Philosophy and Religion / Arthur Avalon: Mahamaya

Sir John Woodroffe and Pramatha Natha Mukhyopadhyaya

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

Chapter IV: Pure Experience

The term ‘pure’ as appended to experience may mean three things. First, it may mean the unbounded Ether of Consciousness¹ in which an infinitely varied world of experience is in the stress of becoming. Whatever is felt and known, hoped and wished, in fact all the varied experiences of the limited self, appear and disappear, rise and fall, like waves in an infinite sea of Consciousness. Like clouds and myriads of heavenly bodies in Ether again, moving and revolving, man’s experiences move and change, “live, move and have their being” in a perfectly placid Ether of Consciousness. Man’s spiritual existence is never at any moment simply the aggregate of the modes of experience that he may have at that moment. For pragmatic reasons, he commonly ignores many of the modes themselves: he is commonly partial to a few and regard these as all that he possesses at that moment. But these are not all that is ignored; what is generally ignored, though it cannot be ever for a single moment effaced or shut out, is the placid background or atmosphere of Consciousness in which all appearances take place. This placid Spiritual-Ether is patent to intuition,² though being the Primary Continuum, the fundamental Basis and Light of all lights,³ or Light of existence itself, it is not capable of being expressed except in terms of analogies which are themselves its inferior forms. Thus it is called Ether, Space, Illumination, and so forth. The Shastra itself occasionally uses these and other analogies. Now, as man’s spiritual being is never simply the sum-total of the modes of experience (as the sea is not simply the sum of its waves, or ether of the physical masses), so, conversely, his spiritual being is not reduced to nothing by eliminating or effacing the modes of experience. Modes may vanish but experience as such must remain: waves may die down, but the sea itself will remain placid.⁴ This indeed is the quiescent, placid aspect of man’s being—the Shiva aspect. Against it we have the stressing, dynamical, moving and changing aspect—the Shakti aspect. This experience as such, this universal, unlimited, ineffaceable (though commonly ignored) Ether or Mother-stuff of Experience, perfectly placid and homogeneous, impartial and undirected, is Pure⁵ Experience.

This Pure and Primary Ether of Consciousness is immanent in the ordinary life of experience: it is given and cannot but be given, but it is generally not suspected; it is ignored, General and impartial Consciousness is never suppressed or superseded by particular, and partial “consciousness”. It is always patent to intuition. But it is transcendent also. First, in the sense that it is never exhausted, taken up by particular consciousness, like Ether by the physical masses in, and of, it. It goes beyond. Immense or indefinable as the varied world of experience is, it is larger than that immensity.⁶ Secondly, it is transcendent in the sense of being the fourth,⁷ that is higher than, and going beyond, the three ordinary states of waking, dreaming and dreamless slumber. In this fourth form, apart from the changing modes of the lower three (in which also it is undoubtedly immanent), it can be realized in that form of super-consciousness known to Yoga⁸ in which Consciousness is realized as such, in its non-differentiated, impartial, placid form only—apart from all veiling differences⁹ or modes or determinations. Even ordinary intuition establishes that it is immanent in the three states of waking, dreaming and slumbering. It therefore always persists, and unchangingly persists; because even in the three states, when Consciousness appears and evolves as the three states, it still remains as the sustaining and illuminating, placid and impartial Ether of Consciousness;¹⁰ because in this aspect it does not change while appearing to change as the world of forms.¹¹ Accordingly, the Mayavada of Shangkara and of Gaudapada, his grand-preceptor, which defines ‘reality’ as absolutely unchanging persistence, regards the Ether of Consciousness¹² alone as the transcendental real,¹³ whilst the world which appears and changes in it is pragmatically real,¹⁴ though relative to the transcendent real,¹⁵ “unreal ”¹⁶ in the term of non-persistence. This, however, is a matter of definition only.

Pure Consciousness, in the sense of the Primary Ether,¹⁷ is patent to intuition which involves the turning of the light of attention in upon the Self and its experience. Intuition, like outwardly directly attention, may be either pragmatic and centralized (i.e., referring to and condensed about a centre), or non-pragmatic and a-centric.¹⁸ The latter is an essay to review and accept the Fact as such, without allowing attention to be restricted to, and therefore concentrated on, particular sections or features therein such as particular sensations or feelings. The latter is not therefore swayed by special interests.¹⁹ It looks upon and orders experience in its concrete entireness. Now, to this a-centric, nonpragmatic intuition, the Ether of Consciousness, with a universe of varied experience living, moving and having its being in it, is patent. Then again, this Spiritual and Ultimate Ether can be established by the method of Conceptual Limit and that of Perceptional Limit.²⁰ In using the first we ask ourselves this question: What ultimately, i.e., in the limit, remains when we imagine or think away all modes, all particular determinations from the Fact or Universe of Experience? The latter method is approached and incompletely applied in many normal (e.g., just going to wake, or just falling asleep) and abnormal (e.g., certain kinds of so-called “unconsciousness,” anesthesia and so forth) experiences in which particular determinations tend more or less closely to the vanishing point without vanishing actually and absolutely. This method is said to be perfectly applied—so that the particular determinations of world-experience vanish and the Ether of Consciousness²¹ alone remains—in the supreme yoga experience.²² In the process of this Yoga, the common “Polar Triangle” of experience contracts into Bindu, and this latter dissolves, as an intrinsic strain-centre may be imagined to dissolve in ether, in the strain-less and stress-less Ether of Consciousness.

In the second place, Pure Experience can be taken to mean Experience which is not limited and conditioned and opposed by that which appears to be not Experience. Although really all is experience, yet ordinary experience seems to be limited, conditioned and opposed by what is commonly believed to be not experience, e.g., by matter. There is thus the alien, objective, extra-mental enveloping order for the limited self. It is a system of correlated centres which are not believed to be co-essential with the experiencing self. Its experience is thus the result of the stresses of this external system of centres and those of other centres which are the limited knowing self. Thus duality is involved in the common position in life. The selves are reals entrenching themselves into the spatial temporal and causal background of a Reality larger than themselves. Each has his own sphere or “field”. With respect to the larger Reality, man’s sphere, (an indefinable universe though it may be to intuition) is part or section.²³ But suppose we look at the Reality itself disengaging our attention from the sections. Sections are not indeed lost in that case; they lie imbedded in the immense Whole.²⁴ And what is this immense Whole? Experience and nothing but experience. There is no longer an alien, objective order conditioning and opposing Experience. Duality is gone. Reality as the Whole²⁵ is Pure Experience, not indeed in the first sense explained before, but in this that experience is not opposed by anything, (e.g., matter) which is, or believed as, non-experience.²⁶ Suppose also, on the other hand, we begin with an individual sphere of experience, and gradually extend its boundary. The “alien” system of mind, life and matter centres which, in their mutual action and reaction on the given centre, constitute the objective order, is recognised as co-essential with the given centre itself, that is, as Consciousness²⁷ and its Power;²⁸ Reality in the infinite richness of its expression is recognized as Chit, or Consciousness, and in its infinite variety of functioning as the play²⁹ of Chit-Shakti or Consciousness as Power.

Perception is (though we commonly do not suspect it) an act of owning; that is, establishing an essential identity between Self and Not-Self, Spirit and Matter.³⁰ The essential Basis or Common Factor of all existence, whether objective or subjective, is this Consciousness. Every act of perception brings out this common factor, without, however, the action ordinarily suspecting it. Everything is in, and of, Chit; the Subject-Centre as well as the system of Object-Centres. In such “knowledge”³¹ therefore, experience is the Whole³² again; and since then there remains nothing other than, and conditioning and opposing, experience, we may call such experience Pure Experience, i.e., Experience and nothing else.

In the third place, ‘Pure’ may mean ‘of one kind or quality’. Perfection of purity in this sense is of course reached in the Ether of Consciousness which is undifferentiated (therefore having no qualitative variations) experience.³³ But apart from this, and in degrees inferior to this, man may have uniform experiences which are, therefore, pure in this sense. In his ordinary experience there are, for example, the three poles of Base, Index and Co-efficient explained above. Base stands for immediate, direct perceptions or intuitions;³⁴ Index for actually recalled and suggested elements, gathering around intuitions and constituting their “halo” of meaning. Co-efficient stands for tendencies³⁵ by, and in, which the given experience grows and changes like a crystal in the requisite solution. Now, suppose we imagine an Experience which is all Base with no Index and no Co-efficient; that is, an experience which is wholly, in all its elements, actual, direct, immediate.³⁶ Nothing is, or requires to be, recalled or suggested; nothing which is merely possible (i.e., tendency) is, or requires to be, actualized. Then this is Pure experience in the sense of being of one kind or order. It should be noted in this connection that in dreamless slumber³⁷ the Co-efficient is at its maximum, Index is almost nil, and Basis at its minimum, being only a vague, undifferentiated but, as the Shastra tells us, pleasant³⁸ feeling of being. In dream³⁹ all the three poles exist, though the emphasis seems to lie on that of the Index. However that be, Pure Experience which makes the Base the whole of Experience, which is not limited by any unrealized tendencies or possibilities, and which has no admixture of any element that is only a suggestion of another, not directly given, is experience which, in a sense, is whole⁴⁰ or Perfect.

Similarly, experience which is only statical or only dynamical will be pure in the sense of being of one kind. The Sangkhyan self⁴¹ or Vedantic Ether of Consciousness⁴² is purely statical:⁴³ it is perfect quiescence. Sangkhyan Prakritiy, though not recognised as Consciousness-Experience in Sangkhya, is purely dynamical, because it always moves, whether homogeneously⁴⁴ or variedly.⁴⁵ Shakti in Shakti-vada is essentially Consciousness-Power; and Consciousness, has both a statical, quiescent aspect and a dynamical, stressing aspect. But quiescent Consciousness⁴⁶ is also Power,⁴⁷ in this sense that Consciousness remains and continues as such (that is, unchanged) by its Power: it persists, it conserves itself. If to suffer a change implies power, not to suffer a change also implies it. In fact, persistence or self-conservation is one of the fundamental expressions of Power—the Power by which Reality or Substance is constituted and held together as such. Hence if we say that Shiva in one sense is pure rest, we must say that in another sense He is pure motion or action. A substance that merely stops but does not persist, does not continue, is one that is dead and gone. To persist or continue, it must move or act; though, to ensure unchanged continuance, it must be absolutely uniform, invariable or pure action. Its action is analogous to uniform movement of Sangkhyan Psycho-physical Principle.⁴⁸ Hence Shiva is actionless⁴⁹ as well as (as Shakti) acting,⁵⁰ not merely as, and in the aspect of, the changing world, but even as Ether of Consciousness.⁵¹ These two aspects (actionless and acting) of Shiva in the Ether of Consciousness⁵² do not however contradict each other: they do not constitute duality. They are merely two ways (from man’s point of view) of expressing one and the same fact. Shiva-Experience is therefore really non-dual experience,⁵³ one essentially indivisible experience, and is, therefore, according to the definition stated. Pure Experience.

Power is both Power to persist and to change. It is the latter which is commonly called Power,⁵⁴ though, as we have seen, the former is equally so. Pure action is commonly regarded as no action, pure movement as rest. It is so regarded because commonly and practically man is interested in change or variation. But this is, for reasons above explained, a pragmatic and partial view. In the complete view, rest and pure action can both be predicated of Shiva as Ether of Consciousness,⁵⁵ because they mean the same thing; they express one non-dual⁵⁶ Fact.

On the other hand, Power⁵⁷ is that aspect of Consciousness in which it stresses and changes as the world-order. As such changing action is commonly called action or movement. Power⁵⁸ is regarded as the moving, acting dynamical aspect of Consciousness.⁵⁹ If Consciousness⁶⁰ which is the essence of Power,⁶¹ be veiled, that is unrecognised, then Power⁶² is the creative Impulse that continuously changes as the world—there being no rest, no endurance, no permanence. Such Power⁶³ becomes acceptable to such philosophies as that of Heraclitus of old and of Bergson to-day. But it is essentially a Power of Consciousness;⁶⁴ there is no warrant for going beyond and behind Consciousness⁶⁵ in searching for the common root of the world and experience. And though Power⁶⁶ is dynamic, is Movement, it cannot but be set against, and sustained by, a quiescent background of Consciousness,⁶⁷ the Ether of Consciousness,⁶⁸ the Supreme Shiva. In fact, an all-change, all-movement view of Reality cannot be assumed without destroying the warrant of experience, the only warrant and sanction of unimpeachable authority that man possesses. Not only does Shakti presuppose Shiva; Shakti is Shiva. She is that not merely in the sense that She is Chit as Power to move, act and change; but also in the sense that She is Chit as Power to persist; in other words, Shakti, though dynamical, also possesses the essential character of the Ether of Consciousness,⁶⁹ of Substance and Reality. As such Ether⁷⁰ is statical in one sense (i.e., in the sense of unchanging) and dynamical in another (i.e., in the sense of persisting or continuing), so Shakti is dynamical in one sense (i.e., in the sense of moving and changing), and statical in another (i.e., in the sense of persisting as such: Shakti is always Shakti; She is eternal,⁷¹ in creation and dissolution, in action as well as in rest, in latency as well as in potency; She becomes never other than Shakti, and is never dissociated from Shiva or Chit.)⁷² Even Perfect Power cannot do away with itself—cease to be other than Power. Now, if the experience of such Ether,⁷³ quiescent and persistent, was pure experience according to the definition given, so must be that of Shakti, moving and persisting as such. The latter like the former seems to involve a contradiction in itself—movement and persistence. But, as in the former, the contradictories blend into one non-dual⁷⁴ fact in the complete view, having arisen only from the circumstance of man’s partial and pragmatic survey. To know (realize) Shakti is therefore pure Experience.⁷⁵

Footnotes

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