Philosophy and Religion / Arthur Avalon: Mahamaya

Sir John Woodroffe and Pramatha Natha Mukhyopadhyaya

Mahamaya. The World As Power: Power As Consciousness (Chit-Shakti)

Chapter VII. Consciousness¹ and Unconsciousness²

In the previous Chapter we have dealt with Chit as Reality. But, whether tacitly or explicitly, we have, throughout the discussion, proceeded on the basis that there is no Achit³ or unconsciousness, no “thing” independent of Consciousness. We must now briefly examine that basis. The previous discussion has already sufficiently prepared the ground for such examination.

Unconsciousness⁴ may mean three things: (1) Objects known by Consciousness and yet believed to exist by their own right outside of Consciousness, e.g., a block of stone we now see or touch; (2) objects believed to exist by their own right of which we have no consciousness at all; and (3) anything which is, or can be, made an object of knowing,⁵ and which therefore can be distinguished from the “I” or subject or principle of knowing⁶ as “This”⁷. The second class of objects may be of two kinds: (a) Objects which, though themselves conscious, are yet outside and independent of our consciousness; and (b) objects which are outside and independent of our consciousness and are believed to be unconscious in themselves, e.g., unknown material objects. Now Vedanta does not recognise the first two classes (1 and 2), as unconsciousness⁸ , though, pragmatically, it may sometimes call them so. There is nothing outside and independent of Consciousness as such; nothing existing by a right which is not the supreme right of Consciousness-Being; hence there is no unconsciousness⁹ in the first two senses. Consciousness should not, however, be taken to mean veiled, individualized Consciousness which means Consciousness so limiting itself as to have other “consciousnesses” and things existing outside its or their limits. Thus a block of stone even while it is being seen and touched by a Subject A, is believed to exist independently of A’s Consciousness; and that belief is correct, and Realism is justified, in a certain sense. An unknown object, far away in the heavens, or far below in the interior of the earth for instance, may thus really exist outside of the consciousness of A or B. But still it never exists independent of Consciousness as such or Cosmic Consciousness which is the unveiled form or state of Consciousness. Even, with regard to A’s consciousness, it is outside and alien in so far as A’s consciousness is A’s and not B’s or C’s; that is, in so far as it is veiled consciousness setting up the pragmatic walls of the sub-conscious and unconscious about it. Cosmic Consciousness is Consciousness minus these walls and partitions. Every object is in it, and of, it.

Consider an unknown star so far distant that its light neither reaches the eyes nor effects a sensitive photographic plate. It is thus outside of, and alien to, A’s consciousness. But what part of it? That it is outside the inner ring of A’s consciousness which is the accepted and recognized portion (commonly called the consciousness) is clear. But what about the outlying zone of gradually thickening and darkening sub-consciousness? Many things, not recognized in the “broad daylight” ring, can be by means of the “searchlight” discovered in the darker zones—in the realms of “twilight” for instance, which some western psychologists call the “fringe of consciousness”. Now, is the unknown star here? In other words, has it really been known without our noticing it—recognising that it has been known? No; the searchlight does not discover it. Has it no place in the semi-conscious and sub-conscious zones then? We can never be sure that it has not.

The universe is an infinite stress-system. All centres, near or distant, are in constant interaction. For instance, if a lump of matter be suddenly created or annihilated now in space thousands of billions of miles away from us, that event will certainly affect the entire stress-system of the universe, of the earth and of A’s organism for the matter of that. The effect may be inappreciably small, if the event in question be small, or too far away. But this only means that our sense-organs and perceptive machinery have been so constituted and adjusted that they ordinarily do not record disturbances (sound, heat, light and the like) which do not come within certain limits of intensity, duration, and so forth. But this does not mean either that the distant event has failed to influence our organism and machinery at all, or that, having influenced it, it has not contributed its share to the general, vague, massive feeling, partly semi-conscious and partly sub-conscious, which always clings to and constitutes a sort of “background” of all definite and recognised feelings or perceptions that we may have in life. In fact, it must follow a priori from our position in the cosmic stress-system (which has no “watertight compartments”) that every move in this cosmic dance must produce a corresponding tremor in the chords of our feeling, and that the “clear notes” which one hears from those chords are always set in a background of half-tones and subtones—a general, massive indiscriminated, unrecognised chorus of notes—to which the movement of any corpuscle anywhere in boundless space must have borne its share. The clear note is gross;¹⁰ this background of sub-notes represents the realm of subtle¹¹ variously graded. The first with the second is the concrete whole of feeling; it is an abstraction and unreality without the second.

Our searchlight does not commonly reveal everything in this background because it is a pragmatic searchlight, ordinarily so fitted and adjusted as to reveal objects within certain limits only. But by Yoga this searchlight can be made to approach as near as possible to perfection.¹² By its means the subtle background of our experiences can be made to come into clear relief. Thus a yogi may know by meditation¹³ a subtle,¹⁴ obstructed,¹⁵ distant¹⁶ object or event, because it was already in his feeling, though unperceived and unrecognised. To say that he discovers it not by exploring his own experience but by drawing upon a perfect bank of experience which is Cosmic Consciousness is only a different way of stating what has been above formulated. The difference between his own experience and that of the Lord and Mother is a difference of veiling or ignorance only; so that the same act (meditation and so forth) by which he “explores” his own experience and discovers a previously unknown element in it, is also the act by which he lifts the veil drawn over his own knowledge and assimilates his mind to that of the Lord.¹⁷ His exploration becomes productive of new discoveries in proportion as this unveiling and assimilation progresses. Finally, when perfect assimilation is effected, his experience becomes the Experience of the Lord¹⁸ which is Perfect Veda or Veda in the limit to which man’s Vedas and even those of the Rishis are more or less distant or near approximations. To bring oneself in perfect rapport with the Perfect Veda is to become It.¹⁹ Clairvoyance and like faculties in which things subtle, far distant in time and place, are perceived, is thus the recognition of the unrecognised in our experience, or otherwise stated, the projection on the lighted white screen of the seer’s consciousness of the things that are in the Cosmic Consciousness. This being the position, it is clear that things (known or unknown) which are believed to exist objectively to, or independently of, A’s consciousness, really do so if A’s consciousness be restricted to what he and others accept as such; but if A’s consciousness, including the realms of the semi-conscious, sub-conscious and “unconscious,” be so unveiled and lighted as to become identical with Cosmic Consciousness, then there is, or can be, nothing existing independently of it.

A material thing, for instance, is independent of the “normal” consciousness of A, both as regards the primary and the secondary qualities. But does it exist exactly as a copy of A’s perception? No. A’s cognitive faculty being limited and conditioned by his tendencies²⁰, he knows a part only of the thing as a whole, and that part too, to some extent in bis own way. Even in perception each person has his idiosyncrasy, his “personal equation”. Thus A’s perception is not exactly equal to B’s; B’s not exactly equal to C’s. The inspection of the Scientist or the meditation²¹ of the yogi gives a fuller picture; but these fuller pictures also more or less differ. The question therefore arises: What is the standard perception or the cognition of the thing in the perfectness of its qualities and relations? This standard perception may again relate either to the pure type²² of the thing, or to all the details or particulars in their correlation. The former is the General²³ and the latter the Particulars.²⁴ Both are cognised by the Standard Mind which is the Lord Who, in respect of the former is called “Knower of all generals,”²⁵ and in respect of the latter, “Knower of all particulars.”²⁶ Hence what exists really independently of A’s normal consciousness is the Standard Thing as cognised by, and as existing in, the Lord.²⁷

Common Realism objectifies A’s perceptions; they are objective not only as regards their exciting cause or ground, but also as regards their primary and secondary qualities; but not simply in the sectional view which A, by reason of his limited capacities, takes of it, nor in the more or less “coloured” view which A by reason of his idiosyncrasy or special tendencies²⁸ forms of it. Even the scientist relying on his artificially extended capacities of perception has to neutralize these idiosyncrasies and so forth; hence his real thing is what is perceivable by a “mean or average” observer with the help of “perfect” instruments. Both are ideal conditions. The “average” man does not actually exist; and no earthly workshops can of course turn out “perfect” instruments. For the “mean” man with perfect instruments we substitute the Standard Mind, and though this latter may be beyond mathematical measurement (“Science is measurement”), it is within the possibility of realization, being the unveiled “that which we are in ourselves”.²⁹

Vedanta thus does not recognise unconsciousnes³⁰ in the first two senses set forth above. Where it uses the term, it does so in the third sense, that is, the known represented by “This”.³¹ Briefly, according to this conception, Illumination³² is Chit or Consciousness, and that³³ which is made an object of the former or revealing is, as such, object, unconscious. The Mind³⁴ and the limited Self produced through its operation³⁵ are thus unconscious because both can be, and are, known as “this”. But, be it noted that, they as well as the so-called Matter are unconscious³⁶ only in This sense, that as being the object of the conscious Ego they are therefore as such object not conscious. Apart from this sense, and in themselves, they are consciousness.³⁷ The point is that Chit, makes unconsciousness of itself by making an “object” of itself. There is nothing but Chit, object or no object. There is even in fact no such thing as seeming or “reflex” consciousness.³⁸ There is nothing other than Chit, lucid or opaque, on which the “Light ” of Chit can reflect itself, thus making that object to look like something luminous. To say that there is really an unconscious thing,³⁹ which looks as though it were conscious owing to its association with Chit, is Sangkhyan Dualism, and in Monistic⁴⁰ doctrine no relic of that Dualism can be suffered to remain.

Mind⁴¹ is at base really Chit, though, pragmatically, it may be called unconscious⁴² on account of its being an “object” of knowledge, and its having a varying veil, measure and movement. It never ceases to be other than Chit. It is Chit limiting and defining itself as Mind as distinguished from Matter,⁴³ for instance, which is Chit limiting and defining itself-in Matter.⁴⁴ Vedanta does not countenance any essential dualism of Mind and Matter. It maintains an unmoving, unveiled, unmeasured aspect of Chit as well as a moving, veiled, measured aspe ct. The latter is Mind, Matter, Space, Motion and so forth. Hence it does not hesitate to conceive Mind as something having a variable measure (sometimes expanding, sometimes contracting), a variable structure owing to the variable mixing of the three Factors⁴⁵ of the Principle of Contraction and a variable movement even in Space (as in Perception, and so forth).⁴⁶ It is really Chit moving in Chit, existing in Chit and functioning in Chit. If there be Extension, Inertia, Movement, Impenetrability, etc. (the usual marks of Matter) in the world, it is because Chit has so defined itself as to be extended, inert, mobile, impenetrable and so forth. Western philosophers sometimes look askance at thought-movement and so forth, because they hold to the disparity of Mind and Matter. And, usually, they do not distinguish between Mind and Consciousness. Consciousness as such does not come and go, but Mind as psychic process does.

There has been, both in India and elsewhere, much controversy about the question whether there may be “unconscious ideation” or unconscious experience. It seems hardly open to doubt, however, that many commonplaces of experiences as well as many “abnormal,” extraordinary and “occult” experiences cannot be satisfactorily accounted for at all except by maintaining that there is a “normal” or “threshold” line of consciousness in man in respect of which his curve of experience is partly above and partly below. Habit, Memory, Instinctive thinking and action, dreaming which have been said to involve repressed, unsatisfied desires, and the like, as also many “uncommon” experiences presuppose a continuous curve of experience part of which is “subliminal,” and which, therefore, like a floating ice-berg is not all that it looks. The explanation by “cerebral vestiges,” without having recourse to subliminal depths, is not sufficient and cannot cover all cases. The brain may not be a necessary organ of the mind, and in so far as it is an organ, its stresses may correspond to, run parallel to, without wholly causing, the stresses of the mind. Vedanta not being afraid of Matter, is not, therefore, afraid of the brain. It is prepared to maintain a real interaction between the brain and the mind; which is not simply a parallelism between psychosis and neurosis. But still the mind may have a life larger than, and in some cases, and to a certain degree, independent of the brain. The “cerebralist,” on the other hand, makes the life of the brain larger than, and independent of, that of the mind. Thus brain-activities may go on without there being accompanying mental states; and brain-vestiges may remain without there being actual mental “seeds,” and tendencies,⁴⁷

A stronger position is that mental states, after their intensities or interest sink below a certain “mark,” persist as subliminal forms and stresses which are tendencies,⁴⁸ and when these tendencies press themselves beyond a certain mark, they again become “conscious” presentations. Between a presentation and a “tendency,” the difference is really one of degree; the latter is a veiled or subtle kind of presentation. That certain “mark” is approximately determined by the needs and interests of “normal” life—it slightly varies with different people, and can be varied considerably by hypnosis, trance, yoga, etc. Thus a man searching into the subliminal depths of his consciousness may “see” the subtle presentations.⁴⁹ The transition from “normal” consciousness to “unconsciousness” is not abrupt—there are different shades according to degrees of veiling. The so-called “sub-conscious” and “unconscious” are only modes of consciousness which cannot be restricted to what little may be practically accepted in the indefinable vastness of actual personal experience. So one may not be prepared to admit the sub-conscious and unconscious as orders of experience different from the conscious. They are the veiled, ignored, non-accepted, unnoticed zones in consciousness itself. Thus the Shastra takes up a position which is not either that of the “cerebralist” who would confine experience to “normal” consciousness only and explain memory, habit and so forth by brain-vestiges or brain-dispositions, or that of the common type of the philosopher of the Unconscious who, while admitting experiences below the threshold line, regards such experiences as really sub-conscious, thus setting the threshold line as the boundary of consciousness itself (his consciousness being, therefore, not other than “normal,” pragmatic consciousness which is but a section of actual consciousness). As the cerebralist in the Vedantic view commits the mistake of regarding mental life (or experience) as a structure raised on the wider and more enduring basis of cerebral life, so the “sub-conscious thinker” is in error in regarding consciousness as a structure raised on the wider, deeper and more abiding basis of sub-conscious experience. Consciousness as Chit is the basis, and there is no other. Chit is not “normal” or pragmatic only.

In the Sangkhya Philosophy, experience,⁵⁰ being a mode of the Psycho-Physical Principle⁵¹ (which is unconscious) is also unconscious;⁵² and it is only when the Unconscious “reflects” itself on, or catches the “reflection” of the Conscious⁵³, that it becomes conscious experience. Thus experience has two forms—conscious and unconscious, of which the former is a reflex or imposed form. This apparently comes near to the position of the western “sub-conscious thinker,” but, fundamentally, it is a different position inasmuch as its consciousness is not a variable “accident” of experience only, but an independent Principle existing by its own right. Thus though experience may be conscious or unconscious (as the western sub-conscious thinker holds), yet Consciousness is neither a proprium nor an accident of anything other than itself. It is eternal,⁵⁴ changeless, pure, though it may variously reflect the character and complexion of the mind⁵⁵ with which it may be associated.⁵⁶

This position is only a “stopping short” of the final position which is taken up by Vedanta. Analysing experience we find Illumination⁵⁷ and illuminated⁵⁸: Chit which reveals and the “Stress” which is revealed. Experience as joining together these two aspects is the Fact; each is an abstraction considered by itself. Now, Sangkhya makes a substance of each of the two abstractions. The underlying principle of this procedure is this: Illumination⁵⁹ cannot make an “object” of itself; on the other hand, an “object” cannot be its own revealer⁶⁰ or cogniser. In the Vedantic view it is a plausible principle without being a valid one; and if man did not normally deal with pragmatic Fact-sections or abstractions, he would have discovered that the principle is invalid.

The Bhatta⁶¹ School of interpretation in the Purvamimangsa (of Jaimini) also proceeded upon this principle and conceived the Atman as possessing a dual character—being conscious in one part, and unconscious in another. The Atman was compared to a glowworm which now shines cand now does not. Atman was chit as knower⁶² and achit as known, as object,⁶³: chit as seer⁶⁴ and achit as seen.⁶⁵ Sangkhya, as we have seen, stows apart what are thus juxtaposed and made to co-exist in one and the same substance. Vedanta identifies in essence the Illuminator⁶⁶ and the Illuminated⁶⁷; the Bhatta school differentiates them and places them side by side like the two seeds in a grain of gram; Sangkhya takes them quite asunder. The first is for non-difference;⁶⁸ the second for difference, non-difference⁶⁹; the third for difference.⁷⁰ The invalidity of the second and third positions lies in this: the revealer⁷¹ does not make a revealed⁷² of itself; nor does the revealed⁷³ become its own revealer.⁷⁴ It is Chit simply which by Its Power is the Revealer⁷⁵ as well as becomes the Revealed.⁷⁶ By its power, or rather, as Power.⁷⁷ It is thus polarised.

The Prabhakara school of Purva-Mimangsa, as also the Nyaya-Vaisheshika School, makes the Atman unconscious⁷⁸ in itself, its consciousness⁷⁹ being a separable property which is existent in it only when certain conditions are fulfilled, and which is non-existent otherwise. Just as a leaf may be the support of a particular tint of colour which may not always exist in it, so the Atman is the support of the quality of consciousness.⁸⁰ In dreamless slumber, for example, there is (it is supposed) no consciousness as evidenced by the subsequent recollection—“I was asleep; I knew nothing.” This, however, is a mistake. “I knew nothing” means of course “I knew nothing in particular”. During slumber there is this positive knowledge of knowing nothing in particular, and also, as the Shruti maintains, a veiled consciousness of amorphic Bliss.⁸¹ As regards the general position that Atman is unconscious,⁸² and becomes conscious only conditionally, that is when linked up with mind and its object, we need observe merely this that in this position Chit is recognised only as “normal or pragmatic” consciousness which is a section only; that this pragmatic consciousness, which is one of “interesting” particulars, is mistaken for consciousness as such, so that when in slumber particulars or forms do not exist, it is thought that consciousness as such also does not exist. Not perceiving that the essence of Substance-Energy is Chit, it wrongly makes an attribute⁸³ of Chit which sometimes inheres and sometimes does not in a Substance⁸⁴ which in itself is different from its attribute,⁸⁵ and is unconscious⁸⁶ when the attribute⁸⁷ does not exist in it.⁸⁸

But is the essence of Substance-Energy Chit? Cannot Chit be an attribute⁸⁹ only? It need not be an “epiphenomenon” a “by-product,” as the Materialists and Lokayatas (followers of Charvaka) say, of Matter. It may not either be a separable phenomenon like the consciousness⁹⁰ of the First Standard Atman. But should we not regard it as a phenomenon still—as distinguished from the Noumenon or Thing-in-Itself? Even the Yogachara Bauddha to whom the universe (subjective and objective) is merely a beginningless succession of transient⁹¹ “pulses” of experience,⁹² as modern psychologists might call them, and various grouping or clustering together of such pulses⁹³; who breaks up the apparently continuous flow of “Self”-consciousness into a series of rapidly succeeding but discrete apperceptions (perceptions of Self or “ I ”), and distinguishes this series⁹⁴ from the series of object-perceptions⁹⁵ (in the “mind” or outside it)⁹⁶;—even he would not make these pulses of experience, succeeding one another and grouping together, the Substance or Reality as many western Empiricists have done. No “thing” exists of course as other than the knowing (this is denial of Realism); but even the knowing does not “exist”—that is, the knowing⁹⁷ is of, and in, the Void.⁹⁸ The Vaibhashika and Sautrantika Bauddhas believed in things independent of experience (the latter making them directly perceived,⁹⁹ the former making them indirectly or inferentially known); but here also, the Basis of things is not Chit but the Void.¹⁰⁰

But what is it really? What constitutes the essence of Thinghood? Consider again a block of stone. It is seen, touched, pressed, lifted, pushed and pulled, and so on. We have just a group of “experiences” succeeding one another—the experience¹⁰¹ as above explained. Is it merely the aggregate of these actual experiences and certain others that may be possible? Either it is or it is not. If it is, then the experiences¹⁰² coming and going in a “medium” or “ether” of Chit, make that block of stone nothing but a structure of experiencing¹⁰³ raised upon the basis of Chit. Reflection will show that the succeeding “pulses” of feeling require at least two permanent Principles: a self-distinguishing Subject called the “witness”¹⁰⁴ which notes the pulses as coming and going, as before and after, as related in this way or that, and which therefore must not itself come and go, be past and future, be related in this way or that. To know for instance that A, B, C have succeeded one another, there must be a Knower who has remained above the succession so as to correlate them according to a certain temporal scheme. He must abide and witness, and distinguish himself from the changing phenomena. This “I”¹⁰⁵ or Witness cannot itself be broken into rapidly succeeding pulses of “I” feeling;¹⁰⁶ for, who knows and says that the “I” feelings are succeeding? We require a Self behind these fleeting “selves”. Who, again, remembers that when C is, A and B are no more but that they were before?¹⁰⁷ To say that the Series¹⁰⁸ knows and remembers itself, is to forget that what actually exists as experience¹⁰⁹ at any moment is not a series but a particular experience¹¹⁰ and that the series does not, and cannot, exist as series except to a Witness who is not in, and of, the series. To say again that the last term of the series, that is C, as an actual experience¹¹¹ remembers, sums up and judges the past experience,¹¹² is to assume that past and non-existing experience¹¹³ can yet exist in a manner in the present pulse, C; that C can somehow involve a thought of B and A which are no more.

But suppose this assumption is correct: C does remember and judge A and B. But what is this C—this so-called present “pulse”? If we do not pragmatize and ignore the given whole of experience, we shall see that C is not a pulse at all, but the indefinable, alogical universe of experience, (i.e., Fact) which, in order to suit our practice and our theory, we are cutting up into “pulses” coming and going, judging and remembering, and so on. Experience is an indefinable universe in which we accept certain aspects or sections only, and in which those sections are correlated by us or by our tendencies¹¹⁴ temporally, spatially and causally, thus giving us thoughts and things succeeding one another in time, co-existing with one another in space, and causally affecting one another. “Pulses” are thus born of “ignorance”. In fact we have the continuum of experience; and this continuum, which in an alogical way whilst remaining such continuum, yet, as Chit, variously stresses into correlated forms and forms. This Chit as Continuum is at the back of all pulses, and all experiences¹¹⁵ which Buddhistic Philosophy has often looked up to as the great Void. Hence the fleeting-states or pulses to be known and remembered as such require not only a permanent Witness¹¹⁶ but a permanent Continuum also.¹¹⁷

Of these two the latter is the more fundamental; because while the Witness is indispensable to experience treated as a logical order (i.e., in the thinking and reviewing of experience), the latter is indispensable to experience both as logical and as alogical. As a matter of fact, in intuitive, as distinguished from thinking and judging, life, the Self as “Subject” is often in abeyance the Subject-witness presupposes a thing or object witnessed—that is, a polarity.¹¹⁸ In non-polar¹¹⁹ experience the Subject-witness as witness therefore need not exist.

Thus we cannot according to Vedanta do without Chit as a substantive background, even if we agree to regard a block of stone as a cluster of actual and possible-“sensations”. Sensations are the outcome of a threefold ignorance and abstraction. Sensations are abstractions from perceptions which are relatively more concrete; perceptions are abstractions from the entire universe of experience at a given moment; and the universe of experience at a given moment is a temporal cross-section and abstraction of the real “Fact” which is Chit as Power stressing and constituting as such an indefinable, alogical Whole involving Time, Space, and so forth.

But let us, in the alternative, regard the stone as not an aggregate of actual and possible sensations, but as the objective ground and cause of sensations (as Realism holds). But how can we be sure that the “objective ground” really exists? We firmly believe that it does, but evidently the belief also is a part of our experience and thought, and, therefore, cannot carry us beyond to anything outside and independent of experience and thought.¹²⁰ But then why should we believe that which is not the fact? And there are marks which indicate that the belief is well-grounded. Perceptions and “objective experiences” by reason of their independence of our wish and insistence on our attention, and so forth, constitute an altogether different order pointing to an objective order of realities. Their relative permanence, independence in being and becoming, resistance and insistence, objectification and localization, vividness and interest, and the like are the important distinguishing marks, of which the first four are the most important.

We may concede, without further discussion, that if Solipsism and Subjectivism cannot explain away these marks or explain them satisfactorily, on the other hand it is difficult to make an out-and-out Subjectivist answer any outside knocks or calls once he has bolted all his doors and windows and locked himself in.

So a block of stone is there permanently, unlike a feeling or idea in the mind; it is there though we may wish it away; it is and changes according to its own laws; it resists our movement and will; it thrusts itself upon our mind when the senses and attention are near and not otherwise engaged; it is more vivid and interesting than a corresponding image in the mind; and so on. Hence it exists by its own right. It does; but where and how? Its existence is, in some essential respects, independent of the particular Centre’s experience and thought; but can it exist independently of Experience or Chit as such? No. It exists and is a mode of Perfect Chit in the fulness of its relations, which a limited Centre knows gradually and partially—that is, accepting in part but ignoring as a whole. The ignored realms are the realms of the “objective”; every imperfect perception is an act of partial owning; perfect perception is perfect owning in which the distinction between subjective and objective, as we have it, disappears. But why should not a thing exist apart from Experience, imperfect or perfect?

This, for long, has been a point of dispute between the so-called “Idealists” and “Realists”. Vedanta is Idealism in so far as it makes Being or Sat identical with Consciousness,¹²¹ and that, in its essence, the same as Bliss.¹²² Vedanta is Realism in so far as it makes objects or things independent of a specialized Subject’s modes of consciousness: a thing is not thus in the Mind, it is actually outside it. Matter is thus every whit as real as Mind. Both, however, are in, and of Chit.

These following grounds are offered by Vedanta as the main lines of proof:

(a) No rational theory of perception is possible without postulating essential identity between the Self and Matter. Perception is an act of “owning,” and there can be no owning where the object is absolutely foreign to the Subject. Attempts to explain the “agreement” between “Chit” and “Matter” by the theories of Occasional Cause, Pre-established Harmony, Parallelism and Materialism have led either to an evasion of the real problem, or to failure to solve it (as in the case of gross Materialism). In the Indian view the only possible explanation is by a doctrine which makes Spirit or Consciousness in the sense of Chit (and not in the sense of Mind¹²³) the ground as well as the activity of both Mind and Matter. Such fundamental identity between Mind and Matter being given, we can well conceive a direct interaction between the two; as also their operation according to certain fundamental laws which apply to Matter as well as to Mind.¹²⁴ Thus Mind¹²⁵ being acted on by Matter through the senses reacts by going out to where Matter is, “envelops” it and makes a “mental double” of it in Space;¹²⁶ we can conceive even the assimilation of one to the other, and the transformation (in part, generally) of one into the other. It is, therefore, not Materialism to assert that the mind¹²⁷ moves, expands or contracts like matter; and that the one kind of Substance-Energy is convertible into the other.¹²⁸ The difference between Mind and Matter is this that whilst the Root-Substance-Energy (Chit), appearing or evolving as Mind appears in a comparatively subtler form and operates according to laws which restrict to a lesser extent its essential nature¹²⁹ (indicated in Play¹³⁰), it appears in a grosser or cruder (i.e., less elastic and dynamic) form as Matter, and operates according to the laws which restrict to a greater extent its Being-Consciousness-Bliss. The latter form and the latter operation being only less perfect (as regards expression and dynamic “coefficient”) than the former, the difference between Mind and Matter is a difference in degree and “stage of evolution” only; so that Matter is comparatively “rigid” or “dense” Mind, and the Laws of Matter are comparatively “stereotyped,” inelastic forms of the Laws of Mind.

(b) The action of Will on Matter (directly or through Matter organised as the brain) is inexplicable without such essential identity being given. Causation or activity in its fundamental nature is not easily understood; still it is easier to conceive causation or interaction between two similar forms of Substance- Energy than between dissimilar forms. Modern scientific explanations of the interaction between Mind and Brain tend either (1) to deny all causal activity to Consciousness (making the chain of physical causation a “closed curve,” like that of the evolution of the radical Psychophysical Potential¹³¹ in the Sangkhyan doctrine which though denying direct action of the consciousness¹³² on such Potential,¹³³ yet granted the existence of a kind of “catalytic action”), or (2) to “parallelism” which, in its turn, tends either to Materialism or to Spiritualism.

(c) To these ordinary psychic phenomena must now be added others¹³⁴ which many investigators in the West have recognised and called Parapsychic¹³⁵ that is, mental facts, well established, which cannot be explained by the known laws of Psysiology and Psychology. These phenomena, now investigated under the three heads of hypnotoidal, magnetoidal and spiritoidal,¹³⁶ seem to point to the essential affinity between Mind and Matter, and between Vital Force and each of the other two—an affinity which shows Matter-Energy, Vital Energy and Thought-Energy in an ascending order of dynamism,¹³⁷ and, therefore, of fundamentality.

Telepathy or Thought-transference, “Psychometry” (which Dr. Maxwell¹³⁸ defines as “the faculty possessed by certain persons of placing themselves in relation, either spontaneously or, for the most part, through the intermediary of some object, with unknown and often very distant things and people”), “Levitation” (or the lifting of material objects in the air without touching or handling them), “Materialization” (or the condensation of “Psychic forces” into apparent grossness), “Exteriorization” (or the projection out of the body of the motor and sensitive forces), “Dissociation” (or the act of separating certain psychical elements from the body through psychological methods and processes), “Astral Projection (or the act of projecting, by the action of the will, consciously or unconsciously, the human “double”), and many other phenomena, now under serious investigation in the West, require for their explanation a basis which cannot be supplied by the “orthodox” views on Spirit, Life and Matter (making each separate from the others and each being regarded as consisting of discrete units only). If Spirit and Matter be ontologically or substantially distinct, it cannot be understood or even imagined how a person touching a material object (say, a flower or a sheet of paper) may leave “the impress of his personality” on it, which that object may bear for an indefinite length of time, and which makes it possible for a “medium” to “read” the whole history of that person, and of others connected with him, by merely handling the object once touched by him. It is supposed that the object touched by a person becomes “impregnated with his fluid” (or, as Dr. Osty¹³⁹ says, “the object can latently register, the human personalities which have touched it”). But what is this human “fluid,” and how can a “material” object be impregnated with it, and carry it for an indefinite length of time? And how can the “register” thus kept by the object be deciphered again by a proper Subject? The Dualistic view of Mind and Matter fails to go to the root of the matter in trying to answer these questions. A sheet of paper so touched may be likened to a gramophone record where a whole musical composition lies latently registered; but there the forces making the “register” are physical forces, and the mechanism by which that record may be deciphered is also a physical mechanism. We have not, therefore, to leave the physical plane at any step. But the system of ideas (conscious and subconscious), thoughts, feelings, desires, and so forth, of a person which constitute his personality are not physical forces; and these are the first link of the causal chain; at the other end of the chain we have the “latent register” in the sheet of paper touched; the act of touching is an intermediate link in the chain, and it means a vital motor activity. In this case, it appears that Vital Force¹⁴⁰ negotiates between “Soul”¹⁴¹ and Matter¹⁴² [viz., the sheet of paper). Assuming such Power¹⁴³ is established, how can this be understood from a dualistic or pluralistic position?

Then, again, in what is now called “Psycho dynamism”—exemplified in such phenomena as levitation, materialization and the like—we must admit an essential identity between the forces which constitute matter and those which constitute the psyche or soul: the movement which we see at the outer end (e.g., in the table raised in the air) presupposes at the other and inner end also something which is analogous to movement. And if that which is at the two ends are each capable of movement, it is reasonable to suppose that they are similar, substantially and dynamically—that is, as being and as energy.

These “parapsychic” or metapsychic (often called “occult”) facts as well as the facts of common psychology require for their explanation a basis, deeper and wider than what we have above indicated. They presuppose not merely affinity between Spirit and Life and between Life and Matter (1) as regards substance, and (2) as regards dynamic operation; they presuppose at their very root a universal Spiritual Stuff or Substance-Energy which, while evolving as a system of correlated Spirit-centres, Life-centres and Matter-centres, remains as the Mother Energy-Stuff, sustaining, nourishing and connecting all its numberless evolutes. The Mother Substance-Energy does not cease to be Itself in evolving as an infinite system of centres: the centres would not be centres if it were so; and, no unfoldment of the centres and no interaction among them would be possible if it were so. The Mother Substance-Energy perpetually abides as the universal background of sustenance and evolution and interaction for every centre, whether “material” or otherwise. Behind and overlapping the “Self” of man, the cell of a plant and the “ sphere ” of a material corpuscle, there is, therefore, the unbounded and unfathomed Being-Energy or Mahamaya which has evolved those centres, and which remains as an infinite reservoir of energy for all these centres to draw upon in their being as well as in their becoming or evolving. The part of the energy which a material or a living centre ordinarily stands for and uses, constitutes, from the standpoint of that particular centre, its kinetic energy. The infinite reservoir at the back or root of its being is, for all common purposes, latent, dormant. And this infinite dynamic potential has been called Kundalini Shakti, (or, cosmically speaking, Mahakundalini Shakti) in the Shakta Tantras of the Agama Shastra. Thus conceived, not only the human body, but every form of centre (say, an atom of Hydrogen) must have Kundalini Shakti given at the “heart” or base of its being, its radical centre.¹⁴⁴

Not to speak of parapsychic or occult phenomena, even such a commonplace as an act of perception or volition, cannot be probed to the root without revealing the background of the Mother Substance-Energy in which and of which the perceiving agency and the object perceived are both imbedded and interlinked centres; which makes it possible for the energy of the one to pass to the other, and “assimilate” that other to itself (which is the essence of perception).

In the case “psychometry” through an intermediary object (for example, a sheet of paper touched by a person not now present), the suggestion put forward by Dr. Osty is probably well-founded: “This object has no other function than to allow the medium’s sensitiveness to distinguish a definite force from among the innumerable forces that assail it.” The obvious implication, in the words of Maurice Maeterlinck,¹⁴⁵ is this: “It seems more and more certain that, as the cells of an immense organism, we are connected with everything that exists by an inextricable network of vibrations, waves, influences, or nameless, numberless and uninterrupted fluids. Nearly always, in nearly all men, everything carried along by these invisible wires falls into the depths of the unconscious and passes unperceived, which does not mean that it remains inactive. But sometimes an exceptional circumstance . . . suddenly reveals to us, by the vibrations and the undeniable action of one of these wires, the existence of the infinite network.”

The infinite network we have (following Shakta Vedantism) otherwise expressed as the Universal Stress system in which all objects, spiritual or “material,” great or small, are centres. A material atom, an organic cell, a Self¹⁴⁶ or Person thus represents a definite but not isolated strain-and-stress-centre.

But this strain-and-stress centre must be in, and of, something. That something-in-itself must be unbounded, unfathomable Being.¹⁴⁷ It must be Power (Shakti) manifesting as Soul-Energy, Vital Energy and Matter-Energy, since the essence of everything is in its dynamism.¹⁴⁸ And this Power must be fundamental in relation to Thought-Energy, Vital Energy and Matter-Energy.

And that fundamental Power is Chit, an untranslatable word, commonly translated as Consciousness. The so called Achit or Unconscious, arises from a pragmatic limitation of Chit, from the veiling or ignoring of Chit by itself, thus concealing its essential nature of Being-Consciousness and Bliss, (a) All objects must be necessarily known and conceived in terms of “modes” of consciousness, or to express it more rigidly as particular strain-forms in Consciousness; the opposite is inconceivable. This, however, does not mean that things must be known as subjective “representations” or ideas, (b) All objects at the root are Power; and Power must be known and conceived as Consciousness-Power (such as we experience in volition, attention, mental effort and the like); the opposite is, in reality, inconceivable. “Blind” physical energy, “unconscious” vital or mentative force have been supposed to exist and work; but they cannot be actually conceived as other than Consciousness-Power. Blind and unconscious forces are born of veiling and abstraction. (c) Perception and volition involve a belief in the Not-Self existing by its own right; the Subject perceiving requires at the other “pole” an independent Object perceived; and the agent acting requires not only a patient acted upon, but an independent agent reacting. This is Realism, and it is perfectly valid. But Realism does not require that the Not-Self and the independent agent must be essentially different from, or dissimilar to, the Self or the Conscious Power operating in, and as, ourselves. On the contrary, if we could lay aside the pragmatic attitude which we commonly take in our actions and perceptions, we should discover that the actual implication of our realistic belief is that the external agent is a centre of Consciousness-Power such as we are ourselves. It is our practical attitude in relation to them which makes some of them appear to be, or present themselves to us, as unintelligent, unconscious, blind—in fact, as devoid of Consciousness¹⁴⁹ and Bliss¹⁵⁰ and its expression, Play.¹⁵¹ Commonly we are not interested in taking them as forms of Consciousness-Power,¹⁵² as incarnations of Bliss and as capable of Play.¹⁵³ In relation to our practice,¹⁵⁴ and therefore factor conditioning karma¹⁵⁵ which underlies it, they have put on a veil and a disguise. This pragmatic view of things has naturally affected Science and Philosophy in a way which they have not found it easy to shake off.

To Vedantism, and the Shakta form of it in particular, every object down to the material particle is a Divinity or Devata, which means that it is a form of Consciousness-Power, whose being is Joy and whose life or activity is Play.¹⁵⁶ A particular thing. A, by virtue of its position in the Stress system¹⁵⁷ in relation to another thing, B, may behave as though it were devoid of Consciousness, Bliss and Play (i.e., free, spontaneous action); but this does not mean either that A is in itself (that is, irrespectively of its relation to B in the Stress-system) devoid of these, or that it is necessarily devoid of them in relation to a third centre, say, C. C may recognise it as Devata while B does not. Whether A will manifest itself as Consciousness,¹⁵⁸ Bliss¹⁵⁹ and Flay¹⁶⁰ or not, will, in fact, depend upon two co-efficients or determinants: its past action¹⁶¹—assigning its place in the cosmic stress-system, in Space, Time and Causal chain, and tending to hold it there¹⁶²; and its Play¹⁶³—changing or tending to change its place in the cosmic stress-system, therefore tending to move and evolve it.¹⁶⁴ Now, A’s position¹⁶⁵ can be regarded from three points of view; (1) A’s position considered in relation to a Perfect Centre, that is, its position as it is in the cosmic stress-system as a whole; (2) its position in relation to its own point of view (therefore, more or less limited or restricted); and (3) its position in relation to B, C, D, and others. It is obvious that the position¹⁶⁶ in relation to A, B, C, D, etc., are different. So that while to A, B, D and others, A’s being appears as “dead,” “inert” and “material,” it is possible that to C, it may appear as Life, Mind, Consciousness and Bliss including Play.¹⁶⁷ C, therefore, may have a truer and deeper intuition of its being.

Adrishta¹⁶⁸ is static power in the sense that though it may also move things, it moves them in a fixed, determined line; Play¹⁶⁹ is dynamic power in the sense that it tends to make things depart from any line that may have been predetermined for them by the total assemblage of conditions. It implies, therefore, freedom, or power transcending the causal chain of necessity. Every object in creation possesses the power, since it is an incarnation of the Supreme Power which is Being, Consciousness, Bliss and Play.¹⁷⁰ The result, accordingly is, that the world does not move in an absolutely fixed line; and the so-called causal chain of necessity is an outcome of abstract analysis of physical and quasi-physical science.

In its actual manifestations, that Power has, however, chosen to subject itself to varying limitations, or as it has been often put, clothed itself with “sheaths”¹⁷¹ of varying density. This is a precondition of the evolution of a world of infinitely varied forms, or as we have put it, a system of countless strain-and-stress centres. There would be no such world of varied forms if the Fundamental Power were to remain undifferentiated and undivided, or else, divided as a system of undifferentiated points only.

Evolution and history have become possible because the Power has manifested itself as Centres. A Centre is, Cosmic Power or Potency condensed into a point¹⁷² in a certain stage of evolution; it therefore presupposes a relative disposition or ratio of latency and patency of the Perfect Potency,¹⁷³ and readiness to create, whose evolute it is. Thus in a given centre, A, the ratio of latency and patency of Power may be different from that in another centre, B. Apart from this ratio, A = B = Bindu = Perfect Power. It is the ratio which constitutes the difference. The ratio may be otherwise expressed as the ratio of determination¹⁷⁴ and freedom.¹⁷⁵ In every object these two factors co-operate. Now, centres may be arranged in order of evolution or progress according as the latter factor prevails over the former; in other words, according as freedom or self-determination prevails over “other determination Centres are higher in which spontaneous activity¹⁷⁶ is more manifested, and determination¹⁷⁷ less insistent. Matter, Life and Mind constitute, from this standpoint, an hierarchy, because the co-efficient of free play¹⁷⁸ is more and more manifested as we pass from the first to the second, and from the second to the third. The “matter” of Physical Science appears to be wholly determined without the least suggestion of freedom:¹⁷⁹ but this is only an approximate truth. According to Vedanta freedom to act¹⁸⁰ must be there in it because the free Chit is its essence. The very smallness of the atom seems to be strength instead of a weakness: its energies are vast, and its atomic motions incredibly rapid. It also is a world. If its behaviour seems restrained and uniform and lacking in self-conscious direction, it is not because it is in fact unconscious mechanism but because the Chit which is its essence has freely so determined to present itself. Whatever be the form it takes, self-determination is free determination.

Moreover, a lump of matter, with reference to our pragmatic attitude and factor conditioning action,¹⁸¹ appears as (approximately) dead, inert and determined; but we are not permitted to generalize and say that it must be so (1) to itself, or (2) to other beings whose attitudes, tendencies¹⁸² and factor conditioning action¹⁸³ are markedly different. To the Seer¹⁸⁴ for instance, its common crust of inertness may break away revealing it as consciousness¹⁸⁵ instead of earthiness.¹⁸⁶

Every centre is, therefore, Bindu subject to the varying ratio of determination¹⁸⁷ and freedom.¹⁸⁸ It does not appear as Perfect Being and Power (which Bindu is in absolute condensation), because of its special relative disposition of determination¹⁸⁹ and freedom.¹⁹⁰ It is this which constitutes the difference between an atom of Hydrogen and an amoeboid cell, between an amoeboid cell and the soul of a Shangkara. If we take into account both what is latent and what is patent, what is actual and what is possible, then the first = the second = the third = Perfect Being and Power. Not only does Perfect Being and Power lie at the root and background of all things, but all things are, in the complete view (as distinguished from the partial and pragmatic view which we commonly take). Perfect Being and Power—that is, Brahman. It is owing to man’s pragmatic veiling and “ignorance” (determined by his action¹⁹¹ and position in the cosmic scheme,¹⁹²) that they appear and behave as finite, circumscribed specific objects.

Brahman, or Shiva (or in Its dynamic aspect, Shakti) thus works the greatest of all miracles which is this: while evolving as the world of infinitely diversified names and forms. It does not suffer Its own immensity, fullness and perfectness to be narrowed and whittled down in the process. Its immensity and infinity inalienably abides in, and through, all things, great or small: particular, finite things being only the practical ignorance of that Immensity and Infinity.

That Immensity and Infinity has two aspects: the infinite¹⁹³ aspect, and the infinitesimal¹⁹⁴ aspect. The former is the aspect of infinite expansion, diffusion and manifestation,¹⁹⁵ the latter is the aspect of infinite or ultimate condensation.¹⁹⁶ Now, any finite Centre, apart from its ratio of determination¹⁹⁷ and freedom¹⁹⁸ (which does not allow its recognising and accepting its being in all its dimensions), involves Power both in the infinite and the infinitesimal aspects above explained. It is Brahman which is greater than the great,¹⁹⁹ and smaller than the smallest.²⁰⁰

The infinitesimal is not infinitely small in respect of Being or Potency: it is infinitely small in the sense of not being further divisible into more elementary dynamic components (hence called “Bindu” or “Point”). It is called “small” also because of its appearing to us as subtle and condensed²⁰¹ and unmanifest.²⁰² In reality, however, it is, as we have seen, Perfect Being and Power.²⁰³ And, if we call condensed Power “Potency,” then it is Perfect Potency.²⁰⁴ The electric corpuscle or “vortex-ring” in ether which builds the chemical atom, the nucleus of the germ or seed of the animal and plant, are approximate representatives and compounded forms of the true Dynamic Point or “Bindu”. It is the condition of Consciousness-Power operating to create and evolve: because, whether on the whole or in detail, there is no creative process without Power massing itself²⁰⁵ into Points-Diffusion is the condition of dissolution²⁰⁶ as concentration is that of creation.²⁰⁷

Matter, Life and Mind are the threefold manifestation of Mother-Power, Centres of each are centres (in the sense above explained) of the Mother-Power as a whole. In the Matter-aspect, the Mother-Power is Ether,²⁰⁸ a matter-particle is, therefore, a strain-centre in Ether, which means and implies that it is a centre at and through which the stress-system of Ether operates in a given manner. In the life-aspect, the Mother-Power is Prana or Aditya in the sense these terms are understood in the Upanishads.²⁰⁹ A particular living cell is a centre of this Vital Power,²¹⁰ which as the Maitri-Upanishad explains, is not summed up by the apparent solar energy, but diffused throughout the universe. In the mind-aspect, the Power is Cosmic Mind which in the Vedanta is called Hiranyagarbha. An individual Self is a centre at and through which the Cosmic Mind operates in a given manner; which does not exclude determination and freedom for the individual, because the individual is the Cosmic-Mind, accepting its infinite being and potency only in part, and operating in a specific manner. Sound,²¹¹ Object²¹² and Thought or Idea²¹³ are another threefold manifestation of Mother-Power, That Power in its Sound aspect is the most generic and fundamental “Sound” whose “approximate acoustic equivalent” is what is heard by gross ears as the Mantra Om.²¹⁴ All particular “Sounds”²¹⁵ are particular modes and manifestations of Om. In the object-aspect, Power is the Cosmic Form or Order—the relative disposition or configuration of the elements of the world-system. Any particular object is and represents the Cosmic Order²¹⁶ in a particular way. It is no wonder, therefore, that a material atom is “a miniature universe”: everything, structurally and dynamically considered, must be so. Each body is a “little universe”.²¹⁷ So that a “Seer” can see “folded up” in every object the whole Cosmos; and he who is competent, can evolve all things out of everything.²¹⁸ The dynamic graph or the diagram of forces by which anything (say, a magnet) can be represented—the picture of the constituent forces—is called the Yantra of that thing. And though of course each particular object must have its own peculiar Yantra, (as also Mantra), it is to be observed that its Yantra must only be a modification or particular form of the Mahayantra²¹⁹ (analogous to the Mahamantra, Om) which stands for the Cosmos as a whole. In the thought aspect, every object, even a grain of matter, must be a mode of Cosmic Consciousness-Power (with Its three components of Power as Will, Knowledge and Action²²⁰) which is the essence of both its peculiar being and dynamism. Every being—since it is a mode of Cosmic Consciousness-Power, that is, uncircumscribed Consciousness-Power—must in the Vedantic view involve, whether latently or patently, Consciousness-Power in its threefold division; that is to say, even a grain of matter must involve Power as Knowledge, Will and action²²¹ though these may appear to be latent in relation to man’s present condition. And if what is latent and what is patent, what it veils and what it reveals, be added, then, in a grain of matter we must have as its stock the Whole as Consciousness-Power.

This last aspect of Power (viz., Consciousness) is the fundamental aspect of which Sound²²² and its meaning²²³ are side-aspects or derivates. Because while all things and processes (including sound²²⁴ and meaning²²⁵ are sustained in, reducible to, and perceived and conceived in terms of, Consciousness, there is nothing else which can be conceived as the sustainer of Consciousness, nothing else to which Consciousness itself can be reduced, and nothing else in terms of which Consciousness itself must be known. Consciousness, therefore, is the basis of all being and all power. It being given, a thing is; it being not given, a thing is not. Things being given, it is; things not being given, it still is; which is Pure Experience, which the Buddhistic systems called Shunya, the Void.²²⁶ Further, it being given, all else can be perceived and conceived; whilst, its not being given, can neither be perceived nor conceived. We do sometimes conceive “unconsciousness" in ourselves, or in matter; but this is abstract, pragmatic, symbolic and approximate thinking. Concretely and really, the “unconsciousness” in us or in matter is simply not the sort and tone of consciousness which we have, in practice, learnt to accept as “our conscious life,” extended over a narrow area, and expressed in certain pragmatic responses and signs. Beyond that area, and in default of those signs and responses, we “see’’ nothing but unconsciousness.²²⁷

The Subconscious Mind, or the “Subliminal Consciousness” is now requisitioned to explain many common psychic as well as many “parapsychic” phenomena. Like an iceberg floating in water, “nine-tenths” of mental life is said to lie submerged in subconsciousness. “It (subconsciousness) has been likened to an immense block of which our personality is but a diminutive facet; to an iceberg of which we see a few glistening prisms that represent our life, while nine-tenths of the enormous mass remain buried in the shadows of the sea. According to Sir Oliver Lodge, it is that part of our being that has not become incarnate; according to Gustave Le Bon, it is the ‘condensed’ soul of our ancestors, which is true, beyond a doubt, but only a part of the truth, for we find in it also the soul of the future and probably of many other forces which are not necessarily human. William James saw in it a diffuse cosmic consciousness and the chance intrusion into our scientifically-organized world of remnants and vestiges of primordial chaos. Here are a number of images striving to give us an idea of a reality so vast that we are unable to grasp it.”²²⁸

Psychometry, “X-ray vision,” and “mediumistic phenomena” generally, would seem to require not only that a subconscious background of our “conscious life” exists, but that it must be credited with potentialities of knowing and acting which exceed the limits of man’s common intelligence and will, and which, therefore, in that way and to that extent, should rather be called Super-consciousness. It may be that the so-called subconsciousness is really cosmic consciousness—all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful—hidden from our ordinary conscious life by a pragmatic veil which, when “accidentally” lifted, gives us what the Psychic Research Societies of the West are now studying as “occult” phenomena; and, when lifted by suitable practical methods,²²⁹ give the higher psychic powers²³⁰ and vision²³¹ to which every individual can attain (since, Supreme Spirit²³² being connected with every individual spirit, psychic powers, and so forth cannot be an exclusive possession), provided he cares to train himself properly in accordance with those methods.

Hindu Systems of Philosophy, and the Vedanta in particular, have recognised this Supreme Spirit²³³ of which, and in which, all particular Spirits²³⁴ are; and Vedanta has held that a particular Spirit²³⁵ is the Supreme Spirit, separated by a veil of practical “ignorance” or non-acceptance; so that it realizes itself as the Supreme Soul, in knowledge and in power, in proportion as, by effort²³⁶ it can raise the “veil” between itself and its Prototype. The veil gone, it is, and realizes itself as, the Whole.²³⁷ This consummation can be made available to all who care to go through the necessary discipline. Revelation is not merely a past historic fact. It is a present possibility.

In the West “the laboratory methods” applied to the study of these phenomena have produced admirable results so far as the testing, recording and ordering of facts are concerned. But hypotheses such as will explain them are still vague, hesitating and unsatisfactory,²³⁸ and there seems to be as yet little suggestion of courses of systematic discipline by which one who is not “by nature” a medium, and so forth, may develop the higher psychic potentialities, and with perseverance, may even, ultimately, bring them to perfection.

M. Ernest Bozzano, whose article in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques (September, 1906), M. Maeterlinck cites (The Unknown Guest, 3rd Ed., p. 324) says: “It does not seem that it is possible to cultivate or develop them (occult faculties) systematically. The Hindu races in particular, who for thousands of years have been devoting themselves to the study of these manifestations, have arrived at nothing but a better knowledge of the empirical methods calculated to produce them in individuals already endowed with these supernormal faculties.” The Hindu position however is that it is possible to cultivate and develop these “faculties” systematically, and bring them to perfection; that it is possible to arrive at a knowledge of the Principles, not merely of the “empirical” methods (which, therefore, are not purely empirical); and that, the methods can be applied, and if properly applied and pursued, success can be attained, by all individuals.

In India, the Vedantic doctrine has afforded a wide and firm basis for the understanding of our common as well as “occult” experiences, and that doctrine is clear in its main outlines. On the practical side, too, the Indian genius has been remarkable for the courses of Sadhana or discipline it has evolved, suited to the varying temperament and competency²³⁹ of men, leading by steps to the highest stages of realization—“I am the Whole.”²⁴⁰ Human personalities alone are not in, and of, the Supreme Spirit, but all things conceal beneath their apparent cramped existences mines of unbounded subliminal Power (which is ultimately Consciousness-Power). The so-called “instincts” (e.g., the instinct of direction) of animals, particularly of ants, bees and many insects, show this unsuspected Power at work, and doing things which man’s intelligence cannot, in some cases, do at all, and in others, do but haltingly and imperfectly. It has been claimed that the famous Elberfeld horses in Germany trained by Krall proved two things—first, that rationality is, ordinarily, only dormant in the lower animals, or passes unobserved; second, that even animals can, acting under proper circumstances and stimuli, perform wonderful intellectual feats, particularly in the domain of abstract numbers which human intelligence has so long regarded as peculiarly its own. For instance, an Elberfeld horse could extract the fourth root of a number of six figures (involving in actual calculation 31 operations) in five or six seconds, “that is to say, during the brief, careless glance which he gives at the black-board on which the problem is inscribed, as though the answer came to him intuitively and instantaneously.”²⁴¹

The “lower” animal has his share in the occult phenomena also. M. Ernest Bazzano²⁴² has collected 69 cases of telepathy, presentiments and hallucinations of sight or hearing in which the main parts are played by animals. The Hindu scriptures are replete with stories in which, not only Animals, but “Stocks and Stones”²⁴³ also, are shown as possessing a Consciousness, ordinarily latent in them, but becoming patent under certain relative circumstances of Karmic condition. The substance of these myths is in accord with the fundamental position of Hindu Thought, which holds that Chit and the Vital Principle (really one) not only pervade all creation, but that all objects are forms and modes of Chit, both substantially and dynamically.

As regards these stories it is to be observed that a careful study of the so-called “earlier” as well as “later” Shastras shows that, behind the veil of its sensuous manifestation, every object was believed to be a mode of Chit-Shakti technically called “Presiding Deity”.²⁴⁴ Every object is, therefore, naturally addressed as a Devata or Divinity or Consciousness-Power, and the Sadhaka is taught to bring himself into “living” contact with the Power embodied in them, and to make that Power available for the furtherance of his desired ends.²⁴⁵

In fact, according to Vedantic conceptions, all things or centres, though essentially they are Being-Consciousness-Bliss,²⁴⁶ present varied aspects to one another by virtue of their varying action and factor conditioning it. Hence, a given thing, A, may seem and behave, for all practical purposes, as totally or partially “dead” and “unconscious,” in relation to B, or even to itself. Now, this “unconsciousness” is only consciousness veiled or ignored and such veiling has degrees.

Man’s own “unconsciousness” and “subconsciousness” are thus veiled, unaccepted, unrecognised forms of Consciousness itself. Or if we are likely to create confusion by using the word “Consciousness” (which is used in a limited and pragmatic sense in the West) we must employ the Vedantic term Chit itself which means the Reality-Whole. We should then say that “unconsciousness” and “subconsciousness” are modes of Chit.

It has been shown in previous chapters that man’s Experience is really a Universe; that for practical reasons he ignores the immensity of experience, and seizes upon particular features only which happen to interest him, and thus carves a portion out of the Infinite Given, and regard this portion alone as his consciousness of the moment. In reality, no bounds can be set to the Given which is the alogical Whole, and, is therefore, all-inclusive: It is Brahman and the Immense.²⁴⁷ Dynamically, it must be so: since men are centres in an infinite Stress-system, the stress (which is the basis of its experience) of a given centre must involve, and be connected with, the entire system. As the forces producing experience cannot be in themselves hedged round, so experience cannot be hedged round. If we hedge it round, it is because our tendencies²⁴⁸ and factor conditioning²⁴⁹ action do not require the whole. This limiting is due to the so-called ignorance.²⁵⁰

Conversely, by knowledge²⁵¹ (chiefly, “spiritual” intuition or “vision”), the limits of the given experience can (it is claimed) be indefinitely pushed back, and the whole Universe, past, present and future, can be “discovered” in it; since it is the Universe. Sub-consciousness, in that consummation reached by degrees, becomes Super-Consciousness and Perfect Consciousness.

Footnotes

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