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<P ALIGN=center style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><b>
<font size="4">The
Soul in Anguish</font></b></P>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>IT
is very interesting to observe how in the modern epoch depths of
consciousness. are being dug up and laid bare to the common gaze,
even like the archaeological finds of great antiquity and of immense
value that are springing surprise after surprise upon our present-day
civilisation. In our inner explorations too we have often come to
strike psychological veins of unusual importance and significance. It
is natural to the Yogin to do so; for it is the business of his life.
But even thinkers and philosophers who do not ostensibly lead the
mystic life are arriving at judgments and conclusions that are not
normally warranted or covered by the unaided activities of the human
reason. That proves once more that man is not reason alone, that he
has other faculties to go by even in the field of ordinary knowledge.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A range of mystics and philosophers or
philosopher-mystics from Kierkegaard to Sartre have made much of the
sentiment of &quot;anguish&quot;. Naturally, it is not the usual
feeling of grief or sorrow due to disappointment or frustration that
they refer to, nor is it the &quot;repentance&quot; which is a
cardinal virtue in the Christian spiritual discipline. Repentance or
grief is for something amiss, for some wrong done, for some good not
done. It has a definite cause that gives rise to it and determinate
conditions that maintain and foster it: and therefore it has also an
end, at least the possibility of an ending. It is not eternal and can
be mastered and got over: it is of the category of the Sankhyan or
Buddhistic <I>dukhatrayabhighata – for </I>that matter even the
<I>lacrimae rerum </I>(tears inherent in things) of Virgil* are not
eternal.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>But
the new Anguish spoken of is a strange phenomenon: it is causeless
and it is eternal. It has sprung unbidden with no</FONT><BR>------------------------
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><span style="font-size:10pt;">*</span><I><span style="font-size:10pt;">Sunt
lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt [Aeneid, </span></I><span style="font-size:10pt;">1. 462]</span><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 375</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>antecedent cause or condition: it is woven into the
stuff of the being, part and parcel of the consciousness itself.
Indeed it seems to be the veritable original sin, pertaining to the
very nature. Kierkegaard makes of it an absolute necessity in the
spiritual constituent and growth of the human soul – something akin
to, but deeper, because ineradicable, than the Socratic &quot;divine
discontent&quot;. Sartre puts it in more philosophical and rational
terms, in a secular atmosphere as a kind of inevitable accompaniment
to the sense of freedom and responsibility and loneliness that besets
the individual being and consciousness at its inmost core, its
deepest depth.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>I was speaking of the depth, of the sounding of
consciousness in present-day inquiries into human nature. Sartre's
investigation links itself up with the eternal inquiry graphically
and beautifully described in the famous parable of the Taittiriya
Upanishad (III).</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>In his quest for Brahman, Bhrigu came in contact first
of all with the material existence and so took Matter to be the
ultimate Reality. He was asked to move on and at the next step he met
Life and considered that as Brahman. He was asked to move farther on
and at the third stage he found Mind which then appeared to him as
the Reality. He had to proceed farther and enter and pass through
other higher formulations till finally he entered the highest expanse
<I>(parame vyoman). </I>Now applying the parable to the situation
today and the modern quest we can say that Science like Bhrigu is at
the first step – and, for some, stuck there contented like the
Asura Virochana of another Upanishadic parable, although it has
become fidgety and somewhat uncertain in recent times: some others –
the &quot;vitalist&quot; scientists and philosophers – are in the
second stage. And yet there is a third category, the idealist
philosophers generally, who are emerging from the second into the
third.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>It seems that the School of Anguish is on the borderland
between the second and the third stage, that is to say, the vital
rising into the mental or the mental still carrying an impress of the
vital consciousness. It is the emergence of the Purusha
consciousness, the individual being in its heart of hearts, in its
pure status: for it is that that truly evolves, progresses from level
to level, deploying and marshalling according to its stress and
scheme the play of its outward nature. Now the Purusha</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 376</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>consciousness, as separate from the outward nature, has
certain marked characteristics which have been fairly observed and
comprehended by the exponents of the school we are dealing with.
Sartre, for example, characterises this <I>being – <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ecirc;</FONT>tre
en soi, </I>as distinguished from <I><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ecirc;</FONT>tre
pour soi </I>which is something like dynamic purusha or purusha
identified or associated with <I>prakrti – as </I>composed of the
sense of absolute freedom, of full responsibility, of unhindered
choice and initiation. Indeed, Purusha is freedom, for in its own
status it means liberation from all obligations to Prakriti. But such
freedom brings in its train, not necessarily always but under certain
conditions, a terrible sense of being all alone, of infinite
loneliness. One is oneself, naked and face to face with one's
singleness and unbreakable, unsharable individual unity. The <I>others
</I>come as a product or corollary to this original <I>sui generis
</I>entity. Along with the sense of freedom and choice or
responsibility and loneness, there is added and gets ingrained into
it the sense of fear and anxiety – the anguish <I>(Angst). </I>The
burden that freedom and loneliness brings seems to be too great. The
Purusha that has risen completely into the mental zone becomes wholly
a witness, as the Sankhyans discovered, and all the movements of his
nature appear outside, as if foreign: an absolute calm and
unperturbed tranquillity or indifference is his character. But it is
not so with regard to the being that has still one foot imbedded in
the lower region of the vital consciousness; for that indeed is the
proper region of anguish, of fear and apprehension, and it is there
that the soul becoming conscious of itself and separate from others
feels lone, lonely, companionless, without support, as it were. The
mentalised vital Purusha suffers from this peculiar night of the
soul. Sartre's outlook is shot through with very many experiences of
this intermediary zone of consciousness.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The being immersed in Prakriti, as normally it is, in
relation and communion with others, may entertain as a pleasure and
luxury, the illusion of its separateness and freedom: it can do so at
ease, because it feels it has the secret support of its environment,
it is courageous because it feels itself in good company. But once it
rises out of the environmental level and stands truly apart and
outside it – it is the mental being which can do so more or less
successfully – the first feeling is that of freedom, no</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 377</FONT><BR>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>doubt,
but along with it there is also the uncanny sense of isolation, of
heavy responsibility, also a certain impotence, a loss of bearings.
The normal Cartesian Co-ordinates, as it were, are gone and the being
does not know where to look for the higher multi-dimensional
co-ordinates. That is the real meaning of the Anguish which suddenly
invades a being at a certain stage of his ascending consciousness. </FONT>
</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The solution, the issue out is, of course, to go ahead.
Instead of making the intermediary poise, however necessary it may
be, a permanent character of the being and its destiny, as these
philosophers tend to do, one should take another bold step, a jump
upward. For the next stage, the stage when the true equilibrium, the
inherent reconciliation is realised between oneself and others,
between the inner soul and its outer nature is what the Upanishad
describes as Vijnana, the Vast Knowledge.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 378</FONT></P>
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