VEDANTA endeavpurs to base itself essentially on the facts of
experiencein the fullest sense of the term. It recognizes the occur- rence of everyday experience and the so-called fact of evil, but it refuses to view them as real. The real, it says, like Hegel, does not exist, and that which exists is not real. Evil is only an "existent" as all this Samsara isbut not the ultimate Real. But it will be at once objected that if evil is an appearance, a Maya, why should this appearance appear at all ? If it has no foundation in reality, how and why does it occur at all? Further, how can anything be known as real unless it should appear (to us) ? Reality must appear. If it is said that the appearance of evil dissolves ultimately, the question arises, How about its existence at the present moment of its being? Is it not at least real then? To the person having an illusion, it is real and present. Of course, when he attains knowledge through experience, the illusion (e.g., of the snake in the rope) is destroyed. But the question is, What about the time when he does have the illusion? Was it not real at that moment? In view of this difficulty the realists, and even the "critical" realists, adopt the easy way of treating evil as a fact, here and now, which constitutes an inalien- able element in the texture of experience. We have not, it is urged, to speculate the problem, but to face the reality of evil; not to explain it away as an abstraction of thought, but to make room for its stern reality in our theory of knowledge. "It is no longer a problem, it is a fact." The Advaita-Vada, on the other hand, accepts no such line of least resistance. The fact of evil it never cares to dispute, it merely repudiates the claim of the fact to reality. The "fact" turns out to be illusory when it is viewed in a suitable context. The very fact that the illusion of the snake is destroyed shows that it was never real, for the real is never destroyed; it always endures, it is eternal. It may evolve and grow, but it never suffers annihilation. The Real, according to Vedanta, is that which continues in all the three forms of time, past, present, and future. It is timeless, for time has meaning and reality only in reference to it. Continuance and eternality thus constitute the ultimate, absolute criterion of truth and reality. It is not correct to maintain, as Bradley seems to, that ultimately 62 T H E P R O B L E M OF E V I L the contradictions, incoherences, and discords will all be transmuted into the harmony of an all-embracing Real. This suggests that the contradictions were really contradictions. But if a contradiction is real, how can it ever be dissolved? The point is that, according to Vedanta, the so-called contradictions, discords, and evils were never such, were never real at all, not even in the moment of their so- called being. They should not be regarded as lesser, incomplete "reals" (r), which are absorbed into the perfect, complete Real (R). The fact is that the lesser "reals" are not real at all. The Real is eternally full and perfect. It is the One, the whole which has no "many." If the "reals" were real in any form, there would be no dis- illusionment, for there could not have been any illusion at all. Illusion occurs only when we take something to be that which it can never be and never really is. The "many" are mere "existents," but never real. We treat the "existent" as real when we superimpose on it attributes which cannot belong to it. "Extra-personal attri- butes are, for instance, superimposed on the Self, if a man con- siders himself sound and entire, or as long as his wife and children are sound and entire. Attributes of the body are superimposed on the Self, if a man thinks 'I am mute, or deaf, one-eyed,' etc.; attributes of the internal organs, when he considers himself subject to desire, intention, doubt, determination, etc."1 Why there should be this superimposition, may well be asked. How, if all be consciousness, Sakti or Brahman, is that "principle," viz. of unconsciousness, Maya, the veiling "principle" there? The answer is given in the definition of "Sakti". It is the function of Sakti to determine or determinate, i.e. to impose the subject-object relationship, the dualistic and pluralistic categories on the universe of human experience. It is we who, in ignorance of our essential reality, construct barriers between our individual, differentiated selves and the absolute undifferenced Self. The immature, unevolved intellect, incapable of envisaging reality as a whole, makes cross-sections in the Real, and views each section as the true symbol and representative of the whole. It enjoys the narrow circle of its own making, for it has not yet deve- loped a comprehensive grasp. It cannot help thinking in terms of itself and the other, non-self. In truth, however, the whole universe is the self 2an intensive, thoroughgoing unitywhether as I (Aham) or "this" (Idam); subject or object, the one or many. The self becomes its own object. And it becomes its own object that it may enjoy, as it were, this dualistic experience. Yet in reality it ever remains what it was in its unitary blissful experience. This is the eternal play in which the self 1 Shankara Bhasya, I. * "Brahman, indeed, is this whole world, this widest extent." Cf. Munda- kopanisad, II, n . * 63 JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES hides and seeks itself. "The formless cannot assume form unless formlessness is negated. Eternity is negated into finality, the all- pervading into the limited; the all-knowing into the'little knower,' the almighty into the 'little doer,' and so forth. It is only by negating Itself to Itself that the Self becomes its own object in the form of the universe." This superimposing and self-limiting characteristic of the SaktiNisedhavyapararupasaktiis completely sui generis, though not in the least mysterious, for we find its closest analogue in our own self-consciousness. We "enjoy" this dualistic experience in the intimate consciousness of our being. Why we should do so seems to be a meaningless question, for here we are concerned with the immediate, ultimate, and fundamental fact of experience. But more of this later. Further, the conception of error and evil is based on atomism. Why do we call an object, an event, "a slice of history," evil ? Simply because we do not take the object or the "slice" in the totality of its being, in its indissoluble relations with the universe. When we take a partial view, things are apt to appear in a wrong perspective. We fail to take an all-round view, and hasten to stigmatize an object as evil.1 So far as the mere stigmatizing of an experience as evil is concerned, we may not be far wrong, for it is a matter of name and form. The real mistake or confusion occurs when we regard the "evil" object of experience as per se evil and eternally such. This is atomism. An object taken in this sense of a relationless entity is nothing but an "apotheosis of a particular." It is a perfectly arbitrary and unwarrantable division of space-time. But an object in and by itself is nothing at all. Apart from the universe of its relations it means nothing and is naught. A patch of colour in a painting which it glorifies appears ugly and monstrous when by itself. A note played by itself is meaningless noise, but in its appropriate relations it produces a symphony which enthrals the soul. This is the familiar coherence view, only its application here is more thoroughgoing. It may be objected that the practical necessities of life leave no time to view an object in all its relations or even in most of them, 1 As to the possibility of an all-round view, it may be said that it is not attainable by our finite and limited intellect and experience. But this is dogmatism. Science proves that we enlarge our perspective every day as the intellect grows and as "the instruments of perception" become" more and more perfect. Vedanta recommends various Sadhnas, and Patanjali in Yoga Dar$ana suggests "Abhyasa" (Practice) and "Vairagya" (Renunciation) for the control of the different "Vrittis" (Senses) with a view to the attainment of "Nirodha"the realization of the ultimate experience. Nor is it merely a matter of theory. A great many"Rsis" have acquired this universal cognition and an ubiquitous outlook which is necessary for the true evaluation of the human experience in their life. That is why they are called "Jivan Muktas." 64 T H E P R O B L E M OF E V I L and we cannot wait for perfect knowledge to pronounce upon matters in regard to which some sort of definiteness and direction is essential for the guidance of thought and action. Indecision and inertia will mean death. But it is one thing to dogmatize, quite another to be conscious of our limitations. For a long time to come our knowledge (as also our capacities for action) is bound to remain imperfect and provisional, but it is a great step forward to be aware of its tentative and imperfect character. For in that case we shall not be deluded into the snares of "Avidya" or "Maya." We shall ever have that healthy suspicion, if not a robust conviction, that what we are experiencing, however great and vivid an air of reality it may possess, is ultimately an appearance only. A mirage never deceives the wary, though it may possess all the credentials of sensuous reality. The uninitiated, says the Gita, take the joys and sorrows of their mortal existence as immutable elements in the life of the soul, but the wise heed them not. They live and move in the atmosphere of mortality, but have their being in the serene calm of the Eternal. Like the lotus, they bloom with the fullness of being, and remain uncontaminated by the surrounding mud and mire. They are not affected by the law of Karma, inexorable as it may be. For they have lived through and destroyed all their KSrmic bondage. They are beyond good and evil. Though in the world, they are not of it.
MAYA REPRESENTS DEGREES OF REALITY
Further, there is a misconception in the mind of some thinkers
that Advaita Vada does not recognize the externality and existence of the tangible world of everyday experience, that it is solipsistic or acosmistic. But this is a great mistake. That the world of everyday experience is a fact and exists is, as we have seen, never disputed by Vedanta. It does not regard it as an "Idea." It merely affirms that it is "real" only from the empirical point of view, not from the transcendental point of view. Though existent, it regards it as "Mithya," i.e. unreal. Just as a dreamer when awakened regards the events of the dream-experience as unreal and false, in the same way the sage awakened from the dream of Samsara regards the latter as "Mithya." Both the dream-world and the world of everyday experience continue to be existent and true as long as we are in them, but once awakened or liberated we recognize the unreal character of either. From the Vyavaharika point of view, this world of objective experience is a fact and an existent, but once this jj standpoint is transcended it ceases to appear real. And the growth f of experience stands for the gradual transcending of this Vyava- k hSrika standpoint and the eventual attainment of PSram5rthika E 65 f JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES excellence.1 VedSnta gives to the world as much objectivity and reality as the most extreme realists would desire. But it transcends realism, and stands for the assimilation, correlation, and re-evaluation of common experience. Realism judges each event and slice of history as it occurs, the Vedanta, after having taken stock of individual details, organizes them into systematic unity, and surveys the whole before finally recognizing its value and reality. Confronted with the bewildering multiplicity of objects, the realist loses sight of the unity that permeates them through and through and makes even their apparent manifoldness possible. The Vedanta keeps this unity steadily in view. In one sense Vedanta is thus a pronouncedly realistic system, in another and more exact and exalted form it is eminently idealistic. It is important to grasp this apparently dualistic character of Vedanta in order to understand the rather illusory conception of Mayathe so-called evil principle. By calling it "apparently dualistic" we only mean to point out that ultimately and in the highest sense it is a system of objective, Absolute Idealism.4' Throughout we find the two strands running concurrently, and the whole texture of this philosophy is closely interwoven with them. It prepares a distinction between the higher and lower aspect of truth, or rather its apprehension. The lower ministers to the unde- veloped minds, and the higher is meant to satisfy the more highly evolved intellect. The one is "Vyavaliarika" (empirical), the other "Paramarthika" (transcendental). What is real according to the one may be illusory according to the other. The "many," for instance, seem to be real from the point of view of imagination, as Spinoza said, "the one" from that of the "intellect." Kant made a similar distinction between phenomena and noumena. But while in many passages Kant takes noumena to be only a hypothetical, meta- physical necessity, unknown and unrealizable in experience, Vedanta considers them to be ultimately real, and as perfectly and completely realizable as the phenomena themselves. That is, while Kant seems to have fixed a rigid, generic distinction between the two, Vedanta views them as fluctuating elements in the one real. They represent only degrees of real existence. For reality has degrees or gradations according to the assimilative capacity of the mind or self. As the mind 1 I t is not necessary for the attainment of Moksa to renounce and forget the objective world altogether. Had it been so "susupti"' (dreamless sleep) and fits of unconsciousness would amount to Moksa, for in these states there is no memory. But this is not so. All that is essential is to recognize the Sam- saxa as MithyS., not to refuse to regard it as objective and external, otherwise, again, "Jivanmukti" would not be possible. Cf. Panchadasi, I. This seems to be the nearest equivalent of Advaita Vada, which literally means "Non-dualism": a system which believes only in the reality of the Absolute Brahman. 66 T H E P R O B L E M OF E V I L grows and develops, experience becomes richer and more varied and values change. The world of imagination, illusion and dreams, the sensible world, and the absolute, are all, in a sense, real. Only their status differs. The first is the lowest type of "real," because it is negated by the second, the second, though a higher type of real, is also negated by the intimations of Absolute experience; hence this too is not real. The third is the only reality which is ultimate, because there is no further experience which negates or transcends it. In this way, by an inductive elimination of the false values of "Prakritti," we arrive at the Real. By its definition the Absolute Brahman is ultimate "Paramarthika sat" par excellence. Nothing is beyond it, for it is beyond all. As the sage of the Taittriya Upanisad says: Wherefrom words turn back Together with the mind, not having attained The bliss of Brahman he who knows. Fears not anything at all. II. 4.
Or, as the Kenopanisad puts it:
Yasyamatam tasya matam Matarp Yasya na Veda sah Avijfiatam vijanatam Vijnatam a vijanatam
It is conceived by him by whom It is not conceived of,
He by whom It is conceived of knows It not. It is not understood by those who (say they) understand It, It is understood by those who (say) understand It not. II. 11.
To the Yogin who has attained the broad intellectual vision of
the sage evil ceases to appear as real at all. He discovers that it was not real, it did not really exist, and was naught. Or it was something which he had mistaken for something else. In the illusion of the snake in the rope, the snake never really formed any part of the object (rope) perceived. Thus, when reflection corrects the illusion it shows that the illusory object was never partly or wholly any part of the entity which was perceived as the illusory object. The snake perceived never was, nor is, nor ever will be any part of the "this" of the rope which was mistaken for the snake. Accordingly, falsehood of an appearance consists in the fact that its existence may be denied in all the three possible temporal relations. The standard of truth and reality, on the other hand, is possibility of eternal perception, eternal existence. The so-called evil principle or Maya does not conform to this criterion, and hence it is not real in 67 JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES the ultimate, Paramarthika sense.1 The only reality that completely fulfils this test is the Absolute Brahman. It alone stands while everything else changes. The one remains, the many change and pass, [ Heaven's light forever shines, earth's shadows fly. I i But it does not follow that the Absolute of the Advaita-VSdin is \ a blank, unchanging, featureless identity, that it is static, wooden, | and stagnant. This is the common criticism. But though in itself I unchangingfor change implies imperfection and finitudethe j Absolute is the permanent substratum of all change. It is the standard I or measure of change, and as such it cannot itself change. \ t
ABSOLUTE AND PERSONALITY. \
Again, it is sometimes feared that the Absolute swallows up our i personality, that the attainment of the ideal (if possible at all) I means the eventual dissolution of the individual, and all the values which had supplied the urge and inspired him in the pursuit of the goal. This is the Pluralist criticism. Personality, it is argued, has value, a value that must be conserved in any scheme of the Universe. If it is annihilated, there is no incentive to good, and ethics falls to the ground. The ultimate must be, according to this way of thinking, an irreducible plurality, a vast domain of independent principalities and centres of power, a community of windowless monads. But this is another illustration of the insidious influence of atomistic meta- physics, though here a little dignified by some plausibility and show of reason. What is meant by attributing absolute reality to person- ality? Is there, or can there be, such a thing at all? It is only by a false abstraction that we deify individuality. What can an individual, a particular be in and by itself apart from other particulars, i.e. the universal? Our personality is nothing except in relation to another Personality. The Absolute Personality (if the expression be allowed) is not anything by itself, apart from concrete, particular "per- sonalities"; it is the same as these. The individual come to himself is the Absolute. Each personality is not distinct from another there is no "another"it is but the common unity appearing in 1 I t is necessary to remember that Maya might be viewed from three different points of view. From the standpoint of the liberated it does not exist at all; from that of the learned,it is something mysterious, both real and non-real, something which is contradictory and "Anirvacya"; and from the point of view of the uncritical man of common sense, it is real and existent. The latter experiences the Samsara, its joys and sorrows, and is inexorably bound by the laws of Karma, taking births after births. But on the attain- ment of Brahman knowledge the veil of Maya is rolled up and disappears like a painted curtain. Cf. Panchadasi, Pt. VI, Chap. 5. 68 T H E P R O B L E M OF E V I L many. The criticism assumes that each person is meant to be and is eternally distinct from another. Had it been soand on no other hypothesis can the claim for independent "eternality" be based all experience would be chaos and scepticism the result of thinking. Some sort of an occasionalism or pre-established harmony or a similar deus ex machina would have to be invoked in order to bring together the relationless mass of particulars into which the real is pulverized. But more than two centuries after Descartes were necessary to prove the utter futility of such attempts. But, thanks to the genius of our great philosophical sages, we, on this side of the waters, have never suffered atomism in any name or form to run riot. We have avoided false and foolish abstractions, and have kept the facts of experience steadily in view. Vedanta thus explains that there is a process of evolution of personality. Each level yields place to the next higher, which is its promise and fulfilment. One might as well be afraid that infancy is absolutely annihilated when adolescence is attained and adolescence abolished in age. But just as youth is the fulfilment of childhood and age of youth, in the same way the lower stages in the development of self-hood are fulfilled in and by the higher. In the scheme of cosmic evolution nothing is lostthe lower is transcended by and transformed into the higher, the less developed into the more developed. That indeed is the purpose for which the lower exists: to become greater, to be utilized by the higher. The lower itself is the consummation of the still lower. It is transformed into the higher only to find its true function and being. The glory of the seed is to be a tree, that of the embryo to be man; of the so-called ugly and evil to be good and beautiful. We lose ourselves only to find our Self. Like the snake, to take the illustration given by Vedanta, which sheds its slough only to put on its refulgent skin, we leave one narrow sheath after another, only to discover our ultimate Beatitude. This is surely not destruction. It is the highest attainment. Life must come to its own. Then, as a matter of fact, we never had the so-called individuality which it is sought to protect and perpetuate. We are always and strictly, says Vedanata,1 the infinite: "God though in the germ," "I am Brahman," may be claimed by the meanest of us, much as the meanest of the subjects of Louis XIV could have (equally well with him) exclaimed "I am the State." In the earlier stages the veiling influence of the Upadhis prevented us from recognizing the Infinite Brahman in us. The embryo can little dream of the worlds 1 As Oil in the seasame seeds, as butter in cream. As water in river-beds, and as fire in the friction-stick. So is the soul apprehended in our own soul, If one looks for Him with true austerity (Tapas). Cf. Svetasvatara Upanisad, I. 15. 69 JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES of growth awaiting for it. It is, so to speak, struggling to find them, and in time does find them. Just as we cannot see our own hand in darkness, so environed by the mists of Avidya we do not see the Real in us. Indeed, it is AvidyS which deludes us into believing that we have a separate personality. But when this immense ignorance is destroyed by the illumination of Brahman knowledge, we realize our true place in the cosmic consciousness. We then attain to the completest attunement to, and harmony with, the Absolute self, which is the eternal goal and purpose of the Samsara. The appearance of "mayic" manifoldness yields to the realization of the ultimate One. Until this is attained there is no "moksa," no freedom from births and deaths (in the self itself), from transmigrationwhich means stages in the evolution of the Self. This is what the Upanisad says: Their never ending death they weave Who here a manifold perceive.
Maya, then, is not something separate and independent. It is
not a principle of evil, and our soul is not like an arena where the two forces of light and darkness, Brahman and Maya, are for ever battling for supremacy. To believe that there are such two things is wholly inconsistent with the Advaita point of view. That would again be lapsing into the quagmires of atomism. In Itself and ultimately Maya is nothing at all. It merely represents successive phases in the growth of self-hood. It is the self itself in one of its aspectsthe dynamic aspect. As long as there is evolution Maya is necessarily there, for it is the principle of dynamism and individua- tion. That is why the world, the SamsSra, is known as Mayathat is, not something evil, but something which has to be experienced Bhogafor the eventual emancipation of the soul from the thraldom of ignorance or Avidya. From the point of view of the Absolute, however, Maya does not exist at all. Nor must it be regarded as inherent in the nature of the absolute Self. That would be a contra- diction in terms.1 How does it then originate, will be asked? From the absolute point of view such a question is meaningless. It is of the nature of darkness, and how can one who is in the atmosphere of pure luminosity perceive or be affected by it. Once Brahmanhood is attained, the veil of Maya is torn asunder, and our imperfect, empirical existence and individuality disappears. Intuition of such experience of the inmost intimacy of our deepest Self always beggars 1 For the Absolute is nothing but itself. As soon as Ahankara (egoism), makes it reflect over its greatness, or even its own nature, it is degraded and becomes Isvara, or the omniscient Lord, the creator of the universe, the principle of mayic manifoldness. It no longer remains the Absolute. It is individualized. 70 T H E P R O B L E M OF E V I L description. It is Anirvacya (indescribable), for language is too crude and imperfect an instrument to handle it. But because it is "anir- vacya" and "avyakta" (ineffable), it does not mean that it is chimeri- cal. The sensation of rose-smell is equally indescribablefor we attempt to describe itfigurativelyas sweet, delicious, lovely, etc.but it is intensely real to the percipient subject. The experience is alogical and sui generis, and the abstract, dualistic categories of logic are ill-adapted to do justice to it. The sage of the Upanisad, when asked to describe his intimations of Brahman experience, answered by remaining silent. The fact is that the Brahman-seeker ultimately reaches a level of experience where he intuits and gains reality "by a leap" as it were. That such a state is real and possible is proved by the actual attainment of the great jivan-muktas, the Rsis, who have left some record of their great experience in the Upanisads. The so-called mysticism of Vedanta is nothing mysterious and esoteric. Brahmanhood is always attainable by all who must pursue it earnestly. It is a systematic, scientific process. Western thinkers often view such mysticism with suspicion, and regard it as something which is more or less inconsistent with the life of reason. But Advaita Vada regards reason from a much more comprehensive point of view so as to prepare the way for intuitions, intimations, and other such experiences as ordinarily defy our narrow and abstract logical categories. Those who challenge its truth are enjoined to practise its doctrine to see its reality. That is why Vedanta is not only a philosophy: it is also a kind of living practical "religion," a demon- stration of Truth and Reality.
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