Man’s Destiny in the Universe
Divine Life
Society Publication: Man’s Destiny in the
Universe by Swami Krishnananda
The beginning of wisdom is a recognition of the need for one to be humble before the might of the cosmos. The very size of creation and the complexity of its structure should be enough to strike a deafening blow of consternation to the presumptuous mind of man, whose knowledge of his environment is far inferior in quality to that the frog in the well possesses in regard to the ocean's expanse. The light rays of the sun, which illumine the physical objects of the world and simultaneously shine upon the retina of the human eye, do not reveal a correct knowledge either of the objects or of man who sees things with their aid. What man beholds as the world outside him is more a play of the interaction of light rays than the substance of things or the structure of Nature. The causal relationship which man observes in Nature is a humorous conjecture of his mind, made in respect of what really happens in Nature as a whole.
Unless the ultimate causes
behind phenomena are known, knowledge cannot be said to be complete or
adequate. There is not merely a cause behind an effect but there is what may be
called a causal chain in which there are many links, of which every succeeding
link may be said to be an effect of the preceding one, so that the last link at
the highest end of the chain would be the ultimate cause. But suppose the chain
is circular, so that it has neither a beginning nor an end, and every link
influences every other link. Which, in this situation, is to be considered as
the cause, and which the effect? In a system of mutually determined relations,
the causal explanation does not bring out the truth of things. Since the
scientific approach is a special study in terms of cause-and-effect-relationship
in a world of space-time, science cannot know the reality. To look at, see,
observe or gaze at things is not the way of knowing their nature.
To think in terms of space,
time and causality is a habit of the mind and the only way in which it can visualize
the world. Space, time and cause are the very preconditions of human thinking.
Since the mind is so made that it cannot think except in terms of these
presuppositions, we should really doubt if our knowledge of the world is real
at all.
Space, time and cause cannot
become the objects either of one's perception or cognition, these being the
constituents of the very ways of thinking. Sense and reason are the faculties
of human knowledge, and these are wound up in the laws of space, time and cause,
which are the spectacles through which man sees creation and judges it with his
reason. Even as the structure of the spectacles determines the nature and the
form of the objects seen through them, man's knowledge of reality is cast in
the mould of the space-time-cause-relationship. That reality cannot be an
object should have become clear, since it also includes the subject which tries
to know it. Thus the scientific methods of knowledge, which are observational
and experimental, have little to do with its true nature.
It is impossible that there
should be appearance without reality. Change implies changelessness; that
everything passes away shows that something does not pass away. Life is joy in
its core, though pain on its surface. Every thought and every sensation is
restricted to the laws of space and time. What can man do, then, to gain access
into reality?
The correct perspective of
life is what may be called the integral vision. Here, man does not look at the
world, but the world as a whole beholds itself and becomes an object as well as
a subject of its own study. This is what is known as self-analysis,
self-investigation and Self-knowledge. Until man reaches this consummation of
wisdom, he cannot hope to be in peace in this world.
The Consciousness that
universally envelops this wide range of Nature, in its completeness, is what we
know as God. The way to attain this, in one word, self-restraint, which means the
sublimation of the spatio-temporal urge in the form of sensory passion and
mental distraction. Self-restraint is yoga, which is the practical outcome of
this glorious spiritual vision of things. And this is the proper vision of
life. With this knowledge one becomes, at once, master over the senses and the
mind, good in character and conduct, charitable in disposition, affectionate to
all beings, powerful in thought and will, and immensely sober in a heightened
awareness, which may be called God-consciousness.
II
The above is the principle and
the policy which devolves out of the knowledge (Jnana) of Truth, which
transmutes all activity and process of becoming into eternal being. But life is
action (Karma). While the world may be regarded as appearance, and to live in
appearance a bondage, freedom consists in the experience of Reality attained by
degrees of self-transcendence. While Reality has no degrees, the stages by
which it is reached in consciousness have gradations of varying intensity.
These steps of ascent are the stages of one's rising through the degrees in
which Reality is manifest in the world-process. Everything in the world is
action, outwardly in Nature as well as inwardly in the individual. The bondage
of action, to which reference is usually made by teachers of the way of
knowledge, is in one's falsely imagining that individual initiative and effort
is independent of the universal activity of Nature, which goes on everywhere,
perpetually. The source of the sense of 'I'-ness and 'mine'-ness in regard to
oneself and others in the world is this erroneous notion of one's being
independent of Nature, while really Nature includes everything. It is this
untenable position maintained by the individual that is called ignorance
(Ajnana). All suffering in the world may be finally attributed to this. To live
wisely is neither to assert nor to deny action in the world, but to appreciate
and evaluate it in its true relation to Nature's cosmic processes, to which
individual thought and action are no more than aspects of its own ways of
working. To know this, and to act on the basis of this knowledge, is the whole
wisdom of life, in whose light individual and social activity becomes a
self-movement of the universe, entirely free from the reactions called pleasure
and pain. The universe is God in eternal action.
Excerpts from:
Man’s Destiny in the
Universe by Swami Krishnananda Blog - DLSUSA
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