Who Am I? Part II

(Continued from P.184 Nov. 1930.)

From SREE SAJJANA-TOSHANI
THE HARMONIST
December 1930

We must call these attempts of those scientists of misdirected intellects and the stubbornness of these undeveloped brains—as the outcome of a grossly atheistic turn of mind in challenging the Omnipotency and supreme authority of Godhead and denying the existence of the very source and cause of all existence. Godhead is called “Vishnu” because He pervades the whole universe making all existence possible and upholding the universe with its manifested phenomenon. Only the saints have the eyes to see it. So it is mentioned in the Vedas that only the saints do perceive the all-pervading, highest essence of Vishnu being the only Reality unlimited by space and time. It is not an hallucination but the sternest actuality more true and real than the limited senses can ever expect to perceive or comprehend.

The positive and negative sparks of electrons alleged to be contained in the atom are always being created and united in the work of universal integration by Him; but He entirely pervades each and every spark of electron giving it its destined life and existence and guiding it to pursue the work ordained by Him. There are self-realised saints who may be cited as eye-witnesses to attest to the truth of the statement that the mahabhagavat or the saint on attaining the highest stage never sees the material forms or the elements of physical Nature and the cosmic motions of this universe—by means of which curtains Vishnu hides Himself to fulfil His great game. He (the saint) sees, wherever he casts his eyes, only the Form of Sri Sri Radha-Gobinda, the Divine Couple Who are the dearest and perpetual objects of worship of the real saint.

Even the average man of the world having a spark of sense of the Reality in him, may easily infer the existence of Godhead as source of Power and Beauty from the organising principle working in the world. All cosmic changes perceived in creation, though seemingly sporadic, are realisable as regulated by a grand purpose in a definite order and never the result of the working of blind chance like the casting of dice. The underlying reason governing the changes points to a Personality behind the idea or plan that is always realising itself with a purposeful future working in the seemingly inscrutable present across the restrictions of temporal and spacial limits; and the purposeful Agency behind the chain of manifestations must be the Great Final and Intelligent Cause Whom we call Godhead or Sri Bhagaban.

Challenging materialists fail to discern that the life is not a mere form of gross matter. Gross matter contains within it another subtle principle which again is supernaturally surcharged with a supermaterial energy and a wonderful consciousness with unlimited potentialities which are not the products of physical Nature but the physical Nature itself is regulated and held by them within their sway to help them to fulfil themselves according to the perfect conscious will of the personal, Supreme Godhead.

The next question is ‘what is the subtle form inside gross matter?’ The subtle is the inner mental principle pervading the gross external form which we fail to perceive by the gross senses. Yet, however, it is the mind that gives life and power to the senses to perceive. The bodily sense-organs are mere dead machinery which are inspired to life and activity by the pervading energy of the mind.

The mind is the conductor of the bodily structure and sets the senses and body to motion and work. Whatever the body does, it always does under the direction of the mind. Every part or limb of the body and even every cell appears to be completely and helplessly under the sway of the mind even although the limbs or bodily cells are not really subserviant to the corresponding sensations of the mind to which they are conjoined. But the sense-perceptions of the mind are so inseparably correlated to the sense-organs of the body that their different scopes of actions and the existence of an ultra source of energy controlling both can hardly be suspected. The mind acts so nicely and subtly in association with the activities of the brain centre that the mind itself has been seriously supposed to be identical with the brain-cells. It has been the greatest wonder to the physiologists how all their attempts have till now failed in discovering the subtle and deluding form of the mind which in such apparently perfect unification and identification with the brain-centres, moves and regulates the whole of the nervous system, the sense organs, the circulatory system and every part of the body both peripheral and internal. The body is a perfect organised whole which is prompted to every kind of actions of all of its parts and constituents corresponding to the sense-perceptions in the sense-organs instantaneously carried to all the channels and avenues under the strict control of the mind from its throne which is supposed to be somewhere in the brain-centres. It is very gratifying to the admirers of the mental function and even a little surprising to all to find the perfect methods of organisation and the unflinching physical loyalty of each and every individual part of the organism to their apparently unavoidable organic dictator and lord, I mean, the mind. The communicated mental impulse of the sense organs seems in its turn to set the gross parts of the body to work by means of an infinite number of channels, in perfect co-ordination to the mental function. Just as the cardiac movement is the immediate material cause of bodily activity and cerebral motion is the cause of the activity of the nervous system, so the mind or mental function is the material cause of the activity of the sense organs.

But the mind itself with all its subtle sense-energies, is but the tenant-in-chief or the sole executive authority under the sway of the over-lord, the Self, who is the proprietor of the mind and the body. The mind has nothing to do except to guide the senses in response to the stimuli of the material world. The mind reacts on the world and enjoys it through the different sense-organs and gathers the materials of its activities, the experimental knowledge by this means.

Enjoyment associated with sense activity and knowledge derived from such experience are the only assets the mind brings to its proprietor as fee or commission from its sub-tenants or agents. The working, enjoyment and experience of the senses and of the mind are simultaneous and inter-dependent, so much so that there seems to be no separation or opposition between them (sense and mind) as regards either function or interest. Thus we fail to discern the separate identities of the senses and the mind. On a methodical study of the processes of the mind along with those of the brain-centres, the seat of the mind, we find in organised order the sense organs, nerves and muscles in which the mental energy including sensation or states and processes expresses and embodies itself and through with the mind itself, in its turn, is likewise affected by the processes of the external world. It is also by means of the reversed processes that the mind can react on the external world and produce desired changes in its environment. To us all the phenomena that manifest themselves as the external world of matter mean nothing more nor less than the mental counterparts of the operations of the sense organs under the control of the mind on the data supplied by their contact with the external world.

Thus the sensations are of the stuff of both the process of the mental function and the product of the same apprehended or occasioned in the mind in its relation with the external world. They are therefore the mental side of the phenomena in as much as the external world manifests to us its existence and attributes in and through these sensations and which also enable the mind to become aware of itself and the senses.

The senses being the instruments of knowledge and perception of the mind or rather the different phases of the mind, the proper identity of the mind can only be found in the combination of the senses and the senses being the correlatives of the phenomena, the mind is identifiable with the condition and phase of phenomena which come in contact with ourselves in the world of matter. Thus mind and material phenomena are correlative and co-existent entities being the supplementary conditions of our experience of them as enjoyer and enjoyed. Both of them assert their identity as supplementary aspects of the same thing joined together in the process of mental cognition.

The mind primarily consists of the five senses which are the exponents of its different faculties. The senses of hearing, of vision, of smell, of taste and of touch on the other hand stand in the perfect relationship of reciprocity with the corresponding elements of physical nature which are classified as the sky (or space,) the wind (or motion), the heat, the water (or liquidity) and the earth (or solidity). These elements of Nature engross and represent the above qualities and are consequently the reciprocal parts of the senses. Thus the qualities or the potencies of our five senses are reciprocally identifiable with the five elements each with each because in and through these elements alone they have their existence. So the sensory potencies or sense perceptions, and the organs themselves, are not only dependent on but also identifiable with the corresponding elements of Nature from which they may be said to have been derived or originated.

Hence the mind, though existing and working in a very subtle way is itself in regard to its function identifiable with the material principle in as much as in its external or active aspect it is the aggregate, or, rather the epitome, of the senses. Thus the mind is an epitome of the world or aggregate of the ideas of perceptions or experiences corresponding to the phenomena of the world and of the conditions of phenomena through which they have chanced to be apprehended. Such sensations and perceptions being derived from the material phenomena, the nature and condition of mind should justly be called material in its relation to the external world. These sense-experiences of the mind have generally been called (unavoidable categories of the mind) which, though subconscious at present, represent the material substance of the mind, and which the mind can not naturally avoid or get rid of. Even though the western philosophers have, one and all, distinguished mind from matter and have professed to depict mind to be spiritual or super-material, we find mind, as analysed and proved above, essentially material from the point of view of the phenomenal experience.

(To be continued)