Indian
Philosphy
by
Brahmasrii
Dr K C Varadachari
Dr.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, is another big contributor to the philosophy of our
century. He has remarkably shown how the hard core of all religions personal
experience has the supreme quality of catholic unity that provides the pivotal
idea for unity in the world distraught. Charity in every sphere for all and ill
will to
none will reveal the One truth that manifests itself
diversely. The east supplies the true catholic universal conceptions of
religions with which the western highest intellectual flights of reason are
compatible. It is true that certain modern Christian writers argue against the
universal religion as conceived by the great seers of India,
Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Gandhi, Aurobindo and Dr.Radhakrishnan and theosophy.
But ungrounded as their fear is on the one hand, it will prove inevitable that
they must recognise that peculiarity and particularity whilst compatible as
subsumed under the universal are anti-thetical if pursued as ultimate.
Thus
during the past century and a half the progress of the Eastern religious
thought shows a continuous effort to get the sanction of the soul of Indian
culture as embedded in the Vedas, Brahmanas, Upanishads and the Tantras and the
Gita on the one hand and the rich contributions of Buddhism and Jainism on the
other, for their adaptation to the world needs of the present moment.
We are in a wonderful period
of creative unity.
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
IN INDIA
DURING THE PERIOD OF CRISIS1
The
spectacle of philosophic march during the past fifty years present certain
definite outlines at this distance. We have in turn witnessed the growth of the
spiritual movements of Ramakrishna--Vedanta which has spread itself all over
the globe and has influenced deeply the minds of young men yearning for meaning
of life in terms of that which is transcendent. In fact if we consider that
explanation is always in terms of causes and grounds, the ground and causal
origin of man and his inner essence has been shewn to be the transcendent All.
A wide humanity has entailed the service of that humanity labouring towards its
meaning. Neither Man nor humanity have any meaning apart from this Transcendent
One Spirit. That this ancient doctrine of Advaita or Oneness (Ekatva of
the Self or God or Brahman) has found a verifiable medium in Sri
1 Dr. S.
Radhakrishnan Souvenir Volume – 5th September 1964.
Ramakrishna- Vivekananda has a meaning for the
development of Indian philosophy.
This
is the Ramakrishna Darsana which almost swept South Indian scene. Men turned to
Philosophy not for a career but for an illumination. Dark though the atmosphere
was, fully clouded by the activities of the foreign missionaries and in a sense
encouraged by them to study for ourselves their great literature, this
spiritual light handed to us by this Darsana had helped a better appreciation
of the West as well as the East, and though at the beginning patriotic it has
finally become universalistic, belonging to no nation or peoples or countries
as such. Philosophical thought rightly depending upon the universal realistic
mystic realization attained a force but it had tended to become
idealistic--something to be achieved rather than something attained. One can
almost hazard a statement that true mysticism is realistic universalism whereas
philosophy is idealistic universalism in so far as such philosophy depends on
mystic truths.
No
wonder the growth of Philosophy in the Academics has been idealistic. The most
important
thinker of this is certainly our President, Dr.
Radhakrishnan. He has shewn that philosophy is idealistic and cannot remain
however merely limited to explaining all by means of ideas, those products of
thought, but must yearn towards the ideal of being. Brahmavid must
become or strain towards the attainment or becoming of Brahman (Brahmaiva
bhavati). Bur this lag between being and becoming is most difficult to
surmount. Philosophy may find its hunt very satisfying and stimulating but its
non-attainment of the ideal, qua ideal, becomes rather a source of
dissatisfaction. It is true that man as man and trying to remain human will
find it difficult indeed to seek that which goes beyond the human or to a level
of de-humanization or super-humanization. However a gradualness in the march
would almost extinguish the difference between the human and the super-human to
be. The transitions from jiva to atman, and from atman to brahman have to be
achieved through gradual culture of values and value seeking in terms of the
human world. The Humanism that Dr.Radhakrishnan counsels is not remote from the
trans-humanism towards which he leads the thoughts and hearts of
men. It is not a merely epistemological humanism or
social humanism that tries to justify the non-valuational human; it is
precisely the integration of the higher and superior than human which the human
seeks and yearns after as his ideals with the life of the world and all that it
means, that would lead to the appreciation of the human as a seeker after the
eternal, the unborn, and the universal. The characteristic practicality of this
human idealism lies in its yearning after universal values already envisioned
by its seers all over the globe and all through time and history. That is why
the secret of Radhakrishnan lies in its innate homeliness to human being,
yearning for the realization of the eternal in one's life. But the vast labour
of comparative philosophical research and mystical experience has gone into
this prodigious work of transforming mere man into a universalized human being
seeking the values that count for all and for harmony. So near has this
humanistic idealism been to that of the ethical idealism of Gandhiji that it
has been not very difficult for Dr. Radhakrishnan to join the forces of ethical
idealism, that paves the way for a dynamic participation in life's global
efforts to solve the problems of survival not of
men only but of values mainly. This humanist approach
whilst it had seized the minds of the common man, has unfortunately the
tendency to give up the emotional stimulation which has been the strong point
in the Vivekananda Darsana. The Vision of the ascetic has the strong
suggestions of courage and adventure, whilst the vision of the humanist has
rather a mellow attraction. When however the philosophers of the colleges had
settled down to make philosophy just a pastime and a game, if became clear that
other disciplines like economics and other sciences and history gain an
advantage. For though 'ideas have legs' and they do travel, it is clear that
only those ideas which also ensoul an ideal and are dynamic, travel at all.
Ideas may not be blind but they are lame almost remembering the Samkhyan
analogy—andha pangu nyaya. But an ideal is not blind to carry an idea
and there this analogy breaks. A greater light and power to creativity is in
the ideal that is Real, whereas in the human world there are certain ideals
which have an illusive nature. Through man's history one could see how illusory
ideals have side-stepped and arrested his movement and evolution. But it is
precisely these ideals
that have come under the fire of philosophical
dialectics. The great seers of all times have seen that man must firstly be
trained towards seizing the real and permanent universal ideals, ideals that
can unceasingly inspire man towards the realizations of harmony and peace.
The
ideals of the human race on the whole to which Dr. Radhakrishnan contributed
not a little to unravel through his philosophic approach of comparative
appraisal and appreciation have been Peace and Harmony and goodwill and
understanding that makes for mutual cooperation and sympathy. It has become
clear also that as in the relationships between individuals and individuals so
too between nations and nations, communities and communities, the values of
truth, non-injury, non-passion and non-possession and in a word restraint in
thought and word and deed is necessary. A life that is not based on the twin
principles of truth and ahimsa cannot hope to attain freedom from fear and
sorrow. It is not necessary for this purpose to think even of an eternal life
but yama is necessary. The philosophical development outside was
political and Gandhian, the philosophical development inside the
academies were Radhakrishnan; and comparative Indian
Philosophy gained much incentive and inspiration from him. A whole school of
thought developed under its wings, though there has unfortunately been a lack
of interest in philosophical study and since 1930 it has been very difficult in
South India to get students to take Interest
in its study. In fact people began to feel that philosophers were a useless lot
for the political work before the nation and this inference though unjustified
has worked adversely to philosophical studies. It is true that owing to other
factors as well philosophical studies have suffered. These factors are
individual and social, deterioration of standards, and employment-possibilities
so called had led to its becoming an unwelcome and uninspiring study at college
and universities. However if appears that it is not by providing employment
possibility that its studies could be improved, but by making the philosophic
mind itself a necessary cultural attitude whatever discipline one opts for his
employment or hobby. It should be the part of one's general education for it is
that that would finally make one live a human life. It appears almost an irony
that other humanities
which concern man but which dehumanize him – I refer
mainly to the commercial humanities like economics have been encouraged by
Governments and other cultural bodies for promoting humanities and not
philosophy. A robust philosophy needs a robust philosophical approach in terms
of science and thought disciplines which are generally needed for all, and also
a strict ethical conscience has to be cultivated. As Sri Krishna long ago
stated, it is abhyasa that helps the control of asocial and contra-ideal
conduct and helps the appreciation of the Universal Good that is achieved by
devotion to its attainment. Today we have a cynical set of philosophers and
educationists who consider that merely adumbrating or repeating slogans achieve
the inward discipline in students. Student indiscipline comes for a deep sore
in social conscience – the regard for the basic values of life and
disinclination to achieve ideals based on the largest universal experience of
sages. Men are making themselves meaningless – they yearn towards nihilism –
and call it search for happiness: in their search for materialism.
This
is the present impasse in philosophical studies. No great galvanizing force in
academies has
risen and modem western brands of linguistic analysis and
so on boredoms are sure to be incapable of rousing any deep interest in it. But
Philosophy cannot die, though philosophers may fail.
We
have in the meanwhile had a new darsana-the Aurobindo darsana - the philosophy
of integral realization and evolution - this darsana is indeed original, though
it is based on the most ancient thought. If the Ramakrishna Vivekananda philosophy
or Vision more correctly erected itself on the Vedanta of Sankara which of
course it had to interpret on the lines of reconciliation of the phenomenal
world to the Noumenal,--at least in respect of such work or service as would
help transform it into the noumenal or help individuals caught up in the world
of ignorance to escape it or cross over t, the darsana of Sri Aurobindo erects
itself on the basic realizations of the Vedic seers and Rsis of the Upanishads
going behind the commentators of the Vedanta darsana. This difference has made
for the reaction against the Sankara tradition fostered and accepted by the
first. The darsana of Sri Aurobindo calls itself Purna-yoga or Purna darsana-an
integral Vision and integral Union with the
Ultimate
Reality. The word 'Integral' is more meaningful than the
word 'full', for 'full' may be homogeneous One but the integral is the unity of
the many, a unity that reveals identity in and through the many. His integral
Reality is all-embracing Vision and Intelligence and Delight of Being. But it
is in his exploitation of the notion of evolution, an ascent of all existence
through the terms of matter (inconscience), life (sub-conscient), mind
(conscient) and supraconscient (sub-liminal) as evolutionary integrative unity
of planes and laws and movements that has given his philosophy the distinctive
note of Real Idealism. It is not an utopian idealism of the philosophers but
the Real Idealism of divine Evolution that makes his darsana a fulfilment of
the mystical realism of the Vedic seer. Today, it is clear that to those who
see that the human is not the ideal realized, that the ideal for man is far
ahead and beyond him, Sri Aurobindo's darsana has a strong appeal. It does not
content itself to perceive truth through the many-coloured glass of comparative
religion and philosophy, for after all it is a human seeing that has not
transcended the darkening effect of its limitations. Though the yearning and
faith in the possibility of
discovering the universal insight is strong in
philosophic idealism of Sri Dr. Radhakrishnan, in Sri Aurobindo the reality of
it is attained and the darkness and cloudiness of idealism passes leaving the
Reality without veil of waveringness. The approach to the Reality and its
nearness to realisational condition marks a great step in philosophical
understanding in Sri Aurobindo. The ideal is pitched beyond man, but it does
not negate man but fulfils him and its appeal to the heart is firmer and not
merely brainy and intellectual.
The
purna-darsana is a recovery of a great dynamic truth veiled in the most ancient
world literature. Sri Aurobindo finds that it is also the most comprehensive
spiritual document of all eternity which the rest of the universe has profited
by unwittingly. It is no longer through inductive generalizations and
probabilities that the mind of man has to move. It does not of course mean that
authoritarianism has come hack to philosophy and the heavy hand of Vedic
thought-rite and being would settle on man's mind which Buddha and Mahavira and
other lesser lights have thrown off. Indeed the phenomena of J. Krishnamurti
almost suggests this fear of tradition
slipping back to arrest man and his freedom through the
garbled interpretations of Theosophy and renascent Hinduism including those of
Sri Aurobindo. His constant emphasis on the need to liberate thought, not only
includes a liberation of thought from the confines of philosophic systems and
jargon (which has been quite Vrtra of the Vedic symbolism) but also from the
political and social and other equally binding forces of social life and being.
It is liberation of the very being from all thought that is achieved at that
exquisite point of tension that dialectical thought imposes in some queer form
or other. The philosophic attitude of dialectical analysis is indeed helpful in
so far as it leads one to that point when it transcends itself in experience.
In other words, thought’s transition to being is achieved by intense vigilant
awareness of its own being: it leads to its own expiry and transcendence. The
method of purposive doubt is precisely to arrive at that self conscious or
trans-thought being at the moment of extraordinary vigilance. To such a darsana
it is clear that all traditional thought and myth and system is alien and
obstructive of Vision or existence-awareness. Whilst some may think this ought
to lead to nihilism or
Absolute Nihil that is mystical transcendence of Being
itself, it does not appear to be just another version of either Zen or
Ouspensky.
All
trends of thought and existence have had a resurgence during the past fifty
years. Great movements of thought and religion and mysticism have influenced
deeply the moulds of philosophic understanding. However one does not see any
real reorientation of human minds to the larger dynamic possibilities open to
the spirit of mao or the spirit of God immanent in man. South Indian
philosophers have indeed to be grateful to Dr.Radhakrishnan and J.Krishnamurti
for their work of incubation of the philosophic eggs so to speak but much
warming has also been done by the great work of Sri Aurobindo and Gandhiji.
These are in a profound sense not regional men but universal men, on a
universal mission, human and divine, for the separation of the two is
impossible. We are already passing to a stage when we can say that there can be
only one philosophy for mankind-the spiritual universal integral—neither Indian
or Eastern nor Western.
It is true that all the thinkers or philosophers or seers
we have mentioned above are deeply conscious of the influence that Western
religious thought and philosophy had on them. It is also clear that their
recognition of the stimulating nature of the Western might well have been
cathartic and produced profound heart-searchings and led to some compromises
which do not touch the deep core of individuality of the East or India.
Philosophic and religious thought had to undergo deep and powerful scrutiny,
and discoveries of certain trends of thought suppressed or slurred over were
taken up for development and expensive treatment.
Thus
the service of mankind as the purification of the soul preparing for its
liberation has been the most important note taken from Christianity: the demand
for going beyond the icon and the rite for the experience of the divine in the
heart, and the realization that political freedom as well as economic freedom
expressed in basic individualism not contrary to social equality or
egalitarianism is another contributory much-needed emphasis that western
political theory has given to Indian ethical idealism and humanism: the
acceptance of the truth of evolutionism propounded by Darwin and
Lamarck has led to the great generalization and insight
into creative process as adumbrated in the Vedic theories of creation and
sacrifice by Sri Aurobindo's philosophy. The need to develop that consciousness
to awareness in work and not abridge it or negate it in a quest for a
pseudo-peace is a contribution that has been forgotten in India revived
by the modern Gurdeiff-Ouspensky and J.Krishnamurti. However, all these show
that Indian philosophy through its seers and thinkers and to a little extent
through its philosophers of the academies has been trying to recover its
attractiveness and emotional force that will make man strive for the integration
of all science and arts through a dynamic integral Yoga that is the culmination
of philosophizing and meditation and Work – what Patanjali long ago called Kriya-yoga.
The
interest in anubhava or experience is waxing and all persons want
experience but it is not known however that this ex-perience or anu-bhava
is yet an external factor needing all the disciplines of aspiration, yama
and niyama as well. When one begins to move towards the Being then anubhava
begins and culminates in the realization which is Being (bhava).
Anubhava is a bhava derivative exteriorizing of the
being-in which it is transcended. Philosophical thought must gain this
directional idealism in order to be living inspiration and aspiration to all
men. Philosophers must themselves be inspired by this and all cultural bodies
should encourage this attitude rather than become substitutes for it, as most
literature and teachers of literature are doing:-indeed the greatest disservice
that the latter are doing lies in precisely this that they are trying to be
substitutes for philosophy and ill indeed!
I
have surveyed the general trends that have been moving our philosophic world
both within and without the Academies. But the luminous light that had done so
much to awaken the minds of the usually cloistered academicians is yet with us
and occupying the highest place that a country could offer any one and this is
admittedly the most significant of all. Whilst a nation could bring itself to
offer this to a philosopher it speaks of its innate disposition – to honour
wisdom and peace and charity. India has been noted for its philosophic and
mystical attitude: and amidst all the travails of its history it has stood for
these ready ever to shed light and lustre on all. Whilst in the modern world it
would be sheer arrogance to claim that India has a message for mankind, it can be fully
and confidently stated that India
has a service for mankind-a service that she alone can render remarkably by her
philosophy and mystic realism.
May
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan live with us for ever more and carry the banner of
spirituality 'and enlightenment to all the peoples of the world.
TOWARDS
A WORLD PHILOSOPHY
PHILOSOPHY DURING THE AGES
EVERY
serious thinker during the ages attempted to intuit the nature of Reality. He
attempted not only to have a single vision of the Whole but also to communicate
that vision in terms of thought and feeling and action. The whole was perceived
to be One yet distinguished by manyness: indeed it was precisely this
multiplicity that seemed to have been the problem for most of those who had
tried to express their single experience or vision of Reality not merely to
themselves but to others as well. In fat the second was much more difficult to
do unless the others to whom this vision was communicated or described could in
some measure go beyond understanding what was being communicated or described
and be helped to recover or attain that vision. The need to have vision and the
further need to communicate it to others and also help them to attain to it –
these three seem to be essential to any philosophy,
understood as the love of wisdom or knowledge that is
Ultimate.
The
Nature of Reality has been elusive in a sense because of the further
considerations of the knower, the known and the knowing which differ according
to what is to be known and who is the knower. If the knower belongs to a level
of being lower that that of what has to be known, the known eludes his grasp.
The adequacy of each to the other is the measure of the possibility of
knowledge. This means that sensory knowing can only give the known of a certain
quality and not that which is different or higher than it. It is precisely
because most speculations on the theory of knowledge do not perceive this
ill-mated adventure into philosophizing that there have resulted diverse
philosophies not independent of each other as they ought to be but mutually
accusing each other of inadequacy if not erroneousness or falsity. The solution
to this situation is not to be found by developing a theory of hierarchical or
relative truths leading up to that ultimate truth which will contradict
absolutely all that is below it in the shape of knowing. Extraordinary logics
have been developed by logicians belonging to different
levels of cognitivity which have been most amusing on the
one side in so far as they have led only to the determination of error rather
than to comprehension of reality, and on the other side tragic in so far as
they have all been shown to confound reality with their reasoning.
When
the great thinker of the Vedanta Sutras stated that the Ultimate cannot be
reached or established by tarka, he meant that dialectical logic, or logic that
tries to reduce all propositions to absurdity, cannot establish the existence
of Reality. But since the meaning of the word tarka itself has been forgotten
it was thought that all reasoning belongs to the logic of reduction ad
absurdum. No wonder the whole of philosophy became impossible with the help of
reasoning.
SRI AUROBINDO AND THE DIFFERENT
MEANS OF RIGHT KNOWLEDGE
Sri
Aurobindo has clearly perceived the necessity for different means of right
knowledge adequate to different levels of experience. This is in line with the
ancient metaphysical thinkers. But it needs the
proper presentation of the nature and limits of each pramana
or measuring of experience and this unfortunately the ancient thinkers did
not always clearly perceive. In the important translation and elucidation of
the Kena Upanishad, Sri Aurobindo pin-pointed the need to discern the different
kinds of pramana. He showed that man’s knowledge of the reality can
proceed from either the grasping of the difference by means of difference, or
by means of identity and difference. The first kind of knowing is what we are
all aware of when we perceive objects. We distinguish particulars and
understand other things by means of particularized comparisons or sheer
particularities. This means we use firstly enumeration (sankhya) and
then comparison (discrimination of identical qualities). Thus Samkhya is the
discriminative procedure of knowing which knows by means of identity and
difference. A third step may be seen when one tries to grasp the nature of an
object by means of identity alone. This is knowledge by identity which discards
the difference. There are grades of course in these ways of knowing. In the
world of philosophy we know that a different method of classification of the
ways of knowing has
been available. Thus we have the sensory way of knowing
called pratyaksa. The second way of knowing is called anumana or
inference based on invariable concomitance (vyapti) because things occur
together invariably they belong to one another. The third way of knowing is
inference based on partial identity (upamana), whereas the fourth way of
knowing is stated to be intuition (sabda). Revelational knowledge is
something that breaks in from above the sensory and the rational (anumana and
upamana). It has not been demonstrated that Sabda is knowledge by
identity, though intuitive knowledge is explained as knowledge by identity.
In
fact a very important question in philosophical speculation is the confusion
that usually prevails in respect of the pramana and prameya, the
way of knowing and the object known. Do we know an object as characterized by
the way of knowing? Or do we make an appropriate adjustment of the way of
knowing to the object that has to be known? Further, are there not objects
which require special means and ways for knowing them? These are questions
which have been critically considered by philosophers all over the world.
It is true that as is the means so is the object. The
means limit if not distort the object and as such give false knowledge of
objects. The subjective approach through duality or difference makes the object
distinguished and diversified or atomically particularized. Knowledge by
difference as if difference were the characteristic of reasoning, or analysis
as the way of knowing, becomes defective sometimes, especially when the object
cannot be analysed or broken up into parts.
So
also if the means or way of knowing is through identity then the object even if
diversified or distinguished would appear to be one whole without diversity at
all. Thus identity becomes the object of the means called knowledge by identity,
even as knowledge by difference grants only diversity. Similarly if the
approach is from the point of view of knowledge by partial identify and
difference the object grasped would have the characteristics of partial
identity and difference which make comparison and analogy a fruitful
explanation of the objects.
MECHANISTIC,
VITALISTIC, MENTALISTIC PHILOSOPHERS
We
know that there have been philosophies based on the mechanical modes of
explanation as in science today, especially in physics and chemistry and in
other allied branches. The whole universe or reality is conceived in a
mechanistic manner or, in other words, mind and life are reduced to the level
of mechanism subject to the laws of mechanics. Similarly vitalistic or
biological sciences have begun to explain all phenomena on the lines of
biological laws and evolution based on the higher organizational powers of the
organic over the mechanistic. However much materialism may attempt to bring all
life and mind under the concept of mechanism, slowly we are having a new type
of materialization which could be called biological materialism. Still earlier,
attempts have taken place to bring all mind under the materialistic and
mechanistic hypothesis. Reversely we have mentalistic philosophies which try to
bring all materialism under the mental concept of idea and ideas or experience
as such. Epistemological idealism is irrefutable when it reduces all experience
as the real and the real as experience.
Yet there is a surplus, inexplicable X, which goes beyond
the particular and mind and mental experiences and this, though beyond most
human beings accustomed to sensory experiences and inferences, is a
transcendent reality, obtained by intuitive self-evidence. But there is an
epistemological situation which grants existence to that which transcends the
human ways of knowing.
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
0 comments:
Post a Comment