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<p align="center" style="line-height:150%; margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0"><b>
<font size="4">Knowledge
by Identity</font></b></p>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">SRI AUROBINDO says, knowledge –
true knowledge – comes always by identity, i.e., when you are
identified with the object, when the knower and the known are one. He
further adds that even ordinary knowledge, sense-perception, comes in
fact by that way, although it may look otherwise, </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">viz., </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">as a
process of logical induction or deduction or both. When I am angry,
he illustrates, I know I am angry because I become anger or when I
know I am existent, it is because I am one with my existence.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Prof. Das</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&sup1;</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">
seeks to controvert the position. He says, when there is complete
identity there is no knowledge. If I am wholly one with the object, I
get merged and lost in it. When I become a thing, I no longer know
the thing. If I know a thing, it means the thing is separate from me,
in front of me; the relation of subject-object is the very essence,
the </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">sine qua non </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">of all knowledge. Taking up the illustration,
Prof. Das says: if I know I am angry, it clearly shows that I and my
anger are separate entities; similarly, I know I exist, it too shows
that I am separate, partially at least, from my existence, that is to
say, as knower transcendent to the object known. In knowing there
cannot thus be complete identity.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Prof. Das evidently holds the
orthodox, rather rigid, Sankhya position, </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">viz., </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">the Purusha or
witness is always separate from Prakriti, its object. But after all
this is only a standpoint, there are other standpoints equally valid
and more comprehensive. Sri Aurobindo holds in this respect what may
be generically called the Vedantic position where the basic
epistemological principle is that the knower and the known </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">(j</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&ntilde;Ä</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">t</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Ä</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">
</span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">and </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">j</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&ntilde;</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">eya) </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">are fused
together in knowledge </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">(j</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&ntilde;Ä</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">na).
</span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">One Vedantic line, </span></FONT></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;"><BR>
--------------------------------------</span></P>
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<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&sup1;</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;"> </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Calcutta
Review, </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">1948 August-September.</span></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 336</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">it is true however, seems to
arrive at a different conclusion, for thus it is asserted, where
there is absolute identity, who is it that sees or knows or what is
it that is seen or known! But this is only one aspect of the
phenomenon.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">When the Upanishad says, one who
knows Brahman be comes Brahman, does it not mean that the very
condition of knowing Brahman is to become it? Indeed, there is no
contradiction or incommensurability between knowing and becoming,
between (what is termed by the mystic as) </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Knowledge </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">and
</span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Realisation. </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Consciousness has a twofold power, Sri Aurobindo
says: the power of apprehension and the power of comprehension –</span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">
praj</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&ntilde;Ä</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">na </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">and </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">vij</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&ntilde;Ä</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">na.
</span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Prajnana, the apprehending consciousness, sets the object in
front, away and separate from itself and contemplates it: Vijnana,
the comprehending consciousness, on the other hand, comprehends,
embraces the object within itself, as part of its own being. The two
are not distinct or incompatible movements, they go together and form
one single movement of consciousness. It is the mind, the reason that
makes the separation; it is not possible for the mind to view two
things simultaneously. It is because of this incapacity of the mind,
married to its logic of the finite, that Sri Aurobindo points out the
way of correcting it by a higher supramental power which operates in
a global way.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Let us go back to our
illustration. I am angry means both I am anger and I know I have
anger. It is true in fact and experience. Similarly I am (existent)
means both I am existence and I know I am existent. The transcendence
of the subject (of which Prof. Das speaks) is nothing but the poise
of the consciousness as the apprehending Purusha: it does not negate
or exclude identification, which is another arm of a biune process.
The two are complementary to each other. Also Purusha and Prakriti
are nor contradictories, not mutually exclusive; they are dual
aspects or dispositions of the same consciousness or self-conscious
reality. Consciousness involved and lost to itself and in itself is
Prakriti, consciousness evolved and looking out at itself is Purusha.
I am aware of myself and I am myself are two ways of saying the same
thing. We imagine Shakespeare expressed the experience graphically
and poetically when he made his character say: </span></FONT></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 337</span></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">Richard loves Richard, that is I am I.<BR>
</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">In seeking to disvalue the
principle of identity as a fundamental element in knowing, Prof. Das
brings in to witness on his side the logical copula. Some logicians,
of course, assert a parallelism if not identity between the laws of
thought and the laws of language, language being conceived as the
very image – a photograph – of thought, but the truth of the
matter is that it is and it is not so, as in many other things.
However, here when it is stated that the copula disjoining the
subject and the predicate is the very pattern of all process of
knowledge, one mistakes, we are afraid, a scheme or a formula, for
the thing itself, a way of understanding a fact for the fact itself.
Such a formula for understanding, however it may be valid for more or
less analytical languages, those of later growth, need not and did
not have the same propriety in respect of other older languages. We
know the evolution of language has been in the direction of more and
more disjunction of its component limbs even like the progression of
the human mind and intellect. The modern analytical languages with
their army of independent prepositions have taken the place of the
classical languages which were predominantly inflexional. The Greek
and Latin started the independent prepositional forms in the form of
a fundamentally inflexional structure. Still further back, in
Sanskrit for example, the inflexional form reigns supreme. Prefixes
and affixes served the role of prepositions. And if we move further
backward, the synthetic movement is so complete that the logical
components (the subject, the copula, the predicate) are fused
together into one symbol (the Chinese ideogram). We are here nearer
to the original nature and pattern of knowledge – a single
homogeneous movement of apperception. There is no sanctity or
absoluteness in the logical disposition of thought structure; the
Aristotelian makes it a triplicity, the Indian Nyaya would extend the
dissection to five or seven limbs. But whatever the logical
presentation, the original psychological movement is a single
indivisible </span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&eacute;</span></FONT><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">lan – </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">and
the Vedantic fusion of the knower, the knowledge and the known in
identity remains the fundamental fact.</span></FONT></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 338</span></P>
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