Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Consciousness SWAMI SATSWARUPANANDA

Another thing to be noted in this connection is that passivity and activity are our views of it as we look to the subject and the objects. What it is in itself we, its products, cannot say. Here, 'we' means our personalities comprising our body, mind etc. But for all practical purposes, for our experience (vyavaharikata) we have to admit both. When the veracity of experience is doubted or negated, we have no right to utter a word or think a thought. Vedanta admits it but gives the highest place to the depth consciousness, calling it intuition, the experience beyond all experiences involving subject-object relationship.

This is called paramarthikasatta. The word paramarthika is made up of two words, viz: parama meaning 'supreme' and artha, meaning, 'entity'. The compound word means supreme entity, i.e., that beyond which no experience is possible; and when artha means 'purpose' or 'goal of life' the compound means the 'ultimate end of life.' What is this 'ultimate end'? Gaining absolute freedom, our birthright, our ultimate nature. When one gets oneself truly identified with that one, all- pervading, lone consciousness, all obstructions, fears, anxieties cease; since all of those which obstruct, terrorize, make one anxious, are engulfed by one's self, that basic intuition. Then only one can laugh at all dangers or threats thereof--like that gymnosophist who told Alexander the Great to his face, when the latter threatened him with death, 'Monarch of this tiny world, you never told a greater lie in your life. You to kill me, the all pervading entity, devoid altogether of all touch of duality!'

Still, when we are in quest of the nature of this unique consciousness or intuition we cannot take one side of our experiences and ignore the other, accept passivity alone to be its ultimate nature and reject activity or the entire objective world consisting of activity. Nor can we relegate the latter to a secondary place. Both are equally important, equally necessary for explaining experiences and the universe, the objects of our adventure. Nobody doubts that the attainment of the goal of life is more important for the struggling, suffering humanity. But like the philosopher's quest for the magic stone, the aspirant's urge to attain the whole Truth is so insistent that he can never have rest, peace, freedom without satisfying himself fully as to the nature of that Integral Reality.

As there are two kinds of experience, experience of pure consciousness in the depth of our being, and experience of the objective world full of force--from our inner sense, the mind, up to the utmost reach of the spatial universe--we must admit that both passivity and activity constitute the Ultimate Reality. What appears in an effect must be supposed to be potentially present i.e. involved in the cause.

We may go one step farther and say, passivity and activity are not two different, far less opposite, terms--it is a question of degree, like darkness and light. Most of the so-called opposite terms and concepts are like this--heat and cold, ease and disease, moral and immoral--all belong to this group. And degrees, we all know are a human convention, really speaking. There is a continuous flow, and human intelligence has cut it to pieces for the convenience of measurement. So passivity and activity are two conventional terms indicative of two varying extreme points of one continuum. We have put it as continuum for we cannot use any other term, motion and rest being inadmissible.

But as we live in a world of convention, our explanation of things, of acts and facts, also must be conventional. This is what the Vedantins indicate by the word vyavaharika satya, conventional truth or entity. Hence, though intuition or the basic consciousness is one homogeneous 'force substance' it appears and acts as many, which our experience testifies. How is it brought about has been shown by the scientists through their theory of evolution-involution. But it is done from the point of view of matter. How the bricks of the universe, the electrons, protons, etc., have slowly built up the terribly beautiful universe is now known to a very large section of mankind. It is an extremely slow process which began when there was no one to observe and which will continue when there will be no one to adore or weep. But from the point of view of consciousness it is a different story altogether--somewhat similar to the Biblical creation theory: 'Let there be light'. But in the Bible the Lord had to utter one word to create one thing, then another word to create another thing, and so on. That is, creation took some time, however little, to come to the state we are in. Whereas from the point of view of consciousness the one appears as many in an instant--the entire universe with its unimaginable varieties of things, of processes and finished products, appears in the twinkle of an eye. From the almost unconscious deep sleep, through light dreamless sleep, unto the waking state, if one tries to observe one will find how from one homogeneous consciousness of mere being we wake up to this maddening multiplicity. If we have developed sufficient control over our mind, we can give it a suggestion before falling asleep that it (mind) should try to observe the change that occurs when we pass from the deep sleep condition to the dream state. Then we shall find how here also, from Unity of being comes all of a sudden the dream multiplicity. In both the above cases it is a sudden change: unity suddenly bursts forth into multiplicity. No process is involved in it--that which was appearing as one (that too, a vague one) appears as many the next moment. But we have no doubt that it is the same I-consciousness, the observer, that persists all through.

1. That there are varying strata of consciousness, giving us different kinds of experience.

2. That in one stratum it appears to be absolutely homogeneous--no, we cannot even say that; for appearance needs two things, viz. the thing appearing and the person to whom it appears; but it is a vivid experience of something positively existing. The word 'experience' also confuses us in the same way. In fact, there is no word to express it; yet it is something positive and the basis of everything else.

3. That in all other strata there is the experience of a subject, the knower, and of an object, the known. But the subject, in all cases, is the one, running through all the objects, which may be one or many. All the objects are held together by the subject, whose appearance means annihilation of the entire object-world; the opposite, however, is not true. This annihilation does not necessarily mean that the objective world has gone out of existence. It simply means that there is no informer to say whether the world of objects exists or not. The existence of a thing depends on the testimony of someone. In the absence of such a person, who will say that such and such a thing exists? and

4. That though at any particular moment there might be only one object present in our minds, the objective world, as such, is a multiplicity--objects are discrete and distinct, one from another. They are held together and utilized by the subject.

The multiplicity referred to just above is the experience of the ordinary busy man. Thinking men, scientists and philosophers, however, see in this objective world not mere multiplicity but unity as well. Their thought leads them to accept unity in diversity and diversity in unity in the entire world of objects, internal or external. They have observed that underlying diversity there runs a unity throughout. Through all growth and transformation, there stands out something, some substance, force, or substance-force which abides as the identity of the thing undergoing change. John is John as long as he lives in spite of all the changes of his body and mind throughout the fifty years of his life.

Man is man, not an ass, as long as he survives. A living being is a living being, not a clod of earth, as long as life lasts. And so on. It is sometimes difficult to define these unities, leading on to one ground unity, but if we are to live and act we have to admit the existence of such unities. Diversity, however, is so obvious and aggressive that it needs no elaboration. We are entitled to extend this conclusion of thinking men to all strata of consciousness, super or sub, dreaming or wakeful, wherever there is a subject and an object. Throughout all dual spheres runs this scheme of unity-in-diversity and diversity- in-unity. This can well be extended to where consciousness is a distinction without a difference; the same entity looked at from two standpoints, viz. as it is in itself and as it stands in relation to the manifested world; more precisely as 'feeling consciousness' and 'willing consciousness'. Even in the state of thought or idea, when the manifested reals are yet to be, they exist, inasmuch as without this admission the objective viz. 'willing' becomes useless. A thing which does not exist cannot be thought of, cannot be willed into existence. But this existence is potential existence, even as the existence of the tree is, in the seed, potential.

The Upanishads have asserted it in no uncertain terms. Bahusyam, prajayeya, 'I will be many, I will create'. Such passages have at first been relegated to a secondary place and later dismissed as fictions. But truth will be served, perhaps better, if they are given equal importance; and the main purpose of the scriptures, viz. to show man the path of salvation, will be adequately fulfilled. This 'will to create' (sisriksha) on the part of the basic consciousness has been expressed in various ways throughout the Aryan scriptures from the most ancient days to the modern times. In fact it is a major theme, compared to which 'the way to salvation' occupies an insignificant part. And the reason is not far to find: salvation is sought for only by a rare handful of people. So, in the understanding of the ultimate truth the phase of 'willing consciousness' must be accepted, otherwise its integrality will be abridged. It has come to the modern Hindus in unbroken tradition throughout the millenniums.

It must at the same time be admitted that no amount of roaming about or diving deep into the analysis and synthesis of the 'willing consciousness' will give man his salvation. As long as duality or plurality, even a shadow of it, lasts, there is no salvation for man; his little self, narrow and egoistic, will not leave him. It is only the direct experience of the 'unity of being', of that homogeneous all- pervading consciousness which will release him abidingly from the bondage of the world, from the sense of exclusiveness, otherness, of his personality. Having had that abiding, never-ceasing sense of unity with the whole universe can one be free absolutely; since the objects that bind or give trouble, nay, even bondage, troubles, etc. are felt, in that condition as one's very being as the 'feeling consciousness' which is unshaken and unshakable, a mere observer consciousness, never taking any part in any of the whirling activities of the world, but which, as the 'willing consciousness' is unceasingly creating the force that makes the universe, is the source and the maintenance of all discrete things, 'from the smallest to the enormous'.

Again it cannot be said: Inasmuch as it has parts it is a compound and must share the fate of all compounds, i.e. be destroyed. That holds good in the case of material things only. It cannot be spoken of consciousness. Do we not see every moment of our life, how many thoughts, feelings etc. are bobbing up and down in our mind that is consciousness; but do they die, are they destroyed--any one of them? They abide eternally even when all discrete things vanish into their ultimate so-called homogeneous force or energy. We have used the word 'part' but it does not have that connotation as in a material thing. Matter can be cut or torn, not so consciousness. Leave aside the basic consciousness, the active or willing consciousness, in spite of its innumerable modes and manners, remains the same unruffled, unmoving consciousness, neither increasing nor decreasing, and yet producing bewildering multitudes of ideas, emotions, etc. and retaining its command over them all through even as earth remains earth though shapes and sizes of earthen wares change and vanish.

To kill or destroy, it requires two. Here there is only one, infinite in all respects, within and beyond time and space; who can kill it, or make it change in a manner other than its own? Abiding peace comes only when this thoroughly reasoned posture of the identity of 'feeling consciousness' and 'willing consciousness' has become a permanent experience in life under all circumstances. And this is the goal of life as well as the ultimate truth (paramarthika satya).