The Metaphysics of Becoming: On the Relationship between Creativity and God in Whitehead and Supermind and Sachchidananda in Aurobindo 9783110342772, 9783110342550

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Thomas Padiyath The Metaphysics of Becoming

Process Thought

Edited by Nicholas Rescher, Johanna Seibt, Michel Weber

Volume 25

Thomas Padiyath

The Metaphysics of Becoming On the Relationship between Creativity and God in Whitehead and Supermind and Sachchidananda in Aurobindo

ISBN 978-3-11-034255-0 e-ISBN 978-3-11-034277-2 ISSN 2198-2287 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

| Dedicated to the memory of my beloved parents Mr C C Chacko and Mrs Alekkutty Chacko Padiyath

Foreword I am very happy to recommend this fine book of Dr. Thomas Padiyath to the philosophical reader. Thomas Padiyath’s philosophical talents were evident to me when he came as a student to Belgium and the Higher Institute of Philosophy at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, first to do the Masters in Philosophy, and then the Doctorate. He worked under my supervision, initially on an MA thesis of the ethics of F.H. Bradley, but later he wanted to spread wider his philosophical wings and take flight into more heady metaphysical and speculative spaces. To that end he turned to the thought of A.N. Whitehead and Sri Aurobindo Ghose. The current book shows something of the results of that flight. This book brings to completion a process of study, research, and synthesis extending over many years. It offers us a fitting articulation of years of dedicated work. Initially, Dr. Padiyath had hesitated concerning his theme, but finally he determined that he wanted to do something with a bearing on the relation of philosophical thought in both the Eastern and the Western traditions. Thus he set for himself a difficult task. It is challenge enough to study one major thinker but a student more than doubles the challenge when he undertakes to be master of two. For Dr. Padiyath had to study two important thinkers, each in their own right, and then further in terms of the possibility of their dialogue with each other – and all this with an eye to the intermediations, in both convergences and divergences, of East and West. Trying to master two important thinkers, one opens oneself to judgment not on one but two fronts. One has to please two masters – the Whitehead scholars and the Aurobindo scholars – and neither is likely to warm to the presence of a competitive rival. In addition, there is the third master that holds sway over the interrelations of the two masters: Thomas Padiyath had to orchestrate a kind of virtual dialogue between them when none explicitly existed in the original. He had to aid them to speak to each other. I think he has done admirably well in meeting the diverse demands of these different and exacting masters. All these challenges notwithstanding, he gave himself over to the work and in a relatively short time acquired a mastery of both thinkers and the issues they posed for each other. In due course, he defended his doctorate with a dissertation that was well praised by all of the readers on the jury. It was praise well deserved. The book now appearing shows the worthy philosophical talents and scholarly skills of Thomas, his contribution to scholarship in both Whitehead and Aurobindo studies, and more generally, his contribution to a promising dialogue on basic metaphysical issues between Eastern and Western thought. It is a first book by Dr. Padiyath and I hope it will not be the last, and that the

VIII | Foreword

dialogue between Eastern and Western thought will continue to be fostered by him in the years to come. The book is a work of synthesis, from many different sources. The book is very helpful for a person schooled in Western philosophy to get a sense of Indian philosophy, and one anticipates also that his Indian readers will be illuminated in various ways concerning many strands of Western philosophy. The book also tries to take the measure of certain basic philosophical notions where they come into dialogue between Whitehead and Auronbindo. One of these central ideas is the contrast of being and becoming. We need both. For Whitehead becoming has a priority; for Aurobindo being, and Dr. Padiyath argues for a complementarity that is no simple homogeneous continuum. There is very interesting discussion of Aurobindo where it is obvious the matter is no simple dualism of being and becoming, since in being itself there is becoming. This is an issue extending to divine becoming, a difficulties itself fraught with deep complexities, since divine becoming, if there is such, could not be likened to any finite becoming. In this regard, we also find interesting discussion of Whitehead’s notion of process. One must applaud the stress on process against any too static substantialism, but a question that arises concerns how univocal an account of process one can give, a question also very relevant if we attribute process to divine becoming. I myself would distinguish “coming to be” from “becoming,” in that every process of becoming presupposed a happening of being already having come to be. And neither coming to be nor becoming is the same as divine dunamis, which is in excess of both, while enabling their promising givenness. Dr. Padiyath’s discussion of Whitehead’s God as having a primordial and consequent nature is of relevance. I am not convinced Whitehead’s way touches the kernel of the matter. One suspects that Eastern thinkers, with such a long and auspicious tradition of speculative thought on ultimate matters, have richer resources for thinking the matter than do philosophers in the modern Western tradition, shaped as this has been by the not always harmonious twins of empiricism and rationalism. Dr. Padiyath also works hard to make intelligible sense of notions from Aurobindo such as Supermind. It is evident that the ethos of thought in the East is not the same as that in the West, where again the legacies of empiricism and rationalism diversely live on, as does the idea of philosophy as autonomous thought, separated especially in modernity from the religious. That separation is not sought by Aurobindo’s practice of philosophy which flowers out of a Yogic milieu and often finds expression in a style with traces of incantatory charm. A way of life is at issue, and a certain living porosity between the religious and the philosophical. Some Western philosophers might condescend and

Foreword | IX

say that the standpoint of true critical philosophy has not been attained in all of this. Contrariwise, one could make the rejoinder that we in the West have much to learn, and relearn, concerning the ultimate porosity of religion and philosophy – not as a threat to autonomy, whether philosophical or other, but as the mother of creativity and ultimacy. Thomas Padiyath tries to allow Aurobindo and Whitehead to speak for themselves, but he is not devoid of his own important questions. His book will tell its own story. It is not my task to tell that story but to recommend attention to its detailed treatment of very important themes, to praise how these are well handled overall and carried out with admirable conscientiousness. Thomas has made every effort to familiarize himself with a wide range of secondary material on both thinkers, and with background materials relevant to the understanding of both. The detailed treatment of important themes displays genuine philosophical intelligence, not least in the manner in which he shows respect for close attention to the historical and philosophical contexts of these two thinkers, the details of their thought, on their own terms, and what these terms contribute to a philosophical dialogue beyond themselves. The whole is executed with sober thoughtfulness in the exemplary manner in which he shows respect for complexity of the concepts of Aurobindo and Whitehead. The work is to be warmly applauded for showing forth the worthy accomplishment of its author and for sharing with us his illuminating contribution to the important dialogue of East and West. William Desmond KU Leuven, Belgium

Appreciation Good books dealing with both Western and Eastern metaphysics are as rare as they are important. Since Western and Eastern cultures are meeting more and more, they want to understand each other and see their convergences and particularities. ‘Globalisation’ has entered not only the economical realm, but more and more also the philosophical one. Teilhard de Chardin saw a growing ‘convergence’ as the natural future of evolution – as evolution is characterised, he says, not only by a growing complexity but also by an ever increasing unity. In his view, cultures, philosophies, ways of thinking etc. would inevitably become intertwined more and more. At the metaphysical level, the natural agora, where East and West can meet is the idea of becoming – an idea congenial with the East, but not so with the West. We all know how strongly Western metaphysics was a metaphysics of Being. However, originally Western philosophy, in its Greek origin, was a philosophy of physis and thus of becoming. But especially since Plato, under the influence of Parmenides, the ‘meta- physical’ was thought to refer to another realm, a realm of unchanging eternal being. It is only relatively recently that the idea of becoming – growing out of a nascent awareness of historicity – has become central also in metaphysics more and more. This movement is not even 200 years old. Hegel and Nietzsche, Heidegger and Deleuze are its main proponents: for all of them, becoming is at the heart of being. This is certainly true for the so-called process-metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. It conceives reality as constituted by processes. The being of these processes is their becoming. Whitehead himself was aware that in saying this, he was developing a philosophy that “seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought” than to mainstream Western philosophy (PR 7). No wonder then, that dr. Thomas Padiyath in this book takes the notion of becoming as the central notion in his search for a metaphysical meeting point between East and West. The names of Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Alfred North Whitehead are paradigmatic here. Not only because they both developed a philosophy of becoming, but each of them was at the same time particularly aware of the other culture: Aurobindo is regarded as the most Western version of Indian philosophy, while Whitehead is often understood as the most Eastern version of Western metaphysics. Is not an analysis then of their relationship an ideal way to confront East and West?

XII | Appreciation

That is the starting point of this study. But, as dr. Padiyath shows, with this starting point the journey only begins. A journey that brings us on different roads. First of all, there is of course, the totally different vocabulary that has to be elucidated. Sachidananda, Creativity, Supermind and so forth: before any comparison is possible, these notions require elucidation as to their particular meaning. That is even true where some of these notions seem to be linked to every day language: creativity in Whitehead or Supermind in Aurrobindo for example, have quite specific meanings. But step by step, as dr. Padiyath shows, more seems to be at stake. Problems show up that make a comparison between Eastern and contemporary Western metaphysics far more complex. Problems that are linked to the basic presuppositions of both cultures. One central presupposition in this regard is the relationship between philosophy and religion. It shows up behind different faces, as for example behind the relationship between reason and intuition. And as becomes clear in the present work, even the discussion on being and becoming is radically influenced by it. Indeed, time and again, the discussion between philosophy and metaphysics in East and West touches this basic relationship between philosophy and religion. Their differentiation belongs to the core of Western modernity, their harmony is the basis of the richness of Eastern wisdom. Another aspect of that same relationship is the problem of evil. For Whitehead the problem of evil is the reason for differentiating the metaphysical ultimate and the God of religion – God for him is not the foundation of all being (because then God has to be the foundation of evil as well as of good) but God rather is the lure and the drive within being, a lure towards truth, goodness and beauty. God is a condition but also an ideal and a critique of what is. It is the essential goodness of God that has made the West so sensitive to the problem of evil and so engaged in fighting it and trying to relieve its consequences. Eastern thought, however, lives from the awareness that more is needed than “one eyed reason” in the search for wisdom. Dr. Padiyath faces all these problems right ahead. He confronts them without hesitation and lays bear what is at stake. He rightly refuses simple answers or quick harmonisations, as we are dealing here with basic presuppositions and sensitivities. Taking Aurobindo as his guide, he looks for rapprochement, while deeply aware of the difference and fully appreciating the depth and richness of each other’s particularity. The first aim is to understand both positions, and to see not only what the other says, but why he says what he says. Only that gives the real insight that is necessary for any serious dialogue. And this is what dr. Padiyath does in the present work: he lays the necessary groundwork for a real dialogue between the two strands of metaphysics, by a profound and penetrating analysis of two prominent representatives and by a comparison of their

Appreciation | XIII

position. The seriousness of this work can only deepen and enrich a dialogue which today is more necessary than ever. Prof. Dr. André Cloots K.U.Leuven

Acknowledgements My academic pilgrimage completes a stage here, leaving a deep sense of gratitude and indebtedness in my thoughts and memories. It has opened the Fons Sapientiae for me from which I was able to drink a bit. As J. N. Mohanty says: “To aim at thinking from within two traditions is possible, although it has been a deeply disturbing experience. That this is possible, refutes the now all too common relativisms, and establishes for me the unity of rational thinking, although that unity is not what one can begin with, but has to ceaselessly strive towards.” This statement symbolizes my own struggle as well as the result of my pilgrimage. Nevertheless, what gives joy is that I was not alone in my dark nights. The Divine Star lighted up the nights with His “refreshment and companionship” in and through the many fellow pilgrims walking together with me, by opening their intellectual treasure for me, and giving me strength, encouragement and support. I am indebted first of all to my promoters, Professor William Desmond and Professor André Cloots – two genuine friends of wisdom. Prof. Desmond’s exceptional intellectual and professorial calibre, together with his stimulating thoughts that never cut their roots of “hard simplicity” is admirable and exemplary. The freedom of thought he recognises and promotes while guiding the student on the proper track is distinct. Prof. Cloots’ expertise in Whitehead’s philosophy and the modern trends of thought that express themselves in his openness to truth, diligent and meticulous guidance are praiseworthy. They are two fast readers but no-thing can escape their double eyed reason. May the paths they tread be prosperous. I am grateful also to all the other Professors of the Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte. My genuine appreciation is likewise extended to Dirk Aerts and other staff of the institute. With a deep sense of gratitude I remember my friends and colleagues: Gancis Jude for the timely help, support and encouragement in revising my text; Jose Palakuzha and Alex Kalathikattil SDB for the attentive reading of the manuscript; Michelle Rochard for stretching out her helping hands all through my academic life in Leuven; and Swapna Sharma for the timely help with her expertise in Sanskrit. This book is a revised form of my PhD dissertation, which was completed in 2006 at the Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. With immense joy and gratitude I remember my Archbishop emeritus Joseph Powathil, who sent me to pursue my studies at KU Leuven and whose love of wisdom, personal care and appreciation sustained me on my pilgrimage. I am grateful also to my present Archbishop Joseph Perumthottam, who has always been a source of encouragement. Sincere thanks are extended to Kirche

XVI | Acknowledgements

in Not (1998-2003) and Broederlijk Delen – Karuna vzw (2004) for their generous help in defraying my costs of living in Leuven. I love Leuven and my Alma Mater KUL and her academic excellence. I have enjoyed my stay in Leuven. Leuven life has taught me a lot, which I learned not from books but from the lived experience. But it is no merit of mine, rather the greatness and hospitality of my fellow travellers. I love my home in Leuven, Heilige Geest College, especially I remember Prof. Kristiaan Depoortere, Prof. Paul Schotsmans, Luc and Vera Cosaert, and other staff members and colleagues in the College who enriched my academic and personal life throughout these challenging and demanding years. On a more personal note, my pilgrimage has been nourished by the companionship of my friends and colleagues Scaria Kanniyakonil, who initiated me to Leuven life, R. Mooken, J. Chirackal, G. Kulangara, B. Karuvelil, and my other friends of the Indian community in Leuven, Germany and Rome. Now my thoughts and memories fly to my family, relatives, brother priests of the Archdiocese of Changanassery, and other friends who have generously lent their kindness of spirit and prayers showing steadfast love and encouragement while I was pursuing my goal. I am grateful to Rev Dr Joseph Puthumana and Prof. K. T. Devasia and Prof. P. J. Thomas for going through the manuscript suggesting necessary alterations. My personal appreciation and gratitude goes to Rev Nijo Nedumthadathil for the timely help with his computer expertise. Finally, I am deeply indebted to De Gruyter, Germany for taking up the publication of this work, especially I am grateful to Dr Rafael Hüntelmann and Ms Olena Gainulina.

Contents Abbreviations | XXIV  General Introduction | 1  Part One: Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Becoming   1 Metaphysics of Becoming: Setting the Context | 21  1.1 Greek Philosophy to Scientific Materialism | 22  1.2 Whitehead’s Response to the Greek Outlook of Nature | 23  1.2.1 The Emergence of Materialism in Modernity | 25  1.2.1.1 The Doctrine of Simple Location | 28  1.2.1.2 Whitehead and Classical Physics | 29  1.2.1.3 The Metaphysical Dualism of ‘Res Extensa and Res Cogitans’ | 31  1.2.1.4 Newton’s Mechanistic View of the Universe | 34  1.2.2 Whitehead’s Response to Scientific Materialism | 35  1.3 The Positive Influences | 38  1.3.1 The Re-construction of Physical Sciences | 38  1.3.2 The Romantic Movement | 39  1.3.3 An Inevitable Shift in Methodology | 41  2 Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Indefinite Pluralities in Becoming | 45  2.1 Being to Beingness in Becoming | 45  2.1.1 The Fundamental Principle of Becoming | 47  2.1.2 The Enigma of Becoming | 49  2.2 Fundamental Reality in Whitehead | 51  2.2.1 Actual Occasion: the Dynamic Subject | 53  2.2.2 The Constitution of an Actual Occasion | 54  2.2.2.1 The Theory of Concrescence | 55  2.2.2.2 The Concept of Prehension | 56  2.2.2.3 Satisfaction | 61  2.3 The Characteristics of Actual Occasion | 63  2.3.1 Actual Occasion: A Unity of the Physical and Mental Poles | 64  2.3.1.1 The Physical Pole | 65  2.3.1.2 The Conceptual Pole | 65  2.3.2 Actual Occasion: A Self-actualising Concrescence | 66  2.3.3 Actual Occasion: An Experience of Being Subject-Superject | 69  2.4 The Eternal Objects: Pure Potentials for Actual Occasion | 70 

XVIII | Contents

2.4.1 2.4.2 3 3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.2 3.3 3.3.1 3.3.2 3.3.3 3.3.4 3.4 3.4.1 3.4.2 3.4.3

The Ontological Necessity of the Eternal Objects | 71  The Complimentarity of the Actual and the Eternal | 73  Creativity: The Raison d’être of Becoming | 75  The Distinctive Features of Creativity | 75  The Emergence of the Concept Creativity | 76  Creativity: The Pure Notion of the Activity | 78  Creativity: A Meta-theoretical Concept | 79  Creativity: the Metaphysical Ultimate in Whitehead | 81  Different Interpretations of Creativity | 83  Creativity: The Self-Caused Subjective Feeling | 83  Creativity: Monistic or Pluralistic? | 84  Creativity as Eternal Object | 86  Creativity as Future Becoming | 87  Creativity: The Raison d’être of Becoming | 89  Creativity: the Innate Nature of Every Actuality | 89  Creativity: the Principle of Creative Advance | 91  Creativity: the Principle of Novelty | 93 

4 God and the Metaphysics of Becoming | 96  4.1 God and the Metaphysical Principles | 96  4.2 God and the Metaphysics of Becoming | 98  4.2.1 God: A Metaphysical Necessity | 99  4.2.2 God: An Actual Entity | 101  4.2.3 The Dipolar Nature of God | 101  4.2.3.1 The Primordial Nature of God | 103  4.2.3.2 The Consequent Nature of God | 104  4.2.4 God: The Principle of Limitation | 108  4.2.5 The Vindication of the Refuted | 110  4.3 God-World Relation in Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Becoming | 114  4.3.1 God the Creator and the Metaphysics of Becoming | 115  4.3.2 God: the Reservoir of Potentiality | 117  4.3.3 God: the Source of Novelty | 119  4.3.4 God: the Principle of Order and Harmony | 120  4.3.5 God: the Source of the Initial Aim | 121  4.4 The Religious Significance of Whitehead’s God | 123  4.4.1 The Complexity of the Subject | 124  4.4.2 The Goodness of God versus the Will of God | 127  4.4.3 God: the Wisdom that Permeates the Universe | 130 

Contents | XIX

4.4.4

Metaphysics of Becoming without God | 132 

Part Two: Aurobindo’s Integral Advaita and the Metaphysics of Becoming   5 5.1 5.2 5.2.1 5.2.1.1 5.2.1.2 5.2.2 5.2.2.1 5.2.2.2 5.2.3 5.2.3.1 5.2.3.2 5.2.3.3 5.3 5.3.1 5.3.1.1 5.3.1.2 5.3.2 5.3.2.1 5.3.2.2 5.3.3 5.3.3.1 5.3.3.2

Integral Advaita: Its Place within the Indian Philosophical Tradition | 141  Fundamental Presuppositions of Aurobindo’s Metaphysics | 142  Aurobindo and Vedanta Philosophy | 144  Aurobindo and Advaita Philosophy of Shankara | 145  Shankara’s Theory of Reality | 146  Aurobindo’s Response to Absolute Non-Dualism | 149  Aurobindo and the Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja | 151  Ramanuja’s Theory of Reality | 151  Aurobindo’s Response to Qualified Non-Dualism | 154  Dvaitavata of Madhva | 155  Theory of Difference and Dependence | 156  The Ontology of Madhva | 157  Aurobindo and Absolute Dualism | 158  Aurobindo and Different Theories of Existence | 160  The Supracosmic View | 160  The Distinctive Nature of the Supracosmic View | 161  The Supracosmic View and Integral Advaitism of Aurobindo | 162  The Cosmic-terrestrial View | 163  The Distinctiveness of the Cosmic-terrestrial View | 163  The Cosmic-terrestrial View and Integral Advaitism | 164  The Supraterrestrial View | 166  Distinguishing Features of the Supra-terrestrial View | 167  Aurobindo’s Response to the Theories of Existence | 167 

6 6.1 6.1.1 6.1.2 6.2 6.2.1 6.2.2 6.2.3 6.3 6.3.1

Integral Advaita: A Metaphysics of Becoming | 170  The Integral Advaitic View of Existence | 170  The Name Integral Advaita | 171  Distinctiveness of Integral Yoga | 173  Aurobindo’s Interpretation of the Concept of Maya | 175  Maya: the Power of Becoming in Indian Philosophy | 177  Maya: The Self’s Experience of Its Being | 180  Maya: Not a Passive Notion but a Dynamic Notion | 181  Dipolar Nature of the Reality | 184  Matter as the Foundational Substratum of Existence | 185 

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6.3.2 6.3.3 6.4 6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.2.1 6.4.2.2 6.5 6.5.1 6.5.2 6.6 6.6.1 6.6.2

The Relation between Matter and Spirit | 186  Dipolarity is Not Dichotomy | 188  The Concept of Evolution: A Process Toward Integral Unity | 190  The Idea of Evolution in Indian Philosophy | 190  Aurobindo’s Vision of Evolution | 191  Distinctiveness of Aurobindo’s Concept of Evolution | 192  Teleology Central to Aurobindo’s Concept of Evolution | 193  Cosmic Consciousness: the Locus of Becoming | 196  The Individual and the Efficacy of Cosmic Consciousness | 197  Cosmic Consciousness: the Source of Reconciliation | 198  The One and the Many: The Way of Being in Becoming | 200  The Absolute: Unity Manifesting Multiplicity | 200  The Infinite: the Locus of Unity | 202 

7 Sachchidananda and the Metaphysics of Becoming | 205  7.1 The Concept of the Absolute in Philosophy | 205  7.1.1 Brahman: the Absolute in Indian Philosophy | 206  7.1.2 Aurobindo’s Understanding of the Absolute | 207  7.2 The Understanding of God in Indian Philosophy | 210  7.2.1 The Subjective Dimension of Brahman | 210  7.2.2 The Objective Dimension of Brahman | 213  7.3 Sachchidananda: The Absolute in Aurobindo | 216  7.3.1 Sachchidananda: The Greatest Achievement of Vedanta | 217  7.3.2 The Trinity of Sachchidananda | 218  7.3.2.1 The Absolute as Pure Existence (Sat) | 219  7.3.2.2 The Absolute as Consciousness-Force (Cit-Shakti) | 221  7.3.2.3 The Absolute as Bliss (Ananda) | 223  7.3.2.4 The Inter-dependent Nature of the Trilogy | 225  7.4 Sachchidananda and the Metaphysics of Becoming | 227  7.4.1 The Involution of the Absolute | 228  7.4.1.1 Why Involution or the Becoming? | 229  7.4.1.2 Involution: The Becoming of the Absolute | 232  7.4.2 The Effects of Involution | 234  7.4.2.1 Theory of World as the Manifestation | 235  7.4.2.2 Sachchidananda: The Substratum and the Cause of the Universe | 238  8 8.1 8.1.1

The Supermind: The Raison d’être of Becoming | 241  The Supermind | 241  Vedic Roots of the Supermind | 242 

Contents | XXI

8.1.2 8.1.3 8.1.3.1 8.1.3.2 8.1.3.3 8.1.3.4 8.2 8.2.1 8.2.2 8.2.3 8.2.4 8.2.4.1 8.2.4.2 8.2.4.3 8.2.4.4 8.2.5 8.3 8.3.1 8.3.2 8.3.3 8.3.4 8.3.5 8.3.6

The Distinctive Nature of the Supermind | 244  The Triple Status of the Supermind | 245  Comprehending Consciousness or Transcendent Status | 246  The Apprehending Consciousness | 247  The Projecting Consciousness | 248  Combined Activity – The Way of Being-Becoming | 248  The Mind and the Supermind | 250  In the Realm of Epistemology | 251  Spatio-temporal Limitation of the Mind | 252  Supermind: Identity of the Ideal and Actual | 253  The Transformative Ascent from Mind to the Supermind | 254  The Higher Mind | 256  The Illumined Mind | 257  The Intuitive Mind | 257  The Overmind | 259  The Supramental Transformation | 261  The Supermind: Its Role, Relevance and Ultimacy | 262  Supermind: An Onto-logical Necessity | 262  Supermind: The Intermediate Link | 263  Supermind: The Creative Principle | 265  Supermind: Principle of Reconciliation | 266  Supermind: The Ordering and Harmonising Principle | 268  Supermind: The Raison d’être of Becoming | 271 

Part Three: On the Relationship between Creativity and God and Supermind and Sachchidananda   9 9.1 9.1.1 9.1.2 9.1.2.1 9.1.2.2 9.1.2.3 9.2 9.2.1 9.2.2 9.2.2.1

On the Relationship between God and Creativity in Whitehead and Sachchidananda and Supermind in Aurobindo | 281  The Ultimacy of God and Creativity | 282  God and Creativity Clearly Distinguished | 283  Different Approaches and Re-configurings | 287  The Identification of Creativity and God | 287  God: the Source of Creativity | 289  The Immanent Interdependence of God and Creativity | 292  The Ultimacy of Sachchidananda and the Supermind | 295  One in Essence and Dipolar in Existence | 295  Supermind: The Icon of Sachchidananda | 297  Supermind: The God Aspect of Sachchidananda | 298 

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9.2.2.2 9.3 9.3.1 9.3.2 9.4 9.4.1 9.4.2 9.4.2.1 9.4.2.2 9.4.2.3 9.4.2.4 9.4.2.5 10

Supermind: The Truth-Consciousness of Sachchidananda | 300  The Raison d’être for the Distinction of God and Creativity | 302  On the Demand of the Question of Evil | 303  On the Demand of Freedom | 309  The Sine qua non for the Interdependence of Sachchidananda and Supermind | 311  On the Ground of Theism and Monism | 312  The Problem of Evil | 314  The Complexity of the Problem | 315  God the Creator and the Enigma of Evil | 316  Evil and Divine Bliss | 318  The Interplay of Good and Evil | 320  Evil and Divine Economy | 321 

Toward an East-West Intermediation in the Metaphysics of Becoming in the Context of the Distinction between Metaphysics and Religion | 324  10.1 The Distinctiveness of the West in Doing Philosophy | 325  10.1.1 Reason: Central to Western Philosophy | 326  10.1.2 Medieval Philosophy: A Combination of Faith and Reason | 330  10.2 The Influence of the Enlightenment and Modernity | 332  10.2.1 Modernity and Rationality | 334  10.2.1.1 Modernity and the Question of Transcendence | 335  10.2.1.2 The Emergence of Immanent Transcendence | 338  10.2.2 The Separation of Metaphysics and Religion in the West | 341  10.3 Whitehead’s Distance from Modernity | 346  10.3.1 Religious and Metaphysical Ultimate as Distinct | 346  10.3.2 The Metaphysical and the Religious Ultimate are Different | 351  10.4 The Way of Doing Philosophy in the East | 354  10.4.1 The Distinctiveness of the East | 355  10.4.1.1 Darsna Versus Weltanschauung | 356  10.4.1.2 Existence Is Value | 358  10.4.1.3 Sense of Transcendence | 361  10.4.2 Religion and Philosophy: Two Modes of Expressions | 363  10.4.2.1 Religion, Philosophy and Freedom | 365  10.4.2.2 Philosophy and Religion: Distinct but not Separate | 365  10.4.3 The Complimentarity of Faith and Reason | 369  10.4.3.1 The Role and the Limitations of Reason | 370  10.4.3.2 Human Reason: A Mediator not an Angel | 372  10.4.3.3 Reason Transcending to the Realm of Intuition | 374 

Contents | XXIII

10.5 11 11.1 11.2 11.2.1 11.2.2 11.2.3 11.2.4 11.2.5 11.2.6 11.2.7 11.3

The Middle Way of Whitehead and Aurobindo | 377  General Conclusion | 380  Resumé | 380  Whitehead and Aurobindo and East-West Dialogue | 383  Being and Becoming: an Attempt to Think them Together | 383  A Synthetic Approach to Matter and Spirit | 391  The Realism of Whitehead and Aurobindo | 393  Teleology and Purpose versus Nihilism | 395  Religion and Philosophy: Distinction Versus Separation | 398  Reason and Intuition: Two Sources of Philosophy | 400  Reason and Experience Combined: A New Paradigm | 402  An Attitude of Engagement Rather than Estrangement | 411 

References | 418 

Abbreviations Abbreviations of Whitehead’s Works AI CN Dialg. FR MT NL PNK PR Prel. RM SMW

Adventures of Ideas Concept of Nature Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead The Function of Reason Modes of Thought Nature and Life An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge Process and Reality The Principle of Relativity Religion in the Making Science and the Modern World

Abbreviations of Aurobindo’s Works BG EDH EG FIC HC HG LD LY RI RW SM SV SY TM TPR U

The Bhagavad Gita Essays Divine and Human Essays on the Gita The Foundations of Indian Culture The Human Cycle The Hour of God The Life Divine Letters on Yoga Renaissance in India The Riddle of this World The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings The Secret of the Veda The Synthesis of Yoga The Mother The Problem of Rebirth The Upanishads

Abbreviations | XXV

Other Abbreviations AR AU BB BT BU CU CUP EB IU KU MU RV SABCL SL SU TS TU DK.

KRS.

Appearance and Reality Aitareya Upanishad Being and the Between Being and Time Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Chandogya Upanishad Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Ethics and the Between Isa Upanishad Kena Upanishad Mandukya Upanishad Rg Veda Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library Science of Logic Svetasvatara Upanishad Timaeus Taittiriya Upanishad H.Diels and W. Kranz (eds.). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (6th edn.), 3 vols. Berlin: Wiedmann, 1951. Followed by the chapter, letter, and the number of the fragment. G. S. Kirk and Raven J. E. and M. Schofield (eds.). The Presocratic Philosophers (2nd edn.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Followed by the number of the fragments in the single series that runs through the edition.

General Introduction The reality of being and becoming has always been and is a subject of discussion, study and research in the domain of philosophy. This dissertation purports to unfold a discussion on the metaphysics of becoming with special bearing on the question of God. The attempt, precisely, is with a view to develop a dialogue between East and West on metaphysical thinking by exploring the concept of God through a comparative analysis of Whitehead’s concepts of “Creativity” and “God” and Aurobindo’s concepts of “Supermind” and “Sachchidananda.” Such an aim demands the elucidation of a possible meeting point wherein the metaphysical thinking of the West, that bases itself on exoteric scientific analysis, and the metaphysical thinking of the East, that bases itself on the mystical and esoteric tradition of Advaita Vedanta1 can meet and intermediate. The question of being and becoming that engaged human thinking both in the East and in the West as a rational enterprise ever since its beginning is exemplified through the history of philosophy in different strands of thought. Nevertheless, it must be kept in mind that early Greek thinkers were more sensitive to the question of being and becoming and they were reluctant to follow a univocal approach to being and becoming. On the contrary, they accommodated both categories as facts of existence. For instance, one could refer to Heraclitus or Aristotle. What we have in Heraclitus, who is generally acclaimed as the philosopher of the “flux”, is an inextricable unity of the eternal and the transitory; that which is forever and yet seems to exist only in this strife and change which is a continual dying. One could easily cite a number of passages from the Fragments of Heraclitus that speak of both being as well as becoming and change.2 On the other hand, his following statements impress one.3 “We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and we are not” (49a); “The hidden harmony is superior to the visible” (54); “Although it changes, it is at rest” (84a). What is remarkable is that Heraclitus was greatly preoccupied with his || 1 In this dissertation, following the method of Aurobindo, Sanskrit terms are written without diacritical marks and are transliterated into English. A glossary of the Sanskrit terms used is given in the appendix with their meanings. 2 “One cannot step twice into the same river … nor can one twice take hold of mortal substance in a stable condition; for by the quickness and swiftness of its alteration it scatters and gathers – at the same time it endures (brings together) and dissolves, approaches and departs” (91). 3 Robinson, T. M. Heraclitus: Fragments A Text and Translation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.

2 | General Introduction

idea of eternal becoming, the one right account of the cosmos, in his view. Nevertheless, his cosmos has still an eternal basis, a unique original principle, “Fire”; he saw too a constant principle of determination and even a mysterious principle of identity. It is what distinguishes his thought radically from those who see only becoming or change in the cosmos or in the thought of Heraclitus. The permanent and dynamic nature of existence is well founded in Aristotle. His perspective of motion or kinesis is the process in view of an achievement; ‘kinesis, is indeed the very process of achievement: the achieving, whereby there is a ‘having of the end in itself’, which is the natural being, existing fully in itself’. Neither potentiality nor actuality can be separated nor the kinesis or motion shall be understood in itself as something existing; nor can existence be understood as a result of the kinesis. In other words, kinesis itself is not an ousia; on the contrary, the subject of kinesis is an ousia. Aristotle stated: “Motion [kinesis] takes place when the full achievement itself exists and neither earlier nor later. The achievement of the potentially existent, when it is a fully achieved being in act, not qua itself, but qua movable, is motion [kinesis]” (Met. 1065b21-3). “Actuality ... in the process of becoming and perishing and never really is.” Plato, irrespective of his affinity to the early Greek thought in being open to being and becoming, stands distinct in the sense that the cosmology of the Timaeus is based on Plato’s division of eternal unchanging ‘Forms’ and their unstable ‘reflections’ in the physical, perceptible world of ‘becoming’ (TS, editorial introduction).4 Timaeus makes a distinction between “what is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which becomes but never is?” For Plato ‘becoming’ is so basic and inherent in the nature of things in the universe. Hence, he advises “never to speak of anything else as “this”, as though it has some stability ...” (TS 49d-e), for “that in which they each appear to keep coming into being and from which they subsequently pass out of being, that’s the only thing to refer to by means of the expressions “that” and “this” (TS 49de). Nevertheless, it has to be kept in mind that Timaeus makes a clear distinction between “the Being that is indivisible and always changeless, and the one that is divisible and comes to be in the corporeal ...” (TS 35a). Nonetheless, the sensitivity of the early Greek thinkers did not last long. Later thinkers, especially with religious influence, assumed a univocal approach to reality. Thus Western philosophy, arguably from the Middle Ages, is a metaphysics of being. This emphasis upon ‘being’ determined with its own

|| 4 Plato. Timaeus. John M. Cooper (ed.). Plato Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

General Introduction | 3

impacts the largest part of Western metaphysics not only in the Middle Ages, but in modernity as well. Thus the struggle between being and becoming is not a feature of ‘classical’ philosophy alone. We see a revival of it very clearly in Hegel’s dialectical way of philosophizing. Hegel unites being and becoming in a unique way in his thought. Yet Hegel denies the point of Parmenides that “nothing absolutely is not; only being is.”5 Western thought exemplifies another trend that makes a univocal approach to reality in its emphasis either on being or becoming. For instance, Parmenides denied becoming in his radical option for Being, which made him say that “only being is, and nothing absolutely is not.” On the other hand, in Nietzsche we have a contrary position, namely, a sole adherence to becoming. In the modern epoch, more than anyone else, Nietzsche emphasized the reality of becoming. He considered reality itself as an endless Becoming (Werden). Nietzsche attributes “a deeper meaning and greater value to becoming and development than to what ‘is’; we hardly believe in the justification of the concept of ‘being’” (Gay Science 306).6 He believed that there is no final state of the universe; that the world is in a constant state of flux, always changing and becoming. Nietzsche holds that the world is a world of becoming and there is no being. A world of being is merely a world of appearances. Coming to the Eastern view we see that the question of becoming is an indispensable part of its conception of Reality. Moreover, it can be safely said that the three trends identifiable in the West is all the more true of the East as well. In Indian philosophy, the main terms used by Hindus and Buddhists have dynamic connotations. For instance, the word Brahman is derived from the Sanskrit root brih - to grow - and thus suggests a reality which is dynamic and alive. The Rig Veda uses the term ‘Rita’ to express the dynamic character of the universe, from the root ri- to move; its original meaning in the Rig Veda being ‘the course of all things’, ‘the order of nature’. The Vedic seers conceived the order of

|| 5 In Becoming there is a coming-to-be as well as a ceasing-to-be. In both these processes, namely, coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be what is involved is the becoming, though in direction they differ. At the same time in both moments of becoming being is also involved. Thus in the Hegelian perspective “the resultant equilibrium of coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be is in the first place becoming itself. But this equally settles into a stable unity. Being and nothing are in this unity only as vanishing moments; yet becoming as such is only through their distinguishedness. Their vanishing, therefore, is the vanishing of becoming or the vanishing of the vanishing itself. Becoming is an unstable unrest which settles into a stable result” (SL § 106). 6 Friedrich Nietzsche. The Gay Science. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, 1974.

4 | General Introduction

nature not as a static divine law, but as a dynamic principle which is inherent in the universe. One of the fundamental understandings of the Upanishads is that this universe is the result of the manifestation of the ultimate reality, Brahman. Opening room for the truth of becoming the Vedanta accepts becoming of Brahman as a reality. Thus, in the Indian understanding, becoming is primarily the becoming of the being. Precisely, in the Eastern view, “the Infinite would not be the Infinite if it could not assume a manifold finiteness” (LD 267).7 The Upanishads describe the cosmos as a universal motion and becoming; it is all this that is mobile in the mobility, jagatyam jagat. The very word for universe, jagat, has the radical sense of motion. Thus, the whole universe, the macrocosm, is one vast principle of motion and therefore of change and instability, while each thing in the universe is in itself a microcosm of the same motion and instability. Existences are “all becomings”; the Self-existent Atman, Swayambhu, has become all becomings. Moreover, corresponding to Parmenides’ sole emphasis on being we have Shankara’s absolute monism in the East and, parallel to Nietzsche’s eternal becoming, Buddhism maintains a radical vision of becoming and the impermanence of all forms. The Buddha taught that ‘all compounded things are impermanent’. Buddhism maintains that “there is neither being, nor non-being, but only becoming. Reality is a stream of becoming” (Thachil 113).8 According to Buddhist philosophy there is no permanent, unchanging spirit which can be considered ‘Self’ or ‘Soul’ or ‘Ego’, as opposed to matter (Rahula 24).9 For the Buddhists, “there is no Being at all, and the only reality is Becoming. The change is not only total, it is also perpetual” (Thachil 113). Thus, one could identify in the history of thought three shifts: The shift of emphasis from being and becoming in the early Greek thought to being in medieval and early modernity and again to becoming which characterises present day thinking. It is in this respect we have to see Franklin Baumer’s observation that “in the end flux is king, as Heraclitus said, or at any rate has become king in the thought of modern Europe and the West. … Becoming has superseded being as the major category in European thinking” (20). It is true especially of the West, while the East in general always maintained its primacy for being, except in the case of Buddhism. However, any univocal approach to existence, either in the name of being or becoming, raises a number of questions which

|| 7 Aurobindo. The Life Divine [1914-19]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997. 8 Jose Thachil. An Initiation to Indian Philosophy. Alwaye, India: Pontifical Institute of Theology and Philosophy, 2000. 9 Walpola Rahula. What the Buddha Taught. New York: Grove Publication. 1962.

General Introduction | 5

eventually paves way for a number of philosophical problems. For instance, if we focus on being alone and say that being alone is true, how do we account for the dynamism, growth and evolution in nature? On the other hand, if we say becoming alone is true as the Buddhist or Nietzsche would claim it is all the more problematic. Then all concepts of being, unity, finality, and endpoint become illusions. Nietzsche writes, “More strictly: one must admit nothing that has being-because then becoming would lose its value and actually appear meaningless and superfluous” (Will to Power 708).10 The question is how can one account for definiteness and individuality in the case of a continuous becoming; a problem raised by many thinkers, for instance, F. H. Bradley. How can becoming and individuality be thought together? Another side of the present day emphasis on becoming is that everything is seen no longer sub specie aeterni but sub specie temporis: nature, man, history, even God. It is this last point which constitutes the rationale for the second major concern of our study, namely, the discussion on God in light of the metaphysics of becoming. It is in this context that we undertake a discussion of Whitehead and Aurobindo focussing on their respective views on being, becoming and God. What is the relation maintained between being and becoming in their metaphysics? How do they account for individuality, purposiveness, teleology and meaning? How is the notion of becoming effected with regard to the divine, who is traditionally believed to be an unmoved mover? Here a question is quite natural: why Whitehead and Aurobindo? Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Aravinda Ackroyd Ghose11 (Aurobindo Ghose – 1872-1950) are intellectual progenies of Cambridge. Apart from this fact, there are many similarities between their philosophies that merit a more extended elucidation. Whitehead can be considered the most Eastern of the contemporary thinkers in the sense that he adopts a synthetic approach to nature and reality. In spite of his affinity to the Western mode of doing philosophy, he takes a distance and in contrast to the predominant materialistic concept of nature, he distinguishes himself by taking nature and life ipso facto valuable. Moreover, his own methodology is more attuned to East in the sense that he brings together philosophy, religion, and reason and intuition in his || 10 Friedrich Nietzsche. The Will to Power. Trans. Walter Kaufmann & R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. 11 It was the name given to him by his father. The middle name came from Annette Akroyd, an English woman a friend of his father. In the school records the name is spelt ‘ackroyd’. At St. Paul’s London and Cambridge the name was registered as Aravinda Ackroyd Ghose. After 1926 he became known as Sri Aurobindo (Paranjape xv). The Sanskrit and Hindi word Sri or Shri, is an epithet of respect. In this dissertation we follow the name Aurobindo.

6 | General Introduction

philosophical chess board, rather than making a radical separation of them. Still further in his own words, “the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European thought” (PR 7).12 From the other side, Aurobindo has integrated ideas of the East and the West in a unique way. He has undertaken a task of Herculean dimensions in opening up and enlarging the confines of the traditional Indian thought and demonstrating in a most convincing way in his own works the possibility of absorbing and renewing foreign elements within his own symbol system. Thus Aurobindo stands out to be the most Western of the all the Indian thinkers. Moreover, his goal was a larger, deeper and richer integration of ideologies, axiologies and theologies of the East and the West than heretofore has been accomplished by any of his predecessors. It is observed that the positive vision that Aurobindo envisioned of Indian philosophy opens a new horizon that would facilitate the philosophical understanding of the East and the West, that would lead to a significant synthesis of the Eastern and the Western thought (Radhakrishnan 1967, 576).13 Aurobindo’s integral vision goes beyond East and West in the sense it returns to the resources of consciousness to dig out this rich storehouse to draw out of it the great knowledge existing in it to form a higher truth than has hitherto been realized (O’Neil 1).14 More than any other Indian thinker Aurobindo avows the value of earthly life, which makes his thought more attuned to the ethos of the West. This study adopts an approach that involves analysis, comparison and synthesis. It analyses and tries to expound the metaphysics of Whitehead and Aurobindo on their own right. Nevertheless, it also aims at a comparison of the two philosophies in virtue of their metaphysics of becoming and in showing how it has affected their understanding of the nature of the divine. At the final stage it assumes a synthetic approach in maintaining a holistic vision of nature and reality with a view of mutual enrichment and dialogue between the East and the West on their ways of doing philosophy.

|| 12 A. N. Whitehead. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology [1929]. Eds. David Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. Corrected edition. New York: The Free Press, 1985. 13 S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy [1923], Vol. II. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1967. 14 Thomas L. O’Neil. Towards The Life Divine: Sri Aurobindo’s Vision. New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1979.

The Scope, Structure and the Limits of the Project | 7

The Scope, Structure and the Limits of the Project A detailed investigation of the aforesaid project would require that we develop this study in three parts, comprising ten chapters. Part One, in four chapters (one to four), articulates Whitehead’s metaphysics of becoming on its own right. In the same manner Part Two, in four chapters (five to eight), develops Aurobindo’s integral vision of reality. Chapter one discusses the Sitz im Leben and the positive influences that contributed to the development of Whitehead’s metaphysics of becoming. For Whitehead the problems of modern philosophy, as we previously noted, revolves round the acceptance of a Substance ontology and subjectivist sensationalism, which finally resulted in scientific materialism. This approach to nature and reality, which has its roots in Newtonian mechanistic and Cartesian dualistic conceptions of the universe, was inadequate for its failure to account for life, mind and upward trend of evolution. Whitehead’s metaphysical cosmology fleshed out in his philosophy of organism aims at a deconstruction of scientific materialism. Thus the chapter tries to clarify the threefold shifts in the orientation of philosophy that took place from the dawn of metaphysical thinking down through the centuries to the present day. Arguably, Western thinking has been dominated by a metaphysics of Being or Substance. Thus, it seems difficult to understand a project of the metaphysics of becoming. For Whitehead and Aurobindo, there is “process” everywhere, including in the fundamental Reality, i.e., in God, Himself. In this context we discuss the notions of the One and the Many and Spirit and Matter in the respective philosophies. For Aurobindo, the revolt between Matter and Spirit is what dominated the history of the last 2000 years. What he is looking for, instead, is a “larger and complete affirmation” (LD 24) of both Matter and Spirit. We will see how these two philosophers are to formulate a holistic or integral vision of the universe through a metaphysics of becoming. Thus, the second chapter unfolds how the Whiteheadian philosophy has effected a shift from the metaphysics of being to a metaphysics of becoming. It aims at a brief exposition of the fundamental reality in Whitehead, i.e., actual occasion (entity), the Whiteheadian notion for substance in classical philosophy, in view of fleshing out its major traits. What is recurrent in our discussion here is the dynamic nature of the actual occasion. In contrast to the static perspective of reality in modernity for Whitehead process itself is reality. Nevertheless, by themselves they cannot account for “complete existence” and novelty in the world. This takes us to the discussion of eternal objects in Whitehead which are the pure potentials of definiteness.

8 | General Introduction

How are we to account for the ‘how of becoming’? The objective of the third chapter is to explore the nature and principle of becoming. In view of this, the third chapter undertakes a close examination of the notion of “creativity”, the metaphysical ultimate in Whitehead’s system. First, the chapter elucidates the distinctive features of this notion, where we would describe it as the pure notion of activity and as a meta-theoretical notion. By making creativity the ultimate foundation of the system Whitehead is taking a distance from the tradition, for here the ultimate is no more an actuality, but is only an ultimate descriptive notion. Moreover, it is explicative of the effect of enlightenment and modernity on Whitehead. By placing the one and the many also with the Category of the Ultimate, Whitehead distinguished himself from his Western contemporaries. This chapter discusses also various interpretations of this notion. A major concern of the project is to see how the metaphysics of becoming is more specifically reflected in Whitehead’s and Aurobindo’s conceptions of the Divine. The problem of the Ultimate is very intricate in both Whitehead’s “Process Philosophy” as well as in the philosophy of Aurobindo. Notwithstanding their different backgrounds – Mathematics, Science and the Bible, supply necessary materials for Whitehead and the Upanishads and other Indian classics offer the guiding light for Aurobindo – the two identify a process, or two phases in God. This is contrary to the western traditional view of God. The problem centers on two notions: “Creativity and God” in Whitehead and “Supermind and Sachchidananda” in Aurobindo. The identification of two phases in God is a metaphysical necessity for both Whitehead and Aurobindo. For Whitehead, any actual entity is in a process of becoming: “every actual exhibits itself as a process: it is a becomingness” (SMW 175).15 God is also an actual entity. As well, God is the primordial instance of Creativity. In a similar way, Aurobindo suggests an evolutionary process in positing “Matter is Spirit and Spirit is Matter.” Aurobindo insists that we should give proper attention to the great Vedantic formulas: “One without a second” and “All this is Brahman” (LD 24). For Aurobindo, the indispensable pre-requisite for the evolutionary process of the universe is Involution of the Absolute, Sachchidananda. For Whitehead and Aurobindo God was not a “god of the gaps” as it occurred for many modern metaphysics. The point is that God was called in as a - deus ex machina - to account for the incoherent gap in metaphysics. On the contrary, for Whitehead God is not only a practical necessity but also a metaphysical necessity: He is the

|| 15 A. N. Whitehead. Science and the Modern World [1925]. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967.

The Scope, Structure and the Limits of the Project | 9

necessary condition of ordered potentiality. And for Aurobindo, God is the very condition of the possibility of existence itself. Thus, in the fourth chapter our objective is two fold: a) a systematic presentation of Whitehead’s philosophy of God and how the notion of becoming is effected in God who is traditionally conceived as an unmoved mover. Whitehead presents God as an actual entity like any other actual entity. An actual entity is characterised by three characters, namely an actual entity has a character derived from the past world, the subjective character which is original or underived, and the superjective character by which an actual entity influences the future world. These three characteristics can be identified in every actuality as well as in God. Put differently, the three natures imply that God is dependent upon the world, independent of the world and he affects the world. In light of Whitehead’s claim that God cannot be made an exception to metaphysical principles, we undertake the study of this matter. The study, to a certain extent, would make clear that Whitehead’s treatment of God as an actual entity is fundamentally different from all other actual entities, which further refutes Whitehead’s own claim that God cannot be made an exception to the metaphysical principle. And the exploration of the God-world relation points out that Whitehead presents a new way to think the notion ‘God the Creator’. Therefore, the chapter further examines the religious significance of Whitehead’s understanding of God. As previously said, Part Two in four chapters articulates Aurobindo’s integral advaita. Thus, chapter five elucidates the constitutive factors of Aurobindo’s philosophy. His philosophy is deeply rooted in the classical Indian tradition. In Aurobindo, we observe his critique of two negative views, namely, the “refusal of the ascetic” and the “denial of the materialist.” Aurobindo’s reaction to the absolute monism of Shankara and the absolute dualism of Madhva and the qualified non-dualism of Ramanuja also contributed to the development of his “metaphysics of becoming.” Furthermore, the chapter brings out an overview of the fundamental presuppositions of his metaphysics and his critique of the different theories of existence. In consonance with chapter two, chapter six accounts for our claim that integral Advaita of Aurobindo is a metaphysics of becoming. Here we try to substantiate the oneness of Reality as envisioned by Aurobindo in order to cope with the Upanishadic affirmation of the Absolute Oneness of Reality, amidst the manifold existence of our daily experience in the world. In view of it the chapter discusses how Aurobindo established the reality of the world through his interpretation of the concept of Maya. Maya no more advocates any philosophy of illusion, but rather it is the divine power of becoming. Moreover, in order to substantiate the complimentary nature of matter and spirit we explain how

10 | General Introduction

Aurobindo perceives matter and spirit as two poles of the same reality. However, matter and spirit, de facto reside and belong to two different realms. Therefore, it was necessary to establish the relation between these two realms. Having this in mind, we discuss Aurobindo’s vision of the dual process in nature (Involution and Evolution) in virtue of which he tried to reconcile the oneness of the Absolute and the flux of the many. The Aurobindonian evolution is de facto teleological and is moving towards the Absolute. Thus his view is in contrast with many of the Western views of evolution. Our attempt to clarify the complimentary nature of matter and spirit and the dual dimension of the nature of reality would take us further to Aurobindo’s notion of the cosmic consciousness. And our analysis of the concept points further to the problem of the One and the Many, which basically is not uniformity, rather a unity in multiplicity. Chapter seven as the title illustrates, “Sachchidananda and the Metaphysics of Becoming”, deals with how Aurobindo’s metaphysics of becoming is effected in relation to the Absolute. To facilitate the discussion we take a quick look back to the notions of the Absolute and God in Indian philosophy. For Aurobindo, Sachchidananda (sat+cit+ananda) which is pure existence, consciousness and bliss is the Absolute. Thus for Aurobindo the metaphysical and the religious ultimate is one and the same as distinct from Whitehead. Aurobindo accounts for the manifold existenece, irrespective of his monism, through the involution of the Absolute. Thus his monism is an integral monism as different from the absolute monism of Shankara or absolute dualism of Madhva or unlike the qualified non-dualism of Ramanuja. Through his theories of involution and evolution Aurobindo clearly maintains the integral unity of the God-world relation. Chapter eight aims at a detailed exploration of the notion the ‘Supermind’, the principle of becoming in Aurobindo’s metaphysics. The chapter tries to achieve the set goal in three sections. Thus, the first section opens our query into the Vedic roots of the Supermind, where we discuss also the distinctive nature of the Supermind and how far this principle is original to Aurobindo. Our analysis points to the fact that the originality of Aurobindo consists in the novel interpretation of this notion in Western categories and in light of the modern evolutionary theories whereby he is able to find a way out for the problem of one and the many as well. Taking into account the intimate relationship that exists between mind and the Supermind the second section of the chapter focuses on it. Here we examine also different stages of the ascent from mind to the Supermind. The final point considers the ultimacy of the Supermind in being the raison d’être of becoming. Our objective is to bring out the exact relationship between Whitehead’s and Aurobindo’s philosophies of God by studying the relationship between

The Scope, Structure and the Limits of the Project | 11

“Creativity and God” in Whitehead and “Supermind and Sachchidananda” in Aurobindo. For Whitehead, Creativity is a principle of activity as well as a principle of novelty. However, for novelty, Creativity alone is not enough; novelty needs an initial aim which comes from the primordial nature of God. For Aurobindo, Supermind is the intermediary, dynamic principle which is active in the dual process of Involution and Evolution. We will explore the exact nature of the relationship between these two principles in their respective systems, something that has not yet been done systematically.16 In this context, Part Three of the dissertation undertakes this task. The Third Part of this study comprises two chapters on the relationship between Creativity and God in Whitehead and Supermind and Sachchidananda in Aurobindo. Our explorations in Part One and Part Two lead us to the understanding that irrespective of the similarity that exists between Whitehead and Aurobindo they also diverge in many respects in their conception of the metaphysics of becoming. It is true especially of their comprehension of the Ultimate. This awareness invariably demands a discussion of the particular relationship maintained between Creativity and God and Sachchidananda and the Supermind. Thus chapter nine, in continuation with previous discussions, explores this relationship. In this chapter we have a two-fold objective. On the one hand, we try to articulate the relationship maintained between creativity and God and Sachchidananda and the Supermind. On the other, we see that there is || 16 Here the following works are commendable. 1. Ernest Lee Simmons, Jr. Process Pluralism and Integral Non-Dualism: A Comparative study of the Nature of the Divine in the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead and Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Ph.D. Dissertation, Claremount Graduate School, 1981. 2. Harold Houghton. Aurobindo and Whitehead: A Comparative and Critical Study of Supermind and Creativity. Ph.D Dissertation, California Institute of Asian Studies, 1975. 3. Satya Prakash Singh. Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead on the Nature of God. Aligarh, India: Vigyan Prakashan Press, 1972. The works of Simmons and Singh are basically general studies on the nature of God. Simmons focuses, especially on the mystical experience and process pluralism and integral non-dualism. Singh, other than dealing with the nature of God, gives special attention to bring out the relationship between scientific speculation and method of yoga. As the title indicates Houghton takes up a study on Creativity and Supermind. Creativity is compared with Aurobindo’s notion of evolution as a dual process (descent and ascent) where the Supermind plays the intermediary role. Though our project is partially sounds similar to that of Houghton our focus and thrust are different in the sense that in light of the metaphysics of becoming we try to explore how the metaphysics of becoming is effected in their concept of God. Moreover, our attempt is to explicate the particular relationship maintained by God and Creativity and Sachchidananda and Supermind and the reasons for the distinction and the essential unity. We place Whitehead and Aurobindo in their proper context. Nevertheless, we try to highlight why they stand distinct in their respective world (West and East) as well as in post/modernity while fully imbibed the spirit of postmodernity.

12 | General Introduction

a clear distinction between Creativity and God, and our exploration clarifies that there is an essential unity and existential difference between the two in Aurobindo’s system. The chapter also discusses why such a placement of the two is a metaphysical necessity for respective thinkers. Moreover, in light of the various attempts by contemporary Whitehead scholars to re-configure the relationship between Creativity and God the chapter analyses the relevance of the combined activity of creativity and God for the completion and consistent working of the system. It is all the more important for us in the sense that it makes Aurobindo’s approach more meaningful as he places Sachchidananda and the Supermind together. The second objective of the chapter is to analyze the ground for this difference between Whitehead and Aurobindo. We discuss and evaluate Whitehead’s own arguments and different opinions and suggestions of Whitehead scholars and authors for the distinction made of Creativity and God. This chapter discuses briefly the problem of evil since it is one of the most important reasons for the separation of creativity and God. For Whitehead God is not the source of evil, for the Goodness of God cannot go along with it. And our focus on Aurobindo in this regard brings out his convergence with Whitehead in recognizing evil as a cosmic reality. Nevertheless, they do differ in their approach to it. First of all, Aurobindo distinguishes himself from many of his predecessors with a realistic approach to evil and with his novel response to this problem, namely in conceiving evil not as something permanent but rather only a stage in the evolutionary ascent of the universe. Moreover, Aurobindo’s theistic approach and integral monism demanded the placement of being and power of being together. An underlying aim throughout this study will be to explore the possibilities of dialogue between Eastern and Western metaphysical approaches. Thus in chapter ten our attempt is to look for further reasons for the separation of creativity and God in Whitehead and the reasons for the essential unity of Sachchidananda and the Supermind in Aurobindo. And we situate the issue in the context of the difference between the East and the West in doing philosophy. Greek philosophy being the matrix of the Western philosophy suggests that both philosophy and science in the West had a common source, namely religion. This enables us to see the basic similarity between the East and the West in doing philosophy, at least in its initial stages. Nevertheless, it has to be said that irrespective of its religious context the West is distinct with its focus on reason from the very beginning. With this background this chapter initiates a discussion of enlightenment and modernity in our search for the further arguments for the separation of Creativity and God. The discussion eventually takes us to the emergence of new

The Scope, Structure and the Limits of the Project | 13

ultimates, rejection of transcendence, grand-narratives, etc. Loss of faith in the trans-temporal made the separation of metaphysics and religion imminent. It would further suggest situating Whitehead’s distinction within the context of enlightenment and modernity in the sense that we see here a general separation between religion and philosophy in the West, and the focus of metaphysics on the temporal and the factual. It eventually led to the emergence of the distinction between the religious and the metaphysical ultimate. Looking for further reasons with regard to Aurobindo’s approach of the essential unity and existential difference between Sachchidananda and the Supermind, other than the theistic and monistic concerns, we focus our search on the way of doing philosophy in the East. The chapter elucidates the distinctiveness of the East, especially its life orientation, value centrism and the sense of transcendence, etc. In this section we will also focus, in more detail, on the difference between Eastern and Western conceptions of metaphysics and the relationship between philosophy and religion. While Western metaphysics is based on pure speculation, at least in modern times, Oriental metaphysics adopts a double attitude towards Truth: reason and intuition. In contrast to Western philosophy’s analytic approach to reality and experience, Indian philosophy is fundamentally synthetic, bringing into harmony religion and philosophy, knowledge and conduct, intuition and reason, man and nature, God and man, and so on. The problematic of modern philosophy can be read primarily in terms of a substance ontology and the Cartesian dualism that many of the giants of philosophy tried to recuperate in their own distinctive way. Immanuel Kant in his attempt left us open with the tension between two realms, namely phenomena and noumena. Heidegger in his attempt made Dasein as being-in-the-world. Heidegger and Whitehead had similar intuitions, irrespective of their differences, they suggest that being or reality can be properly understood in terms of temporality or process. Nevertheless, Whitehead going beyond Heidegger reasonably shows that it is true not only of human beings but also of all actual beings or occasions, thereby overcoming the modern dualism arguably in a postmodern way (Smith 2004).17 Whitehead can be described as a postmodern thinker, in spite of his distance from modernity and postmodernity, both ontologically and epistemologically. Epistemologically Whitehead is postmodern in the sense that he follows a method that has basis in the analysis of experience, rejecting modern sensationalism. Ontologically, Whitehead follows a postmod-

|| 17 Olav Bryant Smith. Myths of the Self: Narrative Identity and Postmodern Metaphysics. Oxford: Lexington Books, 2004.

14 | General Introduction

ern approach, rejecting the dominant substance metaphysics of modernity in virtue of his panexperientialist ontology. Moreover, he is a postmodern thinker in his rejection of modern foundationalism, both rationalist and empiricist, with his adherence to an interpretive or hermeneutical epistemology. Furthermore, he takes a distance from modernity and postmodernity, in following a synthetic approach to nature and reality. With his own expertise in modern scientific theories of evolution, electromagnetic theory, relativity theory and quantum theory (SMW), and his thorough knowledge of the history of philosophy and religion he profitably argues that science, philosophy and religion can contribute to form an integrated system that can account for the stubborn facts of existence. From the Western perspective Aurobindo can be considered a postmodern thinker in virtue of his attempt to deconstruct the notion of the Maya, perspective on nature and life, matter and spirit, theories of existence, role of reason in philosophy, and so on. He tried to integrate the western theory of evolution with the esoteric/mystical tradition of the East. Nonetheless, he distinguishes himself with his emphasis on teleology and purpose which most of the modern western theories lack. Moreover, Aurobindo’s suggestive response to the dualistic approach to nature and reality that characterised the thinking of his predecessors is overcome in his integral advaita. Aurobindo, distinct from his predecessors in Indian philosophy, appreciates Dasein’s being-in-the-world, in a Heideggerian model, but does not limit Dasein’s horizon to temporality alone, as Heidegger did. What is suggestive is that Whitehead and Aurobindo aims at the integration of Science, philosophy and religion that most of the postmodern ontology lacks to a certain extent. What would be argued is that Whitehead and Aurobindo are the heralds of the deconstruction of modern worldview as well as the constructors of a suggestive postmodern worldview in their own respective ways. The question is how Whitehead and Aurobindo effect this in their philosophies of organism and integral advaita. When phrased in the famous dichotomy introduced by P. F. Strawson,18 in the “Introduction” to his Individuals, between ‘descriptive’ and ‘revisionary’ metaphysics, Whitehead is certainly at the revisionary side. He is indeed concerned “to produce a better structure” of our thought about the world, rather than to describe its actual structure. That is at the core of his whole enterprise. Yet, as Strawson rightly states, “revisionary metaphysics is at the service of descriptive metaphysics. Perhaps no actual metaphysician has ever been, both

|| 18 P.F. Strawson, Individuals. An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London: Lowe & Brydone, 1959.

The Scope, Structure and the Limits of the Project | 15

in intention and effect, wholly the one thing or the other” (p. 9). That is also the case for Whitehead’s philosophy of organism: it wants to be descriptive, both of our actual experience and of its presuppositions. That is also the reason why the method of speculative philosophy is described in Process and Reality as “descriptive generalization”. Yet Whitehead wants to bring to the fore not the structure of our actual thought about the world, but rather the structure of its semihidden background and of its presuppositions. He wants to overcome the actual structure of much contemporary thought based on representationalism, substantialism and the radicalized version of the subject-object structure that grew out enlightenment. That is one of the reasons why this study on Whitehead and Aurobindo is developed from the perspective of continental philosophy, rather than that of analytic philosophy. The analytic tradition has in general been more ‘descriptive’, the continental tradition more revisionary. Not that this has to be that way: also a revisionary metaphysics like Whitehead’s could be researched from a more analytic perspective, as is done more often recently.19 This is not only a matter of approach, but also a matter of the context of discourse one in which one is working and thus also a matter of the circle of interlocutors one is dialoguing with. Recently, the philosophy of Whitehead is more and more situated in the context of American philosophy, especially pragmatism, and analytic philosophy. Classically, however, Whitehead’s philosophy has been dealt with mainly from the continental tradition, certainly as far as the problem of God is concerned, and that is also the tradition we are standing in. That is why this book is developed in the context of continental philosophy rather than that of the analytic tradition. Particularly in view of the dialogue with Aurobindo which we want to pursue here, this might not only be a limitation but also a good dooropener for a broad dialogue between East and West.

|| 19 For some discussions in this regard, see Michel Weber (ed.), After Whitehead. Rescher on Process Metaphysics. Frankfurt – Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2004. Especially chapter 1 (by Michael Hampe) and the “Replies” by Nicholas Rescher.

| Part One: Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Becoming

“Philosophy is not a mere collection of noble sentiments. A deluge of such sentiments does more harm than good. Philosophy is at once general and concrete, critical and appreciative of direct intuition. It is not – or, at least, should not be – a ferocious debate between irritable professors. It is a survey of possibilities and their comparison with actualities. In philosophy, the fact, the theory, the alternatives, and the ideal, are weighed together. Its gifts are insight and foresight, and a sense of the worth of life, in short that sense of importance which nerves all civilized effort. Mankind can flourish in the lower stages of life with merely barbaric flashes of thought. But when civilization culminates, the absence of a coordinating philosophy of life, spread throughout the community, spells decadence, boredom, and the slackening of effort. Every epoch has its character determined by the way its populations re-act to the material events which they encounter. This reaction is determined by their basic beliefs – by their hopes, their fears, their judgement of what is worth in life. … Philosophy is an attempt to clarify those fundamental beliefs which finally determine the emphasis of attention that lies at the base of character. Mankind is now in one of its rare moods of shifting its outlook. The mere compulsion of tradition has lost its force. It is our business – philosophers, students, and practical men – to re-create and re-enact a vision of the world, including those elements of reverence and order without which society lapses into riot, and penetrated through and through with unflinching rationality. Such vision is the knowledge which Plato identified with virtue. Our discussion has insensibly generalized itself. It has passed beyond the topics of Commercial Relations to the function of a properly concrete philosophy in guiding the purpose of mankind” (Adventures of Ideas 98-99). Whitehead

1 Metaphysics of Becoming: Setting the Context A perfect diagnosis is the first condition for a better treatment and the best physician is the one who carries out the best diagnosis. This logic of treatment is true in the philosophical discourse as well. A sign of greatness in philosophy consists in one’s insight into the right perception of the problems involved and the ability to ask the right questions. Aristotle proved himself to be so when he identified the first philosophical problem as pertaining to the true nature of reality. Similarly, Whitehead identifies the central concern of metaphysical search as the attempt to find ‘the nature of a complete fact.’ Referring to Plato’s Sophist (248 E) Whitehead writes in Adventures of Ideas that “the final problem is to conceive a complete fact. We can only form such a conception in terms of fundamental notions concerning the nature of reality” (AI 158).1 For Whitehead, one of the fundamental philosophical problems, as it was for the ancients, was the problem of being and becoming. This understanding, in fact, has placed Whitehead in the line of great philosophers, i.e., he proved himself a worthy heir to the great philosophical tradition. To put it differently, the metaphysical problem that is dealt with by Whitehead is none other than the same old problem of philosophy: the question of the nature of reality.2 Whitehead by identifying the primary metaphysical problem as the one that concerns the nature of a ‘complete fact’ (complete existent) maintained this quest from the very beginning.3 Put differently, Whitehead maintained the general Aristotelian principle

|| 1 A. N Whitehead. Adventures of Ideas [1933]. New York: The Free Press, 1967. 2 Whitehead refers to Aristotle’s discussion of ousia in Metaphysics and in AI Whitehead uses ‘complete fact’ in the same sense in which Aristotle used the concept ‘being’. Therefore, my contention would be that the basic metaphysical problem for Aristotle and Whitehead is the same: the problem of determining the nature of that which is a ‘complete existent’ (ontoos on). In his Metaphysics Aristotle insisted that the primary concern of metaphysics is ‘a particular and actually existing thing’; it cannot be, as it was for Plato, ‘form’ or ‘forms’. For Aristotle, forms do not have an existence of their own, but they are forms of some individual things. In other words, forms are always dependent on that which is a ‘complete existent’ (Leclerc 1958, 20-21). Ivor Leclerc. Whitehead’s Metaphysics: An Introductory Exposition. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1958. 3 Instead of the clause ‘complete fact’ in AI, Whitehead maintains the phrase ‘the things that are actual’ in PR. It is also used in the same sense as ‘res vera’ (existence in the fullest sense) as used by Descartes (PR viii). A thing that is actual is the thing that exists in the fullest sense (Leclerc 1958, 21).

22 | Metaphysics of Becoming: Setting the Context

that “apart from things that are actual, there is nothing – nothing either in fact or in efficacy” (PR 40).4 Western metaphysics is generally characterized as a philosophy of being, understood over against the concept of becoming. However, the growth and development that one observes in nature is fascinating. It reveals a profound truth that the fundamental characteristic of nature is not permanence but dynamism and activity. Thus, Whitehead’s experience and the result of his analysis went against the general understanding of Western philosophy. Therefore, for Whitehead, the enquiry into the nature of reality is as important as an enquiry into the fundamental reality in nature: what is primordial – being or becoming? The question of being and becoming can be considered as two sides of the same coin: the first raises the question what is the fundamental reality in nature; and the second, what is the nature of this fundamental reality. Our first concern in this chapter is to discuss the proper Sitz im Leben of Whitehead’s metaphysics. It should enable us to understand better and appreciate his mature metaphysics in its full worth. Whitehead’s shift from being to becoming recalls a more primordial shift that occurred in Greek philosophy from becoming to being, which was accentuated in modernity. Thus, our objective in this chapter is threefold: to discuss the shift of emphasis from becoming to being that took place in modernity; the positive factors that accentuated the development of a philosophy of organism and the methodological shift that Whitehead calls for in view of the latter.

1.1 Greek Philosophy to Scientific Materialism History of Western philosophy stamps that the spirit of Greek philosophy was very much attuned to the spirit of becoming. On the contrary, today, in general, Western philosophy is known as a philosophy of being. My contention is that a static outlook of nature was engendered by the “marriage” between science and philosophy. This development in the course of history paved the way for a metaphysics of being which culminated in the modern scientifico-mechanistic

|| 4 According to Leclerc, the use of the word ‘fact’ for ‘being’ is very disadvantageous since it has no direct etymological connection with ‘being’ or ‘existence,’ what is meant by Whitehead primarily. Whitehead in fact avoided the use of the term ‘being’ for what he means here is ‘a particular concrete thing’ which the word ‘being’ does not bear with normally. The ambiguities of the word ‘being’ is brought out by Gilson (42). E. Gilson. Being and Some Philosophers. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1949.

Whitehead’s Response to the Greek Outlook of Nature | 23

understanding of nature and reality. The question is: what is the role played by Greek philosophy in the development of this materialistic view?

1.2 Whitehead’s Response to the Greek Outlook of Nature What can be stated, perhaps, with certainty is that the materialistic concept of the physical universe is neither a feature of modernity alone nor the outcome of a particular period. Its roots go back to the founding fathers of philosophy itself. Irrespective of Greek philosophy’s focus on becoming, in itself one can trace out germs for the development of materialism. Nevertheless, it is true to say that modernity accelerated this process. Therefore, a primary locus for our exploration of the materialistic concept of nature is Greek cosmology and the modern scientific revolution. The question is, how did matter come to be considered as the single substratum of nature or the universe? How did the Greeks happen to formulate a materialistic understanding of nature? The objective here is to reconstruct the development of modern materialism as given by Whitehead in his Concept of Nature. 5 The first phase of human history to be influenced by materialism was that of Pythagoras to Plato and, the second comprised the 17th and 18th centuries of the modern epoch.6 For the Greeks, nature is “that which we observe in perception through senses” (CN 3). This nature is disclosed to sense perception as a complex milieu of entities (things). What is disclosed in sense-awareness is “fact with factors,” which is the object of thought. A thought is nothing other than thinking about a thing. Human knowledge of nature has three components: fact, factors and entities. The fact is the undifferentiated object of selfawareness; factors are objects of sense awareness as differentiated elements of fact; an entity is a fact in its function as the objects of thought.7 Thus, it was customary to say that the objects of thought are entities primarily with their individuality and secondarily with their properties and relations ascribed to them in the process of thought. The above random sketch of the elements involved in perception gives a clue to a mistake committed, according to Whitehead, by the Greeks – a misconception as to the metaphysical status of the natural entities. The Greeks || 5 A. N. Whitehead. The Concept of Nature [1920]. London: Cambridge University Press, 1982. 6 The centuries that preceded the scientific outburst of the 17th century were notable by three factors: the rise of mathematics, the instinctive belief in a detailed order of nature, and the unbridled rationalism of the later middle ages (SMW 32-33, 39). 7 Whitehead uses the word ‘termini’ in the place of object (CN 13).

24 | Metaphysics of Becoming: Setting the Context

separated the entity from the fact, which is the terminus of the sense awareness and considered it as the substratum of the factor and the latter was degraded into an attribute of the entity. Thus, an apparent distinction, which has no foundation in reality, was introduced into nature. Considered in itself a natural entity is only a factor of fact. A separation of it from the complex of facts is the result of abstraction only. In truth an entity is “not the substratum of factor, but the very factor itself as bared in thought” (CN 16). Thus, what was only a procedure of mind, in the sense of how it translated the sense-awareness into discursive knowledge, has been understood to be a fundamental character of nature itself. In this process “matter has emerged as being the metaphysical substratum of its properties and the course of nature is interpreted as the history of matter” (CN 16). In contrast to this, for Whitehead, however, the objects of sense perception are facts of nature primarily in their relations and only secondarily considered in their individualities (CN 13). It was Aristotle’s view that was more conducive to a materialistic conception. Aristotle asked the right question: what is meant by substance? There was nothing wrong with the question; on the contrary, he had taken the first step rightly. The problem arose as he worked out the answer to this question with his philosophy and logic. In fact it was a very unfortunate development. In the Aristotelian logic the fundamental type of affirmative proposition is the attribution of a predication to a subject. Thus, amidst the many meanings the word substance has, Aristotle emphasized its meaning as ‘the ultimate substratum which is no longer predicated of anything else’. Moreover, the blind acceptance of Aristotelian logic by the subsequent ages knowingly or unknowingly made it customary to postulate a substratum for whatever is disclosed in sense awareness. In other words, man looked into everything to find its substance in the sense of a ‘concrete thing’. For Whitehead, it is this insistent postulation of a concrete thing that led to the origin of the modern scientific concept of matter (CN 17). In the modern period, as Whitehead maintains, the philosophy of Locke influenced the formation of a static notion of reality. Locke’s understanding of mind as an ‘empty cabinet’ receiving the impress of ideas paved the way for the formation of the concept that “reality does not reside in the process but in the static recipient of process” (AI 276). How are we to account for this theory? In the understanding of Locke one primary substance cannot be a component in constituting the nature of another primary substance. Thus, it becomes clear that the interconnectedness of the primary substances is devoid of substantial reality which the primary substances themselves have. This caused various problems in modernity both for metaphysics and epistemology in the understanding of the conjunction of actualities. Whitehead argues that “the taint of

Whitehead’s Response to the Greek Outlook of Nature | 25

Aristotelian Logic has thrown the whole emphasis of metaphysical thought upon substantives and adjectives, to the neglect of prepositions and conjunctions” (AI 276). This procedure finally resulted in the ‘Bifurcation of Nature,’ the bifurcation between nature as apprehended in sense-awareness and nature which is the cause of the awareness. Whitehead’s critique focuses on this concept of matter as the substance whose attributes we perceive (CN 26). For Whitehead, “the process is itself the actuality, and requires no antecedent static cabinet” (AI 276).

1.2.1 The Emergence of Materialism in Modernity The second phase of history that witnessed a materialistic view of nature and reality, is modernity. The three centuries that preceded Whitehead were characterized by mechanistic materialism. It is not that a philosophy based on the material dimension of reality is not worthwhile, but that it has taken a wrong orientation in the understanding of reality by identifying the sole foundation of it as pure matter, depriving other dimensions and facts that reality signifies. How did such a materialistic view of nature originate? What are the intricacies involved in it? What is the vantage point from which Whitehead develops his organic philosophy? Modern philosophers have given a new orientation to their ontological quest by introducing a new language and a new thought pattern of ideas. They were no longer fascinated by the categories of classical philosophy. In lieu of the categories of substance, accidents, causality, essence and idea, matter and form, potentiality and actuality, they treated philosophy in terms of forces, motions, laws, changes of mass in space and time, etc. Spatial and temporal relations, which were accidental for the scholastics, have assumed prime importance in modernity. Whitehead’s philosophy at its inception was a reaction to the mathematico-mechanistic perspective of nature that dominated his own age. What has challenged Whitehead to think of matter and nature as an organism? A materialistic outlook of nature that distinctively characterized modernity was not a sudden development. Many philosophers and eminent scientists of the consecutive centuries contributed to it. Pointing to the problematic situation that the 17th century scientific and philosophic world faced, Whitehead wrote: “the world had got hold of a general idea which it could neither live with nor live without” (SMW 50). Here a number of reasonable questions emerge: what is this situation, or in the Whiteheadian terms, this “general idea?” How did it originate? What are the intricacies involved in it? Answering these questions

26 | Metaphysics of Becoming: Setting the Context

would mean a consideration of the materialistic concept of the universe with which the last three centuries, mainly 16th-18th, had been preoccupied. There persists, however, throughout the whole period the fixed scientific cosmology which presupposes the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread throughout space in a flux of configurations. In itself such a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being. It is this assumption that I call ‘scientific materialism’ (SMW 17).

This observation of Whitehead brings out certain fundamental presuppositions of the scientific materialism that basically concerns a scientific-cosmological vision of the universe. According to this vision, what is fundamental in the cosmos is matter, mere brute matter - ‘senseless, valueless, and purposeless’. The course of nature follows a ‘fixed routine,’ so it is mechanical. In the Concept of Nature Whitehead gives the following rendering of materialism. “The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries accepted as their natural philosophy a certain circle of concepts which were as rigid and definite as those of the philosophy of the middle ages, and were accepted with as little critical research. I will call this natural philosophy ‘materialism’” (CN 70). Thus, materialism in Whitehead’s view was further characterised by an uncritical attitude coupled with rigidity and definiteness. Not only men of science but also the adherents of all schools of philosophy were under the sway of this materialistic outlook. Accordingly nature was viewed to be “an aggregate of material and that this material exists in some sense at each successive member of onedimensional series of extensionless instants of time. Furthermore, the mutual relations of the material entities at each instant formed these entities into a spatial configuration in an unbounded space” (CN 71). Whitehead speaks of a triadic dimension of materialism consisting “(i) of the temporal series of extensionless instants, (ii) of the aggregate of material entities, and (iii) of space which is the outcome of relations of matter” (CN 71). Another corollary of the materialistic perspective is that one is unable to find any inherent relation between material realities, for matter was considered to be inert. Therefore, one is forced to look for other causes to substantiate one’s belief in the relatedness of matter, and one ends in “statistical frequencies.” In one’s search for ‘substances’ one finds nothing but qualities. Thus, one is again forced to find a substitute which is ‘real’ and in which the qualities can inhere. Therefore, notwithstanding the many problems it raised, the view supplied by the physical sciences, that the apparent world is different from the actual world, prevailed. Furthermore, the physical sciences provided powerful conceptual schemes to promote such a belief. The success and persistence of this view of

Whitehead’s Response to the Greek Outlook of Nature | 27

the world was at the cost of certain fundamental philosophical truths; actually they were put aside from the main stream of discussions (Lawrence 312).8 The question is, what has prompted humanity to formulate such a misconception of the world? When we explore the historical process of this misconception of the world we find that it was Copernicus who, influenced by the Pythagorean backing, initiated a mathematico-scientific outlook on nature and reality. Pythagoras took the universe to be essentially geometrical, since he was convinced that the whole universe was made up of numbers and hence what was mathematically true was astronomically true. This led him to the further conclusion that the earth was no exception to it (Burtt 55).9 The mathematical conception of nature was so acute that Galileo stated that “the book of nature is written in geometrical characters” (Koyré 1968, 4). Moreover, the Copernican astrology and the succeeding scientific developments led to the rejection of the previous assumption that sensible objects are the real objects. Mathematical objects are considered as primary qualities such as number, figure, magnitude, position, and motion, which cannot be separated from the bodies by any human exertion. And thus, all the qualities prominent to the senses are counted secondary. The position assumed was that reality of the universe was geometrical. Galileo accepted this new classification of primary and secondary qualities. Galileo made a clear distinction between that which is absolute, objective, immutable and mathematical and that which is relative, subjective, fluctuating and sensible. The former is the realm of knowledge divine and human and the latter is the realm of opinion and illusion. They are the subordinate effect of the primary. Moreover, Galileo, followed by Descartes and Locke, stated that secondary qualities are subjective, a contention that exerted tremendous influence on later philosophy. It was also a development from Kepler for whom the secondary qualities also resided in the astrological realm but only that they were not real or fundamental (Burtt 83-84). However, it was not the final phase of development which had a materialistic orientation.

|| 8 Nathaniel Lawrence. Whitehead’s Philosophical Development: A Critical History of the Background of Process and Reality. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968. 9 Burtt E. A. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science [1924]. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

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1.2.1.1 The Doctrine of Simple Location Seventeenth century scientists, observes Whitehead, answered the question of the Ionian thinkers with regard to the stuff of the universe by the following: “the world is a succession of instantaneous configuration of matter.” In their attempt to know the nature of this stuff all came to the conclusion that this stuff has the property of simple location in space-time. “The characteristics common both to space and time is that material can be said to be here in space and here in time, or here in space-time, in a perfectly definite sense which does not require for its explanation any reference to other regions of space-time” (SMW 49). How does one account for such an understanding? It was the new conception of Space and Time, besides other changes brought out by modernity that accentuated a mechanistic thinking. The understanding of matter in modernity was that it is just the stuff filling up space and which continues to exist. In this perspective when we allotted space and time to matter the whole thing about the world is clarified. However, division of matter was considered to be on the basis of spatial extension and not based on temporal extension. Therefore, it was taken for granted that one may divide time infinitely and get the same stuff. The net outcome of this view was that space and time became concrete independent entities rather than abstract derivatives. One of the major thinkers who advocated this theory was Descartes. He singled out position as intrinsic to place and thereby proposed something that would preoccupy the entire early modern period. This is the notion of what Whitehead calls “simple location,” construed as “the very foundation of the seventeenth century scheme of nature” (SMW 58). According to the doctrine of simple location, any “bit of matter [i.e., any physical body] ... is where it is, in a definite region of space, and throughout a definite finite duration of time, apart from any essential reference of the relations of that bit of matter to other regions of space and to other durations of time” (SMW 58). To say that a bit of matter has simple location means that, in expressing its spatio-temporal relations, it is adequate to state that it is where it is, in a definite region of space, and throughout a definite finite duration of time, apart from any essential reference to the relations of that bit of matter to other regions of space and to other durations of time. In other words, simple location deals with unrelatedness in both space and time. Scientific philosophy is distinct for its extra-ordinary capacity for dealing with abstractions. “The enormous success of scientific abstractions, yielding, on the one hand, matter with its simple location in space and time, on the other hand, mind perceiving, suffering, reasoning, but not interfering, has foisted onto philosophy the task of accepting them as the most concrete rendering of

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facts” (SMW 55). The objectivist position has been distorted by the supposed necessity of accepting scientific materialism with its doctrine of simple location. A remarkable point both for modern world view and simple location in the context of scientific materialism is the theory of absolute Space and Time. The theory meant that “any space-distance or time-interval remains unaffected no matter what the conditions of motion or distribution of matter in the universe” (Schmidt 26). It was assumed that particles of matter do not extend continuously and indefinitely; on the other hand, it was commonly accepted that “every correlated point-instant was occupied by a particle” (Schmidt 26). In fact this view was the result of a more fundamental assumption that “extension in time or extension in space, expresses disconnection” (PNK 1). Furthermore, this contention was related to another assumption held by physicists that “spatial and temporal relations among [material] particles are external” (Schmidt 27).

1.2.1.2 Whitehead and Classical Physics Another logical inconsistency involved in the scientific understanding concerned causality between spatially separated particles. The generally accepted theory in the classical physics was that causal relations affect the physicochemical nature of the material particles involved. The question is how that is possible if the particles are spatially separated, and hence disconnected, as per the accepted theory of external relations? Furthermore, the disconnection entailed between material particles caused another inconsistency, viz. the extension of an entity in space raises the question of the unity of being, if the material particles are externally disconnected. Classical physics tried to solve this dilemma by stating that one spatial part caused a change in a contiguous spatial part and thus trying to explain the formulation of an extended bodily entity. “Thus the extended material is essentially a multiplicity of entities which, as extended, are diverse and disconnected” (PNK 1).10 Another issue concerned with the causal relations is whether it can be stated of the material particles “located at contiguous points of space” (Schmidt 29). Once the existence of spatially disconnected material particles is accepted (external relatedness) one has to accept the causal connections that exist among contiguous particles and the consequent influence across their point of contact. How is this possible? Once the extensionless point of space is accepted, the causal interaction becomes meaningless and impossible. Here, too, one is driven to a reductio ad

|| 10 A. N. Whitehead. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1919.

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absurdum. Thus, Whitehead denies the extensionless concept of a point of space. He emphasizes that if one is to give a satisfactory account of causation one needs to hold the “primitive concept of an extended quantity of material with a single unity” (Schmidt 29; PNK 2-3). Schmidt summarises the basic contentions of classical physicists in the following way: Points of space, instants of time, particles of matter, spatio-temporal external relations, no action at a distance, contiguity for causality, self-identity of particles through time, velocity as change of spatial position in time, and acceleration as rate of change of velocity (Schmidt 28).

For Whitehead, “change is essentially the importation of the past and of the future into the immediate fact embodied in the durationless present instant” (PNK 2). How is it possible for a durationless instant to include the past and future and still remain an instant? The only possibility for classical physics to explain the notion of change is to deny durationless instants as fundamental entities. This view is based on the further assumption that the only possible relations are internal relations (Schmidt 29). Whitehead criticizes classical physics for its failure to harmonise very well with the organic concept of nature developed in biology. In this perspective “an organism is taken to be an extended whole in space and time with some degree of unity of functions.” However, an incompatibility that exists between the biological concept with “an extended unity in space and time” and the view of classical physics with the “fundamental disconnection of instants and points” is self-evident (Schmidt 29). Space and time relations for Whitehead are relations among events. Whitehead uses the word entity and event with the same meaning in his earlier writings. By an event Whitehead means an awareness of a fact. For example, awareness of our bodily life is an event. Sense perception was so important in the philosophical scheme of Whitehead that he stated that the first task of the philosophy of science is “some general classification of the entities disclosed to us in sense perception” (CN 15). Whitehead’s theory of perception will be discussed in the second chapter while dealing with the theory of prehension. Furthermore, for Whitehead, “events are not instantaneous points but are extensive chunks.” In other words, what one perceives are not just points but one senses them as having a “spread-outness” or extension. It is from this perceptual evidence of extension that one is able to deduce the concepts of space and time from the relations among events. Whitehead’s method of deriving space and time relations from the relations among events provides him with the

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advantage of explaining the consistent presence of a physical object in space and time (Schmidt 31). For Whitehead, what is most fundamental is event.11 The events are “the relata of the fundamental homogeneous relation of ‘extension’” (PNK 61). They “are essentially elements of actuality and elements of becomingness. An actual event is thus divested of all possibility. It is what does become in nature. It can never happen again; for essentially it is just itself, there and then” (PNK 61). The events are interrelated to one another. In other words, every event extends over to other events which are parts of itself and it is extended over by other events of which it is a part. Furthermore, by means of the relation of extension events exhibit themselves as actual. In fact, it is done through its properties issued in spatial relations. Above all, events exhibit that they involve the becomingness of nature or the creative advance of nature.

1.2.1.3 The Metaphysical Dualism of ‘Res Extensa and Res Cogitans’ How has Descartes developed a conception of the world based on a fundamental dualism? How is his conception related to Whitehead and his philosophy of organism? There are certain fundamental presuppositions that further actualized the mechanization process of nature. Descartes believed that it would be possible to construct a physics that would require nothing but pure mathematics. Whitehead acknowledges that Descartes had done whatever was possible in his age to anticipate the philosophy of organism. Descartes anticipated modern notions propounded by the doctrine of relativity and even some aspects of Bergson’s doctrine of the generation of things. He achieved this in his distinction between time and duration, in his way of grounding time upon motion, and in his close relation between matter and extension (SMW 145). However, his presupposition of “independently existing substances with simple location in the community of temporal durations, and in the case of bodies, with simple location in the community of spatial extensions” led straight to the materialistic and

|| 11 However, it has to be kept in mind that here we are dealing with the earlier Whitehead and all that is said here does not necessarily apply to Whitehead’s later philosophy. What I mean is that there is development in his philosophical thinking and in his later philosophy he even uses the same term with a different meaning. For example, in SMW event and actual occasion are synonyms, or the term ‘prehension’ is used in the same sense as event (101). But in PR ‘event’ is used in the sense of ‘totality of actual occasions’. An actual entity is an event with one member (PR 173). Normally an event consists of many actual occasions. Therefore, in PR they are not synonyms.

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mechanistic understanding of nature conceived by cogitating minds. The final result of this process was that after the 17th century, science concentrated on the materialistic nature and philosophy focused on the cogitating minds (SMW 145). The dichotomy of rationalism and empiricism, in other words, a dichotomy of mind and matter, has existed since the 16th century. The 17th and 18th centuries witnessed the influence of materialism on science. The dichotomy of mind and matter implies an epistemological question, and is also pregnant with profound metaphysical bearing. Therefore, a correct reading demands both a contextual understanding and an adequate knowledge of the ontological foundations of the entire modern development of science and philosophy (Rapp and Wiehl 1). One of the first philosophers to adopt the materialistic outlook of nature in philosophy was Descartes. According to Descartes, everything that has existence can be classified into two categories: substance and a property of a substance. Substances, existing in themselves independently, are of two kinds: created and uncreated. Properties only exist dependently in created substances as their modifications. The universe consists of three substances, one is uncreated and two are created. God is the uncreated infinite substance who creates the other two finite substances, namely, mind and matter. There is no real difference between a substance and its essence. Mind is unextended active thinking. Matter is unthinking passive extension. The two created substances have existence. However, they do differ ontologically from God. Mind is not a substance informed or essentially characterised by thinking; thinking is the substance of mind. Matter is not a substance informed or essentially characterised by extension; extension is the substance of matter. This also signifies that there is nothing in finite essence or being in common between mind and matter; even though they are alike in genesis, and exist as finite substances created by God, they are entirely different in essence. The Cartesian criterion of ‘clarity and distinctiveness’ is applicable to the distinction between mind and matter. Matter is modified by the properties of size, shape, and motion or rest. These are the only properties a material thing can have. Mind is modified by will and intellect and by passions, volitions, sensations, and ideas. Ideas represent objects external to the mind; sensations do not. These are the only properties a mental thing can have.12 It is no wonder that Descartes formulated a mathematical conception of the world, for he was preoccupied with mathematical conceptions from his adolescence. The method of philosophical enquiry, for Descartes, is distinctly rational

|| 12 Richard A. Watson. The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics. New Jersey: Humanities Press International Inc., 1987.

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and conceptual. The universe was utterly rational and it was composed of nothing else but matter and motion, and the only method to comprehend it is a rational and anti-mystical method. Furthermore, certain logical propositions have influenced his thoughts and conclusions. The existence of some of these logical propositions, such as “Cogito ergo sum”, were very clear and distinct for him. Here we have the matrix of Cartesian dualism. For Descartes no mathematical object is a more cogent item of knowledge than the “cogito ergo sum.” With absolute certainty one can realise the existence of a totally different entity other than the external world, viz. the thinking subject. It is beyond the realm of all geometrical truth that one thinks, one doubts, one affirms and denies, etc. When Descartes had projected a complete metaphysical system this clear dualism was inevitable. On the one hand, there is the external world of material bodies characterised by spatial extension and temporal duration and knowable by purely mathematical categories. This external realm has nothing to do with thought, and would continue to operate even if human beings cease to exist. On the other hand, we have a second realm, the inner realm whose essence is thinking which has nothing to do with the geometrical world or the extended world, whose modes are the subsidiary processes like perception, willing, feeling, imagining, etc. (Burtt 118-119). In the first quarter of the 17th century the conception of matter underwent another major shift whereby the old understanding that the physical is a compound of matter and form gave way to the understanding that the physical is constituted by matter alone. It was Descartes who was the first to support and appreciate this philosophy of nature and thus for him matter became the ultimate. The impact it exerted was tremendous: matter being everywhere the same was incapable of effecting any change. Thus matter, for Descartes, was fully in accord with the neoplatonic criterion of ‘being,’ namely, immutability. That further implied that ontologically matter is not ‘not-being’ but indeed being. The final outcome, according to the new theory was that “matter alone is being, i.e., matter per se is a substance, a res, thus having its own essence whereby it is a res” (Rapp and Wiehl 3).13 According to the new paradigm the role of form was taken by matter and that of quality by quantity, and categories of quantity and extension were taken to be the most effective and notable features of matter. Thus, concluded Descartes, matter being physical and ontologically considered is a res extensa. Therefore, in accordance with the new understanding of the physical as consisting of matter alone, nature indispensably entailed a meta-

|| 13 Friedric Rapp and Wiehl Reiner (eds.). Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Creativity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

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physical duality consisting of two separate and mutually exclusive res. Accordingly, in addition to the physical nature as a res extensa, there is another separate realm constituted by souls, the realm of res cogitantes (Rapp and Wiehl 3)14. In light of our project of metaphysics of becoming the dualism advocated by Descartes has great import, because Whitehead’s philosophy of organism stands in contrast to this bifurcation of nature.

1.2.1.4 Newton’s Mechanistic View of the Universe The material outlook of nature has passed through two major stages: one with Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, and the other with Descartes, whereby nature was seen through the eyes of mathematics and science. If one is to identify a third stage that brought this process to its zenith it is the mechanization of the universe by Newton. Amidst the great service Newtonian thought rendered to modern thinking and developments it had its own flip side as well. It was Newton who gave a final stroke to the mathematico-mechanistic vision of the universe. “The geometric spirit, though metaphysically bold, tried to subject all life to reason, and thus to mechanize and demean it.” Newton is depicted as an

|| 14 Yet another serious repercussion of this understanding was the impact it made on the understanding of the soul. Both in the traditional neoplatonism and scholastic Aristotelianism, the soul constituted a part of the physical and was the principle of life; in other words, the soul was considered to be an agency of the physical. However, according to the new materialistic doctrine, since matter was devoid of any change in itself, it was devoid of agency as well. Thus, the soul was devoid of the function as the principle of life of the physical. This led Descartes to another more radical conclusion that soul is now “left with only the activity of ‘thinking’, whence it had to be a res cogitans” (Rapp and Wiehl 4). This thought pattern was carried over to modern philosophy. Moreover, as a result of the metaphysical dualism, the soul was reduced to the role mens, mind or intellect. Succinctly put, the fundamental point of difference between Aristotelian Scholasticism and modern materialism is that while for Aristotelianism the soul was not ontologically a separate entity, but was integral to the physical as its eidos (form), and the physical was endowed with the capacity for action and the soul was taken to be the source of that power of action, in the modern understanding, nous, the power of the faculty of thinking, which was only an additional factor in the soul of man in the Aristotelian philosophy, became the very essence of soul. This new philosophy has its metaphysical foundation in Plotinian neoplatonism, which considers ‘being’ as primarily nous, and psyche (soul), derives its essential character from nous (intelligence). Thus this new conception of soul as intelligence replaced the Aristotelian conception, and was endorsed not only by Descartes but also by Locke, Leibniz and Berkeley. It has had its influence even on Hume and Kant, and consequently on the empiricism and rationalism of later periods.

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arch-symbol of this narrowness, “trying to fathom the world by means of a pair of compasses, that is, by measurement and “reason” alone” (Baumer 271).15 The process of mechanization begun in Kepler passed through Galileo and Descartes and culminated in Newton sweeping away Aristotelian and medieval scholastic philosophy. Since Newton nature was considered to be nothing but a realm of masses, that moves and functions according to the mathematical laws, under the influence of definite dependable forces. Such a view of material nature, as a sum of ‘mass,’ was of far reaching consequence in the subsequent history of philosophy. Newton identified “mass” as a physical quantity inherent in the nature of material body and this “mass” remained permanent amid all changes of motion. The scientific revolution, however, has replaced the conception of the universe as a “finite and closed and hierarchically ordered whole” with an “indefinite and even infinite universe which is bound together by the identity of its fundamental components and laws, and in which all these components are placed on the same level of being” (Koyré 1957, 8).16 The new understanding resulted in the consideration of everything based on the scientific thoughts which discarded all value-concepts such as “perfection, harmony, meaning and aim, and finally the utter devalorization of being, the divorce of the world of value and the world of facts” (Koyré 1957, 2).

1.2.2 Whitehead’s Response to Scientific Materialism From the very beginning Whitehead distanced himself from scientific materialism. Whitehead’s first criticism of scientific materialism appeared in “On Mathematical Concepts of the Material World” (1906), where he applied the clause “classical concept of the material world” (14) to describe it. Whitehead’s goal was to construct an alternative all-inclusive cosmological scheme. With

|| 15 Franklin M. Baumer. Modern European Thought: Continuity and Change in Ideas, 1600-1950. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1977. 16 Alexandre Koyré. From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1957. What do we mean by the infinity of the universe? The universe is infinite and cannot be subjected to any sort of determination and no knowledge can comprehend it. This is the reason why Nicholas of Cusa entitles his book The Learned Ignorance (1440). For him, humans can have only a partial and conjectural knowledge of the universe. One cannot formulate an objective and univocal representation of the universe. That constitutes the docta ignorantia – the learned ignorance - which Cusa advocates as a means to transcend the limitations of human rational thought (Koyré 1957, 8). Nicholas of Cusa, was the last great philosopher of the medieval period.

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this goal in view Whitehead undertook a historical survey of the scientific development to establish the various impacts of reigning cosmology on thought. It is over against this scientific materialism of the modern epoch that Whitehead developed his organic philosophy. A remarkable characteristic of nature is that we experience the whole as a flux, i.e., changing or becoming with the lapse of time. However, this nature is disclosed to us as one complex unity or as a totality. Nevertheless the 17th century dualistic conception of the world “cuts straight across it” (SMW 146). While the objective world of science confined itself to the study of material bodies with spatial extension and simple location in space and time, the subjective world of philosophy focused on “colours, sounds, scents, tastes, touches, bodily feelings, as forming the subjective content of the cogitations of the individual minds” (SMW 146). For Whitehead, the world is a network in time and space of interconnected and interpenetrating processes. “There are no single occasions, in the sense of isolated occasions. Actuality is through and through togetherness” (SMW 174). And, “Each volume of space, or each lapse of time, includes in its essence aspects of all volumes of space, or of all lapses of time” (SMW 71). One of the main topics of Whitehead’s theory of nature is the abandonment of the notion of simple location. For Whitehead, “in a certain sense, everything is everywhere at all times. For every location involves an aspect of itself in every other location. Thus every spatio-temporal standpoint mirrors the world” (SMW 91). According to Stebbing, Whitehead’s theories of events and objects are intimately connected to his critique of the simple location. For Whitehead, the theory of events and objects rest on the following three propositions: “(1) a thoroughgoing acceptance of the relativity of space-time; (2) a rejection of all forms of the bifurcation of nature; and (3) the inclusion within the one system of nature of everything that is observed” (Stebbing 1924, 208). Whitehead maintains that by this dualistic perspective (objective and subjective) “modern philosophy has been ruined. It has oscillated in a complex manner between three extremes” (SMW 55). It has created a fundamental duality: on the one hand, it has divided the realities between matter and mind on an equal basis and, on the other, it has created two kinds of monists: those who accept mind at the cost of matter and those who accept matter at the cost of mind. Thus the 18th century was born with this dualism of matter and mind.17 || 17 For Whitehead, “the disastrous separation of body and mind which has been fixed on European thought by Descartes” has invariably caused the blindness of natural science (Rapp 85; MT 211). This has resulted in a rather impoverished understanding of nature. “Science can find no aim in nature; science can find no creativity in nature; it finds mere rules of succession” (Rapp 85; MT 211).

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Whitehead makes a thorough criticism of the 18th century’s concept of reason because it was fully based on scientific abstractions. “It was the age of reason, healthy, manly, upstanding reason; but, of one-eyed reason, deficient in its vision of depth” (SMW 59). The heart of the new scientific metaphysics is to be seen in the transfer of the ultimate reality and causal efficacy from a transcendental Being to the world of mathematics which identified the universe with a realm of material bodies moving in space and time. There are three major factors that contributed to the formation of such a metaphysics. I. A change in the conception of reality. The Aristotelian-medieval conception of the material universe which perceived reality as constitutive of substances and qualities, through which we experience it, has given way to a mathematico-mechanical understanding of the universe where it is made up of atoms (electrons). The whole process of the universe is measurable by the mathematical principles and presentable in its form. II. A change in the conception of causality. Whereas the universe was understood in terms of its form and final causality in the medievalscholastic period, the predominant tendency in modernity was to reduce everything to efficient causality, treatable under the mechanical motions of the temporal bodies. A natural consequent of such a view was that God was no more taken to be the Supreme Final Cause and was reduced to the status of the First Efficient Cause. Furthermore, the key position enjoyed by man in nature in the teleological perspective was lost and the human mind was redefined in terms of sensations (reactions) in lieu of his faculties as understood in the scholastic philosophy. III. A change in the understanding of human mind. After the 17th century, science concentrated on the materialistic nature, and philosophy focused itself on the cogitating minds. We experience nature as an interplay of “bodies, colours, sounds, scents, tastes, touches and other bodily feelings, displayed as in space, in patterns of mutual separation by intervening volumes, and of individual shape” (SMW 145). It was this mechanistic mode of thinking that prevailed during Whitehead’s philosophical development that he inherited from tradition. Whitehead soon realized that it was his vocation to extricate philosophy from this false metaphysical perspective. He wanted to overcome the ‘bifurcation of nature,’ and the mathematico-mechanistic perspective of nature. Nevertheless, it was no easy task. Whitehead’s purpose was to construct a cosmological doctrine that avows to include what is important for science as well as for its critics. The fundamen-

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tal position enjoyed by inorganic matter in the scientific outlook is replaced by an organic synthesis in the philosophy of organism.

1.3 The Positive Influences In what we have already discussed our focus was Whitehead’s critique of materialism that emphasized and advocated a metaphysic of static being against which Whitehead developed his metaphysics of becoming. Nevertheless, there were also some positive factors that facilitated the development of an organic view of nature and reality. In this respect the first aid was the development of science itself.

1.3.1 The Re-construction of Physical Sciences It was established previously that medieval/modern philosophy in the West deviated from its own Greek roots where philosophy basically incorporated both being and becoming, and constructed a metaphysics of Being with its thrust on a materialistic outlook of nature and reality. However, the existing understanding of matter began to recede as the theories regarding electrical energy developed, proving that it is not corpuscular but vibratory. In addition, the split between mind and matter caused great problems for those who engaged in investigating the intricacies involved in the process of knowing. It was problematic especially with regard to the relation between the knowing subject and the known object. Whitehead was disturbed by the existing dichotomy between the apparent world of perception and the world presented by the scientific investigation. The riddle that challenged him was the demand from the scientific world for a relevant substitute for the previous conceptions of matter, the desire to find a solution for the puzzle created by the dichotomy of mind and body and, finally, the perplexity which existed and the resultant problems with regard to the apparent and real world (Lawrence 313-14). Furthermore, the historical revolt of the 16th century itself has greatly contributed to the development of this alternative perception of nature. Francis Bacon was one of the prophets of this historical revolt “which deserted the method of unrelieved rationalism” and which based “all fruitful knowledge upon influence from a particular occasions in the past to a particular occasions in the future” (SMW 43). Bacon emphasized the inter-dependent nature of reality. Whitehead quotes from Francis Bacon at length. What is interesting is that Whitehead is more sympathetic to Bacon and testifies that Bacon was outside

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the physical line of thought which dominated his own century. Bacon clearly distinguished perception and sense. His line of thought expressed far more fundamental truth about reality than what was expressed by the materialistic concepts (SMW 42). This change in outlook was not a sudden development. The right line of thought was actually initiated by Galileo when he affirmed that what deserves our attention is not the motion of bodies but the changes of their motion. But the problem with Galileo was that he did not develop this thought. This discovery of Galileo receives a clear form in Newton’s first law of motion. “Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, except so far as it may be compelled by force to change that state” (SMW 46). The merit of Galileo compared to that of Aristotle was that while the latter conceived the isolated system “to be at rest,” the former added that this state of rest is only a particular case that the general principle should be “either in a state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line” (SMW 47). It is true that scientific materialism provided an adequate basis for science for three centuries, from the 17th to the 19th, and it was, to a certain extent, unquestioned. However, it was one-sided with its emphasis on the material dimension of reality. The scene has changed with the advance of physics. The doctrine of energy and the molecular theories were timely alternatives for materialism. Furthermore, as human understanding regarding the complexities of matter, space, time and energy grew, the foundations of the previous orthodox belief were shaken (SMW 113). The story of the breakdown extends over more than a century. For by far the greater part of that period men of science were quite unaware that the ideas which they were introducing, slowly, one after other, were finally to accumulate into a body of thought inconsistent with the Newtonian ideas dominating their thoughts and shaping their modes of expression. The story commences with the wave theory of light and ends with the wave theory of matter (AI 156).

Thus reconstruction of the foundations of physical sciences by the first quarter of the 19th century fostered the development of organic philosophy.

1.3.2 The Romantic Movement Another factor that encouraged Whitehead to look for an alternative to scientific materialism was the Romantic Movement. It can be seen as the significant reaction to the ‘modern world view’, that is, the rational-scientific civilization. This movement, generally understood as a counter movement to Enlightenment, has

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its roots deep in the 18th and even 17th centuries. The Romantic literature expresses the reaction of the 18th century people to the scientific-mechanistic view of nature. Whitehead was greatly influenced by the English poets because they reacted to the mechanistic outlook on nature. Shelley and Wordsworth emphasized that “nature cannot be divorced from its aesthetic values” (Lawrence 257). In his poems Wordsworth expressed a conscious reaction against the moral repulsion that affected the mentality of his age. “He felt that something had been left out, and that what had been left out comprised everything that was most important” (SMW 77).18 What is important about Romanticism and the Romantic poets of the period was that they perceived nature as “changing, dissolving, transforming as it were at a fairy’s touch.” One is also impressed by the poet’s description of the change of nature, change of inward character, and of the change that cannot die (SMW 86). The Romantic Movement in literature refused to confine itself to a materialistic concept of the orthodox scientific theory. Nature poetry can be viewed as a protest on behalf of the organic view of nature, and also a protest against the separation or exclusion of value from the essence of matter of fact. For Whitehead, the analysis of poetic literature provides one with the insight that the philosophy of nature must concern itself at least with the following six factors: change, value, eternal objects, endurance, organism and inter-fusion (SMW 88). The new conception of nature envisioned it as an “organism, alive, growing, creative, [and] becoming.” Romanticism with its emphasis of biological analogies, instead of mechanical concepts, described nature as naturans as against natura naturata (Baumer 281).19 The other two ideas that arrested the attention of the people were concerned with notions of transition or change. They were the doctrine of conservation of energy and the doctrine of evolution. However, we do not go into the details of these theories for the moment. It suffices now to understand that the first theory has to do with the notion of quantitative permanence underlying change, and the latter is concerned with the emergence of new organisms as the outcome of chance (SMW 101). This had tremendous repercussions on the general train of thought. The notion of mass lost its pre-eminence with the arrival of

|| 18 Quoting Alfred Tennyson’s “The stars blindly runs” Whitehead remarks that this citation is indicative of the whole philosophical problem involved. The whole idea presupposed here maybe put in the following words: each molecule blindly runs. The human body is a collection of molecules and therefore the human body blindly runs and there can be no individual responsibility for the functioning of the body. Furthermore, if one endorses that the blind run is monitored by the mechanical law there can be no escape from the above conclusion (SMW 77). 19 While Nature viewed as naturans takes it as animated by living principles and the natura naturata concept viewed nature as a finished and dead product (Baumer 281).

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the conservation of energy, offering a new way of quantitative permanence. Gradually we see that the relation of mass and energy is inverted and mass becomes merely the name of a quantity of energy considered in relation to some of its dynamical effects. This train of thought finally resulted in the replacement of “mass” by “energy” as the fundamental notion. And “energy is merely the name for the quantitative aspect of a structure of happening; in short, it depends on the notion of the functioning of an organism” (SMW 102). Thus, we see science is taking up a new orientation which is neither purely physical, nor purely biological. It becomes the study of organisms.

1.3.3 An Inevitable Shift in Methodology Whitehead’s exploration of scientific materialism brought out its inadequacy to account for the complete human experience. Therefore, Whitehead’s objective was to develop an alternative metaphysics that would account for all dimensions of human experience. And Whitehead rightly divined that the first step to achieve this goal was a methodological shift. Whitehead was a mathematician and scientist during the first half of his life. The then circulated picture of the universe, namely, the mathematico-mechanistic mode of thinking based on the Newtonian science and philosophy was not very promising. Thus, a shift from pure science to a joint venture undertaken with the help of the necessary means available to him, namely, science and philosophy was inevitable. For, one of the fundamental presuppositions of Whitehead was that a continued adherence to the Newtonian cosmology would “increasingly prove frustrating to the development of science” (Leclerc 1958, 6). Furthermore, it was evident that physical concepts were inadequate to explain the fundamental nature of reality, because “the concept of unities, functioning and with spatio-temporal extensions, cannot be extruded from physical concepts” (PNK 3). The nature of the physical universe for science was a static-mechanistic one. Contrary to the existing model of the universe Whitehead wanted to develop a picture of the universe more truthful to human experience. In view of this, through an analysis of human experience Whitehead formulates a particular ‘working hypothesis’.20 In

|| 20 For Whitehead, the main method of philosophy is descriptive generalization. For, according to him, “philosophical generalization seizes on those characters of abiding importance, dismissing the trivial and the evanescent. There is an ascent from a particular fact, or from a species, to the genus exemplified.” Furthermore, it is observed that “philosophy is the ascent to the generalities with the view of understanding their possibilities of combination” (AI 234-

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fact, the purpose of any thought is to give a reasonable and consistent explanation to human experience. “The elucidation of the immediate experience is the justification for any thought; and the starting point for thought is the analytic observation of the components of this experience” (PR 4). Whitehead observed that any reconstruction of cosmology should take into account the rich variety of human experience and should be in accord with the modern scientific developments. It should be “one of the motives of complete cosmology, to construct a system of ideas which brings the aesthetic, moral, and religious interests into relation with those concepts of the world which have their origin in natural science” (PR xii). As the static-mechanistic concept was inadequate to account for integral human experience a re-thinking with regard to the existing scientific cosmology was the urgency of the time. What is necessary is a philosophical attempt, in fact a metaphysical one, in the sense that metaphysics undertakes an enquiry into the ultimate nature of reality (AI 158). Thus, the indispensable methodological shift was also a shift from the philosophy of science to metaphysics. However, this does not exclude their mutual influence. On the contrary, it fosters an intimate relation between the philosophy of science and metaphysics. It reveals his hope “in the immediate future to embody the standpoint of these volumes in a more complete metaphysical study” (PNK 1925, ix). This is also indicative of the bond that his earlier writings have with his later works. Some of the questions that demand one’s attention in this juncture are: what necessitated a shift from the philosophy of science to metaphysics? Was there a radical shift in fact? Was it a synthetic approach to both science and speculative philosophy that Whitehead aimed at? Though modern science and speculative philosophy make use of different methods there is no contradiction between the two. There is no substantial opposition between Whitehead’s understanding of novelty and creativity and modern science, either logically or methodologically. Both science and the philosophy of organism have a common object of investigation, i.e., the physical world (Rapp 79). A distinctive feature of the philosophy of organism is its attempt to combine philosophy and modern science into a “speculative synthesis.” It attempts to formulate a comprehensive vision of the world “harmonising the thoroughness and universality of philosophical questioning with the state of knowledge attained by modern science” (Rapp 84). Whitehead’s expertise in modern science

|| 35). Thomas E. Hosinski. Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1993.

The Positive Influences | 43

has positively contributed to question and reveal to the world the limitations of scientific thought. He rebukes science for overlooking and neglecting what does not fit into the system. The great minds of the scientific revolution could perceive the universe only as a “mechanical universe of matter and motion, reasonable, rational, obeying fixed mathematical laws, to be ascertained by means of experiment” (Hall 12). The general trend of the period is evident in the words of Thomas Hobbes that “there was nothing certain in natural philosophy but every man’s experiments to himself” (Hobbes 1665).21 The complaint Whitehead makes is that “they canalize thought and observation within predetermined limits, based upon inadequate metaphysical suppositions dogmatically assumed” (AI 151). Since the driving force of science is mere theoretical curiosity and its goal is technological produceability, it pays attention only to the mechanism of ‘causal efficacy’ (PR 169). These negative observations of Whitehead on science, however, do not mean that he undermined modern science. On the contrary, Whitehead writes about the unique role science plays in this regard: “Mathematical physics presumes in the first place an electromagnetic field of activity pervading space and time. The laws which condition this field are nothing else than the condition observed by the general activity of the flux of the world, as it individualizes itself in the events” (SMW 152). One could already foresee Whitehead’s notion of creativity foreshadowed in the above clause “general activity of the flux.” In fact, as it has been already observed, his project was to give birth to a system that would do justice to human experience, by making use of the findings of both science and philosophy to draw up a complete nature of reality. The discussion undertaken here of the Greek philosophy and of the philosophical developments in the West establishes threefold shifts in the orientation of philosophy that took place from the dawn of metaphysical thinking down through the centuries to the present day. They are: 1. A shift from the Greek philosophy of being and becoming to a gradual shift to Being. 2. A philosophy of being emphasised by the modernity in the West, reaching its climax with the mathematico-mechanisation process of nature and reality, characterised by dualism and materialism. 3. Whitehead’s call for an inevitable shift to a metaphysics of becoming with its manifestation in the philosophy of organism.

|| 21 Thomas Hobbes. Elements of Philosophy (1655), in Lindberg and Westman (1990) xvii.

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The philosophy of organism was thus proposed as an alternative to the “scientific materialism”, which dominated the modern epoch of thought. Whitehead’s alternative metaphysics proposed a theory of an indefinite plurality of ‘actual entities’. What is emphasized in the organic philosophy is an ‘absolute no’ to the materialistic outlook on nature. The 16th -17th century philosophers had given a one-sided account of human experience (PR xi). Whitehead’s objective was to develop a metaphysical system that would account for the total experience of human beings. Whitehead’s statement in the preface to his magnum opus, Process and Reality, explicates the objective which he aimed at: “The positive doctrine of these lectures is concerned with becoming, the being and the relatedness of ‘actual entities’” (PR xiii). In the organic philosophy, nature is characterised by ‘creative advance’; static nature becomes a ‘structure of evolving process’; the theory of simple location is substituted with a ‘process of prehensive unification’; the absoluteness of matter is replaced with ‘creativity’; and the traditional notion of substance (act) and potentiality are re-configured as actuality and eternal objects, respectively. Philosophy is no more the discourse of the static substance but rather of the dynamic organism. Each of these concepts demands extensive explication and that will be our task in the coming chapter.

2 Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Indefinite Pluralities in Becoming In this chapter our first objective is to continue our discussion of Whitehead’s shift from being to metaphysics of becoming. Second, we aim to understand what is the fundamental reality in Whitehead. The primary objective of this section will be to clarify the fundamental characteristics of the Whiteheadian actual entity.1 We open our search into the ultimate substratum of existence in Whitehead’s philosophy with the presupposition that it is very much Aristotelian in its essence. Our discussion of Whitehead’s theory of actual occasion is expected to provide a new perspective to the metaphysical problem that haunted philosophy ever since its emergence: what is meant by the concept of “complete existent.” Second, we focus our attention on elucidating the fundamental nature of this reality which eventually would elucidate Whitehead’s metaphysics of becoming by analysing the constitutional structures of the actual occasion, the basic element of dynamic existence or process.

2.1 Being to Beingness in Becoming The chief characteristic of Whitehead’s philosophy is that it has made a radical shift from philosophy of being to a philosophy of becoming. For him, “actual is a process, and is not describable in terms of the morphology of a “stuff” (PR 41). What does he mean by it? An actual occasion cannot be taken as some kind of stuff which exists or which is antecedent to its process. The fundamental fact about any actuality or that which constitutes any actuality is its process. Without process there is no actuality. On the other hand, it is not true to say that an actuality is brought into being by its process, and, having fully become, it exists as a completed being. It would entail the understanding of an actuality in terms

|| 1 Actual entities are described also as “drops of experience” or “an act of experience” or actual occasion. These terms are used synonymously (PR 22, 73). The term ‘actual occasion’ is preferred when referring to the characteristics of extensiveness (PR 77). Furthermore, the term actual occasion is never used to signify God (PR 88). Therefore, in this work we try to keep actual occasion to denote reality and as far as possible use ‘actual entity’ to denote God alone. But we cannot follow it strictly since Whitehead himself uses mostly ‘actual entity’ to denote reality. It is also notable that the term event is used in the sense of actual entity in SMW. However, when we come to PR the term event signifies a nexus or a group of interrelated actual entities (PR 230).

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of the ‘morphology of a stuff’. For Whitehead an actual entity is (exists) only ‘in the becoming’ (Leclerc 71). The following quotes are self-explanatory: “The aim of the philosophy of organism is to express a coherent cosmology based upon the notions of ‘system,’ ‘process,’ ‘creative advance into novelty,’ ‘res vera,’ (in Descartes sense), ... as ultimate agents of stubborn facts” (PR 128). This doctrine of organism is the attempt to describe the world as a process of generation of individual actual entities, each with its own absolute self-attainment. This concrete finality of the individual is nothing else than a decision referent beyond itself. The ‘perpetual perishing’ (Locke II, XIV, I) of individual absoluteness is thus foredoomed. But the ‘perishing’ of absoluteness is the attainment of ‘objective immortality’ (PR 60).

The germs of the philosophy of becoming can be traced back to Whitehead’s earlier writing. From the very beginning he expressed his opposition to the static outlook on nature. This is clear from the terms he used such as ‘passage of nature’ in the earlier writings and ‘process’, ‘creative advance’, in his later works (PNK 61). “All things are involved in the creative advance of the Universe, that is, in the general temporality which affects all things, even if at all times they remain self identical” (AI 143). However, only at a later stage does he use the term process to denote the fundamental nature of reality. In his earlier writings various terms are used, such as ‘passage of nature’, ‘creative advance’ etc. (especially in PNK and CN). He writes in PNK: “The forward moving time exhibits this characteristics of experience, that it is essentially action. This ‘passage of nature’ – or, in other words, its creative advance – is its fundamental characteristic; the traditional concept is an attempt to catch nature without passage” (PNK 14). The above sentence is double edged: on the one hand, Whitehead clarifies his own standpoint and, on the other, makes a thrashing critique of the traditional understanding. It is important to note that in PNK “extension” was fundamental. But coming to Principle of Relativity “process” becomes fundamental in Whitehead’s metaphysics. Extension and cogredience are derivative from process (PNK 2nd ed. 202); “[t]his structure of events is the complex of events as related by the two relations of extension and cogredience” (CN 52). In the first edition of PNK “extensive relation” was fundamental, but Whitehead changed his position and stated in the note to the second edition that process is fundamental. Moreover, in CN Whitehead states that the apprehension of events involves the passage of nature, which includes both spatial and temporal extension (54). Thus, for Whitehead extension is derivative from process. In PNK and CN process or passage of nature means the becoming of events. “Nature presents itself to us as essentially a becoming, and any limited portion of nature which preserves most completely such concreteness as attaches to nature itself is also a becoming and is what I call an event” (Prel. 21;

Being to Beingness in Becoming | 47

Schmidt 43).2 It is important to note that in these earlier writings of Whitehead, events extend over and are extended over by other events.3 In the earlier writings, Whitehead called this aspect of extension the passage of nature (Schmidt 44). One of the most important and all pervasive characteristics of the realities of the world is the transition of things, or “the passage one to another.”4 The theory which I am urging admits a greater ultimate mystery and a deeper ignorance. The past and the future meet and mingle in the ill-defined present. The passage of nature which is only another name for the creative force of existence has no narrow ledge of definite instantaneous present within which to operate. Its operative presence which is now urging nature forward must be sought for throughout the whole, in the remotest past as well as in the narrowest breadth of any present duration. Perhaps also in the unrealised future (CN 73).

However, this “passage” is not a linear procession of discrete entities. One cannot make a determination, either in the narrower sense or in the wider sense, in one’s choices because one’s determination fades by transition beyond itself. One general and consistent aspect of nature is its evolutionary expansiveness. The product of these evolutionary processes, which by itself forms into a unity of something, is named events. Events just are. It is also a basic awareness that an event is part of another event and this fact points to the temporal side of extension in nature. Moreover, the fact that events do not change does not mean that they are permanent. For “events come to be and pass away in the ultimate becomingness” which is called the creative advance of nature (PNK 63). However, the becomingness itself is not an event per se.

2.1.1 The Fundamental Principle of Becoming The philosophy of becoming argues against certain principles that traditional philosophy held as very fundamental. Whitehead, again and again, expresses his opposition to the static notion of nature and reality. The “foundation of all

|| 2 A. N. Whitehead. The Principle of Relativity with Application to Physical Sciences. Cambridge University Press, 1922. 3 The duration of time it takes to write a sentence extends over the duration of writing any word of the sentence and, conversely, the duration of forming any letter is extended over by the duration of writing the word in which it occurs. 4 Sydney E. Hooper. “Whitehead’s Philosophy: The World as Process.” The Journal of the British Institute of Philosophy, vol. XXIII, No. 85 (1948) 140-160.

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understanding of sociological theory ... is that no static maintenance of perfection is possible. This axiom is rooted in the nature of things. Advance or Decadence are the only choices offered to mankind. The pure conservative is fighting against the essence of the universe” (AI 274). This statement as such needs further clarification. Three metaphysical principles come to our aid. First, “the very essence of real actuality – that is, of the completely real – is process” (AI 274). Therefore, one can understand any actuality only in terms of its becoming and perishing. No actuality can be a static self. The second metaphysical principle is that “every occasion of actuality is in its own nature finite. There is no totality which is the harmony of all perfections” (AI 276). Why? Anything that is realised in one occasion necessarily excludes a welter of possibilities that are to be realised and that have been already realised. “There are always ‘others’ which might have been and are not” (AI 276). Nevertheless, this finiteness is neither the result nor the source of evil or imperfection. The third metaphysical principle is the principle of individuality. It concerns the doctrine of harmony. Whitehead identifies this individual endurance with what Descartes has designated by realitas objectiva. Whitehead is arguing against the Aristotelian doctrine of primary substances: “no individual primary substance can enter into the complex of objects observed in any occasion of experience. The qualifications of the soul are thus confined to universals” (AI 280). For Whitehead, this is a misconception of reality. The individual, real facts of the past lie at the base of our immediate experience in the present. They are reality from which the occasion springs, the reality from which it derives its source of emotion, from which it inherits its purposes, to which it directs its passions. At the base of experience there is a welter of feeling, derived from individual realities or directed towards them. Thus for strength of experience we require to discriminate the component factors, each as an individual ‘It’ with its own significance (AI 280).

The point about individuality recalls another characteristic of the metaphysics of becoming. For Whitehead, the “ultimate metaphysical truth is atomism. The creature is atomic” (PR 35). It is a natural corollary of Whitehead’s position that there is no continuity of becoming but only becoming of continuity. We have already seen that becoming is the becoming of each actual entity and what constitutes extensive continuity is their succession. The continuously extensive world is not itself an actual entity, but is a multiplicity of actual entities, which by their succession constitute a unity. Therefore, continuous extensiveness is not a metaphysical feature of an actual entity (Leclerc 75). The philosophy of organism is based on the fundamental unity of being, which his principle of relativity explicates. Furthermore, the idea of universal relatedness is developed in defiance of Aristotle’s dictum that ‘a substance is

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not present in another subject’. On the other hand, the principle of relativity in clear-cut terms states that ‘an actual entity is present in other actual entities’ (PR 50). The philosophy of organism is devoted to elucidate the notion of “being present in another entity” (PR 50). These three fundamental principles of becoming do not stand isolated, but rather form an integral unity. The first principle which emphasizes becoming goes very well with the second that underscores infinite possibilities and their unity which in fact constitute a plurality of individual actualities, that is stressed in the third principle. It is the principle of becoming and the inter-dependent nature of the individual actualities that make a metaphysics of becoming. Therefore, it is right to say that each actual occasion exemplifies an identity of being and becoming (Canevi 186).5 Nevertheless, since we are attuned to a metaphysics of being it is hard to comprehend a metaphysics of becoming. In fact, becoming itself is enigmatic.

2.1.2 The Enigma of Becoming Why does becoming seem to be enigmatic? In conceiving ‘process’ as the fundamental reality, is he not becoming a prey to a number of problems? Does it mean a complete ‘no’ to permanence? If so is he not involved in an inconsistency analogous to that of the one Whitehead wanted to reject? Moreover, if permanency is denied to an actual occasion, how can he account for individuality, self-sufficiency, unitariness, etc. If these are denied it will also mean the rejection of self-identity. In a continuous process of becoming these notions do not have any meaning. If there is only process, can anyone meaningfully say that something ‘exists’ at all? On the other hand, if change or process is denied how does one account for the ‘flux’ of things one experiences daily? These are some of the facts that constitute an enigmatic situation. Whitehead does recognise and admit these problems. But the fact is that these problems arise only when an actuality is perceived as a continuous process, in the mode of Heracleitean flux. However, the point of Whitehead is not that. On the contrary, Whitehead admits that continuous process is a misconception. “There is a prevalent misconception that ‘becoming’ involves the notion of a unique seriality for its advance into novelty.” This according to him is the misunderstanding that philosophy took over from science. In the philosophy of organism “creative advance is not to be construed in the sense of a uniquely serial advance” (PR 35). Here we have to recall a point we saw previ-

|| 5 Pinar Canevi. “Do We Need the Actual Entities?” (1984) 185-188.

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ously, namely that there is a becoming of continuity but no continuity of becoming. In the latter case infinite regress would be the result and nothing would really become. “The actual occasions are the creatures which become, and they constitute a continuously extensive world. In other words, extensiveness becomes, but ‘becoming’ is not itself extensive” (PR 35; Leclerc 72-73).6 Problems arise only when we combine both continuity and becoming. “In every act of becoming there is the becoming of something with temporal extension; but the act itself is not extensive, in the sense that it is divisible into earlier and later acts of becoming which correspond to the extensive divisibility of what has become.” What is meant here is that “the creature is extensive but that its act of becoming is not extensive” (PR 69). If there is no continuity of becoming and only becoming of continuity one can have individual occasions, i.e., certain definiteness. That gives an identity at least to that occasion. Certain characteristics can be passed on to later roots of that occasion, and in that sense create further identity. Whitehead here talks about a defining characteristic of a society of occasions (nexus).7 Moreover, there is no denying of being in Whitehead. Whitehead admits two fundamental phenomena in nature, which are essential but antagonistic: becoming and permanence (PNK 98). Nevertheless, he emphasises the former. The other side of the story is that the theory of “recognition” (linked to the notion of objects – later named ‘eternal objects’) deals with the permanent side of nature. Therefore, the truth about nature is that it exhibits both being and becoming, permanence and flux, staticity and process. In this regard, commenting on the statement that ‘existence cannot be abstracted from ‘process’ and the notions of ‘process’ and ‘existence’ presuppose each other’ (MT 131), Ford observes that “Whitehead cannot mean that process is equivalent to existence in all of its senses, for the eternal objects or forms have a derivative existence, even though they cannot undergo process” (325). The above statement of Whitehead can be understood in the sense that “there is no being except as an ingredient in becoming, nor any becoming which does not result in being. Being and becoming presuppose each other, but they are ontologically distinct” (Nobo 1974, 275-84).8 Whitehead’s philosophy may be viewed as a philosophy of two becomings: a || 6 “The actual occasions are the creatures which become, and they constitute a continuously extensive world. In other words, extensiveness becomes, but ‘becoming’ is not itself extensive” (PR 35; Leclerc 72-73). 7 Whitehead states: “All things are involved in the creative advance of the Universe, that is, in the general temporality which affects all things, even if at all times they remain self-identical” (AI 143). 8 Jorge Luis Nobo. “Whitehead’s Principle of Process.” Process Studies 4 (1974) 275-283.

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microprocess and a macroprocess – the becoming of an actual occasion and the becoming of the universe. Becoming of the one, actual occasion, and the becoming of the many – the universe.

2.2 Fundamental Reality in Whitehead Whitehead’s understanding of philosophy itself is very suggestive of comprehending his theory of reality. “Philosophy asks the simple question, what is it all about” (Johnson 1962, 3).9 It is equivalent to ‘what is the fundamental substratum of the universe’? What does it all mean? What is remarkable here is that it is the same question as that of the “to be”, that the philosophers asked from the very beginning. However, it should be made clear at the outset that what will be given here will not be a complete analysis of Whitehead’s concept of an actual occasion. We deal with it only to the extent that it facilitates our discussion of the concept of God and Creativity in Whitehead. It is rightly said: “no man is an island”! This is all the more true of philosophers. Every philosophical system shows, on the one hand, its own dependency on the preceding ones, and, on the other, to a certain extent, the repudiation of some of the prevalent ideas already existing. Whitehead’s philosophy of organism is no exception to this understanding. Whitehead does not stand isolated in the history of philosophy. His system is very much rooted in the tradition of philosophy and his predecessors have influenced him. In other words, one can look at the philosophy of Whitehead from different perspectives: it can be viewed as a reaction to some trends of thought which then existed or it can be seen as a positive philosophy of Reality on its own right developed from scientific and mathematical backgrounds. Neither view is fully wrong nor completely right. For, a thinker is also the product of his own age and the thought patterns of the time do influence him. Furthermore, the uniqueness of Whitehead is not that he dealt with new problems but that he perceived the old problems with new insights and treated them with a novel vision. Whitehead accepts the relation that the philosophy of organism bears to his predecessors. Precisely, Whitehead’s theory takes us back to the great philosophical minds such as Aristotle, Hume, Descartes, Locke, and so on. One may trace the reminiscence of their philosophies in it. There is, for example, the application of the Humean principle that “ideas of reflection are derived from actual facts.” In the same way, it goes on par with the Aristotelian principle that

|| 9 A. H. Johnson. Whitehead’s Theory of Reality. New York: Dover Publishing, INC., 1962.

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“apart from things that are actual, there is nothing – nothing either in fact or in efficacy” (PR 40). It pursues quite a similar thought pattern of the Cartesian principles that “for this reason, when we perceive any attribute, we therefore conclude that some existing thing or substance to which it may be attributed, is necessarily present” and “every clear and distinct conception (perceptio) is without doubt something, and hence cannot derive its origin from what is nought... . ” (PR 40). According to Whitehead, what is notable in the relation between Hume (PR 140–141) and Descartes (PR 205) is that they, irrespective of the different emphases in their respective philosophies with regard to the notion of substance (for example, while Descartes being the protagonist of the philosophy of substance in modernity, Hume minimizes the notion of substance) both have recognised the importance of the notion of change (PR 136). Coming to Whitehead we see a clear reformulation of the notions of endurance and change which are presented with novelty. Whitehead writes that notions of endurance and change “can be summed up in the statement that experience involves a becoming, that becoming means that something becomes, and that what becomes involves repetition transformed into novel immediacy” (PR 136-37). Furthermore, Locke, the forerunner of Whitehead, who considered ‘ideas’ as fundamental wrote about process that the “ideas become” (PR 138). Whitehead observes that Locke’s conception of time as ‘perpetually perishing’ would have led him to develop the philosophy of organism if he had understood the notion of an actual occasion as something that perishes with the passage of time, and thus no actual occasion changes (PR 147). The philosophy of organism is distinctive by the following fundamental notions: actual occasion, prehension, nexus and the ontological principle. For Whitehead, philosophy has been haunted by the ghost of ‘old faculties’ that have been abandoned by psychology but is still haunting metaphysics. We have to free philosophy from its self-imposed tutelage which concentrates exclusively on abstract notions, such as mere awareness, mere causation, mere private sensation, mere appearance, etc. “There can be no ‘mere’ togetherness of such abstractions.” And if we pursue the line further “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness” would be the result. The theories of actual occasions, prehensions and nexus have been formulated to base philosophy on the most concrete elements of our experience (PR 18).

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2.2.1 Actual Occasion: the Dynamic Subject Whitehead’s theory of actual occasion is the foundation stone of his attempt to “construct a system of ideas which brings the aesthetic, moral, and the religious interests into relation with those concepts of the world” (PR xii). His aim was a speculative philosophy which he defined as “the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted” (PR 3). In the preface to his Process and Reality, Whitehead tells us what he means by an actual entity: “An actual entity is a ‘res vera’ in the Cartesian sense of that term; it is a ‘Cartesian substance,’ not an Aristotelian primary substance” (PR xiii). Whitehead purposefully avoids the term ‘substance’ because of the association it bears with subject-predicate notion. Furthermore, in Descartes and Locke “substance” assumes adventures of changing qualifications, which lead to further difficulties (PR 75). For Whitehead, metaphysics is the study of actual entities qua actual entities. It is noted that metaphysics as the study of actual entities is clearer and more specific than its presentation as the study of ‘being qua being,’ because of the ambiguity the term ‘being’ carries. Furthermore, by the conscious selection of the term ‘actual entity’ Whitehead could avoid the difficulty that existed from the time of Aristotle, which identified being as ‘ousia’ with the being of things, i.e., with their ‘whatness’, their ‘essence’ (Leclerc 1958, 34). Therefore, by the term actual entity Whitehead means what we understand by subject or self. He uses the terms ‘subject’ and ‘actual entity’ synonymously (PR 122; Johnson 17). Actual entities “are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real” (PR 18). In its primary sense actual occasion signifies the general metaphysical category of ‘that which is” (Leclerc 1958, 53). In the tradition of philosophy, it is the equivalent of ousia in Aristotle, substance in Descartes, monad in Leibniz, etc. However, actual occasion does not bear with it any secondary connotation as the nature of “what that is which is” as is the case with some particular philosophical theories (substance or monad). The category of ‘actual occasion’ cannot be considered as a valid premise from which one can deduce its nature. On the contrary, it is a fundamental notion in terms of which one has to think, and what is to be discovered is the very nature of the actual occasion itself. In other words, the identification of the nature of an actual entity constitutes the metaphysical problem par excellence (Leclerc 1958, 55).10 Whitehead’s theory of

|| 10 Stephen T. Franklin in his revised metaphysics prefers to substitute Whitehead’s ‘actual entity’ with ‘active entity’. For him, in one sense of the word, “process” is not “process and

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actual entity stresses “change, permanence, the interaction of creative individuals, God and value” (Johnson 12). In the philosophy of organism there is a clear negation of monism. It does not entail a monistic view at least on two grounds. (i) For Whitehead this doctrine is unable to satisfy the criterion of coherence. A monistic theory basically exhibits unitariness. If this is so, how can a monistic theory account for a plurality of changing modes or appearances? (ii) Monistic theories mistake certain features of actuality for what constitutes the metaphysical nature of actuality. However, it should be borne in mind that though Whitehead admits a plurality of actual entities he does not entail two or more different kinds of actual entities. In that case, one cannot maintain or explain the relation that exists between these different kinds of actual entities. Therefore, “all actualities are generically of one kind: though there are gradations of importance, and diversities of function, yet in the principles which actuality exemplifies all are on the same level” (Leclerc 1958, 58). God is an actual entity and in the same way “the most trivial puff of existence in far off empty space” is an actual entity. Therefore, in the Whiteheadian system even God is not an exception to this universal principle. What is implied is that God’s existence is not generically different from that of other actualities, but he is primordial among the existent. Whitehead thus admits a plurality of actual entities, but there is a set of universal principles that are applicable to all actuality whatsoever. For coherence necessitates one set of metaphysical principles.11

2.2.2 The Constitution of an Actual Occasion Whitehead’s distinctiveness consists in that he approached the same old classical problems of philosophy with a novel vision. The first thing he did to achieve his set goal was to select appropriate terms. In fact, he developed a new lan-

|| reality” but “process is reality.” In this sense it is process which is most basic and most real. Only in a limited sense of the word “reality” can we talk about “process and reality.” His claim is that to refer to process and reality one must limit “reality” to “completed actuality” which is but a factor in the larger dynamic of transition and concrescence (Franklin 295, n10). 11 There are four categories of existence: two are primary and two are hybrid. The primary types are actual entity and eternal objects (pure potentials), and the hybrid types are feelings and propositions (theories). The difference between a feeling and a proposition is that while the former constitutes the real components of actual entities the latter is realizable only as one sort of objective datum for feeling. Whitehead’s idea of actual entity and eternal objects redefines the traditional notions of particular and universals (PR 48-49).

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guage.12 It will be further clarified in our exposition of the theory of the actual occasion where we often refer to terms such as concrescence, prehension, satisfaction, eternal objects, etc. which are not very common in traditional philosophical discourses. For Whitehead, reality is the process. The question is, how does process constitute a reality, in fact, ontoos on. In other words, we have to explore the constitution of an actual occasion in order to explain becoming. It is also a condition of possibility for the proper understanding of the Whiteheadian concept of God, in virtue of God’s being as an actual entity, in his perspective.

2.2.2.1 The Theory of Concrescence The word concrescence literally means a ‘growing together’.13 In using this word Whitehead’s primary purpose was to analyze the coming to be of each moment of human experience. He wanted to explain the structure of becoming. How does each moment of our experience come into existence and constitute the fundamental reality, i.e., the actual occasion? The theory of concrescence explains the internal constitution of an actual entity. Each actual occasion is a process and the theory of concrescence exposes the “beingness” of this process. Concrescence is defined as “the name for the process in which the universe of many things acquires an individual unity in a determinate relegation of each item of the ‘many’ to its subordination in the constitution of the novel ‘one’” (PR 211). This definition in a nutshell elucidates the whole philosophy of organism.

|| 12 Without a proper understanding of the novel terms he has made use of in his metaphysics Whitehead’s system “can become a dark jungle of weird technical terms, terribly abstract concepts, and seemingly ungrounded speculation ... ” (Hosinski xvi). Whitehead made use of a new “language” to elucidate his philosophy for he knew that the traditional language of philosophy carried with it hidden assumptions about the nature of reality that would prevent a correct understanding of reality and metaphysical analysis (Hosinski 2; PR 11-13, 167; MT 4850). Sydney E. Hooper. “Whitehead’s Philosophy: Actual Entities.” The Journal of the British Institute of Philosophy, vol. XVI, No. 63 (1941) 285-305. 13 The word concrescence is coined from the Latin verb crescere, meaning to arise, to come into existence, or to grow, combined with the prefix con, meaning ‘together’. Thus the Latin verb concrescere, means to grow together, collect or be formed, and it can also mean to congeal or harden (Hosinski 46). In biology the word concrescence is used as a technical term with the meaning “a growing together, especially of parts originally separate” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1960). We deal with this concept only briefly. A good study on it is made by Edmundo C. Castaneda Jr. in his doctoral dissertation “Promoting the Art of Life: The Problem of Reason in the Works of Alfred North Whitehead”, defended in 2005, at the Higher Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium.

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The theory of concrescence “constitutes his ontology, his theory of nature, essential properties, and relations of any actual entity” (Hosinski 46). The notion ‘concrescence’ signifies unity of both physical and conceptual prehensions. “The integration of the physical and mental side into a unity of experience is a self-formation which is a process of concrescence, and which by the principle of objective immortality characterises the creativity which transcends it” (PR 108). Every actuality or in traditional terms every particular, is a subject and a superject in the sense that “it belongs to the nature of every “being” that it is a potential for every “becoming.” The theory of concrescence has to be understood in the sense of Whitehead’s solution to the problem of the one and the many (Leclerc 1958, 210-211). “The many become one, and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively ‘many’ in process of passage into conjunctive unity.” This means that nature is a creative process. It is concrescence which explains this creative process; the coming to be of novel actualities. “Thus the ‘production of novel togetherness’ is the ultimate notion embodied in the term ‘concrescence.’” The word ‘together’ is here understood in its generic sense which explains how the being together of various sorts of actual entities are made possible in a single actual occasion (PR 21). In this sense the definition of organism as “an arrangement of parts whereby each contributes to each, and all mutually modify one another” is commendable ( Ely 179).14 A condition of possibility to understand theory of concrescence is to have a clear view of the purpose for which it was formulated, namely, to explain the metaphysics of becoming. Further analysis of the theory of concrescence can only be done in the light of the theory of prehension, which is a necessary correlative of the former.

2.2.2.2 The Concept of Prehension The principle of prehension is the foundational basis for the philosophy of process. It is the theory that substantiates his claim that “the nature is a structure of evolving processes. The reality is the process” (SMW 72). The word ‘prehension’ comes from the root ‘prehendere’ meaning ‘grasp or seize’ (Hosinski 59). In the concrescence of an actuality what occurs is the prehension of the data. In other words, in the growing together of an actuality (concrescence) what is actualised is the seizing or grasping (prehension) of data. Thus, it can be

|| 14 Stephen Lee Ely. “The Religious Availability of Whitehead’s God.” Lewis S. Ford. & George L. Kline (eds.). Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press (1983) 170-211.

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said that any explication of the becoming or the formation of the actual occasion must take into account these two concepts together. The importance of the concepts of concrescence and prehension can be elucidated from the following statement: “[T]he first analysis of an actual entity, into its most concrete elements, discloses it to be a concrescence of prehensions, which have originated in its process of becoming. All further analysis is an analysis of prehensions” (PR 23). What constitutes the content of the growing together in the act of concrescence is what is acquired or seized and grasped in the act of prehension. The culmination point in the constitution of an actual occasion, the satisfaction, is reached through a “variety of determinate operations.” These operations are prehensions. “A pure physical prehension is how an occasion in its immediacy of being absorbs another occasion which has passed into the objective immortality of its not-being. It is how the past lives in the present” (AI 238). The theory of prehension can be explained also in relation to various concepts of his predecessors.15 Each actual occasion has a perfectly definite bond with each item in the universe’. Viewed in this perspective prehension gets a new meaning and implication and it becomes the “determinate bond” (PR 41). Therefore, prehension can be understood as the generic act of an actual occasion. Whitehead uses the term prehension with the meaning “uncognitive apprehension.” He further elaborates that by this he understands “apprehension which may or may not be cognitive” (SMW 69). Theories of concrescence and prehension account for the constitution of an actual occasion; “the process itself is the constitution of the actual entity.” Whitehead uses the term process in the same sense in which Locke uses the phrase ‘real internal constitution’ (PR 219). This process, which is an act of experience is what Whitehead technically names prehension. Thus, an actual occasion is a process of prehension. Viewed in this perspective the theory of prehension transgresses the Aristotelian understanding that no two actual substances can be formative factors in the constitution of another substance. In other words, the concept of prehension explains the reason of the claim that ‘how other actual occasions, each with its own formal existence, can also enter || 15 Whitehead compares his own use of the term prehension and the way in which Leibniz used the terms “perception” and “apperception”, to denote the lower and higher ways in which one monad can take account of another. However, Whitehead avoids them because of their association with the notion of consciousness. For Whitehead all perceptions and apperceptions are not conscious. Nevertheless, Whitehead prefers ‘apprehension’ to the above terms in the sense of ‘thorough understanding’ (AI 233-34). Whitehead uses the word ‘apprehension’ with the meaning ‘to grasp by the intellect or senses’ (Leclerc 1958, 145).

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objectively into the perceptive constitution of another actual occasion’. Other actual occasions are prehended by the concrescing actual occasion as objects. Formal existence here means, an actual entity ‘as it is in itself subjectively’ and the phrase ‘objectively’ means ‘being an object for another’ (Leclerc 1958, 146). Whitehead uses other terms as well to denote the act of prehending such as inheritance or inheriting and feeling. Feeling is a purely technical term. And he uses the term ‘feeling’ only in reference to positive prehensions, which always include objects in the concrescence.16 “An actual entity has a ... ‘feeling of that item’” (PR 41; 23-24).17 Whitehead makes a distinction of positive and negative prehensions. “A positive prehension is the definite inclusion of that item into positive contribution to the subject’s own real internal constitution. This positive inclusion is called its ‘feeling’ of that item” (PR 41).18 On the other hand, the negative prehensions are those which avoid objects from concrescence or that which exclude data from the act of concrescence in the process of prehending. “A negative prehension is the definite exclusion of that item from positive contribution to the subject’s own real internal constitution” (PR 41).

|| 16 Whitehead explains the different senses in which he uses the term ‘feeling’. It also explicates the different notions used by various philosophers to denote the same idea. “This use of the term ‘feeling’ has a close analogy to Alexander’s use of the term ‘enjoyment’; and has also some kinship with Bergson’s use of the term ‘intuition’. A near analogy is Locke’s use of the term ‘idea’, including ‘ideas of particular things’.” However, Whitehead’s use reminds the reader that the sense in which he uses the term is even more reminiscent of Descartes, in which Descartes uses the term ‘sentire’ (PR 41). 17 A number of different types of prehensions (feelings) can be identified based on the data which the prehension integrates. One may distinguish, however, three primary types of prehensions which are factors in the formation of the more complex prehensions. They are: the physical feelings (first phase), the conceptual feelings (second phase), and the comparative feelings (third phase). There are also more complex feelings, for instance, the intellectual feelings (fourth phase), leading up to consciousness. Cf. Sydney E. Hooper. “Whitehead’s Philosophy: The Higher Phases of Experience.” The Journal of the British Institute of Philosophy, vol. XXI, No. 78 (1946) 57-78. Among the comparative feelings, the most important are the propositional feelings, which generate consciousness. A propositional feeling has a proposition as datum, which is a lure of feeling. Nevertheless, it has to be remembered that a feeling is not necessarily a conscious activity. 18 Positive prehensions always pertain to the first phase. The positive prehension which effects the process of concrescence consists of five factors. This is in fact a transition from prehension to concrescence. These five factors are the constitutive elements in the process of transition. They are: the subject which feels, the initial data which are to be felt, the elimination in virtue of negative prehensions, the objective datum which is felt, and the ‘subjective form,’ the way in which the subject feels about objective datum (PR 221).

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One may also say that prehension is a process of unifying. The reason is that nature is a “process of expansive development, necessarily transitional from prehension to prehension. What is achieved is thereby passed beyond, but it is also retained as having aspects of itself present to prehensions which lie beyond it.” Thus, the initial phase of human subjective experience clears the ground of “connectedness and continuity in human experience” (SMW 72). In itself an actual occasion is whole and undivided. However, Whitehead does admit that for the purpose of rational analysis we have to distinguish several phases of this becoming, which happen in a logically successive sequence.19 The Receptive Phase: Any attempt to explain concrescence should begin with the explanation of subjective experience itself for any analysis of our experience should start with the objective world that supplies the ‘datum’ of experience. Actually the prehending of this ‘datum’ constitutes the first phase of concrescence, which is so fundamental to the theory.20 Prehension “expresses the activity whereby an actual entity effects its own concretion of other things” (PR 52). The simple understanding here is that concrescence is initiated with the reception/grasping of the objective data presented to it. The constitution of an actual entity is an act of ‘grasping’ or appropriating’ other actual entities as components in the process of concrescence. “Each process of appropriation of a particular element is termed prehension” (PR 219). This first phase or initial phase of prehension of experience is known also as physical prehension, for it provides the physical basis for a concrescing occasion. The Responsive Phase: What we experience from the past alone is not responsible for our being. It depends also on how we react and respond to what we receive from the objective past. The objective past is determined, but not

|| 19 It does not mean that each of these phases are temporally successive. Whitehead is very clear about it. “The analysis of an actual entity is only intellectual... . Each actual entity is a cell with atomic unity. But in analysis it can only be understood as a process; it can only be felt as a process; that is to say, as in passage. The actual entity is divisible; but is in fact undivided” (PR 227). 20 In the history of thought, observes Whitehead, this dimension of our experience never received proper attention. The reason is, we have been misled by the understanding that sense perception alone is what constitutes the subjective enjoyment of experience (Hume). Furthermore, we applied the substance-quality categories in the analysis of our experience. Thus, for a proper understanding we have to begin with the question of whether the subjective experience at its most basic level does begin with sense perception. This naturally leads to a larger question of whether the subject enjoying the experience can be understood metaphysically as a substance in the Cartesian sense, needing nothing but itself in order to exist (Hosinski 47). Actually these two questions are related and will form the foundation of our understanding of the theory of concrescence.

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how we respond to it. It is the responsive phase in the sense that not only what we receive from the objective world constitutes our life experience but also our reaction to what we receive from the objective world. In other words, our experience also constitutes what arises within us in response to the objective world. The way we respond and the attitude with which we react determine our future and contribute to novelty and individuality. Therefore, the responsive and integrative phase, accounts for novelty, individuality and uniqueness in human experience. As it deals with meaning, purpose and novelty, they are also known as conceptual prehensions. Our response to the objective world takes a variety of forms. The responsive phase of our experience follows a basic structure. The question remains as to the structure itself. “The conduct of human affairs is entirely dominated by our recognition of foresight determining purpose, and purpose issuing in conduct. Almost every sentence we utter and every judgement we form, presuppose our unfailing experience of this element in life” (FR 13).21 The most important part of the above quote for our purpose is the following: ‘foresight determining purpose,’ and ‘purpose issuing in conduct’. In these two clauses we have the fundamental structure of our experience beyond givenness, beyond what is given to us in the objective world. It is the basic structure through which our unique subjectivity originates as a response to the given objectivity (Hosinski 75). It is due to this activity in ourselves that we are something new in the world; that we can rightfully say that we are our own creators or authors of our experiences, though we are co-creators of our experiences with the given objective past. Whitehead reaches this conclusion from the analysis of the human experience of freedom, purpose and self-creation. There is an inherent connection between the initial phase of a concrescence or human subjective experience and the later responsive and originative phase because “novelty is possible, but always in response to the given” (Hosinski 76). However, the receptive and responsive phases of prehension cannot be isolated activities. On the contrary, they form an integral unity. The Integrative Phase: The integration of the first and second phases of prehension is necessary to form the actual occasion into a subjective unity. The integration is done in the third phase of concrescence, namely the phase of simple comparative feeling. In this phase the subject integrates the conceptual feelings of the second phase with the physical feelings of the first phase. This produces a single integrated feeling whereby the occasion attains the unity as a subject. For occasions on a certain level this is the final unity. The moment of

|| 21 Alfred North Whitehead. The Function of Reason [1929]. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.

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decision is the final stage of integration. Here the concrescing subject finally determines its integration. It makes a selection from the various given possibilities and it is a turning towards a particular possibility and a turning away from other possibilities on the basis of its relative worth. “This single integral feeling is the occasion’s “decision” concerning what it shall be. It is the occasion’s final choice from among the possible forms of definiteness it has valuated with its conceptual feelings, and the fusion of that choice with its physical feelings. Such an integration is the formation of a “physical purpose” (PR 248-49, 27580).22 The appetite for a definite goal comes to an end in this stage and the concrescing subject makes the final decision in this phase. Here one has the identification of both the subjective aim and the result of the decision. “The subjective aim is at one and the same time what guides “decision” and is itself the result of further “decision” (Hosinski 87). Though the subjective aim was already there in the initial phase of concrescence it was not fully determined, it lacked the final stamp of the subjective unity of feeling. Through the integration of the first and second phases of prehension the subjective aim becomes always more definite. To put it bluntly, the formation of the physical purpose is the final stage of concrescence. In the integration of the conceptual feeling and the physical feeling the occasion reaches its “satisfaction” and its process of concrescence comes to an end.

2.2.2.3 Satisfaction The notion of “satisfaction” has to do with an entity’s moment of receiving individuality. The moment of satisfaction is not merely a component factor in the process of concrescence but it is the final and sublime moment in the process of ‘concrescence’. All the process of concrescence was just in view of this moment of ‘satisfaction’. Each actual entity “is a process of ‘feeling’ the many data, so as to absorb them into the unity of one individual satisfaction” (PR 40). It is the moment where a ‘concrete actuality’ is formed out of the process of concrescence. It is the end result of concrescence and where the process of concrescence ceases with regard to that particular actuality. It is the outcome of the process. “An actual entity is a process in the course of which many operations with incomplete subjective unity terminate in a completed unity of operations,

|| 22 For other higher-grade occasions, still higher forms of integration are possible. In Process and Reality Whitehead develops still higher forms of integration, like comparative feelings, intellectual feelings, etc.

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termed the ‘satisfaction’. This satisfaction is the contentment of the creative urge by the fulfilment of its categoreal demands” (PR 219). Furthermore, “the ultimate attainment is satisfaction. This is the final charaterisation of the unity of the feeling of the one actual entity, the ‘superject’ which is familiarly termed the ‘subject’” (PR 166). In light of the Cartesian definition of ‘substance’ as ‘requiring nothing but itself in order to exist,’ it can be said that it is the moment of satisfaction which provides that particular element in virtue of which the Cartesian definition was formed. However, for Whitehead, satisfaction is more than a substance or subject and indeed it is Superject. In the sense of contributing to the final outcome of an entity, it is that which “closes up the entity”; yet it is superject in the sense that it contributes further to the “becoming of entities superseding the one in question.” The concept of concrescence and satisfaction explain each other in the following quotation of Whitehead: The components in the concrescence are thus ‘values’ contributory to the ‘satisfaction.’ The concrescence is thus the building up of a determinate satisfaction which constitutes the completion of actual togetherness of the discrete components. The process of concrescence terminates with the attainment of a fully determinate satisfaction; and the creativity thereby passes over into the ‘given’ primary phase of the concrescence of other actual entities. This transcendence is thereby established when there is attainment of determinate satisfaction completing the antecedent entity. Completion is the perishing of immediacy. ‘It never really is’ (PR 84-85).

This citation explains that in ‘satisfaction’ the process of concrescence reaches its completion and as such it is the terminal point of concrescence. Whitehead’s reference to Plato that an actuality “never really is” has a double purpose: on the one hand, to highlight the “process” dimension of actuality and, on the other, to repudiate the static nature of reality advocated by philosophers of “substance.” As soon as concrescence reaches ‘satisfaction’ the actuality perishes. A description similar to Whitehead’s notion of ‘perishing is seen in Anaximander. Regarding this process of growth Anaximander wrote “things perish into those things out of which they have their birth, according to that which is ordained; for they give reparation to one another and pay the penalty of their injustice according to the disposition of time” (as cited by Cornford 8). Otto Gilbert has given a commendable explanation for this statement of Anaximander. According to him, here we have to do with three kinds of existences. (1) the ‘things that are’: the manifoldness of things around us. They perish into those things out of which they came into existence. This logically raises the question: what are these secondary things out of which they came out? This takes us to

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the second kind of existence namely, (2) the primitive four elements out of which bodies are composed: earth, air, water and fire. They are the fundamental elements out of which individual bodies are born and into which they resolve again. However, these elements themselves are not eternal and final. They themselves are destined to return into that from which they came, which is (3) the ultimate stage of existence, namely ‘the indefinite or limitless thing. According to Anaximander, this alone is ‘incorruptible and undying.’ This process is summarised as follows: “the formless indefinite stuff separates first into the elemental forms, distributed in their appointed regions; and then these again give birth to things, and, when they die, receive them back again” (Cornford 89). The fact that actualities aim at satisfaction presupposes the reality of process. One cannot explain this by appealing to any of the actualities since it is the generic feature of actualities. The only possible explanation that can be given is by appealing to creativity. “The subjective aim of any actual entity”, describes Garland, “including God, is a particular manifestation of the creative drive in the universe towards the unification of diversity.” What is achieved in this unification is the satisfaction of the actual entity in question. For Garland, like any other actuality God also aims at satisfaction since he is a particular instance of the principle of creativity (367).23 With the notion of satisfaction we complete the analysis of the constitution of an actual occasion.

2.3 The Characteristics of Actual Occasion The theory of actual occasions is developed in its best possible way in Process and Reality.24 The book delineates different characteristics of actual occasions. An actual occasion exhibits the following three characteristics: “(i) it has the character given to it by the past; (ii) it has the subjective character aimed at in

|| 23 William Garland J. “The Ultimacy of Creativity.” Southern Journal of Philosophy (1969) 361376. 24 Process and Reality is considered as one of the most difficult works in philosophical literature, and is considered only second to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Hegel’s Logic. It adds to the greatness of the book that it presents a philosophical schema that is capable of interpreting and grounding modern scientific developments in the field of physics, biology, psychology and social sciences while avoiding “crude reductionism, crass determinism or neo-positivism.” Furthermore, it gives ample space for religion and aesthetics (Kraus xix). Elizabeth M. Kraus. The Metaphysics of Experience: A Companion to Whitehead’s Process and Reality. New York: Fordham University Press, 1998.

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its process of concrescence; (iii) it has the superjective character, which is the pragmatic value of its specific satisfaction qualifying the transcendent creativity” (PR 87).

2.3.1 Actual Occasion: A Unity of the Physical and Mental Poles It is in contrast to the modern understanding of the physical as immutable matter (“mass”), as we discussed in the first chapter, that Whitehead presented his theory of the physical as essentially involving a process of becoming. The physical is or necessarily involves an acting, which he termed ‘prehending’ (Rapp and Wiehl 5).25 Whitehead distinguished two kinds of acting: physical and mental or conceptual, a division that was to effect far reaching consequences for his whole philosophical system. While the former pertained to the acting of an actual entity or the acting among the actual entities, the latter meant the acting involved with actual entities and eternal objects (traditionally known as ‘form’). Corresponding to these two types of activity pertaining to actuality, the actual entity is conceived as constituted of two poles, physical and mental.26 Why does Whitehead identify two poles in an actual occasion? The fundamental goal of the Whiteheadian cosmology was to overcome the ‘bifurcation of nature’ and for that he wanted to substantiate the view that each entity is endowed with both a mental pole and a physical pole (PR 107-108, 239-240, 24445, 247-49, 277). The strength of the organic philosophy consists in the fact that each actual entity, by its very nature, is new and creative in every instant “because they develop in the creative process of becoming and in turn contribute

|| 25 Here the word ‘acting’ deserves special attention, since it has been and still is interpreted differently. For Aristotle, acting (energeia) was a quality fundamental to the physical. However when we come to Neoplatonism it gains a totally other meaning: for neoplatonists acting was essentially and primarily attributable to the soul and the physical body acquired this quality only derivatively, in the sense that it is the temple of the active soul. Leibniz (his monads are neoplatonic souls) and Descartes also maintained such a view. However it was the doctrine that Whitehead particularly rejected and he maintained a view more or less similar to Aristotelianism (Rapp and Wiehl 6). 26 According to Franklin, the use of the terms ‘mental pole’ and ‘physical pole’ are misleading. Therefore, instead of physical pole he suggests the following terms “absorptive pole”, “receptive pole” or “pole of inclusion” (of other actual entities and eternal objects) and for mental pole he suggests “reactive pole”, “self-creative pole”, or pole of “transformation.” The point has to be kept in mind that mental pole has nothing to do with mind or consciousness (Franklin note 34, 304, 280).

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themselves to that process” (Rapp 83). Moreover, by identifying two poles in a single actual entity Whitehead repudiates the arguments of the subjectivists, who advocate the existence of only “conceptual registration.” For them, human experience constitutes only the mental realm. Over against these arguments Whitehead points out that physical and mental poles are “inseparable in their origination.” Here Whitehead is arguing against Hume’s ‘impressions of sensation’ and Kant’s ‘sensational data’ (PR 248). Whitehead’s identification of two poles is also his response to the dualism of mind and body. Thus, Whitehead is able to transcend a problem that has so negatively affected modern philosophy in the West.

2.3.1.1 The Physical Pole Any discussion on the two poles of actuality has to be situated in the context of our discussion on the theories of concrescence and prehension. For the physical pole and the mental pole of an actuality are the direct corollary of the physical and conceptual prehensions. The question here concerns the origin of the two poles of an actual occasion. The physical pole of an actual occasion is constituted by the objective data received from the past. The mental pole or conceptual feeling originates from the eternal objects. Therefore, the content in the physical pole is supplied by the physical prehension. Thus, Whitehead maintains that an actual occasion is formally constituted by its “process of transition from indetermination towards terminal determination... . The actual entity on its physical side is composed of its determinate feelings of its actual world, and on its mental side is originated by its conceptual appetitions” (PR 45). “From each physical feeling there is the derivation of a purely conceptual feeling whose datum is the eternal object exemplified in the definiteness of the actual entity, or of the nexus, physically felt” (PR 248). This takes us to the second pole of an actuality.

2.3.1.2 The Conceptual Pole The conceptual or the mental pole means the basic mental operations of an actual occasion, or the conceptual prehensions.27 It is the subjective side of experience which achieves the subjective aim of the subject by its essential uniqueness of individual reaction to the received data (PR 277). In our discus-

|| 27 It has to be kept in mind that in a broader sense mental activity includes the integration of conceptual and physical prehensions (Johnson 39).

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sion of the prehension we established that it is the responsive phase that is accountable for meaning, purpose and value. Thus, it is the function of the mental or conceptual pole to deal with these issues. Anticipating our discussion on God it can be observed that the conceptual pole as source of meaning and purpose goes very well with the claim that God’s mental pole or the Primary Nature of God is concerned with meaning and value. The subjective form of a conceptual feeling is valuation. And conceptual valuation introduces creative purpose. It is the mental pole that determines the ideal of the subject and its application to the physical objective datum. An actual occasion is ‘in time’ in respect to its physical pole and ‘out of time’ in respect to its mental pole (PR 248). The two poles of an actual occasion can neither be two physical poles or two mental poles, for one cannot entertain the value or worth of an entity as a physical experience but only as a mental or conceptual one. Possibilities and values are not physical entities. Therefore, a conceptual valuation is a condition of possibility. In this regard it is easier to understand the distinction made between the mental pole and physical pole of an actual occasion. A concrescing occasion experiences the other actual entities with its physical pole and it entertains other alternatives and values with its mental pole (Hosinski 84). Thus, in the concrescence of a new actual entity what we have is an integration of a temporal world and a world of autonomous valuation or trans-temporal world. The integration of these two poles results in the constitution of a new actual occasion which is the moment of satisfaction.

2.3.2 Actual Occasion: A Self-actualising Concrescence One of the major discussions about an actual occasion concerns whether it is causa sui. As to this point there are various interpretations. For Whitehead, “To be causa sui means that the process of concrescence is its own reason for the decision in respect to the qualitative clothing of feeling” (PR 88). It is notable that sometimes Whitehead uses the clause causa sui with the sense of an actual entity’s “modification of subjective aim” (PR 47) through its “decisions”; “the admission into, or rejection from, reality of conceptual feeling is the originative decision of the actual occasion. In this sense an actual occasion is causa sui” (PR 86). In these descriptions, what is noteworthy is the notion of “decision.” It can be rightly observed that decision is the “basic activity by which an actual entity is causa sui, and it is the unique way in which the actual entity feels and

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reacts to its subjective aim; it is, indeed, the very experience of subjective aim” (Wilcox 169).28 It is also notable that the “concrescence is dominated by a subjective aim” and this “subjective aim is this subject itself determining its own self-creation as one creature” (PR 69). Actual entities are self-creative. “An actuality feels as it does feel in order to be the actual entity that it is. In this way an actual entity satisfies Spinoza’s notion of substance: It is causa sui” (PR 222; 150). Nevertheless, there is difference between Whitehead and Spinoza, namely in Spinoza we have only one substance while in Whitehead we have innumerable actual entities. Another sense in which the concept causa sui is to be understood is in terms of the internal process of final causality. Final causality belongs to the actual occasion by virtue of its own “internal process whereby the actual entity becomes itself” (PR 150). This “becoming of the immediate self” is the “immediate actual process” (PR 150). The efficient causality pertains to the actual occasion in so far as it must conform to the actual world of its immediate past. By virtue of an actual entity’s conformation to the immediate past, with respect to its initial stage, an actual occasion is “the product of the efficient past” (PR 150; Wilcox 170). Thus, it can be observed that causa sui refers to the process of final causality by virtue of which an actual occasion is an individual experience. Moreover, it can be said that each actual occasion is causa sui, in the sense that it is finally responsible for the decision by which any lure for feeling is admitted to efficiency. This causa sui nature of the actual occasion is a corollary of the second characteristic of an actual entity, namely “it [actual entity] has the subjective character aimed at in its process of concrescence” (PR 87). Here causa sui is understood in the sense that “the process of concrescence is its own reason for the decision in respect to the qualitative clothing of feelings... . The freedom inherent in the universe is constituted by this element of self-causation” (PR 88). The self-creativity of an actual occasion cannot be considered in the sense of a creation ex-nihilo.29 Whitehead has categorically denied it.30 One cannot say

|| 28 John R. Wilcox. “A Monistic Interpretation of Whitehead’s Creativity.” Process Studies 20 (1991) 162-174. 29 The self-creative nature of an actual occasion will be explained in detail in the third chapter as we deal with creativity. 30 Cobb raises the following objections against attributing the sole responsibility for an actual entity to God: (i) It is not the initial aim that determines, but rather the initial aim is the ideal for any occasion given in its actual situation. What is remarkable here is the adaptation of God’s purposes to the actual world and not the other way; (ii) It is the prehensive occasion that determines the outcome in a given situation by virtue of its capacity as causa sui and initial aim

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that a new actual occasion derives from itself. The functioning of an actual entity presupposes the past actual occasions, it presupposes the subjective aim, and it presupposes the eternal objects as well. For Franklin, the self-creativity is only partial and has to do with the power of characterisation, and it does not mean the origin of an actuality’s esse. In other words, self-creation in the sense of an actuality’s origination of its own ‘being-here’ is not acceptable (Franklin 265).31 An actual occasion cannot “conjure up” data which are not given to it. Each actual occasion is limited by the past datum which it inherits. In other words, the “datum both limits and supplies” every actual occasion. It is also conditioned by the environment. Thus, it can be said that no actual occasion enjoys “absolute freedom,” but the freedom it enjoys is very relative to the given actual universe (PR 133). Then the question is: can anyone rightly say that actual occasion is causa sui? One observes some sort of inconsistency in Whitehead’s treatment of the freedom of an actual entity: sometimes he says that actual entity is ‘causa sui’ (PR 88); elsewhere he states that “the concrescence of each individual actual occasion is internally determined and is externally free” (PR 46). If an actual occasion is internally determined how can one say that it is causa sui? Moreover, if the environment exerts a considerable amount of influence on the concrescence of actual entities in virtue of the objective data, how is it possible for an actual occasion to be externally free? Still in another place Whitehead says irrespective of all determinations placed on the concrescence “there always remains the final reaction of the self-creative unity of the universe” (PR 47). Here we have to note that there is a difference in which we say God or Spinoza’s substance is causa sui and an actual entity is causa sui. It is observed that “to say that all concrete actualities are causa sui in the sense of Spinoza’s Substance would be, first of all, a mixing up of the ontic and the ontological level, but besides that it also violates one of the most fundamental presuppositions of reason, i.e., that nothing just happens out of nothing” (Cloots 2001, 37). Whitehead writes: “It is a contradiction in terms ... Nonentity is nothingness” (PR 46).

|| has nothing to do with the final outcome of the concrescence; and (iii) God is not the author of eternal objects but he presupposes their existence in the same way they presuppose God’s existence, for their efficacy in the world. Given the possibilities it is unto the concrescing occasion to determine which possibility is to be actualised. Therefore, what is to be said is that even if we deduce some arguments to substantiate God’s creative role, even opposed to the mind of Whitehead himself, it will be a different understanding of God from that which has been prevalent in tradition (Cobb 1973, 236). 31 Stephen T. Franklin. “God and Creativity: A Revisionist Proposal within a Whiteheadian Context.” Process Studies 29 (2000) 237-307.

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The concept causa sui has to be understood not in the sense that an actual occasion is entirely its own reason for its being, but it is causa sui as far as the “clothing of feeling is concerned” (PR 85). Furthermore, with regard to the causa sui nature of an actual occasion it is noted that “the subject is responsible for being what it is in virtue of its feeling” but not for the fact of its existence (Cloots 2001, 42; Nobo 152; PR 222). An actual occasion is self-creative in the sense of having the innate nature of being creative. Each actuality is endowed with the capacity of creativity. Each actual occasion is a self-actualizing concrescence. This would certainly mean that creation is not something that happens out of nothing but the creative advance in nature comes from what is given in nature. It reminds us to be sensitive to the fact of givenness. Whitehead’s statement that “self-creation is the ultimate fact of facts” is not to be understood in the sense of causa sui, rather it has to be understood in light of the following sentences. “An actuality is selfrealizing, and whatever is self-realizing is an actuality. An actual entity is at once the subject of self-realization, and the superject which is self-realized” (PR 222). It seems that it could only mean that each actuality is endowed with the capacity to realise its own potency by virtue of the creativity which is the inborn (innate) capacity of each actuality. What can be said safely is that one has to avoid the use of ‘self-creative’ and instead use simply ‘creative’; for self-creation has very important implications in the sense of causa sui.

2.3.3 Actual Occasion: An Experience of Being Subject-Superject Another distinctive feature of “actuality” is that it is conceived both as a subject and a superject. It is a subject in the sense that it presides over its own “immediacy of becoming.” It is a superject because of its objective immortality. An actual occasion has become a ‘being’ but at the same time it belongs to its nature that “it is a potential for every ‘becoming.’” Moreover, “An actual entity is at once the subject experiencing and the superject of its experiences.” As a rule Whitehead uses the term subject in the sense of subject-superject (PR 29). The subject-superject nature of an actual occasion implies a double fact: on the one hand, it points to its own experience as the self-actualizing concrescence and, on the other, to its own experience as being an objective datum for a future becoming or concrescence. The conception of an actual occasion as subjectsuperject is also a corollary of the Whiteheadian denial of the understanding that an actual occasion is an unchanging subject. An actual entity taken subjectively “perpetually perishes” but it is “immortal objectively” (PR 29).

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The subject-superject character of an actual entity is further elucidated by the notion of ingression. “The ingression of an object into an event is the way the character of the event shapes itself in virtue of the being of the object” (CN 144). The number of objects is numerous and each has a different sort of relation to events. There are different modes of ingression (CN 145).32 In addition, the ‘superject’ character of every actual occasion makes clear the proposal as to ‘how the other actual entities can, each with its own formal existence, also enter objectively into the perceptive constitution of the actual entity in question’ (PR 56). Each temporal actual entity is a datum for the formation of every other [later] actual entity. This is the core of the organic philosophy. The subjectsuperject character of the actuality raises the question of why the past influences the present. Why is there a causal relationship between actualities? Still, to put it in the Whiteheadian terms, why must each new actual entity prehend its predecessors? A new actual entity prehends its predecessors in the sense that God prehends all past actualities and every new actuality must prehend God at the initial stage of its concrescence.33 The interaction of the past, present and future is a must also for the metaphysics of becoming in order to maintain its organic nature. A further and still valid answer can be given only by appealing to creativity.

2.4 The Eternal Objects: Pure Potentials for Actual Occasion The eternal object is one of the three formative elements in the constitution of an actual occasion, and the other two remain Creativity and God.34 “[A]ny entity

|| 32 We will come back to the notion of ingression as we deal with eternal objects (section 3). 33 William Christian. An Interpretation of Whitehead’s Metaphysics, 319-330; “Whitehead’s Explanation of the Past”, 93-101; “On Whitehead’s Explanation of Causality: A Reply,” International Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1962) 323-328. 34 One can observe various shifts in Whitehead’s use of the term eternal objects in the sense that in Science and the Modern World he speaks of “the realm of eternal objects” or “the realm of possibilities.” In Religion in the Making he does not use the term “eternal objects”, on the contrary, ‘realm of forms’ is used. In Symbolism or in The Function of Reason none of these clauses occur; nor does the word ‘eternal objects’. Again in PR he does not speak of a ‘realm of eternal objects’ or forms, but he uses “multiplicity of eternal objects” or “all” eternal objects. Finally, coming to MT and AI he points to a ‘realm of forms’ mainly as a Platonic contribution which requires further revisions. For those who are new to Whitehead’s metaphysics, the term ‘eternal object’ may appear very strange, a point Whitehead himself noted. He writes: “if the term ‘eternal object’ is disliked, the term potentials would be suitable. The eternal objects are

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whose conceptual recognition does not involve a necessary reference to any definite actual entities of the temporal world is called an ‘eternal object’” (PR 44). It is always a potentiality for actual entities; “Potentiality is the correlative of the givenness” (PR 44). Why are they called eternal objects? The reason is, they are not subject to becoming and change and are objects in the sense that they are given (Leclerc 1985, 306). Moreover, Whitehead calls them ‘eternal objects’ to differentiate them from their historical presupposition, which are called ‘universals’ in traditional philosophy. It is through ‘ingression’ that an eternal object becomes an element in the self-constitution of an actual occasion. The term ‘ingression’ means the particular mode in which the potentiality of an eternal object is prehended in the act of concrescence to form a particular actual occasion, contributing to the definiteness of that actual occasion. An “eternal object can be described only in terms of its potentiality for ‘ingression’ into the becoming of the actual entities; and its analysis only discloses other eternal objects” (PR 23). The eternal objects do not exist in their own right and, in contrast to the Aristotelian forms, eternal objects are not active (although it can function as an aim) but wholly passive (Bradley J. 2002, 262).35 An eternal object can only function in the concrescence of an actual entity in one of the three following ways: (i) it can be an element in the definiteness of some objectified nexus, or of some single actual entity, which is the datum of a feeling; (ii) it can be an element in the definiteness of the subjective form of some feeling; or (iii) it can be an element in the datum of a conceptual, or propositional, feeling. All other modes of ingression arise from integrations which presuppose these modes (PR 290).

Here the passivity does not mean inactive, rather it points out that the eternal objects ‘act’ always in relation to and in the context of actualities. Eternal objects are the “pure potentials” (PR 23) of the universe and on account of the realization of these pure potentials actual entities differ from each other.

2.4.1 The Ontological Necessity of the Eternal Objects What is the necessity of eternal objects? The actuality stands always in relation to and with reference to ideality. The principle of concrescence by its nature || the pure potentials of the universe; and the actual entities differ from each other in their realization of potentials” (PR 149). 35 James Bradley. “The Speculative Generalization of the Function: A Key to Whitehead.” Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 64 (2002) 253-271.

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presupposes the existence of past actual entities: the objective datum. And the process of concrescence terminates in the creation of a novel entity with a definite form at the moment of satisfaction. The question is, from where does this definite form come? Or what actuality is responsible for this form, because nothing less than an actual entity can be a ‘reason’ in the metaphysics of Whitehead, in virtue of the ontological principle. It presupposes the existence of another kind of entity or a “form of definiteness” is presupposed in this process or creative activity. “... the actualities constituting the process of the world are conceived as exemplifying the ingression (or ‘participation’) of other things which constitute the potentialities of definiteness for any actual existence. The things that are temporal arise by their participation in the things which are eternal” (PR 40). Still we have not answered the question we raised above: why are eternal objects necessary? The ontological necessity of eternal objects is intimately related to the ontological principle (demand) of Whitehead. Certainly this demands further justification. The ontological theory demands “no actual entity, no reason.” Thus, it is clear that nothing can serve as a metaphysical reason for anything unless it has its reason for existence in itself or in some other actuality. “Everything must be somewhere; and here somewhere means some actual entity. Accordingly the general potentiality of the universe must be somewhere; since it retains its proximate relevance to actual entities for which it is unrealized” (PR 46). This means that even the complex inter-relatedness of eternal objects gets meaning only when it is associated/referred to some actualities. It is a demand of the ontological principle. As we cannot understand the existence of particular eternal objects without reference to some actuality, a systematic understanding of the ‘realm’ of eternal objects demands a reference to some actuality. The reason is that no temporal entities can serve as the ground for eternal objects. From this context only Whitehead resorts to eternal objects. It is some “form of definiteness” that is realised by the novel entity constituted by concrescence. It is the ‘eternal objects’ that supply this “form of definiteness.” The argument is that if everything is consequent upon a process of becoming and united to each other how do we account for novelty? Thus, eternal objects are a logical necessity to answer two fundamental concepts, namely novelty and actual-ideal relation. The question of novelty is a serious problem in the metaphysical investigation of Whitehead. It is not restricted to human experience alone. It extends to the most “infinitesimal level of universe studied by atomic physicists” (Hosinski 81). If we say that the past determines everything, nothing new ever could come into existence. It should be admitted that there is endurance of forms but at the same time we see emergence of new forms. These are undeniable facts. How does diversity of forms arise? How is it

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possible that new forms emerge into universe? This urge towards novelty can be observed in every form of life irrespective of higher or lower organism. In fact the art of life is first to be alive, secondly to be alive in a satisfactory way, and thirdly to acquire an increase in satisfaction (FR 8). We won’t pursue further the question of novelty here but will take up again as we deal with creativity.

2.4.2 The Complimentarity of the Actual and the Eternal Whitehead maintains that “[t]he things which are temporal arise by their participation in the things which are eternal” (PR 40). The “understanding of actuality requires a reference to ideality” (PR 40). However, the “two realms are intrinsically inherent in the total metaphysical situation” (SMW 158). These statements demand further clarification. The two are at the service of each other. On the one hand, eternal object needs the actual entity to manifest itself and, on the other, the actual entity receives its forms of definiteness from the eternal object. Nevertheless, one cannot identify the two. Therefore, our primary focus here is to elucidate the difference between actual entities and eternal objects. The fundamental nature of the actual entity is becoming, while it is not the same for eternal objects. They are not in the process of becoming. “The eternal objects are the same for all actual entities” (PR 23) and there are “no novel eternal objects” (PR 22). Neither do eternal objects come into being. They are eternal by their nature. They come into being only in the sense that they determine the definiteness of actual entities by ingression; they assume concrete actuality in the process of concrescence. In his Function of Reason Whitehead maintains that “these forms of definiteness [eternal objects] are the Platonic forms, the Platonic ideas, the medieval universals” (FR 32). Nevertheless, in no way are Platonic Ideas and eternal objects the same. The Platonic Ideas serve as the foundation for all that is temporal in the actual world. Whitehead’s eternal objects correspond to them in the sense that eternal objects are abstractions, infinite potentialities given out in nature. However, the Platonic Ideas are self-sustaining, completely real, and certain, while eternal objects have no existence of their own. They are not actualities; they are real but not actual; they are elements in the constitution of process. Independent of actuality eternal objects have no existence. There are various opinions regarding the source of eternal objects. We will see a few among them. One suggestion is that the primordial nature of God is the source of eternal objects. Franklin argues, “God’s primordial nature actually fulfills two cosmic functions. First, it is the source of the novelty that emerges in history, both in natural history and in social history. Second, since creativity

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requires form (eternal objects) before it can function as the esse, as the beinghere of any actual entity, the primordial nature also functions as creativity’s ‘first limitation’” (254). It is noted that the eternal objects are organised in God on two distinct levels. The first is the most abstract: the collection of all eternal objects in the divine primordial nature. The second is an additional level of ordering in the sense that God has an appetition towards a certain combination of eternal objects (the good) and an aversion to other (the evil). This appetition and aversion which originates from God’s subjective aim produces this additional level of ordering of possibilities (Franklin 296, n14). Our discussion on the source of eternal objects does not give us any definite answer in this regard. Therefore, it is difficult to say anything conclusively now. Nevertheless, God’s role in it cannot be discarded, which we will discuss further in the fourth chapter. What can be conclusively said is that whatever be the source it should be something actual in accordance with the ontological principle and for the coherence of the system. In the previous and in the present chapter we tried to bring out the shift of emphasis from becoming to being and again to becoming in the understanding of reality, from a Whiteheadian perspective. However, we have not yet explicated the process of becoming itself or precisely what is the principle behind this becoming. That is the task we undertake in the next chapter.

3 Creativity: The Raison d’être of Becoming Every metaphysical system has an ultimate as its basis on which the whole structure is built up. Whitehead is unambiguous in showing that in his system creativity is the ultimate (PR 7). “Creativity” is the central principle of the metaphysics of becoming. Nevertheless, it has been commented that today ‘creativity’ is ‘among those words that are most abused in being most used’ (Desmond 1999, 25).1 This naturally calls our attention to explore what Whitehead means by the ultimacy of “creativity.” In contrast to the wisdom of the past in Whitehead the “category of the ultimate” consists of creativity, one and many. In analyzing the complexities of creativity, it has to be kept in mind that Whitehead himself did not devote a chapter nor give an extensive treatment of it. Perhaps, the most significant and well-focused discussion of creativity comes in the second chapter of Part One in PR, entitled “The Category of the Ultimate.”2

3.1 The Distinctive Features of Creativity One of the best ways to start our discussion on creativity might be to ask the question ‘why’. Why was it that Whitehead found the category of creativity necessary? Whitehead was fascinated by the concept of becoming; the reality of flux and permanence and the creative advance observed in nature. Whitehead writes, “the flux of things is one ultimate generalization around which we must weave our philosophical system” (PR 208). The exemplification of the “becoming” character of realities is the main thrust of the philosophy of organism. Creativity gets primacy in the process of becoming: “Neither God, nor the world, reaches static completion. Both are in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative advance into novelty” (PR 349). Thus, the ultimate concern of Whitehead was to account for this process character and creative advance of nature. If the creative advance is true certainly there needs to be a principle accounting for it. Actual entities and eternal objects cannot account for a complete metaphysics, especially a metaphysics of the Whiteheadian sort, for they can only account for statuses. What is demanded is a dynamic principle that

|| 1 William Desmond. “Hyperbolic Thought: On Creation and Nothing.” André Cloots & Santiago Sia (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 23-43. 2 It is suggested that it could have been one of the last sections of PR to have been written (Ford 1984, 240).

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can account for the creative advance or process in nature. Without such a principle the Whiteheadian system is as incoherent as the Cartesian, which made an arbitrary disconnection of mind and matter and which failed to offer any cogent interpretation of the reality one experiences (Kraus 36). Creativity is the principal category of Whitehead that helps one to understand why there is a creative advance and the creative advance of nature finds its most perfect expression in the concept of creativity. Moreover, in Whitehead’s system there are a plurality of actualities and an inexhaustible number of possibilities; there is an infinite multiplicity of eternal objects awaiting actualization. Thus, on account of the innumerable possibilities with primordial appetition for actualisation there is a demand for another principle of dynamism which Whitehead identifies as creativity. In this respect Christian’s description of creativity as the “unending production of novel actualities by a radical self-causation” makes more sense (1959, 278). It is on the same ground that creativity is suggested as self-creative activity of an occasion, a modal individualisation of this substantial activity (Kraus 36). The complex phenomena of being and becoming and the ‘many’ becoming ‘one’ can be explained further and be accounted for only in and through a principle like that of creativity.

3.1.1 The Emergence of the Concept Creativity Whitehead has made use of different terms to denote the principle of creativity. This fact also points to the different stages that this principle has undergone in its formulation. In his early works, especially in the Concept of Nature (1920), Whitehead uses the term ‘passage of nature’ to describe this “creativity.”3 One could have a direct connection between creativity and Whitehead’s phrase ‘the || 3 According to Fetz, for a clear understanding of Creativity one has to distinguish it from some of the historical connotations attributable to it. i) Creativity has to be distinguished from the concepts of physics or philosophy of nature. Rather, it has to be understood purely as a metaphysical notion; ii) it has to be relieved of the Greek influence, either of Plato or of Aristotle, notwithstanding Whitehead’s frequent references to them in his works, for the concept ‘creare’ (to create) has nothing to do with Greek metaphysics, on the contrary, in its background it has clearly the Christian metaphysics of creation; and iii) one has to discern the novelty attached to the medieval concept of creation by Whitehead, for only the concept of “creatureliness” was attached to it in the medieval period. The concept of “creativity” is a modern concept with strong anthropological connotations. In the Whiteheadian system, creativity and creatureliness are used with novel emphasis, i.e., anthropological connotation is transformed into a universal metaphysical one (Fetz 1990, 189-90).

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passage of nature’. To have a clear understanding of the passage of nature with active properties, one has to understand it in the light of both concrescence and transition. Only then can one understand the passage of nature in the sense of the creative advance into novelty. It would also give further meaning and intelligibility to Whitehead’s statement that “the passage of nature is only another name for the creative force of existence” (CN 73). Creativity deals primarily and basically with the passage of nature or creative advance. The reason is that in the Whiteheadian sense, both historically and metaphysically, creativity is situated in the context of on-goingness. The function of creativity with regard to “novelty, freedom, spontaneity are secondary vis-à-vis ongoingness” (Cloots 2001, 38). Creativity expresses the on-goingness of the universe by being the activity driving the universe forward. Actual entities are both self-creative and other-creative. This is the reason for Whitehead’s description that every “new fact” is an “Appearance woven out of the old and the new” which further exemplifies “a compound of reception and anticipation” (AI 275). Coming to Science and the Modern World (1925) one sees that here Whitehead uses the terms “underlying activity” or “substantial activity” to denote the dynamic principle within actualities. The latter term (substantial activity) explicates the nature of creativity better in the sense that the primordial activity cannot be characterised, as in the case of the primary substance. On the contrary, it serves as the source of all characterisations. All characterisations, realisations, and all individualisations are nothing but its modal manifestations. Thus, the multiplicity of realised individuals and eternal objects are its attributes which make realised individuality possible (Kraus 36). Whitehead’s position receives a clear shift in Process and Reality (1929). Here creativity is described secondary to actual entities in its reality. Creativity does not have any ultimate or eminent reality in comparison to actuality (Garland 361). Whitehead has developed his principle of creativity in its most elaborated form in PR where he uses the term creativity proper to point to the dynamic activity. In Adventures of Ideas (1933) creativity is represented also by the “factor of activity” in the origin of new creation (AI 179). Here again, Whitehead speaks of creativity’s role as contributing to the on-goingness of the universe. He says that actual occasions are said to emerge from an “initial situation” which includes a factor of activity which is the reason for the origin of that occasion. The “factor of activity” is creativity, and because of it, the situation out of which an actual occasion emerges is “active with its inherent activity” (AI 179). Thus, creativity “drives the world” (AI 179). It is the “throbbing emotion of the past hurling itself into a new transcendent fact” (AI 177). Thus, one can observe that the emergence of the category of creativity has passed through different stages.

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3.1.2 Creativity: The Pure Notion of the Activity The ultimate is traditionally characterised by unconditional existence. In other words, the ultimate is not relative to anything else. Therefore, our first concern is to apply this criterion to creativity. Whitehead’s own presentation of creativity as ultimate made explicit that creativity is actual only by virtue of its accidents. It does not have an independent existence apart from the accidents. We experience it only as part of something actually existing. Moreover, by creativity Whitehead does not mean “some stuff, reality, substratum, entity, from which actual entities emerge by a process of individualization (Johnson 1983, 10). Creativity is characterized as universal in the sense that creativity itself is not something actual. It is the very “protean” character of creativity, since it lacks determinateness, which prevents us from regarding it as an actual entity (Hintz 1955, 227). It is the pure notion of the activity (PR 42). It is clear that Whitehead’s notion of creativity does not accomplish the conditions classically set to name something as ultimate. On the contrary, it is a character or property of entities or actualities.4 “Creativity, as Whitehead conceives it, is an ultimate concept incapable of expository definition. It is the pure notion of activity, in abstraction from all the determinate formal characters of creative action” (Hammerschmidt 1947, 16).5 Whitehead’s statement that ‘creativity is conditioned by its creatures’ (PR 20) also points to the fact that creativity can only take place as the activity of the actual entities. Creativity is that which makes the process of the world possible. Temporal entities are called its ‘creatures’, but not in the sense that it is something temporally prior to the entities and that it produces them. However, its combination with the notions of ‘one’ and ‘many’ in the process of actualising new entities out of the many extant actualities/possibilities points to its unique role in actuality. Thus, two facts demand further justification here: the production of the new actualities, where we are primarily concerned with the limitation of boundless creativity, and the relation it maintains with “one and many.” How can creativity which is boundless, abstract and limitless, contribute to realities which are concrete, limited and bound? Creativity so characterised can form nothing without limitation. Creativity needs not only limitation but also the basis of the antecedent ground. The reason is that it is the antecedent || 4 Cobb describes creativity not as an abstraction in the sense that it is actual in its individual instance (210). However, Reeves observes that such a designation is confusing while creativity in itself is abstract. 5 William W. Hammerschmidt. Whitehead’s Philosophy of Time. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1947.

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ground by virtue of which the ingression of the ‘eternal objects’ into the definite process of the temporal world becomes possible. “The limitation and the basis arising from what is already actual, are both of them necessary and interconnected” (RM 137). Furthermore, it is stated, “there is required a principle of limitation. Some particular ‘how’ is necessary, and some particularisation in the ‘what’ of matter of fact is necessary ... we must provide a ground for limitation which stands among the attributes of the substantial activity. This attribute provides the limitation for which no reason can be given for all reasons flow from it” (SMW 160). Therefore, it is clear that creativity is behind the activity of the formation of a concrete actuality on the basis of the antecedent ground and in co-operation with the principle of limitation. The question here concerns the principle of limitation. What is the ultimate limitation of creativity itself? Nonetheless, we have to postpone its discussion to the next chapter.

3.1.3 Creativity: A Meta-theoretical Concept Creativity as the “category of the ultimate” comprises one and many. Therefore, it naturally raises the question of creativity’s relation to them. How are we to understand their relation? It is observed that the “category of the ultimate” is the most suitable context for an articulation of the principle of creativity. Neither is derived (one and many or creativity) from the other, but each is necessary to understand the other (Franklin 246). Creativity is a meta-theoretical concept. The Category of the Ultimate includes not only creativity but also “one and many” that explicate the transcendental characterisation of creativity, namely a characterisation not of its content but of its fundamental structure. The intrinsic relation creativity maintains with “one and many” elucidates its ongoing activity of unification (Cloots 2001, 43).6 Creativity is the reference point to resolve the problem of perplexity created by the constant flux and permanence of the universe. Whitehead’s conjunction of creativity with the notions of “one and many” within the category of the ultimate implies that there is a process involved by which new syntheses are being formed continually. Furthermore, if the formation of the syntheses is very strong and ordered one can no more describe it with the notion of event, but it

|| 6 André Cloots. “The Metaphysical Significance of Whitehead’s Creativity.” Process Studies 30 (2001) 36-54.

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should give way to ‘organism’ (Emmet 62).7 One and many are elucidations of creativity. In itself creativity can take many forms, but in Whitehead’s system it always takes the form of one and many. Creativity is the unifying principle of the many antecedent grounds. Whitehead makes use of the category of the ultimate to explain the universal process that is characteristic of reality, by which a disjunctive combination of many beings is formed into a new unity. In the philosophy of organism, the atomistic view of a merely mechanical aggregation of parts is replaced by the principle of universal relatedness and reciprocal prehension of all real occasions, factors that are expressed in the concrete elements of ‘actual entity’, ‘prehension’, and ‘nexus’ (PR 18-19).8 The Category of the Ultimate “is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion which is the universe conjunctively” (PR 21). It is one and many which give meaning to creativity (AI 177). Whitehead ascribes to the ontological creation the unification of one and many and that which makes one and many possible to the principle of creativity (Neville 1969, 387). According to Graham, the category of the ultimate “proclaims the ultimacy of the condition of concrete experience by the ontological principle.” It declares the ultimacy of three concepts, the one, the many and the creativity. They can be said to correspond to the ultimate principles, which Whitehead explains in “The Categories of Explanation” (PR 22-26), namely to the ontological principle (CE 18), to the principle of relativity (CE 4), and to the principle of process (CE 9), respectively. Furthermore, the principle of creativity denotes the “process of advance from an unordered state of affairs to a unique occasion of togetherness. Many disjoined entities become one new actual entity, distinct from the many it unifies (Graham 110).9 Again, the principle of process involves the interrelation of the ontological principle and the principle of relativity. It is related to the ontological principle by virtue of an actuality’s ‘being’ as ‘one’ and it is related to the principle of relativity by virtue of an actuality’s ‘becoming’ an individual unity by the concrescence of the many. The following citation adequately explains the interrelation of the category of the ultimate. “Two descriptions are required for an actual entity: (a) one which is analytical of its potentiality for ‘objectification’ in the || 7 One can observe such a transition in Science and the Modern World. Here, though the word creativity itself does not appear, it is implied by the notion ‘substantial activity’. 8 By this Whitehead wants to replace the traditional concept of substance and overcome the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. 9 Archie Graham. “Metaphysical Principles and the Category of the Ultimate.” Process Studies 7 (1977) 108-111.

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becoming of other actual entities, and (b) another which is analytical of the process which constitutes its own becoming” (PR 23). Moreover, “the actual world is a process, and that the process is the becoming of actual entities” (PR 22). The inter-dependent functioning is important for the whole of Whitehead’s philosophy in the sense that he wants to overcome both Spinoza and Leibniz or the philosophy of his own contemporaries, namely, the absolute monism of F. H. Bradley and the radical pluralism of Bertrand Russell. The “reality is a continuing realisation through individual occasions which, each in its own way, bring the given data into a new unity” (Cloots 1978, 2). Creativity being the category of the ultimate par excellence is “accountable” both for concrescence and transition. “The fundamental inescapable fact is the creativity in virtue of which there can be no ‘many things’ which are not subordinated in a concrete unity” (PR 211). In the light of these facts concrescence and transition are to be understood in the sense of the dual dimensions of creativity.

3.2 Creativity: the Metaphysical Ultimate in Whitehead Every philosophical system needs an ultimate as the final reference point in its foundation and thus to avoid infinite regress. In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterisation through its accidental embodiments and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed ‘creativity’ (PR 7).

The ultimate is that without which one cannot think anything at all. No creativity means no reality. What one cannot think away is creativity. Creativity is described as the most general characteristic feature that all actualities have in common. In the categoreal scheme it is described as the “universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact” (PR 21). Here “characterising” means that whatever we may say about an actual occasion, it is an exemplification of an instance of creativity. Moreover, it means that the category of the ultimate is the final and the most basic context for our understanding of any actual entity (Franklin 249).10 The category of the ultimate as the uni-

|| 10 Here it is possible that Franklin is reacting to A. H. Johnson who interprets creativity as an eternal object, or an idea. Moreover, for Johnson, creativity has its matrix in the primordial nature of God (Franklin 1962, 70).

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versal of universals means that there can be nothing “responsible” for it (Neville 1995, 44). In the light of the indispensable role that creativity plays Hartshorne claims that the gist of Whitehead’s philosophy is better conveyed when it is delineated as a philosophy of “creativity” than as a philosophy of organism (1961, 27). Creativity is the ultimate in the sense that without creativity there is no reality at all. This points to the complexity as well as the primordial role that creativity plays in the metaphysical system. At the same time, it recalls also the limitation it bears as the Ultimate of the system, that it alone cannot account for the “complete fact”, but is in need of another principle, namely God. Creativity is the dynamic principle which is active in the self-creative process of an actual occasion. Creativity is beyond all temporal determinations and characterisations, being foundational to the metaphysical system. “It is the activity at the heart of all activities, the becoming latent in all becomings; uncreated, because it is no-thing, creating all things out of its dynamic formlessness; refracting itself endlessly into individual creative activities, formal possibilities, and determinate creatures” (Kraus 37). In the light of this Kraus has suggested that creativity can be compared to the ‘One’ of Plotinus. Nevertheless, such a comparison will have its own negative impact as well. To make a comparison with creativity and the “One” of Plotinus would mean that creativity is something actual, which would go against Whitehead’s view that creativity has no actuality apart from its accidents. Van der Veken maintains that the ultimacy of creativity consists in its nature as the ultimate clarifying and descriptive principle and not as the ground or reason in the literal sense of these words (1990, 186 n9).11 Van der Veken brings out the ultimacy of creativity by denouncing any outside cause for creativity. For him, the idea that creativity should have a cause besides creativity itself is absurd (1990, 183). This strong claim of Van der Veken seems to point out the absolute independence of creativity and its ultimacy in the metaphysical system of Whitehead. However here emerges another problem. Can creativity be its own reason? On account of the ontological principle nothing that is not actual can be a reason in the Whiteheadian metaphysics.12

|| 11 Jan Van der Veken. “Creativity as Universal Activity.” (1990) 178-188. 12 We will take up this issue again in Part Three of this work.

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3.3 Different Interpretations of Creativity Having discussed the distinctive features of the category of creativity and the ultimacy it has in Whitehead’s metaphysics we can safely enter into the elucidation of the different interpretations it has given rise to by virtue of its complexity.

3.3.1 Creativity: The Self-Caused Subjective Feeling Whitehead’s understanding of creativity as the ultimate points out two facts: a) it means that any entity is not derivative of something else, whether God or otherwise, in the sense of derived from completely. On the contrary, there is an underived element in every actuality. In this sense, every actual entity is, to a certain degree, self-creative or causa sui. b) it is a primordial derivative and viewed in this perspective every actuality is in some sense novel. This novelty arises from its capacity to be self-creative. It would further mean that every actuality is an instance of this creativity (Christian 1959, 70).13 Taking into account the aforesaid factors, Christian argues that it would be possible to describe creativity with the alternative “originality”, with the full implications of the word. His claim is that the essential identity of each and every actual entity is its self-caused subjective feeling. Creativity is nothing but this self-caused subjective feeling. In this sense creativity exists in each separate actual entity as individual self-creativity, where each instance of self-creativity is ontologically diverse from every other. Moreover, from the fact that creative activity is the most general and common characteristic of every actuality creativity is designated as merely “the name for a general fact” that the world consists of selfcreative actual entities and is internally free (Christian 1959, 403). The interpretation of Christian exemplifies certain remarkable facts that have great bearing on the metaphysics of Whitehead. Christian’s interpretation of the meaning of the ultimate (creativity) in the sense of ‘the underived’ makes more sense in the light of even a theistic understanding. Here creativity is taken to be the chief characteristic of every actuality. It is not itself actuality nor the || 13 William Christian. “The Concept God as a Derivative Notion.” Process and Divinity-The Hartshorne Festschrift (ed.). William L. Reese and Eugene Freeman. Lasalle: Ill. (1964) 182-184. This claim Christian makes for the first time in his “Some Uses of Reason.” The Relevance of Whitehead (ed.). Ivor Leclerc. (1961) 80 ff. Also “Whitehead’s Explanation of the Past.” Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His Philosophy (ed.). George L. Kline. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs (1963) 97 ff.

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ultimate reality. On the contrary, it is the ultimate characteristic of the supreme reality. In this respect the understanding of God as the ‘first instance of creativity’ also is better clarified, as it is God’s nature to be “creative.” The remark Johnson makes in this regard is really revealing that by pointing to God as a creature Whitehead means nothing other than “God is the creature or outcome of his own self-directed process of self-creation” (1962, 70). However, Christian’s interpretation of actuality in the light of creativity as causa sui is questionable. This has had great import on the relationship between creativity and God, which we will discuss in the third part of this work. The fundamental difficulty with this interpretation of Christian is that it does not take into account the questions it was designed to answer, namely the question of novelty and process. Christian’s view fails to pay adequate attention to Whitehead’s principle of creativity and its two different exemplifications, namely self-creation (PR 84) and “other creation” (AI 248; Garland 1992, 364). Creativity embodies that “novel intuition” (Hartshorne 1963, 18-26) which lies at the centre of Whitehead’s process philosophy. This idea is well expressed by Whitehead in Religion in the Making: “The creativity for a creature (actual entity) becomes the creativity with the creature (actual entity), and thereby passes into another phase of itself. It is now the creativity for a new creature (actual entity)” (Garland 1992, 364). This would mean that creativity is not something later added to an actuality or something that comes from outside, but rather would again raise the possibility of perceiving creativity as intrinsic to every actuality. Christian has made some original contribution to the interpretation of creativity. Nevertheless, the problem with Christian’s interpretation of creativity is that here creativity is reduced to a mere “characteristic” of actual entities.

3.3.2 Creativity: Monistic or Pluralistic? The category of the ultimate has often been interpreted as a pluralistic concept in the sense that it does not have an independent existence apart from the plurality of actualities in virtue of which it is actualized. Wilcox pursues a different line in his interpretation of creativity, specifically a monistic one. Wilcox has made rather a detailed study in this regard in his article “A Monistic Interpretation of Whitehead’s Creativity.”14 Things become more complex when one learns that Whitehead himself has categorically denied a monistic interpretation of

|| 14 Moxley maintains that “Whitehead’s insistence that many become one drives him to speak as though the many are one even while he insists that actuality is incurably atomic” (170).

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creativity. He writes in PR that “the philosophy of organism is pluralistic in contrast with Spinoza’s monism” (73-74). It is given that pluralities of actual entities are “the final real things of which the world is made up” and there is “no going beyond actual entities to find anything more real” (PR 18). Then the question is, how are we to understand the claim of Wilcox? According to Wilcox, a monistic interpretation of creativity can only save Whitehead’s philosophy of creativity from inconsistency. Creativity is pure activity and its role with regard to change is to drive it, as different from Aristotelian prime matter, which by virtue of its existence as ‘underlying something’ undertakes a change in forms. If one accepts a pluralistic understanding of creativity it has to be accepted that creativity perishes with each actual entity. The reason is that in the genetic analysis of an actual entity it was made clear that an “actual entity comes into existence, passes through a series of phases and then perishes.” In this sense, creativity being the principle of the individual identity of actuality, perishes with each actuality. Under a pluralistic interpretation, creativity has no status apart from the actual entities. Then the question is, if creativity perishes, how does the process of the next set of actuality take place? Then what will be the driving force, for no more creativity is left? How can something give rise to another thing when it has no existence apart from the thing it wants to create or arouse? Thus, if creativity is to drive the universe one has to accept that there must be some sense in which creativity precedes the plurality (Wilcox 164). Furthermore, it is argued that one cannot find any reason as to “why this creativity continues to spring forth endlessly and inexhaustibly, all over the universe, from no actually existing source” (1980, 9-44). Nevertheless, Wilcox’s arguments cannot be taken at face value. One of the problems with the monistic interpretation of creativity is that one cannot argue for a monistic interpretation from the basis of the perishing, for it does not mean dying out. It only means transition. “The becoming of an actual entity and its being are analytically distinguishable but inseparable in fact: they constitute two conditions of one process which is the actual entity. The concrescence is its attainment of individual unity, and the perishing is its acquisition of objective status as an available datum for inclusion in other actualities” (Graham 110). The objective immortality of creatures means that each creature becomes the cause of the origination of another (actual entity). This “shifting character of creativity” is the ‘objective immortality’ of every actuality. Furthermore, the autonomy of each actuality is in danger in this respect. A monistic creativity is ontologically one as the same reality existing dynamically, and its plurality is the differentiated stages or episodes that fall out along the way as marking creativity’s dynamic driving progression. Thus, the notion that creativity is a creative ac-

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tivity of process elucidates how the one creativity and the many stages or episodes belong to each other. The monistic creativity and the plurality of stages or episodes are inextricably connected in that the monistic creativity is a creative activity of process and as such requires pluralistic differentiation. The plurality are the creatures or the offshoots of the one, while the one is the active creativity of the offshoots (Wilcox 168).

In such an interpretation one has to admit that creativity is somehow an ultimate reality from which the actual entities receive their creativity. Here creativity would assume a status of reality of realities which would go against Whitehead’s own metaphysics. For Whitehead each actuality is complete in itself albeit it is related to all by virtue of the principle of relativity. Thus, it can be said that a monistic interpretation of creativity invites more problems that it solves, from a Whiteheadian point of view.

3.3.3 Creativity as Eternal Object A. H. Johnson, one of the first interpreters and a student of Whitehead himself, by pointing to the universal character of creativity interprets it as an idea, i.e., as an eternal object, which expresses itself in the concrete actual entity. “Thus in Whitehead’s broadly Platonic language, creativity is an Idea (eternal object) which is exemplified in particular actualities.” Creativity has its origin in the primordial nature of God himself, creating itself (Johnson 1962, 70; 1945, 23795). Here creativity is an eternal object realized in the creative process of actualizing the constitution of a novel actual entity. In this sense, creativity does not have any ultimate reality above God or any other actuality (Johnson 1958, 82). In one’s search to find out the reason for Johnson’s insistence that creativity is an eternal object we have to dig out his insight that there is no going beyond actual entities to reach something more real (Johnson 1945, 234-49). It is also rewarding to see how Johnson denies the attempt of some of the Whitehead scholars to assign primacy to creativity.15 To substantiate his claim Johnson quotes Whitehead himself where he states: “the general activity is not an entity in the sense, in which occasions and eternal objects are entities” (SMW 177). In what sense does Johnson say that creativity is an eternal object? Johnson’s claim can be refuted from the point of Whitehead himself. In the Categoreal scheme Whitehead asserts that creativity is Ultimate and thus presupposed in

|| 15 David Bidney, The Philosophical Review XLV (1936) 583; Dorothy Emmet. Philosophy of Organism (73); N. P. Stallknecht. Studies in the Philosophy of Creation (130); Paul Weiss. Reality (207); Stokes (314-315).

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all the more special categories including the categories of existence. Then the question is, how can it belong to a category in which it is presupposed? (Stokes 315) Again, according to Whitehead, there are three formative elements in the constitution of an actual entity: Creativity, God, and the eternal objects. This makes explicitly clear that Whitehead assigns a status separate from eternal objects and God to creativity. By identifying creativity with an eternal object Johnson undermines the ultimacy Whitehead assigns to creativity in his metaphysical system. “Creativity is the ultimate behind all forms, inexplicable by forms, and conditioned by its creatures” (PR 20). Creativity is radically irreducible to eternal objects in the sense that creativity is beyond all rational forms and it is impossible to reduce it to a rational element in the Whiteheadian scheme.

3.3.4 Creativity as Future Becoming Ford maintains that the system of Whitehead has to be modified and he interprets present creativity with future becoming. For Ford, the actual entities of the past cannot be the source of creativity for they have perished. Neither can it originate from the present actualities since their emergence is the very thing that is to be explained. He raises the question, then why not say present creativity comes from the future? He makes a distinction between “the order of being”, which is settled and determinate, and “the order of becoming”, which is forward moving and open ended. In identifying creativity with the future, Ford speaks in terms of the ‘order of becoming’. For him, the future is “not what will be, but what might be” (Ford 1987, 179). In the order of being, the past is earlier and the future is later. On the contrary, in the order of becoming the order is reverse, the future is earlier and past is later. Ford suggests that if the future is creativity, then there is creativity “earlier than” or before the present. The present determination is made possible because the undetermined future laid out before the present gives an openness within which to operate. This undetermined region can be understood as the “novel possibility” which if realized in the present is “received from the future” (Ford 1987, 193). Thus, the future creativity as flowing out to the present as the present becomes determinate. In this perspective creativity is “bequeathed to the present by a retreating future” (Ford 1987, 195).16

|| 16 According to Ford, “creativity has been likened to Thomas Aquinas’ esse-ipsum and Paul Tillich’s being-itself in terms of its intrinsic dynamism, its all pervasiveness, its analogical embodiments, and its power to create and sustain actualities in being” (Ford 311).

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Before proceeding further we have to see an implication of Ford’s interpretation. Ford assumes that creativity cannot come from the past because it has perished. Nonetheless, when one understands creativity as the chief characterisation of realities in the universe the view that creativity dies out with the perishing of an actual entity cannot, however, be accepted. For the perishing of actual entities does not mean their annihilation. Perishing only means a stage of transition from becoming to being; yet it further contributes to the future becoming of a new actuality in its capacity of objective immortality. In fact, in “perishing” the dynamism of creativity is most effective in Whitehead’s perspective. And it is by perishing that an actual entity contributes to “other-formation” by its own “self-formation” (AI 193). What is involved here is the objective immortality, which Whitehead qualifies as a “stubborn fact for the future” (AI 193); and by perishing “occasions pass from immediacy of being into the not being of immediacy” which nonetheless do not mean “nothing” but rather “they remain stubborn fact” (AI 237). It is in this sense that Whitehead qualifies the “perishing” as the physical side of the process (AI 275). Again, it is in virtue of “perishing” that the metaphysics of becoming implies that every new set of synthesis (concrescence) involves a “compound of reception and anticipation” (AI 275). Therefore, the notion of perishing has a very rich and profound meaning in the metaphysics of becoming. Moreover, it is not creativity itself that is passed on in the ‘transition’ but the objective datum. On the contrary, creativity is that which effects this transition; it is the principle behind the transition. Furthermore, if one accepts creativity as the innate nature of every actuality Ford’s question is irrelevant in the sense that every particular actuality is endowed with creativity. Therefore, a question of succession of creativity from the past actuality does not arise. Ford’s own statement that “creativity by itself is simply blind activity, supplying the drive but not the focus ... ” (Ford 1983, 332) seems to avow such a perspective. Moreover, even if we accept the view that creativity follows from a future source it does not solve the problem. “The present activity of finite occasions constitutes many pluralized modes of the creativity flowing from the one future source” (Ford 1987, 187). The “undetermined monistic creativity flowing from the future to the present becomes determinate and plural” (Wilcox 172). Here again the question remains as to the source of this ‘future creativity’. Furthermore, understanding creativity as originating from a future source seems to endorse a view that the source of creativity is something other in itself, which would further suggest that creativity itself is not what is ultimate but the source that supplies creativity is the real ultimate.

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3.4 Creativity: The Raison d’être of Becoming In the light of the exposition we have made of the metaphysics of becoming in general and his concept of creativity in particular I would in all probability suggest that in Whitehead’s system of thought creativity functions as the raison d’être of becoming. In the following few pages I attempt to explicate this. It has been shown already that creativity is the ultimate in Whitehead’s metaphysical system. And “the actual world is a process, and that the process is the becoming of actual entities” (PR 22). In the light of these two facts I suggest that creativity is the raison d’être of becoming. Here we have the conglomeration of the major features of creativity, such as the principle of creative advance, the organ of novelty, creativity as intrinsic, etc.

3.4.1 Creativity: the Innate Nature of Every Actuality Creativity which is innate to every actuality rests on two grounds: (i) creativity is intrinsic to every actuality as the “universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact” (PR 21); and (ii) on account of its being ultimate. How are we to account for it? We have referred to these two points already. Hence, the discussion here would only be a continuation of what we have already done. Whitehead divined creativity as the ultimate principle of his metaphysical system in order to account for the creative advance of the changing world. We also discussed that creativity is not something actual but the dynamic principle of something actual. Therefore, it can be argued that what is primary is not the characteristic itself but the being or actuality that bears this characteristic. Furthermore, the statement that “process and individuality require one another” (MT 97) also recalls that it should be something inborn to actualities. In other words, “[t]he notions of process and existence presuppose each other” (MT 96). This demands further justification. In the separation of process and individuality “all meaning evaporates. The form of process ... derives its character from the individuals involved, and the characters of the individuals can only be understood in terms of the process in which they are implicated” (MT 97). Furthermore, the two, being actual and being creative, cannot have independent existence. “Creativity is needed to bring entities into concrete existence, while entities are needed to give form and definiteness to the amorphous flux of creative activity. Moreover, we need both factors in our metaphysics in order to account for both the rational structure and the non-rational process that we find

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in experience” (Garland 375). Therefore, creativity cannot be something other to actuality (extraneous), rather it is intrinsic or innate. Creativity is the self-creative activity of every actuality of which the universe is made up. Creativity can be considered a permanent principle of the universe, similar to the way Aristotle regarded matter to be a permanent principle. As something permanent, creativity endures the change from past to the present. “The activity comes to it from within as self-activating activity, causing temporal change. Thus, as something permanent, creativity itself does not suffer or undergo change, but as self-activating activity, it gives rise to change. Creativity in this sense maybe considered ‘pre-temporal’” (Wilcox 171). Moreover, creativity has to be intrinsic to every actuality. Only then could one reasonably explain the becoming of continuity, something Whitehead himself claims. If creativity is taken as something intrinsic it would clarify better Whitehead’s claim that it is the “universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact” (PR 21). Then it would necessarily follow that it is not something later added to an actuality. Moreover, the following descriptions, such as creativity is not an actuality but is the ultimate notion “involved in the meaning” (PR 21) of the term entity; creativity is the notion of “highest generality at the base of actuality” (PR 31); and all actual entities are “in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative advance into novelty” (PR 349), in a way substantiate the view that creativity is intrinsic to every actuality. Whitehead’s statement in Science and the Modern World makes it clear that he is looking for the ultimate explanations in the things themselves. “We have to search whether nature does not in its very being show itself as selfexplanatory. By this, I mean that the sheer statement of what things are may contain elements explanatory of why things are” (SMW 92). This statement of Whitehead explicates further how one understands creativity itself. “It is not an eminent reality, but the deepest nature of reality itself, that which has no further explanation. Creativity is the last element that can be invoked, an element of pure givenness that manifests itself, the aspect of “necessity” of which Plato talks in the Timaeus (Cloots 1978, 3-4; PR 42). Moreover, Whitehead is said to have admitted the use of the term ‘essence’ to denote creativity (Johnson 1983, 11). If ‘creativity’ is equal to ‘essence’, then it is the essence of reality. Therefore, we understand creativity as the “general metaphysical character which underlies all occasions” (SMW 177). In this sense there may be nothing wrong in conceiving creativity as the innate nature of actuality as such. Finally, creativity has to be intrinsic to every actuality if it is to serve as the raison d’être of becoming.

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3.4.2 Creativity: the Principle of Creative Advance Coming to the second point it can be said that creativity is the most fundamental principle in Whitehead’s speculative cosmology which expresses both the processes of becoming, the most basic characteristics of all events in the Whiteheadian view. Creativity is the ultimate feature of actuality and is explicative of ‘creative advance’ that nature manifests. Whitehead defines the philosophy of organism in terms of the creative advance. The philosophy of organism “is the doctrine that the creative advance of the world is the becoming, the perishing, and the objective immortalities of those things which jointly constitute stubborn fact” (PR xiv). Creativity is expressed in its best form and is recognizable in the best way as the creative advance in nature. The outcome of this creative advance of nature is what accounts for novelty in the universe. Though the two are inseparable for the convenience of understanding we will delineate them in two sections. First we look into the notion “creative advance”. It is true that the creative process of the universe consists of the individual epochal units of activity but they are not isolated activities, rather there exists correlative intrinsic connection between actualities. In other words, the creative advance is the result of the merging of earlier actualities into the later. That is why Whitehead states that “the creative process is thus to be discerned in that transition by which one occasion, already actual, enters into the birth of another instance of experienced value” (MT 99). In other words, the creative advance is highly complex in Whitehead. This is also in virtue of the principle of relativity. Thus, Whitehead states, “the whole world conspires to produce a new creation” (RM 99).17 Each actual entity inherits from its antecedent actualities and contributes to the future processes of concrescence. In the philosophy of organism “the creative action is the universe always becoming one in a particular unity of self-experience, and thereby adding to the multiplicity which is the universe as many. This insistent concrescence into unity is the outcome of the ultimate self-identity of each entity” (PR 57). Creativity is not just something related to spontaneity or togetherness, but it is primarily “the creative force of existence” (CN 73). The creative advance is the process by which […] the actualised data presented by the antecedent world, the nonactualised potentialities which lie ready to promote their fusion into a new unity

|| 17 A. N. Whitehead. Religion in the Making [1926]. New York: World Publishing, 1960.

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of experience, and the immediacy of self-enjoyment which belongs to the creative fusion of those data with those potentialities (NL 27).18 Creativity can be considered as the ultimate in the sense that it is the dynamic principle immanent in all actuality. Thus, Cloots argues that by creativity Whitehead wants to explicate especially two things: namely the ongoingness of the world and the solidarity of it, or in one word, ‘the ongoing history of the one Universe’ (AI 192; Cloots 1990, 186 n9). The term “ongoingness” is used as a synonym for creative advance. The question is, in what sense creativity ‘effects’ this ongoingness or creative advance? Creativity manifests the “general interconnectedness of things, which transforms the manifoldness of the many into the unity of the one” (AI 150). […] creativity itself is finally the reason why there are actual entities, why again and again new actual entities arise, and why they are also connected with one another. Whitehead’s creativity must come to be understood as general or universal activity, and that means also that creativity really has to have done something in the sense of being active, if really accomplishing something (Van der Veken 1990, 181).

It is observed that “[t]he ‘creative advance’ is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation which it originates” (PR 21). Furthermore, while speaking about the superjective character Whitehead writes of “the creativity whereby there is a becoming of entities superseding the one in question” (PR 84). Creativity as the principle behind transition is constantly turning the product of one concrescence into a datum for the next one. Thus, the world of settled, determinate actual entities is always being transcended by new actual entities aiming at new satisfactions. “The creativity of the world is the throbbing emotion of the past hurling itself into a new transcendent fact. It is the flying dart, of which Lucretius speaks, hurled beyond the bounds of the world” (AI 177). What is involved here is the objective immortality of the perishing actuality. As soon as the process of concrescence achieves “satisfaction” which Whitehead explains as the “decisive moment” that stands between “its birth and its perishing” (AI 177) it contributes to the birth of a new actuality. Thus, “[t]he occasion arises from relevant objects, and perishes into the status of an object for other occasions” (AI 177). It is this process that contributes to the creative advance of the universe. Creativity understood either as the principle

|| 18 A. N. Whitehead. Nature and Life [1934]. New York: Greenwood, 1968. [Reprint in Modes of Thought: Lecture I as chapter VII entitled “Nature Lifeless”; Lecture II as chapter VIII entitled “Nature Alive”].

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behind the passage of nature or as the principle of creative advance, takes one inevitably to the question of the novelty in the world.

3.4.3 Creativity: the Principle of Novelty It can be claimed that creativity is the ultimate principle by which both novelty and unity in the universe can be explained.19 The creative energy of the universe is constantly bringing forth new actual entities which synthesise in their own experiences the many previous entities. “Creativity ... is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become one actual occasion ... the many enter into complex unity” (PR 21). As the principle of novelty, creativity serves as the ontological ground of the “production of novel togetherness” which Whitehead designates as “the ultimate notion embodied in the term ‘concrescence’” (PR 21).20 Creativity accounts for novelty in the world in its capacity as the principle of unification. “Creativity is always a particular way of bringing together the given multiplicity” (PR 21). Each actual occasion is a novel entity in the sense that it is diverse from any entity in the “many” which it unifies. Thus, ‘creativity’ introduces novelty into the content of the many, which are the universe disjunctively. All actualities are nothing but the embodiments of creativity. Therefore, it is creativity that is responsible for continued creation and evolution. In this sense I would say creativity is the raison d’être of becoming. The notion of creativity faithfully reflects the sense of the Latin verb creare, “to bring forth, beget, produce” (PR 213). For Whitehead, “the word creativity expresses the notion that each event is a process issuing in novelty. Also if guarded in the phrases immanent Creativity, or Self-Creativity, it avoids the implication of a transcendent Creator... . Still, it does convey the origination of novelty” (AI 236). It can be argued that creativity alone cannot account for novelty. “Novelty is not the product of creativity alone ... novelty rather finds its foundation in the definiteness of the forms and in their ontological basis, viz., the primordial nature of God” (Cloots 1978, 7). Whitehead himself clarifies it further: “God is the organ of novelty, aiming at intensification” (PR 225). Nonetheless, if one is truthful to Whitehead one can find texts for both views. Some of the texts in

|| 19 Although, for novelty and unity one needs not only creativity but also God in Whitehead. 20 In Adventures of Ideas Whitehead writes: “The initial situation includes a factor of activity which is the reason for the origin of that occasion of experience. This factor of activity is what I have called creativity.”

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Process and Reality, especially Process and Reality 40 and 225, which we have already cited, substantiate God’s role in providing novelty. In Adventures of Ideas Whitehead brings creativity and God closer together again through his new notion (borrowed from Plato) of the “Eros of the Universe.” Yet nowhere in Adventures of Ideas Whitehead claims that creativity alone would be sufficient for novelty. It is in this context that one has to place the contention that the notion of novelty is something Whitehead borrowed from the traditional understanding of creation. The originality of Whitehead is that he has transformed it with his concept of creativity. The traditional doctrine of creation is based on the notion of an external creator. On the contrary, in the Whiteheadian concept of creation the relation is an internal intrinsic relation, what he names as ‘immanent creativity’ or ‘self-creativity’ (Fetz 1990, 200).21 Pursuing a similar line of thought Rapp observes that in the Whiteheadian philosophy the role traditionally ascribed to God as a transcendent creator is replaced by the principle of creativity which is conceived as purely immanent. Creativity is the source of novelty and of the creative advance in the sense that it accounts for the concretion of actual entities that have not previously existed (Rapp 71).

|| 21 Reto Luzius Fetz. “Creativity: A New Transcendental?” Friedric Rapp and Reiner Wiehl (eds.). Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Creativity. New York: State University of New York Press (1990) 189-208. Fetz presents a commendable study on the traditional notion of creation (creatio ex nihilo) and the Whiteheadian concept of creation – the creative advance of nature. He traces the Thomistic roots of the traditional notion and finds that it is purely based on the Aristotelian physics, which understands natural events in their extension through time as essentially reproductive. Thomas accepted this notion and incorporated it into his metaphysics. One of the consequences of this understanding was that creation was from the very beginning complete. Therefore, what is necessary is to conserve what exists. Therefore, in Thomism creatio continua (continuous creation) is called conservatio (conservation). For Fetz, it is an exact parallel to the Aristotelian physics where “natural events are conceived as events of reproduction” (1990, 201-202). The difference between the two concepts is: Thomism aims at a radical novelty free from any presupposition, while in Whitehead novelty is not radical or absolute as in Thomas. It is a relative innovation which in its essence is not free from presuppositions. The point is, Whitehead’s notion of “creativity is based on an evolutionary, at the same time a nonreductionistic interpretation of nature, which also incorporates the implications of the anthropological use of the key term ‘creativity’ (Fetz 1990, 203). Thus it can be observed that what Whitehead is dealing with is not the very origin of the universe but the continuous creation of the universe. In Thomistic terms he is concerned with the (conservatio) conservation (but not in the sense of reproduction) of the universe. To put it differently, Whitehead’s concern is the continuity of the givenness, not givenness itself.

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As the central metaphysical concept I propose creativity as the raison d’être of becoming in the light of reality conceived as a process. For Whitehead the essence of the “completely real - is process” (AI 274); further he states that “no static maintenance of perfection is possible... . The pure conservative is fighting against the essence of the universe... . actuality as in its essence a process” (AI 274-275); and still further Whitehead adds that “[i]t is nonsense to conceive of Nature as a static fact” (NL 27). Creativity is the ultimate condition of this process. Creativity as the raison d’être of becoming is primarily concerned with creative advance and novelty. Thus, pointing to the ultimate nature of creativity, Whitehead writes that the Category of the Ultimate expresses the general principle presupposed in the three more special categories of existence, explanation and obligation (PR 21). This refers as well as to the truth that creativity supersedes the ontological principle which at best serves as the methodological rule governing the categories of explanation and obligation (Garland 369). The ultimacy of creativity is best expressed in the formation of the actual entities where we have the becoming of many into one and again one into many. Thus, it is maintained, the actual entities are creatures of creativity, but it does not mean that creativity is something temporally prior which produces the individual entities. It means that individual facts are its actualisation. We saw that the intricacy of understanding the notion has paved the way for multiple interpretations. Here the major question that arises is in relation to God. If creativity is the metaphysical ultimate, in contrast with the classical understanding, how are we to understand God’s status/role in the Whiteheadian metaphysics? What relation does creativity maintain with God?

4 God and the Metaphysics of Becoming Most philosophical systems have a concept of God. Not in the sense that they accept a Supreme Being named God and profess their faith, but rather that they deal with the notion of God. Some philosophical systems accept God as the ultimate reality while some others deny the notion of God on the ground that it is only an outcome of human speculation. Whitehead begins his treatise on God with an evaluation of the already existing theories of God. He recognises the taints of the Aristotelian philosophy as well as the modern scientific developments in the then prevalent philosophy of God. Thus, he was critical of both mechanistic and anthropomorphic views of God, which primarily expressed a static outlook of God, thereby making a way for his metaphysics of becoming in the philosophy of God. In this chapter our primary focus would be to articulate the notion of a dynamic God as developed by Whitehead in contrast to the “unmoved mover” of classical theism. Whitehead deals with the question of God, and on rational grounds. It is also emphasized that Whitehead’s system is incomplete without a proper philosophy of God. Our research into the question of God is double edged: on the one hand, to articulate Whitehead’s novel vision of the philosophy of God, and on the other, to assess how his metaphysics of becoming is applied in the case of God and its relevance. We also discuss two other main themes in considerable detail, in light of God-world relation, namely God the creator and the metaphysics of becoming and the religious significance of Whitehead’s God, as they are much debated today.

4.1 God and the Metaphysical Principles Whitehead identifies three conceptions of God that gained a wider acceptance and exerted considerable influence: “God in the image of an imperial ruler, God in the image of a personification of moral energy, [and] God in the image of an ultimate philosophical principle” (PR 342). He associates these three strains of thought respectively with the Roman Caesars, the Hebrew prophets, and Aristotle.1 In Whitehead, the Aristotelian view of God as “unmoved mover”2 is re|| 1 Whitehead admits that Aristotle was ante-dated by Indian and Buddhistic thoughts (PR 342343). 2 However, it has to be noted that the only philosopher whom Whitehead considers as “the last European Metaphysician of first-rate importance” to deal with the concept of God impar-

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placed by a God who is very much involved in the world; in fact, for him, God becomes a “Moved Mover” (Oomen 108)3 and “a fellow sufferer” (PR 351).4 It was the folly of both Christianity and Mohamedanism that they identified God with two fundamental notions: God as “unmoved mover” and God as “eminently real” (PR 342). For Whitehead, there is static completion neither for God nor for World, but they are “in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative advance into novelty” (PR 349). Whitehead maintained that potentiality and givenness are correlated. They presuppose each other. However, both potentiality and givenness are meaningless apart from multiplicity of actual entities in dynamic process. The only possible alternative is a “static monistic universe, without unrealized potentialities” (PR 45-46). In this sense, all monistic thoughts that admit potentiality or the concept of eternal objects while denying the concept of process or creative advance in the universe suffer inconsistency; potentialities become meaningless or it is a mere “dead” potentiality without progress or development. Whitehead criticizes both Descartes and Leibniz for introducing God arbitrarily into their system. (FR 24; AI 133-134). God is no exception “to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplification” (PR 343). His point is that all the philosophical systems have an ultimate for the completion of the system. And in the theistic tradition often the ultimate was identified with God both in the West as well as in the East. The problem is that the advocates of such thinking fail to “show how the nature of God is interwoven with the nature of other beings” (Christian 1959, 286). Moreover, when

|| tially is Aristotle. Whitehead states about Aristotle that “in his consideration of this (God) metaphysical question he was entirely dispassionate.” Furthermore, after Aristotle other considerations such as religious and ethical began to influence metaphysical conclusions (SMW 173). 3 Palmyre Oomen, M. F. “The Prehensibility of God’s Consequent Nature.” Process Studies 27 (1998) 108-133. 4 Why does Whitehead identify process in God? Answering this question would clarify Whitehead’s critique of Aristotle’s concept of “God as prime mover.” However, Whitehead admits that Aristotle had to conceive God as ‘prime mover’ for the completion of his physics and cosmology. The reason is, according to Aristotelian physics, “special causes were required to sustain the motions of the material things.” So Aristotle was in need of some reality that could initiate the general motion of the cosmic order and sustain it. According to Whitehead, the very notion of the ‘prime mover’ is indicative of the erroneous physics and cosmology held by Aristotle. Today we no longer, at least totally, accept Aristotelian physics and cosmology, nor his theory of ‘prime mover’. For a detailed analysis of the concept of God as fellow sufferer. Cf. Johan Vanhoutte. God as Companion and fellow-sufferer: an Image Emerging from Process Thought. Padova: Cedam, 1988.

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God is made an exception to metaphysical principles they do not show on philosophical grounds why God acts in the way they think. Whitehead’s critique of the existing theories of God can be summarized under three heads: i) God is not a radically transcendent reality arbitrarily introduced and which stands above all metaphysical principles; ii) neither is he an omniscient or omnipotent power responsible for good as well as evil; iii) nor is he a super power operating in terms of might rather than persuasion (Ford 1984, 108).

4.2 God and the Metaphysics of Becoming Whitehead directly spoke about God for the first time in SMW. There is a development, though not exactly a real shift, in his philosophy of God as given in SMW and in his later writings.5 In SMW God is conceived of as the principle of limitation and concretion (174). When one reads RM and PR one gets the impression that here God becomes the ultimate. Moreover, the picture of God in RM is more attuned to the God of religion in contrast to what is given in PR. Ford comments that God in Whitehead’s Lowell Lectures, published in Religion in the Making, is “essentially the God of Plato and Aristotle, capable of being conceived impersonally as the Unmoved Mover, inspiring all other beings but itself affected by none, contemplating only its own thoughts, a sheer concrescence of pure conceptual feeling” (Ford 1973, 6). God was only an abstract metaphysical principle of limitation in SMW, but by the time of RM this principle of limitation is reconceived as an “actual but non-temporal entity.” In SMW Whitehead simply uses the term God to denote the ultimate ground of limitation whereas coming to PR one observes a further change or a development. To be precise, PR makes the distinction between the primordial nature of God and the consequent nature of God. The former is the non-temporal dimension of God. What remained only as a metaphysical principle in SMW is described and analyzed more in line with a religious doctrine in his later writings. The metaphysics of becoming is reflected in God at its best in PR.6

|| 5 The first passage which might contain, at least, an indirect reference to Whitehead’s philosophy of God is the concluding part of his presidential address to the Mathematical Association in 1916. In it he says that the essence of education is that it be religious (Christian 1959, 283). 6 Therefore, in our discussion my focus will be on the concept of God as worked out in PR.

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4.2.1 God: A Metaphysical Necessity Whitehead introduced the idea of God into his philosophy not with any religious agenda but purely on rational grounds. He was totally against the arbitrary introduction of God in metaphysics, whatever form it may take. He stated: […] any summary conclusion jumping from our conviction of the existence of such order of nature to the easy assumption that there is an ultimate reality which, in some unexplained way is to be appealed to for the removal of perplexity, constitutes the great refusal of rationality to assert its rights ... my demand is, that the ultimate arbitrariness of matter of fact from which our formulation starts should disclose the same general principles of reality, which we dimly discern as stretching away into regions beyond our explicit powers of discernment (SMW 92).7

Whitehead is reported to have said: “I should never have included it [God], if it had not been strictly required for descriptive completeness” (Hocking 16).8 He also emphasised that “... nothing, within any limited type of experience can give intelligence to shape our ideas of any entity at the base of all actual things, unless the general character of things requires that there be such an entity” (SMW 173-174). God was a must factor in his system because “[t]he concept of God is the way in which we understand ... [the] incredible fact-that what cannot be, yet is” (PR 350). Here the question concerns the metaphysical necessity that Whitehead met with to introduce God. What is the basis of Whitehead’s recourse to God as a metaphysical necessity? Does he put on the shoes of Descartes and salute his Deus ex machina?9 Perhaps the best way to clarify our point is to listen to Whitehead himself. It is already made clear that actual entities are the “final real facts, there is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real” (PR 18). And the ontological principle admits no entity as real except those that can give us a reason for it. Thus, it was essential to account for the conditions set by ontological principle. Nevertheless, Whitehead finds no temporal reality that meets these conditions. Therefore, he needs a trans-temporal reality that can be the ultimate || 7 This demand of Whitehead he fulfilled in his Process and Reality where he delineates God as an actual entity, who discloses the same general principles of actual entity. However, it is true that this general principle was not applicable in the case of God, which will be explained further in a subsequent section. 8 William Ernest Hocking, “Whitehead as I knew Him” in George L. Kline (1963, 16). 9 What I mean here is that Descartes, though apparently a faithful theistic thinker, in a way has done more harm to “faith” than some who claimed to be atheists. What makes Whitehead different from him is that he very explicitly states that his concern here is nothing religious but purely metaphysical. Whitehead’s merit is that he finds God a necessity within metaphysics.

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foundation of his system or actual entities. Therefore, he makes recourse to a non-temporal reality, which is God. God is a metaphysical necessity based on the ontological principle, which stated that everything should have reference to some actuality. “Everything must be somewhere; and here somewhere means some actual entity” (PR 46). For Whitehead, the abstract potentialities, which he named eternal objects, are given out in the temporal world. They are not actualities in themselves. On the other hand, according to the ontological principle, the general potentiality of the universe must be somewhere, and “this ‘somewhere’ is the non-temporal actual entity” (PR 46). The eternal objects are of ‘proximate relevance’ to actualities in the sense that they contribute to the concrescence of a novel prehension that forms a new actuality (PR 46). In addition, one has to clarify their source. Thus, the problem of potentiality includes two closely related but distinct problems. The first concerns the general potentialities of the world and their source, and the second how each particular concrescing occasion identifies its own relevant particular potentiality to be actualized from the given general potentiality of the universe. The analysis so far made explicated two facts: first, it was out of a metaphysical necessity that Whitehead introduced God; second, it was not with any religious agenda that Whitehead introduced God. Nonetheless, the religious dimension cannot be discarded. It can be added as a further reason that it was also to cope with the existential experience of mankind that Whitehead introduced God, i.e., it has to do with the necessity of answering rationally the ultimate questions, which arise from the analysis of human subjective experience. How are we to account for this claim? For Whitehead, “speculative philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted” (PR 3). Experience means, describes Whitehead, all sorts of experience. Therefore, it is certain that religion and religious experience has a place in his mind. He held that metaphysics must deal with the fact of religious experience, in the sense that religious experience has to do with finer intuition (RM 149; SMW 178). The role of experience in the Whiteheadian system is very crucial: “The elucidation of immediate experience is the sole justification for any thought; and the starting point for thought is the analytic observation of components of this experience” (PR 4).10 Here what concerns us is the relation that exists between human subjective experience and the question of God.

|| 10 Moreover, the following statement amply elucidates the relevance of experience in Whitehead’s system: “whatever is found in ‘practice’ must lie within the scope of the metaphysical description. When the description fails to include the ‘practice,’ the metaphysics is inadequate

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4.2.2 God: An Actual Entity Whitehead’s concept of God is based on the fundamental assumption that there is uniformity in the fundamental laws of the universe. Therefore, the same structure must be applicable to God. Thus, Whitehead claimed God cannot be treated as an exception to any metaphysical principle. God’s existence is not generically different from other actual entities. God is an actual entity, but he is “primordial.” Actual means having ‘existence’ in the fullest sense.

4.2.3 The Dipolar Nature of God The identification of a dipolar nature in God is a derivative of the fact that God is an actual entity. “The most complete concrete fact is dipolar, physical and mental” (RM 114). To evaluate and appreciate Whitehead’s dipolar nature of God one has to see it in its historical context. The separation of permanence from flux entails entirely a static concept of God. It is all the more crucial when we perceive it in the light of a world that is entirely fluent. In such a perspective the interplay of these opposites certainly end up in contradiction. The indispensable corollary of such philosophies, observes Whitehead, is to make ‘illusion’ a fundamental principle of life, in the sense of mere appearance. It is the final flaw of Platonic philosophy (PR 346-347).11 The outcome of this mode of understanding of God and the world was that it carried “consequences at variance with the initial intuition of permanence in fluency and of fluency in permanence.” However, the ancients viewed the problem of fluency and permanence not as dual but as facts of a single reality.12 But we do see a shift in this perspective as we enter the period of more systematic thought. The more civilized intuition viewed it as a double problem: “actuality with permanence, requiring flu|| and required revision. … Metaphysics is nothing but the description of the generalities which apply to all the details of practice” (PR13). In addition, Whitehead writes, philosophy’s “ultimate appeal is to the general consciousness of what in practice we experience. … the ultimate test is always widespread, recurrent experience; and the more general the rationalistic scheme, the more important is this final appeal” (PR 17). 11 This is not a characteristic feature of Greek philosophy alone. The same thought pattern had been followed and promoted by Hebrew, Indian, and Christian thought, with a slight difference in emphasis given in the case of the world, in the sense that some considered realities in the world are permanently in flux, except for some “selected components” which achieved a rather static survival. 12 Here my reference is to Greek and Indian philosophies where becoming was maintained as a part of being.

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ency as its completion; and actuality with fluency, requiring permanence as its completion.” The problem basically concerns the nature of the static God and the nature of the fluent world. On the one hand, God as pure actuality with permanence, viewed in the light of his primordial nature, needs completion, in the sense of his consequent nature, derived from the temporal world. On the other hand, the ever-fluent temporal actual entity is in need of completion by its function of ‘objective immortality,’ that saves it from perpetual perishing (PR 347). However, this problem of fluency and permanence cannot be viewed as distinct, because a proper understanding of either one necessarily demands the other. The consequent nature of God, precisely, is nothing but the fluent world becoming “everlasting” by its objective immortality in God. Fluency in God and ‘everlastingness’ of the temporal world are solved by a single factor of the world, namely, “the temporal world perfected by its reception and reformation” in fulfillment of the primordial appetition, which is also an indispensable condition for the order in nature. Thus, God is completed by the satisfaction of the temporal facts, and temporal actualities are completed by their permanent union with the “transformed selves” (PR 347). This complexity is summed up in a group of antitheses presented by Whitehead, which involves an apparent contradiction. But the opposition gives way to a contrast when viewed with a shift of meaning. Through these ultimate opposites Whitehead expresses the ultimate complimentarity of the theological and the cosmological (permanence and flux) perspectives. It is as true to say that God is permanent and the World fluent, as that the World is permanent and God is fluent. It is as true to say that God is one and the World many, as that the World is one and God many. It is as true to say that, in comparison with the World, God is actual eminently, as that, in comparison with God, the World is actual eminently. It is as true to say that the World is immanent in God, as that God is immanent in the World. It is as true to say that God transcends the World, as that the World transcends God. It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God (PR 348).

Here one may observe the asymmetrical relation, i.e., internally related to the prehender but externally related to that which is being prehended, that charac-

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terises Whitehead’s theory of prehension (Ford 1973, 6).13 These anti-theses will be further clarified when viewed in the light of the dipolar nature of God: God in his Primordial and Consequent natures.14 It is by identifying two aspects in God’s nature that Whitehead effects his metaphysics of becoming in the case of God.

4.2.3.1 The Primordial Nature of God The primordial nature of God “is abstracted from his commerce with particulars, and is therefore devoid of those impure intellectual cogitations which involve propositions. It is God in abstraction, alone with himself. As such it is a mere factor in God, deficient in actuality” (PR 34). The primordial nature of God is “the non-temporal act of all-inclusive unfettered valuation” (PR 31). It implies a unity to God’s conceptual prehension. This has a more fundamental implication for the process of the whole universe. This would imply that the unity of the conceptual prehension is the source of fundamental unity in the universe. Devoid of the conceptual prehension eternal objects are a “barren inefficient disjunction of abstract potentialities” (PR 40). God’s primordial nature is also the source and moving force for the dynamic relation, “relationship of diversity and pattern,” that exists among the eternal objects themselves. Without this “there is mere isolation indistinguishable from nonentity” (PR 257). Here what is notable is the understanding that God himself is the source for the very togetherness of the eternal objects. Without the primordial nature of God “the many eternal objects conceived in their bare isolated multiplicity lack any existent character. They require the transition to the conception of them as efficaciously existent by reason of God’s conceptual realization of them” (PR 349). In PR the fundamental structuring of the universe is assigned to the primordial nature of God. Thus ‘primordial’ is ‘an ordering underlying other more par-

|| 13 Lewis S. Ford. “Hartshorne’s Encounter with Whitehead: An Introductory Remark.” Lewis S. Ford (ed.). Two Process Philosophers. Florida: American Academy of Religion (1973) 1-9. 14 For our purpose it is not necessary to analyze these antitheses in detail. However, for those interested cf. Kraus 179-183. In his study Mays reduces these antitheses to two factors: the rational and the permanent element in the Primordial nature of God, which becomes a set of propositions of symbolic logic, and the experiential and temporal element in the world, which becomes the reification of the concepts of modern physics. One of the presuppositions of Mays in formulating his conclusions is that in the formulation of antitheses Whitehead has largely manipulated abstractions (Stokes 310). With regard to the antitheses Miss Susan Stebbing comments that “to one at least the opposition remains a flat contradiction, which reveals the hopeless confusion that lies at the base of the philosophy of organism” (Stebbing 1929-30, 299).

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ticular orderings’. It refers to a “basic order in the creative process itself, going beyond the bare notions of ‘many-one’ and the topological relations of extensive connection in the extensive continuum” (Emmet 1990, 61). It is the primordial nature that maintains “the general relationships of eternal objects to each other, relationships of diversity and of pattern, are their relationships in God’s conceptual realization. Apart from this realization there is mere isolation indistinguishable from nonentity” (PR 257). Moreover, it is in virtue of the primordial nature that the eternal objects are graded according to their relevance for inclusion in particular actual entities. “By reason of the actuality of his primordial valuation of pure potentials, each eternal object has a definite, effective relevance to each concrescent process” (PR 40). The graded relevance of eternal objects is made effective by the primordial nature of God through providing an initial aim to each concrescent occasion. It is said that the initial aim “is a direct derivative from God’s primordial nature (PR 67). Nevertheless, the primordial nature of God as described by Whitehead is not without its own problems. Viewed as primordial, he is the unlimited conceptual realisation of the absolute wealth of potentiality. In this aspect, he is not before all creation, but with all creation. But, as primordial, so far is he from ‘eminent reality’, that in this abstraction he is ‘deficiently actual’ and this in two ways. His feelings are only conceptual and so lack the fullness of actuality. Secondly, conceptual feelings, apart from complex integration with physical feelings, are devoid of consciousness in their subjective forms (PR 343).

God in his primordial nature is deficient in actuality. His primordial nature “shows forth God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of Nature and of a Finite Spirit” (Hegel 1966, 160). In the primordial nature God is ‘bodiless’ and as the first creature of creativity God is locked in his conceptual aloneness (Kraus 170). The role and characteristics of the primordial nature of God will be clarified further in the third section of this chapter. For the moment we turn to the consequent nature.

4.2.3.2 The Consequent Nature of God Whitehead’s conception of God was not fully worked out, in his early works. It receives a more detailed explication in PR. Whitehead finds that God’s nature is not exhausted by the primordial nature. Moreover, a notion of God limited to his primordial nature alone will not do justice to his basic contention that God is an actual entity. Thus, Whitehead recognises in God a consequent nature. Why was it necessary to have a consequent nature of God? Was there any logical necessity for Whitehead to introduce the consequent nature of God? What does it mean to say that God has a consequent nature?

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God, being an actual entity, bears and expresses all the characteristics of an actual entity. Thus, with every actual entity God is endowed with a conceptual as well as a physical prehension (consequent nature). Analogously to all actual entities, the nature of God is dipolar. He has a primordial nature and a consequent nature. The consequent nature of God is conscious; and it is the realisation of the actual world in the unity of his nature, and through the transformation of his wisdom. The primordial nature is conceptual, and the consequent nature is the weaving of God’s physical feelings upon his primordial concepts (PR 345).

The consequent nature derives from God’s “physical prehensions of the derivative actual entities” (PR 31). It is called consequent in the sense that it is based on the “interaction between the primordial nature of God and the actualities of the temporal world” (Hosinski 189). God’s consequent nature is temporal. Whitehead says that the consequent nature of God is ever “incomplete” (PR 345). It is also a corollary of Whitehead’s metaphysical principle, the principle of solidarity, according to which “every actual entity requires all other entities in order to exist.” Thus, God being an actual entity, it was necessary that God be internally related to all the actual occasions, which would demand divine physical prehensions. As the primordial actual entity, God is related to all actual entities by means of their hybrid physical prehensions of God’s primordial nature, which is how each temporal actual entity begins its process of becoming. This is the self-to-world relation. But this is not enough. God must also be related to all actual entities by physically prehending what they have become. This is the world-to-self relation (Hosinski 189).

Actual entities must be engaged in this double relation, for, according to the ontological principle and the category of relativity, all actual entities require ‘data’. Thus, God as an actual entity can no more be without other actual entities than they can be without God. The conceptual appetition does not constitute the full actuality, rather a fusion of data received from the world process with the appetition is a condition of possibility in this regard. It is true of all actualities irrespective of temporal or non-temporal actuality. Thus it is stated: The truth itself is nothing else than how the composite natures of organic actualities of the world obtain adequate representation in the divine nature. Such representations compose the ‘consequent nature’ of God, which evolves in its relationship to the evolving world without derogation to the eternal completion of its primordial conceptual nature. In this way the ‘ontological principle’ is maintained – since there can be no determinate truth, correlating impartially the partial experiences of many actual entities, apart from one actual entity to which it can be referred. The reaction of the temporal world on the nature of God is … the ‘consequent nature of God’ (PR 12-13).

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The point is that “the full actual being of God involves physical prehensions of the actualities of the world, and their unification into a new subject. Thereby God as ‘consequent’ is the ‘coordination of achievement.’” This fusion of God’s physical prehension of the world and his pure conceptual prehension is a necessary condition with regard to the subjective aim of each actual entity in the sense that God’s pure conceptual prehensions involve only a general relevance to actuality. “Physical prehensions of particular actualities are required to render the pure conceptual prehensions of specific relevance” (Leclerc 1958, 206). The following statement of Whitehead substantiates this point well. God, as well as being primordial, is also consequent. He is the beginning and the end. He is not the beginning in the sense of being in the past of all members. He is the presupposed actuality of conceptual operation, in unison of becoming with every other creative act. Thus, by reason of the relativity of all things, there is a reaction of the world on God. The completion of God’s nature into a fullness of physical feeling is derived from the objectification of the world in God. He shares with every new creation its actual world; and the concrescent creature is objectified in God as a novel element in God’s objectification of that actual world. This prehension into God of each creature is directed with the subjective aim, and clothed with the subjective form, wholly derivative from his all-inclusive primordial valuation. God’s conceptual nature is unchanged, by reason of its final completeness. But his derivative nature is consequent upon the creative advance of the world (PR 345).

The above quote explicates how God is both temporal and non-temporal. His becoming, as in the case of all other actualities, constitutes the complete being of God. His consequent nature is derivative upon the creative advance of the temporal world. God’s immanence in the world in respect to his primordial nature is an urge towards the future based upon an appetite in the present. Appetition is at once the conceptual valuation of an immediate physical feeling combined with the urge towards realization of the datum conceptually prehended. For example, thirst is an immediate physical feeling integrated with the conceptual prehension of its quenching (PR 32).

The result of this mutual interdependence of world and God is that none is independent in the Cartesian sense of ‘requiring nothing but itself in order to exist’. Here, God and the World require each other as a metaphysical necessity for their being. Thus, a complete understanding of one logically demands understanding of the other. This interdependent nature of the World and God cannot be conceived in its full depth unless we take the universe as engaged in a process of activity. In this respect, Whitehead’s presentation of God-world relation in a number of anti-thesis makes more sense. Moreover, from this background, the following statement of Whitehead is better understood: “there is no

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meaning to ‘creativity’ apart from its ‘creatures’, and no meaning to ‘God’ apart from ‘creativity’ and the ‘temporal creatures’, and no meaning to the temporal creatures apart from ‘creativity’ and ‘God’” (PR 225). In Religion in the Making Whitehead gives a different version of the same message: “Apart from God, there would be no actual world; and apart from the actual world with its creativity, there would be no rational explanation of the ideal vision which constitutes God” (RM 151). From another perspective the consequent nature of God can be viewed as God’s “judgment on the world. He saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness, which loses nothing that can be saved. It is also the judgment of a wisdom which uses what in the temporal world is mere wreckage” (PR 346). These statements of Whitehead remind one of the classical theistic understandings of God. George F. Thomas is very sensitive to these statements. Nevertheless he does not hesitate to place on record his own critical observation. For him the nature of the process by which God “saves” the world is not entirely clear. “He saves the world”, says Whitehead, “as it passes into the immediacy of his own life.” This means that in some way the values realised by actual entities are saved by being included in the experience of God as a “completed whole.” But does it mean that the world is transformed and the evil in it overcome, or only that it is included in the harmony of God’s experience? The method by which it is “saved” is said to be rationality rather than force. But the “over-powering rationality of his conceptual harmonization” (PR 346) seems to be effective not in transforming the world and overcoming its evil but “in harmonizing its discords in the experience of God” (Thomas 368).15 Following are the chief characteristics of the Consequent Nature of God: 1. God’s consciousness and knowledge: “the consequent nature of God is conscious ... ” (PR 345). 2. The finitude of the consequent nature: “One side of God’s nature is constituted by … Conceptual experience can be infinite, but it belongs to the nature of physical experience that it is finite” (PR 345). 3. The consequent nature as everlasting: “The primordial nature of God is eternal, but the consequent nature is everlasting.” Everlasting in the Whiteheadian sense means “the property of combining creative advance with the retention of mutual immediacy” (PR 346). Here ‘everlasting’ means involving a creative advance that the earlier elements are

|| 15 George F. Thomas. Religious Philosophers of the West. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965.

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not lost while at the same time new ones which remain with God forever are added (Cobb 1971, 223). The understanding of God’s nature as primordial and consequent immediately raises the question whether it has to be viewed as two independent realities acting and existing in relative independence from the other. In other words, the question emerges as to whether the two natures can be understood as two distinguishable parts that constitute the unified actuality God? With regard to the unity of an actual entity the Category of explanation xxii speaks: “An Actual entity by functioning in respect to itself plays diverse roles in self-formation without losing its self-identity. It is self-creative; and in its process of creation transforms its diversity of roles into one coherent role” (PR 25). Lansing suggests that the dipolar natures of God cannot be taken as distinguishable parts but as interdependent modes of functioning by the whole actual entity. The different natures of God should not be taken as nouns referring to different elements of God which are assigned different functions. On the contrary they should be understood as adjectives elucidating the character of how God functions in relation to the world. According to Lansing, such a perspective will be more in line with Whitehead’s emphasis of the subjective unity of an actual entity (Lansing 144).16 In this regard Ely observes that the dipolar nature cannot be taken to be “the ordinary naïve dualism of mind and matter.” The distinction between two poles is a distinction of reason, for in every actuality the mental and the physical are inseparable (Ely 188).

4.2.4 God: The Principle of Limitation The conception of God as the principle of limitation (his first conception of God mainly worked out in SMW) best expresses the role of God as a metaphysical necessity in the Whiteheadian system. Neither actual entity, nor creativity or eternal objects alone explicate Whitehead’s metaphysical system in its completeness. The core of the metaphysics of becoming is that “[e]very actual occasion exhibits itself as a process: it is a becomingness” (SMW 175-76). There is a process of actual occasions and these occasions are the emergence of values which itself is in need of some principle of limitation. It is a corollary of the above two metaphysical facts: process and becomingness, for they require that “the course of events should have developed amid an antecedent limitation

|| 16 John W. Lansing. “The ‘Natures’ of Whitehead’s God.” Process Studies 3 (1974) 143-152.

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composed of conditions, particularisation, and standard of value.” Thus, a further metaphysical condition is demanded, i.e., a principle of limitation. “Some particular how is necessary, and some particularisation in the what of matter of fact is necessary.” The only alternative, which saves us from this demand, is the denial of the existence and reality of determinate actuality. The choice of this alternative would be suicidal for the metaphysics of Whitehead. In fact, it is true of any metaphysics because in such a situation their actual definiteness would be unthinkable. Therefore, one must seek a ground for the limitation which stands among the attributes of the substantial activity. Thus, Whitehead proposes God as the principle of ultimate limitation or “principle of concretion” (SMW 174). How are we to account for this statement? The eternal objects in order to be relevant to actuality need a prior limitation. The reason is that eternal objects form a realm having a “generalized relation to actuality” (Kraus 37), but remain indifferent to any particular actualisation. For instance, if the eternal object of sort A (colour) ingresses into a particular event, eternal object B (shape) will necessarily be connected with it, in the sense that only a combination of the two can constitute the actual entity, say for example an apple. It does not mean that there is something in the nature of possibility to demand that the red colour and the customary shape of an apple necessarily be connected. The eternal objects are isolated also from actuality because of their aforesaid indifference to any particular individualisation. A realm of possibilities and the substantial activity (creativity) alone cannot account for the ordered cosmos, but rather only a principle of limitation which would ideally realize, i.e., “thought together in a manner overcoming their isolation, a limitation which itself is a modal manifestation of the creativity” (Kraus 38) can solve this dilemma. Thus, God becomes the principle of ultimate limitation. Here one has to bear in mind that the word ‘limitation’ does not bear the negative connotation it acquired in the medieval period, but ‘to limit’ here means ‘to structure’. God’s role as the ultimate ground of limitation can be substantiated from another perspective. “Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing. The limitation, and the basis arising from what is already actual, are both of them necessary and interconnected” (RM 146). Here an objection can be raised concerning the actual ground. There are two possibilities: it can be any actual entity or it can be God. It cannot be any actuality, primarily because any actuality cannot be a formative element, but God. How are we to account for this claim? It is stated that the new actuality “issued from the creativity, requires a definite entity, already actual among the formative elements, as an antecedent ground ... ” (RM 146). In the metaphysics of becoming the three formative elements are creativity, eternal objects and God. The only actuality that fulfills the

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conditions of the ontological principle is God. In addition to this Whitehead qualifies “God” as the “ground antecedent to transition” (RM 147). Moreover, God has primacy over other formative elements: God is the “actual fact from which the other formative elements cannot be torn apart” (150). In the religious tradition, God is variously named as “Jehovah, Allah, Brahma, Father in Heaven, Order of Heaven, First Cause, Supreme Being, Chance”, etc. who is the creator of the universe. If one follows the medieval trend of ascribing all metaphysical compliments to God, Whitehead maintains, one has to say also that he is responsible for the evil in the world, because God has been conceived as the “foundation of the metaphysical situations” (SMW 179).17 In such a view there is no alternative except to view him responsible for good as well as for evil. On the other hand, if God is conceived as the ground and principle of limitation, “it stands in his very nature to divide the good from the evil” (SMW 179). The attribute of limitation or concretion provides the limitation for which no reason can be given: […] for all reason flows from it. God is the ultimate limitation, and His existence is the ultimate irrationality. For no reason can be given for just that limitation which it stands in His nature to impose. God is not concrete, but he is the ground for concrete actuality. No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of rationality (SMW 178).18

In this quote Whitehead only says that what limitation there is, cannot be grounded further. It is a divine ‘decision’; no reason can be given as to why the ordering of eternal objects is in the way it is, because all reasoning follows from it. In other words, rationality is the result of God.

4.2.5 The Vindication of the Refuted The fundamental flaw of the traditional theories of God is that they have made God an exception to all metaphysical principles to save the system from falling (PR 343). For Whitehead, God cannot be made an exception to metaphysical principles and in his system, God is an actual entity, as every other. However, || 17 We will discuss the question of evil in Whitehead’s philosophy in the third part of the dissertation, as we deal with the distinction of God and creativity. 18 According to James Bradley, the presentation of God as the principle of limitation for which no further explanation can be given, places Whitehead close to the British voluntarist tradition. However, it has to be kept in mind that in Whitehead there is no avowal of the “voluntarist notion of an ineffable divine act of will” (Bradley J. 2002, 262).

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the presupposition which we maintain in our present discussion is that God conceived as an actual entity is fundamentally exceptional in Whitehead’s system and that the claim of Whitehead is questionable. One might also raise the question whether God could be conceived otherwise than as an exception (Heidegger – ontological difference); or whether he should be conceived otherwise? The question is: Is God in Whitehead an exceptional actual entity? It is true that God, as an actual entity, is similar to other actual entities, for instance, in having two poles. “The description of the generic character of an actual entity should include God, as well as the lowliest actual occasion ... ” (Sherburne 1966, 30).19 In the philosophy of organism God’s existence is not generically different from that of other entities, but it is ‘primordial’ (PR 75, 116). Nevertheless, one can identify more points of divergence than the points of convergence between the two. What does this primordiality mean? Every other actual occasion originates or comes into existence in time and some past actual occasion is behind this emergence because of the superject character of every actual occasion. On the contrary, God does not originate in time. In other words, here the word ‘primordial’ is used in the sense of underived or presupposed (Lansing 151), while all other actualities have a derived existence. In other words, God is nontemporal in his primordial nature and all other actualities are temporal (Ford 1973, 4).20 Furthermore, in every actual entity physical prehension is prior to the conceptual prehension, while in the case of God, the contrary is true. Again there is a difference in the prehensions of eternal objects by an ordinary actual occasion and God: in any actual occasion the physical prehension or the past objective data conditions the prehension of eternal objects while in the case of God the prehension of eternal object is nontemporal and thus primordial. Whitehead writes, “the given course of history presupposes his primordial nature, but his primordial nature does not presuppose it” (PR 42). It is also worth remembering that a complete identification of God as an actuality with any other actuality is seen only from his Gifford Lectures (and not or far less, either before or after them), in which Whitehead elucidated his six metaphysical principles which “apply to all actualities, including God” (Lowe

|| 19 Donald W. Sherburne (ed.). A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1966. 20 Lewis S. Ford. “Hartshorne’s Encounter with Whitehead: An Introductory Remarks.” Ford, Lewis S. (ed.), Two Process Philosophers. Florida: American Academy of Religion (1973) 1-9. Hartshorne would say that God is non-temporal in his existence; but is temporal in his concrete actuality (i.e., who or what God concretely is).

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1969).21 In addition, there is also a difference between the conceptual pole of any actuality and that of God. Process and Reality defines the Primordial nature of God as follows: “the primordial created fact is the unconditioned conceptual valuation of the entire multiplicity of eternal objects” (PR 31). God’s primordial nature is his “conceptual pole” or the equivalent to the conceptual prehensions of any other actual entity. While the mental pole or conceptual prehension of God is infinite and grasps “the entire multiplicity of eternal objects”, the mental pole of ordinary actuality is finite and limited. God’s conceptual prehension grasps all possibilities whereas the mental pole of any temporal occasion covers only a few selected eternal objects or possibilities. God’s conceptual prehension, Hosinski rightly observes, is limited by nothing because “the primordial nature of God is required for there to be any world at all. Nothing apart from the ground could conceivably influence the ground of actuality, since all other actual entities depend on that ground for their possibility” (165). Again, in virtue of God’s being as a “completed actuality” God is essentially different from any other actuality and thus is an exceptional actual entity. Nevertheless, this claim demands further explication. Whitehead argues […] the universe exhibits a creativity with infinite freedom, and a realm of forms with infinite possibilities; but that this creativity and these forms are together impotent to achieve actuality apart from the completed ideal harmony, which is God (RM 115).

In the above statement Whitehead apparently denies an accusation raised against his philosophy that he advocates “growth in God” by virtue of his consequent nature. I don’t think anyone can hold on to such a position after reading his above statement. The point is, in it Whitehead gives space neither for ambiguity nor is his statement ambivalent but rather expresses a very clear position as to the completion of God: that no new actuality is possible without “the completed ideal harmony, which is God.” Then another question emerges here: How are we to say that there is process in God? If process is the achievement of actuality by the ideal consequent’s fusion with the ground, how can the ground itself be involved in a process? Whitehead removes the ambiguity by stating that “the nature of God is the complete conceptual realization of the realm of ideal forms. The kingdom of heaven is God” (RM 148). Still further, Whitehead clarifies that “God is the one systematic, complete fact, which is the

|| 21 Victor Lowe. “Whitehead’s Gifford Lectures.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 7/4 (1969) 329-338.

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antecedent ground conditioning every creative act” (RM 148).22 Then it seems that Whitehead himself denied any process in the existence of God, but he only accepted two natures in God: the non-temporal or transcendent and the temporal. Then it is right to say that Whitehead is essentially one with the classical understanding of God. It is observed that “actual occasions originate by means of their physical poles, that is, by their derivation from other past actualities. God alone originates by means of his mental pole” (Ford 1983, 338).23 In God there is the priority of the mental pole. The argument is that in finite actual entities the initial subjective aim is derived from another, namely God, whereas in the case of God it is not. “[T]o say that God does not originate out of the prehensions of other entities is to say that God does not originate out of the physical pole” (Franklin 281). Therefore, what I feel is that Whitehead, as Aristotle, Leibniz or Spinoza, made God an exception to his metaphysical system. 24 As a final point I would say that Whitehead’s own following observation substantiates that God as an actuality “which enters into every creative phase and yet is above change” must be exempt from inconsistency (RM 95). This sentence is very suggestive. It explicates at least three basic principles, which are often debated, including our present point. (i) God as an actual entity is different from other actual entities; (ii) there is permanence, and it is primordially exemplified in God; and (iii) the fact that God is “above change” does not constitute any internal inconsistency, for “his nature remains self-consistent in relation to all change” (RM 95-96). The question is, do all these differences amount to a fundamental (metaphysical) difference between any actual entity and God, the primordial actual entity, thus making God an exemption to his metaphysical principles? Is Whitehead

|| 22 Cobb maintains that “[d]espite the dictum that God is not an exception to metaphysical principles, we cannot apply to such an everlasting process in the divine life, the speculative account of concrescence applicable to temporal occasions” (1980, 98). 23 Ford distinguishes two kinds of actual entities each in need of the other. In the first group there is only one actual entity, God, who is infinite and non-temporal. The second group, which comprises the world, has a vast multiplicity of finite, temporal members (Ford 1983, 338). 24 David R. Griffin. “Hartshorne’s Difference from Whitehead.” Lewis S. Ford (ed.). Two Process Philosophers. Florida: American Academy of Religion (1973) 35-57. However, here the question is, does it not involve a certain kind of anthropocentrism, something Whitehead wanted to avoid particularly? (Cobb 1973, 223)

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himself a prey to the very problems he wanted to avoid with regard to the philosophy of God? Taking into account our present discussion it is not unfair to say that by treating God as a unique actual entity Whitehead violates his own principle that “God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse” (PR 343). The comment that Christian makes seems to be very appropriate with regard to Whitehead’s theory of God: Whitehead’s theory of “God is a decorative but dispensable addition to his cosmology.” Moreover, it is questionable whether it leads to an “absorption of the world in God”, by making God the primordial actual entity. And it seems that it turns out to be a theory of “realities and Reality” if not a theory of “Appearance and Reality” (Christian 1959, 301).25

4.3 God-World Relation in Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Becoming The chapter on God deals with the “final interpretation of the ultimate way in which the cosmological problem is to be conceived.” The ultimate problem and the fundamental question with which Whitehead was concerned are ‘permanence and flux’ and ‘order and novelty’, which he presents as ‘the ideal opposites’. His treatment on “God and the World” presents his solution to this ultimate problem. Moreover, his philosophy of God “presents the climactic sections of Process and Reality” which “draws into a Weltanschauung all the concepts and distinctions” that have been presented already (Sherburne 1966, 171). Traditionally or in classical theism God was conceived to be the creator of the universe. However, it is a disputed question today. For many thinkers the classical understanding of creation is said to be untenable in two ways: it is incompatible with modern scientific discoveries, especially evolution theories, and it is theologically problematic in the sense that it makes the problem of evil more acute. On the other hand, there are still authors who maintain the classical position. For instance, Neville substantiates the notion of God as creator, stating that “even if the Christian specialization is wrong [i.e., God is expressed as creator in Jesus Christ], if the concept of the creator is true, its worth will be

|| 25 For Christian, Whitehead is neither a pantheist nor a panentheist. Hartshorne depicts him as a panentheist. For him, “God does not literally include or contain the world. And he transcends the world not merely in his ‘essence’ but in his concrete actuality” (Stokes 324-325).

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felt in some form of heart religion.26 Only people with heart religion can be responsible metaphysicians regarding the question of God in the long run” (Neville 1985, 61-62).27 Moreover, there have been various attempts to find a viable solution for the doctrine of creationism and that of modern scientific theories. For instance, Arthur R. Peacocke in his Creation and the World of Sciences makes such an attempt.28 He gives ample space for chance and necessity and at the same time maintains that God guides the whole evolutionary process, in its explorations of every possibility. Whitehead categorically denies the Christian notion of a creator God: creatio ex nihilo. Therefore, we have a two-fold objective in this section: (i) To articulate Whitehead’s response to the classical position of God as creator; and (ii) If God is not the creator how does Whitehead conceive the God-world relation?

4.3.1 God the Creator and the Metaphysics of Becoming From a Whiteheadian perspective God is not the creator but “he saves it” (PR 346). God saves the world in virtue of His being as the source of value. Whitehead points out that God and the world are to be seen as mutually and continually creative. “It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God” (PR 348).29 God lures each concrescing event with the initial conceptual aim. Thus, God’s role is not simply in setting up a structure of forces whose consequent interactions are not affected by Him. In fact, God’s “creativity is understood rather as an unceasing activity” (Pailin 284).30 God influences

|| 26 In his article Neville speaks of the compatibility of heart religion and abstract metaphysics. By heart religion he means “the kind of piety that concentrates on the living and moving experience of God in social and individual life.” It is the language of Jonathan Edwards by which is meant the “experiential religion, or even experimental religion” (Neville 1985, 51-52). John E. Smith (ed.). Religious Affections. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959. 27 Robert C. Neville. “Philosophy and the Question of God.” International Philosophical Quarterly vol. XXV (1985) 51-62. 28 A. R. Peacocke. Creation and the World of Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979. 29 It is quite interesting to note that Aurobindo’s statement in Savitri echoes Whitehead’s statement in PR, as he writes about the reign of God in the Kingdom of matter: Although thou hide thyself behind thy works To be is not a senseless paradox If God has made earth, earth must make in her God (Savitri XI). 30 David A. Pailin. “God as Creator in a Whiteheadian Understanding.” Harald Holz & Ernest Wolf-Gazo (eds.). Whitehead and the Idea of Process: Proceedings of the First International Whitehead-Symposium 1981. Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber (1984) 273-299.

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each event; everything that occurs takes place with His involvement. In this sense it may not be wrong to say that it is as a creator that God is described by Whitehead as “the poet of the World, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty and goodness” (PR 346). The term ‘poet’ is used in the sense of its Greek root, ‘maker’. The ‘tender patience’ by which God persuades the world indicates that he has the ‘pluck’ to go to that experience which is most profound to obtain his insights. He relies on the total wealth of human experience.” Whitehead is reported to have replied to the question of Johnson that “God does not force data of any sort on other actual entities. However, God has more causal influence than other actual entities in the sense that he continues to exist, while others pass away” (Johnson 1983, 8).31 In this regard Ely comments that “God’s control over the atomic processes (and through them over the cosmic process) thus depends on his ability to lure the event to co-operation in the production of value. God appeals, we might say, to the event’s better nature” (Ely 188-89). In the philosophy of organism God is not creator by virtue of the fact that each actual entity is self-creative – causa sui. “With poignant sensitivity”, observes Kraus, “to the overwhelming dignity and worth of the individual creature, Whitehead’s “unmoved mover” sacrifices the efficient creative force exercised by a traditional omnipotent deity in favor of the autonomy of the selfcreative creature” (170). God can be conceived creator in the sense that each temporal entity receives its basic conceptual aim relevant to its actual world from God. However, the received conceptual aim is indeterminate which awaits its own decision. This aim is the unifying factor in the interplay between physical and conceptual feelings. Physical feeling here means the feeling of another actual occasion. The fact is that in the Whiteheadian metaphysics the latter task is entrusted to the temporal actualities. Therefore, it can be said that God is a creator not in the sense of ex nihilo, but “in the sense of causing the plurality to exist as separate individuals. God has the unique power, as well as the goodness, to share or to spread teleology” (Wilcox 170). It is noted that “Whitehead’s God “thinks” the World; he does not create the world. He orders the possibles; he does not command the actual” (Kraus 170). God is creator by providing all that is necessary for a temporal occasion to create itself. Thus, God and temporal actual entities are co-creators of the actual world. Therefore, it is possible to say that one of the characteristics of Whitehead’s philosophy of God that distinguishes it from classical theism is that it

|| 31 A. H. Johnson. “Some Conversations with Whitehead Concerning God and Creativity.” Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press (1983) 3-13.

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conceives God as a creator as well as a creature. The consequent nature or the temporal dimension of God can be considered a creature, engaged in a creative process. Whitehead states that God is no more the creator, rather God is “a creature of Creativity” in the sense that he shares with the actual entities and eternal objects the property of being a modal individualisation of the substantial activity. It has to be kept in mind that in the Whiteheadian philosophy the word “creature” does not carry with it the medieval connotation of existential dependence. From this perspective “God is a creature” does not mean that he is assigned a lower grade or placed below the substantial activity. For Whitehead, to be actual means “to be an actual entity, a fully determinate drop of realized value existing in and for itself and for the others. The substantial activity, lacking such individuality, is not actual, and since only actualities can function as causes, does not cause God, i.e., is not his “creator” and hence a superior order of being” (Kraus 39-40). Therefore, it is right to say that the primacy of God is kept in Whitehead’s metaphysics. Johnson maintains that the descriptions such as God as a ‘creature of creativity’ (PR 31), a non-temporal accident of creativity (PR 7), the outcome of creativity (PR 88), etc. in the Whiteheadian metaphysics do not mean that the emergence of God is from some other reality, but they only show that each actual entity, including God is the outcome of a creative process, the internal process of self-creation. It is in this sense that God is considered a creature of creativity (Johnson 1983, 12). Thus, it seems that much of the misunderstanding pertaining to the philosophy of Whitehead would be clarified when one understands the meanings of the terms and clauses Whitehead uses and when they are interpreted in accordance with the terms and conditions set for it. Of course, understanding a philosophy is different from accepting that point of view.

4.3.2 God: the Reservoir of Potentiality The source of eternal object is one of the problematic issues in Whitehead’s metaphysics. The question is what is this primordial actuality? The ordering of all eternal objects must be constituted by a primordial conceptual realization of them by God. The “differentiated relevance of eternal objects to each instance of the creative process requires their conceptual realisation in the primordial nature of God” (PR 257). The observation that God conceives eternal objects in their relevance to particular actualisation implies that there is an activity of selection in God (Leclerc 1958, 196). It further presupposes that the eternal objects, being pure potentials must have reference to some actuality.

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The things which are temporal [actual occasions] arise by their participation in the things which are eternal [eternal objects]. The two sets are mediated by a thing which combines the actuality of what is temporal with the timelessness of what is potential (PR 40).

What actual entity is the “reservoir” of the general potentialities of the world? Whitehead would answer the ‘Primordial Nature of God’. “This final entity is the divine element in the world ... ” (PR 40). The eternal objects have their residing in the primordial nature or the conceptual pole of God. The scope of the ontological principle is not exhausted by the corollary that ‘decision’ must be referable to an actual entity. Everything must be somewhere; and here ‘somewhere’ means ‘some actual entity’. Accordingly, the general potentiality of the universe must be somewhere; since it retains its proximate relevance to actual entities for which it is unrealized. This ‘proximate relevance reappears in subsequent concrescence as final causation regulative of the emergence of novelty. This ‘somewhere’ is the non-temporal actual entity. Thus proximate relevance means ‘relevance as in the primordial mind of God’ (PR 46).

On the basis of the ontological principle this ‘intrinsic togetherness’ of eternal objects (SMW 198) should have reference to some actual entity. The only possible answer is the conceptual realisation of eternal objects in the mind of God. It is by virtue of this fact that “there is a general fact of systematic mutual relatedness which is inherent in the character of possibility. The realm of eternal objects is properly described as a ‘realm’ because each eternal object has its status in this general systematic complex of mutual relatedness” (SMW 161). Whitehead maintains that this togetherness of eternal objects exists as a primordial conceptual realisation by God. “[T]he primordial created fact is the unconditioned conceptual valuation of the entire multiplicity of eternal objects... . By reason of this complete valuation ... there is always the definite relevance derived from God” (PR 31). Why should God be the source? One can argue that an actual entity is the condition of possibility for the actual being of eternal objects. It would also make clear Whitehead’s point that eternal objects are inseparable from God’s primordial existence. Nevertheless, this does not mean an identification of form and being by Whitehead. On the contrary, “being requires ‘definiteness’ or form, and equally ‘form’ requires ‘being’; and this relationship of mutual requirement is impossible if the two be identical” (Leclerc 1958, 200). Thus, the doctrine of Whitehead is that the metaphysical condition requires a “unique actual entity” to be the complete conceptual valuation of all potentiality (PR 32). What is that element which constitutes this relevance or why does God’s primordial nature have this primordial relevance in the temporal process of the universe? The following passage offers some clue: “By reason of the actuality of

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this primordial valuation of pure potentials, each eternal object has a definite, effective relevance to each concrescent process” (PR 40). “God is the nontemporal actual entity which is the ultimate actual ground of possibility, order, value, and temporal actuality. God is also the final actual ground of meaning, the everlasting actual entity which receives, saves and transforms the temporal world in the concrescing unity and harmony of the divine experience” (Hosinski 207). If nature is a creative advance into novelty from where does novelty come? In the metaphysics of becoming novelty is as important as process.

4.3.3 God: the Source of Novelty A fundamental truth about the Whiteheadian cosmology is that the universe involves a process of creative activity. This process logically presupposes continuity and thus the existence of actuality is not independent, more precisely not isolated. Here an important question concerns the meaningfulness of process. To be precise, what is it that makes this process meaningful: the telos of the process? It is here that we see the relevance of novelty. The concept of process not only brings out the idea of universal relativity, but also of novelty: “the universe is thus a creative advance into novelty” (PR 222). God and actual entity together with creativity are taken to be the source of this novelty. “God is the organ of novelty, aiming at intensification. He is the lure for feeling, the eternal urge of desire. The primary element in the lure for feeling is the subject’s prehension of the primordial nature of God ... apart from the intervention of God, there could be nothing new in the world, and no order in the world” (PR 247). The understanding of the primordial nature as the “reservoir” of the potentialities of the universe throws further light on the problem of novelty. God becomes the true source of the novel possibilities. “The novel hybrid feeling derived from God, with the derivative sympathetic conceptual valuations, are the foundations of progress” (PR 247). We have to understand this in the light of the problem of order and value. “Order is not sufficient. What is demanded is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition; and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system” (PR 339). Therefore, the further details of the question of novelty have to be expounded on in the light of order and harmony.

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4.3.4 God: the Principle of Order and Harmony One of the marvelous facts of the universe is the order and harmony it exemplifies. The metaphysical question of order and harmony, undoubtedly, is as old as philosophy itself. In the issue of order and harmony also the question is of the ground. The order and value presuppose a restriction in the abstract possibilities. Here one is reminded of Whitehead’s observation that “restriction is the price of value” (SMW 178). It is clear that there is an actual course of events, but it is equally evident that no temporal actuality can be the reason for this in the ultimate analysis. Thus, we are called to look for some non-temporal actuality. Whitehead unambiguously states that the order in nature is not something that “accidentally happens” but rather there is an “order in nature” or a functioning in nature. “The ordering entity is a necessary element in the metaphysical situation presented by the actual world” (RM 101). In other words, an ordering principle is a condition of possibility for the very existence of the world. “If there were no order, there would be no world... . The actual world is the outcome of the aesthetic order, and the aesthetic order is derived from the immanence of God” (RM 101). Moreover, he states that “[t]he order of the world is no accident. There is nothing actual which could be actual without some measure of order” (RM 115). Then the question is, how are we to account for this order? We have the core of his metaphysics of becoming here in his response to the above question, which maintains the role of creativity and God adequately: The religious insight is the grasp of this truth: That the order of the world, the depth of reality of the world, the value of the world in its whole and in its parts, the beauty of the world, the zest of life, the peace of life, and the mastery of evil, are all bound together – not accidentally, but by reason of this truth: that the universe exhibits a creativity with infinite freedom, and a realm of forms with infinite possibilities; but that this creativity and these forms are together impotent to achieve actuality apart from the completed ideal harmony, which is God (RM 115).

God as the principle of order and harmony is consequent upon God’s being as the principle of limitation. The plurality of actual entities, on their own, could not account for their ‘whatness’ or definiteness.’ It is the definiteness, amidst the immeasurable multitude of possibility that accounts for order and harmony. “God is the non-temporal actuality” effective in “every creative phase” and whose “inclusion” in every creature is responsible for the emergence of definiteness (RM 91). Whitehead ends Religion in the Making with a positive note on the spiritual growth of the universe and with the primacy of God’s wisdom as the guiding force of order in it.

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The universe shows us two aspects: on one side it is physically wasting, on the other side it is spiritually ascending. … There remain the inexhaustible realm of abstract forms, and creativity, … and God, upon whose wisdom all forms of order depend” (RM 153-54).

However, it should be kept in mind that some authors, for instance Emmet, do not assign the function of ordering the structure of the universe to the ‘primordial nature of God’. On the contrary, he assigns it to creativity (Emmet 1990, 61). Yet the problem with Emmet’s interpretation is that creativity can structure only with what is given. Creativity does not explain the givenness of the subjective aim itself. What one needs is an account of the givenness of subjective aim. The question is whether creativity can do that? Ford’s comment is appropriate here that God can be shown unnecessary to the system, if we succeed in explaining that the subjective aim of each occasion is derived from some sources other than God (Ford 1983, 334).32 This gives us the opportunity to take a fresh look at the issue of subjective aim and the question of God.

4.3.5 God: the Source of the Initial Aim Another important function of God in relation to the World, which also brings out the primacy of the transcendental aspect of God, is God’s role in providing the initial aim. Initial aim is given while the subjective aim is the way in which the subject takes up the initial aim (and possibly changes it). God as the principle of concretion gives the initial subjective aim. God grants the lure for a particular way of becoming which is compatible with God’s own general plan of the world. There is a distinction between initial subjective aim and the subjective aim of the concrescing actual occasion. “The concrescence is dominated by a subjective aim which essentially concerns the creature as a final superject. This subjective aim is this subject itself determining its own self-creation as one creature” (PR 69). It is defined as the “ground of the internal unity of an occasion,” which is indispensable for the formation of an individual being. It is also a condition of possibility for novelty and exclusiveness of an actual occasion (Christian 1959, 304). The final real fact or the reality of an actual entity is the process of growing together or concrescence of multiple data into a novel unity. The outcome of this concrescence is an actual entity, which is at the same time a || 32 In fact, Sherburne has made an attempt in this regard. Ford has summarised them under five heads: see Ford 334. Lewis Ford S. “A Sampling of Other Interpretations.” Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press (1983) 305-345.

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subject-superject. This superject is a factor in the process of becoming. This superject is the subjective aim of concrescence towards which it moves in the process. The subjective aim is the direction to be taken by the concrescing actuality to be ‘what it is’. In the concrescing process, each actuality has to decide what it has to be as an actuality. God’s primordial nature is the source of the initial subjective aim of a concrescing occasion. It is an “endowment” received from God: […] the initial stage of its aim is an endowment which the subject inherits from the inevitable ordering of things, conceptually realised in the nature of God. The immediacy of the concrescent subject is constituted by its living aim at its own self-constitution. Thus the initial stage of the aim is rooted in the nature of God, and its completion depends on the self-causation of the subject-superject. … In this sense God is the principle of concretion; namely, he is that actual entity from which each temporal concrescence receives that initial aim from which its self-causation starts (PR 244).33

The point yet to be clarified is how does Whitehead account for this claim? In fact, it is demanded by the ontological principle. From the point of organic philosophy “there is nothing which floats into the world from nowhere” (PR 244). Everything real is referable to some actual entity, i.e., it has its origin either in some past actual entity or “belongs to the subjective aim of the actual entity to whose concrescence it belongs.” This subjective aim does not have its origin in the actual entity itself. It comes from elsewhere, from something other than itself. The past cannot supply this subjective aim because the “living subjective immediacy of the occasion ‘perishes’ into being and leaves as a legacy for the future its objectified self - the ‘superject’” (PR 245). Therefore, again we come back to the initial question and the final metaphysical problem here, which concerns the reason and ground of the initial subjective aim. In providing this to each and every temporal occasion God functions as a formative element.34 This initial aim is a precondition for the self-causation of each actual occasion. God “is the principle of concretion in the sense that “he is that actual entity from which each temporal concrescence receives that initial aim from which its self-causation starts” (PR 244). The initial subjective aim of each actual entity, expresses also God’s purpose with regard to each particular actual entity, which means “the highest intensity of experience possible to it,

|| 33 Also PR 67, 108, 189, 224, 244, 283, 344. 34 There is a difference between subjective aim and subjective form. Subjective form is how a feeling is felt by the concrescing subject of that feeling, while the subjective aim is the teleology of the unification of all feelings into one actual occasion.

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which is to say, the maximum actualisation of value in that instance” (Leclerc 1958, 205). Subjective aim is a condition of possibility for any process for there can be no activity of unification without an aim. Whitehead recognized this when he stated that: [The] doctrine of the inherence of the subject in the process of its production requires that in the primary phase of the subjective process there be a conceptual feeling of subjective aim; the physical and other feelings originate as steps towards realizing this conceptual aim through their treatment of initial data (PR 224).

This unique actual entity is God, who “is the principle of concretion – the principle whereby there is initiated a definite outcome from a situation otherwise riddled with ambiguity” (PR 345). It means that each actual entity receives its initial aim from God, which is the condition of possibility for any actuality’s capacity for self-causation. This subjective aim is so decisive for any actuality in the sense that the growth of any actuality as a separate autonomous entity depends on this subjective aim. Furthermore, the selection and realization of the eternal objects for the actualization of any particular actuality also depends on the subjective aim. Again, it is this subjective aim that constitutes the autonomous subject “with its initial conceptual valuations, and with its initial physical purposes” (PR 244). In a concrescing actuality the subjective aim is a ‘concept’ or more precisely it is a primary pure conceptual prehension. As such, it must have derived from a primary physical prehension. In addition, since it is God who provides the initial subjective aim, it is clear that the datum of this physical prehension is God. Moreover, the data of conceptual prehensions are eternal objects. Thus, it is evident that God providing the subjective aim means that God conceives or envisages eternal objects in their relevance for actualisation by the actual entities constituting the world.

4.4 The Religious Significance of Whitehead’s God The concept of God in Whitehead is very complex and, thus, it has invited various responses as well. In order to point out this complex nature we will, before entering into the central point of our discussion in this section, present some of the responses. Whitehead has introduced quite a number of new terms, discarding a great many traditional philosophical terms, in order to avoid misunderstanding. Some of such new concepts and terminologies Whitehead had used to explicate his philosophy of God. Nevertheless, it seems that Whitehead himself

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was a prey to the same problem. In this regard, pointing to the equivocity of the term God, it is observed, “he [Whitehead] has seen fit to confuse his readers with perhaps the most equivocal term of all, namely, ‘God’” (Corliss Lamont 414). Whitehead is reported to have admitted that he was not primarily concerned with God. God was brought in to show that “He belonged” (Johnson 1983, 4).35 Therefore, it is evident that in considering the question of God in Whitehead’s philosophy, what matters is ‘what does he mean by the concept God’? The question is not whether Whitehead believes in God or not, but rather how significant is his concept of God, in the way it is presented.

4.4.1 The Complexity of the Subject One can observe two contrasting views regarding this particular subject. For many people the introduction of God into Whitehead’s philosophy was surprising. This was not expected from someone who began as an agnostic. Susan Stebbing expressed her dismay in her review of Process and Reality (1929-30, 289-301).36 Sherburne observes that the concept of God is both inconsistent and unnecessary (cited Ford 1983, 333).37 Walter Lippman wrote in A Preface to the Morals that the conception of God is incomprehensible for ordinary people that would satisfy the metaphysical need in a thinker, but which would not satisfy “the passions of the believer” and for the purpose of religion it is no God at all (25-27; cited Reeves and Brown 26). Again, on the ground that Whitehead’s God is dependent on the world Cornelio Fabro and Arthur Gibson consider Whitehead as an atheist.38 One of the claims of Whitehead’s philosophy of God is that it solves the problem of evil, in the sense that it understands God as the principle of limitation. Therefore, one cannot conceive of God being responsible for evil. Nevertheless, it is observed that even Whitehead’s philosophy fails to es-

|| 35 The following pages will make clear our own standpoint in respect to this question. 36 Susan Stebbing. “Concerning Substance.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society XXX (192930) 285-308. 37 Lewis S. Ford. “A Sampling of Other Interpretations.” Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press (1983) 305-345. 38 Cornelio Fabro. “Concrescence or Dispersion of God into the World (Whitehead).” God in Exile. trans. Arthur Gibson. (Westminster: Newman, 1968) 804-35. Arthur Gibson. The Faith of the Atheist (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), chapter 7. However, what is notable here is that Fabro ignores the primordial nature of God, where God is infinite, unchanging and totally independent of the world.

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tablish the ultimate triumph of the Good (Madden and Hare 278-89).39 Still, Whitehead’s statement that there is static completion neither for God nor for the World, but that they are “in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative advance into novelty” (PR 349) would entail that God is no more accepted as the Ultimate, as was held for millennia. This would also mean that he is no more the perfect Being. Many hold the view that the God of Whitehead cannot be seen as a religious God. One of the thrashing criticisms in this regard came from Ely. It is hardly doubtful that the Primordial Nature of God, taken by itself, ought not to be called ‘God’. … on Whitehead’s own admission, it is only God’s Primordial Nature and perhaps the non-religious skeleton of his Consequent Nature that can be reached by philosophical analysis. … The only God that metaphysics can attain to have no religious value and presumably ought not to be called God, whereas the only Being who has a possible right to be called God can be reached only by religious and moral intuitions. Philosophers – or most philosophers – have been taught to view such intuitions with a certain distrust. In other words, when Whitehead is speaking as a philosopher he has no right to the term ‘God’. When he speaks of Being that has any resemblance to the God of the religions, he has explicitly to rely on intuitions. Nor should it be forgotten that the God given in Whitehead’s intuitions is only dubiously the God of contemporary religions. … The God Whitehead finds necessary is a desiccated metaphysical principle. … A metaphysically demonstrable God has never been a religious necessity (Ely 206-7).

What is to be said about this observation of Ely is that one has to see it in the light of Whitehead’s statement that he has introduced the concept of God purely on metaphysical grounds. About Religion in the Making Fulton J. Sheen wrote that it pays honour neither to God nor to logic.40 Moreover, it is observed that even the Primordial Nature of God cannot serve religious purposes. For, Primordial nature of God “is unconscious and impersonal” and has no concern for us as individuals. In Process and Reality Whitehead writes: He, in his primordial nature, is unmoved by love for this particular, or that particular. … In the foundation of his being, God is indifferent alike to preservation and to novelty. He cares not whether an immediate occasion be old or new, so far as concerns derivation from its ancestry. His aim for it is depth of satisfaction as an intermediate step towards the ful-

|| 39 We will discuss the issue of God and evil in Whitehead in the third part of the work. 40 F. J. Sheen. “Professor Whitehead and the Making of Religion.” The New Scholasticism I, 2 (April 1927) 147-162, cited in Reeves and Brown (22).

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filment of his own being. His tenderness is directed towards each actual occasion, as it arises (PR 105).41

This citation of Whitehead is really ambiguous. He, certainly, has not formulated a philosophy of God without flaws. At the same time, it deserves equal attention that besides the complexities expounded above some people see a novel and relevant theodicy in it, while some others maintain just the opposite view. As it is well known to the academics no one can deny that the branch of theology called “Process Theology” developed mainly with the insight of Whitehead’s process philosophy. Neville thinks that Whitehead’s doctrine of God limits human freedom (Neville 1995, 9).42 On the contrary, as Cobb observes, God is the giver, and the creator of human freedom (1980, 99). On the other hand, Pailin has a different opinion in this regard. On the ground of the freedom of creatures, it is argued that “[h]istory as the product of human decisions and nature as the product of non-human processes are but a rough and ready division of a continuum of degrees of responsiveness to the divine influence which embraces all reality” (Pailin 284). From this vantage point, Pailin claims, that a ‘process theology’ that is true to Whitehead and Hartshorne does not endorse a philosophy of God that is limited in any sense. In other words, a distinction between revealed theology and natural theology is alien to Whitehead’s God (Pailin 285).43 One of the first theologians who accepted and applied the Whiteheadian concept of God is Henry Nelson Wieman.44 For some, Whitehead does advocate the necessity of using metaphysical principles in religion. Nevertheless, he maintains that in matters of religion divine providence and intuition should reign primacy. “Religion requires the metaphysical backing; for its authority is endangered by the intensity of the emotions which it generates” (RM 81). However, what he advocates is a “dispassionate criticism” (RM 81),45 rather than a destructive one. Alix Parmentier, who

|| 41 We will see further critical remarks when we deal with the relationship between creativity and God in Whitehead, in Part Three. 42 Robert Cummings Neville. Creativity and God: A Challenge to Process Theology (New Edition). New York: State University of New York Press, 1995. 43 However, it should be noted that what Pailin proposed is a concept of God as creator when Whitehead himself apparently denies, except in the aforesaid sense, such an attribute to God. 44 Henry Nelson Wieman. “Professor Whitehead’s Concept of God.” The Hibbert Journal XXV, 4 (1927) 623-630. Here the author presents God as the principle of concretion (Reeves and Brown 24). 45 In this respect one is reminded of Aurobindo who combines reason and faith in matters of religion. We will deal with it in the third part of the work.

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wrote one of the best books on Whitehead’s concept of God in French, shares the following: Going beyond logic, he [Whitehead] came back to the real which we experience, situating himself in this way beyond the subjectivism of Descartes – I think, therefore I am -, of the English Empiricist and of Kant, joining again (in this way), the metaphysical enterprise of Aristotle. I say ‘in this way’, because there is no talk in Whitehead of ‘a first Unmoved Mover’, nor of a ‘Prima Causa’, nor or a transcendent Principle of which one has made a ‘supreme all powerful agent.’ … Whitehead without excluding faith … affirms that human reason is capable, by itself, to discover, starting from our experience of what really is, a Principle that religions call God. 46

It is notable that Parmentier has brought out some of the key issues that explicate the religious relevance of Whitehead’s philosophy of God. What is the truth about these claims as well as the vindications? These are some of the intricate issues in Whitehead’s philosophy of God. Our concern here is not to develop or account for these claims or arguments. They have been cited only to show the complexity. However, in the course of our discussion we will try to clarify some of them. With these preliminary remarks we come to our major concern in this section: the religious relevance of Whitehead’s philosophy of God. I would agree that Whitehead has brought out some of the true pictures of God, in his own words, that is faithful to the “Galilean vision of Christianity.” In what is to come I will try to highlight some of them.

4.4.2 The Goodness of God versus the Will of God What I see as the great merit of Whitehead is his emphasis on the “goodness” and the “love” of God, relegating emphasis on the “Will” of God.47 Whitehead wrote: The concept of the goodness of God replaces the older emphasis on the will of God. In a communal religion you study the will of God in order that He may preserve you; in a puri-

|| 46 Alix Parmentier. La Philosophie de Whitehead et le Problème de Dieu. Paris: Beauchesne, 1968. The text given is from a personal letter of the author. Translation of the text by André Cloots. 47 At the outset, however, it has to be made clear that this does not mean that the classical theistic view of God has discarded the “goodness” of God. Nor is it my intention here to make a critical study of the traditional notion and the Whiteheadian philosophy of God. On the contrary, my attempt is to point out some of the relevant aspects of Whitehead’s philosophy of God which is applicable both in a metaphysical as well as in a religious context.

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fied religion, rationalised under the influence of the world-concept, you study his goodness in order to be like him. It is the difference between the enemy you conciliate and the companion you imitate (RM 40).

Whitehead’s “mediation” on the “goodness and love” of God is especially clear in RM and AI and in his description of the consequent nature of God in PR. In RM Whitehead maintains that the limitation of God is his Goodness (RM 147),48 and in SMW God is identified with the Good. This would mean, at least, two things: that God is infinitely good and secondly, God is not limited by anything else. It was previously stated that it was to avoid the problem of evil that Whitehead does not consider God as a metaphysical ultimate.49 Instead, he presents God as a power of persuasion and a lure for Value and Goodness. God is luring us to the highest form of values: “He is that element in virtue of which the attainment of such a value for others transforms itself into value for ourselves” (RM 152). In this respect Stokes observes that “man’s self-creative process reveals the presence yet absence of an unconditioned non-temporal source of value which man can value without reservations or qualifications” (Stokes 1973, 81).50 Since this accounts for the finer religious instincts of man, it can be called God, the source of value and meaning for the temporal existence. Moreover, God is presented as the “Eros of the Universe” (AI 253) who leads it towards goodness, truth and beauty (PR 346; AI 268). God is the eternal matrix of everything noble and good. The above descriptions of God, such as love, goodness, lure for value and meaning, co-sufferer, etc. go very well with the nature of religious God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It seems that Whitehead was very attentive to the role of religion in the society and how people responded to it. He was able to read the signs of the time as he wrote: “The modern world has lost God and is seeking him” (RM 72). What is more interesting is the alternative suggested in view of transcending this traumatic situation. For Whitehead, what we are trying is not to prove the existence of God, but to discover it. Of course this discovering is different from physical and scientific discovering; it is a discovering in solitariness, where only

|| 48 In human beings there is the tension between desire and duty whereas in God there is no such tension. Only when this tension is overcome, one can imitate the goodness of God. To overcome this tension Whitehead suggests that one’s individual interest should give way to the general good (Cf. Griffin 1976, 307-308). 49 However, Whitehead does admit a certain metaphysical ultimacy to God, for instance, God’s primordial qualifications. 50 Walter E. Stokes. “A Whiteheadian Approach to the Problem of God.” George F. McLean (ed.). Traces of God in A Secular Culture. New York: The Society of St. Paul (1973) 61-84.

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religion can be of any help (RM 16).51 This discovering is the discovering of God as “Good” (RM 68) and “Love” (PR 346).52 It is a re-discovering of the “Galilean origin of Christianity” as Whitehead claims (PR 343) and still it is a “rebound from dogmatic intolerance to the simplicity of religious truth” (RM 73). To put it differently “if the modern world is to find God, it must find him through love and not through fear, with the help of John and not of Paul” (RM 73). The goodness of God is invariably related to order, harmony, and purpose, in the sense that, for Whitehead, God is the precondition of order by virtue of his primordial nature. In fact, Whitehead maintains that “there is a natural affinity between order and goodness” (MT 75). God’s primordial nature is permeated by “the lure for feeling, the eternal urge of desire” (PR 244); it is the “timeless source of all order” (PR 32), from which “our natures” receive “refreshment and companionship” by way of subjective form (PR 32). God’s primordial nature in virtue of its immanence in the world is the “urge towards the future” (PR 32). Whitehead further states that the “Divine Eros” is the “active entertainment of all ideals with the urge to their finite realization, each in its due season.” He qualifies this “Eros” as “the indwelling Eros that urges the soul” or the “indwelling persuasion towards the harmony which is the height of existence” (AI 68). This “indwelling” explicates further the immanence of the Divine. And thus, Whitehead underscores that “Nature” contains this “Eros” as “a tendency to be in tune” which urges towards perfection (AI 251). Another revealing fact is Whitehead’s emphasis on the truth of the upward movement of nature towards perfection. In this context Whitehead’s positive note, which we already cited, at the end of RM is very appropriate: “The universe ... on one side it is physically wasting, on the other side it is spiritually ascending” (RM 153). Whitehead presents God as the ideal to be followed. “There are experiences of ideals – of ideals entertained, of ideals aimed at, of ideals achieved, of ideals defaced. This is the experience of the deity of the universe” (MT 103). Again, it is said “the creativity with a purpose issues into the mental creature conscious of an ideal” (RM 114). Here the question is concerned with the purpose. Where does it come? Here Whitehead is very clear: God is that function in the world by reason of which our purposes are directed to ends which in our own consciousness are impartial as to our own interests. He is that element in life in virtue of which judgement stretches beyond facts of existence to values of existence. He is that element in virtue of which our purposes extend beyond values for our-

|| 51 Whitehead defines religion as follows: It “is what the individual does in his solitariness” (RM 138). 52 Here Whitehead recalls St. John’s presentation of God as “Love.”

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selves to values for others. He is that element in virtue of which the attainment of such a value for others transforms itself into value for ourselves (RM 151-52).

For Whitehead, “The purpose of God is the attainment of value in the temporal world” (RM 97); and this “value is inherent in actuality itself” (RM 97).53 God “is not the world, but the valuation of the world” (RM 152). (Here any point of pantheism is clearly rejected.) It is the “Divine Eros” we spoke about previously. Furthermore, it is argued that “God, as conditioning the creativity with his harmony of apprehension, issues into the mental creature as moral judgement according to a perfection of ideals” (RM 114). Two facts are evident in these citations: (i) the close and combined activity of creativity and God in the emergence of a new actuality; and (ii) the primacy of God over creativity.54 Here it seems that Whitehead’s position is basically not different from the traditional view of becoming, in contrast to the general trend maintained of him, namely which does not relegate in any way the primacy of the Divine. He has satisfactorily maintained the role of God in his metaphysics of becoming.

4.4.3 God: the Wisdom that Permeates the Universe What Whitehead offers is no proof for the existence of God, but rather, “there is merely the confrontation of the theoretic system with a certain rendering of facts.”55 It is also suggested that Whitehead would be against those humanists who would “save” religion by eliminating its essentials (Johnson 1983, 4). Brümmer observes that truth about significance, meaning and the essential nature of life belong to the domain of religion and views of life (1999, 15).56 In fact, it is the role assigned to the conceptual or primordial nature of God in Whitehead’s system. In this context one has to see the following: “the final principle of religion is that there is a wisdom in the nature of things” (RM 138), the matrix from which we receive guidance for practical life. What gives hope for human beings, even when they ‘walk through the valley of darkness’ is the sense of value and meaning of life (Viktor Frankl).

|| 53 Further observations in this regard will be clarified in the third part of the dissertation. 54 Especially when it comes to the question of order, value and upward movement. 55 What he offers, Whitehead admits, “is confessedly inadequate” and shall not be taken as more than “suggestions.” 56 Vincent Brümmer. “Science, Religion and the Agency of God.” André Cloots & Santiago Sia (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 3-21.

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Again, in consonance with his own presentation of God as a “co-sufferer”, Whitehead states that “the wisdom of the subjective aim prehends every actuality for what it can be in such a perfected system – its suffering, its sorrows, its failures, its triumphs, its immediacies of joy …[and the image of God which expresses this nature of God at its best conceived], is that of a tender care that nothing be lost” (PR 346). Another revealing statement of Whitehead pregnant with meaning and having great import is the following: “The consequent nature of God is his judgement on the world. He saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgement of a tenderness which loses nothing … it is also the judgement of a wisdom which uses what in the temporal world is mere wreckage” (PR 346). In these above statements of Whitehead, one could read Johannine theology in its gist form that ‘for those who believe in God there is no judgement. The judgement depends on the choice as St. John puts it: “And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world and people loved darkness rather than light” (Jn 3: 19). And Whitehead’s statement that “tenderness which loses nothing” echoes the Johannine statement, “for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16). Whitehead’s point that the consequent nature is God’s “judgement on the world” is very suggestive. Nonetheless, how are we to account for it? The consequent nature of God understood as God’s involvement with the world, as the wisdom that permeates the universe, can be assessed in the light of incarnation. And in that sense one could say that Jesus manifested the nature of God in its fullest sense and depth as a God who is “love.” And if one reads the Johannine passage and Whitehead together in the context of incarnation, the consequent nature of God could be taken as God’s “judgement on the world” in the sense that it is upto each one to accept and imitate this image of God in his/her existence. And there is no other judgement for human beings than the one based on how far he/she “lives” this image of God revealed. In continuation with this thought, one could observe the relevance of the consequent nature of God, taking into account human subjective experience, namely the ground of diverse religious experiences as rendered by the great religions of the world. In Christianity God is considered to be someone who loves and really cares for the world. If we can understand God only from his conceptual side, that may not do justice to the God of Christian religion. Therefore, God has to be conceived both in his non-temporal (primordial) and temporal (consequent) natures, to perceive God as the authentic ground and unity of meaning. In this respect Whitehead formulates that “analogously to all actual entities, the nature of God is dipolar” (PR 345). His picturing of God as “the great companion – the fellow sufferer who understands” would ever remain in hu-

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man consciousness with immense relevance. Moreover, Whitehead maintains that God is the “ideal companion who transmutes what has been lost into a living fact within his own nature. He is the mirror which discloses to every creature its own greatness” (RM 148). Here two facts are evident: (i) every existence is a participation in the existence of this primordial actuality. As Whitehead says “The world lives by its incarnation of God in itself” (RM 149); and (ii) the freedom and dignity of each actuality is maintained by the clause that God is “the mirror which discloses to every creature its own greatness.”

4.4.4 Metaphysics of Becoming without God Taking into account the complexity and the inadequacy of the way that God is treated, some suggest an alternative view, namely a Whitehead without God. For instance, Sherburne attempts a Whiteheadian metaphysics without God, for, he maintains, Whitehead’s system with God is inconsistent. The problem concerns the prehending of the past. How is it possible? As per the ontological principle only an actual entity can serve as reason or ground, for no temporal actual entity can prehend it and contemporary actual occasions cannot prehend each other. Then the only possible alternative is God, but God is not the ground of ontological principle. If God is to prehend the past actual entities, as Christian claims, the consequent nature of God prehends the past. He has to be made an exceptional actual entity which again goes against the Whiteheadian principle that God cannot be made an exception to the metaphysical principles. Therefore, Sherburne claims that Whitehead’s system with God is inconsistent. Here Sherburne argues also against Hartshorne who tried to solve the inconsistency by saying that God prehends the past and contemporary actual occasions. However, here too one meets with the same problem that God has to be treated as an exception to the metaphysical system (1971, 325-26).57 Moreover, Sherburne raises the issue that in Whitehead’s system God is the ground of the ontological principle and the source of the initial subjective aim. His argument is that in his earlier works, especially in SMW, Whitehead did not present God as the ontological ground, in fact he did not feel such a necessity, rather God is presented as the principle of limitation, the role assigned to God is as the giver of the initial subjective aim. Sherburne points out that in SMW

|| 57 Donald W. Sherburne. “Whitehead without God.” Process Philosophy and Christian Thought. Delwin Brown, Ralph E. James JR. & Gene Reeves (eds.). Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc. (1971) 305-328.

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“every occasion is a synthesis of all eternal objects under the limitation of gradations of types of entry” (SMW 175). This means that “no eternal objects can be divorced from its reference to other eternal objects” (Sherburne 1971, 326). It is from this understanding that Whitehead makes the following statement that “there is a general fact of systematic mutual relatedness which is inherent in the character of possibility. The realm of eternal objects is properly described as a ‘realm’, because each eternal object has its status in this general systematic complex of mutual relatedness” (SMW 161). From this Sherburne concludes that “if there is at least one actual entity in the world characterised by at least one eternal object, one specific form of definiteness, then this actual entity provides all the ontological ground required for the realm of eternal objects – an appeal to God is not necessary” (1971, 326). To substantiate his claim Sherburne points out Whitehead’s statement in RM that “the forms belong no more to God than to any one occasion” (RM 150). When one takes into account the basic insight of the Whiteheadian system that there is an eternal process of becoming, it also brings out the fact that there is “a generation of actual entities exhibiting concrete forms of definiteness.” Thus, it can be further deduced that each actual entity is “a process of emerging definiteness where the process is the decision whereby the essence of each and every eternal object is either included or excluded from positive aesthetic feeling – is either positively or negatively prehended, to use the terminology of Process and Reality” (Sherburne 1971, 327). Sherburne observes that Whitehead’s ontological principle that ‘apart from actual entities there is nothing, bare nothingness’, is a restatement of the general Aristotelian protest against the Platonic tendency to ‘separate a static spiritual world from a fluent world of superficial experiences’. The point is that in making God a non-temporal entity ontologically grounding the eternal objects, Whitehead makes clear that he is a Platonist in his heart (Sherburne 1971, 326). Moreover, Sherburne points out that in the Hartshornian circle there is a tendency to play down the role of creativity while at the same time trying to augment the importance of God. “God has encroached on the role Whitehead assigned to creativity.” For Sherburne, “creativity is adequate to provide a rational account of the process from an immediately past occasion to the presently emerging occasion contiguous to it” (Sherburne 1971, 323). Thus, Sherburne in his ‘naturalistic interpretation of Whitehead’s metaphysics argues that Whitehead’s system is coherent without God (Sherburne 1971, 323).58

|| 58 In the same way Mooney claims that Whitehead’s metaphysics without God is as coherent as the system with God. His claim is that “novel forms of definiteness emerge as part of the

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Amidst the above contrasting views and remarks what can be said with certainty is the following: Whitehead’s philosophy, in many respects, stands in contrast to the classical theistic vision that tradition has handed over to us. My point would be that one has to see it in its wider context, namely the context in which it originated.59 And, I think, Whitehead’s statement in his preface to Religion in the Making endorses my observation. He states: The train of thought which was applied to science in my Lowell Lectures of the previous year, since published under the title, Science and the Modern World, is here applied to religion. The two books are independent, but it is inevitable that to some extent they elucidate each other by showing the same way of thought in different applications (7).

Here my point would be that in SMW and in PR Whitehead’s primary concern is science and metaphysics. One cannot see the subtitle of his PR, namely “An Essay in Cosmology” as accidental, but it tells one of the major topics developed in it. Nevertheless, he found it necessary to speak about God from such a perspective as well, for, he knew that God is a necessity for the completion of his system. Therefore, he speaks of God from a scientific-metaphysical point and the way it is expressed is not very familiar to the religious circle. For instance, he speaks of God as the principle of limitation, which appears very strange to someone formed in the classical religious view. The presentation of God in such a manner was one of the reasons for the criticism as well. Nonetheless, as we come to RM the tone and the way of presentation are radically different; in fact, it is more attuned to religion and the Bible. Moreover, one has to keep in mind Whitehead’s distinction of metaphysical ultimate and religious ultimate. What is striking here is, the distinction Whitehead made between the metaphysical and the religious ultimate is evident in his SMW and RM.

|| evolutionary process and do not need to be conceptually entertained as possibilities by God. The divinity may not be required as a principle of ideal order – such order as we discern in the world might be immanent in it, an inheritance of past actual entities.” Moreover, “the idea that the universe is a process of advance towards greater richness and stability, where particular evil facts are overcome, might be regarded as an optimistic and unwarranted appeal to an ultimately benevolent category of creativity. There may be no reason why novelty must involve improvement” (Mooney 221). Timothy Mooney. “Deconstruction, Process and Openness: Philosophy in Derrida, Husserl and Whitehead.” André Cloots & Santiago Sia (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 208-230. 59 This we will discuss as we deal with the question of the relationship between creativity and God. For the moment it suffices to understand that Whitehead’s position explicates also the general trend of the period.

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It is true that Whitehead has presented a way to think the God question anew, which is an urgent necessity, as he sees it. He has brought out some relevant insights concerning God and religion. Nevertheless, our discussion highlighted the tension between the classical view of God and the one Whitehead drew up. In this context only, one can see some of the criticism raised against Whitehead or process theodicy. And one may add that this tension remains ever alive. Whitehead wanted to make God relevant in the modern world, but in his attempt to make God relevant, by a vision of God that is more attuned to modern world and science and metaphysics, the identity of the notion “God” is attenuated, in the light of the classical perspective. The point is that he does not pay adequate attention to the religious sensitivity and the milieu in which the meaning of the term God originated. Nevertheless, whatever his critics might say, it is deemed necessary to add that one cannot conclude that Whitehead’s notion of God is a failure.

| Part Two: Aurobindo’s Integral Advaita and the Metaphysics of Becoming

“It is at least a fundamental principle of the ancient wisdom, the wisdom of the East on which we are founding ourselves, that philosophy ought not to be merely a lofty intellectual pastime or a play of dialectical subtlety or even a pursuit of metaphysical truth for its own sake, but a discovery by all right means of the basic truths of all-existence which ought then to become the guiding principles of our own existence. Sankhya, the abstract and analytical realisation of truth, is one side of Knowledge. Yoga, the concrete and synthetic realisation of it in our experience, inner state, outer life is the other. Both are means by which man can escape out of falsehood and ignorance and live in and by the truth. And since it is always the highest he can know or be capable of that must be the aim of the thinking man, it is the highest truth which the soul must seek out by thought and by life accomplish” (Synthesis of Yoga 383). “The complete use of pure reason brings us finally from physical to metaphysical knowledge. But the concepts of metaphysical knowledge do not in themselves fully satisfy the demand of our integral being. They are indeed entirely satisfactory to the pure reason itself, because they are the very stuff of its own existence. But our nature sees things through two eyes always, for it views them doubly as idea and as fact and therefore every concept is incomplete for us and to a part of our nature almost unreal until it becomes an experience. But the truths which are now in question, are of an order not subject to our normal experience. They are, in their nature, “beyond the perception of the senses but seizable by the perception of the reason.” Therefore, some other faculty of experience is necessary by which the demand of our nature can be fulfilled and this can only come, since we are dealing with the supraphysical, by an extension of psychological experience” (The Life Divine 61). Aurobindo

5 Integral Advaita: Its Place within the Indian Philosophical Tradition The problem of the One and the Many is a fundamental question in Indian philosophy as it is in the West. One of the fundamental presuppositions of Indian philosophy is its explicit adherence to the idea that the “Reality is one in essence.” But the moment one asserts that reality is ‘One’ he is perplexed by the riddle of the ‘Many’ that encompasses him with its enigmatic flux. How are we to reconcile the Vedantic formula that Reality is one with the apparent many which are constantly changing?1 This problem itself stems from another presupposition and avowed acceptance of Brahman as the single substratum of the universe.2 Once the Transcendent, Infinite, and Immutable Brahman is accepted as the Absolute it naturally raises the question of the reality of the phenomenal world. A number of questions are possible here: what does one mean by saying that the Brahman is the Absolute? What relation has it to the phenomenal world? If Brahman is the only Reality, what is the nature and status of the universe? These questions themselves take one directly to the problem of the one and the many. Therefore, we come back to the above statement: how can one substantiate the claim that the whole problem of Indian philosophy is the problem of the one and the many? The question of the one and the many has a dual dimension, i.e., the whole development of Indian philosophy originates from this centrifugal question and at the end of all our search and analysis we come back to this centripetal point. Thus, the one and the many become the pivot for our discussion of Aurobindo’s metaphysics of becoming (integral advaita) as well. The matrix for the whole development of Indian philosophy was the Brahma-world relation. If the Absolute is One how do we account for the multi-

|| 1 It is the same riddle of existence that the Fathers of Greek Philosophy confronted with. The approach taken and the solutions proposed to the problem, however, are different in the East and in the West. In fact, to one’s own surprise, the Easterners themselves ended up with different theories. 2 It has to be made clear at the outset that the realisation or the acceptance of Brahman as the fundamental and sole reality by the Indian thinkers was not the result of a moment. It was the outcome of the age-old search of the Indian Sages to find the ultimate substratum of the universe from the beginning of the history of human thought. It has also undergone various stages of development. However, our concern here is not to develop the history of Indian thought. Classical Indian philosophy has its culmination in the Vedantic thought. It was Vedanta that identified Brahman as the ultimate substratum of the universe.

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plicity of the universe? What status has it? What is the truth of our phenomenal experience? It indeed is the question of the Reality itself. All the schools of Indian thought are related to Vedanta in two ways: (i) they all stem from the Vedanta in the sense that they have either accepted or denied its doctrines and (ii) they are articulated as a response to the question of the one and the many. Aurobindo’s integral Advaita or the metaphysics of becoming is no exception to it. Therefore, our primary objective in this chapter is to explicate how Aurobindo’s predecessors have responded to this question and how Aurobindo is related to them. This is certainly a Herculean task, for, it inevitably takes one to the discussion of Vedanta philosophy. Neither Aurobindo nor we could deal with this question in isolation of Vedanta; it calls us to delve into the genius of the masters of Vedanta philosophy. In fact, Aurobindo himself develops his metaphysics in dialogue with it. Therefore, as the Sitz im Leben of the Aurobindonian metaphysics we will also discuss three major schools of thought, though very briefly, in this chapter. Nevertheless, first we look into the central presuppositions of Aurobindonian metaphysics.

5.1 Fundamental Presuppositions of Aurobindo’s Metaphysics The whole edifice of Aurobindo’s philosophy is pillared on certain presuppositions. For Aurobindo, the central problem of philosophy is the problem of harmony (LD 2). We should give proper attention to the great Vedantic formulas: “One without a second” and “All this is Brahman” (MU 2,7).3 What went wrong in the past is that we stressed on the first at the expense of the second. For Aurobindo, the “revolt of Spirit against Matter” has dominated human thought for two thousand years (LD 23). Problems stem from “an unsolved discord,” from “an undiscovered agreement or unity” (LD 2). Therefore, he attempted to formulate a “larger and complete affirmation” of both Matter and Spirit (LD LD 6). This acceptance is demanded by the Upanishadic teaching that “Matter is also Brahman.” The central problem, therefore, is the problem of harmony: how do we handle the question of the one and the many? We have not adequately sought the means of harmony. The second presupposition, wherein one observes the originality of Aurobindo and how he transcends the theories of his predecessors, of the Inte-

|| 3 Mundaka Upanishad.

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gral (purna) Advaita4 is faith in the “involution” (descent) of the Absolute Reality in the material world. The Vedanta accepts that “[l]ife is already involved in matter and Mind in life because in essence Matter is a form of veiled life, life a veiled form of Consciousness” (LD 3). Here we also have Aurobindo’s novel response to the problem of the one and the many. The condition of possibility for the third presupposition, namely evolution in reality, is the “involution” (LD 703). A fourth presupposition of Aurobindo is his faith in “cosmic consciousness.” By entering into that consciousness one becomes aware of the fact that Matter, Mind, and Life are one existence. The major conclusions of Aurobindo’s integral view of Reality can be summarized in the following way: (i) The realization of the Absolute Reality as utterly transcendent with respect to all forms; (ii) Realization of the Absolute as a personal God, creative and all-pervasive Lord of the universe; (iii) Realization of the Absolute as moving and unmoving, finite and infinite, determinate and indeterminate, immanent and transcendent, etc.; and (iv) Realisation of the various planes of being, linked in graded continuity from lowest matter to the highest spirit – identification of the evolutionary ascent (Bruteau 43). No serious discussion of Aurobindo’s philosophy can undermine these central principles of his integral Advaita. The task that remains is to clarify how Aurobindo overcomes the inconsistencies that one encounters in the metaphysics of the major schools of Vedantic thought, namely the schools of Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva. Moreover, how does Aurobindo synthesize both matter and spirit by transcending the partial views of both the materialist and the idealist in his integral Advaita? A pre-requisite for appreciating the reality of both Spirit and Matter is a correct understanding of the relation between the two. This takes us to the understanding of Aurobindo’s integral approach to reality. Aurobindo, in the light of his basic presuppositions, as well as in the light of the three great Vedantic schools of thought, develops his metaphysics. Nevertheless, before entering into his metaphysics proper we have to situate Aurobindo in the proper context. That would also help us to appreciate his originality much better.

|| 4 Aurobindo also follows the Indian tradition of using the notion “non-dualism” rather than “monism”, as Bruteau remarks, in order to emphasize the note of transcendence of all substantial categories. Non-dualism points to the fact that the ultimate Reality is incomprehensible and non-categorizable. It is beyond both matter and thought and are later than the ultimate Reality (Bruteau 41-42). Beatrice Bruteau. “Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin on the Problem of Action.” International Philosophical Quarterly vol. XII (1972) 193-204.

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5.2 Aurobindo and Vedanta Philosophy The first condition to understand and appreciate a theory or philosophy is to understand its formative Sitz im Leben. Therefore, our first task is to understand the heritage of Indian philosophy that Aurobindo inherited from tradition. The questions of the ultimate Reality, the one and the many and God-World relation have captured the attention of Indian philosophers from the dawn of history, as it also happened in the West. There have been various attempts by the Indian thinkers to find a reasonable solution to these age-old philosophical problems. The most prominent and popular among them were the solutions proposed by Shankara, Madhva, and Ramanuja. Aurobindo does not stand isolated in the history of Indian thought. Aurobindo places himself in the Vedanta tradition.5 He rather built his own system of Integral Advaita,6 that transcends the Advaita (Absolute monism) of Shankara, which stressed the non-dualistic character of reality; the Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja, which proposed a qualified nondualism; and the Dvaitavada of Madhva, which proposed a dualistic conception of Reality.7 Therefore, we develop Aurobindo’s philosophy in dialogue with his great predecessors.

|| 5 It was impossible for the Indian thinkers to put forward new theories independent of tradition. Scholars suggest two possible reasons for this: (i) in the suggestive lines of the Upanishads one could come across all sorts of philosophical speculations; (ii) the Hindus had great reverence for the great scriptures of India, especially for Vedas and Upanishads. Therefore, what is not found in the scriptures was considered to be unorthodox (Veliyathil 2). Joseph Veliyathil. The Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: His Idea of Evolution. Alwaye, India: Pontifical Institute of Philosophy and Theology, 1972. Commenting on this tendency of Indian scholars Radhakrishnan observes that even the most original thinkers do not claim to develop a new system of thought but write commentaries on the three great works, The Upanishads, The Bhagavad Gita and The Brahmasutra. The Upanishads were many in number and were composed in different schools of thought at different stages. Thus, there were many differences with regard to the problems discussed and solutions offered in spite of their underlying unity in thought. Therefore, a codification was necessary and Badarayana undertook this task. His work is known under different names such as Brahmasutra, Vedantasutra, Sarirakasutra or Sariraka-Mimamsa, Uttaramimamsa, etc. 6 There are different renderings of the word advaita, adwaita, etc. Aurobindo employs the latter version. In this work I have opted for the traditional one ‘advaita’ except when it is a quote from Aurobindo. 7 The scholars use all their ingenuity to discover their views in these works or modify the views expressed in them or even to reinterpret the obvious views which they found difficult to maintain. “Indian thinkers, even when they advance new views do so in the name of an old tradition” (Radhakrishnan 1960, 26). S. Radhakrishnan. The Brahma Sutra. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1960. This fact is equally true of Aurobindo as well. It can be said that

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5.2.1 Aurobindo and Advaita Philosophy of Shankara Advaitism8 is associated with the celebrated Indian thinker Shankara (788820).9 Shankara is generally considered the greatest of the Indian philosophers. The following statements of Aurobindo, amidst his repudiation of Shankara in many respects, that “the great Shankaracharya needs no modern praise and can be hurt by no modern disagreements” (U 333) point to the greatness and authority of Shankara. Furthermore, the Advaita of Shankara is qualified as the “temple of metaphysics” (U 333). Shankara is qualified as the great “synthesizer and conciliator” of Indian philosophy (Indich 1980, 19).10 Shankara’s contribution to

|| what Aurobindo has done is a re-interpretation of Vedanta in light of modern scientific developments, especially in light of the evolutionary theories. 8 “The term ‘Advaita’ literally means “non-two-ness” and it connotes a theory which maintains that the ultimate Reality is not characterized by duality (Rao 1998, 23). Srinivasa Rao and N. Ramachandran. “The Recent Great Philosophers.” K. Mahadevan (ed.). The Glory of Indian Heritage. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation (1998) 313-326. The essential meaning of the subtle term “Advaita” is that there is nothing in the universe that can be described truly as “the Other” (Rao 1998, 24). ‘Atmaikatva’ (absolute one-ness of the self) is the central theme of the Vedanta in Shankara’s perspective. Brahman is the only true reality, that is. True knowledge (vidya) of this true reality is the foundation of all truths as well as the truth whose realization leaves no residual fact to be known over and again (Chattopadhyaya 2000, 31). Shyama Kumar Chattopadhyaya. The Philosophy of Sankara’s Advaita Vedanta. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2000. Advaita Vedanta is more than a mere philosophical system. Many of the philosophical traditions in India are practical guides to spiritual experience, so too is Advaita Vedanta. For the Vedantin, “to know” and “to be” is one and the same. The point is that one acquires proper knowledge only in an act of conscious being in accordance with what one knows and with the content of direct experience (intuition). 9 Shankara’s system is best known as non-dualistic or Advaita rather than monistic in view of distinguishing it from any position that construes reality as a single order of objective being. The primary concern of Advaita Vedanta is to expound the non-reality of all distinctions. The unity or oneness of reality that Shankara advocates does not require any multiplicity, as happens in the case of the most monistic view, in order to be affirmed (Deutsch 1969, 3 note 2). Shankara, however, admits the reality of the world from a phenomenalistic standpoint but not from a metaphysical or transcendental. It has to be noted that Shankara himself makes reference to his own predecessors who were also Advaitic thinkers, namely Gaudapada (7th cent.), teacher of his own master Govinda. 10 William M. Indich. Consciousness in Advaita Vedanta. Delhi: Motilal Benarsidass, 1980. In this regard Indich points out that Shankara’s system demonstrates that his purpose was to extend the quest for unity of thought both horizontally, among different branches and practical activity and vertically with respect to ultimate reality and value (Indich 1980, 20). The triple foundations (prasthana-traya) of Shankara’s philosophy are Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Sutra (Indich 1980, 2). A relentless logic, his astounding dialectical acumen and the

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Indian philosophy includes a powerful, universal understanding of the Upanishads, which were interpreted diversely by various thinkers, who preceded him (Rao 1998, 25). Shankara established his own philosophy in contradistinction, on one hand, to the heretic nihilism of the Sunyavadins (Buddhists) and, on the other, to the efficacy of Karma as an ultimate means to salvation (Narain 1).

5.2.1.1 Shankara’s Theory of Reality Shankara upholds Brahman as the highest transcendental Truth11 where one has the obliteration of all the distinctions between the subject and the object. Brahman cannot be described by any positive qualification. He is Nirguna Brahma.12 Brahman is the ground (adhisthana) of all creation, the consciousness presupposed by all knowings, and the object which is eternally desirable in and for itself. However, it has to be noted that ‘Sachchidananda’ cannot be taken as either attributes or accidents or even as parts of Brahman, rather they constitute the unitary and essential nature (svarupa) of Brahman (Indich 4).13 For the Indian thinkers the dilemma consisted, on one hand, in maintaining the oneness of the Absolute (Brahman) and, on the other, in accounting for the many in the phenomenal world. However, our primary concern here is not the question of the ultimate itself, rather how does Shankara account for the multiplicity of the world once he has established Brahman as the sole Reality. The question is, how does Shankara explain the relationship between Brahman, the creator, and the world, the created? For him, Brahman is both the material and efficient cause of the world. Shankara explains it by his theory of Satkaryavada that the

|| extraordinary vigor he showed in explaining the Vedic texts characterized Shankara’s philosophy. 11 However, it is very interesting and thought provoking to note that there are some authors who very seriously think that Shankara’s Advaitism was not a theistic but an atheistic one. Barlingay refers to Gorhe, who was a believer in God, but being dissatisfied with Advaitism, for its atheistic orientation, became a Christian priest. It is also notable that Barlingay not only refers to the view of Gorhe but also justifies it (Barlingay 350). S. S. Barlingay. Reunderstanding Indian Philosophy – Some Glimpses. New Delhi: D. K. Print World (P) Ltd., 1998. 12 Such a conception of Brahman was in the mind of the sage Yajnavalkya when he stated that Brahman can be best characterized as neti neti (not this, not this) (BU II, 3,6). Here one is reminded of Spinoza’s assertion that every determination implies a negation -omnis determinatio est negatio- (Bina Gupta 215). Eliot Deutsch. Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction. Honolulu: East-West Centre Press, 1969. A contrast of Saguna Brahma (Brahman with qualities) and Nirguna Brahma (Brahman without qualities) is well explained by Deutsch (1969, 13-14). 13 In other words, it can be noted that “existence is consciousness, and consciousness is bliss” (Mahadevan 1969, xxiv-xxv).

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material effect preexists in the cause. Shankara maintains that it is a logical conclusion. The point is, if the effect somehow preexists in the material cause, anything could come out of anything. However, Shankara observes that cause and effect cannot be identified in the sense that the effect is only a manifestation of the cause. Therefore, Brahman, the cause, is the only reality, and the effect, the world, is only an apparent manifestation of the cause. Brahman is both the efficient and material cause of the universe (Bina Gupta 216). Thus, Shankara advocates an absolute non-dualism. Shankara and Shankarites in their preoccupation to maintain the Absolute oneness of the Reality, denied the reality of the world. The heart of Shankara’s teaching is often expressed by: Brahma Satyam, Jagat Mithya, Jivo Brahmaiva naparah (Brahman is real, the world is false, and the self is not different from Brahman).14 This text has been often quoted and interpreted to support and substantiate the view that Shankara expounded an illusory existence of the universe. However, this concept is very much disputed today, and thus demands further clarification.15 || 14 Originally it is coined by Max Müller (Thachil 327). 15 There are many contemporary authors who state that it is a misreading of Shankara that he advocated an illusionary theory of the universe. For Chattopadhyaya, the illusory, in fact, is that there are plural realities or that reality is plural, simply because it appears as plural. “The world-pluralities are mere appearances, and it is only when we take them as real in themselves, that we make them illusory appearances, since this taking of them as real means ignorance of the many, need to be clearly distinguished one from the other.” In the ultimate analysis, it will be shown that the one and the many are two vibhavas (aspects or postures) of Reality, since there is, and can be, only one reality comprehending and encompassing everything that appears there - either as mere appearances or as illusory appearances. Nothing stands out against or in distinction from, the one Reality. The plural are, in one phase, its mere appearances, and in another phase, its illusory appearances. What is denied in Shankara’s system is not that there are plural ‘appearances’ or that Reality appears as many. On the contrary, what the Upanishads have denied and Shankara himself denies is that Reality itself is, therefore, many, since this means the same thing as saying that the many, the plural, are as themselves real. The truth is that “these appearances are coeval with us and we ourselves are included in the totality of these plural (appearances), and it is only the regarding of the pluralities, including ourselves, as real as existing (sat or asti) which renders these all (including ourselves) into illusory appearances” (Chattopadhyaya 2000, 87). Furthermore, “rightly analyzed and understood, the ‘mere’ appearance and the ‘illusory’ appearance are ‘functional descriptions’ of the very same entity in two divergent contexts of reference. … it is the ‘mere’ appearance which, in being misinterpreted as real, becomes the illusory. This illusory, again, when it is detected as illusory, that is, as ‘not-being-the-real-itpretended-to-be ‘is taken to be an ‘illusory appearance’” (Chattopadhyaya 2000, 91). The existence of the world is neither real nor unreal (non-being) for Shankara, rather it has an apparent existence. It is not real in the sense that it is sublatable. It is not unreal in the sense that unlike

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The Advaitins (non-dualists) were not baseless in their arguments. In fact, they were truthful to their experience; the Brahman and the universe appeared to be contradictory principles for them. The Absolute Brahman, as they experienced it, was Infinite, independent, unlimited, conscious, immortal and beyond spatio-temporal limitations. On the other hand, the apparent world was changing, limited, dependent, unconscious and subject to spatio-temporal limitations. Therefore, the two had a very contrasting status and not even a synthesis was possible. The only two options open to them were either to accept the reality of the world independent of Brahman or to make the world dependent on Brahman. The first option would certainly mean to endorse something like the Absolute dualism of Madhva, which would end up in a “false metaphysics.”16 And if the second option is accepted, the world with its finite nature is certain to affect the unity of Brahman. In either case the Infinity of the Absolute is certain to be affected. To accept the world as an integral part of Brahman would mean to limit the Absolute to spatio-temporality. This would certainly go against the traditional belief and upanishadic teaching. Moreover, such a view is neither welcomed nor appreciated. Therefore, the Shankarites had to deny the reality of the world to keep the Absolute oneness of Brahman. It was the only possibility open to them.17 In this regard Bhattacharya maintains that “the acosmism of Shankara goes beyond both realism and idealism by reducing the world to absolute illusion, by interpreting the vanity of life as implying the denial of all given reality” (Bhattacharya 1963, 2).18 However, Shankara admits the reality of the world from an empirical standpoint and not from a metaphysical or transcendental standpoint. By using his method of sublation (contradiction) which is the mental process of correcting and rectifying errors of judgement, Shankara de-

|| unreal objects, the world has an objective counterpart. It possesses an order of reality. Thus it can be concluded that, for Shankara, the world is different from the real, unreal and the illusory existence (Bina Gupta 216). For the Advaitins, real means that which is permanent, infinite and the eternal which is trikalabadhayam (beyond time). Therefore, the world is not real, but it is not wholly unreal in the sense that unreal is that which never appears as an objective datum of experience (Deutsch 1969, 32). But the world has an objective existence as far as the illusion is not corrected by knowledge of the Reality. What Gita states is remarkable in this sense: “… of the non-real there is no coming to be, of the real there is no ceasing to be” (II, 16). 16 Radhakrishnan 1923, Vol. II, 320. 17 They also make a critical examination of all the categories like cause-effect, substanceattribute, to establish the relation between the Absolute and the world. But everything turns out to be contradictory. 18 K. C. Bhattacharyya. “Shankara’s Doctrine of Maya.” Kalidas Bhattacharya (ed.). Recent Indian Philosophy: Papers Selected from the Proceedings of the Indian Philosophical Congress, 1925-1934 - (1963) 1-14.

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velops an ontological hierarchy.19 This is the core of Shankara’s absolute nondualism.

5.2.1.2 Aurobindo’s Response to Absolute Non-Dualism Aurobindo clearly repudiates Shankara’s absolute monistic view of the world and maintains that ‘All this is Brahman’ (Sarvam idam Brahma eva) (CU 3.14.1) does not mean an identity between the phenomenal (vyavaharika) world of appearance and the ultimate (paramarthika) reality of Brahman. The reality of the Absolute does not nullify the reality of the temporal world. On the contrary, it points to the absolute dependence of the universe on the Absolute. Therefore, Aurobindo designates the philosophy of Shankara as “a qualified illusionism” (LD 454) in the sense that it does not give the external world a real existence. Here the ontological status of the world is “real and yet not really real” (Banerji 226).20 Aurobindo’s own criticism of Shankara has to be seen in light of the illusionism alleged against Shankara and which was so prevalent ever since the formulation of his theory. It is this (alleged) contention of the Shankarites that is challenged by Aurobindo. Aurobindo writes in repudiation of Shankara that “Cosmos is not the Divine in all his utter reality, but a single self-expression, a true but minor motion of his being” (EG 315).21 This citation of Aurobindo is of great import. It contains the whole philosophy of integral Advaitism in gist. What I mean is that it highlights Aurobindo’s realism very clearly. And his realism itself follows from the fact that the world is a manifestation of the Absolute. Shankara contended that the world is not truly real and the only true reality is Brahman. In this respect the highest and the noblest ideal possible for human beings was to merge the individual soul into the essence of the Absolute reality. Such a perspective had a very negative consequence on human life; in fact, it promoted inaction and the renunciation of the world and everything in it as unworthy. The featureless Absolute was not the ideal to be pursued. “Featureless Moksha or Nirvana is not the true goal of human life. The true ideal consists

|| 19 In the process of “sublation one disvalues (more as a psychological necessity than from a purely logical point of view) a previously held object or content of consciousness on account of its being contradicted by a new experience” (Gupta 215). The Sanskrit root of what is usually translated as ‘cancellation’ or ‘sublation’ in the context of advaita ontology is badha which literally means contradiction (Deutsch 1969, 16). 20 Nikunja Vihari Banerjee. The Spirit of Indian Philosophy. New Delhi: Arnold – Heinemann Publishers, 1974. 21 Aurobindo. Essays on Gita [1922]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2000.

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in realising God in the life of the individual and in the community” (Rafique 76).22 Aurobindo claims that Advaitism can be maintained while accepting the reality of the World. In contrast to Shankara’s interpretation of the Upanishads that they establish the oneness of reality as Brahman, at the cost of the reality of the world, Aurobindo points to the “coexistence of the divine and its multiple manifestations” (Heehs xxi).23 The difference between Shankara and Aurobindo can be summarised in the following way: Shankara points out that as long as the individual is subject to Maya, he regards the cosmos as real, but once the individual withdraws from the cosmic Maya and attains liberation, he realizes that the cosmos is illusory. But Sri Aurobindo, on the other hand, points out that the individual, due to ignorance, is unable to realise the identity of the cosmos with Brahman. Once his limited consciousness transcends into higher consciousness and the ignorance is replaced by true knowledge, he realizes the reality of both Brahman and the cosmos (Pani 40).24

What is remarkable here is that both Shankara as well as Aurobindo see the role of ignorance. However, ignorance serves two different purposes in their system. Shankara maintains that ignorance is the root cause for the apparent many, while only reality is the Absolute. And as ignorance is removed by right knowledge, one will realise the Absolute oneness of the Brahman. On the contrary, for Aurobindo, as one gets free of ignorance he will be able to realise the oneness of the temporal world with the Absolute. In other words, for Shankara ignorance is the cause of the apparent many, and for Aurobindo, ignorance is the cause of the apparent one. How are we to reconcile the unity and multiplicity involved in the different texts of the Upanishads? Furthermore, one has to account also for the upanishadic claim that on the realization of Brahman all dualities and multiplicities will disappear. The question is, if the world with its multiplicities is real, how can they disappear? It is here one sees the originality of Aurobindo.

|| 22 M. Rafique. Sri Aurobindo’s Ideal of Human Life. New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1987. 23 Peter Heehs (ed.). The Essential Writings of Sri Aurobindo. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. Aurobindo’s repudiation of Shankara’s Mayavada and his own understanding of the integral vision of reality will be clarified as we come to the sixth chapter. 24 Binita Pani. The Indian Scriptures and The Life Divine. New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1993.

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5.2.2 Aurobindo and the Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja Ramanuja (1017-1137) is the chief exponent of the Vishishtadvaita or the qualified non-dualism.25 His was a “creative and constructive effort to systematize” (Bina Gupta 228)26 the philosophy contained in the classics of Indian philosophy. In the theistic tradition of Advaita he is considered only second to the great Shankara (Banerjee 1974, 216). The chief philosophical problem confronted by Ramanuja, like Shankara, is that of the one and the many. How are we to reconcile the Upanishadic teaching regarding Brahman as the only true reality and the flux of the many of the empirical world? In other words, how can we account for the empirical world without endangering the Absoluteness of Brahman? It is true that Ramanuja concurs with Shankara that Brahman is real. However, unlike Shankara, for whom Brahman is identity without difference (Nirguna), for Ramanuja, Brahman is identity-in-difference (Saguna). In this respect, Ramanuja is one with Aurobindo who maintains identity-in-difference. Ramanuja maintains that the Upanishadic denial of any negative qualities to Brahman does not mean that he is devoid of any qualities (contrasting with Shankara but concurring with Aurobindo); on the contrary, Brahman possesses a number of positive qualities such as existence, consciousness, bliss, knowledge, truth, etc. It is these attributes which are responsible for the determinate nature of Brahman (Bina Gupta 229).

5.2.2.1 Ramanuja’s Theory of Reality Ramanuja’s theory of reality is an ineluctable corollary of his theory of identityin-difference. Therefore, unlike Shankara, he postulates three ontological realities: God or Isvara, Souls or Jivas, and the world or matter. Ramanuja’s conception of reality is distinct in two ways: (i) he personalized the nature of Brahman, and (ii) he restores more personal attributes to the world and individual souls (Branningan 63).27 Brahman, maintains Ramanuja, is an organic unity, and thus

|| 25 He cannot be considered the founder in the strictest sense since the Upanishads, Mahabharata and Bhagavadgita contain the germs of this line of thought (Thachil 363). The system is so named because as the very name indicates in his metaphysical theory Brahman is substance and jiva and jagat are considered its attributes or qualities (Banerjee 1974, 221). Moreover, it is named so for the very reason that for Ramanuja the Absolute contains the many. 26 Bina Gupta. “Madhva.” Ian P. McGreal (ed.). Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. New York: Harper Collins Publishers (1995) 232-235. 27 Michael C. Brannigan. The Pulse of Wisdom: The Philosophies of India, China, And Japan. Belmont: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000.

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maintains a real relation between God, soul, and the world (matter). It is a point of convergence between Ramanuja and Aurobindo. They are three factors (tattva-traya) of the same Reality. The emerging question is how does Ramanuja keep the Absoluteness of Brahman when he accords ontological reality to both individual souls and the world? Though soul and matter (cit and acit) are equally real, they are nevertheless absolutely dependent on God (Isvara). One of the unique contributions of Ramanuja is the understanding that to be real does not mean to be independent (B. Gupta 229). Yet one has to clarify the nature of dependence. Since, for Ramanuja inorganic matter is also ensouled,28 the nature of dependence is perceived as that of body upon soul. Matter and individual souls are conceived to be the body of the Absolute and they are directed and sustained by the Absolute. In other words, though matter and soul are substances, in relation to the Absolute they are attributes. “The microcosmic harmony that exists between the body and soul is an analogy of the macrocosmic harmony that exists between Brahman and the world” (Susai 22).29 Thus, the Absolute is the supreme Reality with soul and matter as his integral parts. Brahman is the Absolute reality in the sense that independent of it or outside of it, there is no other reality. In fact, what Ramanuja proposes is an ontology of participation like that of Aquinas. In this respect also Aurobindo is one with Ramanuja. Ramanuja maintains that the substance can be known only through the attributes.30 Therefore, it follows from this premise that God can be known only through the world (Branningan 64).31 In his Vishishtadvaita, Ramanuja clarifies both the immanence and transcendence of the Absolute. This is certainly Ramanuja’s difference and advancement from Shankara. The immanence of the Absolute is proven from the fact that jagat and jiva are attributes and the Brahman is tran-

|| 28 Ramanuja. Vedartha-samgraha with Tatparya-dipika. Varanasi: (1894) 30-31. 29 Amalraj Susai. The Neo-Hindu Concept of Man in the Light of Sri Aurobindo’s Evolutionary Vision. New Delhi: Intercultural Publications, 1993. 30 If we compare it with Whitehead’s metaphysics, creativity being the ultimate, Ramanuja, Whitehead and Aurobindo agree on this point. 31 The emerging question is how are we to explain the existing relation between the Absolute and the attributes? Ramanuja explains it by his notion of aprithak-siddhi or inseparability. The relation of inseparability that exists between substance and attributes is also possible between two substances. The point is, just as qualities cannot exist without the substance in which they subsist, matter and soul as substances cannot exist without Brahman. Brahman is like a person and the various selves and material objects constitute its body. Therefore, as already noted above, Ramanuja’s Brahman is not an unqualified identity, rather is an identity in difference. In other words, it is an organic unity, in which one organ dominates and controls the others (B. Gupta 229).

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scendent by its nature of being a substance. One has to see this statement of Ramanuja in the context of Shankara’s absolute non-dualism. It was in response to such an absolute non-dualism that Ramanuja developed his qualified non-dualistic view of the universe. Thus, for him, the unity of Brahman is a unity of plurality, containing both conscious and unconscious elements (Thachil 367). The Upanishadic texts such as “there is no multiplicity here do not really mean a denial of multiplicity, rather it asserts only that the objects have no existence apart from Brahman” (B. Gupta 229). One has to place Ramanuja’s response to the problem of the One and the Many in the context of his theory of reality. How does the one contain the many? Ramanuja explains it through his principle of Samanadhikarnya or the principle of coordination. The argument is that different words in the same sentence can point to the same reality. His interpretation of the classical text “This is that Devadatta” explains the theory further. The core of the argument is that Devadatta of the past and Devadatta of the present are not entirely identical, yet both refer to the same person. Ramanuja holds that just as different descriptive modes can denote one and the same person, so also unity and diversity, one and many, can coexist; they cannot be contradictories, rather they can be reconciled in a synthetic unity. The many are real and they characterize the one. Gupta comments that it adds to the merit of Ramanuja in that he was able to distinguish the principle of differentiation at the center of identity (230). Thus, for Ramanuja, the Absolute contains the many within it. The Absolute is the substance and ground of the many. In him we have unity in plurality and plurality in unity.32 From the above discussion, it is clear that there exists unity and difference between the self and Brahman in various respects, including that the former is finite and subject to change and modification. There is a unity between the two in the sense that self and world are inseparable parts of the Brahman (Thachil 375). || 32 However one has to tackle another question here: how does Ramanuja distinguish the many from the One? Ramanuja makes three kinds of distinctions: 1) Heterogeneous distinction (Vijatiya-bheda). It is the distinction one kind of animal (say one elephant) has from another kind of animal. 2) Homogeneous distinction (sajatiya-bheda). It is the distinction that the objects of the same class maintain among themselves, namely, the distinction that exists between one elephant and another. 3) Internal distinction (svagata-bheda). It is the distinction that exists within an object. The first two kinds are external distinctions and the third is an internal distinction. The difference is between the various organs of the same being, such as the different body parts of the same elephant. The Absolute (Brahman) is devoid of heterogeneous and homogeneous distinctions since there is nothing outside of God. But he possesses internal distinction since he has within him different conscious and unconscious substances (Thachil 375).

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5.2.2.2 Aurobindo’s Response to Qualified Non-Dualism The above analysis of Ramanuja’s philosophy clearly emphasizes the immanence of the supreme Reality in all existence. In it one has both the strength and weakness of Ramanuja’s ontology. He succeeded in bringing down the Absolute, however, he finds it difficult to explain the precise relationship that exists between Brahman and the world. His theory of ‘part and whole’ would further question the integrity of the Brahman, since the part is subject to change and decay. It would also question how the temporal changes and the miseries in the universe affect Brahman, a concept which he has not considered adequately. It is also notable that in order to keep the unity of the universe and the Absolute, Ramanuja has focussed on the immanence of God even at the cost of his transcendental dimension (Thachil 390). In this respect, both from the religious as well as from the philosophical perspective, Advaita of Shankara is more appealing to the intellect, while Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita appeals to the heart. Ramanuja, Aurobindo maintains, in his attempt to safeguard the reality of the world, has altogether denied “the experience of a pure consciousness in an unqualified oneness” (LD 149). Remarkably, Ramanuja’s emphasis on the immanent dimension of the Absolute and its description go very well with Whitehead’s description of the consequent nature of God. Ramanuja is in agreement with Whitehead in that he advocates a real relation between the Absolute and the world. Nevertheless, in spite of Ramanuja’s sincere efforts, he has failed to account for the subsistence of both cit (consciousness) and acit (matter) in a single whole – the Brahman. Ramanuja’s Brahman is not a synthetic whole which might assimilate all its parts into itself. His concept of Brahman can be compared to a person whose body is composed of two opposing principles: cit – the individual consciousness (soul) and acit – the primordial matter. It seems that for Ramanuja, spirit and matter include both identity and difference in itself (bhedabheda). Such a position maybe applicable in a practical sense, but may not withstand an intellectual, logical scrutiny. Thus, one may have to admit that we are faced with a disjunctive proposition where the individual souls and primordial matter are either identical with or different from Brahman. However, the problem we face here is still acute, i.e., the former conclusion would take us to the Advaita philosophy of Shankara and the latter would demolish Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita in favour of Dvaita of Madhva where Brahman, individual soul, and matter are really different (Narain 7).33 This was also the point of criticism by Madhva against Ramanuja which is the subject matter of our

|| 33 K. Narain. An Outline of Madhva Philosophy. Allahabad: Udayana Publications, 1962.

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discussion in the following section. A comparison of Shankara and Ramanuja in the light of Aurobindo would claim that the latter is more sympathetic to Ramanuja in his approach to Reality. However, Ramanuja’s theory of dependence, which claims the absolute dependence of the universe on Brahman, even to the extent of negating the real existence of the universe is hardly acceptable to Aurobindo. Ramanuja, to a certain extent, succeeded in maintaining the reality of the world, but failed to work out the relationship between the two in a reasonable way. Ramanuja influenced Aurobindo with his theory of identity-indifference and the theory of real relation. However, the merit of Aurobindo is that he succeeded in maintaining the Absoluteness of Brahman amidst his avowal of the temporal universe, where Ramanuja failed.

5.2.3 Dvaitavata of Madhva Madhva (1199-1278) does not stand isolated but rather distinct in the history of Indian philosophy with his dualistic conception of reality; he is distinct in his response to the question of the one and the many. His is a dualistic realism.34 Dualism implies difference, which is said to constitute the essence of things. The theory of difference or dualism implies that each substance is unique with its own specific characteristics and natures. The difference is not only qualitative but also quantitative. Even the two objects that look alike are different in the sense that each possesses a self-differentiating characteristic.35 Madhva advocates, therefore, a pluralistic ontology (B. Gupta 233). Madhva developed a vision of the universe where God, the individual soul and matter are considered really different, and are eternal and absolutely real. The latter two are dependent on God, in the sense that Brahman is the cause and the world is the effect. Once the cause is known the effect also is known; both are real. A clear understanding of Madhva’s conception of Reality presupposes a clear view of his theory of difference and dependence. First we try to articulate his understanding of ‘difference’ briefly.

|| 34 The Sanskrit word Dvaita comes from the root dvi – meaning two. The term dvaita etymologically means duality or dualism. 35 Madhva acknowledges panchabhedas (five kinds of differences): the eternal distinction between God and souls; God and matter; souls and matter; one soul and another soul and one material thing and another material thing.

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5.2.3.1 Theory of Difference and Dependence Madhva advocates, on the one hand, purely a theistic philosophy based on the dualism of God and the Jiva, and, on the other, the plurality of the universe.36 The foundation of his ontology is his theory of perception and his theory of knowledge. Human perception brings before the perceiving subject a world of objects. They are independent objects, independent of the perceiver and the knowledge of the perceiver. It is independent of the knowledge in the sense that knowledge does not create objects, but only reveals them. Perception also brings out the difference between the perceiver and the perceived or the cognizer and the cognized. For example, the perception of a table makes clear that the table is real and it is different from other objects. They are two independent entities which have their own reality in the outside world. These distinctions are real and objective. Thus, Madhva rejects the relation of inseparability, and for him this means that the understanding of the material universe as the body of God is no more acceptable. Matter and souls are rather real and different from Brahman (Thachil 400). Madhva, even though he advocates a pluralistic ontology, does admit the dependence of the world and soul on the Absolute. His theory of dependence also results from his perception or from his everyday observances. The notion of dependence is an everyday phenomenon of our experience. Everything in this world depends on another. In this respect, Madhva’s theory of dependence is comparable with Whitehead’s interconnectedness (AI 150). From this fact of dependence Madhva draws the conclusion of the dependence of everything on God, even though God does not depend on anything. The individual souls are of many kinds and they differ in their intrinsic nature. The core of Madhva’s philosophy is the distinction he makes between two fold categories: the independent reals (svatantra) and the dependent reals (paratantra). For him, the only independent real is the Absolute, Brahman. The condition that makes a thing real is its existence in space and time (Rao 1972, 167).37 Therefore, Madhva is considered as an absolute dualist. For him, Brahman is the worshipped and the Jivas (souls) are the worshipping servants.38 The distinctive perception of the

|| 36 His dislike for the Shankarites was so great that he referred to them as “deceitful demons” (B. Gupta 232). 37 Nagaraja P. Rao. “The Concept of God in Sri Madhva’s Vedanta.” V. Raghavan and G. Marulasiddaiah (eds.). Professor M. Hiriyanna Birth Centenary Commemoration Volume (1871-1971). Mysore: University of Mysore, (1972) 167-173. 38 For Madhva, the great upanishadic text ‘Tat tvam asi,’ often quoted to point out the unity of Brahman and Atman, does not advocate such a view. For him, ‘Tat tvam asi’ does not mean the identity of Brahman and Atman (soul) but it only means that the soul has a similarity in es-

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Brahman-world relation by Ramanuja and Madhva can be summarised in the following way: for Ramanuja, the impersonal God of Shankara was only an “inadequate and partial realization of ‘the Supreme Person’ (Purushottama)” who is Absolute and eternal. The Absolute is ultimately real, and therefore, whatever comes from it is real, both the universe and the individual souls, but dependent on God. For Madhva, the individual soul was created by God, but never was and would never become one with him or part of him. “In the state of highest bliss the individual soul drew infinitely close to the transcendent Godhead, and remained thus forever, but it was always aware of its difference from God” (Gupta 1999, 120).39

5.2.3.2 The Ontology of Madhva The Sankhyas, who advocated “a metaphysics of dualistic realism” (Thachil 231), can be considered the forerunners of Madhva’s dualism. Nevertheless, we do not enter into the details of their arguments.40 Madhva repudiates the vivartavada (theory of appearance) of Shankara. According to Madhva, the effect is not an appearance but a real modification of the cause which remains intact (Thachil 397). Madhva’s criticism against Advaita is two-edged: (i) it discards the fact of human experience. What we experience in nature is plurality and multiformity. || sence with God. On the contrary, for Madhva, ‘sa atma tat tvam asi’ should be read as ‘sa atma atat tvam asi’ with the meaning ‘that atman, thou art not’ (Thachil 397). Madhva rejects the notion of Nirguna Brahman and accepts Saguna Brahman, as suggested by Ramanuja, as the ultimate Reality. Brahman is personal who hears the pleas of the devotee and who possesses positive qualities such as existence, consciousness and bliss. Madhva maintains that the Supreme Brahman is not different from the creator God, Vishnu, who is also the sustainer and the destroyer. Even in destruction, God, matter and selves remain distinct (B. Gupta 234). 39 Das Gupta S. N. “Philosophy.” Basham, A. L (ed.). A Cultural History of India. Third impression, Oxford: University Press (1999) 111-123. 40 Shankara himself developed his philosophy of Non-dualism in contrast to the dualism of Sankhya philosophy. The Sankhyas maintained that if consciousness is the essential nature of all reality then that does not agree with our daily experiences of the world around us. The world seems to be made up of unconscious objects, i.e., it is unconscious or insentient (jada) in nature in contrast to the conscious nature of our own self. The argument, therefore, is that if this is the truth, the arguments in favour of Non-dualism are untenable. Then one may have to admit that “there is consciousness and also a whole array of insentient or unconscious objects and both the categories of the conscious or the sentient (chaitanya) and the unconscious or the insentient (jada) are both equally, and ultimately real. Thus for the Sankhya school there are two ultimate realities: the Purusha (the Self or the Spirit) and Prakriti (the material nature which is the source of the entire physical universe) (Rao 1998, 25; Sen Gupta 1959, 41).

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Philosophy should not go against human experience, rather it should try to explicate the deeper significance of experienced facts;41 (ii) it neglects the religious and the ethical dimensions of human existence, in the sense that the human mind yearns for the warmth and solace that one gets as a result of believing in a personal God (God as the source of meaning, purpose and value). In His personal aspect, God is a necessity as the dispenser of moral justice. For Madhva, Shankara’s advaitism was a “barren intellectualism which ignored the needs of the emotions and the will in man” (Ramachandran 1976, 11).42 The world is absolutely real. It is not relatively real nor is it illusory. Madhva maintained that whatever comes under the purview of existence can be classified into two: eternal or non-eternal. The fact that something is perishable in time and space does not accord for its non-existence, but rather shows the finite nature of its existence. In other words, it does not mean that it is unreal, but only means that it is not ‘eternal’. On the other hand, non-eternality also does not point to the unreality but points to it as an object of our experience (Narain 8). The real for Madhva does not mean that it must eternally exist. “The real is that which is not superimposed.” Moreover, to describe the world as illusory goes against the glory of the Lord, for, if the world is illusory, its creator will be “no better than a juggler, and will not be the omnipotent Lord” (Rao 1972, 171). The Brahmasutra strongly supports the view that the world is not mere illusion and the difference between Brahman and the individual soul is ultimate (Murty 1965, 139).43

5.2.3.3 Aurobindo and Absolute Dualism Aurobindo criticizes Madhva for creating an unbridgeable duality between Brahman and the world: “The error is to make an unbridgeable gulf between God and man, Brahman and the world” (LD 131). Furthermore, while Ramanuja maintained a qualitative monism and a quantitative pluralism with regard to the reality of souls, Madhva advocates both a quantitative and qualitative pluralism (Radhakrishnan 1923, Vol II. 744). Here Aurobindo concurs with Ramanuja in his repudiation of Madhva. On the other hand, one of the distinctive features distinguishing Aurobindo as well as Madhva from Shankara is that in the former two material realities are not neglected, on the contrary, the individ-

|| 41 This recalls Whitehead’s great emphasis on experience in his understanding of speculative philosophy. 42 T. P. Ramachandran. Dvaita Vedanta. New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1976. 43 Sachdananda K. Murty. The Indian Spirit. Waltair, Andra University Press, 1965.

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ual souls and the material realities of the world are accorded ontological reality (Branningan 64). The above facts, furthermore, make clear that the traditional characterisation of Madhva’s metaphysical theory as absolute dualism is certainly disputable. We do not, however, enter into the details of this discussion but would rather claim that he is a Vedantist who maintains the Absoluteness of Brahman’s transcendence and the dependence of the universe on him.44 What is more reasonable and intelligible would be to say that Madhva’s “is a form of Bhedabhedavada (doctrine of identity in difference)” and not a mere Dvaitavada (dualism). What differentiates Madhva from other Advaita thinkers is that all others consider Brahman both as the material and efficient cause of the universe while for Madhva, Brahman is only the efficient cause and not the material cause. In this respect, it can be said that Madhva is more akin to Sankhya system because he identifies prakriti as the material cause of the universe. For Madhva, therefore, the doctrine of parinamavada also is not applicable in the case of God (Banerjee 1974, 215). In the above sections our attempt was to see how the great predecessors of Aurobindo conceived reality and its relation to the phenomenal world. Our discussion also eventually clarified how these thinkers have responded to the question of the one and the many. We have undertaken this analysis with a clear purpose in mind: (i) to clarify what is the relation of Aurobindo to the classical philosophy of India; (ii) to clarify the points of difference as well as points of convergence that Aurobindo has with his predecessors; and (iii) to delineate

|| 44 Madhva is a Vedantist. Therefore, like other Vedantists, he does not doubt the ultimate Reality of Brahman, and in this sense he is not a stranger to monistic thinking. The question then is, what is it that differentiates his theory from that of other Vedantists? He is distinct in the sense that he does not believe in the doctrine of Maya, and neither does he consider Brahman as Nirguna. Madhva is a realist. It is stated “Madhva … fell back upon his unshakable realistic tendency, and ruled out the idea of a-bheda and at the same time seems to have recognized the absoluteness of the idea of bheda” (Banerjee 1974, 214-15). In this respect, it is selfevident that he advocates a pluralistic metaphysics. It is true that he advocates a theory of difference between Brahman, self and the world. However, since he accepts the absoluteness of Brahman and the dependence of world and soul on Brahman, he cannot be considered as an absolute dualist. Brahman is immanent in Jiva and Jagat, and at the same time, is transcendent from them. In his transcendent nature, he is omniscient, omnipotent, perfect, eternal and immutable. In his transcendence he is Parmatman or Purushottama and in his immanent nature he is antaryami. Therefore, observes Banerjee, “there is no doubt that Madhva is at one with other theistic absolutists in conceiving the Deity in such a way that His identity (abheda) with, and his difference (bheda) from the world of souls and the world of nature are equally clearly admissible” (Banerjee 1974, 215).

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in a nutshell the constitutive factors of Aurobindo’s integral Advaitism. We see that neither the Advaita of Shankara nor the Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja, nor even the Dvaitavada of Madhva, are devoid of imperfections. Each theory has its own merits and demerits. Our primary concern is to see how Aurobindo views these respective issues and how he solves the imperfections involved in these systems by his metaphysics of becoming (integral Advaita) and how adequate and truthful his responses are.

5.3 Aurobindo and Different Theories of Existence The different responses that Vedanta philosophy offered to the question of the one and the many, together with their approach to matter and spirit paved the way for the development of a number of theories of existence. What is true matter or spirit or are they part of something that makes an organic whole? Approaches vary and that naturally results in different responses. These different approaches to the question of matter and spirit are important in light of our project because Aurobindo develops his integral Advaita or metaphysics of becoming in response to these different theories of existence. The three theories of existence with their corresponding mental attitudes and ideals that Aurobindo classified are the supracosmic, the cosmic or the terrestrial, and the supraterrestrial or otherworldly.

5.3.1 The Supracosmic View The Supracosmic view corresponds to what Aurobindo designates as “the refusal of the ascetic.” It accepts only the Supreme Reality as real. The temporal existence has no real value (LD 667). In the Vedantic thought it corresponds to the absolute monism of Shankara. For the advocates of this approach “the only true truth is the supracosmic; or, in any case, the Absolute, the Parabrahman is the origin and goal of all existence, all else is an interlude without any abiding significance” (LD 667-68). In this realm, the guiding principle for the individual existence, or the one “wise and needful way of our being is to get away from all living, whether terrestrial or celestial” (LD 668). One can easily detect a sort of illusionism as proposed by Shankara in this perspective.

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5.3.1.1 The Distinctive Nature of the Supracosmic View Aurobindo articulates the tendency of mankind to negate the external world in the following words: there has been a “drawing away from the world and a disappearance into the height of the Self or Spirit.” For the spiritualist, the inner experience is what is genuine and authentic. Therefore, in their over enthusiasm to emphasize the life of the spirit, they consider body to be “an appearance, an unreal mode, or even an illusion” (Chakravarty 2).45 In the past, body was considered to be a “stumbling-block and rock of offence” to the transcendence of the Spirit. Therefore, for the seekers of truth and for spiritual fulfillment, the neglect of the body was a condition of possibility for the desired goal. For this, in the past, sometimes people had to deny the existence of the material world in its totality. This was true of both individuals and of great religions. The denial of matter was a test of both the religious life and the spirituality. However, this was not the case during the early days of human history. The forefathers of mankind accepted and “acknowledged Earth the Mother and heaven the Father and accorded to them an equal love and reverence” (LD 231). In his Commentary on Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Aurobindo writes: “On Matter we rest and have our firm stand; out of Matter we rise to our fulfilment in Spirit” (U 340). The Supra-cosmic view is distinct in its denial of any true reality to the individual, any abiding value and significance to his natural or his spiritual activity. For the advocates of an exclusive supracosmic view, any demand for a permanent personal significance, for a personal eternity, is an error of our ignorant surface consciousness. The individual is only a temporary becoming of the Being, and that is quite a sufficient value and significance. The universe and its value systems are indispensable, but are only relative and temporary buildings; they are of no absolute value, and of no eternal and self-existent significance in a time-structure (LD 669). The mind when it passes through the Brahman consciousness it becomes conscious of the unreality of the material world which is the source for the ascetic denial. “It is this revolt of spirit against Matter that for two thousand years, since Buddhism disturbed the balance of the old Aryan world, has dominated increasingly the Indian Mind” (LD 23).46 The critique of

|| 45 Satyajyoti Chakravarty. The Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 1991. 46 The Aryans were a tribe of Indo-European-speaking, horse-riding nomads living in the arid steppes of Eurasia. Sometime around 1700 BC, the Aryans invaded the ancient urban civilizations of the Indus Valley, and destroyed that culture. The Indus Valley civilizations were far more civilized than any horse-back nomad, having a written language, farming capabilities, and leading a truly urban existence. Some 1200 years after the supposed invasion, the descendants of the Aryans, so they say, wrote the classic Indian literature called the Vedic manu-

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Aurobindo regarding the ascetic denial, however, is not a blind one. He does admit that this belongs to “a truth of existence, a state of conscious realization which stands at the very summit of our possibility” (LD 24). He also admits that the ascetic spirit is an indispensable element in practical life as well. In spite of this, he suggests a “larger and complete affirmation” of both Matter and Spirit (LD 24). Aurobindo maintains that we should give proper attention to the great Vedantic formulas: “One without a second” and “All this is Brahman” (MU 2,7). What went wrong in the past is that we stressed the first at the expense of the second. Spirit and Matter are the indispensable components of the truth of existence. Matter is the base and instrument of the spirit. Matter has a goal and the spirit has a mission. They are at the service of each other. The cosmic consciousness, which is ultimately the background of the individual spirit as well as of the body, the formed matter, is immanent in both (Chakravarty 4).

5.3.1.2 The Supracosmic View and Integral Advaitism of Aurobindo There are arguments for and against the primacy of both matter and spirit. However, if one reduces the truth of existence to spirit alone and considers it to be the sole truth about reality, one would be committing a similar mistake as that of the Mayavadins or the spiritual monists who deny the external world. On the other hand, if one emphasizes the unreality of the material world he/she would arrive at a similar conclusion by a different path which would confirm “the fictitious character of the individual ego, the unreality and purposelessness of human existence, the return into the Non-being or the relationless Absolute as the sole rational escape from the meaningless tangle of phenomenal life” (LD 20). This question cannot be solved merely by logic arguing on the data of our ordinary physical existence. What we need is the cosmic consciousness by which one becomes aware of the fact that Matter, Mind, and Life are one existence. “The world is real precisely because it exists only in consciousness; for it is a conscious Energy one with Being that creates it … world lives by That; That does not live by the world” (LD 22). It is true that neither materialism nor asceticism, taken alone, is the sole truth about the reality, and this point, nevertheless, would certainly supply us with only a partial view of reality. In our search for Truth what is more danger-

|| scripts. The Aryans are said to have entered India through the fabled Khyber pass, around 1500 BC. They intermingled with the local populace, and assimilated themselves into the social framework. They adopted the settled agricultural lifestyle of their predecessors, and established small agrarian communities across the state of Punjab.

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ous is the ‘refusal of the ascetic’ because “it carries within itself its own cure” (LD 9). In the refusal of the ascetic we have already the promise of a better and a really real world. It is easy for people to reject something for the acquisition of something better and more rewarding. It is only when we stress the sole truth of the one particular spiritual experience at the cost of the other that there develops mutually destructive schools of philosophy. Advaitism has taken a position which tries to do justice to both views, it frees us from the negations and exclusions. There is truth in every affirmations but unless one pays special attention an excess will lead to “an ill-founded negation” (LD 149). This is true in the case of both matter and spirit. Therefore, what is necessary is an affirmation of both matter and spirit. “The perception of the spiritualised mind that the universe is an unreal dream can have no more absolute a value to us than the perception of the materialised mind that God and the Beyond are an illusory idea” (LD 35).

5.3.2 The Cosmic-terrestrial View A second approach to life is the cosmic-terrestrial view, which corresponds to the “denial of the materialist.” It advocates a view that is exactly opposite to the supracosmic, and considers cosmic existence as real and accepts it as the only reality. Existence is then confined to life in the material universe. Only the immanence of reality is accepted and in the cosmic-terrestrial world there is no transcendence. “God, if God exists, is an eternal Becoming; or if God does not exist, then Nature,—whatever view we may take of Nature, whether we regard it as a play of Force with Matter or a great cosmic Life or even admit a universal impersonal Mind in Life and Matter,—is a perennial becoming” (LD 670). The cosmic-terrestrial view corresponds to the pure materialism.

5.3.2.1 The Distinctiveness of the Cosmic-terrestrial View One may trace the root of modern materialism in the affirmation and extension of the common sense point of view, namely matter as the fundamental reality, and sense experience as the source of valid knowledge. Whatever is beyond the “purview of sense experience” cannot be considered reality. Thus, philosophical materialism in its attempt to formulate a world view affirmed matter alone to be the ultimate stuff of reality. Matter as the “essence and seed” (Chakravarty 1) of manifold forms of existence, reduces all forms of existence to its by-product or epiphenomenon. Nevertheless, this certainly legitimizes a partial view of reality. In the materialistic outlook what is primordial is the objective dimension of existence and in epistemology what counts is objectivity, and the subjective

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dimension is completely ignored (O’Neil 2).47 The fact, however, is that the objective has value only to the extent that it is related to a subject; a complete understanding of the one presupposes the other. Aurobindo’s proposal is for an avowed reception of the subjective and the objective facts of reality. “In fact, subjectivity and objectivity are not independent realities, they depend on each other; they are the Being, through consciousness, looking at itself as subject on the object and the same Being offering itself to its own consciousness as object to the subject” (LD 648). Materialism in its extreme form regards the functions of life, mind and consciousness to be the variants of inert matter. Materialistic Agnosticism limits itself to the knowledge that is attainable by senses alone, and thus it errs by confining itself to “half-truth” for it can serve only as “the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth” (LD 12). It is not, however, the whole truth about reality and existence. “In its extreme” Aurobindo states, “this claim of the individual to be the judge of everything is an egoistic illusion, a superstition of the physical mind, in the mass a gross and vulgar error” (LD 649). Subjective and objective dimensions of our experience are necessary to formulate a holistic vision of reality. One cannot just deny the subjective dimension on the ground that it does not come under the range of our sense-experience. “Our sense experience itself depends on the evidence of consciousness. It is consciousness that synthesises the manifold sense impressions and gives unity to them” (Mishra 1957, 9).48 The point is that our physical mind cannot be the judge of our higher experiences.

5.3.2.2 The Cosmic-terrestrial View and Integral Advaitism For Aurobindo, matter is only a grade of existence. Matter and Spirit are considered to be the lowest and highest terms of existence. Therefore, neither one alone can be taken as the whole of reality, nor can sense experience be consid-

|| 47 Thomas L. O’Neil. Towards The Life Divine: Sri Aurobindo’s Vision. New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1979. 48 Aurobindo himself points to the necessity of the two: For him, “the outer sense can bear a reliable evidence only when they refer their version of the object to the consciousness and that consciousness gives a significance to their report, adds to its externality its own internal intuitive interpretation and justifies it by a reasoned adherence; for the evidence of the senses is always by itself imperfect, not altogether reliable and certainly, not final because it is incomplete and constantly subject to error. Indeed we have no means of knowing the objective universe except by our subjective consciousness of which the physical senses themselves are instruments; as the world appears not only to that but in that, so it is to us” (LD 648).

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ered the sole means of knowledge. To have an integral vision of reality one needs not only a clear understanding of matter and its processes, but also a clear view of what life and mind and their processes mean. Furthermore, an integral vision of reality also demands a precise understanding of both spirit and soul and what is behind the material surface (Misra 1998, 11). The matter is nothing but the descent of the Spirit out of itself. An authentic perspective of reality is that which gives both matter and spirit their due place and that which finds them as inter-related. When one asserts matter alone as real, he/she neglects or rejects those “noble and useful faculties” by which man can enter into supernatural domains (LD 10). The greatest inner discoveries, the experience of self-being, the cosmic consciousness, the inner calm of the liberated spirit, the direct effect of mind upon mind, the knowledge of things by consciousness in direct contact with the other consciousness or with its objects, most spiritual experiences of any value, cannot be brought before the tribunal of the common mentality which has no experience of these things and takes its own absence or incapacity of experience as a proof of their invalidity or their non-existence (LD 650).

Aurobindo’s critique of the materialism based on pure reason does not mean that he is blind to the great service the rationalistic approach has done or does to humanity. On the contrary, he acknowledges it. The rationalistic approach has helped humanity to transcend the perverting superstitions and irrationalising dogmas which hinder all progress in true knowledge (LD 10). In fact, the rationalistic approach has contributed to attain intellectual austerity or a “clear, pure and disciplined intellect” (LD 11) which is a prerequisite to enter “into the higher domains of spiritual experience” (LD 11). Furthermore, according to Aurobindo, scientific as well as Vedantic knowledge have reached the same truth, though they have made use of entirely different means and methods, of the “cosmos as one seed arranged by the universal Energy in the multitudinous forms.”49 Still what has interested Aurobindo is the “drive of science towards a Monism which is consistent with multiplicity, towards the Vedic idea of the one essence with its many becomings” (LD 14). In his view, material development is not something which itself is wrong and futile, but it is not the right path to be followed. It can be taken as the starting point for our evolutionary existence. An exclusive materialistic pursuit, however, ends in futility. Therefore he writes: […] the gospel of materialism, in spite of the dazzling triumphs of physical Science, proves itself always in the end a vain and helpless creed, and that too is why physical Science it-

|| 49 A clear influence of Svetasvatara Upanishad (VI. 12) on Aurobindo is evident here.

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self with all its achievements, though it may accomplish comfort, can never achieve happiness and fullness of being for the human race (LD 729).

Aurobindo justifies neither the refusal of the Ascetic nor the Materialistic denial. Both views are right from their own perspective but an exclusive understanding of either view is inadequate. “If the materialist is justified from his point of view in insisting on matter as reality … so also is the Sannyasin [ascetic], enamoured of that Beyond, justified from his point of view in insisting on pure Spirit as reality …” (LD 17). What the integral Advaita of Aurobindo suggests is not a negation but an integration of matter and spirit. For him, through the descent of the supreme Spirit not only is the release of the spiritual self possible, but also a release of the self in the world is possible. So what is demanded is not a flight from the world, rather a realisation of the true Self, while being in the world with the mediation of the supramental Truth-Consciousness (Heehs 178). This invites us to discuss a third possibility which has opened the door of integrating the above two views, in view of supplying a more authentic approach to existence.

5.3.3 The Supraterrestrial View A third theory of existence, that is incomplete and partial, is the supraterrestrial view. The flip side of the cosmicism and supracosmicism is that both are overtly exclusivist; for them not only the cosmos or the Absolute is real, but it is the only reality (Ninian Smart 1960, 171). A third possibility is a combination of cosmicism and supracosmicism, in the sense that it accepts both terrestrial and supracosmic realities. Those who hold this view accord to the material cosmos a temporary duration and consider it as the first fact, it being our starting point. Moreover, the supraterrestrial view admits other worlds or planes of existence, which are eternal. In other words, it advocates the immortality of the soul. The distinguishing mark of this view of existence is the idea that the true home of man is beyond and that the earth-life is in some way or other only an episode of his immortality or a deviation from a celestial and spiritual state into a material existence (LD 672). This third view “wrongly creates a gulf between the cosmos and the higher realm, to the detriment ultimately of the former and the distortion, in some degree, of the latter” (Smart 1960, 172). Aurobindo traces the origin and root of this partial view of human existence to certain religions.50 || 50 It is possible that what Aurobindo has in mind is the Christian and Buddhist view of life and what he aims at is an indirect repudiation of them.

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5.3.3.1 Distinguishing Features of the Supra-terrestrial View The three distinguishing characteristics of this supraterrestrial view of existence which Aurobindo identifies are as follows: (i) the belief in the individual immortality of the human spirit; (ii) as a necessary consequence, the idea of its sojourn on earth as a temporary passage or a departure from its highest eternal nature and of a heaven beyond as its proper habitation; and (iii) the emphasis on the development of the ethical and spiritual being as the means of ascension and therefore the one proper business of life in this world of Matter (LD 673). In this perspective material and spiritual or immanent and transcendent dimensions of life are acknowledged as valid ways of existence. In that sense it is more akin to the approach of Aurobindo. However, the flaw of this approach is that it considers the temporal as having no permanent value. In this respect, as Ninian Smart rightly observes, “supraterrestrialism falls into an error similar to that of supracosmicism” (1960, 170) in the sense that it represents an inadequate view of the cosmos and status of human existence in the universe.

5.3.3.2 Aurobindo’s Response to the Theories of Existence Aurobindo rejects all the three perspectives elucidated above as incomplete truth about existence, for all of them are partial in their approach to life and reality. He classified them as partial also in the light of the two great negations. The point is that the history of human thought has been characterised by the antithesis of matter and spirit or of materialism and spiritualism. It has witnessed two great denials, or in other words, there have been two fundamental mistakes that led to the promotion of a partial view of reality: the denial of the materialist and the refusal of the ascetic. The chief objections Aurobindo had with regard to the principal currents of Indian philosophy is summarised as follows: “they either regarded Brahman as divorced from matter, life and reason or they opposed Brahman to the latter as the true being to untrue and illusory being, or else the essence of Brahman was restricted to one of its attributes” (Chande 336). As we have stated above, the problem is of the one and the many. If we say that Reality is One and everything originates from Brahman, how are we to account for the many in the temporal world? The revolt of both matter and spirit that dominated the history of human thought has created an estrangement in human existence. It is because man’s highest aspiration is in disharmony with his placement in the world. For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony. They arise from the perception of an unsolved discord and the instinct of an undiscovered agreement or unity. To rest content with an unsolved discord is possible for the practical and more animal part

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of man, but impossible for his fully awakened mind, and usually even his practical parts only escape from the general necessity either by shutting out the problem or by accepting a rough, utilitarian and unillumined compromise (LD 2).

The difference between the East and the West in the existential interpretation of man’s estrangement is characterised by Aurobindo as “double negation” for neither the West nor the East is completely right in its interpretation (O’Neil 2). Europe was predominantly under the influence of the materialistic denial, while the refusal of the ascetic rooted itself in the Indian soil. “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” (LD 9). The mutual rejection of matter and spirit was with its own negative consequences on human life and thought. Mankind lived with a partial view of earthly life. The separation of matter and spirit and their mutual rejection have led not only “to the barrenness of thought but also to the barrenness of life” (Misra 1998, 7). The ideal is an integral human existence, a comprehensive affirmation of both matter and spirit. The Aurobindonian integral view of reality means neither an exclusive acceptance of Matter nor of the Spirit, rather the integral acceptance of the two. To recapitulate: no philosopher stands isolated in the history of philosophy. Each one develops his/her system on the foundation laid by the predecessors. Aurobindo is no exception to it. Aurobindo placed himself in the Vedanta tradition. Though all the schools of Indian thought have their roots in the Vedanta, it was Shankara who supplied it with a strong metaphysical foundation. However, Shankara erred in emphasizing the transcendental dimension of the Absolute even at the cost of its immanent aspect, to the extent of rejecting the phenomenal existence. In order to maintain the Vedantic truth that the Reality is One, he had to deny the temporal existence. In other words, Shankara failed to solve the problem of one and the many adequately. Ramanuja, who attempted a reconstruction of Shankara’s system, giving adequate space for the phenomenal existence, also failed to do justice. However, it is to the credit of Ramanuja that he tried to solve the problem of the one and the many by placing the many as subsisting in the one, but he failed to maintain the Absolute Transcendence of the one. Madhva, who inherited the heritage left by Shankara as well as Ramanuja, however, could not accept the ideas of his great predecessors. For him, the great flaw in their system was that they failed to maintain the reality of the temporal world. No philosophy can neglect human experience and, for Madhva, the existence of the temporal world is a self-evident truth. It is the merit of Madhva that

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he succeeded in maintaining the real existence of the universe as different from the Absolute. However, he failed in establishing any real relation between the two. In other words, for Madhva, one and the many stand independent of each other. Madhva failed to maintain the absolute oneness of the Reality which was clearly affirmed by Vedanta. Aurobindo was heir to this tradition of Indian philosophy, which he inherited from his great predecessors. Thus, the problem faced by Aurobindo was how to maintain the Absolute oneness of the Reality, while accepting the reality of both matter and spirit. What is expected of any meaningful philosophy is a meaningful solution to this enigma of Matter and Spirit. It is the motive force that led Aurobindo to delve into the vast ocean of Indian “wisdom” to embark a new phase of Indian thought. And there we have one of the most original and unique trains of Indian thought, i.e., the metaphysics of becoming.

6 Integral Advaita: A Metaphysics of Becoming Aurobindo develops his theory of the Oneness of Reality (i) through a reinterpretation of the theory of Maya, for in Shankara’s absolute non-dualism, the theory of Maya played a key role in maintaining the unity of Reality, through its negation of the external world; (ii) through developing the co-existence of Matter and Spirit; (iii) through a re-construction of the question of the one and the many; (iv) through his theory of Cosmic Consciousness; and finally (v) through his theory of Involution and Evolution or by presenting reality in its dual dimensions: being and becoming.

6.1 The Integral Advaitic View of Existence After evaluating the extant theories of existence, namely the Supracosmic, the Cosmic-terrestrial, and the Supraterrestrial, Aurobindo developed his own system in the light of the Vedantic tradition. This approach tries to reconcile the elements of the above approaches, which themselves “tend to isolate.” The fundamental tenet of this perspective is that it perceives human existence as a Becoming with the Divine Being for its origin and its object, a progressive manifestation, a spiritual evolution with the supracosmic for its source and support, the other-worldly for a condition and connecting link and the cosmic and terrestrial for its field, and with human mind and life for its nodus and turning-point of release towards a higher and a highest perfection (LD 667).

This citation very well manifests how Aurobindo has incorporated and integrated elements of the above theories. He admits them as a means and part of the self-manifestation of the Spirit in human life, but considers them as partial. Nevertheless, the integration of the first two theories, to a great extent, was already effected in the third by his predecessors. Then the question remains as to the originality of Aurobindo in this regard. The fundamental flaw of the third approach, which attempted integration of the previous two was that in it the temporal has no permanent value. What the realism of Aurobindo aims at is a richer unity and integrity of all the elements of existence. The Spirit manifests itself in various stages, of which three are major: An involution of spirit in the Inconscience is the beginning; an evolution in the Ignorance with its play of the possibilities of a partial developing knowledge is the middle, and the cause of the anomalies of our present nature, - our imperfection is the sign of a transitional state, a growth not yet completed, an effort that is finding its way; a consummation

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in a deployment of the spirit’s self-knowledge and the self-power of its divine being and consciousness is the culmination (LD 681).

This citation highlights another basic feature of Aurobindo’s integralism, namely the dynamic aspect of it. In fact, these two citations together explicate the core of the integral Advaitic view of existence. The first (LD 667) is the conditio sine qua non for the second (LD 681). Moreover, they do not stand isolated. On the contrary, they form an integral unity and manifest two aspects of existence. (i) Existence is integral: one and many, transcendence and immanence, spirit and matter, etc are different facets of it; and (ii) the nature of this Existence is dynamic or becoming: Being includes becoming as well. In other words, it is a progressive ascent. The task left for us is to substantiate further how this metaphysics of becoming is effected in the being. Nonetheless, before proceeding further in this direction we have to clarify certain concepts. Thus, first we turn to Integral Advaita.

6.1.1 The Name Integral Advaita Aurobindo places himself in the Advaita tradition. He acknowledges that his philosophy is a realistic Advaita. “The philosophy of the Life Divine is such a realistic advaita. The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is itself real” (LY 44). The question is about why Aurobindo’s system is known as integral Advaita or purna Advaita? It is integral for the following reasons: (i) Aurobindo presents his philosophy as an advancement of the major Advaitic traditions, and (ii) the designation Purna (integral) connotes a stronger intrinsic value vested in the universe than advocated by his great predecessors. For Aurobindo, the Real is one, but this oneness does not point to an exclusion but rather to a totality. It is an identity in difference. It is devoid of any duality, but has a deeper unity of wholeness (Bruteau 42). Moreover, it is integral in two other senses: firstly, it takes into account the knowledge attained, not through any particular mental process in man, but through his whole being. Thus, it can be said that it is based on an integral epistemology; secondly, Aurobindo’s conception of reality is based on neither man, nor God nor the world, nor any of the two alone, but on the integral consciousness underlying these three manifestations of Reality. For Aurobindo, Reality is an integral whole of which the individual, the universal and the transcendental are three facets (Sharma 1991, 30).1 || 1 Ram Nath Sharma. Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Social Development. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1991.

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Aurobindo’s system is also designated as integral Yoga.2 Yoga means “a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the secret potentialities latent in the being and - highest condition of victory in that effort - a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos” (SY 6).3 ‘Yoga’ is essentially a ‘spiritual integration’. It basically implies two factors: (i) Immediate contact with the inmost nature of existence in its manifold richness of content; and (ii) an integration of such different provinces of experience as science, art, morality, religion, etc., in light of one’s immediate insight into the heart of reality (Chaudhuri 1954, ix).4 Integral Yoga is “the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching the Divine Being” (SY 609). Moreover, it is stated that the goal of integral Yoga is “a divine perfection of the human being” (SY 616). In contrast with the ancient systems of Yoga, which maintained a negative attitude towards life and nature, Aurobindo’s system includes not only Being but also Becoming, not only the static or silent Spirit but also the dynamic Brahman. His system aims not only at the realization of God but also involves “an entire consecration and change of the inner and outer life till it is fit to manifest a divine consciousness and become part of a divine work” (LY 545). Therefore, it is known as integral Yoga. For Radhakrishnan, “Integral Yoga” points to its “comprehensive and all inclusive transformation of the state of mind and the life of the individual” (1967, 575).5 “Integral Yoga is the art of harmonious and creative living on the basis of integral experience of Being. It aims at opening the springs of creative inspiration hidden in the human psyche”

|| 2 The concept of Yoga is pivotal to Indian tradition. It is the union with the ground of Existence. This existential union is the essence of Yoga. The union is designated existential for it concerns the very life and existence of the individual. The word yoga literally means to unite, to join, or to yoke, which originates from the Sanskrit root ‘yuj’. In Aurobindo’s usage, however, this original meaning is not relevant since he tries to synthesise various traditional disciplines in an integral whole. Patanjali, who systematized yoga first, uses the term in a sense of partial or full restraint or steadying of the states of consciousness by which man can obtain emancipation from the bondage of mind and senses (Dasgupta 1971, 61 ff). 3 Aurobindo. The Synthesis of Yoga [1914-21]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2000. 4 Haridas Chaudhuri. The Philosophy of Integralism or The Metaphysical Synthesis Inherent in the Teaching of Sri Aurobindo. Calcutta: Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir, 1954. 5 S. Radhakrishnan [1923]. Indian Philosophy. vol. I and II. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1967.

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(Chaudhuri 1965, 13).6 Aurobindo’s system is integral above all for the reason that it maintains a monistic pluralism.

6.1.2 Distinctiveness of Integral Yoga The explication of the name “integral” brought out a number of features that are specific to Aurobindo’s metaphysics. Integral Yoga is distinct from and goes beyond other Yoga systems by aiming at two higher goals: (1) it aims to assemble, concentrate and discipline all the qualities, capacities, and motive forces in man and to elevate them to a “diviner spiritual level,” and (2) it moves beyond the liberation of the soul into a wholly transcendent realm of isolated unity, to a “cosmic enjoyment [bhukti] of the power of the Spirit” which has never been the motive or object of other systems. In fact, “it is a bolder and larger system” (SY 612). Again, while the traditional Yoga aims at individual liberation, Integral Advaita is concerned with making Earthly life Divine or bringing God down to Earth. The aim of this yoga is, first, to enter into the divine consciousness by merging into it the separative ego (incidentally, in doing so one finds one’s true individual self which is not the limited, vain and selfish human ego but a portion of the Divine) and, secondly, to bring down the supramental consciousness on earth to transform mind, life and body. All else can be only a result of these two aims, not the primary object of the yoga (LY 503).7

The question, however, concerns how practical are these ideals? The nature and final object of Integral Yoga can be clarified by the following facts: i) the liberation of the individual soul and the achievement of the perfect union with the Divine; ii) it is a corollary of the first, namely, the enjoyment of the perfect union of the individual and the eternal; iii) the fruits of the divine union are expressed and manifested in the works for promoting spirituality in the world (McDermott 1974, 112).8 Here, a notable point is that McDermott emphasises the individual dimension of liberation, and the cosmic dimension which is central to the Aurobindonian metaphysics is relegated to a secondary position. Aurobindo states that though integral Yoga was developed in view of individual discipline and liberation, in the course of time it has become a “part of the col|| 6 Haridas Chaudhuri. Integral Yoga: The Concept of Harmonious and Creative Living. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1965. 7 Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga (ed.). Pondicherry: SABCL, Vol. 22, 1970. 8 Robert A. McDermott (ed.). Six Pillars: Introduction to the Major Works of Sri Aurobindo. Pennsylvania: Wilson Books, 1974.

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lective Yoga of the divine Nature in the human race” (SY 614). Aurobindo continues: All life is a secret Yoga, an obscure growth of Nature towards the discovery and fulfilment of the divine principle hidden in her which becomes progressively less obscure, more selfconscient and luminous, more self-possessed in the human being by the opening of all his instruments of knowledge, will, action, life to the Spirit within him and in the world (SY 617).

Aurobindo’s integral vision, in contrast to Shankara’s advaitism, does not abandon life and world, but renounces “man’s blind attachment to them.” For the integral advaitism […] renunciation [is] merely an instrument and not an object … our renunciation must obviously be an inward renunciation; especially and above all, a renunciation of attachment and the craving of desire in the senses and the heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre of the consciousness. For these things are the three knots by which we are bound to our lower nature and if we can renounce these utterly, there is nothing else that can bind us (SY 329).

A unique feature of integral Advaita is that it attempted for the first time in the history of Indian thought a synthesis of the “evolutionary perspective of the modern West” with the spiritual heritage of India (Chaudhuri 1965, 15).9 It is this feature of integral Advaita together with the Indian view of the nature of becoming that made this research project possible. Therefore, its designation as the Integral Spiritualistic Non-dualism is very appropriate. It is an Integral Spiritualistic Non-dualism for two reasons: (i) in Aurobindo’s perspective all realities emerge from the fundamental spiritual substance, the Brahman; and (ii) the central purpose of Aurobindo’s yoga is “an inner self-development by which each one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a

|| 9 For Integral Yoga the spiritual destiny of life is a dynamic and complete self-integration which has three aspects: (i) The psychic integration which means a harmonisation of the different aspects of personality; (ii) The Cosmic Integration: the argument is that a proper psychic integration demands a cosmic integration for the psyche cannot be fully integrated without realization of its relationship to nature and society, i.e., to the cosmos. Psyche and cosmos are inseparable aspects of one concrete reality. In this light we can better understand Aurobindo’s insistence on the cosmic consciousness as well; and (iii) The Existential Integration: neither the psychic nor the cosmic integration find its fullness without the integration with the Eternal Spirit. It is the supra-cosmic integration, in light of which the integration of psyche and cosmos can be carried to perfection. Thus the final step in this integral self-development is the existential integration with the Ultimate (Chaudhuri 1965, 83-89).

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higher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual and a supramental consciousness which will transform and divinise human nature” (Heehs 179).10 Aurobindo’s system is distinctive for the reason that the object of his philosophy is integral reality. The core of integralism is the acceptance of the Supra-cosmic Transcendence and freedom (Nirguna Brahma), cosmic creativity and universality (Saguna Brahma), and unique individuality (Jivatman) as the three inseparable and equally real modes of existence of the supreme spiritual reality Sachchidananda. Among the three, primacy remains with the transcendent (LD 22).11 From this stand point it is right to say that the “individual maybe less fundamental, but surely not less real, than the Universal or the Transcendent. Similarly, the Universal maybe less fundamental, but surely not less real, than the Transcendent” (Chaudhuri 1954, 125). Thus, it is safe to say that in Aurobindo we have a synthetic reconciliation of the Indian schools of thought.

6.2 Aurobindo’s Interpretation of the Concept of Maya A general and the often expressed impression of a Westerner about Indian philosophy is that it is a world negating philosophy or that it teaches that the world is mere illusion or Maya. Aurobindo himself points to this trend: for a European the whole wisdom and the ideals of Asia or India (sagesse Asiatique) consist in illusionism, i.e., the world is Maya. For them, liberation or Nirvana of the soul consists in renouncing the world (LY 60-62, 128). Nevertheless, this impression by the West is a disputed matter; certainly, it is not an objective view of Indian philosophy. No teacher of Advaita holds the view that the phenomenal world is absolutely unreal or illusory. It is real as far as it is a manifestation of being but unreal as a self-subsisting entity (Radhakrishnan 1961, xii). Therefore, it can be rightly observed that the over emphasis that the Advaitins gave to one aspect of the reality was only a means to substantiate the Absoluteness of Brahman and was not a denial of the reality of the world. The question emerges is how has such a negative impression come about? It maybe the result of two mistakes or two factors that occurred in the history of Indian philosophy: (i) the Western world knew about Indian philosophy, at || 10 This citation is from an anonymous letter that was written by Aurobindo himself in 1934 for the use of the public. He wrote it with a view to explain to the world what does he mean by “Yoga” and what are the set goals of Aurobindo ashram in Pondicherry, India. 11 “World lives by That; That does not live by the world.” This transcendent aspect of Brahman will be dealt with extensively in the seventh chapter when dealing with the question of Absolute in Aurobindo.

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first, through the interpretation of the Western scholars themselves12 for whom Indian philosophy meant nothing but the Advaita philosophy of Shankara;13 and (ii) in Shankara’s philosophy, which advocated an absolute non-dualism (monism), the notion of Maya was wrongly interpreted as pure illusion, which was taken to be the truth in subsequent ages.14 Therefore, in the Western world, and even in India, what prevailed was this wrong interpretation of the theory of Maya.15 Thus, it may not be wrong to say that history has done much damage to

|| 12 J. N. Mohanty gives an interesting comment about a German indologist who confessed that he did not believe all that is in Vedanta. When Mohanty then asked why was he concerned at all with this, he replied that his primary concern was his professional capacity as an Indologist. This points to the fact that sometimes the concern of the Western scholars themselves was not the Truth contained in the classical works of Indian philosophy but their own activity of philosophizing (Bilimoria 209). 13 French Indologist Oliver Lacombe states that in his writing “for the most part” he had limited himself to the Advaita of Shankara and he thought himself justified in this, for India itself “desired to rediscover her authentic likeness” in Advaita Vedanta (cited by Murty 1965, 138). Such a view, however, is no more acceptable today, for no Indian scholars consider Vedanta as the “whole” philosophy of India, since Vedanta is one of the schools of Indian philosophy and Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta is only one among the four important schools of Vedanta thought. Regarding this Aurobindo stated that Shankara’s theory “is not at all a necessary deduction from the great Vedantic authorities, the Upanishads, Brahmasutra and Gita, and was always combated by other Vedantic philosophers and religions” (FIC 188). Aurobindo. The Foundations of Indian Culture [1918-21]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998. Moreover, he writes, “It is only recently that educated India accepted the ideas of English and German scholars, imagined for a time Shankara’s mayavada to be the one highest thing, if not the whole of our philosophy” (FIC 76). In the same way, Swamy Vivekananda stated that “Unfortunately there is the mistaken notion in modern India that the word Vedanta has reference only to the Advaita system. It would be wrong to confine the word Vedanta only to one system” (cited in Murty 1965, 139). 14 Radhakrishnan maintains that to say that Mayavada advocates a pure illusionism would not be a fair representation of Shankara’s philosophy. He makes such a conclusion in the sense that if we take the world of senses to be “a magic play” ethical activity has only a relative value (1989, 84). 15 Giving adequate reference to Brahmasutra, Radhakrishnan substantiates that the world is neither an illusion nor a dream like structure, but really real and something positive (Murty 1965, 139). Srivastava points out that the main difficulty in giving an authentic presentation of Indian philosophy and especially Vedas is that “thanks to the work of European scholars, a hopelessly misconceived view of the nature of the Vedas and the meaning of the Vedic hymns has been current and has dominated the world of Vedic scholarship in such a way that Indian scholars of great repute have not been able to escape its great influence” (1968, 3). Rama Shankar Srivastava. Sri Aurobindo and the Theories of Evolution. Varanasi: Chaowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1968. Moreover, it is notable that Aurobindo himself has pointed out the hollowness of the interpretation of Vedas by the European scholars (SV 3-9).

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the philosophy of Shankara by interpreting the notion of Maya as mere illusion and that he advocated and perceived that the world has only an illusory existence.16 Our concern here, however, is to see how Aurobindo has interpreted the notion of Maya as the last great Indian thinker. However, before dealing with Aurobindo’s own understanding of Maya, first we have to see how it was understood in Indian philosophy.

6.2.1 Maya: the Power of Becoming in Indian Philosophy Indian philosophy understands the notion of Maya in a number of ways. The introduction of the concept of Maya by the Indian sages has to do with the explanation of Brahman’s relation to the world. For the Vedic sages, the “directing power” was known as Maya. For them, Maya was the “power of the infinite consciousness to comprehend, contain in itself and measure out” and also the

|| 16 According to Shankara, experience is the criterion of reality. The first level of reality is Prathibhasika Satta or Illusory reality. The point of Shankara is that an object should be accorded reality to the extent that it gives rise to experience. The sensory illusions such as mistaking a rope for a snake or a stump of a tree or a thief, etc. cannot be discarded as mere nonexistent like barren woman’s son or hare’s horn (Thachil 319). The second type of existence identified by Shankara is Vyavaharika Satta or Empirical reality. All the objects experienced in our normal waking consciousness are accorded empirical reality. They certainly enjoy a higher reality than the first level of reality, which has only a momentary existence which itself depends on and varies according to each person (Deutsch 1969, 32). The world is regarded as unreal only in comparison to the Absolute Reality (Paramartha Satyam), i.e., Brahman. Empirical existence can be identified with the notion of phenomenon in Plato or in Kant (Bina Gupta 215). The third and highest level of existence according to Shankara is Paramarthika Satta or the Ultimate or Transcendental reality. Brahman alone is the paramarthika satta (CU 6.3.2). “It can be represented, on the one hand, as the infinite consciousness implied by the empirical knowledge or as the infinite being presupposed in all finite beings” (Thachil 321). For Shankara, Brahman is the only ontological reality. Brahman’s reality is not empirical. It is the reality that cannot be sublated by any other experience. The point is that the experience of reality is nondual and therefore no other experience or content of consciousness could replace it. Brahman is the only reality. Brahman sublates everything while remaining unsublatable by any other experience whatsoever (Bina Gupta 215). In light of his theory of truth, one cannot, however, say that it was an absolute denial of the external world or that Shankara had advocated a pure illusion theory as traditionally interpreted or alleged. It is the point we maintain in this dissertation with regard to the ontology of Shankara. Sage Suresvara stated, “there is no reason to call the world unreal before the knowledge of the oneness of Atman (has been attained)” (Sambandha Varttika, quoted by N. K. Devaraja. An Introduction to Samkara’s Theory of Knowledge. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1962).

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power to form, name, and shape entities out of the vast illimitable Truth of infinite existence. It is by the power of Maya that the static being of infinite existence becomes the ordered being of active existence (LD 115). In the Vedic understanding Maya is also a mysterious, deceptive power of the gods (RV III, 53. 8). Its deception lies in its ability to hide the Truth about reality. For the Advaitin, metaphysically conceived, Maya is the power of Brahman by which the world of multiplicity comes into existence.17 Therefore, it is right to say that metaphysically Maya is the mysterious power of Brahman that deludes one to take the empirical world as real, and epistemologically Maya is ignorance (avidya) with the power to conceal reality (avarana Sakti) and with the capacity of misrepresenting reality (viksepa sakti). This distinction of the two powers of Maya is usually attributed to Mandana Misra, founder of the Bhamati School of Advaita (Deutsch 1969, 31). Bina Gupta states, “Ontologically Maya is the creative power of Brahman that accounts for the variety and multiplicity of the phenomenal world. From an epistemological point of view, Maya is our ignorance about the difference between reality and appearance. From a psychological point of view, Maya is our tendency to regard the real as the apparent, and vice versa” (216). Thus, Maya is not only a negative designation, that is, a privation of vision, it is also positive designation as far as its capability towards producing an illusion (Deutsch 1969, 31). Maya is understood to be the power by which Brahman is concealed and by which a distortion in the nature of the universe takes place. The Divine Maya is the creative power of Brahman and a power of “selective manifestation” (Bruteau 56). Moreover, it is the power of Brahman, whose joyous, sportive and spontaneous activity accounts for the appearance of the phenomenal world (Indich 1980, 5). In Shankara’s perspective that which makes the unconditional Absolute conditional in the appearance of the phenomenal world is Maya. It is the cause for one becoming many (Mahadevan 1979, 90). Shankara, however, could not regard or accept the Upanishadic view of Maya as the creative power of Brahman. For to endorse such a view was suicidal for Shankara in the sense that it would prove his claim of ‘Nirguna Brahman’ meaningless. In other

|| 17 One of the analogies used by the Advaitins to clarify Maya is that of a magician and his trick. (In fact here we have an example for explaining Maya from an epistemological or analogical perspective.) When a magician makes one thing to appear as something else or when he seemingly produces something from nothing, the perceivers are deluded by it. We mistake the appearance for reality, but it is not so for the magician. The illusion is caused by the power of the magician and our ignorance. For the magician there is no illusion. Just as the magician makes appearances or illusions which do not affect him, Brahman conjures up a world show of phenomena that disappears at the dawn of knowledge (jnana).

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words, to say that Maya is the creative power of the Absolute by which the world of manifold existence receives its reality would mean that the Absolute is Saguna. Moreover, in that sense one has to accept also that the world is real for it has come out of the Absolutely Real and whatever comes out of Real is real. Thus, Maya was interpreted as the cosmic principle of illusion, and as such no explanation can be given about its origin and neither can its status be clearly determined. In this sense Maya is considered anadi (beginningless) but in no way can it be considered ananta (endless) since it should be liable to put an end to, “lest the obscuration or concealment of the true nature of Brahman … be viciously perpetuated” (Banerjee 1974, 225). Maya is the “cosmic manifold as the ideal projection of the indescribable principle of creativity. … [It] is the conceptively creative power of the Spirit” (Chaudhuri 1954, 116). It is regarded as the changing manifestations of the creative power of Brahman. In the Advaitic interpretation in the state of Maya limitations (upadhis) are imposed upon reality. Thus, all attachments, aversions, fears, dreams are touched by Maya and one fails to recognise the oneness of the Real (Deutsch 1969, 29). Here it is appropriate to add that the Sanskrit word “upadhi” has another meaning as well, namely, “condition.” In this sense Maya is a necessary condition for the manifestation of the world. Moreover, in this sense the Vedic understanding of Maya as the creative power seems more reasonable.18 In the light of this interpretation of Maya, the Advaitic explanation of Brahman-world relation makes more sense. As the world is the manifestation of Brahman, Maya, the creative power, becomes the power of becoming. The world’s reality is unreal only in the light of an ontological Reality. In contrast with the pure existence of the Absolute, Maya has existence as the power of limitation. In this respect, the description of Maya as anadi (beginningless), acintya (unthinkable) and anirvacaniya (indescribable) are reasonable. For Maya is responsible for our time consciousness and all thought differences and languages are result of it. The Real is beyond all these and Maya is the level of appearance (Deutsch 1969, 29). Thus, it can be concluded that Indian philosophy understands Maya in its dual meaning: in its positive and in its negative meanings. In the positive sense it is the creative power, which also accounts for becoming and in the negative sense it is power of limitation. The world, being understood as the manifestation of the Absolute, would imply that there emerges the need for a mediator, for infinite action of the infinite Being

|| 18 In this sense it is also possible to draw a comparison between the Vedic understanding “Maya” and the Supermind of Aurobindo. I will take up this point again in a subsequent section.

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would produce only an infinite world. Therefore, a world with order and unity demands “a selective faculty of knowledge commissioned to shape finite appearances out of the infinite Reality” (LD 115). It is in this sense, Aurobindo observes, that the Vedic seers understood the concept of Maya as the power of limitation (LD 115).

6.2.2 Maya: The Self’s Experience of Its Being Aurobindo undertakes a re-search into the meaning of “Maya” with a twofold purpose: (i) To establish the reality of the world, in contrast to the illusionism advocated by Advaita and (ii) as a consequence to establish the reality and relevance of matter in the cosmic process. Aurobindo speaks of two kinds of Maya: first, a lower Maya or mental Maya, which is the cause of illusion and, second, that which symbolises God’s play of the infinities of existence, the splendours of knowledge and the glories of force. The remarkable point that Aurobindo brings to light is that the pessimistic and the illusionist philosophies either failed to identify or ignored this distinction between the higher Maya and the lower Maya. The problem is that those who recognise the mental Maya as truth consider it as the creatrix of the world. The fact, however, is that “mind is an instrument in the descent and ascent” of the Sachchidananda. In other words, it is only an instrument in the descending creative process but not the secret creatrix, and it is a transitional stage in the ascent but not the supreme goal of cosmic existence (LD 116). Shankara maintained that Maya is not real in the sense that it is a cosmic illusion and is non-existent in the sense that Maya’s creation is a presentation of beings, names, forms, happenings, and things impossible to accept as true, contradictory to the indeterminable purity of the One Existence. It is an illusion, in fact, “the parent of numberless illusions.” Maya is said to be real only in the sense that […] it is the self’s experience of the Self, something of the Self enters into it, is affected by its happenings because it accepts them, believes in them, they are to it real experiences, creations out of its conscious being; but it is unreal because it is a sleep state, a dream state, an eventually transient waking state, not the true status of the superconscient Reality. Here there is no actual dichotomy of being itself, but there is a multiplicity of status of the one Being; there is no original dual consciousness implying a Will in the Uncreated to create illusory things out of non-existence, but there is One Being in states of superconscience and consciousness each with its own nature of self-experience (LD 451).

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What does it mean by saying that Maya is the self’s experience of the Self? This has to be seen in the context of the Vedic implication of Maya. At one point Aurobindo interprets Maya as integrally united with the Absolute. He writes that in its transcendent nature Brahman, the Reality, is the self-existent Absolute, and Maya is the Consciousness and Force of this self-existence. What is evident here is that it is an avowed acceptance by Aurobindo of the Vedic notion of Maya as the creative power of Brahman. In relation to the world or in its immanent dimension this Brahman is the Self of all existence, Atman, the cosmic self. Moreover, due to its Infinite powers it is the supreme self-transcendent of its own cosmicity as well as it is the individual-universal in each being. In its cosmic dimension Maya is the self-power, Atma-Shakti, of the Atman (LD 346). Maya is not something extraneous to the Absolute but is its “power to measure the immeasurable” (Roy 1995, 42). “It is by Maya that static truth of essential being becomes ordered truth of active being, or, to put it in more metaphysical language, out of the supreme being in which all is all without barrier of separative consciousness emerges the phenomenal being in which all is in each and each is in all for the play of existence with existence, consciousness with consciousness, force with force, delight with delight” (LD 115). Here what is highlighted is the creative dimension of Maya.

6.2.3 Maya: Not a Passive Notion but a Dynamic Notion Aurobindo maintains that Maya is not passive, rather it is a very dynamic principle. This reading of Maya has to be placed in the context of Vedic understanding as well as in the context of Aurobindo’s interpretation, namely, Maya as the self’s experience of the supreme Self. It was the Advaitins’ wrong interpretation of the concept of Maya that advocated the illusionist theory of the universe. In this reading we have a passive understanding of Maya. For Aurobindo, if the world is taken to be an illusion, it has to be said that the percipient, the individual being, must be an illusion in the sense that this “percipient is created by the Illusion and unreal; the percept, the world, is an illusion created by an Illusion and unreal; the perceiving consciousness is itself an illusion and therefore unreal” (LD 448). Moreover, it would deprive everything of significance, our spiritual existence and our salvation from Maya no less than our temporal existence and our immersion in Maya. All are of an equal unreality and without significance. Such a conclusion would certainly be absurd. “For if our being is that of the Brahman, our consciousness something of the consciousness of the Brahman, with whatever qualification, it is to that extent real, and if our being, why

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not the being of the universe?” (LD 449) How can one assert one’s own existence if the universe where one exists itself is unreal? The theory of Maya in the sense of illusion creates more problems than it solves and it leaves the problems rather insoluble (LD 468). If everything is illusion all the foundations of our concept of the Brahman is shaken. If the cosmos is illusion all our cosmic consciousness, consciousness of the universal Self, our sense of the One, One in all and all in the One, are nothing but the mere constructions of the illusory mind. There is no assurance for our supracosmic experience or no existence for the terms such as pure self, the silent, the static, the absolute Reality and so on, since they also come to us through a mind moulded of delusion and formed in a body created by illusion. Furthermore, “it is open to the intellect which has once arrived at the conviction of the unreality of all other things, to take a further step and deny the reality of Self and of all existence” (LD 467). It is the step that the Buddhist followed and they therefore denied reality of the Self on the ground that it too is a construction of the mind. Thus, they not only denied the reality of God but also the reality of Eternal Self and impersonal Brahman. The uncompromising theory of illusion does not solve the problem but helps the individual to escape the problem by showing him a way out of it (LD 468). A real solution can be formulated only on the basis of the acceptance of our existence and world-existence which recognises their truth and right relation and truth of their relation to the transcendent reality as the source of all that exist. This undoubtedly legitimises the truth of “individual and cosmos, some true relation of the One Existence and all existences, of relative experience and of the Absolute” (LD 468). For Aurobindo, the best solution is that which accounts for the truth of each of our experiences; and that knowledge is the highest which pays attention to the truth of all knowledge and that illumines, harmonises and integralises all knowledge. The problem with the Illusionism is that it “unifies by elimination; it deprives all knowledge and experience, except the one supreme merger, of reality and significance” (LD 469). “The Brahman, the supreme Reality, is That which being known all is known; but in the illusionist solution it is That which being known, all becomes unreal and an incomprehensible mystery”; whereas in the Aurobindonian synthetic perspective, “the Reality being known, all assumes its true significance, its truth to the Eternal and Absolute” (LD 470). The point is that in a higher status of consciousness all illusions will vanish and one

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becomes aware of the relation between the temporal and the eternal (LD 456). In other words, what is temporal is not absolute illusion or no-thing.19 It was already established at the outset that Aurobindo embarked on a research into the meaning of the notion of Maya with double purpose, which are interrelated. Thus, the positive outcome of Aurobindo’s interpretation of Maya is the vindication of the reality of the world. He proves the reality of the world or the finite existence in contrast to Advaitins by emphasizing the following two points: (i) the finite is the self-manifestation of the Absolute. What is from the real cannot be unreal. “What issues from the Absolute, what the eternal supports and informs and manifests in itself must have a reality” (LD 456, 477); and (ii) Aurobindo attests to the reality of the external world by pointing to the human capacity to enter into union with the Absolute. The point is that the finite must be real since what is unreal cannot enter into a relation with the Real. For Aurobindo, the only reality that can be described as unreal is the independent objective human existence (LD 465). Thus, unlike his predecessors, Aurobindo maintains the Reality of both Brahman and the World without endangering the Absoluteness of Brahman. In fact it is his synthetic conception of Matter and Spirit as the two poles of the single Reality that made possible his integral vision.

|| 19 Furthermore, statements and the interpretation of a number of contemporary thinkers clearly avow that Aurobindo is right in his rejection of Shankara’s interpretation of Maya. For many thinkers the view that the universe is a fiction is not the central teaching of Indian philosophy (Murty 1965, 161; Betty Heimann Indian and Western Philosophy. London: Allen and Unwin, 1937). In his sevenfold repudiation of Shankara’s doctrine of Maya, Ramanuja maintains that it is not a cosmic principle of illusion, rather, based on the scriptural foundation, it is the creative power of God (Banerjee 1974, 218). Bhattacharya maintains that the doctrine of Maya is the logical pendant to Shankara’s doctrine of Brahman as the “undifferentiated selfshining truth.” It is also rightly observed that both Brahman and Maya are beyond intellectual scrutiny or any natural pramana for that reason. However, they are accepted as the intelligible contents of pure Consciousness. In other words, it can be said that they are accepted in faith as revealed truths and interpreted by thought (Bhattacharya 1963, 1). Mahadevan maintains that Maya is “the principle by which Brahman appears as the world of plurality.” Therefore, it is Maya that is responsible for the appearance of the universe (Vallooran 1988, 138). A. D. Vallooran. In Search of the Absolute: A Critical Study of the Advaitic Philosophy of Religion as Interpreted by T. M. P. Mahadevan. Shillong: Vendrame Institute, 1988.

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6.3 Dipolar Nature of the Reality Aurobindo’s realism with regard to the nature of reality would further mean the acceptance of Reality having two poles: Matter and Spirit. In the classical Western (eg. Aristotelian) philosophy the basic substratum of every existence is named substance. According to Aurobindo, in Vedantic thought this substance has two poles. This calls to mind Whitehead’s description of actual entity having two poles, which we analyzed in considerable detail in Part One. […] if Matter is one end, Spirit is the other. The two are one: spirit is the soul and reality of that which we sense as Matter; Matter is a form and body of that which we realise as Spirit … Therefore it is a purely conceptive – a spiritually, not a mentally conceptive difference ending in a practical distinction, which creates the series descending from Spirit through Mind to Matter and ascending again from Matter through Mind to Spirit (LD 241).

We have seen above that the fundamental problem for Aurobindo was the problem of unity. Thus, having realized its importance, Aurobindo built the whole edifice of his metaphysics on the sublime truth that both matter and spirit are real and are essential part of Reality. He established the oneness of Reality through a holistic vision of Matter and Spirit. Any sort of reductionism is shortsighted.20 How does Aurobindo clarify that Matter and Spirit are two poles of the same one Reality? Matter expresses itself as the formulation of some unknown Force and Aurobindo states that a second move in the same direction would clarify that life itself is “an obscure energy of sensibility imprisoned in its material formulation.” In the light of this integral knowledge, however, Matter itself is found to be a result of something other than itself, of an Energy, which cannot be something self-existent and acting in the Void. Matter can turn out and, when deeply scrutinised, it is likely to turn out to be the action of a secret Consciousness and Being (LD 14). One is able to transcend all the contradictions of the world existence once it is viewed in the light of the triune principle of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (LD 103). Thus, as one transcends the dividing ignorance, that gives us a sense of the apparent gulf between matter and life, Mind, Life, and Matter will reveal itself || 20 In his search, however, the guiding light is the ancient scriptures, especially the Upanishads. We read in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: “As all spokes are contained in the axle and in the felly of a wheel, thus also all beings and gods, all worlds and organs also are contained in that Self” (2.5.15). Moreover, Chandogya Upanishad states, “it is that is below and is above, that is to the West and to the East, that is to the South and to the North. Brahman, indeed, is this whole universe” (7.25.2). A monistic idealism is very clear in it.

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as one energy triply formulated, the triple world of the Vedic seers. Therefore, for Aurobindo, both matter and spirit are nothing but the result of the selfinvolution of the Absolute. It is the ground for the reality of the world. It is the manifestation of the Consciousness-Force and not mere illusion.

6.3.1 Matter as the Foundational Substratum of Existence Aurobindo maintains that the whole structure of Life is founded on the principle of Matter and upon it “life stands as upon a pedestal or out of it evolves like the form of a many-branching tree out of its encasing seed” (LD 231). Nevertheless, it is a conditional statement, that is, “matter is Sachchidananda represented to His own mental experience as a formal basis of objective knowledge, action and delight of existence” (LD 239). This material principle is the basis on which the mind, life and body of human beings depend. In spite of the development of life from consciousness emerging into Mind, the foundational substratum is the material principle. In other words, Life and its functioning are conditioned by matter which constitutes its external body. Both mind and body are important for human existence. Actually it is only because man possesses a body capable of receiving and serving a progressive mental illumination that human beings are able to transcend above the level of animals. Matter is the foundation and the apparent beginning; to use the language of the Upanishads, “Prithivi, the Earth-principle is our foundation” (LD 188). It is also noted that “[w]ithout the creation of matter, the spirit is only potent [sic], but actionless and hence a deep sleep. Its Energy is only implicit and as good as nil. But the potent must be actual, the implicit cannot but be explicit, else its mission is not fulfilled” (Chakravarty 5). These facts recall again Aurobindo’s holistic vision of both matter and Spirit. For him, matter too is Brahman. Matter and Spirit are complimentary to each other. The “Spirit is the soul of matter and matter is the body of the spirit.” However each has its-own specific features and characteristics. Matter, in contrast with Spirit, is the culmination of the principle of ignorance. It is also the principle which held us to the mechanical law. Moreover, matter is the culmination of the principle of division and struggle (Sharma 1991, 42). Nonetheless, the relationship between matter and spirit needs further clarification.

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6.3.2 The Relation between Matter and Spirit It is true that Spirit and Matter are not the same, but they are not contradictory, rather contrary. In fact, they work together as two sides of the same coin. The philosophical credo of Aurobindo was that matter and consciousness (spirit) are inseparably connected as two aspects of a single whole (Chande 338).21 “If we assert only pure Spirit and a mechanical unintelligent substance or energy, calling one God or Soul and the other Nature, the inevitable end will be that we shall either deny God or else turn from Nature” (LD 7). The question here is, how has the general trend of opposition between the two come to be? What causes this division is the individual ego consciousness. In the Indian perspective the first fundamental opposition that matter presents to Spirit is that it constitutes the culmination of the principle of Ignorance. Human beings, in their finitude, misconstrue things and realities. They are often misled by the illusion of quality and quantity so that often they perceive reality in comparison with something else. However, when we transcend beyond the differences of quality and quantity and look only for the intensity of the movement one will realise that Brahman dwells equally in all forms of existence. Nevertheless, the question remains as to how are we to transcend these differences? The consciousness of this infinite energy is different from our mental consciousness and only by the knowledge informed by intuition and culminated in knowledge by identity can we realize the full truth of it. Each thing may differ in quality and quantity but the self is equal (LD 72). The second fundamental opposition that matter brings forth to Spirit is that it is the culmination of bondage to mechanical Law, and matter is in opposition to all that tries to liberate itself from the colossal inertia.22 A third fundamental opposition of matter to spirit is that matter is the culmination of the principle of division and struggle. Fourthly, perhaps the most fatal division that Matter imposes on the vital and mental existence is the law of pain and suffering and the unrest of dissatisfaction with its status of division, inertia and ignorance (LD 246). Aurobindo clarifies further how the consciousness of the dichotomy between matter and mind has occurred. The practical divisions and differences that one experiences in the phenomenal world is due to the dividing action of || 21 M. B. Chande. Indian Philosophy in Modern Times. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2000. 22 We have seen in Part One how mechanistic materialism has vitiated mankind from having an integral vision of reality and how Whitehead has reacted to such a wrong conception in his philosophy.

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Mind. Indeed there is difference and a series of ever ascending degrees in the world of existence. Substance is nothing but the conscious existence presenting itself to the senses as an object (LD 241-42). Once one possesses this experience of the pure substance of being, all sorts of differences disappear and reach the absolute unity of subject and object, and the very existence of various substances has no more meaning now. Aurobindo’s statement that the difference between matter and spirit is purely a conceptual one is better understood in this light. All through the descending of Spirit -through mind to matter- and ascending matter -through mind to spirit- the oneness of the pure Existence is never abrogated. “Brahman is not only the cause and supporting power and indwelling principle of the universe, he is also its material and its sole material. Matter is also Brahman and it is nothing other than or different from Brahman” (LD 242).23 It is only by having a body that is attuned to the functioning of the spirit and higher illumination that man can attain the divine manhood. “Otherwise either the promise of life is cancelled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure infinite (LD 231). In the integral Advaitism what is aimed at is not a compromise but a true reconciliation24 between matter and spirit because compromise is always characterised by bargains or transactions of interests between two opposing powers, while reconciliation “proceeds always by a mutual comprehension leading to some sort of intimate oneness” which would assign each its “due portion in life and their due justification in thought” (LD 25) that never overlooks their rights or truth claims. “Matter itself cannot be the original and ultimate reality. At the same time, the view that divorces Matter and Spirit and puts them as opposites is unacceptable; Matter is a form of Spirit, a habitation of Spirit, and here in Matter itself there can be a realisation of Spirit” (LD 664-65). The suggestive || 23 Moreover, it is stated that “the supreme Godhead, the Self immutable behind the cosmic consciousness, the individual Divinity in the human being and the Divine secretly conscious or partially manifested in cosmic Nature and all her works and creatures, are then one reality, one Godhead” (EG 316-17). Aurobindo. Essays on Gita [1922]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2000. 24 The reason is that realization of the immanent presence of the Brahman or Sachchidananda does not remove the apparent division that the matter causes. The material principles appear to be so powerful that they seem to negate all the spiritual existences. Therefore, the seeker of the sole truth is justified in his approach in negating the matter as such or considering its negation as a short cut to achieve the great realization of Truth. But this does not solve the whole problem. What we need is not a negation but a clear understanding of the knot of the matter. What can be said is that in India both Spirit and matter are on same footing, and are conceived as eternal and divine (Betty Heimann (1937) cited by Murty 1965, 165).

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ideal is the acceptance of both matter and spirit as two aspects of the same Reality.

6.3.3 Dipolarity is Not Dichotomy The dual existence, namely, of matter and spirit, does not mean any dichotomy between the two. What went wrong is our perception of the material world or what one names as the undivine element in the world. There is nothing undivine in existence. What one conceives as undivine is nothing but created in the divine existence; namely, pure-existence, consciousness-force and bliss. Therefore, to conceive them as pure contradictories is a mistake of human mental consciousness. Truth is that mind, life, and body are found in their true forms in the Divine itself. They function as they do, as conveyed to human consciousness, because they are by some means separated in consciousness from the divine Truth. Once it is possible to abrogate this separation by the expansion of divine energy in humanity, it would be possible that the working of these lower forms be converted to a supreme evolution and progression. Thus it is possible to manifest divine being in the lower forms of existence, namely mind, life and body (LD 161). Taittiriya Upanishad amply substantiates this claim with its statement that matter is Brahman (III. 2). The primordial characteristic of the world is a differentiated unity, a manifold oneness rather than the constant attempt to reach unity in uniformity. The world is not characterised by the everlasting struggle between the irreconcilable opposites (LD 240). Therefore, emphasizing categorically his integral perspective, Aurobindo states that “the real Advaita does not make the least scission in the one eternal Existence. On the contrary, the “undividing Monism sees the one as the one even in the multiplicities of Nature,” in all aspects of life, such as in the reality of self and of cosmos (EG 448). The remaining question concerns about how are we to reach the unity of the two, even though the division is apparent? How can it be reasonably substantiated? Aurobindo calls up different possibilities. One among them would be to abandon the phenomenal world as having no real reality, the way the Advaitins and all other world negating philosophies followed.25 However, that would lead || 25 In the Indian philosophical tradition one can identify various world negating philosophies based on different metaphysical positions. The chief among them are Vijnanavada of the Yogachara school of Buddhism, which is similar to the subjective idealism of Berkeley and the Sunyavada of Madhyamika school of Buddhism. According to the former, the external world is a continuous flux of cognitions or ideas in the minds of the finite individuals and, the latter

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to further problems, and would entail that one abandons this earthly existence in its entirety for something beyond. Also it would mean that perfection of humanity is not in humanity itself but in something else abiding in another world. If that is the case, the whole project we have been trying to develop collapses, for it would lead to a supracosmic view, which we already repudiated to be a partial view of existence. Then the question is, how are we to achieve the unity of Spirit and Matter? How does Aurobindo escape the dilemma? The solution offered by Aurobindo to overcome the apparent dichotomy between Matter and Spirit is that there must be a universal Mind which is subconscious to us in the form of the universe or superconscious to its spirit. It is this superconscient Mind which through the instrumentality of universal sense establishes in itself the relation between different forms and that which establishes the rhythm of the material universe (LD 234-235). However, this does not explain the whole truth about the material world. In other words, it only explains that the material world is a creation of consciousness, but we are yet to clarify the how of this creation. One has to reasonably clarify how matter can be Brahman and how the Absolute can assume the material form. Apparently it is a contradiction. Here we recognise the importance of Aurobindo’s presupposition that the whole of Reality is based on the involution of the Spirit into the lower principles of matter, and a corresponding evolution of this material principle to the higher state of the Spirit, passing through various stages, in both processes. It is the greatness of Aurobindo that he clearly stated that unless we identify a series of ascending terms (Life, Mind, Supermind, and the grades that link mind to Supermind) between Spirit and Matter or without the reception of the intermediary grades in the identification of Spirit and Matter, representing each in terms of the other, it will not be intelligible, rather will be an artificial creation of the thought (LD 6). Only this thought pattern would enable one to overcome the apparent dichotomy. This inevitably takes us to the discussion of Aurobindo’s concept of evolution, a means to overcome the dichotomy between matter and spirit. We referred previously to the involution of the Spirit and the different stages it passes through. Their explication would constitute the heart of Aurobindonian metaphysics of becoming. However, we will take up their discussion in the next chapter. For the moment we turn to his understanding of evolution.

|| maintains that the world is essentially nugatory in character, in as much as it appears on the bosom of the absolute naught (Chaudhuri 1954, 133).

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6.4 The Concept of Evolution: A Process Toward Integral Unity It was already established previously that in Aurobindo’s integral vision Reality is characterised by two poles: Spirit and Matter. For, in his vision it is the involution of the Absolute that is responsible for the whole world process. However, our common experience delineates that matter and spirit belong to two different realms: finite and infinite, immanent and transcendental. How can we reconcile the two? Furthermore, we are still to explain the how of the involution of the Absolute. It is his theory of evolution or becoming that answers these questions. Moreover, discussion of the concept of evolution would further clarify the questions of the One and the Many and the co-existence of matter and spirit. It would still clarify how the whole problem of Indian philosophy is inter-related to the problem of the One and the Many, a claim that we made at the outset. Aurobindo’s evolutionary conception of Reality is also another point of comparison with Whitehead’s process philosophy.

6.4.1 The Idea of Evolution in Indian Philosophy The idea of evolution is not something new or recent to the Indian tradition, though generally it is not well treated by many today.26 It was already in the Vedas and Upanishads, especially in Rig Veda. We have a clear reference to the concept of evolution in Rig Veda, in the tenth mandala. Here, evolution is presented in connection with involution. One can identify a number of other passages in the classics of Indian philosophy which speak of this evolutionary ascension (the Evolutionary Process–Ascent and Integration) in nature.27

|| 26 One of the possible reasons for the general absence of the concept of evolution in the current Indian philosophical literature is that it generally maintains a cyclic vision of the universe. Albeit the reference the Sankhya system gives to evolution, it also advocates a cyclical vision of the universe. 27 “As he mounts from peak to peak ... Indra makes him conscious of that goal of his movement” (Rig Veda. I. 10. 2); “A son of the two Mothers, he attains to kingship in his discoveries of knowledge, he moves on the summit, he dwells in his high foundation” (Rig Veda III. 55. 7); “I have arisen from earth to the mid-world, I have arisen from the mid-world to heaven, from the level of the firmament of heaven I have gone to the Sun-world, the Light”; “The four planes of Matter, Life, Pure Mind and Supermind” (Yajur Veda 17. 67). “He is born seer with the mind of discernment; and offspring of the Truth, a birth set within the secrecy, half arisen into manifestation” (Rig Veda IX. 68. 5).

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A clear vision of evolution can be seen in Upanishadic literature. In the Upanishadic teaching, the world is the creative manifestation of Brahman which takes place in and through an involutionary and evolutionary process (TU 3.1). Realisation of this Brahman in individual existence also passes through various stages. Thus, Taittiriya Upanishad maintains that the true seeker of Truth comes gradually to the knowledge of Brahman in successive revelations (TU 3). The Absolute, Sachchidananda is the beginning and end of evolution. The finite is one with the Infinite. Furthermore, the idea of evolution was already in the teaching of Gita as well. From Gita one gets the idea of Brahman as Purushottama, who is transcendent, motionless, and calm existence, and is yet dynamic and creative. It is nothing but Purushottama who evolves into both material and spiritual world, by his own power and determination. Srivastava maintains that it is the same power that Aurobindo names as “Cit-sakti or the Consciousness-Force, or Purushottama which reveals His Supreme nature: the transcendent and originating Sakti of the Purushottama is his para-prakriti” (Srivastava 1968, 6-7). Evolution is the transformation of the lower nature (apara prakriti) into the higher nature (para prakriti). From this general background of the concept of evolution in Indian philosophy we could enter into the discussion of the same in Aurobindo.

6.4.2 Aurobindo’s Vision of Evolution The keynote of Aurobindo’s thought is evolution. It is believed that he entertained the idea of evolution from his earliest writings in 1890-1892 when he was an undergraduate in King’s College, Cambridge. His unfinished work of this period entitled, The Harmony of Virtue, gives ample evidence for this supposition. In this work which is written in the model of Socratic dialogue – a dialogue between Keshav Ganesh Desai – who clearly stands for Aurobindo himself– and his English friends – a new theory of virtue is proposed. The key to the virtue is evolution. He also speaks of a descent into the nether regions of consciousness, of which he later spoke in Savitri (xxiv).28 Thus, one could say that both the ideas of evolution and involution,29 which is the condition of possibility for

|| 28 Aurobindo. Savitri [1940]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1993. 29 We will develop his theory of involution in more detail in the third and fourth chapters while we discuss the involution of Sachchidananda. For the moment it suffices to understand that for Aurobindo, Involution is the descent of the spirit and evolution is the ascent of nature

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evolution, were already present, at least in a germ form, in his thought from the very beginning. He states, “an involution of Spirit in Matter is the beginning” (TPR 80).30 The involution is the necessary condition of evolution. In this respect, Chaudhuri writes: [Having] descended through gradual self-alienation into the inconscience of Matter, the Spirit gets involved therein with all the other elements of its nature. It is this Involution of one in all which constitutes the necessity of evolution, and imparts a specific direction to the cosmic drift. It is because life-energy is already involved in matter in a form suited to it – in the sub-vital form, as Sri Aurobindo puts it, - that life appears in its distinctive form at a subsequent stage of evolution (Chaudhuri 1954, 216-17).

Why does Aurobindo conceive existence as a process or evolution? For him, the ultimate purpose of human existence is the realisation of Sachchidananda (LD 1-2). The attainment of this goal depends on the gradual development that the person achieves. Therefore, evolutionary process is a must for two reasons: (i) the initial stages of evolution, namely matter, life and mind, are already a matter of our own experience. What is inevitable is the experience of the centre of undivided power, Sachchidananda. However, because of the separation the first three stages (matter, life and mind) have from the spiritual source, there results a lapse which culminates in a total Inconscience out of which come an involved Being and Consciousness which have to emerge by a gradual evolution. Therefore, (ii) the evolution becomes an inevitable reality in human existence. Thus, Aurobindo states that “Life has begun from an involution of the spiritual truth of things in what seems to be its opposite.” Once there is involution there cannot be but evolution; “the evolution … is not only possible, but inevitable” (HG 75)31 in the sense that involution is in view of evolution. Only then the very purpose of involution is actualised, namely divinization of the material world.

6.4.2.1 Distinctiveness of Aurobindo’s Concept of Evolution Aurobindo has combined the Eastern and the Western perspectives of evolution in his view. To facilitate a proper understanding of Aurobindonian theory, one has to see it also in contrast with that of the West. In the light of the Eastern perspective, the Western perspective of evolution is not sufficiently spiritual. While the West speaks of an evolution of matter, the East concentrates on the || and in that sense it is always a movement from lower to higher. In the evolutionary process the ascent is to higher complexities, as Teilhard de Chardin maintained. 30 Aurobindo. The Problem of Rebirth. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1952. 31 Aurobindo. The Hour of God. Pondicherry: SABCL, Vol. 17, 1972.

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evolution of the Spirit; while the West speaks more of a natural evolution, the East, especially Aurobindo, speaks of spiritual evolution, which is the evolution of Sachchidananda. It is basically “an internal growth of Consciousness” and an external development is only instrumentally applicable to it (Nedumpalakunnel 43).32 The Spirit is “involved” in all the material realities. It is the involution of Spirit in matter and in all the evolutes of matter that spiritualises the Eastern theory of evolution in the Aurobindonian perspective (Rao and Ramachandran 1998, 322). “A spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter … is then the keynote, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence” (LD 824, emphasis added). Moreover, Aurobindo states that “a complete involution of all that the Spirit is and its evolutionary self-unfolding are the double term of our material existence” (LD 681). Thus, for Aurobindo the whole history is a movement of evolution, of a progressive self-manifestation of the Spirit in a material universe. In this context it can be observed that the fundamental flaw of Shankara when he rejected the reality of the world is that he “ignored the greatest truth that a divinised man can only emerge in a divinised cosmos.” Therefore, what is necessary is an integral evolution, rather than a partial one. “Evolution must be a cosmic Yoga” (Srivastava 1984, 115).33

6.4.2.2 Teleology Central to Aurobindo’s Concept of Evolution Aurobindo’s concept of evolution is fundamentally teleological. “A merely mobile nature would give us only the cyclic rhythm of becoming which is so common a feature of various ancient theories of the world” (Bruteau 98). Such a view would be devoid of both hierarchical structure and teleology.34 Neither can it account for the persistent aspiration of the human consciousness to exceed itself to arrive at the integral conscious knowledge of all Being (LD 523). Even the Lila (cosmic play) is not without its goal and object. For, it “carries within itself an object to be accomplished and without the fulfilment of that object would have no completeness of significance” (LD 835). As different from the Western thinkers of evolution, Aurobindo holds that “if Brahman, the supreme Consciousness, is really involved in all evolution, it is but logical that the proc|| 32 George Nedumpalakunnel. Realization of God According to Sri Aurobindo: A Study of NeoHindu Vision on the Divinization of Man. Bangalore: Claritian Publications, 1979. 33 Rama Shankar Srivastava. Contemporary Indian Philosophy. Ranchi: Sharda Publications, 1984. 34 It is exactly this hierarchical structure and teleology that fall off in modernity in the West. We will come back to this at a later stage. Cf. Gauchet 1999.

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ess of all evolution should finally culminate in the evolutionary manifestation of this super consciousness” (Rao and Ramachandran 1998, 322). This teleological dimension is what distinguishes Aurobindo’s evolution from that of Bergson (1859-1941), a western contemporary of Aurobindo.35 Bergson’s theory suffers from two weaknesses: firstly, Bergson maintains the élan vital as a pure flow, a spontaneous movement which goes on rushing. Thus, there can be no integration, no cohesion between what goes before or comes after. He feels the necessity of giving some stability to intuition, thus that purpose maybe served by the intellect. Though Bergson wanted to place intuition36 superior to reason, he had to resort to reason to give it stability; secondly, Bergson excluded teleology from the evolutionary process.37 He has taken together all the higher forms of consciousness under the title intuition. On the contrary, Aurobindo has pointed out lower and higher levels of intuition. Only in this way can one refer to any sort of teleology in the movement (Olsson 38).38 It maybe

|| 35 Bergson, French philosopher who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927, argued that the intuition is deeper than the intellect. His Creative Evolution (1907) and Matter and Memory (1896) attempted to integrate the findings of biological science with a theory of consciousness. Bergson’s work was considered the main challenge to the mechanistic view of nature. He is sometimes claimed to have anticipated features of relativity theory and modern scientific theories of the mind. It is said of Bergson that “to those who listened to his lectures and read his books, he appeared as a liberator sent to rescue mankind from the chains of scientific rationalism, a champion of creativity and freedom in a world which seemed threatened by the Ogres of materialism and determinism” (Lamprecht 1949, viii). One of the central teachings of Bergson, as was for Aurobindo, was that reality must be grasped from within by an act of intuition, and not by the piecing together of externally related bits (Bergson 1955, 23). Lamprecht maintains that “to Bergson everlasting credit must go to his early perceptions of the pervasive significance of process, change activity, and evolution in modern thought” (Lamprecht 1949, xix). 36 In An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903) Bergson saw that the intuition, the direct apprehension of process, as the discoverer of truth - intuition, not analysis, reveals the real world. His concept of élan vital, “creative impulse” or “living energy”, was developed in Creative Evolution, his most famous book. 37 Bergson had been interested in Spencerian evolutionism in his youth, but he later abandoned Spencer’s view placing intuition as the highest human faculty. In Creative Evolution, Bergson argued that the creative urge, not the Darwinian concept of natural selection, is at the heart of evolution. Man’s intellect has developed in the course of evolution as an instrument of survival. It comes to think inevitably in geometrical or ‘spatializing’ terms that are inadequate to lay hold of the ultimate living process, but intuition goes to the heart of reality, and enables us to find philosophic truth. Élan vital is immaterial force, whose existence cannot be scientifically verified, but it provides the vital impulse that continuously shapes all life. 38 Carl Olson. Indian Philosophers and Postmodern Thinkers: Dialogue on the Margins of Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.

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right to say that in Aurobindo one can see the why and how of evolution while Bergson is satisfied with the latter question alone.39 In Aurobindo’s vision evolution is emergent, free, and purposive. The apparent mechanical progression of evolution has a spiritual nisus inherent in it. Aurobindo, like Plato, observes that “thing that is made is attracted towards thing that is, becoming towards being, the natural to the supernatural, symbol towards thing in itself, nature towards God” (Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, No. 11, 23). Each stage of evolution is subtler and more complex than the previous one as the purpose of evolution is the delight of self-manifestation of Sachchidananda. This teleological vision of evolution serves also as the foundation of his philosophy of history and his speculation about the future of mankind (Sharma 1991, 47). The unique features of the Aurobindonian theory of evolution is commendably summarised as follows: “Evolution is the creative adventure of the world spirit in the unchartered ocean of Inconscience, so that the infinite possibilities inherent in Reality maybe infinitely expressed in material conditions” (Chaudhuri 1960, 31). Aurobindo’s philosophy leaves no doubt concerning the fact that cosmic history has a definite direction and purpose.40 Through it and in it, the eternal spirit seeks its self-realization, beginning, as it were, from the inconscience of matter, and passing through many stages it flowers into the full consciousness of its being when it completes the cycle of evolution and involution. To clarify this cyclic process one has to recollect what has been seen about the basic forms of existence. It has already been stated above that existence in its activity expresses itself as a Conscious-Force. The working of this force is presented to the consciousness as its own form of being. Since the force is the action of the Conscious-Being the result also is nothing but the forms of that Conscious-Being. The natural consequence of the above affirmation has its bearing on the whole of Aurobindonian philosophy. If the result of the action of the Conscious-force is Conscious-being itself the substance or matter of every existence is only a form of Spirit, the pure Existence. It is also true that life is an action of the Conscious-Force and material forms are its result. However, life is

|| 39 In Bergson’s perspective, evolution should be seen as the endurance of ‘élan vital’ the vital impetus that is continuously developing and generating new forms. Evolution has to be understood as creative and it is not mechanic. His basic understanding of reality was that in life, in whatever form it might appear, there is an observable ‘élan vital’, a drive of life, purpose, creativity and meaning. 40 Aurobindo’s faith in the doctrine of evolution and its unobstructed upward progress from one stage to another leads him to envisage a future full of boundless possibilities for the superhuman race of Gnostic beings, that will emerge out of our present humanity.

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involved in these material forms appearing in them first as inconscient force and as a result of the inner dynamics of evolution brings back into it the consciousness as it is done by Mind. In fact being conscious is the form of the being of Pure Existence either in its manifested form or unmanifested form.

6.5 Cosmic Consciousness: the Locus of Becoming Cosmic consciousness is very important in the metaphysics of Aurobindo. In The Life Divine he used the term Cosmic Consciousness for the first time in the third chapter. Cosmic consciousness is the “meeting-place where matter becomes real to Spirit and Spirit becomes real to Matter” (LD 25), for here one does not have the separation of mind and life and life and matter. It is the power and intelligence immanent in all of Nature; “the witness of cosmic existence and its Lord” (LD 21). In this aspect, the transcendent Spirit exercises its power of selfdetermination and acts as Creator, Governor, and Destroyer of the universe (Chaudhuri 1954, 124). “To be possessed of Cosmic Consciousness is to undergo a change in vision” (Roy 1995, 19). Cosmic Consciousness “is the awareness of the cosmos” (Roy 1995, 16) whose possession results in a revolution that transforms our internal as well as our external life (LD 12). What is remarkable is that the whole universe is embraced by the Cosmic Consciousness which presents itself as “an immanent Intelligence in all its works” (LD 21). Aurobindo’s use of the term “immanent Intelligence” can be compared with what Whitehead speaks of as the “wisdom” that permeates the universe (RM 138). In this sense, I would rather prefer to say that cosmic consciousness is the ever living and dynamic presence and the awareness of this omnipresence of the Supreme Spirit. Aurobindo’s own statement substantiates it further: “besides the consciousness of the transcendent Self, pure, self-existent, timeless, [and] spaceless”, we have to accept and become the cosmic consciousness, we have to identify our being with the Infinite who makes himself the base and continent of the world and dwells in all existences. The condition of possibility for the awareness of the cosmic consciousness is Aurobindo’s conception of the Absolute as Consciousness-Force. It is infinite and found in all existence. Any form of existence is a manifestation and embodiment of this supreme Consciousness, albeit their variation in degrees. That is why Aurobindo wrote: “The seekings and shrinkings of the plant, its pleasure and pain, its sleep and its wakefulness and all that strange life … are all move-

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ments of consciousness, but, as far as we can see, not of mentality” (LD 87).41 Aurobindo stated further that the essence of the passage over to the cosmic consciousness “is the exceeding of the limits imposed on us by the ego-sense and at least a partaking, at most an identification with the self-knowledge which broods secret in all life and in all that seems to us inanimate” (LD 21). It is from this realisation that the ancient Vedantins advocated “all existences in the self and the self in all existences” (SY 369). The question remains as to how this cosmic consciousness is effected in individual existence.

6.5.1 The Individual and the Efficacy of Cosmic Consciousness With regard to the transformation that cosmic consciousness brings out in one’s life, Aurobindo writes that human beings are limited in many ways because of the individual ego. For “we dwell in the Ignorance and judge everything by a broken, partial and personal standard of knowledge; we experience everything according to the capacity of a limited consciousness and force and are therefore unable to give a divine response or set the true value upon any part of cosmic experience” (SY 413). The cosmic consciousness makes radical changes in our experience and valuations. In our limited consciousness we accept things and their opposites as opposites in an eternal duality and are unable to reconcile them in the eternity of an absolute good and happiness. Moreover, in our limited consciousness we commit a double mistake, for we take our fragmentary experience to be true and on the basis of it judge and value each thing and the whole. Further, we “try to thrust our one-sided view-points into the catholicity of the all-vision of the Divine. But by entering into the cosmic consciousness we begin to participate in that all-vision and see everything in the values of the Infinite and the One” (SY 413). The question here emerges as to how are we to get to this cosmic consciousness? Here we have to remind ourselves of what we have said about the opposition that the matter poses to the spirit. It is the individual ego consciousness that makes the duality of matter and spirit. Therefore, what is important is to transcend the ego consciousness, which is the foundation for all dualisms and divisions.

|| 41 Here we see a contrast between Whitehead and Aurobindo. While Aurobindo uses consciousness, though not in the sense of self-consciousness, as normally understood in the West, but in the sense of rational and logical, since the nature is the result of a rational activity, Whitehead uses the word mental. For him, every actual entity is dipolar, endowed with mental and physical aspects. Whitehead writes that “consciousness is a mode of attention” (AI 270).

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Aurobindo maintains that repudiation of a correct understanding of reality should look for a larger and complete affirmation of both spirit and matter. Only then the claim of the Spirit which is manifested in us in its absolute freedom and the claim of the Matter which has to be the mould and condition of our manifestation will make any sense. The cosmic creation is not separate from the cosmic consciousness but is itself “a Conscious Energy one with being that creates it” (LD 21). It is in this sense that Aurobindo claims that “matter reveals itself to the realizing thought and to the subtilised senses as the figure and body of the Spirit, - Spirit in its self formative extension. Spirit reveals itself through the same consenting agents as the soul, the truth, the essence of Matter” (LD 26). In fact, it is the cosmic consciousness that broaches the way for us to understand the reconciliation of both Matter and the Spirit (LD 25). It is the cosmic consciousness that generates in one the awareness of the fact that Matter, Mind and Life are one existence (LD 22).

6.5.2 Cosmic Consciousness: the Source of Reconciliation The contradictory nature of matter and spirit can be reconciled in two ways. On the one hand, one has to understand matter as the lowest level of existence which ought to be transcended to the spiritual; on the other hand, matter and spirit are to be taken as equally real and valuable because they are essential components of the one divine reality, Sachchidananda. The material and the spiritual realities are phases of the earthly processes. It is only from within the limitations of matter or spirit, supported by the diverse functions of the intellect, that one or another of these phases is affirmed or denied (McDermott 1974, 171).42 In this regard, what Aurobindo suggests both to the “materialist” as well as to the “ascetic” to escape one sided perspective of Reality is to make resort to “an extension of the field of our consciousness” (LD 20) which is “an inner enlargement from the individual into the cosmic existence” (LD 21). However, the question of ‘how’ remains. Here again what comes to our aid is the cosmic consciousness by which we become aware of our fundamental unity with the whole of cosmic existence. As one grows in this Consciousness, he or she becomes aware of the “Supermind, whose universal operation is the key to all lesser activities.” With the help of this new awareness one is able to transcend

|| 42 Robert A. McDermott. “The Life Divine: Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Evolution and Transformation.” Robert A. McDermott (ed.). Six Pillars: Introduction to the Major Works of Sri Aurobindo. Pennsylvania: Wilson Books (1974) 161-190.

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his past ego-sense, that is responsible for the sense of division, and live in the Universal Consciousness (LD 21). However, this realisation is possible only when one accepts an ascending process in life. In cosmic consciousness, mind and matter are considered intermediaries and not agents of separation or “fomenters of artificial quarrel” (LD 25) between the two aspects of the same Reality. From another perspective cosmic consciousness is a logical necessity for Aurobindo in the sense that if we reject the existence of consciousness in the matter it becomes difficult to explain the process of evolution. Everything in the world is conscious; “consciousness remains concealed, unmanifest and veiled in the material, vital and mental realities.” This is an ineluctable corollary of Aurobindo’s claim that the divine involution or manifestation is the condition of possibility for the beingness of the universe and everything in it.43 Taking into account the wisdom of the Vedic sages as well as the findings of the modern scientific developments, Aurobindo points out that there exists a sort of “obscure beginning of life and perhaps a sort of inert or suppressed consciousness in the metal and in the earth and in other “inanimate forms”, or at least the first stuff of what becomes consciousness in us maybe there” (LD 87-88).44 Finally, cosmic consciousness leads one to cosmic love, which is the “nonattached love of the world as the visible manifestation of the Divine” (Chaudhuri 1965, 98). Only a cosmic love can enable one to accept both matter and spirit as dual dimensions of the single Reality. Cosmic love does not demand a self-annihilation in the Absolute, but rather a joyful co-operation with the dynamic world spirit at the integral existential experience of the indefinable unity of God and the world. Cosmic love originates from the “vision of the spiritual unity of all existence” (Chaudhuri 1965, 133). It is a participation in the divine lila itself, the latter understood in the sense of God’s creative love for the cosmos.45 It is by taking into account these above facts and in virtue of its being as

|| 43 The Vedic sages identified five degrees of being: “the material, the vital, the mental, the ideal, the spiritual or beatific and to each of these grades of our soul there corresponds a grade of our substance, a sheath as it was called in the ancient figurative language” (LD 259). 44 Moreover, Aurobindo states that “our substance does not end with the physical body; that is only the earthly pedestal, the terrestrial base, the material starting point. As there are behind our waking mentality vaster ranges of consciousness subconscient and superconscient to it of which we become sometimes abnormally aware, so there are behind gross physical being other and subtler grades of substance with a finer law and a greater power which supports the denser body …” (LD 260). For, the cosmic consciousness is “real in itself,” as well as, “real in its effects and works” (LD 22). 45 We will come back to this notion of lila in a subsequent section.

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the principle of reconciliation, that I suggest cosmic consciousness as the locus of becoming. It is both the sense of “oneness” of matter and spirit and that helps to overcome the “artificial quarrel” aforementioned. It is the place (locus) wherein the individual being becomes aware of its own inherent nature of becoming or the progressive ascent.

6.6 The One and the Many: The Way of Being in Becoming We have started with the presupposition that the whole problem of Indian philosophy is inter-related to the question of the one and the many. In the above sections we have dealt with this question indirectly. Now it is time to take up this question as the focal point of our discussion. Aurobindo’s Integral advaitism invariably points to the doctrine of Shankara which establishes the oneness of the Supreme Reality or Brahman by denying the true reality of the world. Aurobindo challenges this contention and seems to suggest that Advaitism is true even when accepting the reality of the world. Therefore, he is a Vedantin who has attempted to explain the unity of the one and the many in a unique way. He has insisted on the absoluteness of the Absolute, who is limited neither by unity nor by multiplicity (Susai 22). In fact, one and the many are at the service of each other. Aurobindo affirms: “the unity as a basis for the manifestation of the multiplicity and the multiplicity as the basis for the return to oneness and the enjoyment of unity in the divine manifestation” (LD 149). This recalls a similar statement of Whitehead, which we discussed, that is, “the many become one and are increased by one” (PR 21). Our remaining task is to vindicate the veracity of Aurobindo’s presumption that Advaitism is true even when accepting the reality of the world.

6.6.1 The Absolute: Unity Manifesting Multiplicity The apparent contradictions that exist between Brahman and the world seem to be irreconcilable only to a finite or abstract reason. It can be solved by a higher reason, which he names as the Logic of the Infinite, that reconciles the opposites, including the one and the many, being and becoming, infinite and finite, and knowledge and ignorance. The true Advaita is that […] which admits all things as the one Brahman and does not seek to bisect its existence into two incompatible entities, an eternal Truth and an eternal Falsehood, Brahman and

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not-Brahman, Self and not-Self, a real Self and an unreal, yet perpetual Maya. If it be true that the Self alone exists, it must be also true that all is the Self (LD 31).

It was a later impatience of human heart and mind and a vehement attraction to high masterfulness that sought a univocal approach to reality and denied the many. Sat and Asat (Being and Non-Being) are not opposites, destructive of each other, but are the “last antinomy through which we look up to the Unknowable.” To know God truly is to “know him everywhere equally and without distinction” (LD 34-35). What is necessary is to put aside the trenchant distinctions. The many appear as absurd because of our inability to perceive one in the many. It is because of the partial logic that one employs that one declares many an illusion or the Absolute is Sat and the relative is Asat, etc. If one is able “to pursue insistently the One, it is to return with the benediction and the revelation of the One confirming itself in the Many” (LD 35). Therefore, the core of integral Advaita is identity in difference as opposed to Absolute identity advocated by Advaita of Shankara. The Infinite would not be the infinite Oneness if it was not capable of an infinite multiplicity. This does not mean that the Infinite One is plural or that it can be described as the sum of the Many. On the contrary, it can be the infinite many in the sense that it exceeds all the limitations or descriptions by multiplicity as well as all the limitations by finite conceptual oneness. Pluralism is an error because, though there is the spiritual plurality, the many souls are dependent and interdependent existences; their sum also is not the One nor is it the cosmic totality; they depend on the One and exist by its Oneness; yet the plurality is not unreal, it is the One Soul that dwells as the individual in these many souls and they are eternal in the One and by the one Eternal (LD 336).

Here we have the central argument for the claim that Advaitism is true even when accepting the reality of the world. It is not mere infinite multiplicity, rather all multiplicity finds its place in the One, where the singularity of the many is kept and recognised. Therefore, the “One” is not the Hegelian “Whole” where the singularity is muffled up in the whole. Substantiating the coexistence of One and the Many Aurobindo argues that there would be no place for reason and logic if there is only a “rigid monotone of limited oneness and sameness” (LD 341). The essence of logic is nothing but the right perception of the relations, and the highest work of reason is to find the one substance, the one law, the cementing latent reality connecting and unifying the many, the different, the discordant and disparate. “All universal existence moves between these two terms, a diversification of the One, a unification of the many and di-

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verse, and that must be because the One and the Many are fundamental aspects of the Infinite” (LD 341,660). The core of the problem of One and the Many consists in identifying the right relation between the individual and the Divine Being, between Soul and Isvara. In the normal theistic understanding the many are the creations of the Divine as a potter makes the vessel. There is a total dependence of the creatures on the creator. In Aurobindonian understanding, the many are themselves divine in their inmost reality. They are the individual selves of the Self-existence, eternal but eternal in his being. Here the material existence is the creation of Nature, but the soul is an immortal portion of the Divine being. In other words, Divine is responsible for the individual self of the natural creatures. However, the fundamental Truth of existence is one and the many for their existence depends on the One. Thus the dependence of the entire created world on Ishvara is all the more kept intact. It is human ego that conceals this dependent nature, for it strives to stand on its own right. “It is through self-giving or surrender of soul and nature to the Divine Being that we can attain to our highest self and supreme Reality … we are self-existent and eternal only in his eternity and by his self-existence” (LD 358). Multiplicity is not something that broaches the unity of the One, but rather the existential diversity enriches the Being of the One. Therefore, one and the many become the way of being the Absolute. And what makes it possible is the nature of becoming.

6.6.2 The Infinite: the Locus of Unity One and the many is the way of being the Absolute takes us to a more fundamental truth of Being, namely that the Infinite is the locus of unity. Here, the question regarding the identity of the individual self is natural: if it is a total surrender that is demanded how does one account for the identity of the creatures? This dependence is not contradictory to the identity but is “itself the door to the realisation of the Identity.” Once again we meet with the phenomenon of duality expressing unity, “proceeding from unity and opening back into unity” (LD 358) which is the fundamental principle of the operation of the universe. Here again, Aurobindo concurs with Whitehead that “the many become one and are increased by one” (PR 21). The core of the relation between One and the Many is the consciousness of the fundamental unity with the Infinite (LD 358). “The duality is a position taken up, a double status accepted for the operation of the self-manifestation of being; but there is no eternal and fundamental separateness and dualism of Being and its Consciousness-Force, of the Soul and Nature” (LD 350). Manifestation of the one Absolute in many forms can also be

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understood as an expression of the immense possibilities of the Infinite Consciousness. The Infinite existence can at once be individual, universal, and transcendent. It is the supracosmic being which is conscious of itself as AllBeing. It is possible in the sense that the single underlying principle in all these states or positions is the same triune Consciousness in a triple status. The conditio sine qua non for our human intellect to understand this contradictory existence is to accept that there can be different real statuses of consciousness of One Being, and it is completely logical and intelligible for the Existence which is free and infinite. One corollary of accepting the manifold statuses of one consciousness is that no limit can be put to the variation of status on the condition that the One existence is conscious of its simultaneous presence in all of them. There is nothing irrational in this understanding because the very nature of the pure Existence is to be universally conscious, a point which we already discussed in the previous section (LD 341-342).46 One has to admit and promote both the unity and multiplicity of the One. Aurobindo observes: […] we can only assert the priority of the oneness to the multiplicity, a priority not in time but in relation of consciousness, and no statement of supreme spiritual experience, no Vedantic philosophy denies this priority or the eternal dependence of the Many on the One (LD 148-149). Aurobindo maintains that “the absolute absoluteness of That, not limited by an idea of unity, not limited by an idea of multiplicity” (LD 149). What matters is the “Absolute freedom of the Divine Infinite.” For him, unity is not unanimity, rather unity is a unity in multiplicity. This is the core of his theory of One and the Many. This is the way of being in becoming. Thus, Brahman as the positive basis is the principle of harmony. If one admits that self alone exists, it must be also true that all is the self. If all is one self there must be some reason and inherent principle in it as the source of manifestation. To find that, Aurobindo observes, we must proceed with the hypothesis of potency. “There is one Lord and Self and the many are only His representations and becomings” (LD 32). Therefore, in Aurobindonian perspective, there is only one Omnipresent Reality as the source of the World and the many are its manifestations.47 In fact, it is in and through a metaphysics of becoming that || 46 Aurobindo speaks also about other possibilities of the Infinite Consciousness. For instance, the power of self-limitation or power of secondary self-formation into subordinate movements. It is also the necessary consequence of the power of self-determination of the pure Existence or the Infinite (LD 343). 47 He states further that “Thus we arrive at a perfect liberation and an infinite equality. It is this consummation of which the Upanishad speaks when it says “He in whom the self has

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Aurobindo establishes both the fundamental unity of Reality amidst the multiplicity in the universe. Moreover, his metaphysics of becoming positively establishes the Absolute as its Alpha and Omega. Our remaining task is to discuss his notion of the Absolute itself and how his metaphysics of becoming is effected in the notion of the Absolute.

|| become all existences, how shall he have delusion, whence shall he have grief who knows entirely and sees in all things oneness” (SY 414).

7 Sachchidananda and the Metaphysics of Becoming Philosophy of God is the most important aspect of Aurobindo’s philosophy, and for him, it has to do with the very scope of philosophy itself. Philosophy is a “means by which we arrive at the knowledge of the workings of God through Nature and through life.” Whitehead was not concerned about proving the existence of God and so also Aurobindo. Nevertheless, he tries to provide various reasons for God’s existence. For him, human experience proves the necessity of such an Absolute. Whitehead, as we have seen, had metaphysical reasons to introduce God. Nonetheless, God is beyond human comprehension. One can experience and recognize but one cannot prove God’s existence. “We see by reason that such an Absolute must exist; we become by spiritual experience aware of its existence: but even when we are most aware of it, we cannot describe it because our language and thought can deal only with the relative. The Absolute is for us the Ineffable” (LD 376).1 Therefore, our primary objective in this chapter is to explore the nature of the Absolute as conceived by Aurobindo. Aurobindo’s attempt is to draw up a metaphysical conception of God. We try to articulate how the metaphysics of becoming is effected in the case of Sachchidananda.

7.1 The Concept of the Absolute in Philosophy The Absolute is often considered the Ultimate in philosophy, and as the limit of man’s intellectual aspiration. It represents the zenith of the rational speculation in its attempt to present a comprehensive vision of the universe. It stands also as a sign of human aspiration for the complete unification of the diversified experience. It is the “final synthesis of all the fundamental notions or categories which the mind evolves for the explanation of the multitudinous facts of experience.” It is characterised as philosopher’s “master-word or master key” (Chaudhuri 1954, 79) for the interpretation of the enigmatic intricacies of the structure of ultimate reality.

|| 1 Amalraj Susai explains various points where one can discern Aurobindo’s proofs for the existence of God. The main arguments developed are: Argument from causality; argument from the insufficiency of the finite beings; argument from the necessity of assigning a limit; and argument from the fact of order (25-28). Nevertheless, that is not our primary concern here.

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It is also notable that there are various theories of the Absolute. What Hegel advocates is a theory of the mental Absolute where it is conceived as a selfdistinguishing and self-objectifying principle of self-consciousness, of which the world is a form of self-externalization. In Shankara and Bradley we have a mystical Absolute where the Absolute becomes the only reality and the external world is only appearance. Here the Absolute is a supra-rational undifferentiated unity, beyond the reach of understanding (Nirguna Brahma). Alexander proposes a theory of the physical Absolute in his magnum opus, Space, Time and Deity. Henry Bergson’s élan vital or the vital impetus advocates a theory of vital Absolute which is an eternally creative principle continually bringing forth unforeseen and unforeseeable forms. With this general understanding about the Absolute we enter into the discussion of the notion of Absolute in Indian philosophy.

7.1.1 Brahman: the Absolute in Indian Philosophy Indian tradition identifies the Absolute as ‘Brahman’.2 It is the name given to the experience of the Infinite, “the timeless plenitude,” by the great seers of India. Vedanta presents God as Brahman which itself expresses in three forms, namely Self (Atman), Conscious Being or Spirit (Purusha), and God or Divine Being (Isvara).3 Brahman is one and, at the same time, he is also the source of || 2 The term Brahman first appears in Rig Veda (ca. 1200 BC). It is presented together with other sacred utterances which were considered to be endowed with special magical powers. Therefore, it is assumed that originally the term might have denoted “spell” or “prayer”, i.e., that were used to please the deities for favour. At a later stage, in the Brahmana period, the word Brahman used to signify that which stands behind gods as their ground or source. When we come to the Upanishads Brahman becomes the unitary principle of all beings, the knowledge of which liberates one from finitude (Deutsch 1969, 9 fn 1). The term Brahman also referred to the priests who alone knew the powerful mantras of the vedic sacrifices. It is possible that the term Brahman has its roots in the idea of dynamic potency and energy that produces and sustains all reality. For the Vedic tradition the secret prayers and hymns had the power to create, to cause growth or a swelling (brh) of vitality. It originally meant ‘prayer’ or speech’. In the philosophical-religious inquiry of the Supreme, the term was used to signify what was discovered as the ultimate ground of the universe (Vallooran 1988, 46). Brahman is not a ‘He’ or ‘She’ in the sense of a personal being, nor it is an “It”, rather it points to a state of being. It is a novel view of the Absolute by which we would be able to eliminate all the contradictions of human life and be able to reach a true understanding of Brahman – “that state which is when all subject/object distinction is obliterated” (Deutsch 1969, 9). 3 As we come to Aurobindo we will discuss these three aspects in more detail and how they contribute to the creation of the universe.

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all diversity. Chandogya Upanishad speaks of Brahman as “the formed and the unformed, the mortal and the immortal, the abiding and the fleeting, the being and the beyond” (cited in McGreal 156).4 Our intellectual categories of space, time, and causality are inadequate for Brahman. He comprehends everything but himself is beyond any comprehension. In the Vedas, Brahman is tied to the idea of magic formulas, sacred Hymns, prayers and knowledge. Aurobindo maintains that the Vedic concept of God is a sort of monotheism, which includes monistic, pantheistic and polytheistic vision of the cosmic reality, for in it we have names of gods and goddesses as the multiple powers of the One Divine whose existence was perceived by the enlightened in a variety of forms (Nedumpalakunnel 15).

7.1.2 Aurobindo’s Understanding of the Absolute The Absolute is the Supreme Reality for Aurobindo. It is eternal, absolute and infinite, therefore, it is indescribable and indeterminable. In its pure nature it is inconceivable to human faculties that it is beyond all determinations. Man in his process of ascent becomes conscious of an infinite existence, and he tries to translate his thought or experience into terms convenient to his mentality. The “Absolute” is named so for the very reason that “all things that are conditions and appearances of the movement pass into That form” and have become something which cannot be described by any term that is appropriate to its nature. Therefore, he names this supreme existence – Infinity, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Immortality, Freedom, Love, Beatitude, God, etc. However, the fact is that as one tries to understand it in its purity, he feels that it passes into something beyond which all these explanations cannot truly represent. “His mind at last negates God for a Beyond, or at least it seems to find God transcending Himself, denying Himself to the conception” (LD 47). In other words, the Absolute is the very source and foundation of all movements. Human finite nature tries to understand every movement in the temporal consciousness since one is unable to conceive that “beginningless, endless, ever-new moment which is the eternity of the Timeless” (LD 76), the Absolute. The Absolute is conceived as “something greater than ourselves, greater than the cosmos which we live in, the supreme reality of that transcendent Being which we call God, something without which all that we see or are con-

|| 4 Ian P. McGreal (ed.). Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995.

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scious of as existing, could not have been, could not for a moment remain in existence” (LD 375. It is the real truth of everything finite; the infinite which every finite is striving to express. The incapacity of human intellect to comprehend it does not mean that the Absolute is beyond any comprehension. The Absolute, “which supports and pervades all things as the Cosmic Self and Spirit”, is discoverable by the individual “here in the terrestrial embodiment as his own self and spirit,” “an infinite and eternal self-existent Being, Consciousness and Bliss of existence” as its summit and essence (HC 158).5 This Absolute, One, Infinite, and self-determining, expresses itself in many forms and tendencies. Moreover, it is also a “principle of infinite potentiality and variation quite baffling to the reasoning intelligence; for the reason deals successfully only with the settled and the finite” (HC 103). In Savitri Aurobindo writes: The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone Has called out of the Silence his mute Force Where she lay in the featureless and formless hush Guarding from Time by her immobile sleep The ineffable puissance of his solitude. The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone Has entered with his silence into space: He has fashioned these countless persons of one self; He has built a million figures of his power; He lives in all, who lived in his Vast alone; Space is himself and Time is only he (67).

This citation of Aurobindo brings out the manifestation of the Absolute in space and time, who is immobile in his Transcendence and mobile in his immanent aspect. This is of great import as we see it in light of the metaphysics of becoming. Here itself we note Aurobindo’s favoured position for the primacy of Being. Moreover, the “Alone” here implies that there are no two Truths, there is only one Truth which has both personal as well as impersonal aspect. The perfect points to the fact of creation and that the perfect can exist with the relatively perfect or imperfect. Purani observes that the Absolute denotes that the One is beyond all creation and all relativities and the term Transcendent implies all the three (1966, 33-34).6 Our statement that the Absolute has an impersonal as well as a personal dimension demands further justification. The Absolute in its impersonal aspect “is not only Existence, it is the one Being absolute, eternal and infinite.” And in the personal dimension, the Absolute is the supreme player in

|| 5 Aurobindo. The Human Cycle [1962]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997. 6 A. B. Purani. Sri Aurobindo’s Life Divine. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1966.

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the “seven-folded universe” which includes Matter, Life and Mind in the lower sphere and Existence, Consciousness-Force and Bliss in the higher sphere (Pani 17) and the intermediary the Supermind.7 The two natures are not contradictory but complementary. Therefore, it is right to say that the first characteristic of the Absolute is that it is a unity – indivisible, underivative, and all-sustaining unity – in the sense that it is an allcomprehensive principle (Chaudhuri 1954, 79). It tries to bring together all the contrary principles such as finite and infinite, one and many, being and becoming, etc. A second implication of the Absolute is that in it we have the perfect identification of being and essence. In that sense it can be said that in the Absolute we have the perfect identity of ‘that’ and ‘what’.8

|| 7 It is also remarkable that this distinction between the Absolute and a personal God is not peculiar to Hinduism alone, but one can observe the same in Christianity as well. The acceptance of a personal dimension of the Absolute itself is a sign of the incomprehensibility of the Absolute. The personal dimension of the Absolute Brahman is the personal God, Isvara. The essence of religion is nothing but a mode of approach to God or to a divine state of being. Religions maintain a personal approach to the Absolute. In spite of our adherence to the one, we do not deny the validity of the other. In every religion one may identify an aspect which concentrates on the worship of personal God for it requires the grace and compassion of the Supreme (Radhakrishnan 1961, xi). It is remarkable that Shankara himself, the protagonist par excellence of Advaita, wrote a poem of devotional nature. Save me from pride, O Vishnu, cure my restless mind Still my thirst for the waters of this world’s mirage Be gracious, Lord, to this Thy humble creature, And rescue him from the ocean of this world (quoted, Radhakrishnan 1961, xi). On the other hand, the impersonal means that the “Absolute is … free from the limitations of all relativities. It is not negation of relativities, but transcendence of relativities. All the relativities are included in the Absolute, yet the Absolute remains the Absolute because it is not limited by relativities which it manifests, or which it holds within itself. It cannot be said that it has nothing in it. It has everything and is more than all it holds. That is the real meaning of Absolute” (Purani 1966, 91). 8 However, it can be noted that the Agnostics are certain of the ‘that’ of the Absolute and not of the ‘what’ of the Absolute. We are somehow bound to admit the reality of the Absolute but with regard to the what we have no means to reach its positive nature. Chaudhuri maintains that there is an element of truth in the position of the Agnostics in the sense that the Absolute is inexhaustible or unfathomable in character. They are, however, definitely mistaken in construing this unfathomableness of the Absolute as unknowableness (Chaudhuri 1954, 88).

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7.2 The Understanding of God in Indian Philosophy In Indian philosophy we have a perfect identification of the Absolute (Brahman) and God. “Whatever reality is in existence, by which all the rest subsists, that is Brahman” (U 245). The Upanishads define Brahman as the Truth, Knowledge and Infinity. “It is not a mere indefinable, prisoner of its own featureless absoluteness, impotent to define, create, know itself variously, eternally buried in a sleep or a swoon of self-absorption” (U 249). Brahman’s attribute “Infinity” means the timeless, spaceless and causeless existence of the Supreme, but contains infinities of space, time and endless causalities. The mystics of the Vedanta describe Brahman in a double trilogy as follows: “Subjectively, He is the Sat-Cit-Ananda, Existence, Consciousness and Bliss; objectively, Satyam, Jnanam, Anantam, Truth, Knowledge, Infinity” (Pandit 1986, 28).9 The two expressions are very much inter-related, in the sense that while the first three express Brahman’s being in itself, the latter three are the objective expressions of them. Moreover, the first trilogy “Sat-Cit-Ananda” as subjective dimension corresponds to the impersonal and the second “Satyam, Jnanam, Anantam” as objective dimension corresponds to the personal aspect of Brahman. The most convincing and the best positive affirmation that can be given of the Absolute (God) is that it is Sachchidananda.

7.2.1 The Subjective Dimension of Brahman As pointed out previously, Sachchidananda recalls the impersonal or transcendental dimension of Brahman. It is the status of Brahman in itself, to use the Advaitic description, the Nirguna Brahman. It is the status of Brahman beyond any description. There are two methods that Indian philosophy uses to bring out the immensity of this transcendental aspect of Brahman. One of the basic teachings of the Upanishads as well as of the Indian tradition in general is that the Ultimate Reality is “incognizable by any of the sense organs … that it is beyond the reasoning faculties of man and is therefore unat|| 9 M. P. Pandit. The Upanishads: The Gateways of Knowledge. Madras: Ganesh and Co. Pvt. Ltd., 1986. It is a point made by Shankara in respect to Brahman’s definition as Sachchidananda – ‘Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma’. His point is that the positive characterisations are meant to direct the mind towards Brahman by affirming essential qualities that are really only denials of their opposites. These characterisations have only a pragmatic function, to orient the mind towards Brahman. For instance, Brahman qualified as Truth negates the quality of untruth (Deutsch 1969, 11).

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tainable by logic” (Gupta 1999, 112). On the same ground it is argued that God is known by intuition, “which is an inner realization and conviction, independent of thought and reason” (Seeger 4).10 In this regard Shankara’s argument for the pure Existence of the Absolute is noteworthy: We may think away anything, but we cannot think away Being or Existence. Existence is therefore Truth. And in the effort of doing away with Existence, we are conscious of our tacitly assuming it. We can dismiss qualities or attributes of Being, or concrete forms of it, but we cannot put away Existence. The very thought of denial presupposes it. Existence or Being is the ultimate Reality. In fact, the existence of concrete things and appearances implies the notion of existence. Brahman is Existence (Sarkar 3).11

Indian sages applied the method of via negativa to explain that the human mind is incapable of comprehending the Absolute. Thus, the great mystics of Indian philosophy resort to this method of via negativa on account of following two facts: To point out the mystery dimension of the Absolute and to bring attention to the absolute indeterminacy of the Absolute. Regarding the mystical dimension of Divine experience, Ruysbroeck states that to attain the Supreme, one must go out “beyond all things into the emptiness” (Radhakrishnan 1961, xii). One cannot describe or think of the Absolute in itself, who is beyond stability and movement, beyond unity and multitude. Pointing to the absolute indeterminability of Brahman the Upanishadic sage Yajnavalkya claims that “there is no other or better description [of Brahman] than this; that it is not this, it is not that (neti neti).12 These words of the Sage mean that the Omnipresent reality is beyond any determination and definition. Aurobindo maintains that there is neither any experience by which one can limit the Ultimate reality nor any conception by which one can define it (LD 33). ‘Neti neti’ does not point to a state of non-existence, or void, rather to a state beyond all negations (Satapathy 6). Following the same line of thought Chaudhuri states that the Upanishadic affirmations (iti iti) and negations (neti neti) are || 10 Elizabeth Seeger. Eastern Religions. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1973. 11 Anil Kumar Sarkar. Dynamic Facets of Indian Thought. vol. I. New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1980. According Shankara, Misra maintains, Brahman as Existence (Sat) is the underlying Reality of both cosmos and individual existences. In fact, considered from the individual dimension it is the Self of the individual. In this sense, to deny the reality of pure Existence is to deny one’s own Self which is a contradiction. The Atman or Self is the essential nature of one who denies it (Misra 125). 12 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.3.6. Through via negativa Advaita Vedanta aims to safeguard the unqualified oneness of the Absolute Brahman. The reason is, human language has its limitations since it is based on the phenomenal experience which limits it to explain the transcendental experiences (Deutsch 1969, 11).

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expressive of the characteristics of the Absolute namely suggesting that the absolute is beyond all affirmations and negations. The Upanishadic negations, however, are to function as basis of affirmation in a correct perspective. Here “negation would mean elimination of ignorance and the transcendence of all limited forms of existence” (Chaudhuri 1954, 91). Here a question emerges as to what does this indeterminability of the Absolute mean? It is the nature of the Absolute in virtue of its being the source of everything determinate. It stands beyond all determinations. The indeterminability of the Absolute “is the natural, the necessary condition both of its infinity of being and its infinity of power of being; it can be infinitely all things because it is no thing in particular and exceeds any definable totality” (LD 316).13 Indeterminability is not something negative but positive. It is not an imposition of any limitation on the Infinite rather a freedom within the “Infinite itself from limitation by its own determinations and necessarily a freedom from all external determinations by anything not itself” (LD 333). The truth is that the Infinite is illimitably free, free to determine itself infinitely, free from all restraining effects of its own creations (LD 636). Therefore, indeterminacy of the Absolute, on the one hand, points to the absolute self-determinability of Brahman, and on the other, to the finite nature of human mind that cannot comprehend the infinite. Furthermore, from a human point of view, the presentation of the Absolute as pure indeterminate points to the rich spiritual experience of the Seers. The Vedic Seers had the sincerity in thought and the humility in conduct to admit the limitation of human knowledge. The Vedic Seers could understand the borders where the intellectual knowledge has to pass into something beyond itself. The argument is that if ever all forms, quantities, and qualities were to disappear, the Absolute would remain. In Aurobindo’s own words, “Existence without quantity, without quality, without form is not only conceivable, but it is the

|| 13 The characterisation of the Absolute as indeterminate is not something unique to Aurobindo, rather, it is a feature of Indian philosophy in general and the Vedanta in particular. Taittiriya Upanishad speaks of the Real as that “from which all speech with the mind turns away unable to reach it” (11.4). In the same way it is recorded that “the eye does not go there, nor speech nor mind. We do not know, do not understand how any one can teach it” (KU 1.3). Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states that “You cannot see that which is the witness of vision; you cannot hear that which is the witness of hearing; you cannot think that which is the thinker of thought; you cannot know that which is the knower of knowledge” (3.4.2). The Absolute is presented also as the Unknown. It has to be noted that the “Unknown is not the unknowable” (KU 1.3). The unknown does not mean that it is absolutely unknowable, rather it means only that it is “not knowable by thought, not knowable by reason, not knowable by speech.”

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one thing we can conceive behind these phenomena” (LD 75).14 The Ultimate is beyond all the positive forms our finite intellect can conceive of and is other to all that human intellect can comprehend with.15

7.2.2 The Objective Dimension of Brahman Satyam, Jnanam, Anantam (Truth, Knowledge, Infinity) corresponds to the personal dimension of Brahman. Brahman as Truth means, truth of the infinite and the eternal, truth of being, and the becoming only as self-manifestation of the being. In other words, “all things are, each thing is the Brahman.” Brahman as Knowledge means the inalienable self-knowledge of the infinite selfexistence, truth and reality (U 250).16 Brahman is Absolute Truth and consciousness. Therefore, everything that flows from the consciousness of the Self is to some degree an expression of Brahman. Knowledge and being are identical; inseparable aspects of the same Absolute. To know the Truth is to become the Truth, for the essence of the self is the conscious divinity. Here the duality of subject and object is transcended by the intuitive knowledge. This points to the

|| 14 Indeterminability means that the Absolute is beyond any definition. It does not certainly mean incapable of any real determination, “but rather freedom from limitation by any such self-determination” (Chaudhuri 1954, 123). It was the same idea that the Shankarites expressed when they qualified Brahman as Nirguna. It is observed, however, that though they were “perfectly right in regarding Nirguna Brahman as the highest aspect of the Spirit, … is definitely mistaken in stripping it of any inherent power of real self-determination” (Chaudhuri 1954, 124). Moreover, indeterminacy does not mean that the Absolute is devoid of any positive qualifications. On the contrary, it repudiates any attempt to create any division in the Absolute in our haste to arrive at a unity that is seizable by human mind. Aurobindo observes that in our attempt to reach any one definable state of Being, at the exclusion of all other definitions and attributes, then he/she sins against the indeterminability of the Absolute and “arrives at a division of the Indivisible” (LD 34). 15 Notwithstanding the reservations the Vedantins have regarding Buddhism, Aurobindo admits that Buddhism has gone back to this Vedantic truth regarding Brahman. Buddhist teachings are unacceptable to Vedantins since they deny the authority of the Scriptures (Vedas). 16 One may identify four major texts (mahavakyas) that explicate the nature of Brahman, belonging to the four Vedas: (i) “Consciousness is Brahman” -Prajnanam Brahma- (AU 5), belonging to the Rig Veda; (ii) “I am Brahman” –Aham Brahmasmi- (BU 1.4.20), belonging to the Yajur Veda; (iii) “That thou art” –Tat tvam asi” – (CU 6.10.3), belonging to the Sama Veda; and (iv) “The Self is Brahman” –Ayam atma Brahma– (MU 2), belonging to the Atharva Veda (Vallooran 1988, 59).

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Upanishadic idealism that considers all existence as the expression of ideas, the manifestation of the intellect, and is known only by intellect (McGreal 157). Brahman as Satyam, Jnanam, Anantam demands further explication. Satyam is existence viewed objectively. What is real is that which exists by itself. Brahman is the Absolute Existence, and therefore, he is also the absolute Truth. For, “being and the true are identical. Truth is the unveiling (a-letheia) of Being, of the Real in itself” (Abhishiktananda 168).17 According to Chandogya Upanishad, Existence alone is real. For it is stated, “All changing form is a name, a creation of speech; what is called clay is alone real: thus, Existence (Sat) alone is real” (6, 1-4). Only that which exists fundamentally is worthy of its name as Real and True (satyam). Brahman is knowledge. It is the consciousness viewed objectively. It is observed that the word “jnana maybe derived in four ways as follows: It may denote, with reference to the act of knowing, either the agent of the act, or the object of the act, or the instrument of the act, or the act itself. In other words, it may mean the knower, or the object known or the instrument of knowledge, or the act of knowing.”18 In jnanam we have identity of the knower and the known (Susai 29-30). Brahman is Infinite (Anantam). “This infinity arises from his Absolute Bliss. There can be no absolute Bliss where there is any limitation” (Pandit 1986, 29). Here the idea of Bliss is viewed objectively. Objectively viewed it is anantam, infinite or endless (Susai 29). One of the dangers of viewing Brahman as Consciousness is that one may have the tendency to view him as finite, for all worldly consciousness is finite. It is also to prevent such a danger that the Taittiriya Upanishad presents Brahman as Infinite. Brahman is distinguished from everything that is finite, but on the other hand, his oneness with all things that is finite is declared by Mundaka Upanishad: Aye, this immortal Brahman is before; Brahman is behind, on right and left, stretched out above, below. This Brahman is surely this all. He is the best (2, 2-11).

|| 17 Abhishiktananda. Saccidananda: A Christian Approach to Advaitic Experience. Delhi: ISPCK, 1974. 18 Alladi Mahadeva Sastry. Trans. The Taittiriya Upanishad: With the Commentaries of Sri Sankaracharya, Sri Sureshvaracharya and Sri Vidyaranya. Madras: Samata Books, 1980, 242. This jnana is different from samjnana (awareness by contact), ajnana (perception through receptivity to the impulses of the brain), prajnana (teleological knowledge or knowledge with purpose) and vijnana (learned knowledge).

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Nevertheless, in no way one can compartmentalise or view these three dimensions of Brahman as separate existences. Aurobindo’s own summary statement expresses the nature of Brahman as a single principle: “One Being, one Reality as Self bases, supports, informs, as Purusha or Conscious Being experiences, as Ishwara wills, governs and possesses its world of manifestation created and kept in motion and action by its own Consciousness-Force or Self-Power, – Maya, Prakriti, Shakti” (LD 357). This integral function of the Absolute Aurobindo describes in a different way as follows: “Ishwara is Brahman the Reality, Self, Spirit, revealed as possessor, enjoyer of his own self-existence, creator of the universe and one with it, Pantheos, and yet superior to it, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Ineffable, the Divine Transcendence” (LD 352). One can reach out to the same truth from a different perspective. What I mean is this: Bhattacharyya presents Truth, Freedom and Value as the alternative forms of the Absolute, though in themselves they are not Absolutes, for there cannot be many absolutes (1963, 303-330). Our concern here, however, is not the alternative forms themselves but the impact they have on the presentation of the Absolute as Sachchidananda. A possible claim here is the identification of these three alternative forms with Sachchidananda. The first aspect of Sachchidananda is Sat or pure Existence. It is the Existence in its completeness. Whatever exists has its contents. In other words, it is Real. Coming to Truth, it is the identification of the content of thought (consciousness) and the outside reality. The Real is characterised by content and existence. One could say, therefore, Pure Existence (Sat) and Truth are identifiable. The second aspect of the Absolute is Cit (Consciousness-Force). It is the creative aspect of Sachchidananda. Creation is nothing but the self-manifestation of the Absolute. The act of self-manifestation presupposes enjoyment of Freedom and in the case of the Absolute enjoyment of supreme freedom. Therefore, what is implied by consciousness is nothing but the Freedom that Sachchidananda enjoys. Thus, the second alternative, namely Freedom is equivalent to the second aspect of Sachchidananda, namely Consciousness-Force. Coming to the third, Ananda, we see that it is the value dimension of Sachchidananda which is easily identifiable with the third alternative value itself (Bliss). What is still remarkable is the ingenuity of the Vedantic seers who have identified, among all the possible characterisations of the Absolute, Sachchidananda as the best, that the human consciousness can think of. What becomes all the more clear is the clear identification of Brahman and the Sachchidananda (Pani 29). This calls for still another identification, namely subjective and objective dimensions of Brahman. Moreover, the supreme Brahman is the same as what is described as the Absolute in the West (O’Neil 27). However, a question as to how this presentation of Brahman as personal as well as impersonal related to Aurobindo is to be an-

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swered. For the moment it is enough to understand that Aurobindo himself maintains that the Brahman is personal as well as impersonal.

7.3 Sachchidananda: The Absolute in Aurobindo Aurobindo has developed his integral Advaitism on the strong foundation of Indian classics in philosophy. It is all the more true of his philosophy of God or the Absolute. Three formative factors are identified in Aurobindo’s conception of God: (i) his allegiance to and difference from the Indian tradition and the Scriptures; (ii) his own spiritual experience of God; and, (iii) his idea of the involution and evolution of the Absolute (Nedumpalakunnel 1). The Absolute is beyond all affirmations and negations. For, the indeterminability of the Absolute “is the natural, the necessary condition both of its infinity of being and its infinity of power of being; it can be infinitely all things because it is no thing in particular and exceeds any definable totality” (LD 316). Nevertheless, if it is devoid of all determinations, it will be wholly cut-off from the infinitely variegated world of experience, and consequently of no avail for the comprehension of the world. If one could describe the Absolute mainly by via negativa, the whole aim of philosophy cannot be fulfilled which seeks for knowledge. If we say that the end of our search is the Unknowable, then we have not reached the end. The end of our search should be something positive, to put in the words of Upanishads, which being known all is known. It can only be a “higher degree in the intensity of being of that something, a degree beyond the loftiest summit attainable by mental being …” (LD 570). Aurobindo maintains that the Absolute is personal as well as impersonal. The Self is “impersonal because undifferentiated by personal quality, personal because it presides over the individualisations of self in each individual” (LD 351).19 For Aurobindo, the Unknowable does not mean the absolutely unknow-

|| 19 The Nirguna or Unqualitied is not incapable of qualities, rather “it is this very Nirguna or No-Quality who manifests Himself as Saguna, as Ananta-guna, infinite quality, since He contains all in His absolute capacity of boundlessly varied self-revelation. He is free from them in the sense of exceeding them …” (SY 380). The Upanishads indicate clearly enough the relative nature of this opposition, when they speak of the Supreme as the “Qualitied who is without qualities” (nirguno guni). Aurobindo maintains that in it we have again two essential modes, two fundamental aspects, two poles of eternal being, both of them exceeded in the transcendent divine Reality. They correspond practically to the Silent and the Active Brahman” (SY 379).

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able, but what is beyond the mental knowledge. One has to understand Aurobindo’s presentation of the Absolute as Sachchidananda in this context.

7.3.1 Sachchidananda: The Greatest Achievement of Vedanta The single major contribution of Indian philosophy is the conception of Reality as Sachchidananda (Maitra 1956, 9).20 The understanding of the Absolute as Sachchidananda is itself not an original contribution of Aurobindo, rather his originality consists in its distinctive interpretation (LD 43).21 The most significant denomination of the Absolute is the vedantic term Sachchidananda. Sachchidananda is the “Absolute and the Supreme source of everything, One Transcendent in many transients, One immutable in many mutables, One Infinite Person in many finite persons” (Nedumpalakunnel 1819). In its explication, however, there is a difference between Aurobindo and his great predecessors, particularly with Shankara who conceived Sachchidananda as an unchangeable existence, passive, static, non-creative and immutable (Srivastava 1984, 109). On the contrary, for Aurobindo, Sachchidananda in itself transcends all dualities such as static and dynamic, being and becoming, Consciousness and Force, One and the Many, Stability and Movement, Unity and Multiplicity, etc. Sachchidananda is the best and the last or the quintessence of the Upanishadic affirmation about the Absolute Brahman (Roy 1995, ii).22 The Absolute as || 20 S. K. Maitra. The Meeting of the East and the West in Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1956). 21 The popular Sanskrit term designating Brahman’s nature, Sachchidananda, was not widely used before the classical period of Indian thought (AD 400+). It first appears in late Upanishads, Muktika (1,4; 2, 19), Vasudeva (3), Ramottaratapani (2,5), and others, all of which are largely summaries of much earlier Upanishads. The point is that Brahman as ‘existent’, ‘consciousness’, and ‘blissful’ was already present in earliest Upanishads, but the use of the compound ‘Sachchidananda’ is of later origin (Phillips 409, footnote 22). 22 The following citations further bring out the unique place Sachchidananda has in Indian philosophy. It is the “last concept at which Vedantic analysis arrives in its view of the universe, the fundamental Reality which Vedantic experience discovers behind all the movement and formation” of the universe (LD 66). Sachchidananda is a “symbol of Brahman” which is used by the Advaitins to interpret their Brahman experience. In contrast to the “definition with reference to accidents” (tatasthalakshana) Sachchidananda is a “definition with reference to essence” (svarupalakshana). This Vedantic category is used to characterise Brahman’s svarupa (Sharma 1991, 34-35). Sachchidananda is the most important scriptural insight into the nature of the Absolute. Vallooran, quoting Mahadevan stated, that Sachchidananda “condenses, as it were, all that can be asserted about the nature of Brahman” (1988, 58).

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Sachchidananda is the conception of Brahman as the one universal and essential fact. In this view the essence of all life is the movement of a universal and immortal existence, the essence of sensation and emotion is the play of a universal and self-existent delight in being, the essence of all thought and perception is the radiation of a universal and all pervading truth, the essence of all activity is the progression of a universal and self effecting good (LD 57).

The identification of the Absolute as Sachchidananda points also to the fact that it is the ontological principle of unity in the universe (Indich 1980, 24). The concept Sachchidananda is a combination of three principles, namely Sat (existence), Cit (Consciousness) and Ananda (Bliss). These three principles are indivisible and inseparable, and they are three aspects of the one and the same Reality. It is a unified single existence with the following three aspects: “Sachchidananda is not Existence plus Knowledge plus Bliss, but as pure Existence which is at the same time pure Bliss” (Chaudhuri 1960, 33-34).23 We need to explain further Sachchidananda as an integral unity of Sat+Cit+Ananda.

7.3.2 The Trinity of Sachchidananda Sachchidananda is an indivisible trinity.24 The three aspects of Sachchidananda are everywhere, and are the three inseparable divine terms. Aurobindo states, “[n]one of them is really separate, though our mind and our mental experience can make not only the distinction, but the separation. One “cannot think of consciousness without delight, of delight without being, or consciousness without delight and being” (Purani 1966, 91). “At every step, the oneness of the One is maintained” (Roy 1995, ii). The concept Sachchidananda is used either singly or in pairs in the Upanishadic literature. For instance, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states Brahman is the “Real of the real” (Satyasa satyam) (2.1.20) and it is “consciousness and bliss” (vijnanam anandam brahma) (3.9.28). The term ‘real’ here means ‘that which is unchanging, that which time can neither cancel nor alter’. Pure consciousness (jnanam) means the transcendence of the subjectobject relation. It is neither the knower nor the known object; but knowledge per se (Mahadevan 1958, 69). It is the sole Reality that the human mind seeks || 23 Haridas Chaudhuri. “The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.” Haridas Chaudhuri & Frederic Spiegelberg (eds.). The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: A Commemorative Symposium. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. (1960) 17-34. 24 The notion trinity is used here not in the same sense as it is understood in Christianity.

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and aspires for in all its attempts (LD 43). For Aurobindo “the original unifying spirit-stuff of them all and the one substantial mode of them all is that which has been described for the convenience of our thought as the trinity of Sachchidananda” (SY 386). The understanding of Brahman in its three poises as Sachchidananda is the “necessary theoretical grounding for the concrete enterprise of promoting the evolution of divine life on earth” (Bruteau 55). We discuss the Absolute in its three aspects not because that they are three different principles, but rather they are of special significance and throw a flood of light on the nature of the Absolute as well as on the metaphysics of becoming.

7.3.2.1 The Absolute as Pure Existence (Sat) The Absolute as ‘Sat’ accounts for two fundamental questions of philosophy: (i) what is the substratum of the universe; and (ii) what is the nature of this substratum. In response to these questions we have the presentation of (i) Brahman as the Absolute existence, and (ii) its nature as being-becoming. It has been stated above that the identification of the Absolute as Sachchidananda itself is not a unique contribution of Aurobindo, rather it is a Vedantic notion. Our first task, therefore, is to elucidate a few points on the Vedantic roots of the Absolute as pure Existence (Sat). Chandogya Upanishad states that there is one “indivisible that is pureexistence” (vi.2.1). It is pure existence in the sense that there is nothing that it lacks or it is not dependent on anything other to itself. No amount of quality or quantity can exhaust it. It is this completeness that the Upanishad expressed when it stated: That is full, this is full. from full, the full is taken; the full has come. If you take out full from the full, the full alone remains (Isa Upanishad).

The Gita’s characterisation of the Absolute as samambrahman should also be understood in this sense (Pani 20). In the description of the Divine as ‘Sat’, among the three aspects of Sachchidananda, we have the synthesis of Upanishadic teaching of the Absolute as the One pure existence and substance of the many, and the Gita’s teaching on the nature of Purushottama, the Highest who contains and exceeds both the immutable and mutable purusha (LD 71; CU vi.2.1; Nedumpalakunnel 25). The Upanishadic thinker Aruni states ‘Reality is one without a second’ and, for him, this Reality is Sat. The world of manifold existence is rooted in Sat and

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evolved out of it. Sat, therefore, is the substratum and efficient cause of the universe. In the beginning only Sat existed. What is remarkable is that this Sat appears or assumes different names and forms, for the reason that human finite reason is incapable of comprehending the Reality in its pure Existence. Therefore, “Sat presents itself to our sense experience and intellect in a modified condition, that is, under the limitations of space, time and cause and under infinite determinations of names and forms, nama and rupa” (Misra 1971, 39).25 With regard to this finite nature of human experience and objective existence of the Absolute Aurobindo writes: “The senses and sense-mind know nothing whatever about any pure or absolute existence” (LD 66). Sachchidananda, designated as Sat (Being), points to the ontological principle of unity, to its oneness not constituted of parts, rather to the existential substratum of all subjects and objects. Sachchidananda is that which truly ‘exists’, in the sense that its existence is not comparable to anything temporal or non-temporal (Deutsch 1969, 10). Sachchidananda is the Absolute existence in the sense that there is nothing in Reality that is outside it. “Space, time, and causality are created by him and out of him as conditions of manifestation; they do not contain him, but they are contained in him” (Pandit 1986, 28). The Sat points to the absolute Existence for it exists “by Himself, in Himself and to Himself” (Susai 28). Since the existence or Reality of Sachchidananda exceeds all determination, perhaps the best way to describe his existence would be to say simply that ‘he is’ as described by Katha Upanishad (6, 12). Brahman as Sat “is the deepest reality of every created [being], remains infinitely beyond any of them. Nothing can hold it, it is forever beyond the reach of any attempt to define it, or to think or to speak of it. In its very immanence it is infinitely transcendent” (Abhishiktananda 168). What we see in nature is not only pure existence but also constant change and movements. “All that our sense-experience tells us of, is form and movement. Forms exist, but with an existence that is not pure, rather always mixed, combined, aggregated, relative. When we go within ourselves, we may get rid of precise form, but we cannot get rid of movement, of change. Motion of Matter in Space, motion of change in Time seem to be the condition of existence” (LD 6667). If pure existence is the sole Reality what would account for the phenomena of change and transformations? What explanation does Aurobindo provide in this respect? The above statement of Aurobindo also would legitimize Aurobindo’s presentation of the Reality as Being-Becoming. These questions

|| 25 Ram Shankar Misra. Studies in Philosophy and Religion. Varanasi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakasana, 1971.

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and concerns take one to the second aspect of Sachchidananda, namely Consciousness-Force.

7.3.2.2 The Absolute as Consciousness-Force (Cit-Shakti) The Sachchidananda as Consciousness-Force is the most important in light of the metaphysics of becoming. For it is and in it we have the core of involution of the Absolute and evolution of the universe. The Absolute as pure existence as well as infinite movement - both being and becoming - points to a characteristic of the Absolute. Moreover, it points to a problem in the sense that if the Absolute is pure existence what causes the infinite flux of the universe? If movement is taken to be the fundamental nature of the reality how does one reconcile it with the former claim that pure Existence is the fundamental reality of the world? How does the movement take place in pure Existence? We have already affirmed that pure Existence is conditioned by nothing. The question is, how does then the movement alien to its eternal repose take place in it? It cannot come from outside. No external agency can cause it for it will go against the Absolute nature of the pure Existence. Moreover, how can it be understood as being and becoming? Aurobindo asks the question, what the world is made up of? What is the ultimate source of the universe? What we observe in nature are pure material things made up of matter. And what really constitute all these materialities are pure energy, pure force. Everything is nothing but “essentially response to vibratory contacts between force and force.” “A thing like pure energy … can be the one permanent cosmic reality” (LD 80-81). This, however, does not solve the problem. If energy is the reality it also looks absurd because “an Energy without a Being or Existence possessing it or a Consciousness supplying it, and Energy working originally in the void” will be a mental construction.26 It is here that one observes the ingenuity of Aurobindo. He identifies a conscious principle behind the pure Energy, namely Sachchidananda, in its second aspect, viz. Consciousness-Force. One of the fundamental principles that guided Aurobindo in building his system was the firm belief that Cit or Consciousness-Force is the root principle of creation (Kumar 168).27 Aurobindo describes it as ‘The Mother’ and conceives

|| 26 In this regard, it is easily detectable that it is such a perception that led the Buddhists logically to the affirmation of the Non-Being, Void or Nihil. 27 Lal Basant Kumar. Contemporary Indian Philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978.

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it as the Divine Shakti which is the principle behind the world process. It is the principle that creates and sustains the universe (LD 325). This Consciousness-Force in itself is transcendent, universal, and individual (LD 341). It is transcendent not only in the sense that nothing can exhaust it but also transcendent to the world and its manifestations. It is universal that it is out of this creative power of Sachchidananda that the world manifested itself. Moreover, it is universal by the reason that it supports and inheres the universe. It is also individual for every individual possesses it and individuals are products of this Consciousness-Force in its creative power. However, in no way can one identify the individual consciousness with the Consciousness-Force. Aurobindo explains it further: Transcendent, the original supreme Shakti, she stands above the worlds, and links the creation to the ever manifest mystery of the Supreme. Universal, the cosmic Mahashakti, she creates all these Beings and contains and enters, supports and conducts all these million processes and forces. Individual, she embodies the power of these vaster ways of her existence, makes them living and mediates between the human personality and the divine Nature (TM 37).28

This citation implies that it is not any individual consciousness, rather it is the source of all individual consciousness. Consciousness-Force is different from human consciousness in that the latter is the creation of the former. Every temporal existence participates in this transcendental consciousness. Sachchidananda as Consciousness-Force is not the mental awareness of man. Moreover, the mental consciousness is an involved and lower form of the Cit. The Cit is implicit in mind, life and body. It is the eternal Consciousness involved in the realities of the universe (LD 88, SY 387). Consciousness is not a mere attribute of Brahman, rather, it points to the very nature of existence. We have a complete identification of Sat and Cit. Wherever and in whatever form Sat is present we have Cit as well invariably (Pandit 1986, 29). Moreover, Abhishiktananda observes that being and awareness of being, ‘Sat and Cit’ “cannot be ‘other’ to each other. Their relationship is irreducibly non-dual, an advaita” (1974, 169). It shines on its own but in its shining it makes all things luminous. There the sun shines not, nor the moon, nor the stars It shines itself, and after it all else shines All things become luminous in its lights (Mundaka Upanishad 2, 2-10).

|| 28 Aurobindo. The Mother. Calcutta: The Arya Publishing House, 1946.

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This understanding of the Sachchidananda as Consciousness-Force has helped Aurobindo to develop a philosophy of cosmic consciousness; and since Aurobindo conceived a conscious Force behind the world, he could avoid the difficulties concerned with the concept of unconscious teleology (LD 441). A point which upholds Aurobindo’s clear realism.

7.3.2.3 The Absolute as Bliss (Ananda) The third aspect of Sachchidananda is Bliss or Ananda. The presentation of Brahman as Absolute Bliss once again brings out Aurobindo’s indebtedness to Vedanta. Each chapter of The Life Divine bears a note of the classics which is sounded in the epigraph of each chapter. Thus chapter XI has a text from Taittiriya Upanishad: “For who could live or breathe if there were not this delight of existence as the ether in which we dwell? From Delight all these beings are born, by Delight they exist and grow, to Delight they return” (II.7). In the same way chapter XII, “Delight of Existence: The Solution” is keynoted by a text from Kena Upanishad: “The name of That is the Delight; as the Delight we must Worship and seek after it” (IV.6). What is remarkable here is that in both texts, the Absolute is identified with ‘The Delight’. The Absolute is bliss or pure ananda and the Absolute bestows bliss on the selfless seeker. In contrast to the Advaitic interpretation Aurobindo teaches that a devotee must worship and seek after the Delight of Existence in order to have a union with it. In this respect one can say that Aurobindo’s theory of the Delight of Existence serves as an explanation of human and divine creativity and the ideal relationship between them (McDermott 173). Sachchidananda “is not merely bare existence, or a conscious existence whose consciousness is crude force or power; it is … the very term of whose being, the very term of whose consciousness is bliss. … there can be no nothingness, no night of inconscience, no deficiency, that is to say, no failure of Force, … so also there can be no suffering, no negation of delight” (LD 91).29 Pointing to the account of Bradley, that anything existent or real is characterised by two dimensions, namely ‘what’ and ‘that’, Misra accounts for the Bliss aspect of Sachchidananda. Existence and content are two inseparable || 29 Another feature of the infinite Bliss is that it is manifested not only in Being but also in Becoming. “The self-delight of Brahman is not limited, however, by the still and motionless possession of its absolute self-being. Just as its force of consciousness is capable of throwing itself into forms infinitely and with an endless variation, so also its self-delight is capable of movement, of variation, of revelling in that infinite flux and mutability of itself represented by numberless teeming universes. To loose forth and enjoy this infinite movement and variation of its self-delight is the object of its extensive or creative play of Force” (LD 92).

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aspects of anything existent.30 Any comprehensive understanding, therefore, should take into account both these dimensions of the existent. Bliss points to the content or value aspect of Sachchidananda (Misra 1998, 183). For some Western thinkers, what is existence is not value and what is value is not existence (Narayan 39).31 In contrast to it, for Aurobindo, existence and value are inseparably united, or in other words, existence and content are termed as ‘that’ and ‘what’ of Reality. ‘That’ represents the existential aspect of the Absolute (Reality) and ‘what’ represents the meaning or value aspects of the Absolute. Bliss points to the principle of value (Deutsch 1969, 10). In this sense it is true to say that whatever created is valuable, for creation was for the pure delight, or pure value. Bliss, for Srivastava, refers to the will aspect of Sachchidananda (1968, 32). As the dimension of will it also expresses Divine freedom. Bliss as the manifestation of the will and freedom of the Absolute, one can say, is also that which underlies all the creations of the Absolute. The Absolute as pure Bliss, in other words, means that it is the very nature of the Absolute. It only means that it is Freedom in its fullness. And the world becomes the manifestation of the Absolute’s free willing, whose nature is bliss. Therefore, one could safely say that creation is the expression of the absolute bliss. In this sense, perhaps one would understand better the following quote from Taittiriya Upanishad: “From Ananda all existences are born, by Ananda, they remain in being and increase, to Ananda they depart” (TU VI). Bliss is the fundamental and basic principle of existence. It is the Delight of the Absolute that is accountable for the creation of the universe. Creation is for the pure Delight and not for anything else. It is for bliss and out of bliss that Sachchidananda manifests the cosmos. As consciousness-force bliss also is present in all the forms of existence. Ananda or the delight of existence is a root metaphor for the divine, the human and the natural orders of being. It is in this sense that Indian philosophy characterises the Absolute as Anandamaya. Aurobindo writes in Savitri The world’s senseless beauty mirrors God’s delight. That rapture’s smile is secret everywhere; It flows in the wind’s breath, in the tree’s sap, Its hued magnificence blooms in leaves and flowers (139).

|| 30 F. H. Bradley. Appearance and Reality. 162-63 (cited in Misra 1998, 183). 31 Jagdish Narayan. The Absolute in Sri Aurobindo and Alfred North Whitehead. Patna: Anupam Publications, 1983.

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From a critical point of view, one can see that Aurobindo’s theory of the delight of existence is a response to the Advaitic teaching of Maya or the conception of universe as illusory. The universe should be experienced and described not as an illusion, but as creative energy (Shakti), as cosmic play (Lila), and as joy (Ananda). It is observed that “the world is indeed a masked form of Sachchidananda, but it is not for that reason lacking in reality or value; the world is a limited expression of the Divine Ananda, but ananda nonetheless. This view of the world, and its positive relation to Sachchidananda, issues from and further advances a world-affirming, world-transforming spiritual discipline” (McDermott 174). Aurobindo writes: “Delight is existence, Delight is the secret of creation, Delight is the root of birth, Delight is the cause of remaining in existence, Delight is the end of birth and into which creation ceases” (LD 101). Furthermore, this delight is the raison d’être for the imperishability in matter, instinct of self-preservation in animals and the sense of immortality in man. This bliss aspect of the Absolute is transcendent, as well as immanent in the cosmos (SY 594). Ananda by virtue of its being as the spiritual matrix is very important in the dual process of the Absolute, namely involution and evolution. Both in the involutionary and in the evolutionary processes, Supermind is supported by the original delight of existence. In the involutionary descent as in the evolutionary return supermind is supported by the original Delight of Existence and carries that in it in all its activities as their sustaining essence; for consciousness, we may say, is its parent power in the spirit, but Ananda is the spiritual matrix from which it manifests and the maintaining source into which it carries back the soul in its return to the status of the spirit (LD 990).

Thus it can be said that the material, vital and spiritual realities have their ultimate origin in Bliss. “For Ananda is the very essence of the Brahman, it is the supreme nature of the Omnipresent Reality” (LD 878). Therefore, one could say that what is without content is abstract so is also the Absolute without Bliss.

7.3.2.4 The Inter-dependent Nature of the Trilogy We have in considerable detail discussed how Sachchidananda forms a trilogy. “All existence as one Being whose essential nature is Consciousness, one Consciousness whose active nature is Force or Will; and this Being is Delight, this Consciousness is Delight, this Force or will is Delight” (LD 142). The task left is to see how these three form a single unitary existence. Not only Sat and Cit but also Ananda point to the interdependent nature of the three aspects of the Sachchidananda. They are neither distinct from one another nor do they enjoy a

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separate existence, rather are one in essence. It is pure Existence which is expressed as the creative power of Consciousness-Force. And this ConsciousnessForce is endowed with the power of “self-effectuation and it has Delight for its nature and this Delight enjoys infinite movement and variation of itself” (Pani 22). The presence of the one indispensably implies the presence of the other two. In addition, Aurobindo states: All is Chit because all is Sat; all is various movement of the original Consciousness because all is various movement of the original Being. … When we find, see or know Chit, we find also that its essence is Ananda or delight of self-existence. To possess self is to possess self-bliss; not to possess self is to be in more or less obscure search of the delight of existence... . For the universal is only the pouring out of the essential existence, consciousness and delight; and wherever and in whatever form that manifests as existence, there the essential consciousness must be and therefore there must be an essential delight (SY 389).

I would suggest that the notion of Sachchidananda can be understood as an answer to the following three fundamental questions that concern Reality which would also account further for the inter-dependent existence of the three aspects of Sachchidananda: (i) Brahman as ‘SAT’ answers the question why there is something rather than no-thing. Sat is the pure existence, complete and absolutely real in itself; the Brahman in its transcendent and immanent dimension of existence; (ii) The dimension of immanence raises the question of ‘how’ with regard to this immanence? It also raises the question of immanence in relation to what? In other words, it raises the question of the ‘how’ of the universe rather than the ‘why’ of it. It is the second aspect of Brahman, namely ‘CIT’ that answers this question of how. The Cit as the consciousness-Force of Brahman or as the executive power of Brahman brings forth into existence this external universe, through the creative medium of the Supermind. It is the manifesting capacity or power of manifestation of the universe; (iii) Nevertheless, the second point has not yet answered the question of ‘why’ – the why of manifestation or why of creation? Here is the role of Bliss – It is for the pure Bliss of the Brahman that the creation of the world. If we see the question of ‘why’ in its archeological and teleo-logical dimensions it can be said that SAT accounts for the archeology and Ananda or Bliss accounts for the teleological dimension of ‘why’. Pure bliss of Brahman is the teleology and from a cosmic dimension teleology further points to the value dimension of existence. Thus the concept of

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Sachchidananda in its trinitarian aspects explicates the whole Reality in its immanent and Transcendent dimensions.32

7.4 Sachchidananda and the Metaphysics of Becoming The world is the manifestation of the Sachchidananda. However, this may seem an arbitrary statement unless one clarifies the how of this manifestation. Our immediate task is to analyse this dimension of the Sachchidananda-World relation. It has to be analysed in the light of two paradoxes: (i) why did Sachchidananda, the infinite and all-perfect create or manifest the universe; and (ii) the nature of Sachchidananda, which is immutable, static, eternal, self-existent, featureless, etc. is contradictory to the nature of the created world which is transcient, finite, imperfect, mutable, etc. In this respect the dilemma concerns as to how are we to concur with the reality of the world and the Absoluteness of Sachchidananda? For the first paradox one can find no answer other than the following that the cosmic manifestation is for the pure Delight of Sachchidananda. With respect to the second paradox Shankara solved it by identifying the material cause of the universe in the principle of Maya, while Madhva found Prakriti as the material cause of the universe. Thus, they avoided applying parinamavada (theory of modification) in the case of God. They advocated a sort of absolute identity and identity in difference respectively to account for Godworld relation. However, Aurobindo repudiated such a perspective. What is remarkable here is, it seems, that Aurobindo himself endorsed such a view before he developed his concept of the Supermind. As we have seen, Aurobindo speaks of two kinds of Maya: Divine Maya or Higher Maya and Mental Maya or the lower Maya. The Divine Maya comprehends the transcendental existence of Sachchidananda which is illimitable, immeasurable, infinite Existence, Consciousness-Force and Bliss. It is by this power of Divine Maya the Absolute manifests this cosmos which is contradictory to the nature of Brahman (LD 115). It is as a result or due to the working of the mental Maya that the cosmos remains in ignorance and could not realise its authentic existence. Thus, mental || 32 Now one important question comes in: if everything comes out of bliss and its nature is to realize bliss how do we speak about evil; what is their status? We will take up this question in Part Three. For the present it suffices to understand that problem of evil is not a major issue for the Indian or in a wider sense for the Eastern philosophy and religion. On the contrary, the basic nature of everything in the world is bliss.

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Maya is responsible for the divided consciousness. There has to be both an acceptance and rejection of mental Maya. One has to accept the reality of the mental Maya, for without that acceptance cosmic existence becomes impossible. This lower Maya has to be rejected in the sense that then only one could realise one’s true and authentic nature. In other words, one has to transcend from lower Maya to higher Maya which will enable one to realize the unity of Brahman in all (Pani 33). According to Aurobindo, if Maya is real as the mayavadins would claim then all the experiences of cosmic consciousness, Universal Self, and Brahman as One in all and all in One would become absurd and the creation of Maya. Thus, what can be conclusively stated is that theory of Maya is the forerunner of the concept of the Supermind in Aurobindo himself, since Aurobindo himself identifies Maya as the creative principle of the universe. Aurobindo solves the problem of the second paradox by recognizing in Sachchidananda a double nature; Sachchidananda in its power of manifestation and Sachchidananda in its pure unmanifested nature. Here we see also how Aurobindo surpasses Shankara and Madhva. He writes: All that is in the kinesis, the movement, the action, the creation, is the Brahman; the becoming is a movement of the being; Time is a manifestation of the Eternal. All is one Being, one Consciousness, one even in infinite multiplicity, and there is no need to bisect it into an opposition of transcendent Reality and unreal cosmic Maya (LD 461).

This takes us to Aurobindo’s concept of involution, the first condition to understand the above relation. In other words, the involution of the Absolute is the condition of possibility for the evolution of the world or the manifestation of the world. And in explaining this we enter here into the hardcore of Aurobindo’s metaphysics of becoming.

7.4.1 The Involution of the Absolute In dealing with the question of “involution” our objective is to clarify what is meant by Involution or in the Western categories “Becoming” and the why of it. It would clarify as well Aurobindo’s conception of the Absolute as Being and Becoming. First, we take up the question what is meant by involution? Involution “is the manifestation from above of that which we have to develop from below; it is the descent of God into that divine birth of the human being into which we mortal creatures must climb …” (EG 157). The involution consists in the descent of the Infinite into the cosmic world through the medium of the Supermind. Evolution is the reverse process of involution, and it consists in the

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ascent of the Spirit from matter through the medium of the Supermind back to its original nature” (Susai 49). These citations explain the core of the becoming of Sachchidananda and the evolution of the universe. Moreover, it points to the great role of the Supermind as well. The law of involution is characterised as a “law of unity in multiplicity” where “the different beings that emerge from Brahman’s Self-manifestation have their being and origin in the Divine” (Susai 50). From a different perspective, involution can be understood as the “selfimposed veiling” of Sachchidananda.33 The more the descent proceeds, the thicker, the denser, becomes the veil and as a result the apparently nonconscient and inert matter emerges. Involution is a progressive self-limitation of Sachchidananda downwards by increasingly veiling and consequently diminishing the glory of His pure Existence (Nedumpalakunnel 40). The coinage “self-imposed veiling” in fact clarifies how do the spirit and matter have one and the same source of origin. It is from the Spirit itself matter emerges. From the opposite pole what we have in matter is Sachchidananda itself subject to a self-imposed veiling. However, what seems to one as the source and beginning of the material universe is just the contrary. The temporal phenomena already betray the truth that one discovers in the depth of spiritual awareness for “the Inconscient is only a mask and within it is the Upanishad’s ‘Conscient in unconscious things”’. Moreover, it is stated that “in the beginning was the ocean of inconscience and out of it That One arose into birth by his greatness, - by the might of his self-manifesting Energy” (HC 159). This statement of Aurobindo has to be understood as the ground of evolutionary process. In evolution we have a reverse order of involution.

7.4.1.1 Why Involution or the Becoming? Why the involution at all? Another way to put this question would be: why the world at all? “Why should Brahman, perfect, absolute, infinite, needing nothing, desiring nothing, at all throw out force of consciousness to create in itself

|| 33 One of the differences between involution and evolution, as observed by Susai, is that the descent by its very nature is self-concealing which makes the presence of the Spirit more and more obscure, and on the contrary the ascent is more and more revealing which makes the presence of the Spirit explicit (49). However, both involution and evolution are self-revelation of the Absolute. In no way one sees involution as self-concealing making the Absolute more obscure, rather it only makes possible the Transcendent more an Immanent one. It is a selfconcealing only in the sense that it manifests itself in another mode of existence, that is, Matter.

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these worlds of forms?” (LD 91) Why the becoming at all? As Whitehead Aurobindo accepts neither creatio ex nihilo nor a Creator as in the classical Christian theism. It is also a point of convergence with Whitehead. One thing at least seems now intellectually certain, we can no longer believe that these suns and systems were hurled full-shaped and eternally arranged into boundless space and all these numberless species of being planted on earth ready-made and nicely tailored in seven days or any number of days in a sudden outburst of caprice or Dionysiac excitement or crowded activity of mechanical conception by the fiat of a timeless Creator (TPR 25).

At the same time, human experience demands a rational explanation for the objective world. “The way in which man sees and experiences the universe, imposes on his reason the necessity of the original eternal substance” (TPR 71). The universe with all its multiplicities demands a rational explanation, for “no universe can be merely a form of being which has sprung up and outlined itself in an absolute nullity and void and remains standing out against a non-existent emptiness” (LD 265). It was to answer this demand that Aurobindo speaks of the involution of the Absolute. To put it differently, Aurobindo’s theory of Involution is his answer for the question of creation in Christian understanding. “The world evolves on its several levels because at each level Sachchidananda has already involved itself in each of these levels. Logically prior to evolution, involution is the process whereby Brahman or Sachchidananda, seeks its own manifestation through the multileveled universe” (McDermott 171). In this light, creation is the realisation of Sachchidananda of its own “variations and potentials and actualises himself in the creative plunge of delight.” In other words, delight is the ‘way’ of creation (O’Neil 38). A clear rejection of a creator means that either the world existed from all eternity or it has evolved to its present form from what already existed. Since Aurobindo has already denied creation out of nothing the only possibility before him is to accept that it should have evolved out of what preexisted. Thus, Aurobindo affirms that the world “must be a figure of existence within the infinite Existence who is beyond all figure or it must be itself the All-Existent” (LD 265). It points to double facts: On one hand, the world has not come out of nothing for its source is the supreme Brahman, the existence par excellence; and on the other, the world already existed in the sense that it is a “figure of existence within the Existence.” Therefore, the world is neither the result of a creative act nor an existence of its own from all eternity. It existed from all eternity only in one sense that it is a figure of existence within the Absolute Existence. “Creation” stated Aurobindo, “is not a making of something out of nothing or of one thing out of another, but a self-projection of Brahman into the conditions of

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Space and Time” (IU 39). Here the phrase ‘self-projection’ has to be understood in the sense of manifestation or expression. Thus, his explanation for the existence of the universe is that it is Sachchidananda involved in the manifold existence of the temporal order. Aurobindo, by his theory of involution of Sachchidananda repudiates the theory of the world as illusion. It is notable that rather than using the word ‘creation’, Aurobindo prefers to use the Indian concept sristi, which means “the manifestation of something which is hidden and unmanifest” (SABCL Vol. 27, 209).34 Creation has to be understood in the sense that the Sachchidananda “manifests what is in itself, in its own essence.” One can speak of creation only in the sense of “Being becoming in form and movement what is already is in substance and status” (LD 333, 464-65). For the Vedantists, creation is the spontaneous expression of the Infinite in its Lila. Aurobindo argues that if Lila is an act of the self-expression of the Infinite, then this urge cannot be an illusion. It is as much real as Sachchidananda itself. And, therefore, in a second move one can say that the world is the real manifestation of Sachchidananda in space and time. What was the objective of this involution or manifestation? Can one identify any purpose behind this manifestation? In fact, Misra claims that to ask the question of why of creation is illegitimate. To substantiate his claim he points to Gita where Lord Krishna states: “O Partha! In all the three worlds there is nothing that I have to accomplish. I have neither anything which is to be attained, yet I remain in action” (3.22). It is made, thus, clear that to ask the question of why of creation (involution) is to question the very nature of Brahman. One cannot ask “why the Brahman is what it is” so also the question as to the why of His manifestation (Misra 1998, 188). This may sound very odd, but the point is that Brahman lacks nothing. To identify some purpose for creation is to say that Brahman is like the Hegelian Absolute who creates with particular motives; in other words, it is an erotic Absolute (Desmond). However, this is not true of Sachchidananda. What do we understand in saying that the creation is just for the Delight? The understanding of creation as the manifestation of the Absolute for its Bliss or Lila is an upanishadic idea (Chaudhuri 1965, 14). It does mean that the Brahman has no other purpose in creation. He is all perfect. On the other hand, to say that Brahman manifests in the world for some purposes would entail that he lacks something. That is mere impossibility. It is said, therefore, that the crea-

|| 34 Aurobindo. “The Karmayogin: A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad.” Pondicherry: SABCL, vol. 27 (1972) 201-288.

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tion is out of Bliss, by Bliss and for Bliss. It is the Lila of Brahman, which means the spontaneous sportive activity of Brahman in contrast to a “self-conscious volitional effort.” Lila signifies freedom as opposed to necessity (Misra 1998, 187). The scriptural texts which attribute purpose for manifestation point to the “supreme role of Consciousness in creation” (Misra 1998, 189). Aurobindo in clear-cut terms establishes that the sole purpose of manifestation is Lila: “the play, the child’s joy, the poet’s joy, the actor’s joy, the mechanician’s joy of the Soul of things eternally young, perpetually inexhaustible, creating and recreating Himself in Himself for the sheer bliss of that self-creation, of that selfrepresentation, - Himself the play, Himself the player, Himself the playground” (LD 103). Creation is not out of any lack as it is understood in the Hegelian sense. For we have put aside the solution that it is compelled by its own nature of Force to create, obliged by its own potentiality of movement and formation to move into forms. It is true that it has this potentiality, but it is not limited, bound or compelled by it; it is free. If, then, being free to move or remain eternally still, to throw itself into forms or retain the potentiality of form in itself, it indulges its power of movement and formation, it can be only for one reason, for delight (LD 91).

Here another important question arises: in what sense one has to understand the notion Lila? It cannot be understood in the sense of ‘cosmic play’ of Sachchidananda for it seems very naïve. What answer does Aurobindo give to this question? In fact, Aurobindo does not give any further details with regard to the implications of Lila. Here what comes to our help is the interpretation given by Chaudhuri. “Lila is cosmic love” (Chaudhuri 1965, 98). It is also the expression of pure love, for it is not ego-fulfilment, rather, “pure flame of cosmic love leaps into being.” The Lila understood in the sense of cosmic love is the “dynamic love of the Divine actively engaged in the world process” (Chaudhuri 1965, 98). It is a selfless participation in the creative advance of cosmic evolution. In this sense the explanation that the purpose of creation or manifestation of the world is the lila of the Absolute becomes more sensible. Lila is the creative love of the Absolute for the universe.

7.4.1.2 Involution: The Becoming of the Absolute In the history of philosophy we have static as well as dynamic view of God. Aurobindo’s theory of involution explains how God is conceived as Being as well as Becoming. The inability to identify the ‘unity of being and becoming’ was the failure of Shankara, the master mind of Indian philosophy. The inconsistency in Advaita Vedanta is that it has posited a world process but could not

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perceive the dynamism inherent in the Absolute itself. Aurobindo did not confront a dilemma as that of Shankara since he identified Sachchidananda as Consciousness-Force, or as a dynamic existence. Therefore, the greatness of Aurobindo lies in the fact that he tries to “hold both visions of the world together in a living union, the eternal, immutable, and perfect on the one hand, and the moving, progressive, and achieving on the other” (Bruteau 98). Moreover, for Aurobindo, both are expressions of the Divine (LD 680). “An involution of spirit in matter is the beginning” … [therefore] “the evolution … is not only possible, but inevitable.” In this light it can be said that “the core and spine of the philosophy of Aurobindo is the concept of an involving and evolving Absolute” (Veliyathil 5). And the originality of his philosophy of God is God’s presentation as Being as well as Becoming. One can identify two important expressions in the Vedanta that characterise the nature of reality: “the one without a second” (ekamevadvitiyam) and “all this is Brahman” (sarvam khalv-idam Brahma). In the past we have emphasized one at the cost of the other. And what Aurobindo aims at is a holistic vision that accounts for both of these upanishadic statements. By this Aurobindo safely solves the problem of the one and the many and being and becoming. While the first points to the potential existence of the Absolute Brahman in all, the latter denotes the actual existence of the same in every being (Pani 17). It is these two statements that form the cornerstone of Aurobindo’s metaphysics of becoming (involution and evolution). How does the Absolute manifest itself into the manifoldness of the universe? It is in his attempt to find a solution to this enigma that he conceives Sachchidananda as Being-becoming. Put differently, Sachchidananda is a “transcendental unity of Being and Becoming” (ColaÇo 8).35 By introducing the concept of becoming Aurobindo has succeeded in safeguarding the absolute transcendence and unity of Brahman, at the same time, integrating the multiplicity of the universe (Susai 23), maintaining its relationship. In the Aurobindonian vision, Existence is manifested in its two forms, Being and Becoming. An exclusive emphasis on either side of it is a form of reductionism (LD 659). The possession of the Being who is beyond all becomings, brings to us freedom from the bonds of attachment and ignorance in the cosmic existence and brings by that freedom a free possession of the Becoming and of the cosmic existence. The knowledge of the Becoming is a part of knowledge; it acts as an Ignorance only because we dwell imprisoned in it, avidyayam antare, without possessing the Oneness of the Being, which is its base, its

|| 35 Paul ColaÇo S. J. The Absolute in the Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Rome: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1953.

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stuff, its spirit, its cause of manifestation and without which it could not be possible (LD 641).

The movement or energy implies a primordial condition that is motionless and static. One who thinks that this “stupendous world movement” stands for our benefit is mistaken; but the point is that it has its own goals and vast delight that is to be fulfilled. But it does not mean that this “movement” is without any concern for us (LD 112). To highlight the becoming dimension of Sachchidananda Aurobindo refers to a Greek saying: “A Divine whole that is perfect by reason of the imperfection of its parts, runs the risk of itself being only perfect in imperfection, because it fulfills entirely some stage in an unaccomplished purpose; it is then a present not an ultimate Totality. To it we could apply the Greek saying Theos ouk estin alla gignetai, the Divine is not yet in being, but is becoming” (LD 395). Another point that comes up here besides the being-becoming is Aurobindo’s suggestive preference for being. In fact, as the citation exposes, becoming itself is a sign of imperfection, if we limit reality to it alone. Through the descent (involution) of the supreme Spirit not only the release of the spiritual Self is possible, but also a release of the Self in the world is possible. So what is demanded is not a flight from the world, rather a realisation of the true Self, while being in the world with the mediation of the supramental Truth-Consciousness (Heehs 178).36 This points to the very purpose of involution in a nutshell: the divination of the material world.

7.4.2 The Effects of Involution Aurobindo’s concept of involution has great impact on his whole metaphysics. It is one of the demarcating points of his integral advaita from that of the classical advaita. By this Aurobindo was able to incorporate the modern evolutionary theory to the understanding of world process, and precisely to the understanding of the Absolute itself. Aurobindo establishes his theory of the world in and through various ways and means. Aurobindo’s integral Advaitism “insists at great length on the divine manifestation in all things in the universe and affirms the derivation of all that is from the nature, power and light of the one God|| 36 Here, once again one is reminded of Aurobindo’s critique of the denial of the ascetic which we have seen in the first chapter. Vallabha also speaks of Brahman’s power of evolution (Avirbhava) and involution (tirobhava) while speaking about the origin of Jivas and Jagat (Banerjee 1974, 207).

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head” (EG 316).37 The phrase, Vasudevah sarvam iti means that “the Godhead is all that is universe and all that is in the universe and all that is more than the universe” (EG 316). Our immediate task is to elucidate this in detail.

7.4.2.1 Theory of World as the Manifestation Shankara maintained the theory of satkaryavada, i.e., the effect pre-exists in the cause while speaking about the Brahman-world relation.38 In this respect it is easily detectable that Shankara’s denial of the independence of the world from Brahman is only a corollary of his theory of satkaryavada. If the effect pre-exists in the cause it is certainly not different from the cause. A second move in this line would prove that “within the phenomenal world one cannot make an ontological distinction between cause and effect” (Deutsch 1969, 37). Thus, the Advaitins had to deny the reality of the world. For the Advaitins, Isvara is understood from the standpoint of the phenomenal world, as the material and efficient cause of the world. Shankara makes this point very explicit: “those who think about creation (sristi) think that creation is the expansion of Isvara.”39 With regard to the purpose of creation, Shankara writes, “The activity of the Lord, … maybe supposed to be mere sport (Lila), proceeding from his own nature, without reference to any purpose.”40 A close connection between Aurobindo’s theory of the world as manifestation and satkaryavada is explicit here. The novel and unique point in Aurobindo’s conception vis-à-vis the Advaitins is that the latter could only suggest a way out to solve the problem of Brahman-world relation, when they proposed that there should be an extension of Brahman. They failed, however, to explain the how of this way out. Herein comes the originality of Aurobindo. He

|| 37 For Vallabha, the world is a manifestation of Brahman in the sense that he did not create the world out of nothing or anything extraneous to himself, but out of his own essence (svarupa) (Banerjee 1974, 207). It is through the power of evolution that the Brahman manifests himself in and through the world. The argument is that the exercise of this power of evolution goes hand in hand with the power of involution. 38 Shankara maintained satkaryavada in contrast to the theory of asatkaryavada, i.e., effect exists independent of the cause (advocated by Buddhism, mimamsa and Nyaya-Vaisesika). His theory of satkaryavada is closely associated with his theory of vivartavada i.e., effect is mere appearance. The opposite theory proposed by Sankhya is parinamavada, i.e., effect is actual transformation of the cause (Deutsch 1969, 36). 39 Shankara. “Commentary on Mandukya Karika.” (I, 7). Trans. T. M. P. Mahadevan. Select Passages from Sankara’s Commentary on Mandukya Upanishad and Karika (cited in Deutsch 1969, 38). 40 Shankara. “Brahmasutrabhasya” (II, I, 33). (cited in Deutsch 1969, 38).

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was able to synthesize the Advaitic idea of extension with the modern scientific theory of evolution.41 The phenomenal existence (world) has to be taken “not as an invention of the devil or a self-delusion of the soul, but as a manifestation of the Divine, although as yet a partial because a progressive and evolutionary manifestation” (SY 328). The relation between Sachchidananda and the universe is characterised as following: “If the first is the para-aspect, the metaphysical being-in itself of Brahman, the other represents the apara-aspect, the purely epistemic aspect (its esse consisting in its percipi) of Brahman (Chattopadhyaya 2000, xvi). What is revealed in creation or manifestation is the becoming nature of Sachchidananda. We have often referred to the becoming of Sachchidananda. The manifestation Sachchidananda is effected by virtue of the three fundamental characteristics of the Consciousness-Force, namely infinite self-variation, self-limitation and self-absorption. It is in its capacity of self-variation that the Absolute assumes various forms simultaneously. The Absolute is not bound “to one state or law of its action; it can be many things simultaneously, have many co-ordinated movements which to the finite reason may seem contradictory; it is one but innumerably manifold, infinitely plastic, inexhaustibly adaptable. ... it can put forth many states of consciousness at a time, many dispositions of its Force, without ceasing to be the same consciousness-force for ever” (LD 341). Sachchidananda does not remain in static condition. It is by this power of self-variation that “the Absolute unity takes the form of multiple diversity. Thus, consciousness-force can be seen as the source of all multiplicity of the One. The one single existence manifests itself in the many. The second characteristic of the Consciousness-Force is its power of selflimitation. It means the subordinate movement of the Infinite Consciousness determining itself within the bounds of space and time. This self-limitation assumes two forms, both individual and cosmic. This cosmic self-limitation of the Absolute is responsible for the existence and working of the universe. Finally, the third characteristic is the power of self-absorption which expresses itself in two ways: Superconscience and Inconscience. It is by virtue of the former that the Cit-Shakti plunges into itself, into a state of pure self-awareness. It is the pure self-awareness of the Being. In this awareness there is no separation of individual and the universal. It is by virtue of the latter, Inconscience, that

|| 41 In this respect, it is also remarkable that there are scholars who draw a close connection between satkaryavada and vivartavada, which affirms that the effect is only an apparent manifestation of the cause. The distinctive contribution of Aurobindo here is that he asserts the reality of the world, which was taken to be only appearance by the Advaitins.

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the Absolute assumes particular statuses such as Mind, Life and Matter. The clue to the understanding of the Absolute Brahman as Saguna and Nirguna also can be discerned in this power of self-absorption (Misra 1998, 160). It is through these three characteristics of the Consciousness-Force that the Absolute manifests itself as the source of apparently opposing principles (LD 345). The self-manifestation of Sachchidananda takes place in a three-fold movement of ‘descent’, ‘emergence’, and ‘release’. In the first movement of the Spirit, it descents itself to the Inconscient. The self-absorption of the Spirit in the Inconscient is to enjoy the self-delight in the finite variation. In the second move, the Spirit assumes the form or emerges into the triple world of Matter, Life, and Mind and this process culminates in the rational animal, human being. In the third and the final move, the Spirit releases itself from the limitations of spatio-temporal dimensions and realises itself as the One and Infinite (Roy 1995, 39). It is nothing but the ‘getting home’ of the Sachchidananda.42 The thesis that the world is the manifestation of the Absolute points also to the fact that it is real. “What issues from the Absolute, what the Eternal supports and informs and manifests in itself must have a reality” (LD 477). What we have in the “philosophy of The Life Divine is a realistic Advaita. The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is itself real” (LY 44). In The Hour of God Aurobindo states: “The finite is a transience or recurrence in the Infinite, therefore the Infinity alone is utterly real. But since that Real casts always this shadow of itself and since it is by the finite that its reality becomes conceivable, we must suppose that the phenomenon also is not a fiction” (HG 151). Secondly, Aurobindo proves the reality of the world from man’s capacity to enter into relation with God or the Absolute. What is unreal cannot establish such a relation. “The states of existence through which we approach and enter into the Absolute must have their truth, for the untrue and unreal cannot lead into the real” (LD 477). There are many passages that establish the relation between the Brahman and the world: The world is “no other than this eternal Brahman” (EG

|| 42 Commenting on the theory of manifestation Chattopadhyaya states: “There are two tides in the self manifestation of Reality, an outgoing tide in which the one self gives itself to its many appearances, which in being invested with that self-hood, parade as many selves and substantivities, and an in-moving tide in course of which all outer manifestations stand denied as not the Self as such, (sa asa neti netyatma) and turn into the so called ‘anatma’, the not self. In a metaphysics, where everything is Brahman and the one non-dual Self, the not Self (anatma) is not, and cannot be, a distinct category. One and the same person maybe a professor, a Brahmin, a poor man, an old man, a father, a husband, and so on, and yet when falling back upon his inner sense of self-identity, all the outer forms of self-hood may stand denied” (Chattopadhyaya 2000, xviii).

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416, 402); is a pointer to the Brahman (LD 43); “a mask and an instrument for the various expressions of Brahman” (LD 112); and it is through the world that Brahman’s “reality becomes conceivable” (HG 151). All these citations substantiate also the reality of the world.

7.4.2.2 Sachchidananda: The Substratum and the Cause of the Universe The reality of the world that does not explain itself necessarily raises the question of a rational explanation. Aurobindo writes in this regard that “the way in which man sees and experiences the universe, imposes on his reason the necessity of one original eternal substance” (TPR 71; Veliyathil 16). The universe demands a rational explanation for “no universe can be merely a form of being which has sprung up and outlined itself in an absolute nullity and void and remains standing out against a non-existent emptiness (LD 265). Brahman is the substratum of the universe. He states: “Brahman is not only the cause and supporting power and indwelling principle of the universe, he is also its material and its sole material” (LD 241-42). Sat is the absolute underlying every phenomenon of nature that constitutes its essence. Brahman is the inner soul of the cosmic existence.43 The Upanishad states: “It is the might of the Godhead in the world … Him one must know, the supreme Lord of all lords, the supreme Godhead above all godheads. ... One Godhead, occult in all beings, the inner Self of all beings, the all-pervading, absolute without qualities, the overseer of all actions, the witness, the knower” (SU VI. 1, || 43 In order to substantiate the origin and existence of everything from Brahman, the Upanishads speak of two kinds of evolution. With regard to the first course of evolution, it is stated that “from this self, verily ether arose (space), from ether air, from air fire, from fire water, from water the earth, from the earth herbs, from herbs food, from food the person” (Radhakrishnan 1989, 542). Food is the essence of man (annamaya kosa). The second is the manifestation of the Spirit itself in different stages. Within the human individual, describes Taittiriya Upanishad, there are five planes or dimensions of consciousness, which are interpenetrating and each of which is progressively subtler and higher than the one preceding it: annamaya Kosh (matter), Pranamaya Kosh (vital force), Manomaya Kosh (mind-stuff), Vijnanamaya Kosh (pure mind) and Anandamaya Kosh (bliss) (Diwakar 98). Anandamaya is a modified form of the genuine Bliss of Brahman. The Supreme Brahman himself is the support of Anandamaya, because he is the basis of all. These four aspects of Anandamaya enable the facilitation of the contemplation of the non-dual Brahman. Anandamaya Kosa cannot be identified with Supreme Brahman, though it bears the essential nature of Brahman, for in the genuine Bliss of Brahman there is no distinction of love, joy, delight and so on (Subramanian 40). In the Aitareya Upanishad we read: “In the beginning the Spirit was One and all this (universe) was the Spirit; there was naught else that was moving. The Spirit thought, ‘Lo, I will make me worlds from out of my being” (1.1.1).

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7, 8, 11). Taking this upanishadic point as the guiding principle Aurobindo writes: “Brahman is the Absolute, the transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings.” It is also the source of each individual, and the soul is an eternal portion of the Isvara. The Supreme Consciousness “has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman” (LD 324-25). The finite reveals itself as a power, a movement, and a process of the Infinite (LD 474). Aurobindo states, “Brahman must be the material of the world as well as its base and continent” (LD 32). In what sense is it to be understood? Are we to understand this statement in the literal sense? Does he propose a Spinozist type of pantheism? One of the possible results of the theory of world manifestation may be a pantheistic approach to reality. However, Aurobindo is very cautious to clarify that what is meant in Indian philosophy by the manifestation theory is not mere pantheism. One cannot identify the world with Brahman. “To mistake the universe for God is a mistaken and inverted pantheism” (UP 477). No Indian philosophy or Indian philosopher advocates an identity of the World and the Absolute. On the contrary, “the world is only a partial manifestation of the Godhead, it is not itself that Divinity”. The Godhead is infinitely greater than any manifestation can represent. For the liberated spirit what is beyond cosmic realm is the utter Divine. Cosmos is only a “figure drawn from the Divinity” (EG 368). Aurobindo adds further the following: The world and the Divine are not one and the same thing, as a certain kind of pantheistic thinking would like to believe. The world is an emanation; [Brahma parinama vada] it depends upon something that manifests in it but is not limited by it: the Divine is not here alone; there is a Beyond, an eternal Transcendence. The individual being also in its spiritual part is not a formation in the cosmic existence -our ego, our mind, our life, our body are that; but the immutable spirit, the imperishable soul in us has come out of the Transcendence (SY 254).

If not pantheism what does Aurobindo mean by the statement that ‘Brahman must be the material of the world’? Aurobindo maintains that one who searches without egoistic preoccupation and fleeting interests and looks only for the Truth would find nothing but the “boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego …” (LD 71). It is this infinite energy of the Existence out of which the world and its object have come into being. Only Reality worthy of pure Existence is Sachchidananda. Therefore, he concludes that “the higher Trinity is the source and basis of all existence and play of existence, and all cosmos must be an expression and ac-

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tion of its essential reality” (LD 265). He clarifies further that “as only Brahman is real, only a consciousness or a power of Brahman could be a real creator and a creator of realities” (LD 442). This creative power of Brahman can be nothing other than Brahman itself, for no other reality is pure and absolute. It should be an aspect of Brahman, “a Brahman-consciousness” which being aware of real beings, forms and happenings would also “signify a truth of the Becoming” (LD 442). This is the Supermind. Therefore, the above citation cannot be taken in the literal sense. The Supermind is the medium through which the Transcendent act in human being. In this respect the Supermind is a logical necessity for the transition from timeless and spaceless to that which is in space and time. Thus, the Supermind is destined to fulfill the human aspiration to realise the Infinite. Therefore, both for the “coming to be” of the temporal existence and its ascent to the trans-temporal the guiding principle is the Supermind. And it is what makes the Supermind the raison d’être of being and becoming.

8 The Supermind: The Raison d’être of Becoming Supermind is the central concept in the Integral Advaita of Aurobindo from a philosophical point of view. It reveals Spirit and Matter as two inseparable poles of existence or two forms of the manifestation of the Absolute, which in fact transcends both these forms of existences. The concept of the Supermind was a necessity for the completion and coherence of Aurobindo’s metaphysical system, as we found creativity a metaphysical necessity. In the light of the indispensable role that Supermind plays in Aurobindo’s system Maitra commented that the philosophy of Aurobindo is “an intellectual architecture like an ivory tower, solid and beautiful, having the golden coping of the Supermind which satisfied me” (cited in Purani 1966, 2). It can be rightly observed that Aurobindo’s voluminous philosophical writings are held together by his evolutionary theory grounded on the Supermind and that is verily the core of his metaphysics of becoming. Therefore, in this chapter our objective is to substantiate the reasonableness of the Supermind on the one hand, and its relevance in relation to Sachchidananda and the universe on the other.

8.1 The Supermind One may observe a development in Aurobindo’s theory of the Supermind, that is, in his earlier work, especially in The Human Cycle he refers to a higher principle and its necessity, but was unable to name it (HC 84-85). We have a clear concept of the Supermind with The Life Divine. It is called “Supermind or Truth Consciousness because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things, and not like the mind, in their appearance and phenomenal divisions” (LD 143). The Supermind is a union of self-awareness by immediate self-cognition of reality and of selflimitation by focusing on the dynamic potentials which are to be actualised in the cosmos (Chaudhuri 1960, 27-28). It is also known as integral self-knowledge (Chaudhuri 1954, 178) in the sense that it comprehends all the individual selves into the unity of His existence, and is conscious of Himself as indivisibly present in everyone of them. Another designation for the Supermind, besides Truth-Consciousness, is Real-Idea. Real-Idea is “effective self-awareness”, i.e., knowledge by identity which projects into manifestation by the very act by which it knows, and thus creates the universe of individuals. In that sense, the Supermind becomes the original community of all individual selves, each of them “a unique focus and

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dynamic centre of the absolute spirit” which does not “arrogate to itself any separate insular existence” (Chaudhuri 1960, 28). The Real-Idea is designated also as the “self-light of Reality, or the luminosity of the supreme spirit which is self-shining in character.” It is the “spontaneous self-revelation and selfarticulation of Reality”, which is not dependent upon any cognitive act, process or transaction. By its very nature it is harmonious, self-coherent, and all comprehensive (Chaudhuri 1954, vii). The Supermind is also known as Mind of Light.1 What is called ‘mind of light’ is “indeed the last of a series of descending planes of consciousness in which the Supermind veils itself by a self-chosen limitation or modification or its self-manifesting activities, but its essential character remains the same” (SME 131).2 The Supermind is distinctively characterised by an action of light, of truth, of knowledge where inconscience, ignorance and error has no claims. From this understanding of the ‘Mind of Light’ Nedumpalakunnel concludes that it might be then an initial self-expression of the Supermind which has to manifest itself progressively integrating the descending grades of the Supermind in the universe (30).

8.1.1 Vedic Roots of the Supermind It is a debated issue today because while some consider Supermind as an original contribution of Aurobindo (Nedumpalakunnel 29),3 there are also scholars who claim that its germs can be found in the Vedic literature. The Supermind is what the vedic seers described as ‘satyam rtam brhat’ – the vast TruthConsciousness which is at ones self-shining and self-effectuating in character. In the Vedas the Supermind is designated also as the “other consciousness, rtam brhat, i.e., the Truth. It is “the consciousness of essential Truth of being (satyam), of ordered truth of active being (ritam) and the vast self-awareness

|| 1 It has to be noted that the term ‘mind of light’ appears explicitly only in his posthumous publication, The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth (Nedumpalakunnel 30). 2 Aurobindo. The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings [1949-50]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997. 3 Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that Nedumpalakunnel himself at another place refer to the Vedic root of the Supermind. There he states that the Supermind was an ontological necessity and was already alluded in the Vedas which is confirmed by the integral Yoga of Aurobindo (Nedumpalakunnel 28). Therefore, it is not clear in what sense that he speaks of the Supermind as an original contribution of Aurobindo.

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(brihat) in which alone consciousness is possible” (Maitra 1993, 25).4 It is what the Upanishadic rishis glimpsed as the ‘vijnana turiya sakti’ – the creative medium of self-manifestation of the supernatural trinity, Sachchidananda (Chaudhuri 1960, 16).5 Aurobindo himself states that he has arrived to this conception through his own direct experience of Truth-Consciousness and its comparison and contrast with mental consciousness. Nevertheless, Aurobindo refers to the Vedantic roots of the Supermind: The link between the spiritual and the lower planes of the being is that which is called in the old Vedantic phraseology the vijñana and which we may describe in our modern turn of language as the Truth-plane or the ideal mind or Supermind. There the One and the Many meet and our being is freely open to the revealing light of the divine Truth and the inspiration of the divine Will and Knowledge (SY 417).

The statement in The Life Divine that ‘Aurobindo was looking for a starting point to develop his theory of the Supermind and that he found it in the Vedantic literature’ also points to the Vedic origin of the concept of the Supermind (LD 124). Aurobindo states in the Synthesis of Yoga that proceeding from the Absolute “there is a sort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth - a divine Truth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a Gnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding by Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and prevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos” (SY 254). Aurobindo’s reference to the ‘ancient mystics’ and to their designation of the Supermind as the ‘Truth-Consciousness’ is clear evidence to the Vedic origin of the concept. Aurobindo himself gives such an explanation elsewhere. What can be drawn from the cryptic verses in Vedanta regarding Supermind is that “it is a vastness beyond the ordinary firmaments of our consciousness in which truth of being is luminously one with all that expresses it and assures inevitably truth of vision, formulation, arrangement, word, act and movement.” The essential terms of vedic description regarding the Supermind are the following: “Vast-allcomprehensiveness; luminous truth and harmony of being

|| 4 S. K. Maitra. Introduction to the Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1993. It is also designated as Truth-Consciousness which is already referred in Rig Veda as rta-cit, which means the consciousness of essential truth of being (satyam), of ordered truth of active being (rtam) and the vast self-awareness (brhat) in which alone this consciousness is possible (LD 117, footnote 1). Perhaps Maitra might be referring to this passage of Aurobindo, but he does not explicitly refer to it. 5 Haridas Chaudhuri. Sri Aurobindo: The Prophet of Life Divine. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1960.

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in that vastness and not a vague chaos or self-lost obscurity; truth of law and act and knowledge expressive of that harmonious truth of being” (LD 124). Still further, with regard to the pre-existence of the concept of Supermind in Indian literature Aurobindo wrote in a letter: “the idea of supermind was already in existence from ancient times. … but what was missed was the way to make it integral for the life and to bring it down for transformation of the whole nature, even of the physical nature” (Heehs 264, note 3). The concept of the Supermind can be considered as an original contribution of Aurobindo only in the sense that he has explained it in the light of modern developments and described it in modern Western categories. The term ‘Supermind’ itself can be considered an original contribution in the sense of coining the word, rather than the concept. Nonetheless, it was only Aurobindo who developed this vedic notion and integrated it with the modern evolutionary theories and made it the foundation of his metaphysical system.

8.1.2 The Distinctive Nature of the Supermind The essential character of the Supermind is a “Truth-consciousness which knows by its own inherent right of nature, by its own light: it has not to arrive at knowledge but possesses it” (SM 70). The Supermind is compared to the nous of Plotinus. For Plotinus, nous is the first emanate from the One. It is in nous all multiplicity appears first. It is the eternal beyond time (Veliyathil 44). It is worth noting that while Veliyathil compared Nous with Supermind, McDermott compared it with Higher Mind. See section on Higher Mind (section 2.4.1). I would rather prefer the position of Veliyathil since the Supermind is the dynamic power of the Sachchidananda itself. The first thing about the Supermind is that it can be both personal and impersonal. It is personal that it is the Lord, the Creator and the Divine conscious Being; and it is impersonal by virtue of its status as a principle of consciousness, will and force. As the Lord and Creator it is seated within every form of existence, for the first operative principle of the divine Supermind is “a cosmic vision which is all-comprehensive, all-pervading, allinhabiting” (LD 136). In the life of an aspiring person (sadhaka) the Supermind manifests itself in three attributes: (1) unmediated self-knowledge by the Self in all things, a knowledge by identity and unity which grasps every object of knowledge “as itself and in itself, and not as a thing other than or divided from it …” (SY 786); (2) total knowledge springing from an all-encompassing vision which sees the universality of a particular and particularistic appearances of the universal, the Absolute in the relative and all relatives within the Absolute; and (3) direct truth

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consciousness which possesses immediate, luminous and holistic knowledge of the entire universe not by “depending on indications and logical or other steps from the known to the unknown” (SY 788), but by direct apprehension of all things in their ontological essences. The Supermind helps us in “direct truthperceptions” (SY 423). The Supermind is distinctive that in it we have the Consciousness and creative force in one and the same being. Aurobindo states: […] in Supermind knowledge in the Idea is not divorced from will in the Idea, but one with it - just as it is not different from being or substance, but is one with the being, luminous power of the substance. As the power of burning light is not different from the substance of the fire, so the power of the Idea is not different from the substance of the Being which works itself out in the Idea and its development (LD 130).

The Supermind pervades all forms of the lower world “as an indwelling Presence and a self-revealing Light” (LD 135) in the heart of all existences. Taking note of the all-pervasive nature of the Supermind Aurobindo stated that every being, irrespective of animate or inanimate, mentally self-conscious or not selfconscious, is governed in its being and in its operations by this indwelling vision and power (LD 135-136). However, it is subconscient or inconscient to humans, for we are not conscious of it, but not inconscient to itself, rather profoundly and universally conscient. Our brief analysis into the distinctive nature of the Supermind basically established its capacity for all-comprehensive vision and knowledge of reality that enables it to be the mediating link between the two hemispheres and as the creative medium of the universe by its indwelling presence in every reality.

8.1.3 The Triple Status of the Supermind The Supermind is characterised by three statuses (poises).6 It is by virtue of these three poises that the Supermind realises and manifests the potentiality of the Absolute. These three statuses have three types of creative forces as well. The three statuses are: i) the comprehending consciousness or Transcendent status ii) apprehending consciousness or Cosmic consciousness iii) projecting consciousness or becoming consciousness

|| 6 In the text Aurobindo uses the word “poise.”

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8.1.3.1 Comprehending Consciousness or Transcendent Status The Transcendent status is one with Sachchidananda and is the unitarian consciousness or comprehending consciousness. The chief characteristic of this status is the inalienable unity of things (LD 146). In it the Supermind is not divided. It pervades the whole creation. The comprehensive nature of the Supermind can be expressed by the Upanishadic formula “sarvam khalv-idam Brahma.” The Consciousness-Force has the eternal transcendental potentiality of the universe. The Supermind has the same potentiality, nevertheless the two are not same in every respect. What differentiates Consciousness-Force from the Supermind is that it is only the latter that makes these potentialities ready for manifestation and actualisation in the temporal universe (Srivastava 1968, 48). In this connection, Misra maintains that “it is the unity that holds the whole world of diversity in its close embrace. The diversity is real because it is ultimately nothing but Brahman” (1998, 238). However, it is not the pure unitarian, timeless and spaceless concentration of Sachchidananda, for the process of differentiation begins at this poise of the Supermind. As the self-extension of Sachchidananda itself, it is “allcomprehending, all-possessing and all-constituting” (Pani 54). It is observed of this status that “in this comprehensive knowledge there is no independent centre of existence, no individual separated ego such as we see in ourselves, the whole of existence is to its self-awareness an equable extension, one in oneness, one in multiplicity, one in all conditions and everywhere” (The Advent. Vol. XLV no. 4, 1988, 9). Comprehensiveness is the primary characteristic of the Supermind (Bali 144). The comprehending consciousness perceives any aspect of the differentiation both objectively and subjectively. In their objective dimension any aspect within itself is considered “as an object of cognition within itself and subjectively as itself” (LD 237). Furthermore, the Supermind is able […] divinely to conceive, perceive and sense all things as the Self, its own self, one self of all, one Self-being and Self-becoming, but not divided in its becomings which have no existence apart from its own self-consciousness. It will be able divinely to conceive, perceive and sense all existences as soul-forms of the One which have each its own being in the One, its own standpoint in the One, its own relations with all the other existences that people the infinite unity, but all dependent on the One, conscious form of Him in His own infinity (LD 154).

This function and activity of the Supermind actualises the fact “each in all” (LD 129). “It is when the reflection of this Supermind falls upon our stilled and purified self that we lose all sense of individuality; for there is no concentration of consciousness there to support an individual development” (LD 146). The com-

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prehending consciousness is the highest status in which Supermind is one with the Sachchidananda. It is the extension of Sachchidananda in time and space. However, the Supermind’s unity with Sachchidananda does not mean an absolute identity, for the latter alone is “timeless, spaceless, transcendental existence, consciousness and bliss” (Srivastava 1984, 123).

8.1.3.2 The Apprehending Consciousness The second status is the apprehending consciousness, which has the potentiality of cosmic creation. It is known as apprehending for it points to the breaking up of its primal unity with the Sachchidananda. Here the Supermind is the cause of unequal concentration and multiple distribution. “In each name and form it would realise itself as the stable Conscious-Self, the same in all; but also it would realise itself as a concentration of Conscious-Self following and supporting the individual play of movement and upholding its differentiation from other play of movement, - the same everywhere in soul - essence, but varying in soul-form” (LD 146). Thus, its unity with the Sachchidananda is a differentiated unity (Srivastava 1984, 122). “It has the concentration of conscious-force in the individual centres. The manyness develops out of the unitarian consciousness. It has the differentiation, manyness and multiplicity in unity.” Here the unity of the Supermind, however, is not lost in the sense that “the multiplicity, diversity, and the realities of the cosmos exist in potential form in Supermind” (Srivastava 1984, 124). The apprehending consciousness has the potentiality of cosmic evolution. It can be compared with Hiranyagarpha – the great cosmic potentiality or cosmic era from which the universe is born. It has the potentiality to manifest the power of Sachchidananda. It is responsible for the individual play of movements. Here we have the distinction between the knower, the knowledge and the known. At this poise the universal divine Consciousness develops into individual soul forms or Jivatman, however, maintaining the unity of the individual souls with the One (Pani 55). It is in this apprehending poise the real manifestation of the many from the One emerges. It is in this status we have the “first foundation of God conceived as the Unity in Diversity and Diversity in Unity” (Srivastava 1968, 49). It is the status which modifies the unity of all things so as to encourage the manifestation of many in one and one in many (Bali 143). As different from the comprehending consciousness, where an aspect was seen both as object and subject simultaneously, in the apprehending consciousness there are two movements, one regarding the aspect as distinct from the subject and the second which realises its union with the subject. It is in view of strengthening the individuality of the diverse aspects (LD 145; Bruteau 88).

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For Aurobindo, “if our purified mind were to reflect this secondary poise of Supermind, our soul could support and occupy its individual existence and yet even there realise itself as the One that has become all, inhabits all, contains all, enjoying even in its particular modification its unity with God and its fellows” (LD 147).

8.1.3.3 The Projecting Consciousness The Supermind as the principle of becoming gets its supreme relevance in this status. The actual manifestation takes place through it with matter, life and mind. The sense of individuality reaches its culmination in this state. Therefore, the projecting consciousness sees all the […] existences in their individuality, in their separate standpoint living as the individual Divine, each with the One and Supreme dwelling in it and each therefore not altogether a form or eidolon, not really an illusory part of a real whole, a mere foaming wave on the surface of an immobile Ocean, -for these are after all no more than inadequate mental images, -but a whole in the whole … (LD 154).

In this respect, the first state can be considered as the causal state (Karanavastha) and the second state is the effect of the first in which the play has begun, and the third is the purna vyakta avastha where the creative work is fully manifested and consciousness is expressed in all forms (Pani 55). For the supramental consciousness each aspect is a “whole of its own” (Bruteau 89) in this poise. In this stage the many separate from the One and receive their individual existence, whereby the “evolution of a diversified individuality” (Bali 143) takes place. Therefore, it is stated that the “tertiary poise would be therefore that of a sort of fundamental blissful dualism in unity - no longer unity qualified by a subordinate dualism - between the individual Divine and its universal source, with all the consequences that would accrue from the maintenance and operation of such a dualism” (LD 147-148). Existence of the three poises naturally raises the question as to how do they function as an integral unity?

8.1.3.4 Combined Activity – The Way of Being-Becoming These three poises have to be understood in the light of the conception of Supermind as the Real Idea or the Supermind as Creator. The three poises of the

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Supermind are also known as the three functions of the Supermind.7 The activities of the three statuses are summarized as follows: “The first founds the inalienable unity of things, the second modifies that unity so as to support the manifestation of the Many in One and One in Many; the third further modifies it so as to support the evolution of a diversified individuality which, by the action of Ignorance, becomes in us at a lower level the illusion of the separate ego” (LD 145-146).8 In its three stages, the Supermind carries out three activities: In the first stage, the immanent aspect, we have Sachchidananda in time and space; in the second stage, manyness and multiplicity emerges, but since it is in the potential form, unity is still maintained; and in the third stage, this manyness and diversities assume divided existence. “The purusha and prakriti, the souls and the realities are in potential form differentiated in it” (Srivastava 1984, 126). The many realities of the world have their individual and separate habitation in one prakriti. The Supermind, nevertheless, maintains its unity above the differences of purusha and prakriti. Therefore, “the elements of division have come into being. Firstly, the infinity of the One has translated itself into an extension in conceptual Time and Space; secondly, the omnipresence of the One in that selfconscious extension translates itself into a multiplicity of the conscious soul, the many Purushas of the Sankhya; and thirdly, the multiplicity of soul-forms has translated itself into a divided habitation of the extended unity (LD 165). Any discussion on the triple status of the Supermind cannot ignore the fact that these three statuses are not exclusive of one another. The three poises are: Obviously, these three poises would be only different ways of dealing with the same Truth; the Truth of existence enjoyed would be the same, the way of enjoying it or rather the poise of the soul in enjoying it would be different. The delight, the Ananda would vary, but would abide always within the status of the Truth-Consciousness and involve no lapse into the Falsehood and the Ignorance. For the secondary and tertiary Supermind would only develop and apply in the terms of the divine multiplicity what the primary Supermind had held in the terms of the divine unity (LD 148).

With regard to the interdependent and complimentary nature of the triple status of the Supermind Chaudhuri observes that “the comprehending consciousness

|| 7 Aurobindo points to three layers of Supermind corresponding to its three poises: interpretive Supermind, representative Supermind, and imperative Supermind which corresponds to intuition, inspiration and revelation respectively in the lower hemisphere of existence (LD 124-25). 8 These three functions are well summarised by Bruteau: “(i) to hold all the differentiation of possibilities within itself as one; (ii) to focus the energy of the whole on each of the possibilities differentiated within itself; and (iii) to project into actual existence each of the dynamic possibilities and to become the community of such actual individuals” (87).

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of the Supermind ensures the truth of the Self containing all things, the apprehending consciousness ensures the truth of the Self inhabiting all things, and the projecting consciousness ensures the truth of the Self becoming all things” (Aurobindo 1942, 136).9 The analysis of the triple status of the Supermind is another instance by which Aurobindo tries to reconcile his philosophy with three great schools of Indian philosophy. At the same time it delineates well his attempt to reconcile and bring together these three systems of Indian philosophy in a single one, his Integral Advaita. The point is, in the comprehending consciousness of the Supermind one has the knowledge of the Absolute as the unqualified non-dual reality corresponding to Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta; in the apprehending consciousness one has the knowledge of the Absolute as a whole containing the dependent many beings which corresponds to the Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja; and finally the projecting consciousness is knowledge of the Absolute as a union of distinct individuals and it corresponds to the Dvaitadvaita of Madhva (Chaudhuri 1960, 34-35). Again, a close observation and analysis of these three aspects of the Supermind corresponds to the three-fold aspects of Brahman, namely the transcendent, the universal and the individual (Bruteau 89).

8.2 The Mind and the Supermind A very intimate relationship exists between mind and the Supermind. For it is stated that the Supermind evolves out of mind considered from the point of the ascending process: “It might be suggested also that until something clearly recognisable like the Supermind manifests itself … mind holds the place as a general arbiter or field of reference for all knowledge and mind is incapable of any certain or absolute knowledge” (SM 115).10 Moreover, it is stated that “always mind must be identical with Supermind in essence and conceal in itself the potentiality of the Supermind…” (LD 123). Therefore, it is appropriate to see the concept of mind and its relationship to the Supermind. Mind is only a stage in the process of involution and evolution. “Mind is no independent and original entity but only a final operation of the TruthConsciousness or Supermind, therefore wherever Mind is, there Supermind || 9 Aurobindo. “The Principle of Avidya or Ignorance.” Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual No. 11 (1942) 136. The triple statuses suggest “only the ways of the play of the Divine Consciousness in its Ananda” (Srivastava 1968, 50). 10 Aurobindo. The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings [1949-50]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997.

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must be” (LD 174). Thus, Aurobindo states “the triple world that we live in, the world of Mind-Life-Body, is triple only in its actual accomplished evolution. Life involved in Matter has emerged in the form of thinking and mentally conscious life. But with Mind, involved in it and therefore in Life and Matter, is the Supermind, which is the origin and ruler of the other three, and this also must emerge” (LD 175). The relationship between mind and the Supermind can be discussed in its various facets.

8.2.1 In the Realm of Epistemology Human mind has basically an epistemological function. Aurobindo, however, states that the Mind is not the organ of knowledge, but “is only a preparatory form of our consciousness” (LD 127). For Aurobindo, herein comes the major difference between mind and the Supermind. The “mind is an instrument of analysis and synthesis, but not of essential knowledge” (LD 127). It can grasp reality only by dividing, in other words, mind grasps reality only by parts and accidents. Mind does not know the whole and “it knows only its own analysis of the object and the idea it has formed of it by a synthesis of the separate parts and properties that it has seen” (LD 127). Therefore, in order to enjoy a full and profound understanding of the reality mind has to give way for another consciousness which transcends its own operations. “The utmost mission of Mind is to train our obscure consciousness which has emerged out of the dark prison of Matter, to enlighten its blind instincts, random intuitions, vague perceptions till it shall become capable of this greater light and this higher ascension. Mind is a passage not a culmination” (LD 127-28). Aurobindo characterises ignorance as the main feature of mind since it is limited by its own nature (LD 504-505). In the light of this, the Supermind or self-luminous Truth-consciousness is nothing but the Mind free from ignorance (Rafique 83). The Supermind is characterised as the “being without ignorance” (Veliyathil 41). The similarities as well as the major differences between mind and the Supermind come in the epistemological realm. The mind understands every existence as a separate one and try to explain it separately. Moreover, in the mental realm there exists the difference between the knower and the known. On the contrary, in supreme consciousness there is no distinction between knower, knowledge, and the known, but there is the fundamental unity of the same (LD 168). The Supermind acts and operates fundamentally on the truth of unity that is in mental consciousness only a secondary or acquired possession. “Supermind sees the universe and its contents as itself in a single indivisible act of knowledge, an act which is its life, which is

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the very movement of its self-existence” (LD 137-138). This is possible for the Supermind in virtue of its all-comprehensiveness. And its comprehensive nature recalls the spatio-temporal limitation of the mind.

8.2.2 Spatio-temporal Limitation of the Mind The mind is subject to spatio-temporality while the Supermind is allcomprehensive. The mental consciousness can only grasp things in time and space, which is not the case with Truth-consciousness, which is able to grasp past, present and future in a single regard (LD 136). The following citation of Aurobindo very well establishes it. The mind knows only the present and lives in an isolated movement of it though it tries to remember and retain the past and forecast and compel the future. The supermind has the vision of the three times, trikaladrsti; it sees them as an indivisible movement and sees too each containing the others (SY 792).

Here Aurobindo refers to the distinctiveness of the Supermind while highlighting the finite nature of mind.11 While the Supermind is able to comprehend “vision of three times” and able to see in the world movement an indivisible unity, the mind is “present and lives in an isolated movement.” In light of spatiotemporality, it can be observed that there is a clear difference between mind and Supermind in the perception of things. Supermind sees things in a multiple unity, while for the mind everything is an apparent discord. Furthermore, “To see things steadily and see them whole is not possible to the mind; but it is the very nature of the transcendent Supermind” (LD 135). Thus, it follows that “the Supramental knowledge is immediate, unerring, infallible, and absolutely certain or indubitable. It involves no temporal process, or activity, and it is entirely spontaneous” (Chaudhuri 1954, 175).

|| 11 Aurobindo states in Savitri regarding the finite nature of the Mind: Reason cannot tear off that glimmering mask, Her efforts only make it glimmer more; In packets she ties up the Indivisible; Finding her hands too small to hold vast Truth She breaks up knowledge into alien parts Or peers through cloud-rack for a vanished sun: She sees, not understanding what she has seen, Through the locked visages of finite things The myriad aspects of infinity (257).

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Only the Supermind has an eternal possession of the Divine Law while the mind is guided by logical reasoning (Srivastava 1968, 43). Nothing happens in the world out of mere chance. That which happens, happens in that particular way and not any other way, either in animate or in inanimate, since it is governed by an “indwelling Vision and Power”, what is subconscient or inconscient to us, but what is definitely conscient to itself. Everything in nature functions intelligently, either it possesses intelligence or not since everything functions according to the real-idea of the Supermind within it. However, it is not the mental consciousness or the mental intelligence that indwells or governs the things of the world, but the “self-aware Truth of the being in which selfknowledge is inseparable from self-existence” (LD 136). Aurobindo’s assertion that in the Supermind there is the “self-aware Truth of the being in which selfknowledge is inseparable from self-existence” points to another distinctive feature of it.

8.2.3 Supermind: Identity of the Ideal and Actual In the Supermind, as different from mental consciousness, Idea and reality are identical, always self-conscious, evolved and developed by its own Will inherent in the Idea and it is in need of no other realisation, for it is always selfrealising by the knowledge ingrained in its every impulsion. Therefore, in the self-conscious Supermind we have the whole truth about creation and evolution (LD 130). Thus, in the mental stage there is a gulf between the knowledge and will. For what we know we do not always will or even if we will something we cannot translate it into action. Whereas in the Supermind this gap is absent. On the contrary, we have an identification of knowledge and will; here knowledge is will and will is knowledge. In the Supermind “knowledge, imagination, will and action have become one unitary function” (Chakravarty 54). In the Supermind all being is consciousness, all consciousness is of being, and the idea, a pregnant vibration of consciousness, is equally a vibration of being pregnant of itself. It is an initial coming out, in creative self-knowledge, of that which lay concentrated in uncreative self-awareness (LD 129-30). It is also true to say that there exists a master-subject relation between Supermind and mind in the sense that mind too is created out of the Supermind. The mind is subjected to the Supermind in that it has no knowledge of the Law that governs its own Nature, for mind itself is governed by the Supermind and moves in the phenomena of the self-development. The intellectual thought presents itself as an abstraction from something seized by the mind. On the contrary, ideas presented by the supramental

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thought are “as a luminous substance of being, luminous stuff of consciousness taking significative thought form.” The advantage of the supramental thought is that it does not create any “gulf between the idea and the real” as often happens in the case of mental reasoning (SY 835). McDermott commendably brought out the distinctiveness of mind and the Supermind. For him, while the mind represents the highest stage of nature and its own nature, the Supermind “represents the gradual but permanent and comprehensive transformation of mind, life and human body” (187). As a final point to our discussion of the relationship between mind and the Supermind in its various aspects it can be added that the Supermind is the “child” of Sachchidananda, which is self-awareness by identity in the sense that it is a comprehensive and creative consciousness and, it is the “parent” of Mind, which is awareness by distinction, by its power of projecting, confronting and apprehending knowledge (LD 125).12

8.2.4 The Transformative Ascent from Mind to the Supermind The Supermind itself, seen from the cosmic dimension, is an evolutionary development of the mind. Aurobindo identifies various intermediary stages through which one has to pass before reaching the higher stage of the Supermind, for one cannot ascent directly from the limited and divided mental realm to the level of supramental Consciousness. Therefore, there has to take place a triple transformation before the realisation of the Supermind, namely (i) Psychic change,13 “the conversion of our whole present nature into a soul-

|| 12 With regard to the double status of the Supermind as parent and child Aurobindo writes: “The term above is the unitarian or indivisible consciousness of pure Sachchidananda in which there are no separating distinctions; the term below is the analytic or dividing consciousness of Mind which can only know by separation and distinction and has at the most a vague and secondary apprehension of unity and infinity, for, though it can synthetise its divisions, it cannot arrive at a true totality. Between them is this comprehensive and creative consciousness, by its power of pervading and intimately comprehending knowledge the child of that selfawareness by identity which is the poise of the Brahman and by its power of projecting, confronting, apprehending knowledge parent of that awareness by distinction which is the process of the Mind” (LD 125). 13 For a complete realisation of the Divine a psychic or awakening of the soul is not enough but a transformation of the whole nature. In other words, what is demanded is a spiritual transformation. The first, psychic transformation can only facilitate this spiritual transformation. Aurobindo writes: “the psychic movement inward to the inner being, the Self or Divinity within us, must be completed by an opening upward to a supreme spiritual status or a higher status” (LD 909).

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instrumentation”, (ii) the spiritual change, “the descent of a higher Light, Knowledge, Power, Force, Bliss, Purity into the whole being”, and (iii) the supramental transmutation, “the crowning movement the ascent into the Supermind and the transforming descent of the supramental Consciousness into our entire being and nature” (LD 891). The first condition of psychic transformation is the revelation of the soul and the consequent transformation of the lower nature.14 A psychic transformation is necessitated, for the soul is veiled by the ignorant and inconscient nature. Moreover, “the veil is thick and we know not the secret Light within us, the light in the hidden crypt of the heart’s innermost sanctuary” (LD 892). However, it does not mean that the soul is inactive in us, rather it is active and the reality is that we are not aware of it.15 The spiritual transformation is realised by the higher principles of consciousness, in various stages. Aurobindo writes with regard to this that “the gradation can be resolved into a stairway of four main ascents”, namely the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind and the Overmind (LD 938). These four grades of the conscious principle are nothing but “the hierarchical manifestations of the Supermind” (Srivastava 1968, 126; LD 938). These four grades of the ascent of mind are of great importance in the spiritual transformation. Thus, it is rightly observed that the clue to the presence and activity of the Supermind should be sought in mind and its various grades itself, for it is there “man exists in closest proximity to the Supermind (McDermott 83). The explication of the different stages is of great import in light of Aurobindo’s metaphysics of becoming. Therefore, we will briefly discuss them here, which would also facilitate our further discussion on Supermind or Divine Gnosis.

|| 14 Soul is the inner part of our nature. While Jivatman is an immutable part of the Divine, the soul is its flame. For Aurobindo, “it is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things, and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame (LD 891). It is the permanent being in us which uses mind, life and body as its instruments but itself remains unaffected by their operation. 15 “Our soul from its mysterious chamber acts; Its influence pressing on our heart and mind Pushes them to exceed their mortal selves. It seeks for Good and Beauty and for God; We see beyond self’s walls our limitless self, We gaze through our world’s glass at half-seen vasts, We hunt for the Truth behind apparent things” (Savitri 485).

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8.2.4.1 The Higher Mind It is the first decisive step in the process of ascent towards the Supermind which is dominated and characterised by Truth thought. Here the “thought is a selfrevelation of eternal Wisdom” (LD 940); knowledge is a “spirit-born conceptual knowledge,” and the awareness emerges “from original identity” (LD 939). Though still a conceptual knowledge, it is not a “self-critical ratiocination”, as it is the case with the conceptual knowledge of the mind. The mental knowledge is a mediated knowledge. At this stage the medium is not logical reasoning (LD 940). It is the realm of Truth-thought where a single vision endows one with a mass of knowledge (Chakravarty 43). Here the guiding principle is oneness, but nevertheless it accepts multiplicity. As different from the ordinary Mind, Higher mind is not guided by logical reasoning, rather knowledge is inherent and spontaneous in this stage. For, the knowledge at this stage does not derive from the cognition of the object posited against the self, rather “from the vibrations coming from within the self” (Chakravarty 44). Here a person has the “conceptual knowledge in a spontaneous and direct manner.” It is neither vision nor intuition, rather it is an idea. One idea comes straight to another idea. It is a spiritual consciousness which is characterised by “thought, all-awareness, swift, conceptual, and firm valid knowledge” (Srivastava 1968, 128). The Higher Mind aims to purify ignorance basing on the innate knowledge. The change brought by the transformation is that at this grade the mind becomes responsive to the higher light, power, strength and vibration, in view of further ascent (LD 941). McDermott compares the Higher mind with the Platonic theory of nous in the sense that in Higher mind one “ascent into a mode of cognition particularly adept at grasping the relations between large ideas” (183). Aurobindo himself states that the Higher mind can conceive of a system of ideas “at a single view” (LD 940). It is a “luminous thought-mind, a mind of spiritborn conceptual knowledge” (LD 939), i.e., its activity of consciousness is dominated by thought. However, its activity is not confined to cognitive aspect, its influence is extended through its power of thought on the different aspects of the being, such as will, heart, and feeling (Susai 70). The Higher Mind, however, is not the highest stage in respect to the realization of the Superconscience, rather it only initiates first change that facilitates an ascent towards the higher consciousness, which helps the integration of being into a greater Force of Consciousness and Knowledge (Pani 46). This Force is the Illumined Mind.

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8.2.4.2 The Illumined Mind It is the second stage in the ascent of the mind. The content of the spiritual vision is not the vision of material reality or the image of the phenomena. It is the Truth-sight or truth-light. The Illumined mind is “primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material Energy” (LD 944). In other words, it can be considered as “a manifestation of the illuminative and creative aspect of the Divine” (Susai 71). It is not a mind of thought, rather it is the mind of spiritual light or vision. While the higher mind is the field of truth thought the illumined mind is the field of truth sight (Chakravarty 47). It is dynamic, instantaneously revelatory, and of the nature of inspiration (Chakravarty 45). “Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit” (LD 944). The stage of Illumined mind is characterised as follows: A consciousness that proceeds by [in]sight, the consciousness of the seer, is a greater power for knowledge than the consciousness of the thinker. The perceptual power of the inner sight is greater and more direct than the perceptual power of thought: it is a spiritual sense that seizes something of the substance of Truth and not only her figure; ... and a larger comprehension and power of totality than thought-conception can manage (LD 945-46).

A possible question here concerns as to what is that differentiates these two stages? Indeed there is difference between the two. Here in the ascent to the illumined mind, a thinker turns into a seer (LD 946). In our ascent from Higher mind to the Illumined Mind we “proceed from power of thought to the power of sight, from the thinker’s ideation to the seer’s vision” (Chakravarty 47). These two stages reach completion in Intuition, which is the common source for their force and authority.

8.2.4.3 The Intuitive Mind Intuition “is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carried in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence” (LD 947). Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge. … [It] gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know and seem to be which pursues man always in contradiction of his lower reason and all his normal experience and impels him to formulate that formless perception in the more positive ideas of God, Immortality, Heaven and the rest by which we strive to express it to the mind. For intuition is as strong as Nature herself from whose very soul it has

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sprung and cares nothing for the contradictions of reason or the denials of experience (LD 67).

Intuition is when the “individual consciousness directly feels the hidden truth that lies behind the appearances of things, beings, etc. … It comes as a spark or flash of intimate truth perception out of the contactual unity of our consciousness with spiritual reality of things and beings” (Pani 48). Bruteau considers intuition as “a meeting of the consciousness of the subject with the consciousness in the object, a contactual union” (91). Knowledge by intuition is more intimate to the original knowledge by identity (Susai 71). In intuition the subject consciousness is identified with the object consciousness (Srivastava 1968, 132). Furthermore, in itself intuition has a fourfold power. A power of revelatory truth-seeing, a power of inspiration or truth-hearing, a power of truth-touch or immediate seizing of significance, which is akin to the ordinary nature of its intervention in our mental intelligence, a power of true and automatic discrimination of the orderly and exact relation of truth to truth, these are the fourfold potencies of Intuition. Intuition can therefore perform all the action of reason, -including the function of logical intelligence, which is to work out the right relation of things and the right relation of idea with idea, but by its own superior process and with steps that do not fail or falter (LD 949).16 This citation, besides brings out the unique power of intuition, very well establishes that it is second to none in its capacity for logical reasoning. Nevertheless, our problem here is how are we to prove the veracity of such claims? Here only the subjective experience of the individuals are available for verification, which is often unacceptable for pure logicians. Nonetheless, this passage of Aurobindo highlights some other truths about intuition. Even though the product of intuition is a representation, it is nonetheless “a living representation, and not an ideative symbol, a reflection that is lit up with something of the truth’s real substance” (SY 815). Since intuition is of the nature of a memory, it is “a luminous remembering of the self-existent truth”, and the “inspiration is of the nature of truth hearing: it is an immediate reception of the very voice of the truth. … The revelation is of the nature of direct sight, pratyaksa-drsti”, and it makes clear to the present vision “the thing in itself” of which the idea is only a representation (SY 815). The Supermind in the lower nature is present most strongly as intuition and it is therefore by a development of an intuitive mind that we can make the first || 16 However, it has to be noted that Susai describes these four powers are powers of the Overmind (71-72) which is not a correct rendering.

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step towards the self-existent spontaneous and direct supramental knowledge (SY 796). Pure intuition is a rare occurrence and when it is subjected to mental reason it is reduced to a mixture of ignorance-knowledge for the reason that in the mind its action is largely interrupted by the interventions of human intelligence (LD 274). Therefore, Aurobindo does not consider intuition as the highest form of consciousness. In the development of intuitive mind itself Aurobindo distinguishes various stages.17

8.2.4.4 The Overmind The Overmind is the source of Intuition and the true link between the Mind and the Supermind. It is capable of establishing direct contact with the TruthConsciousness.18 It is a delegate of the Supermind by virtue of its nature and law, its delegate to the Ignorance in the evolutionary manifestation of the Divine (LD 278). The Overmind is “a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, … [which is also] a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, … [whose] highest aim, [is the] secret Reality” (LD 278). With the descent of the Overmind, the whole ego sense is subordinated and is replaced by a “wide cosmic perception and feeling of a boundless universal self and movement” (LD 950). Moreover, as different from the Illumined Mind or Intuitive Mind, the Overmind embraces the totality of all

|| 17 First, “Intuitive discrimination which is the stage where we have analytical insight which makes critical judgements without benefit of new information; secondly, Suggestive intuition where one has synthetic insights which produces new views and facts, but is devoid of critical judgements; thirdly, Revelation of reality, where one has an “immediate presentational form” but without the power of conviction and action; and fourthly, Inspirational insight, which “delivers the fire and dynamism of the experience of the Truth, but withholds a clear, wellordered and unambiguous vision of Reality in its unified complexity and complicated uniformity.” According to McDermott, among these four stages of knowledge, the first and third give ‘clarity and form’ and second and fourth give ‘power of expression’ to the final movement towards supramental transformation (120). 18 It is appropriate here to note that the term Overmind does not appear during the period of Aurobindo’s main literary activity, i.e., the period between 1914-1921, during which period he published the magazine Arya. During this period Aurobindo himself considered Overmind as indistinguishable from the Supermind. For it was considered as a lower plane of the Supermind. Later he found it necessary to distinguish it from the Supermind. He found that the Overmind does not have a direct access to the Sachchidananda as it is enjoyed by the Supermind. Cf. LY 262-63; LD 952-54; Nedumpalakunnel 57, note 140.

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experiences, however, it lacks the “power of complete integral experience” (Pani 49). Here what is remarkable is the closeness the Overmind maintains with the Supermind. What I mean is its openness towards “otherness”; to accept even “differences” and “divergent roads” as ways of being and consciousness. And we will see soon that the fundamental characteristic of the Supermind is its openness to plurality in the absolute “One”; that the “law of the Supermind is unity fulfilled in diversity” (LD 970-971). Furthermore, Overmind is “the occult link” in the sense that it is “the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance.” Considered from the lower hemisphere it is the last stage before the Supermind. The process of ascent continues “until the point was reached at which Overmind would begin itself to be transformed into Supermind; the supramental consciousness and force would take up the transformation directly” (LD 954-55). It is true that the Overmind is the highest point in the ascent of the mind to higher consciousness, and it reduces the action of the “separative mind” in view of a more universal mode of knowing. Nevertheless, “it cannot lead mind beyond itself.”19 This also points to the necessity and the relevance of a still higher principle, namely the Supermind, “for it is the Supermind alone that is the supreme self-determining truth-action and the direct power of manifestation of that Transcendence” (LD 953). The four stages of ascend is summarised by McDermott as follows: (1) in the first stage, mind achieves a state of quietude and spiritual freedom; (2) in the second stage, mind and heart are opened to the impulsions and initiatives of the Divine; (3) in the third stage, the physical mind embraces the transformative power of the divine essence; (4) and lastly in the fourth stage, a transformation of the mind is evident into the intuitive mind and an integration of it with the supramental energy (119; SY 799-810). Thus, the Overmind cannot be taken as the zenith point, for it lacks completely the integral experience encompassed by the Supramental consciousness. This takes one to the third stage of transformation, namely the supramental transformation.

|| 19 Aurobindo states: “Overmind can bridge that division up to the point at which separative Mind enters into Overmind and becomes a part of its action; it can unite individual mind with cosmic mind on its highest plane, equate individual self with cosmic self and give to the nature an action of universality; but it cannot lead Mind beyond itself, and in this world of original Inconscience it cannot dynamise the Transcendence” (LD 953).

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8.2.5 The Supramental Transformation Involution, evolution, and transformation are the “heart” of Aurobindo’s metaphysics of becoming. These processes include the various stages of consciousness which Aurobindo characterises as “sevenfold chord of Being.” The first two levels of transformation, namely the psychic and the spiritual remain in the level of ignorance. One is yet to transcend to the highest grade of consciousness which is actualised by the descent of the Supermind. And with its descent the evolution through ignorance ceases. In other words, in the ascent to the Supermind one has a transition from ignorance to knowledge. A condition of possibility for the realisation of the Supermind is the surrender and submission of the lower consciousness. However, this surrender and subordination is not a final condition, but the result of a divine intervention. Aurobindo observes that “for a real transformation there must be a direct and unveiled intervention from above” (LD 922); a complete subordination of the lower consciousness, a cessation of its insistence, a will for its separate law of action. Aurobindo further adds that the heightening and greatening of the intellectual activity alone however cannot do this, rather an intervention of the trans-temporal is a condition of possibility. “An intervention of the supramental energy is needed that can light up and get rid of its deficiencies of thought and will and feeling” (SY 807). The radical transformation of the individual is actualised by this double process: a process of descent (involution) and a process of ascent (transformation). Thus, “the supramental Consciousness-Force from above and the evolving Consciousness-Force from behind the veil acting on the awakened awareness and will of the mental human being would accomplish by their united power the momentous transition” (LD 922). The result of this transformation is the emergence of the Superman or the Gnostic being, the being endowed with the supramental consciousness (LD 971).20 What makes one receptive to the Supermind is the psychic, spiritual and supramental transformations. Aurobindo writes in The Synthesis of Yoga: All the works of mind and intellect must be first heightened and widened, then illumined, lifted into the domain of a higher Intelligence, afterwards translated into workings of a

|| 20 It has to be remembered here that Aurobindo’s reference to the gnostic race or gnostic being has nothing to do with gnostic religious of early Christianity who claimed that they were privy to a secret knowledge about the divine. The term “gnostic” derives from “gnosis,” which means “knowledge” in Greek. What Aurobindo means is a higher realm of knowledge which he characterises as the “Logic of the Infinite” (we will deal with this in chapter 10), attainable with the supramental transformation.

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greater non-mental Intuition, these again transformed into the dynamic outpourings of the Overmind radiance, and those transfigured into the full light and sovereignty of the supramental Gnosis (149).

In this transformation “the higher comes down and largely takes the place of the lower, but also the lower changes, transforms itself into material of the action and becomes part of the substance of the higher being (SY 811). Thus shall the earth open to divinity And common natures feel the wide uplift, Illumine common acts with the Spirit’s ray And meet the deity in common things. Nature shall live to manifest secret God, The Spirit shall take up the human play, This earthly life become the life divine (Savitri 710).

With this ends our exploration of the ascending process from mind to the Supermind. Our previous discussion helped us in two ways: it adequately prepared the ground for our discussion of the Supermind’s relevance and ultimacy. More than that it also brought out the spiritual nature of Aurobindonian evolution, a point already referred to in the sixth chapter.

8.3 The Supermind: Its Role, Relevance and Ultimacy Our present objective is to clarify the indispensable role or the ultimacy of the Supermind in relation to the world and Sachchidananda. Aurobindo’s metaphysical system would have been incomplete and incoherent without the Supermind. It can be substantiated by highlighting the different roles of the Supermind.

8.3.1 Supermind: An Onto-logical Necessity Why does Aurobindo find such a principle necessary? Was it out of a real necessity? Or was it only an outcome of his mystical experience having no reasonable foundation in human experience? For Aurobindo, neither the suprarational status of the Supermind nor its workings occult to our apprehension, make it “irrationally mystic, but rather its existence and emergence as a logical necessity of the nature of existence” (SY 783). Aurobindo unambiguously speaks of the existence of an intermediary between the higher and lower spheres that he names Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness (LD 143). Therefore, the question

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to be answered is not the existence of the Supermind itself, rather why Aurobindo found it a necessity for the completion and coherence of his system? First of all, Supermind is necessitated by the fundamental presuppositions of the Aurobindonian Integral Advaita, which affirms the reality of both the Absolute and the phenomenal world. Put it differently, it is consequent upon Aurobindo’s realism. It was already established that “in itself Sachchidananda is spaceless and timeless absolute of conscious existence that is bliss.” On the other hand, the world is “an extension … and a movement, a working out, a development of relations and possibilities by causality” in time and space (LD 143). Nonetheless, Sachchidananda and the manifested world are of different natures and belong to two different realms. Therefore, creation “essentially requires an intermediate principle of creativity between the self-possession of Sachchidananda and the flux of the many.” In other words, the intermediary should embody in itself both the divine and cosmic nature, which is able to manifest the universe. That is why it becomes an ontological necessity. No principle can fulfil these demands in the sense that the mediating principle should be endowed with the true nature of the Absolute and should be capable of creating or manifesting the finite world out of the infinite Absolute (Srivastava 1968, 40). Therefore, it is stated that “the Supermind is a logical necessity arising directly from the position with which we have started” (LD 143). The existence of a Divine creative principle is a condition of possibility for the manifested world. Therefore, the Supermind is metaphysically as well as logically necessary and thus it is an onto-logical necessity: it is responsible for the creation of the world and it is a logical necessity for the coherence of the system.

8.3.2 Supermind: The Intermediate Link In the Indian system the phenomenal world is nothing but the manifestation of the Absolute. Thus, we have Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss on the one hand, and matter, life, and mind on the other, which are also antagonistic to each other in their nature. Therefore, to assert the truth of the one we may have to deny the other. Nonetheless, the paradox of human existence consists in the fact that our existence is characterised by the mind and its forms of life and matter. Therefore, if we have to deny the consciousness of mind, life, and body to achieve Sachchidananda, it becomes clear that a divine life is not possible on earth. If one has to abandon cosmic existence totally as an illusion to enjoy the Transcendent, it is not an authentic solution to the problem. Then, it is also possible that Aurobindo also might commit the same mistake as Shankara. The

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true victory of humanity, however, consists in the control of matter by the spirit, but not the abolition of the former. It is here that we see the originality and ingenuity of Aurobindo in that he solves the problem of spirit and matter by identifying an intermediate link that exists between the finite and the infinite - matter and the spirit. “There is no escape [from this dilemma] unless there be an intermediate link between the two” which would also do justice to both views or “which can explain them to each other and establish between them such a relation … to make it possible for us to realise the one Existence, Consciousness, Delight in the mould of the mind, life and body” (LD 143). Therefore, de facto the first and the foremost role of the Supermind in the Aurobindonian system is mediatory. The Supermind is the intermediate link that is demanded, on the one hand, by the unity of the three dimensional Sachchidananda, and on the other, by the multiplicity of the individual existences, in view of enabling us to experience the unity of the Divine in the multiplicity of matter, life and mind.21 The question is how does the Supermind fulfill this intermediation? It is relevant to recall what we have seen regarding the triple status of the Supermind (section 1.3). The Supermind fulfills the mediating role as the projecting Force of the Sachchidananda, and by being the medium of descent and ascent. “Creation begins when this triune Reality [Sachchidananda] stands back in the operation of its consciousness and projects Force downwards. This aspect of Force in the divine is Supermind, Para Prakriti.” The same power of the Spirit (Supermind) is responsible for the evolutionary process as well whereby the Spirit “begins to emerge from these depths and retraces its way back to Supermind and to the Divine” (Gokak 7). The descent and ascent of the Supermind presupposes each other, for either one is incomplete without the other. Therefore, it is observed that the “descent of the supermind to mind and the ascent of mind to the luminosity of supermind” are the most important links between the lower hemisphere and the upper (Chakravarty 41). To understand it clearly one has to see the whole process in the light of involution and evolution. The Divine descends from pure existence through the play of Consciousness-Force and Bliss and the creative medium of Supermind into cosmic being; we ascent from matter through a developing life, soul and mind and the illuminating medium of Supermind to-

|| 21 According to Bruteau, to be an intermediate link is the most basic feature of the Supermind (Bruteau 78). Chakravarty also expresses the same idea that the Supermind by virtue of its role as the creatrix is the intermediate link between the Sachchidananda and the world of multiplicity (59).

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wards the divine being. The knot of the two, the higher and the lower hemisphere, is where mind and supermind meet with a veil between them (LD 264).

Thus the place of the comprehensive and creative consciousness of the Supermind is between the indivisible consciousness of pure Sachchidananda in which there are no separating distinctions and the analytic and dividing consciousness of mind.

8.3.3 Supermind: The Creative Principle The world is the manifestation of the Absolute, through an involutionary process, actualised by the creative principle of Sachchidananda, namely the Consciousness-Force. However, Consciousness-Force itself is Infinite and Transcendent and what conjoins the two realms, the lower hemisphere of the finite existence and the higher hemisphere of the Infinite, is the Supermind. Thus, the Supermind is the creative medium of the Consciousness-Force. “The Supermind is the divine Gnosis which creates, governs and upholds the worlds: it is the secret Wisdom which upholds both our Knowledge and our Ignorance (LD 263). The Supermind is the power of Consciousness-Force that creates the cosmos and manifests itself in the cosmos. It creates the finite world out of the triple forms of Sachchidananda (Srivastava 1968, 41). The question is how is this made possible? For Aurobindo, “creation is a movement of the Absolute in its dynamic aspect by self-effectuation” (Veliyathil 19). Nevertheless, the question of how remains? It is an act of the free will of Brahman. “Supermind or the TruthConsciousness is the real creative agency of the universal Existence (LD 174). Therefore, “the efficient cause … of this process of the production of the universe is the very Supermind, the very Brahman, the Absolute” (Veliyathil 19). One remarkable thing here in this statement of Veliyathil is that he identifies Supermind with Brahman, the Absolute. The Supermind acts as the creative aspect of Sachchidananda in the sense that since Sachchidananda is infinite in its power, truth, existence and bliss, all its potentialities cannot be manifested simultaneously. The Supermind selects some of the potentialities and actualises them in explicit manifestation. If all the potentialities of Sachchidananda are to be manifested there will be total chaos and we will not have a cosmos (Srivastava 1984, 120). This is the reason why the Supermind is also known as the ordering principle in the universe. Nevertheless, the questions as to the how of this selection, criterion of the selection, how the ordering takes place, etc. remain.

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The selection and the criterion used for the selection is nothing but “knowledge and free will” of the Supreme Consciousness. The knowledge of the Supermind is all-comprehensive and it is the law that governs the universe. In that way it becomes the ordering principle as well. The involution or the creation is the expression of the Absolute’s own vision of its own truth, which “wills to realise them” in “Time and Space.” The creation (manifestation) by Divine Consciousness is done by a double process: first there is a movement of selfconscious-force which controls the formation and development of all things, and second, the movement of itself is nothing but a self evolution of the truth of existence that is inherent in every form of existence as a knowledge-will through the creative medium of the Supermind (LD 144). Moreover, this expresses further how the Supermind functions as the raison d’être of becoming. From the point of creation Supermind is the creator. All the metaphysical qualifications that are applied to Brahman are applicable in the case of Supermind, such as omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, all-inclusive, allpervading and it is the Lord within. It is the seat of the trinity. It is Sachchidananda itself in its creative dimension. […] it is Sachchidananda itself that is this principle, but Sachchidananda not resting in its pure infinite invariable consciousness, but proceeding out of this primal poise, or rather upon it as a base and in it as a continent, into a movement which is its form of Energy and instrument of cosmic creation (LD 144).

Therefore, in the Aurobindonian perspective, it can safely be said, that Sachchidananda is the creator of the universe. It is through the Supermind that Absolute manifests the universe out of its indivisible unity. The Supermind is the principle that reconciles the opposition between Sachchidananda and the world.

8.3.4 Supermind: Principle of Reconciliation Sachchidananda accounts for the question of the Ultimate. Nevertheless, how are we to understand the finite in relation to the Ultimate? How could the Infinite create limits for itself? How could the Infinite become limited and finite?22 If Sachchidananda is pure existence and undividing consciousness, then there can be no world. The question of the finite becomes absurd, for in the Infinite

|| 22 It is good to recall here that a similar problem we confronted in Whitehead, as we dealt with creativity and origin of actual entities.

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there is no division and differentiation. At the same time to deny the existence of the phenomenal world would be the most absurd thing in the light of our own experience. Therefore, we are conscious of an essential and indivisible unity, on the one hand, and an essential multiplicity, on the other hand, which is irreducible to a total unity (LD 127). How are we to reconcile the two? What is already at our disposal as possible candidates of reconciliation are matter, life, and mind. However, none of the three can be the intermediate principle, for they are deficient in power. For each new unfolding of the evolution there must be a foundation in the preceding level that can serve as the condition of possibility for the new development. The new stage cannot be, however, totally anew, for in that case continuity would be lost. Therefore, what is necessary is a principle that can transform and modify the matrix and guide further process. The demand is for a secret Consciousness greater than LifeConsciousness or Mind-Consciousness, an energy more essential than the material energy. Since it is greater than Mind, it must be a supramental Consciousness-Force; since it is a power of essential substance other than Matter, it must be the power of that which is the supreme essence and substance of all things, a power of the Spirit (LD 705).23 Again, the lower conscious nature of man (mind) is always limited by ego in all its activities, “chained triply to the stake of differentiated individuality.” Thus, Aurobindo maintains, the Supermind alone commands unity in diversity” (LD 214). A point already noted above demands further justification. We have seen previously that it is also because of the incapacity of the Mind that the Supermind was made a logical necessity. Here a question arises as to why the mind cannot be a reconciliatory principle? Aurobindo is very clear in his response to such a question. For him, the mind is incapable of acquiring holistic knowledge which “incidentally, establishes the necessity of such a principle as the Supermind …” (SM 115). Both Mind (SM 115) and Matter (LD 705) are incapable of serving as the inter-mediary principle. Then how the Supermind reconciles the conflicts between the opposing constituents? The reconciliation is

|| 23 From another perspective it is right to hold that the notion of the Supermind is demanded by Aurobindo’s theory of evolution. In fact, the pivot of his theory is Sachchidananda itself, the source of both involution and evolution (Srivastava 1984, 114). The Supermind is the guiding principle all through different stages of evolution. This too vindicates Supermind’s role as the raison d’être of becoming. For it descends to each stage in evolution to give to that stage the necessary initiation and push to ascend to the next stage (O’Neil 72). In this regard, Aurobindo writes that the Supermind “can hold all knowledge in itself and yet put forward in formulation only what is needed at each stage of an evolution; it formulates whatever is in accordance with the Divine Will in manifestation and the truth of the thing to be manifested” (LD 967).

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made possible by exhibiting the opposing constituent’s “capacity to express the Divine in their nature” (McDermott 187). For instance, the conflict between matter and spirit is reconciled by the descent of the Spirit into Matter. Therefore, in Aurobindo’s vision, the ascetic’s refusal of the material world is not necessary, for the Supermind makes possible “a free acceptance of the whole of material Nature in place of a rejection” (LD 986). With the descent of the Supermind it would be possible to view the whole material world as the manifestation of Brahman. Thus, as McDermott rightly comments, one would be able to pay “a sacramental reverence for matter” (187) as it was done by the thinkers of the Vedas and the Gita. The Supermind’s role as the principle of reconciliation can be summarised in the following way: it is the all-comprehending Supermind that reveals Matter and Spirit as the two indispensable poles of existence in the philosophy of Integralism. By revealing Matter and Spirit as two poles of self-manifestation of the Absolute, the Supermind also reconciles the age-old opposition between the two. Thus, it is also notable that Aurobindo’s integralism transcends as well as reconciles spiritualism and materialism. Moreover, the Supermind being the creative principle of the Absolute and the connecting link between the higher and the lower spheres of existence, reveals the real and the ideal as the two inseparable factors of the self-differentiation of the Absolute Spirit into the objective and subjective spheres. In this way, in virtue of the Supermind, realism and idealism are reconciled in the Integral Advaita. Furthermore, by virtue of the Real-Idea or the Supermind rationalism and mysticism are reconciled in Integral Advaita. The point is, the Real-Idea reveals the rational thinking as “a subordinate instrumentation or organ of articulation” in comparison with its all-inclusive supra-rational immediacy of consciousness. The Real-Idea reveals the infinitely differentiated plurality of existence as a real and authentic manifestation of the infinite possibilities of the non-dual Absolute. The plurality is neither mere appearance nor unreal. In this way, the Integralism reconciles also non-dualism and pluralism (Chaudhuri 1954, vii-viii).

8.3.5 Supermind: The Ordering and Harmonising Principle The potentiality of the Truth-Consciousness is infinite in the universe and it demands an ordering principle, for without it there would be total chaos in the universe. And the Truth-Consciousness is responsible also for this ordering in the universe, without this ordering principle potentiality by itself would lead to a “play of uncontrolled unbounded Chance” (LD 132). The existence of potentiality alone in the world, without a principle of guidance and harmonious self-

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vision, without a predetermining Idea in the very germ of things in view of evolution, the world would mean nothing but a “teeming, amorphous, confused uncertainty” (LD 132). The pure Consciousness creates and possesses in its own being the vision of the truth and law that governs each potentiality. In this sense it can be stated that the role that Whitehead ascribes to God is actualised by the Supermind in the Aurobindonian system, as it is the executive power of Sachchidananda. The Supermind actualizes this task by virtue of its power of manifestation. It is a necessary condition that in “cosmos a power of Knowledge and Will which out of Infinite potentiality fixes determined relations, develops the result out of the seed, rolls out the mighty rhythms of cosmic Law and views and governs the worlds as their immortal and infinite Seer and Rule” (LD 266-67).24 Out of the indivisible unity of the Absolute the things to be manifested are “actualised, assembled and organised” by the Supermind. The Truth-Consciousness is present everywhere in the universe as an ordering self-knowledge by which the One supreme Existence manifests “harmonies of its infinite potential multiplicity” (LD 132). As the unifying and ordering principle of the universe, the Supermind is also the “source and keeper of the Law in the world” (LD 133). This role raises naturally a question: how does Aurobindo account for the freedom of the created beings? Are they fully determined by the Supermind? Aurobindo would answer the question negatively. This law is not arbitrary. At the very inception of each thing its nature is determined by the compelling truth of Real-Idea. Therefore, the law that governs over it is nothing but the expression of the self-nature. Therefore, it is clear that the whole development of each thing is predetermined by its self-knowledge. Therefore, it is nothing from outside what determines the working of each being, but each being is what it is by its own inherent Truth and “it moves to what it must be at the next, still by its own original inherent truth; it will be at the end that which was contained and intended in its seed” (LD 133). Here we have a good point of convergence between Aurobindo and Whitehead or even with Aristotle that things follow their nature. In Whitehead every actual entity is free, even if they receive initial subjective aim from God. There is no determination from the part of God. In the same way, Aurobindo’s point that every being at its very inception is determined by the Real-Idea has to be understood in the sense of the initial subjective aim. Thus, there is no absolute determination.

|| 24 Isa Upanishad speaks of a seer, the thinker, he who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent (8; LD 267).

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Another point that demands our attention is whether the harmonizing activity of the Supermind means a sort of predetermined harmony that governs every being, a harmony of Leibnizian type? In fact, it is not any predetermined harmony, rather it is the freedom of every actuality that guides this harmony. Thus, states Aurobindo, “in the gnostic life … there is an entire accord between the free self-expression of the being and his automatic obedience to the inherent law of the supreme and universal Truth of things (LD 999). By virtue of the Supermind, “the Supreme Spirit, while differentiating Himself into a plurality of individual selves, comprehends them at the same time into the unity of His existence, and is conscious of Himself as indivisibly present in every one of them. Consequently, each Individual Self is conscious of itself as essentially identical with the supreme Spirit and also with all the other Individual Selves” (Chaudhuri 1954, 178). Therefore, it maybe safe to add that the Supermind makes it possible to overcome the traditional antinomy between freedom and determinism. We have to consider still another question here: how can the Supermind be the source of unity as well as multiplicity? The Supermind as the principle of unity unifies every actuality with the Absolute as the all-comprehending existence. Moreover, it is the principle of unity and oneness, because for it all things are one being, one consciousness, one will and one self-delight in its selfawareness. Whereas in its dimension of creation or dynamic action it is responsible for the movement from unity to multiplicity and multiplicity to unity and also for the ordered relations that exist between the multiplicity of appearances. By virtue of its capacity as the link between two hemispheres, it is only natural that it becomes the pivot point where one in many and many in one begins. Thus, it actualizes the infinite possibilities of the Absolute Being into the multiplicity of the cosmic becoming, without endangering the unity and harmony among the various forms of the universe (Pani 52). Thus, the Supermind is situated between two apparently contradictory principles: it has above the formula of One, which is eternally stable and immutable and below the formula of Many, which is eternally mutable, but always seeking a firm and immutable standpoint in the flux of things but hardly finds. Therefore, Supermind is the Alpha and the Omega of all creation and arrangement, the starting point of all differentiation and multiplicity, and also the instrument of all unification and of all realised or realisable harmonies (LD 126). Therefore, it can be rightly said that

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the Supermind is the source of unity and plurality of existence without endangering the reality of either one.25

8.3.6 Supermind: The Raison d’être of Becoming In the Whiteheadian system creativity is designated as the ultimate, the fundamental principle of his metaphysics of becoming. However, what Whitehead means by the ultimacy of the creativity and what I mean in speaking about the ultimacy of the Supermind as the raison d’être of becoming are not same. Creativity is the very nature of every being for Whitehead, and he makes it the ultimate foundation of his metaphysical system. By ultimacy of the Supermind I mean the indispensable role that the Supermind plays in the Aurobindonian system. The Supermind is the raison d’être of Becoming. Here we have to recall what we have seen in our discussion of the Absolute as Consciousness-Force. There we noted that Sachchidananda as the Consciousness-Force is what makes Aurobindo’s philosophy a metaphysics of becoming. Our explanation here eventually points also to a major difference between Whitehead and Aurobindo, or in a wider context between the East and the West. What does really make possible Consciousness-Force the condition of becoming? The Advaitic literature amply substantiates the fact of the identification (tatatmya) of Consciousness with the Absolute. Consciousness as an aspect of Sachchidananda is an idea developed by Upanishads themselves (TU 2.1).26 This infinite energy is not something unconscious but Consciousness in its fullness,

|| 25 According to Bruteau, it is the Supermind that is active and that which develops the triune principle of Sachchidananda out of the indivisible unity of the Absolute. However, it has to be noted that the Supermind only differentiates these three aspects of the Absolute but does not divide it (85). The Supermind is the principle that “conjoins the Transcendental Reality and the multiplicity of the world” (Pani 51). The Supermind is the ‘Divine Law’, Rta-Cit for it governs all the activities of the cosmos, such as creation, evolution, change, manifestation and transformation (Srivastava 1984, 121). 26 The Kaushitaki Upanishad makes use of the imagery of light to denote the self-conscious nature of Brahman. Brahman is presented as the self-luminous light which is the source of all other lights. “After Him, as he shines, does everything shine; by His lustre is the whole world illumined” (3.15). To this Reality, which is pure Existence (Sat) is added the self-luminous intelligence (Cit) as well as the nature of unexcellable bliss (ananda) (Vallooran 1988, 58). Thus we read in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: “This is the supreme attainment, this is the supreme glory, this is the highest world, this is the supreme bliss. On a particle of this very bliss other beings live” (4.3.32; TU 3.8).

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and that is why the ancient Vedic Scriptures used the term Cit which means ‘Consciousness inseparable from (power) Shakti’ (Srivastava 1968, 28). Thus, the Consciousness-Force of which Aurobindo speaks is the same as Cit-Shakti of Vedas. The question emerges is, where does the Force come from? Actually Aurobindo has endorsed the view of his great predecessors that the only rational solution possible is that Force is inherent in Existence. “Shiva and Kali, Brahman and Shakti are one and not two who are separable” (LD 82). The point is that “as we cannot separate Fire and the power of Fire, it has been said, so we cannot separate the Divine Reality and its Consciousness-Force, Chit-Shakti” (LD 347). It is irrational to suppose that Force has its source in something other than Sachchidananda itself. Aurobindo puts very plainly that “force is thus inherent in existence and it is the nature of Force to have this double or alternative potentiality of rest and movement, that is to say, of self-concentration in Force and self-diffusion in Force.” Consciousness-Force is the condition of becoming that it contains Being as well as Energy. Aurobindo maintains that “it is impossible, because contradictory of reason, to suppose that Force is a thing alien to the one and infinite existence and entered into it from outside or was non-existent and arose in it at some point in Time” (LD 83). In this context Pani positively comments that Sachchidananda as Consciousness-Force is responsible for the infinite movement of the world, for it is not only consciousness but also infinite Energy. “Brahman and Shakti are one and not two who are separable” (21). The placement of existence and power demands further clarification. The togetherness of existence and power is of great import for our project in two ways: (i) it is a condition of possibility for a rational explanation of the metaphysics of becoming; and (ii) in the context of Whitehead’s separation of God and creativity in his metaphysics. First we have to consider the question why was it Aurobindo so particular to unite Consciousness and Force?27 The reason || 27 One may identify a close similarity between Aurobindo’s conception of ConsciousnessForce and Shakta Tantrics concept of Shakti. In fact, Aurobindo developed his concept of Consciousness-Force from the Vedantic and Tantric systems (Misra 170-71). Shaktaism maintained that the Ultimate Reality has two aspects, namely Siva and Shakti, which are in an inseparable and indistinguishable union. Siva is the transcendental and the impersonal dimension of the Absolute, omnipresent and pure consciousness (prakasha), whereas Shakti is the creative force which is conscious and active in nature. Shakti, considered as the creative aspect of Siva, is known as Vimarsha, i.e., the spontaneous vibration of the ultimate Reality. With regard to Shakti it is stated “the first touch of relation in the pure Absolute is Vimarsha, which gives rise to the world of distinctions. Vimarsha or Shakti is the power latent in the Absolute or pure consciousness. It is the Absolute personified; consciousness becomes a subject, and it passes over into its opposite, the not-self or the object. If Siva is consciousness (cit), sakti

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is, if one states that the cause of the movement is not Sachchidananda one may have to accept that something other than itself is responsible for it, which will clearly endanger the infinity of the Absolute. Aurobindo, therefore, states that the Absolute in its infinite freedom manifests the universe with its Consciousness-Force. Consciousness-force is the power aspect of the Reality. Sachchidananda without force will be limited to a cosmic God subjected to other powers “compelled by it and without option as to whether it shall manifest in the universe or remain unmanifest. Such is the cosmic God of the Tantrics and the Mayavadins who is subject to Shakti or Maya, Purusha involved in Maya or controlled by Shakti” (LD 84). However, it shall not be so with Sachchidananda, the supreme Existence. A cosmic God or a conscious Being is itself only a “formulation of Brahman in the cosmos by the Brahman which is itself logically anterior to Shakti or Maya and take her back into its transcendental being when she ceases from her works” (LD 84). On the other hand, in an Absolute, which is not determined or controlled by any external powers, there is an “inherent freedom to manifest or not to manifest the potentiality of movement. A Brahman compelled by Prakriti is not Brahman, but an inert Infinite with an active content in it more powerful than the continent, a conscious holder of Force of whom his Force is master” (LD 84). Aurobindo observes that “it is only if you approach the Supreme through his double aspect of Sat and Cit-Shakti, double but inseparable, that the total truth of things can become manifest to the inner experience. … the Vedantic and the Tantric truth unified, can arrive at an integral knowledge” (LY 39). With regard to the inseparability of Siva and Shakti, it is stated that they are not independent realities but one reality in two aspects, namely static and kinetic. When the Reality is considered unchangeable consciousness, it is Siva, and when the Absolute is considered in its power of Consciousness or Consciousness-Power, as being responsible for the manifestation of the universe out of itself, it is Shakti. There is neither Siva without Shakti, nor Shakti without Siva. Shakti is only the active power of the changeless Consciousness (Siva).28 By the integration of Consciousness and Force, Aurobindo was able to account for the becoming/evolution. In other words, the integration made it easy for him to explain the becoming both as teleological and meaningful. The Consciousness-Force “offers direction and purpose to the Becoming of the Abso-

|| is the formative energy of consciousness, Cidrupini” (Radhakrishnan 1967, vol. II, 735). Aurobindo has synthesized the Sat and Cit-Shakti aspects of the Absolute, developed by Vedanta and Shaktaism, respectively. 28 Sir John Woodroffe. The World as Power, Reality. (81-82; in Misra 171).

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lute” (Susai 62). The Consciousness-Force is “the infinite timeless conscious power of the self-existent Being out of which all existences in the cosmos are manifested and come out of timelessness into Time” (EG 269). It has to be noted, however, that Aurobindo’s is not a blind acceptance of the ancient formula, on the contrary, it is marked by his unique originality. This force inherent in Existence can either be in a state of rest or in a state of motion, but in no way can its existence be abolished or essentially altered. This alternative potentiality of Force, to be in a state of rest or in motion, also gives a clue regarding the ‘how of movement’ in pure Existence. In other words, this potentiality can “translate itself either as an alternative rhythm of rest and movement succeeding each other in Time or else as an eternal self-concentration of Force in immutable existence with a superficial play of movement, change and formation” (LD 83).29 However, we have not yet adequately explained how the Supermind becomes the raison d’être of Becoming. The Absolute, both in its universal and individual statuses, is dynamic through the medium of the Supermind. The Supermind is essentially identical with the upper hemisphere of Sachchidananda and the lower hemisphere of matter, life and mind. Thus, we need to reformulate our previous statement as follows: What really makes Aurobindo’s metaphysics a metaphysic of Becoming is not Consciousness-Force as such, but rather Consciousness-Force with the intermediary Supermind. The Supermind is the raison d’être of becoming in the sense that it is the condition of possibility for both involution of the Absolute and the evolution of the universe. In both movements the chief player is the Supermind (LD 561). One has to understand the triple formula of the comprehensive Supermind that ‘Brahman is in all things, all things are in Brahman, all things are Brahman’ in this light (LD 139). Only in its capacity as the raison d’être of becoming that the Supermind is considered as the ground and source of all becomings. The Supermind accomplishes this task by being the becoming “poise of the Brahman” (LD 125); “the starting point of all differentiations.” It is “able to draw out of the One its hidden multitudes; it manifests the Many, but does not lose itself in their differentiations” (LD 126). The question of how is answered by the

|| 29 The identification of the Consciousness-Force as inherent in the pure Existence is indeed a distinctive feature of integral Advaita as well as its advancement from the Advaitic thought. The Absolute of Advaita is an empty absolute in the sense that it is devoid of content, attributes, and relations. Shankara conceived Sachchidananda as devoid of Force. He postulated Maya as the power aspect of Brahman which is a false power. Aurobindo repudiates such a view in the sense that if it is a consciousness devoid of force it can be a dead consciousness. It is “inconceivable to accept that Force is an alien thing which enters the Absolute from outside or that it was non-existence and came into existence at some moment” (Srivastava 1984, 110).

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triple poises of the Supermind (section 1.3), as we discussed already. In comparison to Whitehead’s creativity and God, which refer to pure becoming and rationality of becoming respectively, Aurobindo’s Supermind combines the activity of the former two, it being the God aspect of Sachchidananda and the raison d’être of becoming.

| Part Three: On the Relationship between Creativity and God and Supermind and Sachchidananda

“The modern assumptions differ from older assumptions, not wholly for the better. They exclude from rationalistic thought more of the final values of existence. The intimate timidity of professionalized scholarship circumscribes reason by reducing its topic to triviality, … The world will again sink into the boredom of a drab detail of rational thought, unless we retain in the sky some reflections of light from the sun of Hellenism (AI 118). [I]n fact, there never has been any exact, complete system of philosophic thought, and there never has been any exact understanding of dogmas, … The self-sufficient pedantry of learning and the confidence of the ignorant zealots have combined to shut up each [philosophy and] religion in its own forms of thought. Instead of looking to each other for deeper meanings, they have remained self-satisfied and unfertilized. … The result is that you cannot confine any important reorganization to one sphere of thought alone. You cannot shelter theology from science, or science from theology; nor can you shelter either of them from metaphysics, or metaphysics from either of them. There is no short cut to truth” (RM 139-140; 76-77). Whitehead “Truth is an infinitely complex reality and he has the best chance of arriving nearest to it who most recognises but is not daunted by its infinite complexity. We must look at the whole thought-tangle, … and keeping the soul calm and the eye clear in this mighty flux and gurge of the world, seek everywhere for some word of harmony, not forgetting immediate in the ultimate truth, nor ultimate in immediate, but giving each its due place and portion in the Infinite purpose. Some minds, like Plato, like Vivekananda, feel more than others this mighty complexity and give voice to it. They pour out thought in torrents or in rich and majestic streams. They are not logically careful of consistency, they cannot build up any coherent, yet comprehensive systems, but they quicken men’s minds and liberate them from religious, philosophic and scientific dogma and tradition. They leave the world not surer, but freer than when they entered it” (Essays Divine and Human 13). “The message of the East to the West is a true message, ‘Only by finding himself can man be saved’ … The West has heard the message and is seeking out the law and truth of the soul and the evidences of an inner reality greater than the material. … The message the West brings to the East is a true message. Man also is God and it is through his developing manhood that he approaches the godhead; Life also is the Divine, its progressive expansion is the selfexpression of the Brahman, and to deny Life is to diminish the Godhead within us. This is the truth that returns to the East from the West translated into the language of the higher truth the East already possesses; and it is an ancient knowledge. The East also is awaking to the message” (SM 288-289). Aurobindo

9 On the Relationship between God and Creativity in Whitehead and Sachchidananda and Supermind in Aurobindo As we begin with the third part of the work let me first recap what we have been so far doing. In the first two parts of the work our major concern was to articulate briefly how Whitehead and Aurobindo developed the metaphysics of becoming in their own distinctive manner. We have done it in two parts in view of understanding them on their own rights. Nevertheless, the course of our discussion brought out to a certain extent the point of convergence and divergence between the two thinkers. Thus, it can be safely said in what we have already done we addressed the first point of our project, namely the metaphysics of becoming. In this Third Part we undertake the discussion of the second part of our project, namely the relationship between God and Creativity and Sachchidananda and the Supermind. The relationship between God and creativity in Whitehead is very complex on account of the fact that in his metaphysical system the role of creativity and God are clearly distinguished, a position contrary to the classical theism and philosophy. The intricacies of explaining this relationship have given rise to different interpretations as well. These different interpretations also raise the question as to whether they justify Whitehead’s own position. Certainly, identification of the two will not do justice to Whitehead, for Whitehead clearly distinguishes them. In this light, making either one subordinate to the other also will not solve the issue. Still, making a clear distinction between the metaphysical and the religious ultimate is not a viable solution, at least from an Eastern perspective. For, in that respect we have to re-define the meaning of ultimate itself, because we have inherited from tradition that there can only be one ultimate. Whitehead’s own position in PR substantiates it: “In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents” (PR 7).1

|| 1 It is clear that Whitehead here points to the metaphysical ultimate. For Whitehead, Ultimate is creativity qualified by God. The metaphysical and the religious are two distinct things for Whitehead. Metaphysics is about the condition of possibility of being (or becoming), while religion is about the condition of possibility of salvation. For Whitehead, metaphysical has to recognize within its ultimate a principle of limitation, that he calls God. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether he has in mind a religious God. What is certain is that Whitehead is ambiguous in his statement in this regard. For Whitehead, if the religious God plays a metaphysical role, it is as principle of limitation, not as creativity itself.

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In Aurobindo we see a totally different picture, precisely, a contrary position, namely the interdependence of Sachchidananda and the Supermind. In other words, we have an essential unity and existential difference between Sachchidananda and the Supermind. Sachchidananda being the ultimate it corresponds to creativity in Whitehead. Therefore, our first concern in this chapter is to elucidate the relationship between God and Creativity and Sachchidananda and Supermind. Nonetheless, a more fundamental question concerning the “why” remains. Why does Whitehead distinguish and why not Aurobindo? The answer is not that simple, for here too Whitehead and Aurobindo stand in contrary positions. Whitehead separates creativity and God on the ground that it was necessary to solve the problem of evil and some of the problems that arise within the context of classical theism.2 Aurobindo does agree with Whitehead and the West in recognising the reality of evil and he is a realist in this regard. However, Aurobindo stands distinct from Whitehead, and to a certain extent, also from the traditional view of the East, in his understanding of evil. Therefore, the question of separating Sachchidananda and the Supermind to account for the problem of evil does not arise for Aurobindo. The question then is how does Aurobindo answer the problem of evil? Therefore, we will take up the discussion of the question of evil in respective philosophers as the second major concern of this chapter. Nevertheless, before we enter into the discussion of the relationship, first we focus on the ultimacy of God and Creativity and Sachchidananda and the Supermind.

9.1 The Ultimacy of God and Creativity We have seen in chapters three and four the specific role played by God as well as Creativity in the Whiteheadian system. Creativity is the Ultimate in the sense of an ultimate explanation of the nature of reality in the world. In this respect it is also the ultimate descriptive principle. Our present concern is to develop the nature of the relation between God and the category of the Ultimate or creativity in Whitehead’s system.3 Which is ultimate, creativity or God? Or are we to con|| 2 However, it is not the whole picture of modern Western philosophy. There are a good number of philosophers who hold the classical and traditional theistic view in this regard that identifies God and creativity. 3 We have ample evidence in Whitehead that he makes a clear distinction between Creativity and God, especially in the early Whitehead of SMW and RM, and the later Whitehead of AI and MT. For him, God is neither the source of Creativity nor Creativity itself. Any identification of the two overlooks the very reason for which Whitehead introduced the distinction, namely the

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sider them as two ultimates pertaining to two realms? What do the extant texts of Whitehead say in this regard? This is the project we undertake to develop here.

9.1.1 God and Creativity Clearly Distinguished From the given Whiteheadian literature one gets the impression that the relation between God and creativity is very complex. The reason is, on the one hand, Whitehead clearly states that creativity is ultimate, on the other, Whitehead equally presents God as ultimate; at least that is implied, some kind of ultimacy is given to God. What I mean is that some of the statements in Process and Reality are really debatable. For instance, he states that “In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual by virtue of its accidents. It is only then capable of characterisation through its accidental embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality. In the philosophy of organism this ultimate is termed creativity; and God is its primordial, non-temporal accident” (PR 7). Again Whitehead states “[creativity] is that ultimate notion. …” (PR 31). These statements are very problematic at first glance, at least from a classical theistic point of view. On the one hand, they suggest that creativity is the ultimate in Whitehead’s system; “a god above god,” from a classical theistic point view. Whitehead states that “god is the creature of creativity.” Whitehead speaks of God as the “primordial creature” while he describes creativity as “that ultimate notion of the highest generality at the base of actuality” (PR 31). From the reading of PR one gets the impression that in it Whitehead maintains a favoured position for the ultimacy of creativity and that God is relegated to a secondary position. On the other hand, in the fourth chapter we have seen the indispensable role of God in Whitehead’s metaphysics. As one comes to RM, one observes that in it Whitehead very clearly draws up the interdependent nature of creativity, eternal objects and God. Moreover, it seems that here Whitehead favours God over creativity. It is stated: The order of the world is no accident. There is nothing actual which could be actual without some measure of order. ... that the universe exhibits a creativity with infinite freedom, and a realm of forms with infinite possibilities; but that this creativity and these forms to-

|| problem of evil (Van der Veken 1999, 273). Jan Van der Veken. “My Way from Being to Becoming.” André Cloots & Santiago Sia (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 267-285.

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gether are impotent to achieve actuality apart from the complete ideal harmony, which is God (RM 115).

In PR Whitehead puts “… God can be termed the creator of each temporal actual entity” (225). These facts explicate that the relation between creativity and God is very much debatable in Whitehead. Furthermore, in AI Whitehead is very reluctant to separate creativity and God; nevertheless, he distinguishes them. The point is that irrespective of Whitehead’s distinction of creativity and God some of his statements reveal the interdependent activity of the two principles for the completion and the coherent functioning of the system. For he sees that creativity alone cannot account for a complete fact. Whitehead wrote, “[concrescence] fails to suggest the creative novelty involved.” At the same time, Whitehead in clear-cut terms concedes how creativity “convey[s] the origination of novelty” (AI 236). He adds further that aiming at philosophic generalisation one requires together “creativity, … actuality, becoming, process, etc” (AI 237). This reading makes Whitehead’s statement that “philosophy is the ascent to the generalities with the view of understanding their possibilities of combination” (AI 235) relevant. For example, pointing to God Whitehead states that “The non-temporal act of all inclusive unfettered valuation is at once a creature of creativity and a condition for creativity. It shares this double character with all creatures” (PR 31). This text elucidates that both creativity and God are necessary for the completion of the system. Creativity for Whitehead is not just something related to spontaneity or togetherness, but it is primarily “the creative force of existence” (CN 73). Creativity as a creative force of existence means that it is not existence itself, but the creative force (Cloots 2001, 45). Therefore, it is always in need of some existence for concretion. Creativity in its pure form is transcendental, nontemporal and non-spatial in character. Limitation of creativity is a logical necessity. God is the primordial form of creativity. It is termed as the first limitation or the first creature of creativity. It follows invariably that creativity needs God for completing its activity (Stokes 1971, 252; PR 164).4 Here again we see the interdependent nature of the two, if not the priority of God, in Whitehead’s system. Again, in the Whiteheadian system God is presented as one of the formative elements, “without which all other formative elements lose their range of power, and without which the explanation of the actual reality manifesting itself in experience would remain incomplete” (Cloots 1978, 97). Novelty is not || 4 Walter E. Stokes. “God for Today and Tomorrow.” Process Philosophy and Christian Thought. Delwin Brown, Ralph E. James, JR. & Gene Reeves (eds.). Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc. (1971) 244-263.

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the product of creativity for its foundation in the definiteness of the forms and in their ontological basis, viz., the primordial nature of God (Cloots 1980, 55).5 Whitehead’s own statements clarify it further. God is the organ of novelty, aiming at intensification. He is the lure for feeling, the eternal urge of desire. The primary element in the lure for feeling is the subject’s prehension of the primordial nature of God … apart from the intervention of God, there could be nothing new in the world, and no order in the world. The course of creation would be a dead level of ineffectiveness, with all balance and intensity progressively excluded by the cross currents of incompatibility. ... God can be termed the creator of each temporal actual entity … the true metaphysical position is that God is the aboriginal instance of this creativity … (PR 225).

The question is if ‘God is the aboriginal instance of creativity’ how can it be ‘the aboriginal condition that qualifies its actions?’ What do these clauses mean? The latter one means more than that God conditions creativity. God being a creature of creativity – all entities by virtue of their actuality (activity in actualization) exemplify creativity, so also God. But this creativity has no existence of its own. God can properly be described as a creature of creativity, in the sense that, in God “the creativity in question is his own activity of unifying his manifold prehensions into a total experience in the course of his concrescence” (Ford 1973, 104-05).6 What throws further light in this regard is Whitehead’s own statement in the above quote (PR 225) that ‘it is the function of actuality to characterise the creativity.’ From this, it follows that it is the actuality that conditions and characterises creativity. Moreover, by the statement ‘God is the aboriginal condition which qualifies the action of creativity’ Whitehead means that besides ordinary actuality that conditions creativity, “God conditions creativity in each instance of its individualisation” (Leclerc 1958, 195). God does this, as we saw previously, by providing the initial subjective aim to every actuality in the process of its concrescence. Pailin would interpret these statements as something that do not deny the ultimacy of God. For him, these statements indicate only that “God is necessarily to be creative.” Moreover, these statements neither mean that God is subject to creativity nor that creativity existed prior to God (Pailin 285).

|| 5 André Cloots. “De vraag naar het Ultieme in de Process-Filosofie.” Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 42, 1 (1980) 48-74. 6 Lewis S. Ford. “Process Philosophy and Our Knowledge of God.” George F. McLean (ed.). Traces of God in A Secular Culture. New York: The Society of St. Paul (1973) 85-115.

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With regard to the origin of temporal elements in the world Whitehead states that “the things which are temporal arise by their participation in the things which are eternal.” What is important for us is the following: This final entity is the divine element in the world, by which the barren inefficient disjunction of abstract potentialities obtains primordially the efficient conjunction of ideal realisation. This ideal realisation of potentialities in a primordial actual entity constitutes the metaphysical stability whereby the actual process exemplifies general principle of metaphysics, and attains the end proper to specific types of emergent order. By reason of the actuality of this primordial valuation of pure potentials, each eternal object has a definite, effective relevance to each concrescent process. Apart from such orderings, there would be a complete disjunction of eternal objects unrealised in the temporal world (PR 40).

This citation points further to the relevance of God in the Whiteheadian system. Even if there is creativity and, based on creativity, one asserts that nature is causa sui we see that things are not causa sui in the pure sense of the term.7 Creativity alone cannot account for the completion of the system. In this respect the following sentence of Whitehead is important. There is static completion neither for God nor for World, but they are “in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative advance into novelty” (PR 349). In the Whiteheadian perspective, world and God need each other for their intelligibility. ‘It is equally true to say that the world creates God as it is to say that God creates the world’. The point here is the co-existence of God and the world. It should be noted that in many places Whitehead brings out the idea that actual entity cannot be adequately explained through the notion of eternal objects (forms) alone. “Something new is added to the past of each actual entity as well as each eternal object. This ‘addition’ is made possible by the transcendental Creativity” (Maassen 1994, 6). Nevertheless, Cobb states that in the coming to be of an actual occasion the decisive factor is God and not creativity (378). Here what is striking is that the views of Maassen and Cobb stand in contrast to each other. While the former places creativity as responsible for the addition of novelty, the latter gives credit to God. However, if one is faithful to Whitehead, one can find texts to support both views.8 God is the condition of possibility for novelty; but novelty is actually brought about in and by the creative activity.

|| 7 As Whitehead opposes the Christian notion of creatio ex nihilo, for him, an actual entity is self-creative, causa sui, in radical opposition to the notion of a transcendent creator (PR 85, 222). 8 Some of the texts in PR, especially PR 40 and 225, which we already cited, substantiate God’s role in providing novelty. But AI, especially AI 179 and 181, brings out the primacy of creativity in supplying novelty.

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What can be stated, as the outcome of our analysis of Whitehead’s texts pursuing the relationship of creativity and God, is the following: I. Whitehead clearly distinguishes creativity and God II. Neither creativity nor God alone account for the “stubborn fact” III. Creativity is the metaphysical ultimate IV. Role of God is indispensable in Whitehead and God is the religious ultimate

9.1.2 Different Approaches and Re-configurings Why does Whitehead distinguish God and creativity? The complexity in analysing and articulating the relationship between God and creativity has given rise to various interpretations. Therefore, before we proceed to Whitehead’s own reasons in this regard, first we will discuss briefly some of the major interpretations and modifications presented by Whitehead-scholars, and other thinkers. This would enable us to present our arguments for the distinction of creativity and God.

9.1.2.1 The Identification of Creativity and God There have been various attempts to modify Whitehead’s philosophy. One such attempt was to re-unite creativity and God from a classical theistic point of view. One argument in favour of this is that the acceptance of two ultimates cannot cope with the tradition of Christianity, Islam and Judaism and it would go against the concept of a monotheistic understanding of God (Franklin 4).9 A Christian understanding of God demands the unification of creativity and God. Gilkey’s suggestion is double edged: on the one hand, the author points to the limitation of the creativity and, on the other, he emphasises that the primordial activity of God in relation to the world is a “providential activity” (250-51). It also perhaps recalls Whitehead’s contention that God does not create the world but “saves it” (PR 346). In favour of reuniting creativity and God Franklin argues that neither the question of creation nor the question of existence systematically enters the || 9 It can be noted that the argument of Heidegger also has the same effect when it is given the status of an ultimate even though he does not grant the name of God to Being. Against this argument Cobb claims that Whitehead’s commitment to two ultimates does not endanger a monotheistic view of God. In the sense that the ultimate reality is empty, God is neither subordinated to it nor threatened by it (Franklin note 4).

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metaphysics of Whitehead. If it were so, it would have been difficult for Whitehead to separate creativity and God (241).10 Fetz holds the same view argues, “Like Aristotle, Whitehead was content to accept an analysis of coming into being of entities, which are assumed to be given, without ever inquiring into what it is that actualises their being or investigating the grounds for the possibility of this enactment” (208 n74). Therefore, the argument is that Whitehead would not have separated creativity and God if he had considered these facts adequately, because creativity alone cannot account for the fact of complete existence. Ford presents God as future creativity. He gives the following argument in favor of identifying God and creativity. “God as the creativity of the future is a single ultimate which maybe experienced either as the source of creative possibilities for occasions or as the source of their creativity. The identification of God with present creativity eliminates God’s role as the source of creative possibilities” (Ford 1981, 106). However, Neville brings out an objection against the view of Ford. According to Neville, if we view God as future creativity God cannot be viewed as a ‘being’ but always as a ‘becoming’. But the problem is, “if God is always a becoming, there is never a divine being that can be prehended by creatures. God would have to be only the potentiality for a creature’s becoming a subject, never an object; and this is far from the biblical view Ford wants to support” (Neville 1981, 6).11 On the other hand, it is argued, in no way can God be compared with creativity. Creativity cannot be compared with the Primordial nature of God because the former is abstract and without limitation, though both are transcendental. Again creativity cannot be compared with the Consequent nature of God because the latter is immanent, conscious, temporal and spatial while the former is unconscious, non-temporal, transcendental and nonspatial. Creativity is the ultimate metaphysical reality. The identification of creativity and God is considered, therefore, one of the major problems in the Whiteheadian philosophy. And things become more complex when we learn that Whitehead never identified creativity and God. According to Cobb, Whitehead has separated the two “with quite different concerns in mind.” However, he does not explain what these concerns are. For Cobb, “creativity is ultimate reality and God is the ultimate actuality.” This goes very well with what we have shown in chapter two that creativity is real but not

|| 10 Here I don’t forget that Franklin’s basic position is having God as the source of creativity and thus to reunite the two. We will discuss this point in detail in the following section (1.2.2). 11 Robert C. Neville. “Concerning Creativity and God: A Response.” Process Studies 11 (1981) 110.

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actual. In fact, for Cobb, the intuitions of Whitehead were “profound and illuminating, but certainly not exhaustive and definitive.” Whitehead knew clearly that what we can say about God is only “some quite abstract matters” and what is above that has “to be learned from global religious experience” (SMW 178; Cobb 1981, 104). Cobb admits that “religious insight and experience is metaphysically important” and therefore, he uses “the word God in a way Whitehead did not.” For Cobb, Whitehead’s statement that “in God, the otherwise characterless creativity acquires a primordial character” was illuminating and it suggested that “what many Christians worship as God the Father is creativity as primordially characterized by truth and grace. Perhaps what Whitehead calls God could better be called the Word” (Cobb 1981, 104). According to Van der Veken, “Creativity for Whitehead, as Being for Heidegger, is all inclusive, all-overpowering process that never itself appears and yet reveals itself in everything that really happens.” If we understand creativity in a richer sense, as that which is really active, it is not necessary to understand God as the highest existent, “God will rather be seen … as a dimension of creativity and not creativity itself, somewhat as the holy (das Heilige) is for Heidegger” (1990, 179).12 Does Van der Veken make God subordinate to creativity? We can say that no identification of the creativity and God is possible, rather the two have to be distinguished. Van der Veken argues that if we view creativity as universal activity, following Whitehead’s thoughts in SMW, it favours more the immanence of both creativity and God, without reducing their importance. Accordingly, “creativity is viewed as a universal activity, which is efficacious in all events, and that God as the primordial limitation of this process co-ordinates all events from within” (1990, 185). This gives us the occasion to reflect on a second but quite different interpretation of God and creativity, which maintains God as the source of creativity.

9.1.2.2 God: the Source of Creativity Another attempt to modify Whitehead’s theory of creativity and God resulted in identifying God as the source of creativity. Franklin seems to be a strong advocate of this position. He first rejects two incorrect views regarding creativity: i) which he names as the nominalist13 view, which states that ‘creativity is merely || 12 Jan Van der Veken. “Creativity as Universal Activity.” Friedric Rapp & Reiner Wiehl (eds.). Whitehead’s Metaphysics of Creativity. New York: State University of New York Press (1990) 178188. 13 This name has been given to the interpretation of creativity by some philosophers like John R. Wilcox and William Christian. Wilcox makes this attribution in his “Monistic Interpretation

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the name for the general fact that the world consists of actual entities’ and thus creativity need no ‘location’; and ii) Whitehead’s own opinion regarding creativity, which he adopted at an early stage of his philosophy, that creativity is the “substantial activity at the base of things.” In contrast to these views, Franklin interprets creativity as that which accounts for “an actual entity’s particularity, its being-here, its capacity to choose freely a self-identity, etc” (Franklin 261). Furthermore, in light of Whitehead’s ontological principle Franklin argues that creativity needs to be located, and must have a source either in one or more actual entities. Two possible sources are a) the new actual entity itself and b) the past actual entity. The third source is what Whitehead calls God. The first two possible sources can be rejected (Franklin 262-63). Creativity cannot be derived from past actualities. Two possible reasons can be put forward in this regard. a) The past entities are actual but not active; according to this interpretation they are objects and not subjects and exhibit only objectivecase creativity. Therefore, they lack both “creativity characterisation”14 and “creativity esse”, and they cannot function as real agents of creativity; and b) this operates at the level of creativity-characterisation. In concrescence one can distinguish two roles of creativity: a) making an actuality a real agent by giving its particularity, i.e., creativity-esse and, b) this existence is nothing but the process by which concrescence eliminates certain possible characteristics and decides for others whereby it creates its own identity, i.e., the power of characterisation or creativity characterisation. The past actualities are not all compatible for new concrescence. A new concrescence, in order to be an actual entity, must prehend some features of the past positively and some negatively. This interweaving of inclusion and exclusion constitute the new entity’s actual world. The new entity cannot be the source of its “actual world” but it presup-

|| of Whitehead’s Creativity.” He writes, “creativity … is merely “the name for a general fact” … namely that the world consists of self-creative actual entities. Christian’s interpretation of creativity as a general name squares well with an extreme nominalist’s interpretation of Whitehead’s designation of creativity as the “universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact” (Wilcox 164). However, the only possibility for accepting a nominalist interpretation of creativity is that apart from actuality it is ‘a name for a general fact’ (Franklin 262). 14 Here one point has to be kept in mind that though the two roles are to be distinguished one cannot say that the two are separable. On the contrary, “the actual entity is a process of decision-making, of creating a self-identity.” The one is not separate from the other (Franklin 253). “Creativity is the activity whereby a concrescing entity “creates” its own identity.” What does this mean? Only something actual can express its own particular characteristics. In other words, to have identity something has to be actually different from other actualities. It is creativity that forms an independent actuality by its role in concrescence and transition. “An actual entity is the creation of a final, actualised self-identity” (Franklin 253).

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poses it. On the other hand, past entities themselves are not capable of producing this actual world. Therefore, it needs an “other” who is to organise the past entities to the actual world of new concrescence. Thus, Whitehead postulated the existence of a non-finite actual entity which he named God. It is God who is responsible for the actual world of the new entity. The argument is that “this organisation at the level of creativity characterisation presupposes the prior reality of creativity-esse. Without esse, the entire process is just a possible arrangement of possible characteristics, and not an activity in a real, concrete world” (Franklin 266). From this point of view, Franklin argues that God is the source of creativity. Franklin claims that his revised perspective of God as the source of the creativity of the universe is one with the tradition which sees God as “Being-Itself” (Tillich), as “Sein” (theologians influenced by Heidegger) and which sees God as the “primary cause” (Thomists). God is the source of each actual entity’s esse. Furthermore, according to him, the limitation of Whitehead’s concept of God is that it takes God’s operation at the level of creativity-characterisation, where God helps in forming the character of the world in very specific ways: its moral, aesthetic, natural and cultural qualities (271-72). On account of God’s role in the formation of a new entity’s “actual world,” God’s gift of the subjective aim, and God as the house of all possibilities, Franklin categorically asserts that as the source of creativity-esse God is the creator. However, he does admit that God is not the only creator in the sense that each actual entity plays a role in its own self-creation, in determining the character of the world (273). I can see that a faithful Whiteheadian cannot bear anymore. Here he will intervene and would respond ‘it is not the Whiteheadian but Franklin’s own vision of the world’. For instance, Van der Veken maintains that if one makes God the source of Creativity, as suggested by Norris Clarke, Robert Neville and William Desmond (perhaps we will add Franklin also to this list), but for various reasons, then the coherence of the system is lost. The immediate question that comes up is why should God create such a world? (Van der Veken 1999, 273) What is the truth about Franklin’s new claims? Franklin has squeezed out all the powers of creativity in his analysis, a Whiteheadian would respond. For in Whitehead’s system the past is no more a passive observer, but rather it contributes to the formation of the present. “The present moment is constituted by the influx of the other into that self-identity which is the continued life of the immediate past within the immediacy of the present” (AI 181). However, it is not a mere continuation of the past. Then the notion of novelty would be meaningless and life in nature would be absurd. But nature is creative and this produces novelty. Thus, for Whitehead the past is “the foundation of our present existence. … nevertheless [it] is engaged in modifying it, in adjusting it to other in-

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fluences, in completing it with other values, in deflecting it to other purposes” (AI 181). Moreover, it is not God who is responsible for the “actual world” of the new occasion, but creativity (AI 179). Creativity is endowed with the capacity for providing the objects or given data requisite for a new occasion or actuality. Therefore, at the initial situation of an actual entity we have only past data and creativity. And these data have to be received always, for Whitehead states it “must not be either a mode of reception or a thing generated in that occasion” (AI 178-79). Thus for Whitehead the ‘actual world’ is also the ‘real potentiality’ for the new occasion. For him, ‘potentiality’ refers to the passive capacity of the given data and the term ‘real’ points to the creative activity. Therefore, for the generation of a new actuality no outside agency is required – no other is required – in the Whiteheadian system. “The process creates itself …” (AI 179). However, Whitehead immediately adds that “but it [process] does not create the objects [data] which it receives as factors in its own nature” (AI 179). Therefore, it can be said that creativity alone does not account for the new actuality. But other formative elements do contribute to it. Thus, one also cannot say that Franklin is completely wrong in his observations, but he seems to have missed the point when he made God responsible for the objectivity of the actual world. Whitehead states that “viewed in abstraction objects are passive, but viewed in conjunction they carry the creativity which drives the world” (AI 179). What concurs with the view of Whitehead is to say that the creation of an actual occasion is a combined activity. And this goes very well with Whitehead’s own commendable statement that “the process of creation is the form of unity of the Universe” (AI 179).

9.1.2.3 The Immanent Interdependence of God and Creativity A third group of thinkers neither accepts the identification of creativity and God nor promotes the view that supports God as the source of creativity. They would rather read in Whitehead a combined activity of creativity and God for the completion of the metaphysical system. God is not creativity itself but the primordial instantiation and characterisation of it. “All creativity is conditioned by God. Thanks to the ordering of the eternal objects in God’s primordial nature, creativity is not purely chaotic. At the same time, it is directed by God’s orientation towards the ultimate aim of everything, namely beauty, which means richness of experience, harmony-in-contrast” (Cloots 1980, 61). The argument is that both creativity and God together complete the metaphysical elucidation. How-

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ever, the problem here is that one has to interpret the notion of ultimate as different from its classical understanding.15 Those who favour this position argue that the coherence of Whitehead’s system depends on the interrelated importance of creativity and God. For them, one has to read the following statement of Whitehead in this light: “But of course, there is no meaning to ‘creativity’ apart from its ‘creatures,’ and no meaning to ‘God,’ apart from the creativity and the ‘temporal creatures,’ and no meaning to temporal creatures apart from ‘creativity’ and ‘God’ (PR 225). Creativity and God require each other. God is co-eternal with creativity. Creativity requires God for being meaningful. “Apart from the intervention of God, there could be nothing new in the world, and no order in the world. The course of creation would be a dead level of ineffectiveness, … The novel hybrid feelings derived from God … are the foundation of progress” (PR 247). Creativity which is abstract in itself becomes actual first of all in the non-temporal actual entity, God. For God is the first instance of creativity, i.e., the first instance of a multiplicity (of eternal objects) concrescing into a unity (the many becoming one). And it is by virtue of creativity that God is creative. Moreover, novel actualities originate as the outcome of the ingression of eternal objects into the actual entities by the help of God. However, God does not make the eternal objects ingress, but it is done by the creativity of the actual occasion. “While creativity is an ultimate, it is not an independent reality standing over against God” (Ford 1973, 104-05). Therefore, there are no two ultimates, rather, the ultimate has two aspects. Some argue for the indispensability of God in the creative advance from this context. Moreover, creativity cannot answer the question of the givenness. However, it is a debated issue. What is explained is the nature of things. The point is that creativity accounts for the creative advance of the universe (AI 179) but not for its own givenness. Cobb finds that “the notion of creativity in itself provides no grounds ... [and] as an answer to the question of why there is and continues to be anything at all, creativity cannot play in Whitehead’s philosophy quite the role prime matter plays in Aristotle” (Cobb 1971, 240).16 From the above analysis what one could reasonably state is that creativity alone cannot answer the question ‘why an actual entity occurs’ because creativity can account for it only partially. But it is true to say that creativity accounts for the ‘ongoingness’ of the world and is necessary for the becoming or coming || 15 We will discuss this issue again at a later stage. For the time being it suffices to understand that modernity has a different perspective on the notion of the ultimate. 16 John B. Cobb, Jr. “A Whiteheadian Doctrine of God.” Process Philosophy and Christian Thought. Delwin Brown, Ralph E. James, JR. & Gene Reeves (eds.). Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc. (1971) 215-243.

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to be of any actual occasion. In this respect one should consider the following point very suggestive that creativity in the actual formation of entities cannot be said to be the (emphasis added) reason for actual occasions (Reeves 380).17 This observation of Reeves is relevant in the light of the claim made by some Whiteheadians (Sherburne and Garland, to name but a few) that creativity is decisive for the “everlasting ongoingness” of the succeeding actual occasions. Taken in itself the best one can say about creativity is that it is the notion that can best explain the creative advance in nature but not the question ‘why there is something at all’. It can be best understood as an explanatory/descriptive principle of the creative universe, but not the ultimate metaphysical principle of the universe. Thus, for the constitution of an actual entity God, eternal objects and objective immortality of the past occasion, in virtue of creativity, are responsible. Whitehead is right in saying that the creativity is ultimate but it is abstract. So he needed a principle of concretion and limitation. And God becomes the principle of concretion and ultimate limitation. But the problem lies in the separation of creativity and God. They are not identical but in need of each other. Neither is absolutely powerful to explain the creative process of nature without the other. So neither creativity nor God of Whitehead is worthy to be named the Ultimate. Desmond comments that this creativity ‘creates’ God out of a lack. So the Absolute of Whitehead is an ‘erotic absolute’ not an ‘agapeic absolute’, who creates the other for the sake of the other (Desmond 1995, 554).18 Therefore, Cloots suggests that in Whitehead’s system God and creativity can be distinguished but the two cannot be separated. “God is creatively present in the creative advance, which is accounted for by creativity” (Cloots 1978, 99). Moreover, Cloots states that “it is the creativity of the actual occasion as conditioned or qualified by God that strives for a satisfaction as intense as possible. God and the creativity of the actual occasions both play their respective roles, but they play them together. ... creativity and God are two irreducible fundamental elements in the explanation of reality, and they can only be thought of together” (Cloots 1978, 99). It is here that I see the relevance of Integral Advaita of Aurobindo in light of the metaphysics of becoming of Whitehead. Aurobindo recognises the creative process in nature. However, as different from Whitehead Aurobindo recognises Sachchidananda as the source of this creative process and the pure potentiality

|| 17 Gene Reeves. “God and Creativity.” Southern Journal of Philosophy (1969) 377-385. 18 William Desmond. “Creativity and the Dunamis.” Lewis Edwin Hahn (ed.). The Philosophy of Paul Weiss. Chicago: Open Court (1995) 542-557.

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in the universe. It is here we see the importance of the suggestions of Clarke, Neville, and Franklin who try to see God as the source of creativity.

9.2 The Ultimacy of Sachchidananda and the Supermind In chapters seven and eight we dealt with Sachchidananda and the Supermind separately, to expose the unique features of the two. Our major concern in this section is to explicate the exact relationship between Sachchidananda and the Supermind which would eventually clarify the ultimacy of the Supermind. The Supermind is an onto-logical necessity in the sense that Aurobindo cannot but identify a principle that mediates between the Transcendent and the immanent. In order to manifest itself in the universe the Infinite has to limit itself. For, the “Infinite consciousness in its infinite action can produce only infinite results; to settle upon a fixed Truth or order of truths and build a world in conformity with that which is fixed, demands a selective faculty of knowledge commissioned to shape finite appearance out of the infinite Reality” (LD 115). And the Supermind is this intermediary principle by which the Absolute manifests the world. In that sense we can say that creativity and Sachchidananda, as the ultimate in respective systems, have the same metaphysical status, i.e., both are in need of an “other.” Creativity needs a trans-temporal reality for its actuality and Sachchidananda needs an intermediary to mediate with the temporal.

9.2.1 One in Essence and Dipolar in Existence There is an essential unity and existential difference between Sachchidananda and the Supermind. In fact, Aurobindo has gone to the extent of identifying the two (LD 128). This identification certainly raises a number of questions. In fact, it confuses Aurobindo’s readers as whether to regard the Supermind as the ultimate in Aurobindo as in the case of creativity in Whitehead. A literal understanding of the identity is certainly problematic. It was only out of a metaphysical necessity that Aurobindo sought for a principle and named it Supermind. Nevertheless, a complete identity of Supermind with Sachchidananda would render his whole attempt meaningless. In fact, Aurobindo does not endorse any such identification. On the contrary, “[t]he supramental [Supermind] and the supracosmic [Sachchidananda] are not the same (LY 241). If it were so there could be no supramental world and no descent of the supramental principle into the material world - we would be brought back to the idea that the divine Truth and Reality can only exist beyond and the universe - any universe - can

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only be half-truth or an illusion of ignorance” (LY 241). In the case of perfect identification, we stand still in need of a principle that could mediate between the higher realm and the lower realm. In other words, the Absolute in itself and the Absolute in its cosmic manifestation. Therefore, Aurobindo’s statement pointing to the identification of Sachchidananda and the Supermind can be only a means to emphasise their oneness in essence. What do we mean by the oneness in essence? The Supermind, as the expression of the Absolute, and as the cosmic power of ordering and unity, is nothing but the Sachchidananda Himself (SY 831). Sachchidananda creates nothing which is not in its own self-existence. Therefore, it is clear that “all cosmic and real Law is a thing not imposed from outside, but from within, all development is self-development, all seed and result are seed of a Truth of things and result of that seed determined out of its potentialities” (LD 267). A natural corollary of the above affirmation is that no law can be absolute but only the Infinite is absolute. The infinite potentiality it contains within itself is determined only by a self-limitation of the Idea that proceeds from the infinite liberty within the All-existent. Therefore, Aurobindo’s argument is that one has to regard “this all containing, all originating, all consummating Supermind as the nature of the Divine Being, not indeed in its absolute self-existence, but in its action as the Lord and Creator of its own worlds.” “This is the truth of that which we call God” (LD 132). On the one hand, we have the distinction of Sachchidananda and the Supermind in existence, and, on the other, we have the identification of the two in essence. If the Supermind were independent of Sachchidananda it would have been a principle alike to Whitehead’s principle of creativity. However, it is not. The nature and the role of the Supermind in Aurobindo’s system, in fact, demand its existential difference, to account for the manifested multiplicity and as the principle of mediation. The Absolute and the Supermind are not two realities, but as the supreme transcendental principle of all existence, the Absolute involves the Supermind. We have a perfect co-existence of the Sachchidananda and the Supermind; it is not “a separate self-existent principle in addition to Sachchidananda” (Srivastava 1968, 44). Therefore, the East is very reluctant and at the same time very cautious about thinking in terms of different ultimates. Thus, it stands in contrast with the relation maintained between God and Creativity in Whitehead. Phillips maintains that the Supermind “is itself contingent upon essential Brahman’s choice” and thus something not part of the essential Divine. For him, the status and the working of the Supermind depends upon the “free choice” of

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Sachchidananda to actualize a general capacity for finite manifestation (Phillips 411-412).19 Moreover, Philips states: “On my reading, essential Brahman includes only the general capacity to choose to allow Supermind to emerge, that is to say, to initiate finite manifestation in general. Aurobindo calls this intrinsic capacity of Brahman its power of ‘exclusive concentration of Consciousness-Force’ (Phillips 411). However, Philips observation raises an objection. The point is that the Supermind is not the result of the “free choice” of the Absolute. If it is a free choice, it is contingent, and Sachchidananda could have been otherwise without the Supermind. Then it is not an essential part of Sachchidananda. If not free choice it would mean that it is necessary by the nature of Sachchidananda, that is, the essential part of Sachchidananda. It follows from the nature of Sachchidananda for the manifestation of the universe. Otherwise, it would mean that the Sachchidananda was limited by something other to itself, which necessitated the existence of the Supermind. Such an interpretation would be all the more suicidal to the metaphysical system of Aurobindo. In fact, that would endanger the claim of Sachchidananda itself to be the Ultimate, and such an interpretation of the Supermind will not do justice to Aurobindo’s own integral vision. For, a separation of Sachchidananda and the Supermind would entail further that the Supermind is self-creative. Moreover, in that case, one has to account also for the emergence of the Supermind; the very source of the Supermind. It seems that in separating the Supermind from the Divine, Phillips is following the style of Whitehead who separates creativity and God. Such a view will not do justice to Aurobindo who places together Sachchidananda and the Supermind.

9.2.2 Supermind: The Icon of Sachchidananda The essential unity and the existential difference between Sachchidananda and the Supermind can be clarified by proposing the Supermind as the “Icon” of Sachchidananda.20 An icon symbolizes a transcendental Immanence. That is, it makes possible the spatio-temporal presence of something that is transcendent or “beyond.” The function of the Supermind in Aurobindo’s system corresponds || 19 Stephen H. Phillips. “Aurobindo’s Concept of Supermind.” International Philosophical Quarterly vol. XXV (1985) 403-418. 20 It is noteworthy here to recall Marion’s use of the notion Icon while dealing with the divine and the distinction he makes between idol and icon in this context, especially in chapter one.. Cf. Jean-Luc Marion. God Without Being. Trans. Thomas A. Carlson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

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to the function of an Icon, i.e., the Supermind is the immanent presence of the transcendental Absolute. An Icon gets significance by the way and to the extent it maintains a meaningful relation to the original reality. In the same way, relevance of the Supermind in the cosmic functioning wholly depends on the essential unity and existential difference it maintains with Sachchidananda. It is in this sense I present the Supermind as the Icon of Sachchidananda. The Sachchidananda by virtue of its transcendental existence is the precosmic and primal Absolute and the Supermind is the cosmic Absolute. In no way the Supermind can be viewed as an independent and separate self-existent other than Sachchidananda. In this respect, creativity and Supermind are similar in nature, but there are differences as well. The creativity is the general characteristic of any actuality and the ultimate descriptive principle of the universe, while the Supermind is Sachchidananda itself, in its creative dimension, extended in time and space. In this sense, the Supermind is considered the God aspect of Sachchidananda (LD 132). Moreover, as the all-comprehensive cosmic wisdom of Sachchidananda the Supermind is the truth consciousness. Our discussion in chapter eight already brought out a number of other aspects that highlight the relationship between Sachchidananda and the Supermind.21 Therefore, here we focus on the following two aspects, namely the Supermind as God aspect and the Truth-Consciousness of Sachchidananda to explicate further what I mean by the essential unity and existential difference between the two.

9.2.2.1 Supermind: The God Aspect of Sachchidananda The Supermind, the expression of the Absolute, is “the essential and integral self-awareness of the Divine in us, his being, consciousness, tapas and ananda” (SY 831). This explicates two facts: (i) the Supermind is of the divine nature; (ii) but they are not identical. It has the divine nature in its activity as the creator of the world, but is not identical with the Absolute in its pure transcendental existence. Thus, it can be positively affirmed that the Supermind represents the personal aspects of the supreme, known as God (Susai 64; Gupta N. L. 566).22 Pursuing quite a similar line of thought, Radhakrishnan states that “the Absolute is the pre-cosmic nature of God, and God is the Absolute from the cosmic

|| 21 For instance we have presented the Supermind as the intermediary link, creative principle, principle of reconciliation, the ordering and harmonising principle, principle of becoming, etc. 22 N. L. Gupta. “Sri Aurobindo and Spiritual Evolution.” Encyclopaedic Survey of Oriental Thought. vol. 3. New Delhi: Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd. (1998) 562-584.

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point of view” (1947, 345).23 The Supermind is God, the projected and cosmic aspect of the Absolute. It is God, on whom the cosmic evolution and divine manifestation (involution) depends (Srivastava 1984, 116). The Supermind’s designation as the manifestation of the Saguna Brahman or the qualified Divine also brings out the God aspect of the Absolute. Sometimes the Supermind is identified with Saguna Brahman itself (Cairns 1972, 205).24 Thus, it is possible to say that the Supermind as the personal dimension of the Absolute corresponds to the consequent nature of God in Whitehead, though not in every sense. The Sachchidananda is the supreme. Therefore, we can safely say that the Supermind is the God aspect of Sachchidananda and it is also in this sense that I suggest it as the Icon of the Absolute. The Supermind as God aspect explicates further that the Sachchidananda is not only a self-absorbed, self-concentrated and integral unity within itself, but also extends itself in the cosmos as its Creator and Controller (Srivastava 1968, 44). As the “Icon” the Supermind signifies the transcendental “Otherness” of Sachchidananda. It shall not be reduced to mere immanent dimension. On the contrary, “it is Sachchidananda itself … but Sachchidananda not resting in its pure infinite invariable consciousness, but proceeding out of this primal poise, or rather upon it as a base and in it as a continent, into a movement which is its form of Energy and instrument of cosmic creation” (LD 144).25 In this sense it can be said that the Supermind is nothing but Sachchidananda in its dynamic aspect. Walker defines Aurobindo’s metaphysical system (Integral Yoga) itself in terms of the Supermind that it is the means by which the “Higher Consciousness may be experienced and brought down to irradiate the mind and body of the individual” (100).26

|| 23 S. Radhakrishnan. An Idealist View of Life. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1947. 24 Grace Cairns. “Sri Aurobindo’s Conception of the Nature and Meaning of History.” International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XII (1972) 205-219. 25 Cf. Also Sri Aurobindo Mandir (15th August, 1944) 309, cited in Priti Sinha. 26 Benjamin Walker. “Aurobindo.” Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism. vol. I. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. (1968) 98-100. The Vedic seers identified this Higher Consciousness as the golden key to the mystery of creation and it is Aurobindo who re-discovered it in his notion of the Supermind (Gupta N. L. 566). The world understood as the selfmanifestation of the Absolute, by virtue of the Supermind, becomes an expression of the “foreseen truth” which obeys “a predetermining will, realizes an original formative self-vision” which is the “growing image of a divine creation” (Chatterjee 1960, 41). Satischandra Chatterjee. “Mind and Supermind in Sri Aurobindo’s Integralism.” Haridas Chaudhuri & Frederic Spiegelberg (eds.). The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: A Commemorative Symposium. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. (1960) 35-46. This explains very well the presence of the Supermind in the world as the Icon of Sachchidananda. By virtue of its oneness with the Abso-

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As the creative medium of Sachchidananda it is the Supermind that is accountable for all sorts of diversity and by virtue of it we are certain that they are not illusion, or “an unaccountable freak of chance” (Rishabhchand 1960, 217).27 Here we have the relevance of the Supermind that is one with the Infinite Existence itself.

9.2.2.2 Supermind: The Truth-Consciousness of Sachchidananda The Supermind is the God aspect of Sachchidananda from a religious point of view and from the metaphysical standpoint the Supermind is the ontological Truth-consciousness of the Being. Truth-Consciousness is that by “which the Divine knows not only his own essence and being but his manifestation also” (LY 241). Therefore, the Supermind is interpreted as “God’s omniscience and omnipotence.” Moreover, it is the consciousness of God by which God assumes three aspects: the transcendental, universal and the individual (Basu 1987, 378).28 As the supreme Truth-Consciousness of the Absolute, indeed, the Supermind explicates the omniscience of God. In the same way, as the creative power, it exemplifies the omnipotence of the Absolute. The Supermind “at its source … is the dynamic consciousness of the divine Knower and Creator” (Heehs 228). The Supermind is Truth-Consciousness of Sachchidananda in virtue of its being as the God aspect of it. Aurobindo maintains that “[t]he Gods, who in their highest secret entity are powers of this Supermind, born of it, seated in it as in their proper home, are in their knowledge truth consciousness and in their action possessed of the “seer will” (LD 124). It is the comprehensive nature and its status as the manifestation of the Supreme Consciousness that makes it Truth-

|| lute (LD 128), and being its creative principle, “the world is in Supermind and Supermind is world” (LD 131). 27 Rishabhchand. “The Philosophical Basis of Integral Yoga.” Haridas Chaudhuri & Frederic Spiegelberg (eds.). The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: A Commemorative Symposium. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. (1960) 213-222. On the contrary, phenomenal world is a creative movement of the supramental force, which discloses the infinite potentialities of the Spirit. The existence of the Supermind is the key to all the subordinate activities. Here an important question to be considered is whether the Supermind is cosmic or supracosmic. Aurobindo repudiates such a question in the sense that the Supermind as the creative aspect of the Truth-Consciousness, having completed the works descends to the cosmos to divinise it. Therefore, one cannot just say that it is supracosmic in character. It is both cosmic and supracosmic, for it works within the universe while in itself transcending it (Srivastava 1968, 38). This double nature of the Supermind is what signifies its role as the “Icon” of Sachchidananda. 28 Arabinda Basu. “Divine Life: Sri Aurobindo’s Experience.” Journal of Dharma 4 (1987) 370397.

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Consciousness, which in turn makes the Supermind the “Icon” of Sachchidananda. The following quote is self-explanatory as to what I mean in presenting the Supermind as the Icon of the Absolute. This Supermind in its conscious vision not only contains all the forms of itself which its conscious force creates, but it pervades them as an indwelling Presence and a selfrevealing Light. It is present, even though concealed, in every form and force of the universe; it is that which determines sovereignly and spontaneously form, force and functioning; it limits the variations it compels; it gathers, disperses, modifies the energy which it uses; … It is seated within everything as the Lord in the heart of all existences, he who turns them as on an engine by the power of his Maya; it is within them and embraces them as the divine Seer who variously disposed and ordained objects, each rightly according to the thing that it is, from years sempiternal (LD 135-36).

Thus, if one considers Sachchidananda in its transcendental and immanent dimensions, the Supermind, as the Conscious Force, Knowledge-Will, Truth Consciousness, Rta-Cit or Seer-Will, is the immanent Divine Consciousness. The Supermind as the Truth-Consciousness of Sachchidananda signifies well the reality of the world. The reasoning is that “[t]he world is real precisely because it exists only in consciousness; for it is a conscious Energy one with Being that creates it … World lives by That; That does not live by the world” (LD 22). Here we see a clear contrast between Whitehead and Aurobindo, for Whitehead God and the world are in mutual necessity for their existence. Nevertheless, Aurobindo has to admit that for its manifestation Sachchidananda needs the Supermind.29 To add a final point these two dimensions of the Supermind,

|| 29 What makes the manifestation of the Supermind a two-fold process is “a descent from above, (and) an ascent from below, a self revelation of the Spirit (and) an evolution in nature” (SM 80, Veliyathil 42). In this sense the function of the Supermind is that of Maya in vedic literature. For the Vedic Seers Maya was the divine power. In the Aurobindonian understanding Maya meant for them “the power of infinite consciousness to comprehend, contain in itself and measure out, that is to say, to form - for form is delimitation - Name and Shape out of the vast illimitable Truth of infinite existence” (LD 115). For, as already pointed out, the Absolute needed a selective faculty “to settle upon a fixed truth or order of truths and build a world in conformity with that which is selected out of infinite possibilities” and to disclose the finite appearance out of the infinite Reality (Chatterjee 1960, 39-40). This faculty or power was called Maya by the Vedic seers and it is the role assigned to the Supermind in the integral vision of Aurobindo. In this sense the Supermind can be compared with the Maya, as understood by the Vedic Seers. Furthermore, from an etymological analysis of the word ‘maya’, Basu makes quite a similar argument. The reasoning is that the word ‘maya’, as we have already seen, derives from the root ‘maa’ which means ‘to measure’. In this respect the Supermind is maya, that “it measures the immeasurable, limits the illimitable and materializes the spirit” (Basu 1987, 378).

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namely Supermind as God aspect and Ontological Truth Consciousness, as the Icon of Sachchidananda cannot be reduced as two principles acting independently, on the contrary, they work as an integral unity.

9.3 The Raison d’être for the Distinction of God and Creativity In the previous two sections we have briefly elucidated (i) the relationship of creativity and God mainly based on the Whiteheadian texts. The analysis has pointed out that the existing relationship is very intricate amidst Whitehead’s clear avowal that creativity and God are different and in his system creativity is the ultimate. The argument is that analysis of Whitehead’s own texts make it clear that the question of ultimacy is very ambivalent. It is this complex and ambivalent nature of the relationship that has given rise to various interpretations regarding this relationship. Therefore, besides analysing Whiteheadian texts we also tried to articulate different attempts of the Whitehead scholars to remedy the ambiguities existing with regard to the relationship between creativity and God. And our examination of the various interpretations finally led to a viable position that a combined activity of creativity and God would be the best in the Whiteheadian system. And (ii) we discussed the relationship between Sachchidananda and the Supermind and learned that they are in essential unity but maintains an existential difference. It is all the more true in the constitution of an actuality. As the universe is the manifestation of Sachchidananda it is the source of everything, the nature of all beings; and the Supermind as its creative medium is what actualizes this manifesting process and supplies each being its individuality. This calls for a discussion on the interdependent functioning of the two. This also recalls of the combined activity of God and Creativity in Whitehead to account for the constitution of an actual occasion in Whitehead; in fact the very completion of the metaphysical system demanded it, irrespective of Whitehead’s claim that the two are separate. Nevertheless, before we say anything further we have to see Whitehead’s reasons for the separation of God and creativity.

|| Thus the Supermind’s role corresponds to the role assigned to God in Whitehead, where God is the ultimate limitation of creativity.

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9.3.1 On the Demand of the Question of Evil Whitehead’s texts make clear that more than anything else it was to deal with the problem of evil in a reasonable way that Whitehead distinguished creativity and God. The problem of evil as dealt with by Whitehead is a major topic in its own right.30 Here we develop it only to the extent that it helps to make clear the reasons for the distinction made between creativity and God. It was already made clear that Whitehead was not in favour of ascribing metaphysical compliments to God (SMW 179). The classical theistic point of view identifies creativity and God, and God is the Supreme Being who alone is worthy of all metaphysical qualifications. And thus we have God, who deserves all metaphysical compliments and who is conceived as the foundation of metaphysical situation, with its ultimate activity. Such a perception of God will have the ineluctable consequence that “there can be no alternative except to discern in Him the origin of all evil as well as good.” God being conceived as the supreme author of the play there is no way other than to “ascribe its shortcomings as well as success” to Him. Therefore, Whitehead rather conceives God as the supreme ground of limitation: then it is pertaining to God’s very nature that He should “divide Good from Evil” (SMW 179). It is for the same reason that Whitehead denied the notion of God as creator and distinguished creativity and God in his metaphysics. From a Whiteheadian point God is certainly not the source of evil, rather of Good alone. One may trace the ground of this strong conviction to his Christian background as well. For him, God by definition is good. And in no way the goodness of God is compatible with evil. On the contrary, “the possibility of genuine evil is rooted in the metaphysical (i.e., necessary) characteristics of the world” itself (Griffin 1976, 276).31 In Whitehead’s own words: “The categories governing the determination of things are the reasons why there should be evil” (PR 223). The metaphysical category here referred to is creativity, and concrescence and transition embody its two forms. This is the reason why Whitehead maintains that any actuality is endowed with twofold power: power of self-

|| 30 Whitehead’s treatment of the problem of evil has invited various responses from scholars. For instance, Ford’s comment that the “process theism of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne was clearly designed to circumvent” the persistent difficulty of the problem of evil confronted by classical theism (Ford 1967; 1973, 287). On the other hand, Madden and Hare observed that “process theism lies shipwrecked in the very same shoals it sought to avoid” (cited Ford 1973, 287). 31 David Ray Griffin. God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976.

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creation and of other creation. In the classical sense of causation these two refer to final causation and efficient causation respectively (AI 248). Thus, for Whitehead the “freedom inherent in the universe is constituted by this element of self-causation” (PR 88). In virtue of its self-causation actual occasions have the power of self-determination. Whitehead points out that “All actual entities share with God this character of self-causation. For this reason every actual entity also shares with God the characteristics of transcending all other actual entities, including God” (PR 222). Therefore, evil arises from actual occasion’s capacity to transcend the divine purpose. “So far as the conformity is incomplete, there is evil in the world” (RM 60). Thus, Whitehead establishes the reality of the evil in the world, and at the same time saves God from being responsible for it. Whitehead maintains that “God has in his nature the knowledge of evil, of pain, and of degradation, but it is there as overcome with what is good. Every fact is what it is, a fact of pleasure, of joy, of pain, or of suffering” (RM 149). How does God overcome evil by good? The point is that in responding to the facts of evil in the world God provides ideal aims for the next state of the world designed to overcome the evil. This ideal aim is also named “ideal consequent.” Whitehead argues that “Each actual occasion gives to the creativity which flows from a definite character in two ways. In one way, as a fact … it contributes a ground. … In another way, as transmuted in the nature of God, the ideal consequent as it stands in his vision is also added” (RM 151). ‘Overcoming’ here means transforming. That is why Whitehead states further that Its very evil becomes a stepping stone in the all embracing ideal of God. Every event on its finer side introduces God into the world. Through it his ideal vision is given a base in actual fact to which He provides the ideal consequent, as a factor saving the world from the self-destruction of evil (RM 149). The Kingdom of heaven is not the isolation of good from evil. It is the overcoming of evil by good (RM 148).

Thus, in the Whiteheadian perspective to conceive evil in the light of divine economy is not a valid answer. On the contrary Whitehead finds the reason of its own destruction in nature itself: “The categories governing the determination of things are … also the reasons why, in the advance of the world, particular evil facts are finally transcended” (PR 223). Another interesting point we note here is the annihilation of evil in the evolutionary process of the world. Whitehead argues that if everything occurs in accordance with the Will of God, He should be responsible for both good and evil in the world, which does not go in line with the Goodness of God. Whitehead’s emphasis on the goodness of God shall not be mixed up with the classical understanding. For, in the classical perspective, Being was equated with Good and God was the Ultimate Being

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and thus the Ultimate Good. For Whitehead, it is no more acceptable today. We are no longer able to equate Being and Good. Evil is not just the absence of good; rather it has become the presence of something. Evil is a reality. In other words, being can be evil as well as good. Today one has to account both for the upward and downward movements of order; both for good and bad being. For Whitehead, evil is the actualization of a possibility at a wrong time. Two things, which are not bad in themselves, when they come together sometimes in reality turn out to be evil. If something is evil it is not the way of God, even God’s mysterious ways cannot account for or justify evil. “God is oriented towards Good, towards the victory of the Good over the evil” (Cloots 1978, 95). “Evil is the halfway house between perfection and triviality. It is the violence of strength against strength” (AI 276). Then, if one equates being with good and God is taken to be the ultimate being, one has to say also that God is the source of evil. Whitehead’s distinction of creativity and God was meant to find a viable solution for the problem of evil. Moreover, his emphasis, while rejecting metaphysical compliments to God, on the goodness of God and the presentation of God as the source of value and meaning were also aimed at developing this point. Accordingly, Whitehead writes in RM that evil originates from the capacity of the world not to conform to the divine purpose. Here Whitehead’s reasoning pursues the classical conception that “so far as the conformity is incomplete, there is evil in the world” (RM 60).32 In this respect, the responsibility for evil is taken away from God and is attributed to the enjoyment of freedom by the creatures. God has given us freedom and evil is the product of freedom (Hartshorne). Then the question is can we not apply Hume’s reasoning here too that if God has given freedom why hasn’t he given a better freedom that will spontaneously lead to good? If God is not the source of evil, rather of Good, Whitehead’s distinction of creativity and God on the grounds of evil seems ambivalent. For Whitehead, God is the only urge towards the good. Moreover, ‘Almighty’ does not mean that we can do something and God can do everything. The ‘almightiness’ should not be looked upon quantitatively but qualitatively. In other words, that means, we have to look for the richest form of power and that is not the power of “ants”, but of language or persuasion. But a still richer form of power is power of ‘love’. Put differently, ‘almightiness’ has to be seen in

|| 32 It is also a point both Whitehead and Aurobindo discuss while they deal with the problem of evil.

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terms of love or loving (De Pater 1999).33 That is why Whitehead conceives God’s power as power of persuasion. Moreover, “God has in his nature the knowledge of evil, of pain, and of degradation, but it is there as overcome with what is good. Every fact is what it is, a fact of pleasure, of joy, of pain, or of suffering” (RM 149). In the Whiteheadian perspective, God does not prevent or dominate evil, but lets it be so. For, if God is able to overcome or prevent evil and is not doing it, he will not be a good God. Nevertheless “it is within his power to overcome evil because he accompanies every occasion in its creativity. Evil is not annihilated but healed.” The role assigned to God by the Whiteheadians is to “lure the world to become more and more beautiful and a more valuable whole.” Moreover, here the ‘overcoming’ does not mean ‘preventing’ evil, for that would render the concept of freedom (creativity) meaningless (Hartshorne). God’s counter activity over the evil consists in the initial aim, a lure towards good, that he gives to actual occasions, the best for that impasse. Therefore, it is stated that in God objective immortality becomes “everlastingness” (Cloots 1978, 96), which is the consequent nature of God. In our pursuit of the problem of evil, another statement of Cloots is more suggestive: “It is not within his [God’s] power to prevent evil from happening, because he does not dominate the whole of creativity” (1978, 96). This sentence is of great import. It would mean basically three things: The first part of the sentence would mean that God is unable to control evil, for it is beyond his power And from the second part it can be deduced: i) God respects the freedom of the creature ii) One gets the impression that creativity is the source of evil The above sentence would imply that if God were to dominate creativity there would have been no evil. In other words, one has to say that evil is simply there or it is causa sui – it is the coming together of two good things at the wrong moment. Mooney maintains quite a similar view. He recognises creative advance itself as the source of evil. The argument is that, in spite of the ideal ordering and divine luring, evil is an essential element of the creative advance, in the sense that this advance in nature is subject to decay and loss, because of the clash among the entities, for “they sometimes appear in the wrong place or

|| 33 Wim A. De Pater. “Religious Language: The Ramsey Model.” André Cloots & Santiago Sia (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 99-128. Here the author speaks of the importance of the religious language, especially of the Ramsey Model.

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time” (221). Here one has to say that it is the self-creative nature of the actual occasions that is “responsible” for evil. Creativity as such is a neutral principle and, therefore, as such is not “responsible” for evil. What can be said is that creativity can be a source of good as well as evil. Here God is free of the allegation but God becomes a “powerless” reality, at least from the classical point of view of God and power. It is certainly not the God of classical theology. The problem of course, in that case, the notion of God’s power has to be reconsidered. God’s power can certainly no longer be what it was in classical theology, rather has to be understood as we have previously said, as power of persuasion.34 Whitehead maintains that the “power of God is the worship he inspires” (SMW 192). And in RM he puts the same as “the power by which God sustains the world is the power of himself as the ideal” (RM 149). In this regard Forest notes that man’s effort to create civilization and his own pursuit of beauty, truth and harmony, are presented as a sign and symbol of God’s presence in man as the Eros and Beauty that effectively direct his pursuits even in the face of tragedy (1967).35 Whitehead’s presentation of God as the persuading power can be traced back to Plato. For Plato, God is not the cause of evil, but only of good. The God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him (Republic II. 379).36

The presentation of God as the power of persuasion opens up a way for solving the problem of evil as well. The point is that the chaotic world has its own

|| 34 I think, if we consider creativity as the source of becoming, we can reach the conclusion of Aurobindo from a Whiteheadian point of view. The point is that if we consider creativity as the principle of becoming, evil is a moment in the process of becoming which does not have a permanent status. Therefore Aurobindo maintains that evil is only a stage in the evolution of the world which does not have a permanent status in the universe. Thus, we have here a point of convergence between Whitehead and Aurobindo. But we will speak more about it later. 35 Aime Forest. “St. Anselm’s Argument in Reflexive Philosophy.” John Hick & Arthur C. McGill (eds.). The Many-faced Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God. New York: Macmillan (1967) 275-300. 36 This points also to the fact that God does not create ex nihilo. What He did is that he brought out an ordered cosmos out of chaos – from a sphere which was “moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion” (Timaeus 30; Griffin 1976, 39). Such a view does justice to the Genesis story as well. Therefore, God’s power in the world is not absolute. “God is not the sole power in reality. The creation of the world involves a victory of persuasion over necessity (Timaeus 4748) and as such is not a total determination of all the details of the world” (Griffin 1976, 39).

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“movement” and hence cannot be completely coerced. This gives a novel perspective to God’s modus operandi in general as persuasion of partially selfdetermining entities rather than as unilateral determination. Furthermore, Whitehead states that “The kingdom of heaven is not the isolation of good from evil. It is the overcoming of evil by good. This transmutation of evil into good enters into the actual world by reason of the inclusion of the nature of God, which includes the ideal vision of each actual evil so met with a novel consequent as to issue in the restoration of goodness” (RM 148f). From this we are motivated to argue further that God is the “poet of the world” leading it with tender patience by his vision of truth, goodness and beauty. Then the question is, how can God be the source of evil, even if we admit that God is the creator of the world, as understood in classical theism? If the very nature of God is Good and he leads everything only to Good, one can neither say that God is the source of evil nor that God creates evil, for only Good can come from him. But we have to face another question here: how can actual evil come out of his creation? God must at least have created or willed that possibility. All these have led us today to interpret variously the notion of God the creator.37 Nevertheless, a renewed understanding of the notion of the creator also is very helpful in this regard. For instance, Desmond states that creation “has to do with metaphysical astonishment and perplexity about the ultimate, expressed in a metaphysical metaphor of origin that shapes the religious ethos of our ontological situation” (1999, 23). The notion of God the creator “gives some articulation to the ontological dependency of finite beings as a whole, even as it also tries to name something of the originative being of God …” (Desmond 1999, 39).38 Desmond maintains that ‘“Creator” addresses the mystery of the arche that gives rise to finite process itself” (1999, 33).39 Again, it is observed that “the || 37 Here it is good to recall what we have seen in chapter four regarding God the creator and the metaphysics of becoming. 38 Desmond claims that his point of hyperbolic thought (the name Desmond gives to his understanding of the notion of creation) about creation is distinct from the ‘holism’ of panentheism. The distinctiveness consists in the fact that while panentheism focuses on the dynamism of becoming that moves towards a perfecting consummation, Desmond’s point of view concerns the very becoming itself. In other words, while panentheism deals with the teleology of becoming, hyperbolic thought concerns with an archeology of coming to be. 39 In this context Desmond relates his thought with the Hegelian view of the dialectical selfbecoming of the origin. Desmond denies any form of self-becoming on the ground that “an origin that has to become itself to be itself must first be itself in order to become itself; else it is nothing, and there is no self-becoming” (1999, 33). Therefore, the Hegelian view of selfbecoming says nothing about ‘creation’ which is other than itself. All self-becoming presup-

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act of creation is an always continuing origination and sustaining of finite being in being” (BB 255). What we see in present day interpretation of creation and creator is that often the literal adherence to the notion of creatio ex nihilo is given new dimensions. Here what is to be remembered is that if someone adopts the classical theistic view then evil in principle would be impossible for all beings come from God who is identified with the Good. And what we experience as evil is only absence of the good. Moreover, if God is being itself, how can there be independent beings, either for good or for bad? Or still, where does the power to sin come from? A return to the classical answers and solutions would help us to escape the problem of evil, but do not really confront and solve the problem of evil.

9.3.2 On the Demand of Freedom Another reason put forward by Whitehead scholars for separating creativity and God is that it was to preserve the freedom of the creatures (Franklin 237).40 For Whitehead and his followers the concept of a creator God, who creates ex nihilo curtails the freedom of creatures, for, freedom inherent in the universe is constituted by the self-creative actual entities (Franklin 238). Therefore, to preserve the freedom of creatures one needs to separate creativity and God. However, the question is whether the notion of God as creator really curtails the creature’s freedom? Hartshorne gives a new dimension to the freedom of creatures in this regard. God determines what creatures can do, but only they determine what to do. Even the least creatures must be so conceived, according to this philosophy. … God cannot simply “coerce” anything; he can only inspire it to act in a certain sort of way. But an act is no mere sort of act, just as a particular is never the universal of which it is an instance. Thus freedom is metaphysically universal. Enslavement, even to the divine, cannot be absolute –

|| poses “a more primal coming to be” which is the condition of possibility for any becoming at all, that which transcends the Hegelian ‘whole’. 40 Franklin gives a commendable analysis of the concept of freedom as given by Whitehead (Franklin 238). i) Freedom requires an autonomous subject, whose decisions are the result of one’s own judgements; ii) the decision taken is from a number of given possibilities. In other words, the decision is spontaneous and not subject to any causal analysis; iii) other actual entities place a limit on the range of options from which the subject can choose; iv) the decision taken is in view of some purpose or goal, but this teleology is not reducible to causation; and v) freedom requires a context of order and causality (Franklin 238).

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not only because the divine is generous, but because power means influence of one free act upon another free act (Hartshorne 1967, 261-62).41

In this understanding, dependency on God in no way hinders the freedom of beings. Moreover, our exploration in the previous section made rather clear that what God grants is the immense possibility, but the creatures are to decide which possibility is to be actualized. God supplies the initial aim for an actuality to realise itself by actualizing certain possibilities. Hartshorne’s statement that “he [God] can only inspire it to act in a certain sort of way” goes well with Whitehead’s idea that it is God who lures mankind to value and meaning. It is notable that in the above quote Hartshorne emphasises the generosity of the Divine. Just as Hartshorne, Desmond endorses the freedom of the creatures in the sense that each being has “its being as separate because of the generosity of the origin.” The point is “as agapeic the origin renounces any dominating power over the creature; the origin lets it be as other, because the free origin gives finite being, as itself the free gift of freedom” (BB 270). Here Desmond considers the freedom of the creature as a gift itself. Moreover, in the relationship between the creatures and the origin, there is both independence and dependence. It is independent in the sense that the creation is not for the sake of the Self, but creation is other. It involves a dependence in the sense that the created is not absolutely self-supporting (BB 270). To put it differently, creation is metaxological, which means that it includes “a double ‘unity’ of self-integrity and relativity to the other.” He explicates further that: […] absolute origin create finite beings from nothing, out of its own excess of infinite generosity, absolves the creation from itself, gives it its free being for itself, out of which free being a free relativity between the creation and the origin is offered as a possibility. … origin freely creates a free creation (BB 270).

This citation points to the generosity of the Creator, rather than he being one who curtails individual freedom. More than that it highlights that creation is a free creation. Pursuing a similar line of thought Maassen argues that “God’s self-creativity waxes almost beyond itself and thus creates the initial feeling of something new.” And once the actual entity has received this initial aim from God its self-constitution starts and thereafter God has no further influence on that actual entity’s self-causation. Therefore, it can be said that each actual entity is self-creative in a sense (Maassen 1994, 3).42 || 41 Charles Hartshorne. A Natural Theology for Our Time. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1967. 42 Having in mind the work of Tillich and Heidegger, Franklin develops another possible reason for the separation of Creativity and God. Accordingly he makes three divisions: i) a

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At the end of our exploration to see the relevance of separating God and creativity on account of finding a way out for the problem of evil it can be observed that one cannot say anything definitely in this regard. Nevertheless, one thing is certain that Whitehead has not succeeded in giving a viable solution to the problem of evil by separating creativity from God. Moreover, our brief discussion of Franklin’s suggestion also pointed to the fact that Whitehead’s separation of creativity and God on account of freedom is not very much rewarding in the light of the point under discussion. For the acceptance of God does not necessarily curtail the freedom of creatures. In fact, Whitehead’s own recognition of human freedom as a possible reason for the cause of evil –evil originates from the capacity of the world not to conform to the divine purpose - further suggests that Whitehead distinguished creativity and God not to safeguard creaturely freedom. Moreover, a further question is put before us, if God does not really curtail the freedom of creatures what is the relevance of making a distinction between creativity and God on the ground of preserving the freedom of actual entities? Therefore, we have to look further for other possible reasons to substantiate our point. What remains for us is to see what Aurobindo has to offer in this regard.

9.4 The Sine qua non for the Interdependence of Sachchidananda and Supermind Our first task in this section is to look out for further reasons for the essential unity and existential difference of Sachchidananda and the Supermind. Why

|| doctrine of God; ii) a doctrine of Being or Being-Itself; and iii) a doctrine of particular beings similar to Aristotelian particular substances or the Whiteheadian actual entities. Being-Itself cannot function as being-Itself if it is taken to be ‘a’ being. Thus, for Tillich Being-Itself was God. Franklin compares Being-Itself with the creativity of Whitehead. Creativity cannot function as creativity unless located in a particular actual entity. However, Whitehead is distinct from Tillich in separating Creativity and God. On the other hand, by placing creativity as the chief characteristic of every actual entity Whitehead confirms Tillich’s view that Being-Itself cannot be confined within any particular entity. Heidegger also refused to identify Being with particular beings as Tillich and Whitehead did. Furthermore, in contrast to Tillich, Heidegger does not identify Being with God, in particular with the traditional understanding of God. Franklin sees a parallel here with Whitehead’s reservation to identify Creativity and God. Furthermore, pursuing the thought pattern of Cobb on Absolute reality and Absolute actuality Franklin justifies Whitehead’s distinction of creativity and God. In this light, creativity corresponds to the ultimate reality and God to ultimate actuality from the Christian point of view (Franklin 240).

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Aurobindo found it necessary to place them together? This question takes us back to the heart of Aurobindo’s understanding of the very goal of Divine manifestation and human existence. It would account also for Aurobindo’s metaphysics of becoming.43 To meet this objective the Supermind has to be one with the Divine nature; nevertheless, maintaining a separate existence. To quote Aurobindo himself, “the Supermind itself in the descending degrees of the manifestation emerges from the Ananda and in the evolutionary ascent merges into the Ananda. It is not, indeed, merged in the sense of being extinguished or abolished but is there inherent in it, indistinguishable from the self of awareness and the self-effectuating force of the Bliss of Being” (LD 990). And a second major concern of us will be to explore how Aurobindo handles the problem of evil. It is very important in the sense that, as we have seen already, it was precisely to account for the problem of evil that Whitehead separated creativity from God. Then the question is how does Aurobindo account for evil?

9.4.1 On the Ground of Theism and Monism Aurobindo’s theory of the Supermind explicates two facts: first, the theistic dimension and second, the monistic dimension, i.e., Sachchidananda, the Absolute, is the source and creator of this phenomenal world. It is the Supermind that explains the nature of Aurobindo’s theism and monism and their compatibility. The Supermind as the creative faculty of Sachchidananda maintains the unity of Sachchidananda while it manifests finite actualities (Phillips 403). It is the fourth dimension of Sachchidananda in virtue of its being as the selective and determinative principle of it. For, Sachchidananda does not manifest all its potentialities, the selection and manifestation are done by the Supermind, it being the Divine Law, which prefers and determines some possibilities for manifestation (Gupta N. L. 566). The claim that it was on the theistic and monistic ground that Aurobindo placed Sachchidananda and Supermind together demands further justification. The point is if Aurobindo had to separate them it would not have served his theistic purpose. A separation would call for the existence of two independent principles, either it is of religious or otherwise, but that would certainly endan-

|| 43 Human existence is a journey aiming at divinization. And the condition of possibility for this ascending journey of human existence is the Divine involution. For the elevation of man descent of the Eternal into the limited human nature is a must and only then “can man exceed himself and know divinely and divinely act and create” (Heehs 228).

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ger Aurobindo’s integral monism. The “relation between the Absolute and God [Supermind], therefore, is one of oneness and identity.44 Both are one and the same Absolute conceived as indivisible, unitarian, and transcendental existence of Consciousness-Force and as the divisible, differentiated, cosmic TruthConsciousness and the Creator of the world.” The Supermind is such a “continuous and synthetic reality which has the absolute synthesis of the spaceless and timeless Sachchidananda and also the projected world of manyness in space and time” (Srivastava 1968, 47). One could cite a number of other passages and authors holding the essential oneness of Sachchidananda and the Supermind but having an individual existence, which would maintain Aurobindo’s integral monism. In one of his letters Aurobindo describes the Supermind as the self and world awareness of Sachchidananda (LY 240). In this sense Supermind can be considered as an expression of the divine intentionality in the world, as the world proceeds from the bliss of divine existence. The Supermind is the Divine knowledge of Himself and his own native power of acting. Moreover, the Supermind is the “Divine Being as the seed and the material of the world-tree, its trunk, branches, twigs, leaves and flowers” (Basu 1987, 378). The Supermind is no other than the Absolute Reality. “It is Sachchidananda itself, neither diminished nor modified, but dynamic and creative. It is not mind raised to its highest degree for it is beyond time, space and causality which are its creation” (Gupta N. L. 566). With regard to the inseparable nature of “power” and “Being” or Supermind and Sachchidananda Chaudhuri writes: […] energy, power, or creativity (Sakti) is not a mere category of the intellect. Nor is it a mere quality or attribute of Being. It is the essential structure of Being. Better still, it is non-different from Being. Being is Energy, Energy is Being. … This perfect equation: Being = Energy (Sat = Sakti), is the most fundamental ontological insight of integral nondualism. … Just as one cannot separate fire from the power of fire, so also we cannot separate Energy from Being (Chaudhuri 1972, 186).45

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that Sachchidananda and the Supermind are not one in existence in the sense that Sachchidananda in itself is Transcendent, Absolute and Abstract. The Supermind, rather as the God aspect of

|| 44 Here the term ‘identity’ cannot be taken literally. A complete identity between Sachchidananda and the Supermind will not maintain the consistency of the system. It can only taken only as a means to emphasis essential unity of the two, as Aurobindo himself spoke of the oneness of the two, which we saw previously. 45 Haridas Chaudhuri. “The Supermind in Aurobindo’s Philosophy.” International Philosophical Quarterly vol. XII (1972) 181-192. In its all-comprehensive nature as well the Supermind is one with Sachchidananda (LD 144-145).

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Sachchidananda, shares the essence of the latter. This enabled Aurobindo to keep his monistic vision. Therefore, it may not be inappropriate to re-state the following two basic facts: (i) the Supermind is of the divine essence; and (ii) but they are not identical. What is certain is that the relationship between Sachchidananda and the Supermind in Aurobindo stands in contra-distinction to the relationship between God and the creativity in Whitehead. The point is that while Whitehead clearly distinguishes, at least in theory, Aurobindo has placed the Supermind in the all-inclusive nature of Sachchidananda. Moreover, it is a must for the Supermind to accomplish its task as the principle of reconciliation between the Transcendent and the Immanent, Spirit and Matter, Being and Becoming, and so on. Our immediate task is to search out further reasons for this difference between Whitehead and Aurobindo.

9.4.2 The Problem of Evil One of the grounds for the separation of the creativity and God was to solve the problem of evil. In our discussion of this issue in Whitehead we have raised the argument that the separation of creativity and God alone will not solve the problem of evil.46 Coming to Aurobindo, the issue gets more complicated when we learn that in spite of his recognition of evil he does not separate Sachchidananda and the Supermind to save Sachchidananda from being responsible for evil. Furthermore, Aurobindo does recognise God as the creator of the universe, a metaphysical compliment that Whitehead denied to God, also on the ground of the problem of evil. The immediate question then is how does Aurobindo solve the problem of evil? Who is responsible for evil? Could we formulate a reasonable solution for the problem of evil? If the world is a manifestation of the Absolute why evil and suffering occur? This problem encountered by all monistic philosophies is all the more true of Aurobindo’s integral Advaitism, since for him the very manifestation is for Delight. One sees two contrasting responses with regard to how Aurobindo handles the problem.47 Precisely the question is

|| 46 The problem of evil is amazingly many sided. This itself is an ample evidence for the fact that the “subject is quite in vogue in today’s world” (Ruiz 587). Francisco Perez Ruiz. “God and the Problem of Evil: A Critical Review.” International Philosophical Quarterly vol. XII (1972) 587603. Today, what is for certain is that nobody denies the existence of evil in the world. For William James, presence of evil is a rock on which all forms of monism are wrecked (Srivastava 1968, 34). 47 It is very appropriate here to keep in mind that there are also differences of opinion regarding the way Aurobindo treats the problem of evil. For some, one of the chief merits of

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how does Aurobindo account for the problem of evil without separating being and power of being or Sachchidananda and the Supermind?

9.4.2.1 The Complexity of the Problem Aurobindo discusses the problem of evil in conjunction with his integral nondualistic thought. Moreover, he concurs with Whitehead in recognising the reality of evil, perhaps over against the predominant trend of his own Indian predecessors who tried to explain it away by saying that evil is not real at all. Thus, Aurobindo is reluctant to accept the two major views with regard to the problem of evil. The first is that evil is unreal and is the product of ignorance, which was favoured by many early Indian thinkers, and which later became stereotyped as the general trend of Indian philosophy.48 The second extreme view, which Aurobindo disdains is the Western approach which construes evil as a permanent feature of the world. In this perspective evil is as real as good and it explicates the co-existence of two opposing orders, one is of good and the other is of evil. However, primacy is given to good and God is identified with good. Maitra maintains, as many in the West, that the identification of good with God and the recognition of two opposing powers made the problem insoluble. The question that emerges is ‘how can a God who is good itself allow evil? In this perspective, whatever view we uphold it would question God’s om-

|| Aurobindo’s philosophy is the way he deals with the problem of evil. In this regard it is credited to Aurobindo that he maintains realism with regard to evil, though he denies it any permanent status in cosmic existence. Thus Aurobindo could see even the problem of evil in light of the metaphysics of becoming. For some others, on the contrary, Aurobindo failed to deal adequately with the problem of evil and in that “he errs with the whole Hindu race.” Review on “Srivastava’s An Introduction to Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy.” Times Literary Supplement (1943, cited in Srivastava 1956, 114). 48 In this view evil can never assume a cosmic status, for it is only the product of ignorance and with the emergence of right knowledge it vanishes. It was the view generally promoted by Upanishads. In contrast to this view Aurobindo maintains that “… as there are powers whose life is intimately bound up with the existence, the idea and the impulse of Good, so there are Forces whose life is bound up with the existence and the idea and the impulse of Evil. It is this truth of the cosmic Invisible that was symbolised in the ancient belief of a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil for the possession of the world and the government of the life of man; … invisible Personalities and Powers that draw man to the divine Light and Truth and Good or lure him into subjection to the undivine principle of Darkness and Falsehood and Evil” (LD 603).

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niscience or his omnipotence. Moreover, Aurobindo repudiates some of the popular views.49

9.4.2.2 God the Creator and the Enigma of Evil Our concern here is to examine the compatibility of the notion of God as creator with the question of evil. Aurobindo initiates a shift from an extra-cosmic moral God to the Sachchidananda of Vedanta.50 Sachchidananda is one existence that includes the world existence. And thus, “it is He that bears the evil and suffering in the creature in whom He has embodied Himself” (LD 95). Our God is not someone who stands aloof, rather ‘the world is flesh of his flesh and bone of His bones’. Here God becomes a “fellow-sufferer” (PR 351), a striking convergence between Whitehead and Aurobindo. Sachchidananda is the supreme knower, or the only knower in all beings. Furthermore, since the world is a manifestation of Sachchidananda itself, any experience in the world is ultimately his own experience. Therefore, in Aurobindo the problem of evil takes a new turn in relation to God. The question of evil gets another dimension – the question is not ‘why’ but rather ‘how’ – How does God allow Himself to be involved in a world full of suffering? In other words, the question is no more why God, who is all ‘Good and Loving’ created evil, but rather why God, who is Supreme Bliss permits evil into his own nature and life? Aurobindo treats the problem of evil in its three dimensions: (i) in its relation to the Absolute, the supreme Reality (ii) its origin and place in the cosmic workings

|| 49 (i) The view that there is an excess of pain and suffering in the world. Aurobindo’s contention is that such a perspective does not present the true picture, in fact, it is an “exaggeration, an error of perspective” (LD 93). However, this response does not solve the problem, rather by that we are trying to escape the problem. Nevertheless, the question remains, if everything is a manifestation of Sachchidananda, where does evil come from? (ii) The attempt to answer it in light of the ‘Law of Karma’ – the view that our present sufferings are the outcome of our antenatal sins. The Law of Karma does not solve the problem, for, where it is supremo and inexorable there is no room for a moral and all-governing personal God. And (iii) Aurobindo rejects the traditional answers such as God permits evil as “a trial and an ordeal” (LD 94). He maintains that if God allows evil as a trial and an ordeal, such a God instead of being ‘all Good and Love whom one worships’ becomes a “God of might to whose law we must submit or whose caprice we may hope to propitiate” (LD 94). 50 The ingenuity of Aurobindo is that he very well re-discovers the uniqueness of Indian concept of God which is transcendent as well as immanent (Srivastava 1956, 121). In the Indian perspective God’s relation to the world is internal. Everything is in God and God in them. “The whole world is strung upon Me, as gems upon a string” (Gita vii, 7).

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(iii) its action and point of hold in the individual being (i) For Aurobindo evil has no direct root in the supreme Reality itself nor is it a “fundamental or primary aspects of the Being” (LD 597). Here we have the convergence between Whitehead and Aurobindo in denying God as the source of evil. On the contrary, “these things [evil] are a by-product of the worldmovement: the sombre flowers of falsehood and suffering and evil have their root in the black soil of the Inconscient” (emphasis added). Evil is a by-product in the sense that it does not belong to the true nature of reality. It is not a permanent factor native to existence, for they are true only of human “consciousness, true only of our partial knowledge and partial ignorance.” Truth is relative to us because our knowledge is surrounded by ignorance (LD 598). Aurobindo’s distinctive view of the problem of evil is that for him evil is not a permanent feature of universal existence. Nevertheless, being a realist, Aurobindo does not accept evil as mere illusion. He finds its root in the division of the Consciousness which itself is by virtue of its capacity for self-limitation. In this respect, ignorance is a development from knowledge by limitation viewed in light of the descent of consciousness. Therefore, ignorance is the source of error, evil and suffering (Basu 1987, 392).51 In this sense following statement of Aurobindo makes sense: “An involution of spirit in the Inconscience is the beginning; an evolution in the Ignorance with its play of the possibilities of a partial developing knowledge is the middle, and the cause of the anomalies of our present nature, - our imperfection is the sign of a transitional state, a growth not yet completed …” (LD 681). “Evil is the fruit of a spiritual ignorance and it will disappear only by the growth of a spiritual consciousness and the light of spiritual knowledge” (LD 631). The perception of human life as a process of continuous evolution in view of divinization also calls to mind that this spiritual ignorance itself is not a permanent state of life and therefore in this sense also evil does not have a permanent place in human life. In no way Aurobindo advocates that evil has a reality in the ultimate truth of Existence. (ii) Coming to the second point that concerns the cosmic working of evil it has to be underscored that evil has only cosmic existence and pertain only to cosmic manifestations. “Only in cosmic manifestation that they become possible; they cannot pre-exist in the timeless being, for they are incompatible with the unity and bliss that are its substance. In cosmos also they cannot come into being except by a limitation of truth and good into partial and relative forms and by a breaking up of the unity of existence and consciousness into separa-

|| 51 Ignorance here pertains to the ignorance regarding the true nature of the Absolute Reality.

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tive consciousness and separative being” (LD 601). However, in the light of suffering and natural calamities, one is all the more prone to question the authenticity of the conscious principle that guides the universe.52 (iii) The second point is intimately connected to the third, for this cosmic existence is what accounts for the function of evil in individual being. It is the individual who feels the reality of evil in its most acute way. In the Aurobindonian perspective there cannot be evil where we have complete truth. In the same way, plurality itself is not evil and when we have complete mutuality of the consciousness evil has no voice. It is when our self-assertiveness causes division and separation that evil enters. Aurobindo calls this kind of aggressive self-assertiveness egoism. Therefore, the material plane cannot be a place for the origin of evil, for there we don’t have any consciousness. It is in the vital plane this separate assertiveness originates. The pain or the acuteness of suffering may result both from a sense of lack as well as from a noble discontent. We feel pain and suffering because we are conscious of another better state. Moreover, one can speak of evil only from the awareness of the sense of the good. And this “Divine discontent” is an ineluctable result of the spiritual nature of evolution. It reminds human beings that they have a higher destiny. It is this aspiration for the higher state that enables one to think that evil will be a thing of the past, amidst the acute suffering. Nevertheless, the reality of evil, irrespective of its source raises the question concerning divine bliss, it (divine lila) being the only reason for the manifestation of the universe.

9.4.2.3 Evil and Divine Bliss Another important question comes up is if everything comes out of bliss and its nature is to realize bliss how do we speak about evil; what is their status? In other words, if everything is the manifestation of the Divine how does one account for the undivine elements in the divine existence? To answer this question one has to see this problem in its particularity. One of the ways through which evil presents itself is suffering and pain. Aurobindo claims that pain and suffering can be neutralized and in fact they can be turned into joy provided that there is a radical change of consciousness. He gives the example of a wounded || 52 Aurobindo is not unaware of these facts. On the contrary, he responds to it: “obviously this is an objection based on the limitations of our human intellect which seeks to impose its own particular rationality, good enough for limited human ends, on the general operations of the World-Force. We see only part of Nature’s purpose and all that does not subserve that part we call waste. … [but it] subserves well enough the large and universal purpose of things. That part of her intention … Nature gets done ...” (LD 89).

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soldier who fights for the country or a mother who cares for her child even at the cost of her own life. The complaint of the East towards the West is that it recognised the fact of evil in the world today and made a hasty conclusion that it is a permanent feature of it. In the light of evolution the present stage can be considered only a preliminary stage and we may need to wait still for the higher stage of development, which is yet to disclose itself.53 It is observed that the presence of pain and evil do not contradict the universality of bliss. Our psychic being or soul is the eternal and immortal portion of the principle of bliss (Misra 1998, 17).54 Aurobindo clearly states that “there can be no artificial escape” from the problem of evil, for “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with its sweet and bitter fruits is secretly rooted” in the very human nature (LD 627). The moral and ethical dilemma55 can be overcome only by an inalienable conception of the delight of existence. An infinite, indivisible existence constitutes the self of things and the essential nature of this infinite existence is the infinite imperishable force of self-conscious being which itself has as its essential nature the infinite inalienable delight of being. The fundamental characteristic of this self-existence is that it keeps unadulterated its delight amidst form and formlessness, division and unity, in oneness and multiplicity, as well as in all sorts of experiences either pleasant, painful or neutral. The delight of this self-existent is same in matter as well as in organic beings. However, to our ordinary view of self which often moves on surfaces of things it remains “hidden, profound, subconscious” (LD 100). And it is the same delight that gives meaning to our existence and that motivates one for selfpreservation and self-development. The whole truth about delight of existence is beautifully presented by Aurobindo: “Delight is existence, Delight is the secret of creation, Delight is the root of birth, Delight is the cause of remaining in existence, Delight is the end of birth and that into which creation ceases” (LD 101).

|| 53 For instance, Maitra refers to C. E. M. Joad’s God and Evil, from which one may deduce the future oriented solution for the problem of evil, though it is a very indirect reference (Maitra 1956, 127). 54 What the Upanishad states is also remarkable in this respect: “He who has found the bliss of the Eternal is afflicted no more by the thought, “Why have I not done the good? Why have I done evil?” One who knows the self extricates himself from both these things” (TU II. 9). 55 Aurobindo conceives the question of evil also as an ethical problem (LD 97). The argument is that it will be eliminated at a later stage of the evolution of consciousness. Below the human level we have an infra-ethical animal and beyond human level, in a supra-human life, one needs no ethics, for it transcends all ethical norms. However, the question is how convincing these answers are to a rational mind?

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9.4.2.4 The Interplay of Good and Evil The all encompassing presence or the enigma of evil can be discerned from human life. We are reminded that ‘we are the light of the world’. In other words, ‘we have to read ourselves as the signs of the good’ (EB 76).56 Light in itself is something good and we ourselves feel it and we are signs of the good when we do something good in itself, or doing it for others. However, what is striking is that we manifest not only signs of the good, but also signs of evil. We are not only ‘light of the world, but we become agents of darkness as well. I cannot see a better confession of this enigmatic human existence than that of St. Paul: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Rom. 7, 19-20). Is it not the same that Desmond expresses by the following: “Ascent to the good by descent into the mud of what is most mixed in oneself, the promiscuous confusion of good and evil in the idiocy of being?” (EB 114) What is remarkable is that the questioner himself is questioned here. Then the answer remains other to us, in fact outside us. That is why it is rightly observed that we cannot completely answer extreme evil. The question still remains: who carries evil? With regard to the interplay of good as well as evil Aurobindo states the following: The evolutionary intention acts through the evil as through the good; it has to utilise all because confinement to a limited good would imprison and check the intended evolution; it uses any available material and does what it can with it: this is the reason why we see evil coming out of what we call good and good coming out of what we call evil; and, if we see even what was thought to be evil coming to be accepted as good, what was thought to be good accepted as evil, it is because our standards of both are evolutionary, limited and mutable. Evolutionary Nature, the terrestrial cosmic Force, seems then at first to have no preference for either of these opposites, it uses both alike for its purpose (LD 624-25).

Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel laureate for literature, pursuing quite a similar line of thought has the following in this regard: He has rapture of torture and passion and pain; He delights in our sorrow and drives us to weeping, Then lures with His joy and His beauty again (cited Roy 1982, 50).57

This statement of Tagore typically explicates the mind of the Indian sages with regard to the way of the Absolute. This state reveals the existence of duality but || 56 William Desmond. Ethics and the Between. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 57 Dilip Kumar Roy. Six Illuminates of Modern India. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1982.

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does not resolve it. If one accepts the basic affirmation that everything has its origin in God one cannot but think of imperfection also as part of it. This is the wisdom of the East. Good and evil come in with the development of mental consciousness; they exist in their rudimentary elements in the animal and primitive human mind, they develop with the human development. Good and evil are things which arrive in the process of the evolution; there is then the possibility that they will disappear in the process of the evolution. If indeed they are essential to its highest possible point of culmination, then they will remain; or if one of them be essential and the other non-essential, then that one will remain and its opposite will disappear (EDH 157).58

A question we raised previously comes up again: why does the divine not only tolerate but also maintain and encourage in its manifestation the imperfections and limitations?

9.4.2.5 Evil and Divine Economy One of the distinguishing features of Indian philosophy is that it does not consider the issue of evil as a problem.59 Aurobindo stands distinct even when placing himself in the tradition of Indian Gurus, in his response to the question of evil. Aurobindo is a realist in his understanding of evil, over against the view of some Indian thinkers who tried to explain it away as a result of ignorance and having no existence of its own. He maintains that if falsehood, error, and evil appears and we feel and experience them in reality, there must be some reasons and necessity for their appearance and they will have some functions as well to accomplish “in the economy of the universe.” Moreover, it cannot be “an inexplicable mystery of being, original and eternal, of which the divine All-Teacher is incapable of giving an account to himself or to us. There must be behind it a significance of the All-Wisdom itself, a power of the All-Consciousness which permits and uses it for some indispensable function in the present workings of our self-experience and world-experience” (LD 597). If evil appears in spite of the “complete and inalienable self-knowledge of the Brahman” it cannot be the result of “chance, an intervening accident, an involuntary forgetfulness or confusion of the Consciousness-Force of the All-Wise in the cosmos or an ugly contretemps for which the indwelling Spirit was not prepared and of which it is the prisoner erring in a labyrinth with the utmost difficulty of escape” (LD 597). Evil || 58 Aurobindo. Essays Divine and Human. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1994. 59 A commendable reading for this topic would be The Problem of Evil and the Indian Thought by Arthur L. Herman in which the author analyses the various facets of the question.

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is only a stage in the evolutionary ascent. Evil appears only at a certain stage of evolution. Therefore, Aurobindo applies the theory of evolution in the case of evil as well. For Aurobindo “evil is an evolutionary phenomenon and thus it is not a permanent feature of the evolving world” (Basu 1987, 393). The core of the Aurobindonian re-discovery of Upanishadic excellence is that if we consider evil as a permanent fact of the world, we will fail to solve the problem. Therefore, what is demanded is an “Umwertung aller Werte” – a radical transformation of our whole outlook. In the Aurobindonian perspective what can effect this Umwertung is evolutionary perspective of nature. And evolution includes three aspects: widening, heightening and integration. What is meant by widening is the widening of the field giving greater possibility for the operations of the emerging principles. The heightening points to the ascent from grade to grade, from lower to higher; and thirdly, the principle of evolution here does not mean an abandoning of the lower stages as it ascents to the higher one, but rather a transformation of the lower stages, a lifting up of the lower stage and its integration with the higher. Therefore, “integration … implies a descent of the higher principle into all the lower ones; in fact, it is ascent through descent. Thus, when the principle of mind emerges, there is not merely the emergence of this principle, but a descent of it into all the lower ones, leading to an uplifting and transformation of matter and life, so that life and matter become different after the emergence of mind from what they were before its emergence” (Maitra 1956, 124). There is a dialectics involved in it. The higher, for Aurobindo, “is eternally present in the lower” and constitutes the eternal upward urge. He writes: “If in passing from one domain (or level) to another we renounce what has been already given to us, if reaching to the mental life we cast away or belittle the physical life – which is our basis; or if we reject the mental and the physical in our attention to the spiritual; we do not fulfil God integrally” (quoted in Wadia 38). Therefore, for Aurobindo, this triple-faced evolutionary principle is the central truth of the universe and our failure to understand its nature and appreciate its value is the cause of the failure in handling the problem of evil adequately. It is true that Aurobindo is a realist with regard to the existence of evil. Nevertheless, his occasional reference to ignorance, egoism and true knowledge as a solution to the problem makes his conception of evil ambiguous. The point is that if it is only the result of ignorance it is not real at all. But that would go against Aurobindo’s realism. Moreover, he tries to relate evil with divine economy, but did not supply a clear answer with regard to what that economy is. The remaining question is how can the world be freed from Evil? Our analysis made it clear that the existence of evil is a cosmic problem. Therefore, any individual transformation will not solve the issue. What is demanded is a cos-

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mic transformation, attainable by way of an evolutionary process. However, the condition of possibility of evolution is the Divine Grace, or divine assistance. “The Mother’s power and not any human endeavour and tapasya can alone rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the Immortal’s Ananda” (TM 84). It does not mean that this descent of the Divine Grace takes place without any human effort. It is said: “No Sadhak can reach the Supermind by his own effort. And the effort to do it by personal tapasya has been the source of many mishaps. One has to go quietly stage by stage until the being is ready. Even then, it is only the grace that can bring the real supramental change” (LY 1225). The Divine descent is a response to the proper desire and aspiration from the part of man. For the effectiveness of the descending Grace of the divine “there is needed the call from below with a will to recognize and not deny the Light when it comes” (TM 84). An important question still remains: whether we have solved or can solve the problem of evil either from a Whiteheadian or from an Aurobindonian point of view. It is still difficult to give a definite answer for such a question. Perhaps, a positive suggestion from Aurobindo and Whitehead is to see the problem of evil in the light of evolution and to place it as a stage in the evolutionary process (PR 223). Nevertheless, it seems that they have not succeeded in articulating the source of evil in a reasonable manner. We do experience actual evil that transcends the domains of human reasonableness. It seems that what all can do is to give some suggestions regarding the source as well as the means to remedy the problem of evil, but none can supply an intelligible argument with regard to its origin. The experience of evil is subjective and so also are the proposed solutions. Finally, what everyone can say is that evil is and is a matter of human experience. Now the question emerges as to whether we are to look for any other grounds for the distinction of creativity and God in Whitehead? Again, do the above facts, namely theistic concerns and the monistic concerns together with the problem of evil constitute the sole reason behind Aurobindo’s placement of Sachchidananda and the Supermind together? I think they do not and we have to see the issues in a wider context.

10 Toward an East-West Intermediation in the Metaphysics of Becoming in the Context of the Distinction between Metaphysics and Religion In chapter nine we had two objectives. (i) We have tried to spell out the relationship between God and creativity that Whitehead maintains and have shown reasonably well how Whitehead in his system of thought upholds a clear distinction between the two. Our search to unearth the underlying causes for such a stance, basically focussing on Whitehead and Whitehead scholars, revealed that it was primarily the concern to account for the problem of evil and to maintain freedom that prompted Whitehead to assume such a position. (ii) Our discussions on Aurobindo’s position on such matters have brought to light that he places Sachchidananda and the Supermind together. That is, there is an essential unity between the two irrespective of their existential difference. Further, we saw that in spite of the reality of evil Aurobindo maintains the togetherness of Sachchidananda and the Supermind throughout his metaphysical system. At the end of our explorations we are left with a few more questions. Our discussions took us to the thought that, in all probability, it was neither evil nor the question of freedom alone that guided Whitehead in distinguishing creativity and God. There could be some other reasons that transgress the boundaries of the two. So also is the case with Aurobindo. We saw that it was on the ground of his theistic and monistic concerns that he maintained an essential unity and existential difference between Sachchidananda and the Supermind. Still the question remains: do these respective points in the case of Whitehead and Aurobindo exhaust all the possibilities for the differences between the two? Are we not prompted to look beyond the issues that we have already discussed? Our discussions had in fact hinted at the necessity to look for further reasons by re-locating this question in a wider perspective than the issues already picked out. Our contention is that, in respect to Whitehead, we have to situate this issue within the context of enlightenment and modernity and the way of doing philosophy in the west. For, the whole distinction between creativity and God presupposes its intimate relation with the separation of the metaphysical and the religious ultimate and philosophy and religion in modernity in the West. This necessitates a brief discussion of the issues under consideration. We hope to achieve our goal in three steps: first, we try to expound that in the beginning both philosophy/science and religion had a common matrix (nevertheless, we won’t develop this point in detail); second, we focus on reason which was central to Greek metaphysical speculation and the section ends with a brief

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discussion on medieval period where we see a synthetic approach to faith and reason; and third, we discuss the influence of enlightenment and modernity. These three points are very relevant in the light of our project and they will have special bearing in our East-West discussion. What would be of interest is the great resemblance between the East and the West in doing philosophy and the approach towards faith and reason, at least in the early days of philosophizing. With respect to Aurobindo too we have to specify how he can maintain the togetherness of Sachchidananda and the Supermind in spite of the question of evil. Aurobindo’s approach urges us to look for further reasons in a wider perspective. This invariably leads us to look at the way these issues are addressed in the East. Thus a second main concern of the upcoming discussions is to delineate the way of doing philosophy in the East. Here we would highlight lifeorientation, value centrism, deep sense of transcendence and the synthetic approach to faith and reason that the East still maintains in her philosophizing.

10.1 The Distinctiveness of the West in Doing Philosophy The Western way of doing philosophy will be portrayed in two sections. The first step in this attempt is a brief discussion of the Greek philosophy–the matrix of western speculation. This is an attempt to show how Western philosophy and rationalism, which is so central to Western philosophy, came out of Greek religion. This discussion is of great importance to understand in its full strength, the separation between philosophy and religion as two independent domains, specifically a shift that took place with enlightenment and modernity.1 The drift between religion and metaphysics in the West is so great that one of the major accusations of Western philosophy against Eastern philosophy is that it is fundamentally religious in character. Here our contention is that both the East and the West share the same genetic fountain: religion. Further we want to examine the veracity of the allegation against the East in so far as the subject matter of both religion and philosophy are, fundamentally, one and the same though

|| 1 A further observation that is to be kept in mind is that the separation between religion and metaphysics is not common in modernity. We can identify two trends of thought in modernity: one which still identifies the two, like what we see in Spinoza or in Hegel; and the other characterised by the growing tendency to deny metaphysical ultimacy to God, which ends up either in atheism or in a pure separation between religion and philosophy, where God has no role in Philosophy. However, the distinctiveness of Whitehead is that he makes space within metaphysics and assigns a role to God in metaphysical thinking.

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different in the modes of expression. Of course, we don’t entertain the thought that the two are identifiable.2 The second step focuses on modernity and its influence on the distinction between religion and metaphysics. Maitra while describing the spirit of Western philosophy distinguishes two main currents in the history of Western thought: Sophia or knowledge of values and Scientia, the knowledge of facts (Maitra 1956, 18).3 It will be an exaggeration, however, if we say that the West was always a ‘fact-centered’ philosophy. In Plato the two (fact and value) thoughts are blended and human reason became the judge of what is true, good and beautiful. Nevertheless, it retained some difference from inwardness. In Plato we have the noble blending of reason and intuition.4 However, what we see today in the West is a radical shift from its noble tradition and has become reason centred, at least in modernity.

10.1.1 Reason: Central to Western Philosophy Our concern here is to establish the role of reason in Western philosophy. Nevertheless, before developing that we take a quick look at its Greek source where

|| 2 Our primary concern here is not a historical exploration of the development of philosophy in the west. We restrict our discussion to the extent that it facilitates our discussion on Whitehead’s distinction of the religious and the metaphysical manifested in the distinction of creativity and God. 3 Maitra maintains that Western philosophy has begun with Scientia and its root goes back to its founder namely Thales of Miletus, slightly older contemporary of Buddha. The point is that in his search for the Ultimate principle of the universe Thales ended up in water, whereby we see that Western philosophy has begun with Scientia, knowledge of facts (Maitra 1956, 18). 4 It was Anaxagoras who with his notion of Nous (Mind) initiated a shift in Greek philosophy from Nature to Mind. And it was Protagoras who in turn has systematically developed this idea with his doctrine that ‘man is the measure of all things’. The drawback of Protagoras was that he has reduced man to his sensual existence. What is of interest here is that Western materialism has its roots already in Greek philosophy, something we already discussed in chapter one. So what was of interest is the nature of man as expressed in sensations and perception. It was Socrates who brought about a radical shift from this understanding. For Socrates, it was only the universal element in man, which could be placed in the center of philosophical interest. Thus, in the hands of Socrates philosophy became the science of the universal values as discovered by human reason. Plato inherited from his master the idea of the universal. But he also inherited the mysticism of Pythagoras, and thus for Plato ‘Sophia meant not only the knowledge of values and facts as gained by the intellect but also what is obtained by intuition. Therefore, Plato’s idea of the good is not only a principle of reason alone, rather something that transcends reason and enter into the realm of intuition (Maitra 1956, 20).

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religion and philosophy shared a common matrix. In this section our concern is not to substantiate the thesis that ‘philosophy originated from religion’, rather to recall that science and philosophy had a common source: religion. A critical analysis of the roots of Greek philosophy shows that the first philosophers were not confined to natural science or their inner experience; if it were so the history of western philosophy would have been totally different from the present one. Taking into account the mingling of philosophy and religion in the thoughts and writings of the early Greek thinkers Kenny rightly comments that the distinctiveness of early Greek thinkers is that in their speculation “elements of philosophy, science and religion mingle in a rich and heady brew” (9).5 Cornford draws our attention to this when he suggests that the first conceptions of philosophy have a long history as religious representations, before philosophy ever reached its present understanding. Besides the conceptions of God and Soul, philosophy derives from religion a sense of the order of nature, commonly understood as dominion of Destiny, of Justice or of Law.6 The law of destiny can be understood also as the reign of necessity, which is equally a moral rule. Therefore, one of the fundamental assumptions of the Greek philosophers was that there is a moral order in nature.7 This immediately evokes the question: how does this moral consciousness come to be? It cannot just be the result of a mere observation of nature. All the same, this was one of the fundamental conceptions of the early Greek philosophers.8 For the Milesians and the early Greek philosophers the primary object of speculation was Nature (physis).9 In this stage the meaning of physis was more

|| 5 Anthony Kenny. A New History of Western Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004. 6 It can be compared with the notion of Rta in Indian philosophy, a point that Aurobindo also endorses. 7 The first religious poet of Greece, Hesiod, states that there is intimate relationship between the course of Nature and human behaviour. When the people move in the way of righteousness the city flourishes and it is free from war and famine (Melchert 11-37). Norman Melchert. The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, 3rd ed. California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998. 8 In Homer also gods are subordinate to a remote moral power, which is more primordial, older than the gods themselves. It is called Moira. For Homer and Ionian thought, Moira is a moral decree, the boundary of right and wrong. Furthermore, it was considered a moral obligation rather than a physical impossibility. Scholars interpret the origin of the concept moira variously (Cornford 15). F. M. Cornford: From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1980. 9 There is no satisfactory rendering for physis, which primarily means growth, and is, first and foremost, associated with life and motion in contrast to stillness and death, by which the Aristotelian and Scholastic ‘Primary substance’ is associated, namely matter (Cornford 7).

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associated with life than with matter. There are two sayings of Thales which express the meaning of science and religion. They are: ‘All things are full of gods’ and, the often-quoted saying, ‘water is the first principle of everything’ (Kenny 4). What is pertinent for us is the first one, which explicates how the first philosophers were deeply concerned with the “divine” in their thinking. However, it was Anaximander who developed a systematic theory of the world process. For Anaximander, the ultimate substratum of nature is an indefinite - limitless thing out of which the manifold things came into existence. The “Boundless” (‘the Unlimited’ -‘apeiron’, i.e. ‘that which has no boundaries’) itself is beyond origin and limitation (Physics 203b6-10, DK 12A15).10 From these two ideas, that is, the Boundless has no origin and its nature as ‘unlimited’ some argue that Anaximander’s Boundless points to the divine (Melchert 12). However, it is not certain whether Anaximander himself had the notion of the divine in his mind when he used ‘the Boundless’ (DK 12 A 15; Melchert 12-13). What is important for our project here is that Greek philosophy originated and developed in the religious context. The divine played a central role and things are put in a moral language. By putting the Greek philosophy in a religious context in no way I want to relegate the role of reason in Greek philosophy, in fact, Greek philosophy is distinct in its thrust on reason. The religious orientation of Greek thinkers can also be substantiated from the terminology used to denote thinkers, which concurs with Indian system as well, namely sage or wise man (sophos), till the coinage of the term philosophos (philosopher or lover of wisdom) by Pythagoras. And it is a well-known fact that Socrates was executed for not paying homage to the gods of Athens and introducing new divinities and for corrupting the young (Kenny 34). And Socrates is reported to have said that he does not posses the wisdom to guide people away from wrongdoings, but have to rely on “an inner divine” (Kenny 43). My point is that religion and philosophy had the same matrix, at least in the early days of Greek philosophy.11

|| 10 H. Diels & W. Kranz (eds.). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 6th edn., 3 vols. Berlin: Wiedmann, 1951. 11 The argument is that the principal object of early Greek speculation was not external nature revealed through external senses, but a metaphysical representation of reality which first was both alive (soul) and divine (God) and which is primarily of mythical and religious origin (Cornford 145). Therefore, we can rightly say with Cornford that “philosophy is the immediate successor of theology, and the conceptions held by philosophers of the relation between the ultimate reality and the manifold sense-world are governed by older religious conceptions of the relation between God and the human group or Nature” (Cornford 135). The development of the how is a major theme on its own right; we, however, won’t pursue it further here.

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Coming back to the focal point of our present discussion, namely the centrality of reason in Western philosophy it is deemed that perhaps the best candidate to begin with is Parmenides, usually considered to be the first rational philosopher. A distinctive feature of Parmenidean philosophy is its focus on reasoning. He insists “go wherever the argument takes you” (Melchert 27). Therefore, it is suggested that Parmenides stands at the beginning of one of the major traditions of the Western philosophy, namely rationalism. However, it is not a sudden development with Parmenides. In the naturalistic approach of Greek religion one could recognize two strands, that is, the outward looking Apollonian, and the inward-looking Orphic form. But the inwardness did not go further due to the use of reason in man (Melchert 23). Here my point is that the orientation towards reason was already there in Greek philosophy from the beginning. With Plato this orientation receives a new dimension. On the one hand, in the Platonic Forms or Ideas we have the incarnation of rational civilized philosophy repeating “the history of pre-rational religious representations” (Cornford 258), and on the other, in the mythical description of Plato one observes another development, namely dispensation of Reason.12 The gods ruled not by violence but by persuasive reason. Here one observes a clear affirmation of the Anaxagorean dictum, that ‘all things were confounded together, when reason came and introduced distinction and order’. Here what is remarkable is that reason eventually takes the place of Zeus, as Zeus had taken the place of moira. However, the function of the supreme remains changeless through out the process, namely ‘to introduce distinction and order’ (Cornford 36). Cornford maintains that philosophy has taken the pre-scientific religious representations and repeated it. Just as the will of a personal God superseded the impersonal power moira, and claimed to have given the universe a structural order by a legislative act of reason so in philosophy “the creative Mind makes a tardy appearance and claims to have designed a system which for Anaximander was produced by motion” (Cornford 36). At the end, the personal God of religion and the impersonal reason of philosophy merely re-enact as ‘dispensers’ of the arrangement formerly undertaken by Moira. Therefore, what can be reasonably concluded from our analysis of the Greek philosophy is that later Greek philosophy, perhaps beginning with Aristotle, in whom “God is sublimated to the topmost pinnacle of abstraction,” an “Ultimate

|| 12 In the Politicus and in the Kritias one reads how the universe was distributed among the Gods (Politicus 271 D and Kritias 109 A ff, as cited by Cornford 35-36). It was not the result of strife but was a peaceful settlement. And the gods as shepherds looked after their own countries.

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End,” “shut up in unceasing and changeless contemplation of itself,” has deified speculative intellect itself, and walls off the mythical and religious aspects “only to find that the intellect had become a deity” (Cornford 261). Our brief exposition of the development of Western philosophy from Greek religious matrix has brought to light certain facts of great import. (i) Order and unity in nature is closely linked to a moral order, “moira” in nature (ii) Gods were placed subordinate to this moral order in the beginning (iii) This moral order eventually emerges as a personal God (iv) The emergence of reason as the supreme player

10.1.2 Medieval Philosophy: A Combination of Faith and Reason Our objective here is not an exposition of the medieval philosophy but only to bridge the early Greek philosophy and the enlightenment and modernity. In the previous discussion we observed that in the Greek cosmology the poets and the philosopher had the same fundamental scheme with regard to the perception of the world. In other words, the cosmology of Anaximander has the same structure as the cosmogony of Homer and Hesiod. Now the question is why do we address Anaximander’s view as scientific and that of Homer and Hesiod as religious or mythical? A simple but reasonable answer is that Anaximander has eliminated from his system Zeus and his fellow Olympians. In other words, he has expurgated what pertains to the realm of gods and myths, the objects on which the religious consciousness of his time focused. On the other hand, he wanted to retain the more primitive concept of moira. For him the primary order of the universe is said to be ‘according to what is ordained’. It is still a moral order but the will of the personal God has disappeared. Natural causes and the eternal motion, to a certain extent, took up its place. In other words, the age of the supernatural was set aside and the age of reason received a more favoured position. Moreover, the Milesians were trying to get at something, which really does exist. They had a fresh understanding of truth. They were looking for a sort of thing, which is reasonable to suppose. Here we have finally a statement about the universe, which is meant and offered as true, ‘a logos, not a mythos’ (Cornford 42). However, it should be noted that when Anaximander tried to present a conception of the world it was not simply a representation of the outer world resulting from sense perception, but it was a representation of the world order that actually came from a representation that was more primitive than the gods themselves. This representation was more of a religious character and it was taken over by philosophy from religion.

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What is remarkable here is that this trend continued through the middle ages. In the medieval period reason was relegated to second place because of the primacy of religion, but never ignored it in philosophical speculation. And when it was combined with the faith demanded by Christianity it doubted the primacy of reason, and man lost confidence in himself and his reason. Nevertheless, those who kept alive the philosophical thinking in the Middle Ages were the theologians, and the religious circles. The distinction made between faith and reason, begun in Aristotle, remained dormant in the post-Aristotelian period, certainly during the thousand years Aristotle’s philosophy continued to live only in the Arab world, which finally took its own course in the great Aristotelian of the medieval period Aquinas. In Aquinas we have a clear distinction between faith and reason in the terms required by the influx of Aristotle. In other words, one could make a clear distinction between theology and philosophy. What is remarkable is that his position as a theologian did not prevent him from granting an autonomy and scope to philosophy which followed on philosophical positions with respect to the nature of the world and the capacity of man’s intellect. The world is intelligible and man can understand it, and the great divisions of philosophy that Aristotle had recognised indicate the range and possibilities of philosophical thought. What has impressed most historians about Aquinas is the fact that while his faith provided him with the context of his thinking, that context required him to admit that belief is not a prerequisite for understanding the world. Rather, even for the believer philosophical thought is a prerequisite for that “understanding” of revelation that is theology (Honderich 44-46).13 The general point I wish to make about the thirteenth century is that, contrary to what might have been expected and contrary to the judgment of some historians, in that era faith, rather than restricting the range of natural reason, came to function as a kind of motivation for asserting man’s natural capacity to understand himself and the world in which he finds himself.14

|| 13 Ted Honderich (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 14 It is in order to note what Whitehead himself states pointing to Western rationalism and scientific approach: “When we compare this tome of thought in Europe with the attitude of other civilisations when left to themselves, there seems but one source for its origin. It must come from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher. … faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from the medieval theology” (SMW 12-13).

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Perhaps the safest way to present the relationship between religion and medieval philosophy is to state that in spite of the fact that religion provided the matrix as well as the context for the philosophical thinking, reason was necessary for theology itself. Faith in the Transcendent and faith in the capacity of human reason distinguished medieval philosophy. However, as we move to enlightenment and modernity this trend is changed and we see a clear separation between faith and reason which would further be explained in the following section. All the same, what strikes us most is the fact that “whenever philosophy sets out to separate itself from a religious context, its scope, its vision of its range, becomes drastically limited” (Ralph McInerny).15 That is in the via moderna of the modern period there is rather a self-limitation of philosophy—in the sense that philosophy was separated from the context in which it originated, namely religion.

10.2 The Influence of the Enlightenment and Modernity Modern philosophy in the West began with man searching for more experience and greater rationality in the outside world which initiated the restoration of confidence in reason, which was, at least for a period, relegated to a secondary position in the middle ages. Modernity initiated the full separation of faith and reason.16 The main aim of modern philosophy in the West was to liberate the outward from the inwardness of man (religious and faith dimensions), to treat the outward as having its own life, nature, growth and to discover methods for understanding them and to apply the same methods to the inward also.17 Nevertheless, the question is, is it possible to separate the outward from the inward,

|| 15 Ralph McInerny (ed.). Modernity and Religion. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994. 16 To explore the separation of reason and faith perhaps we should begin with Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, two thinkers who represent, respectively, what came to be called the old way (via antiqua) and the modern way (via moderna) of doing philosophy. Duns Scotus, for all his differences from the great thinkers of the thirteenth century, nonetheless is in basic continuity with them. William of Ockham, on the other hand, represents a rupture with the old and the beginning of something new. 17 A feature of modern philosophy in the West is its boldness and readiness to give up tradition, if found necessary. It promotes a spirit of inquiry without considering anything sacred. This boldness saves the various aspects of man’s being from being overlooked, though sometimes man’s inwardness is denied. Aristotle made reason more outward and could retain inwardness mainly in God in whom reason became a pale thought. But on the whole, human and humanistic disciplines and physical sciences have progressed very well.

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treat them as separate objects? Before going further it has to be made clear that what is given is not an in-depth discussion of modernity but we deal with this topic only to the extent that it helps us to see how modernity has contributed to the distinction of God and Creativity in Whitehead. Modernity redefined every sphere of human life and existence and presented itself, to a certain extent as a cross-cultural and a trans-cultural phenomenon. Religion and religious experience were no exception to it. One can discern a sort of desertion of the spiritual roots, the ‘disenchantment’ of the world as Weber puts it.18 God talk, then, was often based not on religious grounds but on metaphysical grounds. For a modern approach, based on science, intrinsic value and meaning are only secondary in the consideration of things, for the “scientific outlook cannot accommodate transcendence. Only an ontological stance can do this, and modernity needs to adopt such a stance without abandoning the rigour of science in the sphere in which it is sovereign” (Nicholls 6).19 Modernity changed drastically the world picture and our thoughts about it. In the map of the cosmos drawn by men of science like Copernicus, Galileo and Newton “no plausible place remained at which to locate the Christian heaven and its inhabitants” (Young 2).20 It was this thought pattern that characterised the enlightenment as well. The intellectual movement called the “Enlightenment,”21 begins roughly in the middle of the 18th century. The masters of enlightenment believed in human reason’s power to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world. It was aimed to save people and society from the hegemony of religion and the domination of society by a hereditary aristocracy. After the enlightenment and modernity we meet with the tension between the tradi-

|| 18 Weber’s point is that the process of rationalization has led to the discarding of all religious answers which further led to the discarding of God, which he characterises as disenchantment or de-divinization of the world (Weber 1963; Midgley 135). Max Weber. The Sociology of Religion. Trans. E. Fischoff. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963; E. B. F. Midgley. The Ideology of Max Weber: A Thomist Critique. Hants, Great Britain: Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1983. 19 William Nicholls (ed.). Modernity and Religion. Ontario, Canada: Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, 1987. 20 Julian Young. The Death of God and the Meaning of Life. London: Routledge, 2003. 21 The term ‘enlightenment’ derives its origin from its own masters, especially in Paris and London, who believed that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to enlighten them. It described the trends in thought and letters in Europe and the American colonies during the 18th century, prior to the French Revolution of 1789-1799. More than a set of fixed ideas, the Enlightenment implied an attitude and a method of thought. A desire arose to reexamine and question all received ideas and values, to explore new ideas in many different directions.

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tional/classical view of God and the modern. It may not be incorrect to say that Whitehead’s philosophy of God expresses this tension very well. Perhaps, Whitehead’s own distinction of creativity and God is the result of this tension, which he faced in his own life time. In order to have a full impact of modernity in this regard we need to look into the effects of enlightenment and modernity on religion and God.

10.2.1 Modernity and Rationality The most important feature of enlightenment and modernity was the radicalisation of reason. According Weber, what distinguishes Western civilisation from others is its ‘specific and peculiar’ rationalism (Brubaker 8).22 The enlightenment demanded that religion should be devoid of its mythic background and contexts. Everything was subjected to reason. Thus, what we see in modernity is a reaction to and a final rejection of the scholastic thinking. Scholastic metaphysics remained a stranger to the crucial concerns of contemporary thinking. By simply taking up again the thread of tradition and neglecting to rise at the same time above this tradition, scholastic metaphysics cut itself off from its own future. It became sterile (Luijpen xi).23

One of the pioneers of enlightenment Immanuel Kant wrote in 1784 that “enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage” (Kant 1784, 85).24 Sapere aude, i.e., dare to know, was the motto of the enlightenment. Religion and religious truths were analysed and evaluated in the light of reason and certain limits were set to mark what fell within the capabilities of reason and lay beyond it. As a result of the rationalisation of faith, God was subjected to objective enquiry. The masters of radical Aufklärung declared that “genuine religion is nothing other than ‘faith’ taught by reason” (Israel 628).25 However, we do not ignore the attempts of authors who discredited rationalisation of religion and

|| 22 Rogers Brubaker. The Limits of Rationality: An Essay on the Social and Moral Thoughts of Max Weber. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984. 23 William A. Luijpen. Phenomenology and Metaphysics. Pittsburgh, USA: Duquesne University Press, 1965. 24 He considered it tutelage for it consisted in man’s inability to use his own reason without direction from another. Moreover, Kant conceived it a self-incurred tutelage for it is not the lack of reason but lack of courage and resolution that characterised it. 25 Jonathan J. Israel. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 16501750. Oxford: University Press, 2001.

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God. For instance, we see Kierkegaard’s Climacus deliver that ‘God has no objective existence. That is God cannot be made a topic of objective inquiry. The reason he gives is that “God does not play the role of the Lord in the worldhistorical process as it is seen by human beings … one does not see God, because if he is not seen in the role of Lord, one does not see him” (CUP 156).26 Again, repudiating the tendency of making God a subject of human inquiry, Kierkegaard states: “In my relationship with God I must learn simply to give up my finite understanding, and with it the drawing of distinctions that is natural to me ... ” (CUP 178). Here I don’t mean that what is preferable is a fideistic attitude in matters of religion, but what is repudiated is only the trend that makes reason ultimate in matters of religion and faith. Moreover, our emphasis on the negative impact of enlightenment and modernity on religion and faith does not mean that it has made no positive contribution to religion. In fact, the emergence of reason to primacy, and its application to matters of faith and religion saved religion from its bondage to myths and superstitions.27 Moreover, modernity’s contribution to the development of science and technology, and thus to the general advancement of the world is amazing. What has to be checked is the absolutisation of the power of reason in matters of religion and faith. On the one hand, faith should be open to reason and its findings, and on the other, reason should acknowledge that religion and faith pertain to a realm where it does not have the final word.

10.2.1.1 Modernity and the Question of Transcendence The rationalisation process effected unprecedented results. The most important among them was its effects on the notion of transcendence. The “most significant predicament of the modern age–is the disappearance of transcendence... ” (Dupré 1994, 11).28 The “reduction of the real to the objective which was completed by the end of the eighteenth century excluded the possibility of any genuine transcendence” (Dupré 1994, 14). The loss of transcendence that is voiced here, in fact, is the loss of the sense of the divine as ‘transcendence it-

|| 26 Sören Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. vol. I, Trans. H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. 27 We will see in the coming section how Aurobindo has responded to these questions; how he acknowledges the positive contribution of modernity, irrespective of his negative observations of it. 28 Louis Dupré. Metaphysics and culture. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1994.

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self,’ as the transcendent Other, the Ultimate, which is Agapeic (BB 232) 29. Moreover, through the secularisation of consciousness and a turning away from the transcendent goals to the immanent aims man lost his privileged state in the universe. Through the replacement of the concern for the other world and a life to come the modern man preoccupied himself with this life and this world. The old ideal of vita contemplativa yielded its place to vita activa, i.e., the pure contemplation of nature proposed by the ancients and the medievals gave way to the domination and mastery of nature by the moderns (Koyré 1). In this context no transcendent agency was considered necessary and they existed only on the basis of irrational belief. Man has ‘turned away from transcendent goals to immanent aims and man lost his interest for the otherworld and confined himself to this world (Lawrence 312). Thus, on the one side, one observes the loss of transcendence, on the other, one sees the emergence of the ‘Immanent transcendence’ – transcendence of the ego by the observing self.30 The loss of transcendence was not effected overnight. We may see it as a gradual process. It showed its first appearance in a dualism that separated God and the world, where the transcendence of the former was recognised but making it redundant in this world. The ineluctable consequence was the dualistic opposition between creation and God as the ground of the good. This opposition was imminent in the sense that no “immanent mediation of the presence of the inherent good is communicated to creation” (EB 24). However, the accentuation of God’s transcendence by early modernity was effected to its final disappearance.31

|| 29 One can identify different kinds of transcendence. For example, Desmond speaks of three kinds of transcendence: (i) The transcendence of beings as other in exteriority; (ii) The transcendence of self-being, self-transcendence; and (iii) the transcendence of the origin, in other words, transcendence itself. The divine transcendence is the third one, which is an agapeic transcendence towards the ultimate (BB 232). 30 In Thomas Luckmann’s The Invisible Religion we have an example of the description of religion which has completely ignored its supernatural dimension. He states that ‘religion is any universe of meaning human beings create to manifest their capacity to transcend biological nature’. However, in this light any social phenomenon becomes at least potentially religious. Thus, modern science also can be considered a form of religion (Ellwood Jr. 21). Robert S. Ellwood Jr. “Modern Religion as Folk Religion.” William Nicholls (ed.). Modernity and Religion. Ontario, Canada: Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion (1987) 19-44. 31 Marcel Gauchet gives a detailed analysis of this process of ‘disenchantment’ where it is often understood in the sense of the falling off of ‘the beyond’. However, what is suggestive here is his presentation of Christianity as the “religion of departure from religion.” The departure from religion is a child of religion. Cf. Gauchet. The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion.

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In other words, modernity marked the secularisation of religion.32 Blumenberg describes that the term ‘secularisation’ designates “a long-term process by which a disappearance of religious ties, attitudes to transcendence, expectations of an afterlife, ritual performances, and firmly established turns of speech is driven onward in both private and daily public life” (3).33 It is quite appropriate here to recall Whitehead’s claim on the necessity to secularise the functions of God in the world. Whitehead maintained that “the secularisation of the concept of God’s function in the world is at least as urgent a requisite of thought as is the secularisation of other elements in experience. The concept of God is certainly one essential element in religious feeling. But the converse is not true; the concept of religious feeling is not an essential element in the concept of God’s function in the universe” (PR 207). What is reflected in Whitehead’s own claim is nothing but an effect of this modern thought pattern. Dupré observes in this statement of Whitehead a secularised concept of God, but Cloots warns that one has to make a distinction between secularisation of the concept of God and secularisation of God’s functions in the world and what we have in Whitehead is the latter (Cloots 1978, 97).34 The point is that, from a Whiteheadian point of view, it is not impossible to make a distinction between the religious God (God as worshipped) and the metaphysical functions of God. The reason is, in meta-

|| 32 Secularisation is the “process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols,” together with its subjective corollary, the “secularization of consciousness” (Berger 1969, 17). Furthermore, Blumenberg states that in the middle ages the world was finite and God was infinite, but in the modern age “the world takes on this divine attribute; infinity is secularized” (15). Jose Casanova describes the essential features of secularization as the following: (i) the separation of religion from politics, economy, and sciences; (ii) the privatization of religion within its own sphere, and (iii) the declining social significance of religious belief (1994). Jose Casanova. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. 33 Hans Blumenberg. The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Trans. Robert M. Wallace. London: The MIT Press, 1983. Secularization not only means the changes that took place in the sphere of religion but it points to the change that effected in every sphere of life in modernity. Luckmann makes this point very clear. “Secularization is not to be understood as a simple process of the dissolution of traditional religion, but as a transformation of the ruling value system into various institutional ‘ideologies’, which still underpin the actual interrelated workings peculiar to the institutions” (Luckmann 101). 34 L. Dupré maintains that by speaking about a secularising of the function of God in the world, Whitehead is following the Aristotelian idea of God, i.e., as a purely metaphysical conclusion devoid of all religious and ethical implications. Furthermore, Dupré states that “Philosophy alone never reaches the idea of God, yet that it can fully acknowledge its debt to religious faith while maintaining its own autonomy.” The Other Dimensions: A Search for the Meaning of Religious Attitudes. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1972, 112; Cloots 1978, 97).

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physics one is concerned with reason that is as ‘profane’ as possible. If one brings God into metaphysics it should be done on the basis of metaphysical reasons. On the other hand, if one works within a religious context it has to be clearly stated and the difference between the domains of religion and philosophy have to be kept in mind. What really matters here is the perception of God from the metaphysical and religious point of view. Therefore, from a Whiteheadian point of view the distinction of the metaphysical and the religious is very reasonable. On the other hand, amidst our mourning over the loss of transcendence in modernity and post-modernity the situation does not seem to be utterly hopeless for, we see the genuine attempts of certain contemporary thinkers such as J. Milbank, R. Kearney, L. J. Marion, William Desmond, and others to re-invent ways to discuss the lost sense of transcendence philosophically. In fact, Desmond identifies transcendence itself with the “extraordinary word God” (EB 12). From a Whiteheadian point of view we can argue that it is because he wanted to give transcendence a place that he distinguished God and creativity. For him, there is space for transcendence and we are related to the transcendent, but then we are on the level of religion. That is the reason why he specifically makes a distinction within metaphysics, taking a distance from the general distinction of metaphysics and religion in the West.

10.2.1.2 The Emergence of Immanent Transcendence Modernity expresses a dual process, namely (i) loss of transcendence and (ii) emergence of the immanent transcendence. The accentuation of God’s transcendence by early modernity, to a certain extent, led to the final disappearance of God from the world in later modernity. A second step in this direction paved the way for the degradation of creation, for it was taken to be without any inherent value. The inevitable corollary of this degradation met with two opposing reactions. The first was a “religious hatred” towards the fallen nature and the second was an opposition toward this degradation.35 Those who advocated the second position maintained that this degradation has to be conquered and reformed under the pressure and power of human will. In this opposition against the degradation we see the emergence, or in fact, the “genesis” of the opposition between God and creation which further led to a “rebirth” in the human being, “of itself as now having to claim for itself the power to be the

|| 35 We dealt with this topic in the previous chapters while discussing Whitehead’s and Aurobindo’s philosophy in general, namely the ascetic denial and rejection of the materialist.

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ground of the good” (EB 25). Thus, we have the self-transcendence of the subject. “Human beings, asserting their power to oppose the hostile other, redefine the vector of their own transcending as the original ground that defines what is good, what is good relative to their power to define, and this power as itself the measure of the good” (EB 25). Thus, we have in modernity, I would say, a “second rebirth”, the rebirth of the ideal of Protagoras of Abdera (c. 480-410 BC.) that “man is the measure of all things.” But the triumph of humans will not last long, for we fall back immediately to the overwhelming thought that “human being is a living nihilism masquerading as ethical, if there is no ontology of the good, if the good is not grounded in being itself, or if being itself is not primarily good” (Desmond 2001, 196). Modern man’s ever increasing faith in the power of reason and its absolutisation, and the consequent loss of faith in transcendence and growing process of secularisation of God talk and religion resulted at least in the ‘eclipse’ of God and its replacement with immanent transcendence or human selftranscendence. The consequence of modern revolution is well recorded: […] its ambition was to found a human order on earth, in which freedom and happiness prevailed, without any transcendental or supernatural supports – an entirely human order... . to place man at the centre meant that he has to become the Archimedean point around which everything revolved. … So the humanist fathers put their founding axiom: man is all powerful, if his will is strong enough. He can create himself. He can choose to be courageous, honourable, just, rich, influential, or not (Carroll 1993, 2-3).36

In the context of the emergence of the immanent transcendence, what Hannah Arendt points out is very suggestive. She maintains an “unequalled worldlessness” as the chief characteristics of modern age. It means that “modern man, when he lost the certainty of a world to come, was thrown back upon himself and not upon this world” (Arendt 320).37 From this context only one can read into Nietzsche’s declaration of the death of God. It means the ‘death of God’ as the ultimate foundation of metaphysics and morals. The reference point brought in to guarantee human access to the truth about the world and about ourselves.38 Thus, science, philosophy, and morality have emancipated them-

|| 36 John Carroll. Humanism: The Wreck of Western Culture. London: Fontana, 1993. 37 Hannah Arendt. The Human Condition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1958. 38 Here one is reminded of the Cartesian Deus ex Machina and the Kantian postulation of God. In this respect, Weston remarks that, “that God is dead is no news since that God was never alive: it was always the product of human desire, whether intellectual or otherwise, and so could not give significance to human life in its totality” (Michael Weston 103). Michael Weston.

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selves from their religious roots and established themselves as independent disciplines. Attenuation of faith in the Transcendent and the consequent emergence of the immanent transcendence paved the way for the re-definition of metaphysics and its shift of emphasis. The point is any kind of restriction was conceived to be an obstacle to enlightenment. For its masters the term enlightenment denoted the right to make public use of one’s own reason (Kant 1784, 87). This understanding resulted in the banishment of authority and grand-narratives. The age of Authority, of grand institutions, of legitimating Myths and capital T Truths, is no more at play today. The point is that certain deep old assumptions about historicallymaintained identity, continuity and objective Truth have disappeared and as a consequence our whole perspective of the temporality also is changed (Cupitt 218-19).39 For Judith Squires the postmodern condition is characterised by three factors: “the death of Man, History and metaphysics” (Squires 2).40 It is in this light that we have to see Whitehead’s own definition of speculative metaphysics. To deny enlightenment of oneself or for the posterity was considered a means to “injure and trample on the right of mankind” (Kant 1784, 86). The thought pattern of enlightenment was that there is only one kind of certainty namely “scientific.” And there “arbitrary” authority can only be its enemy. This process further resulted in the origin of new Ultimates. It was the need of the time for two reasons: (i) the trans-temporal was no more meaningful and in fact any recourse to it seemed absurd; and (ii) with the loss of transcendence man had nothing to hold on. Thus, it was a human necessity that he invents new ultimates. In fact, the new ultimates are nothing but the expression of human self-transcendence ‘baptized’ in secular terms or names. Here what we see is the ultimate as “Absolutised.” “These Absolutes are called Life, Evolution, Freedom, Progress, the Proletariat, the Eternal Return, Matter. They will always be indicated with capital letter because their attributes always coincide with what is traditionally attributed to God, no matter what form is assigned to the Absolute” (Luijpen 32).41

|| “After Transcendence – A Reply.” D. Z Philips & Timothy Tessin (eds.). Religion without Transcendence? London: Macmillan Press Ltd. (1997) 93-110. 39 Don Cupitt. “Post-Christianity.” Paul Heelas (ed.). Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. (1998) 218-232. 40 Judith Squires (ed.). Principled Positions: Postmodernism and the Rediscovery of Value. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993. 41 The difference between the scholastic metaphysics and the modern metaphysics is that in the latter “the Absolute was not ‘conceived’ as Transcendent but as something ‘absolutised.’”

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Human tendency was to reject the Absolute. It was maintained that if metaphysics is to retain its value it has to reject the Absolute interpreted as God; for it was conceived that the rejection of the transcendental Absolute is the best way to prevent metaphysics from going in the wrong direction rather than making metaphysics impossible (Luijpen 35). It is exactly what we see in Whitehead, but the positive side of his treatment is that he finds a ground (metaphysical) for the inclusion of God within metaphysical discussion. In the wake of the emergence of modern ultimates humanity could not find any meaning in the transcendent absolutes. Here we see the distinction of the Metaphysical Ultimate and the Religious Ultimate in the offing.

10.2.2 The Separation of Metaphysics and Religion in the West One may observe an identification of the metaphysical and religious ultimate in classical philosophy and even in early modernity. There is no theology or philosophy of God articulated independently of an historical-cultural context (Fontinell 49).42 The secularisation, rationalisation and objectification led finally to the separation of metaphysics and religion, especially in the West.43 The modern

|| An Absolute Subject cannot accept the “Divine Absolute” but instead applies to itself all the traditional attributes of God. Here, again, the Absolute is no more a Transcendent Absolute but a temporal one. Moreover, we have a second process in modernity leading to the objectification of God. By this objectification I mean that God is made a subject to the objective analysis of human reason. It is in this context that Desmond designates God as “a nonobjective “objective,” not only of finite desire but also of our infinite transcending” (EB 74). Here God becomes the object of human finite desire as well as infinite transcending. God can be conceived as an object of human desire only in a sense in which Augustine or Boethius or Aquinas used it: God as the Summum bonum. On the other hand, often what we see in the objectification of God is the reduction of transcendence itself to human self-transcendence, as we have it in Marx, Feuerbach, or in Nietzsche. For the transcendence of the self Desmond uses the term “transcendence in immanence” which he names the ‘Dionysian origin’. For instance, Desmond refers to the ‘Will to Power’ of Nietzsche (BB 240). In this context God becomes enigmatic, and “the enigma confuses desire. So we love idols rather than God, thinking we love God. The desire of God is tempted to be the desire to be God” (EB 79). 42 Eugene Fontinell. “Towards a Pragmatic Reconstruction of Religion.” George F. McLean (ed.). Traces of God in A Secular Culture. New York: The Society of St. Paul (1973) 27-60. 43 Joseph Sittler argues for the distinction of religion and metaphysics on the following grounds: (i) The affirmations of faith are faith’s affirmations about God; (ii) They are, therefore, radically different from all rational metaphysics and cannot be derived from or immediately connected with metaphysical propositions; (iii) The affirmations of faith are statements about

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historical-cultural context and the world view are different from the classical cultural context and the world view in which the classical/traditional theistic concept God originated. A philosophy of God developed in the new cultural and metaphysical context is certain to be different from the traditional one. It is also said: “discussions in theology closely follow the developments in philosophy” (Angadiyil 19).44 Today we maintain a world-view that the world is an unfinished existence or it is something in the process of development which manifests real chance and novelty. Such a metaphysical point of view cannot be reconciled with a concept of God, immutable, omnipotent, and omniscient. Therefore, any rethinking of God and religion has to be sensitive to these metaphysical and cultural factors. An important aspect that led to the separation of religion and metaphysics is the renewed understanding of metaphysics. In the classical sense we have the understanding of metaphysics as that which comes after physics or what is beyond physics. Naturally, metaphysics was considered to be dealing with what is transcendent or trans-temporal. However, what we see in modernity is a clear shift in the understanding of metaphysics. In other words, modernity has redefined metaphysics. Whitehead’s own description of metaphysics points to nothing else but to this simple fact (PR 3). In Religion in the Making Whitehead defines metaphysics as “the science which seeks to discover the general ideas which are indispensably relevant to the analysis of everything that happens” (85 note). For Whitehead metaphysics is the dispassionate consideration of the nature of things (SMW 173). These descriptions of Whitehead explicate very well his thrust. Coming from the background of science and mathematics Whitehead is guided by an analytic mind and wanted to scrutinise and verify the truthfulness of “everything that happens.” Therefore, the understanding of metaphysics in modernity is primarily concerned with what is happening. The difference between the transcendent and the immanent, which was so dear to the classical philosophy, is blurred in modernity. However, my reasoning of the modern understanding of metaphysics as a possible ground for the distinction of creativity and God shall not be misunderstood as a going back to the scholastic mode of doing metaphysics. My point is to call attention to the fact that metaphysics should not confine itself to the factual alone, but rather should adequately consider the other dimension of || God’s revelation or self-disclosure; they do not pretend to speak from within God; and (iv) The affirmations of faith have a paradoxical character (1955, 201- 04). 44 Joseph M. Angadiyil. “Semantics and Theology: A Status Questionis.” God, Man, the Universe. Leuven: Center For Metaphysics and Philosophy of God - Institute of Philosophy, (1981) 19-44.

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human existence that is irreducible to mere temporality. Here the following point is suggestive that “metaphysics … maybe a running towards what is other, carried by a dynamic surplus of being that looks for the origin of all superfluity. … It maybe a gratitude for the gratuity of being, its givenness as surplus” (BB 230-231). The search of modernity was to find a post-transcendent form (Michael Weston 93) which would carry out the functions of religion to fill the vacuum created by the loss of the Transcendent. However, modernity does not mean a complete loss or rejection of transcendence, but primarily a rejection of a metaphysics that from the very beginning is determined by religion, particularly a Christian metaphysics. One would certainly ask whether it is the same trend that is echoed in Whitehead’s urge for the secularisation of the functions of God in the process thought, a point we already discussed. We shall not forget here that the primary concern of Whitehead was not a religion beyond ambiguities but rather a sound metaphysics. In the separation of metaphysics and religion the influence of phenomenology also played its own role. Traditional metaphysics asked the question of the ‘why’ of reality and in its interpretation the question meant the necessity of asking the ‘cause of the be-ing as be-ing’, whereas from a phenomenological point of view metaphysics seeks to answer the question of ‘something as something’. Heidegger criticizes the traditional attitude of metaphysics. For Heidegger the ‘why of be-ing is not an enquiry into the cause of be-ing’, rather for Heidegger this question of why means a ‘search for a ground which makes this question itself possible (Heidegger. Was ist Metaphysik. 41). Heidegger’s argument is that leaving the Thomistic-Neo-scholastic interpretation of metaphysics it should take a “step back” and return to the source of metaphysical thinking which lies in the being of Dasein. Thus the first answer to the Leibnizian question (‘Why is there something rather than nothing’) is “because there is Dasein ...” (Heidegger. Vom Wesen des Grundes. 51; Luijpen 139). In the light of this thinking when I examine the Whiteheadian philosophy, I am tempted to draw a line of consensus between Whitehead and Heidegger in their understanding of metaphysics. Nevertheless, there are also differences between the two which we will discuss later. Here what I mean is that both Whitehead and Heidegger were really concerned with what is real; concerned with the “happening.” In other words, metaphysics dealt with what is factual. The object of enquiry is the ‘complete existent’ here and now.45 In this sense, Whitehead’s separation of

|| 45 For Heidegger, the proper character of traditional metaphysics was the forgetfulness of being. Traditional metaphysics and theology being very much united theology itself is likewise

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metaphysics and religion, in Heidegger’s terminology separation of philosophy and theology as distinct is not surprising. For Heidegger, theology is a “fully autonomous ontic science” vis-à-vis philosophy (Heidegger 1991, 16, 18).46 It is deemed to follow Heidegger a bit further, for it will help to clarify better our response to Whitehead. It is true that Heidegger has raised a good point. However the problem is, can one stop with the ‘unconcealedness’ of meaning? For what is revealed is the contingent nature of being. Therefore, the point is after making the phenomenological reduction one should again take up the question: -Why is there something rather than nothing?- in a new and more profound sense. It becomes necessary to ask the question about the ‘cause of be-ing as be-ing’. In other words, after the phenomenological reduction is made, the question of the ‘why’ of being does indeed return in the form of an inquiry into the cause of be-ing as be-ing. The reasoning behind is that what is revealed by the contingency of the subject is that metaphysical thinking reaches a phase in which it is no longer possible to affirm that being is, in the sense of what being is. The reason is, be-ing simply cannot be. Subject, as ‘shepherds of being’, cannot do anything other than to recognise the utter groundlessness of be-ing. This realization of the groundlessness again raises the question of why. That is why I suggested that ‘after making the phenomenological reduction one

|| infected with forgetfulness of being. “If Heidegger wants to keep Christian theology away from his philosophy, the reason is not only that philosophy is philosophy but also and especially that Christian theology dwells in forgetfulness of being, stands in the natural attitude. Christian theology does not think in the climate of authentic thinking, because it has never made the being of Dasein an ontological question” (BT 49; Luijpen 184). 46 Martin Heidegger. “Phenomenology and Theology.” Trans. James G. Hart & John C. Maraldo. The Piety of Thinking. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (1991) 5-21. Heidegger’s critique of western theology as ‘onto-theology’ is relevant to see Whitehead’s own position of God. Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology is a triple critique: (i) When, in our philosophical theology, we try to understand the whole of being in reference to a highest being, they remain in the ontic realm of beings and commit the most original sin which Heidegger characterises as ‘Seinsvergessenheit” which is very fatal to theology. For Heidegger states: “Only from the truth of being can the essence of the holy be thought. Only from the essence of the holy is the essence of the divinity to be thought. Only in light of the essence of the divinity can it be thought or said what the word “God” is to signify. … How can the human being at the present stage of the world history ask at all seriously and rigorously whether the god nears or withdraws, when he has above all neglected to think into the dimension in which alone that question can be asked? But this is the dimension of the holy, which indeed remains closed as a dimension if the open region of being is not cleared and in its clearing is near to human” (“Letter on Humanism”; Westphal 2003, 23-24). Martin Heidegger. “Letter on Humanism.” William McNeill (ed.). Pathmarks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1998) 239-276.

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should again take up the question and ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ returns to us in a new and more profound sense. The realization that the being of a be-ing is a ‘being from something else than be-ing further raises the question of the “other than be-ing” as cause of being.47 If one does not raise this question he stops halfway. Therefore, the complaint of the Neo-scholastics is that Heidegger has not reached this stage legitimately (De Petter. Metaphysiek en Phaenomenologie; Luijpen 141). Luijpen concludes his book Phenomenology And Metaphysics with the following sentence: “Man cannot experience God just as he experiences the world” (190). In this respect, I see that it is to be credited to Whitehead, as distinct from Heidegger, that Whitehead has clearly stated the inability of philosophy to comprehend the ‘complete fact’ about God and religion. “What further can be known about God must be sought in the region of particular experiences (religious experiences, e.g. revelation). Such an ‘epiphany’ can give a different orientation to one’s metaphysics which would accommodate religious dimensions as well.48 On the other hand, one can raise the same complaint against Whitehead that he himself stops halfway in his search for the fundamental Reality as he identifies it with creativity. What is remarkable is that creativity itself can explain only the ultimate nature of reality. Placing oneself in the context of modernity, and trying to evaluate ‘God talk’ from a phenomenological point of view it becomes clear that thinkers were confronted with a dilemma: either to reject God and religion out-rightly or to make a viable solution to the crisis that would accommodate both the renewed understanding of metaphysics and maintain the transcendence of God. What I see as the reasoning behind the separation of religion and metaphysics in the West, at least in modernity, is this. Perhaps it is only those who wanted to safeguard religious thinking that opted for this. The following argument substantiates it. Traditional metaphysics, living in forgetfulness of being, has not only made the interpretation of being very difficult but has also defended atheism, in spite of the fact that it con|| 47 By the term other than being what I mean is a trans-temporal reality. 48 It is also notable that the philosopher of the ‘Other’, Emmanuel Levinas, clearly distinguishes philosophy and faith. Levinas maintains that to speak about transcendence is to have what one says informed by an understanding with its roots in religion. But, it is not necessary that the speaking itself is religious (Totality and Infinity). Ricoeur pursues a similar line of thought: for him, “philosophy cannot decide whether the signs of religion points to some transcendent being, at least partly because philosophy is primarily an epistemological enterprise and religion is not.” However, it does not mean that one cannot make any philosophical analysis of religious phenomena (Faulconer 2; Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil).

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stantly spoke about “God.” Its speaking about God was merely a speaking about a pseudogod. If, then, it is already so difficult to transcend metaphysics by taking the “step back” to the essence of metaphysics, there is every reason, Heidegger says, to remain provisionally silent about God. Because traditional thinking about God is metaphysics and metaphysics must be transcended, man’s thinking is not yet able to indicate what the term “God” means” (Luijpen 171).

Therefore, the best option for the thinkers who wanted to safeguard religious thinking, at least to the minimum, was to distinguish religion and metaphysics. It is here that I see the relevance of Whitehead.

10.3 Whitehead’s Distance from Modernity The distinctiveness of Whitehead is that he makes a distinction within metaphysics and at the same time gives space for God talk within metaphysics. That is why God becomes a metaphysical necessity in his system. It has to be added that the separation of religion and metaphysics is more common to the West, while the East still accommodates religion and philosophy in one fold. The fact that from the time of the fathers of Greek philosophy, in the East as well as in the West, religion and philosophy were intimately connected points to the graveness of the matter.49

10.3.1 Religious and Metaphysical Ultimate as Distinct A natural corollary of the separation of religion and metaphysics was either its reception or was its complete rejection. However, before we deal with this in detail we have to see some more reasons behind such a distinction which would naturally take us to the classical or more specifically scholastic understanding where we have the identification of the religious and the metaphysical ultimate.50

|| 49 On the other hand, from the very beginning there was also, especially in the West, the tendency to split religion and philosophy; as a critique of religion and philosophers were accused of being irreligious. 50 Moreover, it is also important to note that the distinction between philosophy and religion is part of a large movement of differentiation typical of modernity, viz., the differentiation of politics, art, religion, philosophy, economics, etc.

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Here the question concerns the origin of the classical theistic conception which equates God and the metaphysical ultimate.51 The argument of the scholastics was that being expresses itself as having no ground in itself. Therefore, one is to look and affirm a transcendent Being. The relation or the nature of the dependence of beings upon the Transcendent Being is not a horizontal one but a vertical one (Luijpen 28). According to the scholastics, one cannot affirm the existence of the Transcendent in the same way as one says that a being exists, for “all terms used by man to say anything about God functions only as pointers, as road signs, which likewise do not go to the place to which they point. God, then, does not appear in the way in which be-ing appears, and the metaphysical “affirmation” of God is not a “seeing” of God” (Luijpen 28). The view that such an identification has come from Aristotle is already a matter of dispute. For Aristotle’s ‘Unmoved Mover’ was not the Ultimate, but was only the highest substance. Here the argument is that for Aristotle the heavenly bodies are as eternal as the ‘Unmoved Mover’. In this respect, one can trace the origin of classical theism which identified the metaphysical ultimate and God to the ‘marriage’ between Aristotelian philosophy and the JudeoChristian understanding of creation (creatio ex nihilo) (Van der Veken 1991, 206). This marriage identified the (philosophical) Absolute, understood to be the ground of all beings, with God who is the creator of all things, now understood in the line of First Substance of Aristotle. Thus, God became the unchanging ground of all beings and becomings. In other words, we have one Being and many beings with becoming depending on this one Being. This, to put it very briefly, is the onto-theological structure of Western metaphysics. For Hartshorne, the conflation of the philosophical and religious Ultimate led to the unsatisfactory situation of ‘paradoxical theism,’52 since it is confronted with both theological and philosophical problems (Van der Veken 1991, 205). As Whitehead himself pointed out (PR 7) any metaphysical thinking needs and therefore seeks an ultimate, a groundless ground and this is often characterised as the ‘Absolute’. According to Albert Dondeyne, any philosophy, which thinks in a radical way, searches for the Absolute (Luijpen 26). As we have pointed out previously one of the impacts of enlightenment and modernity was || 51 With regard to the intimate relation that existed between theology and metaphysics Hartshorne writes “whether or not theological doctrines ought to develop in independence of metaphysics, they have not generally done so in the past” (1953, 129). A similar view is expressed by Karl Barth: “As regards terminology, theologians have always lived by some philosophy, and in that respect they always will” (1936, 434). 52 The classical theistic position is designated ‘paradoxical’ because according to this there is no real relation between God and creatures.

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the separation of metaphysics and religion and, to a certain extent, the rejection of religion and God, at least from a metaphysical point of view. The distinction between religion and metaphysics effected serious debate as well. Some identified the metaphysical ultimate and the religious ultimate and others separated the two or denied the existence of any religious ultimate. Thus, “some identify the Absolute in the strict sense with God, others with eternal Matter, others again with the Absolute Ego, the Absolute Spirit, [Haeckel’s Nature], the Proletariat (Marxism), the Eternal Return, or Contingency” (Luijpen 26). Therefore, in the history of philosophy one could identify two trends with regard to the thought of the ultimate. A first trend is one in which the Absolute is identified with God. The distinctive feature of this trend is that it characterises the Absolute as the “Transcendent.” Moreover, with the emergence of the “new” names for Being as ultimates,53 the attributes traditionally affirmed of God were given to the absolutised ultimates. Thus we have in modernity ultimates which have nothing to do with the religious ultimate. And the modern absolutised ultimates were characterised by non- transcendence, while the religious ultimate distinguished itself with transcendence. The final outcome of this process was the formation of two independent ultimates, namely religious and the metaphysical.54 It is here that Whitehead’s distinction comes to the fore. One could formulate the same conclusion from a different perspective as Whitehead explicates. Whitehead scrutinises the role of science in the modern age and admits that in modernity science emerged as a third organised system of thought, apart from religion and philosophy. Practically, Whitehead maintains, science, to a certain extent, played the role of theology accounting for many of its questions. And with a second move in this direction, science suggested a religion, in virtue of its capacity to suggest a cosmology, for “whatever suggests a cosmology, suggests a religion” (RM 136). The end of this process, which culminated in the middle of the nineteenth century, was that science emphasised ideas which modified and reconfigured the religious pictures of the

|| 53 By it I don’t mean the distinction made between the religious and the metaphysical nor I mean ‘Being’ which was always the metaphysical ultimate. What I mean here is the absolutised absolutes such as Absolute Ego, Matter, Proletariat, etc.; in other words, the absolutes that emerged in modernity. 54 When I emphasize on the emergence of the distinction, I don’t deny that in the history of philosophy there was no distinction between the religious and the metaphysical. Moreover, religion and metaphysics were never identified completely. However, the distinctive nature of the classical or medieval thinking was that these two ultimates were identified, namely God with Being. Today the matter of concern is nothing but this immediate identification of Being and God.

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world (RM 136). Perhaps what one can discern in the metaphysics of Whitehead himself is the influence of this modified religious picture of the world in light of scientific developments. And what can be further said about this process is that philosophy was more sympathetic to scientific ideas and religion continued to be “wedded to its aboriginal picture of the world” (RM 136-37). And the inevitable consequence of this process was the gradual development of philosophy and religion as two separate “streams of thought.” Thus, it was reserved for philosophy to determine “all that was to be known concerning the ultimate reality, and concerning our own participation in that final absolute fact” (RM 137); and for religion the discernment of the “wisdom (emphasis added) in the nature of things, … a discernment of ordered relationships, especially in aesthetic valuations, which stretches far beyond anything which has been expressed systematically in words” (RM 138). Here we see the emergence of the metaphysical ultimate and the religious ultimate. The ultimate of metaphysics cannot be completely identified with the religious ultimate since religion and philosophy have never been completely identified. The God of revelation is not just the God of metaphysics. And the “traditional metaphysics of the scholastics has always sharply distinguished its “affirmation” of the Transcendent Absolute from the affirmation of the absolutised Absolute” (Luijpen 156-57).55 On the other hand, even in modernity or in postmodernity the upholders of classical theism are very clear in their assertion that “the one good that is the same remains the same in the flux of differences” (EB 73); and again it is stated that “God is the good that always remains the same …” (EB 75). In the light of the analysis we have made of modernity and its influence on religion and metaphysics I am very much prompted to place Whitehead’s own presentation of creativity as the ultimate of his metaphysical system in the context of the emergence of the distinction between the metaphysical and religious ultimates. It is also notable what Van der Veken remarks about the Principle of Concretion’ to which Whitehead applies the word God that it has its provenance in

|| 55 Heidegger’s own reproach of Nietzsche has to be understood in this context. The death of God which Nietzsche proclaimed meant not the death of the Transcendent God. It only meant, “the metaphysics which since Plato has lived in forgetfulness of being is in the throes of death. The place, which “God” occupied in this metaphysics, can remain vacant. Nietzsche delivered the deathblow to metaphysics, but his own thinking was not a transcending of metaphysics. According to Heidegger, Nietzsche was merely an anti-metaphysician. But because he limited himself to denying metaphysics, his own thinking remained in the same dimension as that of traditional metaphysics. Nietzsche did not go beyond metaphysics, but merely ended it” (Heidegger, Holzwege; Luijpen 181).

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secular reasons. Moreover, Van der Veken clearly states that we are not to take Whitehead’s equation of God with an actual entity in the literal sense. In fact, it is his unshaken conviction that Whitehead is subject to the onto-theological criticism of Heidegger (Van der Veken 1999, 272-73). Therefore, in the light of these facts, one may discern a kind of instrumentalisation in Whitehead’s use of God. I will elaborate a bit further the second point but, before we go to that a word about instrumentalisation of God. What is at stake when one instrumentalises God is that “God is not for us as an agapeic origin”56 as Desmond would claim, rather “a means by which we again secure ourselves in the world. This is a idolatrous use of God” (EB 44). However, what is suggestive in Whitehead as different from Descartes is that Whitehead does not stop with this instrumental use of God. He goes further and, in fact, for Whitehead God is also the God of faith and worship. One cannot simply ignore the development in Whitehead’s understanding of God that is self-evident from his texts. If one limits himself to Whitehead’s treatment of God in Science and the Modern World it is probable to find a sort of instrumentalization in Whitehead’s use of God. However, if one reads his later works, especially Religion in the Making, Adventures of Ideas and even some parts of Process and Reality, there Whitehead pictures a face of God that is religious and more akin to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Thus, the concept of God has two meanings in Whitehead: (i) the metaphysical God, and (ii) the God of religion.57 One is not to confuse the ultimacy that creativity has in Whitehead’s metaphysics with the ultimacy that God has in religion. However, what I mean when I say that Whitehead’s God is also the God of religion is Whitehead’s presentation of God as the source of the Good. Nevertheless, God as presented in Whitehead’s texts cannot be equated with the God of religion in every sense; neither does Whitehead mean it. The argument is that one cannot separate the question about God’s existence (an sit Deus) from the more basic question ‘what do we mean by God’? (quid sit Deus)58 Van der Veken maintains that the major flaw of the traditional theism was that it approached the question of God in a wrong way. For instance, the question “Is

|| 56 Desmond describes the agapeic origin as “the creative excess [that] would be more than any finite being, and constrained by nothing. It would be the original power to bring finite being into being. This agapeic bringing into being would be the free gift of being-other; it would not be the self-creation of the original whole” (BB 256). 57 M. A. Lederer. The Term ‘God’ in Whitehead’s Philosophy. Temple University (Dissertation) 1974. Cited by Jan Van der Veken, 1981, 309. Jan Van der Veken. “Whitehead’s God is not Whiteheadian Enough.” Harald Holz & Ernest Wolf-Gazo (eds.) 300-312. 58 Here Van der Veken is applying Saul Kripke’s criticism of descriptive reference to the philosophy of religion, pursuing the model of William Alston, who first made such an attempt.

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there a God?” already presupposes certain attributes of God such as God as the creator and sustainer of the universe, perfect knower and who is not truly related to the world, etc. The problem with this model of approach to God is that it does not take us to the basic issue, namely what we mean by the notion God or what we are to understand by this notion itself. Moreover, when we raise the question of God, first and foremost, it does not concern with God’s existence, but rather what we mean by this notion in a particular tradition. In this respect Gottlob Frege’s remark is very suggestive that the reference of a quoted expression is its customary sense. If we apply Frege’s suggestion to the ‘God’ question it would mean that we here point to a customary sense of that expression which is determined by a particular culture. In other words, to determine the meaning of a term we have to take into account the context of its provenance. Often such context is related to a concrete experience, which Kripke calls ‘an act of baptism’ (Van der Veken 1999, 276-77). Therefore, when someone uses the word ‘God’ it calls to mind an immense meaning, which originated in the religious context.59 The point is that any discussion on the question of God cannot then ignore this dimension of the notion God. What Whitehead’s God lacks is this religious context to a certain extent.

10.3.2 The Metaphysical and the Religious Ultimate are Different Our attempt in the above section was to develop the rationale behind the distinction Whitehead made between religious ultimate and religious ultimate. It also made clear that made factors, such as cultural, metaphysical and religious, played their own role in it. One cannot simply identify the religious and metaphysical ultimate any more, in the light of the current way of doing metaphysics in the West. One cannot also say that the distinction Whitehead made between religious and metaphysical ultimate is also a rejection of God and religion. It is notable that even some of the theistic thinkers do not identify God with the Absolute Transcendent Being as Origin, Ground, and the Cause of everything. According to Bergson, “the metaphysician’s speaking about God pays so little attention to the God of whom most people think that no one would recognise

|| 59 “To ask for reasons for our cultural practices is to misconstrue them. Meanings come to existence together with the cultural practices that incarnate them. We neither do nor ought to make claims about their truth, as if there existed a hidden essence that gradually has to be discovered” (Van der Veken 1999, 280).

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Him if He were to descend to the realm of experience” (Bergson 1956, 231).60 In the same way Gabriel Marcel argues that “the identification of God with the Absolute ‘Cause’ amounts to a misappreciation of God and leveling of Him to the low level of the unilateral, deterministic causes known by the sciences” (1967, 63).61 For Marcel, Nietzsche was right when he rejected God because for Nietzsche God was only a “God-Cause” who was not essentially different from the causes spoken of by the sciences. Marcel accuses the Aristotelian-Thomistic trend of metaphysical thinking for being guilty of such a leveling approach to God (1967, 63-64). Moreover, the clear distinction between God and Being in Heidegger states that “Being is not God and not a ground of the world” (Luijpen 27). Religious language finds its justification not on evidence but on its appeal to some authority. What is remarkable here is that the criterion of enlightenment and modernity stands in contrast to the criterion of faith. It is not that faith is unreasonable but rather the realm of faith transcends some of its criteria, “every religion … is defined by reference to what it accepts as an authoritative criterion in religious matters” (MacIntyre 1957, 199).62 Furthermore, MacIntyre claims that “to ask for reasons or a justification of religious belief is not to have understood what religious belief is” (208). Whitehead’s own statement is enlightening that “you cannot claim absolute finality for a dogma without claiming a commensurate finality for the sphere of thought within which it arose” (RM 126). Furthermore, Whitehead states that there is a limit to the extent where human reason can reach with regard to God. It can reach only a metaphysical God. Whitehead maintains that “what further can be known about God must be sought in the region of particular [religious] experiences” (SMW 178). Moreover, in RM Whitehead maintains that “religion is primarily individual[istic] …” (132). For Whitehead the philosophical and the religious ultimates do not coincide for the reason: (i) Whitehead conceives freedom as a universal category that applies to everything that is self-constituting. The point is, if something decided everything there is no point in talking about the selfdetermining nature of actual entities; (ii) if God is the Ultimate that decides everything one may have to say that God is responsible also for evil in the uni-

|| 60 Henry Bergson. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. New York: Doubleday Garden City, 1956. 61 Gabriel Marcel. Problematic Man. Trans. Brian Thompson. New York: Herder and Herder, 1967. 62 Alasdair MacIntyre (ed.). Metaphysical Beliefs. London: SCM Press, 1957.

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verse.63 In this respect, it is notable that the God of the philosophers is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “Religious people have known this a long time, but now there is a good philosophical reason why the philosophers should know it as well” (Ford 1981, 106). Therefore, from a Whiteheadian perspective, a clear distinction has to be made between God and creativity, as was done between the Being-problem and the God-problem. In other words, one has to see the problem of metaphysics and the problem of God differently. And as a consequence when the God problem is brought into metaphysics it can be done only in a metaphysical way. The observation Christian makes is very appropriate here: “Speculative propositions must be judged by speculative principles, and theological propositions must be judged by theological principles and judgement, even though the two sets of principles may overlap” (Christian 1967, 310).64 It has to be said, however, that even when one appreciates the distinction of creativity and God, or between the metaphysical and religious ultimate, the “religious meaning of the term God slips into Whitehead’s metaphysics.” But the fact is that “the religious meaning of the term ‘God’ does not derive from metaphysics, but from other, particular experiences which add their independent evidence to what metaphysics can say about creativity and some principle of limitation or concretion” (Van der Veken 1984, 301).65 Moreover, whatever Whitehead says about God is relevant to the metaphysical situation. But the question is, whether these (relevant) things should be attributed to ‘God’, which is a religious word? For Whitehead, metaphysics means “the science which seeks to discover the general ideas which are indispensably relevant to the analysis of everything that happens” (RM 82). Furthermore, he writes, rational metaphysics tries “to express the most general concepts adequate for the all inclusive universe” (RM 81). The view of Van der Veken, who claims that metaphysics can only derive an abstract element, an abstract principle, or the abstract side of a primordial actuality is notable. It can call this “God” only if it

|| 63 From this perspective Van der Veken draws an analogy between Hume and Whitehead. Hume is critical of the traditional theism, of perceiving God as the “all powerful Creator”, which would necessarily suggests an identification of philosophical and religious ultimate (Van der Veken 1990, 180). 64 William Christian. “A Discussion of the New Metaphysics and Theology.” The Christian Scholar (1967) 304-331. 65 Jan Van der Veken. “Whitehead’s God is not Whiteheadian Enough.” Holz, Harald & WolfGazo, Ernest (eds.). Whitehead and the Idea of Process: Proceedings of the First International Whitehead-Symposium 1981. Freiburg/ München: Verlag Karl Alber (1984) 300-312.

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corresponds to what the religious man means by this term (Van der Veken 1976, 263-279).66 The metaphysical ultimate of Whitehead is, or should be, creativity itself. Moreover, it is observed that Whitehead’s God is clearly not Whiteheadian enough. Taking into account the function that is ascribed to God in Whitehead’s system, God cannot be considered an actual entity as every other. For, in his system contemporary actual entities do not prehend each other. Here arises the question, how can God possibly grasp the past in its full subjectivity? (Van der Veken 1984, 303) The suggestion of Hartshorne is that pure metaphysics cannot provide for the features that religion normally attaches to the concept God. “The word ‘God’ no doubt stems from religion. There it is really at home” (1984, 304). With regard to the understanding of God as the principle of limitation, Van der Veken suggests that “this can be done only if we give to the word ‘God’ an extremely weak and not yet religious meaning.” In a way it is better not to use a term derived from religion, and that would make Whitehead’s system more coherent (1984, 305).

10.4 The Way of Doing Philosophy in the East The fundamental problems of philosophy both in the West and in the East were more or less the same and the solutions reached also had much similarity. “A careful reader of Indian philosophy who is fully acquainted with Western philosophy is agreeably surprised to see how philosophic minds everywhere have traversed more or less the same path and how the same philosophical concepts which developed in later times in Europe were so closely anticipated in India” (Gupta 1999, 123). Nevertheless, the development of thought and the solutions reached are different in the east vis-à-vis in the west. The general trend of the West today is to separate metaphysics and religion in its various aspects. Whitehead followed this trend of the West, to a certain extent by distinguishing the two, also in view of overcoming the problem of evil. And in the previous section we discussed how Aurobindo handled the very same issue that baffled the West. However, Aurobindo found it unnecessary to establish two realms – one for metaphysics and the other for religion. Nevertheless, it is not the identification of the two. On the contrary, he places together

|| 66 Jan Van der Veken. “Can the True God Be the God of One Book?” H. J. Cargas & B. Lee (eds.). Religious Experience and Process Theology: The Pastoral Implications of a Major Modern Movement. New York: Paulist Press (1976) 263-279.

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being and power of being. Thus, we have seen that Aurobindo construed Sachchidananda and the Supermind having essential unity and existential difference. This can be interpreted as a distinction, but here both Sachchidananda and the Supermind have a divine status in the light of their essential unity. We also discussed a few reasons for this. Our present concern is to elucidate further reasons for this trend of the East in contrast with that of the West. While dealing with the question of creativity and God and their distinction, in addition to Whitehead’s theistic concerns and the problem of evil, I have placed it in the context of enlightenment and modernity, and in the modern trend of doing philosophy in the West. At the same time it pointed to the distinctiveness of Whitehead. In the same way, here I would like to claim that one has to look for further reasons and grounds for Aurobindo’s recognition of Sachchidananda and the Supermind of having/sharing one essence, in the distinctive way of doing philosophy, and in the special relationship maintained between philosophy and religion in the East. In this context our objective here is to bring out some of the salient features of doing philosophy in the East that has contributed further to the placement of Sachchidananda and the Supermind together. Therefore, our question concerns the essential aspects that differentiate the East from the West in doing philosophy.

10.4.1 The Distinctiveness of the East One could identify a number of differences between the East and the West in doing philosophy. The Indian world-view is characterised by non-dualism, that is, the dominant keynote of Indian culture is a synthetic approach to Reality. It discusses the problems of metaphysics, logic, ethics, epistemology and psychology not in isolation but tries to see the intricacies of the problems in each domain from all possible approaches. The nature of Indian philosophy is that “it is a world philosophy” (Vyas xi).67 A world philosophy “must be the study of all time and all existence. … Total truth is the very life-blood of philosophy as well as the essential need of the world, total perspective is the essence of the philosophical method in distinction from all other methods” (Moore 1951, 1).68 The Indian world-view “is monistic and mystical, ours is dualistic and doctrinaire”

|| 67 R. N. Vyas. Nature of Indian Philosophy. New Delhi: Asian Publication Service, 1982. 68 Charles A. Moore (ed.). Essays in East-West Philosophy. Honolulu: Hawaii University, 1951.

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(Schweitzer 10).69 Thus, the dominant keynote of Western culture is more dualistic. Another distinctive feature of Indian philosophy is the synthetic approach, that is, while other philosophies make a distinction between man and nature Indian philosophy is characterised by organicism. “Through the law of Karma and Rta Indian philosophy finds a beautiful harmony running through the whole of universe” (Murty). The distinctiveness of Indian philosophy consists in the fact that while the Indian approach maintains an intuitive approach, the Western approach is the result of its rationalistic approach to life and existence. The West stresses the “relational or logical structure of reality, and converts the rationally defined polarities of existence into separate entities” (Chaudhuri 1960, 19). Moreover, the emphasis that the East and the West give to Spirit and Matter, respectively is note worthy. Indian philosophy is characterised as a “search for transcendent meditative consciousness beyond the apparent, restrictive, subjective and objective orders of experience” (Sarkar 1980, x). In this respect, the merit of Aurobindo is that he was able to integrate both these dimensions in his integral vision. Here also the function of the Supermind is relevant, for it makes possible the synthesis. The need of the time was a combination of the Indian spiritual view with the cosmic standpoint of the West, which is the unique contribution of Aurobindo (Maitra 1956, 13). Our present concern is to explain in detail some of these points that have contributed to the essential unity that is maintained by Sachchidananda and the Supermind in Aurobindo. I would like to explain this position of Aurobindo as a positive outcome of some of the major traits of Eastern - Indian - way of doing philosophy.70

10.4.1.1 Darsna Versus Weltanschauung The very understanding of philosophy as Darsna (way of life) in India points to the basic difference it has with the West, where philosophy is understood to be a weltanschauung, (a world view), which does not necessarily affect one’s life.71 In general it can be said that in the East no philosophy is possible without its

|| 69 Albert Schweitzer. Indian Thought and Its Development. London: A & C Black Ltd., 1951. 70 Even though the Eastern approach and Indian approach cannot be identified in all respects, since the Chinese, Japanese approaches are distinct in certain matters, here my focus will be on Indian approach. However, the general trend of the East is same for all Eastern philosophies. 71 Here it is notable that Murty equates philosophy as Darsana with Weltanschauung (Murty 133). It is certainly a naïve understanding. Philosophy as Darsana is richer in its depth and width than a worldview (Weltanschauung).

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own influence on the one who philosophizes, unlike the normal practice in the West. In other words, in the East, philosophizing is an endeavour that affects the whole being of the philosopher, but in the West it is mostly an intellectual enterprise. This characteristic feature of Indian thought is well expressed by Deutsch that for Indian thinkers ‘to know’ is ‘to be’ (1968, 4). Aurobindo very well presents this feature of Indian thought in the following words: […] knowledge does not end with knowing, nor is it pursued and found for the sake of knowing alone. It has its full value only when it leads to some greater gain than itself, some gain of being. … To be is the first verb which contains all the others; knowledge, action, creation, enjoyment are only a fulfillment of being (U 249).

The observation of K. Jaspers that ‘Weltorientierung along with ExistenzErhellung is an important task of philosophy’ (Van der Veken 1999, 281) is very true of Indian philosophy. One acquires knowledge only in an act of conscious being which is akin to what one knows and which is the content of direct experience (Deutsch 1968, 4). Here we could recall a number of philosophers who highlight this distinctive feature of Indian philosophy.72 For the East philosophising does not mean an intellectual comprehension alone rather a transformation of one’s self. It is neither an inner experience alone, “an inspiration that occasionally enraptures us and sends one into a trance, but it is a truth of existence that drives us onto the ultimate target of our evolution, the divine life on Earth” (Diwakar 93).73

|| 72 Pursuing a similar line of thought Radhakrishnan states that for the Indian thinkers it is not enough to realise the Absolute truth intellectually, but the truth must be lived – “the truth of the spiritual essence of all reality must be made the motivating force of all life” (Radhakrishnan 1967, 576). In the words of Mohanty, “the beauty of Indian thought is that here the academic and the non-academic mingle together, yet without sacrificing the rigor of thinking” (Mohanty xxxvi). In this regard, Mcgreal maintains that “in the east the thinker’s life is expected to reflect the assertions articulated in his or her philosophical formulations and explanations to a much greater degree than in the West where philosophy is viewed as a very abstract enterprise” (271). In the same tone and with the same vigour Das Gupta comments that “philosophy should not remain merely a theoretic science, but should mould our entire personality and should drive it through the hard struggles of moral and spiritual strife on the onward path of self-realization …” (Gupta 1999, 123). 73 R. R. Diwakar. Mahayogi: Life, Sadhana and Teachings of Sri Aurobindo. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1976. Aurobindo maintains that the real value of philosophy for man consists in its capacity “to give him light on the nature of his being, the principles of his psychology, his relations with the world and with God, the fixed lines or the great possibilities of his destiny” (SM 395).

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Thus, another positive outcome of the life orientation of Indian philosophy is that it is more practical than theoretical. The practical means neither ‘what is narrowly pragmatic’ nor ‘what is related to will’. On the contrary, it means that Indian philosophy “does not stop with a rational or intellectual apprehension of reality, but goes further in discovering a method by means of which this apprehension may lead to a transformed life, generally called self-realization” (Mahadevan 1949, 138).74 In other words, here the word practical is used as opposed to the term abstract. It is in order to point out what Aurobindo recalls of Heraclitus, for whom he had great respect. Aurobindo feels that to a certain extent, Heraclitus himself was a victim of the dryness that modern philosophy in the West feels today. Aurobindo goes on to ask “but what is their practical effect on human life and aspiration? For that is in the end the real value of philosophy for man, to give him light on the nature of his being, the principles of his psychology, his relations with the world and with God, the fixed lines or the great possibilities of his destiny” (SM 394). And Aurobindo identifies it as the weakness of modern European philosophy, not of the ancient, that “it lives too much in the clouds” as it seeks after pure metaphysical truth too exclusively for its own sake.” It is what made Western philosophy today “a little barren because much too indirect in its bearing on life” (SM 394). Aurobindo claims that one of the characteristic merits of Indian philosophy is that it was always conscious of the double function of philosophy: Intellectual pursuit and the guidance of life, which ever remains as the prime goal of Indian philosophy.75 This lifeorientation of Indian philosophy signals another distinctive feature of it, namely its value-centrism.

10.4.1.2 Existence Is Value The value-centrism, i.e., its view of reality not as mere existence, rather as value is a positive outcome of the life (centred) orientation of Indian philosophy. Reality has to be judged on the basis of the value it confers. Among the two prominent theories of Reality, viz. factual (existential) and axiological, the West follows the former, which is distinctive for its objectivity and its independence of || 74 T. M. P. Mahadevan. “Indian Philosophy and the West.” The Philosophical Quarterly vol. XXII No. 3 (1949) 137-148. 75 “It has sought the Truth not only as an intellectual pleasure or the natural dharma [law of nature and function according to nature] of the reason, but in order to know how man may live by the Truth or strive after it; hence its intimate influence on the religion, the social ideas, the daily life of the people, its immense dynamic power on the mind and actions of Indian humanity” (SM 394).

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subjective sensations and feelings. Moreover, the factual is basically theoretical for it is not interested in the problems of life, which are the problems of attaining content or value. On the contrary, for the axiological, Reality is value and it is concerned with practical life (Maitra 1956, 59). Therefore, the value orientation of Indian philosophy is closely associated with her axiological conception of the theory of Reality. For the East philosophy is developed “not only on an intellectual level but also on the physical level, since the truth is not only the way of thinking about the world but rather the way of existing in the world” (Milcinski 244).76 It is also noted that “A great spiritual impulse leads Indian thought to seek an experience which would liberate the spirit from the shackles of time and space and would therefore acquire value. The dynamic of this quest for liberation provides the context for great metaphysical systems” (FeR 91).77 Even for the heterodox systems of Indian philosophy, such as Buddhism and Jainism, the ultimate concern of philosophy is to discover Supreme Value. Another characteristic trait of Indian philosophy goes very well with it, namely Reality is Consciousness.78 The point is that if reality were unconscious it would not be a value. In this perspective every reality must possess three kinds of value: the value of existence or the value of objectivity; the value of consciousness or the logical value; and the value of bliss (ananda) or the spiritual value.79 It is this three dimensional value that is expressed in the classical Indian conception of the Reality as Sachchidananda – Sat+Cit+Ananda, which expresses the existential, logical, and the spiritual aspects, respectively. It is the understanding that existence itself is value that the Western thinkers possibly missed. If Reality is value, it should be existence and thought as well. In this sense it can be asserted that existence and thought are also values (Maitra 1956, 9). One of the advantages of this understanding of the Reality is that here we don’t have a distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy. This is

|| 76 Maja Milcinski. “European and Asian Philosophies Contrasted.” Thottakara Augustine (ed.). Western Encounter with Indian Philosophy. Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications (2002) 243-255. 77 John Paul II. Fides et Ratio: On the Relationship Between Faith and Reason. Boston: Pauline Books, 1998. 78 It has to be noted that here it does not mean that whatever in nature is self-conscious, rather it means only that things are ‘rational’ in the sense they have their origin from a rational principle. 79 Here it can be noted that Bradley has identified two aspects in every reality, namely the aspect of existence and the aspect of content, what he called respectively the ‘that’ and the ‘what’. However the problem with his idea was that he failed to distinguish in the content the two separable elements, namely the logical element and the value element (Maitra 1956, 8).

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not only a characteristic feature of Indian philosophy alone, rather of all Oriental philosophies (Maitra 1956, 11).80 As any erudite Western thinker, Indian thinkers are very clear in their assertion that the search for truth must be for its own sake (philosophy); but they differ from most of their Western counterparts in stating that search for truth should not be the final end or that the search cannot be made an end in itself. In this respect Aurobindo commendably claims that truth must be sought “for its own sake and not start with any preconceived practical aim and prepossession” for to “start with any preconceived practical aim and prepossession … would distort our disinterested view of things” (SM 394). However, for Indian thinkers once truth has “found its bearing on life becomes of capital importance and is the solid justification of the labour spent in our research” (SM 362).81 One cannot separate the search for truth from its bearing on life. When our search is without its bearings on life, we fail to “explore more comprehensively the dimensions of the true, the good, and the beautiful” (FeR 125) in life which gradually leads to “the crisis of meaning.” For “a philosophy which no longer asks the question of the meaning of life would be in grave danger of reducing reason to merely accessory functions, with no real passion for the search for truth” (FeR 102). In other words, human capacity knows that truth is essentially related to man’s search for ultimate and definitive meaning of life.82

|| 80 In addition to what we have already seen in this regard, the following quote of Aurobindo substantiates this point further. “It is at least a fundamental principle of the ancient wisdom, the wisdom of the East on which we are founding ourselves, that philosophy ought not to be merely a lofty intellectual pastime or a play of dialectical subtlety or even a pursuit of metaphysical truth for its own sake, but a discovery by all right means of the basic truths of allexistence which ought then to become the guiding principles of our own existence. Sankhya, the abstract and analytical realisation of truth, is one side of Knowledge. Yoga, the concrete and synthetic realisation of it in our experience, inner state, outer life is the other. Both are means by which man can escape out of falsehood and ignorance and live in and by the truth. And since it is always the highest he can know or be capable of that must be the aim of the thinking man, it is the highest truth which the soul must seek out by thought and by life accomplish” (SY 383). 81 It has to be remembered that here too Whitehead stands distinct from other Western thinkers. For he takes reality as value. One is reminded here of Whitehead’s critique of Western materialism which considered nature without any inherent value. 82 Moreover, on the social level the study of philosophy enables one to carry-out his and her social responsibilities and bind one “with ties of sympathy and love to all humanity – this is the final wisdom of Indian thought” (Gupta 1999, 123). Aurobindo substantiates this point in reference to Cartesian principle of “Cogito ergo sum’ (EDH 8-9). It is not true that because I think, I am; but rather because I think, feel and act, and even while I am doing any or all of these things, can transcend the thought, feeling and action, therefore I am. Because I manifest,

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10.4.1.3 Sense of Transcendence From the age of the Vedas one of the distinctive marks of Indian thought is its emphasis on the transcendent orders without neglecting the phenomena and their experiential processes and possibilities (Sarkar 1980, xx). (Nevertheless, we have seen in chapter five that the Eastern emphasis of the Transcendence was too extreme, even to the rejection of the phenomenal.) One of the impacts of enlightenment and modernity was the loss of transcendence in the West. In fact, it is most likely that it was also one of the reasons for the separation of God and creativity in Whitehead. Nevertheless, one cannot say that in Whitehead we have a complete denial of transcendence, but rather he limits it to the sphere of religion alone. Conversely, it is the life orientation and the deep sense of transcendence central to the Orient that motivated Aurobindo to maintain the essential unity of Sachchidananda and the Supermind. Vincent Sheean in his famous book on Mahatma Gandhi, Lead Kindly Light wrote the following: “what is distinctive in the broad Mass of the Hindu people, as compared with all other great divisions of humanity, is the unquestioning … acceptance of transcendent reality in the common consciousness” (cited in Diwakar 90). Indian thinkers always distinguished between two orders of experiential process – transcendent and apparent. The transcendent reality was viewed as Tad Ekam (That One), that does not exclude the apparent many, or the confronted universe (Sarkar 1980, ix). That is why Aurobindo maintains an integral Advaitic vision of Reality. Therefore, in contrast to the Western “conceptualempirical philosophic modes” Indian philosophy can be considered as a result of the “transcendent meditative process” (Sarkar 1980, ix). The argument is not that Indian philosophy is devoid of the conceptual, empirical, and the theological modes, rather that they are only secondary processes. In fact, Indian thought is a process “beyond abstract conceptualism, empiricism and theism, to transcendent meditative integral process” (Sarkar 1980, xii). Thus, for Aurobindo, a major difference between Asia or India and Europe is that the former made spirituality the “leading motive and the determining power of both the inner and the outer life” while the latter is characterised by “spirituality suppressed, allowed only under disguises or brought in as a minor power, its reign denied or put off in favour of the intellect or of a dominant materialistic

|| I am, and because I transcend manifestation, I am. The formula is not so clear and catching as the Cartesian, but there is a fuller truth in its greater comprehensiveness (EDH 8-9). Therefore, the claim of Aurobindo is that our disinterested search in philosophy should be for value, value in life and value in existence.

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vitalism” (RI 65).83 In the above citation, it seems, Aurobindo’s comments are a bit exaggerated. What I mean is, one cannot certainly say that in the West ‘spirituality is suppressed’. Certainly, there is a loss of the sense of transcendence in the modern West, which we already have discussed. Nonetheless, one cannot generalize such a statement and make it the sole picture of the West. It can never be said that in the West spirituality is suppressed. In fact Aurobindo himself acknowledges that.84 Moreover, the emphasis on the spiritual consciousness of Indian philosophy does not mean that it is a feature of the East alone, rather “it is more basic and far more common than elsewhere.” A sense of spiritual consciousness which poet Wordsworth described as the “Intimations of Immortality.” India is distinct in its “intense and all-absorbing urge to live a God-inspired life, to live in the unitive experience of the highest Reality.” In this respect, observes Heinrich R. Zimmer, that “the chief aim of Indian thought is to unveil and integrate into consciousness what has been resisted and hidden by the forces of life” (Diwakar 91, emphasis added). If one takes the coinage “forces of life” pointing to what is phenomenological, the life force of the earthly existence, it clearly brings out the attitudinal difference of the East and the West. What one sees in the modern West is an over emphasis of the phenomena at the cost of noumena, to put it in a Kantian formulation.85 What is ideal for the West vis-à-vis for the East is to be detached from all “restrictive conceptual and empirical ways” and prefer an approach that would account both for the transcendent and the apparent, which would not “aim to reduce the transcendent to the apparent.” The transcendent is the enlightening

|| 83 Aurobindo. Renaissance in India [1918]. Reprint in The Foundations of Indian Culture [191821]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram (1998) 395-432. Aurobindo continues that “The tendency of the normal Western mind is to live from below upward and from out inward. A strong foundation is taken in the vital and material nature and higher powers are invoked and admitted only to modify and partially uplift the natural terrestrial life. The inner existence is formed and governed by the external powers. India’s constant aim has been on the contrary to find a basis of living in the higher spiritual truth and to live from the inner spirit outwards, to exceed the present way of mind, life and body, to command and dictate to external Nature” (RI 74). 84 Aurobindo states that “… the West has had no less than the East its spiritual seeking and, the East as had its materialistic tendencies, its material splendours …” (dated 11.08.1949, On Himself 413-14). 85 On the other, the relegation of the material life to a secondary place by the Indian thinkers in no way means the denial of it, but it is only an expression of the great awareness that “this is not all, this is not the end.” For the Indian mind, life and the material are only instrumental, for there is something “beyond” which includes and comprehends them. In the Upanishadic terms there is a “golden lid” (Basu 373) that covers the face of the Truth.

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meditative insightful basis for the phenomenal which is the manifest confronted order (Sarkar 1980, xxiv). What is praiseworthy is the reception of both matter and spirit and their right placement in Reality. The wisdom of the present that is exemplified in Whitehead and Aurobindo is that the West is reawakening to the Truth of Spirit and the East is reawakening to the Truth of Life.

10.4.2 Religion and Philosophy: Two Modes of Expressions As we treated the distinction of God and creativity in Whitehead we have amply substantiated that the West mostly separates philosophy and religion. In the Orient, in general, philosophy and religion are distinct but not separate. However, it has to be remembered that in the East vis-à-vis in the West philosophy had religion as its matrix. Moreover, it was only religion, either the mythic religions or the modern versions of established religions, that kept the spirit of philosophy alive at a certain period of history and worked for its flourishing. However, Will Durant’s thrashing statement in his famous Story of Civilizations that reason and faith are at war from the dawn of civilizations questions the veracity of the above facts. Moreover, modern philosophy in the West separated or more precisely liberated itself from the cliches of religion with the emergence of the enlightenment and modernity. Therefore, our attempt in this section is to discuss the relation maintained by philosophy and religion in the East. We will analyse also how this relation has contributed to the placement of Sachchidananda and the Supermind together. Philosophy and religion are complimentary in the sense that both have the same objective, namely the Ultimate Reality. They deal with the ultimate concern of human existence; and both are at the service (diakonia) of the truth (FeR 10). Both deal with that part of human existence which concerns him most ultimately. Perhaps we may fail to explain it in human language, for it transcends all kinds of explanation. The best way to put it would be something like what Rudolf Otto describes in The Idea of the Holy as the “tremendous and fascinating mystery” in human existence. Philosophy and religion are the two best possible ways to transmit this mystery to human understanding. In the Aurobindonian perspective, all philosophy is concerned with the relation between two things, the fundamental truth of existence and the forms in which existence presents itself to our experience. In this sense philosophy and religion can be understood as two modes of being of the same truth or two modes of expressions of the same reality: one appeals more to the intellect, and the other to the heart. “Religion is the seeking after the spiritual, the suprarational and therefore in this sphere the intellectual reason may well be an insufficient help and

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find itself, not only at the end but from the beginning, out of its province and condemned to tread either diffidently or else with a stumbling presumptuousness in the realm of a power and a light higher than its own” (HC 127). In another place Aurobindo describes religion as “that instinct, idea, activity, discipline in man which aims directly at the Divine, while all the rest seem to aim at it only indirectly …” (HC 162). What is highlighted in these definitions is the intimate relation between religion and transcendence: in the first the reference to “spiritual and the supramental” and in the second “aims directly at the Divine” point to the Transcendent. Religion as the seeking after the spiritual raises further question concerning the meaning of the spiritual. By the spiritual Aurobindo means that which is suprarational, that which is beyond or higher than the realm of reason. However, by this Aurobindo does not advocate any kind of fideism. On the contrary, he is well aware of the dangers when someone follows the decrees of religion without thinking.86 However, it can be rightly observed that neither is complete without the other. Here a question as to the legitimacy of the complimentarity of the religious and the philosophical is quite natural. For the East the complimentarity of the two is not illegitimate. The argument is that while philosophy supplies the theoretical part by providing authentic knowledge of the ultimate Reality, Yoga, the practical or the religious part provides the means to attain the realisation of the ultimate Reality. In other words, “philosophy discovers the final end or goal of man; having discovered it, it hands it over to Yoga that it may devise means of practically realizing it.” In the Indian tradition, from the point of personal realization, religion is nothing but Yoga (Maitra 1956, 14). Pursuing quite a similar line of thought Deutsch suggests that as different from Western philosophy, Indian philosophy is intimately bound up with spiritual experiences. Indian philosophy is a religion as much as it is a technical philosophy; it is a way of spiritual realization as well as a system of thought (Deutsch 1968, 4). That is the reason why Indian philosophy is traditionally characterised as a way of life.87

|| 86 In fact, he records well the past atrocities that have taken place in history in the name of religion and faith (HC 165). 87 The unique blend of philosophy and religion that the Eastern tradition maintains, especially by the Indian, can only be seen as an outcome and expression of her spiritual consciousness. It is the living sign that Indian philosophy percolated to the common man through “its intimate influence of religion, the social ideas, the daily life of the people,” while the West divorced philosophy and religion and, therefore, could influence only the elite few. In fact, it can rightly be observed that religious texts are the foundations of philosophical discourse too, with regard to Indian philosophy.

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10.4.2.1 Religion, Philosophy and Freedom For Aurobindo, the synthetic approach towards philosophy and religion is intimately connected to true spirituality and freedom. For, true spirituality itself is an outcome of the enjoyment of true freedom. And true freedom finds its deepest manifestation in its power to expand itself and grow towards perfection by the law of one’s own nature, dharma. His argument is that true spirituality respects the freedom of the soul that is not just confined to the walls of any particular creed or sect; nor is it confined to any particular dimension of human existence, such as religious. True spirituality is open to philosophy and science, and this liberty extends even to the point of freedom to deny the spirit. And Aurobindo maintains that it was this freedom that the ancient Indian religion gave, that science and philosophy “never felt … any necessity of divorcing themselves from religion, but grew rather into it and under its light” (HC 170). This fact gives a clue as well for the separation of religion and philosophy in the West, for the West never enjoyed this kind of freedom, where religion dominated all spheres of life, until philosophy on its own right liberated itself from the clutches of religion during enlightenment and modernity. Since Indian philosophy always enjoyed this freedom of thought it never felt the need of separation. This fact throws further light why Aurobindo found it unnecessary to look for a separate metaphysical ultimate, other than the religious. Therefore, a possible reason for the separation of philosophy and religion in the West maybe the lack of openness from the part of religion. Aurobindo draws a clear picture of this situation in the following words: “religion was bound up with certain fixed intellectual conceptions about God and the world which could not stand scrutiny, and therefore scrutiny had to be put down by fire and sword; scientific and philosophical truth had to be denied in order that religious error might survive” (HC 164). But the result was that in its turn science and philosophy destroyed religion altogether, and boasted to have killed the religious instinct in man. Aurobindo agrees with the West for its demand for freedom, nevertheless, he states that nothing can kill the religious instinct in man, which he conceives as the “one instinct … that cannot be killed, [but] it only changes its form” (HC 163). Nonetheless, it raises a question concerning the actual relation between religion and philosophy in the East.

10.4.2.2 Philosophy and Religion: Distinct but not Separate The intimacy of philosophy and religion is all the more true of Advaita. Nevertheless, it has to be stated beyond ambiguities that in no way India or the East identify philosophy and religion. One cannot reduce Indian philosophy either to a naturalistic philosophy alone or merely to pure religion with sentimental pi-

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ety. In the Indian tradition one can identify a great deal of rigorous thought which cannot be categorised as simple religious aspects. It would be a mistake, however, to think that “Vedanta is pure and simple religion … there is a great deal of rigorous thought in Vedanta which is not simply super added to its religious aspects … Vedanta’s concern with spiritual realization, in short, does not make it less of a technical philosophy” (Deutsch 1969, 4-5).88 It is in this respect that we see the relevance of Aurobindo. He brings out the indispensable role of both philosophy and religion, in the human quest for Truth. Aurobindo maintains that “philosophy is the intellectual search for the fundamental truth of things, religion is the attempt to make the truth dynamic in the soul of man.” Furthermore, philosophy and religion are at the service of each other. “… [A] religion that is not the expression of philosophic truth degenerates into superstition and obscurantism, and a philosophy which does not dynamise itself with the religious spirit is a barren light, for it cannot get itself practised.”89 Therefore, for the East it is impossible to think of two ultimates. That is the reason again why Aurobindo advocates the essential unity of the metaphysical and the religious. For Aurobindo human history witnessed the victory of science, philosophy or religion at different times. The truth is that each has usurped the rights and domains of the other in its heyday (EDH 87). Aurobindo, on the other hand, emphasises the interdependency of science, religion and philosophy: The business of Philosophy is to arrange logically the general modes of Sat, the business of Religion is to arrange practically and vitally the personal relations of Sat, the business of Science is to arrange observantly and analytically the particular forms and movements of Sat. They are really necessary to and ought to lean on each other; and, if all recognised proper limitations and boundary marks, could by their joint activity help man to his present attainable fullness; but by a sort of intellectual land hunger they are perpetual invaders of each other’s dominion, deny each other’s positions and therefore remain unprofitably at war through the human ages (EDH 84).

|| 88 Eliot Deutsch points out that the difficulty that the West finds with many of the Indian systems is that it is too traditional, in the sense that what is primary for them in the interpretation of a book is to make it in accordance with that of the tradition. On the other hand, the primary concern of a Western thinker in dealing with a philosophical tradition, is to see whether it is true to human experience, and how adequately it has organised thought into a coherent system. Indian authors often try to be faithful to the scriptures which are taken to be revealed. But the West does not accept such Authorities in philosophical thinking (Deutsch 1969, 5). 89 Arya. Aug. 15, 1915, Quoted in Radhakrishnan 1967, 578.

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The ideal is neither a separation of philosophy and religion nor a blind identification, rather the mutual enrichment of the two, to account for the integral human experience. The following quote of Bradley very clearly expresses this point: If a man is assured on the part of philosophy that his religious belief is false, he is warranted, at least formally, in replying that this is so much the worse for philosophy. But the position becomes different, when, without any such assurance, and perhaps even against a contrary assurance, a man insists that some philosophy contradicts his moral or religious belief. He may doubtless here be right, but, if he is right, it is because he himself, so far, is the better philosopher (Bradley. Essays on Truth and Reality).90

Aurobindo argues further that “Philosophy and Science, if they are to help mankind without hurting it and themselves, must recognise that mankind is a complex being and his nature demands that every part of that complexity shall have its field of activity and every essential aspiration in him must be satisfied” (EDH 88-89). For man is not only a sum of his materiality, rather a rational being who aspires higher values and meaning in life. If one limits the study of human being to his material side alone, then one is reducing him to a brute matter or perhaps to a brute animal. I do agree that a pure metaphysician can explain the function of the universe without any reference to God. Aurobindo brings out the relevance of the metaphysical knowledge on its own right but he points to its inadequacy as well. The following quote of Aurobindo is selfexplanatory in this regard: The complete use of pure reason brings us finally from physical to metaphysical knowledge. But the concepts of metaphysical knowledge do not in themselves fully satisfy the demand of our integral being. They are indeed entirely satisfactory to the pure reason itself, because they are the very stuff of its own existence. But our nature sees things through two eyes always, for it views them doubly as idea and as fact and therefore every concept is incomplete for us and to a part of our nature almost unreal until it becomes an experience. But the truths which are now in question, are of an order not subject to our normal experience. They are, in their nature, “beyond the perception of the senses but seizable by the perception of the reason.” Therefore, some other faculty of experience is necessary by which the demand of our nature can be fulfilled and this can only come, since we are dealing with the supraphysical, by an extension of psychological experience (LD 61).

In the light of this citation it can be safely said that no pure metaphysics could adequately explain the most sublime feelings, such as beauty, truth and good

|| 90 F. H. Bradley. Essays on Truth and Reality [1914]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

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that human beings cherish in life. Here comes the role of religion in human life. We have seen that Whitehead himself points to this role of religion. Neither metaphysics nor religion can account for complete human experience, rather “our nature sees things through two eyes always” (LD 61; SM 395). Another interesting observation would be that Whitehead too speaks of two eyes, but for him it is not the eyes of philosophy and religion rather it is “two eyed reason.” This is also the ground why Aurobindo claims that “it is unfortunate for philosophy as well as religion “when the divine sisters part company” (SM 395). The noble ideals of truth, beauty and good pertain to the domain of religion and faith. Therefore, even if it is for religious purposes and on religious grounds alone, none can discard this dimension of human existence. That is the reason why I suggest that the ideal is to give adequate space for religion as well as philosophy. In fact, Whitehead recognised the religious dimension of human existence (SMW 178). However, religion itself has to be very vigilant that it does not cross the boundary of its own domain. Thus Aurobindo warns the religious as well: We see too that a narrow religious spirit often oppresses and impoverishes the joy and beauty of life, either from an intolerant asceticism or, as the Puritans attempted it, because they could not see that religious austerity is not the whole of religion, though it may be an important side of it, is not the sole ethico-religious approach to God, since love, charity, gentleness, tolerance, kindliness are also and even more divine, and they forgot or never knew that God is love and beauty as well as purity (HC 165).

In this respect what Desmond states is very suggestive that “You cannot put “No Trespass” signs over religion and order philosophy not to step across. Nor should philosophers themselves erect the “No Trespass” sign” (Desmond 1999, 24). Aurobindo does not hesitate to add that what he means by religion is not a false religion which stands for a “false theocracy, forgetting that true theocracy is the kingdom of God in man.” For him, true religion should be “a seeking after God, the cult of spirituality, the opening of the deepest life of the soul to the indwelling Godhead, the eternal Omnipresence” (HC 166). Aurobindo makes a distinction between true religion and religionism. True religion is spiritual religion, that which seeks to live in the spirit, in what is beyond the intellect, beyond the aesthetic and ethical and practical being of man, …. Religionism, on the contrary, entrenches itself in some narrow pietistic exaltation of the lower members or lays exclusive stress on intellectual dogmas, forms and ceremonies, on some fixed and rigid moral code, on some religio-political or religio-social system (HC 166-67).

In fact, what is demanded, as Van der Veken suggests, is not just the rejection of one’s own tradition, but “a certain distrust of the saving power of a mere phi-

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losophical and scientific approach” (1999, 276). What is expressed in the integral advaitism of Aurobindo by maintaining an essential unity and existential difference between Sachchidananda and the Supermind is nothing but this unique relationship that is maintained between philosophy and religion in the East.

10.4.3 The Complimentarity of Faith and Reason Our analysis in the above section brought out the “unique blend” of philosophy and religion that the East maintains. However, the co-existence and the mutual enriching of the two are not a closed chapter in itself. In other words, I would suggest that one has to look for the raison d’être of this blending in something other than itself. What I mean is this: the complimentarity of philosophy and religion points further to a higher realm and richer truth, which themselves stand complimentary to each other, namely faith and reason. It is in this respect we have to see the difference that exists between Whitehead and Aurobindo. Cobb Jr. maintains that the dualism of faith and reason advocated by some thinkers is no more relevant today. In fact, history points to the flip side of such a venture (Cobb Jr. 1999, 47).91 What calls for the blending of faith and reason is not only an awareness of the inadequacy of reason to account for an integral human experience, but also the realization that such an attempt is necessary to bring out the richness and beauty of human existence. In fact, these two are two sides of the same coin. In this context it is in order to pay heed to what John Paul II states: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth …” (FeR 7). Our objective here is double edged: first to clarify the role of reason and its inadequacies and, second, to explicate the necessity of taking together faith and reason to explain the truth of human existence. The critique of the West from Hegel (Philosophy of History, 138-167)92, and following him, Husserl and Heidegger, is that Indian philosophy is mythicalmagical-intuitive and not conceptual. Mohanty commendably responded to it that it was the Western scholars who interpreted like that. For, it was not the self-understanding of Shankara, Vatsyayana or Nagarjuna, the great sons of || 91 John B. Cobb, Jr. “Science, Theology and Whitehead’s Philosophy.” André Cloots & Santiago Sia (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 45-65. 92 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The Philosophy of History. Trans. J. Sibree. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1956.

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Indian philosophy. However, Mohanty points out that “the best of Indian philosophy was after all the same as the best Western philosophy – that Samkara and Bradley, Ramanuja and Hegel, or Vaisesika and Aristotle were doing largely similar things, pressing similar theses, advancing similar arguments” (Mohanty 1993, 214).93 In our own time, Harvard logician Quine was surprised to learn that Gangesa Upadhyaya, 13th century Indian philosopher and founder of modern school of Indian Logic, knew De Morgan’s law, as he read the manuscript of Daniel Ingall’s work on Gangesa (Mohanty 1993, 214-15). The above facts raise two contrasting views regarding the role of reason in Indian philosophy. Therefore, it is in this context, I want to discuss the precise role of reason in Indian philosophy.

10.4.3.1 The Role and the Limitations of Reason What can be stated, at the outset, as a general observation is that it may not be fair to say that Indian thinkers fail to recognise “reason” for the service it has done to humanity. […] we must recognise the fact that in a time of great activity, of high aspiration, of deep sowing, of rich fruit-bearing, such as the modern age with all its faults and errors has been, a time especially when humanity got rid of much that was cruel, evil, ignorant, dark, odious, not by the power of religion, but by the power of the awakened intelligence and of human idealism and sympathy, this predominance of religion has been violently attacked and rejected by that portion of humanity which was for that time the standardbearer of thought and progress, Europe after the Renaissance, modern Europe (HC 163).

In no way Aurobindo relegates the importance of reason in human life. In fact, he calls for an “enlightenment” of a Kantian type. Does not the following amount to such an invitation? Our first necessity, if India is to survive and do her appointed work in the world, is that the youth of India should learn to think, to think on all subjects, to think independently, fruitfully, going to the heart of things, not stopped by their surface, free of prejudgments, shearing sophism and prejudice asunder as with a sharp sword, smiting down obscurantism of all kinds … (EDH 43).

Aurobindo’s call for the “enlightenment”, however, is different. It does not aim at the rejection of transcendence, rather invites the young minds of India to || 93 J. N. Mohanty. “On Interpreting Indian Philosophy Some Problems and Concerns.” Purushottama Bilimoria (ed.). Essays on Indian Philosophy Traditional and Modern. Delhi: Oxford University Press (1993) 207- 219.

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search for truth with a purified intelligence to reach out to the Transcendent itself. What is aimed at is not a self-transcendence, rather a transcendence with the aid of the Transcendent. It is the difference between the East and the West. Here reason is no more the supreme arbiter but the guiding light. Moreover, by this “enlightenment” Aurobindo does not mean a servitude to the Western ideologies. Even when he calls for an enlightenment of reason, he could not make it a distinct ultimate or an independent ultimate. What is to be highlighted is that the call to “transcend” reason “does not mean the repudiation of reason; and the Indian philosopher, equally with his Western counterpart, ‘can discover no reason in whose name reasoning must be forsworn” (Mahadevan 1949, 143). In fact, Shankara maintains that that which is accepted or believed in without sufficient enquiry is not only bad philosophy, but also prevents one from reaching the goal of perfection and results in evil (Commentary on Vedantasutra, I. i. 1; Mahadevan 1949, 143). Therefore, when the Indian thinkers or Aurobindo speak of the limitation of reason it is not any negation of reason, rather it is caution against the absolutisation of it. In the West reason is raised to the Absolute itself; there the rational approach is continuous and progressive till the absolute is reached (Murty 1965, 153). It is in this context we have to see the separation of God and creativity in Whitehead. In contrast to the Western approach, Constantin Regamey maintains that in the Indian perspective, reason only leads to the threshold of the Absolute and then has to disappear.94 By supreme insight alone is Nirguna Brahman experienced, and (he thinks) there must be a ‘leap’ between reason and this insight (Murty 1965, 153). In the East, though reason was cultivated to its utmost possibility it was never made the sole means of Truth. On the contrary, intuition, illumination, and experience were equally considered. It is true that Whitehead gives a place for intuition, illumination, and experience in his metaphysical system. Nevertheless, he has followed the general trend of the West by distinguishing creativity and God. The East argues that a philosopher initiates with thought and reason but with an aim to go beyond reason and intellect to reach what is supra-rational. It is in this light that one can understand the designation of a philosopher as a sage by Indian philosophy.95 Therefore, for the East it is || 94 He was a Professor of Slavic and Oriental languages, Lausanne University, and a Professor of General Linguistics, Fribourg University, Switzerland. 95 We have seen previously in our discussion of Greek philosophy that in the early Greek philosophy the same word was used to designate a wise man, until Pythagoras coined the term philosopher. A sage “is a man in excess of man in seeking to be likened or assimilated to the divine pattern. Conducting himself in concord with this order, he looks towards transfiguring otherness in order to be in the middle its living mimesis. … As self-mediating, the sage is nei-

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not possible to find a dualism between metaphysics and religion and thereby to advocate two ultimates. It goes without saying that two ultimates are contrary to the spirit of the Orient.

10.4.3.2 Human Reason: A Mediator not an Angel The pertinent question is why one needs to transcend reason? Therefore, to achieve our proposed goal, first we have to see whether human reason is limited in any sense. This takes one to further questions, if it is limited what are the limitations? If human reason is adequate enough to account for every human experience what is the legitimacy of the Eastern claim that it is inadequate? It was made sufficiently clear that Indian approach is not any negation of reason rather questions its legitimacy to account for an integral human experience. For Aurobindo, reason shall not be made the source of spiritual certainty. Repudiating human dependence on reason for spiritual certainty Aurobindo wrote in one of his letters the following: As a matter of fact there is no universal infallible reason which can decide and be the umpire between conflicting opinions; there is only my reason, your reason, X’s reason, Y’s reason, multiplied up to the discordant innumerable. Each reasons according to his view of things, his opinion, that is, his mental constitution and mental preference. So what is the use of running down faith which after all gives something to hold on to amidst the contradictions of an enigmatic universe? (LY 165)

However, here a question can be put to Aurobindo: what is the advantage of faith or Yogic experience in this regard? It is also my faith, my experience, etc. One cannot have any universal truth claims based on particular experience or based on one’s own faith experience. In this respect, even the claim of Aurobindo is not any denial of reason rather what is denied is the exclusivist claims of reason. Aurobindo further clarifies this point: Reason has its place especially with regard to certain physical things and worldly questions … but its claim to be the decisive authority in matters of yoga or in spiritual things is untenable. … reason … cannot give you the realisation of spiritual truths but can only assist in an intellectual presentation of ideas; realisation comes by intuition and inner experience. Reason and intellectuality cannot make you see the Divine, it is the soul that sees … it is not safe to depend on it [reason] alone in matters which escapes its jurisdic-

|| ther despot nor slave but the free man. As intermediating with otherness, he bears neither rage towards being, nor rancor, but gratitude and good will” (Desmond 1990, 58). What Desmond states of a sage go very well with the Indian understanding of it.

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tion, especially in spiritual realisation and in matters of yoga which belongs to a different order of knowledge (cited in Roy 1982, 18).

Aurobindo argues further that “truth is not logical; it contains logic, but is not contained by it” (EDH 10). What Aurobindo demands of the East as well as of the West is that “not forgetting immediate in ultimate truth, nor ultimate in immediate, but giving each its due place and portion in the Infinite Purpose” (EDH 13). Whitehead himself points to this fact. For him, scientific and religious impulses are the two strongest forces of human nature (SMW 181). And he maintained also that philosophy acquires its greatest importance when it shows that the two (science and religion) can be harmonised (PR 15). One cannot understand the whole mysteries of the Reality with intellectual reason: For not by reason was creation made; And not by reason can the Truth be seen (Savitri 256).

Aurobindo claims that European metaphysical thought, in general, does not go beyond the intellect. The intellect is incapable of knowing the supreme Truth. What is possible is to catch only fragmentary representations of it, not the thing in itself, as Kant would claim. What the mind can do is to “make some constructed figure that tries to represent it or a combination of figures. At the end of European thought, therefore, there must always be Agnosticism, declared or implicit”; or our ultimate attitude must still be a “wise and large Agnosticism” if intellect is our highest possible instrument to reach Truth (Heehs 260-61). It is in order to recall what Cloots states in this regard: “Reason indeed cannot present itself as an all-transcending standpoint, able to recuperate everything and elaborate it to a unifying knowledge” (Cloots 2005, 17).96 The East maintains that if one insists on the finite logic with regard to the Supreme Reality, “Omnipresent Reality will escape us and we shall grasp instead an abstract shadow, a dead form petrified into speech or a hard incisive graph which speaks of Reality but does not express it. Our way of knowing must be appropriate to that which is to be known; otherwise we achieve only a distant speculation, a figure of knowledge and not veritable knowledge” (LD 323, italics added). Human language and categories of human reason often fail to convey the true meaning of world existence. “It is irrational to suppose that a finite consciousness and a reason can be a measure of the Infinite; this smallness cannot judge the immensity; this poverty bound to a limited use of its scanty

|| 96 André Cloots. “Seeing Everything from a Religious Point of View? On Religion and Fragmentation.” Unpublished Manuscript (2005) 1-17.

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means cannot conceive the opulent management of those riches; an ignorant half-knowledge cannot follow the motions of an All-Knowledge” (LD 327). Human intellect is always limited by the finite operations of physical nature; and human observation and understanding are finite. This finite reason tries to generalize and universalize what it has gathered through the limited capacities and it rejects and considers irrational whatever contradicts and transcends its conceptions or what crosses its comprehensibility. Therefore, there is a need to transcend the realm of reason, and Aurobindo states that intellect “leads man to the gates of a greater self-consciousness and places him with unbandaged eyes on that wide threshold where a more luminous Angel has to take him by hand” (HC 105). The question remains: who is this Angel?

10.4.3.3 Reason Transcending to the Realm of Intuition Our immediate attention is to articulate the role and function of intuition in speculative philosophy, as envisioned by Eastern philosophy in general and Indian philosophy in particular. It is this intuitive knowledge that helps the Eastern thinkers to see the essential unity of the metaphysical and the religious ultimate. However, this demands further justification. Here the first question to be answered is what do we understand by the notion intuition? Aurobindo defines intuition as the “the direct experience of an infinite and eternal Existence, an infinite and eternal Consciousness, an infinite and eternal Delight of Existence.” It is the direct experience of Sachchidananda itself. It is “fundamental cognition of the Absolute, our substantial spiritual experience” (LD 314). Aurobindo claims that human language cannot describe it since the primary purpose of words is to express relations and they cannot deal with what is pure absolute and unrelated.97 Neither can the finite human intellect envisage it (Basu 1992, 208).98 Here the reasoning is that “the poverty of philosophy cannot “affirm” the wealth of the God …” (Luijpen 282).99 Bergson’s view of intuition

|| 97 About the inadequacy of the English language to convey spiritual truths, George Russell, the great poet, wrote in 1932 to Dilip K. Roy that English is a great language but it has very few words relating to spiritual ideas. ... I am sure the languages which the Hindus speak today must be richer in words fitted for spiritual expression than English, in which there are few luminous words that can be used when there is a spiritual emotion to be expressed. …” (in Diwakar 90). 98 Arabinda Basu. “Language of the Absolute: A Contemporary Indian Interpretation.” Journal of Dharma vol. XVII, no. 3 (1992) 203-209. 99 Here it is suggestive of Desmond’s article “Religion and the Poverty of Philosophy” in his Is there a Sabbath for Thought: Between Religion and Philosophy where he discusses the topic

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goes very well with what Aurobindo has said of it. For him, intuition is that which gives a direct access to the “within” of an object (Bergson 1955, 62).100 For the Indian thinkers intuition is “not an infra-intellectual feeling, but a supra-rational apprehension which is an awareness that does not involve the distinction of subject and predicate, of knower and object known.” The point is that the knowledge about the ultimate Reality is gained by higher intuitive thought rather than by discursive thought. “It is the spiritual way, the road that leads beyond the intellectual levels, the passage from the outer being to the inmost Self, which has been lost by the over-intellectuality of the mind of Europe” (RW; Heehs 263). The Indian way of enquiry into the experience of reality includes three stages: (i) the stage of study and observation called sravana (ii) stage of critical reflection, manana and (iii) the stage of continued meditation, nididhyasana, which culminates in the intuitive realisation (Mahadevan 1949, 143). Indian thinkers would completely agree with F. H. Bradley that there is a need for “transcendence of logical reasoning” (Mahadevan 1949, 140-41). For Bradley, “thought is relational and discursive and if it ceases to be this, it commits suicide” (AR 170).101 Thought must be relational in the sense that then only real will be revealed. Bradley continues: “It must cease to predicate, it must get beyond mere relations, it must reach something other than truth. Thought, in a word, must have been absorbed into a higher intuition” (AR 171). However, one cannot make any absolute claim that the West always made reason its only source of knowledge and reasoning. Even in the best of Western thinkers one could identify a dimension of intuition, for instance, it is true of Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel and so on. Then it is reason ‘seeing and recognizing itself’. Aurobindo claims that in the development of Western philosophy as well, one could observe the same development – mystics and mysteries came first, a claim whose veracity the present study vindicated previ|| from the contemporary context. He calls for more openness from the part of both philosophy and religion where the self-manifestation of the other is respected. 100 In the history of philosophy intuition has been interpreted and explained differently. It maybe understood as (i) the starting point of, and so as preceding thought (Aristotle and Kant); or (ii) as what also characterises thought itself (Hegel); or (iii) as the culmination of thought (Bradley); or (iv) as being totally distinct from, coordinate with, or even opposed to it (Bergson) (Mohanty 29). In this description of intuition, two ideas stand out: first and foremost we are concerned with intuition as a mode of knowledge, and not merely as an experience; and the second, closely associated to the first, intuition should be indispensably related to the nonintuitive thought (Mohanty 30). 101 F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay [1893]. Second edition (1897), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.

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ously. He argues that “to ignore the influence of the mystic thought and its methods of self-expression on the intellectual thinking of the Greeks from Pythagoras to Plato is to falsify the historical procession of the human mind. It was enveloped at first in the symbolic, intuitive, esoteric style and discipline of the mystics …” (SM 371). Aurobindo admires the Greek thought for it had “a kind of fluid precision, a flexibly inquiring logic” … and “by this power in it” … “it determined the whole character and field of subsequent European thinking” (SM 367).102 One of the objectives of Kantian inquiry was to delve into the possibility of knowledge and the limits of knowledge, i.e., of factual knowledge. The argument is that a higher kind of knowledge is possible. Also, does not Kant’s Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone call for a realm where religion is at home, but a realm that transcends reason? Therefore, it can be said that it is only a later development in Western philosophy that made intuition secondary. In the history of Western philosophy, at the same time, there was always the urge to return to its authentic state. In fact, the West has “tried constantly to return; the Neo-Hegelians and others … seem to be reaching after it” (LY 159). Sarkar raises the same point when he refers to the anti-intellectualist trend of phenomenologists, existentialists, also of Bergson and Bradley, to name but a few, during the Post-Hegelian period (1980, ix). Moreover, one cannot deny absolutely that there is a mystical dimension even in the postmodern Western philosophy – even to the contrary. What is necessary is a higher reason, an intuitive reason which Aurobindo distinctively characterises as the Logic of the Infinite. For the Logic of the Infinite there is no opposition between the one and the many, being and becoming, philosophy and religion, faith and reason, etc. The Logic of the Infinite can be considered a combination of reason and intuition, that helps one to transcend the contradictions in these opposing principles thanks to its comprehensiveness. A distinctive contribution of Aurobindo to the theory of knowledge is that the mind is only an instrument of seeking knowledge but does not possess it. “Mind” maintains Aurobindo, “acts by representations and constructions by the separation and weaving together of its constructed data; it can make a synthetic construction and see it as a whole, but when it looks for the reality of things, it takes refuge in abstractions - it has not the concrete vision, experience, contact sought by the mystic and the spiritual seeker” (LY 245).

|| 102 This reminds one of Whitehead’s statement that the whole of Western philosophy can be described as a series of footnotes to Plato.

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This is the reason why Aurobindo maintains that “a certain kind of agnosticism is the final truth of all knowledge” (LD 12); at the end of all searches the universe appears only as a symbol of the Reality which translates itself here into different systems of values. Aurobindo substantiates his point by referring to the Upanishadic dictum: “Mind attains not there, nor speech” (Kena Upanishad I. 3). What is meant here is only that the Absolute escapes the grasp of rational thought and speech and it is attainable by a supreme effort of consciousness. What is necessary is not mere rationalisation rather a mystical consciousness that transcends the boundaries of reason. It is what Aurobindo means by the Logic of the Absolute. The Logic of the Infinite can be compared with the ‘postreflectional consciousness’ of which Bradley speaks (Nedumpalakunnel 13). It is from this background of Indian philosophy Aurobindo speaks of the essential unity of Sachchidananda and the Supermind. For the East there is no difficulty to understand such a position, for such an attitude is rooted in the heart of the Orient. On the other hand, it can be said that Whitehead has his own reasons, contextual and philosophical, writing in a post-enlightenment and post-modern era. Therefore, for the West in general the separation of the metaphysics and the religion is acceptable to a certain extent. However, the question remains as to the veracity of the ground on which the separation is made. However, Whitehead distinguished himself from his Western contemporaries by making a distinction within metaphysics giving adequate space for God and religion. Thus, for Whitehead creativity is the metaphysical ultimate and God is the religious ultimate. Nevertheless, Whitehead’s approach is not devoid of its own problems. Precisely, we see that the East, as different from the West, still keeps the unity of the metaphysical and the religious ultimate, namely Sachchidananda. This is exactly why Aurobindo places together Sachchidananda and the Supermind.

10.5 The Middle Way of Whitehead and Aurobindo Our discussion also brought to light some of the salient features of the East and the West in doing philosophy. Thus, it eventually took us to the further objective of our project, namely the possibility of an intermediation between the East and the West in the context of the metaphysics of Whitehead and Aurobindo. We try to focus on some of the specific areas of intermediation in our forthcoming final discussion of Whitehead and Aurobindo. What is remarkable of Whitehead is that his intellectual honesty made him to say that there is a limit for reason and what is beyond it belongs to the domains of religion and intuitions. Therefore, I would dare to say that there is no

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fundamental difference between Aurobindo’s vision and that of Whitehead, at least in this respect. We will work out in detail the convergence and divergence between these two thinkers in the forthcoming discussion. Nonetheless, the problem is that Whitehead has not pursued this second dimension any further. Perhaps from his point of view it was not necessary, for his purpose was to discuss speculative metaphysics. The West has responded to the power of reason variously. For instance, some having discovered the powers of reason concluded that ‘there is no world’ beyond reason. For some others the power of reason can be limited to the domain of metaphysics. They maintain that in metaphysics there is no going beyond reason, but in religion yes. In this respect, they develop a religious metaphysics. What is typical of Whitehead is that he brings in God into metaphysics on metaphysical grounds. For him, reason has the final word in metaphysics but not in religious matters. On the contrary, albeit her discovery of the sublime powers of human reason, the East realised that there are realms beyond the comprehension of reason. It realised that man’s aspiration for Truth, Beauty, Good, and Meaning transcends the capacity of reason and its ‘topos’ is beyond reason. This “beyondness” does not mean that they are irrational or reason is not applicable in their case, rather it is possible for reason to analyse and understand but it is also possible that reason may not comprehend everything in its true nature. This is yet another example for the distinctiveness of Whitehead from his Western contemporaries. The point is that Whitehead himself has given great weight to intuition. “Words do not express our deepest intuitions. In the very act of being verbalised they escape us. The trouble is that we are in the habit of thinking of words as fixed things with specific meanings. Actually the meaning of language is in violent fluctuation and a large part of what we try to express in words lies outside the range of language” (Dialg. 295-96).103 In this respect I would prefer to suggest that what Kant expressed through his statement that he is fascinated by two things, namely ‘the starry heavens above and the moral law within’ points to both phenomena and noumena.104 It is the intuition that enlightens us over this moral law within. Though apparently a naïve observa-

|| 103 A. N. Whitehead. Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead [As Recorded by Lucien Price]. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1954. 104 The complete text is as follows: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and perseveringly my thinking engages itself with them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me” (Critique of Practical Reason, 5:1612).

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tion, is not the most original thinking of all great philosophers the outcome of their own intuition?

11 General Conclusion 11.1 Resumé In articulating our final observations we have to backtrack a little in the project we have been developing so far. In discussing Whitehead and Aurobindo in the context of the metaphysics of becoming our objectives were: 1. To discuss Whitehead’s and Aurobindo’s respective views on being and becoming. 2. To explore the relationship maintained in Whitehead between Creativity and God. 3. To elucidate the relationship maintained in Aurobindo between Sachchidananda and the Supermind. 4. To expound on the relevance of the distinction Whitehead made between God and Creativity and the relevance and significance of the essential unity Aurobindo maintained between Sachchidananda and the Supermind. 5. To see the possibility of a better engagement between the East and the West in the light of the philosophical insights of Whitehead and Aurobindo in the context of the metaphysics of becoming. In the course of our previous discussions, we covered in considerable detail, the first four points, though indirectly they referred to the fifth one. We followed such a method in view of explicating on their own rights the major concepts of each philosopher under discussion. Thus, Part One in four chapters discussed Whitehead where we focussed especially on his understanding of Becoming, God, and Creativity, which at the same time initiated us also into the Sitz im Leben of his philosophy and his general thought pattern. Whitehead, albeit following his own distinctive way of philosophizing, is very attentive to the trend of philosophy that emphasized becoming in contrast to Being. Thus, Whitehead was able to bring back a dimension of Reality/existence, namely becoming, which was, to a certain extent, attenuated in the medieval and modern period. What we have in Whitehead is a clear primacy of becoming or process, which extends even to the divine, instead of being or static existence. Thus, for Whitehead the fundamental concept in metaphysics is creativity, i.e., the creative advance. In Part Two we had a treatise on Aurobindo’s metaphysics of becoming, which we discussed in four chapters. Aurobindo is very much rooted in classical

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Indian philosophy and basically follows the same trajectory of thought. Aurobindo’s integral advaita was discussed with special focus on the notions of Becoming, Sachchidananda, and the Supermind. What distinguishes him from other thinkers of India is that he made an attempt to articulate Oriental thought in Western categories. In particular, he was able to integrate the evolutionary theory of the West with the Indian understanding of becoming. Albeit his strong affinity and sympathy for becoming, however, Aurobindo takes being as primary in contrast to Whitehead. Aurobindo does admit dynamism in God, nevertheless, for him Sachchidananda remains the metaphysical ultimate. These two facts, namely the difference in approach towards being and becoming and to the question of the ultimate, clearly pointed to a difference between Whitehead and Aurobindo in philosophizing. From a wider perspective they are indicative of the difference between the East and the West. This fact occasioned a further discussion on the relationship between Creativity and God in Whitehead and Sachchidananda and the Supermind in Aurobindo Ghose. Thus, we have undertaken a discussion of the above relationship in Part Three in two chapters. Our study pointed out that for Whitehead there is an existential as well as essential difference between God and Creativity, for the two notions pertain to two different domains, namely the religious and the metaphysical. Thus, for Whitehead God is the religious ultimate and creativity, the metaphysical. And when the religious notion of God is brought into metaphysics, it is not identified with the metaphysical ultimate, viz. creativity, but clearly distinguished. Our exploration of Whitehead further pointed out that he was not groundless in making a distinction between the religious and the metaphysical, but rather his theistic concerns and the problem of evil necessitated such a move. Nevertheless, our discussion of Whitehead provided us with no final solutions; rather, we were left with further questions: whether we solve the problem of evil by making a distinction between the religious and the metaphysical and could we save God from being responsible for evil? Besides, when God, functioning within metaphysics, is not the (metaphysical) ultimate, is such a God religiously satisfactory? Having met with these problems we initiated a discussion on Aurobindo to see how he conceived the relationship between Sachchidananda and the Supermind and the religious and the metaphysical. We learned that for Aurobindo there is an existential difference and an essential unity between Sachchidananda and the Supermind. Here, there was a question immediately raised with regard to the enigma of evil. Aurobindo’s realism towards the problem of evil did not result in a separation of being and power of being, precisely Sachchidananda and the Supermind. Moreover, Aurobindo finds a possible solution for the problem of evil which does not fall upon God. Again, in Aurobindo we have

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an essential unity between the religious and the metaphysical. Thus, our exploration took us to new dilemmas without giving a final way out. This demands further justification. We were met with new dilemmas in the sense that irrespective of their similarity in being the protagonists of metaphysics of becoming, there is basic difference between Whitehead and Aurobindo. They are different in their approach to the question of being and becoming, God and Creativity or Sachchidananda and the Supermind, in their approach to the problem of evil, and in their understanding of the relationship between the religious and the metaphysical. Thus our study demanded a further research, maybe in a wider context, for the above differences between Whitehead and Aurobindo. This thought opened totally a new horizon before us, viz. the world of the East and the West in doing philosophy. Precisely in the hope of finding a better solution for the differences between Whitehead and Aurobindo we embarked on a discussion of the East and the West in philosophizing. Thus, we tried to place and analyse the differences in the approaches of Whitehead and Aurobindo in the context of doing philosophy in the West and the East. Nevertheless, we had to limit the scope of the exploration, to the enlightenment and modernity with regard to the West, and we could draw only a sketch of its Greek origin and medieval period. It can be safely said that our quest has produced positive outcome that brought forth the basic similarity or the close tie between the East and the West in dealing with the fundamental questions of philosophy and the way the fathers of philosophy responded to it. What is pertinent is that the problem of being and becoming is not something new, but rather it has always been there. And the significance of Whitehead and Aurobindo is that they have taken up the issue anew and tried to propose a way out in their own way. Moreover, our quick look back to the Greek origin of the Western philosophy reasonably clarified that the compartmentalization of religion and philosophy or an exclusive rational pursuit of philosophy for its own sake, the hallmark of the West, is mostly a modern phenomenon. In other words, in the beginning, both in the West and in the East philosophy/science and religion had the same matrix, early thinkers were able to accommodate both being and becoming, rather than an exclusive pursuit of either one, and they maintained a synthetic approach to philosophy and religion. Furthermore, the ultimate concern of human existence was never discarded from the spectrum of philosophizing. Objectively speaking our sketchy reference to the Greek origin and a rather detailed analysis of enlightenment and modernity brought out the clear contrast between the classical and modern period of Western philosophy. On the one hand, it made clear the relevance of Whitehead and Aurobindo in their respec-

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tive worlds, and on the other, the two could be seen as the candidates with greater potentiality for a better engagement between the West and the East. From this background and context we entered into a final discussion of Whitehead and Aurobindo and their philosophical approaches. What can be generally stated is that Whitehead is more attuned to the trend of philosophizing initiated by modernity in the West while Aurobindo still maintains the ethos of classical philosophizing and that of the East, in spite of his intellectual formation in the West.

11.2 Whitehead and Aurobindo and East-West Dialogue Our exploration of the conditio sine qua non for the existing relationship between Creativity and God and Sachchidananda and the Supermind took us to a discussion of the East and the West, which also highlighted some of the points of convergence and divergence in the way of doing philosophy in the East and the West. Our present focus is to bring together Whitehead and Aurobindo in the light of our previous discussions and also in view of a better engagement between the East and the West. Nevertheless, it has to be made clear at the outset that our objective here is not a thorough comparison of the two authors, but rather to bring out some of the major points of potential dialogue between the East and the West in the light of our research.

11.2.1 Being and Becoming: an Attempt to Think them Together Our exploration into the question of being and becoming in Whitehead and Aurobindo signaled that the issue under discussion is very complex. In fact, it brought to light the irreducibility of reality into either being or becoming. A quick detour into the history of philosophy, focussing our attention on the classical and modern periods, to see how the West and the East handled this issue down through the centuries would clarify the point. In history we have philosophers as well as schools of thought who assumed a one sided approach to reality by their exclusive preference either for being or becoming. One group is emphasizing the dimension of being and the other the dimension of becoming. This is true of both the East as well as the West. In other words, neither the West nor the East conceives Reality or existence in a univocal or absolutely determinate way. One can identify, from both sides, strands of thought that highlight becoming alone, for instance Nietzsche or the Buddhists. In his Gay Science Nietzsche states that “We … instinctively attribute a deeper meaning and greater

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value to becoming and development than to what ‘is’; we hardly believe in the justification of the concept of ‘being’” (306). For the Buddhists “there is no being at all, and the only reality is becoming. The change is not only total, it is also perpetual” (Thachil 113). Heraclitus is usually known as the philosopher of the flux but his merit is that “he does not exclude Being from the data of the problem of existence. For him, Being is an eternal becoming yet the Becoming resolves itself into eternal being” (SM 376). Nevertheless, a univocal claim for the reality of becoming seems more problematic. Then we are confronted with so many questions, such as identity, permanence, teleology, purposiveness, etc. Aurobindo expresses his general critique for those who focus only on becoming. He maintains that though the Nihilistic Buddhists insisted only on the impermanent forms, no oneness, no identity anywhere and what is beyond ideas and forms is only self-extinction, the Void or Nothing, yet they must posit a principle of unity somewhere, if not at the base or in the secret being of things, yet in their action.1 On the other hand, today Western philosophy in general is known as a philosophy of being. Nonetheless, a univocal approach to this issue is no more feasible. If we say that being alone is real, the question arises immediately concerning the dynamism of nature, that is part of our daily experience; and if we say that there is only becoming and being is fiction, as Nietzsche or the Buddhists claim, we are in no safer position either. Our research on Whitehead and Aurobindo explicated that they were very clear about the complexity of the matter and they avoided any exclusivism in this regard. It is in this context I see the relevance of Whitehead and Aurobindo, and it is also for these reasons these two thinkers are specifically brought together rather than any other. The greatness of Whitehead and Aurobindo is more explicit when we see their philosophy in the light of the history of philosophy. What we see in them is a double fold relevance: (i) they were able to bring back a dimension of reality, viz., becoming, something that was attenuated in the course of history; and (ii) they were able to think together being and

|| 1 “The Buddhists had to posit their universal principle of Karma which, when you think of it, comes after all to a universal energy as the cause of the world, a creator and preserver of unchanging measures. Nietzsche denied Being, but had to speak of a universal Will-to-be; which again, when you come to think of it, seems to be no more than a translation of the Upanishadic tapo brahma, “Will-Energy is Brahman.” The later Sankhya denied the unity of conscious existences, but asserted the unity of Nature, Prakriti, which is again at once the original principle and substance of things and the creative energy, the phusis of the Greeks. It is indeed wise to agree that all things are one; for vision drives at that, the soul and the heart reach out to that, thought comes circling round to it in the very act of denial” (SM 381-82).

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becoming irrespective of the differences in their understanding of these two notions. Our present task is to clarify our position in the light of our research and a detour of the history of philosophy. That is, we maintain the irreducibility of reality either into being or becoming and propose that reality can be thought in terms of being with becoming. We try to substantiate this position in the following. The subject of our discussion is very complex in the sense that what seems primary to our senses is becoming, and our cosmic experience authenticates it. Whitehead maintains that “the very essence of real actuality – that is, of the completely real – is process. Thus each actual thing is only to be understood in terms of its becoming and perishing” (AI 274); and “Actuality in its essence is a process” (AI 275). In the same way Aurobindo states the following: “All that our sense experience tells us of, is form and movement. Forms exist, but with an existence that is not pure, rather always mixed, combined, aggregated, relative. When we go within ourselves, we may get rid of precise form, but we cannot get rid of movement or change. Motion of Matter in space, motion of change in Time seem to be condition of existence” (LD 66). Human reason takes as primary nothing but movement and change, and considers them alone as real. Aurobindo comments that in its extreme form one would declare that: [The] idea of an eternal stability, an immutable pure existence is a fiction of our intellectual conceptions starting from a false idea of the stable: for there is nothing that is stable; all is movement and our conception of the stable is only an artifice of our mental consciousness by which we secure a standpoint for dealing practically with the movement (LD 73-74).

The chief characteristic of Whitehead’s metaphysics is becoming. Being is process or, in other words, process constitutes being. Whitehead maintains that the “actual is a process, and is not describable in terms of the morphology of a “stuff” (PR 41). For him, the “doctrine of organism is the attempt to describe the world as a process of generation of individual actual entities, each with its own absolute self-attainment” (PR 60). What is primary in nature for Whitehead is the creative advance of nature. The following statement of Aurobindo is remarkable in the light of Whitehead’s point of the creative advance of the universe: We are and the world is a movement that continually progresses and increases by the inclusion of all the successions of the past in a present which represents itself to us as the beginning of all the successions of the future, a beginning, a present that always eludes us because it is not, for it has perished before it is born. ... Becoming is the only being (LD 7677).

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What is manifested here is that both Whitehead and Aurobindo almost with same vigor and enthusiasm speak of movement and becoming. The question is, is it the ultimate fact about reality? Is not reality more than mere becoming? If becoming is the only fact, how do we account for the unity of being? How do we account for the permanence in nature, either it is considered in the sense of value or otherwise? It is here that we see the ingenuity of Aurobindo and Whitehead. They maintain existence in its dual dimension, being and becoming, irrespective of the differences in their positions. What we have in Aurobindo is a clear primacy of being2 while in Whitehead just the contrary, namely priority of becoming (Reality is process). Nevertheless, Aurobindo points out that human reason or consciousness in its finite nature, since it is conditioned by time and space, form and movement, cannot comprehend the unconditional pure Existence (Sat), the underlying principle of every form of existence. Aurobindo admits becoming only in the sense that it is the becoming of the being. For Aurobindo, the categories of being and becoming are two indispensable aspects of one and the same Reality, Sachchidananda. The “spirit when it has done and become all possible things remains through it all the same pure immutable subtle infinite essence” (EG 405).3 Thus, what we have in Aurobindo is a preference for being than becoming.

|| 2 Without denying the fact of becoming, but clearly emphasizing the primacy of being over becoming Aurobindo states: “The Being is the fundamental reality; the Becoming is an effectual reality: it is a dynamic power and result, a creative energy and working out of the Being, a constantly persistent yet mutable form, process, outcome of its immutable formless essence. All theories that make the Becoming sufficient to itself are therefore half-truths, valid for some knowledge of the manifestation acquired by an exclusive concentration upon what they affirm and envisage, but otherwise valid only because the Being is not separate from the Becoming but present in it, constituted of it, inherent in its every infinitesimal atom and in its boundless expansion and extension. Becoming can only know itself wholly when it knows itself as Being; the soul in the Becoming arrives at self-knowledge and immortality when it knows the Supreme and Absolute and possesses the nature of the Infinite and Eternal. To do that is the supreme aim of our existence; for that is the truth of our being and must therefore be the inherent aim, the necessary outcome of our becoming: this truth of our being becomes in the soul a necessity of manifestation, in matter a secret energy, in life an urge and tendency, a desire and a seeking, in mind a will, aim, endeavour, purpose; to manifest what is from the first occult within it is the whole hidden trend of evolutionary Nature” (LD 659). 3 Furthermore, he states that “All that is in the kinesis, the movement, the action, the creation, is Brahman; the becoming is a movement of the being; Time is a manifestation of the Eternal. All is one Being, one Consciousness, one even in infinite multiplicity, and there is no need to bisect into an opposition of transcendent Reality and unreal cosmic Maya” (LD 461).

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The ultimate of our life would then be a drawing away from the lower reality of the Becoming to the greater reality of the Being, a leap from the Ignorance to the Knowledge and a rejection of the Ignorance, a departure from the many into the One, from the finite into the infinite, from form into the formless, from the life of the material universe into the Spirit, from the hold of the inconscient upon us into the superconscient Existence (LD 639).4

Thus, Aurobindo positively asserts that what is primary is Static existence. For our perception becoming seems primordial for the “senses and sense mind know nothing whatever about any pure or absolute existence” (LD 66). “We have … two fundamental facts of pure existence and of world existence, a fact of Being and a fact of Becoming” (LD 78). Nevertheless, the question remains as to the veracity of this position. The point is, is it only an arbitrary account of Aurobindo? What has Whitehead to say in this regard? In fact, it seems, Whitehead concurs with Aurobindo in this respect, but certainly not with the same emphasis. Whitehead’s metaphysics, though focusing on becoming, has another dimension, which distinguishes it from Buddhists or Nietzsche. It is the process that constitutes being for Whitehead. In his preface to RM Whitehead speaks of the “permanent elements” which supplies “stable order in the world” (8). Whitehead points out that it is this permanent aspect of existence that is responsible for the “measure of the aesthetic consistency of the world.” Moreover, Whitehead asserts that even in the creative action there is some consistency which is conditioned by divine “immanence” (RM 96). “The process is the achievement of the actuality by the ideal consequent, in virtue of its union with the actual ground. In the phrase of Aristotle, the process is the fusion of being with not-being” (RM 110). This passage too is very much suggestive for the metaphysics of becoming. Here, as it is self-evident, Whitehead himself gives adequate space for being. The point is that one cannot simply reduce reality into either being or becoming; nor discard the fact of becoming or movement or change that is visible in reality. We saw that the West as well as the East are one in accommodating both being and becoming. However, still the question remains concerning how are we to understand being and becoming together? Are we to take them - being and becoming – as two indispensable aspects of Reality? It seems that our previous discussions take us in such a direction. Moreover, it seems that it is the

|| 4 “As we are subordinate and an aspect of this movement, so the movement is subordinate and an aspect of something other than itself, of a great timeless, spaceless stability, Sthanu, which is immutable, inexhaustible, and unexpanded, not acting though containing all this action, not energy but pure existence” (LD 73).

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more realistic approach. Nevertheless, even if they are two aspects of or two modes of existence, they raise also a problem: how can the existence be both being and becoming? Whitehead maintains that what mediates “the eternality of being with the fluency of becoming” (AI 120) is activity or dynamism of existence. It is here that we see the relevance of bringing together being and power of being as Aurobindo maintained. It is notable that here Aurobindo is one with Plato, for Sophist records that “my suggestion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another even for a moment … has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power” (247).5 It seems that Whitehead basically endorses this position of Plato that he records the implication of the above citation: ‘“being’ is the agent in action, and the recipient of action” (AI 120). Therefore, the ideal of existence is to say that the ultimate Reality is having two aspects: the Non-temporal or the Silent Brahman and the dynamic Universal or the active Brahman, to put in the Aurobindonian terms. The two aspects are neither contradictory nor destructive to each other, but each is at the service of the other. “The silent and the active Brahman are not different, opposite and irreconcilable entities, the one denying, the other affirming a cosmic illusion; they are one Brahman in two aspects, positive and negative, and each is necessary to the other” (LD 26). Becoming points to the dynamic and creative aspect of Sachchidananda. “All becoming must support itself on Being and must emanate from it” (Srivastava 1968, 26). The Absolute is pure Existence, but it is also movement, energy and process. “The Consciousness in which the world exists is identical with the infinitely determinable energy which becomes all grades and all species of finite beings. If the first poise of Brahman is Being, the second is power-to-be, or becoming” (Bruteau 49). Aurobindo comments that “Heraclitus saw what all must see who look at the world with any attention, that there is something in all this motion and change and differentiation which insists on stability, which goes back to sameness, which assures unity, which triumphs into eternity. It has always the same measures; it is, was and ever will be” (SM 382). Thus, in considering Whitehead and Aurobindo, what can be safely said is that in spite of their recognition of being and becoming Whitehead and Aurobindo differ in their basic position: while Whitehead clearly stands for the primacy of becoming, Aurobindo prefers

|| 5 Another version of the same passage is that “I’ll take it as a definition that those which are amount to nothing other than capacity.” Here the word power is replaced by ‘capacity (Cooper. Plato Complete Works).

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being. This vantage point calls on us to substantiate our idea in dialogue with other thinkers. Here the point is that becoming can be considered only in relation to being, and being requires becoming for its self-manifestation. The two should be thought together. Desmond suggests that human appeal to the unity of origin immediately points to the equivocity of being. To be precise, “there is more to being than simply the univocal impermanence of becoming. … The universal impermanence does suggest a source as itself beyond the sheer impermanence of passing away. The impermanence of coming to be suggests its source as an origin of coming to be, an origin that is not itself a thing that comes to be, nor a being within the process of the universal coming to be” (BB 236). In the past philosophers in their attempt to have some “magnificently conclusive conclusions” made “some clean-cutting distinction” between “any of the host of mental oppositions” such as being and becoming, one and the many, reality and unreality, etc. (SM 127). This tendency of clean-cutting is what one observes in the compartmentalization of being and becoming. Often they are considered “two opposite categories, of which one or the other must be denied.” The ideal is to recognize becoming “as an eternal display of being” (SM 129).6 Van der Veken maintains that Whitehead’s philosophy is a better tool for thinking together ‘Being and Becoming’ than the philosophia perennis (Van der Veken 1999, 271). What is striking here is Van der Veken’s emphasis on the ‘togetherness’ of being and becoming. In spite of the claims of his own movement from being to becoming, Van der Veken is not abandoning the notion of being completely, but the new epiphany only prompts him to think them together. Thus, it is all the more safe to say that only a thinking together of ‘being and becoming’ can explain the true nature of reality. For Whitehead, “how an actual entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is; so that the two descriptions of an actual entity are not independent.” Its becoming constitutes its being. This is the principle of process (PR 23). Aurobindo would put it as follows: All becomings are a becoming of and from the elemental source. It is an eternal passivity which makes possible the perfect freedom and omnipotence of an eternal divine activity in innumerable cosmic systems. For the becomings of that activity derive their energies and their illimitable potency of variation and harmony from the im-

|| 6 “The movement of Force … is the nature of the cosmos”; “The One Reality is both Being and Becoming, both statis and dynamis” (Roy 1995, iii; 32).

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partial support of the immutable Being, its consent to this infinite fecundity of its own dynamic Nature (LD 26-27). 7

Aurobindo further adds that “Our classifications set up too rigid walls; all borders are borders only and not impassable gulfs. The one infinitely variable Spirit … the self, the Being is at once unique in each, common in our collectivities and one in all beings” (SM 129). Desmond maintains that “Becoming is the promise of origin, a promise that makes us ponder the possibility of a two-way interplay of origin and becoming. The promise of being is inscribed in becoming as a process of positive othering. … since the becoming is a promise, it is not the absolute origin or end” (BB 241). On the contrary, “the promise of becoming reinsert a creative indeterminacy at the heart of being.” By virtue of this ‘promise of becoming’ it is right to say that a thing ‘is’ and ‘is not’. However, one cannot discard the fact that the constitutive indeterminacy of the becoming itself is “the promise of an indeterminate originative source out of which becoming is generated.” Therefore, being and becoming, if ever, includes any ambiguity that calls only for the indeterminacy of the origin (BB 242).8 In the same way, Heidegger highlights the reality of both being and becoming: In spite of the constant changing of these Experiences, the Self maintains itself throughout with a certain selfsameness. Opinions diverge as to how that which thus persists is to be defined, and how one is to determine what relation it may possibly have to the changing Experiences. The being of this perseveringly changing connectedness of Experience remains indefinite (Being and Time 425).

|| 7 Desmond would clarify it as follows: “Every being in process of becoming surges forth into difference out of the promise of its own, given original energy of being” (BB 283). “The inherent energy of being is at work in becoming, so in asking about the origin we are not seeking elsewhere. We are trying to think being at its deepest, to the ground down, where the deep down ground is not necessarily a being in any sense assimilable to finite beings. … The transcending of becoming images a more originary transcendence … in becoming’s own dynamic beingthere” (BB 243-44). Desmond explains becoming as a perpetual transformation. To substantiate his point he goes back to the Greek fathers Empedocles and Anaxagoras. The point of Empedocles is that there is neither birth nor death, but only a mixing and separation of what has been mingled (Fragments 8). Anaxagoras repudiates the use of the expressions “to come into being” and “to be destroyed” for there is nothing comes into being nor is destroyed. Anaxagoras concurs with Empedocles in stating that in becoming what really happens is ‘a thing is mixed with or separated from already existing things (Fragments 17; BB 280). This is very suggestive for our discussion of being and becoming as well. This points to an elemental homogeneity, as Desmond would put it, from which everything originated. 8 For he states, “a complete determinate origin could not effect the origination of the finite being. … the eternal origin is purely in and for itself, then its power to originate what is other, and its relativity to what is so originated as other, is undermined” (BB 240).

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To conclude our discussion of being and becoming and their relation it can be positively said that a one sided approach either to being or becoming will not be truthful to reality and our encounter with it in the universe. Reality should be thought in terms of both being and becoming. This is the point Whitehead as well as Aurobindo highlights, in spite of the differences in their understanding. A univocal approach means only a reduction of reality.

11.2.2 A Synthetic Approach to Matter and Spirit A major point of divergence between the East and the West is in the understanding of fundamental truth of existence. The emphasis the West and the East give to Matter and Spirit respectively can be seen only as an ineluctable corollary of their approach towards the Reality. The first and the fifth chapters reasonably substantiated Whitehead’s and Aurobindo’s approach to matter and Spirit. In general what we have in the West is a dualistic approach to nature and reality. For, the West has generally laid its emphasis on the truth of matter, in contrast to the East, either by denying the existence of spirit or by relegating it to the domain of the unknowable or what is secondary. The warning of Aurobindo against the West can be seen only in this context. […] the danger is … with her passion for mechanism and her exaggerated intellectuality she may fog herself in an external and false psychism, such as we see arising in England and America, the homes of the mechanical genius, or in intellectual, unspiritual and therefore erroneous theories of the Absolute, such as have run their course in critical and metaphysical Germany (SM 288).9

It is precisely the scientific and mechanistic perception of the nature and reality that then existed that made Whitehead to think about an alternative which resulted in the philosophy of organism. On the contrary, in the East generally we have a synthetic approach. Nevertheless, it is not free of the taint of dualism. Aurobindo recalls: The idea by

|| 9 What Indian culture and philosophy aims at, as Aurobindo rightly observes is the harmony of matter and spirit, “Spiritual and temporal have indeed to be perfectly harmonised, for the spirit works through mind and body. But the purely intellectual or heavily material culture of the kind that Europe now favours, bears in its heart the seed of death; for the living aim of culture is the realisation on earth of the kingdom of heaven. India, though its urge is towards the Eternal, since that is always the highest, the entirely real, still contains in her own culture and her own philosophy a supreme reconciliation of the eternal and the temporal and she need not seek it from outside” (RI 60).

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which the East “has been governed is the firm knowledge that truth of the Spirit is the sole real truth” and Asia tried to mould her external life in view of this sublime goal (SM 289). Aurobindo in his own distinctive way brings out his critique of the dualism of matter and spirit in his response to the refusal of the ascetic and the denial of the materialist. In contrast with the Western trend, the East has laid its whole emphasis on Spirit and at least for a period it neglected the possibilities and relevance of life and focused on the narrow development of a fixed status. Aurobindo recognizes the danger involved in this exaggerated position of the East. As he warned the West for her over emphasis on the material dimension vis-à-vis he warns the East for her over emphasis of the Spiritual. For him, what characterised the history of last 2000 years is the revolt between matter and spirit. For Aurobindo, the antinomy between the two is unreal for the fundamental is the Spirit and life is only its manifestation.10 His argument is that the East “has deviated into a divorce between the Spirit and its instruments and a disparagement and narrowing of the mental and external life of the race.” The core of the Aurobindonian argument is that the “fullest and most absolute attainment of the spiritual can be securely based” only on the basis of the material or the instrumental life (SM 289).11 In this respect Aurobindo appreciates the West and commendably suggests to the East: “The message the West brings to the East is a true message. … Life also is the Divine, its progressive expansion is the self-expression of the Brahman, and to deny Life is to diminish the Godhead within us” (SM 289).12 In the dualism of matter and spirit what we have is the separation of fact and value. Organic nature of the universe is countered by a mechanistic approach to it, whereby the nature becomes devoid of any intrinsic value.13 Taking into account the effect of rationalization in the West Jung writes: || 10 Arya. Aug. 15, 1915, Quoted in Radhakrishnan 1967, 578. 11 In fact, Aurobindo praises the great Sages of the East for recognizing this truth. It was only in the subsequent ages the material was made subservient to the spiritual in every respect (SM 289). 12 However, Aurobindo does not promote any blind reception of the Western ideas but what he insists is a recovery of her own soul (Eastern) that comes back to her from the West. “This is the truth that returns to the East from the West translated into the language of the higher truth the East already possesses; and it is an ancient knowledge. The East also is awaking to the message. The danger is that Asia may accept it in the European form, forget for a time her own law and nature and either copy blindly the West or make a disastrous amalgam of that which she has in its most inferior forms and the crudenesses which are invading her” (SM 289). 13 Of the changes it is observed: “Teleological conceptions and explanations have no place and no value in physical science, just as they have no place and no meaning in mathematics,

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Through his historical development, the European has become so far removed from his roots that his mind was finally split into faith and knowledge, in the same way that every psychological exaggeration breaks up into its inherent opposites. He needs to return, not to nature in the manner of Rousseau, but to his own nature. His task is to find that natural man again. Instead of this, there is nothing he likes better than systems and methods by which he can repress the natural man who is everywhere at cross purposes with him (Jung 1978, 14-15).14

A second move in the direction of the dualism of matter and spirit resulted in the separation of man and nature. When the nature is conceived intrinsically valueless, it naturally demanded that man gives value to it, which finally resulted in the objectification of nature. The natural corollary of the separation of man and nature was the alienation of man from nature, which finally ended up in nihilism.15 What we have in Whitehead and Aurobindo is a new concept of nature and reality. Taking a distance from the then existing predominant view of nature and life they considered it to be intrinsically valuable. It is their holistic and organic approach to nature and reality that made Whitehead the most eastern of the modern thinkers of the West and Aurobindo the most western among the Eastern thinkers.

11.2.3 The Realism of Whitehead and Aurobindo The synthetic approach to matter and Spirit explicates further the realism that the two thinkers embody. One of the distinctive features of the western philosophy is its realistic approach towards nature and life. In fact, Whitehead’s holistic approach to nature is nothing but the expression of this more authentic truth about reality. Reality and life are in themselves valuable. Human history reveals that there has always been the tendency to belittle the value of this life and transfer it to another world. It can be attributable to the influence of religions as || all the more so as the world created by the Cartesian God, that is, the World of Descartes, is by no means the colourful, multiform and qualitatively determined world of the Aristotelian, the world of our daily life and experience – that world is only a subjective world of unstable and inconsistent opinion based upon the untruthful testimony of confused and erroneous sense perception – but a strictly uniform mathematical world, a world of geometry made real about which our clear and distinct ideas give us a certain and evident knowledge. There is nothing else in this world but matter and motion; or, matter being identical with space or extension, there is nothing else but extension and motion” (Koyré 100-101). 14 C. G. Jung. Psychology and The East. Trans. Hull, R. F. C. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. 15 We will see in a subsequent section how Whitehead and Aurobindo respond to it.

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well. Nevertheless, what we have in Whitehead is a plain avowal of the value of life. For him, the purpose of philosophy/function of reason is to help people to live, live well and live better (FR 8). In that respect Whitehead comes very close to the Eastern thinking where existence itself is value. The greatness of Whitehead is all the more manifested when we learn that he was able to bring forth a radical shift from the materialistic approach by conceiving nature as intrinsically valuable. This is true of Aurobindo as well in the sense that instead of the absolute monism where we have a negation of the world he with his integral advaita re-established the supreme value of life and nature. The point is that Aurobindo was able to give equal priority and relevance to the upanishadic dictums ‘one without a second’ and ‘all this is Brahman’. What happened in the past was that we valued one at the cost of the other. In other words, in our over enthusiasm to assert the value of the otherworld we completely discarded this life and world. Herein one sees the relevance of Aurobindo, compared to many other thinkers of the East, with his novel perspective on nature and life. What is preferred is a synthetic approach to nature and Reality, something that we forgot in our eagerness and unsound love for specialization. The synthetic approach recalls another most important element in doing philosophy, namely that philosophy should be life centred or life enriching. Philosophy cannot separate itself from life orientation. The admonition “Know Thyself” carved on the temple portal at Delphi still holds its relevance. Socrates reminds us that ‘the noblest of all investigations is the study of what man should be and what he should pursue’ (Gorgias, 487). It is not that intellectual pursuit for its own sake is not rewarding, rather that all our rational endeavours should aim at something higher. In other words, intellectual pursuit should not be an end in itself. I know that such a claim is no more relevant for many modern and postmodern thinkers, especially from a western perspective. Aurobindo’s own critique points to this fact: “It is the weakness of most European philosophy - not the ancient - that it lives too much in the clouds and seeks after pure metaphysical truth too exclusively for its own sake; therefore it has been a little barren because much too indirect in its bearing on life” (SM 394). Nevertheless, this is also a point of convergence between Whitehead and Aurobindo. Whitehead claims that “There is a strong moral intuition that speculative understanding for its own sake is one of the ultimate elements in the good life. The passionate claim for freedom of thought is based upon it” (FR 38, emphasis added). Moreover, Whitehead avows that “we have to recur to the function of Reason, namely the promotion of the art of life” (FR 8); “to live, to live well, to live better” (FR 8; 18). We have seen previously how the East has made its intellectual pursuit life-oriented and value-centred. Only a life-oriented philosophy can enrich human life with meaning, purpose and foresight. It is main-

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tained that “the ultimate purpose of personal existence, then, is the theme of philosophy and theology alike” for both disciplines point to “that path of life” (FeR 27).16 Only a life oriented intellectual pursuit can recover us from the “crisis of meaning” resulted from the “increasing fragmentation of knowledge” (FeR 101). It is from this context and background that the claim is made that “a philosophy which no longer asks the question of the meaning of life would be in grave danger of reducing reason to merely accessory functions, with no real passion for the search for truth. … Philosophy needs first of all to recover its sapiential dimension as a search for the ultimate and overarching meaning of life” (FR 102). This gives us opportunity to see how Whitehead and Aurobindo respond to the question of teleology and meaning.

11.2.4 Teleology and Purpose versus Nihilism Whitehead and Aurobindo were able to highlight another fundamental truth of existence by their novel vision of nature and life. Modernity in the West, as we have seen, is characterised by the reduction of teleology and purposefulness. All sorts of hierarchical structures are subjected to thorough criticism and often to a final abandonment. This can be the result of the loss of faith in all-grand narratives: all supernatural authorities are questioned. Whitehead’s life itself brings out this tension very well. He observes that “the basis of all authority is the supremacy of fact over thought” (FR 80). Further Whitehead adds that: The modern assumptions differ from older assumptions, not wholly for the better. They exclude from rationalistic thought more of the final values of existence. The intimate timidity of professionalized scholarship circumscribes reason by reducing its topic to triviality, … The world will again sink into the boredom of a drab detail of rational thought, unless we retain in the sky some reflections of light from the sun of Hellenism (AI 118).

This itself is the consequence of the disappearance of God and religion. In our response to Whitehead’s distinction of God and creativity we amply substantiated the facts and reasons that led to the disenchantment of the world. The predominant idea circulated was that the world no longer manifests reference to any higher world. This disenchantment and disappearance of the higher world itself points to a still deeper truth of life, that is the secularization where we have a split between philosophy and religion. It is in this light one has to see

|| 16 John Paul II. Fides Et Ratio: On the Relationship Between Faith and Reason. Boston: Pauline Books, 1998.

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Nietzsche’s critique of the other world and religion. His philosophy, characterised by endless becoming, has done much in this regard. Nietzsche states of human being that “Man is a rope stretched between beast and Superman - a rope over an abyss. ...What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what is lovable in man is that he is a transition ...” (Zarathustra’s Prologue 4).17 Taking account of the above facts, it can be positively claimed that any philosophy that adopts only becoming as real “is in the end unsatisfactory, insufficient, lop-sided; it stimulates, but solves nothing” (SM 376).18 Nietzsche’s faith in eternal recurrence is freedom from morality. Thus he argued that there must be a revaluation of all values. “To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means against the fact of pain … enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity; abolition of the ‘will’; abolition of ‘knowledge-in-itself’” (WP 1060). Moreover, if we focus on becoming alone, as we said previously, then there will be no permanence, no duration, no “once-and-for-all.” And thus Nietzsche maintains that “that a state of equilibrium is never reached proves that it is not possible” (WP 1064). Then, not only does the world never reach a final state, it avoids a final state.19 Moreover, if one focuses on becoming and eternal recurrence alone, as Nietzsche claims, even the ‘divine Supermanhood’ which he so elegantly advocated is not possible, for then the human beings are themselves without any permanent value. It is in this context that Whitehead’s and Aurobindo’s attempt at to reinfuse the world with teleology, value and purpose become all the more relevant; making their own metaphysics relevant in the contemporary world. Absence of teleology can be detected in most of the philosophers of becoming/evolution, except Hegel. For instance Bergson’s élan vital is a pure flow of energy. The same can be said about Whitehead’s creativity, it is basically the || 17 Friedrich Nietzsche. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Reprint. Walter Kaufmann (ed. and Trans). New York: Penguin Books (1976) 103-440. 18 Here it is worth to mention Aurobindo’s point: “Is it possible for man in his becoming to raise his present fixed measures? to elevate his mental, relative, individual reason into direct communion with or direct participation in the divine and absolute reason? to inspire and raise the values of his human force to the higher values of the divine force? to become aware like the gods of an absolute good and an absolute beauty? to lift this mortal to the nature of immortality?” (SM 401). 19 The Eternal Return is not a mechanistic theory. Nietzsche writes: “The sole fundamental fact, however, is that it [the world] does not aim at a final state; and every philosophy and scientific hypothesis (e.g. mechanistic theory) which necessitates such a final state is refuted by this fundamental fact” (WP 708).

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creative advance; the point is this can be upward or downward (RM 153), progression or degradation. But Whitehead adds further that “the universe shows us two aspects: on one side it is physically wasting, on the other side it is spiritually ascending (RM 153). For, for Whitehead teleology is not something given or factual but rather it is a lure. Whitehead maintains that “the teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of Beauty.” For him, beauty itself is nothing but the “internal conformation of the various items of experience with each other, for the production of maximum effectiveness” (AI 265). In the Function of Reason Whitehead maintains that “the conduct of human affairs is entirely dominated by our recognition of foresight determining purpose, and purpose issuing in conduct” (13). Furthermore, Whitehead perceives a final causation beyond mere pragmatism. For him, “Reason is inexplicable if purpose be ineffective” (FR 27); in fact what makes the purpose effective is Reason (FR 37). For Whitehead, “the key to understanding progress of any kind is some notion of final causation, which was dismissed as a fiction by modern science. Progress involves the introduction of novelty in relation to relevant purposes and goals” (Smith 102). At this point of vantage Whitehead introduces God as the lure for value and purpose and the Eros who lures the universe towards beauty, truth and goodness. God is no more the Creator of the universe as he was conceived to be, but rather he is the one who re-creates, by luring to higher values, meaning. Therefore, for Whitehead God embodies refreshment and companionship (RM 148). Whitehead maintains that “the Eros is the urge towards the realization of ideal perfection” (AI 275). This has to be read in relation to Whitehead’s view of God as the condition, ideal and the critique (RM 62). Then the question is, can we say that in Whitehead God becomes both the ideal to be followed and the “indwelling Eros” which urges the soul (AI 275) towards this ideal? In the Aurobindonian perspective evolution is invariably teleological. The involution of the Absolute is in view of the evolution of the world. In fact, for Aurobindo this teleological end is God himself: “The earliest preoccupation of man in his awakened thoughts and, as it seems, his inevitable and ultimate preoccupation, - for it survives the longest periods of scepticism and returns after every banishment, is also the highest which his thoughts can envisage. … The earliest formula of Wisdom promises to be its last, - God, Light, Freedom, Immortality” (LD 1). Thus, in Whitehead and Aurobindo we have recognition of the two realms: the actual and the ideal. Nevertheless, there is difference between the two in their movements. Whitehead, on the one hand, represents the modern West in the sense that he does not start from any preconceived idea of the ideal, but starts from the actual; on the other hand, his first move invariably takes him to the necessity of the ideal/eternal. “The things which are temporal

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arise by their participation in the things which are eternal” (PR 40). What we have in Aurobindo is the same movement in the sense that his own first move is a realistic approach towards nature and reality, as opposed to the predominant trend of his own Indian predecessors who attenuated the reality of the world in their preoccupation to maintain the absolute oneness of the Transcendent, and his second move is the evolutionary ascent towards the Absolute. Nevertheless, he maintains the general trend of the Orient. That is, the existence of the Absolute as the source of everything is presupposed. Perhaps this can be the real critique of the West against Aurobindo. The distinctiveness of Whitehead is his attempt to re-instate “the other realm” which is generally disappearing from the West after modernity.

11.2.5 Religion and Philosophy: Distinction Versus Separation In our treatment of the distinctiveness of philosophy in the East and the West, we have seen that religion was the matrix of philosophising for both. It was only the modern development in the West that separated religion and philosophy. Whitehead’s avowal that there is a limit for philosophy to account for the whole of human experience also recalls the relevance of taking philosophy and religion together. Of course what is expected is not an identification of philosophy and religion, rather a combined activity of the two to account for the “stubborn facts.” For both, philosophy and religion, are at the service of truth; and moreover, the Truth attained by philosophy and revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive. It is observed that There exists a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only as regards their source, but also as regards their object. With regard to the source, because we know in one by natural reason, in the other by divine revelation. With regard to the object, because besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God which, unless they are divinely revealed, cannot be known (Dei Filius IV: DS 3015; FeR 18).

This citation calls for the openness to be maintained by faith and reason or religion and philosophy. On the other hand, it is positively observed that any autonomous philosophy is “seriously handicapped.” It is not that reason does not have any autonomy or on its own right cannot enter the domain of truth; nor those who advocate the essential unity of philosophy and religion make such a claim. For instance, Aurobindo claims that “even without religion philosophy by itself can give us at least some light on the spiritual destiny of man, some hope of the infinite, some ideal perfection after which we can strive” (SM

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398). A similar claim can be read in the thought of John Paul II that “as a search for truth within the natural order, the enterprise of philosophy is always open – at least implicitly – to the supernatural” (94). Therefore, reference to the “handicap” can only mean that human reason by its very nature is subjected to an inherent weakness, hence unable to enter into the higher realm of consciousness. Whitehead maintains that “all things work between limits. This law applies even to the speculative Reason” (FR 46). It points to the strength as well as the weakness of human reason. What is demanded is a move from phenomenon to foundation. “We face a great challenge … to move from phenomenon to foundation, a step as necessary as it is urgent. We cannot stop short of experience alone; even if experience does reveal the human being’s interiority and spirituality, speculative thinking must penetrate to the spiritual core and the ground from which it rises” (FeR 105). In our treatment of the ultimacy of creativity we suggested that creativity could account only for what is fundamental in nature, but cannot account for the very foundation of existence itself. It is here that we see the relevance of combining both religion and philosophy. For it is rightly observed that “purified and rightly tuned, therefore, reason could rise to the higher planes of thought, providing a solid foundation for the perception of being, of the transcendent and of the absolute” (FeR 55). Aurobindo maintains in this regard that both religion and philosophy stay indebted to each other. For in general “philosophy alone can give light to Religion and save it from crudeness, ignorance and superstition, so Religion alone can give, except for a few, spiritual passion and effective power to Philosophy and save it from becoming unsubstantial, abstract and sterile. It is a misfortune for both when the divine sisters part company” (SM 395).20 It is the merit of early Greek fathers of thought or the eastern mystics that they recognised the relevance of philosophy as well as religion. It is in this respect we see the importance of intuition, something which Whitehead as well as Aurobindo stood for.

|| 20 It is worthy of mentioning what Marion argues in this regard that “the field of religion could simply be defined as what philosophy excludes or, in the best case, subjugates.” The reasoning is that philosophy objectifies and as a result God and religion ineluctably loses their religious significance. “Either it would be a question of phenomena that are objectively definable but lose their religious specificity, or it would be a question of phenomena that are specifically religious but cannot be described objectively” (Marion 1996, 103). Jean-Luc Marion. “The Saturated Phenomenon.” Trans. Thomas A. Carlson. Philosophy Today 40, No. 1 (1996) 103-124. The point is that an independent inquiry of either philosophy or religion will not do justice to the other.

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11.2.6 Reason and Intuition: Two Sources of Philosophy The recognition of the two dimensions by Whitehead and Aurobindo points further to another primordial truth of philosophising, namely placing reason and intuition in its proper place. What happened in modernity in the West is the attenuation of the relevance of intuition in philosophising. To put it more objectively is to say that the West is generally more cautious about the role of intuitive truth in philosophy. Whitehead initiates a counter move in this regard. It is the recognition of a sublime truth that there are forms of “knowing” that transcends human reason that led Whitehead to give intuition its own due role in philosophy. In our treatment of Aurobindo and the eastern way of doing philosophy we amply explained how important intuition is for the eastern thought. Therefore, we don’t pursue it further here. Now what is left is to clarify it from a Whiteheadian point of view and to substantiate it in the context of the separation of religion and philosophy or in the context of the emergence of the religious and the metaphysical ultimate. Whitehead brings out very well the importance of intuition in providing final truths (FR 60). Moreover, Whitehead substantiates another fact, which we noted above, that metaphysics cannot limit itself to something temporal but it has to reach out to the transcendent and the final truths. Still further, Whitehead argues for the “conformity to intuitive experience” as the first criterion to which the content of a belief should be subjected to check its veracity or validity (FR 67). Our claim here is that to account for the “stubborn facts” of human experience, one should adopt a synthetic approach, something which the West has relegated to a secondary position, but something the East still values as a good treasure. In this regard it is worth to remind ourselves of Whitehead’s great appreciation of the Greeks for having maintained a synthetic approach in their speculative endeavours, and which in fact made their “speculation effective” (FR 82). Whitehead maintains that the Greeks “were omnivorous in their interest – natural science, ethics, mathematics, … metaphysics, theology … all attracted their curiosity.” However, their real merit was that they did not “keep these subjects rigidly apart. They very deliberately strove to combine them into one coherent system of ideas” (FR 83). Here what is pertinent is that only when one combines both reason and intuition s/he could transcend to the higher realms of truth, an approach Whitehead as well as Aurobindo advocated. What is demanded is not a conglomeration of faith and philosophical reason, rather putting an end to the growing separation between the two, for “each without the other is impoverished and enfeebled.” With regard to the openness demanded of faith and reason it is observed that “deprived of what revelation offers, reason has taken sidetracks which expose it to the

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danger of losing sight of its final goal. Deprived of reason, faith has stressed feeling and experience, and runs the risk of no longer being a universal proposition. … The parrhesia of faith must be matched by the boldness of reason” (FeR 64-65). Nevertheless, there is difference between Whitehead and Aurobindo here too. Their own difference has to do with the general difference that one finds between the West and the East. Whitehead follows the priority of reason that distinctively marks the Western approach while admitting intuition. Precisely, Whitehead has recourse to intuition only as he deals with the final truths of human existence, namely the domain of ethics, aesthetics and religion. “There can be no metaphysics of nature, and no approach to metaphysics by scanning the order of nature. For nature is mere derivative appearance; and when we consider it, we are remote from any intuition which tells of final truths” (FR 60). On the contrary, Aurobindo follows basically the eastern trend, namely first accepting the intuitive wisdom handed over by tradition and culture and then proving its veracity in light of reason and experience. In short what we have in Whitehead and Aurobindo is a reverse order when it comes to the priority of intuition. It is true that the East combines reason and faith, intellect and intuition, life and speculation, and, above all, maintains a synthetic approach to life and reality. Nevertheless, the problem with or a major critique of the West is that it has gone to the other extreme. The East has often had recourse to intuition, or at least that is the way the eastern thinkers tried to present something unexplainable and unintelligible, an approach often downplayed in philosophical discourse. The point is that the great emphasis of the East on intuition and synthesis often made its approach to lose its speculative vigour and intellectual vitality. Therefore, it is an area where the East has still to learn from the West, in general. It is true that what is typical of the Eastern ethos is not often verifiable by speculative reason. This is true also with regard to many of the arguments of Aurobindo. Aurobindo being a mystic philosopher, his language is often ambiguous and his way of argumentation is not very appealing to a Western philosophical mind. Nevertheless, this has to do also with the distinctiveness of the East. As one of the Indian scholars rightly commented, “mode of living and mode of thinking … [are] integral part of one continuum” (Mohanty 1993, 208); and “philosophical activity takes place not in a vacuum but within a historical setting” (Murty 119).

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11.2.7 Reason and Experience Combined: A New Paradigm Whitehead, irrespective of his own adherence to the Western way of doing philosophy, introduces a new paradigm, precisely to do metaphysics. He conceives philosophy primarily as a rational enterprise, but readily recognises a dimension that goes beyond rational enterprise. In that sense he is more attuned to the East than many of his Western contemporaries. Nevertheless, in order to appreciate well the novelty Whitehead brought in we have to recall what we have seen with regard to the change modernity effected in philosophy and religion. What I mean is the new understanding of metaphysics in the context of the separation of the metaphysical and the religious. Today in the Western context metaphysics mostly is concerned with what is empirical and factual (phenomenal). But the question is how can a metaphysics which is unable to move from “phenomenon to foundation” maintain the transcendent dimension of reality? By reducing metaphysics to the factual are we not become prey to the post/modern claim that “the time of certainties is irrevocably past, and the human being must now learn to live in a horizon of total absence of meaning, where everything is provisional and ephemeral?” (FeR 113) Is it not the loss of transcendence which resulted in nihilism whereby humanity is faced with a new threat viz. “the temptation to despair” (FeR 113) the result of the new mode of doing metaphysics? Still another relevant question would be: is not Whitehead affected by modern changes? The answer would be yes and no. First I will try to explain why I say yes. Yes, in the sense that Whitehead makes the distinction between Creativity and God and suggests creativity as the metaphysical ultimate. Whitehead’s own texts testify that the primary concern of Whitehead was to give an adequate and rational explanation for the fact of human experience (PR 7). Our experience of nature is that whatever has life is not static but dynamic. It is growing and developing. Thus it is true that the universe is becoming. And in this process of becoming what is involved is creative activity. Therefore, it is agreeable that the fundamental reality in nature is creativity. But does it not call for something more primordial? This creative principle has no existence of its own, as Whitehead himself positively observed. Creativity is not an actual entity. So this creativity appears always as the integral part of something, i.e., some actuality. It is also demanded by the Whiteheadian ontological principle. Therefore, what is fundamental is not the activity itself, but one who acts or something in which the activity finds itself. So one can readily agree with Whitehead and say that what is fundamental in nature is creativity, the dynamic progression of nature. And in this respect creativity is the ultimate. But the question is can we put a full stop there? Are we not supposed to go still fur-

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ther? Will we be justified in our philosophical inquiry if we stop by finding the fundamental phenomena in nature? Are we not to find what is behind phenomenon itself? Is it not what is meant by true metaphysics? If what is physical and temporal is the ultimate goal of all our philosophical endeavours what will be our approach to the sublime goal of philosophy that the great fathers of philosophy divined? Or does it mean that one can philosophise today just ignoring the ethos of its own golden tradition in which philosophical articulation developed and matured? It can be said that the concern of Whitehead is not the ‘why’ of reality, but rather the ‘what’ of reality. He has succeeded in explaining the ‘what’ of nature but has failed to explain the ‘why’ of nature. It is true of many modern thinkers that they are concerned with ‘what is’ rather than ‘why it is’. Neville in this respect says: “The conclusion to be drawn is that the Category of the Ultimate [Creativity] does not genuinely address the ontological question but only records the ontological situation …” (Neville 1983, 264). Creativity cannot answer the question of ‘why’ as per the role it plays in the Whiteheadian system. Perhaps one could trace the influence of modernity on Whitehead in this regard. Therefore, it is observed that the metaphysics of Whitehead has a horizontal dimension, in making creativity the ultimate, but it lacks the vertical dimension (Felt 2001, 19). We need to have a source of the “energy of transcendence” to explain the “character of universal ongoingness” which itself is not “exhausted” by the latter (Desmond 1995, 545). It is true that the question of ‘why’ (in the sense of origination) is very intricate, for one has to stop somewhere. Whitehead finds an answer to the ‘why’ in the very nature of things themselves – the ongoing activity of becoming. “Nature exhibits itself as exemplifying a philosophy of the evolution of organisms subject to determinate conditions” (SMW 93). For it was maintained by Whitehead that one couldn’t jump into any conclusive statement from the easy assumptions. Such “summary conclusions” would “constitute the great refusal of rationality to assert its rights.” For Whitehead nature is self-explanatory. In fact, “what things are” may contain elements as to “why things are” (SMW 92). However, when we have recourse to God, we are moving a step further. Hence the ultimate is not what contributes to the conditions of the possibility of the intelligibility of the givenness, but it should be the “unoriginated origin beyond origination” (Desmond 1995, 556). The point is that one cannot determine the ultimate on the basis of spatio-temporality. Whitehead has succeeded in explaining what is ultimate in nature, but when it comes to the question regarding the source of nature his answer seems ambivalent. It is ambivalent because Whitehead recognized existence of potentiality, the eternal objects, as the integral components of the creative process in nature, but refused to say things are created by God, since that would make everything

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dependent upon God, as in classical theism and ultimately would make God responsible for everything –even the possibility of evil. Nevertheless, in Whitehead’s metaphysics one could discern the dependency of everything on God, in the sense that things receive their initial subjective aim from God. Now I come to the second half of my answer. Whitehead is not fully affected by modernity in the sense that what we see in him is not an absolute separation of God and Creativity. I will try to clarify my point, which would also constitute a Whiteheadian response to the questions raised by some of the contemporary thinkers against him. In the Whiteheadian perspective metaphysics can be done in two ways, which goes well with the two functions of reason, as Whitehead describes. (i) Doing metaphysics purely on the level of universal reason. Here the ultimate question is what is reality made of. Here the reason “seeks with disinterested curiosity an understanding of the world” (FR 38). In this first level the starting point is no pre-given ideas, rather fact: the fact of the universe. That is why creativity becomes the ultimate metaphysical truth for Whitehead, for what we see in nature is the creative advance. And the universe is made up of atomic units called actual entities. The first level pertains to the speculative function of reason. Here the guiding principle is doing philosophy dispassionately, in the Aristotelian manner (SMW 173); here reason serves only itself (FR 38). Reason in its speculative function is freed from all sorts of religious or mystic influence, and therefore it produces systems rather than inspirations (FR 41). Therefore, Whitehead’s metaphysics is basically a descriptive metaphysics. It is argued that for Whitehead “metaphysics … is an interpretive - hermeneutic adventure that is corrigible on the basis of further experience” (Smith 90). (ii) But the objective is to account for the complete fact of human experience. Therefore, a higher level of doing metaphysics integrates experience and religious intuitions. It is also the reason why Whitehead recognises and combines both reason and intuition in his metaphysics. On this level value, meaning, purpose, etc play a considerable role. Whitehead maintains that in the second level “we should be on the threshold of an advance in all the values of human life” (FR 43). He recognises that there is a limit for human reason and there are domains which transcend the level of reason. He clearly states that “all things work between limits. This law applies even to the speculative reason” (FR 46). It is the domain of religion and faith. It is the distinctiveness of Whitehead that he avows the validity of these two dimensions even in the postmodern period. It seems that Whitehead’s own definition of speculative metaphysics demands this two-fold function of reason and the dual approach in the metaphysical enterprise. That is why Whitehead maintains that creativity alone cannot account for the complete fact. It needs an actuality as well as the source of potentiality to account for novelty.

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It is true that a creatio ex nihilo is unacceptable for Whitehead. But he does admit a creative process in nature. So it is clear that he does admit that something is given in nature. Yes, for Whitehead, the eternal objects and pure potentiality are simply there. The question emerges: does not the “thereness” point to a primordial givenness? Can the givenness then be without a giver? We may also ask about the nature of the “given.” Can it be considered as a gift?21 If something is given, there is indeed a giver as well. Therefore, primary is the giver rather than the gift itself. However, in Whitehead’s system God can still be accepted as creative, if not in the sense of creatio ex nihilo, but rather as the provider of meaning and value to the things given; givenness and gift. It means that if we take the Whiteheadian perspective a step further then one could keep the aspect of gift: without ordering and novelty there is nothing – it is a gift from God. So we may reasonably ask again: Does not the phenomenal nature raise the question of something more primordial and fundamental? Is not the source of potentiality more primordial than the potentiality itself? Whitehead suggests that “in a sense, all explanation must end in an ultimate arbitrariness” (SMW 92). There is a limit for philosophy and philosophy should give way for religion, as Bradley rightly suggested (Ethical Studies).22 Whitehead’s statement in Modes of Thought endorses that there is a limit for what philosophy can do and achieve. “Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. There have been added, however, some grasp of the immensity of things, some purification of emotions by understanding” (MT 168-69). It also reminds us of what Wittgenstein wrote: “That things are” is a wonder, which he calls the mystical. “Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.” Whitehead himself suggests that “the finite essentially refers to an unbounded background,” “to the background which is the unbounded Universe” (potentiality). It is notable that for a creative neo-Thomist such as Norris Clarke, who prefers a determinate character/role to creativity, “creativity is not something ultimate: the ‘creative advance’ of all that is finite is itself produced by God” (1990, 179). Whitehead is right in his statement that “Religion requires a metaphysical backing; for its authority is endangered by the intensity of the emotions which it generates. Such emotions are evidence of some vivid experience; but they are a very poor guarantee for its correct interpretation” (RM 81). Thus in the Whiteheadian

|| 21 However, we won’t enter into the contemporary discussion over the notion of ‘gift’ especially based on the thoughts of Derrida or Marion. 22 F. H. Bradley. Ethical Studies. First published in 1876, 2nd revised edition (1927). London: Oxford University Press, 1970.

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Metaphysics God and creativity work together to account for the “stubborn facts.” This is the new paradigm that Whitehead brought in, in doing metaphysics. We have amply substantiated how the East has incorporated in its philosophizing this two-fold functions of reason and the double level of doing metaphysics. Nevertheless, it has to be added that the primary thrust of the East is on the second level. Whitehead tries to integrate these two levels in his metaphysics. That is why I suggested that Whitehead is more eastern than many other thinkers of modernity in the West. Nevertheless, one cannot see a separation of these two levels of metaphysics in the East. There the two functions remain as an integral whole. This synthetic approach can be a merit of the East, but from a Western perspective what the East lacks is the dispassionate pursuit of the intellect. Whitehead and Aurobindo stands distinct in the West and in the East respectively: Whitehead is distinct in the sense that he was able to incorporate a second dimension in his metaphysics, while many in the West today confine themselves to the temporal realm alone. In the same way Aurobindo is more attuned to the rational approach of the West compared to many of his Indian predecessors. Whitehead’s recognition of the double level in doing metaphysics reminds one of his distinctive approach from another perspective as well. The general trend of the West after modernity, in light of the separation between philosophy and religion, is either to reject God in Metaphysics or to recognize God as the religious ultimate alone, having to do nothing with metaphysics. The relevance of Whitehead in this regard is that, as distinct from the general trend of the West, he makes space within metaphysics and places God in that space. One has to see this distinction in light of Whitehead’s two levels of doing metaphysics. This is also the reason why he makes a distinction between God and Creativity. Creativity is the metaphysical ultimate, but creativity alone cannot account for the complete fact of human experience, as we said previously. Thus, we are in need of another principle, on metaphysical grounds, and that is God for Whitehead. Precisely, creativity needs an actuality, also in virtue of the ontological principle, and eternal objects to account for novelty. Therefore, in the Whiteheadian system, as previously cited, creativity is the ultimate reality, but God is the ultimate actuality. Therefore, in his metaphysics God is the religious ultimate and creativity the metaphysical. It is true that taking a distance from the predominant trend of the West Whitehead gives space for religion and God. Nevertheless, the way it is done raises some concerns as well, from the religious point of view. In what follows we will try to articulate some of them.

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It is true that to interpret Whitehead’s concept of God and Creativity one has to understand metaphysics in the sense in which he defines and describes it.23 Nonetheless, the important question concerns not the feasibility of defining or interpreting itself, rather whether this interpretation of God and Creativity account for the complete human experience. Whether his concept of God adequately considers the religious ethos in which the concept was developed and the purpose which it serves in religion. If God is a metaphysical principle made use of only on metaphysical grounds and if religion and metaphysics are to be distinguished, then the question remains as to why Whitehead uses precisely the term God? And that might be the real critique of Whitehead even from the perspective of modernity. One cannot separate the meaning and motivation. The point is that the God of faith and religion is superceded today in favour of a different motivational context: reason itself as meaningful instance. The difference between, for instance, Anselm and modern thinkers who speak about God is that the former finds the meaning and motivation of his thinking not in the thinking itself, but in his faith (Desmond 2005). As a meaningful context, this traditional faith has primacy. Search for God and God talk happen in the context of the God experience and stories that circulate of God. Therefore one cannot separate God and the context in which the meaning of the word God originated. That is, God talk cannot be separated from the very concrete human tradition. What happens in the philosophical understanding of a religious word, such as God, they become no longer religious words, but rather neutralized religious concepts. Introduction of God in metaphysics in itself is not the problem but the fact is that in one’s attempt to situate God in the metaphysical framework one has to pay attention to the “religious origin of that word and the religious claim as to its ultimacy. It is religion that says what the word ‘God’ really means. The philosopher cannot pass over that with impunity” (Cloots 1980, 64). In Whitehead what we have is certainly not a denial of God rather an attenuation of God that is characteristic of most modern thinkers. In such cases, it might be better not to use the word ‘god’ at all. It has to be admitted that Whitehead has always the advantage of the context in which he was writing. And an objective evaluation of a philosophy certainly has to pay attention to the context in which it originated, as we said about God. As we have seen the general trend of modernity in the West was to

|| 23 As we have already seen for Whitehead speculative metaphysics deals primarily with what is in nature and facticity of nature. In this respect the subtitle of his Process and Reality, namely “An Essay in Cosmology,” is of great import.

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separate religion and metaphysics. Therefore, Whitehead’s process has to be judged in this light; only then one will better understand Whitehead’s approach. The merit of Whitehead is that he well understood the incomprehensibility of God. In that respect only Whitehead stated that human reason is limited and what can be further said about God must be sought in particular religious experiences (SMW 178). Whitehead would say that one can bring in God but then it is only for metaphysical reasons and not on religious grounds: “not production of a God available for religious purposes” (SMW 173). It was his complaint against the metaphysicians after Aristotle that “ethical and religious interests began to influence metaphysical conclusions” (SMW 173). In his metaphysics Whitehead admits the existence of God first of all on metaphysical grounds, although he does not deny religious grounds. In clear-cut terms he avows this. “God is the ultimate limitation, and His existence is the ultimate irrationality; for no reason can be given for just that limitation which it stands in His nature to impose. God is not concrete, but He is the ground for concrete actuality. No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of rationality” (SMW 178). Whitehead’s claim is that in doing metaphysics one should be “entirely dispassionate” (SMW 173) as Aristotle. Whitehead has brought in God on metaphysical grounds; for he states clearly that he would not have brought in the notion of God unless the system necessitated it on metaphysical grounds. Thus it was the merit of Whitehead that he recognised the metaphysical and religious dimension in his God-talk. Nevertheless, we have to keep an eye in this respect lest we be misled. What is to be said is that when philosophy discusses the problem of God, within its own boundaries or within the boundaries of reason alone, it may have good intention, but its outcome may not be always sensitive to the religious ethos. It does not mean that I am favouring fideism here. What I want to highlight is that what reason says about God is not the all what can be said about God. The God of faith or religion is far richer than what reason can offer of it. It is good to distinguish the problem of God and the problem of Being, as Heidegger did. However, one cannot separate God and creativity (being) altogether. God has to be given a place in the metaphysical framework about reality. “Creativity and God, both have their specific function within the one metaphysical elucidation. They both play their role, but they play their role together” (Cloots 1980, 64). If the God of Whitehead has to be meaningful for religious purposes too, Creativity and God have to come closer again. However, a mere combination of the two will not make Whitehead’s God, the God of the tradition. Whitehead does explain the metaphysical system in a reasonable way, but the problem is that it gives a religiously insufficient account of God. A God who is fabricated in light of pure metaphysical necessity cannot account for the reli-

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gious needs of human mind. Franklin’s comment that one cannot expect anything more than what is extant from someone who wanted to eliminate a Creator-God; he cannot make God the source of creativity is suggestive (Franklin 237). Loomer points out some of the difficulties which faith has with process philosophy. The argument is that: System predominates over the adventurous and systematic outreaches of faith. The sovereign God of faith is reduced to a manageable idol trapped or caged within a system. The temptation of the philosopher is to treat his system as a constant and the faith as a variable. The result is that he discards all those aspects of the faith which do not fit nicely into the system which he has constructed primarily from sources and data outside the faith (71).24

From this context and background only can one think about the relevance of placing together Sachchidananda and Supermind or being and power of being. We have seen previously that it is not something unique to Aurobindo alone, rather it has to do with the way of doing philosophy in the East. Moreover, our discussion of Whitehead’s metaphysics clearly pointed out that creativity alone cannot account for the “stubborn fact”, but rather what is expected is a combination of Creativity and God. In this respect Aurobindo’s approach seems to be more suggestive. For Aurobindo, Sachchidananda being the Ultimate, Supermind is the creative dimension of this Sachchidananda, and thus accounting for the creative advance in the universe. In other words, Whitehead makes an essential and existential difference between God and Creativity, but for Aurobindo there is only an existential difference between the two while they are in essential unity. Behind it, of course, is still the essential unity of philosophy and religion too. It does not mean that Aurobindo’s approach is immune from any criticism or drawbacks. What can be generally said is that since much of the literature is intuitively written they are not amenable to systematic presentation, from a thorough rational approach. For the same reason critics are widely divided about his works in the sense that while some claim in his writings highest perfection, others find it often meaningless and his arguments abstruse (Walker 98). Perhaps a first critique against Aurobindo from a Whiteheadian or from a Western point of view in general would be that his approach to God stands in contrast with that of Whitehead. The point is that he starts his treatise of God from a preconceived idea of God or in other words in his system the existence of || 24 Bernard Loomer M. “Christian Faith and Process Philosophy.” Process Philosophy and Christian Thought. Delwin Brown, Ralph E. James, JR. & Gene Reeves (eds.). Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc., (1971) 70-98.

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God is presupposed or taken for granted, which is not appreciated in the philosophical discourses by a modern thinker in the West. For the West philosophy is first and foremost a rational enterprise and nothing is accepted without a scrutiny by the reason. It is not that the West is devoid of the spiritual, but rather it is accepted only on the rational grounds. When something is presupposed what happens is that this intellectual scrutiny is not possible. As wisdom it is enough, and it can provide one with rich spirituality, but not enough for Western philosophy. Nonetheless, it does not mean that everything can be subjected to a rational scrutiny. It is true that Aurobindo’s metaphysics is very much rooted in the Indian tradition. One of the consequences is that he has also inherited some of the negative effects of the oriental way of doing philosophy. Rationality or rational enterprise being the hallmark of Western approach it asks the question of why before anything is accepted as valid. In other words, Western philosophy is radically critical. It questions the very root itself of any belief. This is what precisely the oriental approach lacks to a certain extent. And one cannot say that Aurobindo has managed to overcome this completely. Aurobindo being a mystic philosopher is unable to engage in philosophical discourse dispassionately, as Whitehead would claim. It is true that he is critical of other Indian systems and even towards Western approach. Furthermore, Aurobindo can be the most Western of Indian thinkers in the sense that he has tried to present Indian philosophy in the Western categories. Nevertheless, he finds it difficult to take a distance from the classical Indian tradition and evaluate it objectively. It has made, at least from a Western point of view, his philosophy preoccupied with religious concerns. Aurobindo’s inability to take a distance from the oriental tradition is reflected in his metaphysics of becoming as well. Here my point is that his own notion of becoming is primarily concerned with the spiritual evolution of the human beings, rather than of the cosmos. In other words, his evolutionary ascent is basically a spiritual ascent. Thus, it can be a prey to anthropocentrism. What is given is a rational and systematic presentation of the spiritual intuition or experience. Diversity and difference of approach are normal in philosophical thinking. In this light I want to raise the point that it is not easy for the East and the West to understand each other perfectly. Neither can the East become the West nor can the West become the East. Perhaps the best the thinkers of the two worlds can do is to be open to “other” on the condition that Truth is beyond all determinations and comprehensions that either one makes. This calls on us to look beyond our limited horizon, be it the East or the West.

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11.3 An Attitude of Engagement Rather than Estrangement In our discussion we are left with the final point, namely to see the possibility of a better engagement between the East and the West taking Whitehead and Aurobindo as representatives. Our research brought to light the basic aspects of convergences between Whitehead and Aurobindo irrespective of their differences. Coming to East-West relation we see that things are more complex, for we have strong contrasting views with regard to it. On the one hand, we have a group of thinkers who claim an ever-existing mutual enrichment and interaction between the East and the West. For instance, many Western philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Max Müller, Deussen, and Whitehead were fascinated by the philosophy of Vedas and Upanishads. One can read the following statement of Schopenhauer only in this respect: “In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as the Upanishads. It had been the solace of my life and it will be the solace of my death” (cited Sarkar 1980, x). Bahm maintains that “no matter how inherently antagonistically we may picture opposition between East and West, the twain have met and will meet some more. I am optimistic in my belief that the organic relations actually existing between East and West will become more and more apparent” (108).25 Aurobindo himself points to this reality of interaction and mutual enrichment.26 Moreover, one could identify a number of thinkers from the West who pursue a similar thought || 25 Archie J. Bahm. “Spiritualism, Materialism, Organicism.” The Philosophical Quarterly vol. XXIII No. 3 & 4 (1951) 105-108. With regard to the one and the same goal that the East and the West aim at Srivastava holds that “Both the east and the west are striving for the development of the perfect human society. The west is admitting the light of the east and is opening herself to the truth of the spirit. Without abandoning science, democracy, reason, progressiveness and the essential modern ideas, it is adopting the spiritual life of the east, in its own indigenous way. The east has realised the mistake of neglecting science and worldly life. It is now assimilating science, reason, progressiveness and the essential modern ideas of the west in its own spiritual life. Without abandoning the fundamental views of God, man and nature the east assimilates the western scientific and modern ideas. There is no fundamental difference between the east and the west in contemporary times, for they need each other to fulfill themselves” (Srivastava 1984, 186). 26 In fact, Aurobindo maintains that it was the discovery of Indian philosophy and poetry that broke down the barrier between the East and the West, more than anything else. He records that “…Europe discovered something in the East which she could study not only with the curiosity … but with sympathy and even with some feeling of identity. … The speculativeness of the German, the lucidity of the Gaul, the imagination and aesthetic emotionalism of the British Celt found something to interest them, something even to assist. In the teachings of Buddha, the speculation of Shankara, the poetry of Kalidasa their souls could find pasture and refreshment” (EDH 409-10).

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pattern.27 In this respect what is to be remembered is that “nothing is more misleading than a half-truth, and it would be hard to find a more apposite illustration of this than the old adage about the East and the West never meeting. No statement could be more inaccurate. In spite of Geographical, linguistic, and racial obstacles, the intercourse between India and Europe throughout the ages has been almost uninterrupted, and each has reacted upon the other in a remarkable fashion” (Rawlinson 425).28 On the other hand, we have scholars who downplay the relevance of EastWest dialogue and are very pessimistic about the interaction. For instance, Rudyard Kipling wrote: ‘Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never The twain shall meet Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s Great Judgement Seat’ (cited in Mahadevan 1949, 147).

Aurobindo himself states that the opposition between the two has been there from the time of Herodotus and the misunderstanding persists even today (EDH 407). At the same time, there are also thinkers who look at the East-West dialogue with fear and suspicion. For instance, Cunningham maintains that if the West wants to walk with the East it has to do it at the cost of its own foundation, namely reason, and give priority to intuition (cited in Mahadevan 1949, 137). In our discussion about “The Role and Limitation of Reason in the Indian Perspec|| 27 For instance, in Western psychology Carl Jung’s and Aurobindo’s views have much resemblance with regard to their conception of man’s ultimate goal. The point is that Jung’s view that man’s goal is “individuation,” a re-integration of personality around its two poles: the “shadow” (the material and vital aspects of Aurobindo’s philosophy) and the “central archetype meaning” (the spiritual pole, the Supermind of Aurobindo’s thought). In the Western philosophical religion Paul Tillich’s idea of the goal of man as the New Being resembles Aurobindo’s view of the Gnostic Being. Tillich’s New Being is a unity between self and Self. Again there is much similarity between the evolutionary theory of Teilhard de Chardin and Aurobindo. And in the area of Western philosophies of history two most prominent thinkers, namely Arnold J. Toynbee and Pitirim A. Sorokin follow Aurobindo’s thesis that the goal of man and salvation is the realisation in this world of a global society where the egoless love will be the bond among men (Cairns 1972, 214-18). Paul Tillich. The New Being. New York: Scriber’s 1955; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The Phenomenon of Man. New York: Harper, 1959; Arnold J. Toynbee. Civilization on Trial and A Study of History. London: Oxford University Press; Pitirim A. Sorokin. The Ways and Power of Love. Boston: Beacon Press, 1954; Social and Cultural Dynamics. New York: American Books Company, 1937; and his The Crisis of Our Age. New York: Dutton, 1941. 28 H. G. Rawlinson. “Early Contacts between India and Europe.” A. L. Basham (ed.). A Cultural History of India (3rd impression). Oxford: University Press, (1999) 425- 441.

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tive” (10/4.3.1) we amply delineated that what differentiates the East from the West is not a relegation of reason, but an acceptance of a still higher realm. What makes the difference is not the use of reason in itself, rather how do we perceive the reasoning itself in philosophy. The fact is that for Indians philosophy is more than a rational interpretation of the nature and constitution of reality but certainly not less. Therefore, in response to it what can be said is that Cunningham, to a great extent, underestimates Indian philosophy and the role of reason in it. The point is not that there is no difference between the East and the West, rather to say that “when the Indian thinker talks philosophy “he is not moving in a land of incoherent fancies or unintelligible fictions” (cited in Mahadevan 1949, 147). Another point that adds to the complexity of the East-West dialogue is the attitude of domination the West maintained/maintains in its relation to the East. Shopenhauer downplays any kind of domination or superiority feeling (Schopenhauer 356-357).29 It has always been a critique of Western authors that philosophical developments in India were stagnated centuries ago.30 However, this is indeed a false presentation of reality. For him, the problem arises because what the West is doing is trying to “look at India with Western concepts” and categories.31 The reasoning behind is that the categories and criteria should

|| 29 Arthur Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Representation. Trans. E. F. J. Payne. vol. I, New York: Dover Publications, 1966. 30 In fact, Aurobindo does recognise an “arrested development and decline” in the Asian thought. However, it is neither an arrest of development nor a decline of intellectual activity itself. For Aurobindo, it was consequent upon the subordination of the self-disclosing Spirit to the mental idea; an outcome of the human attempt to “bind down the self-disclosing Spirit to a provisional and imperfect compromise with mind and the vital nature.” The ambitious human mind “chain[ed] the spirit to some fixed mental idea or system of religious cult, intellectual truth, aesthetic norm, ethical rule, practical action, way of vital and physical life, to a particular arrangement of forms and actions and declare all departure from that a peril and a disturbance or a deviation from spiritual living” (HC 243-44). In this regard Murty holds that Indian civilization insofar as it is self contained and autonomous, completed its historical cycle centuries ago; its growth was “terminated” long ago; its is not a case of “arrested” development (Murty 35). 31 Peter Van der Veer. Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001. With regard to the difference of the East and the West in understanding the categories Jung writes that “Western man has no need of more superiority over nature, whether outside or inside. … What he lacks is conscious recognition of his inferiority to the nature around and within him. … Yoga technique applies itself exclusively to the conscious mind and will. … When the Yogi says “prana” he means very much more than mere breath. For him the word prana brings with it the full weight of its metaphysical components, and it is as if he really knew what prana meant in this respect. He does not know it with

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be appropriate to a culture to be assessed (4).32 One observation is that there was a period when Europe was in search of India, as the reputed indologist of recent times Wilhelm Halbfass commented, a time when the Indian himself never reached out to the West on his own. However, since at least a century, Indian self-understanding has been determined by comparison of his tradition with the West. But, unfortunately, today mainstream Western philosophy does not try to understand and appropriate Indian thinking in its own texture, which makes even the best Western thinkers today, on occasion, provincial compared to the Indians with their global orientation (Mohanty 1993, 212). This was also one of the motivating forces for me to undertake this project. In the same way, Amaury de Riencourt in his The Soul of India states that India long ago passed the point at which the West arrived in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.33 Here we see a position over against that of Hegel, or even Heidegger who consider Eastern philosophy as a past and stagnated reality. Our engagement with Aurobindo himself well explicated how he brings together the Upanishadic ideas of becoming in dialogue with the upcoming notion of evolution. Therefore, to speak of “stagnation” or “terminated growth” may not be an objective evaluation of Indian philosophy. Our discussions also brought out certain areas where the two traditions can cooperate and enrich each other. Moreover, the claim of Aurobindo as well as of Whitehead that any kind of exclusivism in philosophical thinking is a sign of folly demands that there should be more and more healthy dialogue between different cultures and thoughts.34 For instance, we have Whitehead himself, who clearly points out || his understanding, but with his heart, belly, and blood. The European only imitates and learns ideas by rote, and is therefore incapable of expressing his subjective facts through Indian concepts” (Jung 1978, 81). 32 Here the author refers to both Hegel and Marx in their evaluation of Indian culture and development. See also Wilhelm Halbfass. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. 33 Amaury De Riencourt. The Soul of India. New York: Hyperion Books, 1990. 34 Aurobindo repudiates any exclusivism in thought and life. For him, “The hard logical and intellectual notion of truth as a single idea which all must accept, one idea or system of ideas defeating all other ideas or systems, or a single limited fact or single formula of facts which all must recognise, is an illegitimate transference from the limited truth of the physical field to the much more complex and plastic field of life and mind and spirit” (LD 887). This statement of Aurobindo goes quite in line with Whitehead’s own famous dictum that “in philosophical discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly” (PR xiv). And in The Function of Reason Whitehead states: “The mistaken expectation of obtaining a dogmatic finality in speculative first principles has obscured the very considerable success of this speculative epoch” (44). In this respect one is reminded also of Ninian Smart’s observation that “any metaphysical view must give some account of its possible competitors”

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that his approach is more attuned to the Eastern way.35 Furthermore, Whitehead admits that speculative reasoning is not a sole contribution of the Greeks, rather the “great Asiatic civilizations, Indian and Chinese, also produced variants of the same method.” Nevertheless, the problem with the latter is that “their modes of handling speculative Reason were effective for the abstract religious speculation, and for the philosophical speculation, but failed before natural science and mathematics” (FR 41). In this regard Aurobindo maintains that between the East and the West there should be more opening to each other. The message of the East to the West is a true message, ‘Only by finding himself can man be saved’ … The West has heard the message and is seeking out the law and truth of the soul and the evidences of an inner reality greater than the material. … The message the West brings to the East is a true message. Man also is God and it is through his developing manhood that he approaches the godhead; Life also is the Divine, its progressive expansion is the self-expression of the Brahman, and to deny Life is to diminish the Godhead within us. This is the truth that returns to the East from the West translated into the language of the higher truth the East already possesses; and it is an ancient knowledge. The East also is awaking to the message (SM 288-289).36

An independent progress is possible for the East as well as the West, but that alone will not help us. A mere going back either to the Western roots or to the Eastern roots alone is not the ideal. Rather an analysis of the past failure points to the fact that what is imminent is a methodological shift in the way of doing philosophy itself. In this respect Whitehead and Aurobindo give us the ground and opportunity for better dialogue. It is in this context that we suggest their metaphysics as a topic for further engagement between the West and the East. Nonetheless we should be realistic in this regard. The suggestion for deeper engagement and dialogue does not mean that this is an easy task. In fact, the

|| (1969, 167). Ninian Smart. Doctrine and Arguments in Indian Philosophy. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1969. 35 “In this general position the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought. One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate” (PR 7). 36 In 1949, just a few months before his death, speaking of the relationship between the East and the West in his message to America, Aurobindo wrote that there is no absolute difference between the East and the West but there are divergences. However, he would “be disposed to dwell on oneness and unity than on division and difference … East and West have always met and mixed more or less closely, they have powerfully influenced each other and at the present day are under an increasing compulsion of Nature and Fate to do some more ever before” (dated 11.08.1949, On Himself 413-14).

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various responses with regard to the relationship between the two, to which we referred in the beginning of this section, point to the problematics of the dialogue. Aurobindo maintains that: East is still East in its soul and West is still West and the misunderstanding of continents still flourishes, not only in the minds of politicians and “statesmen”, where one would naturally expect to find it, since it is there that vulgar prejudices, half-truths, whole untruths and unintelligent commonplaces assume their most solemn and sententious form, coin themselves into glittering phrases or flow in rhetorical periods, but in the minds too of critics, poets and leading intellectuals (EDH 407).

This citation of Aurobindo brings out that the East-West difference has its roots in every sphere of life and influenced people of all walks of life. What is demanded is not the abandoning of one’s own roots rather openness towards the other. A possible danger or misunderstanding that would happen is that the East and the West may speak same language but with quite different meaning or different language to refer to same reality. On the one hand, the East and the West use the notions like intuition, rationality, philosophy, etc. with different meanings and thrusts. On the other, they use different terminologies to speak about same fact. For instance, in the Indian tradition there is no equivalent to the Aristotelian teaching of a ‘science of being as being’ or to Christian Wolff’s conception of ‘ontology’. Nevertheless, being is one of the most important and widely discussed topics of Indian philosophy (Panthanmackel 21).37 What is pertinent is that if one fails to pay attention to the ethos in which any philosophical concept originated or developed in the process of dialogue that may cause only misunderstanding and we may end up in an “asymmetrical approach” in the dialogue between the two traditions. Therefore, if any one pushes too much on dialogue on the basis of the similarity of language or downplay the potentialities of dialogue on the ground of the differences of language we might become prey to what is described as the “civilizational bias” (Milcinski 243). The relationship between Eastern and Western philosophy may be expressed by the symbol E+W, and not by the equation E=W (Northrop 1951, contribution to the book Radhakrishnan). The role of the East and the West is adequately considered in this equation. If we present it with the symbol E=W, it would mean that the two have nothing to learn from each other. Therefore the study of each other would not be worthwhile. The symbol E+W means that a || 37 George Panthanmackel. “Being as Tad Ekam: Western Neo-Scholastic and Indian Approaches to Metaphysics.” Thottakara Augustine (ed.). Western Encounter with Indian Philosophy. Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications (2002) 21-37.

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healthy exchange of the two is necessary for a complete understanding of the “stubborn facts.” E has to offer its own unique way to the W and vice versa. Each maybe complete in its own right and its own way, but mutual understanding and cooperation would enrich each other. Whitehead’s identification of the undue sheltering of every religion from each other as a reason for their own decay can be true of different philosophical systems as well. One can observe that almost the same attitude has been maintained by different philosophical systems in the past. Whitehead argues that “the self-sufficient pedantry of learning and the confidence of ignorant zealots have combined to shut up each religion in its own forms of thought. Instead of looking to each other for deeper meanings, they have remained self-satisfied and unfertilized” (RM 140-41). Here the call is for an opening towards each other and to engage in dialogue with each other, in view of mutual enrichment. It is the need of the hour. In the Aurobindonian perspective what the world requires is a synthesis of the existential (objective) and the axiological (spiritual) standpoint regarding Reality. For him, […] the objective assumes value only as it has a relation to the soul; it is a field, an occasion, a means for the soul’s progression in Time: the objective is created as a ground of manifestation for the subjective. The objective world is only an outward form of becoming of the Spirit; it is here a first form, a basis, but it is not the essential thing, the main truth of being. The subjective and objective are two necessary sides of the manifested Reality and of equal value, and in the range of the objective itself the supraphysical object of consciousness has as much right to acceptance as the physical objectivity; it cannot be a priori set aside as a subjective delusion or hallucination (LD 647-48).

The East and the West need mutual engagement. The West can help the East in understanding the existential, while the East with its spiritual heritage can enrich the West in understanding the axiological. Still, the East can learn from the West its own rational thrust in philosophical discourses, while the West should adapt itself to a synthetic approach to faith and reason, or the religious and the metaphysical and in maintaining a life-oriented pursuit in its philosophical endeavours.

References 1. Primary Works of Whitehead Whitehead, Alfred North. Adventures of Ideas [1933]. New York: The Free Press, 1967. Whitehead, Alfred North. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1919. Whitehead, Alfred North. Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead [As Recorded by Lucien Price]. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1954. Whitehead, Alfred North. Modes of Thought [1938]. New York: The Free Press, 1968. Whitehead, Alfred North. Nature and Life [1934]. New York: Greenwood, 1968. [Reprint in Modes of Thought: Lecture I as chapter VII entitled “Nature Lifeless”; Lecture II as chapter VIII entitled “Nature Alive”]. Whitehead, Alfred North. “On Mathematical Concepts of the Material World.” Published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1906. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology [1929]. Eds. David Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. Corrected edition. New York: The Free Press, 1985. Whitehead, Alfred North. Religion in the Making [1926]. New York: World Publishing, 1960. Whitehead, Alfred North. Science and the Modern World [1925]. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967. Whitehead, Alfred North. The Concept of Nature [1920]. London: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Whitehead, Alfred North. The Function of Reason [1929]. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958. Whitehead, Alfred North. The Principle of Relativity with Application to Physical Sciences. Cambridge University Press, 1922.

2. Secondary Works on Whitehead Angadiyil, Joseph M. “Semantics and Theology: A Status Questionis.” God, Man, the Universe. Center For Metaphysics and Philosophy of God - Institute of Philosophy. Leuven (1981) 1944. Baltazar, Eulalio. “Evolutionary Perspectives and the Divine.” McLean, George F. (ed.). Traces of God in A Secular Culture. New York: The Society of St. Paul (1973) 143-165. Barineau, R. Maurice. The Theodicy of Alfred North Whitehead: A Logical and Ethical Vindication. New York: University Press of America, 1991. Bar-On, Zvie A. “Whitehead and the Heritage of Modern Philosophy.” International Philosophical Quarterly, IV, no. 1 (1964) 48-67. Baumer, Franklin M. Modern European Thought: Continuity and Change in Ideas, 1600-1950. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1977. Bidney, David. “The Problem of Substance in Spinoza and Whitehead.” The Philosophical Review XLV (1936) 574-592. Bradley, James. “The Speculative Generalization of the Function: A Key to Whitehead.” Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 64 (2002) 253-271. Brown, Delwin; James, Ralph & Reeves, Gene (eds.). Process Philosophy and Christian Thought. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1971.

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Brümmer, Vincent. “Science, Religion and the Agency of God.” Cloots, André & Sia, Santiago (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 3-21. Canevi, Pinar. “Do We Need the Actual Entities?” Holz, Harald and Wolf-Gazo, Ernest (eds.). Whitehead and the Idea of Process: Proceedings of the First International WhiteheadSymposium 1981. Freiburg/ München: Verlag Karl Alber (1984) 185-188. Christensen, Darrel E. The Search for Concreteness - Reflections on Hegel and Whitehead: A Treatise on Self-Evidence and Critical Method in Philosophy. London: Associated University Press, 1986. Christian, William A. “Some Uses of Reason.” Leclerc, Ivor (ed.). The Relevance of Whitehead Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press (1961) 47-89. Christian, William A. An Interpretation of Whitehead’s Metaphysics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959. Christian, William A. “Whitehead’s Explanation of the Past.” Kline, George L. (ed.). Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His Philosophy. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs (1963) 93-101. Christian, William A. “A Discussion of the New Metaphysics and Theology.” The Christian Scholar (1967) 304 - 311. Christian, William A. “Some Aspects of Whitehead’s Metaphysics.” Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press (1983) 31-44. Clarke, Norris W. “Analytic Philosophy and Language About God.” McLean, George F. (ed.). Traces of God in A Secular Culture. New York: The Society of St. Paul (1973) 307-344. Clarke, Norris W. “Christian Theism and Whiteheadian Process Philosophy: Are They Compatible?” Logos: Philosophical Issue in Christian Perspective, 1 (1980) 9-44. Cloots, André. “Creativity and God in Whitehead and Hartshorne.” P. Jonkers & J. Van der Veken (eds.). Whitehead’s Legacy. Leuven: Institute of Philosophy (1981) 41-59. Cloots, André. “De vraag naar het Ultieme in de Process-Filosofie.” Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 42, 1 (1980) 48-74. Cloots, André. “The Metaphysical Significance of Whitehead’s Creativity.” Process Studies 30 (2001) 36-54. Cloots, André. “The Poet of the World: The Affirmation of God in Whitehead’s Philosophy.” Louvain Studies 7, no 2 (1978) 91-101. Cloots, André. “Thinking Things Together. The Concept of Metaphysics.” Cloots, André & Sia, Santiago (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 67-84. Cloots, André. “Seeing Everything from a Religious Point of View? On Religion and Fragmentation.” Unpublished Manuscript (2005) 1-17. Cloots, André & Sia, Santiago (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999. Cobb, John B. Jr. “A Whiteheadian Doctrine of God.” Process Philosophy and Christian Thought. Brown, Delwin; James, Ralph E. JR. & Reeves, Gene (eds.). Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc. (1971) 215-243. Cobb, John B. Jr. “Science, Theology and Whitehead’s Philosophy.” Cloots, André & Sia, Santiago (eds.). Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Leuven: Leuven University Press (1999) 45-65. Cobb, John B. Jr. “Whitehead and Natural Philosophy.” Holz, Harald & Wolf-Gazo, Ernest (eds.). Whitehead and the Idea of Process: Proceedings of the First International Whitehead-Symposium 1981. Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber (1984) 137-153.

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3. Primary Works of Aurobindo Aurobindo. Essays Divine and Human. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1994. Aurobindo. Essays on Gita [1922]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2000. Aurobindo. Heraclitus. Calcutta: Arya Publishing House, 1941. Aurobindo. Hymns to the Mystic Fire [1946]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998. Aurobindo. Isha Upanishad. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1951. Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga (ed.). Pondicherry: SABCL, Vol. 22, 1970. Aurobindo. On Himself: Compiled from Notes and Letters. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972. Aurobindo. Renaissance in India [1918]. Reprint in The Foundations of Indian Culture [1918-21]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram (1998) 395-432. Aurobindo. Savitri [1940]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1993. Aurobindo. The Bhagavad Gita. With Texts, Translation and Commentary in Words of Sri Aurobindo. Khetan, Parmeshwari Prasad (ed.). Rajasthan: Sri Aurobindo Divine Life Trust, 1992. Aurobindo. The Foundations of Indian Culture [1918-21]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998. Aurobindo. The Hour of God. Pondicherry: SABCL, Vol. 17, 1972. Aurobindo. The Human Cycle [1962]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997. Aurobindo. The Ideal of Human Unity [1919]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998.

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Aurobindo. The Mother. Calcutta: The Arya Publishing House, 1946. Aurobindo. The Problem of Rebirth. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1952. Aurobindo. The Secret of Veda [1914-20]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1999. Aurobindo. The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings [1949-50]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997. Aurobindo. The Synthesis of Yoga [1914-21]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2000. Aurobindo. The Upanishads: Texts, Translations, and Commentaries [1910]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1996. Aurobindo. The Life Divine [1914-19]. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997. Aurobindo. “A Letter of Sri Aurobindo.” Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, vol. XIV, no. 3, 4-6. Aurobindo. “The Principle of Avidya or Ignorance.” Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual no. 11 (1942) 136. Aurobindo. “The Karmayogin: A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad.” Pondicherry: SABCL, vol. 27 (1972) 201-288.

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