ing theideal of high est hu man ism is the es sen tial aim of hu man life. ~



Karma Yoga at the End of the WorldPRITHA LAL

I must ad mit, the ti tle of this ar ti cle does n’tsuit me, be cause I can not claim to have anycred i ble un der stand ing of the fa mous scrip -

tural doc trine of karma yoga. The con cept ofdo ing one’s duty and not ex pect ing any thingback seems to me to be a state -ment oft-re peated, yet sel domtruly understood.

To day I de cided to stay uplate and watch the fa mous doc -u men tary March of the Pen -guins. To watch these amaz ingcrea tures, al most com i cal intheir man ner isms, sur vive na -ture at her harsh est is both ed u -ca tional and some how spiritual.

It was fas ci nat ing, tragic,and over whelm ing to see themother and the fa ther of an un -born pen guin take turns walk -ing sev enty miles from the nest -ing ground to the sea, to re turn with food forthe mate and their child. It was heart en ing towatch the fam i lies hud dle to gether in this frigidter rain and cli mate as in di vid ual par ents wentin search of food. The gut tural sounds and criesof these funny an i mals sounded al most hu manas they searched out their families in the hugeherd.

The par ents went back and forth, one ofthem shield ing all the while, first the egg, andthen the new born chick, from cold win terstorms, pred a tory birds, and other hos tilemem bers of their race. A few of the chicks nevermade it, but those that did, grew up with awarmth that is un imag in able in a place likeAntarctica. They took their baby steps as theycame out into the light from within the se cureshel ter of their par ents’ brood patches.

All through the nine long months of harsh

win ter, each par ent went with out food for sev -eral months at a stretch so that they could in cu -bate the eggs and pro tect their lit tle ones. Inspite of dire star va tion, they made their marchto the sea so that they could bring food back to

their young in the nest ing area.And yet, it was the con clu sionof this doc u men tary that left me in awe.

Af ter en sur ing that the lit tle chick was se cure to face theworld on its own, this fam ily ofmother, fa ther, and child parted ways, never to see each otheragain. The fa ther and mother,who put their lives at risk topro tect the ‘ap ple of their eye’,plunged into the ocean with outso much as a back ward glance.It was al most as though theyhad done their duty with ev ery

hon esty and dil i gence con ceiv able in na ture,and it was now their turn to re turn to wherethey came from. The lit tle chicks stood alongthe ocean shore watch ing help lessly. But not for long—af ter some time they too took the plunge into the icy wa ters to con tinue the cy cle that has gone on for thousands of years.

I won der if we as hu mans are ca pa ble of this kind of dil i gence and de tach ment. Na ture issaid to be the great est teacher. This doc u men -tary showed me to day what the Gita has said, soel o quently, about the con cept of self less duty.Maybe the ro man tic na ture of my soul makesme look for met a phors where they don’t re allyex ist. But to day, for me, these amaz ing crea -tures were more than a Na tional Geo graphicwon der; they taught me one of the most dif fi -cult con cepts in our scrip tures, with a sim plic ity which was as be guil ing as it was poi gnant. ~


& Reviews &For review in PRABUDDHA BHARATA

publishers need to send two copies of their latest publications.

Vivekananda: Les sons in Clas si cal Yoga.Comp. and ed. Dave DeLuca. NamasteBooks, 26861 Trabuco Road, Suite E 55,Mis sion Viejo, CA 92691- 3593, USA.Website: www.namastebooks.com. 2003.290 pp. $19.95.

Swami Vivekananda, ad mired as the ‘cy clonicmonk’ and as ar chi tect of mod ern In dia, is a per -

pet ual in spi ra tion. He had ob served, ‘I shall in spiremen ev ery where un til the world shall know that it isone with God.’ True to his state ment, count less in -di vid u als—sec u lar and spir i tual lead ers as well as or -di nary peo ple—and in sti tu tions have bene fitedfrom his teach ings. Swamiji’s lec tures on In dia’s an -cient wis dom, of ten laced with a keen sense of hu -mour, are there fore al ways in de mand.

The book un der re view has se lec tions fromSwamiji’s teach ings on yoga. The com piler has re -frained from of fer ing his views or com ments, thusal low ing Swamiji’s les sons to reach the reader intheir pris tine pu rity.

Swami Vivekananda opened the flood gates ofVedanta and Yoga for West ern au di ences. He was‘hu man el o quence at its high est pitch’ while ex -pound ing the yoga sys tem, and had a pro found im -pact in Amer ica and Eu rope. It was a rev e la tion tomany when he called upon peo ple of dif fer ent faithsto help each other and not quar rel, point ing out that‘each hu man be ing stands for the di vine’.

Swamiji ex plained that to a Hindu, re li gionmeans re al iza tion, not mere be liefs in dog mas or rit -u als. The goal is to ‘be come di vine, to reach God’,and see God ev ery where, and be come one with uni -ver sal Con scious ness. God is not to be feared or ap -peased. For we are one with the ‘In fi nite Ex is tence,Knowl edge and Bliss’; birth, life, and death are onlyman i fes ta tions of this one ness. Hu man be ings donot prog ress from er ror to truth but from lower lev -els of truth to higher lev els.

Some of these con cepts have been cov ered in thefirst sec tion of the book, ‘One ness’. This is fol lowedby chap ters on ‘Clas si cal Yoga’ as a path way to one -

ness. The four ma jor yoga sys tems (jnana, karma,bhakti, and raja yoga) are dealt with in the sub se -quent sec tions.

We weave our own des tiny or fate. There fore weare re spon si ble for be ing what we are. No power canstop our ac tions from yield ing re sults, good or bad.No one is a sin ner; a sin ner is one who sees a sin ner in an other. One should not de cry rit u als and my thol -ogy. Those who rose to great heights in spir i tu al ityhave come ‘through the dis ci pline of rit u als’. Bhaktiyoga teaches that ‘wher ever the heart ex pands, He isthere man i fested’.

Swamiji fore saw the con se quences of an emerg -ing con sum er ism and mar ket-driven econ omy. As are sult of over em pha siz ing the in tel lect, ‘ar ti fi cialwants have been cre ated; and ev ery poor man,whether he has money or not, de sires to have thosewants sat is fied, and when he can not, he strug gles,and dies in the strug gle. … If all this vast amount ofef fort had been spent in mak ing men purer, gen tler,more for bear ing, this world would have a thou -sand-fold more hap pi ness than it has to day.’ Oneneed not search for a more se vere warn ing againstthe mind less greed for con sumer goods.

The sec tion on raja yoga men tions the eight-fold path end ing in sam adhi. One must re mem ber Swa -mi ji’s cau tion that raja yoga and re lated tech niquesare best learnt by sin cere prac tice un der an ableguide; no amount of lec tures alone will re veal thetruth. There are var i ous yoga sys tems; each as pi rantshould de velop in the way that suits him or her best.

Each sec tion in the book ac com mo dates nu mer -ous top ics, and in the pro cess ideas are re peated.Some of this rep e ti tion could have been avoided.The book con cludes with two ap pen di ces: oneabout the World Par lia ment of Re li gions of 1893and the other a bi og ra phy of Swami Vivekananda.These are use ful ad di tions for the ben e fit of thoseun fa mil iar with the life of this great yogi from In dia.An in tro duc tion or pref a tory note and notes on dif -fi cult philo soph i cal terms and is sues would haveadded to the value of the book.

Swami Vivekananda’s speeches and writ ings


Reviews 621


form an en cy clo pe dia on Vedanta and Yoga. Theyex pose the lim i ta tions of a sec u lar way of life andpoint to the in ev i ta ble need for spir i tual val ues. Sis -ter Chris tine has re corded how de spair and hope less -ness turned into a feel ing of bliss af ter lis ten ing toSwamiji. One never feels jaded read ing Swami Vi -veka nanda. Dave DeLuca’s an thol ogy is a wel comead di tion to Vivekananda lit er a ture and a use fulguide to spir i tual life.

P S SundaramMumbai

Life, Mind and Con scious ness. The Rama -krishna Mis sion In sti tute of Cul ture, GolPark, Kolkata 700 029. E-mail: [email protected]. 2004. xiv + 519 pp. Rs 75.

This book com prises the pro ceed ings of a sem i -nar held at the Ramakrishna Mis sion In sti tute

of Cul ture, Kolkata, from 16 to 18 Jan u ary 2004.This was a se quel to a pre vi ous sem i nar on ‘An Ex -plor atory Ap proach to Con scious ness’ held at thesame in sti tu tion in Feb ru ary 2002. The sem i narhad eight ac a demic ses sions in which eigh teen pa -pers were pre sented. Apart from the text of thesepa pers and ad dresses in the in au gu ral and con clud -ing ses sions, the vol ume also con tains a re cord ofthe dis cus sions on in di vid ual pre sen ta tions and afi nal panel dis cus sion.

The sub ject of the sem i nar is highly top i cal andhas been de bated in sev eral sim i lar sem i nars andcon fer ences around the world. One of the bug bearsof any dis cus sion on con scious ness is the lack of aproper def i ni tion of the word ac cepted by all dis ci -plines. The out come of such con fer ences has al waysbeen a po lite state ment: ‘Let us agree to dis agree’.The pres ent sem i nar is no ex cep tion. It con cludeswith the ob ser va tion: ‘It is won der ful to deal withCon scious ness but it would be wrong to ac cept thatwe have un der stood it.’

The par tic i pants in this sem i nar come from dif -fer ent dis ci plines. There seems to be a heavier em -pha sis on phi los o phy and phys i cal sci ence than onthe bi o log i cal sci ences. Phi los o phers, es pe cially ofthe In dian schools, have a very clear idea of con -scious ness, thanks to the Upanishads. Phys i cists arestill try ing to grap ple with the Ein stein-Podolsky- Rosen par a dox. Neu ro anato mists, on the other hand,are try ing to lo cate con scious ness in the in tri catenet works of the brain. There still does not ap pear tobe any meet ing ground where all of them could

come to a com mon con clu sion. Phi los o phers andsci en tists ap pear like two in de pend ent teams try ingto dig a tun nel through a moun tain, but from op po -site sides. It is only when there is a com mon meet ingground that dis cus sions be come mean ing ful.

It is rather sur pris ing that the only sen si ble ap -proach to the prob lem of con scious ness which canbring the two groups to gether has hardly beentouched upon. This is the con cept of a ‘Spec trumof Con scious ness’ sug gested by Ken Wilber. Apass ing ref er ence has been made to the dif fer ent in -ter pre ta tions of con scious ness in some of the pa -pers and dis cus sions, but the de tails have not beendis cussed.

This does not mean that such sem i nars do notserve any pur pose. At least they bring ex perts fromsev eral dis ci plines onto the same plat form, and al low for a shar ing of ex pe ri ence and in sight. One needs tocon tinue dig ging this tun nel from both ends un til,some day, the two ends hope fully meet.

The pro ceed ings have been brought out in an at -trac tive for mat which makes for easy read ing. Un -for tu nately the ed it ing is of a rather poor qual ity.This is more so in the case of the panel dis cus sions aswell as the dis cus sions on in di vid ual pre sen ta tions.It is likely that the ses sions were re corded on tapeand then tran scribed. If so, the tran scrip tion leaves alot to be de sired. It is hoped that, at least in the nextedi tion, the dis cus sions will be prop erly re ported,be cause it is these dis cus sions that al ways form themost im por tant part of any sem i nar.

The Ramakrishna Mis sion In sti tute of Cul turede serves to be thanked for or ga niz ing sem i nars onsuch top ics from time to time. We look for ward tomore such sem i nars in fu ture.

Dr N V C SwamyDean of Academic Programmes

Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana SamsthanaBangalore

Theraváda Bud dhist Devotionalism inCey lon, Burma and Thai land. V V SSaibaba. D K Printworld, Sri Kunj, F-52,Bali Nagar, New Delhi 110 015. E-mail:[email protected]. xvi + 88 pp. Rs 200.

The work un der re view stud ies devotionalism,bhakti, in the con text of Theravada Bud -

dhism. All stu dents of Bud dhism know that theBud dhists, what ever school they may be long to, donot at tach any im por tance to God or an ul ti mate



Re al ity in re spect of spir i tual prac tices. Later Bud -dhist phi los o phers even deny the ex is tence of God.There fore bhakti as taught by Narada or Shandilya, or the Gita and the Bhagavata, has no rel e vance toBud dhist thought or prac tices. But Swami Viveka -nanda has rightly pointed out that no re li gion canto tally dis card the wor ship of sym bols; there fore,the prac tice of bhakti in some form or other is uni -ver sal.

Bhakti did play a role in Bud dhist tra di tionssince very early times. It is prob a ble that bhakti firsten tered the Bud dhist fold through the Maha sanghi -kas, a sect of which school was known as theLokottara vadins. The Lokottaravadins ac cepted theBud dha as a lokottara purusha, a su per hu man be ing,and they there fore prop a gated the ven er a tion of theBud dha in stu pas and var i ous other sym bols. Im ages of Gautama Bud dha started be ing sculp tured asearly as the first cen tury BCE. With the rise ofMahayana, devotionalism was con cep tu al ized morefor mally and full-fledged rit u als were for mu latedand put into prac tice. Vajrayana or Tantric Bud -dhism de vel oped out of Mahayana and marked thecul mi na tion of devotionalism. Many Bo dhi satt vasand de i ties—both gods and god desses—were con -ceived and their im ages sculpted. They were wor -shipped with elab o rate rit u als. This prac tice is stillcur rent in Ne pal and Ti bet.

It is gen er ally be lieved that devotionalism inBud dhism is an af fair of Mahayana-Vajrayana, andthat Theravada (the south ern ver sion of Sthavira -vada) has no de vo tional el e ment in it. This no tion isnot cor rect. The Bud dha was be ing wor shipped insym bols like rep li cas of the Bodhi tree, foot prints,and chaityas and stu pas which were sup posed tocon tain rel ics of Bud dha’s mor tal re mains. Thisprac tice was prev a lent long be fore the time of Em -peror Ashoka, who gave state rec og ni tion to Stha -vira vada. He con structed sev eral thou sand stu pas allover his em pire and went out on pil grim age to theholy places which were as so ci ated with the mem oryof the Bud dha. When Theravada Bud dhism was in -tro duced into Cey lon (Sri Lanka of to day) andthere from into Burma, Thai land, Cam bo dia, andLaos, the de vo tional as pect of Bud dhism gainedground—was lo cally de vel oped and adapted to lo calcul tures.

Dr V V S Saibaba of Andhra Uni ver sity hasbrought out this less-known as pect of TheravadaBud dhism as prac tised in three coun tries: Cey lon,Burma, and Thai land. He has dealt with his sub ject

from his tor i cal and ca non i cal per spec tives as well asfrom di rect ob ser va tion. His study shows how the ri -gid ity of mo nas ti cism had to be par tially re laxed toac com mo date de vo tional wor ship, par tic u larlyamong the la ity, which made Bud dhism more ap -peal ing to wider masses.

The text is di vided into two parts: His tor i cal per -spec tive of Theravada Bud dhist Devotionalism, and Theravada Bud dhist Devotionalism in Cey lon,Burma, and Thai land. Each part is again di videdinto four chap ters. The sec ond part is de scrip tive;the an a lyt i cal first part is the more im por tant. Ittraces the his tory of the wor ship of chaityas, stu pas,rel ics such as hair, nail, tooth, and ashes of the Bud -dha, sym bols, and fi nally of im ages, on the ba sis ofPali ca non i cal texts. In this part the learned au thorhas dis played a mas tery over Pali ca non i cal lit er a ture that makes this work com mend able and a valu ablead di tion to Bud dhist stud ies.

In con clu sion, it will not be out of place if a fewshort com ings of the work are pointed out for fu tureemen da tion. In quite a few places Pali and San skritter mi nol ogy have been mixed up. While dis cuss ingBud dhist devotionalism in Thai land, the au thor hasover looked an in ter est ing fea ture of Thai Bud dhistprac tices. The Thai Bud dhists wor ship, with greatven er a tion, a few Hindu de i ties, such as Brahma,Ganesha, Vishnu, and Dharani (the earth god dess).Rama is highly ven er ated in Thai land, to the ex tentthat all the mon archs of the pres ent rul ing dy nastyare ti tled Rama, the pres ent mon arch be ing ti tledRama IX. Let me also point out a glar ing lapse: theau thor writes: ‘Aùoka con fined him self to the prac ti -cal side of re li gion, for his in scrip tions re pro duce the teach ings of the Páli ca non i cal work Vimánavatthu’(7). This is an im pos si ble prop o si tion, be cause noPali ca non i cal work was re corded be fore or dur ingAshoka’s time. Ac cord ing to the Mahavamsha theen tire Pali canon was writ ten down, for the firsttime, in Sri Lanka dur ing the reign of VattagamaniAbhaya, in the first cen tury BCE. In all prob a bil ity,even the Pali lan guage was not de vel oped dur ingAshoka’s reign.

In spite of the few short com ings men tionedabove, Dr Saibaba’s work de serves sin cere ap pre ci a -tion. Any stu dent of Bud dhist stud ies may read itwith plea sure and profit.

Dr Satkari MukhopadhyayaFormer Coordinator, Kalákoùa Division

Indira Gandhi National Centre for the ArtsNew Delhi

Reviews 623


The Way To Su preme Bliss. Trans. Samvid.Samata Books, 10 Con gress Build ing, 573Mount Road, Chennai 600 006. E-mail:samatabooks@ya hoo.co.in. 2005. 118 pp.Rs 90.

The Way to Su preme Bliss is a trans la tion of thetwenty-fourth chap ter of the Parama nanda

Tan tra, an im por tant Tantric work. It syn the sizes,as do all ma jor Tantric works, the tra di tions of Yogaand Vedanta with the rit u al is tic as pect of re li gion.The rit u als in this con text come from the Shakta tra -di tion of Sri Vidya.

The twenty-fourth Ullasa of the ParamanandaTan tra, called adhyatma kathana, fo cus ses on purelyspir i tual and philo soph i cal mat ters. It gives a full ac -count of the knowl edge that lib er ates the sadhaka.The work starts with a dis cus sion of the three fold ig -no rance: anava- mala, mayiya-mala and karma- mala; as also the viveka, dis crim i na tion or self-en -quiry, that needs to be prac tised in or der to rid one -self of it. The term anava is de rived from anu (atom)and the as so ci ated mala (im pu rity) is due to the lim i -ta tion per tain ing to the individualized con scious -ness of the jiva. Mayiya- mala is the lim i ta tion due tomaya and de lu sion bring ing about a sense of dif fer -ence from the world. Fi nally, karma-mala is as so ci -ated with works. The dis crim i na tion or self-en quirythat as serts one’s true na ture as pure Con scious nesserad i cates these three and es tab lishes the jiva in itspure pris tine state.

The text next deals with the pro gres sive states at -tained by a sadhaka as he or she sheds these lim i ta -tions. As so ci ated spir i tual prac tices and tra di tions,par tic u larly those of Karma, Yoga, and Vedanta, aredis cussed as means of prog ress.

Verses 48-57 echo Chap ter Thir teen of the Bha -ga vad gita and dis cuss what com prises jnana (knowl -edge), jneya (the know able) and vijnana (spe cialknowl edge). This is re it er ated in a slightly dif fer entform in verses 69-77, where the unity of the world in Con scious ness is stressed. In a sense verses 56-80deal with the path of knowl edge while the sub se -quent verses trace the paths of yoga and karma.

An im por tant spir i tual prac tice em pha sized inthis con text is svadhyaya, lis ten ing re peat edly to thewords of the guru and the scrip tures. The link be -tween Yoga and Vedanta is dis cussed sub se quentlyin the garb of the re la tion be tween mind and con -scious ness. Their ap proach be ing syn thetic, theTan tras try to ab sorb the meth ods of con trol ling the

mind from Yoga, and the meth ods of self-en quiryand cul ti va tion of brahma-buddhi (Brah man con -scious ness) from Vedanta. Spir i tual prac tices arerec om mended for sadhakas of dif fer ent cat e go ries:jnana for the best, yoga for the next group, andkarma for the third. In this way, even rit u als find a le -git i mate place in the scheme of things. Japa or rep e -ti tion of a man tra, one of the prin ci pal prac tices inTan tra, is a spir i tual prac tice that de rives its philo -soph i cal con tent from all three tra di tions. Med i ta -tion lead ing to sam adhi is given its right ful place.

The lu cid trans la tion by Samvid of this im por -tant Tantric work brings out the syn thetic ap proachof the Tan tras. It would be of help to sadhakas wish -ing to adopt one or more of the paths of jnana, yoga,or karma as a means of spir i tual evo lu tion.

Br. BrahmachaitanyaRamakrishna Mission Vidyamandira

Kolkata

Books Received

Be tween East and West. Luce Irigaray. New Age Books, A 44 Naraina Phase I, NewDelhi 110 028. E-mail: nab@vsnl. com.2005. xiv + 147 pp. Rs 125.

The women’s move ment in In dia, tak ing its cuefrom fem i nists across the globe, has largely beencon cerned with ad dress ing socio-cul tural, le gal, andpo lit i cal is sues, of ten over look ing the very fun da -men tal spir i tual di men sion of the woman it wishesto em power. Luce Irigaray, a lead ing French fem i -nist, ar gues in ci sively that the spir i tual di men sioncan be ig nored only at the risk of los ing the very soulof the fem i nine. And Irigaray is not ar gu ing for anyvague tran scen den tal meta phys ics, but for spir i tu al -ity rooted in the breath and the body. Im por tantfood for thought for fem i nist think ers.

Sannyasa and Women. Mata Yogananda -mayi and Mata Vivekamayi. Sri BhavatariniAshrama, 282 Saraswathinagar, Vijaya -nagar, Bangalore 560 040. 2005. x + 74 pp.Rs 10.

A brief re view of the mo nas tic tra di tiongrounded in the life and teach ings of Sri SaradaDevi. Not only is this tra di tion uniquely em pow er -ing for women, it also works for a com mu nity thatgrants pri macy to women and their as pi ra tions.

ReportsRKMVERI Con vo ca tionThe first con vo ca tion of the

Ramakrishna Mis sion Viveka -nan da Ed u ca tional Re search In -sti tute (RKMVERI) was held atthe Rama krishna Mis sion Vidya -laya, Coimbatore, on 2 Sep tem -ber 2006. The RMKVERI wascon ferred deemed uni ver sity sta -tus by the Gov ern ment of In dia in Jan u ary 2005 un der the Uni ver -sity Grants Com mis sion (UGC) Act. Un likecon ven tional uni ver si ties, RKMVERI fo cuseson com mu nity-de vel op ment-ori ented stud iessuch as dis abil ity man age ment, ru ral de vel op -ment, and tribal de vel op ment, with value ed u -ca tion as an in te gral part of all courses.RKMVERI com menced its first Fac ulty of Dis -abil ity Man age ment and Spe cial Ed u ca tion atthe In ter na tional Hu man Re source De vel op -ment Cen tre for the Dis abled (IHRDC) at theVidyalaya cam pus in July 2005.

At the con vo ca tion, de grees were con ferred on eighty-eight schol ars of the Di ploma, BEd,and MEd spe cial ed u ca tion courses by SwamiSmaran anandaji, Chan cel lor, RKMVERI andGen eral Sec re tary, Ramakri shna Math andRama krishna Mis sion. Swami Smarananandajialso ad dressed the con vo ca tion, as did SwamiSuhita nandaji, Pro-Chan cel lor, and SwamiAtma priya nandaji, Vice-Chan cel lor. Prof.Mool chand Sharma, Vice-Chair man, Uni ver -sity Grants Com mis sion, Gov ern ment of In dia,de liv ered the Con vo ca tion Ad dress and high -lighted the need for of fer ing ded i cated ser vicesto raise the sta tus of down trod den sec tions ofso ci ety. He stressed that the UGC is proud tobe as so ci ated with RKMVERI, and handedover the Com mis sion’s let ter of sanc tion for agrant of Rs 4 crore for the infrastructural de vel -op ment of the university.

RKMVERI, with its head quar ters at Belur

Math, uses fa cil i ties avail able at RamakrishnaMis sion cen tres all over the coun try, dem on -strating the con cept of a deemed uni ver sitywith mul ti ple cam puses. It has plans to launchprogrammes in other coun tries too in course oftime.

The UGC has ap proved three ad di tionalfac ulty cen tres for RKMVERI; courses are be -ing started at these cen tres from the cur rent ac a -demic ses sion as noted: (1) Loka Shiksha Pari -shad, Rama krishna Mis sion Ashrama, Naren -dra pur, for the Fac ulty of In te grated Ru ral De -vel op ment and Man age ment (IRDM); two-year MSc in IRDM and one-year post grad u atedi ploma in Agro-based Bio tech nol ogy. (2) Div ya yan Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Ramakrishna Mis sion Ashrama, Morabadi, Ranchi, for theFac ulty of In te grated Ru ral and Tribal De vel -op ment (IRTD); five-year in te grated MSccourse in IRTD and one-year post-grad u atediploma in Agro-based Bio tech nol ogy. (3)Vivek ananda Re search Cen tre at RamakrishnaMis sion Swami Vivekananda’s An ces tralHouse and Cul tural Cen tre, Kolkata, for doc -toral and post-doc toral re search; doctoralprogrammes in Math e mat i cal Sci ences, Phi los -o phy, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Thought,Con scious ness Stud ies, and re lated disciplines.

Achievment

Dr C S Radhakrishnan, a teacher in the


Swami Smarananandaji hands a degree to a scholar

De part ment of San skrit, Vivekananda Col lege,Ramakrishna Mis sion Vidyapith, Chennai,has been elected a member of the ConsultativeCommittee of the International Association ofSan skrit Stud ies, Paris.

Vivekananda Award

Dr Vladislav Sergeyevich Kostyuchenko,for mer pro fes sor of phi los o phy in the His toryof For eign Phi los o phy de part ment at Mos cowState Uni ver sity and one of the fore most ex -perts on In dian phi los o phyin Rus sia, re ceived the2006 Vivekananda Awardfrom the RamakrishnaMis sion In sti tute of Cul -ture on 6 Au gust 2006 at asim ple cer e mony held atthe In dian em bassy in Mos -cow, for his life long workfur ther ing the un der stand -ing and ap pre ci a tion of In -dian phi los o phy and theteach ings of Swami Viveka -nanda in Rus sia and thefor mer So viet Un ion. DrKos tyuchenko has manybooks in Rus sian to hiscredit, in clud ing In te gralVedan ta, Vivekananda, Clas -si cal Vedanta and Neo Ved -

anta, and Sri Aurobindo: Mul ti -plic ity of Her i tage and Unity ofThought, pub lished in 1970,1977, 1984, and 1998 re spec t -ively. The prize, com pris ing a ci -ta tion, a book and pho to graph ofSwami Vivekanan da, and Rs 1lakh cash, was handed over to DrKostuychenko by Sri Kan walSibal, In dian ambassador to Rus -sia, in the pres ence of SwamiPrabha nanda, Sec re tary of the In -sti tute. Dr Kostyuchenko wasborn in 1934.

World Pre miere

The Pas sion of Ramakrishna, an op era by in -ter na tion ally ac claimed com poser Philip Glass,with li bretto by Kusumita Pedersen, pre mieredon 16 Sep tem ber 2006 at the Or ange CountyPer form ing Arts Cen ter, Costa Mesa. It wasper formed by the Pa cific Sym phony, the Pa cific Cho rale, and so lo ists; Carl St Clair con ducted.The work was co-com mis sioned by the Pa cificSym phony and the Nash ville Sym phony. Itcon sists of six parts: Pro logue, The Mas ter’s Vi -

Reports 625


Dr Kostyuchenko, with Swami Prabhananda and Sri Kanwal Sibal

Composer Philip Glass with Swamis Atmarupananda and Ishtananda

World Premiere

sions, Sarada Devi, The Mas ter’s Ill ness, TheMahasamadhi of the Mas ter, and Ep i logue.The li bretto has been taken mainly from theGos pel of Sri Ramakrishna, which the com poserhas been read ing for the last forty years. Theper for mance re ceived nu mer ous stand ing ova -tions. Writes Mr Glass:

It is hard to imag ine the emer gence of In dia onthe world stage with out the spark that was pro -vided by Ramakrishna’s bril liance. Per haps,some may doubt that In dia—the most pop u lous de moc racy of our time, brim ming with vi tal ityand cre ativ ity—could owe so much to onesaintly man, long gone, who lived a life of suchut ter sim plic ity. Yet I be lieve that is ex actly thecase.

It has been said that when a great man dies, itis as if all of hu man ity—and the whole world, for that mat ter—were wit ness ing a beau ti ful, time -less sun set. At that mo ment ‘the great mat ter oflife and death’ is re vealed, if not ex plained andun der stood. By bear ing wit ness to that event,per haps we un der stand a lit tle better our ownmor tal ity, its lim its and pos si bil i ties. The Pas sionof Ramakrishna is meant to re count, in thishighly ab bre vi ated work, his suf fer ing, deathand trans fig u ra tion as they took place dur ing the last few months of his life.

Relief

In Sep tem ber heavy rains caused havoc insev eral parts of West Ben gal and Oris sa. Rama -krishna Mis sion cen tres in these states started re -lief op er a tions im me di ately. Cen tres in AndhraPradesh, Gujarat, Maha rashtra, and Rajas thancon tin ued re lief op er a tions among the flood vic -tims there. Re lief de tails are as fol lows:

Ramakrishna Mis sion, Jaipur: 6,060 blan -kets and 3,023 tar pau lin tents to 3,064 flood-af -fected fam i lies of 26 panchayats in Barmer andJaisalmer dis tricts.

Ramakrishna Ashrama, Rajkot: 4,236food pack ets, 14,828 kg rice and dal, 18,535 kgwheat flour, 1,853 kg ed ible oil, 1,112 kgspices, 2,706 kg salt, 370 kg tea pow der, 3,707kg sugar, 104 blan kets, 3,707 bed-sheets, 3,707 chaddars, 3,707 sa ris, 2,706 soap-bars, 16,236can dles, and 2,706 match boxes to flood-af -

fected peo ple of Ahmedabad, Anand, andKheda dis tricts.

Ramakrishna Math and RamakrishnaMis sion, Mumbai: 2,263 kg rice, 3,678 kgwheat, 893 kg dal, 85 chaddars, and 75 saris to998 persons in Buldana district.

Ramakrishna Math and RamakrishnaMis sion, Rajahmundry: 754 blan kets; and 377 sa ris, lun gis, mats, and trunks to 377 families ofAinavilli village in East Godavari dis trict; alsomed i cal re lief to 617 flood vic tims.

Ramakrishna Math and RamakrishnaMis sion, Bhubaneswar: 6,800 kg chira, 2,800kg sugar, 2,000 kg salt, 4,000 packets ofbiscuits, 4,000 matchboxes and 8,076 candlesto 10,815 flood-af fected per sons of 16 villagesin Kendrapara district.

Ramakrishna Math, Puri: 32,172 kg chiraand 2,413 kg sugar to 50,916 per sons of 121vil lages in Puri dis trict.

Ramakrishna Mis sion Ashrama, Puri:16,020 kg chira and 1,602 kg sugar to 21,836per sons of 55 vil lages in Puri Sadar and Gopblocks of Puri dis trict.

Ramakrishna Math, Antpur: 12,500 kgchira and 2,200 kg sugar to flood-af fected fam i -lies of Jaynagar and Balai Chak ar eas ofKhanakul Block II, Hooghly, and Udaynarain -pur block, How rah.

Ramakrishna Math and RamakrishnaMis sion Ashrama, Malda: cooked food (khi -chri) to 2,000 per sons of Khaskhole vil lage andChakbandi tribal col ony in Malda dis trict.

Ramakrishna Mis sion Saradapitha, BelurMath: cooked food (khichri), chira, sugar,milk, and med i cines to 12,830 per sons of 9 vil -lages of Udaynarainpur area, How rah.

Ramakrishna Mis sion Ashrama, Sarga -chhi: cooked food (khichri) to 2,500 per sons ofRangamati, Chandpara, and Satui Chowri -gachha gram panchayats.

Ramakrishna Math, Baranagar: 195 sa ris,50 dho tis, and 109 chil dren’s gar ments, andRamakrishna Mis sion, Batticaloa: 528 mos -quito-nets, to poor and needy peo ple of nearbyar eas. ~



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