The Atma Jyoti Blog

Part 2 of Akshay Kumar Banerjea’s important essay from the Philosophy of Gorakhnath

In his quest of the Absolute Truth, a Philosopher has to rely chiefly on speculation (Yukti). He has to form theories and hypotheses and to put them to logical tests. He has to keep one eye upon the facts of normal human experience, which are all finite and relative, and he has to be careful that the conjectural opinion he forms about the Absolute Reality may not be inconsistent with the established facts of this world of finitude and relativity and,may on the other hand offer the most adequate rational explanation for all these facts. His consciousness habitually dwells in the plane of the finite, the temporal and the relative, and his intellect and imagination, led by some inner urge, jump or fly from the finite to the infinite, from the temporal to the eternal, from the relative to the absolute.

The Infinite Eternal Absolute, i.e., what he conceives to be the Ultimate Reality above and beyond the limitations of space, time and relativity, remains to his normal consciousness an unwarranted conjecture or undue assumption, until and unless it is logically demonstrated that the essential demand of the human intellect for a rational explanation of this world-order is not possible without the assumption of such an Absolute Reality and that the Reality as conceived by him is alone capable of supplying the most adequate rational explanation of the system of facts constituting this world. Thus a Philosopher has to take his stand on the phenomenal relative world of normal human experience, and the Absolute Truth he arrives at by the exercise of his imaginative insight and logical intellect is a theory, the validity of which is measured by its necessity and adequacy for the rational explanation of this world. The conclusion of philosophy, however well-reasoned, cannot rise above the status of a theory (Vada).

Another serious difficulty which arises in the path of the philosophical quest of the Absolute Truth is, that for the purpose of the intellectual comprehension or apprehension of the Absolute, a Philosopher has to think of It and define It in terms of the concepts of his understanding, of which the legitimate scope of application is the relative phenomenal objective world. The logical principles and methods which he has to rely upon for the establishment of the validity of his conception about the Absolute Reality are also primarily meant for the proof of the relative truth of our empirical and discursive understanding. When these principles and categories are applied to the Absolute Truth, the Absolute is unconsciously brought down within the realm of the relative.

Existent and non-existent, conscious and unconscious, active and inactive, changeless and changing, unity and plurality, substance and attribute, cause and effect, simple and complex, dynamic and static, personal and impersonal all such concepts are applied by our intellect in the field of our normal relative knowledge, and their generally accepted meanings have reference to the relative phenomena of this objective world. A Philosopher, while attempting to determine the nature of the Absolute Reality and to form an intellectual conception of it, cannot help making use of the same concepts. Confusion arises as a matter of course. He has not unoften to radically change the meanings of these fundamental concepts of our normal understanding. In spite of all his earnest efforts he cannot liberate his intellect from the bondage of the elementary concepts of his rational understanding, which are by their very nature concerned with the world of relativity.

A Philosopher has sometimes to manufacture new terms and concepts, the exact significance of which becomes incomprehensible to the normal understanding of a common man. He thinks of ‘transcendent existence’ above and behind ‘phenomenal existence,’ ‘transcendent activity’ as distinguished from ‘phenomenal activity’, ‘transcendent consciousness’ above ‘phenomenal consciousness’, and so on. Sometimes he thinks of the Absolute Reality as neither existent nor non-existent or as above both existence and non-existence. Sometimes he thinks of It as neither conscious nor unconscious or as having an order of consciousness which is above consciousness and unconsciousness of our normal experience.

Sometimes Inexplicableness or Inscrutableness is used as a category of understanding. In this way, Philosophers find themselves compelled to introduce many conceptions which are inconceivable to the common logical intellect. When they try to expound and establish these metaphysical conceptions, they have necessarily to argue on the basis of generally accepted logical principles. They cannot defy the Principles of Identity, Contradiction and Excluded-Middle, which are fundamental principles of logical thought. They cannot disregard the Principles of Causation and Sufficient Ground, which rule over their intellect in its search for Truth in this world. But all these principles of our common empirical thought and understanding cannot help them to convincingly prove the validity of their supra-logical supra-intellectual metaphysical conceptions about the Absolute Truth. It seems that they try to prove by means of logic what is above the sphere of logic.

A war of theories

The history of the philosophical quest of the Absolute Truth in the human race shows that there have been thousands and thousands of theories or intellectual conceptions about the nature of the Ultimate Reality, and there has not been a single one which could satisfy the intellect of all. The philosophical literature has been developing from the earliest times, and it is still progressing. No philosophical view has been found to be logically unassailable. The history of philosophy has become a history of a continuous warfare on the intellectual plane among the greatest and wisest rational truth-seekers of the world. A sincere and earnest Philosopher, even to satisfy himself that his conception truly represents the character of the Absolute Reality, has not only to be convinced that his theory is free from all possible logical fallacies and is capable of offering an adequate rational explanation for the world-order, but has also to be convinced that no other rival theory is or can possibly be so free from defects and can furnish such a satisfactory explanation. He therefore feels impelled to put to test not only his own conception, but also the conceptions arrived at by other philosophers. This leads him to seek and find defects in the arguments and conclusions of all other truth-seekers who differ from him and thereby to demonstrate the exclusive validity of the conception which he himself adopts.

As Philosophers differ from one another in their modes of approach and the conclusions they intellectually arrive at, every system of philosophy becomes an object of attack from all sides, from the exponents of all other systems of philosophy. This intellectual warfare amongst the Philosophers, age after age, has been tremendously enriching the philosophical literature. But no philosopher can have the inner assurance and satisfaction that he has found out the Truth, that he has been blessed with the true knowledge of the Absolute Reality. Every Philosopher is afraid, unless he becomes dogmatic and arrogant, that the idea which he cherishes about the Supreme Object of his life-long search may not be the correct one and that it may be proved to be false by other philosophers. In fact, it is the fate of every philosophical theory that it is supported with logical arguments by philosophers of one school and refuted with counter-arguments by philosophers of many other schools.

The Absolute Truth has been conceived by illustrious philosophers in amazingly various ways, such as, Pure Void (Shunya), or Non-Being or Non-Existence (Asat), Pure Being or Existence (Sat). Pure Transcendent Consciousness (Chit-matra), Pure Unconscious Matter (Achit Prakriti), Pure Primordial Energy or Power (Maha-Shakti)] Pure Consciousness with Power (Shaktimatchaitanya), Creative Will, Absolute Idea, Absolute Spirit, Supreme Personality (Parama Purusha) with infinite Power and Wisdom, Morally and Aesthetically Perfect Personality (possessing not only infinite power and wisdom and bliss, but also the most lovable and adorable excellences), Satya-Shiva-Sundara Purushottama–Premanandaghana Parameshwara, and so on and so forth.

The world of phenomenal diversities is conceived by some as an illusory appearance, by others as self-manifestation of the Ultimate Reality, by others again as created by the Ultimate Reality, by others again as the Sole Reality having no noumenal Reality behind it, and so on.

The finite spirits are conceived by some as uncreated and eternal and by others as created and destructible, by some as atomic in nature, and by others as all-pervading, by some as different from the Ultimate Reality and by some as essentially non-different from the Ultimate Reality, by some as essentially pure and free and incorruptible and by others as subject to degradation and development, by some as essentially different from and independent of the physical bodies and by others as evolved out of them, and so on.

The Ultimate Ideal of human life is also variously conceived by various philosophers. There seems to be no end of differences among the views of philosophers, (Nasau munlr yasya mat am na bhinnam). Each view is splendidly supported by its exponents with strong and elaborate logical arguments, which carry conviction to certain classes of truth -seekers.

Every strongly supported view has given birth to a particular school of philosophy. But it seems that every strong logical argument has its weak points. Critics discover these weak points in the arguments of a philosophical school and lay special emphasis upon them to repudiate the whole system propounded by it. Thus every system of philosophy is ably supported by its advocates and most cruelly refuted by its opponents. If a particular view is found to be satisfactory to one class of truth-seekers, it is proved to be unacceptable by many classes of truth-seekers.

Every apparently well-reasoned theory about the Ultimate Truth is thus reduced merely into a particular viewpoint from which the Truth is sought to be approached, and no theory can evidently reach It. The intellectual path adopted by a Philosopher fails to lead him to the realization of the Absolute Truth, for which he feels within himself a persistent demand.

Next in A Yogi and a Philosopher: The Path of Yoga

Further Reading:

• The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, translated by Raghavan Iyer, edited by Swami Nirmalananda.
• Essays on the Yoga Sutras I by Raghavan Iyer.
• Essays on the Yoga Sutras II by Raghavan Iyer.