Science, Spirituality and the Modernization of India 9781843317487, 9781843317760

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Science, Spirituality and the Modernization of India

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Anthem South Asian Studies Other titles in the series Kumar, Ashwani Community Warriors: State, Peasants and Caste Armies in Bihar (2008) Palit, Amitendu and Bhattacharjee, Subhomoy Special Economic Zones in India: Myths and Realities (2008) Roy, Kaushik 1857 Uprising: A Tale of an Indian Warrior (2008) Gaur, Ishwar Dayal Martyr as Bridegroom: A Folk Representation of Bhagat Singh (2008) Sharma, Anita and Chakrabarti, Sreemati (eds.) Taiwan Today (2007) Bandyopadhyaya, Jayantanuja Class and Religion in Ancient India (2007) Chakrabarti, Radharaman India’s External Relations in a Globalized World Economy (2007) Sinha, Dilip Kumar Natural Disaster Reduction (2007) Fraser, Bashabi (ed.) Bengal Partition Stories: An Unclosed Chapter (2006) CSIRD Towards BIMSTEC–Japan: Comprehensive Economic Cooperation (2006) Banerjee, Sashanka S India’s Security Dilemmas: Pakistan and Bangladesh (2006) Chattopadhyaya, Braj Studying Early India (2006) Sen, Satadru Colonial Childhoods (2005) Bates, Crispin and Basu, Shubho (eds.) Rethinking Indian Political Institutions (2005)

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Science, Spirituality and the Modernization of India

Edited by Makarand Paranjape

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ANTHEM PRESS An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in India 2008 by ANTHEM PRESS C-49 Kalkaji, New Delhi 110019, India 75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK 244 Madison Ave. #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© 2008 Makarand Paranjape editorial matter and selection individual chapters © individual contributors The moral right of the authors has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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ISBN-13: 978 1 84331 748 7

Printed at Replika Press, Sonepat, Haryana

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For Madhav, Chhota aahe, shahana aahe, gojirwana aahe…

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Contents Notes on Contributors

ix

Foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama

xiii

Editor’s Preface

xxi

I.

Science and Spirituality: East and West

CHAPTER 1 Science, Spirituality and Modernity in India Makarand Paranjape CHAPTER 2 Spiritual Pilgrimage: Indian and Western Perspectives; Spirituality, Logic and Science R P Singh II.

3

15

Coming to Terms with Science: Some Change Agents

CHAPTER 3 Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan and the Modernization of South Asian Muslims Javaid Iqbal Bhat

47

CHAPTER 4 Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose: Looking beyond the Idiom Susmita Chatterjee

65

CHAPTER 5 Sri Aurobindo and Krishnachandra Bhattacharya on Science and Spirituality Raghuram Raju

96

CHAPTER 6 Chaos, Complexity and Emergence Mechanisms: Spiritual Evolution in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin Frantisek Mikes

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CHAPTER 7 Science, Spirituality and Swaraj: Towards a New Aesthetics of Ethical Existence Sudhir Kumar

135

III. Building Bridges: Evolution, Consciousness and Healing CHAPTER 8 The Concept of the Yuga: Modern Scientific Approaches to Bridge Spiritual and Philosophical Concepts Bal Ram Singh

149

CHAPTER 9 Sri Aurobindo’s Concept of Evolution of Consciousness: Exploration through the Paradigm of Health and Disease Rajni Vyas

162

CHAPTER 10 The Blending of Science and Spirituality in the Ayurvedic Tradition of Healing P Ram Manohar

169

CHAPTER 11 Micro-sensing by Indian Mystics Bhaskar Vyas and Rajni Vyas

181

CHAPTER 12 The Big Picture for the Science of Consciousness Ravi Khanna

189

IV. Science and Spirituality: Culture, Society and Gender CHAPTER 13 Faith outside the Lab Anjali Roy

229

CHAPTER 14 The Calling of Practical Spirituality Ananta Kumar Giri

238

CHAPTER 15 Spiritual Hysteria: A Gendered Perspective Vijaya Ramaswamy

255

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Notes on Contributors

Ananta Kumar Giri is by training an anthropologist, and has worked and taught in many universities in India and abroad including Free University, Amsterdam, University of Kentucky, US, and Aalborg University, Denmark. He has an abiding interest in social movements and cultural change, criticism, creativity and contemporary dialectics of transformation, theories of self, culture and society, and ethics in management and development. He is currently on the faculty of Madras Institute of Development Studies. He has written numerous books in Oriya and English including Global Transformation: Postmodernity and Beyond, Conversations and Transformations: Toward a New Ethics of Self and Society, and Building in the Margins of Shacks: The Vision and Projects of Habitat for Humanity. Anjali Roy is a Professor of English as well as Chairperson of the Department of Humanities and Social Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. She is a well-known literary critic and scholar, and has extensively published in the areas of Australian literature, post-colonial literature, women’s studies, Indian writing in English as well as African literature. Bal Ram Singh is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He is also the Director of the Centre for Indic Studies at the same university. He is the author of numerous articles in the areas of biochemistry, philosophy and religion. Bhaskar Vyas, a plastic surgeon by profession, has many varying interests. He has studied and practised Hindu and Buddhist meditation and has a deep understanding of Patanjali’s Raj Yoga

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as well as the Vajrayana practice. He is also interested in philosophy and psychology, and has written widely on the two areas. His books include Space-time-consciousness: The Fifth Dimension, Changing Course of Brahmaputra, Dalai Lama, the Change Initiator, and Towards Holistic Health. Frantisek Mikes is the Founder and Head of the Centre for Dialogue between Science and Religion at the Cyril-Methodius Theological Faculty of Palacky University (UP) in Olomouc, Czech Republic, in addition to being Director of Eastern Laboratories, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. He received his training in organic chemistry and subsequently studied theology during the Communist governance in Czechoslovakia. He is the author of several papers in the areas of chemistry, science and religion. Javaid Iqbal Bhat is pursuing his M.Phil/PhD from the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is a lecturer in English at Kashmir University, Srinagar. Makarand Paranjape is a Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A critic, poet and novelist, he is the author of The Serene Flame, Playing the Dark God, and Used Book (poetry); This Time I Promise It’ll Be Different and The Narrator (fiction); and Mysticism in Indian English Poetry, Decolonisation and Development, and Towards a Poetics of the Indian English Novel (criticism). The books he has edited include Indian Poetry in English, Sarojini Naidu: Selected Poetry and Prose, Nativism: Essays in Literary Criticism, The Best of Raja Rao, The Penguin Sri Aurobindo Reader, In Diaspora: Theories, Histories, Texts, Saundarya: The Perception and Practice of Beauty in India, Dharma and Development, and The Penguin Swami Vivekananda Reader. He is also the founding editor of Evam: Forum on Indian Representation and the current Chairperson, Centre for English Studies, JNU. He is also the principal investigator of the project ‘Science and Spirituality in Modern India’. P Ram Manohar is the Director of Research at the Arya Vaidya Pharmacy in Coimbatore. He is a certified practitioner of Ayurveda. His books include Nomenclature and Taxonomy in Vrkshayurveda, Regionally Substituted and Introduced Plants of Kerala and Ayurveda: A System of Medical Psychology. He is the

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Notes on Contributors

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Principal Investigator of the first ever NIH funded research project to scientifically evaluate Ayurveda outside the United States. He is a member of the Research Advisory Committee for History of Science, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. Raghuram Raju is currently a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hyderabad. Professor Raju’s areas of interest and teaching are social and political philosophy, contemporary Indian philosophy, postmodernism and post-colonialism, as well as science, technology and society. Rajni Vyas, a gynaeocologist and obstetrician by profession, is also a teacher. In addition to her skills as a medical doctor, she is a hypnotherapist and has studied and practised Hindu and Buddhist meditation. She has published numerous articles in both national and international journals. Her books include Sex Education, Towards Holistic Health, and The Collision of Culture. Raghwendra Pratap Singh is a Professor of Philosophy at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Professor Singh’s main areas of academic interest are Western philosophy as well as Indian and Buddhist philosophy. His books include The Philosophical Heritage of Immanuel Kant and Reason, Dialectic and Postmodern Philosophy: Indian and Western Perspectives. Ravi Khanna is both a businessman and a Vedic scholar with a background in physics and mathematics. Having completed his B.Sc. in Physics from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, he went on to the University of Wisconsin, USA, for a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Masters in Solid State Physics and Semiconductors. Having returned to India and while conducting businesses in software and real estate, he has also been carrying on an intense self study in metaphysics and the Vedas under the guidance of Prof. Dr Kapil Kapoor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has a number of lectures and publications to his credit. Susmita Chatterjee is a Ph.D. student in the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in addition to being a Junior Research Fellow at the Indian Council of Historical Research. She has published several papers in English as well as Bengali. Her areas of interest are change and continuity in gender

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and the contribution of religious ideologies to South Asian politicosocio-cultural structures and meanings. Vijaya Ramaswamy is a Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her books include Researching Indian Women, Crafts and Artisans in South Indian History and Walking Naked: Women, Society, Spirituality in South India.

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Foreword

The Relationship between Science and Spirituality1 His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama

I have a deep interest in the close relationship between modern science and the study of the internal dimensions of the human mind, which I consider to be spirituality. The reason is quite simple. Because we have this body, we feel pleasures and pains that relate to sensory experience. It is very urgent, very important to understand these sensory experiences. In fact these experiences are something very immediate to us and determine our moods, our feelings of happiness or sorrow. So we have to pay close attention to them to understand how they are felt, perceived, and how in turn they influence our minds. And just as we pay importance to the mind we have to pay equal importance to the physical body upon which all the sensorial experience of pain and pleasures register and in which they arise. So we have the physical body and the mind; the two are closely interconnected. Now, as I said, we experience these sensory perceptions in our body. This is what makes us sentient beings. At the same time we also have this sophisticated mind. Physical pain and pleasure is one thing, but we also create mental pains and pleasures. Some of these are purely the creations of the mind, existing only at the mental level. These sensations, the source of pain or pleasure, satisfaction or unhappiness, I think, are solely created by the mind. Between these two, that is physical and mental sensations, I think the experiences of pain and pleasure on the mental level are superior, more powerful. The reason being that someone who is not physically comfortable or ill can still be mentally very happy,

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very calm. So, physical pains can be subdued by mental strength or mental happiness and mental satisfaction is more important than physical unhappiness and physical dissatisfaction. The contrary is very difficult to prove. If someone is mentally unhappy then the physical comfort cannot reduce that mental discomfort. I think this is obvious. Now I believe that it is the basic right of all beings, particularly human beings, to achieve a happy life, successful life. The material well-being of human beings, especially now, is an outcome of science and technology, which have created so many new products for our convenience. So, science and technology have really brought a lot of benefit, a lot of comfort to humanity. We can surely say that because of the advances in science and technology some fundamental problems of human beings are being solved. Science and technology have the power to remedy so many basic miseries and sufferings of human beings, including disease and hunger. Thus science and technology can contribute towards the happiness of all of us. So we need science and technology and particularly if we learn or study in depth the vast knowledge available in these fields, it is really admirable and wonderful. However, science and technology have not yet found a way to eliminate the worries and unhappiness or painful experiences on a mental level. I think no medicine can eliminate all this yet. I think the basic medicine of mental trouble is by nature within the mind itself; there is the potential of solving these problems of the mind only at a mental level. Thus I consider warm-heartedness, compassion, karuna as very important. More worries, more anxieties, more discomforts are actually related to an extremely narrow, self-centred mind and a lack of fuller knowledge about the wider perspectives of reality. Spirituality, which is made up of several thousand year old traditions, mainly deals with our mind, our emotions. Since by nature warm-heartedness, sympathy or compassion are a source of inner strength and a source of inner happiness, inner calmness, in the last three thousand years all these different religious traditions, different philosophies, whether they believe in God or not, or whether they preach salvation or not, have all carried the message of love and compassion. So now in the twenty-first century we human beings find ourselves faced with many problems. Most of today’s problems, I think, are unnecessary and due to the lack of mental awareness and mental development. I think there is too much suspicion, too much distrust and miscalculation. Miscalculation happens, I think, because of

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the use of unrealistic methods. Unrealistic methods always bring more problems instead of solving them. This applies to any field or discipline – Economics or Environment, Politics or International Relations. Therefore the important thing is awareness, to arrive at a fuller picture of reality. That is the first thing we need. The second thing is warmth, warm-heartedness, compassion – to have a good heart. I think these two things are talked about in all major traditions. So obviously we need science and technology, but we also need spirituality. However under the current circumstances these two things remain distanced and different. As you know, I am a Buddhist. But if I just think about the Buddhist faith and deny what modern scientific finding proves, then I should believe that the world is still flat and that in the centre is the earth and that the sun goes around it. That is what some ancient books said, but isn’t that unrealistic today? So, if I go to such an extreme and look at only religion and remain distanced from science, then I will myself suffer due to the lack of knowledge as a result of my faulty approach. The world will not follow me or change to suit my beliefs. In some cases such an attitude might become unrealistic because my concept is different from reality. To be a religious extremist is thus not useful. Another way is the so-called radical materialistic way which looks at only matter and not the mind. I think if we do not consider the importance of our inner feelings, mind or emotions, then ultimately, through only scientific means, human beings will become like robots, just like machines with no feelings at all. That may be good, less trouble! But we may lose many precious feelings too, don’t you think? So, it is better to keep our emotions – positive and negative emotions – because emotions colour our life. In addition, we also have the potential to reduce harmful and increase positive emotions. So, what we call frame of mind changes our perceptions. That means, not by force but by awareness of reality can we bring about a change in our mentalities. So we must try to strengthen positive emotions with awareness and reduce harmful ones. We have that capacity because that is also in our minds. Therefore I prefer that human beings have emotions rather than be without them. Obviously emotions cannot change by mere medicines or machines. Emotions must be tackled, as I said earlier, by the mind itself. For this you need the ‘science’ of the mind, which is spirituality. So you cannot go to the extremes of just religion or just science. They must go together because we have this body and mind. Science provides us many physical comforts, while

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spirituality provides us with mental happiness or mental satisfaction. This I think should be obvious. Now the question, what is spirituality? In ancient times communities remained isolated. Indians in this continent, Chinese in China, Arabs in Arabia, Europeans in Europe. So, we developed certain philosophical ideas or certain religious concepts. Now, in today’s world, everyone is very close to each other. In ancient times when we remained more or less isolated it was okay for some to think, ‘Mine is the best’. Today it is not practical; the reality has changed. So now if we try to propagate our own beliefs and dismiss the value of other traditions, it becomes the source of conflict. That is why we need spirituality. Spirituality, I think, works at two levels. One level of spirituality simply deals with our emotions, our basic human values, not talking about the next life, not talking about Nirvana, not talking about God or all these, but rather, simply shows concern for and attention to, almost like a medical doctor, our emotions. Not for the sake of the next life, not for Nirvana, not for God, but for better health, for a better life right now. I think some universities in America are actually carrying out some scientific research on the relation between mental forces and physical conditions. These scientists have begun to see that the mental element is very important for happiness and also happier society, even happier science. These serious people have begun to realize warm-heartedness or karuna is very important for health and happiness, for happier families, happier society, successful life, and so on. This, I think, is one level of spirituality – talking about human values, inner values, but not touching the deeper or more complicated aspects of religious life. Then there is another level of spirituality that is religion, which means belief in something. And that is usually another basis or another sort of instrument or method to increase, to boost, these basic human values. Such as the concept of God, for example. The main reason behind the concept of God is to try to increase human love, compassion and positive values, and on that basis to strengthen forgiveness or tolerance, contentment, and so on. Another example of a very powerful method to increase such human values that many ancient Indians thought of is the theory of karma. This too is a powerful method to increase, to strengthen these basic human values and good qualities. But these beliefs are, I think, more or less a matter of individual choice. So, I think, we should have these two levels of spirituality. One is the general idea to increase happiness and reduce conflict through compas-

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sion or karuna and the other is our own personal beliefs about religious matters. This is my view, generally speaking. When I say generally speaking, I mean the views of a lay person, someone who is not a scientist or an expert. So if what I say does not agree with science, then you are free to forget it. From a more personal point of view, I might tell you that I was always interested in machines, in technology, even as a child. I used to be curious about how something worked. Whenever I saw an instrument of any sort or a mechanical system, I wanted to know its inner workings. Of course, like any other child, I loved toys. But after playing with a toy for a few minutes, I wanted to know how it worked, what was its system, what were the working movements, what was inside it, and so on. So I would open and dismantle it immediately. This way I spoiled or destroyed many toys. Let me tell you a small story. When I was studying, I thought, like everyone else, that the sun and moon both are sources of light. That is what my tutors also told me. But when I looked through a telescope, a very powerful telescope, which belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, I began to see many things on the moon quite clearly, the hills, the craters, with the light of the sun on one side, and shade on the other side. Then I could see clearly that the light came not from the moon itself, but from the sun. So, one day I invited my two tutors to show them that. After looking carefully, both my tutors agreed that the light came from some other source, which was naturally the sun, and not from the moon itself. So I think I proved to my two tutors that the moon was not a source of light. That is how, from the beginning, I was interested in science and technology. And about 20 years or 25 years ago, one day I talked to an American lady who actually is married to one Tibetan. I told her of my interest in a dialogue and a closer relation between science and religion. In response, she warned me that science is the killer of religion, so I should be careful. When she told me that, I thought that, from a Buddhist point of view, say, the method of Nagarjuna, we approach reality through investigation, through experimentation. By using this method, whatever you find as real, you have to accept. If through investigation, through experiment, the reality is something different from what is in the scriptures, then we should have the liberty to reject or to take a different interpretation of the scriptures. So I took that liberty. Indeed, I feel that if through scientific means you find a reality which is different from the Buddhist beliefs, and if that is truly proven, then you must accept it.

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Now, more particularly from a Buddhist point of view, I believe that what I am saying is also sanctioned in the scriptures themselves. Because basically in Buddhism there is the mention of the two extremes, one is the extreme of denigration or reduction, and the other the extreme of reification or exaggeration. Both have to be rejected in the method to find reality. That means, we must know the reality, and to do so you have to accept it as it is. If you find that you are going beyond that reality, it means you are falling to the extreme of reification; if, on the other hand, you cannot reach reality at all, then you are falling to the extreme of denigration. What you need is to follow the middle path between these two extremes. To me, modern science is simply a certain method to investigate reality. So also the Buddhist tradition; a thousand year old Buddhist tradition, particularly of the Nalanda school, was simply trying to know the reality, various levels of reality, including cosmic reality, all through investigation. And Nagarjuna himself as also his disciples like Chandrakirti took the liberty to reject some of the Buddha’s own works because some concepts which come from certain texts of the Buddha did not agree with reality. These great Indian masters, you see, had the courage to reject the words of the Buddha himself. So today, modern science, not through meditation, nor through logic, but through actual experiment, is discovering realities which sometimes go contrary to the scriptures. So in some cases modern science is even more powerful than ancient logic and mediation. But still, you see, I think even science has some limitations. Because there must be some other, more profound levels of reality which cannot be reached by ordinary perception or ordinary consciousness. In Buddhist literature you will find that the entire phenomenal world is surmised to subsist under three categories. First, there are the evident phenomena; second, the slightly hidden phenomena; and, finally, the absolutely hidden phenomena. So in the case of the third category, that is the absolutely hidden phenomena, we may not be able to reach the sort of understanding that science seems to offer. The absolutely hidden phenomena may not be approachable simply through scientific investigation or through logic. But, eventually, in order to get an insight into the third category of phenomena, you may still have to resort to direct perception. This means that we are not simply relying on some kind of blind belief in order to understand the third category of phenomena, but we may have to depend on very evident and empirically observable facts, in addition to other methods of investigation such as reflection,

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meditation, or insight. In other words, even for the third, totally hidden phenomena, experiment, investigation and use of direct perception may actually help. So I think at least for Buddhism, if scientific findings go against our preconceived notions or the claims in Buddhist scripture, we have no problems in rejecting the latter. I think that is one advantage of Buddhist thought. In some other traditions, sometimes it is difficult to do that. Yet, whatever we may believe in, eventually we have to accept the fact, the reality. Whether we come to this reality through science or through spirituality, we will have to accept it. These are my views about the relation between science and spirituality in general, and science and Buddhism in particular. Thank you.

1. This is an edited transcript of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama’s ‘Keynote Address’ at the international conference on ‘Science and Spirituality in Modern India’, 5–7 February 2006. The editor wishes to thank His Holiness for permission to publish it here.

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India’s External Relations

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Preface

This book brings together a number of papers on the theme of ‘Science, Spirituality and the Modernization of India’ which were first presented at a major international conference held in February 2006 in New Delhi. Some of the papers presented at this event have already been published in 2006 in a volume called Science and Spirituality in Modern India. The conference itself was organized under the auspices of the Project on Science and Spirituality in Modern India at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and funded by Global Perspectives in Science and Spirituality (GPSS). The principal collaborators in this conference were Samvad India Foundation, the Indian Council of Cultural Relations and the Indian Council for Philosophical Relations, whose role I gratefully acknowledge. In this book most of the remaining unpublished papers from the conference have been brought together, along with some new ones. One of the major premises of this exploration of the relationship between science and spirituality in India is that spirituality played a key role in the construction of Indian modernity. The role of science as a modernizing agent in non-Western countries has already been documented. For instance, in both China and Japan a conscious absorption of European science along with other forms of Western knowledge helped create elites who in turn brought major social and political transformations. Though India was no exception to this broader pattern, what makes it somewhat special is that spiritual leaders also played a key role in the modernization of India. What is more, many of them embraced, or at any rate welcomed, modern science. This is all the more remarkable because modern science was, in most cases, completely different from traditional knowledge systems that prevailed on the eve of the English colonization of India. Though modern science was introduced under colonialism and created a

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disjunction with native knowledge systems, several spiritual leaders reacted to it positively. Some, such as Swami Vivekananda, went to the extent of declaring that modern science would re-affirm the ageold truths of Vedanta, especially the belief that matter and spirit are, in essence, one. On the other hand Sri Aurobindo, a later but equally important figure, was more skeptical of the claims of modern science, especially as the sole repository of reliable knowledge. On the other side of the equation, several modern scientists showed an interest and involvement in spiritual pursuits at the risk of losing their legitimacy as scientists. Admittedly, most average scientists in India consider science and spirituality as two separate domains, which should not be mixed up; some even consider spiritual practices as a form of superstition and falsehood. Yet, overall, in India, we observe not only greater possibilities of dialogue, but an extraordinary attraction, even desire of one for the other. Particularly, we notice spiritualists, right up to the present Dalai Lama, being fascinated by science and showing an eagerness to engage with it. Indian modernity is thus Janus-faced if not schizophrenic. On the one hand it seeks to preserve, almost cling, to traditions that would have become obsolete in most parts of the world. On the other hand it champions modern science even though scientific premises and methodology contradict its own traditions. As we move from the colonial to the post-colonial, we notice a fundamental change in the role and function of science. Colonial science was limited. Subject people were not expected to be leaders in science and technology. The investment of the state in science was also inadequate, with very few resources available for research and innovation. Yet, under adverse circumstances, in the last days of the Raj several remarkable scientists emerged in India. Though independent India may have produced fewer luminaries in the field of science, the base and penetration of science in Indian society has increased substantially. No doubt many brilliant scientists have left for more favourable working conditions in the West where they have earned the highest recognitions, including the Nobel Prize. On the whole, though, postcolonial India used science as a way of defining itself: an ancient civilization thus became a modern nation partly by using science as its signature. The dialogue between science and spirituality in India, wherever it occurs, affords interesting and unique possibilities. The chief of these is the desire for a unified epistemology that can cut across the various disciplinary divisions that post-Enlightenment rationality

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Preface

xxiii

induces. Whether this grand project for unity will fructify in India remains to be seen. However, it would seem that India has the tools to come up with a fresh and challenging approach to what is now a longstanding problem. These tools include access to a holistic spirituality which is not averse to rationality and which is not dogmatic. In addition, India has also access to good, if not the latest, scientific knowledge. This clear grasp over the modern world combined with a heritage of an integrated worldview might create the conditions for a breakthrough. The modern moment has passed. Perhaps, it is time we left behind the anxieties, polarities, dualities and binary oppositions which it engendered. But, does this mean that science and spirituality, which are two different but equally intense enquiries into the nature of truth and reality, will finally converge? The purpose of this Project is not to collapse the difference between the two, nor to suggest that they are identical. Rather the endeavour is to bring them in close proximity so that their own natures might be interrogated and better understood. We believe that this is possible by contextualizing and historicizing their interrelationship. This book is a modest attempt to offer the fruits of such an exchange and interaction in modern India. The book is divided into four parts and arranged more or less in a chronological order. The purpose is to shed light on how the conversation between science and spirituality was staged in India over the last 150 years. The first section ‘Science and Spirituality: East and West’ explores the tension not just between science and spirituality, but also between the East and the West. After all, the presence of modern science in India was registered largely through British imperialism. The second section, ‘Coming to Terms with Science: Some Change Agents’, examines how major figures such as Jagdish Chandra Bose, Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Sri Aurobindo and Krishnachandra Bhattacharya became not just carriers of modern consciousness but also explored the relationship between science and spirituality in the very process of trying to reform their society. The third section, ‘Building Bridges: Evolution, Consciousness and Healing’, looks at some of the areas in which science and spirituality are both deeply implicated. These include consciousness studies, healing traditions such as Ayurveda, new fields such as microsensing, and so on. The fourth section, ‘Science and Spirituality: Culture, Society and Gender’, looks at larger questions such as the relationship of both scientific and spiritual practice with gender

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and social justice. We discover that the dialogue between science and spirituality does not take place in a vacuum but is carried out under the imperative of a developing economy and a society that is struggling for gender and social equality. That is why I think that one of the emerging insights of such a book is in the as yet unfinished agenda of social transformation and nation building. Science and spirituality have both to play an important role in India to strengthen the state and civil society. At a deeper level, both are seen to be purely democratic because both resist authority and closure. The very lack of finality in both pursuits ensures an ongoing and lively interaction between them. Before ending, I should like to express my heartfelt thanks to GPSS and its pioneering attempts to take cognizance of the science–spirituality dialogue in territories outside of Western Europe and North America. I am also grateful to the John Templeton Foundation (JTF), which is the principal funding agency behind GPSS. An outcome of Sir John Templeton’s extraordinarily bold vision, the JTF is playing a valuable role in bringing about a fundamental change in human consciousness by a systematic study and dissemination of what Sir John called ‘spiritual information’. My sincere thanks to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, for graciously allowing us to use an edited version of his ‘Keynote Address’ as the Foreword to this volume. I would like to thank the Jawaharlal Nehru University for hosting this Project and for giving me the intellectual freedom to pursue it. The UGC-Special Assistance Programme of the Centre for English Studies offered a subsidy to this book, for which I am grateful. Finally, I wish to thank my Project Fellows, who are also my students, for helping me at various stages in the production of this book. My special thanks also to Anthem Press, with its able and diligent team of editors, for bringing the book to its final shape.

Makarand Paranjape 14 April 2008

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I Science and Spirituality: East and West

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Chapter 1

Science, Spirituality and Modernity in India1 Makarand Paranjape

Modern science was introduced to India under the shadow of colonialism. This means that neither was its progress in India simply a matter of European discovery and imperial dissemination, nor was there no ‘science’ in India prior to the British conquest of India. However, what is important to observe is that between modern science and traditional science, there was a marked disjunction as there was between traditional knowledge and ‘English education’. Because these gaps have still not been properly studied, let alone bridged, the history of modern science in India is inextricably linked with the history of colonialism as well. All the same, the trajectories of the two are neither coextensive nor conterminus. While colonialism rose, reached its peak, then declined and officially ended, modern science has enjoyed a steady and incremental rise since its inception. In fact, after independence its claims to an exalted social, political and cultural status have risen dramatically, especially with the heavy investment and continuous monitoring of the Nehruvian state in its growth and development. In his Introduction to Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity, Ashis Nandy called science ‘a reason of state’ and in Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India, Gyan Prakash labels the second part of his book ‘Science, Governmentality and the State’. Both authors regard science as very much a part of how the Indian state seeks to see or project itself, deriving legitimation and political advantage from it.

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When we look, instead, at the development of modern Indian spirituality, we see that though it is also inextricably linked with the history of colonialism and, later, nationalism, its causal connections with the two are not all that direct or determinate. Under colonialism, traditional Indian spirituality encountered modern Western ideas, including modern science. Indian spirituality, though not necessarily as challenged as religious practices and dogmas were, had nevertheless to reinvent itself, a process that still continues. One way that it coped was by identifying a distinct realm for its own functioning that had little to do with either colonialism or modernity. Yet, several Indian spiritual leaders, starting with Rammohun Roy, took an active interest in Western science. Sri Ramkrishna’s disciple, Swami Vivekananda, best exemplifies not just the curiosity of Indian spirituality in respect of modern science, but its first well-articulated enthusiasm, even endorsement of science. From time to time, other spiritual masters such as Sri Aurobindo and Paramhansa Yogananda also continued this interest in and partial approval of modern science. At the same time, India’s national struggle for independence, especially the majoritarian thrust of it, had a distinctly spiritual colouring to it. Not only was the Indian National Congress founded by Alan Octavian Hume, who was a Theosophist, but also many of its prominent leaders, especially Sri Aurobindo and later, Mahatma Gandhi, had an overt interest in spirituality. Yet, India as a secular state kept itself officially aloof from matters religious. Unlike science, which was a part of the state policy, spirituality, though a political force, was never authorized or recognized by the state. Therefore, when we come to the relationship between modern science and spirituality in India, we see not so much causal or direct connections but subtle and covert connections. One starting point for an inquiry into these connections is to ask what relationship modern science in India bears to what is now called traditional or indigenous science and then ask the same question of Indian spirituality. We notice at once vital traces of continuity rather than disjunction between traditional and modern spirituality in India. In fact, the holistic, non-dualistic orientation of traditional Indian knowledge systems does not allow us even to separate science and spirituality too clearly in pre-modern India. One might argue that this was also the case in pre-Enlightenment Europe. The fragmentation of knowledge and the ensuing proliferation of specializations are thus relatively new even to the West. In fact, this fragmentation is itself one of the constituents of modernity.

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We thus have our first contrast between science and spirituality as systems of social construction and cultural authority in India. While modern science was seen as being alien and superior to traditional science, modern spirituality was seen as a natural outgrowth and flowering of traditional Indian spirituality. Yet, what is perhaps even more interesting is how traditional Indian science and traditional Indian spirituality were closely, even intrinsically linked. For instance, while Ayurveda, as its name suggests, was described as the fifth Veda, thus not only linked to the Vedas but sharing its world view and notions of wellness, modern, Western medicine was seen as wholly secular, if more effective in some cases. It is not that Indians in the nineteenth century dispensed with traditional medicine in favour of Western medicine. Both systems coexisted, but it was thought that when the disease worsened, the patients turned to Western (modern) medicine, which was then designated as ‘English’ (vilayati) medicine. In fact, the belief that this turn signified that the patients’ condition was critical, also suggests that for nineteenth century Indians, Western-style modernity was often the last, even fatal resort. The coexistence of multiple, incommensurable systems of medicine persist even today in India, though the dominance of Western (modern) medicine is far greater. But this plurality of knowledge systems is also characteristic of the metaphysical and epistemological multiplicity of modern India, a location in which we see the unresolved coexistence of contending systems of signification and meaning. Though not primary to their relationship, the issue of power cannot be ignored while exploring the science– spirituality dialogue. As David Arnold observes, because traditional Indian sciences are heterogeneous and plural, it becomes difficult not only ‘to characterize Indian science as a whole but also to determine the precise nature of its interaction with the forms of science and technology emanating from the West by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century’ (p.2). One might extend this argument to contend that Western or modern science, though ostensibly unified by one universal ‘methodology’, is actually heterogenous and culturally conditioned as well. Thus, British imperial science, as Deepak Kumar and others have shown, had its own peculiarities and identifying traits that made it different not only from science practised in Britain but also from science in other European countries. For instance, colonial science was more descriptive and enumerative than theoretical or experimental. It was also more

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heavily invested in fields like geology, plant biology, mining, agricultural engineering, etc. which had direct commercial value. The other factor that complicates the story of the growth of modern science in India is the debate over whether it was a case of impact and reception as was largely thought of earlier, or of continuous interaction and exchange as the more recent and considered opinions declare. There is also the allied question of how to model the historiography of traditional Indian sciences. The earlier view in this regard, which followed the Orientalist construction, was one of the high achievements, followed by decline and stagnation, ending with a new rejuvenation under the Western stimulus. Baber, for instance, identifies three narratives about pre-colonial science in India (pp.15–17). The liberals and utilitarians among the colonial administrators held that there was nothing prior to the arrival of Western science; all of Indian history presented a tabula rasa as far as any useful knowledge was concerned. Then there were the better inclined British Orientalists who believed that there was some good science in ancient India, but that it went into decline during the largely Muslim medieval ages. Hindu nationalists often mimicked the latter claims, but as with Swami Dayananda Saraswati took them to more exaggerated, even ridiculous levels by claiming that modern scientific knowledge was implicit in the Vedas. We now have a more informed view, seeing instead remarkable progress and interaction between Muslim and Hindu ideas and sciences during the medieval period of Muslim rule in India. The decentred nature of India’s polity and the lack of sustained research to reconstruct the history of its science make it impossible to offer a coherent account, but it should be clear that any simplistic, reductive or unidirectional model will be misleading. This applies as much to the advent of modernity in India, in which science played an important role, as it does to the development and growth of modern Indian spirituality. George Basalla’s influential and often cited article, ‘The Spread of Western Science’ offers a three-phase ‘diffusionist’ model. In the first phase of colonial discovery, expansion and conquest, the nonEuropean areas served as sources of scientific data. This may be termed the ‘contact phase’. In consonance with the colonial interest in exploiting the natural resources of conquered territories, botany, zoology and later, astronomy, geology and geography were emphasized. While modern science was disseminated in various parts of the world during this phase, Basalla believes that only

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the advanced countries of Europe were able to assimilate this new information and knowledge, thereby transforming science in metropolitan centres in Britain, France and Holland. In the second phase, which he calls ‘colonial science’, local scientific institutions start to appear, with the participation of local born scientists. Basalla calls this a ‘dependent’ science because it was controlled and directed by colonial authorities and imitated metropolitan models. This applied not only to countries like India which was directly colonized by the British but also to China, Japan and the United States. Extra-European societies in the third phase strove to establish national or independent scientific traditions. Political independence, but more significantly, institutions of national importance, awards, state funding and infrastructure brought scientific research to critical thresholds in a number of countries, in fact, enabling them, in some cases to overtake European science. Both America and Russia achieved this stage during the World Wars, while Canada, Australia and Japan were lower down. The rest of the world in Asia, Africa and Latin America lagged far behind. Basalla has been universally criticized for being simplistic, unidirectional and reductive, but after all, he was offering only a preliminary schema in a short paper. In fact, the categories he proposed, including ‘colonial science’, have proved to be extremely influential and persistent. As Arnold sums up, ‘In Basalla’s Eurocentric model, dynamism belongs to an (improbably) homogenous West, leaving the rest of the world to participate only passively in the process of diffusion, unable to make any original contribution of its own or even to negotiate with an ascendant Western science’ (p.12). Raina has tried to upturn this notion by suggesting that the ideology of science has been ‘actively redefined’ by the ‘recipient culture’: the receiving culture ‘subverts, contaminates and reorganizes the ideology of science as introduced by Europe’ (cited in Arnold, p.13; also see his ‘Introduction’, in Raina and Habib, pp.1–15). The problem with such a counter-argument, which Arnold does not notice, is that in accepting the originary Europe and the recipient India, all that Raina and Habib do is to give more agency to the recipient, reducing the power of the diffuser. Their model of scientific production and reception remains not only diffusionist and Eurocentric but also dualistic. Arnold asks the fundamental question of what we can do if we reject this diffusionist approach. If ‘distinctions between centre

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and periphery, between “metropolitan” and “colonial” science, fundamentally misrepresent the way in which science evolved internationally’ (p.13) even so how can one ignore the differential power relations between the metropolitan centre and the colonial peripheries, with their still persisting hierarchies and dependencies? Science and technology ‘were, and surely remain, aspects of a global hegemony’ (p.15). Raman has suggested that this hegemony will shift only if and when the non-West takes the lead in creative science and productive technology, and this can be achieved without losing one’s cultural moorings. The other point that Arnold takes up is the role of science in the creation and spread of modernity in India. As Gyan Prakash puts it, ‘scientific reasoning became the organizing metaphor in the discourse’ of Indian modernity, promoted not only by the colonial administration but also by an increasingly participatory native elite. Scientific evangelism, along with Christian evangelism, became the battering ram that tried to destroy the traditional cultures of India. But just as modernity was not unproblematic to Indians, modern science too was not. As Partha Chatterjee shows, Indian nationalism attempted to mediate between the rejecting of colonial authority and the acceptance of Western modernity thus becoming for Indians a way to effect what Sri Aurobindo called a ‘selective assimilation’ of the West: ‘(Nationalism) provided a discourse [. . . ] which, even as it challenged the colonial claim to political domination, [. . . ] also accepted the very intellectual premises of “modernity” on which colonial domination was based’ (Chatterjee, p.30). But what this really means is that neither modern science nor modernity itself is homogenous. The diffusionist model needs to be questioned in both spheres. At the same time we need to recognize the hierarchies of power, inequality and hegemony that mark both domains. One might argue that Indian scientists sought to forge their own brand of science as Indian intellectuals did their own brand of modernity. That this story has not been told does not mean that it cannot be told. It is just that both science and scientists are reticent if not resistant to such a proposition, undermining as it does the very fundamental, constitutive and self-defining characteristic of science as objective, value-neutral, universal, rational and so on. Arnold acknowledges that this was possible for Indian modernity: Indian scientists and intellectuals tried to construct their own brand of Indian modernity, particularly through the

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selective incorporation (or re-invention) of Hindu ideas and traditions, through a mix of elements, the degree of ‘hybridity’ involved in the process, varied widely from one individual to another, even with the emergent scientific community. (p.17) He does not take this so far as to suggest that India had the capacity and indeed demonstrated the ability to devise its own culturally unique brand of science, a sort of neo-Hindu science, if you will. I think this is one of the key questions for any serious study of science and spirituality in India. Is there a distinctly Indian science? If so what are its defining characteristics? And, what is the role of spirituality in the constitution of Indian science? Gosling in the first book published specifically in the area of science and spirituality in India argues that the distinctive contribution of Indian science is its holistic and integrative approach: ‘What has always been the most distinctive feature of Indian science is a form of integral thought, a kind of intuitive ability to hold together ideas which have elsewhere remained unrelated’ (p.3). Quoting the work of Jagadish Chandra Bose, Gosling observes that ‘from the point of view of Indian scientists, the progress of science in the West seemed to be a fulfilment of an important Hindu insight – the fundamental unity of all existence’ (p.24). According to Gosling, Bose’s work proceeded from the fundamental principal that ‘in the multiplicity of phenomena, we should never miss their underlying unity’ (Ibid.). Finally, in considering the progress of science in modern India, we cannot ignore the history of specific institutions founded for this purpose. The case of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, which is one of India’s leading centres of excellence in science, is illustrative. Despite the initiative and largesse of Jamsetji Tata, IISc had a very difficult start because it faced stiff opposition from the colonial authorities. As Subbarayappa shows in his painstaking study, there was both condescension and constant resistance from the colonial administration even when the entire funding for the project was to come from private philanthropy. Mooted as early as 1892, the Institute finally started functioning only in 1911, seven years after Jamsetji’s death. In this interim, the original plan itself went through several modifications and reinventions. The first director, an Englishman named Morris V Travers, a professor of Chemistry from University College, Bristol,

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was hired at a salary probably higher than what he earned in Britain. The colonial hangover and interference continued till way past the tenure of the first Indian Director, C V Raman. Here, the rise of modern science in India clearly needed the idea and later the political fact of an independent India to support it. In the last 60 years since India’s independence, we see both science and spirituality flourishing, even if in different ways. Paradoxically, they may be considered farther apart than they were during the freedom movement. It would appear that nationalism, that great unitive and cohering force, was the glue that brought them together during the heady decades of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Both spiritualists and scientists wanted India to be free and saw it as their patriotic duty to contribute and collaborate in the larger project of nation building. In today’s India, we see a renewed need for a serious dialogue between these two domains which are more or less seen as separate even if not incommensurable. The challenge, as I see it, is to be able to map what I would call the episteme of modern India. The ancient Greeks used episteme in contrast to techne, which was largely considered inferior. In classical Indian thought too, kala — skill, art, craft or technique — was distinguished from vidya — knowledge, understanding, insight — which could actually liberate the practitioner. Hence, sa vidya ya vimuktaye — that is knowledge that liberates; as opposed to that which only helps one earn a livelihood. Though episteme was often simply translated as knowledge, Michel Foucault in The Order of Things considered it as the very ground of knowledge or the conditions that make the creation of knowledge possible. These conditions could be a set of codes that authorize certain discourses and disallow others or they could be a set of paradigms in the Kuhnian sense, but essentially they cut across disciplines and are not confined merely to science. I would not like to invest the episteme with either the esoteric, almost mystic diffuseness of Foucault, or the confining, almost over-deterministic power that Kuhn invests in the idea of the paradigm. To me, episteme suggests a set of governing ideas which though not necessarily a priori, nevertheless undergird and influence knowledge production in a certain geo-cultural space during a certain epoch. Both the long nineteenth century in India and the relatively short twentieth century that followed it do present the possibilities of or the workings out of a distinctive Indian episteme. At least this is

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the hypothesis. Through the clash of contending ideas, some unique modes of synthesis and innovation took place in India. If we were to simplify the constituents of this clash, we might present it as two intersecting axes:

Modernity

Science

Spirituality

Tradition In which of the four boxes is India to fit? Should it remain traditional and spiritual? Or scientific and modern? Or, more properly, a combination of tradition and modernity and of science and spirituality? My theory is that India certainly wanted to become modern; the desire for modernity is still very strong. Similarly, India’s welcoming of science is almost unprecedented in any ‘Third World’ country. Starting late, it has turned to science with an appetite that only suggests that it wanted to make up for lost time. Yet, both Indian science and Indian modernity are not built upon a complete rejection of their ‘Others’, spirituality and tradition, respectively. Rather, there is an ambivalence, even illicit attraction for this ‘Other’, normally to be discarded in the process of ‘growing up’. Kant’s cry of sapare aude (‘Dare to know’) almost served as the motto of the European Enlightenment; the Indian modification of it might read, dare to know anew, but do not forget the old. Even hard core and uncompromising children of the Enlightenment such as Karl Marx found India a puzzle. Conceding to this subcontinent, a trajectory that almost escaped the universal logic of history (with a capital ‘H’), Marx coined the much debated term ‘Asiatic mode of production’ to characterize the Indian economy. Similarly, when historians, social anthropologists, literary critics and

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cultural theorists have tried to define Indian modernity, they have often used terms which suggest a certain complication or contamination. It is as if India inflects modernity in such a manner as to change its inner logic. The project of modernity, defined in terms of the march of triumphant rationality and scientific progress, does not quite run aground in India, but becomes deeply ‘polluted’ with something else. In my own writings, I have called India’s rite of passage neither modern nor antimodern, but radically amodern or non-modern. Others have used words like ‘archaic modernity’, ‘fugitive modernity’, ‘critical traditionalism’ and ‘alternative modernity’ to try to understand what happened in India. The foregoing discussion suggests that the interrelationship between science and spirituality in India is a historically evolving one. In its earlier phase in the late nineteenth century the relationship was possibly closer, partly because both science and spirituality in India contributed to the creation of Indian modernity and, what is perhaps, more significant, is that both also became central to the process of consolidation of Indian nationalism. However, the relationship between the two has changed in more recent times to one of the independence of the two domains. If we revert to Ian Barbour’s classic formulation of a fourfold typology of conflict, independence, dialogue and integration, we notice that in India all four types of relationships have been present both in the past and in the present, but that conflict has never been predominant, unlike in the West. Moreover, while a number of practising scientists stress the independence of the two domains, a number of spiritual leaders have advocated both dialogue and integration. Indeed, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, has often stressed the need for dialogue. Dialogue, of course, is the precondition to a possible integration. Despite the shift from a scientific universalism during high modernity to a sort of cultural relativism engendered by postmodernist philosophy, science in the sense of a well-defined, commonly accepted, multicultural enterprise continues to inform and determine constructions of truth and reality in our contemporary world. While tradition may be the repository of values, beliefs and ways of relating to each other and the world, we need not, as V V Raman suggests in the conclusion to Glimpses of Indian Science, cling to pre-modern explanatory models just because they are culturally significant. To do so would make us cultural fundamentalists if not outright reactionaries. On the contrary, dogmatic scientific materialism may also result in the closure of the

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mind and of the possibilities of experiencing and explaining phenomena. We will have to admit that there are areas of knowledge and truth, which are simply outside the parameters of science, as it is understood today. Those who believe in the evolutionary possibilities of human futures aver that we are on the brink of a global renaissance which requires the integration of not just Western and Eastern cultural and civilizational resources, but the coming together of science and spirituality. On the ground, such a convergence seems as yet only a distant dream. Yet the unexplored possibilities of dialogue between these two domains afford us challenges and opportunities hitherto unexplored. India, I believe, has a crucial role to play in such a dialogue, positioned as it is. Custodian of an ancient civilization which is also the home of unique experiments in a plethora of spiritual endeavours, it is at the same time positioning itself as one of the leaders in the IT revolution that is sweeping across the globe making India not just a fertile ground for such an enquiry but the bearer of a special responsibility towards the future of such a dialogue.

NOTES 1. An earlier version of this paper was published as the ‘Introduction’ to a volume of papers that I edited entitled Science and Spirituality in Modern India, pp.5–15.

WORKS CITED Arnold, D, 2000, Science, Technology, and Medicine in Colonial India, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Baber, Z, 1996, The Science of Empire: Scientific Knowledge, Civilization, and Colonial Rule in India, Albany, NY, SUNY Press. Barbour, I G, 2000, When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers or Partners?, San Francisco, Harper. Basalla, G, ed, 1968, The Rise of Modern Science: External or Internal Factors?, Lexington, MA, D J Heath. —, 1967, ‘The spread of Western science’, Science, Vol. 156, pp.611–22. Chatterjee, P, 1986, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse?, London, Zed Books. Gosling, D L, 1976, Science and Religion in India, Madras, Christian Literature Society.

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Nandy, A, 1988, Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. Paranjape, Makarand, 2006, Science and Spirituality in Modern India, New Delhi, Samvad India. Prakash, G, 2000, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. Raina, D, and Habib, I, eds, 1999, Situating the History of Science, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. Raman, V V, 2006, Glimpses of Indian Science, New Delhi, Samvad India. Subbarayappa, B V, 1992, In Pursuit of Excellence: A History of the Indian Institute of Science, New Delhi, Tata McGraw Hill.

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Chapter 2

Spiritual Pilgrimage: Indian and Western Perspectives; Spirituality, Logic and Science (Whatever is of as well as in the Spirit) R P Singh

Spirituality and science are regarded by many thinkers as two separate realms. Prominent among them is Immanuel Kant (1724– 1804) who has said, ‘I must limit knowledge in order to leave room for faith’ (Kant, p.29). He created two realms – a realm of scientific knowledge and another realm of faith, morality and religion. What we normally call science is that which we can observe, experiment with, analyse, measure and prove. From that perspective, spirit or spirituality may be the last thing to be found under any microscope. The science of spirituality may not be so easily measured from the parameters used in normal science. I propose the role of logic between spirit and science. The insight into this proposal comes basically from the Upanishads in which the distinction has been made between para vidya and apara vidya at the level of knowledge and between Nihshreyas (attainment/fulfillment) and Abhyudaya (achievement) at the ethical level. The same dristi can be found in Avaita Vedanta traditions from medieval to modern India. However, in Western philosophy, post Renaissance, particularly during the Enlightenment, we come across a distinction between science and religion. This distinction, on the basis of principles, emerges as two separate realms in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) as quoted above.

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In its further development, we find that Hegel’s Science of Logic places logic as the middle term between spirit and science. This is the position of Absolute Monism. Let me first see the status of spirituality and science, especially with reference to modern India. India is the world’s largest democracy and has a long history of democratic functioning with pluralistic values and philosophic universal concepts (holistic values included). As a matter of fact, the ancient world was finite in terms of its socio-economic conditions, scientific development, historical and cultural products. The modern world was infinite in terms of ideology, scientific and technological development, logocentrism, foundationalism, essentialism and teleology, unified world order, rationality, conceptions of morality and justice, etc. The postmodern world has again shrunk into finite propositions in terms of antifoundationalism, anti-essentialism and antiteleology, fragmentation, irrationality and plurality of ethnic identities, linguistic identities, etc. In the ancient world, the Indians, the Chinese and the Greeks lived without much contact with one another and in that sense there was pluralism. But each culture regarded its principles to be universally valid. The Rta of the Vedas, the Platonic Forms, the Tao of the Chinese – all claimed to be universal. Without their knowing it, they agreed that as in the cosmos, so in the human order Yatha pinde, tatha Brahmande. Today the world is one; the Chinese, the Indians, the Europeans or the Americans mingle in academia and in the marketplace. Modern science and technology have played the most important roles in bringing people close to each other. There have been three stages in the development of modern science in the last century – the development of Quantum Mechanics in the 1920s; the development of molecular, cell and DNA biology through the 1980s, the development of computers, information, automation, brain sciences and human genome, all in a piece through the 1990s. Modern technology, far from being more labour saving, has taken man out from the Planet Ocean and has hinted at the possibility of establishing interplanetary relations. We need not only comprehend this technology philosophically but also participate in it. Particularly with the rise and development of modernity, science, technology and philosophy have always been complementing one another. The works of Albert Einstein, Arthur Eddington, Werner Heisenberg, Julian Huxley, Erwin Schrodinger, Neils Bohr and others support this contention. Modern philosophy needs a scientific foundation to

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give a deeper and more correct explanation of natural and social phenomena. Science also needs philosophical justification to relate and evaluate the technological products and scientific theories with the cultures and values on the one hand and with the aspirations and goals of the people on the other. This, however, has given rise to the problem of cultural relativism, which today in the postmodern world reigns supreme. Morals and conceptions of good are said to be relative to cultures, even large cultural identities have now disintegrated into smaller ones – multiculturalism. Moral theories still oscillate between Utilitarianism insofar as public policy, decisions of the emerging democracies are concerned, and Kantianism, insofar as individual moral life and principles are concerned. Both of these alternatives, however appealing, are now seen to be of limited application. More attractive today are Aristotelian Ethics expanded to include many present-day virtues, and, a communitarian ethics which goes back to a sort of Hegelian Sittlichkeit as the basis of one’s moral conceptions. Both of these allow for pluralism and reject a monistic theory. Pluralism is the ethos of postmodernity. On the one hand, there are the pluralities of nation-states, of world religions, of large linguistic groups, with numerous internal differences; on the other hand, there is an overwhelming sense of ONE WORLD, i.e. the world coming together through technology. The idea of a GLOBAL VILLAGE is an ideal, which is widely valued. The Vedic exhortation of Ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti is the need for the postmodern philosophy. The Reality admits of alternative approaches in terms of thought constructions and linguistic expressions. Let us go into the details of those spiritual truths. Swami Vivekananda has said, ‘Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to the Truths or die’ (Vivekananda, p.1). On the cognition of the spirit as the Ultimate Reality, the Taittiriya Upanishad says: that, from which our speech turns back along with mind, being unable to comprehend its fullness, is the Ultimate Reality. Keno Upanishad says: that where the eye is unable to go, where neither speech nor mind is able to reach – what conception can we have of it, except that it is beyond all that is known, and beyond all that is unknown. Sankara and Hegel would agree with each other that the comprehension of Being as immanent in all other categories is the most fundamental category of all things. Sankara in his Commentary on the Chhandogya Upanishad (vi, 2, 1) says, ‘Existence or Being, it is urged, is pure, subtle, indefinable,

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all-pervading, one, taintless, indivisible, knowledge’. On the concept of Pure Being, Hegel has also to say the same thing: Pure Being is complete indeterminacy, absence of all qualities, a vacuity, an empty concept. Being is the most irrepressible category for both Hegel and Sankara. Hegel’s Spirit is the unity, which realizes itself in the differences, and it is not that in which all differences are lost like that of Schelling. For Hegel, nothing could be external to Spirit; but as Spirit exists through its opposition to the ‘other’ which it at the same time sublates and this process goes on until it reaches Absolute Unity. Whether this state of Absolute Monism is to be intellectually apprehended as Hegel does or expressed in self-realization as Sankara does, both are ways to the same spiritual pilgrimage. I propose to develop this paper in accordance with following parts: Part 1: Para vidya (spirituality) and Apara vidya (science), Nihshreyas (attainment/fulfilment) and Abhyudaya (achievement). Part 2: The notion of Absolute Spirit. Part 3: Indian perspective. Part 4: Western perspective. Part 5: On consciousness/self/spirit; dualism, monism and pluralism. Part 6: Status of Atman/self/consciousness in the Upanishads. Part 7: Sankara’s notion of Absolute Spirit: the ultimate principles of knowledge, validity and the limits of Pramanas. Part 8: Hegel’s notion of Absolute Spirit; doctrine of Spirit–reason, understanding, sense–certainty and dialectic.

Part 1 Para vidya (spirituality) and Apara vidya (science), Nihshreyas (attainment/fulfillment) and Abhyudaya (achievement) The Upanishads draw the distinction between the para vidya and apara vidya, between the lower and the higher knowledge as the Greek philosophers did between doxa and episteme, between opinion and truth. Mundaka Upanishad tells us that there are two different kinds of knowledge, one the higher and the other the

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lower knowledge. Of these the lower knowledge is the knowledge of the Vedas, of grammar, of etymology, of metres, of science, of the heavens; while the higher knowledge is that which alone reaches the imperishable Being (Mundaka Upanishad). The same typical distinction between the way of knowledge and the way of realization is brought out in a dialogue between Narada and Sanatkumar, where Narada, the spiritual disciple, goes to his teacher to learn the science of realization. Asked to say what branches of knowledge he has hitherto studied, Narada tells Sanatkumar that he has studied all the Vedas, as well as all history and mythology; he has studied the science of manes, mathematics, the science of portents, the science of time, logic, ethics, the science of gods, the science of Brahman, the science of demons, the science of weapons, astronomy, as well as the science of charms and the fine arts. But he tells his master that he grieves that so much knowledge is not competent to land him beyond the ocean of sorrow. He has studied only the different mantras; but he has not known the self. He has known erstwhile from persons revered like his spiritual teacher that he alone is able to go beyond the ocean of sorrow who can cross it by the saving bridge of Atman. Would his spiritual teacher enable him to cross over the ocean of ignorance and grief? (Chhandogya Upanishad) This passage brings out the differences between lower and higher knowledge. Finally the extremely practical character of the Upanishad seers towards the problem of self-realization is exhibited in the Keno Upanishad, where we are told that the end of life may be attained only if the self were to be realized even while the body lasts; for if self-knowledge does not come while the body lasts, one cannot even so much as imagine what ills may be in store for him after death. (Ranade, p.240) The same idea is urged with a slightly different emphasis in the Katha Upanishad, where we are told that unless a man is able to realize the self while the body lasts, he must needs go from life to life through a series of incarnations.

Part 2 The Notion of Absolute Spirit If we look at the history of the problem of the Ultimate Reality or the notion of the Absolute, we find that there are three ways that we

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can approach this problem – the psychological, the theological and the cosmological. We can begin with our analysis into what goes on in our mind or the antahkarana and try to find the Absolute in us. Or we can begin with an estimation of the outside world and try to establish an Absolute causality operating in nature. Or finally, we can resort to God as the ultimate unifying force between the inner world and the outer world. The father of modern philosophy, Rene Descartes (1596–1650), in search of certainty in philosophy, started with a method of doubt regarding the outside world and arrived at the certainty of the cogito. From the cogito, says Descartes, we arrive at the conception of God, who is the cause of the cogito, and whom we must, therefore, regard as more perfect than the cogito. Finally, it is from God that he arrives at the world, which he had started by negating, by regarding it as the creation of a demon. Opposed to Descartes, to the God-intoxicated philosopher, Spinoza (1632–77), neither the mind nor the material reality is primary. To him, God is the be-all and the end-all of all things; it is self-conceived, selfexistent and self-caused. Even Kant, to anticipate a later discussion, has subscribed to Rational Psychology, Rational Cosmology and Rational Theology. However, the way the Upanishads deal with the problem of Absolute is neither the Cartesian nor the Spinozistic. Sankara, for existence, subordinated the world and the God to the self.

Part 3 Indian Perspective The Vedic Rishis expressed their vision of the Absolute or the Ultimate Reality in the form of hymns, evoking responses at the varying levels of self-realization, worshipful devotion or ritual sacrifices. The Upanishadic saints tried to impart the knowledge of the Absolute to their pupils through the method of a dialogue. An example of this is found in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the dialogue between the sage Yajnavalkya and his wife Maitreyi who asks him questions about the way to realize the Absolute or the ultimate Truth. As the dialogue proceeds, Yajnavalkya convinces her that it is the Atman or self that should be known, and when this

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knowledge is achieved, everything in the universe is known, because there lies an identity between Atman (self) and Brahman (the Ultimate Reality). The five Mahavakyas or great teachings (literally, great sentences), express this vision from different Upanishads in the following: Prajnanam Brahma, ‘Consciousness is Brahman’ (Aitariya Upanishad, III.1.3) Aham Brahmasmi, ‘I am Brahman’ (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, IV.3.23) Aham eva idam sarvosmi, ‘I indeed am this whole Universe’, Tattvamasi (That Thou art) (Chhandogya Upanishad, VI.8.7) Ayam Atma Brahma ‘This Atman is Brahman’ (Chhandogya Upanishad, III.10-14, Taittiriya Upanishad, I.5, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, II.5.19) Sarvam Khalu Idam Brahma, ‘Everything is Brahman’ (Mundaka Upanishad, III.13.1, Chhandogya Upanishad, III.14.1) The Mahavakyas, in brief, are the different paths for the realization of the Absolute. The statement ‘Prajnanam Brahma’ directs the seeker to meditate on the Chittsvarupa (Pure Consciousness form) of Brahman, leading to the merger of the individual consciousness in the Universal and the attainment of Mukti (liberation from worldly bondage) and the state of supreme bliss paramananda, ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ is an endeavour to make the pupil engage in deep meditation to realize the Absolute, in the ‘Tattvamasi’ the teacher is trying to make his pupil realize that his innate Being is part of the Absolute, ‘Ayam Atma Brahman’ also accomplishes the same thing.

Part 4 Western Perspective In the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel says: The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is; and that precisely in this consists its nature, viz., to

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In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel adds: Philosophy is itself, in fact, worship (Die philosophie ist der selbst Gottesdienst); it is religion, for in the same way it renounces subjective notions and opinions in order to occupy itself with God [. . . ] The object of religion as well as of philosophy is eternal truth in its objectivity, God and nothing but God and the explication of God [. . . ] In philosophy, religion gets justification from thinking consciousness. (Hegel, 1895, p.353) This position of Hegel is in sharp reaction to what Kant says in the preface to the first edition of Critique of Pure Reason: Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer. (Kant, 1973, Preface, p.7) The central claim of Hegel’s philosophy as against Kant’s is that we cannot speak of the Absolute without at the same time speaking of the self-consciousness of the human mind, nor fruitfully pursue that interrogation itself unless we conceive our activity in doing so as one sustained and made possible by the Absolute. This is perhaps the best part of Hegel’s philosophy responsible for the origin and sustenance of the Absolute Spirit and its epistemological justification by the subjective spirit or the thinking consciousness. At the same time, there is no part of Hegel’s philosophy except this, which the post-Hegelians, including the present-day postmodern and Critical Theory Hegel scholars, are less willing to accept on its own terms.

Part 5 On Consciousness–Dualism, Monism and Pluralism The intellectual expedition in the realm of consciousness is extremely complex and multifaceted. In the extensive field of philosophy, we

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come across consciousness as an ontological being, an epistemological subject, a moral agent, an aesthetic being, a psychological being, a Yogic subject and so on. It has moved the philosophical insight so persistently that the combined study of East and West has not solved the problem of consciousness, once and for all. Socrates, who shifted philosophic problems from physics to ethics, expressed it in the form of a command – ‘Know Thyself’ – at Delphi, and the ancient Hindu saints, sages and seers expressed the problem in the form of a forceful interrogation ‘Koaham?’ Obviously, there is a philosophical unrest, anxiety and apprehension concerning consciousness. Let me begin with the description of consciousness in Sankara. If we look at the history of the current knowledge of the nature and status of Consciousness, we find that there are three ways that we can approach this problem – Dualism, Monism and Pluralism. These three ways have led to the construction of three kinds of the worlds with three distinct concepts of the Ultimate Reality or the notion of Absolute: the psychological, the theological and the cosmological. We can begin with our analysis into what goes on in our mind or the antahkarana and try to find the Absolute in us. Or we can begin with an estimation of the outside world and try to establish an Absolute causality operating in nature. Or finally, we can resort to God as the ultimate unifying force between the inner world and the outer world. Rene Descartes (1596–1650) was a philosopher, a mathematician and a man of science. In philosophy and mathematics, he made supreme contributions; in physics, though creditable, it was not so good as that of some of his contemporaries. In philosophy, Descartes’ outlook was profoundly influenced by the discoveries made in physics and astronomy. While it is true that he retains much scholasticism, such as the distinction between reason and sensibility, truth and falsehood, reason and faith, one and many, he does not accept the metaphysical – philosophical foundations laid by his predecessors, but attempts to formulate a philosophical system de novo. This had not happened since Aristotle. Descartes is therefore rightly considered as the father of modern philosophy. In the Discourse on Method (1637) and the Meditations (1642), Descartes has developed his method, dualism between cogito and the unthought, doctrine of truth, innate ideas, existence of God and so on. These issues lie at the centre of his writing. However, at the margins of these inscriptions, there lie marginal issues such as madness, deception, uncertainty, fantasy, demon, sin, illusions, irrationality, etc. Descartes, in search

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of certainty in philosophy, started with a method of doubt regarding the outside world and arrives at the certainty of the cogito. The ideas of Descartes, Spinoza, Kant and Sankara have been briefly mentioned earlier in Part 2 of this essay. Sankara’s position is very close to what we have we have in Hegel. The central claim of Hegel’s philosophy as against Kant is that we cannot speak of the Absolute without at the same time speaking of the self-consciousness of the human mind, nor fruitfully pursue that interrogation itself unless we conceive our activity in doing so as one sustained and made possible by the Absolute. This is perhaps the best part of Hegel’s philosophy responsible for the origin and sustenance of the Absolute Spirit and its epistemological justification by the subjective spirit or the thinking consciousness.

Part 6 Status of Consciousness in the Upanishads The doctrine of consciousness has been discussed by the Upanishadic seers, not only in the Mandukya Upanishad but also in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, in the famous dialogue between Yajnavalkya and King Janaka. There is also an in-depth study of consciousness in the commentaries by Gaudapad, Sankara and others, down to Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo. The discussion that we come across in Mandukya Upanisad is very much complemented by all succeeding works of the kind. Here, I will be basically concerned with Sankara’s analysis of consciousness. For Sankara, to get into the problem of consciousness is to begin with the three states of consciousness – the avasthatraya – in the Vedantic tradition. Whenever we come across the problem of consciousness, we not only have a reference to human beings alone but also to Brahman which is sat, cit and ananda – particularly the cit svarupa of Brahman. To be with the consciousness of the human being, we have to begin with the human body, i.e. the vital force, the senses, the antahkarana – the internal organ, popularly known as Mind, endowed with Buddhi, of intellect, with ahankarah – the ‘I’. Deeper than ahankarh, the Vedantins have an entity, i.e. consciousness, cit, caitanya, sambrita or the self. In the German idealist tradition,

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there is no such distinction between the ego, mind, spirit, self or consciousness. These terms have similar meanings. However, Husserl has drawn a distinction between Ego, cogito and cogiteta. These are tripartite stages involved in Husserl’s phenomenology – descriptive stage, transcendental stage and egological stage. In the descriptive stage, issues are raised, everything around us is an object of consciousness. It is because of consciousness that we are aware of the objects or ideas and so on. What is so fundamental at this stage is that a distinction has been drawn between consciousness and the objects of consciousness. Husserl assigns several functions to consciousness – consciousness objectivizes, identifies, supplements, unifies. Husserl has made a distinction between pure ego and empirical ego, between transcendental ego and the psychological ego. But there remains a fundamental difficulty, i.e. the distinctions between consciousness, ego, mind, etc. have not been clearly defined in the German idealism including Husserl’s phenomenology. But this problem no longer exists in the Vedanta. The functions that Husserl assigns to consciousness like objectifying, unifying, etc. are all the functions of antahkarana under the witnessing act of consciousness in the Vedanta tradition. The antahkarana is material and it requires the witnessing act of spiritual force, i.e. consciousness. The sense organs can work properly under the close relationship with the antahkarana, which in turn has to be guided by the consciousness. In his commentary to Brahmasutra, Sankara refers to the I/Thou problem in the Adhyasabhasa, i.e. the Asmat/Yusmat problem, asmat is the self and yusmat is other than the self in which comes the mind, senses, body and things of the world. Any claim regarding affirmation or negation made for any thing in the world presupposes evidence provided by the consciousness by means of the pramana. Not only that even the ultimate presupposition of all pramanas – perception, inference, verbal testimony, is provided by consciousness. Given the consciousness, all pramanas operate, and in the absence of consciousness, no pramanas can operate. To understand antahkarana, we have to go into the details of the three stages of consciousness – Jagrat, Svapna and Susupti. Related with these three stages of consciousness, there is the problem of intentionality and self-consciousness. One of the Vedantins, Ramanuja, for instance, regards these three states as double intentional: on the one hand, it is intentional towards the subject; on the other, it is intentional towards the objects. But the other Vedantins including Sankara believe that consciousness by its

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nature is not intentional, but it becomes intentional because of its association with the mind. In the Mandukya Upanishad, at waking state consciousness is intentional; it is in relation to several objects and their mechanisms and operations. These objects in their properties and relationships act on our senses and the mind. Thus, our consciousness becomes aware of things. What is true of the waking level is equally true at the dream level because in dream experience, consciousness encounters the objects. The Mandukya Upanishad brings the association of consciousness with the mind, senses, body and things at the waking level; and the association of consciousness at the two levels, i.e. the waking and the dreaming states. This also involves the knowledge-situation, i.e. the triputi jnana – the subject, the object and the means of knowledge. At the waking level, there is the knowledge-situation prajna, which is outward, but at the dream level, the similar knowledge-situation is there, but not the same knowledge-situation. Consciousness at the waking level is called Vishwa, at the dream level it is called Taijasa, and at the deep sleep level or susupti it is called Prajna. These are three different terms used for consciousness depending on its three involvements. At the level of deep sleep, we are not aware of the objects of the outside world, or anything internal, because mind as mind is not functioning at this level. Mantra V of Mandukya Upanishad declares that at this level we do not have a knowledge-situation, we are free from all desires. Consciousness is uniformly present in all the three stages of experience. The body and the senses are present at the waking level, but these are absent at the dream level, even the mind is absent at the deep sleep level, but consciousness is present at all the three levels of experience. Consciousness is the witness of all the three episodes. But consciousness as such cannot be known under the knowledgesituation just as the tongue cannot taste itself. This is the fourth state, the nameless, i.e. turiya. It is the state where consciousness is left to itself, trans-empirical, trans-rational, trans-linguistic. At most, we can describe it negatively. There is no other than anything outside, no other than anything inside – this is how the turiya state is described in the Mantra VII of the Mandukya Upanishad. The question arises: how does the turiya state differ from the susupti state? The turiya state could be a mystical state, through meditation, etc., which if one has it, one has it, and if one does not have it, one does not have it. It is adristam, avyavaharyam, agrahyam, alaksanam, achintam, santam, sivam, advaitam, etc. It is at this

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stage that Atman is to be entirely identified with the Brahman. In other words, if I am the Atman and Atman is Absolute; then, it follows syllogistically, that I am the Absolute. I am Brahman. Aham Brahmasmi. So far as the knowledge of self is concerned, there is an astonishing similarity between Sankara and Kant. Kant has criticized Aristotle’s formulation of categories: ‘he simply picked them up as they came in his way’. Kant goes on to give a systematic formulation of the categories. The common structure of consciousness, Kant designates as ‘transcendental unity of self-consciousness’ (CPR, A97). It consists of ‘forms of intuition’ (space and time) and ‘forms of understanding’ (the categories), which are not static forms but forms of operation that exist only in the act of apprehending and comprehending sensibility. The ‘forms of intuition’ synthesize the plurality of sensibility into a spatio-temporal order and by virtue of the categories, they are brought to universal and necessary relations of cause and effect, substance, reciprocity and so on – ‘receptivity is thus combined with spontaneity’ (CPR, A97, p.130). This entire complex is unified in the transcendental apperception, which relates all experience to the ‘thinking ego’ (CPR, p.143). This is what Kant calls beginningless, transcendental, original, synthetic unity of apperception. In the synthetic unity of apperception, according to Kant, I am conscious of myself not as I appear to myself, not as I am in myself, but only that I am. The ‘I think’ must be, Kant insists, capable of accompanying all my presentations. But the ‘I think’ always remains unknown and unknowable by means of the categories because it cannot as such be given in representation. If we try to apply the categories to the ‘I think’, such categories as ‘substance’, ‘existence’, ‘person’, etc., we come across a series of paralogisms. (Kant, p.327) This view of the self, developed by Kant, is very close to the Advaitic doctrine of Atman developed by Sankara. Kant has worked on the same position which had inspired Sankara from the Upanishads ‘How can you know that which is the knower of everything’. The categories of understanding can be applied to objects given in sensible intuitions. Generic unity, specific difference, act, quality, relation, etc., are supposed by Sankara to be the ultimate conditions of knowledge. To these, he sometimes adds space, time, causality, and non-contradiction (Desa-kala-nimitta-sampatti ravadhasca – Sankara Bhasya, III. 2, 3). Sankara emphasizes that the categories are not applicable to the witnessing self. It was

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for the first time in European philosophy that a view of the self approximating to the Advaitic doctrine of the self was so clearly formulated. It is to Kant’s credit to have conceived so clearly that the self is not to be identified with the individual self involved in the subject – object dualism, the self is the universal principle of the consciousness or thought which is the pure or the transcendental subject as distinguished from the empirical subject and that this subject cannot itself be known as an object of knowledge. Here, the Kantian doctrine of self resembles the Upanishadic view expressed in the words ‘How can you know that which is the knower of every thing’. The self cannot be dislodged from its pivotal position as a knower. It can never be shifted from the centre to the periphery, because in every attempt to do so, we shall be compelled to put it back again into the centre under the force of logical necessity. The upshot is that it will remain there in the centre and it can never be the knower and the known simultaneously. That which we must presuppose as the precondition of all knowledge cannot itself become an object of knowledge. The basic purpose of Kant’s critical philosophy is to present an affective solution to Hume’s scepticism. The first Critique with the transcendental deduction of categories tries to ‘justify the claims of science philosophically’ or ‘to provide a philosophical basis for physical science’. As opposed to this, the primary motive of Sankara’s philosophy is to emphasize the self-luminous character of the pure cit, and consequently placing it far beyond the ambit of inference and reasoning. Kant appears to be more interested in the organization of the experience than in the agency that organizes it. But Sankara shows much more interest in the revelatory consciousness than in the objects that are revealed.

Part 7 Sankara’s Notion of Absolute Spirit: The Ultimate Principles of Knowledge, Validity and the Limits of Pramanas Sankara was a philosopher of One Thought and the same could be claimed for Vedantins like Ramanuja and some others too.

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If I could introduce, by way of illustration, two thinkers from the West, they would be Hegel and Heidegger, who have been regarded as philosophers of One Thought, i.e. Spirit (Geist) and Being, respectively. Therefore, the first thing is that Sankara is a philosopher of One Thought, i.e. Brahmavadi. I would like to explain the term Brahman before I go to elaborate the issues in and around it. The term Brahman has been derived from the root word Brh, which means ‘to grow’. It means that wherever we have growth or development, we have Brahman. There are several examples, like, annam Brahma, sabdam Brahma, rasam Brahma, etc. Wherever there is orderliness, purposiveness, motion or creation of some specific form, there is the hidden presence of Brahman. The awareness of the growth and the purposiveness, etc., involves the existence of a conscious being or Atman. Growth and the awareness of the growth cannot be separated. Hence, Atman and Brahman are in perpetual unity. This has been the prime concern of Sankara. I may go against the often repeated contention that Sankara was a Mayavadi. I would argue that the central doctrine of Sankara is Brahman and Atman. Maya and Advidya come only in the course of philosophical investigation that Sankara undertakes. Secondly, Sankara is a traditionalist, openly emphasizing the tradition, i.e. Sampradaya and thus abandoning the claim of originality in his writings and preachings. The main inspiration for him comes from the Upanishads, the Bhagavadagita and the Brahmasutras. Sankara has made a distinction between the knower of a Sampradaya and the knower of Sastras. One can know scripture; quote scripture that does not mean that one is conversant with the tradition. Sankara even goes to the extent of saying that a person, who is learned in Sastras, is not acquainted with the tradition, and such a person has to be ignored. This shows that tradition is very important for the study and interpretation of a text. Sankara has certainly been inspired by Gaudapada, his paramguru, and the traditional method invoked by him. Sankara makes use of that method. The method is known as Adhyaropa (projection) and Apavada (refutation). This is known to Vedantins even before Goudapada. Mandan Mishra in Vimalsiddhi has referred to this method. Adhyaropa is the natural propensity of man to formulate a view of that which is observed. It precedes observation, because observation is not possible without Adhyaropa. Sankara refers to it as Adhyasa and explains it in terms of being natural, beginningless and firmly established in common sense. What is

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Sankara’s prime interest in philosophy? Though Sankara is a Brahmavadi, he is primarily interested in Jiva, its existential problems and the worldly life – lokavyavahara. It is to find out what a human being is, what he thinks and experiences as an agent of action involved in the day-to-day life and activity. Therefore, Sankara looks at the Vedanta text in order to identify the causes of human problems and discover a way to resolve human problems. Unlike other Vedantins who started their thought with the interpretation of the first Sutra, i.e. Athato Brahmajijnansa, Sankara does not go to this Sutra to start with. He begins with an introduction to the Sutra and his introduction is known as Adhyasavakya. To understand Sankara’s advaita is to understand the problem of adhyasa. Adhyasa provides a foundation to Sankara’s Sutrabhasya, Upanishad bhasya and Gitabhasya. How does Sankara begin his explication of the doctrine of adhyasa? The theory of adhyasa begins with day-to-day life and experience, a kind of naivet´e of outlooks containing certain elements of truth and untruth. This is a kind of power of discrimination. Every proposition contains a truth content and a falsity content. So it is natural for every seeker of truth to undertake the work with critical evaluation. When he finds that the view contains more untruth than truth, he rejects it and accepts another view, which has a greater degree of truth than the previous one. This rejection is known as apavada, which literally means discordant view and that it does not accord with the reality any more. Advaita Vedanta maintains that there are views, which accord with the reality more adequately than others. Sankara, for example, prefers Sankhya to Vaisesika and some of his later followers prefer Saktism to Saivism. Since Sankara’s prime concern is to understand Atman and its relation to Brahman, let us dwell on this issue. Let us take Chapter VI of the Chhandogya Upanishad, which discusses the most basic problems of Sankara’s metaphysics – the problem of Brahman and that of Atman – which is the widest, the deepest, and the most fundamental problem. All other problems can be derived from this basic problem. We have a dialogue between Uddalaka and his son Svetaketu. The Upanishad conceives the problem systematically. It makes a promissory statement and it is followed by certain examples drawn from the empirical life and then it formulates the grand thesis. Svetaketu returns home after having a formal education for nearly about 21 years. Then father puts this question to Svetaketu – Have you known that, after knowing which, everything else is

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known? This is traditionally known as ‘from the knowledge of one to the knowledge of all’, ‘Ek vijnana tu sarva vijnana’. This is the Promissory Statement that the Upanishad gives to us through the teacher Uddalaka. Svetaketu says that he does not know that. He even goes to the extent of saying that perhaps his teacher did not know, because if he had known, he would have definitely told him (Svetaketu). Then the illustrations are given from empirical life. Even the Brahmasutra begins with this. It begins with the need for an enquiry and delves into the causes of the world. So there is an empirical example. A person who knows clay, knows that everything is made of clay. This is known to him, because clay is the upadana karana, the material cause. The forms may change, the names may change, but what remains in all the objects made of clay is the clayness. All the modifications have certain names, certain forms, but in all these cases what is real is the cause. Then a grand thesis is formulated that the supreme reality that is the cause of the world is One – Ekam eva advitiyam. For Sankara, it is enough to build up a metaphysical system out of this grand thesis. Sankara’s Advaita can be identified by four doctrines – there is the theory of Nirguna Brahman, there is a theory of Vivarta, there is the theory of Anirvacaniya Khyati and finally there is a doctrine of Jivan Mukti. One can go from the first to the second, from both to the third and finally to the fourth. There is consistency in Sankara’s writings. There is coherence and comprehensiveness in Sankara’s Advaita. Sankara begins his philosophy with the inquiry into the pramanas, pramana vichara to establish the metaphysical system. Sankara says that existence and non-existence of a thing can only be established by means of pramana. How do we know that something exists here or that something does not exist here? We know it only through pramana. Sankara starts with the world given in day-to-day life. To start with, Sankara does not talk of the illusoriness of the world. In the Sutras, Sankara asks how do we decide that something is and something is not. If the world is proved by all the pramanas, we cannot say that it does not exist. But there is a pramana vyavastha, every pramana operates in a particular area, it has its own subject matter. What one pramana comprehends another pramana cannot, just as what one sense organ comprehends another sense organ cannot. On the basis of pramana vyastha, Sankara repeatedly points out in his writings that there is absolutely no conflict between a scripture on the one hand and other pramanas on the other. If pratyksha has validity so far as the empirical world is concerned,

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scripture has validity so far as the transcendental world is concerned. Sankara says an object is that which has got certain quality (guna), generic feature (jati) is involved in action (karma), has some kind of relation with something else (sambandha) or which has name and form (nama-rupa). That is all about the empirical world. There is a complete breakdown of language in the case of Supreme Reality because it does not have jati, guna, etc. It does not even have a name. These are simply the contextual forms that are required to convey what ordinarily cannot be conveyed. The Sarirakabhasya says that wherever there is orderliness, purposiveness, motion or creation of some specific form, there is a hidden presence of Brahman. This can be explained only by sruti, other pramanas cannot explain it. The first condition for objective knowledge, according to Sankara, is (1) that an object should possess a generic unity with specific differences – ‘An object can be known only when it is differentiated from things other than itself’ (Evam hi tat jnanam bhavati yadanyebhyo nirdha item) (Mukherjee, p.154). We can identify an object only under the conditions in which we can differentiate the object from the rest of the objects. We can know a table, its size, its colour, etc., only if we distinguish it from the rest of the things. ‘The category of substance – attribute, therefore, implies for its application a plurality of things that should at the same time belong to the same genus’ (yada hi tada visesanasya arthavattvam, Ibid. pp.154–5). (2) ‘The characteristics of an object, such as generic unity, specific qualities and actions, it is urged elsewhere, are the conditions of intelligible discourse’ (Tat anyasamai upadestum sakyam jatiguna-kriya-visesanai – Commentary on the Keno Upanishada, I, 3). Sankara has also said, ‘Every word employed to denote a thing can do so only insofar as it is associated with a certain genus, or a certain act, or a certain quality, or a certain mode of relation. The cow and horse imply genera, teacher and cook imply acts, white and black imply qualities, wealthy and cattle-owner imply possession’. (Commentary on the Gita, XIII, 12, Ibid., p.155). In this case if one thing is distinguished by the other and therefore it is necessarily limited by the other, it must be remembered that both must belong to one class, they must be ekajatiyani, as Sankara puts it. This is true for Sankara as it is true for Descartes. The Cartesian distinction between the cogito and the unthought, though distinct as far as their attributes are concerned, are somehow conceived under the common concept of ‘substance’. Even Immanuel Kant formulated it in the form of Judgement, under Relation, specifically

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in the Disjunctive Relation – ‘Earth exists either through a blind chance, or through an inner necessity, or through an external cause’. These three possibilities mutually exclude each other but jointly somehow they give us complete knowledge. It is the category of ‘community’, which is operative here. Apart from this community, they could not be defined in antithetical and mutually conflicting terms. Vacaspati Misra has very clearly explained that all differences and conflicts would be impossible if there had been difference at their foundation. The judgement ‘intellect is non-eternal’, for instance, cannot conflict with the judgment, ‘the soul is eternal’ (SankaranBhasya, ed A K Shastri, p.156). Hence, conflicts can neither be foundationless (anasraya) nor can they exist when there is difference at the very basis of the conflicting ideas or judgements (bhinnasraya). This requires an elaborate analysis of the nature and status of consciousness. Let me begin with consciousness.

Part 8 Hegel’s Notion of Absolute Spirit, Doctrine of Spirit– Reason, Understanding, Sense–Certainty and Dialectic Hegel’s Spirit is, above all, a doctrine about the relationship between thought and objective reality. By speaking Spirit, Hegel means the mediation or middle point between the Idea (the categories and the notion which are also known as the truth in the most Absolute and objective form) and Nature (the sphere of external existence which the truth is ‘about’). Hegel designates the term “Idea” to Absolute truth. Nature is the term which Hegel gives to that truth which we find it in the outward existence of the world. Spirit, however, is the mode of existence of the whole in which everything, which is known, is embodied in being. Idea and Nature are dialectical opposites, but Spirit is the unity between them. Hegel’s contention is that there is something, which is identical neither with the sphere nor with the objects of our thought. It is the Geist that imparts an intelligible form to both these spheres. Spirit is the active synthesis of our consciousness of the world, and what we are conscious of. This is Hegel’s epistemological quest too. In epistemology, then, we are concerned with the object which we have with our consciousness

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of it. But this is of such a nature that the distinction between what exists for us and what exists in itself is not a distinction between what is available to us in consciousness and what is not. Both sides of the distinction fall within the grasp of consciousness. In other words, the Kantian distinction between phenomena and thing-initself is not acceptable to Hegel. The basic question, for Hegel, is how in consciousness we are related to our objects, and when our object is our own consciousness, it is clear that there is no danger that our consciousness should have an existence in itself which is in principle hidden from us and separates from that consciousness as it exists for us. In formulating his own position, Hegel applauds Kant’s discovery of the ‘transcendental consciousness’ as the ultimate source of conceptual synthesis. He approves Kant’s criticism that consciousness cannot be an object of sensibility and hence categories cannot be applied to it. But this is not, Hegel contends, because categories overstep their legitimate limits, but because the soul is a living and active being, just as complex as it is self identically simple. In fact, its simplicity is just an indivisible whole that is constituted solely by the cohesion and inseparability of its diverse traits, aspects and activities. Kant’s objections, according to Hegel, are valid but his reasons are the wrong ones. Hegel elucidates two aspects of Spirit, first that Spirit requires the distinction of subject and object, and second that Spirit overcomes the supposed distinction between subject and object. The first is the moment of estrangement and the second is its transcendence or enlargement. Spirit is, thus, the locus of both estrangement and enlargement. Hegel takes over the doctrine from Kant that consciousness is necessarily bipolar and it is part of Hegel’s general espousal of the view that ‘rational awareness requires separation. Consciousness is only possible when the subject is set over against an object’. (Charles, p.26) First of all, we should recall that Hegel’s Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences: An Outline, his most general presentation of the philosophic system, is divided into three parts: 1. Logic: the science of the Idea in and for itself. 2. The philosophy of Nature: the science of the Idea in its otherness. 3. The philosophy of Spirit: the science of the Idea comes back to itself out of that otherness. (Section 18) (Hegel, 1977, pp.103– 208)

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Since the philosophy of Spirit is followed by Logic and the philosophy of Nature, the philosophy of Spirit is concerned to show that and how Spirit ‘frees itself from Nature, from its otherness’. All three moments of this ‘movement’ – anthropology, phenomenology and psychology – are concerned with this ‘notion of freeing itself’, (Hegel, 1977, pp.103–208) but only the moment of psychology shows the reality of reason: the anthropological moment of the subjective Spirit shows reason to be the goal of Nature, and the phenomenological moment shows reason to be the goal of consciousness. But the goal of the psychological investigation of Spirit is to show that reason is the element of subjective Spirit, that reason is the active power of Spirit. To develop Hegel’s psychological investigation of Spirit, we have to discuss three sources of knowledge– sense–certainty, understanding and reason along with dialectic – with its features of contradiction and sublation – operating in it. The opening arguments of the Phenomenology of Spirit are good illustrations of the procedure Hegel adopts. The notion of Spirit with which Hegel begins is our ordinary consciousness of things and from there he takes us to the true perspective of Spirit. The work is called ‘phenomenology’ because it deals with the way things appear for consciousness, or with the forms of consciousness. But ‘appearance’ here is not to be contrasted with ‘reality’ – which is most real, the Absolute, essentially self-appearance. Phenomenology is not a science of lesser things, which can be left behind but one way of ascending to Absolute knowledge of making the Absolute apparent. The method Hegel adopts to appreciate the Absolute Truth is to start with the ‘ordinary consciousness’ of things. He does not introduce at this moment anything from the activity of mind whatsoever. From this ordinary experience of things, Hegel proceeds through the stage of ‘understanding’ and finally comes to ‘reason’, which is no longer a prey to contradiction and holds it reconciled within itself. Hegel accepts and further develops the distinction manifested in Kant’s philosophy between ‘understanding’ and ‘reason’. In Kant, ‘reason’ is never in immediate relation to an object. It is ‘understanding’, that holds sway in his epistemology. By ‘understanding’, Hegel means, the capacity of reflective interpretation, a capacity which unrelentingly separates identity from difference, particular from universal, one from many, form from content and so on, and allows neither to contaminate the other. The ‘understanding’, however, restricts itself to the finite, and its thinking

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is always finite thinking. Hegel often calls it ‘finite reason’. Hegel also uses the expression ‘isolated reflection’ to the numberless polarities, which emerge out of the operation of ‘understanding’. The distinction and precise determination of things in terms of identity and difference characteristic of ‘understanding’ depends upon negation. A thing is what it is just because and so far as it is not another thing. What it determines is what it excludes, and what it excludes defines what it is. Now that which is negated, carries with itself that from which it emerges, preserving the rejected portion in itself, though it was cancelled in its original formulation. This state is higher than the original finite one and it holds within itself both the finite and its negation. The result is thus more concrete, more complete and comprehensive than the first abstract, finite and limited one. Hegel here brings ‘reason’ to unify that which the ‘understanding’ has divided. ‘Reason’ shows that the function of ‘understanding’ to define things in terms of their isolation – constitutes a process of abstraction. The function of ‘reason’ is to make manifest the ‘concrete’ relation in which an idea, concept or thing subsists. In the process of unifying the opposites, ‘reason’ negates the finite and its negation, and binds them together in mutual dependence so that they are revealed as moments of a more inclusive whole. This wholeness in which the antagonisms are resolved Hegel terms ‘the Absolute’, ‘the Truth’ of which I have mentioned at the beginning of the paper. The mutual exclusion of the finite and its negative is complimentary so that they are revealed as moments of a more inclusive whole. The whole, which is thus achieved, is rational through and through, because it is systematically ordered. With this interpretation of sense–certainty, understanding and reason, Hegel gives a strikingly new interpretation of logic. There is novelty in Hegel’s attempt to incorporate dialectic into logic. It requires two lines of argument: the first showing that a given category is indispensable; the second showing that it leads us to a characterization of reality, which is somehow contradictory. Hegel, in fact, fuses these together. This makes Hegel’s logic fundamentally different from the Kantian–Aristotelian tradition. The categories, in Kant’s formulation, are valid if they were correctly formed and if their use was in conformity with the laws of thought and the rules of syllogism – no matter what the content to which they were applied. Contrary to this procedure, Hegel’s logic and with it his dialectic is always dynamic and expresses dynamics of objective reality as well.

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The negative or contradictory character of the categories basically motivates Hegel’s dialectic. As stated, Hegel’s categories denote and deal with the reality, so the dialectical operation in reality is basically the dialectic operating in the formulation of the categories. There are two terms, which are operative in Hegel’s dialectic. These are: (1) contradiction; (2) sublation or aufheben. In fact, these are not two separate terms but are mutually interdependent and under certain circumstances they pass into each other. Let me first explain Hegel’s position on contradiction. In the Science of Logic, Hegel says: [. . . ] everything is inherently contradictory, and in the sense that this law in contrast to the other expresses rather the truth and the essential nature of things. It is one of the fundamental prejudices of logic as hitherto understood and of ordinary thinking, that contradiction is not so characteristically essential and immanent a determination as identity. Nevertheless, if it were a question of grading the two determinations and they had to be kept separate, then contradiction would have to be taken as the profounder determination and more characteristic of essence. For, as against contradiction, identity is merely the determination of the simple immediate, of dead being; but contradiction is the root of all movement and vitality; it is only insofar as something has a contradiction within it that it moves, has an urge and activity. (Hegel, 1909, p.439) Contradiction, for Hegel, is internal to each term. That is why every term, whether a concept or a reality, develops. Hegel continues, ‘[. . . ] internal self-movement proper, instinctive urge in general [. . . ] is nothing else but the fact that something is, in one and the same respect, self contained and deficient, the negative of itself. Abstract self-identity is not as yet a livingness, but a positive, being in its own self a negativity, goes outside itself and undergoes alteration. Something is therefore alive only insofar as it contains contradiction within it and moreover is this power to hold and endure the contradiction within it’. (Hegel, 1909, pp.439–40.) Hegel concludes near the end of the Logic that there is nothing, whether in actuality or in thought that is as simple and abstract as is commonly imagined. ‘Nothing exists as just brutally given and simply possessing one or two fully positive

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characteristics. Nothing exists that is just first and primary and on which other things depend, but they cannot really succeed in doing so unless they stay on the level of imaginative pictures. Imagining that such things exist is possible only as long as we are ignorant of what is actually present. What appears at first, simple and immediate is actually complex and mediated’. (David, 1986, p.46) Mediation (Vermittlung) and mediated (Vermittlet), and the opposites, immediacy (Unvermittlung) and immediate (Unvermittelt) are key terms through which Hegel explains not only contradiction but also sublation and dialectic. Let me clarify these terms. To ‘mediate’ is to be in the middle, to connect two extremes. Everything, Hegel states, is mediated so that nothing exists as ‘immediate’ first. In the Logic, ‘mediation’ will involve the gradual development of categories to a point where there is nothing that is posited as first and independent. In Hegel’s dialectic, the thesis is always regarded as ‘immediate’ or as characterized by ‘immediacy’. The second term, the antithesis, is ‘mediate’ or ‘mediation’. The third term, the synthesis, is the merging of ‘mediation’ and emerging as a new ‘immediacy’. And this process goes on. The synthesis of a triad both abolishes and preserves the differences of the thesis and the antithesis. Hegel expresses this activity of the synthesis as aufheben or sublation, which is the other operative term of Hegel’s dialectic. It may be seen as manifesting three distinct but mutually interrelated moments. ‘First, it has the moment of “transcendence”, in which it goes beyond a “limit” or “boundary”; secondly it is “negation” of this first negation, this “limit”, in which it is, overcome or removed; and thirdly, it is the moment of “preservation”, in which what has been “gone beyond” or transcended is brought again into a new relation’. (Michael, p.123) These three moments of sublation, though distinct, form a unitary process of Logic, which is differentiated, into its various components only for the purpose of helping the ‘understanding’ of the process itself. The very process by which a category is formulated and is intimately related to another is, at one and the same logical moment, the process by which it transcends its limited abstract self-identity, ‘negates’ that identity and emerges into a connected unity or nexus, in which it is preserved as an intrinsic part of some greater whole. The differences between the first and the second member of each triad are sublated by the third. This, however, requires sufficient explanation and necessary substantiation. For this purpose, I shall take up the categories of Being, Nothing and Becoming, and bring

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out the various ways in which dialectic is operating in the formulation of the categories of Being and Nothing, and their sublation in the category of Becoming. Herein operate two fundamental principles of Hegel’s dialectic: unity and struggle of opposites and negation of negation. The same process is applicable to the rest of the Hegelian categories. As a matter of fact, the more general and more abstract concept is always prior to the less general and less abstract. And this principle not only decides for Hegel that the first category is being, but also determines the order of the subsequent categories. Moreover, every logical deduction is essentially based on the principle that the subsequent must be contained in the antecedent. The breach of this principle of formal logic is what is called the fallacy of illicit process. There cannot be anything present in the conclusion, which is not present in the premises. This is really the old principle ex nihilo nihil fit. I will try to show that this is just as true of the Hegelian Logic as of the humble formal logic. The exclusion is not absolute, what is absolute is the mutual supplementation. The result of the supplementation is a growth, a development. This is a principle of Hegel’s dialectic known as ‘the negation of negation’. Just as Being is implicitly Becoming, so Becoming is implicitly the next synthesis. In the next synthesis, we find that Becoming expresses itself in the moment of a ‘determinate being’, which is further expressed as below: 1. as determinateness: quality, 2. as determinateness transcended: quantity. 3. as quantity qualitatively determined: measure. Quality, for Hegel, is the internal self-determination, which is identical with the Being, which it determines. Quantity is a determination, which is external to what it determines. The combination of quality and quantity is found in what Hegel calls, as measure. Quality, when fully developed through repulsion and attraction, passes into quantity and vice versa. Hegel refers to this unity as measure. It is the synthesis of the spheres of quality and quantity as the thesis and the antithesis respectively. With this synthesis we arrive at another principle of Hegel’s dialectic known as ‘the transition from quantitative changes to qualitative changes and vice versa’. We have so far explicated three laws of Hegel’s dialectic; namely, (1) unity and struggle of opposites, (2) negation of the negation, (3) transition from quality to quantity, and vice-versa. These three laws

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of dialectic are operating not only in the whole process of Hegel’s deduction of categories, but also in the appreciation of the Absolute. If, therefore, we understand Hegel’s dialectic as a gradual explication and development of the ‘connectedness’ of the categories of Logic, then dialectic is operating in our thought alone. But such a dialectical nexus of concepts is not itself sufficient to account for our knowledge of the objective reality. Dialectic must come out of thought and confront the world, which is given. That is to say, it must have a relation to the objective world of matter into which man finds himself thrown daily. Hegel very clearly recognizes this fact. Under subheading 81 of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, he writes: Everything that surrounds us may be viewed as an instance of Dialectic. We are aware that everything finite, instead of being stable and ultimate, is rather changeable and transient; and this is exactly what we mean by that Dialectic of the finite, by which the finite, as that which in itself is other than itself, is forced beyond its own immediate or natural being to turn suddenly into its opposite [. . . ] All things, we say – that is, the finite world as such – are doomed; and in saying so, we have a vision of Dialectic as the universal and irresistible power before which nothing can stay however secure and stable it may deem itself. We find traces of its (Dialectic’s) presence in each of the particular provinces and phases of the natural and the spiritual world. This moment the planet stands in this spot, but implicitly it is the possibility of being otherwise that the planet brings into existences dialectical [. . . ] It is the same dynamic that lies at the root of every other natural process and as it were forces nature beyond itself. The above passage sufficiently demonstrates that the laws of dialectic are not only operating in our thought but are also the fundamental features of the change and development taking place in the material reality. So, the dialectic has this dual function to perform, viz. to show that dialectic is operating in human thought and that simultaneously it is operating in the objective reality. But as an absolute idealist, Hegel regards the dialectic of thought as primary and the dialectic of reality as secondary, as an externalization of the dialectic of thought. This is evident from the fact that Hegel first

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formulates the principles of dialectic in the sphere of Logic – the concepts and categories – and then introduces those laws of dialectic to the world outside. The laws of dialectic are the ‘externalization’ of the spirit. This is another illustration of what Derrida calls Hegel’s ‘idealizing mastery’ because it is spirit that gives rise to the laws of dialectic. With the above exposition of Hegel’s doctrine of spirit and dialectic along with the related concepts like reason, understanding, sense–certainty and dialectic, it will be appropriate to come to Hegel’s theory of sign more precisely. Hegel’s semiology is situated in the first movement of spirit, i.e. subjective spirit that in general is formulated by Hegel in three phases. 1. Subjective spirit: the spirit’s relation to itself, an only ideal totality of the idea. This is being-near-to itself in the form of only internal freedom. 2. Objective spirit: as a world to produce and be produced in the forms of reality, not only ideality. Freedom here becomes an existing, present necessity. 3. Absolute spirit: the unity, that is in itself and for itself, of the objectivity of the spirit and of its ideality or its concept, the unity producing itself eternally, spirit in its Absolute truth– Absolute spirit (Section 385). To sum up Hegel’s notion of the Absolute, we can say that Hegel’s notion of the Absolute is essentially embodied in his doctrine of spirit and the dialectic along with the onto-theological or onto-teleological synthesis. Hegel’s Aufhebung depends on his doctrine of spirit in as much as it rests on dialectical principles and it is within human experience in the world – the phenomenology – that it begins to progress until it reaches the Absolute.

Sankara and Hegel on Self-consciousness and the Absolute In the Upanishadic philosophic thought, we come across a conflict among the metaphysicians; some regarding the Self as an entity entirely distinct from the Absolute, others regarding it as a part of the Absolute, and yet others regarding the Self and the Absolute as entirely identical. These constitute respectively the fundamental positions of the three great metaphysical schools – the dualistic, the quasi-monistic and the monistic. It is the monistic metaphysics,

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as already explained in the Part I, which Sankara has advocated and which has come very close to what Hegel has to say on the Absolute. The Chhandogya Upanishad arrives at the conception of selfconsciousness as constituting the Ultimate Reality. In Taittiriya Upanishad the identification of the Absolute with consciousness has been brought out like this – the Absolute is Existence, Consciousness and Infinity (S.12.9). In the Aitareya Upanishad, we find, ‘of the gods, of the heaven, and the beings of the earth, whether produced from the eggs, or embryo, or sweat, or from the earth, everything that moves, or flies, or is stationary self-consciousness is the eye of the world; it is self-consciousness which is Absolute’ (S.12.b). With an extensive survey of the different approaches to the notion of Absolute and the Ultimate Reality, the Upanishadic seers have established Ultimate Reality firmly on self-consciousness. God to them is not God unless He is identical with self-consciousness. Existence is not existence if it does not mean self-consciousness. Reality is not reality if it does not express throughout its structure the marks of pure self-consciousness. On the cognition of the Absolute, the Taittiriya Upanishad says: That, from which our speech turns back along with mind, being unable to comprehend its fullness, is the Ultimate Reality. Keno Upanishad says: That where the eye is unable to go, where neither speech nor mind is able to reach – what conception can we have of it, except that it is beyond all that is known, and beyond all that is unknown. Sankara and Hegel would agree with each other that the comprehension of Being as immanent in all other categories is the most fundamental category of all things. Sankara in his Commentary on the Chhandogya Upanishad (vi, 2, 1) says, ‘Existence or Being, it is urged, is pure, subtle, indefinable, all-pervading, one, taintless, indivisible, knowledge’. On the concept of Pure Being, Hegel has also to say the same thing: Pure Being is complete indeterminacy, absence of all qualities, a vacuity, an empty concept. Being is the most irrepressible category for both Hegel and Sankara. Hegel’s Absolute is the unity, which realizes itself in the differences, and it is not in which all differences are lost like that of Schelling. As already stated, Hegel too has to say the same thing like this: ‘The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is; and that precisely in this consists its nature, viz., to be actual subject, the spontaneous becoming of itself.’ And Hegel adds, ‘Philosophy is

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itself, in fact, worship (Die philosophie ist der selbst Gottesdienst); it is religion, for in the same way it renounces subjective notions and opinions in order to occupy itself with God [. . . ] The object of religion as well as of philosophy is eternal truth in its objectivity, God and nothing but God and the explication of God [. . . ] In philosophy, religion gets justification from thinking consciousness’. For Hegel, nothing could be external to consciousness; but as consciousness exists through its opposition to the ‘other’ which it at the same time sublates and this process goes on until it reaches the Absolute Unity. Immediate experience is the very heart of Sankara’s Absolutism, whereas Hegel would never accept pure immediacy in the Absolute. In Hegel’s dialectic, the thesis is always regarded as ‘immediate’ or as characterized by ‘immediacy’. The second term, the antithesis, is ‘mediate’ or ‘mediation’. The third term, the synthesis, is the merging of ‘mediation’ and emerging as a new ‘immediacy’. And this process goes on. The ‘Absolute Idea’ in its final form is the ‘freesubject’, the Notion or Begriff. Its otherness or negation is the object. Both the Begriff and its otherness are constantly overwhelmed by the ontological conception of Hegel’s Absolute idealism. Hegel’s Science of Logic thus ends where it began with the category of Being and through all its meditations. But for Sankara, Absolute is nothing if it is shorn of immediate experience. This is the position of Absolute Monism. Whether this state of Absolute Monism is to be intellectually apprehended as Hegel does or expressed in self-realization as Sankara does, both are ways of the same spiritual pilgrimage.

WORKS CITED ´ Mundaka Upanishad, I-4-5, trans. Panoli, V V, 1992, Upanishads in Sankara’s Own Words, Calicut, The Mathrubhumi Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd, Vol. II. Chh¯ andogya Upanishad, VII-1-3, trans. Panoli, V V, 1993, Upanishads in ´ Sankara’s Own Words, Calicut, The Mathrubhumi Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd., Vol. III. Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich, 1892, The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, 2nd edn (revised), trans. Wallace, W, London, Oxford University Press. —, 1895, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, trans. Speirs, E B, Sanderson, J B, London, Oxford University Press, Vol. III. —, 1973, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Miller, A V, Oxford, Clarendon Press.

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—, 1977, The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. Petry, M J, Dordrecht and Boston, D Reidel Publishing Company, Section 445–60, pp.103–208. Henceforth cited by section number. —, 1909, Science of Logic, trans. Miller, A V, London, Book Two. Michael, G, 1984, ‘Marx’s Hegelianism: An Exposition’ in David, L, ed, Hegel and Modern Philosophy, London, Croon Helm. Taylor, C, 1979, Hegel and Modern Society, London, Cambridge University Press. Kant, I, 1973, Critique of Pure Reason, Bk xxx, trans. Smith, N K, London, Macmillan. Kolb, D, 1986, Critique of Pure Modernity: Hegel, Heidegger and After, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Commentary on the Taittiriya Upanisads, II.1, quoted in Mukherjee, A C, 1943, The Nature of Self, Allahabad, The Indian Press Ltd. Sankara, 1970, Pancikaranam, no place, Gujarati Printing Press. Ranade, R D, 1968, A Constructive Survey of Upanisadic Philosophy, Bombay, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Vivekananda, Swami, 1982, Collected Works, Calcutta, Belur Math, Vol. II.

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II Coming to Terms with Science: Some Change Agents

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Chapter 3

Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan and the Modernization of South Asian Muslims Javaid Iqbal Bhat

The greater world around Muslims had become a closed book. What is more they had no wish to open the book and read. They had long ceased to follow the Prophet’s injunction to ‘seek knowledge even as far as China’. Islam was afflicted with intellectual rigor mortis. The French religious writer Ernest Renan spoke of an ‘iron circle’ enclosing the head of the faithful in the Orient and Africa, making them impervious to fresh ideas and incapable of accepting anything new. (Walker, p.346) He may not have succeeded in reinterpreting and implementing the core tenets of Islam as per the needs of the compulsive circumstances; however it is indubitable that Sir Sayyid’s life and writings have been subjected to contending interpretations. For both Muslims as well as non-Muslims, he is the repository of a difficult heritage. There are not few in the subcontinent for whom he remains the progenitor of Partition; for many more he nurtured the irrevocable Bidad (a reprehensible religious innovation) and thus sprinkled salt on the wounds of South Asian Muslims who had not yet recovered from the agony engendered by the dispossession of power and privilege. The extinction of the Muslim rule had caused great pain and anguish

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and with Sir Sayyid’s radical intervention challenging long cherished values and belief systems in the religious sphere, the pain was further accentuated. However, there were quite a few then and many more now who believed in the imperative of a multifaceted intervention of a figure like Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (SSAK from here onwards) into the socio political and religious debate of the day. But for him the ‘void’ created by the disappearance of the Muslim rule would not have been filled. Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1876–1938), another modernist in his own vein who earned no less a number of vilifying sobriquets from some parts of his own community than Sir Sayyid for venturing to chalk out a fresh pathway for the South Asian Muslims, was eloquent in his praise of the latter. Iqbal believed that ‘Khan was the first Muslim to react to the modern age’ (Troll, p.17). These words of admiration come from one who himself went out of his way braving formidable odds in an attempt to help his disoriented community in reclaiming its lost glories. Iqbal had understood what it involved to be a modernist at a time when a person was besieged by conventional certitudes and unbending conservatism. Therefore, if Iqbal is recognized as the ‘most daring intellectual modernist the Muslim world has produced’ (Rahman, p.234), one wonders, how much daring was demanded of an individual in the middle of the nineteenth century when Indians, particularly the Muslims with an immediate memory of their rule, had not yet reconciled themselves to the ways and manners of the colonial powers. The gradual consolidation of the British rule in India estranged Muslims. They withdrew into smaller towns and villages with the desire to remain with their unadulterated traditions. SSAK saw this gulf between the Qaum1 and British, and resolved to bring about a rapprochement. Each big enterprise begins with something big happening to the self from where the idea originates. How the rapprochement was brought about and what was its nature is a long story. However, it is certain that the Raj–Qaum equilibrium had its source in the alteration of Sir Sayyid’s outlook on life. The change in Sir Sayyid’s outlook is crucial. For that awakened him to the overarching urge to bridge the distance between the Britishers and Muslims. How far it is correct to term it as a change in SSAK is debatable. Was the idea of a natural closeness between science and Islam, an idea in which I would read the seed of change already present in his mind, though in some unrefined form? Or was it merely a pragmatic,

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convenient tie-up made possible by contemporary circumstances, as many of his adversaries of his tend to argue? My argument in this paper is that SSAK’s comfortable relationship with science and its technological productions (which, in effect, meant the British as well. Generally, the presence and continuation of science were identified with the presence and continuation of the occupier, the British. Hence the distance from the British meant the distance from science. SSAK succeeded in de-linking the occupation as distinct from the scientific advancements) was not the outcome of a temporary, makeshift arrangement forged by him as per the need of the time. While the need of the time was important, the relationship in the ultimate analysis was rooted in a renewed understanding of the constituting tenets of Islam. When exactly the predominant use of reason went dormant in the history of Islamic thought is unclear. The Mongol invasions serve as a crucial signifier in that the blow to the Islamic civilization was so powerful that the onset of the conservative strain became inevitable. One of its tangible damaging effects was the sense of loss nurtured for a long period of time. In this process the bold confidence in the intellectual domain characterized by the intrepid al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd took a backseat, and the mystical strains came to the fore. However, even before this, the dim beginning of a transition from the traditional path of reason is visible in the lifetime of Ibn Ghazzali (1058–1111). Towards the end of his life, he went out of his way to criticize both al-Farabi and Ibn Sina, and supported the epistemological use of mysticism for the divine gnosis. For him, only mystics can know God for they are above the world of metaphor. He believed, and this belief gained momentum with his advancing years, that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated with logic or rational proof. In his Al Mundiqh min al-dalal (The Deliverance from Error) he argued: [. . . ] neither Falsafah nor Kalam could satisfy somebody who was in danger of losing his faith. He himself had been brought to the brink of scepticism (safsafah) when he realized that it was absolutely impossible to prove God’s existence beyond reasonable doubt. The reality we call ‘God’ lay outside the realm of sense perception and logical thought, so science and metaphysics could neither prove nor disprove the wujud (existence) of Allah. For

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Ghazzali’s inscription of mysticism as a valid means of bringing about the closeness between God was further boosted with the coming of the advocates of shariah in the fourteenth century. The most popular among these Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah (d.1328) of Damascus wanted to extend shariah to all circumstances in which Muslims were likely to find themselves. Since the mysticism on which Ghazzali and other like-minded people had not succeeded in assuaging the anxieties of Muslims, shariah was sought to be updated. Ironically his contemporaries regarded him as a modernist, making the term, very importantly, a relative one, whose meaning is subject to the time in which the challenge is made to existing traditions. The zeal for shariah drove him to attack Falsafah, Kalam and even the moderate asherism. He tried to recover the original sources, the Quran and the Hadith, and strip them off the subsequent accretions. ‘I have examined’, he would argue ‘all the theological and philosophical methods and found them incapable of curing any ills or of quenching any thirst. For me the best method is that of the Quran’ (Majma’at alRasail, p.351). Not content with this reversion, his pupil al-Jawziyah added Sufism to the list of reprehensible innovations and condemned it for diverging from the literalist interpretations of Quran. We will soon know how SSAK in his plea for reforms and as a sign of the resurgence of the spirit of reason, would return to the Sacred Book, not for establishing the validity of the literalist exegesis but to inculcate a recognizance of its sediment meanings. Meanwhile the decisive blow to the pursuit of a rational approach came in the fifteenth century. The Sunni ulema of the madrasas, the schools of Islamic studies, decreed that ‘the gates of ijtihad (independent reasoning) had been closed’. Henceforth ‘Muslims should practice emulation (taqlid) of the great luminaries of the past, especially in the study of shariah, the Holy Law’ (Armstrong, p.258). Khan, however, rejected the blind adherence to emulation, and vigorously reposted the emphasis on the faculty of reasoning. There are distinctive markers – which would be elaborated soon – in his thought, but, very significantly, he was not the first one to set himself on the track of reasoning.

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The colonial encounter between the Islamic world and the First World produced, among other things, a group of intellectuals across centuries who were marked as modernists. This group included Abdul Wahab (1703–92), Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani also known as Sayyid Muhammad Ibn Safdar al-Husayn (1839–97), SSAK, Sayyid Qutb (1906–66), Hassan al Banna (1906–49) and Muhammad Iqbal. In the face of the irreversible march of scientific advancements to which they became witness due to the presence of the colonial powers in whose institutions they became manifest, they did not, unlike many of the contemporaries merely seek solace in the glories of their triumphant ancestors. Instead of indulging their nostalgia for which the temptation was strong, they returned to their religion for a closer reappraisal of what they thought was true and immutable. These thinkers diverged from the traditional highway of Islamic thought and introduced new milestones in directions unheard of in the past and in the face of an advancing western scientific thought. Though rationalistic thinking has its own tradition in Islam in the form of elaborate expositions, it was al-Farabi (870–950) who initiated the rationalistic philosophical interpretation in the intellectually salubrious environs of Andalus, Ibn-Sina (980–1037), Ibn-Bajjah (1106– 38), Ibn-Khaldun (1332–1406), Ibn al Arabi (1165–1240), al-Ghazzali (1058–1111), etc. They nurtured an alternative rational philosophical thinking on some of the basic propositions as revelation, philosophy and Kalam; yet, the colonial positioning of the powerful and the powerless made it possible to revise the importance of rationalism and empiricism. The thinkers saw these two entities behind the colonial advance. And thus called for a new rationalistic approach in theological thought. In some of these rationalistic re-interpretations, the re-evaluation and re-invention of the constituting tenets were combined with an appeal for a greater global brotherhood or a universal response on the part of the Muslims. (Thus Hasan al Banna is considered to be the founder of a pan-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood. Sayyid Qutb who integrated some concepts of Iqbal with his own, was imprisoned and executed for promoting the pan Islamic drive.) This is clear from the writings of Syed Qutb (Ma’alim fi-lTariq/Milestones) and Iqbal (Shikwa). Both of them lamented the decline of the Muslim world and saw the possibility of the rise of the latter in an ‘action filled’ life. Here Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan is different from most of these thinkers. Not that he did not challenge the sanctimonious clique of the clerics and throw his weight behind the endeavours at rationalistic reformulations. He, in fact, went a

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step ahead of the rest and began to question in innovative ways the very nature of the institution of prophethood. His methods were so innovative that Ikram believes he ‘assailed the pride of people who had lost everything except that’ (Ikram, p.36). The point here is that Khan de-linked the concern about Ummah from the concern about his Qaum. The empowerment of Qaum was foremost in his mind. His Qaum was the Indian Muslim community, not ‘the ummah of common belief’ (Lelyveld, p.311). That was precisely the reason he believed that the Turkish Khalifa’s authority did not extend to the Indian Muslim community. He argued that ‘we are residents of India and subjects of the British government’ (Malik, p.237). Furthermore India was the land he was involved with, and on one occasion he said that ‘the word Hindu could designate all those living in India, Muslims as well as Hindus’ (p.245). Though he held his religion in high esteem, yet, consistent with his progressive, revisionary inclination he did not exhort Arabs or Muslims in general to override their narrow sectarian interests in order to examine ‘the style and art of Englishmen’ (Khan, p.25). Instead he brought to the fore an eclectically formed composite Hindustan and believed that ‘Hindustanis had the potential to become the equal, if not the superior of England’ (Khan, 1885, Letter, p.127). Why he disconnected the Qaum from the ummah is an issue which merits detailed consideration. However, for the moment, that is beyond the scope of this paper. Was it due to his foreseeing the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the need thus for a return to the local problems of the Qaum rather than seeking a cohesive pan-Islamic ummah? Whatever be the case, his admiration for the British and cozying up to their people in the administration in India did not pass away unproblematized. Even today, as outlined in the beginning, his legacy remains disputed. The issue then – as it is in some circles now – was whether the keen fascination of SSAK for the marvellous scientific accomplishments was strategic and superficial. In other words was it merely a means to deliver goods for his Qaum to which he had thoroughly committed himself after the Moradabad incident? For, just like the Ulama and the Fuquha who discerned threats embedded in the scientific postures and thus seceded into the margins, why did he too not follow their footprints or trace the same for them? It is important to situate ourselves in that age and summon the ambience in order to grasp the import of this statement. From a distance of 200 years and given our intellectual nourishment in the rational climate, it is easy to side with SSAK. However, then the story was completely different.

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The layman’s resentment of Khan was understandable. It was hard for them to reconcile with someone who was praising and collaborating with institutions, which had recently extinguished their empire. The grievances of the scholarly Ulama were deeper. They perceived an innate antagonism between the monotheistic faiths at the conceptual level. That is precisely why one of the allegations hurled at him was that he was a ‘Kristen’. Now, the conspiracy theories were not woven only by his own community members. There were those who slammed him for creating a divide in the common resistance against the colonizers and that his unqualified admiration of the British mind in opposition to that of the Ulama was purely goal-oriented. They had a point to some extent in that there was a strong link between his fascination for the technological advances in the hands of British and his concern for the Qaum. Many an action and statement of his, reconfirming his commitment to the alleviation of the woes of Qaum, established the credentials of those who cast a doubt on his ‘pure’ fascination for the scientific marvels. If David Leylen is to be believed then the ultimate objective of his educational reforms was to produce ‘a class of persons Muhammadan in religion, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion and in intellect’ (Lelyveld, pp.115–6). Quite evidently, Macaulay had his followers and there were those who countenanced his designs. SSAK was not against imitation so long as it did not impede the efforts towards universalization of education and economic empowerment among Muslims. Therefore, Leylan’s astonishing statement does not strike us particularly forcefully. Secondly, post 1857, SSAK was a different person altogether. When the rebellion failed and the soil of Delhi in the eyes of Ghalib was ‘thirsting for Muslim blood’, he shifted his focus from the absorption in the glowing ancestral terrains to the present state of marginalization among the Muslims. The events of the fateful year shook him so much that he decided to leave Delhi for Egypt. But for the momentous Moradabad episode wherein he awakened to the crying desperation of his community, he would not only have changed his own life, but also simultaneously delayed the project of Muslim modernization. The year made him keenly conscious of the need to bring a badly hit community close to the rulers. ‘After 1857’, writes Jawaharlal Nehru in his autobiography ‘the heavy hand of the British fell more on the Muslims than the Hindus. They considered the Muslims more aggressive and militant, possessing memories of recent rule in India and therefore more dangerous’ (Nehru, p.207).

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The gap in this connection was ably filled by Khan who was later knighted in 1888. He wrote Asbab-e-Baghawate-i-Hind (Causes of the Revolt) and Loyal Mohammedans of India. In the former, he directed the power bearers to certain historical chapters in order to show how to avoid the Ruler. In the latter he took pains to illustrate that not all Muslims had backed the uprising against the British. There were some like his own maternal grandfather, Farid, who albeit serving in the last Mughal court yet believed in the invincibility of the British. In a way he tried to serve as the middleman, a reconciliator between the sulking Muslims and the overbearing, vindictive British. Apart from the examples which cast a shadow over that ‘pure’ fascination for scientific advancements is the scathing critique of Hafeez Malik. It hits at the backwardness theory proposed by SSAK and on the basis of which he launched the campaign for the emancipation of Muslims. The point is that far from being merely concerned with their progress and development, he had a larger project of separation in mind. (The difference though is that while others assail him for this, Malik hails him for precisely the same.) That is to say he played, through a carefully orchestrated discourse around reforms for his community, a central rather a pioneering role in shaping up a secessionist agenda. On the basis of a comprehensive study, Malik refutes the religious prejudice argument given by Khan. The aloofness of Muslims from modern education and disproportionate Hindu weightage in the Raj’s schools, colleges and offices, he claims, was not due to religious prejudice built into the academic system but due to ‘widespread poverty among the Muslims’ (Malik, p.170). That is why in places like Bombay, Awadh and Punjab, Muslims responded positively to modern education and not in Bengal, Orissa and parts of Sir Sayyid’s North-West Frontier Province where the response was discouraging. The concluding remark from Malik is as sharp as it is debatable. Seeing him as the father of Muslim separatism on the subcontinent, he concludes that the ‘Muslims’ repudiation of modern education was a myth that Sir Sayyid himself created and then assiduously disseminated’ (p.214). He points out that ‘from 1882 to 1898 Muslim graduates of (Sayyid Ahmed’s) MAO College totalled 122, while those of the government-run Allahabad University were 250’ (p.214). Not only from the above instances but also from SSAKs references to the British and the empire in general, one can deduce a rather contrived enchantment by science. He made no bones about the fact that the British were here to stay and that it was worthless

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to wage a war against them. ‘It is my heartfelt desire and prayer to God’, he said in 1859 ‘that our government and the people of India be so connected together to be of one accord’ (p.80). This confidence in the productive relationship between the new rulers and subjects was stirred in him long back, initially by Farid and then Ghalib. When the fading Mughal Empire was breathing its last and Khan was being taught Urdu and Persian (he was cautioned against going with the local boys and girls, for they might corrupt his language) and yet remained mesmerized by the past, he produced a revised version of the medieval Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Fazl. When it reached Ghalib, he wrote a review poem (Taqriz) in which he asked the writer to come out of the bygone ways and manners with their tempting antique flavour and read the white man and his style: You waste your time Put aside the Ain, and parley with me; Open thine eyes, and examine the Englishmen, Their style, their manner, their trade and their art. (quoted by Malik, p.58) Though he returned the poem and carried on with his own ways, we find that succeeding events forced him to seriously review his earlier convictions. The most important among these was the revolt of 1857. The Muslim community already lagging behind in terms of the acquisition of positive economic benefits bore the brunt of new measures undertaken by the British to curb the seditious tendencies. He resolved to alter the destiny of the subcontinental Muslims. His objective, henceforth, remained clear and categorical. Hitherto the Muslim mind had been glued to the glories of yore. The times had undergone a dramatic transformation. Reclining on the cushion of the secure past and drawing solace from the laurels earned earlier was nothing short of sending a tempting invitation to cultural schizophrenia. Muslims were caught on the one hand in the glittering web of the past and on the other confronted by the challenges of the present; a present that was increasingly shaking the crumbling foundations of a long standing structure. SSAK’s intervention at this stage was less confounding than it was revelatory. A close dissecting analysis of the present moment unfolded before him an ennobling of progress and prosperity in the future. An immediate result of his new-found zeal for the emancipation of his community was the creation of the Translation Society (1864) which later metamorphosed into the scientific society. The aim was clear. The ‘Leader of

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Advanced Islam in India’ knew very well about the retreat of Muslims into their cultural cocoons. Before these cocoons into which Muslims, generally speaking, had receded in the wake of the colonial march, could turn into ghettoes, he wanted them to be infused with the current knowledge emanating from the West. Through the Translation Project he hoped to ‘bring the knowledge and literature of the nations of the Western world within reach of the immense masses of the people of the Eastern world’. Immensely impressed by English society on his first visit to England in 1869, he sought the cause of England’s civilization. He discovered it in the fact that ‘all the arts and sciences are in the language of the country’. If Indians longed to better their condition they should have ‘the whole of the arts and sciences translated to their own language’. ‘This is the truth, this is the truth’, echoing the prophetic manner of persuading to follow a certain pursuit, ‘and he wished it “written in gigantic letters on the Himalayas”’ (as quoted in Troll, p.9). Before long, the Translation Society engaged vigorously in translating books from different disciplines such as medicine, astronomy, geography, etc. The society shifted its office to Aligarh where an inclusive atmosphere was produced for the enterprise. According to Graham, a close friend of Sir Sayyid, the clarion call of this project was to ‘educate, educate, educate’ (Khan, 1885, Speech, p.48). Soon it was discovered that translation, with due recognition accorded to its profits, was not only economically unviable in the long run but also carried quite a few other problems. That a new and fullfledged emphasis was put on the acquisition of Western knowledge through English was a tacit recognition of the intertwined character of language and culture. If the objective had been to bring about a closeness in the gap between the Muslims in particular and Indians in general along with modern scientific achievements and an effect of change in the inner attitude, then certainly linguistic complexities had to be taken into serious consideration. Very few were waiting for the new language introduced for the transmission of Western learning. It was not merely a colonizers’ language but was a regular reminder of the complete loss of power and prestige under the new regime. To use it as the new medium of academic discourse was for no less a number of people a shameful final surrender to the colonizer. For a significant number of people influenced by the clergy, ‘the study of English by a Mussalman came close to the embracing of Christianity’ (Muhammed, p.57). So if at one level the initial reluctance to acknowledge

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English as the correct medium betrayed a nostalgic nursing of the loss of Mughal empire, on the other hand such unwillingness seemed to gain weight because of a major break which Khan and his small group of associates were executing within the conventional religious moorings. This shocking break made some believe rather painfully that SSAK was pushing the community into an abyss of heresy and hence eternal condemnation. Through his speeches and other writings he informed them that miraj was not an actual ascension of Muhammad on the mythical horse buraq. He argued that the Quranic verse referring to this incident had been misinterpreted and that the journey was actually a dream sequence. Further, he remained convinced that he was as competent as the classical progenitors of the four schools of jurisprudence to interpret the Quran and the sunnah as per the exigencies of the present. Reasoning and rational exposition (ijtihad) of the Quranic verses and the prophetic traditions (hadith) was of greater overarching importance than unity (itihad) in the changed circumstances. Where should the qaum place herself? With reasoning, thus living with the wrenching pull away from cherished traditions or with the unity around some outdated principles, thus living with the fear of cultural ghettoization? Even today the query sounds formidable. One way or the other, the position when examined from a safe distance of over 150 years, seems simply unenviable. However, the same distance allows us to see Khan and his controversial disquisitions on religious matters in the right perspective. Unlike his contemporaries, who lived too close to him not to be influenced by various prejudices of the day, we should not find it impossible to put him in the league to which he rightfully belongs. Not only would it help to do justice to his towering figure but could also, significantly, help in shaping a productive opinion about him, given the not so major change in the socio-economic and political condition of Muslims till this date.2 The last point is scarcely insignificant. One of the most seemingly problematic, at least for his contemporaries, statements made by him was regarding the necessity of the compatibility between the Word of God and the Work of God. There ought not to be inconsistency between the two if the divine principle is to remain comprehensible. There cannot be any disjunction between the two. Once the discontinuity was detected, the dimension of Islam with a rational bias (ijtihad) needed to be invoked. In this comprehension of the basic Islamic religious, experience laid the root of most of his unpopular acts and writings. SSAK reasoned:

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Science and Spirituality As there are other faculties in man, so, in the same way, there is in him the habitus of revelation. One of the human faculties may be completely wanting in one man whereas it may exist in another. We further notice one and the same faculty is found in different men to different degrees. In one to a low degree, in another to a higher degree and in a third to a much higher degree. In exactly the same way the habitus of revelation in some people is wanting, some have little, some more and some very much. (Khan, 1978, p.290)

Through this habitus of revelation, Muhammad acquired an interior receptivity to the Word of God and obtained the divine gnosis. Before I proceed to investigate SSAK’s reasonable perception of discontinuity in his own times between the Word of God and the Work of God, it would be appropriate to dwell a little more on the habitus of revelation. One might argue as to why a particular individual becomes the possessor of the habitus of revelation. This is a concern which pulls one into the arguably contested zone of Free Will and Predestination, something which is not unfamiliar in the evolution of Islamic thought and has been passionately supported and refuted. However, Khan digging deeper into this issue believes: Prophet, in reality is a natural thing. It exists in the prophets by exigency of their nature, as do other human faculties [. . . ] Among the thousands of human habitus sometimes some special habitus is so strong in a certain man on account of this person’s constitution and nature that he is called the imam or prophet of this very kind of habitus. A blacksmith too can be the imam or prophet of his art. A poet too can be the imam or prophet of his art. A doctor too can be the imam or prophet of his medical art. Yet a person who heals spiritual illness and upon whom has been bestowed by God the habitus of teaching and fostering (human) moral in accordance with nature is called a prophet. (Ibid., p.281) The flaw in this argument is in the phrase ‘on account of this person’s constitution or nature’. Is this constitution or nature predestined or is it the special product of the nurturing of some mysterious inner posturing and reorientation? There is no clear answer to this pressing question, though, of course, the hint is towards predestination. The point here, however, is not regarding the origin of

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the constitution and nature, but the rationalization of the verses of the Quran he was trying to reintroduce.3 A substantial instinct towards over-sacralization and over-divinization of the elements of prophetic institution was sought to be repressed. He attempted, in a major way, though not in all parts, to contextualize and relocate the Word of God in its proper sphere. The endeavour was to excavate the long ignored tools in different parts of Islamic thinking and use them in a constructive manner in the late nineteenth century Indian condition. Intelligence and understanding had to be brought to the forefront, and qiyas (analogy), ijtihad (an independent inquiry to get at the shariah’s attitude on a particular matter; used as a short hand by Islamic reformers for intellectual and social reform and to break away from taqlid or a blind imitation of past legal rulings) were to be new instruments of the advancement of learning and promotion of knowledge. In a way he defrosted the inherited Islamic framework in order to bring the Word of God in consonance with the Work of God. Unless such a harmony is produced, the world of science with its marvellous achievements would remain a long distance away from what Hunter described as the ‘woeful condition of Muslims’, one in which scarcely a government office existed in Calcutta ‘in which a Muhammadan can hope for any post above the rank of porter, messenger, filler of inkpots and mender of pens’ (Khan, p.15). So we note that taking revelation as a situation- and context-conditioned epistemological ground and injecting rational interpretations, he eventually moved on to bringing about a kind of spiritual dimension to the relationship between Muslims and science. This was in recognition of the deep congruence of religion, politics, economics, etc. in a typical Muslim mind. Unless a plausible reintroduction of the basic codes is made in the light of new developments, it is hard to create a workable programme of action. The ‘will to action’ in which Iqbal read the pre-eminence of the Western nations ‘among the nations of the world’ (Iqbal, Asrar-i-khudi) cannot be shaped up without some fundamental alteration of psychology. Through his journal Tahzibul Akhlaq (based on the pattern of Tatler and Spectator), a platform for the expression of political views and pleas for widespread reforms, and other writings, he remained adamant on a rational approach to life and ridding the ‘original luminous’ faith of the ‘black stain of irrationalities read into it’ (Troll, p.314). Summing up SSAK’s intervention at a particular point of Indian history is about as difficult as defining his decisive and multifarious contribution for the emancipation of South Asian Muslims. It

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is never going to be an easy task, particularly when his interpreters stand at extremes. For many, now as then, he remains an anathema, dajjal (the anti-Christ or evil spirit who will appear before the end of the world to stir up anarchy and then will be killed by Jesus as Mehdi – Sir Sayyid’s opponents often use(d) this phrase to refer to him), a misleading guide and one who administered ‘sweet poison that is fatal. Therefore do not join him. You may join with the Hindus’ (Malik, Moslem Nationalism, p.196). For others, he is the springhead of the diabolic forces which eventually moulded the dawn of Partition. Yet for a large constituency, his ideas contained a nobility of vision, which ‘stirred the Muslim community’ helping them to come out of a major psychological predicament. But for his keen ‘realism which removed the cobwebs of sentimental loose thinking’, (Qureshi, p.286) the community would have sunk deeper into the socio-economic morass. Not only did he succeed in reviving the memory of such Faylasufs as ar-Razi (864–930), Ibn Sina (980–1037) and al-Farabi but charted a programme marked as much by insistent purpose as its enduring relevance in the times to come. He proved remarkably how it is not impossible to embrace reason – the core of modernity – and yet remain a devout Muslim wedded to the idea of existential surrender to God.

NOTES

1. Perhaps the most complex word to interpret in SSAKs vocabulary is Qaum. This word of Arabic origin (meaning ‘standing up’) was used by him very often. However, the meaning went on changing from time to time. It depended on where he was and who were the addressees, and at what time he was speaking or writing. Sometimes the word referred to Muslims only and at other times to all the communities suffering under the British rule. In fact a careful study of the usage of this word at different times can constitute an impressive index in understanding the changing mental landscape of Khan. His opinions on MuslimBritish, MuslimHindu or HinduMuslim relations did not, against what some of the contemporaries believe, remains stable. They remained till the end contingent on the situation in which he found himself. For example when he was talking about the Hindus and Muslims being the two eyes of a bride, then the Qaum obviously was composed of both Hindus and the Muslims. This is also the case when he elaborates on the life-changing Moradabad experience. After the revolt of 1857 when he saw that ‘India was no place for a self-respecting Muslim’ he found himself amidst a large number of Muslims who had come together to mourn their plight. Immediately he found a purpose for his life:

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Then and there it occurred to me that my personal flight to a place of safety was contrary to all feelings of compassion and manhood. No, I must share the troubles of my nation; and whatever the afflictions there might be, I must help to alleviate them [. . . ]. Then I decided not to leave the country. (Hali, Altaf Husain, Hayat-i-Javaid, p.117, as quoted in Malik, Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan and Muslim Modernisation, New York, Columbia University Press, 1980.) Similarly, when Abd al Haq, ‘the father of Urdu’ describes the passion of SSAK about his Qaum, the point of reference obviously is Muslim: Farhad did not love Shirin and Nal did not love Damayanti as much as Sayyid Ahmed loved his Qaum. Sleeping or waking, standing or sitting, this and this alone was his devotional exercise. He reached the mystical stage of annihilation in his Qaum. (Troll, Christian, Sayyid Ahmed Khan: Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology, New Delhi, Vikas, 1978, p.9.) Taking individual linguistic groups also under the Qaum definition, he opposed open exams for the ICS as unfair because one Qaum (the Bengali) is far ahead of the others in Western education. Can the Mohammedans compete with the Bengalis in higher English education? he asked. All the same, for one who thought Urdu to be ‘a memento of the Muslim rule in the country’, this word of Arabic origin defined him as it defined his changing relationship with the two communities. Towards the end of his life disillusioned with the growing animosity between the two communities, he began to distance himself from his countrymen in general: Now I am convinced that both these communities will not join wholeheartedly in anything [. . . ] On account of the so called ‘educated’ people, hostility between the two communities will increase immensely in the future. He who lives will see. (Speech in Ghazipur, 9 January 1864, as quoted in Graham, Life and Work. p.49.) Probably very few predictions have come true as this one. 2. In this connection it is important to recall the findings of the Prime Minister’s High Level Committee, set up in March 2005 (headed by Rajinder Sachar) and constituted to study the ‘social, economic and educational status of Muslims’. The Committee as has been widely circulated reported the near total absence of Muslims in various national and state government structures. For example, Muslims were fewer as teachers and absent as health workers, municipal employees, in banks, in security agencies such as police, army and BSF and even in Central Public Sector undertakings. They were shown as being not only outside social and economic planning but also as providers and receivers of services; their presence is extremely thin. This betrays a potentially debilitating hole in the diversity discourse currently in vogue. On one side, the prevalence of diversity in geography, people and religious denominations is prized and privileged; the same is not magnified in the face of its lack in the public space. In the institutions, universities, in panchayats or simply in the

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Science and Spirituality delivery of services, the notion of diversity is somehow happily elided. There seems to be some systematic take on this acute deprivation. Commenting on this situation, Abusaleh Shariff, chief economist at the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and also the Member Secretary of the Rajinder Sachar Committee, says ‘At the NCAER we have been researching human development for over the last 15 years. Our own in-depth studies as well as data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) surveys told us that the condition of Muslims was worst among all minorities, whether Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists (barring the neo-Buddhists) or Jains. Muslims are the only minority with human development indicators below the national average. If you consider socio-religious community (SRC) as the unit of measurement, as the Sachar report does, then Dalits and Muslims fall below the national average [. . . ] In our meetings, and in our surveys, it was brought home to us again and again that Muslim areas were being bypassed systematically by the government agencies. We have not used the word ‘prejudice’ in the report but this is prejudice’ (Abusaleh Shariff. Interview with Vidya Subramaniam, 6 January 2007, The Hindu p.11). No doubt Muslims carry the double burden of appeasement and disloyalty to the nation; however, for the condition they find themselves in, part of the blame has to be placed squarely on the community. A strange paranoia vis-` a-vis the majority community as well as the scientific institutions is a major cause of the social and economic backwardness. Interestingly, for Khan, being the recipients of knowledge was as important as owning, controlling and regulating, the institutions through which the knowledge was imparted. Aligarh Muslim University, described by Jinnah as the arsenal of the Muslims of India, which grew out of the initial Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College was an act in the same direction. SSAK believed: After a full consideration of the question in all its bearings, I have come to the conclusion that the native public cannot obtain suitable education unless the people take the entire management of their education into their own hands [. . . ] The Government should [. . . ] withdraw its interference. (As quoted in G F I Graham’s The Life and Work of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, London, 1885.)

The point to be noted is that Muslim education through an exclusive Muslim control is not a worthwhile proposition now. Though Abusaleh Shariff does not even hint at that, yet reclining on the belief that unless the control is vested in Muslim hands the education transmitted would be potentially corrupting, is a deeply anachronistic idea and one that needs to be discarded. The system is not to be seen as an other but has to be psychologically incorporated into the day-to-day life for it to be exploited to the maximum for the community’s benefit. 3. SSAK’s accent on metaphorical, metaphysical and allegorical levels of signification of the Quran echoed the preoccupation of the Mutazilites of the late eighth and ninth centuries. Alkindus (p.860) a prominent Mutazilite, considered to be the father of Islamic philosophy received considerable support and patronage from the caliph Mamun. He, like Averroes ‘the Commentator’ and Avicenna of the ‘proofs’ fame, emphasized the need for free speculative

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inquiry and rational thought. Underlining the urgent need to summon the rational principles of the Greeks before Islam remains restricted to the restrictive interpretations of the Traditionalists, they argued for a non-literalist exegesis of the Quran. For them Free Will against Predestination (Taqdir) was of the foremost importance. Without Free Will, God to them assumed the form of a monster bent upon curbing human freedom and imposing His own authoritarian disposition. It was a very conscious attempt to rationalize Islam. On the contrary, the Traditionalist bias against the ancient knowledge (ilm-i-kadim) was unabashed. The tussle between the two continued for some time leading to the persecution and the incrimination of these philosophers as heretics. Averroes, in fact and very ironically, was tried for charges of apostasying against Judaism. The point here is that SSAK while aligning himself with this non-literalist, non-conformist position also retained the links with the external ritualistic system of Islam and through that with the orthodox strain of Islam of his time. The latter became clear in the day-to-day functioning of the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College. There the secular, Western education was imparted without any prejudice to the religious education of Muslims.

WORKS CITED Armstrong, K, 1994, A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, New York, Ballantyne Books. Ikram, S M, n.d., Modern Muslim India and the Birth of Pakistan, Lahore, Institute of Islamic Culture. Iqbal, 1971, Foreword, Asrar-i-khudi, quoted in Iqbal: Poet-Philosopher of Pakistan, New York, Columbia University Press, p.72. Khan, S S A, 2000, quoted in Gandhi, Rajmohan, Understanding the Muslim Mind, New Delhi, Penguin Books India. —, 1885, Speech on 9 January 1864, quoted in Graham, G F I, The Life and Work of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, London, n.p. —, 1885, Letter of 15 October 1869, quoted in Graham, G F I, The Life and Work of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, London, n.p. —, 1978, Tafsir al-Quran, trans. ‘Sir Syed’s Credo’ by Troll, C W, The translated text appears in Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan – Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology, Delhi, Vikas, p.290, quoted by Jalal al-Haqq in ‘Epistemology of Prophethood’, 11 November 2006 [www.al-islam.org/altawhid/epistemology.htm#n6]. Lelyveld, D, 1978, Aligarh’s First Generation: Muslim Solidarity in British India, Princeton, n.p. Majma’at al-Rasail, 1970, quoted in Fakhry, Majid, A History of Islamic Philosophy, New York, Columbia University Press. Malik, H, 1980, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Muslim Modernization, Columbia, New York, n.p. Muhammed, S, 1969, Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Meerut, Meenakshi Prakashan. Nehru, P J, 1963, quoted in Moslem Nationalism in India and Pakistan, Washington DC, Public Affairs Press.

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Qureshi, I H, 1962, The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent, The Hague, Mouton and Co. Rahman, F, 1979, Islam, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Troll, C W, 1978, Sayyid Ahmed Khan: Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology, New Delhi, Vikas. Walker, B, 2004, Foundations of Islam: The Making of a World Faith, Rupa and Co.

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Chapter 4

Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose: Looking beyond the Idiom Susmita Chatterjee

It was when I came on this mute witness of life and saw an all-pervading beauty that binds together all things – it was then that for the first time I understood the message proclaimed on the banks of the Ganges thirty centuries ago – ‘they who behold the One, in all the changing manifoldness of the universe, unto them belongs eternal truth, unto none else, unto none else. Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose – the scientist who brought the ancient Indian wisdom of spiritualism into the domain of science. This was the predominant image of the Acharya in colonial India. In post-colonial India, J C Bose is remembered as the first of the Indian scientists who attempted to build up an Indian structure of science – as the propounder of ‘alternative sciences’ whose idiom sounds flat and out of date today – at best, a flawed genius. Bose is almost a ‘forgotten scientist’ who failed to create a tradition of his own. ‘Bose – the acharya’ is no more an idiom than his spiritual statements are believed to be. Those who hail Bose and those who denounce him are equally fascinated by the quote cited above. These were the concluding lines of Bose’s scientific lecture delivered at the Royal Society, London in 1900. Scriptural citation in the peroration of a scientific lecture is not a common practice. Hence, it is often held that Bose’s science was

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not science alone. It was a combination of science and metaphysics. While according to some, Bose transformed the Upanishadic idea of monism into a scientific idiom, others are of the opinion that he interpreted the results of his experiments in terms of Indian metaphysical tradition. Bose, the scientist is considered ‘quixotic’ at the best and ‘mystic’ at the worst. However, when I attempted to trace this passage in Bose’s own writings, it seemed that the relationship between Bose’s science and metaphysics was not so simplistic and unidimensional as it is usually believed to be. This paper is an attempt to look beyond the idiom of Acharya J C Bose and also the idioms he has evoked. The paper looks into the exact nature of Bose’s ‘scientific style’ and its relation with metaphysics. It also adumbrates Bose’s spiritual understanding and its bearing on his scientific life. The scientific career of Bose is believed to have passed through three phases. In the first phase, we have Bose the physicist, who carried out experiments on radio waves. In the second or interdisciplinary phase, Bose undertook research to draw parallels between the ‘responsive behaviour’ of living and the non-living to certain stimuli. Later, he further extended the parallel and suggested that not only sensitive plants like Mimosa but ordinary plant tissues also ‘strongly exhibited’ electrical response as animal tissues. In the last phase of his detour, Bose thus turned into a botanist. It seems worthwhile to explore the dynamics of the quest that drove Bose to the varied realms of scientific inquiry in different phases of his life. The primary focus of this paper, however, will be on the second phase of his research. It is this phase of his research that Bose himself considered to be the most significant in terms of reaching closer to scientific truth. Even modern critics of Bose believe that it is the second phase of his scientific career that ‘made and unmade’ him. It is usually held that Bose was an advocate of unity in the diversity of the living and the non-living. By extending the parallel of responsiveness to plants, he claimed a grand Oneness of the inanimate, of the plants and the animal world. This claim, which Dasgupta calls the ‘Boseian thesis’, forms the major plank of Bose’s science. And it is because of Bose’s drive for this grand narrative of underlying unity of the socalled living and the non-living world that he is tagged as a ‘mystic’, both by his contemporaries and his modern critics. The citation from the scripture in a scientific lecture has intensified the belief that Bose’s formulation of his scientific thesis was guided by metaphysics, particularly the Upanishadic idea of monism.

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Whatever be the status and acceptability of a ‘mystic’ in religious tradition, for a scientist, in Bose’s time and even today, ‘mystic’ is a dark label. The tag of mysticism indeed questions the very potentialities and predispositions of an individual as a ‘real’ scientist. What is Bose then? A scientist: a mystic: a flawed genius who tried to colour his scientific inclinations with mysticism: or a creative personality whose scientific mind was in dialogue with his spiritual understandings. Dasgupta rightly points out that Bose was not a mystic in the usual sense of the term. He was not ‘a person who seeks by contemplation and self surrender to obtain unity or identity with [. . . ] the deity or ultimate reality or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the understanding’ (Dasgupta, p.9). Bose’s apprehension of truth was by way of remarkable, delicate scientific instruments that he himself designed one after the other. And the Bosean thesis was premised on a series of experiments that Bose conducted with the help of his own instruments. It is therefore not Bose’s methodology to attain scientific ‘truth’ that is so much in question. Was it then as a theorist that Bose, the scientist, was ‘flawed’ ? Was he drawing inferences which were not substantiated enough by his experiments? Or was it the representation of his inferences that has made Bose a ‘marginal man’ ? In other words, is it the content of the Boseian thesis or is it the form that led to Bose’s marginalization? In order to answer these questions we first need to revisit the Bosean thesis and the foundation on which it is based. Dasgupta claims that Bose’s ‘crucial premise’ was to consider electrical response as the distinguishing criterion which separates the living from the non-living. Bose conducted experiments to demonstrate that inorganic matter gives a similar response to electrical stimuli as the living. He concluded that inorganic matter could therefore be said to manifest signs of life. Bose thus, proceeded to build his central thesis – the ‘Bosean thesis’ – there is no discontinuity between the living and the non-living. Dasgupta’s postulation of Bose’s argumentative pattern can be summarized as follows. • According to Bose’s interpretation of Waller’s view, electrical response is the ‘sufficient condition of life’ that distinguishes the living from the non-living. • Bose proved that inorganic matter responds to electrical stimuli.

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According to Dasgupta, the ‘Bosean thesis’ is flawed because it is based on a faulty assumption (pp.104–74). Bose was simply mistaken in considering the electrical response as the ‘sufficient condition’ of life. It was well known in Bose’s time that all living beings respond to stimuli. Response to stimuli was considered a necessary aspect of life; it did not signify life in itself. A D Waller, a physiologist contemporary to Bose considered electric response as the most ‘delicate means of approach’ to answer the ‘question of what life is’ (p.3). Waller considered response to electrical stimuli as a ‘necessary condition’ of life. Dasgupta argues that though Bose’s source was Waller, Bose treated response to electrical stimuli as a ‘sufficient condition’ of life. Bose’s published papers on the similarity of the responsive pattern of the so-called living and the non-living are: • ‘De la Generalite des phenomenes Moleculairesproduits par l’Electricite sur la matiere Inorganique et sur la matiere vivante. Travaux der Congress’ International de Physique, Paris, 1900. • ‘On the Similarity of Effect of Electrical Stimulus on Inorganic and Living substances’, Published in the Electrician, September, 1900. • ‘The Response of Inorganic Matter to Mechanical and Electrical Stimulus’. Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal Institution, 10 May 1901. In 1902, Bose also published a monograph entitled Response in the Living and the Non-living. The pivot of Bose’s papers and the monograph were a series of experiments that provided a comparative study of the curves of molecular reaction of inorganic and the living substances. Bose’s first paper on ‘response’ was read at the Paris International Congress. Here, he not only applied electrical stimuli but also thermal and mechanical stimuli to inorganic elements like potassium and compounds like the magnetic oxide of iron. A similar paper was read before the Physical Society of Bradford Association in September 1901. Here, Bose noticed that the physiologists invited to hear the paper, remained ‘perplexed’ and kept ‘silent’ for they were unfamiliar with the methodology of his experiments (Geddes, p.92). He then decided to apply the method of electromotive variation to which the physiologists were accustomed.

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Now this brings us to the question of whether Bose’s emphasis and selection of electrical response implied that he considered it to be the ‘necessary condition of life’ or the ‘sufficient condition of life’. Bose states in his paper, Response of Inorganic Matter to Mechanical and Electrical Stimulus: Thus electrical response is regarded as the criterion between the living and the non-living. Where it is, life is said to be; where it is not found, we are in presence of death, or else of that which has never lived; for in this respect (italics mine) there is a great gulf fixed between the organic living and the inorganic or non-living. (Bose, 1920, p.265) Bose’s choice of electrical response as the criterion of life, however, cannot be treated in isolation. It has to be situated in the context of his frame of arguments in the article. Bose begins his paper with the responsiveness of muscles when subjected to stimuli. He further says that the living body is affected by external stimuli, mechanical shock, electrical stimulus, and the stimuli of heat and light which evoke in it corresponding responses. Of these, the electric means of stimulation are the most convenient. He argues that though mechanical stimulation causes fewest complications, it is very limited in its application. For example, he says that a nerve does not undergo any visible change of form when excited. Its response cannot therefore be detected by the mechanical method. But, by the electrical method, the response of all the living tissues is detectable. The intensity of electrical response is also a measure of physiological activity. If any living tissue is killed, there is no electric response. So far, Bose was simply reiterating the well-established thesis that it is only the living beings which respond to stimuli. His original contribution, as he claimed, was to point out that the electrical method of gaining response had greater applicability. Dasgupta perhaps rightly points out that in this particular regard Bose was not original. His source was A D Waller. In his monograph, Response of the Living and Non-living, Bose quoted Waller’s article. It strikingly resembles Bose’s argument in the paper, ‘The Response of Inorganic Matter to Mechanical and Electrical Stimulus’; an isolated nerve when excited shows no visible sign of life through chemical or thermal change, but it does manifest an electrical response. Waller had concluded that ‘the most general and most delicate sign of life is then the electric response’ (quoted in Bose, 1902, p.13n). When Bose said

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that electric response is the criterion of life, he was not subverting Waller’s argument. Rather he was speaking in tune with Waller. If Bose reverted the logic of ‘sufficient condition of life’ as Dasgupta claims then the former would not have repeatedly referred to the living vis-`a-vis the non-living. If the non-living could respond, as Bose demonstrated and if Bose assumed that electric response is sufficient to entail life then the non-living would no longer remain as non-living. Bose’s repeated distinction between the living and nonliving in his papers and monograph is enough to prove that Bose did not treat the ability to respond as the ‘sufficient condition’ of life. Rather he was talking of the universality of electrical stimuli to measure response in the living as the title of the subsection of his article ‘Universal applicability of the test of electric response’ shows. His choice of electrical response as the criterion of life was not an attempt to establish the universality of electric response as a condition of life but to demonstrate the universal applicability of electrical stimulus to measure response in life. The cell, as the basic unit of the living organism, was already well-established by 1840 and cellular metabolism like deoxygenating capacity or reproduction came to be treated as the principal characteristics of life. It is most unlikely that Bose was unaware of such developments. It would have been too naive on Bose’s part to subvert the established discourse without being explicit. More importantly, Bose’s papers were read before the Paris International Congress and the Royal Society, in front of eminent physicists, botanists, physiologists and other scientists. Even if Bose preferred to remain silent, the botanists or physiologists would not have remained quiescent, but would have drawn attention to this major flaw. Strikingly, there was no such counter-argument against Bose’s paper. After Bose presented his paper at the Royal Society on 6 June 1901, Sir John Burdon Sanderson, ‘the grand old man’ of physiology, ‘advised’ Bose to change the title of his paper from ‘the electric response’ to ‘certain physical reactions’ for physicists were not supposed to be concerned with response. Sanderson’s objection thus had nothing to do with the logic of Bose’s argument to or any inherent flaw in it. It was about the crossing of boundaries of scientific disciplines. When Bose was called on to reply, he refused to alter a word of the paper unless he was shown on scientific grounds, wherein his experiments were faulty (Geddes, p.99). Sanderson’s other objection was against Bose’s claim that

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not only sensitive plants like Mimosa but ‘ordinary’ plant tissues also exhibit irritability. It was to counter such opposition that Bose’s transformation to a botanist was complete. Bose’s subsequent research was to demonstrate that ordinary plant tissues also respond to stimuli. A D Waller was also present at the Royal Institute lecture. Waller would perhaps have been the best authority of all times to decide how Bose had tampered with and manipulated the argument of the former. Waller on 6 June, however, simply followed Sanderson and substantially supported him. In November 1901, Waller published a paper on ‘Electrical Response of Vegetable Protoplasm to Mechanical Excitation’ in the Journal of Physiology. This led to the priority dispute between Bose and Waller over the question of the discovery of ‘Vegetable Electricity’ (Dasgupta, pp.152–62). Both Waller and Bose wrote letters claiming to have said the first word and these appeared in the Nature (September 1902 and October 1902). However, this was a much later episode. In his letter dated 31 August 1900, Bose wrote to Tagore that he met Waller who was quite surprised with Bose’s postulations (Bose, 1994, pp.28–30). On 2 November 1900, Bose informed Tagore that he had met Dr Waller again. Initially Waller was against Bose’s ideas. Later he said excitedly, ‘It appears that your [Bose’s] work will probably upset mine [Waller]. Truth is truth and I don’t care a d—, if I am proved to be in the wrong. So come and work; I will place my laboratory at your disposal. Teach me or let us work together’ (pp.40–43). Six months later, on 17 May 1901, Bose wrote that Dr Waller who had discovered the ‘final sign of life’ was ‘mortified’ (marmapirita) (pp.59–62). Yet, neither at the Royal Institute on 6 June nor in his letters did Waller point out that the base on which Bose built the superstructure of his point on the ‘response of the inorganic’ was inverted. What exactly did Bose mean by ‘sign of life’ ? Nowhere does he explain that. In his papers and in his monograph on response, he offers a series of experiments applying electrical as well as thermal, mechanical and chemical stimuli to inorganic chemicals or solid metals. His experiments demonstrate that the response curves are strikingly similar to the response obtained from the living body, like muscles. A comparative study of the curves is provided below from his papers ‘On the Similarity of Effect of Electrical Stimulus on Inorganic and Living Substances’ and ‘The Response of Inorganic Matter to Mechanical and Electrical stimulus’. Parallel effects are

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observed in the response of muscles and the inorganic receiver with the variation of temperature. At a low temperature the response is sluggish and the amplitude of response is reduced. With the rise of temperature the size of response increases and the period of recovery quickens.

If a muscle is stimulated by rapidly succeeding stimuli, the intermittent effects of single shock become fused and the muscle responds with an almost unbroken titanic curve. If the frequency is not sufficiently great there is an incomplete tetanus and the response curve is jagged.

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Bose showed that the very same thing occurs in metals. He subjected a tin wire to quickly succeeding vibrations. The curve rose to its maximum. Further stimulation added nothing to the effect and the deflection was held as long as the stimulation was sustained. With a lower frequency the curve became jagged. Bose did not theorize on the criterion of life. He simply demonstrated the experimental data and drew brief conclusions. That was what we may call his ‘scientific style’. In order to scrutinize Bose’s understanding of the criterion of life and his thesis, we therefore need to look into the exact content and the form of his papers. According to Dasgupta, Bose concluded in his Paris lecture, ‘There was “no break of continuity” between the “living and the nonliving” ’ (emphasis mine) (Dasgupta, p.109). Bose’s conclusion in his own words is: In all the phenomenon described above there is no break of continuity (emphasis mine). It is difficult to draw a line and say ‘here the physical phenomenon ends and the physiological begins’ or ‘that is a phenomenon of dead matter and this is a vital phenomenon peculiar to the living’: such lines of demarcation do not exist. I shall in the future occasion describe a different method namely that of electromotive variation for updating the response of inorganic matter and demonstrate the continuity of response in the living and the non-living. (emphasis mine) (Bose, 1920, p.258) Even in his paper on ‘Response of Inorganic Matter to Mechanical and Electrical Stimulus’ (pp.259–76) where Bose speaks of electrical stimuli in details, he does not consider electrical response as the ‘signmanual’ of life as claimed by Dasgupta. He states the popular idea and then questions it, ‘The phenomena of the inorganic are supposed to be dominated [emphasis mine] merely by physical forces, on the other side of the chasm, in the domain of the living, inscrutable vital phenomena of which electric response is the sign manual suddenly come into action’. He further asks, ‘Is it true that the inorganic are irresponsible? As regards response, is the chasm between the living and inorganic really impassable?’ (p.265, emphasis mine) Dasgupta suggests that Bose’s claim was that the ‘chasm’ between the animate and the inanimate is not ‘really impassable’ (p.128). Bose’s claim, however, was more specific; that there is no chasm in the responsive

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pattern of the living and the non-living. He concluded the article thus: I have shown you this evening autographic records of responses of the living and the non-living. How similar are the writings! [. . . ] We have seen response sinking under fatigue, becoming exalted under stimulants and being ‘killed’ by poisons in the non-living as in the living. Amongst such phenomena, how can we draw a line of demarcation and say, ‘here the physical process ends and there the physiological begins’ ? No such barriers exist. Do not the two sets of records tell us of some property of matter common and persistent? Do they not show us that the responsive processes, seen in life, have been foreshadowed in non-life? – that the physiological is after an expression of the physiochemical, and that there is no abrupt break but a continuity. (emphasis mine) (p.275) Bose was therefore not trying to demonstrate the continuity between the living and non-living. His project was more specific and he was not claiming anything grander than his experiments could demonstrate, namely, that there is a continuity of responsive pattern in the living and the non-living. The Boseian thesis was thus not that there is a continuity between the living and the nonliving. It was to show that there is no chasm between the living and the non-living in terms of response. Bose was not a vitalist as lay opinion often held him to be. Nor was he pan-vitalistic as Dasgupta claims. Bose’s statement that the responsive processes seen in life have been foreshadowed in non-life appeared to be enigmatic to Dasgupta as he says, ‘What is one to make of this enigmatic remark? There was, here, a whiff of what might be called pan-vitalism – the ascription of life to all matter; vitalism turned on its head, as it were’ (Dasgupta, p.136). A closer look reveals that the riddle lies not so much with Bose’s remark, but with his ‘scientific style’, to which we shall turn later. The key to the enigma is offered by Bose himself. ‘Do not the two sets of records tell us of some property of matter common and persistent?’ And here Bose was speaking of responsiveness as a common property of the living and the non-living. Nilratan Sircar appears to be more apt in describing the spirit of Bose’s formulation than Dasgupta’s explanation of pan-vitalism.

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When Bose enunciated his generalization, it was assumed that the behaviour of material bodies were governed by strictly deterministic mechanical laws [. . . ] on the other hand, the general consensus of opinion amongst biologists was that though the living substances have many properties in common with those of the non-living matter, the essential characteristic of livingness was due to the action of some kind of vital force. Bose had an intuitive feeling that both these classes of substances had a number of other properties in common, which fall neither under strictly mechanical category nor are they of vital origin, such as response to stimulus [. . . ] The monistic background of Indian thought, undoubtedly influenced Bose in formulating his hypothesis (Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Vol. 4, pp. 412–13). It is not only Bose’s work on the response of the living and the non-living that sought unity in diversity and therefore can be said to have been influenced by the idea of monism. Bose’s works in all the three phases dealt, in some way or the other, with the issue of unity and essential connectedness of diverse phenomena. But, it would be perhaps too reductive to say that monistic ideas guided his scientific life. Bose started his career as a scientist with extended investigations on the optical properties of electromagnetic waves. Maxwell had foreseen and Hertz had shown that electric waves were somewhat analogous to light. Bose invented certain apparatus that produced waves of more regular wavelength and he further demonstrated by his delicate instruments that the short electric waves have the same properties as a beam of light. They also exhibited reflection, refraction, and double refraction, polarization and rotation of the plane of polarization. The theme of his papers shows that he started from the position that waves of different nature and wavelength share certain properties in common. Between 1900 and 1902 along with the two papers on ‘Response’, Bose contributed nine more papers as a physicist. In these papers, Bose primarily focused on the effects of diverse radiation on different kinds of matter. And now, he was drawing analogies from the other end of the spectrum; from electric to photographic to show that they connect ‘many phenomena’ which at first sight ‘do not seem to have anything in common’. In 1902, Bose also worked on the electric response in ordinary plants under mechanical stimulus. His next paper on the mechanical

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and electrical response in plants was published after an interval of six years in 1908. For the rest of his life Bose continued to work on plant life. Though his experiments and investigations in this field covered a vast range, it centred around a common theme; that there is a fundamental continuity between plant and animal mechanisms. And, he often stated that much of the mechanism of animal life has been ‘foreshadowed’ in plants. Bose spoke of ‘heartbeat’ and ‘nervous excitation’ of plants and claimed that plants also sleep like animals. By ‘heartbeat’ he meant the rhythmic pulsations in plants, by ‘nervous excitation’ he meant the conduction of excitory impulse and by ‘sleep’ the state of lesser excitability in plants. As for the nerves, he says: ‘I have referred to the conducting tissue of plant as a nerve. The use of this term has, I think, been justified by the remarkable similarities of reaction between the conducting tissues of the plant and animal under varied conditions’ (Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Vol. 2, p.308). Bose thus explained ‘unity’ in plant and animal life not in the visibility of ‘form’ but in terms of ‘physiological mechanism’ and cellular activity. It would be wrong to suggest that Bose’s science was not born from science alone and was a fusion of science and non-science. It will also be reductionist to say that the scientific career of Bose was fraudulent in the sense that Bose’s metaphysical commitment and understanding of unity in diversity led to the formulation of his scientific thesis. Bose’s transformation from a physicist to a plant physiologist was more out of the compulsion of circumstances than by design. Some predisposition or the other always remains when a scientist chooses to work on a particular problem, explore it or find solutions. Bose’s metaphysics at best can be said to have contributed to the choice of the riddles that he attempted to solve. Bose’s interest in the response of the non-living arose while working with the receiver of electromagnetic waves. Everything else remaining the same, Bose noticed that the electric conductivity of the receiver gradually declined. If the receiver was given a period of rest, it started responding again. He also noticed that by means of chemicals he could either depress or enhance the activity of his receiver. He took a series of records of the responses yielded by his receiver to stimulation and was struck by the similarity of fatigue curves given by the muscles. Bose then further started working with the ‘responsive pattern’ of the inorganic matter. As he himself says, ‘I was unconsciously led into the border region of physics and physiology and was amazed to find boundary lines vanishing and

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points of contacts emerging between the realms of the living and the non-living’ (Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Vol. 4, p. 111). Bose might not have been altogether unconscious in extending the analogy of fatigue from the organic to the inorganic. But he was not at all unconscious of his responsibilities as a scientist to discard or restrain intuition unless it is grounded empirically. For nothing is so subversive to the progress of science as the various contending speculations without basic facts to support them. What really counts is the absolute certainty of demonstrated fact which is true for all time; and on this sure foundation alone can a great superstructure be raised [. . . ] the hardest struggle is to protect oneself from being self deceived and one has to guard against it and keep vigilant all the time. (p.50) Bose’s commitment to truth as a scientist cannot therefore be invalidated. Bose was not only a gifted instrument maker, in making postulations and in his scientific papers he restrained himself to what his experiments could prove, as we have already seen in his papers on the ‘Response’. Nor was it his one-track mind and dogged commitment to metaphysics, that was responsible for the formulation of his hypothesis, which was subsequently proven to be wrong. Bose’s ingenuity lies in identifying the insufficiency or flaws in the elucidation of certain phenomena. But Bose’s own explanations were grounded on the existing knowledge base. The correct explanation was to come from new discoveries or the opening of new fields of inquiry. None of the titles of Bose’s scientific papers bear a touch of metaphysics. Dasgupta’s much acclaimed critique offers a random list of Bose’s papers to prove how Bose attempted to make an alternative science based on metaphysics. Unfortunately, the list is so randomly chosen that the author fails to note that most of these are not scientific papers but articles written for the popular exposition of science and lectures delivered as guest of honour. Only two of the scientific papers of Bose can be said to have evocative titles. But the content of the papers clearly suggest that they have been often misconstrued. In his papers, ‘The Praying Palm of Faridpore’ and ‘The Weeping Mango Tree,’ Bose in fact offers scientific explanations for extraordinary phenomenon which came to be treated as supernatural. In the first paper, Bose argued that the ‘praying’ palm tree in front of a temple bent down in the evening and

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became erect by next morning, not to pray, but because of certain physiological changes caused by temperature variation (pp.252–6). In the second article, Bose described his experiments which revealed the mystery of the mango tree that ‘wept’ ‘due to the accumulation of laterally injected sap in the cavity and its periodic overflow from the vent’ (pp.257–9). Whether Bose’s scientific explanations were correct or not is a different issue. The papers very clearly suggest that the charges brought against Bose are absolutely contrary to what he actually demonstrated in these two papers. By the end of the nineteenth century, natural sciences had already emerged as a hegemonic discipline. It had developed a language of its own which was hegemonic in itself. The language of science was dry, wryly jargonized and the scientists were to speak the language of science. Just as any hegemonic system would treat deviation as an attempt of subversion so was it with the language of science. Bose was a man of letters as his popular articles and lectures show, but he avoided the language of literature in his scientific papers. Bose’s articles published in scientific journals abound in experimental data, exposition of methodology and formulation of theses in the dry, non-emotional language of science. Presenting scientific papers using metaphors or similes in the language of literature was not the norm any more. Any overt reference to metaphysics would have been altogether suicidal for the purpose of the scientific thesis that Bose was proposing. He therefore chose to play the game according to its rules. He usually maintained a strict disjuncture between philosophy and scientific thesis in his scientific papers. Bose’s reference to the Upanishadic ‘Oneness’ is often cited by his contemporaries, both Indian and Western. Yet, in the published version of the Royal Society Lecture, there is no mention of the scriptural revelation. Bose’s letters to Rabindranath Tagore offer the key to this enigma. In his letter dated 17 May 1901, Bose writes that Sir William Crooks urged that the two lines Bose had quoted from the scripture should also be cited in the published version of the paper. In his subsequent letter to Tagore, dated 22 May 1901, Bose wrote that his experiments on the response were so strange that people would not have accepted it unless they directly witnessed it. Yet, they were not convinced. A famous electrician told his friends, ‘This is something beyond science, this is Esoteric Buddhism’. Bose wrote that his scriptural quotation had fanned such superstition. He felt that it would take a long time to establish his thesis (Bose, 1994, pp.59–64). He knew that even his experiments appeared supernatural

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to many. So he decided not to create further confusions by explicit reference to any kind of metaphysical speculations. Bose chose to publish the ‘scriptural citation’, a quarter of a century later, in 1927 in his book Plant Autographs (pp.63–4) – a book not on the non-living, but on the response of plants at a time when he felt that his credentials as a scientist had been well established. It is also noteworthy that even in the lecture at the Royal Society, Bose did not evoke Upanishadic unity, but the ‘advances’ of science through the inclusion of what seemed ‘contradictory or capricious in a new and harmonious simplicity’ (Bose, 1920, p.276) in support of his claim of the continuity of the responsive pattern in the living and the non-living. Nineteenth century science had not yet turned away from its defined objective of enunciating generalized principles and universal laws. Bose’s reference to metaphysical Oneness came only after he had substantiated his claim with the defined objective of science. The question then naturally arises as to why the tag of mysticism was attached to the scientist in his lifetime and even today. In order to find answers to these questions, we have to turn to the contextual compulsions which defined the ‘scientific style’ of Bose. It is true that as a person of the colony he felt a need to build up his self-definition. The colonized had an urge to prove that science and tradition were not antagonistic. Bose’s scientific venture was a cause of celebration for Indians who believed that Bose had proved that modern science is in resonance with Indian metaphysics. At the same time his very colonial situation imposed a number of limitations on his strivings to build up a distinct identity as a scientist. Bose was not only a man of the colony; he was a man from the colonial East, the mystical East, and the metaphysical East. Bose thus started off his scientific career with a twofold burden; of the colony and of the east. He had to counter the strong belief, not to say prejudice of the Western people that Indians are good at metaphysics but simply incapable of dealing with the exact sciences. In many respects, Jagadish Chandra was the first Indian to make a mark in the domain of science. For instance, Bose was the first Indian to be appointed as a professor of science. Bose’s appointment as a Professor of Physics in Presidency College, Calcutta, could only be obtained after the intervention of the then Governor General Lord Ripon. There was a strong prejudice against the capacity of an Indian to teach science, let alone making any major contribution to the field. Neither a Cambridge nor a London degree could convince the

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British Authorities in Calcutta of Bose’s ability to deal with science. Sir Alfred Croft, the Director of Public Instruction for Bengal was quite explicit in this matter; ‘Indians did not possess the requisite temperament for the exact sciences’. This very man did acknowledge frankly Indian’s intellectual acuteness in metaphysics and languages. Bose’s appointment finally came through, ‘In spite of the strongest protest of [. . . ] Croft and Mr Tawney, Principal of the Presidency College’ (Dasgupta, p.43). That Indians were temperamentally unfit for the pursuit of exact sciences was not a personal belief of Croft. It was a general assumption held widely in the West. The pressure to prove that Indians were also capable of dealing with exact sciences increased all the more when Bose himself chose the profession of a scientist and sought to make original contributions. This perhaps defined Bose’s ‘scientific style’. He was to prove his thesis by an avalanche of experiments carried out by extremely delicate and sensitive instruments that he himself designed. However, the ‘spirit’ of the spiritualism of the East continued to haunt the spectre of Bose’s scientific life. The exact content of Bose’s scientific postulation notwithstanding, it was the ‘Eastern mind’ that made its appeal and also evoked reactions. As Dasgupta has rightly pointed out, Bose’s physics was deeply grounded in the established discourses of the discipline. In Bose’s papers on electromagnetic waves there was not the slightest hue of metaphysics. Even if the content of Bose’s science was scientific enough, the man himself was from the East and thus for the British, not just a scientist but presumably a ‘sanyasi scientist’. The London Spectator which was critical of Indian aspiration wrote after Bose’s discourses at the Royal Institution on electromagnetic waves: The people of the East have just the burning imagination which could extort a truth out of a mass of apparently disconnected facts; a habit of meditation without allowing the mind to dissipate itself, such as has belonged to the greatest mathematicians and engineers; and a power of persistence – it is something a little different from patience – such as hardly belongs to any European. We do not know Professor Bose; but we venture to say that if he caught with his scientific imagination a glimpse of a wonder-working ‘ray’ as yet unknown to man but always penetrating ether, and believed that experiment

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would reveal its properties and potentialities, he would go on experimenting ceaselessly through a long life, and, dying, hand on his task to some successor, be it the son or the disciple. Nothing would seem laborious to him in his enquiry, nothing insignificant, nothing painful, any more than it would seem to the true Sanyasi in the pursuit of his enquiry into the ultimate relation of his own spirit to that of the Divine. Just think what kind of addition to the means of investigation would be made by the arrival within that sphere of inquiry of a thousand men with the Sanyasi mind, the mind which utterly controls the body and can meditate and inquire endlessly while life remains, never for a moment losing sight of the object, never for the moment letting it be obscured by any terrestrial temptation (quoted in Geddes, p.66). Popular Science Sifting, Vol. LXIIX, No. 1774, published an article entitled: PLANTS THINK AND FEEL Recent discoveries by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, the distinguished plant psychologist of Calcutta We have already dealt with Bose’s paper, ‘The Praying Palm Tree’. The newspaper report altered the entire content of the paper. The Morning Post (9 November 1925) carried an article entitled: TREES’ REACTION TO SOUND The Glasgow Herald (12 November 1925) reported: [. . . ] It has been found that plants do react to sound, and that, for example, certain palm trees bend earthwards as if in obeisance when the temple bells in the vicinity begin to ring. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. . . On the invention of Bose’s plant phytograph, the Westminister Gazette (30 June 1926) wrote: HEART-BEATS OF PLANTS More emotional than Human beings. The plant SPOKE and wrote its life history with the leaves. The heading of the Daily News (26 May 1927) on Bose’s research was: THE PLANT PSYCHOLOGIST! (For details see Sen, 1983, pp.150–53)

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The scientist, first and foremost, was a man from the East. Hence, he was to be spiritual, even a ‘sanyasi’. The tone of admiration for the Eastern mind of the spectator was often substituted by a sense of mockery. A glimpse of newspaper reports of Bose’s scientific lectures will show how notions of the ‘Eastern mind’ colour Bose’s scientific propositions beyond recognition. After Bose’s lecture on the similarity of response of the living and the non-living, the Globe wrote that while torturing the metals the professor’s eyes were full of tears. ‘This does him credit; but it will be long before he induces the British householder to pet the fire-iron when it falls on the fender because the fall hurts the fire-iron.’ (Bose, 1994, p.63) George Pierce, reviewing Plant Autographs in the journal Science exclaimed, ‘all east Indians with whom we come into contact’ manifest ‘the strain of mysticism’ and when such a strain combines with ‘an unusual taste for biology’ as it had in Bose, the situation is ‘most peculiar’. In Plant Autographs from start to finish, ‘[. . . ] One sees the idealist, the mystic, dealing with fact too few in number, too incompletely understood.’ The criticism, however, was not directed simply against the problems in Bose’s scientific arguments. ‘Bose’s great flaw’ is that though ‘his curiosity is directed to biological phenomena’, he did not possess the ‘habits’ demanded of scientific study. ‘For Pierce, East and West, apparent in Bose, simply did not meet’ (Dasgupta, pp.259–60). This is however, not to suggest that the evaluation of Bose as a scientist was biased because he was a man of the colony or the East. This is to point out the compulsions which defined Bose’s scientific style and its inevitable failure. The pressure to prove that Indians are capable of handling natural science drove Bose towards experimental exactitude. His thesis had to be proved beyond doubt, or at least Bose thought so. Hence, there was no scope for theorization. As long as Bose remained within the secure domain of physics, his experiments eloquently spoke of themselves. The theory of wave forms and their characteristics were already well-established. Bose’s contribution was to feed the theory with further details by his experimental ingenuity. Bose’s scientific style of establishing his thesis with a series of experiments was to prove insufficient for his later works. His works on ‘Response’ and on plant life did not have any theoretical precedents, nor did Bose attempt to expound upon his conjectures by situating them in a broader theoretical framework. Bose’s work on ‘Response’ combined the methods and applications of different disciplines – physics, chemistry and biology – but surpassed

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them in its implication. Bose’s interdisciplinarity, however did not have a philosophy or even a structure of its own. Interdisciplinarity was not the norm of the day. The fin de siecle scientists were too keen on guarding the boundaries of their disciplines. No wonder, terms like ‘pinching’ or ‘response’ used for the so-called living beings when applied to the inorganic evoked reaction. Bose himself had felt the need to coin new terms to articulate his thesis. He ended up borrowing existing terms and terminologies. While he himself used them as analogies, ‘response of iron’, ‘fatigue of metals’, ‘pinching the wire’ or ‘heartbeat in plants’ it paved the way for easy reductionism. More importantly scientific investigations are not only about ‘what’ but also the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of natural phenomena. A major limitation of Bose’s interdisciplinarity as well as his study of plants is that he did not attempt to explain the causes of irritability in the inorganic or plants. An explanation of the responsive patterns of the nonliving in terms of molecular structure or the physiochemical reactions causing plant response would have perhaps made Bose’s propositions more acceptable and more understandable. In the absence of a clear exposition of theoretical formulation, his thesis remained openended. The conjectures he drew from his experiments could be surmised in a number of ways. And the process continues. Dasgupta perhaps neither makes a deliberate emendation of Bose’s papers nor does he willfully obdurate the thesis. It is the lack of explanations of the terms used by Bose in the papers and his adumbrate conclusions that explain the confusion. In his personal letters to Tagore and other articles and lectures, Bose was more sedate in claiming ‘All is one’. But even in these writings Bose did not claim the inorganic to be living. The credo of Bose’s article and letters was congruent with his statement in the papers on ‘Response’; the responsive processes seen in life have been ‘foreshadowed in non-life’. In one of his lectures he said, ‘Matter had thus within itself the promise and potency of life’ (Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Vol. 4, p.111) Bose was perhaps envisaging an evolutionary trajectory from matter to living cells, extending to higher forms of life. Even Tagore who is said to have been concerned only with the ‘symbolic import’ of Bose’s scientific thesis, did not miss the subtleties of Bose’s postulations. Tagore averred that the popular idea that Bose had proved ‘matter to be living’ is but a construct of the unscientific mind. He further explained that the scientist had only demonstrated the characteristic

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similarity (sadharmya) of responsive pattern of metals and the living. (Bose, 1994, p.199) Bose’s emphasis on the sameness of disparate phenomena was thus, not a penchant for ‘unity in diversity’. Bose was neither a cut-paste scientist nor was he drawing any superficial correlations between science and metaphysics. It will be therefore reductionist to say that Bose formulated the philosophical position into a scientific idiom and research ideology. Ashis Nandy further claims that Bose’s drive for ‘unity in diversity’ was also influenced by his deep-seated concern for coming to terms with the differentiated split image of the mother, the loving nurturing mother on the one hand and the aggressive, terrible mother on the other. ‘It was as if Bose had to choose his self-definition and intervene in the world while standing between “the sly, cruel, crushing ruthlessness and the meditative affection of mother nature”, two images that he knew to be ‘merely the projections of one’s own mind’ (p.64). For Nandy, Bose could embark upon his professional career as a scientist, only after he found a new motherliness in his wife, which helped him to rearrange his earlier identifications. ‘Here was a non-threatening apparently controllable mother, calm, supportive and doting and yet more convincing by virtue of being firm, independent and self-sufficient. The two faces of Bose’s inner mother at last showed signs of becoming one in this sensitive, humane, determined woman’ (p.41). How the firm calmness of Abala could help him reconcile with the aggressive face of the loving mother remains unexplained. The psychological conflict that Bose might have undergone in dealing with the relationship with his mother is beyond the scope of the paper. According to Nandy, however, Bose not only had to deal with the ambivalence towards his own mother, but also the traditional split image of the mother that dominated Bengali culture. ‘As we know, Mahashakti; the great power is also the ultimate maternal principle in Indian, particularly Bengali cosmology; it invokes mother–deities who combine traditionally the ultimate in benevolence with the ultimate in terror’ (p.29). Authors studying particular cults (Kinsley) or dealing with particular texts (Brown) emphasize that in Indian, particularly Bengali religious tradition, the terrible aspects of the goddess are not treated as aggressiveness per se. Both creation and destruction form integral parts of the goddess’s Leela. The goddess is not the benign loving mother who is adored by the devotee and the terrible aggressive mother on the other who is repudiated. In the perception of the devotee, the goddess assumes a terrible form because of her

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motherly love. This is well summed up by Swami Tattwananda, quoted by Brown. When devotion becomes intense [. . . ] the son feels through her grace that he is a child in the hands of the Divine Mother, that she is love personified [. . . ] The son then realizes that she assumes name and form [. . . ] Creation, preservation and dissolution are but the play of the Mother. Her toy is the thunderbolt charged with the power to shake the world. Though terror is the name given by some because of Her manifestation through famine, epidemic, floods, etc. love is essence of her being. The son ungrudgingly desires to serve her in all her Manifestations both mild and terrible. (p.215, italics mine) How far Bose proved himself to be the ‘ungrudging son’ would have depended on his level of spiritual attainment. The spiritual sojourn is an odyssey in which the multiple layers of the cosmos are gradually revealed as one traverses along. We have no way to trace Bose’s spiritual experiences. We can nevertheless look into Bose’s perception of motherhood and see how far such perception was integrated with Bose’s scientific and spiritual life. The writings of the mature Bose clearly show that his attachment to the mother was in no way simply guided by ‘loves and hates of his infancy’. Neither did he consider himself a victim of a less than benevolent, maternal authority, nor was he trying to find ways to resist maternal neglect and violence. For Bose – at least the mature Bose – motherly love could be seen not only in her benevolent form, but also in her terrible self. The mother image was not split into the loving mother on the one hand and the aggressive mother on the other. Bose perceived the loving mother, both in her nurture and annihilation. As he says, ‘There are two forms of motherly affection; in both her forms she protects those who seek refuge in her’ (Bose, 1958, pp.140–1). The mother as an annihilator only ‘appears to be cruel’. The cruelty of the mother is ‘apparent’. Her love is ‘real’. Here, Bose is not speaking of an arbitrary projection of motherhood. For Bose, motherhood is not an objective entity whose projection can be manipulated according to one’s own will. The perception of the mother is a subjective experience and the true nature of motherhood is revealed only when the son or the devotee is himself/herself prepared. As Bose says in ‘Yuktakar’, the first article of Abyakta:

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As long as our mind is preoccupied with worldly things, there remains a veil, which hides the real essence of being. It is when one attains the state of peacefulness within, that the veil is removed. Bose exemplifies this with a striking double play of motherly love. He refers to a fresco of a mother seeking blessings for her child from the meditative statue of Lord Buddha. A foreigner standing beside Bose commented upon the dispassionate look on the Lord’s face despite the mother’s eagerness to seek his blessings. The bystander was baffled at how the naive mother could see compassion in the stone face of Buddha. But Bose says, ‘What is ordinarily imperceptible becomes perceptible to the meditative mother whose mind is steeped in affection for her child. Even in the stone face of Buddha she can see the overwhelming grace of the mother of the universe’ (pp.3–4). The emphasis of Bose is thus, not only on the motherly affection of the deity but also that of the ‘mother’ devotee who attains meditative tranquillity out of love for her own child. Bose shows how both the deity and the devotee appreciate each other’s motherly affection. According to Bose, it is only when the senses are drawn inward by achieving isolation from the wiles of worldly life that the real is revealed. It is divine providence that the mind is driven by unbridled desire, incapable of undertaking an inward pilgrimage. The one who creates turbulence is also the one who tranquillizes. The devotion of the devotee does not go unrequited and it is through divine grace that the devotee is able to see things as they really are. The interesting nodal point of Bose’s anecdote is that the mother attains the grace of the mother not because of the former’s surrender to the divinity, but, because the mother’s love for her child tranquillizes her mind to the point of rest. Bose concludes the article thus: At times, a sense of incompleteness pervades to distort the beauty and liveliness of the phenomenal world. A mismatch of brightness and darkness, joy and sorrow in a canvas provokes a sense of unease; but without a combination of light and darkness there can be no quality

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work of art. If there is only brightness or darkness then the painting remains unclear. Like the painting I have just referred to, the picture of life at times appears to be devoid of beauty. But the child or the raised hand of the woman alters the entire scene. Light and shadow, joy and inevitable sorrow, then find their respective slots. From the raised praying hands of the woman come streaks of light dispelling darkness and enlightening the entire scene. (pp.4–5) The first article of Bose’s first publication thus provides two significant windows to Bose’s philosophical understanding of Being. The adult Bose did not have the need to use his science as a tool to bridge the two split images of the mother – the loving and the aggressive. Before Bose took the vow of scientific research, he had come to realize that the image of the aggressive mother is not the ‘real’ image. What we perceive is not the object itself but its image reflected by the mind. Just as an image is distorted if the surface of the reflector is undulated, so it is with our perception. If the mind is preoccupied with worldly desires, it fails to reflect the true image. The image formed in such a state of mind is the apparent image. One is able to see beyond or through the ‘apparent’ only when one has polished the surface of the reflector, when the mind has been brought to rest. Bose’s philosophical understanding of perception can be questioned. Whether Bose’s mind ever reached the state of rest can also be questioned. But, that in Bose’s perception the image of the aggressive mother is an improper or apparent image comes out quite clearly in his writings. The apparent image has to be ‘seen through,’ not to be ‘bridged’ with the real. According to Bose, life and death, joy and sorrow are qualifying in themselves and complementary to each other. When one sees through the apparent, qualitative dichotomy is transcended to a sense of completeness. Bose was a Brahmo and he usually refers to the Ultimate One as Devata. The mother also prevails widely in his writings. He often refers to motherly love and affection in abstraction and invokes the country as motherland or Deshamatrika. At times the distinction between the two seems to blur. In his letter to Subhas Chandra Bose in 1937, Bose wrote, ‘Can a son imagine a distinction between motherland and mother? The sound of names of mother and motherland has emerged spontaneously from [the] heart and spread all over India. This is because that sound has touched the inner

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heart of India’ (Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, pp.237–8). Bose also often drew analogies of mothering between the mother and the motherland. Nandy, obsessed with the aggressiveness of the mother, as he is, however misses the mothering aspect in both. A peep into Nandy’s version of Bose’s story and Bose’s own words will be helpful to unfold the narrative of ‘projection’ and ‘perception’ of motherhood. Nandy says: As Bose tells the story, she was widowed at an early age and came to stay with her young son. Though an affectionate person, she was a stubborn fighter against the difficult times she was facing. One day her young son, terrorized by his teacher, came to her for protection. According to Bose, ‘the affectionate mother immediately turned aggressive, tied the hands and feet of the son, and handed him over to his teacher’. These imageries of a nurturing but violent mother, of a child seeking a mother’s protection that is denied, transient male authorities who terrorize, and a father who cannot provide protection because he is dead or absent were to recur in Bose’s later life. (Nandy, pp.29–30) ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child’ is perhaps an outdated pedagogic dictum. However, it is naive to argue that when a mother rebukes or beats a child, she is belligerent. At times, the mother refuses protection to the child temporarily to make him/her realize that she disapproves of the former’s action or to show the child the right path. Does Bose realize this or does he consider the mother ‘aggressive’ when she refuses protection? Bose begins his article ‘Bodhan’ thus: More than a century back the great grandmother of our family being widowed in her early youth took shelter in her brother’s house. She had to struggle against adverse circumstances to bring up her only son. One day her young son, threatened by his teacher sought shelter from her mother. The mother had devoted herself entirely for the welfare of her child. But, the affectionate mother immediately became fiery, (Tejaswani), tied up his hands and feet and offered him to the teacher. It seems that our motherland resembles my fiery progenitor. She expressed her deep sense of affection by compelling her children to choose the path of valour. She did not allow her

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children to rest in her secure lap; but threw them in the fiery workshop of life and said, ‘Come back to me when you acquire fame, valour and manliness (pourush) by providing yourself in the strife-ridden field of action’. (Bose, 1958, p.121) Words in each language are unique in meaning and significance and literal translation is perhaps hardly possible. But to accept Tejaswini as aggressive, one needs to stretch one’s imagination quite far unless it is assumed that a spirited woman is bound to be aggressive. The mother for Bose is not ‘nurturing but violent’. She is the nurturing and affectionate one, even when she is apparently violent. In the passage quoted above, Bose nowhere says that the mother even appears to be violent. He does not consider the mother reprehensible. Here, Bose does not seem to complain against the mother who refuses protection to the child. He rather admires and eulogizes the mother who does not cosset her children, does not indulge them in the succour of her lap but infuses valiance in them to face the challenges of life. Bose was perhaps echoing the expectations from the mother of his own times. Rabindranath Tagore who was also a friend of Bose, lamented in one of his famous poems, Bangamata, that the sons of the Bengali mother are too pampered to undertake any heroic venture. The Bengali mother had so ensconced the children in her lap that they hardly strove to achieve fulfilment in their being. The sons of the Bengali mother were merely Bengalis not complete human beings. ‘Sat koti santane re, hey mugdha janani/ rekhecho bangali kare, manush karani’ (Tagore, ‘Bangamata’ in Sanchaita). The burning motto of the time was to uplift the condition of the country, politically, socially economically and otherwise. The colonized mind wanted to build up a definition of its own, to counterpoise the definition imposed on it by the colonizer. Bose believed that, such an identity was not to be and could not be built in idle reiteration of the glorious past. It had to be achieved by heroic striving (Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer Vol. 4, p.62). The need, therefore, was of daring and enterprising men who would not hesitate to struggle and suffer. Such firebrand sons could be produced only by a fiery mother: the Tejaswini. The term Tejaswi or ‘father’ is not evocative. The ‘fiery male progenitor’ is not an idiom but a phrase. The dazzling brilliance of the father does not threaten the son. However, the mother

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can provide succour only when she is firm, but calm. The female progenitor is not fiery. She is fierce. Her aura does not inspire awe, but fear. Such fear can be allayed only by splitting her into two, by tearing apart her self into two halves and then fantasizing of a bridge between the two. Yet, the questions remain – whose fear needs to be allayed? Who makes the split? Who fantasizes the bridge? According to Nandy, the most famous exposition of the bride motif is seen in Bose’s description of his quest to find the origin of Ganga. The essay highly personal and elegantly poetic, describes his search for the origin of Bhagirathi or Ganges in a sacred fountain in the Himalaya, the shaky rope bridge over it near its source, [italics mine] its turbulent journey towards the plains, and its final transformation into the peaceful, creative, divine motherliness of the Ganges of the plains. He rediscovers the critical origin in the snaky, matted plaits (jata) of Mahadev or Shiva – the god of destruction, the mythic consort of the mother of the Universe, and the traditional personification of phallic creativity. In the hair of the world renouncing, austere god, Bose found the source of all life, all movement, all progress. He further continues: This fantasy of birth, beginning, and creativity, sometimes invented and sometimes discovered, had two axes; a male principle or its phallic representation as the ultimate passive, steady source of creation, creative by virtue of being able to contain its destructiveness through austerities and an active, temperamental, ever-changing, feminine principle (prakriti) split into two. The split was between the tempestuous, abrasively mobile, motive force – framed in this instance by identification with what one can only describe as a repudiated mother – and, beyond it, a secure, certain, oceanic peace, representing an ideal self and a symbiosis with the other mother within it. (Nandy, pp.63–4) In Bose’s article, ‘Bhagirathir Utsa Sandhane’ (‘In Search of the Origin of Bhagirathi’), we fail to find the split image of the mother. Bose only refers to the imagery of Mother Earth who provides

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shelter and nourishment. It is the male god who is associated with both creation and destruction. The snow clad, glitteringly white mountain peak of Nanda Devi appears to Bose as a gracious woman casting a sympathetic affectionate glance at him. He identifies her as the mother earth. Close to Mt Nanda Devi stood Mt Trishul, the ‘ayudh’ of Mahadeva. To Bose the trishul symbolizes both creation and destruction (Bose, 1958, p.76). Later on in the article, Bose again refers to the protector and the annihilator. As he says, ‘Shiva and Rudra are thy names’ (p.79). The phallic god is not said to be creative because he can contain his destructiveness. He is the creator as well as the destroyer. Shiva and Rudra are also used metaphorically in the text to explain the cyclic process of existence. For Bose, the passage from life to death is not one of linear progression. In the serenity of the mountains, Bose realizes that there is a continuous cyclic flow of life and death. Annihilation is thus, not disparaging in itself. There is also no need to forcefully bridge creativity and destructivity, for; in Bose’s world view these are not two split ends. Creation and destruction, life and death complement each other to come round one full circle. Perhaps this explains why in Bose’s article we are unable to find the ‘shaky rope bridge’ that Nandy mentions. Bose elsewhere also says that there is neither any end nor any beginning. Nandy in order to prove Bose’s fear of death refers to Rabindranath’s concern for his friend’s (Jagadish Chandra’s) overwhelming obsession with death. From the letter of Bose to Amiya Chakrabarty dated 8 November 1916, we get a different picture. Bose writes; The unknown evokes fear – that is why we consider death as falsehood. To me the entire world is living. Moreover, the inevitable has to be accepted either with pourush or with trembling heart. If mother’s love is a gift of the divine (Vidhata), then divine grace and sympathy is deeper than human affection. A tired child can sleep fearlessly in the mother’s lap. Why then fear the sleep of death? Life is like a great gamble. Can we not throw it like a dice for a cause? We shall either win or lose. You want to see life as joyous. But, there is a grand music even in the commotion of storm and volcanic eruption. We are resting here in idyllic peace. Not far off, lakhs

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The key to Bose’s life, his science, metaphysical understandings and their mutual relationship is not to be found in Bose’s obsession with death, and the need to assuage his guilt of repudiating the mother, but in his quest for ‘completeness’. Bose’s spiritual understandings and science are not only interrelated at the surface level of appropriating the Upanishadic monism as a scientific idiom. Bose actualizes his spiritual quest through his commitment to science. As Bose says: What is it that India is to win and maintain? India is drawn into the vortex of international competition. She has to become efficient in every way – through spread of education, through performance of civic duties and responsibilities, through activities both industrial and commercial. Neglect of these essentials of national duty will imperil her very existence; and sufficient stimulus for these will be found in success and satisfaction of personal ambition. But these alone do not ensure the life of a nation [. . . ] And in this country through millenniums, there always have been some who, beyond the immediate and absorbing prize of the hour, sought for the realization of the highest ideal of life – not through passive renunciation but through active struggle. (Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Vol. 4, p.62) Bose himself chose to make a mark in the field of science and dedicated his strivings for the purpose, as an offering to the motherland. He often referred to the call of the mother ‘I hear, from time to time, the call from the mother. I as her servant must start by collecting the dust of her feet as a benediction. You and all my friends must bless me, so that this servant can serve the mother with all his heart and soul; and his strength for work can increase’ (Bose, 1994, p.26). Elsewhere he says, ‘For one who would devote himself to the search of truth, must realize that for him there awaits no easy life, but, one of unending struggle. It is for him to cast his life as an offering, regarding gain and loss, success and failure as one. It is not

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for me to look for results but to pursue the search after truth’ (Sen and Chakrabrty, p.217). Epistemologically, success and failure are at par. Yet, success is important and necessary. Success – not to be flaunted but to be renounced. Bose writes: The weakling who has refused the conflict, having acquired nothing, has nothing to renounce. He, alone who has striven and won, can enrich the world by giving away the fruits of his victorious experience. In India such examples of constant realization of ideals through work have resulted in the formation of a continuous living tradition. And by her latent power of rejuvenescence she has readjusted herself through infinite transformations The ideal of giving, of enriching, in fine of self-renunciation in response to the highest call of humanity is the other and the complementary ideal. (Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Vol. 4, p.63) Whether Bose could actually achieve that state where he could renounce the fruits of his sucess is a matter of speculation. But stepping out of the conventional discipline of physics to an unexplored domain of science, when interdisciplinarity was almost unknown, perhaps speaks in itself. Bose was already an acclaimed physicist and his contributions to physics are still considered to be of great importance. He could have chosen to pursue his research in physics but he did dare to venture out. And in doing so his reputation, even proficiency as a scientist was at stake. For the rest of his life he had to constantly struggle in an attempt to provide ‘a long series of arguments’ in support of his thesis. To use Bose’s favourite metaphor, one can perceive ‘completeness’ when one’s ‘mind is at rest’. Mind attains the state of rest only sporadically. When it achieves a permanent state of rest, Moksa or renunciation is achieved. Bose’s quest is not one of renunciation for the sake of it. His quest is to achieve the sense of completeness within to perceive the completeness of Being – to perceive success and failure, life and death as necessary ingredients of one complete whole. The Indian tradition of non-dualist thought, seeking unity in diversity, is not a theory of knowledge in the Western sense of the term. It is a knowledge that tends to Being. A popular exposition of the difference between usual knowledge and the knowledge of Vedanta thus states that if one studies a table, he or she does not become a table.

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But when one studies oneself in depth, he or she is That and he or she becomes That. One rises, grows and develops into that Being. Bose had this quest of being which brings a sense of completeness. This explains his lifelong fascination with the theme of a river originating in high altitude, its journey in the plains and its subsequent merger in a grander Oneness. Whether he could achieve the ‘completeness’ that he perceived in the flow of the Ganga or it remained as the rudimentary form of the fountain, which he structured at the Bose Institute, the adult Bose’s mind was not fixated on the bridge he had built in his childhood. ‘Unity in diversity’ was not merely an idiom. For Bose, Upanishadic Oneness was not external knowledge; it was to be realized within. Yet, realization within was not a sufficient condition of scientific inquiry for Bose’s world view. He believed that both the poet and the scientist tried to touch the formless, the unseen, the unheard, but the methodology of the scientist was different. The poet expressed the ineffable through metaphors. S/he did not have to prove his/her ‘truth’ claims. The scientist, on the contrary, had to make observations and experimentations to verify his/her ‘truth’ claims. And unless and until the inner voice was corroborated by external proof, the scientist was not liable to accept either (Bose, 1958, p.87). Truth claims, whether metaphysical or not, had to be verified and being true to the scientific spirit, Bose did not make any claim of grand Oneness that he could not prove. Bose the scientist was not simply ‘formulating’ an Indian philosophical position into a scientific idiom. Nor was the Acharya trying to infuse his scientific researches with mysticism. The holistic approach of Bose’s science was not merely an attempt of the colonized to form a ‘hybrid’ of Indian science. The context of Bose’s science and the content of his spiritual quest interacted, but it did not result in selective amalgamation of science and metaphysics. The ingenuity of Bose lies not in the incorporation of elements of metaphysics into his scientific discourse. The creativity of Bose lies in appropriating the spirit of two different cultures. As a scientist, Bose was committed to explain phenomena beyond the senses. He did not make any cavalier identification between his scientific findings and metaphysical principles. The spiritual in Bose pursued his quest for truth through his commitment to science. Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, the scientist of colonial India, was a man who straddled two cultures simultaneously, the man whose scientific inquiry and spiritual inquisitiveness were in perpetual conversation, but one was never reduced to the other.

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WORKS CITED Bose, J C, 1902, Response of the Living and the Non-living, London, Green and Co. —, 1920, Collected Physical Papers, London, Green and Co. —, 1927, Plant Autographs and Their Revelations, New York, Macmillan Company. —, 1958, Abyakta, 1921, Calcutta, Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose Birth Centenary Celebration Committee. —, 1996, (Assisted by Satyendra Chandra Guha) ‘The Relation between the Angle of Inclination and the Geo-electric Excitation’, Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Bhattacharya, P, ed, Calcutta, The Bose Research Institute, Vol. 2. —, 1997, ‘The Praying Palm of Faridpore’, Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Bhattacharya, P, ed, Vol. 4. —, 1997, ‘The Weeping Mango Tree’, Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Bhattacharya, P, ed, Vol. 4. —, 1997, Convocation Address at the University of Punjab on 19 December 1924, Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Bhattacharya, P, ed, Vol. 4. —, 1997, ‘From the Voiced to the Unvoiced’, Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Bhattacharya, P, ed, Vol. 4. —, 1997, ‘The Voice of Life’, Inaugural Address dedicating the Bose Institute to the nation on 30 November 1917, Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Bhattacharya, P, ed, Vol. 4. —, 1994, Patrabali, Sen, D, ed, Calcutta, The Bose Research Institute. Bhattacharya, G, Roy, M, 1963, Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose, Calcutta, The Bose Research Institue. Mackenzie, B C, 1980, The Triumph of the Goddess: The Canonical Models and Theological Visions of the Devi Bhagavat Purana, Albany, NY, SUNY Press. Dasgupta, S, 1999, Jagdish Chandra Bose and Indian Response to Western Science, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. Geddes, P, 1920, The Life and Works of Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, London, Longman. Kinsley, D, 1976, The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krisna, Dark Visions of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology, Delhi, Vikas. Nandy, A, 1995, Alternative Sciences: Creativity and Authenticity in Two Indian Scientists, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. Sen, D, 1983, ‘Akranta Jagadishcandra’, Nana Chokhe Rishi-vijnani Jagadishchandra, Bhattacharya, Devabrata, Chakravarty, Ajay, eds, Calcutta, Puthipatra. Sen, D, and Chakraborty, A K, ed, 1986, J C Bose Speaks, Calcutta, Puthipatra. Sircar, N, 1997, Lecture delivered at the Bose Institute, Acharya J C Bose: Scientist and Dreamer, Bhattacharya, P, ed, Vol. 4. Tagore, R, ‘Bangamata’, Sanchaita, Santiniketan, Visvabharati Publication, 1356 BS, p.282. —, 1957, Collected Letters, Calcutta, Visvabharati Publication, Vol. 6. Waller, A D, 1903, Eight Lectures on the Signs of Life from their Electrical Aspects, London, Murray.

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Chapter 5

Sri Aurobindo and Krishnachandra Bhattacharya on Science and Spirituality1 Raghuram Raju

The antagonistic relationship between modern science, understood as materialism, and religion, or spiritualism, existing in the West during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, provided a challenging background to the contemporary Indian thinkers. Some of them passively accepted this dichotomy; some were ignorant of it; some either accepted materialism or spiritualism; and some thinkers tried to negotiate this antagonism between matter and spirit. A long braid of thinkers beginning from Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya to Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and S Radhakrishnan attempted to make some significant changes though working within the Oriental categories rightly explicated by Edward Said. Inserting into this dichotomy their political programme of making a case for Indian independence, they maintained that materialism (available in plenty in the West) is important but it alone cannot suffice. Spirit (the spiritualism that is available in the East, particular in India) needs to be added to it. Some aspects of this formulation fall outside the Saidian formulation. That is, though they worked within the parameters of Orientalism, the modifications they had implemented (some of them at least) fell outside it – particularly their attempt at converting what was dichotomous into continuous. My paper will discuss these various aspects involved in the modificatory nature of this relation. To dispel the impression that all Indian

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thinkers have embarked on this convergence, I will discuss a counterinstance available in the writings of Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, who repudiated contemporary Indian philosophers’ attempt at making the continuous relation between matter and spirit without necessarily endorsing the antagonistic relation as available in the West. Referring to the problem in Kant, he argued how matter by its very nature repudiates the very existence of spirit. In contrast to the synthesizing attempt, Bhattacharyya instituted a one-way denial, proposing that science denies metaphysics or philosophy. In this context, this paper discusses the distinction he introduced – namely, empirical thought, pure objective thought, spiritual thought and transcendental thought. In its conclusion, the paper critically evaluates three ways in which the relation between science and spiritualism may be viewed.

RELATION BETWEEN MATTER AND SPIRIT IN THE WEST As a prelude to the discussion, let me recall some standard accounts of this relation in the West. In the classical period, science was construed as a part of metaphysics and in Aristotle, science was based on philosophy. Aristotle placed science in the area of theoretical sciences and tried to explain it on the basis of philosophical speculation. Thus, in the classical period, science was either founded on metaphysics or, at least, was a part of it. However, this relation is inverted in the modern period where philosophy (non-metaphysical) comes to be founded on science. Modern science has shed its dependency on philosophy and has become autonomous. Moreover, this has had a tremendous impact on modern philosophical thinking. Many modern philosophers, from Descartes and Hobbes to logical positivists, contributed to this inversion. This dependency of philosophy on science for method has been one of the major themes in the philosophy of science. Popper goes to the extent of claiming that the lack of methodology in philosophy, like in science, is responsible for the lack of progress in philosophy. It is another matter that this dependency of philosophy on science has created its own specific problems. This dependency is also the process through which philosophy became more like science and, in the process, excluded many areas such as metaphysics and moral philosophy. Thus, the excluded domains of philosophy and

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the scientific realm have fallen apart from each other. Each was criticized by the other subsequently, and there have been attempts by some to synthesize the two domains. They have argued that both matter and spirit are important – if not in a hierarchy, then at least in their own domains. Neither can dispense with the other. This pure theoretical distinction within the West has acquired a geographical or cultural dimension, namely, that science or materialism is identified with the West and spiritualism with the East or India. Further, a political bargain was also inserted into this. That is, while the West is perceived as being strong in material progress, India is seen as strong in spiritualism. (The relation, as pointed out by Edward Said, is instituted by the British to legitimize the colonial project. If the East is other-worldly, then we will take care of this world – hence the justification for colonialism on moral and philosophical grounds.) However, the West is not complete without spiritualism and neither is India without materialism. So the West can provide materialism to India and, in turn, India can give the West its spiritualism. Contemporary Indian philosophers offered this political ‘barter’ while justifying the claim for granting independence to India. The pioneers in this effort were Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and S Radhakrishnan among others. These thinkers envisaged the desirability of continuity between matter and spirit and as a corollary, science and metaphysics. While conceding the significance of Western thought, they sought to incorporate it within Indian thought. As part of this, they posited continuity from matter to spirit with some significant modifications, while restoring a higher status to Indian spiritualism. Though there were many thinkers who subscribed to this view, here I shall confine myself only to Sri Aurobindo, who argued for the synthesis between matter and spirit or science and spiritualism. However, this attempt at synthesizing matter and spirit or science and metaphysics has been completely rejected by Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya. In contrast to the synthesizing attempt, Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya instituted a one-way denial disavowing metaphysics or philosophy. This contrasting position provides a foundation for another important debate on an important theme within the contemporary Indian philosophy.

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SRI AUROBINDO Sri Aurobindo was acquainted with the evolutionist philosophy of the West which had been for him ‘the keynote of the thought of the nineteenth century’ affecting all its ‘sciences’, ‘thinking’, ‘moral temperament’, ‘politics and society’. He attributes to it the victory of the materialistic notion of life and the universe, which led to the substitution of the moral idea by the evolutionary worldview, the idealist by the economic man (Evolution, Vol. 16, 1972, p.225). Distinguishing biology, which he prefers, from physics, he says that in the former there is from the beginning a stirring of consciousness which progresses and organizes itself more and more for self-expression, whereas physics deals with mechanical laws (Reason, Science and Yoga, Vol. 22, 1972, p.201). He identifies the strength of European thought in providing ‘details’ (The Asian Role, Vol. 1, 1972, p.843); in ‘ascertained and tangible scientific truth’ (Is India Civilised? - 2, Vol. 14, 1972, p.15); in ‘its laboriously increased riches of sure and firmly tested scientific organization’ in laying an ‘enormous stress upon force of personality, upon the individual will, upon the apparent man and the desire and demands of his nature’ (A Rationalistic Critique on Indian Culture 4, Vol. 14, 1972, p.87). Lauding the contribution of materialistic sciences, he says: Materialistic science had the courage to look at this universal truth with level eyes, to accept it calmly as a starting-point and to inquire whether it was not after all the whole formula of universal being. Physical science must necessarily to its own first view be materialistic, because so long as it deals with the physical, it has for its own truth’s sake to be physical both in its standpoint and method. . . (Materialism, Vol. 16, 1972, p.252). This European worldview also had its impact on India. Alluding to this outside influence, Sri Aurobindo says: It (European influence) has compelled the (Indian) national mind to view everything from a new, searching and critical standpoint, and even those who seek to preserve the present or restore the past are obliged unconsciously or half-consciously to justify their endeavour from the novel point of view and by its appropriate standards of reasoning (The Coming of the Subjective Age, Vol. 15, 1972, p.22).

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The neglect of matter and this worldly concern are what it did not do from within and the danger from without lies in reducing everything to this physical world. So the European materialistic worldview embodied in the evolutionary theory has been of great influence on both Europe and India. Though this European materialistic worldview is very remarkable in its achievements and influences both within and outside Europe, Sri Aurobindo points out some serious limitations that surround it. They are the following: 1. It is only preoccupied with science. He says: Science has missed something essential; it has seen and scrutinized what has happened and in a way how it has happened, but it has shut its eyes to something that made this impossible possible, something it is there to express (Reason, Science and Yoga, Vol. 22, 1972, p.197). 2. It further tried to reduce everything to the physical universe (Cycle of Society, Vol. 15, 1972, p.1). 3. It bases its theory on the ‘idea of the struggle for life’ (Evolution, Vol. 16, p.226–7), vital selfishness of the individual, the instinct and process of self-preservation, self-assertion and aggressive living (The Ascent of Life, Vol. 18, 1972, pp.199– 200). 4. It holds on to the thesis that ‘[. . . ] the phenomena of heredity that acquired characteristics are not handed down to the posterity and the theory that it is chiefly predispositions that are inherited. . . ’ (Evolution, Vol. 16, 1972, p.226). 5. The ‘idea of a slow and gradual evolution’ which ‘is being challenged by a new theory of evolution through sudden and rapid outbursts. . . ’ (Evolution, Vol. 16, 1972, p.227). 6. Its determined thesis of ‘[. . . ] rigid chain of material necessity. . . ’ (Evolution, Vol. 16, 1972, pp.228–9). 7. Further, Sri Aurobindo says that the Western idea of evolution is the statement of ‘a process of formation, not an explanation of our being. Limited to the physical and biological data of Nature. . . ’ (Involution and Evolution, Vol. 16, 1972, p.232) and also for instance: We speak of the evolution of Life in Matter, the evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a

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word, which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For there seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution that Life is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because in essence Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of veiled Consciousness (The Human Aspiration, Vol. 18, 1972, p.3). To recall, the main limitations of the Western theory of evolution are its preoccupation with the physical world, reductionism, the idea of struggle for existence, its position on heredity, its view that the evolutionary process is a slow and gradual evolutionary process, its deterministic thesis and the fact that it only presents the formation and does not explain it. In spite of these problems, however, Sri Aurobindo does not reject evolutionary theory, which is true within the materialistic domain. He does not fail to assert, however, that India’s strength lies in its ‘spiritual or ethical purity of the mind’ (A Rationalistic Critique on Indian Culture 4, Vol. 14, 1972, p.91). He says: In the East, on the contrary, the great revolutions have been spiritual and cultural; the political and social changes, although they have been real and striking, if less profound than in Europe, fall into the shade and are apt to be overlooked. . . (The Conservative Mind and Eastern Progress, Vol. 16, 1972, p.323). At the same time, he does identify some problems within the traditional Indian worldview as well. They are ‘The spiritual achievement or the occult knowledge was “confined to a few”’ and it has not spread to the “whole mass of humanity” (The Supramental Evolution, Vol. 22, 1972, p.1). Further, he says: A few may follow the path of the Yogin and rise above their surroundings, but the mass of men cannot ever take the first step towards spiritual salvation. We do not believe that the path of salvation lies in selfishness (Swaraj, Vol. 1, 1972, p.700). Yet another principal reason for the failure of the past attempts in spiritualizing mankind was the endeavour to ‘spiritualize at once the

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material man by a sort of rapid miracle’. Sri Aurobindo asserts that though this can be done, however, [. . . ] the miracle is not likely to be of an enduring character if it overleaps the stages of his ascent and leaves the intervening levels untrodden and therefore unmastered. The endeavour may succeed with individuals – Indian thought would say with those who have made themselves ready in a past existence – but it must fail with the masses (Conditions for the Coming of a Spiritual Age, Vol. 15, 1972, p.237). Commenting on the exclusiveness of divine life made available to a few individual seekers and generally keeping away from the life of ordinary men, he says: A divine life [. . . ] remains something outside or entirely shut away from the life of ordinary men in the world or unconcerned with the mundane existence; it has to do the work of the Divine in the world and not a work outside or separate from it (Perfection of the Body, Vol. 16, 1972, p.8). Another important problem with the traditional Indian view is its neglect or reduction of the physical world. He says that the spiritual life ‘sees this world as the kingdom of evil or of ignorance and the eternal and divine either in a far-off heaven or beyond world and life’ (Three Fold Life, Vol. 20, 1972, p.21). He declares, ‘[. . . ] the inward too is not complete if the outward is left out of account’ (Materialism, Vol. 16, 1972, p.248). Sri Aurobindo says that if the old religious cultures were often admirable and ‘if they had not been defective, they could neither have been so easily breached, nor would they have been the need of a secularist age to bring out the results the religions had sown’ (Materialism, Vol. 16, 1972, p.249). Predictably these defects and shortcomings are absent in the modern thought, which ‘seeks to prepare a sufficient basis in man’s physical being and vital energies and in his material environment for his full mental possibilities’ (Three Steps of Nature, Vol. 20, 1972, p.10). So the virtues in the Western thought fill the gaps in the Indian thought and the virtues in the Indian thought fill the gaps in the Western, thus providing a perfect fit for a civilizational amalgamation. In a series of pronouncements, he makes

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a case for the need for such collusion. Elucidating different domains of development, he says: The modern scientist strives to make a complete scheme and institution of the physical method which he has detected in its minute workings, but is blind to the miracle each step involves or content to lose the sense of it in the satisfied observation of a vast ordered phenomenon (Involution and Evolution, Vol. 16, 1972, pp. 232–3). And, All human energy has physical basis. The mistake made by European materialism is to suppose the basis to be everything and confuse it with the source. The source of life and energy is not material but spiritual, but the basis, the foundation on which the life and energy stand and work, is physical (The Brain of India, Vol. 3, 1972, p.334). Pleading for the fact that the two streams of thought indeed need each other to be complete, he says: The West has put its faith in its science and machinery and it is being destroyed by its science and crushed under its mechanical burden. It has not understood that a spiritual change is necessary for the accomplishment of its ideals. The East has the secret of that spiritual change, but is has too long turned its eyes away from the earth. The time has now come to heal the division and to unite life and the spirit (Ourselves, Vol. 16, 1972, p.330). He further says: It may well be that both tendencies, the mental and the vital and physical stress of Europe and the spiritual and psychic impulse of India, are needed for the completeness of the human movement (Is India Civilised? - 2, Vol. 14, 1972, p.20). And further, for him the evolutionary theories of Europe and India ‘at their best have only been half achievements [. . . ] Neither Europe nor India nor any race, country or continent of mankind has ever been fully civilized . . . ’ (Is India Civilised? - 3, Vol. 14, 1972,

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p.31). Also, for him, ‘East and West have two ways of looking at the life which are opposite sides of one reality’ (Involution and Evolution, Vol. 16, 1972, p.241–2).2 The developed opposite sides of East and West, he says, ‘will meet from two opposite sides and merge in each other and found in the life of a unified humanity a common world-culture. All previous or existing forms, systems, variations will fuse in this new amalgam and find their fulfilment’ (Is India Civilised?, Vol. 14, 1972, p.18). In a passage reminiscent of the account of Jarasandha’s body, he says: The two continents are two sides of the integral orb of humanity and until they meet and fuse, each must move to whatever progress or culmination the spirit in humanity seeks, by the law of its being, its own proper Dharma. A one-sided world would have been the poorer for its uniformity and the monotone of a single culture; there is a need of divergent lines of advance until we can raise our heads into that infinity of the spirit in which there is a light broad enough to draw together and reconcile all, highest ways of thinking, feeling and living. That is a truth which the violent Indian assailant of the materialist Europe or the contemporary enemy or cold disparager of Asiatic or Indian culture agrees to ignore (A Rationalistic Critique on Indian Culture 4, Vol. 14, 1972, p.81). At another place, he says: In Europe and in India, respectively, the negation of the materialist and the refusal of the ascetic have sought to assert themselves as the sole truth and to dominate the conception of Life. In India if the result has been a great heaping up of the treasures of the Spirit – or of some of them – it has also been a great bankruptcy of Life; in Europe, the fullness of riches and the triumphant mastery of this world’s powers and possessions have progressed towards an equal bankruptcy in the things of the Spirit. Nor has the intellect, which sought the solution of all problems in the one term of Matter, found satisfaction in the answer that it has received (The Two Negations: The Materialistic Denial, Vol. 18, 1972, p.9).

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Having justified the need to synthesize or amalgamate the evolutionary theory of Europe, which is materialistic, with the spiritualism of India, Sri Aurobindo elucidates various stages of the synthesized evolutionary process, which consists of nine states of descent of the Supreme Spirit into matter. In the reverse direction, it passes through nine stages of ascent. The stages are Existence, Consciousness-Force, Bliss, Supermind, Overmind, Mind, Psyche, Life and Matter (Life Divine, Vol. 18, 1972, p.264). The stages from mind to matter belong to the empirical world. The stages from Supermind and above are the Supernals and the Divine. The Overmind is the mediator between mind and Supermind, which are separated by the veil of Maya. The Overmind is something like the witness consciousness (saksicaitanya) of the Vedanta. The first three levels beginning with Existence together constitute the Brahman. Brahman is Being-Consciousness-Bliss (sat-cit-ananda), which splits itself into the three forms. Maya stays between the mind and the Supermind. Maya and the Overmind belong to each other. As already pointed out, unlike in the evolutionary theory, which fails to explain how life evolves out of matter, Sri Aurobindo assumes that there is spirit or life in the original matter. Moreover, the movement from spirit to matter and vice versa belongs to the very nature of the Absolute; it is Maya, which is the power of the Absolute. Both the spirit, which is consciousness, and Maya, which is unconscious, are not separate from each other, but belong to each other. The movements of descent and ascent constitute a circular movement of involution and evolution. The aim of man’s life is to follow the path of the ascent and rise to the levels of the Supernals one after another. At the higher levels, there is no possibility of falsity at all, for there Ignorance and Consciousness are not separated. The Overmind now and then passes on to the mind some great truths, which appear like occult truths, inspirations and intuitions and cannot be accounted for by the mind. When man rises to the level of the Overmind and becomes one with it, he becomes a Superman. But the Superman of Aurobindo is a yogi, who has surrendered his mind and ego to God with the idea of becoming one with Him. For those who have risen to the higher levels, there is no conflict, no strife. Even if differences are seen there, their unity is also transparent. At the highest level, differences are not seen at all. At that level, the experience is all one, every part of which is completely transparent to every other. Such an experience is integral knowledge to Aurobindo (P T Raju, p.545).

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Thus synthesized, this attempt is not a routine amalgamation but consists of some serious modifications. For instance, referring to Sri Aurobindo’s different use of the word ‘evolution’, Killingley says that ‘it is at odds with earlier uses of the word “evolution”’ both in the ancient Indian thought and in the Western theory of evolution. He says, for instance, [. . . ] ancient Indian thought in English regularly use ‘evolution’ for the emergence of the world, and of personality, from their original source. Since this source is a unity without parts, while the world contains a multiplicity of phenomena, and personality comprises a number of faculties, this process entails increasing differentiation and complexity, just as does evolution as defined by Spencer. But, in the terminology introduced by Vivekananda and developed by Aurobindo, this is a process of ‘involution’. Aurobindo insists that at each stage in evolution the previous stages are not left behind but taken up (Killingley, p.195–6). So there are significant differences in the framework of synthesis undertaken by Sri Aurobindo, thus making more than a mere amalgamation. J L Mehta too does not think Sri Aurobindo’s attempt to be a mere synthesis but a hermeneutics fusion. Going beyond the idea of mere amalgamation, he maintains: I wonder if the formula ‘science and spirituality’ carries us far, for the basic clash here is between two languages, two ways of speaking, that is, thinking, one shaped by three thousand years of Western history and the other bequeathed to us by our own tradition (Mehta, p.148). Referring to the novel dimensions arising from this activity, he says that the activity of translating from one language to another involves a process where, ‘one becomes most keenly and easily aware of the phenomenon of linguistic conflict, and therefore of the spirit and character of each of the two “orders of words” and cultural worlds, that is, of the difference between them’ (Ibid., p.156). And this involves: The poet brings his native tongue into the charged field of force of another language. He invades and seeks to break open the core of the alien meaning. He annihilates

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his own ego in an attempt both peremptory and utterly humble, to fuse with another presence. Having done so he cannot return intact to home ground. In each of these hermeneutic motions, the translator performs an action deeply analogous with that of Antigone when he trespasses on the sphere of the gods (Ibid., p.157). Elucidating this forward march of synthesis or hermeneutic fusion, he says: As we make the to and fro movement between the parts and the whole, each yields a clearer and more determinate meaning, a meaning moreover, which has nothing to do with the life and mind or times of the author but solely with the matter which finds expression in the text, with an impersonal, intelligible and coherent sense (Ibid., p.166). Further, We can now, perhaps only now, after the mediating century or more of an alien decentring agency, take a step back, find the right distance, and begin freely the work of appropriating and coming into true possession of what is our very own, returning home all the wiser for a long voyaging into the alien and the other. No Indian thinker has taken up this double burden on his shoulders with greater determination, and responded to its weight with a matching creative genius than Sri Aurobindo (Ibid., p.164). Sri Aurobindo’s attempt is not a mere amalgamation of Western science with Eastern spiritualism but involves serious transformation. To recall, Sri Aurobindo represents a dominant contemporary Indian philosophical attempt, which seeks to amalgamate Indian spiritualism with Western materialism. And it is pointed out by Killingley and Mehta that this is not a matter of mere amalgamation.3,4

KRISHNACHANDRA BHATTACHARYA Having discussed the synthesizing of materialism and spiritualism against the background of colonialism to which the barter

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(or double bind of Mehta) was offered, let us now discuss Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya’s approach where science ‘denies’ philosophy. Bhattacharyya, in this essay, distinguishes four grades of thought – empirical, pure objective, spiritual and transcendental. He classifies the empirical thought under science and the other grades of thought under philosophy. Empirical thought is a theoretic consciousness of a content involving reference to an object that is perceived or imagined to be perceived, such reference being part of the meaning of the content. In pure objective thought, there are contents that are objective but have no necessary reference to sense perception. The content of the spiritual thought is no object, nothing that is contemplated in the objective attitude. It is subjective and is appreciated in the subjective or ‘enjoying’ attitude. Transcendental thought is the consciousness of a content that is neither objective nor subjective. He says that the contents of the four grades of thought may be provisionally called fact, self-subsistence, reality and truth respectively. And science deals with fact and others come under philosophy. Further elucidating their distinguishing characteristics he says that fact is spoken as information and understood without reference to a spoken form. It is what need not be spoken to be believed as speakability is a contingent character of the content of the empirical thought. Fact is always expressible as a judgement of the form ‘A is thus related to B’. However, speakability is a necessary character of the content of pure objective thought. In philosophy, the content that is spoken is not intelligible except as spoken. Speaking is not like information and self-subsistence; reality and truth are not expressed in the form of judgement. Even when they are expressed in judgement it is only artificial and symbolic. Philosophy for Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya is self-evident elaboration of the self-evident and is not a body of judgements. The interesting thing here is that having distinguished these different grades of thought, he goes on to institute a sharper antagonistic relation between science and philosophy by clearly demarcating the borders between science and philosophy, thus moving from distinction to denial. Here, let me reproduce a long quotation. He says: The philosophy of the object requires to be further distinguished from science. Both deal with the object understood as what is believed to be known in the objective attitude as distinct from the subjective, enjoying or spiritual attitude. The object in science,

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however, is understood as fact and not as self-subsistent [. . . ] The self-subsistent is an object that has no necessary reference to the perceivable, is not literally expressible in a judgment and is believed only as it is spoken (p.469). Thus, having distinguished the two, he moves to the denial posture. He says: The self-subsistent object is a concept of philosophy, and it is not only a concept of science but may be even denied by science. Science has no interest to formulate the concept of the self-subsistent object; and it apparently believes that the object must be knowable or usable. The self-subsistence of the object implies that the object may be in its very nature inaccessible to the mind. To contemplate the object as what would be if there were no subjects to know it is to believe that it may be unknowable, that in any case it is not known as of right. Science would not only take this suggestion to be gratuitous but would positively deny it. The notion that truth freely reveals itself and is in itself a mystery or even that it is its very nature to reveal itself would be scouted by science as obscurantist or anthropomorphic. To science, there is nothing in the object to make it known; it is just what is known and though it may be unknown, there is no question of its being unknowable (pp.469–70). After distinguishing science from metaphysics, Bhattacharyya moves on first to say that the former ‘may deny’ the latter, then asserts that in some important respects science ‘positively’ denies philosophy. This ascending in argumentation clearly establishes the cleavage between science and metaphysics. Reinforcing the cleavage between science and metaphysics, he says: The implicit belief of science then is that the object is knowable and usable as of right. This belief is at least questioned in philosophy to which it is an expression of solipsistic self-sufficiency on the part of the subject. In normal practical life, nature is not consciously exploited as a tool but is negotiated in the primitive spirit of sociableness. It is the arrogant exploitative attitude of

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Science and Spirituality science towards the object that provokes a self-healing reaction of the spirit in the form of philosophy or some cognate discipline. The spiritual demand is that nature should be contemplated and not merely used or manipulated. Science even as theory is evolved in a practical interest. What is more significant is that it’s very intellectual method is practical, being the use of actual or ideal contrivances (p.470).

This cleavage between science and metaphysics and the idea of denial of metaphysics by science put forth by Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya is in stark opposition to the synthesizing attempts of Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and many others who ascribed to the view of an amalgamation of matter and spirit or science and philosophy/metaphysics. Bhattacharyya further explicitly rejects these attempts to bring them together. He says: The relation between science and the philosophy of the object may be brought out by a reference to certain problems, which have been wrongly taken to be philosophical. More specifically, he says: [i] ‘There is the problem of piecing together the results of the sciences into a world-view. The synthesis wanted is sometimes imagined to be the generalization of the primary laws of the sciences into more comprehensive laws. . . ’ Further, referring to the evolutionary philosophy, which, for him, is distinct from a scientific account of evolution, he says: Metaphysics may discuss the general concept of evolution, which is but the concept of life and its materialistic, spiritualistic or other interpretations. For this, however, it does not require to piece together the results of science; all the data needed – matter, life and mind – being presented in the knowledge of oneself as in the body. The details and specific generalizations of science are utilized in the so-called philosophy of evolution not as evidence but as only illustrative material intended for visualizing

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the metaphysical theory on the subject. The scientific account of evolution is knowledge or hypothesis, the metaphysic of life in relation to matter and mind is believed, if not known, but the so-called philosophy of evolution, so far as it is different from either, is only an organized presentation of the known or supposed facts of evolution as though they constituted the history of a single cosmic life. Cosmic life is not known as a fact, but may still be believed as self-subsisting. The single significant history of this life, however, as rounding off the jagged groupings of fact in science and bridging over the gaps left by it, is only imagined, and is understood to be neither self-evident nor verifiable. The significant story of cosmic evolution then is neither science nor philosophy but only a species of imaginative literature. In addition to rejecting the synthesizing attempts of the contemporary Indian philosophers, though of course without naming them, he further reinforces this cleavage by rejecting another attempt where science is confused with philosophy. He says: [ii] There is another problem, viz., the formulation of the postulates or structural concepts of science, which used to be regarded as a philosophical problem. Pure physics, for example, was taken by Kant as a branch of knowable metaphysic established by deduction from the a priori principles of synthetic knowledge. There is a similar confusion of thought at the present day in the romantic philosophy that has sprung up round the physico-mathematical theory of relativity, although here the confusion is of science with philosophy and not of philosophy with science as in the other case. He concludes that: In both, the impassable gulf between fact and the selfsubsistent is ignored. The so-called axioms of science are but postulates, the formulation of which is the work of science itself. The postulates are hypothesis of a kind, which are intended not for the anticipation of facts, but for the organization of them into a system. They admit of rival hypothesis and may be rejected though not as contradicted by fact, but only as clumsier and

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Science and Spirituality less expeditious to work with than the rival hypothesis. Again, there is no passage from a postulate of science to a concept of the object in itself (pp.470–72).

Here, it is interesting to note that like in Advaita where Brahman is posited to be the only real entity and the rest is Maya, and the former denies the latter, Bhattacharyya seems to be using the same principle though in an inverted form and maintains that science denies the spirit. That is, whereas Sankara rejects matter as Maya, Bhattacharyya ascertains that science (matter) denies philosophy (spirit). Retrospectively speaking, the difference in who denies whom depends upon the dominant position but ultimately the result may be the same when the contexts are neutralized. So there is a comparison and contrast between Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya’s idea and Sankara’s Advaita. In my assessment, while rejecting the attempts of Western philosophers like Kant and Hegel, Bhattacharyya also repudiates the attempts of contemporary Indian philosophers such as Sri Aurobindo. It is this position that enormously interests me. Bhattacharyya is forthright in envisaging the opposition and the cleavage between philosophy and science. And this is in direct opposition to the view of Sri Aurobindo. To conclude, there are two contrasting perspectives on the relation between matter and mind in contemporary Indian philosophy and this has eluded the attention of the scholars till now, which I attribute to the non-availability of the philosophy of difference in current times. Here, let me point out that the difference that I am referring to is not the difference that postmodernists highlight.

NOTES 1. Some parts of this paper are published in my book entitled, Debates in Indian Philosophy: Classical, Colonial, and Contemporary. 2. Killingley argues how Hinduism by no means simply incorporated Western evolutionary thought. Indeed, it can be argued that these Hindu thinkers elaborated a framework of interpretation, which challenged those notions of evolution that were usually associated with the writings of Darwin and Spencer. Paradoxically, these thinkers invoked the authority attached to the name of Darwin in order to achieve this (1995, pp.174–5). While there is this adjustment going on between the West and India, there is also a mismatch that has surfaced between Christianity and Darwinism thereby throwing up a domestic problem within the West. Pointing this out, Killingley says:

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In this context, ‘evolution’ held no such terrors for Hindu thinkers as it did for some Christians. Hindus were used to a vast timescale and to a view of cosmogony as a long process rather than a single creative event; they were used to treating humankind as part of the same continuum of living beings as animals and plants. Indian thinkers such as Bhandarkar and (to a lesser extent) Keshub, who became assimilated into a Western liberal tradition, thereby accepting the notion that the West’s destiny was to bring enlightenment to India, contented themselves with pointing to Western ideas as corroborating ancient Indian ones or as legitimating their own ways of adapting traditional ideas to modern notions of theological truth or of social justice. Others such as Vivekananda and Aurobindo, whose nationalist tendencies involved a rejection of the intellectual hegemony of the West, took evolution out of the hands of the British by identifying with ancient Indian ideas. They claimed further that ancient Indian ideas of evolution were spiritual and therefore superior to those of the West (Killingley, 1995, pp.196–7). He adds: [. . . ] many Christians in India do not seem to have seen developments in science as inimical to Christianity. They thought of science as a part of European culture from which India would benefit, and as a form of natural revelation which would not conflict with Christianity but would strike a fatal blow at Hinduism. Yet the planned collision between Hinduism and science did not happen (1995, p.178). 3. Here it may be pointed out that Sri Aurobindo’s attempt is more like a bonesetting by bringing together two different bones. Or perhaps it is more like a blood transfusion, but whether of the same blood group or not is an open question. 4. Peter Heehs, in his essay entitled, ‘Shades of Orientalism: Paradoxes and Problems in Indian Historiography’, 2003, brings out the stark contrast between nationalist Orientalism best exemplified by Sri Aurobindo and the European Orientalism both in intent and texture – a contrast that remains unnoticed by Saidianism.

WORKS CITED Bhattacharya, K C, 1983, ‘The Concept of Philosophy’, Studies in Philosophy, Vols. 1 and 2, Bhattacharya, Gopinath, ed, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, Calcutta, Progressive Publishers, 1956. Killingley, Dermot, 1995, ‘Hinduism, Darwinism and Evolution in LateNineteenth-Century India’, Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, Amigoni, David, and Wallace, Jeff, ed, Manchester, Manchester University Press, pp.174–202.

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Mehta, J L, 1990, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation, New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd. Phillips, Stephen H, 1986, Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Brahman, Leiden, Brill. Raju, P T, 1985, Structural Depths of Indian Thought, Albany, State University of New York Press. Raju, Raghuram, 2006, Debates in Indian Philosophy: Classical, Colonial, and Contemporary, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. Sri Aurobindo, 1972, Bande Mataram: Early Political Writings, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 1. —, 1972, The Harmony of Virtue: Early Cultural Writings, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 3. —, 1972, Foundations of Indian Culture and the Renaissance in India, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 14. —, 1972, The Social and Political Thought, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 15. —, 1972, The Life Divine, Vol. 18, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 18. —, 1972, The Synthesis of Yoga, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 20. —, 1972, Letters on Yoga, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 22.

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Chapter 6

Chaos, Complexity and Emergence Mechanisms: Spiritual Evolution in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin Frantisek Mikes

It’s a great opportunity to reflect on some of the best scholars’ and scientists’ discussion on these themes. It is also an opportunity to reflect on some areas where Eastern and Western spiritualities and modern science might engage in trialogue. One possible subject could be evolution and the future. However, since there is no consensus within spiritual traditions on this theme, we might begin our discussion with two authors from the Hindu and Christian traditions who include evolution as an integral part of their visions. Specifically, we would like to examine the writings of Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin in the light of newer scientific theories, which may provide insights into the mechanisms of evolution. In this paper, we will offer some of our initial reflections on this subject. We will begin with a brief introduction to the scientific fields of chaos, complexity and emergence theories and the possibilities they may offer for examining our spiritual traditions and looking to the future. These theories could actually be seen as sub-theories under the overarching theory of evolution. These new fields try to show the mechanisms by which short-term increases in complexity and long-term evolution to new entities can take place. Ultimately, we

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would like to show how a Divine element may be active or involved in evolution in a non-interventionist way. We want to develop a picture, which does not conflict with scientific knowledge, but may go beyond it, especially in looking to the future. We are looking for new insights, which might help define the connections between humans and a Higher Presence.

SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS The three theories which we would like to discuss can be seen as building on earlier work in self-organizing systems. Thus, we will begin with a brief description of this foundational research. • Self-organization (Eigen, pp.465–523) (or Autopoiesis) refers to a process, usually in an open system, in which the internal organization increases automatically without being managed by an outside source. These systems appear to defy the second law of thermodynamics, which says that disorder, or entropy, will always increase – although, on a closer look, one may observe that even here, entropy does operate, though outside the self-organizing system. • Chaos theory (Gleick, p.987) then builds on self-organization studies of researchers like Ilya Prigogine, who examined ‘dissipative systems or structures’, which are ordered structures in open systems, far from thermodynamic equilibrium, which exchange energy, matter or information with their environment. The goal of chaos theory is to study the emergence of ‘order’ in systems, which at first glance might appear disordered or random. In these non-linear dynamic systems, behaviour or the outcome depends on initial conditions and is thus deterministic (even if we personally do not know all the initial conditions) and includes phenomena like the weather, economics, population growth, etc. • Complex systems theory (Lewin, 1992), in turn, builds on the concepts and knowledge of self-organization and chaos theories and we may begin to examine the multi-levels of systems in living organisms. A complex system consists of a large number of interacting dynamical parts (components or agents), coupled in a non-linear way. Complex systems usually contain feedback loops, are open, dynamic, often ‘nested’ (that is, one complex

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system being a component within another ‘higher’ system) and may have networks between individual systems on the same level. System Dynamics

Catastrophe Self-Organized Theory Dynamical Criticality Systems General Systems Nonlinear Dynamical Theory Fractal Systems (NDS) Geometry Solid State/ Chaos Theory Condensed Matter Physics Evolutionary Complex Adaptive Biology Systems (CAS) Artificial Life Evolutionary Emergent Computation Systems Boolean Network Autopoeisis Genetic Algorithms Artificial Information Intelligence Theory Computational Alogrithmic Theory Complexity Neural Nets Game Theory Synergetics

EMERGENCE in Self-Organizing Systems

Far-from-Equlibrium Thermodynamics

Fig. 1. Systems theories leading to (Neo–)Emergence Theory, adapted from Goldstein, 1999

• Emergence (Goldstein, pp.49–72) (Finally) is the term used when parts interact in a dynamic system, creating a new higher level, having properties which are greater than the sum of the individual parts and which could not be predicted by a lower level description. Emergence is a dynamic process, which might entail evolution, or be shown at different size levels. This property is most dramatically exhibited in the development of an embryo and in the transition from brain to mind (or human consciousness). The following diagram may help us to visualize the basic features of an emergent step from a lower level, simpler system to a higher level, more complex system. Of course the material composition at the two levels is the same, but the total characteristics or quality of the upper level, as an entity, exceeds that of its constituent parts. As the lower level components begin to self-organize, new properties

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emerge in the developing upper level, which in turn provides feedback to the lower level.

Upper Level – More complex system New organization is more than parts, e.g., brain 6

Feedback

Emergence

?

Lower Level – Simpler system Self-organization of parts, e.g., neurons

Fig. 2 Before discussing the application of emergence theory to spiritual evolution, there are two additional concepts which we would like to introduce. These are ‘causation’ effects between complexity levels and ‘attractors’ in upper levels.

CAUSATION EFFECTS BETWEEN COMPLEXITY LEVELS In emergence theory, one may consider two types of causation between complexity levels. There is ‘upward (bottom up) causation’, where components and organization on the lower level control the development of the next higher level. And there are several potential forms of ‘downward (top down) causation’ from an upper to a lower level. Claus Emmeche1 and co-workers in Denmark have evaluated three potential forms of downward causation, which they label as strong, medium and weak, in order to determine which might be scientifically acceptable, i.e. causation that does not require a metaphysical intervention which could violate the laws of nature. They reject, as unscientific, the possibility of ‘strong downward causation’ (Ibid.) which would mean that an entity or process on the upper level could ‘causally inflict changes or effects on entities or

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processes on a lower level’, (Ibid.) which disrupt or alter the laws of nature operating on the lower level. For example, miracles. On the other hand, ‘medium downward causation’ (Ibid.) might already be acceptable, when the upper level ‘governs’ or ‘influences’ (Ibid.) processes on the lower level which adhere to laws, for example a cell’s ability to govern biochemical processes taking place in it. The most interesting version for us in trying to envision our relationship to the next emerging spiritual level may be what Emmeche et al discuss as ‘weak downward causation’ – (Ibid.) where they present the concept of an attractor. In weak downward causation, ‘the higher level is conceived as an organizational level’, (Ibid.) characterized by the structure or ‘form into which the (lower level) constituents are arranged’, (Ibid.). The higher level may be described in a ‘phase-space’ (Ibid.) where ‘all the possible states of a system’ (Ibid.) are mapped ‘into a space defined by a set of dimensions’ (Ibid.), attractor basin, or multipoint attractor. The term ‘biological attractor’ (Ibid.) is also useful to us and is not uncommon in biology literature, where it is used most frequently in reference to encephalization, or the evolution of nervous systems and increased complexity of the brain. However, it is usually stressed that it has no metaphysical reality or meaning. For our purpose, whether an ‘attractor’ (Ibid.) is understood as a reality, metaphor, or symbol for an organizing principle, we may use it as a factor, which helps direct evolution towards higher levels of complexity. Taken together, these scientific concepts of self-organization, complexity and emergence are helpful in understanding the process of evolution on earth from inorganic matter to the human mind. Might these same concepts provide a framework for examining evolution in the interior realm of consciousness? Can one reasonably conceive of another emergence level above the human mind? We will return to a scientific response to these questions at the end of this essay, but first let us introduce the research and writings of two major authors who tried to formulate a full description of the evolutionary process, not only from the outer, but also from an inner perspective of reality.

SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF EVOLUTION During the first half of the twentieth century, two visionary thinkers, Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin, independently (U King,

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p.97) examined the phenomenon of human consciousness within an evolutionary context and envisioned how the next emergence step might bring us closer to a divine presence, through supermind (Aurobindo) or at omega point (Teilhard). While there are many similar features between their visions, there are also differences in their descriptions of this higher level and the pathways leading to it. Some of their similarities might be attributed to the impact of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) on young intellectuals during the late nineteenth century, especially in Europe. Aurobindo (1872–1950) lived in England from the age of seven to 21, studying Western languages and thought, before returning to India. In his major life’s work, he explored inner levels of mind and Being and their potential for future evolution. Teilhard (1881–1955), born in France, was interested in geology and religious life since childhood and became an archeologist and Jesuit priest. As his scientific knowledge and spiritual experiences grew, he began to envision a global thinking layer (noosphere) and an attraction toward a new spiritual level, as natural extensions of the evolutionary process already underway. Both men were also sensitive to major international conflicts and new theories in psychology and social organization during the early twentieth century. Teilhard served as a stretcher bearer during World War I. Aurobindo was a leader for Indian independence in the early 1900’s. Then, as they embarked on their primary life’s work, they would present visions of greater psychic, social and spiritual potentials than most of their contemporaries. Before discussing the next emergent levels envisioned by these men, a few words should be said about their respective descriptions of evolution and some of the new terms which they introduced.

TEILHARD’S DESCRIPTION OF EVOLUTION Teilhard, in his major work Phenomenon of Man (Chardin, 1975), presents a detailed picture of evolution on earth from simple molecules to man and other species, based on the scientific knowledge available during the first half of the twentieth century, where the shape of the tree of life was already well known. But his major objective was to show that with all its branches, there was one main axis of evolution, where increasing complexity and consciousness would eventually lead to man, the human mind and beyond. At the lowest end of this axis in non-living matter, Teilhard already

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acknowledges an extremely limited kind of consciousness or psyche. ‘The term “consciousness” is taken in its widest sense to indicate every kind of psychism, from the most rudimentary forms of interior perception imaginable to the human phenomenon of reflective thought.’ (Ibid.) He further states that every entity has a ‘without’ (with its observable connections and measurable dimensions) and a ‘within’. He goes on to describe two forms of psychic energy, the ‘tangential’ and ‘radial’, which are primarily associated with the ‘without’ and ‘within’ of things, respectively. ‘Tangential energy links the element with all others of the same order as itself.’ ‘Radial energy draws the element towards ever greater complexity and centricity – in other words forward’ (Ibid.). He says that evolution (as viewed from ‘within’) is the continual growth of ‘radial’ (psychic) energy, beneath and within the ‘tangential’ (or mechanical) energy and ‘arrangement’ is the ‘coefficient which empirically expresses the relationship between the “radial” and “tangential” energies of the world’ (Ibid.). Then when evolution has reached a critical degree of consciousness (within) and of size and complexity of brain (without), reflective thought appears for the first time on earth. The power of consciousness is now able to see itself as an object, to know that it knows. Teilhard describes the emergence of human mind in this way: ‘by a tiny “tangential” increase, the “radial” was turned back on itself and [. . . ] an infinite leap forward’ achieved (Ibid.). And further ‘that the access to thought represents a threshold which had to be crossed at a single stride’ and where ‘we find ourselves transported onto an entirely new biological plane’ (Ibid.). Teilhard sees this new plane as both the location where reflective thought (human mind) has emerged and also the beginning of a new layer (a thinking envelope) which will eventually encircle the earth as the ‘noosphere’. It is a location in which the individual will be personalized by ‘hominizaton’ of the whole group. Finally, we arrive at the present moment and may ask whether humankind is approaching the limit of its evolutionary possibilities. Teilhard recognizes that contemporary humans experience a deep discomfort when they become aware of the vastness of space and time and the multitude of other beings. There is angst, apathy and deep depression by many in our present age. But this uneasiness can be overcome if we begin to see the universe not as static, but as ‘becoming’ (a genesis), where there is ‘an evolution animating those dimensions’. ‘Time and space become humanized as soon as a definite

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movement appears which gives them a physiognomy’ (Ibid.). And this can be seen in the evolution of the thinking layer, a ‘noogenesis’. But how can we be sure of the future – that there is any direction or meaning? His major argument is that we are aware of the process of evolution, where consciousness is continually increasing from the very beginning and there is no reason to doubt that this process will continue. ‘Consciousness is a dimension to which it is inconceivable [. . . ] to ascribe a ceiling’ (Ibid.). However, in order to convince humanity that this process is true and to exert energy to move it forward and even accelerate it, they need to trust that there will be a ‘super-life’ in the future, that evolution will continue to develop towards the next level, towards an omega point. We will discuss Teilhard’s vision of this emergent state in a later section of our essay. But first we want to examine some of the parallels and differences in Aurobindo’s view of the evolutionary process leading up to our present age.

AUROBINDO’S VIEW OF COSMIC PROCESSES While Western creation stories will usually begin with a genesis narrative or the Big Bang, Aurobindo presents an interesting prelude which will astonish many Westerners, but is compatible with the Hindu world view and might have some useful ideas for scientists if expressed in more familiar terminology. For Aurobindo there is no doubt that consciousness is present from the beginning of cosmic evolution because it is part of the involutionary process of ‘creation’. At the beginning of time this ‘consciousness’ is hidden or unconscious. In his magnum opus, The Life Divine (Aurobindo, 1990), Aurobindo presents descriptions of cosmic involution and evolution, combining Eastern and Western elements with his own experience and insights. In the Involution–Creation, the Absolute, the eternal one, ‘decides’ to become the many, perhaps for its own delight, while still maintaining its oneness. It ‘chooses’ to initially divide its qualities into three forms (Satchitananda), variously described as existence, consciousness-force and delight (Sat, Chit and Ananda), which in turn create the supermind. It is in a plane below the Absolute, in the supermind, that the major events of the involution begin. Here the consciousness-force is divided into consciousness and force. The supermind creates a plane

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for mind below itself, which assists in the separation of force into knowledge and will. Then when knowledge begins to act on will, a plane for life is formed but not filled. Knowledge continues to be selfabsorbed into will and becomes energy. When this plane of energy is released the universe begins. Space and time come into existence in the process. When involution ends, evolution begins. Soon after the beginning of creation, some of this energy separates and concentrates into matter, where knowledge is hidden. Matter is unconscious, but contains the potential or seed for consciousness. Eventually, out of unconscious matter, emerges an animated or vital form with rudimentary consciousness. And as life forms become more and more complex, they increase in a vital form of consciousness. Finally, with the appearance of humans, there emerges a conscious reflective mind. But this is not the end of the ascent. Through man, evolution can proceed further from mind to a supramental state. At the heart of things, there is a conscious force that is evolving to ever higher forms of being. Aurobindo now begins to describe the ascending states of consciousness above ordinary mind, the highest of which are difficult to describe since they are beyond thought. Collectively, these ascending states or steps may be called spiritual mind, of which there are four main sublevels. Similar higher states have been described by mystics in many other traditions, though seldom with such precision. The first state above normal mind may be called higher mind, the state of a spiritualized thinker or sage. It has a ‘unitarian sense of Being’, a dynamic nature capable of forming ‘a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge’. It is a thought-mind , ‘conceiving swiftly’. It has a way of ‘truth-seeing at a single view. Relations of idea with idea, of truth with truth are not established by logic but pre-exist and emerge already self-seen in the integral whole’ (Ibid.). In the next ascent to illumined mind, a greater force of consciousness and knowledge appears – a mind of spiritual light. It is ‘the consciousness of the seer’, ‘the illumined mystic’. ‘Lightnings of spiritual truth and power break from above into the consciousness.’ ‘A downpour of inwardly visible light very usually envelops this action’. It ‘does not work primarily by thought, but by vision’. It needs ‘no verbal representation’ (Ibid.). The third ascent brings us to the intuitive mind or intuitional being. Here intuition is ‘when the consciousness of the subject meets

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with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts. It leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting’. When consciousness meets the spiritual reality of things in the intuitive mind, a ‘blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths, which is more than sight, more than conception’ (Ibid.). The fourth stage of ascent, the last step before emergence to a different level, is the overmind. It is ‘a power of cosmic consciousness, a principle of global knowledge which carries in it a delegated light from the supramental gnosis’. In addition to a vertical ascent, there is ‘a vast horizontal expansion of consciousness into some totality of the spirit’. The inner being must have replaced the surface mind and its limited outlook by a deeper and wider awareness and ‘learned to live in a large universality’ (Ibid.). Overmind is the highest power of the lower hemisphere, but ‘it cannot lead mind beyond itself’, cannot bring about the transcendence. It is ‘the supermind alone that is the supreme selfdetermining truth-action and direct power of manifestation of that transcendence’. Evolution can ‘only go farther by an opening of the gates of the spirit into the upper hemisphere and a will to enable the soul to depart out of its cosmic formation into transcendence’ (Ibid.). However, emergence to an entirely non-physical spiritual state is not the only option available at the highest point of overmind. One may also choose to remain and participate in the divinization of the earth. Divine evolution could continue ‘by a descent of the supermind into the terrestrial formula, bringing into it the supreme law and light and dynamism of the spirit and penetrating with it and transforming the unconsciousness of the material basis’ (Ibid.). A supramental change could take place when the involved supermind in nature (present from the original involution process) ‘emerges to meet and join with the supramental light and power descending from supernature’. ‘The individual must be the instrument and first field of the transformation’ – ‘A centre and a sign for the establishment of the supramental consciousness-force’. This would mean the appearance in evolution of a divine being, a divine nature. ‘Mind and mental humanity would remain as one step in the spiritual evolution’, but other degrees would also form above it and be accessible ‘by which the embodied mental being, as it became ready, could climb into the gnosis and change into an embodied supramental and spiritual being. On this basis the principle of a divine life in terrestrial nature would be manifested’ (Ibid.).

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TEILHARD’S OMEGA POINT Teilhard’s exact definitions of omega and omega point (Teilhard, p.263) vary somewhat between his scientific and spiritual presentations. They include: (1) the convergence of the noosphere at the end of time; (2) an attractive focus towards which evolution is drawn; (3) the final union of human souls with Christ as its centre. These meanings often overlap and we may let his words speak for themselves in the following quotations and paraphrases. Teilhard states that each human is a unique centre and it is this essence which omega must reclaim after our death. Omega must ‘reassemble in itself all consciousnesses [. . . ] each particular consciousness remaining conscious of itself [. . . ] each particular consciousness becoming still more itself and thus more clearly distinct from others, the closer it gets to them in omega’ (Teilhard, pp.261–2). In its final structure, omega can be seen as ‘a distinct centre radiating at the core of a system of centres’. There is a grouping in which ‘personalizations of the elements reach their maximum without merging, under the influence of a supremely autonomous focus of union’. It is this ‘central focus’, which Teilhard designates as ‘omega point’ (Ibid.). In discussing the convergence of the noosphere towards omega, Teilhard emphasizes the critical importance of love, a universal love. We recognize a natural instinct towards unity when confronted by nature, beauty and music, a kind of ‘awareness of a great presence’. But there seems to be a counter force, an ‘antipersonalist complex’ which leads to repulsion. Many attempts at earthly ‘collectives’ tend to ‘absorb the person’ – killing the love trying to emerge. But if we can experience some source and object of love ‘at the summit of the world above our heads’, or ahead of us, which we sense as personal and real, then the atmosphere created can unleash the dormant energies of attraction between humans (Ibid.). Teilhard goes on to list the major attributes of omega. These are its autonomy, actuality, irreversibility and transcendence: autonomous as a centre of centres, actual as a real presence, irreversible in its independence from natural destruction, transcendent in its separation from space and time (Ibid.). Critical is Teilhard’s description of the upper boundary of current evolution where omega is present ‘at the end of the whole process’ and where ‘the movement of synthesis culminates’. But this is only half of the picture. ‘While being the last term of its series, it is also

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outside all series. Not only does it crown, but it closes’. And then, at this ‘conscious pole of the world’ (another synonym for omega), we observe that it not only ‘emerges from the rise of consciousness’, but has also ‘already emerged’. Thus, it escapes from the ‘time and space which it gathers together’ (Ibid.). Teilhard argues that only the souls of humans can survive death and join omega point. In distinguishing animal and human potentials, he says that the radial could only ‘express itself in diffuse aggregates (groupings) in animal consciousness’. These aggregates cannot attach themselves to a support and are hardly formed before they begin to disaggregate. But in humans, ‘through reflection, a type of unity appeared’, as the elements became centres and therefore persons and they could ‘begin to react [. . . ] to the personalizing action of the centre of centres’ (Ibid.). ‘When consciousness broke through the critical surface of hominization, it really passed from divergence to convergence and changed [. . . ] both hemisphere and pole. Below that critical “equator” lay the relapse into multiplicity; above it, the plunge into growing and irreversible unification. Once formed, a reflective centre can no longer change except by involution upon itself [. . . ] By death in the animal, the radial is reabsorbed into the tangential, while in man it escapes and is liberated from it. It escapes from entropy by turning back to omega: the hominization of death itself’ (Ibid.). With alternate imagery, Teilhard describes the point where souls will exit to the transcendent level, as the point where ‘the noosphere (furling its elements upon themselves, as it too furls upon itself) will reach collectively its point of convergence – at the “end of the world”’ (Ibid.). As a concluding remark, Teilhard adds that at the end of the world (millions of years in the future), when there is a dissociation of the psychical centre from the material earth, one can imagine two possible states of physical and psychical conditions on our planet, either (1) evil on earth will be reduced to a minimum, disease and hunger conquered and convergence will take place in peace; or (2) evil will continue to grow alongside good, a conflict could occur and the noosphere ‘split into two zones, each attracted to an opposite pole of adoration’ and only a fraction would ‘cross the threshold’ (Ibid.).

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AUROBINDO’S LIFE DIVINE AND INTEGRAL YOGA Aurobindo’s pathway to his primary life’s work was not as direct as Teilhard’s. He had not been educated in Hindu spirituality and Vedic literature before returning to India at age 21. And his initial focus, upon return, was Indian independence, mastering Bengali his mother tongue and Sanskrit. He was not attracted to organized religion but began reading the Vedic classics and had some spontaneous spiritual experiences. Then one day his younger brother was cured of mountain fever by a sannyasin (ascetic), after the local doctors had been unsuccessful. Witnessing the power of yoga (Sethna, p.117), he embarked for the first time on its practice, initially for its potential in liberating his country. As he continued to develop his yoga, study Vedanta, teach and write, one day in May 1908, he was suddenly imprisoned by British authorities on suspicion of involvement in a bomb plot. He was acquitted a year later. This was a critical interlude in his life where he experienced new states of consciousness and spirituality and realized more clearly how he might simultaneously serve his people and all of humanity. He came to recognize the truth of the Bhagavad Gita for his future work and what the Divine is asking ‘of those who aspire to do His work’. ‘To be free from repulsion and desire, to do work for Him without the demand for fruit, to renounce self-will and become a passive and faithful instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high and low, friend and opponent, success and failure, yet not to do His work negligently’ (Aurobindo, p.3). But it was not until 1910, at the age of 38, that he moved to Pondicherry, left his political life behind and dedicated his full attention to developing his vision of a future evolutionary step which would benefit all of humanity. In addition, his life’s work would soon became a collaboration with a spiritual equal, Mirra Alfassa (later called the mother), born in Paris, who first met Aurobindo in 1914, before settling permanently in Pondicherry in 1920. They developed the Integral Yoga method together and, while he began to put this information into book and letter form, she had direct contact with the sadhaks (aspirants) and under her guidance the ashram expanded. As mentioned briefly in an earlier section, the critical border to the next evolutionary level is at the overmind–supermind interface. The overmind is the highest layer of consciousness that we can achieve with the ordinary mind – it is beyond thought, a cosmic

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consciousness, but one can still return to the lower layers of consciousness at the human level. The supermind, on the other hand, is in an emergent level above – related to human mind, as mind is to brain, brain to neurons, neurons to molecules. The characteristics of this ‘interface’ were explored by Aurobindo and the mother ‘from the underside.’ If one chooses and is able, one can transcend permanently to the supermind level and to even higher layers. However, they found by experience that it may also be possible to bring some of the supermind consciousness down into the terrestrial level if the upward consciousness-force (‘upward causation’) is sufficient and the descent of supramental consciousness-force is desired. They initially tried to achieve this individually, jointly and with a small group of disciples. But it was difficult to achieve continuously. Aurobindo concluded that a larger number of persons, dedicated to this effort and able to reach the highest layers of human consciousness, might be required to achieve a permanent beginning of this descent of consciousness-force from the supermind into global consciousness. (After Aurobindo’s passing in 1950, the mother reported in 1956 that this breakthrough had been achieved.) Because this new supramental state is at the most in a very rudimentary initial stage, how did Aurobindo envision preparing more persons for this effort? We can only briefly outline some of his guidelines for an ‘integral yoga’, by which a person and humankind could progress towards a life divine (Kazlev). First, there is no fixed protocol for the seeker – the details of a path must be found individually. But there are broad outlines for the approach and multiple suggestions in his written replies to sadhaks’ letters. His integral yoga is a synthesis of the essence of several forms of yoga2 , especially karma (works), bhakti (love) and jnana (knowledge). Each yoga approach encourages the seeker to unite with a particular aspect of the divine, so that he can experience its totality. However, the individual may also concentrate on one approach which is most helpful for his/her unique being. In each path the steps should include a sequence of ‘aspiration, rejection, surrender’ – aspiration for the divine truth (continuously with all of one’s being), rejection of anything within or without which obstructs fulfilment of the aspiration and surrender to the divine in every part of one’s being, to be its instrument without personal ego. In addition to this sequence of important attitudes, there are three transformations which need to take place on a path towards the life divine. These are the psychic, spiritual and supramental

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transformations. Either the psychic or spiritual transformation may begin first and they may develop together. In the psychic transformation, the psychic being or essence, which is normally veiled, has to be brought forward. ‘As the walls of inner separation break down, the inner light gets through [. . . ] The psychic entity then manifests itself as the central being which upholds mind and life and body and supports all the other powers and functions of the spirit; it takes up its greater function as the guide and ruler of the nature [. . . ] As a final result, the whole conscious being is made perfectly apt for spiritual experience of every kind, turned towards spiritual truth of thought, feeling, sense, action, tuned to the right responses.’ (Aurobindo, p.943) The spiritual transformation is primarily the process of growth through the upper layers of consciousness discussed earlier (of higher, illumined, intuitive and over-mind), until they can be experienced frequently and some of the energy from these layers can be brought down to purify the normal mind and the vital and unconscious being. Finally, when the psychic and spiritual changes are essentially complete, the most difficult stage of all can begin. In the final step of the integral yoga, in the supramental transformation, power from the supermind (or supramental consciousness) must be brought down, completing the transformation of the individual being and contributing to a process of divinization of the entire material world. ‘The truth-consciousness, finding evolutionary nature ready, has to descend into her and enable her to liberate the supramental principle within her; so must be created the supramental and spiritual being as the first unveiled manifestation of the truth of the self and spirit in the material universe’ (Ibid.). In summation, one may say that every stage of consciousness and transformation described by Aurobindo, through the overmind, plus glimpses of the supermind, were experienced by him. Then, when he describes the possibility of descent of truth-consciousness from supermind into the terrestrial sphere, he sees this future opportunity as a logical consequence of an evolutionary process which is prepared for it. His further vision, of what life divine on earth might look like, is in keeping with his previous descriptions of purified and optimized beings, plus their cooperative activities and the possibility for ultimate transformation of the physical body. In some of his concluding words, he states: ‘If there is an evolution in material nature and if it

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Science and Spirituality is an evolution of being with consciousness and life as its two key-terms and powers, this fullness of being, fullness of consciousness, fullness of life must be the goal of development towards which we are tending [. . . ] The self, the spirit, the Reality [. . . ] would evolve its complete truth of being and consciousness in that life and matter [. . . ] If its end as an individual is to return into its absolute, it could make that return [. . . ] through a spiritual completeness of itself in life’ (Ibid.).

EXAMINATION OF THESE FUTURE VISIONS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF OBJECTIVE SCIENCE Let us now return to the scientific concepts which we introduced earlier and see how the visions of Teilhard and Aurobindo look from those perspectives. We will begin with a few summary comments about their general views on evolution. First, one can acknowledge that Teilhard and Aurobindo present visions of future states by extrapolation from detailed and consistent descriptions of evolutionary processes which are scientifically acceptable up to the present state of our world. Teilhard builds on recognized theories and knowledge of universal and earthly evolution, including the development of human societies. His concept of a thinking layer – noosphere – may be accepted as a reality or useful metaphor by most persons. Aurobindo emphasizes psychic evolution and his observations reveal a deep understanding of human psychology from its lowest to its highest psychic states, which are consistent with those of contemporary theories. Both authors see the evolutionary process as self-organizing without divine intervention. But how well have they built their arguments for a future global spiritual level, emerging above the human mind and being? Teilhard argues that from the beginning of evolution the psychic aspect of forms has increased continuously with their complexity along an axis leading to humans. Then in homo sapiens an increase in consciousness correlates with our social organization and the growing thinking layer, which includes the thoughts and achievements of all humans. How can this growth in complexity-consciousness proceed further? Teilhard believes that there has been a Presence – a prime mover, a kind of ‘attractor’ – ahead of the process from the moment of creation. But only with the appearance of self-reflecting humans

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did a desire take place to survive our deaths and unite with this presence – to meet in a union where each individual essence will be preserved. He contends that individuals can already proceed towards this union after death, although the major conjunction will take place when the whole noosphere is prepared to converge. How does this reasoning compare with the scientific concepts presented earlier? First the principle of self-organization is followed throughout. While a gentle attractor may be present ahead, it does not intervene and control the process. The potential for evolution is built into the system. But new complexity is achieved at each step of evolution in dynamic stages far from equilibrium, as in chaos theory. Teilhard emphasizes how the law of growth in complexity-consciousness is the path along which development has progressed to this moment and should continue towards the next step. Here, the emergence concept of a weak downward causation seems to be appropriate. Aurobindo provides a description which includes a missing part of cosmology – what occurred before the Big Bang. (A question which cosmologists are just starting to wrestle with). He describes how the ultimate source, while continuing an existence beyond the creation (panentheistically), also involuted itself in a series of steps, which would later be followed by evolution. Apart from the available stages, the details of evolution were not predetermined. The return process has now reached the human level. How can we proceed further or can some aspects of the divine be brought down into our earthly sphere? Aurobindo recognizes the difficulty of overcoming the powers of the unconscious and vital aspects of our being, but shows how these lower levels can be subdued, integrated and harmonized if the human mind can ascend to higher planes of consciousness. Finally, if we can reach the highest level to which the ordinary mind can ascend, the overmind, we may be able to emerge to the next level, the supermind, or perhaps, in some kind of cooperation, bring aspects of the supermind down into the earthly sphere. In his depiction of a possible form of life divine on our terrestrial level, he realistically evaluates the obstacles and discusses the characteristics of the persons and groups who might achieve it, not assuming a total elevation of all beings at the same time. Arriving at the culmination of his vision, how does Aurobindo’s description of the evolutionary process compare with our scientific concepts? First the process is seen to be completely selforganized throughout, within the limits of the levels established in the initial involution. There is tremendous freedom at all levels with no predetermined outcome. Out of chaotic conditions at the lower

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levels, there is an ascent towards greater awareness and knowledge, an awakening of the involuted consciousness. Important in this process is a subtle attraction towards the original source or a desire for greater joy. Finally, emergence is possible either to the supermind level above, or a new kind of layer might come into existence at the overmind–supermind interface by cooperation between us and a higher power. CONCLUDING REMARKS3 Bringing our thoughts together, can we possibly imagine a new upper level reality which might correspond to the spiritual vision of Teilhard or Aurobindo and be scientifically recognized as an emergent phase? Could a term like omega, supermind, attractor, or another word chosen by the world community, represent a reality which is drawing us upward, forward, inward? Is there an attractive force which might have been present from the beginning of evolution? Can we even imagine an attractor which is concerned, not only with humankind, but also the whole layer of life? Certainly this seems to be a shared intuition today in the consciousness of many world citizens, especially young people. Teilhard and Aurobindo, in life times dedicated to constant refining of their insights and writings on the evolution of consciousness, have provided us with valuable frameworks from which to continue our research in the two domains of science and religion, as we try to understand ultimate reality and a possible next emergent step. As elements in the human layer, we might already sense and perhaps cooperate with an attractor in that emerging layer or centre. If this vision can be expressed in a way that does not imply superiority of any one religious path4 or rely only on scientific knowledge, perhaps we could see the many commonalities in our hopes and visions for the future in a spiritual dimension and perhaps find a voice which could speak to those who are searching in one domain alone and to those who see no ultimate meaning at all – to show that each individual has value and a contribution to make, as we, who are trying to integrate both, move towards the next level.

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NOTES 1. Emmeche, C, Koppe, S, Stjernfelt, F, 2000, ‘Levels, Emergence, and Three Versions of Downward Causation’, Downward Causation. Minds, Bodies and Matter, Andersen, P B, Emmeche, C, Finnemann, N O, Christiansen, P V, ed, Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, pp.13–34 (All quotations in this section are from this publication). 2. The hatha yoga with which persons in the west are most familiar is not one of the primary paths of the ‘integral yoga’, although its breathing and position exercises may be helpful in early stages of one’s development, and physical exercise in general is recommended to keep the body healthy. 3. Another paper, in preparation, will more fully present other contemporary discussions on eschatology, future emergence states and soul, in light of physical-chemistry, quantum physics and complexity theories, drawing on insights from other researchers in the field of science–religion/spirituality dialogue. A future essay will also describe in greater detail the eschatological states envisioned by Teilhard and Aurobindo, and how they might be considered from multiple scientific disciplines. 4. In the deepest spiritual experiences and insights of each religion, one may reach an understanding which goes beyond words, as have mystics of all religious traditions. Thus, it might be recommended that one go as deep as possible in the spiritual dimension of the tradition into which one was born (although for others the vantage point of another tradition may be helpful). One may also mention that the vision of a ‘new emerging level’ may not satisfy all the multiple human needs which traditional religions try to serve. Minimally, one will need to include an element of love and a ‘humility factor’ for any ontological and theoretical efforts to present a new image of spirituality which can be universally attractive. The field of science– religion dialogue seems to us already the start of a global reawakening of global spirituality.

WORKS CITED Aurobindo, S, 1990, The Life Divine, Twin Lakes, Lotus Press. —, 30 May 1909, Aurobindo’s Collected Works, Vol. 2, Uttarpara Speech, p.3. Eigen, M, 1971, Molekulare Selbstorganisation und Evolution. (Self-organization of matter and the evolution of biological macro molecules), Naturwissenschaften, pp.465–523. Emmeche, C, Koppe, S, and Stjernfelt, F, 2000, ‘Levels Emergence and Three Versions of Downwards Causation’, Downward Causation: Minds Bodies and Matter, Andersen, C, Emmeche, N O, Finnemann, P V, Christiansen, ed, Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, pp.13–34. Gleick, J, 1987, Chaos: Making a New Science, New York, Penguin Books. Goldstein, J, 1999, ‘Emergence as a Construct: History and Issues’, Emergence, Journal of Complexity Issues in Organization and Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.49–72.

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Holland, J, 1998, Emergence: From Chaos to Order, Reading, MA, AddisonWesley. Kauffman, S, 1995, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of SelfOrganization and Complexity, New York, Oxford University Press. Kazlev, M A [http://www.kheper.net/topics/Aurobindo/Life Divine.html]. King, U, 1981, Towards a New Mysticism: Teilhard de Chardin and Eastern Religions, New York, Seabury Press, p.97. Lewin, R, 1992, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Nicolis, G, and Prigogine, I, 1977, Self-organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems, New York, Wiley Press. Sethna, K D, 1973, Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo: A Focus on Fundamentals, Varanasi, BharatiyaVidya Prakasana, p.117. Teilhard de Chardin, P, 1975, The Phenomenon of Man, New York, Harper Colophon.

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Chapter 7

Science, Spirituality and Swaraj: Towards a New Aesthetics of Ethical Existence Sudhir Kumar

PRASTAVANA (INTRODUCTION) Gandhiji’s vision of life unmistakably shows a remarkable blend between the scientific (avidya) and the spiritual (vidya) aspects of knowledge – the interdependence and mutual inclusiveness of which is characterized by the centrality of truth and non-violence (satya and ahimsa) in Gandhiji’s theory and praxis for ethical existence. For Gandhiji, science and spirituality have to be yoked together within an ethical framework of values to usher in the beautiful in human life. His holistic vision of life was, therefore, grounded in a new aesthetics of moral existence. My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth. To see the universal and all-pervading spirit of truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of politics, and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing is do with politics do not know what religion means (Gandhi, 2003, p.463). Even if ‘politics’ in the preceding statement is replaced with ‘science’, the overall ethical import of Gandhiji’s vision will remain intact and unaffected. In other words, in the Gandhian world view

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a scientist and a spiritually motivated seeker will both pursue Truth – the former does so in order to maximize human comfort, happiness and abolish external pain and miseries; the latter does so in order to experience the spiritual oneness or unity of being through ahimsa, Swaraj (self-rule) and satyagraha (soul or truth force). Both science and spirituality, if divorced from truth, morality, reason and ahimsa (non-violence), will not lead humanity towards lasting peace, progress and harmony or towards an ethical existence. Gandhiji always wanted to test ‘the spiritual’ (self-purification leading to selfknowledge) on the touchstone of ‘reason’ and ‘morality’. That is why he defined Hinduism as ‘search after truth through non-violent means’ (Young India, 24 April 1924). And he was bold enough not to accept any authoritarian, dogmatic spiritual book or a saint as the sole proprietor of truth: ‘I decline to be bound by any interpretation, however learned it may be, if it is repugnant to reason or moral sense[. . . ]’ (Young India, 6 October 1921). Thus, Gandhiji’s approach to science and spirituality was quite liberal and open-ended. It is significant to note here how Gandhiji lays emphasis on both ‘reason’ and the ‘moral sense’ in order to characterize the essence of dharma or religion in the widest sense of spirituality. According to Gandhiji, science devoid of ‘moral sense’ will degenerate into valueless modernity or anarchy, whereas spirituality without reason will be mere humbug or sham – having no connection with the quotidian, ordinary human existence marked by the weariness, the fever and the fret of life. Gandhiji holds that a conscientious seeker of Truth (either a scientist or a spiritual practitioner) will strive for identification with the other through utter humility and self-purification – without which his/her pursuit of Truth will not contribute to the state of Sarvodaya (welfare of all) on this planet. This, in short, is what is implied by the new aesthetics of ethical existence – as exemplified by Gandhiji through his deeds and words both. But Gandhiji rightly realized that the spiritual path leading one to identify with everything (tadatmya) is fraught with challenges and difficulties. Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification: without self-purification the observance of law of Ahimsa must remain an empty dream – God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification, therefore, must mean purification in all walks of life. And purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one’s surroundings. But the path of self-purification

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is hard and steep. To attain perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion (Auto, pp.463–4). Gandhiji holds that the ethical and the scientific have to be mutually fulfilling and inclusive – only then the beauty of existence – or a new aesthetics of existence – can be realized. Hunger, poverty violence, ignorance, inequality and injustice are thus addressed through science and spirituality, the twin coordinates of human existence. Perspectivized thus, Gandhiji imagines science and spirituality not as an oppositional dyad but as complementary constituents of the ethical base of human civilization. We have seen above that his notion of adhyatma or spirituality (or religion) is indeed quite practical and not mystical (or metaphysical or other-worldly in a general sense). Similarly, Gandhiji considered science as a means to an end, that is, the realization of Truth or self-knowledge and the cessation of human suffering. The science of the material world is what is called avidya in the Indian (Hindu) tradition or parampara. On the contrary, the understanding of the spiritual is called vidya. According to Ishavasyopanishad, those who obsessively follow vidya or avidya enter blinding darkness (verse 8). Only he/she ‘who understands vidya and avidya both together, attains to the nature of immortals through vidya, having conquered death by avidya’ (Ish, 11, p.14). Gandhi also harmonized ‘reason’ and ‘spirituality’ and subjugated products or forms or applications as technology/machines/ materialism to his spiritual/ethical imperative or vision in order to reconstruct a new aesthetics for a world free from injustice, violence and exploitation. But he was sure that only a morally inspired science could produce the beautiful or Sundaram, the Shivam (The well-being for all) and Satyam (Truth).

SCIENCE AND SWARAJ: SPIRITUALIZING (CON)-SCIENCE Contrary to the popular illusory perception that Gandhiji was against science and technology, he was one of the few modern spiritual practitioners who tried to humanize (or spiritualize) science and its various applications and forms (industry and technology) lest they should be abused to destroy all the human and natural

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world. While admonishing the gross misuse of science by the powerstructures to exploit and victimize people, Gandhiji does not forget to pay tribute to the scientific spirit (i.e. also the pursuit of truth): I am not opposed to the progress of science as such. On the contrary, the scientific spirit of the West commands my admiration, and if that admiration is qualified, it is because the scientist of the West takes no note of God’s lower creation (Young India, 17 December 1925). It is worthwhile to note that Gandhiji admired the scientific point of view or spirit with which a scientist as a sadhak (practitioner) remains engaged in the pursuit of truth. He was, however, quick to condemn the wrong direction the scientific spirit has taken: I would like to pay my humble tribute to the spirit of research that fires the modern scientist. My quarrel is not against that spirit. My complaint is against the direction that the spirit has taken. It has chiefly concerned itself with the exploration of laws and methods conducing to the merely material advancement of its clientele. But I have nothing but praise for the zeal, industry and sacrifice that have animated the modern scientists in the pursuit after truth? (The Health Guide, p.9). Thus, he was against the enslavement of the spirit of science in modern times to human greed or lust for material comforts or political power. In other words the true test of science lies, according to Gandhiji, in its impact on moral conscience or character: ‘Who can deny that much that passes for science and art today destroys the soul instead of uplifting it; and instead of evoking the best in us, panders to our basest passions’ (Young India, 23 January 1922). Thus, Gandhiji wanted science to evoke the best (and not the beast) in human character in order to make him/her an ideal member/unit of a good, civil society. His stay in the West and his vast reading of Western literature convinced him that what passes off as modern civilization in the West is but the result of the gross abuse of science and technology and that panders to creature comforts, violence, oppression, injustice and destruction of environment. His Hind Swaraj (1908) is a critique of Western modernity or civilization that was grounded in the misuse of science and technology. People living in Western/modern civilization make

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bodily welfare the object of life and ignore the moral or spiritual progress or self-enlightenment. Gandhiji called this civilization a satanic civilization and disease (Hind Swaraj, pp.32–4). The post-enlightenment modern civilization was defined in the West through its materialistic advancements and conquest of the natural and human world which were facilitated to a great extent by the Mephistophelian mediation of science and technology (for example, the luxury industry and the war industry) even without once reckoning its moral/environmental costs. Hence, its proximity and complicity with colonization, slavery, wars, violence, crimes, greenhouse effect, destruction of flora and fauna, etc. Gandhiji on the contrary, defined civilization in spiritual/ethical terms: Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our passions. So doing we know our selves. The Gujrati equivalent for civilization means ‘good conduct’ (Hind Swaraj, p.55). Thus, true civilization does not mean the proliferation or multiplication of material/consumer products and desires. It implies self-restraint, performance of our duty and observance of morality (that is, adherence to dharma) which lead one to true bliss or happiness that results from atma-bodh or spiritual enlightenment. Moreover, a person with good conduct will also be a good citizen of a civilized society. Therefore, Gandhiji warned that ‘scientific truths and discoveries should cease to be mere instruments of greed’ (Young India, 13 November 1924), if the world is to survive and grow. The true progress of India or the world, according to him, lies in spiritual progress, which is in harmony with socially and ethically relevant progress of science and technology, and not in crass materialism if it becomes an end in itself: We are dazzled by the material progress that Western science has made. I am not enamoured of that progress. In fact, it almost seems as though God in his wisdom had prevented India from progressing along those lines, so that it might fulfil its special mission of resisting the onrush of materialism (Young India, 24 November 1927). Contrary to Gandhiji’s vision, contemporary India seems to be gravitating towards the glamour of the so-called economic

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globalization and heady consumerism driven by Western science and technology and is moving away from the moral or spiritual path. Gandhiji suggested the practice of non-violence and truth as a part of our character to successfully counter the destructive force of science and technology: ‘Non-violence is the only thing that the Atom Bomb cannot destroy. I did not move a muscle when I first heard that the Atom Bomb had wiped out Hiroshima. On the contrary, I said to myself, ‘Unless now the world adopts non-violence, it will spell certain suicide for mankind’ (Harijan, 29 September 1946). And then he squarely blamed the managers of science for creating a terrible system of human destruction: ‘I regard the employment of the Atom Bomb for the wholesale destruction of men, women and children as the most diabolical use of science’ (Harijan, 29 September 1946). Needless to say, the same nuclear energy that decimated humanity in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in its destructive and negative avatar, may well be harnessed to produce unlimited electricity and other substances that may considerably reduce hunger, poverty and diseases from the world.

ON MACHINERY: EXORCIZING THE DEVIL In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi considers the unbridled growth of machinery a great sin because it is the chief symbol of modern civilization: ‘Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization: it represents a great sin’ (Hind Swaraj, p.83) or ‘Machinery is like a snake-hole which may contain from one to a hundred snakes. Where these is machinery, there are large cities, and where there are large cities, there are tram cars and railways, and there only does one see electric light [. . . ] I cannot recall a single good point in connection with machinery’ (Hind Swaraj, pp.84–5). One can erroneously infer from the above cited statements that Gandhiji was unjustifiably a staunch critic of machinery. But he revised his views on machinery later on when he accepted the qualified and contextual usage of machinery after exorcizing it from the devil of greed hidden in it: ‘I am not against machinery as such. The charkha itself for that matter is machinery. But I am a determined foe of all machinery that is designed for exploitation of people’ (Young India, 13 November 1924). Gandhiji questioned the contemporary craze for machinery in a country like India which is full of human recourses:

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What I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for what they call labour saving machinery. Men go on saving labour till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation (Young India, 13 November 1924). Moreover, Gandhiji favoured heavy machinery when it is used for the welfare of the people: The heavy machinery for work of public utility which cannot be undertaken by human labour has its inevitable place, but all that would be owned by the state and used entirely for the benefit of the people. I can have no consideration for the machinery which is meant either to enrich the few at the expense of the many, or without cause to displace the useful labour of the many (Harijan, 22 June 1935). Gandhiji could foresee the dangers inherent in the spiritually indifferent machine/plastic age – civilization much ahead of his times. He, therefore, wanted to exorcize the machine crazy civilization before it was too late: ‘Machine age aims at converting men into machines; I am aiming at reinstating man turned machine into his original estate’ (Harijan, 30 November 1935). Gandhiji considered even the human body as a delicate piece of machinery, which, as a machinery, is merely a means to an end of the spiritual enlightenment or self-rule (Swaraj). He was, therefore, not a Luddite – a destroyer of all machines at all times – wanted to use the machinery for the greatest good of all humanity (sarvodaya): ‘[. . . ] but machines will remain because, like the body, they are inevitable. The body itself, as I told you, is the purest piece of mechanism: but if it is a hindrance to the higher flights of soul, it has to be rejected’ (cited by Mahadev Desai in Preface to Hind Swaraj, p.9). Gandhiji could easily see through the unholy nexus between science, technology, machinery, industrialism, imperialism and the exploitation of masses and nature in the name of development. God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts (Harijan, 28 January 1929). His critique of American economic progress was valid as it was based on sound economic/cultural logic and it stands valid even

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today in the hey days of America-sponsored economic globalization which is driven by its scientific technology. America was the most industrialized country in the world, and yet it had not banished poverty and degradation. That was because it neglected the universal manpower and concentrated power in the hands of the few who amassed fortunes at the expense of the many. The result was that its industrialization had become a menace to its own poor and to the rest of the world (Harijan, 23 January 1947). If one substitutes ‘industrialism’ with ‘globalization’ here one gets the most cogent and constructive criticism of its pernicious economic logic that brings about acute social dysfunctionalism and disillusionment and it also serves as a statutory warning to a new globally and sensexually developed India. Gandhiji rightly says: Industrialism depends entirely on your capacity to exploit, on foreign markets being open to you, and on the absence of competitors. A vast country like India cannot expect to benefit by industrialization. In fact, India, when it begins to exploit other nations – as it must do if it becomes industrialized – will be a curse for other nations, a menace to the world (Young India, 12 November 1931).

CRITIQUE OF MODERN MEDICINE/MEDICAL SCIENCE It is on the touchstone of spirituality or morality that Gandhiji tested his views on science/medical science, machinery, industry and modern civilization. For example, Gandhi asks medical practitioners as to why they opt for this ‘noble profession’: It is worth considering why take up the profession of medicine. It is certainly not taken up for the purpose of serving humanity. We become doctors so that we may obtain honours and riches. I have endeavoured to show that there is no real service of humanity in the profession and that it is injurious to mankind. Doctors make a show of their knowledge and charge exorbitant fee (Hind Swaraj, p.54). No doubt, Gandhiji errs here by making a sweeping generalization but how many doctors today would like to do a ‘reality/morality

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check’ as suggested by Gandhiji? Similarly, he opposed the misplaced medical ethic that ignores soul but valorizes the body: My quarrel with the medical profession in general is that it ignores the soul altogether, and strains at nothing in seeking merely to repair such a fragile instrument as the body. Thus, ignoring the soul, the profession puts men at its mercy and contributes to the diminution of human dignity and self-control (The Health Guide, p.10). To him, due emphasis on spiritual purity implies physical purity also as he believed in the holistic notion of health. In this respect, medicine should cater to both bodily (external) and spiritual (inner) health: The present science of medicine is divorced from religion; actually a clean spirit must build a clean body. I am convinced that the main rules or religious conduct conserve both the spirit and the body (Young India, 28 February 1921). And he goes on to compare the greed-driven or unethical medical science or system with black magic – ‘I regard the present system of medicine as black magic, because it tempts people to put an importance on the body and practically ignores the spirit within’ (Young India, 28 February 1921). No wonder, Gandhiji at present may admire the recent film Munna Bhai MBBS which offers a critique of the soulless, inhumane medical science and its applications in the medical profession today. Is it any wonder that the postmodern aesthetic that focuses on ‘body and skin’ is eventually grounded in the fast growing body and skin (read medical) treatment industry?? It is through the abuse of science and technology that the beauty contests and advertisements construct beauty only in terms of physical attractiveness (both male and female) ignoring the inner or spiritual aspect of the beauty. Similarly, the burgeoning ‘Yoga-asana industry’ which only valorizes the physical fitness and neglects the spiritual or ethical fitness in modern society may have been criticized by Gandhiji. According to him, one has to keep a balance between a healthy mind and a healthy body: Men sana in corpore sano is perhaps the first law of humanity. A healthy mind in a healthy body is a selfevident truth. There is an inevitable connection between

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Science and Spirituality mind and body. If we were in possession of healthy minds, we would shed all violence, and naturally obeying the laws of health, we would have healthy bodies without an effort (Constructive Programme, p.8).

It is, however, interesting to note that Gandhiji admired the Western advancement in surgery: ‘The West has always commanded my admiration in surgical inventions and all round progress in that direction’ (The Health Guide, p.11). Surprisingly, Gandhiji had his quota of problems with the present stagnant condition of the Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine and he did not conceal his reservations about its limitations vis-`a-vis the Western medical science: ‘I know of not a single discovery or invention of any importance on the part of Ayurvedic physicians as against a brilliant array of discoveries and inventions which Western physicians and surgeons boast’ (The Health Guide, p.11). Gandhiji may well be faulted here for speaking of ayurveda ahistorically and without proper study of the subject. There were social, cultural and historical reasons why the brilliance and utility of ayurveda dipped alarmingly after Sushruta, Charaka and Sharngadhara in Indian Society. He continues to attack Ayurvedic practitioners for stagnation and apathy in the same vein even further: My quarrel with the professors of Ayurvedic system is that many of them, if not indeed a vast majority of them, are mere quacks pretending to know much more than they actually do, arrogating to themselves an infallibility and ability to cure all diseases [. . . ] They impute to Ayurveda an omnipotence which it does not possess and in doing so, they have made it a stagnant system instead of a gloriously progressive science (The Health Guide, p.11). As a spiritual practitioner, Gandhiji also practised/experimented with the nature cure which ‘implies an ideal mode of life and that, in its turn, presupposes ideal living conditions are not in towns but in villages. The name of God is, of course, the hub round which the Nature cure system revolves’ (Harijan, 26 May 1946). Furthermore, according to him, the essence of nature cure is ‘that we learn the principle of hygiene and sanitation, and abide by those laws as well as the laws relating to proper nutrition. Thus does every one become his own doctor’ (Harijan, 1 September 1946).

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One may be amused to learn that Gandhiji condemned the modern medical science for the invention, popularization and presumption of contraceptives as a device for birth control and consequent social engineering. He condemned the con-do(o)med, contraceptive-centric social engineering which aggravates the gross perversion of ‘kama’ (basic sexual desire) and consequently affects the state of public morality in any human society. Medical men will earn the gratitude of mankind, if instead of devising artificial means of birth control, they will find out the means of self-control. The union is meant not for pleasure, but for bringing forth progeny. And union is a crime when the desire for progeny is absent (Young India, 12 March 1925). One may imagine Gandhiji advocating the practice of self-control and morally sanctioned ‘Kama or sexuality’ in place of distributing ‘condoms’ for safe sex and promiscuous indulgence in the ongoing fight against AIDS.

UPASAMHARA OR CONCLUSION: QUEST FOR TRUTH AS THE SPIRITUAL AND THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGINARY Since Gandhiji’s notion of spirituality, in itself, was based on reason and practical morality in its widest sense, he frequently used it to reconstruct alternative meanings of science, technology, machinery, industry, medical science, colonialism, civilization, nation and politics which ensured the making or continuance of a civil or good society (say Gandhi’s political Swaraj). His notion of spirituality or religion was so all pervasive that it included even an atheist: ‘God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist for, in his boundless love, God permits the atheist to live’ (Young India, 5 March 1925). The sentence ‘God is conscience’ says it all – it even accepts the atheism of a scientist in pursuit of truth, which, according to Gandhiji, is yet another name of God. He aptly says, ‘One may banish the word “God”, but one has no power to banish the thing itself’. And, surely, conscience is but a poor and laborious paraphrase of the simple combination of three letters called ‘God’ (Young India, 5 March 1925). Gandhiji added to the meanings of spirituality a surprising element of the quotidian which is also visible in the uses of science:

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Science and Spirituality We often prate about spirituality as if it had nothing to do with the ordinary affairs of life and had been reserved for anchorites in the Himalayan forests or concealed in some inaccessible Himalayan cave. Spirituality that has no bearing on and produces no effect on every day life is an airy nothing (Young India, 5 August 1929).

Comparing the strength and potency of spirituality with that of science, Gandhiji shows his faith in the power of spiritual life: ‘Spiritual life has greater potency than Marconi waves. Where there is no medium between me and my Lord and I simply become a willing vessel for His influences to flow into it, then I overflow as the waters of the Ganges at its source. There is no desire to speak when one lives the truth’ (Harijan, 12 December 1936). Where both science and spirituality, according to Gandhi, meet is the pursuit of truth. But it is only ‘relative’ truth that is attainable both to the spiritual or scientific seekers: ‘Nobody in this world possesses absolute Truth. This is God’s attribute only. Relative truth is all we know. Therefore, we can only follow the truth as we see it. Such pursuit of Truth cannot lead anyone astray’ (Harijan, 2 June 1946). All knowledge, spiritual or scientific, vidya or avidya is present in Truth. According to Gandhi, our existence can only become ethical when the scientific (or the rational) and the spiritual co-exist for the greatest good of all humanity. There should be Truth in thought, Truth in speech, and Truth in action. To the man who realized Truth in its fullness, nothing else remains to be known, because all knowledge is necessarily included in it. What is not included in it is not Truth, and so not true knowledge (Yeravada Mandir, p.2) WORKS CITED Gandhi, M K, 1938, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, Ahmedabad, Navjivan (p.4, 1908), 1995, cited in the essay as Hind Swaraj with page numbers in parentheses. —, 1945, Constructive Work, Ahmedabad, Navjivan. —, 1945, From Yeravada Mandir, Ahmedabad, Navjivan. —, 1965, The Health Guide, ed, Anand, T H, Allahabad. —, 2003, An Autobiography or The story of my experiments with truth, Ahmedabad, Navjivan, 1927, p.7. Further cited in the essay as Auto with page numbers in parentheses. Ishavasyopanishad (Tr. with notes by Swami Sarvananda), Madras, Sri Ramkrishna Math, n.d. Cited in the essay as Ish with page numbers in parentheses.

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III Building Bridges: Evolution, Consciousness and Healing

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Chapter 8

The Concept of the Yuga: Modern Scientific Approaches to Bridge Spiritual and Philosophical Concepts Bal Ram Singh

Many spiritual and philosophical concepts are generally considered off limits for any scientific analysis and evaluation, as the modern scientists consider that science has developed its ideas from the observation of matter, be it in gas, liquid or solid form. This is far from the truth. There are several examples where philosophical concepts dominated the development of scientific ideas. Some of the contradictory attitudes may actually stem more from historical conflicts between religion and the empirical development of scientific principles than a real divergence between the philosophical concepts and scientific ideas. In fact, a sympathetic approach to understand the interconnection between science and spirituality/philosophy reveals more commonality and synergism than conflict and mutual exclusivity. This article will elaborate on this issue, taking examples of some of the most fundamental concepts such as the origin of the universe and time on one hand and understanding the yuga cycle on the other.

MATRIX OF MAYA In 1993, a mainstream scientist and Nobel Laureate, Francis Crick, wrote a book called The Scientific Search for the Soul. It indicated

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that scientists are interested in the question of the deeper basis of the operation of this universe even as they are disillusioned with their search for the most fundamental particles constituting the elements. There is an indication that a mental game theory is taking shape from the ancient wisdom of saints and sages in terms of the exploration of Maya. Maya has remained such an integral part of the Indian tradition that it has almost become synonymous with life’s trials and tribulations for most people living in difficult situations in that part of the world. But for some ‘educated’ groups of people, the concept of Maya allows them to retain their sanity under the most chaotic conditions created by the time and traits of one’s surroundings. While Maya is a refuge mostly for people belonging to the lower stratum of society in India, its value is also being recognized in the elite and enlightened classes in the West. The concept of Maya is now being picked up by the popular entertainment industry to drive a message home to a population that can attempt to make sense of Maya in the midst of the chaotic opulence of today’s world, and, more importantly, perhaps in the world of tomorrow. The success of the Warner Brothers blockbuster Matrix, evident from its expansion into a trilogy, seems to be due to the resonating vibrations within the human populace, perhaps worldwide. The movie even included the chanting of ‘asato ma sadgamaya’ at the end of the Matrix Revolutions.

MODERN SCIENTISTS AND INDIAN TRADITIONS Returning to the scientific search for the soul, Francis Crick, who with James Watson discovered the double helix structure of DNA encoding the genes, states that ‘the scientific belief is that our minds – the behaviour of our brains – can be explained by the interactions of nerve cells (and other cells) and the molecules associated with them’. He continues: ‘the idea of soul, distinct from the body and not subject to our known scientific laws, is a myth. It is easy to see how such myths could have arisen. Indeed, without the detailed knowledge of the nature of matter and radiation, and of biological evolution, such myths appear only too plausible’. Notably, Francis Crick, a physicist by training, was inspired to make the understanding of biological systems his life’s mission by

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a series of lectures by another Nobel Laureate, Erwin Schrodinger, on ‘What is Life?’ in the 1940s. Schrodinger himself entertained the idea of another real world with the following questions: ‘Is my world really the same as yours? Is there one real world to be distinguished from its pictures introjected by way of perception into every one of us? And if so, are these pictures like unto the real world or is the latter, the world “in itself”, perhaps very different from the one we perceive?’ Schrodinger himself termed these questions as an arithmetical paradox: ‘the many conscious egos from whose mental experiences the one world is concocted’. He believed the solution to this paradox would do away with all the above questions. He propounded the idea of ‘the unification of minds or consciousness’. He continued, ‘Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth, there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not only the Upanishads. The mystically experienced union with God regularly entails this attitude unless it is opposed by strong existing prejudices, and this means that it is less easily accepted in the West than in the East’. Schrodinger did not have any illusion about the acceptability of such ideas from the scientific point of view. He stated that such an idea would appear ‘rather lunatic from the point of view of present scientific thought (based on ancient Greek thought and thus thoroughly Western)’. As predicted by Schrodinger, Francis Crick, despite his inspiration from Schrodinger, remained vehemently opposed to any reference to a religion or philosophy: ‘Most of the religious beliefs we have today originated in a time when the earth, while a small place by our standards, was then thought of as being very large, even though its exact extent was unknown. [. . . ] The earth’s origins seemed lost in the mists of time and yet the span of time thought to be involved, while it seemed long in terms of human experience, we now know to be ridiculously short. It was not implausible to believe the earth was less than ten thousand years old. We now know its true age is about 4.6 billion years. The stars seemed far away, fixed perhaps in the spherical firmament, but that the universe extended as far as it does – more than 10 billion light years – was almost inconceivable. (An exception has to be made here for

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Science and Spirituality certain eastern religions, such as Hinduism, that take pleasure in inflating times and distances for the sheer joy of it.)’

An exception, indeed! In fact, one must take an exception to the reference to Hinduism, as the Western concept of religion, because corrupting a scientific philosophy either with malpractice within the tradition or branding it with unscientific concepts such as religion by outsiders is injustice to the concept of scientific truth.

AGE AND LIFETIME OF THE UNIVERSE The calculation of the age of the universe (or Bramhand as is referred to in the Indian tradition) has been carried out by physicists for several decades now. It was initially estimated to be about 20 billion years, which has now been revised as 11.2 billion years (Krauss and Chaboyer). The age of the Bramhand is, however, calculated based on the age of the Bramha. According to the Manusmriti (I.75), Brahma’s one day is 1,000 dev yugas, and so is one of Brahma’s nights (i.e. an additional 1,000 dev yugas). Daivikanam yuganam tu sahasram parisankhyaya, Brahmaikmahargyayam taavati raatrireva cha. Also, one dev yuga is equal to 12,000 yugas of manushyas (humans), and one yuga (chaturyuga consisting of Krita, Treta, Dwapar and Kali) of humans is equal to 12,000 years on Earth. Thus, a day of Brahma would be 144 billion years, which is what would be equivalent to the current time frame of the universe. Obviously, this time frame is much older than the current estimate of lifetime of the universe based on the Big Bang theory (Krauss and Chaboyer). Future scientific developments would be needed to reconcile this difference if Brahma’s day begins with the creation of the universe as we understand it. It is notable that astronomical calculations are still in a state of flux for a variety of reasons. Three major factors which may be contributing to this uncertainty are as follows: (1) The true nature of matter is still unknown, beyond the fundamental particles identified. The current construct of matter and anti-matter, dark matter and dark energy, and the changing paradigm of fundamental particles raise questions of further changes in astronomical calculations in the

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future. (2) While the Big Bang theory based on the Hubble-type expansion seen in the red shifts of the galaxies has been proposed for the origin of the universe, there have been many questions on its validity to explain the horizon problem, Baryon asymmetry, magnetic nanopoles, etc. (3) There is a major conflict between quantum mechanics and theory of relativity in terms of perceiving an event before and after seeing it, primarily because the theory of relativity assumes the speed of light to be faster than anything else. Clearly, Science is always in the process of evolution. A major strength of science and the scientific approach is the self-correcting factor. There is always an openness to change in science as new data and evidence are produced.

YUGA ACCORDING TO ORIGINAL SCRIPTURES In contrast to science, scriptures tend to become fixed, although subject to varying interpretations at least in many of the Indic traditions. Inconsistencies between scriptural accounts of time, space and the origin of the universe may in part be due to the varying interpretations of the relevant maxims. With regard to time, yuga cycle and the origin of the universe, virtually identical shlokas or maxims are found in the Manusmriti (vide supra) and the Mahabharata (Shantiparva 231.11–32). According to both the Manusmriti (1.63–73) and the Mahabharata (Shantiparva 231.11–32), Chaturyuga consists of Satyuga or Kritayuga of 4,800 years, Tretayuga of 3,600 years, Dwaparyuga of 2,400 years and Kaliyuga of 1,200 years, all lasting for a total of 12,000 years. 12,000 such years make one Devyuga (Manusmriti, 1.71). Interestingly, there is no such clear definition of Devyuga in the Mahabharata, although both the Manusmriti (1.67) and the Mahabharata (Shantiparv 231.17) describe one year of man as being equal to one Dev day. Daive ratryahani varsham pravibhagastayo punah Ahastatrogayanam ratrih syaddakshinayanam (Manusmriti 1.67, Shantiparv 231.17) (One full year of men makes one day and night of Devas. The Northern solstice is their day and the Southern solstice is their night.)

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However, both the Manusmriti and the Mahabharata mention that 1,000 of 12,000 yugas form a day of Brahma (Manusmriti 1.71; Shantiparva 231.29), and both texts mention the same length of Brahma’s night. After the end of the night Brahma awakens and creates the Mahtatva, which in turn creates the mind capable of expressing the world or the universe. The calculation of the life of the universe would therefore be as follows: 12,000 man years/Chaturyuga × 12,000 Chaturyuga/Devyuga × 1000 Devyuga/Brahm day. This will provide an estimate of 144 billion years on Earth for the life of the universe or brahmand. Assuming the same length of Brahm night gives a total of 288 billion years for one cycle of the universe. Physicists have calculated the current age of the universe as 11.2 billion years (Kraus and Chaboyer), thus putting it within the realm of the 144–288 billion years calculated from the Indian texts. A major confusion continues in the estimation of the Kaliyuga as 432,000 years, of which only about 5,000 years appear to have passed. The confusion seems to appear in the translation of the 1,200 years of Kaliyuga into the Dev years, even though none of the shlokas describing Chaturyuga mention Dev days being considered for calculations. Since one Dev day is equal to one man year (Manusmriti 1.67; Shantiparva 231.17), one could easily estimate the time of Kaliyuga as 1200 years/Kaliyuga × 360 man years/Dev year = 432,000 man years/Kaliyuga. This estimation assumes that one Dev year is equal to 360 Dev days (similar to that of one man year being equal to 360 days) even though the length of the Dev year is not defined either in the Manusmriti or the Mahabharata. In fact, in the Mahabharata, it is clearly mentioned that Vyas ji is using the man year to describe Brahma’s day and night, as well as the chaturyuga. Ye te ratriyahani purve kirtite jeevaloukike Tayo sankhyay varshagram brahme vakshyamyahahkshape (Shantiparva 231.18) Prithak samvatsaragrani pravakshyamyanupurvashah Krite tretayuge chaiva dwapare cha kalou tatha (Shantiparva 231.19)

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(As described before – in Shantiparva 231.15–16 – for the jeeva loka, i.e. for man, I will now describe calculation of Brahma’s day and night. Also, I will describe similarly the years – samvatsars – of different yugas, such as Krityuga, Tretayuga, Dwaparyuga and Kaliyuga). Thus, the span of Kaliyuga as 432,000 years is questionable, at least according to these scriptures. Another source used for the yuga calculation is the Bhagwatam, used by His Divinity Swami Prakasanand Saraswati (Saraswati). His calculation takes into account the life of Brahma as 100 years for calculating the life of the universe to be 155.52 trillion years. He also uses Dev years to calculate a Chaturyuga cycle of 4.32 million years, which when divided by 360 comes to just 12,000 years. While current scientific evidence does not support the universe let alone the Earth to be anywhere close to 155.52 trillion years, there is no evidence to clearly refute it either. Given the fact that many of the Vedic and Pauranic texts mention long time periods, and Indian culture is the only one with such a framework of time, it is wise to keep the options open.

MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE YUGA CYCLE According to the interpretations of Sri Yukteswar (Yukteswar), the Yuga cycle consists of a pair (yuga literally means a pair) of descending and ascending periods (Fig. 1), 12,000 years each. Quoting from the Manusmriti, Sri Yukteswar outlines a four-part yuga cycle – Satyayuga of 4,800 years, Tretayuga of 3600 years, Dwaparyuga of 2400 years and Kaliyuga of 1,200 years. The two shlokas describing the yuga period in Manusmriti are as follows: Chatwaryahuh sahastrani varsanam tatkritam yugam Tasya tawchhati sandhya sandhyanshashcha tathavidhih (I.69) (The Krita (satya) yuga consists of 4,000 years, with 400 years each of the beginning and end transitions (sandhyas), making it 4,800 years.) Itaresu sasandhyesu sasandhyanshesu cha trisu Ekapayen vertante sahastrani shatani cha (I.70)

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Vishnu Nabhi AD 12500

BC 11500

Ascending Yugas

Descending Yugas SUN

Satya Yuga AD 7700

1 2 0 0 0 y e a r s

SUN

SUN

24000 years

Treta Yuga

SUN

Dwapara Yuga SUN

AD 4100

Satya Yuga

Kali Kali Yuga Yuga SUN

Treta Yuga

Dwapara Yuga

1 2 0 0 0 y e a r s

BC 6700

SUN

SUN

Ascending Yugas

Descending Yugas

AD 1700

BC 700

BC 3100

AD 500

Representation of the yuga cycle as proposed by Swami Sri Yukteswar in his book, The Holy Science. This cycle consists of a 12,000 descending Chaturyuga and a 12,000 ascending Chaturyuga. According to this model, we are currently about 307 years in the ascending Dwaparayuga.

Fig. 1 (Of the remaining three yugas, the duration of each succeeding yuga and its transition periods (Sandhya and Sandhyadamsa, or dawn and eve) is less than that of its predecessor by 1,100 years.) Sri Yukteswar, in Holy Science, uses an astronomical argument of the sun revolving around some star in about 24,000 years of the earth – a celestial phenomenon which causes the backward movement of the equinoctial points around the zodiac. The sun is also suggested to be revolving around a grand centre called Vishnunabhi, which is believed to be the seat of the creative power, Brahma, referred to as universal magnetism.

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As the sun goes around its star (or ‘dual’ as it is referred to by Sri Yukteswar), it comes to the place nearest to the grand centre, the seat of Brahma. Dharma, the mental virtue, becomes so developed that man can easily comprehend all, even the spirit of mysteries, according to Sri Yukteswar. This even takes place when the Autumnal Equinox comes to the first point of Aries. As the sun revolves for another 12,000 years in its orbit, it reaches the farthest point from the grand centre. At this point the Autumnal Equinox is on the first point of Libra, and dharma, the mental virtue, is at such a reduced state that man is not able to grasp anything beyond gross material creation. From this point on, the journey of the sun continues for another 12,000 years during which dharma, the mental virtue, continues to evolve gradually expanding on the human understanding of the mysteries of the universe. The pair of 12,000 years, shown as descending and ascending arcs on the yuga chakra in Fig. 1, are referred to as Devyugas or the Electric couple. According to the Manusmriti, a Devyuga comprises 12,000 years that consist of the chaturyugas (four yugas – Satya, Treta, Dwapar and Kali). Yadetatparisankhyatmadadeva chaturyugam Etaddvadashsahastram devanam yugmuchyate (I.70) The uniqueness of Sri Yukteswar’s argument lies in linking the definition of the Chaturyuga with the astronomical observations of the sun’s orbit around its dual star and its positions at equinoctial points around the zodiac. This way he was able to compute two 12,000 year Chaturyugas in a cycle of 24,000 years, and thus create a solid argument for the association of the yuga cycle with physically observable astronomical events which can be verified scientifically. Although this approach was made public in 1894 as Kaivalya Darshanam (Sanskrit), and later as Holy Science in 1949 (in English), the logic and the scientific moorings of the arguments presented have not been picked up by Sanskritists, philosophers, or scientists in the past 57 years. Consequently, many descriptions of the yuga cycle appear to be ridiculously computed as millions of years, which are not sustainable from archaeological and scientific data, let alone the historical data. It would be more appropriate for an astronomer to provide a commentary on the astronomical connection of the yuga cycle. Astronomy has had many twists in the history of mankind. For example, the age of the universe has been adjusted from

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approximately 20 billion years to approximately 10 billion years (Britt). The age of the Earth has been adjusted from approximately 6,000 years to about 4.6 billion years (Brush). The most common theory of the origin of the universe is that of the Big Bang, according to which energy exploded in space spinning out chunks of matter in the form of galaxies, solar systems and planets, the numbers of each of them being virtually infinite. That said, it is still a more practical idea to relate modern scientific findings with the idea of the yuga cycles. Swami Yukteshwar’s idea of the 12,000 years of descending and 12,000 years of ascending yuga cycle may be relevant, as would be the idea of the 12,000 years Chaturyuga repeating itself back to back (Fig. 1). An astronomical phenomenon that could be relevant to this discussion is the precession of Earth’s axis that takes about 26,000 years (Seeds, Fig. 2). The time scale is certainly similar to the 24,000 years predicted by Swami Yukteshwar, and the difference may be explained to a certain extent in counting the years in the two systems, and any uncertainty in the variation in the inclination of the axis of the Earth.

Fig. 2

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This regular cycle of the precession of the Earth’s axis has a strong influence on the climatic behaviour of the Earth. According to Michael A Seeds: ‘Precession causes the Earth’s axis to sweep around a cone in a period of 26,000 years, and that changes the location of the seasons around the Earth’s orbit. Northern winters now occur when the Earth is 1.7 per cent closer to the sun, but in 13,000 years northern winters will occur on the other side of the Earth’s orbit where the Earth is further from the sun. The northern winters will be colder, and glaciers may grow.’ Other factors which affect climatic changes are slight variations in the elliptical shape of the Earth’s orbit over a period of 100,000 years, and the inclination of the Earth’s equator to its orbit. Presently, the Earth’s orbit allows it to be 1.7 per cent closer than average to the sun during northern hemisphere winters and 1.7 per cent farther during the northern hemisphere summers (Seeds). Currently at 23.5◦ , this angle varies between 22◦ and 24◦ in a period of about 41,000 years. Scientists believe that the cyclic changes, such as ice ages, originated in astronomical changes (Seeds). Temperature variations are only obvious changes which scientists are able to monitor. Do these changes have an effect on human development and consequently human thoughts and behaviour? At least that is what is predicted from the yuga cycle. One should explore this question with an open mind, both from the scientific as well as the philosophical point of view.

CURRENT POPULAR PRACTICE AND CONTROVERSIES Popular belief in India about the yuga cycle considers the age of Kaliyuga (supposedly under way in current times) as being 5,107 years as of 2006. There is some textual, astronomical and traditional evidence to support this belief. Textual references suggest that the Kaliyuga started after the departure of Shri Krishna from the earth in 3102 bc. Although there are some disputes about the exact date of the Mahabharata war and perhaps the departure of Shri Krishna, all the dates are around 3100 bce. In addition, there is a continuing calendar named Yugadi, which refers to the beginning of the yuga. According to the Yugadi calendar, practised in Karnataka and parts of Andhra Pradesh, we are in the year 5107 (in year 2006) matching

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perfectly with the departure of Shri Krishna and the beginning of the Kaliyuga. A problem, however, appears based on a report about the birth date of Shri Ram computed from astronomical references. The date of Shri Ram’s birth is computed by Saroj Bala as 10 January 5114 bce (Bezbaroowa and Joshi). Traditionally, it is believed that Shri Ram lived on this earth towards the end of the Tretayuga, which is estimated to last for 3,600 years (or 1,296,000 years taking 3,600 years as Dev years). If Dwapar follows Shri Ram’s time on earth, then it will have to be about 2400 (or 864,000 years, considering 2400 as Dev years) before the end of Dwapar. While astronomical calculations based on planetary positions could yield more than one estimate of time, current estimates are more consistent with the idea of yuga years in the text being considered as human years. Thus, the major conflict between the meanings of the verses cited above and interpretations propounded in almost all the texts exists in terms of whether the years referred to in the verses are Dev or human years. Although there is no mention of Dev years in the verses I.69 and I.70 of the Manusmriti, a Dev day is defined as one year of humans on Earth in verse 1.67, i.e. one year of Devas is considered as 360 human years on Earth. Therefore, 1,200 years for Kaliyuga is normally calculated as 1200 × 360 = 432, 000 years (Shashtri; Sharma). This number is normally quoted in popular writings, with assertions that only about 5,000 years have passed, so far, with about 427,000 years yet to go. These assertions are in contrast to many astronomical and archaeological reports being presented in recent years. Indian astronomy goes back to the Rig Vedic period, estimated to be at least 5,000 years back, and it seems to refer to several layers of time cycles, such as Kalp, Manvantaras, Mahayuga and Yuga (Kak). These cycles are to be properly clarified, so that they become consistent not only with each other, but also with the scientific data being collected using modern techniques of carbon dating, astronomy and archaeology. In this context, both Sri Yukteswar, a spiritual master, and Dr Subhash Kak, a modern scientist, agree that the concept of yuga years in texts like the Manusmriti are ordinary human years. Such an approach is likely not only to explain some of the inconsistencies but may actually open new doors for science and philosophy to work together.

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WORKS CITED Bezbaroowa, S, and Joshi, A, 8 November 2003, ‘Lord Ram was born in 5114 BC’, Times of India. Britt, R R, 3 January 2003, ‘Age of universe revised again’, [http://www. space.com]. Brush, S G, 2001, ‘Is the Earth too old? The impact of geochronology on cosmology, 1929–1952’, The Age of the Earth: From 4004 bc to ad 2002, Lewis, C L E, and Knell, S J, eds, London, Geological Society, pp.157–75. Crick, F, 1993, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons. Kak, S, 2000, ‘Birth and early development of Indian astronomy’, Astronomy Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy, Selin, H, ed, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp.303–40. Krauss, L M, and Chaboyer, B, 2003, ‘Age estimates of globular clusters in the Milky Way: Constraints on cosmology’, Science, 299, pp.65–9. Saraswati, H D P, 1999, The True History and the Religion of India: A Concise Encyclopedia of Authentic Hinduism, Part 1, Chapter 4, International Society of Divine Love. Seeds, M A, 2003, Foundations of Astronomy, 7th edn, Thomson Brooks/Cole. Shashtri, R C V, trans., 1997, Manusmriti, New Delhi, Vidya Vihar. Sharma, R N, 1998, Manusmriti, New Delhi, Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratishthan. Schrodinger, E, 1959, Arithmetical Paradox: The Oneness of Mind, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Yukteswar, S S, 1949, The Holy Science, Los Angeles, Self Realization Fellowship.

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Chapter 9

Sri Aurobindo’s Concept of Evolution of Consciousness: Exploration through the Paradigm of Health and Disease Rajni Vyas

This paper examines how Sri Aurobindo extended the concept of evolution as enunciated by Charles Darwin to consciousness and being (personality). The genius of Charles Darwin pervaded the scientific West in the 1890s. Europe was gripped by the theory of evolution during the formative years of Sri Aurobindo’s personality. When he returned to India in 1892 to take up his assignment at Vadodara (then Baroda) under Maharaja Sayaji Rao, the idealist Arvind Ghosh was already on the path to becoming Sri Aurobindo. He was to delve in the modern scientific theories of his time and study Indian philosophical concepts in depth. This was not to search for a synthesis. That would have been an elementary exercise for average minds. The sages and seers evolve their own visions of Reality that transcend the knowledge of their age by a quantum jump. Through the intuitive insight that penetrated the Upanishadic enunciation of Ultimate Reality, he saw that evolution also evolves (Aurobindo, 1921a, pp.1–8). He elaborated on this vision on both individual and universal scales. This paper limits its scope to the evolution of consciousness of an individual in the unfolding of his/her personality and how it correlates with the expression of health and disease. Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical postulates are then juxtaposed with modern science in

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terms of New Biology and advances in medicine in order to evaluate and establish that he indeed foresaw. Let us begin by describing how Sri Aurobindo came to pronounce further steps in the theory of evolution, viz. • Evolution also evolves and • Consciousness also evolves. (Aurobindo, 1921b, pp.1–16)

EVOLUTION ALSO EVOLVES Limiting our discussion to the personality of evolving man(kind), further evolution as visualized by Sri Aurobindo will manifest itself as an upward journey in consciousness. He coined a vocabulary of his own (Aurobindo, 2004, pp.134–5, 250, 557, 563, 576). That he himself was evolving, trying to succinctly paraphrase such phases of the growth of personality is evident from the plethora of names that he has used in his writings and discussions. Their usage demands a different dictionary with an Indian context (K Ramakrishna Rao), since none of the standard English dictionaries fully explain the meaning of the words. He used several words with this kind of connotation. The following is not an exclusive list: A. Functional levels of consciousness: • • • • •

Physical Vital Mental* Overmind Supramental

B. *He further categorizes mental plane1 as composed of different faculties: • • • • •

Thinking mind Dynamic mind Expressing mind Psychic mind Higher mind

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Science and Spirituality • Illumined mind • Intuitive mind • Overmind: This is described as a corridor (Aurobindo, 1949) that is a royal road to the Supermind • Supermind: This is a state of bliss when union with supramental consciousness happens through the descent of the Cosmic Mind (Universal Consciousness)

He describes (Nirodbaran) how different people, from ordinary masses to emancipated individuals like Mahatma Gandhi or the enlightened people like Vivekananda and Ramakrishna, function at different levels of consciousness. While illustrating that different people perform and go through phases of life at any of the levels, he emphasized their continuum and defined integral yoga sadhana in versatile detail so that anybody could aspire to and achieve the supramental. It could be step by step through ascent or it could be a miracle of descent (Rohit Mehta). The major unexplored arena in biosciences today is consciousness (Roger Sperry). Science does not have any answer as to how this epi-phenomenon manifests in inert matter (Bhaskar Vyas and Rajni Vyas, 2004). Sri Aurobindo was the first modern rishi to expound the existence of the supramental that modern science is now investigating as supracortical consciousness. Savitri (Aurobindo, 1949) is a symbolic metaphor of the evolution of consciousness. Savitri’s ascent through the realms of three Madonnas poignantly portrays it. Life Divine (Aurobindo, 2004) throughout is de facto elucidation. However, the paraphrasing of all such words will turn this paper into a debate on semantics. We will restrict our discussion to the psychic mind that the Mother (Collected Works of The Mother, pp.16, 247–8; K R Rao and S B Marwaha, pp.211–27) elaborated as the functioning of the physical, vital and mental being. In hierarchical terms, though it is lower, it is not to be decried as mean; Sri Aurobindo called it ‘innate aspiration’ to evolve. When this innate aspiration strives for the transformation into higher realms through the medium of overmind consciousness and turns spiritual, health2 is a natural by-product (Michael Miovic, pp.365–83). On the contrary, if the ego is overwhelming and its defences are too perverted, they will bring about a degradation of psychic being that will manifest itself as illness and disease.

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SRI AUROBINDO’S VISION AND MODERN SCIENCE While a continuum of consciousness through all the levels was visualized by Sri Aurobindo, modern science has come to realize the interconnectedness between only a few levels physiologically. These strands of thought are only just emerging. The beginning of modern medicine, though rooted in the concept of constancy of milieu interior, stemmed entirely from the Cartesian dualistic philosophy of body and mind. This was strengthened by discoveries of microbial organisms to such an extent that diseases were thought to be caused by the external environment. The mind had hardly a place in health, and disorders and diseases of mind were (and are to a great extent even today) compartmentalized into a separate ill-defined specialty that psychiatry is as of now. The evolution to a whole new paradigm in modern physiology (that corresponds with Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy) started emerging during 1935–55 when Hans Selye in Canada proved the influence of mental stress on the physical body. During the same period, hormonal influences were known to be governed by differing physiological states. In 1976, Candace Pert discovered the continuum among emotions, the brain and molecules. Following her discovery of secretion of morphia-like substance from the brain, numerous molecules are now known to be products of emotions that may be short-ranging or moods of longer duration. New Biology is now engaged in pursuit of molecules of spirituality as well as genes that trigger the production of such molecules. The author herself is a modern scientist and has personally experienced the tension between such a concept of self and consciousness vis-`a-vis a pure materialist view of life sciences to arrive at a synthesis in advance of molecular biology (Bhaskar Vyas and Rajni Vyas, 2006). Now thoughts are seen as floating particles in the bloodstream (Franklin Epstein, pp.1246–53), and the interphase between body and mind is fast disappearing. One single entity, bodymind (Candace Pert, pp.8–16), has emerged. Sri Aurobindo had foreseen such a continuum. To quote just a few of his comments from the talks that he had with Dr Nirodbaran (Nirodbaran). We narrate only a few: Once the subconscient is conquered, things will become easy for those who come after. That is what is meant by realization of one in all.

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Answering that the consciousness of the Divine is possible in physical self, he said, ‘When peace descends into the physical being, it is a great force for cure’: Truth can also descend into the physical. Diseases cannot end your life [. . . ] (You can control them) [. . . ] But the accidents cannot be wholly controlled [. . . ] Diseases usually run a long course so that one has time to act on them. [There is a] Force acting through the vital. It is the vital physical force being nearer the physical that has a more powerful effect in cases of such cures [. . . ] One can cure by mental power also but that requires more power of concentration. [The Vital has to be pure first in order to get intuition.] With vital purity you may become egoistic. Otherwise plenty of people cure without purity. The vital world has descended upon the physical in Hitler as well as Stalin. He even dwelt on overmind consciousness, though briefly, in the form of hypnosis: We see that in phenomena of hypnosis not only can the hypnotized subject be successfully forbidden to feel the pain of a wound or puncture but can also be prevented with equal success from returning to his habitual reaction of suffering when awakened [. . . ] There is suspension of habitual waking consciousness [. . . ] and is able to appeal to subliminal mental being in the depths who is the master if he wills, of the nerves and the body (Aurobindo, 2004, pp.71, 117, 910). The author has published (Rajni Vyas et al, 2002 and 2003) pioneering research in the field of infertility in 454 couples, that was based on the theory that bodymind is one and can be treated psychodynamically with unparalleled success. The conference on science and spirituality is a great event in my life. I thank Prof. Makarand Paranjape immensely for this opportunity that has brought about a quantum jump in the evolution of my own consciousness. I am an obstetrician and gynaecologist of long standing. Since 1970, inspired by Sri Aurobindo, I started working on the hypothesis

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that the mindbody is a continuum and treated my patients with infertility accordingly. I was not exactly aware of what was implied by psychic being. During this time we met Rohit Mehta, a well-known philosopher and exponent of Sri Aurobindo’s concepts. We were also introduced to meditation and the therapeutic manipulation of the mind through hypnosis.3 We are convinced about the influence of all these in our therapeutic skills. We live in a place where Sri Aurobindo first experienced Samadhi as initiated by Lele. While I do believe this has a bearing on our unprecedented success rate in treating this condition, I cannot make a scientific claim for it. However, it is unexplainable by present scientific knowledge and we attribute it to a paradigm shift in understanding the psychic being of the subjects and targeting therapy accordingly. In summary, what Sri Aurobindo conceptualized as a continuum of physical-vital-mental being is beginning to be understood as a single entity of bodymind that has enormous therapeutic potential. The culmination of understanding of the entire axis of evolution of consciousness in a person will come about when ‘the matter shall reveal the face of spirit’.

NOTES 1. He philosophizes that even inert matter has a mind that is inconscient. It is inconscient so as not to be aware of itself: but it is there! Scientifically, there is just a pointer in this direction through subatomic physics, particularly by the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox. It lies outside the scope of this presentation. The subliminal or subconscious mind is that which makes an effort to emerge and express itself. It is not to be confused with the Freudian concept of the subconscious mind. The scientific discussion will begin from Jagdish Chandra Bose and lead us to advances in plant biology that are once again beyond the focus of this presentation. 2. WHO defines health as a state of well-being at physical, mental and spiritual levels. 3. While lay people generally abhor the idea of hypnosis, Sri Aurobindo has foreseen the possibility of its therapeutic application while writing Life Divine, pp.71, 117, 910.

WORKS CITED 1972, Collected Works of The Mother, pp.16, 247–8.

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Epstein, Franklin, 1993, ‘Mechanism of Diseases’, The New England Journal of Medicine, 329, pp.1246–53. Hippes, Neeltje, 2005, ‘The Evolving Soul. A Key Concept in Sri Aurobindo’s Work: Its Ramifications for Further Development of Human Potential and Indian Psychology’, Towards a Spiritual Psychology, Rao, K R, Marwaha, S B, eds, pp.211–27. Mehta, Rohit, 1984, The Miracle of Descent, Ahmedabad, Sri Aurobindo Society, 1984. Miovic, Michael, 2005, ‘Spirituality, Human Health and Wellness’, Towards a Spiritual Psychology, Rao, K R, Marwaha, S B, eds, pp.365–83. Nirodbaran, 1966, Talks with Sri Aurobindo, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Vols. 1 and 2. Pert, Candace, 1986, ‘The Wisdom of the Receptors’, Advances, 3, pp.8–16. Rao, K Ramakrishna, 2005, The Indian Psychology, Vishagapattam. Sperry, Roger, 1980, The Right Brain, New York. Sri Aurobindo, 1921a, Evolution, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, pp.1–8. —, 1921b, Materialism, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, pp.1–16. —, 1949, Savitri, 1st edn, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram. —, 2004, Life Divine, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, pp.71, 117, 910, 134–5, 250, 557, 563, 576. Vyas, Bhaskar, and Vyas, Rajni, 2004, Space-Time-Consciousness: The Fifth Dimension, New Delhi. —, 2006, Indian Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis, Kolkata, New Central Book Agency. Vyas, Rajni et al, 2002, Indian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. —, 2003, Indian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

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Chapter 10

The Blending of Science and Spirituality in the Ayurvedic Tradition of Healing P Ram Manohar

This paper attempts to highlight the Ayurvedic tradition as a model that can serve as a platform to synthesize science and spirituality in the context of healing. Before venturing to examine this proposition, we need to understand the epistemological foundations of Ayurveda upon which a theoretical structure has been erected that encompasses the methods of both science and spirituality. As we proceed with this daunting task, we will realize the need to define and differentiate science and spirituality in the first place. When we begin to familiarize ourselves with ancient methods of knowledge-building, the rigid compartments that dichotomize science and spirituality begin to dissolve. It becomes clear that the ancient knowledge systems did not profess such distinctions in the sense that we do today. What we encounter is a matrix in which these two approaches have blended naturally, so much so that it becomes difficult to distinguish between the two. It is when we impose our modern ideas of the scientific process and spiritual method that we are able to discover a theoretical framework that has fused these two seemingly conflicting approaches so spontaneously. We have to discriminate between religion and spirituality to ward off misconceptions that may arise when we look at science and the scientific method. Religion is to spirituality what technology is to science. In other words, we can say that religion is the technology of

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spirituality. We cannot position religion and science together just as much as we can spirituality and science. At the very outset, we can therefore conveniently exclude religion from the purview of our discussion. It would be appropriate to inspect the ancient epistemology to develop a macro perspective and then focus on conventional notions of science and spirituality. In the knowledge systems of India that Ayurveda emerged out of, we find that opposing viewpoints diverged and converged on the central idea of existence after death. This debate is showcased in the Caraka Samhita, one of the most authoritative treatises on classical Ayurveda. There are only two positions possible here: one that accepts existence after death and another that does not (Yadavji, 2000, Sutra Sthana, 11.6). Yet, these two positions can give rise to three viewpoints that accept the reality of this world, the other world or both. In Ayurveda, the two extreme positions are rejected. The viewpoint rejecting the other world and affirming the reality of this world as well as the viewpoint that rejects this world and affirms the reality of the other world are approaches of negation (nastika). The point of view that accepts both worlds is recognized in Ayurveda as the true approach of affirmation (astika). Ayurveda sets out on the quest for knowledge by including both these realms within the scope of its enquiry. The world, which constitutes the field of enquiry, is divided into the real and the unreal. The purpose of knowledge-seeking is to recognize and differentiate the real from the unreal (Ibid., 11.6). The real world is manifest, partially manifest or non-manifest (Yadavji, 2000, Sarira Sthana, 1.59–61). Reality is examined with instruments of knowledge that are made free from defects by rigorous training. The manifest world is studied by observations made through sensory perception. The partially manifest world is studied by inference-aided perception, and the nonmanifest world is studied by awakening higher levels of awareness and extrasensory perception (Ibid., 1.62). The model of reality in Ayurveda is three dimensional and human lives are influenced by forces operating from three realms of the outer world (adhibhoutika), the inner world (adhyatmika) and the transcendental world (adhidaivika). These influences are termed as the threefold stressors (trividhadukha), and the three realms correspond to the manifest, partially manifest and nonmanifest levels of existence (Yadavji, 1994, Sutra Sthana, 24.4).

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Science and Spirituality in the Ayurvedic Tradition of Healing 171 Three different approaches are therefore advocated to deal with these influences. The outer world is managed by logical reasoning based on sensory observations (yuktivyapasraya cikitsa). The inner world is managed by techniques that harness the powers of one’s own mind (satvavajaya cikitsa), and the transcendental world through the agency of higher forces contacted in heightened states of awareness and perception (daivavyapasraya cikitsa) (Yadavji, 2000, Sutra Sthana, 11.54). The three-dimensional view of reality also gave rise to a threedimensional view of the human persona comprising the body, mind and self (tridanda) (Ibid., 1.46). The interplay of multifarious forces operating in the three realms of existence favourably or unfavourably influences the course of life. These forces act independently or synergistically in disease causation and healing – for that matter they do so in all events in the Universe. Different technologies are required to deal with reality at each level of existence. Depending on the nature of the problem, we may have to tackle the forces at one, two or at all levels of existence. Ayurveda looks at diseases as caused merely by physical factors, extra-physical factors or the interplay of both. Accordingly, a suitable strategy for treatment has to be visualized. This is how Ayurveda became a multi-modal or multi-interventional approach to healing. In the Ayurvedic model, we cannot very clearly differentiate between science and spirituality. We can discern scientific and spiritual components interlacing in an indistinguishable manner only when we look at Ayurveda from a modern viewpoint that divides science and spirituality into two distinct approaches. To many rooted in the classical ideas of conventional science, Ayurveda may even appear as a queer mixture of magico-religious and empirico-rational methods. It is very tempting to also consider Ayurveda as a typical example of the empirico-rational way of thinking, suffocating in the clutches of magico-religious attitudes and struggling to liberate itself to become true science. From a reductionist standpoint, Ayurveda exemplifies proto-science at best and would have fared better if it had shed the remnants of the magico-religious tradition out of which it developed and turned into a more rational approach to healing. We need to look at Ayurveda from a holistic viewpoint in order to appreciate the coexistence of science and spirituality as two aspects of the same continuum. When the canvas of reality is made broader, it becomes easy to understand why Ayurveda has

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incorporated both rational and supra-rational elements in its multidimensional approach to understanding health and disease. The close study of such a model will prove to be advantageous and insightful in looking for ways and means to liberate science and scientific medicine from the narrow reductionist framework into which it has trapped itself. Ayurveda can accommodate the method of science, and its methodologies for knowledge-building can certainly withstand the rigour of science. Ayurveda begins with the proposition that knowledge is experiential. All knowledge is experience but all experience is not knowledge. The very process of knowledge-building is a measurement and validation of experience. Only validated experience is accepted as knowledge (Yadavji, 2000, Vimana Sthana, 4.5). We can even discover the rudiments of the controlled experiment, the backbone of the modern scientific enterprise, in the inferential reasoning (anumana) employed to establish causal relationships. To establish a causal relationship, for example, we have to examine at least three contexts – one where there is a suspected causal relationship (sapaksa), another where there is an established causal relationship (paksa) and one where there is a proven absence of any causal relationship (vipaksa) (Tripati, Anumana Prakarana). The three contexts correspond well to the concept of a trial drug, control drug and placebo in the modern sense of an experimental clinical trial. This is only an indication of the fact that Ayurveda is quite compatible with the methods of science. Ayurvedic epistemology is based on the Vedic concept of the circle of knowledge. The word Veda is derived from the root Vid, which has four meanings – Existence (Satta), Conceptualization (Jnana), Analysis (Vicara) and Actualizations (Labha). These meanings actually indicate the cyclical process of knowledgebuilding. Acquisition of knowledge begins with an experiential encounter of reality. This experience is then conceptualized. Following conceptualization is a process of rigorous analysis, which culminates in actualization of the experience again. The first two steps represent the teaching, and the next two steps represent the learning process. The teacher had to speak from experience and the student had to actualize the experience through the teaching. Thus, the tradition of teaching called parampara (the transmission of knowledge) was born. Can we then call Ayurveda scientific? If so, then where does spirituality fit in? It may be pointed out that varied views are

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Science and Spirituality in the Ayurvedic Tradition of Healing 173 prevalent on the epistemological nature of Ayurveda. There are people who would rate Ayurveda as a proto-scientific system of thought, yet others would go so far as to reject Ayurveda as a pseudo-science altogether, not to speak of characterizing it as unscientific. Today, Ayurvedic professionals are struggling to prove the so-called ‘scientificity’ of Ayurveda. May we propose that it would be appropriate to characterize Ayurveda as trans-scientific? Because it is quite clear that the theoretical framework of Ayurveda can accommodate and transcend science in the conventional sense. It was mentioned earlier that Ayurveda takes an affirmative position accepting both this world and the other world. Therefore, Ayurveda advises that one should work for the welfare of both here and hereafter. The welfare of this world is prosperity (abhyudaya), and the other world is transcendence (nisreyas). Prosperity is attained through harmonizing acts (dharma), wealth (artha) and pleasures (kama). These three are known as the triad (trivarga). Transcendence is attained through freedom from the bondage of ignorance (moksa) (Yadavji, 2000, Sarira Sthana, 1.142). The Caraka Samhita clearly states that the existence of the life hereafter is not merely a matter of belief. Ayurveda projects itself as a knowledge system and not a belief system. So there is scope for enquiry and questioning. The ancient text encourages the student to inspect and examine every proposition before accepting and acting upon them. Even the concept of the other world is subjected to hairsplitting analysis and finally accepted only on the basis of evidence. Out of body experiences, near death experiences and accidental or acquired ability to remember past lives are pointed out as proof of existence of past lives (Yadavji, 2000, Sutra Sthana, 11.33). The same arguments have been put forth by modern parapsychologists who have investigated life after death. The problem with science is that it likes to deal with what is relatively easy to know and is amenable to the methods it uses. Just imagine we are holding a torch. If we direct the torchlight downwards, it is much focused and reveals the objects on which it shines very clearly. However, when we start moving the torch upwards, we realize that the light begins to scatter and when pointed to the sky it disappears into darkness. This is what happens to science. When it looks at the body, it is able to discern a very vivid picture of the physical laws that operate at that realm. But as it turns its attention towards the mind, the picture becomes hazy. Psychology is therefore not so easily accepted

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as a true science. And when the attention is diverted to the self, science withdraws and denies the existence of that realm altogether. One is reminded of the story of the person who looked for his lost ring in a place that had better illumination albeit he had lost it in a dark corridor. When it comes to understanding about spirituality, science seems to be looking in the wrong place! Science is like looking out of one’s window. The trans-scientific approach is the bigger view one gets by stepping out of the room and looking at the vast expanse in front. While science sacrifices reality for the methods it uses, the trans-scientific approach that Ayurveda represents sacrifices methods to salvage reality. Yet, it is not so easy to discern pure science or pure spirituality in Ayurveda. When two primary colours are mixed the resultant colour is neither of the two: Blue and Yellow become Green. This is how science and spirituality are blended in Ayurveda. Blue is the colour of water, Yellow is the colour of fire and Green is the colour of life. Life emerges out of water through the agency of heat from sunlight. Water bubbling with life turns green. Blue represents matter and science. Yellow represents consciousness and spirituality. Green represents life that is the meeting point of matter and consciousness. Modern scientific medicine has been striving to find the physical basis of the mind and consciousness. Mental processes and selfawareness are being reduced to chemical processes. We can find such an approach in Ayurveda also. Ayurveda has discovered that by controlling matter one can control the mind and heighten awareness. The Ayurvedic term for medicine – ausadha – means a refined substance that awakens consciousness through a burning transformation. But Ayurveda does not stop there. It has also discovered that an awakened mind can also influence the material processes. This reverse influence has not been so well studied by science; at least not by the mainstream scientists. We can find that Ayurveda has always attempted to grasp reality as a whole, without being constrained by rigid methodologies. In the modern age, in the context of healing, several attempts are being made to break out of the reductionist framework into which medicine has forcefully restricted itself. It is being increasingly realized that true healing cannot take place through scientific medicine alone. There are higher healing energies that need to be invoked for healing to take place harmoniously. Although this kind of research has not yet become mainstream, it is gaining in importance and interesting material is available for analysis and discussion.

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Science and Spirituality in the Ayurvedic Tradition of Healing 175 We will attempt to review some of the cutting edge research that has taken place in modern times on paranormal processes of healing. This can be understood as an attempt by nonconventional scientists to transcend the reductionist framework. From an Ayurvedic perspective, this appears as an epistemological expansion, a widening of framework that holds much promise for the so-called scientific and spiritual approaches to merge in the context of healing. It would be a very fruitful exercise to compare and contrast these dual approaches in a primarily undifferentiated and blended form in the Ayurvedic tradition with a dichotomous, yet converging transformation in the modern context. Such an exercise will definitely help us to rediscover a more complete, accommodative and holistic framework to understand and practice healing. 1. Jonas and Crawford hold that religious and spiritual involvement enhances health and survival of the individual (Jonas and Crawford, pp.3–12). Ayurveda has recognized that cultivating spiritual values and a religious attitude in life can improve one’s health and lifespan. The Caraka Samhita beseeches every individual to discard viewpoints that negate the existence of the other world. Scientific research has provided strong evidence indicating that religious participation has definite health benefits. However, the mechanisms through which religious participation influences health is a matter of debate. Some opine that religious participation encourages certain health behaviours that can explain such effects. There is also a view that religious involvement helps to establish healthy social bonds that profoundly enhance the wellbeing of the individual. Religious participation could also evoke certain psychological states that influence health positively, or it could be promoting a sense of coherence by propagating a worldview through which the individual makes sense of himself and the world. This can have a grounding effect. Spirituality in the form of religion also employs the power of belief and expectancy that can trigger healing. Such propositions need to be studied more systematically, but it is increasingly being recognized that cultivating spirituality has health benefits. The benefits are more pronounced when religious practice is infused with spiritual values. 2. Jonas and Crawford also argue that intercessory prayer and distant healing or healing prayer has a positive impact on disease outcomes (Ibid., pp.13–22).

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In classical Ayurvedic healing, physical medicines are almost always supplemented with ritualistic prayers by mediators or the individual proximally or remotely. In certain types of diseases, these types of interventions have greater importance than physical medications. It is only recently that this phenomenon has been subjected to unbiased scientific examination. Research indicates that there is moderate scientific evidence that intercessory prayer and distant healing can have an impact on disease outcomes in patients. More rigorous studies will help to understand with greater precision the scope and limitations of prayer as a tool to heal. 3. Jonas and Crawford also hold that intentional activity has effects on healing (Ibid., pp.23–38). Direct Mental Interaction on Living Systems (DMILS) has been developed as an experimental paradigm to investigate whether spatially separated persons can influence each other’s physiological mechanisms through intention. The receiver is kept in an insulated chamber, and physiological measurements are made by monitoring electro-dermal activity, electro-cardiogram, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. Preliminary scientific studies have shown that remote intention can indeed have a visible effect on health parameters. However, large-scale studies will have to be conducted to obtain conclusive evidence. There are only two laboratories in the world that conducts DMILS studies. Ayurveda describes the use of remote intentions not only for healing but also for producing sickness in people (abhichara). Remote intentions have been recognized as a causative factor of certain diseases. 4. Jonas and Crawford also hold that the intention of the healer has an effect on Healing (Ibid., pp.49–57). There is a strong belief in many traditional modalities of healing including Ayurveda that the physician’s intention can by itself heal an individual (sankalpa). There are accounts of miraculous cures of incurable diseases by individuals, that are not so easily replicable, to be subjected to scientific investigation. Yet, the possibility of the mind influencing material events through intention has been studied using what is known as REG or Random Event Generator. Throwing dice and flipping coins are typical examples of random events. On an average, the possible outcomes are evenly distributed when these events occur randomly. Scientists have devised electronic devices that generate events randomly and techniques to measure and determine whether the outcome of these random events can be strongly influenced by mental intention. REG studies have produced

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Science and Spirituality in the Ayurvedic Tradition of Healing 177 adequate evidence to prove that MMI (Mind Matter Interactions) is a fact and not a myth. Ayurveda has recognized the importance of mental intention of not only the healer but also of individuals who can feel for the sick like relatives and parents. Obtaining the blessings of mentally evolved persons is recognized to have a healing effect. 5. Jonas and Crawford also discuss the intuitive diagnosis – non-sensory access to information or remote viewing; the Ganzfeld technique (Ibid., pp.75–82). Intuitive diagnosis is one of the accepted methods of understanding disease in Ayurveda. Intuitive diagnosis presupposes the possibility of extrasensory access to information, which scientists have termed as remote viewing. 20 years of research in the United States has generated evidence in support of remote viewing. This has been further investigated using the experimental Ganzfeld Telepathy Test with encouraging results. In the Ganzfeld test, a receiver is made to sit in a soundproof room with halves of a ping-pong ball placed over the eyes. A static noise is provided through headphones and the face of the receiver is illuminated with red light. The receiver gets into the Ganzfeld state, in which internal somatic and sensory activity is reduced and the individual becomes more receptive to parapsychological stimuli. A distant sender sends information about an object mentally and the receiver tells this out loudly. The observations are then checked for consistency. This has opened up new possibilities for studying intuitive diagnosis, which might have a telepathic component. 6. Another aspect discussed by Jonas and Crawford is that of healing through transmission of energy; the therapeutic touch (Ibid., pp.81–101). There is the notion of the healer being able to harness and transmit a kind of bio-energy onto the patient, which influences healing profoundly. For this reason, in older traditions of Ayurveda, the direct involvement of the physician in treatments like massage was very important. More than a hundred in vitro and in vivo bioenergy experiments have been conducted in the last five decades. Meta-analysis of these studies clearly indicates that there is a positive correlation that cannot be attributed to mere chance. Research has revealed that the results are maximized when there is greater proximity of the healer to the patient. Touch has a significant therapeutic effect and the therapeutic touch (TT) has been found to reduce anxiety and pain in clinical settings. The mere presence of

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certain individuals in the healing environment has shown to influence the healing outcomes. 7. Chez et al talk of a deliberate use of the placebo effect to promote healing (Chez et al., pp.S103–S112). It is necessary to study the role of drugs in reversing the disease process. And it may become necessary to rule out the role of other factors to clearly understand the specific activity of particular drugs. It is quite well known that people respond to influences other than drugs, and healing can take place without any active drug being administered. This is known as the placebo effect. Western medicine tries to avoid the placebo effect in the context of healing. In fact, the orthodox scientists dismiss alternative therapies as placebo therapies, which mean that these therapies induce the placebo effect in the patients and leads to healing. These scientists need to understand that no physician can eliminate the placebo effect from the healing environment. While it may be necessary to account for the placebo effect in experimental settings, it would be unwise to eliminate it from the clinical setting. If the goal of medicine is to heal, what is wrong in employing the placebo effect to induce healing, as it is a safer alternative to toxic drugs? Ayurveda deliberately uses the placebo effect in addition to the drug action to amplify the effect of healing. New medical research is beginning to re-evaluate the role of the placebo effect in clinical medicine. The placebo effect is a strong indication of the role of the mind in healing. It is indeed interesting to note that these paranormal healing modalities that were employed in Ayurveda for many thousands of years are now being studied scientifically. However, it will take a long time before such scientific research produces compelling evidence to convince the mainstream medical world to adopt these methods in medical practice. Ayurveda assumes a certain relevance in this context because it has promoted the concept of an optimal healing environment that blends multifarious approaches to healing within a logistic framework. Ayurveda is predominantly empirico-rational in its approach and employs paranormal modalities only to supplement and complement physical medications. The living tradition of Ayurvedic practice serves as a model optimal healing environment to study and understand the relative importance and significance of various methods of healing. Ayurveda adopts an approach in which healing is initiated through a rational process, which is then sought to be enhanced by including paranormal techniques.

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Science and Spirituality in the Ayurvedic Tradition of Healing 179 Ayurveda has discovered that the empirico-rational component of medicine is the most powerful tool that a physician can use and it is only this aspect of Ayurveda that has become a teaching tradition. It is not so easy to cultivate and transmit paranormal skills of healing. Nevertheless, it is advantageous to utilize them wherever it is available so that a complete and most effective healing environment can be created. Western medicine had forsaken these methods of healing for the exclusive use of physical methods. But modern practitioners are beginning to realize that the scientific physical methods need to be supplemented and complemented with other methods, which is what we already find in the Ayurvedic model. Intentionality, prayer or therapeutic touch may not become the frontline approaches in healing, which is certainly not the case in Ayurveda. Yet, their legitimate role in healing has to be once again recognized. The Ayurvedic notion of the human persona as a threedimensional composite of the body, mind and self can serve as a useful framework to make sense of the results of the new research in paranormal healing. It is the acceptance of the threedimensional view of the human being that will ultimately reinforce the role of paranormal modalities of healing in medical practice. Western medicine is only beginning to explore the relevance of such modalities of healing and although some empirical evidence has been forthcoming, theoretical explanations are not well developed. Ayurveda can serve as a model to understand how the so-called normal and paranormal modalities of healing can be harmoniously used in medical practice. From a Western point of view, this calls for reconciling science with spirituality. But from the classical Ayurvedic viewpoint, it only amounts to rediscovering the unified framework that was employed in ancient times to blend the so-called scientific and spiritual components of healing, without making these distinctions whatsoever.

WORKS CITED Chez, R A, Pelletier, K R, and Jonas, W B, 2004, ‘Toward Optimal Healing Environments in Health Care’, A supplement to the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Second American Samueli Symposium. Jonas, W B, and Crawford, C, 2003, Healing Intention and Energy Medicine – Science, Research Methods and Clinical Implications, London, Churchill Livingstone.

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Tripati, A K, 1985, Tarka Sangraha, 2nd edn, Varanasi, Yayabodhini Sanskrit and Hindi Vyakhyana, Kashi Hindu Viswa Vidyalaya. Yadavji, T A, ed, 1994, Susruta Samhita, Varanasi, Chaukhambha Surabharati. —, ed, 2000, Caraka Samhita, Varanasi, Chaukhambha Surabharati.

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Chapter 11

Micro-sensing by Indian Mystics Bhaskar Vyas and Rajni Vyas

Patanjali wrote his master treatise on meditation about 2,500 years ago. Buddha and Mahavir date around the same time. The Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions evolved their own tantrik 1 practices. By following a particular method it was implied that specific and certain results could accrue. If this was to uniformly and universally happen, it would mean the practice of a scientific methodology. When it is not easy to replicate or repeat them, the events will have to be explained. Till such an explanation is forthcoming, such events will be called paranormal occurrences that are paranormal within the limitations of our knowledge. Patanjali describes that in the process of Sadhana along the Raj Yoga route, eight Siddhis incidentally accrue. Most of these phenomena are unusual and fall in the category of paranormal occurrences. It is difficult to validate them. But there are authentic records of investigations by some mystics – occultists that point to the fact that they did succeed in exercising such powers. If paranormal phenomena do occur, the only explanation that can support them has to be an extrasensory extension of transpersonal, trans-spatial and trans-temporal faculties. The incidents of spontaneous extrasensory perception (ESP) are infrequent, fleeting and ambiguous so they are impossible to reproduce dependably. This is genuine criticism as far as scientific study is concerned. ESP and paranormal occurrences cannot be generated at will. They just happen. But even a single event in nature requires explanation by its eventuality. If it does happen, it cannot just be brushed aside because it is infrequent.

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There is further difficulty about psi phenomena. ESP cannot be accounted for by physics and physiology without adding an extraphysical dimension. To add an extra-physical component operating somewhere else so as to affect the physical, creates enormous difficulties in assuming a non-biological control system. This leads to double dualism: mind–body and mind–paranormal. Any rational explanation should transcend this dualism (Murphy). Without speculating further on how such paranormal occurrences happen, it may suffice to say that such tantrik (meditation) practices could enhance the range of perception that is ordinarily available to man. We wish to present here a brief account of micro-sensing that is chronologically catalogued in the literature of the Theosophical Society. While there may be a similarity between the incidences of insight, intuition, inspiration, creativity and aesthetics, the micro-sensing did not just incidentally occur. Two stalwarts of the Theosophical Society, Annie Besant and C W Leadbeater deliberately engaged themselves in investigating the minutest constituent of matter. When they began their experiments, the periodic table of the basic chemicals had just been postulated and there were gaps in the table. They decided to investigate that too. The literature under review here is a monumental evidence of micro psi perception – clairvoyance. The evidence is historical. The limitation is that none of the personalities are alive today. And no other member of the Theosophical Society repeats it. The founder of the Society, Madame Blavatsky took C W Leadbeater and Annie Besant under her tutelage. They were also initiated in what may be called occult practices. From our2 review of the Theosophical literature, we are inclined to surmise that they practised some form of Mahayana Buddhist meditation. It is also said that they were initiated into kundalini yoga.3 Meditation progresses in the fourth state of consciousness that is altogether a different state of consciousness. It is essentially a spiritual endeavour. As a consequence of additional dimensionality, some extra-ordinary phenomena are observed after a long period of sadhana. One of them is anima. It literally means the ability to see the minutest. The Sanskrit description is as follows: Pravrtty-aloka-nyasat suksma-vyavahita-viprakrstajnanam (Mehta, p.331) It literally translates as ‘knowledge of the small, the hidden or the

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distant by directing the light of superphysical faculty’ (that a yogi can acquire). Putting it simply, it means that one can extend the powers of perception. Through such a projection one can cognize the small, the hidden and the distant. This is tantamount to micro-sensing. Empowered thus, C W Leadbeater and Annie Besant set out to decipher the ultimate nature of the material elements. The accounts and the results of their experiments appear in a monumental work, Occult Chemistry (Besant and Leadbeater). When they started their experiments in 1895, they seem to be impressed by the periodic table of chemical elements. When they set out to investigate the Ultimate Particle, i.e. the atom according to contemporary perception in the last decade of the nineteenth century, Rutherford (1871–1937) had not yet deciphered the structure of the atom. However, the periodic table of the chemical elements had been incompletely worked out. This was reminiscent of the philosophical design argument that tallied with their philosophical mode. The work contains the observations and results of the experiments carried out across a span of 40 years, from 1895 to 1933. The method of investigation was to diminish one’s own conception of oneself to the minutest level. As a consequence, when they observed an atom, it appeared highly magnified. Their Tibetan gurus belonging to Mahayana lineage taught this to them. Explaining this, Jinarajadasa says: Just as a microscopist looking into the microscope and without removing his eyes from the slide, can describe what he observes so that it can be recorded, so the clairvoyant investigator watching an atom or molecule can describe what he sees in front of him, What he sees is not subjective, in the sense that it is a creation of the imagination: it is objective as is the paper on which I am writing this and the pen which I use. The first investigations were made in England in 1895, utilizing micro psi perception. Four gases were observed. They were Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and a fourth gas (atomic weight = 3) not yet discovered by the chemists. Thereafter, at periodic intervals, the results were published in The Theosophist up to 1934. The results, to say the least, are spectacular. They ‘saw’ that the elements were made up of ‘Anu’4 which, according to them, was the smallest particulate matter, smaller than the atom. They called it Ultimate Physical Atom – UPA. Anu existed in two varieties, positive

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and negative, and in its formation the spirals wound themselves in opposite directions (Fig. 1). They even gave the figurative picture of what they saw. Say, Hydrogen was made up of 18 Anu. (They did not ascribe plurality to Anu.) They described isotopes five years before they were known to science and English chemist Frederick Soddy (1877–1956) gave the name ‘isotope’5 to the atoms of an element differing in mass. They visualized the structure of the diamond, composed of 594 atoms and a model was also prepared and the photographs published in The Theosophist (Phillips, 1996). Minor whorl

Major whorl

Positive

Negative

Fig. 1: Anu – two types of ultimate particle atoms visualized through micro-psi perception The matter becomes more evident in reference to the studies by Stephen Phillips (Phillips, 1980). He is a physicist and taught at his alma mater after obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of California. Phillips has studied the results of micro psi investigations for 20 years and came to the remarkable conclusion that they are indeed extrasensory perceptions at the micro level. He discounts the possibility of fraud as well as precognition. Some of the findings were a few years ahead of the scientific publication of the same data. In all, 91 elements were so studied; some of them were not even detected by science at that particular time. In 1909 they recorded an element, technetium, and described it again in 1932. Even then it was five years ahead of its discovery by science. Such wealth of information abounds in Occult

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Chemistry that its third edition in 1951 contained vivid descriptions of what they saw and was to be confirmed by the usual scientific manner years afterward. Table 1 Chronology of micro psi experiments and scientific discoveries Year MICRO PSI

Year

1895 Positive and negative triplets 1964 observed in hydrogen MPAs6

1908 Meta-neon (number weight = 1912 22.33) described 1908 Axes of UPAs7 observed to be 1933 aligned by electric field; UPAs depicted as joined by lines of force of a magnetic nature 1908 Some UPAs shown as end 1970s points of single lines of force

Quark model proposes nuclei are made up of two positive up quarks and one negative down quark and also in reverse mode Neon-22 discovered Magnetic monopoles with possible electric dipole moments discussed by Dirac

1945

String model of subatomic particles; quarks regarded as ends of strings or flux tubes Baryons are made of three quarks. They are modeled as Y-shaped strings with quarks at their ends Promethium-147 discovered

1937

Technetium-99 discovered

1924

Spin of nuclei suggested

1940 1939

Astatine 219 discovered Francium 223 discovered.

1908 Y-shaped configurations of 1975 lines of force ending on UPA published 1909 ‘Illinium’ (number weight = 146.66); 1909 ‘Masurium’ (number weight = 100.11) 1924 Precessional motions of ‘hydrogen triangles’ (protons) 1932 Element 85 (number weight = 221.00); element 87 (number weight = 222.55)

SCIENCE

The entire gamut of the material extends to 111 atoms of elements, including 14 isotopes and the molecules of 29 inorganic compounds and 22 organic compounds. According to Phillips, the description goes beyond the atomic level: it extends to subatomic particles, quarks and subquarks, as well as to strings. Quarks and strings were discovered only in the late twentieth century. Incidence of the error between micro psi calculations and the scientific data is negligible. In most cases the error percentage is zero: where there is a percentage of error, it is around 1 per cent. Considering the spectacular nature of this micro-sensing, Srinivasan remarks:

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Science and Spirituality Those of us who have [. . . ] scrutinized both the original observations as recorded by Besant and Leadbeater [. . . ] and the remarkable interpretation of the same in terms of the most up-to-date concepts of contemporary particle physics [. . . ] cannot but be overawed by the minuteness and depth to which Besant and Leadbeater appear to have been able to delve into the intricacies of the structure of the matter (Srinivasan).

How could this have happened? Penrose (Penrose, pp.541–7) conjures a background state of silent activity at such moments of insight. This is based on his own experience. After detailed discussion about the possibilities of various physical designs of the process of consciousness, he explores the field of intuition that leads to a fascinating discussion of consciousness at the moment of mathematical discoveries. He describes a moment of ‘flash’ when his conversation stopped with his colleague while crossing a street. Mentally, he solved a mathematical problem concerning the centre of the black hole in that short time. The problem had perplexed him for quite a while. But on resumption of conversation after the street was crossed, he forgot all about it. However, he continued to feel a strange elation around him. He had to monitor that feeling for quite some time to discover its cause. He eventually realized that the cause was the sudden resolution of a long-standing riddle. The fact that the insights came without didactic, dissective, dialectical reasoning does say something about an extraordinary occurrence. It is not possible to tap such an event at will. Even if it is an altered state of consciousness, we can only deduce that such alternate/differential/quantum ‘jump’ processing does occur in the brain. Insight could be akin to self-reflection: it might be a look within oneself. But this is obviously different from the investigations of Annie Besant and Leadbeater. Insight occurs, or happens. Here there was purposeful investigation. Is it an exploration of the unconscious mind? The unconscious mind stores what it has already known, has found repugnant and has repressed. It cannot provide generic ground for something fresh and new that is the essential feature of creativity and invention. It is evident that this is not the function of the ordinary state of consciousness. More often than not, the unconscious mind deals with ugly things that need to be repressed and relegated to the dark recesses of the mind.

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What conclusion shall we arrive at from this? The inference that we wish to highlight is the fact that mystics live in a different mode of consciousness. But their faculty of ordinary perception and cognition is intact. Their conceptualization can also be intelligent and meaningful. This different state of consciousness is called the Fourth State – turya (meaning fourth) in the classical Indian tradition (Sri Aurobindo called it Overmind). The noted child psychologist, Jean Piaget, explains the psychic events in children. He ascribes such a possibility to the ability of the mind to entertain any state in a continuum of possible states as equally valid, and return to the point from which the operation of the mind begins. The phrase, ‘continuum of possible states’, approximates to the quantum electrodynamic fields. Memory is now understood as a state-dependent condition of the entire memory coding and transmitting apparatus in the body. In the state of dhyana, the totality of attention is directed upon the object that is being meditated till such time as there is dissolution of the image or a fading away of the mantra. This leads to a state of samadhi. It is difficult to describe, but the nearest description is that there is total cessation of thought and a vast expansion of consciousness so that all the paranormal phenomena may occur naturally and spontaneously. In other words, what is paranormal in our four-dimensional universe becomes a normal occurrence with the paradigm shift to the Fifth Dimension. The paranormal occurrences are of eight types. Each one of them is termed vibhuti or siddhi. They are in the form of transcendence over time and space. They are, mahima, laghima, garima, prapti, prakamya, ishita, vashita, i.e. making oneself very large, very light, very heavy, have the capacity to reach anywhere, having all desires fulfilled, having the power to create and power to bring anything under one’s control. These kinds of faculties come into operation on their own. They are purely incidental and need not be cultivated. It is described as the opening of the third eye. For achieving this, the state of samadhi – transcendence to the Fifth Dimension – is a must.

MICRO-SENSING IN THE JAIN TRADITION Jain and Buddhist traditions are more or less contemporaneous. Both traditions generated an occult discipline.8 There is an immaculate description of atoms and sub-atomic particles in

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the books of the Jain tradition too. The texts are a thousand year old. The extensive documentation and its subsequent verification by scientists without any influence of dogma makes parapsychology enough of a happening. Its physicality has not been explained by the physical sciences. Having stated the position vis-`a-vis the altered state of consciousness, we now postulate a simple thesis, that is, there is a dimension different from our ordinary perception. Such a perception could give an accurate description of physical reality that is ordinarily not accessible. This dimension is accessible through some form of meditation.

NOTES 1. The word tantra denotes a technique. 2. The authors are theosophists: but their approach is not devotional. Theosophy teaches, true to the Buddhist tradition, to be critical. 3. This form of yoga is discussed later on. 4. Anu is a Sanskrit word meaning a small particle. 5. Isotopes have the same number of protons in their nucleus but differing number of neutrons. 6. MPA = micro-psi atom. 7. UPA = ultimate physical atom. 8. Jain occultism was also rooted in a form of meditation that has come to be known as preksha meditation. That these visions were perceived in a meditative state is derived from a quote from the referred text that says they are observed in a state of nirvikalpa samadhi.

WORKS CITED Besant, Annie, and Leadbeater, C W, 1951, Occult Chemistry, Jinarajdasa, C, ed, 3rd Edition, Adyar, Chennai, Theosophical Publishing House. Mehta, Rohit, 1982, Yoga: The Art of Integration, Commentaries on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Third Section, Sutra 26, First Edition, Adyar and London, Theosophical Publishing House, p.331. Murphy, Gardener, 1981, in McConnell, ed, Encounters with Parapsychology, Pittsburgh. Penrose, Roger, 1990, The Emperor’s New Mind, First Edition, New York, Oxford University Press, pp.541–7. Phillips, Stephen M, 1980, Extrasensory Perception of Quarks, First Edition, Wheaton, Theosophical Publishing House. —, 1996, Evidence of Yogic Siddhi: Anima, Remote Viewing of Subatomic Particles, First Edition, Adyar, Chennai, Theosophical Publishing House.

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Chapter 12

The Big Picture for the Science of Consciousness Ravi Khanna

INTRODUCTION The Western study of consciousness has progressed very rapidly in the last century but it is still stuck in the mould of mind–body dualism. This is best brought out in the words of a recent Time magazine quote (Time(1), p.35): If you close your eyes and think about it for a while, as philosophers have done for centuries, the world of the mind seems very different from the one inhabited by our bodies. The psychic space inside our heads is infinite and ethereal; it seems obvious that it must be made of different stuff than all the other organs. Cut into the body, and blood pours forth. But slice into the brain, and thoughts and emotions do not spill out onto the operating table. Love and anger cannot be collected in a test tube to be weighed and measured. Ren´e Descartes, the great seventeenth century French mathematician and philosopher, enshrined this metaphysical divide in what came to be known in Western philosophy as mind-body dualism. Many Eastern mystical traditions, contemplating the same inner space, have come

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Science and Spirituality to the opposite conclusion. They teach that the mind and body belong to an indivisible continuum.

What constitutes this ‘indivisible continuum’ ? We are going to look at this in terms of the Vedas in this paper. As we will see, this leads us to the larger picture of consciousness as it is presented in the East and we will compare this with the Western contemporary concepts of Multiple Universes or Multiverses and the theory of Infinities. Both these Western scientific developments that have emerged in the last century also push the mind towards the ‘Big Picture’.

Fig. 1: Dimensions of the universe

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IS THE MIND AN ‘EMERGENT’ PROPERTY OF MATTER? William James (1842–1910), the father of American Psychology, observed that Consciousness is not a ‘thing’ but a ‘process’. In the last century the Western study of neurobiology, its chemical processes and imaging techniques have undergone phenomenal advances carrying this ‘study of processes’ to cognitive sciences. The brain was studied using sophisticated electro encelograph (EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines to map the visual cortex, language areas, auditory lobes, the relation of fear to amygdala and so on and so forth (Scientific American(1), p.72). But where exactly does the Consciousness reside in the cerebellum? [. . . ] in the hippocampus or cerebrum – there are no easy answers! So we come to what David J Chalmers calls the ‘Hard Problem’ (Ibid., p.72)[. . . ] ‘The Hard Problem is the question of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. This puzzle involves the inner aspect of thought and perception: the way things feel for the subject. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations, such as that of vivid blue. Or think of the ineffable sound of a distant oboe, the agony of intense pain, the sparkle of happiness or the meditative quality of a moment lost in thought. All are Fig. 2: The hard problem part of what I call consciousness. It is these phenomena that pose the real mystery of the mind’. In a serious attempt to address this ‘Hard Problem’, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been holding a series of mind and life talks with eminent Western scientists every two years since October 1987 (Dalai Lama (2)). The challenge has been to trace the advent of consciousness into the human mind from the progression of matter and its evolution. Some of the interesting features of these and other related writings are as follows:

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1. The Water Molecule The first remarkable substance is ‘Water’. It is made up of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms which bond in a ‘covalent’ manner to give the water molecule an internal ‘mickey mouse’ symmetry (See [www.nat.vu.nl/en/sec/bio/images/SdMBBioMolecularPhysics.doc]). The 104.5◦ angle is not sacrosanct and varies as external electrostatic forces apply. This geometry also gives an electric dipole moment to the water molecule that accounts for water’s remarkable ability to dissolve a large variety of substances whose molecules are electrically bound together. This is an ‘ionic’ bond and is external. It is the combination of this dual bonding capability that positions water as the unique ‘life force’ on our planet. For example, it co-exists as water vapour, liquid and ice simultaneously at earth temperatures and is also the densest at 4◦ C. Thus, whereas all other solids are heavier than their liquid states, ‘ice’ floats on water. It is this property that has preserved life through the ‘ice ages’ where even though the surface of the oceans was frozen the bottom was always warm enough to support continuity.

Water – internal bond – covalent

Water – external bond – ionic

Fig. 3

2. The Carbon Ring of Benzene The second amazing fact is the structure of the carbon atom. It has an interesting symmetry of ‘four’ valence electrons. It is this that allows carbon to crystallize in tight, tetrahedral structures of diamond. Carbon can bond in a ‘linear’ fashion to create long chains of organic compounds or it can also form ‘circular’ closed benzene-like

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structures with the symmetry of six atoms. In this manner carbon combined with an abundant supply of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur gives rise to long chains of organic chemicals which in turn are the very basis of the life-giving complex chemicals (Dalai Lama (1), pp.52–5). Three billion years ago the earth’s condition was that of extreme temperature and pressure and molten lava was hissing in the steam of water pools amidst lightning strikes. The conditions were perfect for all these unique properties of water and carbon to combine with other elements into a chemical soup from which emerged life sustaining chemical structures like amino acids, proteins, enzymes and other carbon compounds.1 An interesting point in the C C study of the benzene ring is

JJ

that each carbon atom has three

JJ C C bonds with its two neighbours in JJ

the circle – the fourth extends

C C radially outwards and is available for bonding with other atoms, e.g. hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen or Fig. 4: Benzene ring of carbon another carbon. The diagram (Thomson and Staley: website) on the left shows two of these bonds with each neighbour and these are like six children holding hands in a circular game. These bonds are spatially restricted and are called ‘σ-bonds’ (sigma-bonds). The third bond is vertical to this plane (going in and out of the paper) and is called the ‘π-bond’ (pi-bond). The six ‘π-bonds’ merge into each other and they are not spatially restricted over the entire circular region.

Top view – σ bonds

Lateral view – π bonds

Fig. 5: σ and π bonds of benzene ring

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Thus, the ‘σ-bonds’ are the backbone of the chemical structure and unfold the spatial dimension of the nucleic acids, proteins, etc. On the other hand, the ‘π-bonds’ merge together in delocalized geometries and they can be said to have an extra degree of freedom. Remember that the shapes shown of these ‘bonds’ are probability distributions of occurrence of electrons in two phases or ‘spins’.

3. The Protocell-Lipid Vesicles The next crucial step in pre-biotic evolution, three billion years back, seems to be the formation of the simple cell. This combines the first two facts of both water and carbon cited above. An interesting description of this has been given by Fritjof Capra: (Fritjof Capra, pp.5–28) ‘It is the closure of a primitive membrane into a “vesicle” that represents a discrete transition from non-life to life’ (Harold Morowitz). The chemistry of this crucial process is surprisingly simple and common. It is based on the electric polarity of water. Because of this polarity, certain molecules are hydrophilic (attracted by water), while others are hydrophobic (repelled by water). A third kind of molecules are those of fatty and oily substances, known as lipids. They are elongated carbon structures with one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic end (See picture).

Fig. 6

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When these lipids come into contact with water, they spontaneously form various structures. For example, they may form a monomolecular film spreading over the water surface or alternatively they may form an even more complex double layer of molecules with water on both sides, as shown in the picture. These single or double layers can form droplets, which are the membrane-bounded vesicles. These double-layered greasy membranes show a surprising number of properties similar to contemporary cellular membranes. They restrict the number of molecules that can enter the vesicle, transform solar energy into electrical energy and even collect phosphate compounds inside their structure. Lipid vesicles, then, are the ideal candidates for the protocells out of which the living cells evolved. This was the first semi-permeable boundary between the ‘outside’ and the ‘inside’; the first distinction between self and non-self (Margulis and Sagan, pp.47–57).

4. Dissipative Structures and Autopoietic Organization The complexity of the bio-chemical process took another 200 million years or so to progress from the protocell to the prokaryote, a single living cell. The protocells were the hotbed of a lot of molecular activity. Complex chains of linear polymers of carbon compounds gave rise to life-building amino acids, nucleotides and simple sugars. As the molecules became bigger their chemical reactions became ‘autocatalytic’ and cyclic, i.e. the derivatives promoted further generation of themselves and related products. These hypercycles were possible due to accumulation of energy within the first cells and more complex protein, DNA and RNA structures arose. This is the very point at which non-sentient matter gives ‘life’ to sentient cell structures. The energy accumulation inside spherical protocells pushed the chemical reactions to ‘far from equilibrium’ levels of energy, thereby creating more complex structures called ‘dissipative structures’ which have self-organizational capability. If we look at this in terms of systems development, this higher level of selfgenerating capability can be called ‘an autopoietic organization’: (a) The first cell-like systems were what the Belgian Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ilya Prigogine has termed ‘dissipative structures’ – objects or processes that organize themselves and

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spontaneously change their form. With an influx of energy, dissipative structures may become more instead of less ordered [. . . ] In dissipative structures, information begins to organize itself; pockets of elaboration arise. From dissipative structures and hypercycles emerged the chain of nucleotides, ribose and phosphate that can both replicate themselves and catalyze chemical reactions (Ibid.). (b) How do I know when a being is living? Throughout the history of biology many criteria have been proposed. They all have drawbacks [. . . ] When we speak of living beings, we presuppose something in common between them; [. . . ] Our proposition is that living beings are characterized in that, literally they are continually self-producing. We indicate this process when we call the organization that defines them an autopoietic organization. ?

Dynamics (cell metabolism)

Boundary (membrane)

6

Fig. 7 First, the molecular components of a cellular autopoietic unity must be dynamically related in a network of ongoing interactions. Today we know many of the specific chemical transformations in this network, and the biochemist collectively terms them ‘cell metabolism’. Interestingly, this cell metabolism produces components which make up the network of transformations that produced them. Some of these components form a boundary, a limit to this network of transformations. In morphologic terms, the structure that makes this cleavage in space possible is called a membrane (in italics by me) [. . . ] What we have, then, is a unique situation as regards relations of chemical transformations: on the one hand, we see a network of dynamic transformations that produces its own components and that is essential for a boundary; on the other hand, we see a boundary that is essential for the operation of the network of transformations which produced it as a unity: [. . . ] The most striking feature of an autopoietic system is that it pulls itself by its own bootstraps and becomes distinct from its environment

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through its own dynamics, in such a way that both things are inseparable. Living beings are characterized by their autopoietic organization. They differ from each other in their structure, but they are alike in their organization (Maturana and Varela, pp.34–52).

5. Hypercycles – Trap Large Energy and Release in Small Steps There are thousands of these autocatalytic hypercycles of chemical reactions within the cell and their biochemistry is far from being completely understood (Lancet: website). A salient feature of these metabolic processes is that they capture high-energy electrons and release the energy in small steps that are conducive for daily biological needs. Photosynthesis is one of these processes in which high energy photons of light are trapped – an emergent phenomena in the evolution of life: (a) The machinery of cells, which is assembled in a variety of short and long-chain carbon compounds, composed of elements compounded from inorganic matter, is centrally important here as it consists of self-organizing emergent phenomena. By this time at least, the controlled cascade of electron energy, the earliest beginnings of metabolic machinery have emerged. Photosynthesis, the process of capturing highenergy electrons to make sugars and amino acids out of carbon dioxide and water and nitrogen, is a self-renewing source of high-to-low energy electrons. Ways were ‘found’, or selected, to take electron energies – in ordered sequences and branching pathways – from high-to-low energy levels in small steps. The essential process was the controlled reduction of electron energy in a staircase of small steps, as in a flowing cascade of water, rather than in an abrupt fall as in a waterfall. The controlled energy decrements are utilized to assemble molecules, to transport substances within cells, to transport products across cell membranes, as in secretion and neurotransmission, to provide motile power to cells, to contract muscles, to control the dance of chromosomes and other aspects of cell division, to control the fusion of cells, as in fertilization, and to operate all the innumerable physiological systems in multicellular organisms.

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This controlled electron energy decrement is something not seen in the organic world. Something radically new has been added to the universe in this process. The kinds of abrupt shifts in the inorganic world like ionizing radiation, radioactivity, etc. are actually destructive to living systems (Dalai Lama (1), p.53). (b) With porphyrin ring production in their repertoire, many types of bacteria evolved the ability to use the most reliable and abundant source of energy around: sunlight. When any molecule absorbs light, its electrons are boosted to a higher energy state. Usually the energy is simply dissipated as light or heat until the molecule returns to its normal state. But when the molecules are bound to porphyrins attached to proteins embedded in membranes as electron-transport chains, light energy can be put to use [. . . ] This process of getting food from light and air – photosynthesis – freed some kinds of bacteria from their dependence on preformed organic compounds. The evolution of photosynthesis is undoubtedly the most important single metabolic innovation in the history of life on the planet. It occurred not in plants but in bacteria (Margulis and Sagan, pp.69–83).

6. Microtubules – Motility, Mitosis The simple prokaryotic cell over the next few hundred million years diversified into various forms of bacteria that entered symbiotic mergers to give birth to the nucleated eukaryotic cell. This was the precursor to the modern day animal cells with a nucleus housing the chromosomes, the mitochondria for energy related processes, the ribosomes for protein formation, plastids and many other organelles. Housing a more evolved biochemistry the eukaryotic cells were better equipped to adapt to the climatic changes and competition for food. They thus developed many survival structures and one of the major breakthroughs was motility – the ability to move. This ability in the simple prokaryotic appeared as a flagellum, a tail-like ‘whip’, and certain spiral-looking bacterium called ‘spirochetes’ developed this capability and attached themselves to other host bacteria helping to move them around. This ‘conscious mobility’ was a remarkable ‘push’ to the evolutionary process not only in the external sense but, as we

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will see below, also in terms of the seed for both reproduction and nervous development of subsequent life. (a) In the single-cell paramecium for example these whip-like cilia provide not only movement but are literally the cytoskeleton that supports the outer extreme structure. It is constituted of microtubules that are tiny bundles of protein fibres arranged in a (9 pairs + 2) structure that looks like a ‘telephone dial’. Besides holding the cell in shape, these microtubules ‘play a role for the single cell rather like a combination of skeleton, muscle system, legs, blood circulatory system and nervous system all rolled into one!’ (Penrose, pp.348–91). (b) A microtubular structure, that is random, is also found in the original spirochete bacterium and it is believed that these spirochetes would attach themselves to other prokaryotes. This attachment to the host cells leads to the development of the whip-like tails, also called undulipodia, that assist in regular cell movement. But this is not all. The same tubules are found inside the eukaryotic cells and are responsible for their mitotic cell-division capability. They play an important role in the process of mitosis in which the chromosomes in the cellnucleus duplicate themselves and subsequently the cell divides into two identical replicas. In the words of Lynn Margulis – ‘But the intricacy of the mitotic dance becomes still more understandable if you allow for a spirochetal choreographer. And the clues are there. The spindle is made of microtubules, the same microtubules found in all cell undilopodia’ (Margulis and Sagan, pp.137–54). The arrangement of the microtubules here is (9 triplets + 0).

Fig. 8

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(c) From here these microtubules have evolved to our brain cells and they frame the very structure of each neuron. But before we go further, there is another very interesting phenomenon relating to these microtubules. Either the microtubules are present in the whip or they are drawn inside by the cell for reproducing through the process of mitosis. In the words of Lynn Margulis – ‘In plants and animals, undilopodia and mitosis are mutually exclusive – they are never seen in the same cell at the same time. Fungal cells seem to have permanently traded cell whips for mitosis. But for some protists to divide, they must first pull their undilopodia inside their cells. No mammal cell – not to mention many other kinds of cells – can retain undilopodia while it divides by mitosis. It is as if the cell must use its ancient spirochetal symbionts for one thing or the other, but not both’ (Ibid.).

7. Microtubules and the Mind The same microtubules in varying clusters are present in the axons and dendrites of the neurons in our brains (See picture from [www. educarer.com/images/brainnerve-axon.jpg]). Roger Penrose has carried this discussion to the level of quantum coherence in the microtubules that provide the cytoskeleton to the axon and dendrites in the neuron. (a) What is the significance of microtubules for neurons? Each individual neuron has its own cytoskeleton. In Fig. 9 particular, microtubules in neurons can be very long indeed [. . . ] Moreover, they can grow or shrink, according to circumstances, and transport neu-

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rotransmitter molecules. There are microtubules running along the lengths of the axons and dendrites. Although single microtubules do not seem to extend individually to the entire length of an axon, they certainly form communicating networks that do so, each microtubule communicating with the next ones by means of microtubule associated proteins (MAPs). Microtubules seem to be responsible for maintaining the strengths of the synapses (nerve endings). Moreover, they seem to organize the growth of new nerve endings, guiding them towards their connections with other nerve cells (Penrose, op. cit.). (b) The rod and cone nerve cells in the eye reveal the (9 pairs + 2) pattern of microtubules. The axons and dendrites of the brain are a differently organized mass of microtubules, containing all the microtubular proteins but without the (9 + 2) formation [. . . ] ‘Did the spirochete motility system of the microcosm evolve within the ordered environment of larger organisms to become the basis of their nervous systems?’ [. . . ] After maturity brain cells never divide, nor do they move about. Yet we know mammal brain cells – the richest source of tubulin protein anywhere – do not waste their rich microtubular heritage. Rather, the sole function of mature brain cells, once reproduced or deployed, is to send signals and receive them, as if the microtubules once used for cell-whip and chromosomal movement had been usurped for the function of thought (Margulis and Sagan, op. cit.). It is very clear from the above excerpts that inorganic matter over the three billion years or so of evolution has carried the complexity of biochemistry through varying layers of complexity. From the merging of electron probabilities in the benzene ‘π-bonds’ to the coming together of bio-chemical hypercycles, from the structure of the first simple cell – the prokaryote – to the emergence of the first single-cell eukaryote with the ‘whip’, to the multicellular mammals there are different dimensions of emergent phenomena. H J Morowitz uses his expertise in Biology and Complexity to actually explain 28 steps of emergence for human evolution. In terms of consciousness the microtubules seem to play a pivotal role. They provide the first nervous impulse to dormant cells and are instrumental in their motility or ‘first movement’. At this point they actually provide multiple functions to the single cell – ‘of skeleton,

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muscle system, legs, blood circulatory system and nervous system all rolled into one!’, as mentioned above. This is the point of sentient matter. The microtubule has the dimensions that are small enough and yet its structure is rigid enough to merge electron probabilities at the quantum level. This occurs not only along its tiny 24 nanometer diameter but the confluence carries over its longer living length which is in milli-meters. The other interesting fact is the involution of the microtubules into some of the complex cells, the eukaryotes, to help them reproduce. This is the stage at which the complexity of life allows one structure to decay and another replica to replace its function. The microtubules are the very conduit that pull the DNA apart and help it duplicate. Again as one becomes two, another sentient consciousness is birthed. We have come to understand so far how the Western ideas are sitting at the cutting edge of quantum ideas in an attempt to comprehend consciousness. But the study still has a reductionist flavour. We next turn to the east for solace. As the Dalai Lama exhorts us in his recent book (Dalai Lama (3), p.131) – ‘A neuroscientist maybe can tell us whether a subject is dreaming, but can a neurobiological account explain the content of a dream. . . Assuming that the Mind is an emergent property of matter leaves a huge explanatory gap. How do we explain the emergence of Consciousness? What marks the transition from non-sentient to sentient beings? We must “emerge” from the complexity of the descriptive process to understand the “mystery” of Life’.

THE EASTERN MIND The Vedic concept of consciousness does not dissect the brain and matter into its material constituents. It looks for the ‘spirit of the matter’. It treats the nervous system as ‘continuous’ with a ‘Higher consciousness’, the Unknown – this is the cidakasa of Yoga-Vasistha or the Brahmn of the Upanishads.

The Yoga-Vasistha and Consciousness The Yoga-Vasistha of Valmiki (Ravi P Arya, ed, Vol. 1) dwells extensively on this subject and states in Section III – Utpatti Prakaranam, (Y.V III.17.10) the section dealing with creation:

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citt¯ ak¯ a´sam ˙ cid¯ ak¯ a´sam ˙ ¯ ak¯ a´sam ˙ ca tr.t¯ıyakam, ˙ dv¯ abhy¯ am ˙ ´su ¯nyatara m ˙ viddhi cid¯ ak¯ a´sam ˙ var¯ anane (10) O Lila, there are three types of space – the psychological space, the physical space and the infinite space of consciousness. Of these the infinite space of consciousness is the most subtle and the other two find expanse in it (Swami Venkatesananda, p.61). The word ‘space’ is not an adequate translation of the word akash – it is more like ‘dimension’. There is an unfolding process of these dimensions by the chaitanya or our self-awareness. As the child grows it becomes aware of its cittakasa, the psychological dimension, and understands the limitation of its skin as the boundary between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’. The mind folds back and looks at the bhutakasa, the physical dimension that includes the elements in the external reality. The intellect discerns patterns, nomenclates them and learns linguistics and semiotic gestures, thus building a repertoire of ‘higher’ awareness. Let us look at some later slokas explaining this (Y V III.97.16 and 17):

Fig. 10

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Science and Spirituality sab¯ ahya abhyanta atho yah satta asatta avbodhakah., vy¯ ap¯ı samasta bh¯ ut¯ an¯ am ˙ cid¯ ak¯ a´sa sa ucyate (16) sarva bh¯ uthitah. shres..tho yah. k¯ alkaln¯ atmakah., yena adm¯ atata m ˙ sarvam ˙ citt¯ ak¯ a´sah. sa ucyate (17) The infinite space of undivided consciousness (cidakasa) is that which exists in all inside and outside, as the pure witness of that which is in substance or only as a vaporous intent. The finite space of divided consciousness (cittakasa) is that which creates the divisions of time, which pervades all beings and which has spread out the other spheres in immense vacuity.

The text then explains that both the psychological and physical dimensions are subjugated to the infinite space of undivided consciousness – ‘In fact, the others do not exist, and this division of consciousness into three is arbitrarily suggested only while instructing the ignorant. The enlightened one knows that there is only one reality’. Thus the (cidakasa), the infinite space of undivided consciousness, is the multidimensional field of Brahmn, the unknown of the Vedas.

The Aitareya Aranyaka The Aitareya Aranyaka (Keith, p.118) is one of the oldest Vedic texts and at II.4.1 the hymn of creation commences which is also the Upanishad with the same name and is contained in the next ‘three’ sections of the Aranyaka viz. from II.4 to II.6. It is here that the following shloka explains the entry of the ‘drop’ or ‘spark’ of the Unknown into the head of the new born foetus: Ait. Ar. II.4.3 and Ait. Up. I.3.12 (Keith, pp.120 and 230 (English translation)) sa etam eva s¯ım¯ anam ˙ vid¯ aryaitay¯ a dv¯ ar¯ a pr¯ apadyata, sa es.¯ a vidrtir. n¯ ama dv¯ ah., tad etan n¯ andanam; tasya traya ¯ avasath¯ as tray¯ ah. svapn¯ ah., ayam ¯ avasatho’yam avasatho’yam ¯ ¯ avasatha iti (12) After opening the very end of the head (simanam), by that way he entered. This is the opening known as (vidriti). This is the pleasing (naandanam). For that

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there are three abodes; three kinds of dreams as: this is the abode; this is the abode; this is the abode (Radhakrishnan, p.519–20). Simanam comes from the noun sime which means boundary or the parting of the hair. vidriti means the central fissure between the two hemispheres of the brain. See the attached figure that shows the top view of the brain. As we can see, this ‘central fissure’ is the abode of ‘three’ chakras, viz. the bindu chakra, which is the eighth (this is often overlooked in the popular books on meditation and yoga – it is the ‘hidden’ one),2 sahasrar chakra, the seventh, and the ajna chakra, the sixth.

Fig. 11

The Bindu Chakra It is the point at which the Vedic priest or the Brahman grows a long tuft of hair called the bodhi. The tree by this name is Ficus

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religiosa, which is unique in that it has aerial roots that can absorb water from the air and survive in the harshest of climes. One often sees these in India growing in wall crevices or desolate fields. Like the Banyan, Ficus bengalensis, the aerial roots of the bodhi tree fall to the ground and keep growing into an ever-expanding umbrella. Buddha found his enlightenment under a bodhi tree. This eighth chakra is also called the bodhi chakra. Each chakra has an inherent, resonant vibration called the beej mantra or literally ‘seed-sound’. The beej of the bodhi chakra is condensed, ‘unheard’ sound. It is a bindu which is often translated as a ‘point’ and, as we will see, it is much more than that. Euclid in his axioms says that – ‘A point is that which has no part’. In the Vedic context bindu is neither inanimate nor is it a simple sound. It is the sum total of all dimensions rolled into a vibrant spot – it is the spanda of the Shiv sutras (Singh, p.98).

p

Fig. 12: Chakras and their beej mantras To elaborate, in the Eastern context, a ‘point’ cannot be ‘zerodimensional’. On the contrary, it is a concentrated microcosmic unit that unfolds to reveal all dimensions. It is like the enfolded string of the unified field theory of physics today. Kalatattvakosa

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(Kal¯ atattvako´sa, Vol. II) elaborates on bindu giving citations from various Sanskrit texts as follows: According to modern geometry the point is the minutest unit with which a line is drawn. The point is indivisible and without length and breadth. When we think of bindu as the minutest unity we are reminded of the concept of paramanu (Vaisesika defines paramanu as: murtatve sati niravayavah: being limited, it is without any body part). In Yogabhasya of Vyasa we find that a substance when reduced to its minutest unit is called paramanu, and in the same way the minutest time unit is called ksana. But bindu is neither a time unit like ksana nor a space unit like anu. It is a unit of consciousness, and at the same time becomes the body of the material world. It reminds me of T S Eliot’s poem ‘Four Quartets’ in which he refers to a ‘still point’ that is ‘more than a fixity’. I quote from the First Quartet called ‘Burnt Norton’: ‘At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.’ In essence this bindu is a drop of incessant energy which has enfolded vibration but it is ‘non-sound’ or anahat. That is also the name of the fourth, the heart-chakra. It resonates to a Universal Hum and in Aitareya Aranyaka I.3.1, while explaining the beginning of the offspring from ‘hmm’, the rishi says ‘the word is masculine and its cadence feminine [. . . ] Again with regard to his (the offspring’s) beginning with the word “hmm”, the word is the discrimination of divine and human speech’. This should be understood as the first spurt of soundless prana from the bodhi chakra to the anahat or heart chakra inciting the first heartbeat in the womb, the first breath. Thus, in the Vedic sense, the seat of cidakasa, the infinite dimension of undivided consciousness is the hrdya or the heart, although the

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antenna is the bindu chakra. The breath or vayu rises from the lower chakras to the throat, the seat of the fifth chakra, the visuddhi chakra, to merge with the prana from the heartbeat. This first cry is the pranav and is often used synonymously with the sound of ‘aum’ in Vedic literature. However, they are different – the former is symbolic of evolution and the latter of the involution of pranic energy. When the conch shell is blown in Vedic rituals it is this pranav that is magnified and when we chant inwardly it is the nasal sound of ‘aum’ that resonates in our cranial cavity.

The Sahasrar Chakra This sits as an energy point in the central fissure of the brain under the crown of the head. It is often referred to as the crown chakra (Khanna (1), pp.59–60). Just as the bodhi chakra is linked to the anahat or heart chakra, the sahasrar chakra is connected with the visuddhi or the throat chakra. According to the Vedas, which originated completely as an oral tradition, speech or vak plays the most important role in identification, naming, recognizing and thus the memorizing of patterns. The entire knowledge of the universe has a nam (name) and rupa or form. The throat is not only the residence of speech or vak but it also lends itself to melody or dhvani and the entire gamut of sound is therefore vani (Khanna (2), p.144). The Sanskrit shlokas unfold the sound energies as we view outwards from the Earth and talk to each other. This view is termed bhugolik or earth-centric and our speech is called vaak. If we look from the heavens downwards, filtering the cacophony, we hear the natural sounds or what is called dhvani or music. And this view is termed khagolik. Thus vaani is the ‘words that are sung’ and it is both vaak and dhvani put together. It is the Divine song. The throat chakra, therefore, is instrumental in harnessing the vani and through it, the names and forms of the entire creation around us. Whereas the ajna chakra receives and processes the sensory inputs, being surrogate to the cittakasa and the sahasrar chakra, at the head of the crown, the throat chakra delivers the Atmic energy into words and music. The beej mantra of the sahasrar chakra is the sound of the first vowel ‘a’ in Sanskrit, combined with ‘h’, the last letter in the Sanskrit alphabet. Interestingly, both these sounds emanate adjacently from the gullet or the kanth (see Figure 13). This is more explicitly explained by Ait. Ar.II.3.6:

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Fig. 13: The visuddhi or throat chakra

‘ˆ a’ therefore represents ‘that’ which is the Absolute infinity or Omega, Ω of Cantor’s theory of Infinities (Rucker, pp.57–97). It is Brahman, the Unknown. It is the ak´sara, the indestructible or the ˆ a + swar, the first vowel (Khanna (3), p.122). If this is the ‘whisper’, as explained in Ait. Ar. II.3.6 above, then as we force the breath just a little, what we get is its aspirate sound ‘ah’. This is the visarga sound, and is grouped as ‘a-yogavaha’ meaning: ‘those (sounds) that occur (in the actual language) without being part of the alphabet’ [. . . ] another very interesting aspect of the structure of the Sanskrit language! If we see Figure 14 – another level of symmetry emerges – ‘ah’ closes the circle pictorially signifying the internal–external division. The ‘individual ego’, the ahamkar has taken form – there is an inside and there is an outside – with the language of consciousness as the dividing membrane!

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Fig. 14: The Sanskrit alphabet ring This coincides with Wilder Penfields’ research on the ‘homunculus’ or a little man that he found is located on the cortex of the brain hemispheres on both sides. He was studying the sensory nerves on the skin and found a one-one correspondence for the entire body with

Fig. 15

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this ‘homunculus’ that hangs into the central fissure at the crown of the head – precisely where the sahasrar chakra energizes. As we will see, the bhutakasa is centred at the navel or the manipura chakra and gives birth to the physical body. The functions of the brain, its autonomous sensibilities, the ‘awareness’ of the self, etc. emanate from the cittakasa. The self is the aham; the nasal (anunasik) sound is added to the ‘ah’. And this nasal resonance at the end of ‘aum’, the universal mantra, is the beej sound for the ¯ ajna chakra.

The Ajna Chakra The ajna chakra is located in the centre of the forehead, exactly where the traditional tika is to be placed in the Hindu religious practices. This is the seat of the cittakasa and is denoted by the chandra-vindu that signifies the nasal sound in the symbol of aum – the beej mantra for this chakra. This is the sixth chakra and as the learning process of the mind begins in childhood the

Fig. 16

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multidimensional external reality reflects into holographic inputs through the senses (Pribram). This breaks up the ‘outside universe’ into the various levels of consciousness and the process of assimilation begins in the brain. The ‘mind’ takes shape. The binduh of the bodhi chakra is ‘condensed dimensions’ and the ‘ba’ sound in binduh is ‘labial plosive’, i.e. it is pronounced by pursing the lips and forcing the breath outwards. The ‘va’ of vinduh of the ajna chakra on the other hand is a ‘labio dental’ belonging to the class of antahsthah or semi-vowels and is pronounced by cutting the lower lip with the upper teeth and pushing the breath inwards and upwards. This is the nad-vinduh of the Shiv sutras (Singh, p.98) – ‘ “the pulsation of the unstruck sound” ’. Actually nad itself is not just sound but the entire aspect of semiotic expression including dance, drama, etc., (Chaudhry, pp.59–60). Thus, binduh signifies an evolution of dimensional energies, whereas, vinduh is the involution of external energies. Whereas ‘ah’ stands for the entire alphabet in a circle, aum can be understood as the pratyahara for all the vowels plus the mute-consonant sounds. Thus, the sound of aum traces out the vocal apparatus starting from the glottis to the lips viz. ‘a’ to ‘ma’.

Fig. 17

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Symbolically, the sibilants or the shakti letters (sh, shh, sa, ha) and the semi-vowels or the antahsthah letters (ya, ra, la, va) are not part of aum. This nad-vinduh enfolds the three shaktis (sh, shh, sa) as the three levels of consciousness given in the Mandukya Upanishad (Radhakrishnan, pp.692–705), viz. viswa, sushupta and swapna; the fourth sibilant is the aspirate ‘ha’ and it is the enfolded visarga ‘ah’ sound. The fourth level is turiya, the final abode, and it literally means ‘the fourth’. The attached figure shows these Vedic layers of consciousness. The antahsthahs (ya, ra, la, va) are also called the yam symbols and they frame the material support of the body. They are the beej sounds of the fourth, third, first and second chakras respectively. If we go one step further, we observe that in the Vedic sense mind and body symbols added together complete the cittakasa or the chaitanya (the Consciousness). In other words, the Vedas treat the mana or the mind and its inner divisions – the shaktis and the body – as one unit. There is no room for the mind–body dualism of Descartes. The cittakasa includes the antahkranha and the bhutakasa. There is a clear distinction between the individual consciousness, the chitt, and the collective human consciousness, the chaitanya. The former is subdivided into four layers (Singh, p.xxvii), viz. mana or mind, buddhi or intellect/id, ahamkar or ego and ‘ah’ or super-ego.

The Manipura Chakra Situated at the navel or the nabhi, this chakra is the life support point of the human body. This is where the umbilical cord connects with the unborn child and this is the centre of the forming foetus. The bhutakasa is constituted of the lowest three chakras, viz. the muladhara, swadisthan and the manipura. The first letters of the swadisthan and the muladhara give us the clue to its continuity – they spell sam which is the prefix meaning ‘uniformity’. This is what makes samsara a ‘uniform verse’ – the universe. For, in the Vedic tradition the entire creation has emerged from complete order and an Unknown perfection – a ‘uniformity’, the Brahmn. This timeless sam of order is the gene. Similarly, the acronym for the sahasrar and visuddhi chakra is sva which means the self. Just as the gene maintains its order and carries the stages of the evolution of life within it, similarly the sva or the ‘meme’ (Dawkins, p.158) carries with it the body of knowledge from memory to memory, i.e. from generation to generation. This was the oral

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Fig. 18

tradition of the transmission of the knowledge of the Vedas. The beej mantra for the manipura chakra is ‘ram’ which means ‘complete absorption of thought’ and in fact the mythological name Rama means ‘the one who is so perfect that he absorbs your entire being’. The higher dimensions in terms of the Vedas are beyond time and space and the seeds of higher consciousness are present as ‘symmetries’ in our limited experience. Life and the mind are inextricably interlinked and the symmetries are ensconced one within the other like ‘the endless dance of Chinese dolls’. You remove one symmetry and a smaller one appears. This universe is nonlinear and our sensuous limitations make the unfolding dimensions linear (Khanna (1), p.41). The womb protects the cell multiplication of the ‘conceptus’ (Dalai Lama (2), pp.175–81) and the collective symmetries of the entire emergence of life on earth come to play. I quote (Khanna (1), p.58): ‘The Nirukta (2.8) (Sarup, p.26) first relates the root √ ma to mata which literally means “the atmosphere”

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Fig. 19

encircling the earth. This also means the “mother’s womb”; in it the atma, (the soul) takes shape and form and is born in this world. Just like the womb encloses the child and protects it, similarly the atmosphere covers the earth’. Note that mata – atma are conjugal words. The next level of symmetry is the ‘visible universe’ or apo. The visibility is due to the dispersal of energy from the time of the ‘Big Bang’ that has ultimately germinated the cellular revolution on this uniquely placed planet. The region that is visible is therefore termed as vyapak (Saraswati, p.121). The region beyond this is called mar which literally means ‘death’. The latter is the realm of the ‘dark matter’. It is interstitial with the ‘shining galaxies’ and cannot be seen because it absorbs light instead of emanating it. The two together have constituted all matter that supports our being and continuously flows through us – changing every atom within our body completely every seven years or so. This is the limit of the bhutakasa that has constituted the very structure of our body and

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brain. The primary consciousness rests on our ‘looking back’ at the vyapak universe and it unfolds the layer of viswa in the antahkarana or the ‘inner self’ as we accumulate knowledge through our senses. The autonomous nervous system is related to the subconscious mind that controls the basic bodily functions. This is resident in the inner cortices of the brain that have developed in the first animals and frames the ‘archicortex’ and the ‘mesocortex’ of the mammalian brain (Dalai Lama (2), pp.182–3). This subconscious layer gives rise to the sushupta. In the Vedic sense the souls that do not evolve in their daily lives and are immersed in these two levels go back and forth between the mar–apo regions in an endless cycle of reincarnation. The ‘neocortex’ gives the ability to the mammalian brain to evolve to even higher forms and thus connect with regions of the Multiverse beyond our ken.

The Vedic Multiverse The Aitareya Aranyaka II.4.2 or the Aitareya Upanishad I.1.2 explains this and more: sa im¯ an˙ lok¯ an˙ asr.jat; ambho, mar¯ıch¯ıh., maram, ˙ ¯ apo; ado ambh. paren. divam ˙ dhyau pratis..th¯ a antarik´sam ˙ mar¯ıchyah. pr.thiv¯ı maro ya adhast¯ at t¯ a¯ apah. (2) This particular shloka cannot be translated simply and has to be understood pictorially. The region that is beyond the mar is marichi and this is the circle of light again. This is the dev-lok alluded to in many a myth. The access to this is through intent that creates a desire and its ‘need to happen’ dichotomy in the mind. This is the samkalpa–vikalpa of the Upanishads and occurs in the swapna layer of consciousness. The latent desires of the mind are probabilistic in occurrence – they may or may not happen in the larger world. However, in the micro-world of Quantum Mechanics (QM), extremely rapid fluctuations of matter precipitate these probabilities almost instantaneously because a very large number of ‘particles’ are involved in all processes. The entire material reality is based on these QM uncertainties and many a popular text has been written on the wave–particle duality (Tegmark, Time (2), p.94) and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. In mathematical terms, in QM, all possibilities can be said to be present simultaneously as a ‘probabilistic wave field’ and the one chance that precipitates action

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Fig. 20: The Vedic Multiverse

causes an ‘instantaneous collapse of this field’. This has created huge conceptual and philosophical ‘waves’ of their own in the field of Physics and to address this problem, Hugh Everett III, a 19 year old graduate student of Princeton University, came up with ‘The Many World Theory’ in 1957. This has been recently elaborated by Max Tegmark (Tegmark, Time (2), p.94) in 2003 and also presented by Time Magazine in a December 2004 article. The concept is now called ‘Parallel Universes’. In his introduction to the Scientific American article Tegmark says: Is there a copy of you reading this article? A person who is not you but lives on a planet Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets [. . . ] The idea of such an alter ego seems strange and implausible, but it looks as if we will just have to live with it, because it is supported by astronomical observations. The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that

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Science and Spirituality you have a twin in a galaxy about 1028 meters from here. This distance is so large that it is beyond astronomical but that does not make your doppelg¨anger any less real. The estimate is derived from elementary probability and does not even assume speculative modern physics, but merely that space is infinite (or at least sufficiently large) in size and almost uniformly filled with matter, as observations indicate. In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere. There are infinitely many other inhabited planets, including not just one but infinitely many that have people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life choices.

THE SIMPLEST TYPE of parallel universe is simply a region of space that is too far away for us to have seen yet. The farthest that we can observe is currently about 4 × 1026 meters, or 42 billion light-years – the distance that light has been able to travel since the big bang began. (The distance is greater than 14 billion light-years because cosmic expansion has lengthened distances.) Each of the Level I parallel universes is basically the same as ours. All the differences stem from variations in the initial arrangement of matter. May 2003 issue Scientific American COSMOLOGY – ‘Parallel Universes’

Fig. 21

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[. . . ] The frontiers of physics have gradually expanded to incorporate ever abstract (and once metaphysical) concepts such as a round Earth, invisible electromagnetic fields, time slowdown at high speeds, quantum superpositions, curved space and black holes. Over the past several years the concept of a multiverse has joined this list. It is grounded in well-tested theories such as relativity and quantum mechanics [. . . ]. Scientists have discussed as many as four distinct types of parallel universes. The key question is not whether the multiverse exists but rather how many levels it has. Pt Motilal Shastri (1908–60), a Vedic scholar of rare insight, has written vigyanbhasyam or scientific treatises on a number of Upanishads and the Satpath Brahmana. Explaining the hiranyagarbh or the ‘Golden seed’ of the Universe (Multiverse), he elaborates on the four regions in great detail (Shastri, p.77): First we must understand that the terms prithivi,√antariks and dhyauh are generic. The first comes from the root prath which means a level region. The word prithivi therefore connotes ‘an extremely large sphere that locally gives the impression of flatness’. The second region, antariks, comes from the word antara that means both ‘in between’ two√regions and ‘interior space’. The third, dhyauh comes from the root div which means ‘expansive radiation’ and is often translated as the ‘light of knowledge’. Each of the regions has this trio and the dhyauh of the apo is the prithivi of the next region, i.e. mar and so on and so forth. (a) The apo region has the Earth as prithivi and the antariks is the inter galactic space. The dhyauh is the limit of the visible universe and it is the Hubble volume of the Multiverse theory. The play of energy here is between the surya, the sun, and som, the moon. These are the tides that directly play on the creation at this level. The gayatri vyahrtyah are seven in number and the prithivi here is the bhuh, the antariks is the bhuvah and the dhyauh is the svah. (b) The mar region again starts with prithivi, that is the dhyauh of the apo. This is the end of the Hubble sphere and is beyond our senses. This is where the Multiverse Level I of Tegmark begins. The inter-space between them is the antariks and the dhyauh is the limit of the ‘Our Level I Multiverse’. This then becomes

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Fig. 22

the prithivi for the next region marichi. The energy in mar springs between Vishnu and Shiv. Note that at the external level this is the limit of the bhutakasa and there too the ruling deity is Vishnu. At the internal level, Shiv also rules the sva of the cittakasa along with Sakti. In Hindu mythology, Shiv is the chaotic destroyer and Vishnu is the one that preserves order. In the Multiverse, above the visible universe, tremendous energies are released by the ‘big bangs’ of each Hubble volume, and their black holes are coalescing the multiple galaxies back under crushing gravitational forces. The expanding energies are always depicted with agni or fire emanating from Vishnu’s

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head. The root verb ‘ag’ means ‘a tortuous movement’ and the suffix ‘ni’ means in this context ‘to throw out’. So agni is ‘the flickering of the flame’ that shines and spews forth energy. The opposite is n-agni or nagini that means a snake, literally ‘a black tortuous movement’ that absorbs energy. Thus Shiv is portrayed with snakes around his neck. The three gayatri vyahrtyah here are svah, maha and janah. Note that the fourth vyahrtyah, maha, is aham backwards and the two are conjugal words. (c) The marichi is the Multiverse Level II of Tegmark with the round Multiverse Level I globe as its prithivi, the space between two such globes as its antariks and again at a higher level a dhyauh. By now the number of possible Earths and our doppelg¨angers have increased to such an extent that it can take care of all the alternatives that we may take in our limited lifetime! This is the dev lok where Lord Indra holds his sway of merry song and dance in the myths. When you get a knock on the head and see light, you experience a very brief ‘Altered State of Consciousness’ (Tart, pp.1203–10) for a split second. If extended in experience it is an ‘insight’: a divyajyoti. At the time of meditation and repetitive chanting it is this region that comes into play. The ruling energies are Indra and Vayu. The Aitareya Upanishad I.3.14 (Keith, p.122 and pp.231–2 (English translation)) explains why Indra is so named. Idam means ‘this’ and ‘that which can be seen’ is idam adarsam. This is shortened to idamdra and further to Indra, a cryptic version ‘because the Gods like mysterious names’. In essence Indra is the perceivable aspect of the Unknown, Brahmn. The Vayu is also an attractive force and in the Aitareya Aranyaka I.1.4.4 the Hotr priest offers honey to Indra and Vayu: ‘Now food verily is honey, for all is honey, all desires are honey, and thus if he recites the madhuchhandas, it serves for the attainment of all desires’ (Max Mueller, pp.162–3). Honey is used as a metaphor because its drops coalesce and satiate hunger. This is the essence of this region. The three gayatri vyahrtyah here are janah, tapah and satya. The last is the realm of Brahmn that, besides being the Unknown, is also the eternal truth, for satya means truth. So, in the Vedic essence, the spark of the soul survives death and sits in the marichi – the Multiverse Level II – where all intentions

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Fig. 23

are feasible. It is a region way beyond our direct senses but yet inextricably linked to our minds through our desires, the swapna. And here the soul waits its turn to re-incarnate. . . The final release can be achieved if we access the turiya in the mind, and this can ‘transport’ the soul to the Unknown region, ambh, ruled by the Brahmn.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE VEDAS Each region has its own body of knowledge and it is called the Veda. The first svar or vowel ‘a’ stands for Atharva Veda that explains the mysteries of the ambh. The second vowel and the third vowels ‘i’ and ‘u’ combine to give Yaju Veda for the ‘ya’ semi-vowel contains the ‘i ’ sound. The knowledge of marichi is in the Yaju-sukla (light) and the mar is expounded upon in the Yaju-krishna (dark). The fourth vowel ‘r’ (pronounced ‘ri ’) and the rcha of Rig Veda are replete with the rhythms of the visible universe, apo. The Sam Veda is to do with sva, the mind, and contains that which feeds the inner self. This then is the big picture of consciousness. I have tried to trace its scientific basis from matter to mind and looked at the equivalent concepts in the Vedas and the Upanishads. I can see the convergence

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and the amalgamation of these two lines of intense human endeavour into a new theory of dimensions. (The table below summarizes this discussion.)

Region

EF—F:

External

¤FfiUPòFO

E¤⁄FO

(Aitareya Up.I.1.2)

ambh

apah

marah

—F_PªFÊFU

EζFPއF

√Z

Ç~·FËF

antariks´

dhyau

Topology

prithivi

Internal

¤FfiO

Reference/Remark

Visible Multiverse Universe Level-I

4×

1026

118 1010

marichih

Multiverse Multiverse (Scientific Am. May 2003) Level-II Higher Levels Topology-undecided N

10 1010

ω10Ν

Distance in ‘metre’ from the Earth (Cantor’s Theory of Infinities)

K

H

G

E

(ri)

(u)

(i)

(a)

ıÊFfi

svar

ÊFWº

veda

K òFF‹FWk

‹F°F]-Ç_ÅµF

‹F°F]-ËF]É·F

EªFÊFa

rig

yaju-dark

yaju-light

atharva

PÊFËÊF

ıF]F]—∂F

´ viswa

ıÊF—ŒF

—Fe£FFŒF

EFçF¤F ËFF¯F

´ susupta

swapna

¯ pragyan

Individual Consciousness

ÊFYËÊFFŒFfi

—FeF£F

∂FY°FıF

∂F]fiU‹F

´ vaiswanar

pragya ¯

taijasa

turiya

Dream Sleep

Super Consciousness

Sensuous Unconscious World (Deep-Sleep)

ËF

F

ıF

(sh)

(shh)

(sa)

Infinities-Countable, P@c (“µFÊF) Universal Hum Continuous, Increasing

ËF_-·Fá¤FU

HFF

ıFfiıÊF∂FU

ŸFe@¤F

´ ¯ shr-laksmi

usha¯

saraswati

Brahmn

¤F˘:

mah

¤Fµ∞]É‹F H—FPŒFFº Collective Consciousness

°FŒF:

∂F—F:

ıF∂‹F:

janah

tapah

satyah

The Shaktis ¯ ¯ Up. Gayatri-Subala X.1

NOTES 1. In 1953, Stanley L Miller and Harold C Urey replicated this ‘primitive earth model’ in a laboratory experiment at the University of Chicago and could produce this line of ‘prebiotic chemistry’. 2. Swami Satyanand Saraswati of the Bihar School of Yoga explains this in his commentary on ‘Yoga Nidra’.

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WORKS CITED Arya, Ravi P, ed, 2003, Yoga-Vasistha of Valmiki, Vol. I, Delhi, Parimal Publications. Bohm, David, 1984, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, London, Ark Paperbacks. Capra, Fritjof (1), 2003, The Hidden Connections, London, Flamingo. — (2), 1997, The Web of Life, London, Flamingo. Chalmers, David J, Spring 2002, ‘The Puzzle of Conscious Experience’, Scientific American (1): Special Edition 12 (1), The Hidden Mind. Chaudhry, Subhadra, 2000, Sang¯ıtran¯ akar, Vol. I, New Delhi, Radha Publications. Dalai Lama (1), 2001, ‘Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of the Mind’, in Hayward, J W, and Varela, F J, ed, Mind and Life Series, Boston, Shambala. — (2), 1999, ‘Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism’, in Houshmand, Livingston, and Wallace, ed, Mind and Life Series, New York, Snow Lion. Dalai Lama (3), 2005, The Universe in a Single Atom: Convergence of Science and Spirituality, New York, Morgan Books. Dawkins, Richard, 1991, The Blind Watchmaker, London, Penguin. Kalin, Ned H, Spring 2002, ‘The Neurobiology of Fear’, Scientific American (1): Special Edition 12 (1), The Hidden Mind. ¯ Keith, Arthur B, 1995, The Aitareya Aranyaka, Delhi, Eastern Book Linkers. Khanna, Ravi (1), 2004,‘The Metaphysics of the Sanskrit Alphabet’, in Sareen, S ´ K, and Paranjape, M, ed, Sabda: Text and Interpretation of Indian Thought, New Delhi, Mantra Books. — (2), 2006, ‘Divinity in Sound’, in Dehejia, Harsha V, ed, Gods Beyond Temples, Delhi, Motilal B Das. — (3), 2005, ‘Philosophy and Science in Indian Texts’, in Kapoor, Kapil, and Singh, A K, ed, Indian Knowledge Systems Vol. I, New Delhi, D K Printworld. Lancet, Doron, ‘The Lipid World’ and ‘Composing Life’, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Articles at website: [http://ool.weizmann.ac.il/publications. html]. Margulis, Lynn, and Sagan, Dorion, 1997, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Revolution, Berkeley, University of California Press. Maturana, H R, and Varela, F, J, 1992, The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of the Human Understanding, Boston, Shambala. Morowitz, Harold J, 2002, The Emergence of Everything, New York, Oxford University Press. Mueller, Max, 1993, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. I, New Delhi, Aryan Books International. Ojha, Pt Madhusudan, 1997, Indravijayah, Shastri, Kalanath, ed, Jodhpur (Rajasthan), Pt. M S Ojha Research Cell. Penfield, Wilder G, 1975, The Mystery of the Mind, Princeton, Princeton University Press. Penrose, Roger, 1995, Shadows of the Mind, London, Vintage. Pribram, Karl H, Brain and Mathematics, website: [http://www.paricenter.com/ library/papers/pribram01.php].

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Radhakrishnan, S, 1992, The Principal Upanishads: Centenary Edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Rucker, Rudy, 1983, Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite, New York, Bantam Books. ´ Saraswati, Swami Satyaprakash, 1988, Satpath Br¯ ahmana, Vol. II, Delhi, Govindram Hasanand. Sarup, Lakshman, 1984, The Nighantu and the Nirukta, Delhi, Motilal B Das. See [www.nat.vu.nl/en/sec/bio/images/SdMBBioMolecularPhysics.doc]. ´ Singh, Jaidev, 2000, Siva S¯ utras: The Yoga of Supreme Identity, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidas. Swami Venkatesananda, 1995, The Supreme Yoga: A New Translation of the Yoga-Vasistha Vol. I, Tehri-Garhwal, India, The Divine Life Society Publications. Tart, Charles T, 1972, ‘States of Consciousness and State-Specific Sciences’, Science, Vol. 176. Also at [http://www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/]. Tegmark, Max, May 2003, ‘Parallel Universes’, Scientific American. Thompson, Dr Stephen, and Staley, Joe, Orbitals and Molecular Representation, website: [www.smallscalechemistry.colostate.edu/PowerfulPictures/Orbitals. pdf] Time (1) Magazine, 20 January 2003, ‘How your Mind can heal your Body’. Time (2) Magazine, 6 December 2004, ‘Cosmic Conundrum’. Wolf, Fred Alan, 1988, Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds, New York, Touchstone. Vatsyayan, Kapila, ed, 1992, Kal¯ atattvako´sa, Vol. II: Concepts of Space and Time: ‘Bindu’, Delhi, IGNCA, Motilal Banarsidas.

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IV Science and Spirituality: Culture, Society and Gender

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Chapter 13

Faith outside the Lab Anjali Roy

The four hundred and fifty strong academic community in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, one of the premier institutions of science and technology in the country, include some of India’s leading scientists and technologists, who have won reputed national and international awards for excellence in their respective fields of specialization. In an institution that prides itself on its ‘pursuit of excellence’, and where almost every faculty can boast of a Young Scientist Award if not a Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar, the honours, distinctions and accolades won by academics should hardly come as a surprise. A conspicuous inclination towards spirituality, often but not always interchangeable with religion, is the surprise element. A significant number of academics, both senior and junior, appear to be ‘spirituality-friendly’, though some might not wear the signs of their faith as visibly as others. But scientists and technologists at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur demonstrate the dichotomy usually observed between scientific pursuit and religious or spiritual practice.1 The scientists’ practice of the ‘rational–scientific’ method in their respective disciplines and fields of specialization appears to have nothing to do with their personal beliefs, in which they inevitably posit their faith in the ‘intuitive–spiritual’ (Randrup, 2002). The scientists and technologists seem to have resolved the contradiction between the two sub-systems through clearly compartmentalizing their personal and public lives. While functioning within the rational–scientific mode in their professional activities, they slip into the intuitive–spiritual robes of their chosen faiths in their personal

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lives with considerable facility. The compartmentalization of the private and the public comes from an intuitive recognition that the mixing of the two sub-systems would invariably entail a clash of, and even an interrogation of, the intuitive–spiritual with, and by, the rational–scientific mode. But their oscillation between the two subsystems foregrounds more differences than harmonies or interactions. In this paper, I would examine the duality or split in the scientists’ mental makeup in the light of the construction of the rational subject of modernity through the discourse of science and scientism. It is my contention that the production of the scientist/technologist in Indian modernity in relation to the rational–scientific mode of cognition requires the repression of traditional habits of thought and cognition, which make a return as the craving for the spiritual. My findings are based on my personal observations and private conversations during my seventeen-year-long tenure at IIT Kharagpur, and qualitative interviews recently conducted with a selection of scientists and technologists. The present Director of IIT Kharagpur, Professor Shishir Kumar Dube, is the most visible signifier of the compatibility of science and spirituality. An acknowledged authority in ocean science and engineering, with more than a hundred publications in addition to books and a string of prestigious awards to his credit, Professor Dube wears the familiar sign of brahminical Hinduism – the red mark on the forehead – with absolutely no self-consciousness. Few other scientists and technologists at the Institute can afford to exhibit sectarian markers as conspicuously but most would have no hesitation in owning up to their faith or, at least, confessing to having spiritual proclivities. I would roughly divide the scientific community in IIT Kharagpur into three categories of spiritually friendly individuals. The first category, of believers, can be regularly seen visiting temples, observing religious fasts and festivals, holding pujas and satsangs and inviting spiritual seers and gurus to give talks and lectures. The second category consists of, what I would call, closet believers who, while practising their chosen faith or modes of worship in private, would not make a song and dance about it. I would like to define the third category as that of spirituals as opposed to believers, that is, individuals with strong spiritual cravings who seek alternative routes to established faiths and religions. Of course, this is in addition to the considerable population of non-believers, atheists, agnostics and others.

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Before I proceed, I would like to bring a particular form of gender analysis to all these categories predicated on the presence of a male dominated scientific community in Kharagpur, and a specific form of religious practice which I would like to describe as ‘faith by proxy’. It is strange that I should begin an inquiry into the spiritual behaviour of the scientific community through a description of routine ‘wifely’ duties and interests. In my view, a description of the women’s activities can provide us a peep into the mindsets of their spouses for the scientists’ personal beliefs/practices cannot be altogether isolated from their role as heads of practising households. I also discern in this entrusting of religious spiritual duties to the spouse an articulation of the tension between the private and public, between the intuitive–spiritual and the rational–scientific that splits the Indian scientific subject. The most popular and communal religious activities in the campus are the weekly kathas and paaths organized in one of the faculty residences and attended by a large number of the women in the campus. Through my conversations with the wives of the faculty, I understand that these kathas and paaths are held with the tacit, if not the active consent, of their partners and the arrangements are unofficially, if not officially, approved. While most of the scientists and technologists shrug these gatherings off as their giving into typically feminine engagements, and confine their participation to taking care of the logistics of organizing seating, food and ritual objects, some express their official approval through holding a katha in lieu of a promotion party! Yet others, while maintaining a largely secular image during the rest of the year, do not hesitate to display their piety and beliefs at specific occasions. A similar gendering may be observed in the daily practices of the families. A large number of women observe daily worship of images of Gods kept in puja rooms or kitchens, as well as weekly, monthly and annual fasts in which they might be accompanied or unaccompanied by spouses and children. This stands to reason because the women in the families of the scientists and technologists, as in typical Indian families, are assigned the responsibility of being tradition bearers and entrusted with the duty of imparting religious instruction to their offspring. But this proxy faith is extremely important, in my opinion, in examining the views of the scientists and technologists for it supplements or even contradicts their expressed opinions on the issue. During my social interactions with families of IIT academics, I have chanced

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upon their spiritual ‘secrets’ that might be at variance with their expressed sentiments. The public events at which the men may be witnessed in acts of visible devotion are the annual Durga and Saraswati Puja celebrations. While the Durga and Saraswati Puja celebrations held in Bengal are as much social as spiritual occasions, they offer excellent examples of the slippage between spiritual/rational elements among the scientists at IIT Kharagpur. The academic community is not only actively involved with the semi-religious arrangements; the Puja itself, led by the Director of the Institute, who is also the patron, on the first day blurs the distinction between the professional and the personal, the public and the private. Of the two, Saraswati Puja, as constituting the rites related to the worship of the goddess of learning, facilitates an easier crossover from the secular–rational to the mystical–intuitive. Even to this day, children (particularly Bengali speaking) in the campus start school after being officially initiated into the cult of the goddess at the annual Saraswati Puja. The custom of having automobiles ‘blessed’ by the temple appears now to be quite common in urban centres in India. But the worship of machines, through the worship of Vishwakarma, the lord of machines and tools, in ‘clean’ labs is tantamount to an official endorsement of the religious practice, which prevailed until quite recently in IIT Kharagpur. Even in cases where strong religious sentiments of this kind are not articulated verbally, a deep religiosity may be visible in the performance of religious rites and rituals hidden from the public eye. One could argue that such ritual gestures are made due to habits inculcated in early childhood or in deference to wishes of elders but expressions of faith may be heard outside the lab in many a household. I wish to deconstruct the practices and expressed views of scientists to bring out the essential contradictions and dichotomies in their dual postures by foregrounding the common practices against the professed views of individuals. In casual conversation, I have often solicited scientists’ views on the claims of astrology and astronomy to science and have been rebuffed with complacent, if not derisive, dismissals of the ancient Indian knowledge system as unqualified to fulfil the scientific criteria of accuracy, verifiability and repeatability. It is a deep conditioning by the modern Western scientific reason that evokes such strong denunciation of ‘ethnosciences’, which are not to be accorded the serious attention that ‘modern’ scientific disciplines rightfully deserve. Yet many in the

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same scientific community have no hesitation in resorting to these ethnosciences in personal affairs where they are even legitimized as standard practices. I am referring, in particular, to the widespread practice of horoscope matching in making matrimonial alliances. The repressed faith makes the most vociferous return in the most intimate of matters, namely matrimony, where caste, sub-caste and so on become significant determinants of relationships. I have also stumbled upon male colleagues participating, albeit in gestures of indulgence, in religiously prescribed rituals of conjugal and filial devotion such as karva chauth, shivaratri, santoshi mata, ekadashi and so on. While scientists and technologists might claim to be doing no more than participating in family and community rituals prescribed by their faiths as other Indian individuals do, the ease with which the code-switching between the two languages occurs is truly intriguing. A historian in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences had once confided to me, ‘Don’t quote me, but scientists are the most superstitious lot’. ‘Science and religion are like the East and the West and the twain never shall meet’, one of my respondents summed up the opinion of the scientific community at Kharagpur on the relationship between science and spirituality with a Kiplingesque flourish. But his extrapolation from Kipling missed the irony in his repetition of the binary between the spiritual East and scientific West that he appears to have inherited from ‘imperialist’ science. The voice of the Bengali bhadralok converted to imperialist science in the nineteenth century may be heard in the orientalist overtones of statements made by some of the most highly regarded scientists and academics in the institute. The complicity of modern Western science with imperialism and power, which subaltern historians like David Arnold, Gyan Prakash and others have demonstrated, appears to be concealed from the binary logic of their observations. The oriental tryptych – the monumental achievements of the Vedic age, the eclipse with the Muslim invasion in the tenth and eleventh centuries ad and the arrival of modern Western science under girding imperialist power – is borrowed when the history of science and technology in India is recounted and the decadence theory cited as the reason for the switch-over to ‘superior’ modern Western science. This binary reasoning, which organizes science and spirituality, modernity and tradition, West and East as a set of oppositions, obstructs the perception of the one in the other – of science in Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic spirituality and spirituality in science.

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It has been proved, for instance, that the conflict between Western science and Indian religion in the nineteenth century was complicated by the presence of complex scientific concepts and ideas in several Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic systems. The story of the confrontation of Western science by scientific postulations of Indian, particularly Hindu siddhanta, traditions in the nineteenth century, through which the claims of Western science to authority came to be undone even in the process of its authorization has been uncovered. Revisionist histories of science in India have recently excavated the emergence of ‘a science between the lines’ through the negotiations of Indian traditions with Western science in the process of its dissemination in the vernacular languages (Prakash). In fact, the diffusion of Western science in the Indian colony, far from being unproblematic, has been revealed to be one more instance of the colonized appropriation of imperial knowledge, which brought about a rearrangement of both Indian and imperial discourses. These revisionist narratives have yet to enter the discursive syntax of practising scientists despite their strong spiritual yearnings. In the definitions of science and spirituality provided by my respondents, science, opposed to both religion and spirituality, is comprehended as neutral and objective, it’s historical and cultural specificity not made visible, or even recognized. The definitions concur that science is a ‘systematic’ or ‘organized’ ‘quest’, ‘pursuit’, ‘discovery’, ‘organization’, ‘inquiry’, ‘understanding’, ‘exploration’ or ‘knowledge’ of ‘physical phenomenon’ and ‘nature’, though nature is understood as having both physical and abstract aspects. The social location of science is, no doubt, conceded in the emphasis on the benefits science can bring to humanity. But the premise of the universality and objectivity of science, invariably conflated with Western science, on which these definitions are predicated, is accepted in total innocence of the complicity of Western science with imperialist power. The link between Western science’s claim to authority and imperial power concealed from their vision, the scientists perceive themselves to be contributing to a universal discourse for the benefit of the global ecumene. ‘Science helps in probing and leads to global-oneness’, as one respondent put it. The axiomatic universality of Western science does not permit the possibility of alternative scientific traditions proposed by those tracing the history of science and technology in India, which could be serious contestants to universalistic Western science.

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Historians of colonial science have begun to acknowledge the indebtedness of colonial sciences such as botany and medicine to indigenous scientific traditions. Certain Indian traditions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, are not seen as contradicting scientific views on the time of creation and the nature of the self. It is also agreed that Hindu scientific traditions, having been derived from sacred texts that are the source of Hindu philosophy, literature or ethics, do not exhibit the schism between science and religion discerned between Christianity and Western science. But IIT scientists deny that scientific traditions embedded in Hindu, Buddhist or Islamic texts can be authorized through the criteria of verifiability, repeatability and falsifiability, which they have derived from Western science. Imperialist science speaks of the assumption that Western science alone can lead one to discoveries that may benefit humanity. If indigenous knowledge systems are accorded respect, it is not in the ‘real’ business of problem-solving but in the abstract personal and metaphysical objectives of self-realization or self-knowledge. While it is true that many of these systems might fail the criteria of Western science, the question of the fallibility of the criteria does not even occur. It is this denial of indigenous scientific traditions and the collapse of Western science with modernity that results in the perception of Western science as antithetical to indigenous systems and produces the East–West binary. Spirituality is defined unambiguously in terms oppositional to science, an opposition that does not allow the asking of its intersection with science. It is ‘the essence’, ‘the axiomatic abstraction’ that leads us to look beyond ‘physical phenomena’ for ‘bliss’ and ‘global-oneness’ – the quest for ‘universal truth and the basis of self realization’, discovery of ‘the inner self that is hidden in all of us’ and ‘realization of the supreme existence of the eternal’, ‘knowledge of the hyper dimensional universe’. In contrast to science, spirituality is not always distinguished from religion but often inflected with culture specificity. One respondent, for instance, proceeds to elucidate spirituality in terms of a specific Upanishadic tradition. But even here the ghost of liberal humanism makes its appearance in the allusion to the good. It is clearly understood that the criteria formulated for science cannot be brought to bear on systems, which, by their very nature, are beyond questioning. The emphasis on observation, as the main instrument of the laws of science, does necessarily lead to the conclusion that Grobstein makes about scientific observations.

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According to Grobstein, scientific observations lead to summaries subject to revision through new summaries, which are no different from stories. The possibility of a dialogue between science and spirituality requires first of all that they be regarded alternative rather than oppositional paths to explaining certain fundamental questions about the nature of the physical universe and the self. So long as this relationship is perceived as oppositional, the identical objectives of the two attained by alternative modes of perception might not become visible. But my deconstruction of the responses I received revealed to me correspondences between the objectives of science and spirituality probably not visible from the definers. One area in which the two intersect is their ‘quest and understanding of universal truth’, ‘essence’ or ‘knowledge’. But the meaning of ‘truth’ remains ambiguous. What are the two kinds of ‘truths’ or ‘essences’ ? Science is seen as an inquiry into ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’ of the physical universe, ‘the outer self’, and spirituality as an exploration of the ‘hyper dimensional universe’ through an inquiry into the self, the soul, ‘know the real self, the infinite or the cosmic energy’. But in the majority of responses, there seems to be no meeting point between the two. The intersection between the primacy of the observer in science and spirituality – as established in quantum physics – does not have many takers here. None poses the question: If time and space are only models with which scientists map the world and as observation cannot be separated form the observer, how are they more accurate than other models, say those of spirituality? The laws of science, believed to be objective, after Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle thesis, are still believed to be free of the observing scientists’ consciousness. The intersecting goals of the two, located in the discovery of unity, are not seen as compatible, but only complementary. Even so, I am heartened by the interest in establishing a dialogue between science and spirituality not only on an abstract level but also in terms of the integration of spirituality with one’s professional/academic pursuit. While there is wide disagreement on the meaning of spirituality ranging from ‘service’ and ‘concentration’ to ‘self-realization’ and so on, the conclusion is that ‘spirituality is inseparable from every existence and any action whatsoever’. As I deconstruct the responses submitted to me, a halting dialogue between science and spirituality begins to emerge between the lines, as in this definition of science, not fluent in the jargon of science and spirituality.

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At the same time, the apparently concrete existence of matter and energy are also very abstract ‘maya’ in the sense that they are all determined by various kinds of forces that define magnetism, Newton’s laws of gravity and motion, electronics and chemistry – hence all biology, nuclear phenomena – and hence the cosmic universe of galaxies and radiation, and what have you. Human sensation of any concrete physical reality can only be abstract because his senses are themselves parts of such ‘empty’ forces. There is nothing like mass and energy – it is all about forces, just like they write abstract equations in string theory. There is definitely hope for a more informed and engaged dialogue as heard in this submission: Spiritualism is related to knowledge of hyper dimensions of unseen worlds. I believe that when science will penetrate the higher dimensions then this unseen world will be exposed and the concept of religion will vanish. Science now has started to believe that there is a super conscious field, which is controlling this infinite world. Some cults define this as super religion.

NOTES 1. One of the respondents to my questionnaire refused to answer my questions on the grounds that such questions rightfully belonged to the domain of scientists, that is, those working in the disciplines of physics, chemistry, maths, geology and so on and not engineers like himself. But I have collapsed the two categories because, in my opinion, engineers and technologists are essentially conditioned by scientism and that technology is, after all, based on the principles of pure science.

WORKS CITED Grobstein, Paul, 2005, ‘Revisiting Science in Culture: Science as Story Telling and Story Revising’, Journal of Research Practice, Volume 1, Issue 1, Article M1; See [http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/9/18], accessed on 14 March 2008. Prakash, G, 2000, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. Randrup, Axel A, 1994, ‘Relations between Two Modes of Cognition: Rational– Scientific and Intuitive–Spiritual’, International Center for Interdisciplinary Psychiatric Research, 2002 revised version; See [http://cogprints.org/2680/1/ spiritualitysystems.html], accessed on 14 March 2008.

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Chapter 14

The Calling of Practical Spirituality1 Ananta Kumar Giri

Today we are so impressed with the progress of the physical sciences – originally derived from metaphysics – that we return the complement and derive our metaphysics from natural sciences. But the scientific worldview has its own metaphysical presuppositions2 which originated in ancient Greece in way of looking at the world that came to fruition in Plato and especially Aristotle. This dualistic view stands almost in dramatic opposition to a worldview based on the nonduality of the seer and the seen. David Loy, 1988, Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy, p.12. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the artists have increasingly become the spiritual leaders of our time. Artists are sometimes among the few who take time to reflect on the deeper meaning of life and to search for ways to express both the turmoil of their search and the tentative insights they have gained. They usually have more questions than answers, yet their work celebrates wholeness and coherence as well as bewilderness and mystery. Robert Wuthnow, 2001, Creative Spirituality: The Way of the Artist, p.266.

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God calls on us to be his partners to work for a new kind of society where people count; where people matter more than things, more than possessions; where human life is not just respected but positively revered; where people will be secure and not suffer from the fear of hunger, from ignorance, from disease where there will be more gentleness, more caring, more sharing, more compassion, more laughter, where there is peace and not war. Deshmond Tutu, 2004, God Has a Dream, p.62.

INTRODUCTION AND INVITATION Practical spirituality involves a transformation of both science and religion. In the field of religion practical spirituality emerges in varieties of transformative movements and seeking in self, culture and society which interrogate existing structures of domination and strive for a new mode of self-realization, God-realization and worldrealization. Practical spirituality seeks to transform religion in the direction of creative practice, everyday life and struggle for justice and dignity. Practice here is not just practice in the conventional sense, as for example in traditions of American pragmatism (Aboulafia and Kemp) or anthropological conception of practice as offered by Clifford Geertz (1973), Pierre Bourdieu (1971) and Jurgen Habermas (1971). These conceptions suffer from an entrenched dualism such as theory and practice, immanence and transcendence and work with a notion of subject which is predominantly ‘technopractitioner’3 and cut off from its inescapable and integral links with transcendence. But practice in practical spirituality is simultaneously immanent and transcendent4 and the actor here is simultaneously a ‘technopractitioner’ and ‘transcendentally real self’. Practical spirituality embodies immanent transcendence, as for example in music5 or in the experience of transcendence in our various moments of everyday life – love, meditations, scientific engagements and other activities of life and in society (Bhaskar). Practical spirituality emphasizes experience and realization – self, God and world – in and through practice but at the same time nurtures the humility not to reduce these only to practice. In its emphasis upon experience and realization practical spirituality has close kinship with the spirit of science which embodies, in the

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words of Albert Einstein, a holy spirit of inquiry. In its emphasis upon practice, practical spirituality stresses that without taking part in practice we cannot realize truth – religious or otherwise. Practical spirituality involves manifold experiments with Truth as well as truths where truth is not a thing but a landscape of meaning, experience and co-realization. Practical spirituality also emphasizes on transformative practice which leads to self-transformation, cultural transformation and world transformation. For example, poverty, inequality and oppression have posed challenges to humanity for long and here practical spirituality has generated varieties of transformative movements in its struggle against oppression and domination. There are movements of practical spirituality from different religions of the world as well as from traditions of emancipatory struggles such as revolt against slavery, workers’ movements, women’s movements, ecological movements and varieties of other transformative struggles in discourse, society and history. Liberation theology in Islam, Buddhism and Christianity is a recent example of practical spirituality.6 In Indian traditions, practical spirituality has manifested itself in the Upanishads, the vision and practice of seekers such as Buddha, Bhakti movements, Swami Vivekananda’s vision of practical Vedanta, Sri Aurobindo’s strivings for Life Divine and Gandhi’s experiments with Truth and struggles for liberation.7 Movements such as Bhakti movements have involved struggles against caste and gender domination with new songs of self and social liberation. They have also embodied efforts to go beyond denominational concepts of truth and religion. They have involved not only struggles for justice but also embodied border-crossing dialogues. We see this, for example, in the Sant tradition of India which, like Sufism and Sikshism, is a product of transformative dialogue between Hinduism and Islam (Das, 1982; Uberoi). Thus, practical spirituality involves both struggles for dignity as well as new initiatives in transformative dialogues across borders.

PATHWAYS OF PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY In fact, practical spirituality involves both practical struggles for a better world as well as practical discourses for spiritual realization going beyond denominational fixation – not only in terms of boundaries among religions but also in terms of boundaries between science and religion, material and spiritual.8 Practicial spirituality

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urges us to realize that through undertaking concrete activities to ameliorate suffering we can realize God. From the Christian tradition, theologian Johannes B Metz (1981) urges us to realize that the Christian goal of unity of faith or what is called ecumenicism cannot be solved at the level of doctrines alone. It can only be solved by undertaking concrete activities in addressing practical problems of life and society with the ‘Son of Man’. Habitat for Humanity is a movement from within contemporary Christianity which tries to worship God by building houses with and for people. It is built on the foundations of ‘Economics of Jesus’ and ‘Theology of the Hammer’ (Giri, 2002). We see a similar emphasis upon devotional labour and sharing in Swadhyaya, a sociospiritual movement in contemporary India which can be looked at as an instance of practical spirituality from within contemporary Hinduism (Giri, 2006A). Both Habitat and Swadhyaya, despite their limitations to always hold up their own ideals, urge us to be more dialogical compared to their fundamentalist counterparts in Christianity and Hinduism. But the dialogical dimension of practical spirituality is multi-dimensional: it embodies not only dialogue between religions but also between religion and science, and also between the material and the transcendental. Swami Vivekananda has captured a bit of this sensibility in his vision of practical Vedanta, which has both a dimension of struggle for justice as well as hints towards dialogue.9 Practical spirituality, for Swami Vivekananda (p.354), urges us to realize that ‘the highest idea of morality and unselfishness goes hand in hand with the highest idea of metaphysical conception’. This highest conception pertains to the realization that man himself is God: ‘You are that Impersonal Being: that God for whom you have been searching all over the time is yourself – yourself not in the personal sense but in the impersonal’ (Vivekananda, p.332). The task of practical spirituality begins with this realization but does not end there: its objective is to transform the world. The same Swami Vivekananda thus challenges: ‘The watchword of all well-being of all moral good is not “1” (I) but “thou” ’. Who cares whether there is a heaven or a hell, who cares if there is an unchangeable Atman or not? Here is the world and it is full of misery. Go out into it as Buddha did, and struggle to lessen it or die in the attempt’ (Ibid., p.353). What practical spirituality stresses is the knowledge that one is Divine, one is part of a Universal Being, facilitating this mode of relationship with the world. This knowledge is, however, not for the acquisition of power over the other; rather

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it is to worship her as God. In the words of Vivekananda: ‘Human knowledge is not antagonistic to human well-being. On the contrary, it is knowledge alone that will save us in every department of life, in knowledge as worship’ (Ibid.). Practical spirituality emphasizes upon continued practice, not only on euphoric movement of realization, enthusiasm and miraculous experience. As Robert Wuthnow tells us, drawing on his work with the spiritual quest of the artists: Many artists speak of their work as a form of meditation. For some the sheer rhythm of the daily routine brings them closer to the essence of their being. Writing all morning or practising for the next musical performance requires mental and emotional toughness [. . . ] For spiritual dabbers the insight that these artists provide is that persistence and hard work may still be the best way to attain spiritual growth. (Wuthnow, p.10). Practical spirituality accepts the brokenness of the world and does not want to assert any totalizing unity or totalitarian absorption.10 At the same time practical spirituality is a striving for wholeness in the midst of our inescapable brokenness and fragmentation of this world. This wholeness is emergent as it is manifested in the work of the artists. Artists strive to paint landscapes of emergent wholeness in the midst of fragmentation and brokenness. Artists incorporate ‘[their] experimental approach into one’s spiritual quest’ (Ibid., p.276). An artist is a bricoleur, creating beauty and images of emergent coherence out of many fragments. ‘The creative scientist is also a bricoleur’ (Bhaskar, p.394). There is an artistic dimension to scientific quest as there is to spiritual quest. Inspiration of art in creative spirituality makes transformative bridges between science and spirituality. Practical spirituality involves a transformation in the conceptualization and realization of God. It submits that in order to be spiritual one need not believe in God or be religious.11 But for the believers of God, in practical spirituality, God is not only in heaven but here on earth; she12 is a presence in our heart and in every thing we see. In fact, Swami Vivekananda speaks about a practical God: ‘Where is there a more practical God than He whom I see before me – A God omnipresent in every being, more real than our senses?’ (Vivekananda, p.305). In this context Bhaskar’s following proposals

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about God in his From Science to Emancipation deserves our careful consideration: 1. Ontological realism about God is a belief in the reality or experience of God that is quite consistent with epistemological relativism; 2. Ontological immanence, that is the view that God is immanent within being, is consistent with episteme transcendence either in the sense of being unknown (God could be real even if we do not know it) or in the sense of being knowable in a way which is susceptible to the normal canons of our discursive intellect; 3. Ontological ingredience – if God is truly a kind of envelope which sustains and binds everything, then God in a certain way must be an ingredient within us; 4. The proof of God’s existence can only be experimental and practical. No one can prove to you that God exists. This can only come from your experience and practice; 5. [In this context man’s role is to increase presence of the Divine in one’s life, society and cosmos – I am here paraphrasing the subsequent thoughts of Bhaskar on this] (Bhaskar, p.35). The above helps us rethink God and realize her in a new way. God in practical spirituality is not only a moral God, omnipotent, God with capital G. God here is God with small g.13 God in practical spirituality is also not anthropocentric.14 Practical spirituality involves a transformation of our conceptions of sin and evil. In practical spirituality evil is not absence or the abandoned house of the divine but a lesser manifestation of it. We find such a foundational rethinking of sin and evil in many different religious, spiritual and philosophical movements of the world. For Swami Vivekananda: ‘Sins are very low degrees of Self-manifestation (Vivekananda, p.300). For him, ‘Vedanta recognizes no sin, it only recognizes error and the greatest error says the Vedanta is to say that you are weak, that you are a sinner’ (Ibid.). From a Christian perspective Giani Vattimo (1999) redefines sin as failure in love. For Vattimo, we have all sinned not because we have fallen in love but have failed in love. Love is not a conditional exchange – it is but unconditional and from this point of view we all can always be more unconditional in our loves in overcoming our integral original sin of not being quite up to the mark in our practices of love. God is unconditional love.15 From the point of view of unconditional love we fail in our lives to realize it fully as realization of unconditional love

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is always a journey. Given our human limitation, no matter what we do our love is always in need of much more intimate non-dual realization and this becomes our condition of original sin. Thus our task is to overcome this through more love and Grace and continue our strivings with gratitude and not simply for fear of punishment from a God conceived as a moral law commanding us not to do evil.16 Similarly from the shores of contemporary critical philosophy, Georgio Agamben (1993) redefines evil as deficit of human existence and anything that blocks the realization of fuller potential including the potential of fuller God-realization and world-realization.17 Here, Bhaskar (2002) also speaks about structural sin and ill-being referring to such fields as contemporary capitalism which leads to exploitation and blocks universal self-realization. Both Swami Vivekananda and Roy Bhaskar urge us to go beyond a facile dualism of good and evil. According to Swami Vivekananda: ‘The real genesis of evil is selfishness [. . . ] A man who murders another is, perhaps, moved to do so by the love of his own child. His love has become limited to that one little baby to the exclusion of millions of other human beings in the universe. Yet limited or unlimited it is the same love’ (Vivekananda, p.354). Roy Bhaskar also writes: ‘Once we begin to access our higher selves, we can begin to see that really the problem is not so much of evil [. . . ] For there is also, at least, philosophically a problem of good [. . . ] love, goodness, nobility, courage those are displayed everywhere in the perpetuation of social ills’ (Bhaskar, p.46).

NON-DUAL REALIZATIONS AND PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY: TRANSFORMATIONAL CHALLENGES BEFORE SCIENCE AND RELIGION The interrogation and transformation of the dualism of good and evil in practical spirituality as they are accompanied by a transformational conception of God point to non-dual realization as an important challenge in human life – science, religion as well as spirituality. In fact, transcendence in science and spirituality involves a critique of available modes of dualism such as sacred and profane, subject and object. The dualism between subject and object has been the corner stone of modern science but recent developments in science such as quantum physics and system theory of pioneers such as Humberto Maturana challenge us to understand the limitations of

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a spectatorial perspective in science and the dualism of subject and object. ‘In the words of a biologist, if you want to really understand about a tumor you have got to be a tumor’ (Knor-Cetina, p.520). The dualism between subject and object in modern science finds a parallel in the dualism between ontology and epistemology. Modern science as part of the agenda of modernity has been primarily epistemic and procedural and has neglected ontological issues of the nature of self and quality of self-involvement in practices of knowing. Moreover, there is a profound revolution in varieties of scientific engagements now – from biology to anthropology to philosophy of science – where ‘to know is not only to know of’ but ‘knowing with’ (Sunder Rajan). Knowing with involves both subject and object, epistemology and ontology, embodying what may be called an ontological epistemology of participation (Giri, 2005A). This embodies transformations in epistemology such as virtue epistemology which points to the quality of the knowing subject and in ontology – practical ontology – which moves from a preoccupation with fixed subject to practical labour of love and learning. It also involves ‘weak ontology’ characterized by humility (Dallmayr, 1991; Vattimo). Ontological epistemology of participation embodies a multivalued logic in place of the dualistic logic of modern science. As J N Mohanty (2000) argues: ‘In multi-valued logic, every point of view is partly true, partly false and partly undecidable’. This helps one not to be trapped in closure and be engaged in science and spirituality as a continued journey. Multi-valued logic draws inspiration from multiple traditions of science, philosophy and spirituality such as the Jaina tradition of Anekantavada (many paths to truth), Gandhian experiment with truth and non-violence and Husserl’s phenomenology of overlapping contents. Multi-valued logic builds on non-injury in our modes of thinking and non-violence in our modes of relationships. Multi-valued logic as an integral part of an ontological epistemology of participation is also an aspect of the transformational dimensions of science and spirituality. Non-duality is an important part of ontological epistemology of participation in science and spirituality. Yoga helps us in overcoming our dualism and realize non-duality. As David Loy writes: ‘We may see the three traditional yogas as types of spiritual practice that work to transform different dualistic modes of experience onto their respective non-dual mode. Jnana yoga transforms or “purifies” the dualistic intellect, karma yoga

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the dualistic physical body and bhakti yoga dualistic emotions’ (Loy, p.27).18 The multi-valued logic of practical spirituality transforms not only sciences but also religions – it helps sciences not to be dismissive about what it does not know and religions to be more exploratory, experimental and less assertive. It urges religions to be more dialogical – to recognize and know more about each other, and also mutually interrogate each other with a smile.

PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY, PRACTICAL DISCOURSE AND DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATIONS Practical spirituality has implications for various domains and discourses of our lives such as secularism and democracy. It offers a new realization of secularism which embodies spiritual cultivation for mutual tolerance, learning and criticism going beyond the confrontation between science and religion which has characterized the first stage of modernistic secularism (Annaim; Giri, 2005B). The dialogical dimension of practical spirituality is a helpful companion in reliving secularism in our turbulent world. Practical spirituality also involves a radical reformulation of the logic of power and transformation of democracy. In their struggles for justice and dignity, movements of practical spirituality confront and interrogate power. But they are not just preoccupied with capturing power as an instrument of domination but to have power as a covenant to realize the common good, as Hannah Arendt would put it (Cohen and Arato). These movements do not embody the logic of sovereignty of self and state in modernity which has an inherent propensity to mastery; rather they embody the aspiration and struggle for what Dallmayr (2005), reflecting on the struggle of Jesus, calls ‘sacred non-sovereignty’. While the logic of sovereignty, including the so-called democratic sovereignty in modernity, has a propensity to make us bare (Agamben, 1995) and denude us of our dignity and mutuality, practical spirituality as a struggle for ‘sacred non-sovereignty’ embodies a new ethics – the ethics and politics of servanthood in place of the politics of mastery.19 Practical spirituality as a struggle for dignity embodies multidimensional partnership between God and man. This struggle challenges us to widen and deepen our vision and practice of

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democracy – democracy as not only a political mechanism but also as a spiritual struggle. Democracy as public participation and public reasoning in the public sphere needs to be supplemented with practices of self-cultivation and cultivation of generosity of being, going beyond the dualism of private and public. As Ramashroy Roy challenges us in his Beyond Ego’s Domain: [Public order is threatened by the split between] man’s concern for his own good and that for the good of others. But can this threat to the public order be mitigated, if not completely eliminated, by the installation of the Polis? [. . . ] For Aristotle, transcendence of self-interest is consequent upon participation in public affairs [but] the shortcomings associated with personal character cannot be expected to be rectified by the public realm, if it lacks necessary support from individuals reborn as citizens. To be reborn as a person who, rising above his self-interest, becomes attentive to and actively seeks to pursue collective good, is, then, to willingly accept a life dedicated to the cultivation of dharma (Roy, p.5). Democracy as public reasoning and deliberation embodying what Habermas (1990) calls practical discourse where actors are engaged in moral argumentation about the nature of self and society is crucial for transforming spiritual traditions of India which in their structural organizations have been mostly authoritarian. While there has to be a transformative dialogue between practical discourse and practical spirituality, it must be emphasized that practical discourse in Habermas does not bow down before authority in a slavish manner and discovers moral insights from deliberation among participants. Such a public deliberation and democratic decision-making seems to be missing in varieties of sociospiritual mobilizations of India and here democratic participation for value formation can be helpful (Dreze and Sen). Swadhyaya is a sociospiritual movement in contemporary India but is now riddled with power struggle involving crucial issues of sole control of resources and doctrinal authority. After the passing away of its founder the control of the organization fell on his daughter, and this succession was not very different from the entrenched culture of dynastic succession in Indian religions and politics. The integral education movement in Orissa embodies aspirations of a practical spirituality as it works with children, parent and society for a more

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joyful and integral learning drawing inspiration from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. But it also faces the challenge of generating spaces of public deliberation where people in management with power and money can sit together with teachers who join this movement out of devotion but are mostly without adequate resources (Das, 2001; Giri, 2004). Along with transforming secularism, democracy and authoritarianism practical spirituality also draws our attention to the spiritual significance of food, and realize the link between food and freedom (Sen). It draws inspiration from texts such as Taittereya Upanishad where it is written, Annam Brahmeti Vijanama – Know food as Bhrahma. But what is the quality of food available in varieties of socalled spiritual places in our world? Once, outside the dining hall of Sri Arobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, I read a pamphlet. ‘Oh children of the Divine, wake up! See the quality of food that is given to you.’ Practical spirituality challenges us to understand the link between food and freedom and makes us realize the violation of the human and the divine when there is not adequate nourishment for us. It also challenges us to realize the significance of the body and realize that the aesthetics of spirituality is not confined to places of worship only but also touches our bathrooms overcoming the dualism between the temple and the toilet. In my field work with Swadhyaya I found that while there is, in Swadhyaya orchards, a separate special room for the leader which is rarely used, the common bathrooms used by ‘devotee workers’ is mostly dirty without even cleaning soaps. This is a problem not only in the rural projects such as Brukhamandir (tree temple) but also in Swadhyaya run schools as a senior Swadhyayee once told me in a conversation. In his recent reflections on religion, Jacques Derrida (1998) tells us that one who claims authority in the name of religion speaks Latin today. Those of us who valorize spirituality also need to ask ourselves whether we are claiming authority in the name of spirituality. We need not close our eyes to the fact that there is a problem of entrenched authoritarianism in spirituality as well, and practical spirituality has to transform this authoritarianism by taking part simultaneously in political, moral and spiritual struggles in a new poetics and politics of transformation. Bhakti movements in medieval India were bound by a feudal order but practical spirituality now calls for a new Bhakti movement which embodies both democratic participation and a multi-dimensional generosity of being.

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This multi-dimensional struggle for transformation – food and freedom, universal self-realization, transformation of existing institutions and creation of new institutions – calls for embodiment of values such as voluntary poverty and voluntary optimism (Das, 2005). Voluntary poverty is an important calling of both science and spirituality. Developments in science and spirituality have been facilitated by those who have chosen to remain poor enjoying the creative beauty of simplicity, unencumbered by many outward temptations of money and power, and resisted the pressure for conformity by the priests, merchants and the kings. Similarly voluntary optimism is an important aspect of both science and spirituality which points to the aspiration and the fact that despite all obstacles we are not going to give up on our persistent efforts and struggles to learn, to be, to grow and create a more beautiful and dignified world for us all.20 But this hope does not fall from the sky; it emerges from varieties of our experiments in and struggles for love and learning through which we engage ourselves in science and spirituality.21

NOTES 1. Revised version of a paper first presented at the international conference on ‘Science and Religion in Modern India’, New Delhi, February 2006. 2. Considering that our dialogue here is simultaneously with science and religion it is helpful to note that modern science has not only its metaphysical presuppositions but it also has its superstitions. As Swami Vivekananda (p.28) tells us: ‘For practical purposes let us talk in the language of modern science. But I must ask you to bear in mind that as there is religious superstition so also there is a superstition in the matter of science.’ Tolstoy also writes in another context: ‘These new justifications are termed “scientific”. But by the term “scientific” is understood just what was formerly understood by the term “religious”: just as formerly everything called “religious” was held to be unquestionable simply because it was called religious, so now all that is called “scientific” is held to be unquestionable’ (p.23). 3. This is how James Faubion (1995) characterizes the notion of the subject in contemporary European social theory. For a critical discussion of this see Giri, 2005A. 4. For an outline of such a notion of practice in the field of development, please see Quarlese von Ufford and Giri, 2003, and Giri and Quarles von Ufford, 2004. 5. Consider here the following lines of Luc Ferry: ‘[. . . ] When I hear a musical passage, it does not reduce to a series of related notes with no connection between them (actual immanence). On the contrary, it contributes – in an immanent way, apart from any rational operation – a certain structure that

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transcends this actual immanence, without being imposed on me from the outside like an argument from authority. This “immanent transcendence” contains within itself, par excellence, the ultimate significance of lived experiences’ (Ferry, p.26). 6. Liberation theology from Latin America is more widely known but less known are movements of liberation theology in Islam and social engagement in Buddism. Helpful here are the works of Farid Esack (1997), Abdullahi AnNaim (1995), Fred Dallmayr (2001) and Sulak Sivaraksha (2006). 7. This is not an exhaustive list but only a pointer. 8. As E H Cousins (p.7) tells us in his Global Spirituality: ‘people of faith now rediscover the material dimensions of existence and their spiritual significance’. 9. Though the dialogical dimension in Vivekananda’s practical vedanta seems to be imprisoned in fundamentalist interpretations of his work, who would like to see his work only from a Hindu point of view? 10. Even Swami Vivekananda (p.382) writes in his Practical Vedanta: ‘Perfect balance would be our destruction. Suppose the amount of heat in this room, the tendency of which is towards equal and perfect diffusion, gets that kind of diffusion, then for all practical purposes that heat will cease to be. What makes motion possible in this universe? Lost balance [. . . ] It is this difference, this differentiation, this losing of the balance between us, which is the very soul of our progress, the soul of all our thought.’ This has a profound implication for many domains of our lives including thinking about the relationship between God and man. This helps us to acknowledge the significance of disjunction and antinomies in our life in general and spiritual quest in particular. From a different point of view, sociologist of religion Robert Bellah also helps us understand this in his Beyond Belief: ‘For me the search for wholeness from then on had to be made without totalism. A critical stance towards every society, ideology and religion was henceforth essential’. 11. Let us not forget here Buddhism which is silent about God and many atheists who do not believe in God. 12. In their work on critical realism and trancendence Archer et al (2004) prefer to use He in talking about God. The use of ‘she’ here is an invitation and it draws inspiration from traditions such as India’s where God is thought of as Brahma which is neuter gender. 13. Sulak Sivaraksha speaks about Buddhism with a small b: ‘There is a need to practise Buddhism with a small “b” (Engaged Buddhism). This means concentrating on the meaning of the Buddha’s teaching (nibbana or freedom) and being less concerned with myth, culture and ceremony’ (Sivaraksha, p.1). Dallmayr (2005) urges us to understand the political and spiritual significance of moving from the big God and inviting ‘small’ to our lives. 14. For Swami Vivekananda, ‘A God who is partial to his children called men, and cruel to his children called brute beasts, is worse than a demon’ (Vivekananda, p.297). 15. Swami Vivekananda writes about it poetically: ‘[. . . ] where the husband kisses the wife, he is there in the kiss; when the mother kisses the child, he is there in the kiss; where friends clasp hands, he the Lord is present as the God of Love. When a great man loves and wishes to help mankind He is there giving freely

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His bounty out of his love to mankind’ (Vivekananda, p.394). For Tolstoy: ‘[. . . ] but one thing only is needful; the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions – the truth that for our life one law is valid – the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind’ (p.29). And Bhaskar (p.134) writes: ‘The ultimate is not freedom. The desideratum is freedom, the ultimate is unconditional love.’ 16. Creative theologian I U Dalferth (pp.18–19) also helps us with a new hermeneutics of evil: The problem is rather to construe God’s will as law, and God’s law in moral terms as a set of divine commandments as to what humans ought or ought not to do. The result is a misleading moral sense of evil: If evil is that which is contrary to God’s will, God’s will identified with God’s law, God’s law reduced to moral instructions of what humans ought or ought not to do, then doing evil is equated with trespassing God’s commandments and evil is everything that God prohibits us to do. But this is a misleading way of stating the point of the Torah, the gospel, and arguably also the Koran. They are not a set of divine prescriptions, commandments and prohibitions which humans must obey in order not to do evil. At least in the case of the Torah and the gospel they are better understood in terms of God’s gift of a blueprint of a good and just human life in community with God and one another, the presentation of what God has done for his people and all humankind, and the unfolding or unpacking of its implications for human life at its best – as it could and should and ought to be. They outline a way of life that responds in gratitude to the goods received from God rather than to a set of arbitrary divine commandments and prohibitions that are to be obeyed on pain or punishment. 17. In the words of Agamben (1993, p.44): The recognition of evil is older and more original than any blameworthy act, it rests solely on the fact that, being and having to be only its possibility or potentiality, humankind fails itself in a certain sense and has to appropriate this failing – it has to exist as potentiality. [The only ethical experience is] the experience of being (one’s own potentiality). The only evil consists instead in the decision to remain in a deficit of existence, to appropriate the power to not-be as a substance and a foundation beyond existence; or rather (and this is the destiny of morality), to regard potentiality itself, which is the most proper mode of human existence, as a fault that must always be repressed. 18. Bocchi and Ceruti also help us understand the significance of non-duality in our spiritual quest: ‘The dialogical and dynergic cosmology symbolized by the union of Shiva and Shakti as manifested in yoga has given rise to many philosophical systems of the two great spiritual traditions of classical India: Hinduism and Buddhism. Beyond all their differences and disagreements, they express a principle of ‘duality within the non-duality’. The ulitmate reality

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of the universe, the ‘noumenon’, is defined precisely as ‘non-dual’: a-dvaita (a Hindu term) or a-dvaya (a Buddhist term) (Bocchi and Ceruti, p.47). 19. In our forthcoming edited book, The Modern Prince and Modern Sage: Transforming Power and Freedom, several of our co-collaborators and I are exploring this (Giri, 2006B). 20. As Sri Aurobindo (1950) urges us to sing in his Savitri: A lonely freedom cannot satisfy A heart that has grown one with every other heart I am a deputy of the aspiring world My spirit’s liberty I ask for all 21. It is helpful to remember lines from a novelist and a theologian here. Writes Imre Kertestz (p.12) in his Kaddish for a Child Not Born: ‘Yes, my existence in the context of your potentiality [. . . ] Now I no longer have doubts – it is in the clouds where I make my bed. And this question – my life in the context of the potentiality of your existence – proved to be a good guide.’ And for the theologian I U Dalferth: ‘In religious and in particular Christian contexts “hope” has a strong meaning. It is not merely a wish but a way of “seeing” the future, and one’s role in it, in a particular light’ (p.15).

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—, 2005, Sataku Sata Ma [A Biography of Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherrry], Bhubaneswar, Suhrut Prakashan. Dallmayr, F, 1991, Between Frankfurt and Freiburg: Toward a Critical Ontology, Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press. —, 2001, ‘Liberation Beyond Liberalism: New Voices from Buddhism and Islam’, in Giri, A K, ed, Rethinking Social Transformation, Jaipur, Rawat. —, 2005, Small Wonder: Global Power and its Discontents, Rowman and Littlefield. Derrida, J, 1998, ‘Faith and Knowledge: Two Sources of Religion at the Limits of Reason Alone’, Religion, Derrida, J, and Vattimo, G, ed, Cambridge, Polity Press. Dreze, J, and Sen, A, 2002, India: Development and Participation, Delhi, Oxford University Press. Esack, F, 1997, Qur’an Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective on Inter-religious Solidarity, Oxford, Oneworld. Faubion, J, ed, Rethinking the Subject: An Anthology of Contemporary European Social Theory, Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press. Ferry, L, 2002, Man Made God, NY, Columbia. Giri, A K, 2002, Building in the Margins of Shacks: The Vision and Projects of Habitat for Humanity, Delhi, Orient Longman. —, 2004, Reflections and Mobilizations: Dialogues with Movements and Voluntary Organizations, Delhi, Sage. —, 2005A, ‘Creative Social Research: Rethinking Theories and Methods and the Calling of an Ontological Epistemology of Participation’, Madras Institute of Development Studies: Working Paper. —, 2005B, ‘Spiritual Cultivation for a Secular Society’, Sociological Bulletin. —, 2006A, Self-Development and Social Transformations? The Vision and Practice of the Socio-Spiritual Mobilization of Swadhyaya, Lexington Books (in press). —, 2006B, ed, The Modern Prince and Modern Sage: Transforming Power and Freedom, Delhi, Sage (in press). Giri, A K, and Quarles van Ufford, Philip, 2004, ‘A Moral Critique of Development: Ethics, Aesthetics and Responsibility’, Review of Development and Change. Habermas, J, 1971, Knowledge and Human Interest, Boston, Beacon Press. —, 1990, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Cambridge, Polity Press. Kert´esz, Imre, 1990, Kaddish for a Child Not Born, trans. Christopher C Wilson and Katharina M Wilson, Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern University Press, 1997. Knor-Cetina, K, 2001, ‘Postsocial Relations: Theorizing Society in a Postsocial Environment’, Handbook of Social Theory, Ritzer, G, and Smart, B, ed, London, Sage.

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Loy, D, 1988, Non-Duality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy, New York, Humanity Press. Metz, J B, 1981, ‘Towards Second Reformation: The Future of Christianity in a Post-Bourgeoisie World’, Cross Currents, Vol. XXXI, No. 1. Mohanty, J N, Self and Other: Philosophical Essays, Delhi, Oxford University Press. Quarles van Ufford, P, and Giri, A K, ed, 2000, A Moral Critique of Development: In Search of Global Responsibility, London, Routledge. Roy, R, 1999, Beyond Ego’s Domain: Being and Order in the Vedas, Delhi, Shipra. Sen, A, 1989, ‘Food and Freedom’, World Development, Elsevier. Sivaraksa, S, 2006, Visioning New Life Together Among Asian Religions: A Buddhist Perspective (Manuscript). Sri Aurobindo, 1950, Savitri, Pondicherry. —, 1951, Life Divine, Pondicherry. Sunder Rajan, R, 1998, Beyond the Crises of European Sciences, Shimla, Indian Institute of Advanced Study. Tolstoy, L, 1908, ‘Letter to a Hindoo’, in Das, T, Tolstoy, L, and Gandhi, M, eds, Letter to a Hindoo, Bartolf, Christian, ed, Berlin, Gandhi-InformationsZentrum, 1997. Tutu, D, 2006, God Has a Dream, London, Rider. Uberoi, J P S, 1996, Religion, Civil Society and State: A Study of Sikhism, Delhi, Oxford University Press. Vattimo, G, 1999, Belief, Cambridge, Polity Press. Vivekananda, S, 1991, The Collected Works of Swami Vivekananda, Calcutta, Advaita Ashram. Wutnow, R, 2001, Creative Spirituality: The Way of the Artist, Berkeley, University of California Press.

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Chapter 15

Spiritual Hysteria: A Gendered Perspective Vijaya Ramaswamy

Trances, visions, speaking in many tongues, irrational social behaviour including the discarding of clothes have been widely interpreted by psychoanalysts as a psychopathological condition. However, parapsychologists are increasingly looking at the grey zone that blurs the rigidly held distinctions between psychoses and spirituality. Stanislav Grof, in his remarkable book Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy, published in 1985, goes beyond these neat divides between psychiatry and spirituality to take a fresh look at the phenomenon of ‘spiritual emergence’. To quote Grof: In principle, Western mechanic science tends to see spiritual experiences of any kind as pathological phenomena. Mainstream psychoanalysis, following Freud’s example, interprets the unifying and oceanic states of mystics as regression to primary narcissism and infantile helplessness and sees religion as a collective obsessive-compulsive neurosis [. . . ] The great shamans of various aboriginal traditions have been described as schizophrenic or epileptic, and various psychiatric labels have been put on all major saints, prophets, and religious teachers. While many scientific studies describe the similarities between mysticism and mental disease, there is very little genuine appreciation of mysticism or awareness of the differences between

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There is a long and arduous path that lies between the stage of a spiritual novice and the ultimate state of transcendence where all boundaries of caste, class and sex get eroded, and the distinctions between rational and irrational behaviour, between sanity and madness get blurred. It is in relation to the spiritual path rather than spiritual goals that one has to situate the whole issue of gender and spirituality. Canonical exclusions, patriarchal controls and biological and physical limitations have made this path far more difficult for women than it is for men. I shall endeavour to argue in this paper that recourse to ‘spiritual hysteria’ was one of the most important ways in which women transgressed social boundaries in their quest to fulfil spiritual goals. I would like to clarify at the outset that this is not a phenomenon exclusive to woman saints, since the ‘unmaththa’ (‘mad’) male avadoota (naked saint) is equally well recognized by society for his deviant behaviour. This paper looks at the conjunctions and disjunctions between the domain of spiritual emergence and the realm of mental illness but focuses on the higher form of interface between schizophrenia or hysteria and spirituality. A variety of meanings can be attached to the term ‘spirituality’. They can range from occultism, possession (which may or may not be ecstatic) and shamanism to the highest levels of asceticism, mysticism and transcendence. In the present context, all these possible dimensions of spirituality will be taken into account. Religion as ‘established faith’ is, however, excluded from the spiritual spectrum because of its links with the community, society and cultural–ritual specificities in contradistinction to ‘spiritual emergence’ which is essentially individualistic. This is, however, not to say that religion and spirituality are two mutually exclusive categories, since spirituality very often may emerge out of religion as its most exalted expression. The first part of this paper explores the myriad ways in which spirituality forms an interface with varieties of neurosis or psychosis such as possession, hysteria, schizophrenia and even insanity. The second part is the case study of a woman, Jaishree Rajamani, who in her subjective poetry talks of the emergence of ‘spiritual hysteria’

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within herself. Jaishree ceased to identify herself with her name and believed herself to be Ramana Kiran, the manifestation of the Ramana spiritual energy. Her poems therefore carry the colophon: Ramana Kiran. How important and complicated a factor gender is in a woman’s journey along the spiritual path was made clear to me by the saintly lady Mathioli Saraswati who lives in Chennai. Her behaviour in her childhood and youth was perceived by her parents to be abnormal. This included non-eating or overeating, either insomnia or excessive sleep, the tendency to shun company, the inclination to bathe too often complaining of excessive body heat or the contrary tendency to go without a bath for days altogether, etc. Her entire behaviour was perceived as one of the deviances or of mental imbalance, and she was taken to various sages in search of a cure till the seer of Kanchipuram, Chandrasekhara Saraswati, told Mathioli’s parents: ‘Leave her alone. Her’s is a state of divine madness’ (Stainsley and Christina Grof). Throughout, the history of women’s spiritual journey shows that saints like Bahina Bai and Meera had to face humiliation and hostility for the same reason. Women could respond to their spiritual calling only by risking their reputation and being termed deviant or mentally ill. Meera loudly proclaimed that dancing with anklets on her feet and keeping company with (holy) men, she had given up shame. In our own times, Andavan Pichchi Amma (‘pichchi’ means mad in Tamil) told me that her husband had locked her up in her room since her spiritual behaviour seemed like a classic case of hysteria. A spiritual female has therefore been, almost by definition, ‘deviant’, ‘hysterical’ and a rebel. This has set her apart from a spiritual male who can function to a large extent within the established religious and cultural mode. Parapsychologists like C G Jung make a major intervention in this debate when they talk of a close similarity between possession, trance and ecstasy on the one hand and schizophrenia, hysteria and drug induced conditions on the other. In their external manifestations, psychic disorders can appear strikingly similar to divine madness or the state of god intoxication. It is significant that many women saints have been labelled as ‘mad’ – Meera ‘divani’, Lalla ‘mats’ etc. – although their condition would be better understood as a state of inspiredness rather than madness. Maragatham Ammal was called Andavan ‘pichchi’. Anandmayi Ma, one of the greatest women saints of all times, was a matronly dignified

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Bengali who spent two years doing cart wheels in her front yard, unaware that her sari had slipped from her waist. Even in her old age, Ma, in a state of ‘bhava’, could be seen turning cartwheels in a blissful mood but in complete oblivion of social norms! It was, however, well recognized that her’s was a state of ‘God intoxication’ rather than insanity and her acts of divine madness only increased the reverence of society for her. In many cultures there has been a close connection between women and the phenomenon of possession whether afflicted or ecstatic. A report on shamanism and possession among the Muslim Hausa community of West Africa states that ‘Wives manipulate bori (possession) episodes in such a way as to reduce their husbands to social and economic straits. Hence bori is not only a symbolic but also a real way of defying the male dominance which pervades Hausa society. In bori women find an escape from a world dominated by men; and through bori the world of women temporarily subdues and humiliates the world of men’ (Onwuejeogwe, l969, cited in Lewis, p.82). It may not be plausible or reasonable to look for the social fall out of ‘possession’ of women for womankind in general. The most striking feature of afflictive possession is that by definition it cannot liberate or empower women but it can only be a temporary manifestation of power by virtue of being ‘possessed’ by a spirit or deity, either benevolent or malevolent. Hence in the state of ‘possession’, the possessed person continues to be owned or possessed by a stronger power. In the majority of cases of afflictive possession, the receiver of the spirit or the folk goddess who enters into bodily possession is a woman who is vulnerable, marginalized or deviant. A young bride troubled by her husband and in-laws, an infertile woman who has been socially marginalized or even a woman guilty of adultery or murder can become a candidate for possession and consequently for deification by society (Rev. Whitehead).In the Sangam texts, which relate to the early culture in Tamil Nadu, young girls separated from their lovers are said to be afflicted by the spirit of God Murugan. The possessing spirit is then either appeased or driven away by exorcists like the men and women of the Palli or Vettuvar caste. Rev. Whitehead, who wrote the celebrated book: Village Gods of South India, refers to a woman who murdered her adulterous husband in a state of being possessed by Goddess Ellamma and in due course became deified in the Karnataka–Andhra regions. In all such instances, women who would otherwise have been ostracized

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gained respectful attention from men and respect from society, achieving empowerment through possession. In the summer of l993, I interviewed Ladakara Bai, a Muslim spiritualist living in Polur near Vellore. She admitted that her possession sessions gave her poor family a tidy income. She summoned the ancestral spirits of petitioners who came to her and extracted huge sums for the appeasement of these spirits. Interestingly, she told me that the spirit which possessed her and foretold events through her was Angala Paramesvari (a ‘Hindu’ folk deity!), a fearsome aspect of the mother goddess. Thoroughly angered at my photography of her s´eances and my notes-taking she rolled her eyes in a ‘state of possession’ and cast curses and imprecations upon me. However, her fearsome incarnation had the desired effect only on her customers and followers. In contrast to Ladakara Bai, Nagalakshmi, now an ordinary housewife residing in Delhi, is a practitioner of shamanism or spiritual healing. She cures through prayers to the goddess spirit Ellai Amman (now called Sitala Amman) who had at one time taken possession of her. The only return she expects from her cured and grateful patients is a garland of bitter margosa leaves for her goddess. Born in l936 to orthodox Brahmin parents, she was orphaned when she was seventeen. Subject to grave ill-treatment especially by her aunt, she wanted to end her life. It was then on a Vijayadasami day in l958 that the spirit of the goddess Sitala who was a local deity of a village called Saddalapatti (Nannilam taluq, Tanjavur district) entered her. For six months the deity possessed her and empowered her to renovate the village temple. While departing her body, she bestowed on her the gift of divine healing, which Lakshmi does as a social service. As a ‘respectable’ housewife, Nagalakshmi wishes to retain her anonymity (Personal Communication: 18–19 August 1992). While Ladakara Bai has improved her material status through possession, Nagalakshmi shuns publicity and expects no material gains from the possession of her by Sitala Amman. Ecstatic possession is of a different order altogether although in terms of its manifestations, it is almost indistinguishable from afflictive possession. While afflictive possession is generally involuntary and violent, divine possession leading to trance is both peaceful and beatific. While the former state results usually in material benefits for the possessed, a person in the latter state confers both material and spiritual benefits on others. Anandmayi Ma was very often found in the ecstatic condition. Her disciple told me that during her ecstatic moments, Ma, who

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was otherwise an orthodox Bengali widow, would insist on wearing bridal clothes and jewellery. When Swami Sitaram Onkarnath, a revered male saint, asked her why as a widow she still continued to wear sandals she asked him surprised, ‘Am I a widow?’ Possession in the case of Andavan Pichchi Amma1 is, however, unique. In her fiftieth year, her dying body was penetrated by the spirit of Pinnavasal Svamigal, the male disciple of the nineteenth century mystic Sadasiva Brahmendra. Male possession of a female body as in Amma’s case has led to biological problems for her. However, it has also given her an in-depth knowledge of the Vedanta and the Upanishads which Amma as an illiterate wife had no acquaintence with. Similar instances of bodily possession have been postulated in the case of Shankaracharya as well as Tirumoolar Nayanar. In the instances of Anandmayi Ma and Andavan Pichchi, possession (although they represented two very different kinds of possession) was of a transcendental quality and in fact distanced them from all social bonds. Hence its net result was the exact reverse of afflictive possession which catapulted the possessed woman into a dominant position vis-`a-vis the society in general, and men in particular. Prima facie, ecstatic possession could be identified with hysteria although its fountainhead is spirituality rather than mental illness. Simulated trance, ecstasy or possession which is often a stock in trade of charlatans as also miracles which characterize some lowlevel spirituality raises the question whether possession or ecstasy or trance can be regarded as ‘spiritual’ manifestation. A recent study by Mary Hancock titled ‘Saintly Careers Among South India’s Urban Middle Classes’ (Hancock) which dubs them as ‘spiritual technicians’ is a case in point. However, the present study, despite my awareness of the wide gulf that lies between spirituality and spiritualism manifested in ‘possession’, nevertheless deliberately situates ecstasy, occultism and possession in the range of ‘spiritual’ experiences. Trances and ecstasy have been at least as characteristic of wellknown saints and mystics as they have been of dubious spiritual careerists. In medieval Europe, Christian mystics and visionaries like Joan of Arc were burnt at the stake as ‘witches’ since Christianity failed to distinguish between witchcraft and divine trances. Joan of Arc was tried in 1430 for practising witchcraft since she claimed that she was obeying the commands of visionary voices.2 Juliana of Norwich and Theresa of Avila among Christian women saints, Rabia in Sufi Islam, Lallesvari of Kashmir and Karaikkal Ammaiyar among the Bhagavatas and Anandmayi Ma in our own times,

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constantly went into trance or ecstasy, beheld visions and heard unseen voices. These manifestations have been equally common among male saints like Chaitanya and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Since both spiritual technicians and truly spiritual persons share manifestations that are strikingly similar, it becomes important to bring together possession, ecstasy, occultism and clairvoyance under the overarching concept of spirituality, which includes both mysticism and transcendence. Many mystics look upon clairvoyance, clairaudience, spiritual healing (shamanism), etc. as early stages of spiritual evolution, which are best ignored if an aspirant wants to achieve salvation or transcendence. Miracles especially constitute ‘a low-level equilibrium trap’ in the spiritual field since the miracle worker gets caught in the material benefits accruing from these powers and either stagnates spiritually or falls from the spiritual path. A major point of difference between the instances of occultism (siddhis) by the peddlers of miracles and those by saints lies in the fact that while a mere occultist assiduously cultivates siddhis and capitalizes upon them in terms of money, power and prestige, with a true spiritual aspirant, occult powers manifest themselves as ‘divine automatic action’ without any conscious awareness or action on the part of the person (Venkataramaiah, pp.l7–l8). High spirituality is grounded in unselfish love and universal compassion; low spirituality is egoistic, oriented towards profit and power, and inspires fear and awe in people rather than love. While witchcraft and afflictive possession constitute the lower end of what can be termed ‘Spiritual Hysteria’, mysticism including the language of mystics apart from their gestures and actions as well as spiritual healing constitute the higher end of ‘Spiritual Emergence’. Kenneth Wapnick, in his essay on ‘Mysticism and Schizophrenia’, published in the 1980s in Richard Wood’s edited book, Understanding Mysticism, (Wapnick in Wood, pp.321–37) throws very interesting light on this phenomenon. Wapnick draws upon the life of the sixteenth century Spanish Catholic saint Teresa of Avila to illustrate his arguments. Many thinkers including Sigmund Freud have linked mysticism with a form of schizophrenia or other manifestations of psychopathology. The most interesting of these interconnections were made by William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience first published in 1902 (William).Here he distinguishes between higher and lower forms of mysticism. The lower form of mysticism comes very close to schizophrenia and insanity and he terms this ‘diabolical mysticism’. In contradistinction,

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mysticism in its most exalted form is reflected in abnormal social behaviour accompanied by highly metaphorical, mystical language. The statement by William James is worth quoting: The same sense of ineffable importance in the smallest events, the same texts and words coming with new meanings, the same voices and visions [. . . ] the same controlling by extraneous powers [. . . ] It is evident that from the point of view of their extraneous logical mechanism, the classic mysticism and these lower mysticisms spring from the same mental level, from that great subliminal or trans-marginal region of which science is beginning to admit the existence, but of which so little is known. (p.326) In terms of its external manifestation, both schizophrenia and spiritual mysticisms bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. In both, the individual experiences herself and the world about her in a manner distinctly different from other members of civil society. Her behaviour is often socially inappropriate and strange and both incomprehensible as well as unacceptable to ‘others’. One of the strongest manifestations of this socially unacceptable behaviour is the practice among some mystics of discarding clothes and roaming naked. While Buddhism codifies this practice in its sectarian organization of the Digambar saints, Saiva ascetic orders like the Naga cults lay emphasis on ‘being naked’ with neither possessions nor social behavioural patterns like shame or self-consciousness. While male monastic orders like the Digambar monks or the Saivite Nagas excluded women on the grounds that they were incapable of shedding their body awareness, it was precisely in the context of nakedness that spiritual women made their most powerful statement. The fourteenth century Kashmiri saint Lal Ded who was addressed as ‘Lalla Mats’ meaning ‘The Mad Lalla’, danced naked and when admonished by her father-in-law that men were staring at her, Lalla is said to have remarked: ‘Where are the men, I see only sheep around me’ (Kaul, p.15). She sings in her Vak: Lalla, think not of things which are without, Fix upon thy inner self thy thought. So shall thou be freed from doubt Dance then, Lalla, clad but in the sky Air and sky, what garment is more fair?

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Cloth, says custom [but] Does that satisfy? (Bazaz, p.133) Lalla’s flagrant violation of social norms led to her alternate veneration or abuse by different sections of Kashmiri society. When she was walking or dancing naked on the streets in a semi-conscious state, a local cloth dealer is supposed to have driven away her abusers and offered her a piece of cloth. Lalla cut it into two equal lengths and placed each length on either of her shoulders and went on tying knots on either side when people prostrated before her or when they abused her. In the evening, Lalla went back to the cloth dealer and asked him to weigh both the lengths of cloth and to his amazement they weighed exactly the same. Lal Ded is said to have smilingly told him that both praise and blame were equal to her (Kaul, p.17). This same combination of social transgression and spiritual transcendence is visible in the twelfth century Virasaivite saint Akka Mahadevi whose only covering for her body was her long hair. R C Zaehner in his article ‘Mysticism Sacred and Profane’, (Zaehner in Wood, pp.56–77) brings in yet another dimension to the connectivity between schizophrenia, hysteria or insanity on the one hand and the state of divine madness, ecstatic possession and mysticism on the other. He draws attention to the similarity in manifestation between the drug-induced state of incoherence or psychosis and the visions of the mystic. Here again he takes recourse to the categorization of a higher and a lower manifestation – the ‘profane’ and the ‘sacred’ manifestations of mysticism as he terms it. Finally, the language used in the state of spiritual emergence is a language that could well belong to the realm of schizophrenia or insanity. Why did the language of spirituality have to be couched in the language of mysticism? Julia Kristeva, the well known feminist and psychoanalyst used the interesting phrase ‘Holiness, Madness, Poetry’ in her analysis of the subjectivity in religious poetics. The language of madness and mysticism transcends gender and the symbolic language structure. The mystical experience (in the case of both men and women) is beyond the experiential field of physical existence and thus becomes a transcendental/metaphysical moment which no language can unlock. However the mystics, in their urge to communicate this incommunicable experience, are compelled to

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use the existent language structure although their vocabulary is dominated by ‘the semiotic’, the pre-Oedipal language of signs and sounds, rather than by the ‘symbolic’ language system emerging out of the socially acceptable language structure grounded in patriarchy. In this whole process of communication of mystical experiences, both male and female mystics sound mad, unintelligible and yet, strangely enough, repetitive in their use of metaphors. Bridal mysticism, for instance, cuts across race, religion and gender distinctions. The state of union with the divine is also expressed by both men and women saints in erotic mysticism. A verse from the vachana of Akka Mahadevi illustrates this point: On a frame of water, raising a roof of fire, Spreading the hailstones for the bridal floor-bed, A husband without head, Married a wife without legs, My parents gave me to an inseparable life, They married me to Lord Chenna Mallikarjuna (Tipperudra Swami, pp.222–3) Along with Akka Mahadevi, Ayadakki Lakkamma, a married Shiva Sharane in the Virasaivite movement, provides explicit examples of the sati–pati (wife–husband) relationship in the language of bridal mysticism: When the seed is falling On the face of the blossom Can there be a back and front To the blossoming face? If you forget it and If I realize it, can There be different bodies? When the root vanishes The blossom remains. For this union can there be Any other name but sati-pati? (Hiremath, verse 89, p.44) Many of the ecstatic songs of these mystics go beyond the language of bridal mysticism into a realm that is wholly

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unintelligible. The best example of this are the abhangs of Muktabai, one of the saints of the Maharashtrian Warkari panth and the sister of the well known saint Jnaneshwar. She sings: The ant flew in the sky And devoured the orb of the sun; Here’s is a great miracle. A barren woman gave birth to a son. A scorpion went to the nether world And the sheshnaga saluted The feet of the scorpion. A fly delivered And the child is dhar [a bird] Seeing this, Muktayi laughed. (Sakala Santa Gatha, No. 42, p.324) In a world structured in patriarchal language, the language of mystics would be equated with the ‘gibberish of the mad, the retarded and the schizophrenic’. Psychoanalysts like Jacques Lacan have termed this language as ‘imaginary’ (Julia Kristeva prefers the term ‘semiotic’), the language of ‘mother-desire’, the outward expression of the ‘hidden’ and the ‘sub-conscious’. The corroboration of the subjective link between mother desire, mysticism and semiotic language comes from an unexpected quarter. Ramana Maharshi of Tiruvannamalai, who was entirely innocent of Freud or Lacan, talks of the individual ego as the offspring of the Supreme Self – the Mother. However, the individual ego, by identifying itself with the individual body, loses contact with the Mother-Self, resulting in misery and a sense of ‘Lack’. Illustrating this from the story of Deerga Tapasvi in the Yoga Vasishta, Ramana concludes that the present desire to regain one’s mother is in reality the desire to regain the Self, which is the same as realizing oneself or the death of the individual ego; this is surrender unto the Mother so that she may live eternally (Venkataramaiah, p.9).

FROM JAISHREE RAJAMANI TO RAMANA KIRAN: A CASE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL EMERGENCE I wish to begin this section in Jaishree’s own words. This is the concluding para of her self-reflexive ‘prose-poem’ on Spiritual

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Jaishree Rajamani

Hysteria, which begins in blank verse but concludes as prose: This narrative of a victim of this affliction can make a case study for further research. Enjoying the secret happiness unrelated to anything in the world and always in a magnanimous spirit of sharing and giving, this victim, by name Ramana Kiran, wishes to unfold the fact of completeness, in the merging of the infection, the infected, the non-infected, the cause and effect, the doctor, the treatment and the cure into one whole. ‘Spiritual Hysteria’ is only a part of this whole which is complete and perfect. Om Tat Sa All of Jaishree’s literary outpourings, out of which I have just taken the poem on Spiritual Hysteria for analysis, are signed not with her name but as Ramana Kiran. How did Jaishree become metamorphosed into Ramana Kiran? Jaishree was born into a Tamil Brahmin family on 2 December 1946 in riot-torn Delhi. Her parents lived in Daryaganj in the heart of

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‘Old Delhi’, where Hindu and Muslim families lived cheek by jowl in streets like Balli Maran, going back to the Mughal times. Jaishree’s father was a journalist and her mother a housewife. The situation in the area had become very tense by November 1946. People reported killings. It was their Muslim milkman who warned the family that riots would break out that night and they should somehow escape from the area. The couple went from pillar to post looking for refuge and a safe place where the child could be delivered since the mother was in her final month of pregnancy. Finally, they found asylum with a compassionate government servant who stipulated that the couple should leave within a month of the delivery. It was under these circumstances that Jaishree was born. She was named Jaishree meaning victorious since she had come through one of the most harrowing periods that India faced – the partition riots of 1946–7. The life of this child continued to take unexpected twists and turns. In her seventh year she fell ill with high fever and this was diagnosed as endo-carditis (a rare type of heart disease) by the physician. For the next 20 years Jaishree fought her physical condition with her enormous mental strength and her frail physical frame. Her doctor S Padmavati, who now runs a well known Heart Institute in Delhi, wrote about Jaishree’s illness in medical journals as a unique case. The one thing that sustained Jaishree through those difficult years when she had to be carried to her classroom in her father’s arms (her parents could not afford home tuition) was her complete faith in God. She told me that in her sixteenth year, while meditating, she had the unusual experience of levitation without striving for it. She found herself sitting in her cross-legged posture at least a couple of feet off the ground. As she grew, Jaishree seemed to have got over her illness and she began to lead a normal life despite being somewhat frail. Her spiritual experiences continued, although on a lower key. In 1969, the year she finished her post-graduation, she joined as lecturer in a leading women’s college in Delhi. In 1970, Jaishree got married into a fairly affluent family. The year (1970) can be said to mark the first step in the development of Jaishree’s spiritual hysteria. Her married life turned out to be a prolonged nightmare. She faced marital ill-treatment and mental torture. One day Jaishree removed her mangal sutra (the symbol of her status as a married woman) and stood on the parapet walls of her marital home, ready to end her life. She did not do so. Her return to her life of everyday misery was also the beginning of her

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spiritual hysteria. After giving birth to two girls, Jaishree suddenly resigned her lucrative job in 1983, to the horror of her in-laws who felt the loss of her pay packet most keenly. Jaishree also began to interact with spiritual practitioners instead of holding tuition classes and supplementing the family income. Jaishree’s infant was snatched from her arms on the ground that she suffered from hysteria and would harm the child. It is important to point out here how strikingly similar Jaishree’s spiritual journey was to the journey of other women saints who had led unhappy married lives. Meera danced with abandon ‘with anklets on her feet’ in her passion for her God Giridhar Gopal with the dire consequence of being poisoned by her sister-in-law probably in connivance with her husband. The fourteenth century saint Lal Ded of Kashmir writes in her vak that her mother-in-law never forgot to mix pebbles in her food (till she gave up her marital home and walked out naked). Her contemporary, Bahina Bai, writes in her abhang as to how her husband routinely beat her for keeping company with saints. Chakkubai, another saint from Maharashtra, was tied up with ropes by her in-laws to prevent her from joining the warkari pilgrimage to Pandarpur. Such examples are legion3 – and in every case marital ill-treatment acted as a catalyst for spiritual emergence among these women, usually taking the form of hysteria or apparent madness. In the mid-nineties Jaishree’s mother presented her with a small copy of Ramana Maharshi’s Direct Path – an enquiry to the Self by the self-centred around the one question ‘Who Am I’. Jaishree became oblivious to the world around her and delved into Ramana’s philosophy. Her journey towards her own centre is an enigma wrapped in mystery except that its outward manifestations earned for her the epithet of ‘madness’ from her husband and inlaws. In a ravenous fit of hunger, she would gobble up stale food meant to be thrown. She would not bathe for days and yet her body emitted fragrance. It was also in these days that she began to hear a particular voice, which she believed was the spirit force of Ramana. She developed the powers of both clairvoyance and clairaudience including the power to heal. Jaishree was by now (1995) living on her own with her two children, both girls, now past their teens. They failed to come to terms with this woman who had an all embracing love for humanity but failed to fulfil her role as mother and housewife. Socially isolated, Jaishree led a very rich inner life. Poetry in many languages began to pour fourth. She had but a rudimentary knowledge of Tamil, her mother tongue, since she was born and

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bred in Delhi, but now mystical poetry in Tamil emanated from her imbued with great richness of meaning. She also wrote in Sanskrit (with which she was barely acquainted) and in English and Hindi, both of which she knew well. To herself now she was fully established in the Ramana Kiran identity and divorced from her name and social standing. Her mother-in-law stood in awe of her despite her acute dislike for her daughter-in-law’s exhibitionism and hysteria. The mother-in-law became the butt of snide remarks about her ‘crazy’ daughter-in-law and chaffed under these insults and constant embarrassments. She berated Jaishree constantly and when she heard that someone’s daughter-in-law had committed suicide she was heard to lament that such had not been her luck. Jaishree’s poem written in 1996 reflects this tension. The Tamil poem seems to address her mother-in-law indirectly. It is difficult to translate and the best I can do here is a trans-creation of some portions: You who snarl at me as unfit The snarling woman who uprooted the The symbol [heir?] of her own family. The nattupen [daughter-in-law] had come to establish firmly To nurture and to grow with the family. The snarling woman with her [false] orthodoxy Cruelly crushed this tender sapling. . . Once when Jaishree had come over for the annual sraadh (offering of worship and prayers to one’s dead ancestor) ceremony, her motherin-law offered her a drink with much pleading that it would be good for her health. Jaishree drank it much as Meerabai had drunk the poison sent by her sister-in-law, fully aware of its deadly potency. On her return to her own home she developed a sickness from which she never recovered. She had visions of her own past births and the curious bond which had bound her with her in-laws in a karmic cycle. An essay titled ‘Advaita in Kaliyuga: The Importance of Vedanta in Everyday Life’ provides a window into the workings of her mind. NOTES 1. Andavan Pichchai’s autobiography Naan yen Pichchi Aanen, (in Tamil), privately published by her devotees, Andavan Pichchai Bhajanai Mandali, Sri Seshadri and Sons, 1987, and Rao, Radha and Krishna, ed, 1983, Gift of God, Rishikesh, Divine Life Publication.

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2. An interesting paper on this aspect is by Susan Vishwanathan titled ‘Housewifization and Androgyny’ in IIC Quaterly Theme issue of Women and the Family, 1997. 3. I wish to draw attention to some of my own articles where I have discussed this link between marital ill treatment and spiritual emergence of women saints – ‘Anklets on the Feet: Women Saints in Medieval Indian Society’, The Indian Historical Review 17, 1991–2, pp.1–2, pp.60–89; ‘Madness, Holiness, Poetry: The Vachanas of Virasaivite Women’, Indian Literature, 34.3, 1996, pp.147–55; ‘Rebels, Mystics or Housewives? Women in Virasaivism’, India International Centre Quarterly, 23, 1996, pp.3–4, pp.190–203; ‘Rebels Conformists? Women Saints in Medieval South India’, Anthropos, 87, 1992, pp.133–46.

WORKS CITED Abbott, Justin E, 1985 (first edition 1929), Bahina Bai, Delhi, Motilal Banarasidass. Ammal, Avudai, Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Vedanta Samarasa Padal Tirattu, compiled by Brahmasri Venkatarama Sastrigal, Madras, privately printed, 1953. Andavan Pichchai, 1980, How Did I become Mad, Andavan Pichchai Bhajana Mandali, Madras, Seshadri and Sons, 1987. Bazaz, Prem Nath, 1957, Daughters of the Vitasta, New Delhi, Pamposh Publications. Bhoosnurmath, S S, and Menezes, Armando, ed, 1970, Sunyasampadane, Dharwar, Karnataka University. Grof, Stanislav, 1985, Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy, Albany, State University of New York Press. Grof, Stanislav, and Grof, Christina, ed, 1989, Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, Los Angeles, J P Tarcher. Hancock, M, 1990, ‘Saintly among South India’s Urban Middle Classes’, Man, 5.25.3. Hiremath, R C, ed, 1968, Basavannavara Vachanagalu, Dharwar, Karnatak University. Kaul, J, 1972, Lal Ded, New Delhi, Sahitya Academy. Kristeva, J, 1984, The Revolution in Poetic Language, New York, Columbia University Press. Ladakara, B, 1993, Personal Interview, Summer. Lewis, I M, 1971, Ecstatic Religion – An Anthropological Study of Possession and Shamanism, London, Penguin. Matholi, A, 6 June 1991, Personal Interview. Ramaswamy, Vijaya, 2007 (first edition 1997), Walking Naked: Women, Society, Spirituality in South India, Shimla, Indian Institute of Advanced Study. Rao, Radha and Krishna, 1983, Gift of God, Rishikesh, Divine Life Publication. Sakala Santa Gatha, 1908, Pune, Varda, 1999. Sri Andal, Tiruppavai and Nachchiyar Tirumozhi (Tamil), texts in ‘Sri Andal: Seminar on Andal’, 13–15 August 1983 at Srivilliputtur, Madras, Sri Ramanuja Vedanta Centre, 1985.

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Swami, H Tipperudra, 1982, Soul unto the Sublime, trans. C N Hiremath, Hubli, Sree Jagadguru Gangadhara Dharma Pracharaka Mandala. Venkataramaiah, N, trans and ed, 1972, Ramana Talks: Dialogues with Sri Ramana Maharshi Between 1935 and 1939, Tiruvannamalai, Sri Ramanashramam. Wapnick, K, 1990, ‘Mysticism and Schizophrenia’, in Woods, R, ed, Understanding Mysticism, New York, Image Books, pp.321–37. William, J, 1958, The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York, New American Library. Whitehead, Rev., 1921, Village Gods of South India, London, Oxford University Press. Zaehner, R C, 1980, ‘Mysticism Sacred and Profane’, in Woods, R, ed, Understanding Mysticism, New York, Image Books, pp.56–77.

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