Sri Aurobindo Or The Yogi Of The Life Divine- 4th part: Sanatan Dharma To Life Divine

Aju Mukhopadhyay

17 June 2008, 10:18

Continued from Part Three

Hinduism and Indian Spiritualism

By the word Hindu the Persians in ancient age meant the inhabitants on the other shore of the great river Sindhu. There was no religion as such. There is no one book like Bible, Koran or Guru Granth Sahib which defines Hinduism. It was the religion or spiritual practices of the Aryan people but it contained large numbers of sects with different faiths, both theistic and non-theistic. What has at later times been termed as Hinduism is an amalgam of many religious rites and faiths. Hindu religion in not one but many as the Hindu Gods are not one but many. Many but behind the many there is one immanent divine being. Behind all the religions of the world there is one original eternal religion directly received from the divine. It is the Sanatan Dharma. Originating in the Vedas, Rig Veda in particular, its spiritual aim is the attainment of divine life on earth. Beyond all materialism and illusionism the flow of spiritualism has been constant; it is the perennial source of Indian life.

Large numbers of scriptures of Hindu religion have been accumulated representing various faiths as practiced by large numbers of people from time immemorial. In such a society and religion it is quite natural to have varieties of sects and practitioners, sometimes opposed to each other but there never were any bloody fights for religion among the Hindus unlike some other religions. Swami Vivekananda wondered why there were not thousands more of such sects, during his lecture at Jaffna, Sri Lanka, on 23 January 1997. To him it would be natural.

As in any society, in India too there were the rabbles who opposed the higher religionists and spiritualists; ridiculed and guffawed at them. They anchored more on matter, more on body than on spirit. They could not hear the ethereal sound, they had no subtle vision, but as human beings they too had their beliefs, feelings and practices. They were materialists but not refined beings. As the common folks were not learned enough to create, nor initiated into the greatness of life’s ideals, they did not leave any great scriptures behind them. Such materialists of ancient India are called Lokayatikas. Modern materialists and communists made volumes of research works to trace their foot steps. Many learned foreign scholars, instinctively opposed to the greatness of ancient Indian religion and spiritualism, tried to prove the triviality of it.

Debi Prasad Chattopadhyay wrote a great treatise on ancient materialists, titled Lokayata. From the introduction of the book we get, ‘While at least the major texts of the other schools are preserved for us, all the original works of the Lokayatikas are lost beyond the prospect of any possible recovery. What we are actually left with are merely a few fragmentary survivals of the Lokayata but all these are preserved in the writings of its opponents, i.e., of those who wanted only to refute and ridicule it.’ 1

We do not know if they wrote anything at all. Such people who opposed Veda and Vedic culture were named asuras, as the interpreters understood. Professor S. N. Dasgupta wrote in his A History of Indian Philosophy, ‘Lokayata (lit., that which is found among people) seems to have been the name by which all Carvaka doctrines were generally known.’ 2

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan too did not pay much value to them. Chattopadhyay said that Buddhist and Jain texts never mentioned themselves as followers of Lokayatikas. Though he preferred to say that Sankhya philosophy and Tantrism were developed from the proto-materialism of Lokayatikas, it can not be held as such. Both the above philosophies, like Buddhism and Jainism, have been held as part of the Pan-Hinduism. Lokayata views were deha-vada, concerned about the body and its immediate surroundings, as epitomized in Charvak- ‘While life remains, let a man live happily; let him feed on ghee even though he runs in debt.’

It is curious to note that most of the modern materialist intellectuals look to the Western scholars for enlightenment who might have been great rational and intellectual beings but had a bias against attributing any greatness to India. They lacked the intuitive nisus and inherent knowledge, a boon of the Indian soil to its children, to really know India. Pratap Chandra, who got a kind of pleasure in finding Indian philosophy, teleology and spiritualism lacking in essential worth, has quoted Arnold Toynbee, ‘The Syriac civilization arrived at a particular conception of God which is common to Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam but alien alike from the Egyptian, Sumeric, Indic and Hellenic veins of religious thought.’ 3

The author has rightly found out that Indian religions are not based on monistic approach to man unlike the Semetic and other religions. He has quoted A. A. MacDonnell on the subject who, in his opinion, is an authority on the Vedas. He has, like many other scholars, taken it for granted that the Aryans came from outside and conquered India. He is surprised that the Vedas ignored the universally felt need to invent a creator. ‘The soul is constantly regarded as uncreated, eternal and undying with this difference that while the Upanishads state this in so many words, the Vedas seem to take it for granted. . . . There is nothing to live by or live for. One can go on performing his pre-ordained duties, strive for the insight . . . and wait for the final day. . . . A society which downgrades time in favor of space- both Indian and Hellenic societies are supposed to have done this- cannot be one which attaches great importance to the phenomenal world and sees value in it.’ 4.

It is strange that being an Indian he failed to see that the basis of such thoughts were in profound vision and faith and not mental projection for play.

D. P. Chattopadhyay, in the last chapter of his introduction to the book already cited, said that private property and state machinery are not eternal adjuncts to human society. He quoted Engels in his support, ‘They will fall as inevitably as they arose at an earlier stage.’ He felt that primitive proto-materialism also would not return but he wrote the book on it to show that ‘The spiritualistic outlook is not innate in man. It too will be finally washed away as inevitably as it arose at an earlier stage: if the spiritualistic outlook came into being, it will also, along with social separation between manual and mental labor, pass away.’

We know that communism, born a couple of centuries ago, has almost passed away but spiritualism, particularly Indian spiritualism, perhaps as old as civilized society, born at least some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, has been moving with verve through the avenues hewn by our forefathers. Speaking about the spiritual civilization on 16 December 1911 Rabindranath Tagore said, ‘I do not feel that India has lost her spiritual heritage, for it is clear to me that her highest thought and activity is still spiritual.’ 5.

Vedic Culture and Sanatan Dharma

Sri Aurobindo believes that it will conquer and help in the establishment of a gnostic society to lay the foundation of the divine life on earth. There exist the ritualistic and linguistic explanations of the Veda by Sayana and Yaska. Based on them, Wesern scholarship began interpreting the oldest scripture in harmony with the then scientific theories. They were bold and speculative, ingenious and conscientious, but ill-fitted to understand the method of the old mystic poets, Sri Aurobindo opined. They found it half-superstitious, half- poetic allegory of Nature with an important astronomical element in it. They found it barbaric. The proud conqueror of the physical world, the then European scholars, thought that they belonged to the Aryan race which was at the same level of the Greeks, Celts and Germans. They perceived that the Aryan race were northern barbarians who broke in from colder climes to old and rich Mediterranean Europe and Dravidian India. Their explanation of Vedic culture and creation was mainly based on that, Sri Aurobindo wrote.

Some indigenous Vedic study was made by B. G. Tilak, T. Paramasiva Aiyar and Swami Dayananda Saraswati. The latter brought out the truth that Vedic religious teaching is monotheistic, gods are different names and powers of the same One divine entity. Sri Aurobindo congratulated him for discovering the keys of the Vedic door that time had closed. Swami Vivekananda confirmed the monotheistic approach of the Vedas in his lectures throughout the world.

Sri Aurobindo, a linguist, well versed in half a dozen of Indian and as many European languages, a scholar, poet and yogi, with knowledge of Sanskrit and Vedic languages, began studying Veda, Rig Veda in particular, during his mature years in Pondicherry. He observed, ‘It certainly seems to me that the original connection between the Dravidian and Aryan tongues was far closer and more extensive than is usually supposed and the possibility suggests itself that they may even have been two divergent families derived from one lost primitive tongue.’ 6

He said that there is no definite clue to suggest that Aryans invaded India. They lived here and may be in nearby countries. The whole of India was composed of almost the same people though some foreign admixture was there. He found that every element of the Vedic text was bound up together and any incoherent handling of them would shatter the whole fabric of their sense and thought. He had the vision of Vedic words, their meaning and their projections in the future. He considered it as the prehistoric wisdom of the great Indian seers.

‘Thus there emerged in my mind, revealing itself as it were out of the ancient verses, a Veda which was throughout the scripture of a great and antique religion already equipped with a profound psychological discipline. . . . not a medley of heterogeneous and barbarous elements, but one complete and self-conscious in its purpose, veiled indeed by the cover. . . of another and material sense but never losing sight even for a single moment of its high spiritual aim and tendency.’ 7

‘It will be found in sober truth, the Vedanta, Tantra, the philosophical schools and great Indian religions do go back in their source to Vedic origin.’ 8 He wrote.

Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and Swami Dayananda thought that the earliest source of Indian religion was the Rig Veda. Some of the modern scholars have been working in accord with Sri Aurobindo’s ideas in an endeavour to prove the truth of ancient Indian race, religion, culture and civilization.

‘All the Smritis, the Puranas, the Darshanas, the Dharmashastras, the writings of Shaktas, Shaivas, Vaishnavas, Sauras, as well as the whole of Buddhism and its scriptures are merely so many explanations, comments and interpretations from different sides, of various aspects of the one and only Truth. This truth is the sole foundation on which all religions can rest as on a sure and impregnable rock. . . . Therefore is the religion of the Aryans, called the Sanatan Dharma, the Law Sempiternal.’ 9

Veda is called Sruti. The Rishis who composed them were only witnesses to such Truth coming down to them. ‘Therefore the Vedas are justly called the Sruti or revelation.’ He confirmed in the same vein in the same paragraph as above.

After his acquittal from Alipur jail, Sri Aurobindo, with deep and vast spiritual experience started the English weekly review, Karmayogin in 1909. At the beginning, in his article, The Ideal of Karmayogin, he mentioned the eternal religion as ‘The religion which embraces science and faith, Theism, Christianity, Mahomedanism and Buddhism and yet is none of these, is that to which the world-spirit moves.’ 10

He said that it is the wider Hinduism which has many scriptures of its own but it does not reject the Bible or the Koran. It is not based on outward systems and rituals. It is the spiritual framework of the future social revolution. It’s most authoritative scripture is in the heart of man. But it is to be lived, to be applied in our national life. That is what he meant by Karmayoga.

Earlier, during his speech at Uttarpara on 30 May 1909, fairly known as Uttarpara Speech, he spoke mainly about his epoch making spiritual experiences in Alipur Jail. There he mentioned that the message his compatriot and revolutionary Bepin Chandra Pal had received in Buxar jail from the God was repeated to him and he received more. The God said, ‘It is this religion that I am raising up before the world, it is this that I have perfected and developed through the Rishis, saints and Avatars, and now it is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am raising up this nation to send forth my word. This is the Sanatan Dharma. . . I have given you proofs within and without you, physical and subjective, which have satisfied you. . . . When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is Sanatan Dharma that shall rise. . . . This is the one religion that can triumph over materialism by including and anticipating the discoveries of science and the speculations of philosophy.’ 11

Swami Vivekananda during his lecture at Jaffna, as mentioned earlier, said that the meaning of Vid is to know. It is the root of Veda which means divine knowledge which is eternal and infinite. The meaning of Rishi is one who has the vision of the mantra, the idea and words of God which already exists. The Rishis visioned them. They carried the spiritual message as seen and realized. But they did not create Veda, the oldest scripture of the world so far discovered which carry the eternal message of the God, as it already existed. In his Vedic Religious Ideal he said that the mantra or revealed words which created a wave in the thought world of ancient India and which shall be the focal point in the world of religion in future is: Ekam sadviprah bahudha Vadanti, the truth is one, the wise called them variously. Vivekananda said that he belonged to Sanatan Dharma.

In the chapter titled Religion and Spirituality, in his voluminous The Foundation of Indian Culture, Sri Aurobindo presented and discussed the aspects of Indian religion and spirituality, their respective areas and perspectives.

Indian civilization and culture are based on the foundation of spiritualism. At the beginning man required the scaffolding of dogma, worship, image, sign, form and symbol in order to build the pure temple of the spirit, Sri Aurobindo wrote. The first stages belong to religion. Spiritualism is the freedom from outward forms and rituals. Those who achieve spiritual consciousness realize the truth. In their ascent they leave the paraphernalia of religion behind. About Hinduism Sri Aurobindo wrote, ‘It gives itself no name, because it set itself no sectarian limits, it claimed no universal adhesion . . . it was less a creed or cult than a continuously enlarging tradition of the Godward endeavour of the human spirit.’ 12

A seeking for beyond, a curiosity to know more than what we find in our vicinity is the innate urge in human beings. It is more so with Indian mind. About the history of Indian religion Sri Aurobindo wrote, ‘It is sheer falsehood or a willful misunderstanding to say that it has lived always in the externals only of rite and creed and shibboleth. On the contrary, the main metaphysical truths of Indian religious philosophy in their broad idea- aspects or in an intensely poetic or dynamic representation have been stamped on the general mind of the people . . . .

‘The one Godhead is worshipped as the All, for all in the universe is he or made out of his being or his nature. But Indian religion is not therefore pantheism; for beyond this universality it recognizes the supracosmic Eternal. Indian polytheism is not the popular polytheism of ancient Europe; for here the worshipper of many gods still knows that all his divinities are forms, names, personalities and powers of the One; his gods proceed from the one Purusha, his goddesses are energies of the one divine Force . . . .

‘Observing the one Truth from all its many sides, it shut out none. It gave itself no specific name and bound itself by no limiting distinction . . . .

‘First comes the idea of the One Existence of the Veda to whom sages give different names, the One without a second of the Upanishad who is all that is, and beyond all that is, the Permanent of the Buddhists, the Absolute of the Illusionists, the supreme God or Purusha of the Theists who holds in his power the Soul and Nature- in a word the Eternal, the Infinite . . . .

‘Follow this great spiritual aim by one of the thousand paths recognized in India or even any new path which branches off from them and you are at the core of the religion. For its second basic idea is the manifold way of man’s approach to the Eternal and Infinite. The Infinite is full of many infinities and each of these infinities is itself the very Eternal.’ 13

Towards A Divine Life

Evolution is a very relevant point in Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy. The scientific theory of physical evolution has been conceived as an evolution of consciousness by Sri Aurobindo. According to him, when matter and spirit will be realized as one and the same thing by the emerging consciousness, the prospect of divine life on earth will arise.

There is an urge in the inconscient, an inherent necessity of its emerging forms with a developing consciousness which is actually the secret will of a conscious being involved in the inconscient matter. Ananda or delight is the hidden source of that emergent being, the conscious force. The emergence of life out of matter and mind in life are truths evident in stones and trees, animals and men successively. Better organised forms are more capable to house complex and higher consciousness in it. In its upward evolution the evolved consciousness as in man, Sri Aurobindo perceived, sometimes consciously helps Nature in creating more varieties of life forms as we find in plants and animals, in producing hybrid, genetically modified vegetables and crops, in mass production through tissue culture, in cloning animals and genetically modifying life forms. The latest trend, tendency toward biological productivity in humans is undergoing some changes, though it is still faint and uncertain. In man the psychic being is evolving, developing in every successive birth to bring out the man from out of ignorance to light. Not only physical evolution, the emergence of spirit which is already involved in matter in its upward march, is also a part of the process. Sri Aurobindo hinted some such things in his The Life Divine.

‘The spiritual aspiration is innate in man; for he is unlike the animal, aware of imperfection and limitation and feels that there is something to be attained beyond what he now is: this urge towards self exceeding is not likely ever to die out totally in the race.’ Sri Aurobindo argued. 14

Even maintaining his human mental status man will step towards the spiritual and supramental status, he wrote. But man is a transitional being. Mind must give way to supermind and superman will take the lead of the creation. If there is a being that is becoming, a Reality of existence that is unrolling itself in Time, we have to become what that being, that reality secretly is and so to become is our life’s significance. The evolutionary nisus is pushing us toward a larger vital and mental being housed in a higher consciousness. Any coercion of man by the state, working of a ruthless state machinery or substitution of individual ego by a communal ego will not serve the purpose. A perfected community can exist when the individuals comprising it are perfect. It is only by living within, growing within that we can find our true being. From there we can create the divine or spiritual life, mind and body and that will create the true environment of a divine living. And this is the task which the nature has set before us, Sri Aurobindo wrote in all his arguments.

He paid the highest value to individual growth. But he observed that mankind was undergoing an evolutionary crisis. The human situation has become more complex, sometimes explosive. ‘Man has created a system of civilization which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilize and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites.’ 15

The result has been the resurgence of a primitive barbarian in a civilized form. Misuse of science and technology has brought us to the door of a possible annihilation. Even if that may somehow be avoided, a stable and comfortable mechanized social life without ideal outlook may set back the needed evolutionary urge in mankind. This relapse into the old backwardness with evolutionary urge for progress at the same time has been the prevailing conditions upon earth. Poet Rabindranath Tagore, in the evening of his life in 1941, in his lecture titled The Crisis in Civilization, said, ‘I had at one time believed that the springs of civilization would issue out of the heart of Europe. But today when I am about to quit the world that faith has gone bankrupt altogether.

‘As I look around I see the crumbling ruins of a proud civilization strewn like a vast heap of futility. And yet I shall not commit the grievous sin of losing faith in Man. I would rather look forward to the opening of a new chapter in his history. . . . Perhaps that dawn will come from this horizon, from the East where the sun rises. A day will come when unvanquished Man will retrace his path of conquest, despite all barriers, to win back his lost human heritage.’ 16

But individual progress and its living in secluded spiritual atmosphere will not help the society in any big way. An entirely new consciousness in many individuals transforming their whole being, transforming their mental, vital, physical selves can give birth to a new worthwhile collective existence. For this Sri Aurobindo depends on nature and higher powers of the spirit to bring this change. If nature takes the decision, if the power of the spirit descending from above is sufficiently strong, the difficulty would be overcome. The right move toward a higher life will be made by the individuals and their groups.

Sri Aurobindo began Book One, Chapter Four of the Life Divine with his own translation from the Taittiriya Upanishad:
‘If one knows Him as Brahman the Non-Being, he becomes merely the non-existent. If one knows that Brahman Is, then is he known as the real in existence.’

Attaining to the cosmic consciousness the mind knows the truth; that the unity and multiplicity, silence and activity, being and becoming are the same. It is the obverse and reverse side of the same truth. Living an earthly life one can live in the divine but not exactly the same earthly life as we know. Spirit reveals itself through the matter. Matter reveals itself as the figure and body of spirit. ‘Thus was it possible for the Buddha to attain the state of Nirvana and yet act puissantly in the world, impersonal in his inner consciousness, in his actions the most powerful personality that we know of as having lived and produced results upon earth.’ -Sri Aurobindo observed. 17

‘In the light of this conception we can perceive the possibility of a divine life for man in the world which will at once justify Science by a living sense and intelligible aim for the cosmic and terrestrial evolution and realize by the transfiguration of the human soul into the divine, the great ideal dream of all high religions.’ 18

It is for the taste of ignorance that the soul descended into the ignorance and assumed the disguise of matter for the adventure of creation, to meet the hazardous surprises of the mind and life, for the conquest of the new and the unknown. All these would cease with the cessation of the ignorance. In its new consciousness man will taste the birth of divinity in him. War, antagonism, political strife, conflict, oppression, dishonesty, turpitude, violence, barbarism and all sorts of muddle of ordinary life will have no place in life governed by the Gnostic consciousness.

‘A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be chracterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine . . .’ Sri Aurobindo wrote. 19

As it surpasses the human mental level it may be described as a spiritual life, a supramental supermanhood. But it must not be confused with the supermanhood of the Nietzschean type, he cautioned. For ‘It might be at its worst the reign of the “blonde beast” or the dark beast or of any and every beast, a return to barbaric strength and ruthlessness and force: but this would be no evolution, it would be a reversion to an old strenuous barbarism.’ 20

In such a life art and craft will be the expression of beauty, of delight of existence, not for amusement, excitement and pleasure. Life and body would no longer be tyrannous masters demanding nine tenths of existence for their satisfaction. They too will express the power of the spirit. Life will never be tedious or monotonous, for ‘The delight of the spirit is ever new, the forms of beauty it takes innumerable, its godhead ever young and the taste of delight, rasa, of the Infinite, eternal and inexhaustible. The Gnostic manifestation of life would be more full and fruitful and interest more vivid than the creative interest of the Ignorance; it would be a greater and happier constant miracle.’ 21

We know that mankind is still going through the crisis of civilization. We do not know how long it will continue for the time is eternal. We know that man is a transitional being, as Sri Aurobindo said, and he is aspiring to reach the higher level. We strongly believe that the Life Divine on earth as per the yogi’s vision will be established but we do not know the time. The spiritual view of the Veda merging with the eternal religion of the mankind or the Sanatan Dharma, has to fulfill itself in Divine Life. The seed of Divine Life was contained in the Sanatan Dharma. Sri Aurobindo saw it in the Vedic scheme of fulfillment of the human birth.

References:
1 D. P. Chattopadhyay. Lokayata. New Delhi; People’s Publishing House. 1978. Introduction.
2 ibid. p.3. As quoted in it.
3 Pratap Chandra. The Hindu Mind. Simla; I. I. A. S. 1977. p. 59. As quoted in it from A Study of History; O U P, London:1962. p.92
4 ibid. pp.63-65
5 The English Wrtings of Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi; Sahitya Akademi. V-3. p.343
6 Sri Aurobindo. The Secrets of the Veda. Pondicherry; S.A.B.C.L.. V-10. p.36
7 ibid. p.44
8 ibid. p.6
9 id. The Upanishad. Pondicherry; S.A.B.C.L. V-12. p.447
10 id. Karmayogin. Pondicherry; S.A.B.C.L. V-2. p.19
11 ibid. pp.8-9
12 id. The Foundation of Indian Culture. Pondicherry; S.A.B.C.L. V-14. p.122
13 ibid. pp.128-136
14 id. The Life Divine. Pondicherry; S.A.B.C.L. V-19. p.843
15 ibid. p.1053
16 Tagore. op.cit. p.726
17 Sri Aurobindo. op.cit. V-18. p.29
18 ibid. p.26
19 id. V-19. p.1067
20 ibid. pp.1067-68
21 ibid. p.1069

Continued in Part Five

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