Originally posted on sciy.org by Debashish Banerji on Sun 10 Dec 2006 03:23 PM PST
Instruments of Knowledge and Post-Human
Destinies
Editor’s Note: The two postings on Techno-Capitalism
and Post-Human Destinies (I and II) generated a thread on the relationship
between physical instruments of observation and knowledge in the scientific sense
(microscopes, telescopes, nuclear accelerators), human organs of observation
and knowledge (mind, intelligence, sense organs) in the cognitive/psychological
sense and possible mutations of human consciousness in the
ontological / phenomenological / epistemological sense (change of being, change of
consciousness, change of modalities of knowledge). The last (possibilities of a
change of modalities of knowledge) opened up a consideration of Sri Aurobindo’s
phenomenology of supramental knowledge and its subsidiary action in human forms
and instruments of knowledge – specifically sense-knowledge through the sense
organs with the “sixth-sense†of the “sense mind,†manas in the Indian Sankhya
formulation behind them at/as their origin and the supramental Samjnana further
behind/beyond but with a concealed and subsidiary operation in/through manas.
Here we are reproducing the relevant parts of this very fertile thread for
focused consideration.
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by RY Deshpande on Sat 02 Dec 2006 07:35
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At this point I will just give a quotation
from The Synthesis of Yoga:
The telescope, the microscope, the scalpel, the retort and alembic cannot go
beyond the physical, although they may arrive at subtler and subtler truths
about the physical. If then we confine ourselves to what the senses and their
physical aids reveal to us and refuse from the beginning to admit any other
reality or any other means of knowledge, we are obliged to conclude that
nothing is real except the physical and that there is no Self in us or in the
universe, no God within and without, no ourselves even except this aggregate of
brain, nerves and body. But this we are only obliged to conclude because we
have assumed it firmly from the beginning and therefore cannot but circle round
to our original assumption.
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by RY Deshpande on Mon 04 Dec 2006 02:05
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I take in the Synthesis-passage the tools mentioned in it as suggestive of the
scientific methodology of investigating the physical world. Our telescope is
too small to see the universe in its dimensions of infinity; our microscope is
too large to see the finer than the fine—to use the Upanishadic phrase; our
instruments of studying life have no sensitivity to detect the process of
decay-disintegration-death of life-in-matter. Howsoever refined our tools might
become and whatever subtler truths about the physical we might reach, they
still remain too gross. Knowledge based on such investigations carries certain
kind of value, but carrying it beyond its domain could amount to making a leap.
The journey of the evolution of consciousness is made not only by reason, but
there are other known and unknown travellers also.
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by Debashish on Fri 08 Dec 2006 12:19 AM
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As I see it, RYD's [original] quote from
Sri Aurobindo [Synthesis of Yoga] points to a reduction of the domain of
reality to an engagement between the human reason and matter. In terms of
evolution, this may imply enhancements of the physical basis of consciousness,
but whether it implies a change in consciousness is debatable. One may easily
conceive a bionic or nano-genetic internalization of machinery which humankind
is already using - a race of super-humans with telescopes or microscopes (or
both) for eyes but that is just an intimate internalization and
individualization of dualistic instrumentations, an enhancement of operation
but is it a change of consciousness? One of the problems here is that we can
know only what we experience - once again, as in our earlier formulation,
epistemology follows ontology………..
DB
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[I have shifted this comment from its
proper chronological location since it relates more directly to what will
follow and provides a connecting link between the question raised above
regarding the limitations of bionic mutations of sense instrumentality and the
consideration of mutations of the modalities of knowledge based on a change of
consciousness which overcomes these limitations – Ed]
by Rich on Tue 05 Dec 2006 08:20 AM
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........ what
light can the following insights of Sri Aurobindo shed?
"The dharma of science thought and philosophy is to seek for truth by the
intellect dispassionately, without prepossession and prejudgment, with no other
first propositions than the law of thought and observation itself imposes.
Science and philosophy are not bound to square their observations and
conclusions with any current ideas of religious dogma or ethical rule or
aesthetic prejudices. In the end if left free in their action, they will find
the unity of Truth with Good and Beauty and give these a greater meaning than
any dogmatic religion or any formal ethics or narrower aesthetic idea can give
us.†Sri Aurobindo (Human Cycle p 214)
“"Consciousness itself by its mutation will necessitate and operate
whatever mutation is needed for the body. It has to be noted that the human
mind has already shown the capacity to aid nature in the evolution of new types
of plant and animal; it has created new forms of its environment, developed by
knowledge and disciplined considerable changes in its own mentality. It is not
an impossibility that "man should aid nature consciously also in his own
spiritual and physical evolution and transformation" -my emphasis- The
urge to do it is already there and partly effective though still incompletely
understood and accepted by the surface mentality; but one day it may understand
go deeper within itself and discover the means, the secret energy, the intended
operation of Consciousness-Force within which is the hidden reality we call
Nature ( LD 1949 p843/ 844)â€.
rc
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by Debashish on Sat 09 Dec 2006 01:11 AM
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The 2 quotes you have provided are both
very interesting and must be seen in context. The first one, from The Human Cycle, is from the chapter
"The Spiritual Aim and Life" and is seeing Science and Philosophy as
aspects of the seeking for truth by the intellect, which need to be granted
independence to seek in their own manner; but the context of this seeking is a
transformation of the aim of life to a spiritual aim. The meanings and goals of
Science as of the intellect need then to be understood in the light of this
transformed life-aim. A paragraph from the previous page is a most eloquent
elucidation of this change of aim and its consequent operational
transformations:
"The true and full spiritual aim
in society will regard man not as a mind, a life and a body, but as a soul
incarnated for a divine fulfillment upon earth, not only in heavens beyond,
which after it need not have left if it had no divine business here in the
world of physical, vital and mental nature. It will therefore regard the life,
mind and body neither as ends in themselves, sufficient for their own
satisfaction, nor as mortal members full of disease which have only to be
dropped off for the rescued spirit to flee away into its own pure regions, but
as first instruments of the soul, the yet imperfect instruments of an unseized
diviner purpose. It will believe in their destiny and help them to believe in
themselves, but for that very reason in their highest and not only in their
lowest or lower possibilities. Their destiny will be in its view, to
spiritualise themselves so as to grow into visible members of the spirit, lucid
means of its manifestation, themselves spiritual, illumined, more and more
conscious and perfect. For, accepting the truth of man's soul as a thing
entirely divine in its essence, it will accept also the possibility of his
whole being becoming divine in spite of Nature's first patent contradictions of
this possibility, her darkened denials of this ultimate certitude, and even
with these as a necessary earthly starting-point. ..." (The Human Cycle, 1977, pp. 212-13).
One can see here that neither Science nor its instrument, intellect are to
remain what they are, but both become evolutionary instruments of spiritual
knowledge. This takes us eventually to a different understanding of
"intellect" as an instrument of Spirit rather than of Mind, related
to the transformation of "sense" into its supramental
origin as quoted by RYD in a
recent comment [this will now follow – Ed]. Where the supramental origin
of "sense" is the samjnana, a similar transformed origin of
"intellect" as a modality of knowledge by identity which objectivizes
its operation for dualistic enjoyment is explained by Sri Aurobindo as the prajnana.
Re. the second quote (from The Life Divine), note that here also a
progress from intellect or reason to pure action of Consciousness in
determining human evolution is implied. It is as if from the very beginning
this Consciousness-Force, chit-shakti,
"which is the hidden reality we call Nature" individualizes itself
through a subsidiary action in human reason and interferes more
"consciously" in the evolutionary process. But to find the means for
a true evolution, a change of consciousness, humanity needs to discover and
identify in being and power with this Consciousness-Force, its subsidiary
action as "mentality" is not sufficient for that.
DB
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by RY Deshpande on Tue 05 Dec 2006 09:14
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About Manas [Sri Aurobindo translates this term from Indian Sankhya yoga philosophy
as “sense mind,†the part and operation of the mind responsible for the senses –
Ed]: “Manas, say our philosophers, is the sixth sense. But we may even say that
it is the only sense and that the others, vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste
are merely specialisations of the sense-mind which, although it normally uses
the sense-organs for the basis of its experience, yet exceeds them and is
capable of a direct experience proper to its own inherent action.â€
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by RY Deshpande on Fri 08 Dec 2006 07:22
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Let us go to the description of samjñana in The Synthesis of Yoga (pp. 863-65):
“…a fourth action of the supramental consciousness completes the various
possibilities of the supramental knowledge. This still farther accentuates the
objectivity of the thing known, puts it away from the station of experiencing
consciousness and again brings it to nearness by a uniting contact effected
either in a direct nearness, touch, union or less closely across the bridge or
through the connecting stream of consciousness of which there has already been
mention. It is a contacting of existence, presences, things, forms, forces,
activities, but a contacting of them in the stuff of the supramental being and
energy, not in the divisions of matter and through the physical instruments,
that creates the supramental sense, samjñana.
It is a little difficult to make the nature of the supramental sense understood
to a mentality not yet familiar with it by enlarged experience, because our
idea of sense action is governed by the limiting experience of the physical
mind and we suppose that the fundamental thing in it is the impression made by
an external object on the physical organ of sight, hearing, smell, touch,
taste, and that the business of the mind, the present central organ of our
consciousness, is only to receive the physical impression and its nervous
translation and so become intelligently conscious of the object. In order to
understand the supramental change we have to realise first that the mind is the
only real sense even in the physical process: its dependence on the physical
impressions is the result of the conditions of the material evolution, but not
a thing fundamental and indispensable. Mind is capable of a sight that is
independent of the physical eye, a hearing that is independent of the physical
ear, and so with the action of all the other senses. It is capable too of an
awareness, operating by what appears to us as mental impressions, of things not
conveyed or even suggested by the agency of the physical organs,—an opening to
relations, happenings, forms even and the action of forces to which the
physical organs could not have borne evidence. Then, becoming aware of these
rarer powers, we speak of the mind as a sixth sense; but in fact it is the only
true sense organ and the rest are no more than its outer conveniences and
secondary instruments, although by its dependence on them they have become its
limitations and its too imperative and exclusive conveyors. Again we have to
realise—and this is more difficult to admit for our normal ideas in the
matter—that the mind itself is only the characteristic instrument of sense, but
the thing itself, sense in its purity, samjñana,
exists behind and beyond the mind it uses and is a movement of the self, a
direct and original activity of the infinite power of its consciousness. The
pure action of sense is a spiritual action and pure sense is itself a power of
the spirit.â€
Aren’t our senses miles and miles away from this true sense which alone can
bring proper knowledge about the physical world to us?
RYD
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By
RY Deshpande
on Sat 09 Dec 2006 05:32 AM PST | Profile | Permanent Link
I will be brief. We have a series:
physical instruments of observation in the scientific sense, such as
microscopes, telescopes, modern accelerators; physical organs of contact,
eye-ear-taste-smell-touch; behind them manas, mind as the true sense; finally
sense in its purity sanjnana that
exists behind and beyond mind.
Kena Upanishad speaks of a Sight behind our sight and a Hearing behind our
hearing, not in general terms of a Sense behind our sense. It starts with a
series of questions and straightaway asserts a few things:
1. By whom missioned falls the mind shot to its mark? By whom yoked moves the
first life-breath forward on its paths? By whom impelled is this word that men
speak? What god set eye and ear to their workings?
2. That which is hearing of our hearing, mind of our mind, speech of our
speech, that too is life of our life-breath and sight of our sight. The wise
are released beyond and they pass from this world and become immortal.
3. There sight travels not, nor speech, nor the mind. We know It not nor can
distinguish how one should teach of It: for It is other than the known; It is
there above the unknown. It is so we have heard from men of old who declared
That to our understanding.
4. That which is unexpressed by the word, that by which the word is expressed,
know That to be the Brahman and not this which men follow after here.
5. That which thinks not by the mind, that by which the mind is thought, know
That to be the Brahman and not this which men follow after here.
6. That which sees not with the eye, that by which one sees the eye's seeings,
know That to be the Brahman and not this which men follow after here.
7. That which hears not with the ear, that by which the ear's hearing is heard,
know That to be the Brahman and not this which men follow after here.
8. That which breathes not with the breath, that by which the life-breath is
led forward in its paths, know That to be the Brahman and not this which men
follow after here.
Sri Aurobindo’s commentary in chapter IX (pp. 148-55) is reproduced in the
following:
Mind was called by Indian psychologists the eleventh and ranks as the supreme
sense. In the ancient arrangement of the senses, five of knowledge and five of
action, it was the sixth of the organs of knowledge and at the same time the
sixth of the organs of action. It is a commonplace of psychology that the
effective functioning of the senses of knowledge is inoperative without the
assistance of the mind; the eye may see, the ear may hear, all the senses may
act, but if the mind pays no attention, the man has not heard, seen, felt,
touched or tasted. Similarly, according to psychology, the organs of action act
only by the force of the mind operating as will or, physiologically, by the
reactive nervous force from the brain which must be according to materialistic
notions the true self and essence of all will. In any case, the senses or all
senses, if there are other than the ten,—according to a text in the Upanishad
there should be at least fourteen, seven and seven,—all senses appear to be
only organisations, functionings, instrumentations of the mind-consciousness,
devices which it has formed in the course of its evolution in living Matter.
Modern psychology has extended our knowledge and has admitted us to a truth
which the ancients already knew but expressed in other language. We know now or
we rediscover the truth that the conscious operation of mind is only a surface
action. There is a much vaster and more potent subconscious mind which loses
nothing of what the senses bring to it; it keeps all its wealth in an
inexhaustible store of memory, akshitam shravah. The surface mind may pay no
attention, still the subconscious mind attends, receives, treasures up with an
infallible accuracy. The illiterate servant-girl hears daily her master
reciting Hebrew in his study; the surface mind pays no attention to the
unintelligible gibberish, but the subconscious mind hears, remembers and, when
in an abnormal condition it comes up to the surface, reproduces those learned
recitations with a portentous accuracy which the most correct and retentive
scholar might envy. The man or mind has not heard because he did not attend;
the greater man or mind within has heard because he always attends, or rather
sub-tends, with an infinite capacity. So too a man put under an anaesthetic and
operated upon has felt nothing; but release his subconscious mind by hypnosis
and he will relate accurately every detail of the operation and its appropriate
sufferings; for the stupor of the physical sense-organ could not prevent the
larger mind within from observing and feeling.
Similarly we know that a large part of our physical action is instinctive and
directed not by the surface but by the subconscious mind. And we know now that
it is a mind that acts and not merely an ignorant nervous reaction from the
brute physical brain. The subconscious mind in the catering insect knows the
anatomy of the victim it intends to immobilise and make food for its young and
it directs the sting accordingly, as unerringly as the most skilful surgeon,
provided the mere limited surface mind with its groping and faltering nervous
action does not get in the way and falsify the inner knowledge or the inner
will-force. These examples point us to truths which western psychology,
hampered by past ignorance posing as scientific orthodoxy, still ignores or
refuses to acknowledge. The Upanishads declare that the Mind in us is infinite;
it knows not only what has been seen but what has not been seen, not only what
has been heard but what has not been heard, not only what has been
discriminated by the thought but what has not been discriminated by the
thought. Let us say, then, in the tongue of our modern knowledge that the
surface man in us is limited by his physical experiences; he knows only what
his nervous life in the body brings to his embodied mind; and even of those
bringings he knows, he can retain and utilise only so much as his surface
mind-sense attends to and consciously remembers; but there is a larger
subliminal consciousness within him which is not thus limited. That
consciousness senses what has not been sensed by the surface mind and its
organs and knows what the surface mind has not learned by its acquisitive
thought. That in the insect knows the anatomy of its victim; that in the man
outwardly insensible not only feels and remembers the action of the surgeon's
knife, but knows the appropriate reactions of suffering which were in the
physical body inhibited by the anaesthetic and therefore non-existent; that in
the illiterate servant-girl heard and retained accurately the words of an
unknown language and could, as Yogic experience knows, by a higher action of
itself understand those superficially unintelligible sounds.
To return to the Vedantic words we have been using, there is a vaster action of
the Sanjnana which is not limited by the action of the physical sense-organs;
it was this which sensed perfectly and made its own through the ear the words
of the unknown language, through the touch the movements of the unfelt
surgeon's knife, through the sense-mind or sixth sense the exact location of
the centres of locomotion in the victim insect. There is also associated with
it a corresponding vaster action of Prajnana, Ajnana and Vijnana not limited by
the smaller apprehensive and comprehensive faculties of the external mind. It
is this vaster Prajnana which perceived the proper relation of the words to
each other, of the movement of the knife to the unfelt suffering of the nerves
and of the successive relation in space of the articulations in the insect's
body. Such perception was inherent in the right reproduction of the words, the
right narration of the sufferings, the right successive action of the sting.
The Ajnana or Knowledge-Will originating all these actions was also vaster, not
limited by the faltering force that governs the operations directed by the
surface mind. And although in these examples the action of the vaster Vijnana
is not so apparent, yet it was evidently there working through them and
ensuring their co-ordination.
But at present it is with the Sanjnana that we are concerned. Here we should
note, first of all, that there is an action of the sense-mind which is superior
to the particular action of the senses and is aware of things even without
imaging them in forms of sight, sound, contact, but which also as a sort of
subordinate operation, subordinate but necessary to completeness of
presentation, does image in these forms. This is evident in psychical
phenomena. Those who have carried the study and experimentation of them to a
certain extent, have found that we can sense things known only to the minds of
others, things that exist only at a great distance, things that belong to
another plane than the terrestrial but have here their effects; we can both
sense them in their images and also feel, as it were, all that they are without
any definite image proper to the five senses.
This shows, in the first place, that sight and the other senses are not mere
results of the development of our physical organs in the terrestrial evolution.
Mind, subconscious in all Matter and evolving in Matter, has developed these
physical organs in order to apply its inherent capacities of sight, hearing
etc., on the physical plane by physical means for a physical life; but they are
inherent capacities and not dependent on the circumstance of terrestrial
evolution and they can be employed without the use of the physical eye, ear,
skin, palate. Supposing that there are psychical senses which act through a
psychical body, and we thus explain these psychical phenomena, still that
action also is only an organisation of the inherent functioning of the
essential sense, the Sanjnana, which in itself can operate without bodily
organs. This essential sense is the original capacity of consciousness to feel
in itself all that consciousness has formed and to feel it in all the essential
properties and operations of that which has form, whether represented
materially by vibration of sound or images of light or any other physical
symbol.
The trend of knowledge leads more and more to the conclusion that not only are
the properties of form, even the most obvious such as colour, light etc.,
merely operations of Force, but form itself is only an operation of Force. This
Force again proves to be self-power of conscious-being in a state of energy and
activity. Practically, therefore, all form is only an operation of
consciousness impressing itself with presentations of its own workings. We see
colour because that is the presentation which consciousness makes to itself of
one of its own operations; but colour is only an operation of Force working in
the form of Light, and Light again is only a movement, that is to say an
operation of Force. The question is what is essential to this operation of
Force taking on itself the presentation of form? For it is this that must
determine the working of Sanjnana or Sense on whatever plane it may operate.
Everything begins with vibration or movement, the original kshobha or
disturbance. If there is no movement of the conscious being, it can only know
its own pure static existence. Without vibration or movement of being in
consciousness there can be no act of knowledge and therefore no sense; without
vibration or movement of being in force there can be no object of sense.
Movement of conscious being as knowledge becoming sensible of itself as
movement of force, in other words the knowledge separating itself from its own
working to watch that and take it into itself again by feeling,—this is the
basis of universal Sanjnana. This is true both of our internal and external
operations. I become anger by a vibration of conscious force acting as nervous
emotion and I feel the anger that I have become by another movement of
conscious force acting as light of knowledge. I am conscious of my body because
I have myself become the body; that same force of conscious being which has
made this form of itself, this presentation of its workings knows it in that
form, in that presentation. I can know nothing except what I myself am; if I
know others, it is because they also are myself, because my self has assumed
these apparently alien presentations as well as that which is nearest to my own
mental centre.
All sensation, all action of sense is thus the same in essence whether external
or internal, physical or psychical. But this vibration of conscious being is
presented to itself by various forms of sense which answer to the successive
operations of movement in its assumption of form. For first we have intensity
of vibration creating regular rhythm which is the basis or constituent of all
creative formation; secondly, contact or intermiscence of the movements of
conscious being which constitute the rhythm; thirdly, definition of the
grouping of movements which are in contact, their shape; fourthly, the constant
welling up of the essential force to support in its continuity the movement
that has been thus defined; fifthly, the actual enforcement and compression of
the force in its own movement which maintains the form that has been assumed.
In Matter these five constituent operations are said by the Sankhyas to
represent themselves as five elemental conditions of substance, the etheric,
atmospheric, igneous, liquid and solid; and the rhythm of vibration is seen by
them as shabda, sound, the basis of hearing, the intermiscence as contact, the
basis of touch, the definition as shape, the basis of sight, the upflow of
force as rasa, sap, the basis of taste, and the discharge of the atomic
compression as gandha, odour, the basis of smell. It is true that this is only
predicated of pure or subtle Matter; the physical matter of our world being a
mixed operation of force, these five elemental states are not found there
separately except in a very modified form. But all these are only the physical
workings or symbols. Essentially all formation, to the most subtle and most
beyond our senses such as form of mind, form of character, form of soul, amount
when scrutinised to this fivefold operation of conscious-force in movement.
All these operations, then, the Sanjnana or essential sense must be able to
seize, to make its own by that union in knowledge of knower and object which is
peculiar to itself. Its sense of the rhythm or intensity of the vibrations
which contain in themselves all the meaning of the form, will be the basis of
the essential hearing of which our apprehension of physical sound or the spoken
word is only the most outward result; so also its sense of the contact or
intermiscence of conscious force with conscious force must be the basis of the
essential touch; its sense of the definition or form of force must be the basis
of the essential sight; its sense of the upflow of essential being in the form,
that which is the secret of its self-delight, must be the basis of the
essential taste; its sense of the compression of force and the self-discharge
of its essence of being must be the basis of the essential inhalation grossly
represented in physical substance by the sense of smell. On whatever plane, to
whatever kind of formation these essentialities of sense will apply themselves
and on each they will seek an appropriate organisation, an appropriate functioning.
This various sense will, it is obvious, be in the highest consciousness a
complex unity, just as we have seen that there the various operation of
knowledge is also a complex unity. Even if we examine the physical senses, say,
the sense of hearing, if we observe how the underlying mind receives their
action, we shall see that in their essence all the senses are in each other.
That mind is not only aware of the vibration which we call sound; it is aware
also of the contact and interchange between the force in the sound and the
nervous force in us with which that intermixes; it is aware of the definition
or form of the sound and of the complex contacts or relations which make up the
form; it is aware of the essence or outwelling conscious force which constitutes
and maintains the sound and prolongs its vibrations in our nervous being; it is
aware of our own nervous inhalation of the vibratory discharge proceeding from
the compression of force which makes, so to speak, the solidity of the sound.
All these sensations enter into the sensitive reception and joy of music which
is the highest physical form of this operation of force,—they constitute our
physical sensitiveness to it and the joy of our nervous being in it; diminish
one of them and the joy and the sensitiveness are to that extent dulled. Much
more must there be this complex unity in a higher than the physical
consciousness and most of all must there be unity in the highest. But the
essential sense must be capable also of seizing the secret essence of all
conscious being in action, in itself and not only through the results of the
operation; its appreciation of these results can be nothing more than itself an
outcome of this deeper sense which it has of the essence of the Thing behind
its appearances.
If we consider these things thus subtly in the light of our own deeper
psychology and pursue them beyond the physical appearances by which they are
covered, we shall get to some intellectual conception of the sense behind our
senses or rather the Sense of our senses, the Sight of our sight and the
Hearing of our hearing. The Brahman-consciousness of which the Upanishad speaks
is not the Absolute withdrawn into itself, but that Absolute in its outlook on
the relative; it is the Lord, the Master-Soul, the governing Transcendent and
All, He who constitutes and controls the action of the gods on the different
planes of our being.
Since it constitutes them, all our workings can be no more than psychical and
physical results and representations of something essential proper to its
supreme creative outlook, our sense a shadow of the divine Sense, our sight of
the divine Sight, our hearing of the divine Hearing. Nor is that divine Sight
and Hearing limited to things physical, but extend themselves to all forms and
operations of conscious being.
The supreme Consciousness does not depend on what we call sight and hearing for
its own essential seeing and audition. It operates by a supreme Sense, creative
and comprehensive, of which our physical and psychical sight and hearing are
external results and partial operations. Neither is it ignorant of these, nor
excludes them; for since it constitutes and controls, it must be aware of them
but from a supreme plane, param dhama, which includes all in its view; for its
original action is that highest movement of Vishnu which, the Veda tells us,
the seers behold like an eye extended in heaven. It is that by which the soul
sees its seeings and hears its hearings; but all sense only assumes its true
value and attains to its absolute, its immortal reality when we cease to pursue
the satisfactions of the mere external and physical senses and go beyond even
the psychical being to this spiritual or essential which is the source and
fountain, the knower, constituent and true valuer of all the rest.
This spiritual sense of things, secret and superconscient in us, alone gives
their being, worth and reality to the psychical and physical sense; in
themselves they have none. When we attain to it, these inferior operations are
as it were taken up into it and the whole world and everything in it changes to
us and takes on a different and a non-material value. That Master-consciousness
in us senses our sensations of objects, sees our seeings, hears our hearings no
longer for the benefit of the senses and their desires, but with the embrace of
the self-existent Bliss which has no cause, beginning or end, eternal in its
own immortality.
RYD
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By
Dear
Deshpande,
I am glad that you brought this powerful quotation of Sri Aurobindo into the
discussion. These words, as I think, will constitute in the future the
foundation of a Greater Psychology.
Thank you for inviting me to this discussion.
According to the Vedic epistemology, all knowledge comes from within towards
the without and from above. It manifests or creates something which was not yet
known down there. The without is needed as a field of application or the ground
for manifestation of something which is potently inherent in it but does not
have enough light to see what it is. So, the supreme sense, the Purusha, the
Conscious Soul, by sacrificing himself, kindles the light of knowledge within
the fallen creation, forcing “the world's blind immensity to sightâ€, helping
the fallen self to know itself again as the Supreme.
The darkness failed and slipped like a falling cloak
From the reclining body of a god.
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By
These
studies of consciousness belong to the adhyatmic education of the future.
If we systematize these four (samjnana, prajnana, vijnana, ajnana) we can
clearly see that there are two apprehensive and two comprehensive operations of
power (self) and knowledge (consciousness); projecting the very nature of the
supreme consciousness-power, cit-tapas.
The first two are apprehensive operations (of separative knowledge): samjnana
and prajnana, the possession of an image of things in substance as feeling, and
the possession of it in its energy as knowing.
The next two are comprehensive operations (of knowledge by identity): vijnana
and ajnana, holding an image of things in its essence, totality and properties
as knowing, and holding an image of things as governing and possessing it in
power.
Samjnana, the sense of an object in its image; inbringing
movement of apprehensive consciousness… as to possess it in conscious
substance, to feel it. (to be it, to have an experience of it, to be directly
identified with it in the Self).
Prajnana, the apprehension of it in knowledge follows; the
outgoing of apprehensive consciousness (of Knowledge) to possess its object in
conscious energy, to know it; ( to understand it , to see it, to be aware of it
in ones Consciousness)
Vijnana, the comprehension of it in knowledge; holds an image of
things at once in its essence, its totality and its parts and properties; (to
be one Consciousness with it);
Ajnana, the possession of it in power; it dwells on an image of
things so as to hold, govern and possess it in power; (to be one Self with it).
There is an interesting explanation given by Sri Aurobindo about these four
operations within the Supramental Consciousness (The Upanishads, p. 146):
“If we suppose a supreme consciousness, master of the world, which really
conducts behind the veil all the operations the mental gods attribute to
themselves,
it will be obvious that that consciousness will be the entire Knower and Lord.
The basis of its action or government of the world will be the perfect,
original and all-possessing vijnana and ajnana. It will comprehend all things
in its energy of conscious knowledge, control all things in its energy of
conscious power. These energies will be the spontaneous inherent action of its
conscious being creative and possessive of the forms of the universe.
What part then will be left for the apprehensive consciousness and the sense?
They will be not independent functions, but subordinate operations involved in
the action of the comprehensive consciousness itself. In fact, all four there
will be one rapid movement. If we had all these four acting in us with the
unified rapidity with which the prajnana and sanjnana act, we should then have
in our notation of Time some inadequate image of the unity of the supreme
action of the supreme energy.
The supreme consciousness must not only comprehend and possess in its conscious
being the images of things which it creates as its self-expression, but it must
place them before it—always in its own being, not externally—and have a certain
relation with them by the two terms of apprehensive consciousness. Otherwise
the universe would not take the form that it has for us; for we only reflect in
the terms of our organisation the movements of the supreme Energy. But by the
very fact that the images of things are there held in front of an apprehending
consciousness within the comprehending conscious being and not externalised as
our individual mind externalises them, the supreme Mind and supreme Sense will
be something quite different from our mentality and our forms of sensation.
They will be terms of an entire knowledge and self-possession and not terms of
an ignorance and limitation which strives to know and possess.â€
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