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This is because senses
belong to our physical schemata and our immediately perceptible
world is a physical universe of matter. In contrast, our ideational
experience belongs to non-physical schemata and is somewhat
abstract, fluid, and intangible. Naturally, if Reason could base
itself on the ‘solidity’ of sensory perception rather than the
‘fluidity’ of ideational experience, then it is expected to ‘guide’
us better.
However, there is a fundamental problem. If Reason bases
itself only on sensory perception, then it is liable to basic
errors. Sensory perception itself has in-built limitations. We have
examined already how our most fundamental sensory percepts of
‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ are scientifically false though phenomenally
true. If Reason had accepted the outer appearances as ‘final’, then
we would not have traveled in space!
If the fundamental
perceptions of the external, physical world provided by our sensory
apparatus have such limitations, then how much more erroneous it can
be if we have to build up ‘rational’ theories based on superficial
cues given by human beings. What we pronounce ‘verbally’ may not
actually reflect our non-verbal intentions. Thus an apparently
stable person opting for an active euthanasia may actually be
suffering from a ‘masked’ depression which if uplifted can result in
a different choice. (There are reports that some treatable cases of
depression were actually put to legal death). Moreover, our
non-verbal dimension represents many levels—the subconscious, the
collective unconscious, the subliminal, the super conscious; and at
each of these levels, there might be different choices for the same
problem.
Sri Aurobindo explains: Reason accepts a mixed action when it
confines itself to the circle of our sensible experience, admits its
law as the final truth and concerns itself only with the study of
phenomenon, that it is to say, with the appearances of things in
their relations, processes and utilities. This rational action is
incapable of knowing what is, it only knows what appears to be, it
has no plummet by which it can sound the depths of being, it can
only survey the field of becoming. (The Life Divine, pg 68-69).
One interesting thing is that every
‘idea’ is accompanied by a ‘force’ or ‘energy’ that is needed to
effectuate that idea into reality. If the idea is ‘limited’ and
‘superficial’, the ‘energy’ nevertheless exists though it is also
limited in action. Thus, inspite of limitations, ‘rational’ theories
based on sensory perception have also their ‘effect’ in life, even
if constrained by limitations. This is how man could utilize
‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ to structure life. This is how advertising
experts ‘mislead’ people by visual illusions – a phenomenon that has
enormous marketing potentials!
In the end however, man is not
satisfied and must move to the next level of experience. This is
inevitable as the human being is not only made up of physical
substance—he has ideas, abstractions, hypotheses, fantasies, and
dreams. Physical phenomena are not only meant for being perceived by
physical senses alone -- they also influence our ideas, fancies and
imaginations. “Sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ also touch our poetic, artistic
and aesthetic chords. Happiness in life not only comes from the
physical gratification of the senses, it also requires an artistic,
aesthetic and creative fulfillment. Moreover, ‘perception’ itself is
a multileveled construct and justifies an increasingly growing
sovereign action of Reason.
‘To correct the
errors of the sense-mind by the use of reason is one of the most
valuable powers developed by man and the chief cause of his
superiority among terrestrial beings.' Ibid, pg69)
Reason: Sovereign
or Pure action
Sri
Aurobindo writes:
Reason, on the
other hand, asserts its pure action, when accepting our sensible
experiences as a starting-point but refusing to be limited by them
it goes behind, judges, works in its own right and strives to arrive
at general and unalterable concepts which attach themselves not to
the appearances of things, but to that which stands behind their
appearances. (Ibid)
However,
just de-linking from the ‘sensory’ experience does not make Reason
‘pure’. Purity is a phenomenon that progressively unveils as the
nature of ‘Reason’ becomes more and more sovereign. This movement
passes through several stages. We shall group them in three stages.
Stage 1
At first, Reason goes behind the immediate appearance of things.
This is how basic scientific discoveries were made. The discovery of
fire, wheel, armaments; the building of houses, dams, bridges,
boats, forts; the efflorescence of cultivation; the formations of
human groupings as families, clans, communities, societies – all
appeared when man’s idea started going behind immediate appearances
to some ‘truth’ that supported yet surpassed the appearances.
Stage 2
With a growth in consciousness, the human mind becomes refined
and sophisticated so that Reason disentangles itself more and more
from the senses so as to
‘…. arrive at its results by direct judgment passing immediately
from the appearance to that which stands behind it and in that case
the concept arrived at may seem to be a result of the sensible
experience and dependent upon it though it is really a perception of
reason working in its own right.' Ibid)
It is this phenomenon of Reason that results in great theories and
hypotheses in both the physical and psychosocial disciplines. This
is how Darwin’s theory of Evolution, Einstein’s theory of
Relativity, Freud’s theory of Psychoanalysis and Marx’s theory of
Communism came into being.
All these theories
have been challenged and are not full proof. Yet, as we have
discussed, each idea has an executive force and even if not
error-free, can still hold its fort with a particular intensity
during a particular time-period. Even after such ideas are
supplemented by newer ideas, they still retain their historical
significance and sow the seeds of future constructs.
Stage
3
The human mind
yearns for a yet purer action of Reason resulting in the generation
of ideas that have longer survival-value, are more and more
error-free and effectuate a greater dynamic action in the life of
man. This quest led to a yet purer action of Reason:
‘But the
perceptions of the pure reason may also – and this is their more
characteristic action – use the experience from which they start as
a mere excuse and leave it far behind before they arrive at their
result, so far that the result may seem the direct contrary of that
which our sensible experience wishes to dictate to us. (Ibid)
This increasingly
pure action of Reason leads us from physical to metaphysical
knowledge.
We will illustrate this movement of Reason by explaining how the
concept of FORM evolved in the mind of the spiritual seer in ancient
India:
1.At first, Matter
was perceived by our physical senses as gross ‘forms’ in a concrete
way—viz. color, size, shape, texture etc.
2. Next,
non-material substrates like ‘emotions’ were also considered as
‘forms’. These are ‘subtle’ forms compared to the grossness of
material forms. Like material forms that occupy material space,
these subtle forms also occupy subtle spaces (like when we get
angry, our ‘anger’ occupies a certain space—it changes our body’s
aura)
3. It was then
posited that there is a cosmic energy that gets formulated into both
gross and subtle forms. The essence of Matter was conceived as a
conceptual form that could not be grasped through sensory perception
and hence non-existent to the senses so that ‘the point is
increasingly reached where only an arbitrary distinction in thought
divides form of substance from form of energy’. (Ibid, pg 19). All
these came to the Reasoning Intellect of the Indian seer thousands
of years before E=MC2 was conceived.
4. At the next
stage, the Indian seer delinked ‘energy’ from ‘form’ to arrive at
the concept of ‘formlessness’—a dimension that ‘upholds’ all forms.
That is how emerged the concept of the ABSOLUTE beyond all sensory
or cognitive descriptions—who was an X that was indefinable,
conceived in a positive sense as an omnipotent Being or in a
negative sense as a Non-Being or the Great Zero beyond our
conception. The Absolute was therefore reasoned to be not an
aggregate of forms or a substratum of forms. If all forms,
quantities, qualities were to disappear, this would remain
.Likewise, all forms, quantities and qualities could again manifest
from the bosom of the Absolute.
This is a glorious example how the ancient Indian spiritual
tradition proceeded to unveil Reason in its purity, freeing it from
sensory moorings and following its trajectory beyond the appearance
of phenomena. We shall try to take inspiration to open new gateways
to knowledge, so that, we can proclaim like the seer—
Each finite
is that deep Infinity
Enshrining His veiled soul of pure delight.
Form in its heart of silence recondite
Hides the significance of His mystery,
Form is the wonder-house of eternity,
A cavern of the deathless Eremite.
(Sri Aurobindo,
Collected Poems, pg 167)
Date of Update:
3-Jan-12
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu
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