Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Exploring the Mystery of Life

"Dr.Sampooran Singh, a defence scientist by vocation, has been interested from early years in the nexus between science and spirituality and has written a number of articles on this theme. He is one of the authors of A Masterplan for Human Survival".

The human mind is caught in a crisis of perception, a crisis of psychic pandemic. It has become a slave of the known. The mind is always trying to expand its experience and knowledge--information gathering--its action within that field, its thought-seeking--its own motivation and acquisition. It is to accumulate knowledge and act skilfully on the basis of past reactions. Man has started living in a man-made cosmos, divorced from Reality, which has made man a mechanical and repetitive machine. This has brought disorder, violence, corruption and various psychological imbalances and is leading man to self-annihilation. Every activity in the man-made cosmos adds to entropy and enhances pain, misery and travails.

We are trying politically, legally and socially to bring order in the man-made social cosmos, but inwardly we are confused, uncertain, anxious and in conflict. We treat the symptoms and not the disease. The inner, if it is not understood, educated and transformed, will always overcome the outer, however well organized it may be politically, economically and socially. Without inward order there will always be danger to human life.

This article explores the limitations of the sensual world, mutation of the human psyche, and presents a scientific vision of the mystery of the wholeness of life.

When we `look at an object` , the latter must be hit by light rays and reflect them into the eye or some instrument of observation. We cannot make any factual statement about a given object without `getting in touch' with it. The`touch' is a real physical interaction. There is transfer of photons between the subject and the object, which means that both the object and the subject are affected by observation and the perception gets distorted. The mind can see an object in succession only. Thus, perception is also in succession and the sensual world is also in succession.

The retina of the eye converts the distorted perception (image) to an electrical signal and sends the signal to the inner sensorium. The inner sensorium constructs our world (subjective) picture, which is`colourless, cold, mute' . The colour and sound, hot or cold, are lacking in our world model, in our sensual world.

Physics shows that the different colour sensations are constituted of different wavelengths of light (between about 800 and 400 millimicrons). The yellow light has the wavelength in the neighbourhood of 590 millimicrons. The object leaves a`sensation'of colour in our world picture.

The field of external objects of cognizance has made the subject of all cognizance withdraw to the background, often to apparent non-existence. Erwin Schrodinger concludes:

The material world has only been constructed at the price of taking the self, that is, mind, out of it, removing it; mind is not part of it; obviously, therefore, it can neither act on it nor be acted on by any of its parts.

Mind has erected the objective outside world of the natural philosopher out of its own stuff. Mind could not cope with this gigantic task otherwise than by the simplifying device of excluding itselfwithdrawing from its conceptual creation. Hence the latter does not contain its creator.1

All scientific knowledge is based on sense perception. We exclude the subject of cognizance from the domain of nature that we endeavour to understand. Hence we are inclined to take something objective, as forming part of the real world around us. Erwin Schrodinger has called it as the` principle of objectivation' , which has led to the introduction of an illusion of subject and object as two separate entities, which in reality does not exist. It is a simplification to explain the infinitely intricate problem of nature.

Fritjof Capra wrote,`Physicists have come to see that all their theories of natural phenomena, including the " laws " they describe, are creations of the human mind; properties of our conceptual map of reality, rather than of reality itself. This conceptual scheme is necessarily limited and approximate, as are all the scientific theories and " laws of nature " it contains.' ² We are aware of the parts of the map, not of the territory.

St.Augustine spotted the subtle illusion that memory creates. Bertrand Russell summarized his view--point as`past and future can only be thought of as present: " past " must be identified with memory, and " future " with expectation, memory and expectation being both present facts.' ³ This has been recently confirmed by Erwin Schrodinger in words:

I venture to call it indestructible since it has a peculiar time-table, namely mind is always now. There is really no before and after for mind. There is only a now that includes memories and expectations.⁴

From memory you infer that there have been past events. But you are not aware of any past events. You know the past only in the present and as part of the present..⁵

The same holds for the future as well, for any thought of tomorrow is nevertheless a present thought.

The recall of the past memory is called identification. The identification with the past memory-trace constructs what is called the cultural belief structure, or conditioning of the psyche, or content of consciousness.

The identification with the memory-trace or future projection constructs and stores impurities. Thought is limited and adds to the conditioning of the human race. There is forgetfulness about the essence of our nature. It creates an illusion of separateness. And the travail of human life begins. Psychological involvement and attachment are due to absence of the awareness of cosmic reality. It brings disorder in human life.

The subjectivity of time is best explained in Einstein' s words:

The experiences of an individual appears to us arranged in a series of events; in this series the single events which we remember appear to be ordered according to the criterion of ` earlier' and ` later' . There exists, therefore, for the individual, an I-time, or subjective time. This is not measurable.⁶

Each mental percept has temporal and spatial qualities; an image appears to have size, shape and extension and also exists at some time. The model is constructed on a four-dimensional time-space framework which we tacitly assume to be closely parallel to the inferred public world. As each frame of reference constructs its own time-space section and negates that of another frame, there exists, a multiplicity of four-dimensional perceptual worlds.

Thought is sequential, successive, one-dimensional, while the real world presents itself as multidimensional, non-successive, simultaneous pattern of infinite richness and variety. Thought must go into abeyance before one perceives the Reality, the Eternity. The non-dual insight knows all times--past and future--as existing in this Eternal Moment. The non-dual insight emerges from the Absolute Void, Absolute Silence, Timelessness.

Memory is not the real knowledge of the`past' , but is a present experience. Past and future collapse into now, before and after collapse into present, linearity into simultaneity, and time vanishes into Eternity. The present moment contains all time and is therefore itself timeless, and hence this timeless present is Eternity itself--a moment, without date or duration, extension or succession, past or future, before and after, having the whole of existence simultaneously, which is the nature of Eternity.

Mind is Absolute Subjectivity, non-dual awareness, Supreme Knower. It is pure Consciousness. The cosmos and beyond is unity; its operation is spaceless and timeless, hence infinite and eternal. All of infinity-eternity is simultaneously present at every point of space and time; then you perceive the Absolute.

Renunciation implies that the thought-time goes to abeyance and the dualistic mind attains the state of non-dual Mind. Renunciation does not refer to any psycho-physical activity. It is not an act of the ego. It is not an effort of the will. When there is no attachment, no desire, and no hate in the consciousness, then your every breath has the perfume of inner renunciation. It is a state of non-dual consciousness, or absolute rest frame of pure consciousness. It is living without attachment or aversion.

Renunciation is also called the dimension of understanding. Each man is born with two dimensions--self-awareness and understanding. Self-awareness implies that one is aware of his own volition, own thought-time. When the dimension of self-awareness is transcended, the dimension of understanding is born. Understanding comes in a quiet mind.

Renunciation leads to non-action state of consciousness when dualistic thought goes to abeyance, when conditionings do not move and there is calmness and equanimity. It is purification of the mind-brain-body system. It eliminates all the toxins, all the imbalances, impurities, from the body and the brain, equipping them to be precise and accurate. The biological and psychological organism, this magnificent electro-magnetic apparatus, moves through life with glory and majesty, with the grandeur of precision and accuracy. Renunciation bestows intuition and spontaneity. One moves with the rhythm of life, with the universal laws of Nature.

We have to learn the art of purification of the mind-brain-body system. The technology is embedded in the art of scientific observation of the dynamics of the conditioned psyche.⁷ In the language of Bhagavad Gita, the art of purification through observation of psyche is called Karma Yoga, which is a way of handling the psycho-physical organism (conditioned psyche), which is loaded with conditioning of millions of years.

The art of observation consists in observing a thought without interfering in its flow. One has to be aware of his own inward activities, watch what you are thinking and never let one thought escape without observing its nature and its source. During observing we do not transfer any energy to thought, so that thought withers away of itself. When we begin to see that which is false, false drops by itself, and there is the beginning of aware- ness, of intelligence. You have to be light unto yourself and it is one of the most difficult things.

Perception without reference to memory and without the content of thought as knowledge is an encounter of Intelligence, of the Unknown. Perception uninhibited by the content of experience, knowledge and memory leads to intimate contact with the Eternal Reality.

Life is a field of innumerable energies and the dance of these energies, of which we are also a part. The energies get solidified and we call it matter. This is true both at biological level and psychological level. Sidney D.Diell wrote,`You have the ultimate unit (atom) doing the dance by itself--that is the beauty and elegance of it.' ⁸

The Universal Consciousness, the Reality, the Eternity, the Absolute is a field of innumerable energies, innumerable frequencies. It expresses itself in innumerable modes of which three are the dominant modes: the physical including human body, the mental or the psychological, which constructs time-space matrices, or thought-time; and the Absolute Rest field when thought-time is transcended. Every human being has to raise his level of awareness to perceive the wholeness of life.

The art of observation leads to a quantum jump from the symbolic-dualistic frame of reference to absolute rest frame. It is to learn to relax the body and the mind_not through passivity, not through activity, but through being. You are alert but not active. That is one way of saying that the movement of the body and the mind is one aspect of life and the relaxation of the body and the mind is another aspect of life.

Every human being has to take a pilgrimage within--from self-observation to self- knowledge, to Silence and that which is beyond Silence. The pilgrimage is through the pursuit of insight (intuition) in the vertical, spiritual dimension through the horizontal methods of science.

The art of observation is looking at life as consisting of movement and non-movement, motion and non-motion, action and non-action, life and death, darkness and light, and so on. The two together make the whole of life.

The Silence is the emptiness of consciousness when all the paraphernalia that has been collected is brushed aside. It is living in communion with nature. Silence is a tension-free and pressure-free state of being. Meditation is a way of living where relationships are movements of relaxation and not tension and pressure. The cosmos is a huge song of harmony. There is harmony in nature of life.

Life is a multi-dimensional phenomenon and human beings who are expressions of the phenomenon are themselves multi-dimensional organisms. Life is interrelatedness and that interrelatedness cannot be defined in humanist technology. To live with the awareness of that interrelatedness is to live in communion with Nature. It is to perceive the Eternity, the Wholeness of Life.

Spirituality is the science of consciousness and physics is the science of matter and energy. Spirituality deals with the ultimate--the supreme reality, and with its perception, its understanding and being aware of it.

Life seems to be Intelligence, an energy of Intelligence which has been unwinding, uncovering, manifesting itself for billions of years and yet has remained ever virgin and ever fresh. Every existence is one ultimate Reality. All the seen and unseen existences (frequencies) are nothing but manifestations of the same Divinity that is manifest in man.

The perennial philosophy is defined as distilled wisdom of the human race. Man must develop the faculty of pure perception to perceive this wisdom, or intelligence. If man does not work himself, for himself, by himself, through exploring self-knowledge of his own psyche to understand the wholeness of life, the mystery of life, he does so at his own peril.

1. Erwin Schrodinger, What is life? and Mind and Matter, Cambridge University Press, Ed. 1967, pp.128, 131, 137, 146.
2. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, Bantam Books, Second Ed., December 1988, p.277.
3. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, New York Simon and Schuster, 1945.
4. Erwin Schrodinger, op. cit., p.145.
5. Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity, New York: Vintage, 1968, p.82.
6. L.Barnett, The Universe and Dr.Einstein, London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1949, pp.39-40.
7. Sampooran Singh, Dilip, October-December 1999, pp.32-34.
8. Sampooran Singh, The Invincible, November-December 1987, pp.6-10.