PDA

View Full Version : 'adhyAtmavidyA' in Synthesis: 16. Summation



saidevo
24 July 2008, 11:03 PM
(This is the last and final chapter of the book.--sd)

Jiva-Atoms: Subjectively, i.e. Jivas
pp.464-471

ALL the main facts or rather principles connected with jIvas-souls and atoms-bodies have, perhaps, been generally brought out and summed up now. One more point deserves some words: The distinction between Universal and Singular, and the Relation between them, mentioned before. This triplet belongs equally to jIvas and atoms; is, thus, part of the Summation of the World-Process; and could not well be discussed before some general notion had been gained of the distinction between 'the ideal world' and 'the real world'; the former of which is, as it were, a complete and standing picture or plan of the stream of successive events which make up the latter and so occupies, to this latter, the position of universal to singular.

Subjective-Objective Categories

The aphorisms of NyAya, as we now have them, classify and describe the constituents of samsAra in their subjective aspect, i.e., in terms of cognition, as the means of knowledge.



'nis-shreyasa, Summum Bonum, Highest Happiness, mokSha, can be achieved only by True Knowledge of the essential nature of

(1) the Means, tests, proofs, evidences, measures (i.e., measur-ers), ascertainers, of true knowledge;
(2) the Knowable, the to-be-known, to-be-ascertained;
(3) Doubt;
(4) Purpose or Motive (of enquiry or argument);
(5) Familiar Example;
(6) Established Tenet, accepted maxim or principle or fact;
(7) the Members of a Syllogism;
(8) Inference (especially of a refutative or repudiative or eliminative kind);
(9) Decided Conclusion;
{10, 11, 12) Three kinds of discussion (according to three kinds of purpose);
(13, 14, 15, 16) Four kinds of Fallacies.

It should be noted that mokSha is the principal aim, and that the nature of the Self is the first and foremost 'to-be-ascertained': NyAya-sUtra, the very first.


The aphorisms of Vaisheshika classify them as objects of knowledge, in their objective aspect, in terms of the cognised. Thus, KanAda, author of the Vaisheshika aphorisms, states that there are six primary padArthas 'meanings ot words', things, i.e., objects, viz., dravya, guna, karma, sAmAnya, visheSha, and samAvaya. The first three have been discussed before, (pp.284-312 supra). The next three mean, respectively, the 'universal or general,' the 'singular or special,' and the 'relation of inseparable co-inherence'.

Category of 'Co-inherence'

As often indicated before, the One true Universal is PratyAag-AtmA; the Many, the manifold Singular, the Multitude of Singulars, is MUla-Prakrti; and the peculiar bond that exists between them is the real primal samavAya-sambandha, literally, the 'firm bond of going into, merging into, pervasion of, each other', 'co-inherence'.

Beside this One Universal l there is, strictly speaking, no other Universal, but only 'generals'. [sattA-sAmAnya, 'Universal Being', para- or antya-sAmAnya, 'final or ultimate universal' or parA-jAti, summum genus.]

So, beside the (apparently, comparatively) final (pseudo-ultimate infinitesimal) singulars of Etat-'This' [antya-visheSha, para-viSbsha, charama visheSha, 'final, or extreme or ultimate particularity'], there is no other real singular, but only species or 'specials' [par-Apara-jAti].

The characteristic of these 'generals' and 'specials' ot 'particulars' is that each one of them is general to lower specials, and at the same time special to a higher general. In other words, while Pratyag-AtmA is the principle of the Universal, and MUla-prakrti the principle of the singular, the jIva-atom is individual or particular, combining and reconciling in itself both universal and singular.



Extremes meet. para-sAmAnya and para-visheSha are identical, as Infinite and Infinitesimal; Brahma and jIva. As said before, a final ultimate parama-anu as para-visSsha is a 'myth', an imaginary concept, a convention, devised for practical convenience.

With reference to samavAya, some observations of Max Muller are worth quoting. They are taken from his Six Systems of Indian Philosophy (collected works). pp.376-7, and 447; that book, so far as I am aware, continues to be the most clear, compact, concise, correct, and comprehensive work, on its subject.

"samavAya or intimate connection is a very useful name for a connection between things which cannot exist, one without the other, such as cause and effect, parts and whole, and the like. It comes very near to a-vinA-bhAva, i.e., the not-without being, and should be carefully distinguished from mere conjunction or succession"...

"(This) category ... is peculiar to Indian philosophy. It is translated inhesion or inseparability ... It is different from mere connection, as between horse and rider. ... There is samavAya between threads and eloth, (the ideas of) father and son, two halves and a whole, cause and effect, substance and qualities, thought and word, the two being inter-dependent and therefore inseparable. Though this relationship is known in non-Indian philosophies, it has not received a name of its own, though such a term might have proved very useful in several controversies";

as those, we may add, of nominalism, realism, conceptualism, etc. A-yuta-siddhi, of Yoga philosophy, seems to be much the same as samavAya or a-vinA-bhAva. Regarding the last, Max Muller's translation would perhaps be more intelligible if read as 'not-being-without', i.e., 'each being not able to exist without the other'.


A One is also Many

Difficulty in the expression of this thought is occasioned by the fact that while the meaning of universal and general and special is comparatively fixed and free from ambiguity, such is not the case with the significations of singular and individual and particular, as the words are currently used.

[An instance of this may be seen in the divers arrangements made of the triplets of the categories of Kant; thus at p. 221 of Schwegler's History of Philosophy, the triplet of 'totality, plurality, and unity' is arranged in an order the reverse of that followed in the original of Kant.]

The underlying philosophical idea of their mutual relation being indeterminate, the expression is naturally doubtful also. And this very haziness of the idea is at the bottom of the long-lasting dispute between the doctrines of nominalism and realism and their various modifications.

As a fact, in the world around us, we actually find neither the true One, nor the true Many or Not-One, by itself. What we do 'find always, instead, is a one which is also a many at the same time.

[The pen with which, the table on which, the house in which, I am writing, each of these is a one; but is also composed of many, very many, parts.]

We distinguish between the two by emphasising within ourselves the jIva-aspect, i.e., the aspect of self-consciousness and Pratyag-AtmA, and, from the standpoint thereof, beholding the Not-Self in juxtaposition to and yet in separation from the Self.

Summum Genus, Minutum Individuum

The facts, so viewed, are clear. One and the many, abstract and concrete, general and special, universal and singular, are just as inseparable as back and front. They are inseparable in fact as well as in thought (which also is a fact, though manufactured in subtler material, as, on the other hand, every 'fact' is a 'thought' of 'consciousness', and existing by and in consciousness).

But the phraseology requires to be settled in accordance with this fact and thought. The settlement may perhaps be made thus: The word 'universal' should be confined to the true One, Pratyag-AtmA, and to the modifications and manifestations of its unity, viz., the laws of the 'pure' reason,

[The sattva-factor of Mahat-Buddhi, the cognitional element or aspect of the Cosmic Mind, Cosmic Intelligence. Cf. Dharma-megha, p.441 supra.]

the abstract laws and principles which underlie the details of the World-Process and are as it were the transformation of the Pratyag-AtmA itself in association with the diversity of MUla-prakrti.

The word 'singular' should similarly be confined to the pseudo-true Many, the pseudo-finally separate. As the universal is the One which includes and supports all, so the singular is the exactly opposite one that would exclude all else [para-vishSha or antya-vishSha];

it indicates the pseudo-ultimate constituents of the many, which may well, for practical convenience, be technically called 'atom' 'anu' or 'param-Anu'.

For that which is between these two ones, a something which is a one and a many at the same time, a whole composed of parts, the word 'particular' seems appropriate. Such a 'particular' would be 'general' (an imitation of the universal) to those it includes and supports and holds together, and 'special' (an imitation of the singular) to that by which it itself is supported along with other co-particulars;

all so-called inanimate substances, all sheaths and bodies of the so-called animate, all objects of cognition or desire or action, all genera and species, types, sub-types and archetypes, would thus be 'particulars'.

The word 'individual' is peculiar; it would be useful if it were confined to the jIva-atom, which combines the true universal and the pseudo-true singular, rather than only generals and specials. It is not Pratyag-AtmA only, nor MUla-prakrti only, but both; and yet, because of the unfixable, in-de-finite, pseudo-infinite nature of the atom, the jIva-atom may be called a particular also.

Whenever and wherever we may take an actual individual jIva-atom, the atom-portion of it, its sheath, will be found to be a 'definite' that merges on both sides into the 'inde-finite'; it is an infinitesimal fraction, on the one hand, of a pseudo-infinite universe, and, on the other, it is a pseudo-infinite multiple of infinitesimal fractions. 'All things, all beings, all thoughts, feels, acts, begin and also end in the in-de-finite; they are de-finite only midway.'

avyaktAdIni bhUtAni, vyaktamadhyAni, bhArata! |
avyaktanidhanAnyeva; tatra kA paridevanA || --Gita 2.28

"Beings are unmanifest in the beginning, manifest in the intermediate stage, O BhArata, and unmanifest in the end. What grief is there in that?"



Tennyson's "Who knows! From the great deep to the great deep he goes," is an expression, in poetical and emotional form, of the same intellectual truth.

All the World-Process, the world-ex-istence, is a becoming; all life is a passing; every river is a flowing; every sensation is a feeling. Splendour is the coming in and at the same time the going out of wealth. Stoppage means sinking into [b]pralaya. Too much care kills its object and prevents it from fulfilling its purpose and achieving its destiny. Beauty, too, is for due use, and use makes more beauty. Existence, manifestation, is in and by action. Every atom, and every psychosis, is a (dual) focussing, a vortex, in a continuum of 'ether', and of 'general sensation' or 'affective tone' or 'volitional tension'.

शेषः सद्-असतोर् मध्ये ’भवति’-अर्थात्मको भवेत् ।

sheShaH sad-asator madhye 'bhavati'-arthAtmako bhavet |

"That which comes between is and is not, existent and non-existent, is what is meant by the word bhavati, becomes; i.e., between Being and nothing is Becoming." --Yoga VAsishtha, 3.14.47

"The Anglican noble, in a well-known passage of Bede, compares the life of man to the flight of a bird which darts quickly through a lighted hall, out of darkness, and into darkness again"; Inge, Christian Mysticism, p. 251. Many other poets and writers of note, of east and west have depicted the thought with various examples.

saidevo
30 July 2008, 09:34 PM
pp.472-478
Between Two Indefinites

If we were defining the main items of the World-Process in terms of the Absolute, the jIva-atom would be called the individualised Absolute, and a world-system a particularised one; the Absolute itself being then comparatively called the universal Absolute.

But in view of the statements made in the preceding paragraph, it would appear to be almost more consistent and systematic to call the jIva-atom a singularised Absolute. Yet, though, in strictness, this would be the better description, still, for all practical purposes of metaphysical research--for the reasons for which the jIva-atom may be regarded as a particular also--it is more useful to employ the expression 'individualised Absolute.

The 'individuality' of the jIva in the jIva-atom is more predominant than the 'singularity' of the atom therein for such purposes. Attention has been drawn before, to the fact that the Instinct behind Language has given to both jIva and atom, the same adjectival name, 'in-divid-ual', 'un-divid-able', 'in-divis-ible', 'a-tom'.

Universal and Individual

On the above view, recognising the nature and the necessity of the connection between the One and the Many, it becomes easy to see what the true mean of reconciliation is between nominalism and realism. Every object, being a jIva-atom, or a conglomerate of jIva-atoms (see pp. 347-352 supra, regarding 'individualities within individualities'), is general and special, abstract and concrete, at one and the same time.

Therefore, when the new-born infant opens its eyes for the first time, it necessarily sees the genus 'woman' as well as the species
'(individual) mother', at one and the same time. As soon as we see any object, we see its generality as well as its speciality. [The fact has an important bearing on methods of education.] Whenever we see a one, we see also at once the possibility, inherent in the one, of a pseudo-infinity of that one, i.e., of such ones. The One is universal; a one reproduces the One; the universality of the true One reappears as the generality and the pseudo-infinity of the illusive one.

Eternal Man and Woman



In this fact is contained the principle of the validity of generalisations, of induction, vyApti, and not in any repetitions of experiments; these only help to eliminate, by means of concomitant variations, i.e., agreements and differences, anvaya, and vyati-reka, the accidental from the essential qualities. This fact, of the instantaneous seeing of the 'general' in the 'special', is named praty-Asatti, in the 'new' NyAya, started by Gangesha (circa 12th century CE).

It should also be noted that the considerations put forward in the text deal with one aspect of the dispute between nominalism and realism. viz., the one asserting that abstract concepts do not exist apart from concrete things, the other that they do.

In another aspect also, about the relation between thought and language, notions and names, the dispute may be reconciled by the same considerations. The two are inseparable, though distinguishable; as, indeed, all the contents of the World-Process are necessarily inseparable from each other, because held together in and by the One Consciousness, though endlessly distinguishable from each other, because held together by that Consciousness as Many MUla-Prakrti. In the course of a beautiful hymn to Purusha and Prakrti, as Eternal Man and Woman, ever inseparate, Bh&gavata, VI.xix.13, says:

गुनाव्याक्तिरियं देवी, व्यंजको गुणभुग्भवान्;
त्वं हि सर्वशरीरी आत्मा, श्रीः शरीरेन्द्रियाश्रयाः;
नामरूपे भगवती, प्रत्ययः त्वं अपाश्रयः ।

06190131 gunAvyAktiriyaM devI, vyaMjako guNabhugbhavAn;
06190132 tvaM hi sarvasharIrI AtmA, shrIH sharIrendriyAshrayAH;
06190133 nAmarUpe bhagavatI, pratyayaH tvaM apAshrayaH |

"She is manifestation; Thou the Final Cause thereof. She is sense and body; Thou the Soul behind. She is name and form; Thou the basic Thought."


This fact is embodied in the grammatical affixes: 'ness', 'ship', 'hood' (in English), and 'tA' or 'tvA' (in Samskrt), expressive of the abstract and of quality, which can be added on to any noun or adjective.

It is significant that abstractness and generality should belong to, and be expressible exclusively in, terms of quality; for quality or guNa corresponds to jnAna, which in turn corresponds specially with Pratyag-AtmA, the one universal and abstract.

Abstraction, praty-AharA, indeed, means 'drawing away from others' and reduction into terms of Pratyag-AtmA, making a one and therefore a pseudo-universal, of that which was mixed up with and part of the many.

So too, the concrete is mostly expressed in terms of motion or karma, which corresponds to kriyA, which corresponds to Not-Self; as witness the fact that so many names or nouns originate in verbs.



On the other hand, it is true that verbs also are formed, later on, from nouns; but fewer, apparently. From cognition, action; from action, cognition; this is Nature's circle.


Finally, the relation of the two is embodied in dravya, substance, noun or name; it combines act and fact, characteristic action and quality, in a 'thing', and corresponds to the hidden Negation-Shakti that manifests its various forms in the declensional changes of termination of the noun (in the older languages; for the separate prepositions of modern languages are artificial separations of these terminational affixes).

Genera and Species

From these observations it should be clear that the universal is One; the singular, Many; and genera-species, pseudo-infinite; and that everywhere and always there is the possibility of distinguishing the abstract from the concrete by the mere addition of 'ness' to the latter; in other words, by concentrating the oneness and universality of the Self upon and into the concrete, and so of discovering an endless series, in an endless gradation, of concepts, ideas, types, archetypes, etc.



As noted before, Vaisheshika calls the highest, or, rather, the one true universal, by the name of universal being, sattAsAmAnya, which, plainly, is the objective name for the Self; and the lowest or true singular or visheSha, it calls anu or atom, which is but another name for Etat-This.


Types and Archetypes

Plato seems to have spoken of only one archetypal world, while the legitimate inferences from the logion require a pseudo-infinity of such, higher and lower, in an endlessly ascending and descending scale. The logion itself, it should be noted, and the laws and principles that proceed from it directly, can scarcely be spoken of as types or archetypes; for types and archetypes are comparatively definite objects, abstract-concrete, (though with the aspect of abstractness or generality and commonness inclining to be predominant), while laws and principles are only relations between objects.

With these remarks we may bring to a close the observations regarding the general features of jIvas and atoms, and conclude this work with a re-statement of the Summation of the World-Process in Consciousness.



More detailed consideration of the three aspects of the JIva's life, viz., cognition, desire, action, will be found in The Science of the Emotions, The Science of Social Organisation, The Science of the Self, and Pranava-vAda or the Science of the Sacred Word.


Direct vs Indirect Knowledge

In the preceding chapter we have seen how the endless and apparently quite disconnected diversity of atom beside atom and atom within atom, plane beside plane and plane within plane, world beside world and world within world, individuality beside individuality and individuality within individuality, collapses together into an ordered juggler's box within box under the touch of the principle of the ever-expanding Individual Consciousness, which, taking its source in the Universal Consciousness of Pratyag-AtmA, is incessantly threading together all the otherwise disconnected beads of Mula-prakrti.

The more the nature of Consciousness is pondered on, the more the nature of the JIva becomes clear.

• As the most significant definition of the atom is that it is a persisting-point, i.e., a line or sphere of objectivity, of unconsciousness, in its triple aspect of cognisability, desirability, and movability, guNa, dravya, and karma,

• so the most significant definition of the JIva is that it is a persisting-point, i.e., a line or sphere of consciousness and subjectivity, in its triple aspect of cogniser, desirer, and actor.

• Combining these two definitions, a JIva-atom might be defined as the individualised Absolute (thus bringing out the true significance of the current saying, that 'Jiva is verily Brahma and naught else');



श्लोकार्धेन प्रवक्ष्यामि यदुक्तं शास्त्रकोटिभिः,
ब्रह्म सत्यं जगन्मिथ्या जीवो ब्रह्मैव नापरः ।

shlokArdhena pravakShyAmi yaduktaM shAstrakoTibhiH,
brahma satyaM jaganmithyA jIvo brahmaiva nAparaH | --Adi Sankara

"I will tell you in a single sentence what has been expounded in ten million books, viz., Brahma is true, the moving world is an illusion, JIva is Brahma and Naught Else".

But more is wanted ; realisation is in the first person, not the third. The third person is outside me what I want is the first person, within me, my-Self.

अस्ति ब्रह्म इति चेद् वेद, परोक्षं ज्ञानम् एव तद्;
अहं ब्रह्म इति चेद् वेद, साक्षात्कारः स उच्यते ।

asti brahma iti ched veda, parokShaM j~jAnam eva tad;
ahaM brahma iti ched veda, sAkShAtkAraH sa uchyate | --Panchadashi

"Brahma is--this is but indirect knowledge; Brahma am, I am Brahma--this is direct realisation."

All philosophies, all religions, mysticisms, gnosticisms, sciences, arts, need to be tested by this supreme experience and reduced into terms of this First-hand Direct Knowledge, 'I-This-Not'.

The work is well worth doing on an extensive scale--the reduction of different philosophers' views into terms of this Logion; (see pp. 199-204, supra). Thus, the Arabian Sufi, Jili, (14th century CE) in his work InsAn-ul-KAmil, 'The Perfect Man', and Hegel, use very similar expressions in developing their ontology.

The former speaks of "The Dhat developing an inward and an outward aspect, amA and ahadiyya, and ahadiyya again developing two aspects, huviyya or thatness and Aniyya or I-ness; and the latter, of 'The self-sundering of the Idea', 'the self-diremption of the Absolute', 'the absolute going out into its opposite, and then returning into itself', 'the unity of consciousness holds within itself in equilibrium the vital antagonism of opposites, thought and thing, mind and matter, spirit and nature, which seems to rend the world asunder'..."; (Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, 81-97).

All this becomes luminous, freed from misty obscurity, only when we translate it into terms of 'I-This-Not'. That philosophers and mystics seem to differ from each other, is only because they use terms of the third person, 'he', 'she', 'it', instead of the first person, 'I', 'we'. When we speak in terms of 'I', we bring things home to ourselves.


• a particular number of them may be said to constitute a particularised Absolute, or a world-system, a cosmos that also appears like the individualised Absolute to be complete in itself;

• and the totality of these individualised and particularised Absolutes, to make up the universal or truly complete Absolute, Brahma;

• all this not interfering, in the slightest degree, with the fact that individual or (strictly speaking) singular, particular, and universal are not three but absolutely identical, literally one and the same.

saidevo
05 August 2008, 11:30 PM
pp.478-483
Universal and Individual, Same

An illustration may perhaps help to make these statements a little clearer. Suppose that life, that the World-Process, consists of ten experiences: that is to say, of five sensations, each dual as pleasurable and painful, so that the two factors of each such pair, when balanced against each other, neutralise each other and leave behind a cipher, as equal credit and debit in a banker's account may do.

One self, going through these experiences in one fixed order of time, space, and motion, would exhaust them all comparatively quickly, and would form one individuality, marked and defined by the ten experiences in that one order, thus making one line of consciousness.

But let us now vary the order of the ten experiences; this mere variation of order, it will be seen, implies a variation in the times, spaces, and movements connected with each item of experience. If we vary the order, then, in all possible ways, but without decreasing the number of the experiences, we have at once orders to the number of 'factorial ten', in algebraical technicality, that is to say 3,628,800.

It is clear at once that each of these millions of orders of the succession of experiences marks out and defines, and therefore amounts to, a distinct and separate individuality; for an individuality can no other wise be described, discriminated and fixed, than by enumerating the experiences of that individuality, by narrating its biography. Yet, while each one of these orders makes a distinct individuality, it is also equally clear, at the same time, that in essence, substance, completeness, all these individualities are verily and truly one; and that whatever difference there is between them is made up of the illusory differences of mere time, space, motion, all three utter emptinesses and nothings, the triple aspect of Negation.

[Thus, a thousand globe-trotters, travelling round the earth, at the same or different times, over different routes, with different accouterments, will yet be able to say, if they meet and compare notes after completing the circumambulation: 'We have all seen the same countries, and passed through the same experiences' (speaking generally).]

Infinite Experiences: All in Each, Each in All

In place of five as the number of sensations, now substitute the number 'pseudo-infinite'; for etats are pseudo-infinite by axiom, and each is pleasurable during the affirmation of it, and painful during the negation.



See NyAya SUtra, III.ii.35.

ज्ञस्य इच्छाद्वेषनिमित्तत्वाद् आरंभनिवृत्त्योः ।
अयं खलु जानीतॆ तावद् ’इदं’ मॆ सुखसाधनं, ’इदं’ मॆ दुःखसाधनं, ...
सुखसाधनावाप्तये समीहाविशेषः आरंभः, जिहासाप्रय्क्त्तस्य दुःखसाधनपरिवर्जनं निवृत्तिः ।

j~jasya ichChAdveShanimittatvAd AraMbhanivRuttyoH |
ayaM khalu jAnItE tAvad 'idaM' mE sukhasAdhanaM, 'idaM' mE duHkhasAdhanaM, ...
sukhasAdhanAvAptaye samIhAvisheShaH AraMbhaH, jihAsApraykttasya duHkhasAdhanaparivarjanaM nivRuttiH |

BhAshya on same; "The knower, i.e. conscious ego, is motived by like and dislike, to advance and retreat, respectively"; "when a person knows that so-and-so will give him pleasure, then he tries to secure it; if he knows that it will cause him pain, he tries to avoid it."


The total number of our experiences then becomes 2 X pseudo-infinite, and the total number of permutations of these experiences is 2 X ∞ (factorial twice pseudo-infinite). This, at first sight, should be the total number of all possible 'lines of consciousness', or 'individualities' or 'JIvas'. But this is so only at first sight, and we have not reached the end of our calculations even now.

For we have up to now been taking the experiences all at a time. But they have to be taken in all possible combinations also, one at a time, two at a time, and three, and four, and so on, to pseudo-infinity. The result is, briefly, a pseudo-infinity of pseudo-infinities as the total number of JIvas in the World-Process; each being a distinct, immortal, ever-spirating, ever-gyrating line of consciousness; yet each being absolutely identical with all others; for the World-Process is made up entirely and exclusively of the one universal Self, passing itself through all possible pseudo-infinite experiences, simultaneously from the standpoint of that universal Self, successively from that of the limited not-selves.



The Secret Doctrine, V.pp.397-398, says: "What difference can it make in the perceptions of an ego, whether he enter Nirvana loaded with the recollections only of his own personal lives tens of thousands according to the modern re-incarnationists or whether, merged entirely in the Parabrahmic state it becomes one with the All, with the absolute knowledge and the absolute feeling of representing collective humanities? Once that an ego lives only ten distinct individual lives, he must necessarily lose his own self, and become mixed upmerged, so to say with these ten selves."

If the reader will shut his eyes and ponder what exactly he feels would be perpetuation of his separate individuality, he will probably understand the problem clearly: 'What exactly is it that I crave to perpetuate, to eternalise, when I desire per-sonal immortality? Any particular experience? The ownership of any particular thing? Any particular shape of face and figure? Any emotional mood? Any intellectual feat? Any physical exploit? Any particular piece of knowledge? Any relationship with any person? Any life of crime? Any ot saintliness? Any agonising experience? Any particular state of delight?

The answer, after due introspection, will always be 'No' (See f.ns. on pp.84, 141,314 supra). For any and every particular experience, possession, face, mood, etc., will pall, will tire, will lose interest, after some time, short or long. When my own body, so very dear to me, becomes so tiresome to me, after sixteen, eighteen, twenty hours of waking and working, that I run away from it into sleep, day after day, night after night, how can I cling to anything else unchangingly throughout sempiternity?

Change is the law and the condition of separate individual existence. Yet it is also a fact that 'I' wants 'immortality'. What is the reconciliation? 'Immortality' means 'the assurance of immortality'; I am the Universal Supreme I, therefore necessarily Immortal. But all personal or individual 'I's' are the universal I; therefore I am all 'I's'. But 'personal I' means a conglomerate of particular experiences; therefore I contain all possible such experiences and conglomerates; and I can revive in memory and vivid imagination, and therefore in reality, any I wish, whenever I please. This potentiality is really all I crave, when I crave personal immortality; and metaphysical jnAna-knowledge assures it to me.


Why Variations of Order

It may be asked: Why this interminable variation of the order of the experiences?

As usual, the answer is contained in the logion. The one Pratyag-AtmA is the ever-present. The many MUla-prakrti is the ever-successive, ever-past, and ever-future. The opposition between the two is utter. Yet also is there inevitable and constant juxtaposition and relation. The one is the universal, sArvika, sAmAnya; the other is the singular, individual, prAtyEkika, vishESha; and between them there exists unbreakable relation of coinherence, samavAya.

The reconciliation of the contradiction is that Pratyag-AtmA becomes as multitudinous as the etats, in order to encompass them all simultaneously in the one vast present of the totality of the World-Process; and again, each single one of this multitude of (Pratyag-AtmA transformed into pseudo-infinite JIvas) also incessantly endeavours to encompass the whole of the many in the total succession of endless time and space and motion, because each JIva must be equal to and cannot be less than the whole of Pratyag-AtmA. Take the totality of the World-Process at any one instant of time, and you find all possible pseudo-infinite experiences present therein, simultaneously, coexistently, side by side, in the pseudo-infinity of space sorrows in one region, equivalent joys in another; gains here, equal losses there; life and growth in one place, a balancing death and decay in another.!



To realise that all these sorrows, joys, gains, life and death, are in the I, are in Me, at once this is MokSha; to realise that they are all in Me, successively (as described in the next sentence of the text) is also moksha of another kind.

mayi sthitamidaM jagat sakalameva, sarvatra vA
sthitato aham, iti bhAvanAdvitayadhAraNAveshataH
jagatritayanAthatA&natichireNa saMprApyate
nRubhistava saparyayA dalitakilvaShopaplave: | --JnAna-garbha


But, again, take any one experience, a single point or moment of consciousness, and follow it out behind and beyond, into the past and the future, along any one of the pseudo-infinite diameters that in their totality make up the solid mass of the sphere, any one of the lines of consciousness of which it is the meeting-point, the point of junction and of crossing, and along that line there will be found all possible experiences in different moments of time, in different successions.



Compare the Samksrta saying:

सुखस्यानंतरं दुःखं, दुःखस्यानंतरं सुखं ।

sukhasyAnaMtaraM duHkhaM, duHkhasyAnaMtaraM sukhaM |

"Pain (follows invariably) after pleasure, and pleasure after pain." BhAgavata, V.xxvi.2, expressly says that "all JIvas must pass through all experiences, turn by turn",

त्रिगुणत्वात कर्त्तुः श्रद्ध्या कर्मगतयः पृथग्विधाः सर्वा एव
सर्वस्य तारतम्येन भवंति ।

triguNatvAt karttuH shraddhyA karmagatayaH pRuthagvidhAH sarvA eva
sarvasya tAratamyena bhavaMti |

BrhadAraNyaka Upanishad has some words which may also be interpreted to the same effect, "all are equal or similar, all are in-finite",

सर्व एव समाः, सर्व एव अनन्ताः ।

sarva eva samAH, sarva eva anantAH |

MahaBharata, Shantiparva, also says that, "The gati, going, path, course, destiny, of no one is greater than that of any one; Veda shows that all
are equal.",

नहि गतिर् अधिकास्ति कस्यचित्,
सकृद् उपदर्शयति इह तुल्यतां ।

nahi gatir adhikAsti kasyachit,
sakRud upadarshayati iha tulyatAM |

For yet other illustrations, see my World War and Its Only Cure--World Order and World Religion, pp.411-413,484.

saidevo
09 August 2008, 10:58 PM
pp.483-488
More Illustrations

Another illustration may be attempted: Take a round ball of iron. Let this ball be composed of a number of round bullets. Let the ball have a revolutional movement of its own as a whole, on a fixed axis, so that the space occupied by it never changes. Let each of the bullets have another motion of its own, perfectly free and ever-changing in direction, but strictly confined within the periphery of the ball, and therefore necessarily so arranged that each bullet moves only by the equal displacement and movement of another.

The ball now combines in itself, always and simultaneously, all the possible movements of all its constituents; and each of these constituents also passes through each one of all these possible movements, but in succession, the motion of each being so counterbalanced by that of another, from moment to moment, that the position of the ball, as a whole, in space, never changes.

Finally, wherever in this illustration we have a definite limit of size or number, substitute unlimitedness. Let the whole ball be boundlessly large. Let each bullet composing it be in turn composed of smaller bullets; these of shot; these again of smaller shot; and so on pseudo-infinitely. Let these bullets and shot be of pseudo-infinite sizes; and let the peripheries of these bullets and shot be purely imaginary, so that each bullet and shot, while one such in itself, is also at the same time part of the volume enclosed by a pseudo-infinite number of peripheries of all possible sizes coexisting with and overlapping each other within the single periphery of the whole.

Rock-like Movelessness, Yet Perpetual Motion Also

The ball now becomes the Absolute. Its transcendent axis, of the pseudo-infinity of the numbers of which the ball is veritably composed, is the logion. Its revolution vanishes into a rock-like fixity of changelessness, 1 because it occupies the whole of space, and in the absence of a remaining and surrounding space, against which it could be seen, no revolution can be. Its universal sphericity is the Pratyag-AtmA. Its concrete and discrete material is Mula-prakrti. Its bullets within bullets, and shot within shot are the pseudo-infinite JIva-atoms which, in their pseudo-infinitesimal sphericity of pointness, are identical with the infinite sphericity of the whole. The imaginary-ness of the periphery of each is the endlessness of the overlapping of individuality-points. The endless movement of each of these points makes a line of consciousness working out in successive time; while the totality of these lines of consciousness is the transcendent completeness of the Absolute.



महाशिलासत्ता mahA-shilA-sattA, 'rock-like-being', frequently described in Yoga VAsishtha.

This illustration is not altogether fanciful. Physical science is establishing more and more clearly every day that it is almost a literal description of what is actually taking place in all solids. And when we remember that metaphysical as well as scientific reasoning favours 'the belief that space is a vacuum filled full with a plenum of subtler and subtler matter; that the heavenly bodies are not moving in empty but in matter-filled space; that vast masses of subtler matter cling to and form shells for what we call these 'solid' globes, and participate in their rotatory and other motions; that the thicker the rotating shell the faster will be its movement at the surface; that the quicker the movement the greater is the resistance and the hardness, i.e., solidity, etc.--if we remember these things we may see that it is possible that the illustration literally describes the actual World-Process, and that we are living and moving freely within masses of matter that present a skin of iron, a 'ring-pass-not', to things outside.

The 'discarded' old doctrines of 'cycle in epicycle, orb in orb', of heavens one above and around another, in which the heavenly bodies are studded, as bosses in shields, etc., thus seem to have a chance of being restored with a much fuller significance. This will be only in keeping with the general law of all the march of the World-Process, viz., that a thing passes into its opposite and then returns again to its original condition on a higher level, endlessly.

Take up a newspaper, and we find illustrations of this in the most widely-separated departments of life thus; (1) Pedlars and hawkers are replaced by great central stores, depots, and fixed shops, and then comes the travelling salesman again; (2) duels, single combats, heroes, are replaced by massed bands, and these are superseded by bush-fighting and sharpshooting; then the massed bands reappear as trench-fighting, and the single combats as the fights of aeroplanes and submarines; (3) Chinese writing is superseded by the alphabet, which again is threatened with displacement by shorthand, and so on.

The illustration of the rock may be interpreted in another way. The sculptor's mind fashions ideally, any number of images, one after another, in one and the same block of marble. All these possible images may be said to be acutually contained in the block all the time. The doctrine of any number of 'theoretical arches' being formed in any given wall, any of which can be made concrete and manifest by breaking an opening in the appropriate place, illustrates the same fact.


Law of Relativity

In these illustrations we see the summation of the World-Process, while also seeing how the utter emptiness which is the utter fullness of the Absolute, its changeless balance of being against nothing, is always being endeavoured to be reproduced in the individualised Absolute, the JIva-atom.

Life is balanced against death; progress against regress; anode against kathode; anabolism against katabolism; pleasure against pain; being against nothing; Spirit against Matter.

Taking the net result of each completed life also, we see the same balancing appear as has found expression, and in one sense, true expression, in words like those of Bhartr-hari, the poet-king and then the ascetic-yogi: 'What real difference is there between the pleasures and the pains of Indra, the high chieftain of the gods, and those of the lowliest animal? The joys of love and of life that the one derives, under the promptings of desire, from his goddess consort and from nectar, the same are derived by the other from his lowly mate and his (to human beings) filthy food. The terrors of death again are as keen to the one as to the other. Respective desire-and-karma makes a difference in their surroundings and appearances. But the net result, and the relativity of subject and object, enjoyer and enjoyed, sufferer and cause of suffering, are the same.'!



इंद्रस्य अशुचिशूकरस्य च सुखे दुःखे च न अस्ति अन्तरं;
स्वेच्छाकल्पनया तयोः खुल सुधा विष्टा च भोज्याशनं;
संभा च अशुचिशूकरी च परप्रेम आस्पदं; मृत्युतः
संत्रासोपि समः स्वकर्मगतिभिश्चान्योन्यभावः समः ।

iMdrasya ashuchishUkarasya cha sukhe duHkhe cha na asti antaraM;
svechChAkalpanayA tayoH khula sudhA viShTA cha bhojyAshanaM;
saMbhA cha ashuchishUkarI cha paraprema AspadaM; mRutyutaH
saMtrAsopi samaH; svakarmagatibhishchAnyonyabhAvaH samaH |


Action and Actionlessness

The equality and sameness of all JIvas, not only in the sense of the sameness of comparative results of long periods, lifetimes, or cycles, but also at each moment of time, in the matter of pleasure and pain, will also appear further, when the nature of those two all-important constituents of the life of the Self is carefully considered; for there is, indeed, a pleasure hiding in every pain, and a pain hiding in every pleasure; when the one is felt by the outer, the opposite is felt by the inner man.1



See. here, the footnotes. on pp.228-231, also.

A very useful way of interpreting the working of the Law of Karma, as psycho-physical cause-effect or action-reaction, is to understand it in terms, not, of the pleasures or pains of the benefited or the victimised, but of the benfactors or victimisers.

A land-hungry or 'glory'-hungry pride-mad 'conqueror', slays some millions of men, of and through his armies; a butcher slaughters myriads of sheep and cattle; a ravenous predacean kills and devours thousands of herbivores. He or it can scarcely be slain millions or myriads or thousands of times in as many births. Even infinitely prolific and all-wise Nature would find it very difficult to keep and square the mathematical accounts correctly; the more so, since, in every new birth, new karma, would be added on to the old!

But the (subjective) pleasure that the killer derived from the massacre, the pleasure of gloating or money-or-land-gain or glory-gain, is easily counterbalanced by a corresponding amount of (subjective) pain, experienced, maybe in even a single body, amidst appropriate (objective) settings. Also the pains of a prolonged malignant disease or of manglings and mutilations in an accident, may be psychically equivalent in the finer and more sensitive organism of a human body to the death-pains of a thousand lower animals.

कर्मण्यकर्म यः पश्येद्, अकर्मणि च कर्म यः
स भुद्धिमान्मनुष्येषु, स युक्तः कृत्स्नकर्मकृत् ।

karmaNyakarma yaH pashyed, akarmaNi cha karma yaH
sa bhuddhimAnmanuShyeShu, sa yuktaH kRutsnakarmakRut | --Gita, 4.18

"He who sees in-action in action and action in in-action, he is truly wise, and he performs all actions (rightly and wisely), without attachment."


None Greater or Lesser

From the standpoint of Brahma, all is the same, all is equal; there is no difference at all, in kind as well as being; for Brahma is indeed the denial of all difference by the Universal Self. Why should there be, how can there be, the reasonless horror and hideousness, the nameless heart-harrowing, of one really and permanently smaller, weaker, poorer, lower, humbler, more pitiable or more contemptible, more trampled upon and tortured, than another, greater, stronger, richer, higher, prouder, more feared or more honoured oppressor, tormenter, and gloater?

Where would be the justification, if there were really such cruel injustice of difference (as the enquirer intensely felt at the beginning of his search), and not a mere appearance and play of sage and saint, sovereign and soldier, slayer and slain, oppressor and victim, servant and slave, high god and lower man and lowlier, worm and plant and mineral!



He who realises this becomes perfectly 'natural' again, as a child; but on the higher level of the 'second' childhood, through a 'second' birth into the Ancient Wisdom,

उत्तमा सहजाऽवस्था; नैगमो जोमुखश्चरेत्;
न मोक्षस्य आकांक्षा येन त्यजसि तं त्यज;

uttamA sahajA&vasthA; naigamo jomukhashcharet;
na mokShasya AkAMkShA yena tyajasi taM tyaja;

the Sufi's tark-i-tark. "The natural state is best"; "the wise man may behave, on occasion, like the very unwise; he no longer desires mokSha, for he has found it; he gives up that which has enabled him to give up, as a thorn is thrown away after having been used to extract a thorn from the foot, he abandons abandoning'. pUrMa-puruSha, Mard-i-tamAm, InsAn-ul-kAmil, 'final, complete, perfect man' are the expressions which describe such a one.

Another aspect of the idea may be put thus: Every atom is a, as well as the, whole universe. Every part is the whole. Every drop of water is the same (in potential contents) as the whole ocean. Every the tiniest image of the sun in every the tiniest globule of water is the whole Sun. Every JIva is the whole Universal Self. The whole universe is one infinite "Fool's Paradise", bhrama; every JIva has its own "fool's paradise", (or rather 'paradis-es)'; and the individual "fool's paradise", drama, is as real or as mythical as the Universal Fool's Paradise, and is part of, or copy of. and contained in, the latter; for all is and are the Play of the Supreme Self's san-kalpa, Will-Ideation.

For the thought of the spiritual equality, indeed same-ness, of all Jiva-souls, see pp.329-330 supra.

The following passage from Bible, Ecclestates, 9-2, seems to be a very near equivalent of the verse quoted and translated on p.330 supra: " All things come alike to all. There is one (i.e., the same) event to the righteous and to the wicked: to the good and clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner." Yet always the warning holds that "all things" includes consequences also, of good as well as evil actions.

The great Law of Analogy may be again pondered by the reader in this reference. It establishes the similarity, equality, sameness, oneness, of all.

"Very subtle, atom-like, is this Ancient Path ... See, by the mind, that there is no many (no separates). He goes from death to death who (and while he) sees (and clings to separatist) many (-ness). AtmA, Self, is Not-This, Not-This. He who knows that Self, sees all in It, and It in all, and all as Self, sin touches him not, he crosses beyond all sins. He is undecaying, undying, unfearing. Brahma is Fear-less, Brahma is Fearless, Brahma is Fearless." --Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.8-25

saidevo
22 August 2008, 02:34 AM
pp.489-497
Endless Spirals within Absolute

It has been said that the words of Bhartr-hari are true in a sense. They are true in the deepest metaphysical sense, which takes account of the whole of space, time, and motion, in their totality.

But the current view of the fact of endless evolution and progress and difference is also true, in the practical sense that deals with only a part of space, time, and motion, instead of with the whole of them. While one JIva cannot, in the net result of all experiences, be really different from another JIva, for both are equally Pratyag-AtmA, yet each atom is equally necessarily different from every other atom. Hence what we have is a constant sameness underlying endless differences.



In this fact we find the reason why, though the chief of the gods and the beast, Indra and swine, are both similar or even the same or equal in respect, of nett pleasure and pain, yet, in the infinite complexities of evolution and dissolution, in respect of details, there is very much more 'long-circuiting' and 'refinement' between the desires and the satisfactions of the one than of the other. Hence the thought and the corresponding language of 'higher and lower' is thoroughly justified, for practical purposes.


No Beginning and No Ending

If there were actual limits to time, space, motion; if the World-Process did not stretch backwards and forwards pseudo-infinitely; if cycles and systems were complete in themselves instead of being parts of interminable chains in time, space, motion; if the 'all' of experiences could really be fixed in and at any point of time, space, and motion; then only, by striking the balance of each and every life, we should literally find a cipher as the result in each case.

But there are no such actual and absolute limits. Each life-thread stretches endlessly through endless cycles and world-systems. Hence there is no real beginning and no real end to any life, but only endless apparent beginnings and apparent ends, and no final and complete balancing of any, in terms of the limited and concrete, is possible.

Also, as each life, taken individually, is necessarily and actually at a different point of time, space, and motion from every other, therefore no simultaneous balancing of all is possible.

Complete balancing and casting up of accounts is possible only from the standpoint of the true infinite and eternal, Pratyag-AtmA, wherein the whole of time, space, and motion, and therefore the whole possible life of each and every JIva, is summed up at once, now, here, al-ways.

From the standpoint of the limited, the pseudo-infinite, on the contrary, there is an endless alternation of progress and regress, evolution and involution on an ever-differing level, which is ever making a difference of goal even in endless repetition, and thus immortally keeping, before every JIva-atom, an ever higher and higher 'ascent' after an ever deeper and deeper 'descent' into ever grosser and grosser planes of matter; a thought that, despite the promise of ever-higher goals, would prove most desolately wearisome, nay, most agonisingly horrible, because of the corresponding ever deeper 'descents'; were it not that the constant summation of the whole of the pseudo-infinitely complex World-Process in the utter simplicity of the Absolute, makes the endless succession of that World-Process the LIlA, the Voluntary Play, that it really is, of Self; and in which Play, Tragedy and Comedy balance and cancel each other completely.

Pseudo-Infinite Repetition: The Wonder of it All!

Only Self, None Else, compels to anything or any mood or state or circumstance. There is None Else to so compel.

Therefore is the Process of the World a process of pseudo-infinite repetition in pseudo-infinite change, always curling back upon itself endlessly in pseudo-infinite spirals. The JIva that, having reached the end of the pravrtti arc of its particular cycle, thus realises the utter equality, the utter sameness and identity, of all JIvas in the Supreme Self, amidst the utter diversity of Not-Self, cries out at the overpowering wonder of it: "The beholder seeth it as a marvel; the narrator speaketh it as a marvel; the listener heareth it as a marvel; and yet after the seeing, speaking, and hearing of it, none knoweth the complete detail of it!"



आश्चर्यवत्पश्यति कश्चिदेनम्, आश्चर्यवद्वदति तथैव चान्यः,
आश्चर्यवच्चैनमन्यः शृणोति, श्रुत्वाप्येनं वेद न चैव कश्चित् ।

Ashcharyavatpashyati kashchidenam, Ashcharyavadvadati tathaiva chaanyaH,
AshcharyavachchainamanyaH shRuNoti, shrutvApyenaM veda na chaiva kashchit |
--Bhagavad Gita, 2.28


And he also cries out at the same time: "Where is there despondency, where sorrow, unto him who seeth the Oneness!"



तत्र को मोहः कः शोक एकत्वमनुपश्यतः ।

tatra ko mohaH kaH shoka ekatvamanupashyataH |
--Isha Upanishat, 7.


He sees that all jIvas rise and fall, lower and higher, endlessly, in pseudo-infinite time, space, and motion. He sees that the jIva that is a crawling worm to-day will be the Ishvara of a great system to-morrow; and that the jIva that is the Ishvara of a system to-day will descend into deeper densities of matter in a greater system to-morrow, to rise to the still larger Ishvara-ship of a vaster system in still another kalpa.



अहं मनुरभवं सूर्यश्च ।

ahaM manurabhavaM sUryashcha |
--Brhad-AraNyaka Upanishat, 1.4.10


Nay, not only will be, in the one sense, but also is in another sense. The single human being that is so weak and helpless, even as a worm, in the solar system of the Ishvara to whom he owes allegiance, is, at the same time, in turn, veritable Ishvara to the tissue-cells, leucocytes, and animalcules, that compose his organism; and the currents of his large life, unconsciously or consciously to himself, govern those of the minute ones.

The ruler of a solar system, again, would at the same time, in turn, be an infinitesimal cell in the unimaginably vast frame of a VirAt-PuruSha, whose individuality includes countless billions of such systems.

'Whatever Ye Wish, Is Yours'

And, throughout all this wonder, the knower of Brahma also knows that there is no ruthless cruelty, no nightmare agony of helplessness in it, for, at every moment, each condition is essentially voluntary, the product of that utterly Free Will of Self (and therefore of all selves), which there is none else to bend and curb in any way, the Will that is truly liberated from all bondage.

He knows that because all things, all jIvas and all Ishvaras, belong to, nay, are in and are Self already, therefore whatsoever a self wishes, that, with all its consequences, will surely belong to it, if it only earnestly wishes; this earnest wish itself being the essence of yoga, with its three coequal factors of bhakti, jnAna, and karma, correponding to ichChA, jnAna, and kriyA respectively.

Knowing all this, he knows, he cognises Brahma; and loving all selves as himself, desiring their welfare as his own, and acting for their happiness as he labours for his own, he realises and is Brahma.



In the words of BhAgavata, the cognition of the identity of one-self with all selves and All-Self is shuddh-Advaita; the feeling of that unity is bhAv-Advaita; the working for it is kriy-Advaita.


Such an one is truly mukta, free, delivered from all bonds; he knows and is the Ab-sol-ute, Self ab-solved from all the limitations of Not-Self, the Self wherein is ab-solu-tion from all doubt and error, all wants and pains, all fevered restlessness and anxious seeking. To him belongs the Everlasting Peace!

The Great Questioning Answered and Immortal Peace Achieved

The book opens with Nachiketa's cry for the Knowledge which would give him Peace through Freedom from Doubt and Fear. It ends with ancient verses which sum up that Knowledge and bring the Peace. Nachiketa refused steadfastly all the other finite and ephemeral things which were offered to him to allure him away from the Infinite and Eternal. Therefore he obtained, therefore he became the Immortal, Infinite Eternal, and in It, he found all finite things also. May all sincere seekers do likewise.

"AUM! Such is the imperishable Brahma, such is the unwaning Supreme. Knowing It, whatsoever one desireth, that is his! The One Ruler that abideth within all beings as their Inner self, That maketh the one seed manifold! the wise who realise That One within themselves unto them belongeth the Eternal Joy, unto None-Else, unto None-Else! The Eternal One amidst the everlasting Many, That maketh and fulfilleth all the countless desires of the Many--they who behold That One in their Self, unto them, and unto None-Else, belongeth the Eternal Peace." (Katha Upanishat)

"This is the sole sense of the Veda, such is the whole essence of all Experience--that all language declareth only Me and describeth Naught-Else; it imagineth the I in all kinds of forms and rejecteth them all; in the realising that all-Else-than-I is but My Illusion, and in the Negation and abolition thereof, is found the Final Peace". (BhAgavata, 11.21.43)

"Thus did Nachiketa, having obtained from the Lord of Death the Secret of Death, this Supreme Knowledge, and also the whole method of Yoga-practice, become identified with Brahma, and free from all fear and doubt and death. So too may every other earnest seeker become free who acquires the Supreme Knowledge, adhyAtma, only". (Katha Upanishat)

(For the long Sanskrit verse that follows, check p.495 of the book.--sd)

AUM, Peace to All Beings

The Guardians of Our Race
DEDICATION

A SOUL all broken with its petty pains!--
The boundless glories of the Infinite!--
How may the one, unfit, feeble, slow-moving,
Harrassed with all the burdens of its sins,
Tell rightly of the Other's Perfectness!
Yet, for the love of self that drave it forth,
A-searching on that ancient path of thought,
They tell is sharper than the sword-blade's edge,
In hope to find that which would bring some touch
Of solace to it in its weariness--
Because that love of self hath gained its goal,
And uttermost self-seeking found the Self,
And so grown love of Self and of all selves,
It drave that soul--unworthy, full of sin,
But full of love, yea, full of agony
Amidst its new-found peace, that any self,
Thinking itself as less than the Great Self,
Should suffer pang of helpless littleness--
To cry abroad and set down what it found
In words, too poor, too weak, and too confused,
That yet, eked out by the strong earnestness
Of other searching souls, may, with the blessing
Of the compassioning Guardians of our race,
Bring to these seeking souls some little peace!

Ye that have suffered, and have passed beyond
Our human sorrowing, and yet not passed,
For Ye are suffering it of your own will,
So long as any suffer helplessly!

Mother-Hearted Hieararchs

Ye Blessed Race of Manus, Rshis, Buddhas,
Gods, Angels, mother-hearted Hierarchs!
Christs, Prophets, Saints! Ye Helpers of our race
Ye Holy Ones that suffer for our sake!
I lay this ill-strung wreath of bloomless words,
But with the hands of reverence, at your feet,
That, filled with freshness by their streaming life,
And consecrated by their holiness,
And cleansed of all the soiling of my sins,
They may bespread their fragrance o'er the world,
And bring Self-knowledge and Self-certainness,
And quenchless joy of all-embracing Self,
To all that suffer voiceless misery.

Peace unto all, sweetness, serenity,
The peace that from this doubtless knowledge flows
That there is naught beyond our very Self,
The Comman Self of old and young and babe--
No Death, nor other Power out of Me,
To hurt or hinder, hearten us or help--
Knowledge that all this Process of the World,
Its laugh and smile, its groan and bitter tears,
Are all the Self's, My own, Pastime and Play
Knowledge that all is Self, and for the Self,
And by the Self, whence is Unshaken Peace!

सर्वः शुभमप्नोतु
सर्वः शान्तिं नियच्छतु
लोकाः समस्तः सुखिनो भवन्तु

sarvaH shubhamapnotu
sarvaH shAntiM niyachChatu
lokAH samastaH sukhino bhavantu

(The posting of the Book The Science of Peace by Bhagavan Das is complete with this post, leaving out the Indices.--sd)