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<font size="4">In
Quest of Reality</font></b></p>
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<FONT SIZE=3>THIS is, they say, the age of Positivism – no mystic
obfuscation, but clear light in the open sun. Let us enquire a little
into the nature of this modern illumination.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Positivists are those who swear by facts. Facts to them
mean naturally facts attested in the end by sense-experience. To a
positivist the only question that matters and that needs to be
answered and can be answered is whether a thing <I>is </I>or <I>is
not </I>physically: other questions are otiose, irrelevant,
misleading. So problems of the Good, of the Beautiful, of God are
meaningless. When one says this is good, that is bad, well, it is a
proposition that cannot be related to any fact, it is a subjective
personal valuation. In the objective world a thing simply is or is
not, one cannot say it is good or it is bad. The thing called good by
one is called bad by another, the same thing that is good to you now
will appear bad at another time. This is a region absolutely of
personal and variable idiosyncrasy. The same with regard to the
concept of beauty. That a thing is beautiful or ugly is a subjective
judgment; it is not and cannot be an objective statement. Beauty is a
formula in your mind and imagination, it is a changing mode of your
apprehension. The concept of God too fares no better. God exists: it
is a judgment based upon no fact or facts of sense-experience.
However we may analyse it, it is found to have no direct or even
indirect but inevitable <I>rapport </I>with the field of actual
reality. There is between the two an unbridgeable hiatus. This is a
position restated in a modern style, familiar to the Kantian Critique
of Pure Reason.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>There are two ways off acing the problem. First, the
Kantian way which cuts the Gordian knot. We say here that there are
two realms in which man lives, but they are incommensurables: </FONT>
<BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 300</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>the truths and categories of one cannot be
judged and tested by those of the other. Each is <I>sui generis, </I>each
is valid in its own right, in its own dominion. God, Soul,
Immortality these are realities belonging to one section of our
nature, seizable by a faculty other than the Pure Reason, <I>viz.,
</I>the Practical Reason; while the realities given by the senses and
the judgments of the logical mind are of another section. It may be
said one is physical, the other metaphysical. The positivists limit
their field of enquiry and knowledge to the physical: they seek to
keep the other domain quite apart as something imaginary, illusory,
often unnecessary and not unoften harmful to true human interest.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>To a more detached and impartial view this may appear
very much like the ostrich-policy. If a thing really exists, one
cannot negate it by simply closing one's eyes. This involves a
dichotomy which the logical mind may like to impose and live by, but
man cannot be thus artificially segmented. And if both the worlds are
found in him both have to be accepted and if they are found together,
there must be some sort of commensurability between the two.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Indeed the second way of approach to the problem is the
positivist's own way. That is to say, let us take our stand on the
<I><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">terra firma </FONT></I>of
the physical and probe into it and find out whether there are facts
there which open the way or point to the other side of nature,
whether there are signs, hints, intimations, factors involved there
that lead to conclusions, if not inevitable, at least conformable to
supraphysical truths. It is usually asserted, for example, that the
scientist – the positivist <I>par excellence – follows </I>a
rigid process of ratiocination, of observation, analysis and
judgment. He collects facts and a sufficient number of them made to
yield a general law – the probability of a generic fact – which
is tested or exemplified by other correlate facts. This is however an
ideal, a theoretical programme not borne out by actual practice, it
is a rationalisation of a somewhat different actuality. The
scientist, even the most hard-headed among them, the mathematician,
finds his laws often and perhaps usually not by a long process of
observation and induction or deduction, but all on a sudden, in a
flash of illumination. The famous story of Newton .and the falling
apple, Kepler's happy guess of the elliptical orbit of the</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 301</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>planets – and a host of examples can be cited as
rather the rule than the exception for the methodology of scientific
discovery. Prof. Hadamard, the great French mathematician – the
French are well-known for their intransigent, logical and rational
attitude in Science, – has been compelled to admit the supreme role
of an intuitive faculty in scientific enquiry. If it is argued that
the so-called sudden intuition is nothing but the final outburst, the
cumulative resultant of a long strenuous travail of thinking and
reasoning and arguing, Prof. Hadamard says', in reply, that it does
not often seem to be so, for the answer or solution that is suddenly
found does not lie in the direction of or in conformity with the,
conscious rational research but goes against it and its implications.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>This faculty of direct knowledge, however, is not such a
rare thing as it may appear to be. Indeed if we step outside the
circumscribed limits of pure science instances crowd upon us, even in
our normal life, which would compel one to conclude that the rational
and sensory process is only a fringe and a very small part of a much
greater and wider form of knowing. Poets and artists, we all know,
are familiar only with that form: without intuition and inspiration
they are nothing. Apart from that, modern inquiries and observations
have established beyond doubt certain facts of extra-sensory,
suprarational perception – of clairvoyance and clairaudience, of
prophecy, of vision into the future as well as into the past. Not
only these unorthodox faculties of knowledge, but dynamic powers that
almost negate or flout the usual laws of science have been
demonstrated to exist and can be and are used by man. The Indian
yogic discipline speaks of the eight <I>siddhis, </I>super-natural
powers attained by the Yogi when he learns to control nature by the
force of his consciousness. Once upon a time these facts were
challenged as facts in the scientific world, but it is too late now
in the day to deny them their right of existence. Only Science, to
maintain its scientific prestige, usually tries to explain such
phenomena in the material way, but with no great success. In the end
she seems to say these freaks do not come within her purview and she
is not concerned with them. However, that is not for us also the
subject for discussion for the moment.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The first point then we seek to make out is that even
from a</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 302</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>rigid positivist stand a form of knowledge that is not
strictly positivist has to be accepted. Next, if we come to the
content of the knowledge that is being gained, it is found one is
being slowly and inevitably led into a world which is also hardly
positivistic. We have in our study of the physical world come in
close contact with two disconcerting facts or two ends of one
fact-the infinitely small and the infinitely large. They have
disturbed considerably the normal view of things, the view that
dominated Science till yesterday. The laws that hold good for the
ordinary sensible magnitudes fail totally, in the case of the infinite
magnitudes (whether big or small). In the infinite we begin squaring
the circle.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Take for instance, the romantic story of the <I>mass </I>of
a body. Mass, at one time, was considered as one of the fundamental
constants of nature: it meant a fixed quantity of substance inherent
in a body, it was an absolute quality. Now we have discovered that
this is not so; the mass of a body varies with its speed and an
object with infinite speed has an infinite mass – theoretically at
least it should be so. A particle of matter moving with the speed of
light must be terribly massive. But – <I>mirabile dictue</I>! – a
photon has no mass (practically none). In other words, a material
particle when it is to be most material – exactly at the critical
temperature, as it were – is dematerialised. How does the miracle
happen?</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>In fact, we are forced to the conclusion that the
picture of a solid massive material nature is only a mask of the
reality; the reality is,that matter is a charge of electricity and
the charge of electricity is potentially a mode of light. The ancient
distinction between matter and energy is no longer valid. In fact
energy is the sole reality, matter is only an appearance that</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>energy puts on under a certain condition. And this
energy too' is not mechanical (and Newtonian) but radiant and
<I>ethereal. </I>We can no longer regret with, the poet:</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>They have gone into the world of light</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>for, we all are come into a world of light and we
ourselves, the' elements of our physical frame are made of the very
texture of light.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>So far so good. But it is evidently not far enough, for
one</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 303</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>can answer that all this falls within the dominion of
Matter and the material. The conception of Matter has changed, to be
sure: Matter and energy are identified, as we have said, and the
energy in its essential and significant form is light (which, we may
say, is electricity at its highest potential). But this does not make
any fundamental change in the metaphysical view of the reality. We
have to declare in the famous French phrase <I><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">plus
</FONT><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ccedil;</FONT>a change, plus <FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ccedil;</FONT>a
<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif">reste </FONT>Ie m<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&ecirc;</FONT>me
</I>(the more it changes the more it remains the same). The reality
remains material: for light, physical light is not something
spiritual or even immaterial.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Well, let us proceed a little further. Admitted the
universe</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>is a physical substance (although essentially of the
nature of light – admitted light is a physical substance, obeying
the law of gravitation, as Einstein has demonstrated). Does it then
mean that the physical universe is after all a. dead inert insentient
thing, that whatever the vagaries of the ultimate particles composing
the universe, their structure, their disposition is more or less
strictly geometrical (that is to say, mechanical) and their erratic
movement is only the errantry of a throw of dice – a play of
possibilities? There is nothing even remotely conscious or purposive
in this field.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Let us leave the domain, the domain of inorganic matter
for a while and turn to another set of facts, those of organic
matter, of life and its manifestation. The biological domain is a
freak in the midst of what apears to be a rigidly mechanistic
material universe. The laws of life are not the laws of matter, very
often one contravenes the other. The two converging lenses of the two
eyes do not make the image twice brighter than the one produced by a
single lens. What is this alchemy that forms the equation 1<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&sup2;</FONT>=1
(we might as well put it as 1+1=1)? Again, a living whole – a cell
– fissured and divided tends to live and grow <I>wholly </I>in each
fragment. In life we have thus another strange equation: part=whole
(although in the mathematics of infinity such an equation is a normal
phenomenon). The body (of a warm-blooded animal) maintaining a
constant temperature whether it is at the Pole or at the Equator is a
standing miracle which baffles mere physics and chemistry. Thirdly,
life is immortal – the law of entropy (of irrevocably diminishing
energy) that governs the fate of matter does not</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 304</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>seem to hold good here. The original life-cells are
carried over physically from generation to generation and there is no
end to the continuity of the series, if allowed to run its normal
course. Material energy also, it is said, is indestructible; it is
never destroyed, but changes form only. But the scientific conception
of material energy puts a limit to its course, it</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>proceeds, if we are to believe thermodynamics, towards a
dead equilibrium-there is no such thing as &quot;perpetual movement&quot;
in the field of matter.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Again the very characteristic of life is its diversity,
its infinite variety of norms and forms and movements. The content
and movement of material nature is calculable to a great extent. A
few mathematical equations or formulae can after all be made to cover
all or most facts concerning it. But the laws of life refuse
systematisation. A few laws purporting to govern the physical bases
of life claim recognition, but they stand on precarious grounds. The
laws of natural selection, of heredity or genetics are applicable
within a very restricted frame of</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>facts. The variety of material substances revolves upon
the gamut of 92 elements based upon 4 or 5 ultimate types of electric
unit – and that is sufficient to make us wonder. But the variety in
life-play is simply incalculable – from the amoeba or virus cell to
man, what a bewildering kaleidoscope and each individual in each
group is unique in its way! The few chromosomes that seem to be the
basis of all diversity do not explain the mystery – the mystery
becomes doubly mysterious: how does a tiny seed contain the thing
that is to become a banyan tree, how does a speck of plasma bring
forth from within an object of Hamletian dimensions! What then is
this energy or substance of life welling out irrepressively into
multitudinous forms and modes? The chemical elements composing an
organic body do not wholly exhaust its composition; there is
something else besides. At least in one field, the life element has
received recognition and been given an independent name and
existence. I am obviously referring to the life element in food-stuff
which has been called <I>vitamin.</I></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Life looks out of matter as a green sprout in the midst
of a desert expanse. But is matter really so very different and
distinct from life? Does Matter mean no Life? Certain facts and
experiments have thrown great doubt upon that assumption. </FONT>
<BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 305</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>An Indian, a scientist of the first order in
the European and modern sense, has adduced proofs that obliterate the
hard and fast line of demarcation between the living and the
non-living. He has demonstrated -the parallelism, if not the
identity, of the responses of those two domains: we use the term
fatigue in respect of living organisms only, but Jagadish Chandra
Bose says and shows, that matter too, a piece of metal for instance,
undergoes fatigue. Not only so, the graph, the periodicity of the
reactions as shown by a living body under a heightened or diminished
stimulus or the influence of poison or drug is repeated very closely
by the so-called dead matter under the same treatment.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3><B>It </B>will not be far from the truth, if it is
asserted that matter is instinct with a secret life. And because
there was life secreted within matter, therefore life could come out
of matter; there is here no spontaneous generation, no arbitrary fiat
nor a fortui&shy;tous chance. The whole creation is a mighty stir of
life. That is how the ancient Rishi of the Upanishad puts it: Life
stirred and all came out.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Now, let us advance another step forward. Beyond matter
there lies life and beyond life-consciousness. Is consciousness too a
mere epiphenomenon as life was once thought to be in the empire of
matter? Or can it not be that consciousness is an extension - an
evolute – of life, even as life is an extension, an evolute of
matter? In<B> </B>other words consciousness is not a freak, even as
life was not; it is inherent in life, life itself is a rudimentary
movement of consciousness. The amoeba feeling or pre-sensing its way
towards its food, the twig bending towards the direction in which it
has the chance of getting more light, the sudden appearance of organs
or elements in an organism that will be useful only in the future are
indisputable examples of a purposiveness, a forward reference in the
scheme of Nature. In<B> </B>the domain of life-play <I>teleology </I>is
a fact which only the grossest brand of obfuscation can deny. And
teleology means – does it not ?-the stress of an idea, the pattern
of a consciousness.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Consciousness or thought in man, we know, is linked with
the brain: and sentience which is the first step towards thought and
consciousness is linked with the nervous system (of which the brain
is an extension). Now the same Indian wizard who first,
scientifically speaking, linked up the non-living with the</FONT><BR>
			</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 306</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>living, has also demonstrated, if not absolutely, at
least to a high degree of plausibility, that the plant also possesses
a kind of rudimentary nervous system (although we accept more easily
a respiratory system there). All this, however, one has to admit, is
still a far cry from any intimation of consciousness in Matter. Yet
if life is admitted to be involved in matter and consciousness is
found to be involved in life, then the unavoidable conclusion is that
Matter too must contain involved in it a form of consciousness. The
real difficulty in the way of attributing consciousness to Matter is
our. conception of consciousness which we usually identify with
articulate thought, intelligence or reason. But these are various
formations of consciousness, which in itself is something else and
can exist in many other forms and formulations.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>One remarkable thing in the material world that has
always attracted and captivated man's attention, since almost the
very dawn of his consciousness, is the existence of a pattern, of an
artistic layout in the composition and movement of material things.
When the Vedic Rishi sings out: &quot;These countless stars that
appear glistening night after night, where do they vanish during the
day?&quot; he is awed by the inviolable rhythm of the Universe, which
other sages in other climes sang as the music of the spheres. The
presence of Design in Nature has been in the eyes of Believers an
incontrovertible proof of the existence of a Designer. What we want
to say is not that a watch (if we regard the universe as a watch)
presupposes the existence of a watch-maker: we say the pattern itself
is the expression of an idea, it involves a conception not imposed or
projected from outside but inherent in itself. The Greek view of the
artist's mode of operation is very illuminating in this connection.
The artist, according to this view, when he carves out a statue for
example, does not impose upon the stone a figure that he has only in
his mind, but that the stone itself contains the figure, the artist
has the vision to see it, his chisel follows the lines he sees
imbedded in the stone. It is why we say that the geometry in the
structure of a crystal or an atom or an astronomical system, the
balance and harmony, the symmetry and polarity that govern the
composition of objects and their relations, the blend of colour
schemes, the marshalling of lines and the building of volumes, in a
word,</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 307</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>the artistic make-up, perfect in detail and in the
ensemble that characterise all nature's body and limbs and finally
the mathematical laws that embrace and picture as it were Nature's
movements, all point to the existence of a truth, a reality whose
characteristic marks are or are very much like those of consciousness
and Idea-Force. We fight shy of the word – consciousness – for it
brings in a whole association of anthropomorphism and pathetic
fallacy. But in our anxiety to avoid a ditch let us not fall over a
precipice. If it is blindness to see nothing but the spirit, it is
not vision to see nothing but Matter.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A hypothesis, however revolutionary or unorthodox it may
seem for the moment, has to be tested by its effective application,
in its successful working out. All scientific discoveries in the
beginning appear as inconveniences that upset the known and accepted
order. Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Maxwell or Einstein in
our day enunciated principles that were not obvious sense-given
axioms. These are at the outset more or less postulates that have to
be judged by their applicability.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Creation as a movement or expression of consciousness
need not be dubbed a metaphysical jargon; it can be assumed as a
scientific working hypothesis and seen how it affects our view, meets
our problems and difficulties, whether it can give a satisfactory
clue to some of the riddles of physical and psychical phenomena. A
scientific supposition (or intuition) is held to be true if it can be
applied invariably to facts of life and experience and if it can open
up to our vision and perception new facts. The trend of scientific
discoveries today is towards the positing of a background reality in
Nature of which energy (radiant and electrical) is the first and
overt form. We discarded <I>ether, </I>only to replace it by <I>field
</I>and <I>disposition. </I>We have arrived at a point where the
question is whether we cannot take courage&quot; in both hands and
declare, as some have already done, that the substratum in Nature is
consciousness-energy and on that hypothesis better explain certain
movements of Matter and Life and Mind in a global unity. Orthodox and
die-hard views will always protest and cry that it is a <I>m<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>salliance,
</I>a misjoinder to couple together Matter and Consciousness or even
Life and Consciousness. But since the light has touched the higher
mind even among</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 308</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>a few of the positivist type, the few may very well be
the precursor of the order of the day.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>After all, only one bold step is needed: to affirm
unequi-vocally what is being suggested and implied and pointed to in
a thousand indirect ways. And Science will be transformed. The
scientist too, like the famous Saltimbanque (clown) of a French poet,
may one day in turning a somersault, suddenly leap up and find
himself rolling into the bosom of the stars.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 309</FONT></P>
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