Philosophy and Religion / Arthur Avalon: Mahamaya

Sir John Woodroffe and Pramatha Natha Mukhyopadhyaya

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

Introduction

As later and further explained, the Universe of Experience is said to be analysable into five aspects, namely, Being,¹ Consciousness,² Bliss,³ Name⁴ and Form.⁵ These are called the Five Predicables.⁶ For any object is, is known, is pleasant to some experiencer or another, in some relation or another, and has a Name and a Form or a defining set of qualities. Form is the defined object denoted by Name which is the idea of it expressed in words⁷ of which the thing spoken of is the meaning.⁸

Of these five Predicables the first three are common to all object experiences. The last two terms, Name and Form, differ from object to object; the Name and Form of one are not those of another.

All five Predicables taken together stand for the Reducible Real or World-Order,⁹ that is, Being-Consciousness-Bliss appearing as Name and Form, or the psychophysical Universe of limited Selves. The Universe as the psycho-physical is the Reducible Real because it derives from, and on dissolution is resolved into, the Irreducible Real as God. The Universe is thus imaged as the super-imposition of Name and Form on the basis of Being-Consciousness-Bliss. In the words of one of the Tantras the Lord paints the World-Picture on this basis with the “Brush” which is His Will and with which He as the great Artist, the Poet or Maker, expresses Himself to be well pleased. If we abstract Name and Form, the three first Predicables, or Being-Consciousness-Bliss, stand for the Irreducible Real¹⁰ whether as the thinkable Supreme self or God,¹¹ or as the alogical Godhead.¹² The Irreducible Real as Power to evolve as the Reducible Real and involve it again (Itself remaining unreduced) is the Reality-Whole or Purna. It has an infinity of aspects of which ‘irreducible’ and ‘reducible’ are two, logically appreciated.

Being is Consciousness and Consciousness is Bliss. The Selves¹³ are pragmatically limited Being-Consciousness-Bliss. The Irreducible Real is Being-Consciousness-Bliss unlimited by Name and Form whether as Supreme Self or as alogical Godhead, and is thus free of all limitations which characterise its manifestations, the Reducible Real. “Unlimited by Name and Form” may mean, as later explained, two things: (1) excluding Name and Form; and (2) exceeding Name and Form. The Purna or Reality-Whole, logically appreciated, involves three aspects: (a) a universe limited by Name and Form; (b) Being-Consciousness-Bliss unlimited by Name and Form; and of this latter we have two forms in the two senses of the term “unlimited”.

There is no non-being as such. By ‘nothing’ is meant no thing, that is, no psycho-physical name and form. Such appearances or concrete forma may be thought away, but not being as such. Is-ness is never negatived. ‘Nothing’ then means only lack of form and name. These vary, but Being is everywhere and is always given, either as the alogical Real or God-head or as God, who is the highest logical construction placed upon the alogical, or as the limited beings or selves. Being is then both experience itself and the unalienable basis of all modes of experience.

The term Being, however, does not tell us what Being is, which is learnt from introspection. Man then becomes aware that he not only is but that to be is to be conscious, and function as such. For his being is indistinguishable from his consciousness. All forms or modes of consciousness may be thought away, but not consciousness as such, for it is the changeless basis of such modes.

What is called ‘subconsciousness’ or ‘unconsciousness’ does not imply Being functioning apart from Consciousness as such, but (as later explained) apart from certain degrees and tones of consciousness which are pragmatically accepted as constituting consciousness.

There is no equivalent in English or any other language for the Sanskrit term Chit. The nearest rendering of “Chit” is consciousness because it is revealed as the empirical conscious self. But the term is not altogether apt, because consciousness in the English sense of the term requires an ‘I,’ and a This,’ which is other than the self which has experience of it. Consciousness as God or Supreme Self is a consciousness of the unity of ‘I’ and This,’ and alogical consciousness or God-head being above all dualities, cannot be called a self. There is, however, no more appropriate term available. If we abstract from empirical consciousness all limitations, we have pure, that is, unlimited consciousness or Chit. As these limitations arise from the association of consciousness with mind and matter, we can say that pure consciousness is that which is dissociated from mind and matter and is mindless,¹⁴ bodiless,¹⁵ consciousness. Empirical consciousness is that which is associated with a psychophysical body and is the consciousness of the individual centre or finite self.¹⁶

This (i.e., Pure Consciousness dissociated from Name and Form) is the special sense in which the term Chit is sometimes used in Vedanta. But Chit is also the Reality-Whole or Purna.¹⁷ In this extended sense It is Consciousness functioning as Perfect Power to be and become a Universe of Name and Form. In this sense the World is Chit in essence, in power and in manifestation.

Bliss is implied in Being-consciousness. Wholeness and fullness as perfect Being-Consciousness, is perfect Bliss. As Shruti says¹⁸ “the great and limitless is bliss, not littleness and limitation.” Pleasure and pain indicate expansion and diminution of being respectively. Bliss proceeds from the expansion of conscious life towards freedom and fullness of being. The ultimate real is then that which cannot be conceived as other than Being-Consciousness-Bliss, or fullness of being which is the essence of all the existents which have the attributes of happiness and unhappiness according as, and to the degree that, essential Bliss¹⁹ is revealed or veiled.

To the concept of Being-Consciousness-Bliss, we must add that of Power (Shakti). The former is Power-holder. Power and Power-holder are never separate from one another. Could Shiva as motionless Being be bereft of His Power, he would be but a corpse (Shava). The two (Powerholder and Power) are as such one, though the transformations of Power are many. We speak of transformation or evolution, because Power and its holder is held to be both efficient and material cause of the world. Power as the material cause is thus transformed in, and as, its effects, though the cause remains what it was. The cause contains its effect, and the latter is the cause modified as effect. The rule is pragmatically different in the evolved universe, where it is said “milk when it becomes curd ceases to be milk ”.

It has been said that, strictly speaking, creation (ex-nihilo) is not taught by any system of Hinduism, each system presupposing some “potential matter” out of which the world is evolved in recurring cycles, from eternity to eternity, and that the essence of that “prime matter” and its dependence on spirit or spirits at whose call or presence it evolves, varies according to the different systems. By “potential matter” in this statement must be understood that which in itself is not matter, prime or otherwise, but is the cause of the becoming, amongst other things, of the material world. That cause is the Power of Consciousness which, as the individual Centre, establishes a dichotomy of self and not-self in itself, as the Consciousness-Whole.

Moreover there is no first creation. The Universes come and go eternally. The present Universe, therefore, is not something entirely new, for it is the outcome of past worlds and their activities or karma. Not only “conscious” entities but all individual centres in the world have their Karma which is here conceived as essentially Play²⁰ out of Joy²¹—therefore, essentially free action, though pragmatically restricted.

Man in his essence is the Atman or Being-Consciousness-Bliss, and in and as his bodies, he is a Power of the Atman or Brahman, There is thus no impassable gulf between Divinity and Man, for he is already divine in his essence even though he may not have realised it. This Essence as Power works through mind and matter its forms, until that Supreme Experience which is the formless²² Essence is reached.

Reality may be regarded from three aspects. The Universe is the reducible real since it derives from, and on dissolution is resolved into, the Irreducible Real as God. God or the Lord (Ishvara) or Divine Mother (Ishvari) as the Hindus call Him and Her, is the reducible Real regarded as in relation to the Universe of which It is the Creator, Sustainer and Ruler. It is the Irreducible Real considered as Being-Consciousness-Bliss-Power, and reducible real considered with respect to its own self-limiting Forms (Time, Space, Causality) by which it manifests itself as the Creator, Sustainer and Ruler of the Universe. That aspect of the Irreducible Real in which it is considered as It is in Itself, beyond its aspect as in relation to the Universe, is the logical Godhead.²³

The terms “Absolute” and “Transcendental” also should be clearly defined; the distinction hetween Maya-vada and Shakti-vada hinges on these definitions.

Both “Absolute” and “Transcendental” mean “beyond relation”. But the term “beyond” may be used in two senses: (a) exceeding or wider than relation; (b) having no relation at all, The first does not deny or exclude relation, but says that the Absolute, though involving all relations within Itself, is not their sum-total; is not exhausted by them; has Being transcending them. The latter denies every trace of relation to the Absolute; and says that the Absolute must have no intrinsic or extrinsic relation; that relation, therefore, has no place in the Being of the Absolute.

Shakti-vada adopts the first view, Maya-vada the second. From the first point of view, the Absolute is relationless Being as well as Manifestation as an infinity of relations. This is the true and complete Alogical Whole. Inasmuch as the Absolute exceeds all relation and thought, we cannot say that It is the Cause; though It is the Root of Creation; and so forth; but inasmuch also as It does involve relation and thought, we can say that It is the First Cause; that there has been a real creation, and so forth.

The Mayavada view by negating all relation from the reality of Brahman negates from its transcendent standpoint the reality of causation, creation, and go forth. “Beyond” may, therefore, mean (1) “exceeding,” “fuller than,” “not exhausted by”; or (2) excluding, negating, expunging. By diagrams:

In Shakti-vada, the Supreme Reality is fuller than any definition (limitation) which may be proposed. It is even beyond duality and non-duality. It is thus the Experience-Whole, the Alogical. The Maya-vada Pure Brahman is an aspect of It: but it is not the Whole (Purna).

The expression “wider than relation” may be thus illustrated. I am related in one way to my wife; in another way to my children; in yet another way to my brothers, friends, and so on. I am not fully expressed by any one of these relations, nor even by their aggregate; for, as a member of an infinite Stress-system I bear an infinity of relations. Pragmatically, most of these are ignored, and it is thought that I am expressed by a certain set of relations which distinguish me from another person who has his own “set”. But Brahman as Absolute can have no such “set”. It is expressed, but not fully expressed, even by the infinite set of relations which the Cosmos is, because relations, finite and infinite, imply a logical, and therefore, segmenting and defining, thought: but Brahman as Absolute-Experience-Whole=the Alogical.

Since Brahman = Experience-Who=Chit as Power-to-Be-and-Become, it is nothing like the unknown and unknowable being (“Thing-in-Itself”) of Western Sceptics and Agnostics.

In all Indian systems the World is real in the sense that it has objective existence for, and is not a projection of, the individual mind. In all such systems Mind and Matter co-exist. And this is so even in that form of Ekajiva-Vada which holds that Brahman by Its own veiling and limiting Power makes one Primary Self of Itself, and that all other selves are but reflexes of the Primary Self, having as reflexes no existence apart from that of the Primary one. The world of matter is not a projection of an individual mind, but its reality is co-ordinate with that of the individual mind, both being derived from the Self-veiling and Self-limiting operation of Brahman appearing as the one Jiva or Primary Self. Brahman in appearing as Primary Self also appears as its (logical) correlate or Pole—the Not-Self; and this Not-Self is the Root-Matter on which the Primary Self is reflected as multiple selves, and their varied relations. Matter, in this fundamental sense, is not, therefore the product of the First or Primary Individual (Self); it is with Self the co-effect (logically speaking) of a common fundamental activity which is the veiling and limiting action of the Supreme Being.

The version commonly given of Ekajiva-Vada, namely that the one Primary Self is I, and that You, He and the rest, and the world of objects are its projection—is loose and unpsychological. In the first place, “I” cannot be there (logically conceiving) without its Correlate or Pole—the “Not-I,” so that, by the very act by which “I” is evolved from Brahman, its Correlate is also evolved and this Correlate is Root-Matter. In the second place, projection, reflexion, and so forth presuppose not only the projecting or reflecting Being (that which projects or reflects), but also something on which the projection or reflection is cast. Projection out of nothing and projection into nothing will give only nothing.

Where then there is Matter there is Mind. Where there is no Matter (not necessarily gross) there is no Mind. One is meaningless without the other. Each is every whit as real as the other. But there is no Indian system which is Realist in the sense that it holds that Matter as experienced by man exists when there is no Mind of man to perceive it. Such a state is inconceivable. He who alleges it himself supplies the perceiving Mind. In the First Standard²⁴ Mind²⁵ and the so-called “Atoms”²⁶ of Matter are separate, distinct and independent Reals.²⁷ Matter does not derive from Mind nor the latter from the former. In the Second Standard²⁸ both Matter and Mind are equally real but derive from a common source, the Psycho-physical Potential²⁹ which, as such, is neither. ‘Psychic’ here means Mind as distinct from Consciousness in the special sense of Chit. This Psycho-physical Potential is a Real,³⁰ independent of Consciousness which is the other Real. In the Third Standard as non-dual Vedanta, the position is the same, except that the Psychophysical Potential is not an independent Real but is the Power of the One Supreme Real as God. The world is then Real in the sense that it has true objective Reality for the individual Experiencers for the duration of their experience of it. No-one denies this.

The next question is the problem of Monism. If ultimate Reality be One, how can it be the cause of, and become the Universe? It is said that Irreducible Reality is of dual aspect, namely, as it is in relation to the World as Ishvara the Lord or God, and as it is in Itself beyond such relation which we may call Godhead or Brahman. According to Mayavada, Ishvara is Brahman, for Ishvara is Brahman as seen through the veil of Maya,³¹ that is, by the Psycho-physical Experiencer. But Brahman is not Ishvara, because Brahman is the absolute alogical Real, that is, Reality, not as conceived by Mind, but as it is in Itself beyond (in the sense that it is exclusive of) all relations. The notion of God as the Supreme Self is the highest concept imposed on the Alogical which, as it is in itself, is not a Self either supreme or limited. The Absolute as such is not a Cause. There is, transcendentally speaking, no creation, no Universe. The Absolute is and nothing happens. It is only pragmatically a Cause. There is from this aspect no nexus between Brahman as God-head and the World. In the logical order there is.

What then is the Universe? It is said by some to be an “illusion”. But this is an inapt term. For to whom is it an “illusion”? Not to the Psycho-physical Experiencer to whom it is admittedly real. Nor is it an illusion for the Experience-Whole. It is only by the importation of the logical notion of a Self to whom an object is real or unreal that we can speak of illusion. But there is in this state of Liberation no Self.³² More correctly we say that the World is Maya. But what is Maya in Mayavada? It is not real for it is neither Supreme Brahman nor an independent Real. Nor is it altogether unreal for in the logical order it is real. It is neither Brahman nor different from it as an independent reality. It is unexplainable.³³ For this reason some of the scholastics of this System call it the doctrine of the Inscrutable.³⁴

In the doctrine of Power (Shaktivada), Maya is the Divine Mother Power or Mahamaya. The two aspects of Reality as Brahman and Ishvara are each accepted, as real. The Lord is real but that which we call ‘Lord’ is more than Lord, for the Real is not adequately defined in terms only of its relations to the Universe. In this sense it is alogical, that is “beyond Mind and Speech ”. As the one ultimate Reality is both Ishvara and Brahman, in one aspect it is the Cause and in the other it is not. But it is one and the same Reality which is both as Shiva-Shakti. As these are real, so is their appearance, the Universe. For the Universe is Shiva-Shakti. It is their appearance. When we say it is their appearance, we imply that there has been a real becoming issuing from them as Power. Reality has two aspects. First as it is in itself and, secondly, as it exists as Universe. At base the Sangsara or worlds of Birth and Death and Moksha or State of Liberation are one. For Shiva-Shakti are both the Experience-Whole and the Fact which exists therein as the Universe. Reality is a concrete unity in duality and duality in unity. In practice the One is realised in and as the Many and the Many as the One. So in the Shakta wine-ritual, the worshipper conceives himself to be Shiva-Shakti as the Divine Mother. It is She who as and in the person of the worshipper, Her manifestation, consumes the wine which is again Herself the “Saviouress in liquid form”.³⁵ It is not only he who as a separate Self does so. This principle is applied to all Man’s functionings and is of cardinal importance from a Monistic standpoint, whatever be its abuse in fact.

Real is again used in the sense of eminence. The Supreme Real is that which is for itself and has the reason for its being in itself. The Real as God is the perfect and changeless. The Universe is dependent on the Ens Realissimum, for it proceeds from it and is imperfect as limited and changeful, and in a sense it is that which does not endure, and in this sense is called ‘unreal’, Though however, the Universe comes and goes, it does so eternally. The Supreme Cause is eternally creative. The Real is then both infinite Changeless Being as also unbeginning and unending process as the Becoming. In this system the Real both is and becomes. And the essence of is-ness is Activity or Power. It yet becomes without derogation from its own changelessness, as it were a Fountain of Life which pours itself forth incessantly from an infinite and inexhaustible source. Both the infinite and finite are real.

Real is again used in the sense of interest and value and of the ‘worth while’. In this sense the worshipper prays to be led from Unreality to Reality, but this does not mean that the World is unreal in itself, but that it is not the supreme worth for him.

In whatever sense then the term Real is used, the Universe is not an illusion. All is real, for as Upanishad says “All this Universe is verily Brahman.”³⁶ The Scriptural Text says “All.” It does not say “This, but not That.” The whole is an alogical concrete Reality which is Unity in Duality and Duality in Unity. The doctrine does not lose hold of either the One or the Many, and for this reason the Lord Shiva says in the Kularnava Tantra “There are some who seek dualism and some non-dualism but my doctrine is beyond both.” That is, it takes account of and reconciles both Dualism and Non-dualism. The natural and spiritual are one.

Reality is no mere abstraction of the intellect making jettison of all that is concrete and varied. It is the Experience-Whole whose ‘object’ is Itself as such Whole. It is also Partial Experience within that Whole. This union of Whole and Part is alogical, but not unknowable, for their unity is a fact of actual experience just as we have the unity of Power to Be and Power to Become, of the Conscious and Unconscious, of Mind and Body, of freedom and determination, and of other dualities of Man’s experiencing.

What the term Chit means is expressed neither fully and adequately, nor univocally, by the English word “Consciousness”.³⁷ Barring the case of the materialist who holds that consciousness is a “by-product” of matter specially organised as brain-substance, Western Idealists, Realists and Pragmatists are not agreed among themselves either as to the nature or as to the function of consciousness. They conceive it differently. None of these conceptions approach the Vedanta concept of Chit as the Supreme and Perfect Reality-Power, as regards the depth and amplitude of its import. In fact, in the history of Western Thought, Consciousness as such has been so far permitted to appear in a minor role even in Idealism. The chief part has been assigned to Reason or Thought, to Will, to Imagination, and, as has recently been the more usual practice, to Experience. Commonly in these forms of Idealism, Consciousness is not the substance of Reality—-which may be a Cosmic Idea, Reason, Will, and so forth. Commonly too, Consciousness is not a proprium, or even an inseparable accident, of Reality. The Cosmic Idea or Will may thus be with consciousness or without it; it may evolve into consciousness only in some places or positions and remain unconscious in others.

Recently there has been a tendency in Idealism to make Experience the basis of Reality instead of a specific aspect of it such as Reason, Will or Imagination. This bases Reality upon “Fact” instead of a “section” and abstraction of Fact. But such approximation to the Vedantic position has meant but little gain to Consciousness which is still commonly taken to be a separable accident of Experience; Experience can be, and often is, it is supposed, sub-conscious and even unconscious.

At the back of this supposition is the taking of Consciousness in a restricted sense making it either abstract “awareness,” or else, coincident with normal, “fully awake” “conscious” experience only: the former view showing it as a “torchlight” which makes us aware of the contents of experience; the latter making it the “lighted zone,” the cognised contents of experience. In either case, Consciousness is not the equivalent of Experience which is supposed to be the larger fact. The “torch-light” is believed to reveal some of the actual contents of experience, while the rest lie outside the reach of its illumination. In the alternative supposition also, the “lighted up” contents of experience are believed to be a part only of the total content. And Consciousness is thus restricted not merely in individual experience, but also, commonly, in Cosmic Mind and Experience. This latter has been supposed to possess consciousness either as a separable or an inseparable accident; but, commonly, it has not been believed that consciousness is the essence and substance of the Cosmic Experience.

There is, however, no warrant for taking Consciousness (Chit) in the restricted sense of either a “torch-light” illumination, or as the “illumined zone” of Experience. The first alternative raises four issues: (1) Does the “ torchlight” illumine the whole of an individual’s experience or only part of it; in other words, does the circle of illumination coincide with that of experience, or is it included in the latter? (2) Does it illumine individual experience always or only occasionally? In other words, is individual experience conscious now, and unconscious then? (3) Does it illumine the whole of cosmic experience or only a part of it? And, (4) Is Cosmic Experience conscious now and unconscious then? Now, taking these four issues together, they may be decided on the principles of the Doctrine in this way: Consciousness as the Illumination³⁸ illumines and never fails to illumine the whole of Experience, though in the case of individual Centres, the fact of experience being illumined may be ignored, that is unrecognised, pragmatically, often to a degree which reduces such illumination, for practical purposes, to be non-illumination as the subconsciousness or unconsciousness. Really, however, “subconsciousness” and “unconsciousness” are grades of Consciousness itself—that is, if what has been unrecognised and unaccepted for ordinary practical purposes be recognised and accepted. This Perfect Illumination is the Ether of Consciousness³⁹ which is unbounded and unrestricted. The total content or Object⁴⁰ of Experience is so also; and, while both (the Illumination and the Illumined) are infinite, the former is intuited to be even a greater infinity (if infinities can be compared) than the latter;⁴¹ and this reverses the position commonly taken in non-vedantic views, eastern or western, that the circle of illumination forms a part only of the circle of experience.

Then, as regards the second alternative—making Consciousness, not the Illumination or awareness only, but concrete, conscious experience with a content—the criticism is this:—The concrete experience with an object or content is a condition of Consciousness; but Consciousness has a transcendent condition also, which is immanent in the ordinary conditions; and this transcendent condition of Pure Consciousness or Pure Illumination is not an abstraction. It can be intuited in the ordinary experiences, and realised apart from the determinations of content or object, in Yoga. Consciousness, thus, may be with a content or without it;⁴² and though, by Ramanuja amongst others it has been contended that the Illuminator must co-exist with the Illumined as its logical correlate, Consciousness itself is alogical, beyond all antitheses or poles; and yet manifests by its Power all poles and correlations in experience. Pure Consciousness, immanent as the unchanging “ether” in ordinary changing experiences, and realizable as such in Yoga, is not, therefore, the Illuminator as distinguished from the Illumined (which as poles must co-exist); but it is Illumination itself which is its own content. The doctrine thus keeps clear of two unwarranted positions: (1) Experience with a content (“modes,” “states” or “determinations” as they are called) is the only real, concrete fact, of which contentless, pure consciousness is an abstraction,⁴³ and is, therefore, unreal; and (2) Experience as contentless consciousness is the real Fact, upon which, the varied content of experience, that is, world-experience, has been laid as an unreal appearance as that of magic. On the contrary, Pure Consciousness is real, its Power to evolve as a world of varied content and to involve it again is real; and the world of varied content, which is the manifestation of Reality-Power, is also real.

Nor again does the Shakta view regard Consciousness as an “accident,” separable or inseparable, of the Reality-Experience. Consciousness is not statical only as the “Ether”⁴⁴ but is dynamic or stressing; it is not Being only, but it is Becoming also.⁴⁵ In fact, the essence of Being is Power and Function to Be. So that Consciousness is the varied world-experience, as also, transcendent, pure Illumination. It is at the same time the Basis, the Evolver and the Content of Experience. This view does not recognise any ultimate duality between Substance and Attribute,⁴⁶ between Power and Possessor of Power,⁴⁷ between Power as Cause and Power as Effect or Manifestation,⁴⁸ however they may in the logical order be so treated. Hence, if Consciousness as Power evolves as the World-Experience, the three terms involved in the process (i.e., Consciousness, Power and World-experience) must be ultimately identified with one another. It is dualism to maintain that Consciousness is one thing and its activity or Power is another; that the Power of Consciousness to be (i.e., existential activity) is one thing, its Power to become or evolve is another. It is not possible in this view to regard Consciousness as an “accident” or even as a “proprium” only of something else—of any substance. Consciousness is the Substance,⁴⁹ the Power, and the evolutes and involutes⁵⁰ of Power. Philosophies, western or eastern, have often reduced it to an “accident,” because they have taken it to mean limited, pragmatic consciousness only—that is, what in ordinary parlance passes as “normal consciousness” distinguished from both “sub-conscious” and “unconscious”; and because they have taken it in an abstract way to mean “awareness” or “feeling” or “cognition,” and not in a concrete way to mean Reality functioning to be and yet to evolve as experience of a varied content. Thus, in this view it has been wrongly supposed that feelings, thinkings and willings, which constitute the actual life of experience, are the facts of which consciousness makes us aware in part; and that, whether they be thus revealed and “shewn” or not, they happen, go on and change—in fact, the drama of mental life plays itself whether or not the stage be lighted by consciousness.

Limitation of the meaning of Chit or Chaitanya is responsible for a view like, or more or less similar to, the above not only in Dualistic systems, but also in many idealistic monisms. The Nyaya-vaisheshika makes consciousness a separable feature of individual Selves, thoughmin the case of the Lord, it is regarded by it as an inalienable, that is, permanent⁵¹ feature. But it is a feature only, not the Substance. The Bhatta School of Purva Mimangsa makes Atman conscious in one part and unconscious in other, thus anticipating the modern “floating ice-berg” conception of mental life“ nine-tenths of which are buried in the depths of sub-consciousness”. The Sangkhya System, though it makes Chit the essence of Purusha, makes the psycho-dynamic Principle evolving “Understanding,” Mind and so forth, unconscious, so that Experience is an unconscious process lighted up by consciousness. Consciousness, it is true, is there not merely as a lighter or reflector; its witnessing the process—unconscious in itself and causally a “closed curve"—somehow influences it, in this way that, it goes on with reference to the witnessing, and it stops where such reference ceases. And since, in this view, there are many witnesses, the process goes on with reference to other witnesses, though it may stop in respect of some, that is, those who attain liberation.⁵² In this view, Consciousness is recognised as an independent Entity (it is no longer a mere property or accident of something); and the “catalytic action” which it exercises on the evolving Psycho-physical dynamic Principle⁵³ implies its Being-Power, as well as, Power to influence the Becoming of some other Being. This leads a considerable way to the Shakta Vedanta position; but it is a halting method in so far as (1) it does not make Consciousness the whole Being and Experience; and (2) it assigns practically the whole realm of dynamism (i.e., evolving power) to a Principle alien to, and independent of, Consciousness, reserving to itself only a vague veiled suggestion of power expressed in its so-called “catalytic action”.

Even Idealistic Monisms have sometimes stopped short of the final position here adopted. The attitude of such monisms towards Consciousness has commonly taken four forms: (1) Consciousness as Perfect Knowledge (that is, Knowledge of all generals and particulars) is an element of the Supreme Reality which is also the Supreme Power; but it is not the whole of it, the sum and substance of it; so that, if the Supreme Reality-Power is represented by a circle. Consciousness forms an aspect, part or element of that circle; it is but one attribute of the Supreme Substance which has an infinity of attributes,⁵⁴ and there is nothing to warrant the supposition that this one attribute is the basis and root of all others. Furthermore, Consciousness with an infinitely varied content is an aspect of the Supreme Reality; pure, contentless consciousness is not an actual state of experience either in the Supreme or in the individual realities; it is an abstraction and, therefore, unreal. (2) Another position, whilst agreeing with the first as regards all other essential points, makes Pure Consciousness not an abstraction and unreality, but the Illumination⁵⁵ of the Perfect Being or Lord, which aspirants may actually realise as Pure Chit and nothing else at a certain stage of their spiritual approach to their final objective, but pushing beyond that stage, they realise that what was pure, featureless⁵⁶ illumination before is really the light radiating from a Perfect Being infinitely rich in power and content. Perception of the Light only—apart from the form and features—is, therefore, ontologically speaking an abstraction, since Perfect Being is not Light⁵⁷ only; but, psychologically speaking (that is, as an actual, though halting and imperfect, perception by the aspirant of the Supreme Being), it is not an abstraction. The intuition of Pure Light in what is called “non-polar meditation”⁵⁸ gives, accordingly, an approximate and subordinate view of Reality, transcending which the aspirant has a truer vision of Reality⁵⁹ as the Perfection of power and attributes. The vision of the Pure Ether of Consciousness is thus a stage, and not the goal of realisation.

(3) Next comes the position of Maya-vada which reverses the above order or relationship between what has to be regarded a stage and what the goal of realization, what must be looked upon as Reality and what as an abstraction. Here, the “Pure Light” alone shines when the goal is reached, forms and features, powers and attributes appear but on the way to it; so that, Chit as Pure Light is the Supreme Reality, of which “a varied content” is not, indeed, an abstraction, but upon which it is laid as an ascription or imposition⁶⁰ due to Maya which makes Reality appear otherwise than as it is in itself.⁶¹

The stress in the first position (1) is laid exclusively upon “infinitely rich power and content” nature of Reality, as it leaves no room for the “Pure Light” either in the scheme of Being (i.e., ontologically), or in the actual experiences of Being (i.e., psychologically). Consciousness is ever with content and never without it: this is the position. The stress in the second position (2) is laid as in the first, but Consciousness as Pure Light is recognized as a subordinate and imperfect (though actual) stage in the realisation of Perfect Being. In the third position (3), the stress is shifted on to what has been unreal in the first and subordinate in the second, so that what is the real and ultimate in them (1 and 2), becomes unreal or only pragmatically real⁶² in the third. In all these three positions the emphasis is laid now on this and now on that phase or aspect⁶³ of the Supreme Fact.

Hence (4), it is claimed, that if the Fact is to remain the Fact, no emphasis must be laid upon what is but a section or aspect of it, but it should be laid upon the Whole.⁶⁴ Pure Consciousness “without content” and Perfect Consciousness of infinitely rich content, are both logical aspects of the Whole which is alogical. The Whole can be approximately described in terms of its aspects (that is, as Pure and as Perfect), but, in itself it is fuller than such descriptions of it. Thus It is Pure in the above sense, but is not that only; It is Perfect in the above sense, but is not also that only. Again, it is only from a pragmatic and logical standpoint that of these two or other aspects of It, we can regard one as the primary and higher, and the other or others as secondary or lower. In fact, any aspect is as much real as any other: thus Perfect (i.e. infinitely rich) Consciousness is as much real as Pure Consciousness; Consciousness as Power is as much real as Consciousness as such; and the Product or Manifestation of this Power is as much real as the Power itself. We disturb this even balance and co-ordination of the aspects by attempting to thrust them into pragmatic, logical moulds.

It is true that, in having to state an alogical Fact logically and to represent an extra-temporal and extra-spatial process temporally and spatially, the Shakta doctrine speaks as if Chit as Pure Consciousness⁶⁵ were alone “in the beginning,” that this Consciousness then evolved into a Consciousness first of latent, then of patent polarisation between Self and Not-Self, between consciousness as Illumination⁶⁶ and that as the Illuminated or Object;⁶⁷ that this Object is then variously evolved; that all this is then involved back into Pure Consciousness; and that while this process of evolution and involution goes on, Pure Consciousness as such changelessly abides. This statement gives, of course, primacy to Pure Consciousness as compared with Its Power to evolve and involve, and also, as compared with the work which that Power does. Pure Consciousness is there whether or not It operates as Power to project out of Itself an Object of varied content, and withdraw that Object back into Itself. This reason coupled with the fact that the most fundamental expression of existence, namely Being⁶⁸ and Joy,⁶⁹ is given in Consciousness as such⁷⁰ as it is given (that is, to the same ultimate degree and in the same fundamental way) in nothing else; the fact that liberation is not attained except by realisation of Pure-Being-Consciousness-Bliss, would seem, from a logical point of view, to ensure the primacy given to Pure Consciousness. But really, in the alogical complete Fact itself, in regard to which as the Whole we cannot make any statement in terms of Space, Time and other Categories, Pure Chit⁷¹ is co-ordinate with, and not superior or subordinate to, the Power⁷² by which It evolves and involves; and this again is co-ordinate with Its manifestation as the total Product or Achievement; and these co-ordinate aspects (viz., Chit as Being, Chit as Power⁷³ and Chit as Product⁷⁴) embraced by, and in, the mysterious Whole is Fact. Liberation cannot be attained except by realizing this; since bondage is due to the nonrealization of this—which is but non-recognition, that is ignorance, of what the Fact is. There is, therefore, no liberation by realizing what is an aspect only. Liberation is achieved by realizing that Shiva as quiescent Being-Consciousness-Bliss⁷⁵ (which also is Power-to-be), becoming as dynamic Being-Consciousness-Bliss⁷⁶ and evolving and involving infinitely varied Objects, that is, World-Experience which, on the whole as also in detail, is Being-Consciousness-Bliss.⁷⁷ The World is Shiva-Shakti, and the Fact is not realized, and therefore liberation is not had, so long as it is looked upon as a product of Maya, in the sense of that which is neither real not unreal; as a “mirage,” as an order in which there is actual, as distinguished from pragmatic unreality, unconsciousness and unhappiness.⁷⁸ Not only the World as a sublime whole, but the World in its minutest details (even in the so-called “stocks and stones”) must be perceived to be nothing but Being-Consciousness-Bliss in Play.⁷⁹ It is the whole Being-Consciousness-Bliss Power (Shiva-Shakti), and nothing but that: It seems to be “small” only with reference to the province of Convention in which the particular Centres “consciously” live and move and bargain. Hence even a grain of dust is Perfect Shiva-Shakti incarnate, and must be realised as such by an aspirant before liberation can be had. The Perfect Being thus really given in the “infinite” as well as in the “small” is a miracle, and the basis of this commonest of all miracles is laid in the primary act by which the Perfect Being-Becoming Power in order to evolve a world of correlated Centres potentialized Itself as the infinitesimal “Point”.⁸⁰ And if the Infinite can thus, according to the premises of this doctrine, live and operate in, and as, the Infinitesimal, It also can do so in, and as, the “finite” and “limited” being—which, in the fullness of fact, is not finite and limited at all except with reference to the conditions of the province of inter-central convention. That province begins when, and in so far as, the realm of Maya begins in the evolution of the Thirty-six-Principles, in the form of the so-called “impure” Principles.⁸¹

In the Shakta view, therefore, there is no place for Unconsciousness,⁸² except in a pragmatic and conventional way, relating either to Reality as Being, or to Reality as Power, or to Reality as product or Manifestation. The “seeming consciousness”⁸³ of Sangkhya, or of Maya-vada as it is commonly stated, has no place either. If there be any “seeming” in the scheme of world-manifestations, it will be found rather in the other way—Consciousness “seeming” to be unconsciousness, Joy “seeming” to be indifference or pain, free Play “seeming” to be necessity and determination. And yet this “seeming” as an actual element in the Play of the World-Power by which the Divine Mother variously “screens” Herself in the form of interplaying Centres, is no “illusion”. This “seeming” is no seeming, since both the Power and Herself—screening Play as interplaying Centres are real. It is seeming in altogether different conditions, viz., (1) when that Power withdraws Her Play as Centres into Herself and plays with Her own Being;⁸⁴ or else (2) when to the eyes of a “fortunate” Centre She lets the screens and veils drop, and permits it to realise the identity between Herself and Itself.⁸⁵ A block of stone is really unfeeling and unconscious matter to an ordinary Centre whose total assemblage of conditions⁸⁶ is of a certain kind relatively to that of the stone; it is no “seeming” in that given tissue of relations; it is then an outcome of the real interplay. But the character of the play—the bearing, impression and import of the one in relation to the other—is bound to change with the change in their total assemblage of conditions;—a circumstance which does not make the first “impression” unreal, and make the later real, but makes each real in its own way and sphere. The term “seeming” as applied to such partial, conditional experiences of correlated Centres may be justified in one sense only—that Power as Being-Consciousness-Bliss never ceases to be such, in Itself or in Its manifestations, whatever be Its veiling and unveiling play. A block of stone as Perfect Being-Consciousness-Bliss (involving Play) is, therefore, the Standard Experience to which other experiences are more or less near approximations, constituting “grades” and “values,” but each real in its way.

The above position keeps clear of both common Realism making things exist outside and independent of Consciousness and Experience, and common Idealism making them “ideas” or “clusters of sensations, actual and possible” only. Things do exist outside and independent of Centre-referred and Centre-owned Consciousness and experience;⁸⁷ but Consciousness, without such reference and limitation, is the Fact and the Power to evolve as facts. On the other hand, Consciousness as the root Being-and-Becoming Power becomes real things as also real minds apprehending, judging and otherwise experiencing those things; this combines the truth in Realism and that in Idealism. Thus, a block of stone is not, from this standpoint, “matter” only: it is Chit as Joy and as Play—though the fact is veiled to ordinary Centres; on the other hand, it is not an “idea” or “ mental construct” only: it is Chit as Power constituting it as much and as active a reality as the experiencing and reacting mind is. While pulling down the arbitrary wall erected by “Scientific Realism” between Primary and Secondary qualities of which the former alone are supposed to be real, the doctrine does not go to the other extreme of that “naive” Realism which regards the mental impression as a “copy” of the external thing. Things as “standard” realities exist in, and for, the Supreme Mind, other Centres’ perceptions being gradual and partial reproductions of those “standards” or models—a circumstance which does not make their perceptions unreal, but approximations to the real; each Centre knows the reality subject to the limitations of its Karma and “cosmic situation”.⁸⁸ There is need, therefore, for the education and development of man’s “knowing instruments,” giving him progressively higher and larger visions, through science and philosophy, through intuition and meditation, and, finally, “revelation”⁸⁹ and realisation. This view supplies what is deficient in naive Idealism also by (1) making Matter and Life every whit as real and active as Mind, and (2) forbidding exclusive emphasis on this or that aspect of Experience, such as Reason or Idea, Will or Imagination. Its Chit is not transcendent or empirical consciousness only; it is not being or becoming only; it is not quiescent or dynamic only; it is not undetermined or determined only; and it is not of this feeling-tone or of that only. It comprises all these and other alternatives, and, (from man’s viewpoint) contradictory phases. Its fundamental being and expression is Joy⁹⁰ pulsating as Will-Power and manifesting Itself in an unspeakably sublime cosmic Play. It is not a mere “abstraction ”—a “ wilderness” of Pure Being or Pure Nothing as some critics of Vedanta⁹¹ have imagined the abode of Reality to be.

This view concedes also the possession of an element of truth to “Pragmatism,” ancient or modern. Philosophies in India have always recognised the Province of Convention,⁹² the conditions of inter-Central “behaviour” by which the experiences and realities of the correlated Centres are determined. In Indian Thought, by Karma a Centre is what it now is, what it was, and what it will be; by Karma it determines not only its “cosmic situation,”⁹³ but its Cosmos also; since, to each centre the Cosmos and its realities and are, seen, as its Karma⁹⁴ has determined them to be for it; to another Centre, they are different more or less, and to the “same” centre also, they change as its Karma changes, There can be no more through-going “Pragmatism” than this, “Pragmatic consciousness,” “Pragmatic reality,” has its place, but, in the Shakta view, however, it is not “illusory”. Pragmatic consciousness is Consciousness as Power limiting Itself as this or that mode or aspect of Experience for the purpose of Karma (i.e., Play) in a particular line and manner;⁹⁵ and Pragmatic reality is the Reality-Whole determining and circumscribing Itself with reference to the conditions of action and enjoyment⁹⁶ of the Centres and groups of Centres that have evolved or will evolve in It. When, therefore, the modern Pragmatist says that the “fact” or reality for a given Centre, A, is constituted by the behaviour of A, or the “uses” to which A can put that reality, he has the support of non-dual Vedanta provided (1) the behaviour is primarily the play of the Reality- Whole to evolve and play as A, and also as B, C, D, and so forth, correlated with it; (2) the behaviour of A and each of the others is also play⁹⁷ (as Karma) subject to the conditions (a) the manner of A’s play in the past,⁹⁸ and (b) the nature of B, C, D and the manner of their play relatively to it is understood; and (3) that by behaviour⁹⁹ again of the appropriate kind, A can release itself from being an individual Centre subject to limitations.

The Neo-Pragmatist very often builds his case upon biological besides psychological grounds. A, B, C, D form a system of Centres (some living, and the rest “non-living”) not only co-operating but in conflict with one another—in “the struggle for existence”. In relation to A, B, C, D, constitute the “environment”; and A lives, and expects to live, by adjusting itself and the environment each to the other, adjustment meaning the adaptation of A to B, C, D, as much as that of B, C, D, to A. Thus A changes agreeably to a change in the environment, but also changes the environment agreeably to itself. Through Natural Selection and other long-continued processes, A’s organism has been so constituted as to be, generally, a suitable “machine ” for doing this work of vital adaptation. Generally the machine does its work smoothly and by a pre-established arrangement—represented by its stereotyped sets of reactions—the “automatic” actions—reflex, spontaneous, instinctive and habitual. These are supposed to have their nerve-arrangements in the spinal cord, medulla oblongata, cerebellum—that is, in regions below the cerebral cortex which is the organ and seat of consciousness, either sensory or motor. The automatic actions are, accordingly, not accompanied by consciousness, and are believed by some to have nothing to do with consciousness. Consciousness accompanies those actions which meet with a sort of “deadlock” in the centres of automatic action, and which therefore, cannot “rattle smoothly off”. The cortical centres which are the centres of consciousness are the centres of selection (of “deliberation and choice”) by which deadlocks are removed. All actions, whether automatic or deliberative, are “behaviour” framed with reference to what is of use and value to the individual or his race; and behaviour becomes “conscious experience ”—knowing, feeling or willing—under special conditions, that is, when conditions are such that what is of interest (the end as well as the means) has to be represented as a future good or evil (therefore of use and value) in relation to which the attitude of the individual must be framed, if need be through deliberation and choice. A sensation of “hot ” is thus the consciousness that that which is hot will more or less burn if touched; the sensation is thus the index of the results to which a certain behaviour (viz., touching) will lead, and also of the uses to which those results can be put. It is use which assigns to each Centre its province of behaviour, and out of this province only a fraction is assigned to consciousness when the conditions of use are of a special kind. The conditions and limits of a Centre’s knowing, feeling and willing, are the conditions and limits of what is of use to that Centre or its group.

That there is a substantial element of truth in this statement of the case may be conceded by Indian Thought. Both the “world” and the experience of the world are fashioned for a Centre as the conditions of its own Karma and Enjoyment¹⁰⁰—(the cumulative effect and resultant of those conditions)—require them to be fashioned. It is thus that the differing “Worlds” and experiences of one man and another, those of an ordinary man and of a Seer, those of stocks and stones and those of plants and animals, and so forth, are constituted; the differing organs and instruments of the different Centres are also due to the same factors, viz., Karma and Enjoyment (presupposing special need and use).¹⁰¹ Consciousness is thus limited and specialised in a particular Centre—which, therefore, has, ordinarily, no consciousness beyond certain limits, and has, even in the zones of its conscious life, varying degrees and tones of consciousness ranging from subconsciousness and semi-consciousness to “wide awake” consciousness.

But these limits and degrees of Consciousness are “pragmatic” only. Individual Centres, according to their varying needs and uses, have these limits and degrees practically settled for them; but these do not cut up and circumscribe Consciousness itself. Because (1) the Universe being one undivided stress-system, (a system of mutual actions and reactions) the experience which takes the universe in, cannot really be a fragmentary and parcelled-out experience, though for the practical purposes of finite Centres it appears to be so; (2) that the so-called subconscious and unconscious are really inside Consciousness (not that normally accepted as such by a finite Centre), may be said to be shown by the fact that a Centre can more and more fully reclaim them as Consciousness or conscious experience by avowing what he has so far ignored, recognising, noting what he has “chaotically” felt; and from the fact that the whole universe (i.e., the “fact”) can be so reclaimed in, and as, Experience when that finite Centre is able at last to uplift completely the “veil” of ignorance and non-acceptance, and-becomes, in consequence, one with the Immense Consciousness-Power. It follows from this that a Centre’s ordinary experience is not the whole Experience because, though really having it and living it, he has been accustomed to ignore it as the whole and accept and avow it piecemeal; and he has been so accustomed because “the needs and uses” of his pragmatic existence as domicile in “the province of convention” have so required, and determined his experience to be pragmatic accordingly. Besides these two, there is also a third reason which requires that Existence and Consciousness coincide with each other: (3) the essential marks of Consciousness-in-itself are Joy and Freedom (or Free-Will-to-be-and-become). There is no form of existence—even “material” existence—which is not an expression of, and in its turn does not express (however veiled the expression may be in relation to certain “cosmic situations”), Joy and Free Power. Now if both Existence and Consciousness possess the same essential marks, it is reasonable to hold that one is the other, or both are manifestations of a Common Root. But since a Root more fundamental than Consciousness cannot be imagined (everything being representable as a mode of Consciousness, but Consciousness not being representable as a mode of anything else), it must hold that Consciousness = Being = Reality.

The above position is strengthened by the fact that the aspirant is able, it is claimed, by pursuing the appropriate method of realisation, to go round the whole circuit of involution and evolution—starting from ordinary pragmatic World-experience, passing through progressively higher and fuller “universes,” coming at last to Pure and Perfect Experience which sums up all Existence, and then descending again to the ordinary pragmatic order of world experience in the reverse order. In this an experimental proof is afforded as to the manner in which the common finite order of existence and consciousness thereof for a finite Centre, can be made to tend to, and ultimately become, Perfect and Pure Being-Experience, and, how again that Perfect and Pure Being-Experience, progressively evolves, and in evolving limits Itself as, the finite, pragmatic order of existence and consciousness which an individual Centre calls his “universe”, The experiment is similar to that of a geologist (for example) who shows how a great rock or a layer of the Earth’s crust has been formed by experimenting with a small sample of it in his laboratory. The aspirant shews in his experiment that all the elements of his universe (Solid Matter, Liquid Matter and so forth) can be, without leaving a “residue,” dissolved into Consciousness, and that all partial and pragmatic universes can be made to fall into a Perfect Universe which is Perfect Consciousness; and also, in the reverse order, they can be made to evolve from It. This, it is said, shows that there is nothing ultimately but Being-Consciousness, and the Power of Consciousness to be and become.

Footnotes

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