{"id":610,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=610"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:12","slug":"35-reality-and-the-cosmic-illusion-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/18-the-life-divine-volume-18\/35-reality-and-the-cosmic-illusion-vol-18-the-life-divine-volume-18","title":{"rendered":"-35_Reality and the Cosmic Illusion .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nC<\/font>hapter
\n<\/font>VI
\n<\/font><\/span>
\n\t\tReality and the Cosmic Illusion
\n<\/font>
\n\t\t<\/b><\/p>\n

                                <\/font><\/p>\n

   
\n           
\n           
\n    The Eternal is true; the world is a lie.
\n                                                                                                               
\nVivekachudamani. <\/font>1<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

                               
\nThe Master of Maya creates this world by his Maya and within
\n                               
\nit is confined another; one should know his Maya as
\nNature and
\n                               
\nthe Master of Maya as the great Lord of all.
\n                                                                                                   
\nSwetaswatara Upanishad. 2<\/sup><\/p>\n

                               
\nThe Purusha is all this that is, what has been and what is yet to be;
\n                               
\nhe is the master of Immortality and he is whatever
\ngrows by food.
\n
                                                                                                                               
\nRig Veda. 3<\/sup>
\n                                                                                                   
\nSwetaswatara Upanishad <\/font>4<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

                               
\nAll is the Divine Being.
\n                                                                                                                                       
\nGita. <\/font>5<\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    B<\/b><\/font>UT<\/font><\/b>
\nso far we have only cleared a part of the foreground of the field of
\ninquiry; in the background the problem remains
\nunsolved and entire. It is the problem of the nature of the original
\nConsciousness or Power that has created or conceptively
\nconstructed or manifested the universe, and the relation to it of our
\nworld-cognition,—in sum, whether the universe is a
\nfigment of consciousness imposed on our mind by a supreme force of
\nIllusion or a true formation of being experienced by us
\nwith a still ignorant but an increasing knowledge. And the true
\nquestion is not of Mind alone or of a cosmic dream or a
\ncosmic hallucination born of Mind, but of the nature of the Reality,
\nthe validity of the creative action that takes place in it or
\nis imposed upon it, the presence or absence of a real content in its or
\nour consciousness and its or our regard on the
\nuniverse. On behalf of Illusionism it can be answered to the position
\nput forward by us with regard to the truth of existence
\nthat all this might be valid within the bounds of the cosmic Illusion;
\nit is the system, the pragmatic machinery by which Maya
\nworks and maintains herself in the Ignorance: but the truths,
\npossibilities, actualities of the cosmic system are true and actual
\nonly within the Illusion,\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

       1<\/font><\/sup> Verse 20.       
\n2<\/sup> IV. 9, 10.        
\n3<\/sup> X. 90. 2.         
\n4<\/sup> III. 15.         5<\/sup> VII. 19.
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage 439<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

outside that magic circle they have no validity;
\nthey are not abiding and eternal realities; all are temporary figures,
\nthe works
\nof Knowledge no less than the works of Ignorance. It can be conceded
\nthat knowledge is a useful instrument of the Illusion
\nof Maya, for escaping from herself, for destroying herself in the Mind;
\nspiritual knowledge is indispensable: but the one true
\ntruth, the only abiding reality beyond all duality of knowledge and
\nignorance is the eternal relationless Absolute or the Self,
\nthe eternal pure Existence. All here turns on the mind’s conception and
\nthe mental being’s experience of reality; for
\naccording to the mind’s experience or conception of reality will be its
\ninterpretation of data otherwise identical, the facts of
\nthe Cosmos, individual experience, the realisation of the supreme
\nTranscendence. All mental cognition depends on three
\nelements, the percipient, the perception and the thing perceived or
\npercept. All or any of these three can be affirmed or
\ndenied reality; the question then is which of these, if any, are real
\nand to what extent or in what manner. If all three are
\nrejected as instruments of a cosmic Illusion, the farther and
\nconsequent question arises: is there then a reality outside them
\nand, if so, what is the relation between the Reality and the
\nIllusion? <\/p>\n

     
\nIt is possible to affirm the reality of the percept, of the objective
\nuniverse, and deny or diminish the reality of the
\npercipient individual and his perceptive consciousness. In the theory
\nof the sole reality of Matter, consciousness is only an
\noperation of Matter-energy in Matter, a secretion or vibration of the
\nbrain-cells, a physical reception of images and a
\nbrain-response, a reflex action or a reaction of Matter to the contacts
\nof Matter. Even if the rigidity of this affirmation is
\nrelaxed and consciousness otherwise accounted for, still it is no more
\nthan a temporary and derivative phenomenon, not the
\nenduring Reality. The percipient individual is himself only a body and
\nbrain capable of the mechanical reactions we generalise under the name
\nof consciousness: the individual has only a relative value and a
\ntemporary reality. But if Matter
\nturns out to be itself unreal or derivative and simply a phenomenon of
\nEnergy, as seems now to be the probability, then
\nEnergy remains as the sole Reality; the percipient, his perception, the
\nperceived\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 440<\/p>\n

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\n

object are only phenomena of Energy. But an Energy without a Being or Existence possessing it or a Consciousness
\nsupplying it, an Energy working originally in the void, — for the material field in which we see it at work is itself a
\ncreation,—looks itself very much like a mental construction, an unreality: or it might be a temporary inexplicable outbreak of
\nmotion which might cease at any time to create phenomena; the Void of the Infinite alone would be enduring and real. The
\nBuddhist theory of the percipient and the perception and the percept as a construction of Karma, the process of some
\ncosmic fact of Action, gave room to such a conclusion; for it led logically to the affirmation of the Non-Being, Void or Nihil.
\nIt is possible indeed that what is at work is not an Energy, but a Consciousness; as Matter reduces itself to Energy seizable
\nby us not in itself but in its results and workings, so Energy could be reduced to action of a Consciousness seizable by us not
\nin itself but in its results and workings. But if this Consciousness is supposed to work similarly in a Void, we are exposed to
\nthe same conclusion, that it is a creator of temporary phenomenal illusions and itself illusory; Void, an infinite Zero, an
\noriginal Non-Existence is alone the enduring Reality. But these conclusions are not binding; for behind this Consciousness
\nseizable in its works only there may be an invisible original Existence: a Conscious-Energy of that Existence could then be a
\nreality; its creations too, made out of an infinitesimal substance of being impalpable to the senses but revealed to them at a
\ncertain stage of the action of Energy as Matter, would be real, as also the individual emerging as a conscious being of the
\noriginal Existence in a world of Matter. This original Reality might be a cosmic spiritual Existence, a Pantheos, or it might
\nhave some other status; but in any case there would be, not a universal illusion or mere phenomenon, but a true universe. <\/p>\n

    
\nIn the classical theory of Illusionism a sole and supreme spiritual
\nExistence is accepted as the one Reality: it is by its
\nessentiality the Self, yet the natural beings of which it is the Self
\nare only temporary appearances; it is in its absoluteness the
\nsubstratum of all things, but the universe erected on the substratum is
\neither a non-existence, a semblance, or else in <\/p>\n


\nPage 441<\/p>\n

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\n

some way unreally real; it is a cosmic illusion. For the Reality is one without a second, it is immutable in eternity, it is the
\nsole Existence; there is nothing else, there are no true becomings of this Being: it is and must for ever remain void of name,
\nfeature, formation, relation, happening; if it has a Consciousness, it can only be a pure consciousness of its own absolute
\nbeing. But what then is the relation between the Reality and the Illusion? By what miracle or mystery does the Illusion come
\nto be or how does it manage to appear or to abide in Time for ever? <\/p>\n

   
\nAs only Brahman is real, only a consciousness or a power of Brahman
\ncould be a real creator and a creator of realities.
\nBut since there can be no other reality than Brahman pure and absolute,
\nthere can be no true creative power of Brahman.
\nA Brahman-consciousness aware of real beings, forms and happenings
\nwould signify a truth of the Becoming, a spiritual
\nand material reality of the universe, which the experience of the
\nsupreme Truth negates and nullifies and with which its sole
\nexistence is logically incompatible. Maya’s creation is a presentation
\nof beings, names, forms, happenings, things, impossible
\nto accept as true, contradictory of the indeterminable purity of the
\nOne Existence. Maya then is not real, it is non-existent:
\nMaya is itself an illusion, the parent of numberless illusions. But
\nstill this illusion and its works have some kind of existence
\nand so must in some way be real: moreover, the universe does not exist
\nin a Void but stands because it is imposed on
\nBrahman, it is based in a way on the one Reality; we ourselves in the
\nIllusion attribute its forms, names, relations,
\nhappenings to the Brahman, become aware of all things as the Brahman,
\nsee the Reality through these unrealities. There is
\nthen a reality in Maya; it is at the same time real and unreal,
\nexistent and non-existent; or, let us say, it is neither real nor
\nunreal: it is a paradox, a suprarational enigma. But what then is this
\nmystery, or is it insoluble? how comes this illusion to
\nintervene in Brahman-existence? what is the nature of this unreal
\nreality of Maya? <\/p>\n

   At first sight one is compelled to suppose that Brahman must be in some way the percipient of Maya, — for Brahman<\/p>\n


\nPage 442<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

is the sole Reality, and if he is not the
\npercipient, who then perceives the Illusion? Any other percipient is
\nnot in existence;
\nthe individual who is in us the apparent witness is himself phenomenal
\nand unreal, a creation of Maya. But if Brahman is the
\npercipient, how is it possible that the illusion can persist for a
\nmoment, since the true consciousness of the percipient is
\nconsciousness of self, an awareness solely of its own pure
\nself-existence? If Brahman perceives the world and things with a
\ntrue consciousness, then they must all be itself and real; but since
\nthey are not the pure self-existence, but at best are forms
\nof it and are seen through a phenomenal Ignorance, this realistic
\nsolution is not possible. Yet we have to accept,
\nprovisionally at least, the universe as a fact, an impossibility as a
\nthing that is, since Maya is there and her works persist and
\nobsess the spirit with the sense, however false, of their reality. It
\nis on this basis that we have, then, to face and solve the
\ndilemma. <\/p>\n

     If Maya
\nis in some way real, the conclusion imposes itself that Brahman the
\nReality is in that way the percipient of
\nMaya. Maya may be his power of differentiating perception, for the
\npower of Maya consciousness which distinguishes it
\nfrom the true consciousness of sole spiritual Self is its creative
\nperception of difference. Or Maya must be at least, if this
\ncreation of difference is considered to be only a result and not the
\nessence of Maya-force, some power of Brahman’s
\nconsciousness, — for it is only a consciousness that can see or create
\nan illusion and there cannot be another original or
\noriginating consciousness than that of Brahman. But since Brahman is
\nalso self-aware for ever, there must be a double
\nstatus of Brahman-Consciousness, one conscious of the sole Reality, the
\nother conscious of the unrealities to which by its
\ncreative perception of them it gives some kind of apparent existence.
\nThese unrealities cannot be made of the substance of
\nthe Reality, for then they also must be real. In this view one cannot
\naccept the assertion of the Upanishads that the world is
\nmade out of the supreme Existence, is a becoming, an outcome or product
\nof the eternal Being. Brahman is not the material
\ncause of the universe: our nature, — as opposed to our self, — is not
\nmade of its spiritual substance; it is constructed out of the
\nunreal reality of Maya. But, on the\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 443<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

contrary, our spiritual being is of that substance,
\nis indeed the Brahman; Brahman is above Maya, but he is also the
\npercipient of his creations both from above and from within Maya. This
\ndual consciousness offers itself as the sole plausible
\nexplanation of the riddle of a real eternal Percipient, an unreal
\nPercept, and a Perception that is a half-real creator of unreal
\npercepts. <\/p>\n

    If there is
\nnot this dual consciousness, if Maya is the sole conscious power of
\nBrahman, then one of two things must be
\ntrue: either the reality of Maya as a power is that it is a subjective
\naction of Brahman-consciousness emerging out of its
\nsilence and superconscient immobility and passing through experiences
\nthat are real because they are part of the
\nconsciousness of Brahman but unreal because they are not part of its
\nbeing, or else Maya is Brahman’s power of cosmic
\nImagination inherent in his eternal being creating out of nothing
\nnames, forms and happenings that are not in any way real.
\nIn that case Maya would be real, but her works entirely fictitious,
\npure imaginations: but can we affirm Imagination as the
\nsole dynamic or creative power of the Eternal? Imagination is a
\nnecessity for a partial being with an ignorant consciousness;
\nfor it has to supplement its ignorance by imaginations and conjectures:
\nthere can be no place for such a movement in the
\nsole consciousness of a sole Reality which has no reason to construct
\nunrealities, for it is ever pure and self-complete. It is
\ndifficult to see what in its own being could impel or induce such a
\nSole Existence complete in its very essence, blissful in its
\neternity, containing nothing to be manifested, timelessly perfect, to
\ncreate an unreal Time and Space and people it to all
\neternity with an interminable cosmic show of false images and
\nhappenings. This solution is logically untenable. <\/p>\n

    
\nThe other solution, the idea of a purely subjective unreal reality,
\nstarts from the distinction made by the mind in physical
\nNature between its subjective and objective experiences; for it is the
\nobjective alone of which it is sure as entirely and
\nsolidly real. But such a distinction could hardly exist in
\nBrahman-consciousness since here there is either no subject and no
\nobject or Brahman itself is the sole possible subject of its\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 444<\/p>\n

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\n

consciousness and the sole possible object; there
\ncould be nothing externally objective to Brahman, since there is
\nnothing
\nelse than Brahman. This idea, then, of a subjective action of
\nconsciousness creating a world of fictions other than or
\ndistorting the sole true object looks like an imposition on the Brahman
\nby our mind; it imposes on the pure and perfect
\nReality a feature of its own imperfection, not truly attributable to
\nthe perception of a Supreme Being. On the other hand, the
\ndistinction between the consciousness and the being of Brahman could
\nnot be valid, unless Brahman-being and
\nBrahman-consciousness are two distinct entities, — the consciousness
\nimposing its experiences on the pure existence of the
\nbeing but unable to touch or affect or penetrate it. Brahman, then,
\nwhether as the supreme sole Self-Existence or the Self of
\nthe real-unreal individual in Maya, would be aware by his true
\nconsciousness of the illusions imposed on him and would
\nknow them as illusions; only some energy of Maya-nature or something in
\nit would be deluded by its own inventions, — or
\nelse, not being really deluded, still persist in behaving and feeling
\nas if it were deluded. This duality is what happens to our
\nconsciousness in the Ignorance when it separates itself from the works
\nof Nature and is aware within of the Self as the sole
\ntruth and the rest as not-self and not-real, but has on the surface to
\nact as if the rest too were real. But this solution negates
\nthe sole and indivisible pure existence and pure awareness of the
\nBrahman; it creates a dualism within its featureless unity
\nwhich is not other in its purport than the dualism of the double
\nPrinciple in the Sankhya view of things, Purusha and Prakriti,
\nSoul and Nature. These solutions then must be put aside as untenable,
\nunless we modify our first view of the Reality and
\nconcede to it a power of manifold status of consciousness or a power of
\nmanifold status of existence.<\/p>\n

        
   
\n But, again, the dual consciousness, if we admit it, cannot be
\nexplained as a dual power of Knowledge-Ignorance valid
\nfor the Supreme Existence as it is for us in the universe. For we
\ncannot suppose that Brahman is at all subject to Maya,
\nsince that would mean a principle of Ignorance clouding the Eternal’s
\nself-awareness; it would be to impose the limitations
\nof our own consciousness on the eternal Reality. An Ignorance\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 445<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

which occurs or intervenes in the course of
\nmanifestation as a result of a subordinate action of Consciousness and
\nas part of
\na divine cosmic plan and its evolutionary meaning, is one thing and is
\nlogically conceivable; a meaningless ignorance or
\nillusion eternal in the original consciousness of the Reality is
\nanother thing and not easily conceivable; it appears as a violent
\nmental construction which has no likelihood of validity in the truth of
\nthe Absolute. The dual consciousness of Brahman must
\nbe in no way an ignorance, but a self-awareness co-existent with a
\nvoluntary will to erect a universe of illusions which are
\nheld in a frontal perception aware at once of self and the illusory
\nworld, so that there is no delusion, no feeling of its reality.
\nThe delusion takes place only in the illusory world itself, and the
\nSelf or Brahman in the world either enjoys with a free
\nparticipation or witnesses, itself separate and intangible, the play
\nwhich lays its magical spell only upon the Nature-mind
\ncreated for her action by Maya. But this would seem to signify that the
\nEternal, not content with its pure absolute existence,
\nhas the need to create, to occupy itself throughout Time with a drama
\nof names and forms and happenings; it needs, being
\nsole, to see itself as many, being peace and bliss and self-knowledge
\nto observe an experience or representation of mingled
\nknowledge and ignorance, delight and suffering, unreal existence and
\nescape from unreal existence. For the escape is for
\nthe individual being constructed by Maya; the Eternal does not need to
\nescape and the play continues its cycle for ever. Or
\nif not the need, there is the will to so create, or there is the urge
\nor the automatic action of these contraries: but, if we
\nconsider the sole eternity of pure existence attributed to the Reality,
\nall alike, need, will, urge or automatism, are equally
\nimpossible and incomprehensible. This is an explanation of a sort, but
\nit is an explanation which leaves the mystery still
\nbeyond logic or comprehension; for this dynamic consciousness of the
\nEternal is a direct contradiction of its static and real
\nnature. A Will or Power to create or manifest is undoubtedly there:
\nbut, if it is a will or power of the Brahman, it can only be
\nfor a creation of realities of the Real or a manifestation of the
\ntimeless process of its being in Time-eternity; for it seems
\nincredible that the sole power of the Reality should\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 446<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

be to manifest something contrary to itself or to create non-existent things in an illusory universe. <\/p>\n

   
\nThere is so far no satisfying answer to the riddle: but it may be that
\nwe err in attributing any kind of reality, however
\nillusory at bottom, to Maya or her works: the true solution lies in
\nfacing courageously the mystery of its and their utter
\nunreality. This absolute unreality seems to be envisaged by certain
\nformulations of Illusionism or by certain arguments put
\nforward in its favour. This side then of the problem has to pass under
\nconsideration before we can examine with confidence
\nthe solutions that rest on a relative or partial reality of the
\nuniverse. There is indeed a line of reasoning which gets rid of the
\nproblem by excluding it; it affirms that the question how the Illusion
\ngenerated, how the universe manages to be there in the
\npure existence of Brahman, is illegitimate: the problem does not exist,
\nbecause the universe is non-existent, Maya is unreal,
\nBrahman is the sole truth, alone and self-existent for ever. Brahman is
\nnot affected by any illusory consciousness, no
\nuniverse has come into existence within its timeless reality. But this
\nevasion of the difficulty is either a sophism which means
\nnothing, an acrobacy of verbal logic, the logical reason hiding its
\nhead in the play of words and ideas and refusing to see or
\nto solve a real and baffling difficulty, or else it means too much,
\nsince in effect it gets rid of all relation of Maya to Brahman
\nby affirming her as an independent absolute non-reality along with the
\nuniverse created by her. If a real universe does not
\nexist, a cosmic Illusion exists and we are bound to inquire how it came
\ninto being or how it manages to exist, what is its
\nrelation or non-relation to the Reality, what is meant by our own
\nexistence in Maya, by our subjugation to her cycles, by our
\nliberation from her. For in this view we have to suppose that Brahman
\nis not the percipient of Maya or her works, Maya
\nherself is not a power of Brahman-consciousness: Brahman is
\nsuperconscient, immersed in its own pure being or is
\nconscious only of its own absoluteness; it has nothing to do with Maya.
\nBut in that case either Maya cannot exist even as an
\nillusion or there would be a dual Entity or two entities, a real
\nEternal superconscious or conscious only of itself and an
\nillusive Power that creates and is conscious of a false universe. We
\nare back on the horns of the <\/p>\n


\nPage 447<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

dilemma and with no prospect of getting free from our impalement on it, unless we escape by concluding that since all
\nphilosophy is part of Maya, all philosophy is also an illusion, problems abound but no conclusion is possible. For what we are
\nconfronted with is a pure static and immutable Reality and an illusory dynamism, the two absolutely contradictory of each
\nother, with no greater Truth beyond them in which their secret can be found and their contradictions discover a reconciling
\nissue. <\/p>\n

    
\nIf Brahman is not the percipient, then the percipient must be the
\nindividual being: but this percipient is created by the
\nIllusion and unreal; the percept, the world, is an illusion created by
\nan Illusion and unreal; the perceiving consciousness is
\nitself an illusion and therefore unreal. But this deprives everything
\nof significance, our spiritual existence and our salvation
\nfrom Maya no less than our temporal existence and our immersion in
\nMaya; all are of an equal unreality and unimportance.
\nIt is possible to take a less rigid stand-point and hold that Brahman
\nas Brahman has nothing to do with Maya, is eternally
\nfree from all illusion or any commerce with illusion, but Brahman as
\nthe individual percipient or as the Self of all being here
\nhas entered into Maya and can in the individual withdraw from it, and
\nthis withdrawal is for the individual an act of supreme
\nimportance. But here a dual being is imposed on Brahman and a reality
\nattributed to something that belongs to the cosmic
\nIllusion, — to the individual being of Brahman in Maya, for Brahman as
\nthe Self of all is not even phenomenally bound and
\ndoes not need to escape from her: moreover, salvation cannot be of
\nimportance if bondage is unreal and bondage cannot be
\nreal unless Maya and her world are real. The absolute unreality of Maya
\ndisappears and gives place to a very
\ncomprehensive even if perhaps only a practical and temporal reality. To
\navoid this conclusion it may be said that our
\nindividuality is unreal, it is Brahman who withdraws from a reflection
\nof itself in the figment of individuality and its extinction
\nis our release, our salvation: but Brahman, always free, cannot suffer
\nby bondage or profit by salvation, and a reflection, a
\nfigment of individuality is not a thing that can need salvation. A
\nreflection, a figment, a mere image in the deceptive mirror of
\nMaya cannot suffer a real bondage or profit by a real salvation.\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 448<\/p>\n

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\n

If it be said that it is a conscious reflection or
\nfigment and therefore can really suffer and enter into the bliss of
\nrelease, the
\nquestion arises whose is the consciousness that so suffers in this
\nfictitious existence, — for there can be no real
\nconsciousness except that of the One Existence; so that once more there
\nis established a dual consciousness for Brahman, a
\nconsciousness or superconscience free from the illusion and a
\nconsciousness subject to the illusion, and we have again
\nsubstantiated a certain reality of our existence and experience in
\nMaya. For if our being is that of the Brahman, our
\nconsciousness something of the consciousness of the Brahman, with
\nwhatever qualification, it is to that extent real, — and if
\nour being, why not the being of the universe? <\/p>\n

    
\nIt may finally be put forward as a solution that the percipient
\nindividual and the percept universe are unreal, but Maya
\nby imposing itself on Brahman acquires a certain reality, and that
\nreality lends itself to the individual and to its experience in
\nthe cosmic Illusion which endures so long as it is subject to the
\nillusion. But, again, for whom is the experience valid, the
\nreality acquired while it endures, and for whom does it cease by
\nliberation, extinction or withdrawal? For an illusory unreal
\nbeing cannot put on reality and suffer from a real bondage or escape
\nfrom it by a real act of evasion or self-extinction; it can
\nonly seem to some real self or being to exist, but in that case this
\nreal self must in some way or in some degree have
\nbecome subject to Maya. It must either be the consciousness of Brahman
\nthat projects itself into a world of Maya and
\nissues from Maya or it must be the being of Brahman that puts forth
\nsomething of itself, its reality, into Maya and withdraws
\nit again from Maya. Or what again is this Maya that imposes itself on
\nBrahman? from where does it come if it is not already
\nin Brahman, an action of the eternal Consciousness or the eternal
\nSuperconscience? It is only if a being or a consciousness
\nof the Reality undergoes the consequences of the Illusion that the
\ncycles of the Illusion can put on any reality or have any
\nimportance except as a dance of phantasmagoric marionettes with which
\nthe Eternal amuses himself, a puppet-show in
\nTime. We are driven back to the dual being of Brahman, the dual
\nconsciousness of Brahman involved in the Illusion and
\nfree from the Illusion, and a certain phenomenal\n<\/p>\n


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truth of being for Maya: there can be no solution of our existence in the universe if that existence and the universe itself
\nhave no reality, — even though the reality be only partial, restricted, derivative. But what can be the reality of an original
\nuniversal and fundamentally baseless Illusion? The only possible answer is that it is a suprarational mystery, inexplicable and
\nineffable, — anirvacaniya<\/i>. <\/p>\n

     
\nThere are, however, two possible replies to the difficulty, if we get
\nrid of the idea of absolute unreality and admit a
\nqualification or compromise. A basis can be created for a subjective
\nillusion-consciousness which is yet part of Being, if we
\naccept in the sense of an illusory subjective world-awareness the
\naccount of sleep and dream creation given to us in the
\nUpanishads. For the affirmation there is that Brahman as Self is
\nfourfold; the Self is Brahman and all that is is the Brahman,
\nbut all that is is the Self seen by the Self in four states of its
\nbeing. In the pure self-status neither consciousness nor
\nunconsciousness as we conceive it can be affirmed about Brahman; it is
\na state of superconscience absorbed in its
\nself-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy, or else it is the
\nstatus of a free Superconscient containing or basing
\neverything but involved in nothing. But there is also a luminous status
\nof sleep-self, a massed consciousness which is the
\norigin of cosmic existence; this state of deep sleep in which yet there
\nis the presence of an omnipotent Intelligence is the
\nseed state or causal condition from which emerges the cosmos; — this
\nand the dream-self which is the continent of all subtle,
\nsubjective or supraphysical experience, and the self of waking which is
\nthe support of all physical experience, can be taken
\nas the whole field of Maya. As a man in deep sleep passes into dreams
\nin which he experiences self-constructed unstable
\nstructures of name, form, relation, happenings, and in the waking state
\nexternalises himself in the more apparently stable but
\nyet transient structures of the physical consciousness, so the Self
\ndevelops out of a state of massed consciousness its
\nsubjective and its objective cosmic experience. But the waking state is
\nnot a true waking from this original and causal sleep;
\nit is only a full emergence into a gross external and objective sense
\nof the positive reality of objects of consciousness as
\nopposed to the subtle subjective dream-awareness of those\n<\/p>\n


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objects: the true waking is a withdrawal from both
\nobjective and subjective consciousness and from the massed causal
\nIntelligence into the superconscience superior to all consciousness;
\nfor all consciousness and all unconsciousness is Maya.
\nHere, we may say, Maya is real because it is the self’s experience of
\nthe Self, something of the Self enters into it, is
\naffected by its happenings because it accepts them, believes in them,
\nthey are to it real experiences, creations out of its
\nconscious being; but it is unreal because it is a sleep state, a dream
\nstate, an eventually transient waking state, not the true
\nstatus of the superconscient Reality. Here there is no actual dichotomy
\nof being itself, but there is a multiplicity of status of
\nthe one Being; there is no original dual consciousness implying a Will
\nin the Uncreated to create illusory things out of
\nnon-existence, but there is One Being in states of superconscience and
\nconsciousness each with its own nature of
\nself-experience. But the lower states, although they have a reality,
\nare yet qualified by a building and seeing of subjective
\nself-constructions which are not the Real. The One Self sees itself as
\nmany, but this multiple existence is subjective; it has a
\nmultiplicity of its states of consciousness, but this multiplicity also
\nis subjective; there is a reality of subjective experience of
\na real Being, but no objective universe. <\/p>\n

    
\nIt may be noted, however, that nowhere in the Upanishads is it actually
\nlaid down that the threefold status is a condition
\nof illusion or the creation of an unreality; it is constantly affirmed
\nthat all this that is, — this universe we are now supposing to
\nhave been constructed by Maya, — is the Brahman, the Reality. The
\nBrahman becomes all these beings; all beings must be
\nseen in the Self, the Reality, and the Reality must be seen in them,
\nthe Reality must be seen as being actually all these
\nbeings; for not only the Self is Brahman, but all is the Self, all this
\nthat is is the Brahman, the Reality. That emphatic
\nasseveration leaves no room for an illusory Maya; but still the
\ninsistent denial that there is anything other than or separate
\nfrom the experiencing self, certain phrases used and the description of
\ntwo of the states of consciousness as sleep and
\ndream may be taken as if they annulled the emphasis on the universal
\nReality; these passages open the gates to the
\nillusionist idea and have been made the\n<\/p>\n


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foundation for an uncompromising system of that nature. If we take this fourfold status as a figure of the Self passing from
\nits superconscient state, where there is no subject or object, into a luminous trance in which superconscience
\nbecomes a massed consciousness out of which the subjective status of being and
\nthe objective come into emergence, then we get according to our view of things
\neither a possible process of illusionary creation or a process of creative
\nSelf-knowledge and All-knowledge. <\/p>\n

      In fact, if we can judge from the
\ndescription of the three lower states of Self as the all-wise Intelligence1<\/sup>, the Seer of the subtle and the Seer of the gross material existence, this sleep state and this dream state seem to be
\nfigurative names for the superconscient and the subliminal which are behind and beyond our waking status; they are so
\nnamed and figured because it is through dream and sleep, — or trance which can be regarded as a kind of dream or
\nsleep, — that the surface mental consciousness normally passes out of the perception of objective things into the inner
\nsubliminal and the superior supramental or overmental status. In that inner condition it sees the supraphysical realities in
\ntranscribing figures of dream or vision or, in the superior status, it loses itself in a massed consciousness of which it can
\nreceive no thought or image. It is through this subliminal and this superconscient condition that we can pass into the supreme
\nsuperconscience of the highest state of self-being. If we make the transition, not through dream-trance or sleep-trance, but
\nthrough a spiritual awakening into these higher states, we become aware in all of them of the one omnipresent Reality; there
\nneed be no perception of an illusionary Maya, there is only an experience of the passage from Mind to what is beyond it so
\nthat our mental structure of the universe ceases to be valid and another reality<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup> prajna<\/i>. Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states very positively that there are two planes or
\nstates of the being which are two worlds and that in the dream state one can see both worlds for the dream
\nstate is intermediate between them, it is their joining-plane. This makes it clear that he is speaking of a
\nsubliminal condition of the consciousness which can carry in it communications between the physical and the
\nsupraphysical worlds. The description of the dreamless sleep-state applies both to deep sleep and to the
\ncondition of trance in which one enters into a massed consciousness containing in it all the powers of being but
\nall compressed within itself and concentrated solely on itself and, when active, then active in a consciousness
\nwhere all is the self; this is, clearly, a state admitting us into the higher planes of the spirit normally now
\nsuperconscient to our waking being. <\/font><\/p>\n


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of it is substituted for the ignorant mental knowledge. In this transition it is possible to be awake to all the states of being
\ntogether in a harmonised and unified experience and to see the Reality everywhere. But if we plunge by a trance of
\nexclusive concentration into a mystic sleep-state or pass abruptly in waking Mind into a state belonging to the
\nSuperconscient, then the mind can be seized in the passage by a sense of the unreality of the cosmic Force and its creations;
\nit passes by a subjective abolition of them into the supreme superconscience. This sense of unreality and this sublimating
\npassage are the spiritual justification for the idea of a world created by Maya; but this consequence is not conclusive, since
\na larger and more complete conclusion superseding it is possible to spiritual experience. <\/p>\n

    
\nAll these and other solutions of the nature of Maya fail to satisfy
\nbecause they have no conclusiveness: they do not
\nestablish the inevitability of the illusionist hypothesis which, to be
\naccepted, needs to be inevitable; they do not bridge the
\nchasm between the presumed true nature of the eternal Reality and the
\nparadoxical and contrary character of the cosmic
\nIllusion. At the most a process is indicated that claims to make the
\nco-existence of the two opposites conceivable and
\nintelligible; but it has no such force of certitude or illuminating
\nconvincingness effectively curing the improbability that its
\nacceptance would be obligatory on the intelligence. The theory of the
\ncosmic Illusion gets rid of an original contradiction, a
\nproblem and mystery which may be otherwise soluble, by erecting another
\ncontradiction, a new problem and mystery which
\nis irreconcilable in its terms and insoluble. For we start with the
\nconception or experience of an absolute Reality which is in
\nits nature eternally one, supracosmic, static, immobile, immutable,
\nself-aware of its pure existence, and a phenomenon of
\ncosmos, dynamism, motion, mutability, modifications of the original
\npure existence, differentiation, infinite multiplicity. This
\nphenomenon is got rid of by declaring it to be a perpetual Illusion,
\nMaya. But this brings in, in effect, a self-contradictory
\ndual status of consciousness of the One to annul a self-contradictory
\ndual status of being of the One. A phenomenal truth of
\nmultiplicity of the One is\n<\/p>\n


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annulled by setting up a conceptual falsehood in the One creating an unreal multiplicity. The One for ever self-aware of its
\npure existence entertains a perpetual imagination or illusory construction of itself as an infinite multiplicity of ignorant and
\nsuffering beings unaware of self who have to wake one by one to awareness of self and cease individually to be. <\/p>\n

    
\nIn face of this solution of a perplexity by a new perplexity we begin
\nto suspect that our original premiss must have been
\nsomewhere incomplete, — not an error, but only a first statement and
\nindispensable foundation. We begin to envisage the
\nReality as an eternal oneness, status, immutable essence of pure
\nexistence supporting an eternal dynamis, motion, infinite
\nmultiplicity and diversity of itself. The immutable status of oneness
\nbrings out of itself the dynamis, motion and
\nmultiplicity, — the dynamis, motion and multiplicity not abrogating but
\nbringing into relief the eternal and infinite oneness. If
\nthe consciousness of Brahman can be dual in status or action or even
\nmanifold, there seems to be no reason why Brahman
\nshould be incapable of a dual status or a manifold real self-experience
\nof its being. The cosmic consciousness would then
\nbe, not a creative Illusion, but an experience of some truth of the
\nAbsolute. This explanation, if worked out, might prove to
\nbe more comprehensive and spiritually fecund, more harmonic in its
\njuncture of the two terms of our self-experience, and it
\nwould be at least as logically tenable as the idea of an eternal
\nReality supporting in perpetuity an eternal illusion real only to
\nan infinite multiplicity of ignorant and suffering beings who escape
\none by one from the obscurity and pain of Maya, each
\none by a separate extinction of itself in Maya. <\/p>\n

   
\n In a second possible answer on the illusionist basis to the
\nproblem, in the philosophy of Shankara which may be
\ndescribed as a qualified Illusionism, an answer which is presented with
\na force and comprehensiveness that are
\nextraordinarily impressive, we make a first step towards this solution.
\nFor this philosophy affirms a qualified reality for
\nMaya; it characterises it indeed as an ineffable and unaccountable
\nmystery, but at the same time it does present us with a
\nrational solution, at first sight thoroughly satisfactory, of the
\nopposition which afflicts our mind; it accounts for our sense of
\nthe persistent and pressing reality of the universe\n<\/p>\n


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and our sense of the inconclusiveness,
\ninsufficiency, vanity, evanescence, a certain unreality of life and
\nphenomena. For we
\nfind a distinction made between two orders of reality, transcendental
\nand pragmatic, absolute and phenomenal, eternal and
\ntemporal, — the former the reality of the pure being of Brahman,
\nabsolute and supracosmic and eternal, the latter the reality
\nof Brahman in Maya, cosmic, temporal and relative. Here we get a
\nreality for ourselves and the universe: for the individual
\nself is really Brahman; it is Brahman who within the field of Maya
\nseems phenomenally to be subjected to her as the
\nindividual and in the end releases the relative and phenomenal
\nindividual into his eternal and true being. In the temporal field
\nof relativities our experience of the Brahman who has become all
\nbeings, the Eternal who has become universal and
\nindividual, is also valid; it is indeed a middle step of the movement
\nin Maya towards liberation from Maya. The universe too
\nand its experiences are real for the consciousness in Time and that
\nconsciousness is real. But the question of the nature and
\nextent of this reality at once arises: for the universe and ourselves
\nmay be a true reality though of a lesser order, or they
\nmay be partly real, partly unreal, or they may be an unreal reality. If
\nthey are at all a true reality, there is no place for any
\ntheory of Maya; there is no illusory creation. If they are partly real,
\npartly unreal, the fault must lie in something wrong
\neither in the cosmic self-awareness or in our own seeing of ourselves
\nand the universe which produces an error of being, an
\nerror of knowledge, an error in the dynamis of existence. But that
\nerror can amount only to an ignorance or a mixed
\nknowledge and ignorance, and what needs to be explained then is not an
\noriginal Cosmic Illusion but the intervention of
\nIgnorance in the creative consciousness or in the dynamic action of the
\nEternal and Infinite. But if universe and ourselves
\nare an unreal reality, if to a transcendental consciousness all this
\nhas no truth of existence and its apparent reality ceases
\nonce we step out of the field proper to Maya, then the concession
\naccorded with one hand is taken away by the other; for
\nwhat was conceded as a truth turns out to have been all the time an
\nillusion. Maya and cosmos and ourselves are both real
\nand unreal, — but the reality is an unreal reality, <\/p>\n


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real only to our ignorance, unreal to any true knowledge. <\/p>\n

   
\nIt is difficult to see why, once any reality is conceded to ourselves
\nand to the universe, it should not be a true reality
\nwithin its limits. It may be admitted that the manifestation must be on
\nits surface a more restricted reality than the
\nManifested; our universe is, we may say, one of the rhythms of Brahman
\nand not, except in its essential being, the whole
\nreality: but that is not a sufficient reason for it to be set aside as
\nunreal. It is no doubt so felt by mind withdrawing from itself
\nand its structures: but this is only because the mind is an instrument
\nof Ignorance and, when it withdraws from its
\nconstructions, from its ignorant and imperfect picture of the universe,
\nit is impelled to regard them as nothing more than its
\nown fictions and formations, unfounded, unreal; the gulf between its
\nignorance and the supreme Truth and Knowledge
\ndisables it from discovering the true connections of the transcendent
\nReality and the cosmic Reality. In a higher status of
\nconsciousness the difficulty disappears, the connection is established;
\nthe sense of unreality recedes and a theory of illusion
\nbecomes superfluous and inapplicable. It cannot be the final truth that
\nthe Supreme Consciousness has no regard upon the
\nuniverse or that it regards it as a fiction which its self in Time
\nupholds as real. The cosmic can only exist by dependence on
\nthe supracosmic, Brahman in Time must have some significance for
\nBrahman in timeless eternity; otherwise there could be
\nno self and spirit in things and therefore no basis for the temporal
\nexistence. <\/p>\n

   
\n But the universe is condemned as ultimately unreal because it is
\ntemporary and not eternal, a perishable form of being
\nimposed on the Formless and Imperishable. This relation can be
\nillustrated by the analogy of earth and the pot made out of
\nearth: the pot and other forms so created perish and go back to the
\nreality, earth, they are only evanescent forms; when they
\ndisappear there is left the formless and essential earth and nothing
\nelse. But this analogy can tell more convincingly the other
\nway; for the pot is real by right of its being made out of the
\nsubstance of earth which is real; it is not an illusion and, even
\nwhen it is dissolved into the original earth, its past existence cannot
\nbe thought to have been unreal or an illusion. The
\nrelation is not\n<\/p>\n


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that of an original reality and a phenomenal
\nunreality, but of an original, — or, if we go back from earth to the
\ninvisible
\nsubstratum and constituent ether, an eternal and non-manifest, — to a
\nresultant and dependent, a temporal and manifested
\nreality. Moreover, the pot form is an eternal possibility of earth
\nsubstance, or ethereal substance, and while the substance
\nexists the form can always be manifested. A form may disappear, but it
\nonly passes out of manifestation into
\nnon-manifestation; a world may disappear, but there is no proof that
\nworld-existence is an evanescent phenomenon: on the
\ncontrary, we may suppose that the power of manifestation is inherent in
\nBrahman and continues to act either continuously in
\nTime-eternity or in an eternal recurrence. The cosmic is a different
\norder of the Real from the supracosmic Transcendence,
\nbut there is no need to take it as in any way non-existent or unreal to
\nthat Transcendence. For the purely intellectual
\nconception that only the Eternal is real, whether we take it in the
\nsense that reality depends on perpetual duration or that the
\ntimeless only is true, is an ideative distinction, a mental
\nconstruction; it is not binding on a substantial and integral
\nexperience.
\nTime is not necessarily cancelled out of existence by timeless
\nEternity; their relation is only verbally a relation of
\ncontradiction; in fact, it is more likely to be a relation of
\ndependence. <\/p>\n

 
\n    Similarly, the reasoning which cancels the dynamics of
\nthe Absolute, the imposition of the stigma of unreal reality on the
\npragmatic truth of things because it is pragmatic, is difficult to
\naccept; for the pragmatic truth is after all not something quite
\nother, quite separate and unconnected with spiritual truth, it is a
\nresult of the energy or a motion of the dynamic activity of
\nthe Spirit. A distinction must, no doubt, be made between the two, but
\nthe idea of an entire opposition can rest only on the
\npostulate that a silent and quiescent status is the Eternal’s true and
\nwhole being; but in that case we must conclude that
\nthere is nothing dynamic in the Absolute and all dynamism is a
\ncontradiction of the supreme nature of the Divine and
\nEternal. But if a temporal or cosmic reality of any kind exists, there
\nmust be a power, an inherent dynamic force of the
\nAbsolute which brought it into being, and there is no reason to suppose
\nthat the power of the\n<\/p>\n

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\n

Absolute can do nothing but create illusions. On the contrary, the Power that creates must be the force of an omnipotent
\nand omniscient Consciousness; the creations of the absolutely Real should be real and not illusions, and since it is the One
\nExistence, they must be self-creations, forms of a manifestation of the Eternal, not forms of Nothing erected out of the
\noriginal Void, — whether a void being or a void consciousness,—by Maya. <\/p>\n

   
\nAt the basis of the refusal to recognise the universe as real is the
\nconcept or experience of the Reality as immutable,
\nfeatureless, non-active and realised through a consciousness that has
\nitself fallen into a status of silence and is immobile.
\nThe universe is a result of dynamis in movement, it is force of being
\nthrowing itself out in action, energy at work, whether
\nthat energy be conceptive or mechanical or a spiritual, mental, vital
\nor material dynamis; it can thus be regarded as a
\ncontradiction, — or a derogation from self, — of the static and
\nimmobile eternal Reality, therefore unreal. But as a concept this
\nposition of the thought has no inevitability; there is no reason why we
\nshould not conceive of the Reality as at once static
\nand dynamic. It is perfectly rational to suppose that the eternal
\nstatus of being of the Reality contains in it an eternal force of
\nbeing, and this dynamis must necessarily carry in itself a power of
\naction and movement, a kinesis; both status of being and
\nmovement of being can be real. There is no reason either why they
\nshould not be simultaneous; on the contrary, simultaneity
\nis demanded, — for all energy, all kinetic action has to support itself
\non status or by status if it is to be effective or creative;
\notherwise there will be no solidity of anything created, only a
\nconstant whirl without any formation: status of being, form of
\nbeing are necessary to kinesis of being. Even if energy be the primal
\nreality, as it seems to be in the material world, still it
\nhas to create status of itself, lasting forms, duration of beings in
\norder to have a support for its action: the status may be
\ntemporary, it may be only a balance or equilibrium of substance created
\nand maintained by a constant kinesis, but while it
\nendures it is real and, after it ceases, we still regard it as
\nsomething that was real. The principle of a supporting status for
\naction is a permanent principle, and its action is constant in\n<\/p>\n


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Time-eternity. When we discover the stable Reality underlying all this movement of energy and this creation of forms, we
\ndo indeed perceive that the status of created forms is only temporary; there is a stability of repetition of the kinesis in a
\nsame persistent action and figure of movement which maintains substance of being in stable form of itself: but this stability is
\ncreated, and the one permanent and self-existent status is that of the eternal Being whose Energy erected the forms. But
\nwe need not therefore conclude that the temporary forms are unreal; for the energy of the being is real and the forms made
\nby it are forms of the being. In any case the status of the being and the eternal dynamis of the being are both real, and they
\nare simultaneous; the status admits of action of dynamis and the action does not abrogate the status. We must therefore
\nconclude that eternal status and eternal dynamis are both true of the Reality which itself surpasses both status and dynamis;
\nthe immobile and the mobile Brahman are both the same Reality. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut in experience we find that for us it is, normally, a quiescence
\nthat brings in the stable realisation of the eternal and
\nthe infinite: it is in silence or quietude that we feel most firmly the
\nSomething that is behind the world shown to us by our
\nmind and senses. Our cognitive action of thought, our action of life
\nand being seem to overlay the truth, the reality; they
\ngrasp the finite but not the infinite, they deal with the temporal and
\nnot the eternal Real. It is reasoned that this is so because
\nall action, all creation, all determining perception limits; it does
\nnot embrace or grasp the Reality, and its constructions
\ndisappear when we enter into the indivisible and indeterminable
\nconsciousness of the Real: these constructions are unreal in
\neternity, however real they may seem or be in Time. Action leads to
\nignorance, to the created and finite; kinesis and
\ncreation are a contradiction of the immutable Reality, the pure
\nuncreated Existence. But this reasoning is not wholly valid
\nbecause it is looking at perception and action only as they are in our
\nmental cognition of the world and its movement; but
\nthat is the experience of our surface being regarding things from its
\nshifting motion in Time, a regard itself superficial,
\nfragmentary and delimited, not total, not plunging into the inner sense
\nof\n<\/p>\n


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things. In fact we find that action need not bind or
\nlimit, if we get out of this moment-cognition into a status of
\ncognition of
\nthe eternal proper to the true consciousness. Action does not bind or
\nlimit the liberated man; action does not bind or limit the
\nEternal: but we can go farther and say that action does not bind or
\nlimit our own true being at all. Action has no such effect
\non the spiritual Person or Purusha or on the psychic entity within us,
\nit binds or limits only the surface constructed
\npersonality. This personality is a temporary expression of our
\nself-being, a changing form of it, empowered to exist by it,
\ndependent on it for substance and endurance, — temporary, but not
\nunreal. Our thought and action are means for this
\nexpression of ourselves and, as the expression is incomplete and
\nevolutive, as it is a development of our natural being in
\nTime, thought and action help it to develop, to change, to alter and
\nexpand its limits, but at the same time to maintain limits; in
\nthat sense they are limiting and binding; they are themselves an
\nincomplete mode of self-revelation. But when we go back
\ninto ourselves, into the true self and person, there is no longer a
\nbinding or limitation by the limits of action or perception;
\nboth arise as expressions of consciousness and expressions of force of
\nthe self operative for a free self-determination of its
\nnature-being, for the self-unrolling, the becoming in time of something
\nthat is itself illimitable. The limitation, which is a
\nnecessary circumstance of an evolutive self-determination, might be an
\nabrogation of self or derogation from self, from
\nReality, and therefore itself unreal, if it altered the essentiality or
\ntotality of the being; it would be a bondage of the spirit and
\ntherefore illegitimate if it obscured, by an alien imposition
\nproceeding from a force that is not-self, the Consciousness that is
\nthe inmost witness and creator of our world-existence, or if it
\nconstructed something contrary to the Being’s consciousness
\nof self or will of becoming. But the essence of being remains the same
\nin all action and formation, and the limitations freely
\naccepted do not take from the being’s totality; they are accepted and
\nself-imposed, not imposed from outside, they are a
\nmeans of expression of our totality in the movement of Time, an order
\nof things imposed by our inner spiritual being on our
\nouter nature-being, not a bondage inflicted\n<\/p>\n


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on the ever-free spirit. There is therefore no
\nreason to conclude from the limitations of perception and action that
\nthe
\nmovement is unreal or that the expression, formation or self-creation
\nof the Spirit is unreal. It is a temporal order of reality,
\nbut it is still a reality of the Real, not something else. All that is
\nin the kinesis, the movement, the action, the creation, is the
\nBrahman; the becoming is a movement of the being; Time is a
\nmanifestation of the Eternal. All is one Being, one
\nConsciousness, one even in infinite multiplicity, and there is no need
\nto bisect it into an opposition of transcendent Reality
\nand unreal cosmic Maya. <\/p>\n

    
\nIn the philosophy of Shankara one feels the presence of a conflict, an
\nopposition which this powerful intellect has stated
\nwith full force and masterfully arranged rather than solved with any
\nfinality, — the conflict of an intuition intensely aware of
\nan absolute transcendent and inmost Reality and a strong intellectual
\nreason regarding the world with a keen and vigorous
\nrational intelligence. The intellect of the thinker regards the
\nphenomenal world from the standpoint of the reason; reason is
\nthere the judge and the authority and no suprarational authority can
\nprevail against it: but behind the phenomenal world is a
\ntranscendent Reality which the intuition alone can see; there
\nreason,—at least a finite dividing limited reason, — cannot
\nprevail against the intuitive experience, it cannot even relate the
\ntwo, it cannot therefore solve the mystery of the universe.
\nThe reason has to affirm the reality of the phenomenal existence, to
\naffirm its truths as valid; but they are valid only in that
\nphenomenal existence. This phenomenal existence is real because it is a
\ntemporal phenomenon of the eternal Existence, the
\nReality: but it is not itself that Reality and, when we pass beyond the
\nphenomenon to the Real, it still exists but is no longer
\nvalid to our consciousness; it is therefore unreal. Shankara takes up
\nthis contradiction, this opposition which is normal to our
\nmental consciousness when it becomes aware of both sides of existence
\nand stands between them; he resolves it by obliging
\nthe reason to recognise its limits, in which its unimpaired sovereignty
\nis left to it within its own cosmic province, and to
\nacquiesce in the soul’s intuition of the transcendent Reality and to
\nsupport, by a\n<\/p>\n


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\n

dialectic which ends by dissolving the whole cosmic
\nphenomenal and rational-practical edifice of things, its escape from
\nthe
\nlimitations constructed and imposed on the mind by Maya. The
\nexplanation of cosmic existence by which this is brought
\nabout seems to be, — or so we may translate it to our understanding,
\nfor there have been different expositions of this
\nprofound and subtle philosophy,—that there is a Transcendence which is
\nfor ever self-existent and immutable and a world
\nwhich is only phenomenal and temporal. The eternal Reality manifests
\nitself in regard to the phenomenal world as Self and Ishwara. The
\nIshwara by his Maya, his power of phenomenal creation, constructs this
\nworld as a temporal phenomenon,
\nand this phenomenon of things which do not exist in the utterly Real is
\nimposed by Maya through our conceptive and
\nperceptive consciousness on the superconscient or purely self-conscient
\nReality. Brahman the Reality appears in the
\nphenomenal existence as the Self of the living individual; but when the
\nindividuality of the individual is dissolved by intuitive
\nknowledge, the phenomenal being is released into self-being: it is no
\nlonger subject to Maya and by its release from the
\nappearance of individuality it is extinguished in the Reality; but the
\nworld continues to exist without beginning or end as the
\nMayic creation of the Ishwara. <\/p>\n

     
\nThis is an arrangement which puts into relation with each other the
\ndata of the spiritual intuition and the data of the
\nreason and sense, and it opens to us a way out from their
\ncontradiction, a spiritual and practical issue: but it is not a
\nsolution,
\nit does not resolve the contradiction. Maya is real and unreal; the
\nworld is not a mere illusion, for it exists and is real in Time,
\nbut eventually and transcendentally it turns out to be unreal. This
\ncreates an ambiguity which extends beyond itself and
\ntouches all that is not the pure self-existence. Thus the Ishwara,
\nthough he is undeluded by Maya and the creator of Maya,
\nseems himself to be a phenomenon of Brahman and not the ultimate
\nReality, he is real only with regard to the Time-world
\nhe creates; the individual self has the same ambiguous character. If
\nMaya were to cease altogether from its operations,
\nIshwara, the world and the individual would no longer be there; but
\nMaya is eternal, Ishwara and the world are eternal in
\nTime, the\n<\/p>\n


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individual endures so long as he does not annul himself by knowledge. Our thought on these premisses has to take refuge in
\nthe conception of an ineffable suprarational mystery which is to the intellect insoluble. But, faced with this ambiguity, this
\nadmission of an insoluble mystery at the commencement of things and at the end of the process of thought, we begin to
\nsuspect that there is a link missing. Ishwara is not himself a phenomenon of Maya, he is real; he must then be the
\nmanifestation of a truth of the Transcendence, or he must be the Transcendent itself dealing with a cosmos manifested in
\nhis own being. If the world is at all real, it also must be the manifestation of a truth of the Transcendence; for only that can
\nhave any reality. If the individual has the power of self-discovery and entrance into the transcendent eternity and his
\nliberation has so great an importance, it must be because he too is a reality of the Transcendence; he has to discover himself
\nindividually, because his individuality also has some truth of itself in the Transcendence which is veiled from it and which it
\nhas to recover. It is an ignorance of self and world that has to be overcome and not an illusion, a figment of individuality and
\nworld-existence. <\/p>\n

   
\nIt becomes evident that as the Transcendence is suprarational and
\nseizable only by an intuitive experience and
\nrealisation, so also the mystery of the universe is suprarational. It
\nhas to be so since it is a phenomenon of the transcendent
\nReality, and it would not, if it were otherwise, be insoluble by the
\nintellectual reason. But if so, we have to pass beyond the
\nintellect in order to bridge the gulf and penetrate the mystery; to
\nleave an unsolved contradiction cannot be the final solution.
\nIt is the intellectual reason that crystallises and perpetuates an
\napparent contradiction by creating its opposite or dividing
\nconcepts of the Brahman, the Self, the Ishwara, the individual being,
\nthe supreme consciousness or superconscience and the
\nMayic world-consciousness. If Brahman alone exists, all these must be
\nBrahman, and in Brahman-consciousness the
\ndivision of these concepts must disappear in a reconciling self-vision;
\nbut we can arrive at their true unity only by passing
\nbeyond the intellectual Reason and finding out through spiritual
\nexperience where they meet and become one and what is
\nthe spiritual reality of their\n<\/p>\n


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apparent divergence. In fact, in the Brahman-consciousness the divergences cannot exist, they must by our passage into it
\nconverge into unity; the divisions of the intellectual reason may correspond to a reality, but it must be then the reality of a
\nmanifold Oneness. The Buddha applied his penetrating rational intellect supported by an intuitive vision to the world as our
\nmind and sense see it and discovered the principle of its construction and the way of release from all constructions, but he
\nrefused to go farther. Shankara took the farther step and regarded the suprarational Truth, which Buddha kept behind the
\nveil as realisable by cancellation of the constructions of consciousness but beyond the scope of the reason’s discovery.
\nShankara, standing between the world and the eternal Reality, saw that the mystery of the world must be ultimately
\nsuprarational, not conceivable or expressible by our reason, anirvacaniya<\/i>;
\nbut he maintained the world as seen by the
\nreason and sense as valid and had therefore to posit an unreal reality,
\nbecause he did not take one step still farther. For to
\nknow the real truth of the world, its reality, it must be seen from the
\nsuprarational awareness, from the view of the
\nSuperconscience that maintains and surpasses and by surpassing knows it
\nin its truth, and no longer from the view of the
\nconsciousness that is maintained by it and surpassed by it and
\ntherefore does not know it or knows it only by its appearance.
\nIt cannot be that to that self-creative supreme consciousness the world
\nis an incomprehensible mystery or that it is to it an
\nillusion that is yet not altogether an illusion, a reality that is yet
\nunreal. The mystery of the universe must have a divine sense
\nto the Divine; it must have a significance or a truth of cosmic being
\nthat is luminous to the Reality that upholds it with its
\ntranscending and yet immanent superconscience. <\/p>\n

     
\nIf the Reality alone exists and all is the Reality, the world also
\ncannot be excluded from that Reality; the universe is
\nreal. If it does not reveal to us in its forms and powers the Reality
\nthat it is, if it seems only a persistent and yet changing
\nmovement in Space and Time, this must be not because it is unreal or
\nbecause it is not at all That, but because it is a
\nprogressive self-expression, a manifestation, an evolving
\nself-development of That in Time which our consciousness cannot
\nyet see in its total or its essential\n<\/p>\n


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significance. In this sense we can say that it is
\nThat and not That, — because it does not disclose all the Reality
\nthrough any
\nform or sum of its forms of self-expression; but still all its forms
\nare forms of the substance and being of that Reality. All
\nfinites are in their spiritual essence the Infinite and, if we look
\ndeep enough into them, manifest to intuition the Identical and
\nInfinite. It is contended indeed that the universe cannot be a
\nmanifestation because the Reality has no need of manifestation,
\nsince it is for ever manifest to itself; but so equally it can be said
\nthat the Reality has no need of self-illusion or illusion of any
\nkind, no need to create a Mayic universe. The Absolute can have no need
\nof anything; but still there can be, — not coercive
\nof its freedom, not binding on it, but an expression of its self-force,
\nthe result of its Will to become, — an imperative of a
\nsupreme self-effectuating Force, a necessity of self-creation born of
\nthe power of the Absolute to see itself in Time. This
\nimperative represents itself to us as a Will to create, a Will of
\nself-expression; but it may be better represented as a force of
\nbeing of the Absolute which displays itself as a power of itself in
\naction. If the Absolute is self-evident to itself in eternal
\nTimelessness, it can also be self-manifest to itself in eternal motion
\nof Time. Even if the universe is only a phenomenal
\nreality, still it is a manifestation or phenomenon of Brahman; for
\nsince all is Brahman, phenomenon and manifestation must
\nbe the same thing: the imputation of unreality is a superfluous
\nconception, otiose and unnecessarily embarrassing, since
\nwhatever distinction is needed is already there in the concept of Time
\nand the timeless Eternal and the concept of
\nmanifestation. <\/p>\n

   The one thing
\nthat can be described as an unreal reality is our individual sense of
\nseparativeness and the conception of
\nthe finite as a self-existent object in the Infinite. This conception,
\nthis sense are pragmatically necessary for the operations
\nof the surface individuality and are effective and justified by their
\neffects; they are therefore real to its finite reason and
\nfinite self-experience: but once we step back from the finite
\nconsciousness into the consciousness of the essential and
\ninfinite, from the apparent to the true Person, the finite or the
\nindividual still exists but as being and power and manifestation
\nof the Infinite;\n<\/p>\n


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it has no independent or separate reality. Individual independence, entire separativeness are not necessary for individual
\nreality, do not constitute it. On the other hand, the disappearance of these finite forms of the manifestation is evidently a
\nfactor in the problem, but does not by itself convict them of unreality; the disappearance may be only a withdrawal from
\nmanifestation. The cosmic manifestation of the Timeless takes place in the successions of Time: its forms must therefore be
\ntemporary in their appearance on the surface, but they are eternal in their essential power of manifestation; for they are held
\nalways implicit and potential in the essence of things and in the essential consciousness from which they emerge: timeless
\nconsciousness can always turn their abiding potentiality into terms of time-actuality. The world would be unreal only if itself
\nand its forms were images without substance of being, figments of consciousness presented to itself by the Reality as pure
\nfigments and then abolished for ever. But if manifestation or the power of manifestation is eternal, if all is the being of
\nBrahman, the Reality, then this unreality or illusoriness cannot be the fundamental character of things or of the cosmos in
\nwhich they make their appearance.
\n<\/p>\n

    A theory of Maya in the
\nsense of illusion or the unreality of cosmic existence creates more
\ndifficulties than it solves; it
\ndoes not really solve the problem of existence, but rather renders it
\nfor ever insoluble. For, whether Maya be an unreality or
\na non-real reality, the ultimate effects of the theory carry in them a
\ndevastating simplicity of nullification. Ourselves and the
\nuniverse fade away into nothingness or else keep for a time only a
\ntruth which is little better than a fiction. In the thesis of
\nthe pure unreality of Maya, all experience, all knowledge as well as
\nall ignorance, the knowledge that frees us no less than
\nthe ignorance that binds us, world-acceptance and world-refusal, are
\ntwo sides of an illusion; for there is nothing to accept
\nor refuse, nobody to accept or refuse it. All the time it was only the
\nimmutable superconscient Reality that at all existed; the
\nbondage and release were only appearances, not a reality. All
\nattachment to world-existence is an illusion, but the call for
\nliberation is also a circumstance of the illusion; it is something\n<\/p>\n


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\n

that was created in Maya which by its liberation is
\nextinguished in Maya. But this nullification cannot be compelled to
\nstop
\nshort in its devastating advance at the boundary fixed for it by a
\nspiritual Illusionism. For if all other experiences of the
\nindividual consciousness in the universe are illusions, then what
\nguarantee is there that its spiritual experiences are not
\nillusions, including even its absorbed self-experience of the supreme
\nSelf which is conceded to us as utterly real? For if
\ncosmos is untrue, our experience of the cosmic consciousness, of the
\nuniversal Self, of Brahman as all these beings or as
\nthe self of all these beings, the One in all, all in the One has no
\nsecure foundation, since it reposes in one of its terms on an
\nillusion, on a construction of Maya. That term, the cosmic term, has to
\ncrumble, for all these beings which we saw as the
\nBrahman were illusions; then what is our assurance of our experience of
\nthe other term, the pure Self, the silent, static or
\nabsolute Reality, since that too comes to us in a mind moulded of
\ndelusion and formed in a body created by an Illusion? An
\noverwhelming self-evident convincingness, an experience of absolute
\nauthenticity in the realisation or experience is not an
\nunanswerable proof of sole reality or sole finality: for other
\nspiritual experiences such as that of the omnipresent Divine
\nPerson, Lord of a real Universe, have the same convincing, authentic
\nand final character. It is open to the intellect which
\nhas once arrived at the conviction of the unreality of all other
\nthings, to take a farther step and deny the reality of Self and of
\nall existence. The Buddhists took this last step and refused reality to
\nthe Self on the ground that it was as much as the rest a
\nconstruction of the mind; they cut not only God but the eternal Self
\nand impersonal Brahman out of the picture. <\/p>\n

   
\nAn uncompromising theory of Illusion solves no problem of our
\nexistence; it only cuts the problem out for the individual
\nby showing him a way of exit: in its extreme form and effect, our being
\nand its action become null and without sanction, its
\nexperience, aspiration, endeavour lose their significance; all, the one
\nincommunicable relationless Truth excepted and the
\nturning away to it, become equated with illusion of being, are part of
\na universal Illusion and themselves illusions. God and\n<\/p>\n


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\n

ourselves and the universe become myths of Maya; for
\nGod is only a reflection of Brahman in Maya, ourselves are only a
\nreflection of Brahman in illusory individuality, the world is only an
\nimposition on the Brahman’s incommunicable
\nself-existence. There is a less drastic nullification if a certain
\nreality is admitted for the being even within the illusion, a
\ncertain validity for the experience and knowledge by which we grow into
\nthe spirit: but this is only if the temporal has a valid
\nreality and the experience in it has a real validity, and in that case
\nwhat we are in front of is not an illusion taking the unreal
\nfor real but an ignorance misapprehending the real. Otherwise if the
\nbeings of whom Brahman is the self are illusory, its
\nselfhood is not valid, it is part of an illusion; the experience of
\nself is also an illusion: the experience “I am That” is vitiated by
\nan ignorant conception, for there is no I, only That; the experience “I
\nam He” is doubly ignorant, for it assumes a conscious
\nEternal, a Lord of the universe, a Cosmic Being, but there can be no
\nsuch thing if there is no reality in the universe. A real
\nsolution of existence can only stand upon a truth that accounts for our
\nexistence and world-existence, reconciles their truth,
\ntheir right relation and the truth of their relation to whatever
\ntranscendent Reality is the source of everything. But this
\nimplies some reality of individual and cosmos, some true relation of
\nthe One Existence and all existences, of relative
\nexperience and of the Absolute. <\/p>\n

     
\nThe theory of Illusion cuts the knot of the world problem, it does not
\ndisentangle it; it is an escape, not a solution: a flight
\nof the spirit is not a sufficient victory for the being embodied in
\nthis world of the becoming; it effects a separation from
\nNature, not a liberation and fulfilment of our nature. This eventual
\noutcome satisfies only one element, sublimates only one
\nimpulse of our being; it leaves the rest out in the cold to perish in
\nthe twilight of the unreal reality of Maya. As in Science, so
\nin metaphysical thought, that general and ultimate solution is likely
\nto be the best which includes and accounts for all so that
\neach truth of experience takes its place in the whole: that knowledge
\nis likely to be the highest knowledge which illumines,
\nintegralises, harmonises the significance of all knowledge and accounts
\nfor, finds the basic and, one might almost say, the
\njustifying reason\n<\/p>\n


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of our ignorance and illusion while it cures them; this is the supreme experience which gathers together all experience in the
\ntruth of a supreme and all-reconciling oneness. Illusionism unifies by elimination; it deprives all knowledge and experience,
\nexcept the one supreme merger, of reality and significance. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut this debate belongs to the domain of the pure reason and the final
\ntest of truths of this order is not reason but
\nspiritual illumination verified by abiding fact of spirit; a single
\ndecisive spiritual experience may undo a whole edifice of reasonings
\nand conclusions erected by the logical intelligence. Here the theory of
\nIllusionism is in occupation of a very solid
\nground; for, although it is in itself no more than a mental
\nformulation, the experience it formulates into a philosophy
\naccompanies a most powerful and apparently final spiritual realisation.
\nIt comes upon us with a great force of awakening to
\nreality when the thought is stilled, when the mind withdraws from its
\nconstructions, when we pass into a pure selfhood void
\nof all sense of individuality, empty of all cosmic contents: if the
\nspiritualised mind then looks at individual and cosmos, they
\nmay well seem to it to be an illusion, a scheme of names and figures
\nand movements falsely imposed on the sole reality of
\nthe Self-Existent. Or even the sense of self becomes inadequate; both
\nknowledge and ignorance disappear into sheer
\nConsciousness and consciousness is plunged into a trance of pure
\nsuperconscient existence. Or even existence ends by
\nbecoming too limiting a name for that which abides solely for ever;
\nthere is only a timeless Eternal, a spaceless Infinite, the
\nutterness of the Absolute, a nameless peace, an overwhelming single
\nobjectless Ecstasy. There can certainly be no doubt of
\nthe validity, — complete within itself, — of this experience; there can
\nbe no denial of the overwhelming decisive
\nconvincingness, — ekatma-pratyaya-saram<\/i>,— with which this realisation seizes the consciousness of the spiritual seeker.
\nBut still all spiritual experience is experience of the Infinite and it takes a multitude of directions; some of them, — and not
\nthis alone, — are so close to the Divine and the Absolute, so penetrated with the reality of Its presence or with the ineffable
\npeace and power of the liberation from all that is less than It, that they carry with them this overwhelming sense of finality
\ncomplete<\/p>\n


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\n

and decisive. There are a hundred ways of
\napproaching the Supreme Reality and, as is the nature of the way taken,
\nso will
\nbe the nature of the ultimate experience by which one passes into That
\nwhich is ineffable, That of which no report can be
\ngiven to the mind or expressed by any utterance. All these definitive
\nculminations may be regarded as penultimates of the
\none Ultimate; they are steps by which the soul crosses the limits of
\nMind into the Absolute. Is then this realisation of passing
\ninto a pure immobile self-existence or this Nirvana of the individual
\nand the universe one among these penultimates, or is it
\nitself the final and absolute realisation which is at the end of every
\njourney and transcends and eliminates all lesser
\nexperience? It claims to stand behind and supersede, to sublate and to
\neliminate every other knowledge; if that is really so,
\nthen its finality must be accepted as conclusive. But, against this
\npretension, it has been claimed that it is possible to travel
\nbeyond by a greater negation or a greater affirmation,—to extinguish
\nself in Non-Being or to pass through the double
\nexperience of cosmic consciousness and Nirvana of world-consciousness
\nin the One Existence to a greater Divine Union
\nand Unity which holds both these realisations in its vast integral
\nReality. It is said that beyond the duality and the non-duality
\nthere is That in which both are held together and find their truth in a
\nTruth which is beyond them. A consummating
\nexperience which proceeds by the exceeding and elimination of all other
\npossible but lesser experiences is, as a step
\ntowards the Absolute, admissible. A supreme experience which affirms
\nand includes the truth of all spiritual experience,
\ngives to each its own absolute, integralises all knowledge and
\nexperience in a supreme reality, might be the one step farther
\nthat is at once a largest illuminating and transforming Truth of all
\nthings and a highest infinite Transcendence. The Brahman,
\nthe supreme Reality, is That which being known all is known; but in the
\nillusionist solution it is That, which being known, all
\nbecomes unreal and an incomprehensible mystery: in this other
\nexperience, the Reality being known, all assumes its true
\nsignificance, its truth to the Eternal and Absolute. <\/p>\n

   
\nAll truths, even those which seem to be in conflict, have their
\nvalidity, but they need a reconciliation in some largest
\nTruth\n<\/p>\n


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\n

which takes them into itself; all philosophies have
\ntheir value, — if for nothing else, then because they see the Self and
\nthe
\nuniverse from a point of view of the spirit’s experience of the
\nmany-sided Manifestation and in doing so shed light on
\nsomething that has to be known in the Infinite. All spiritual
\nexperiences are true, but they point towards some highest and
\nwidest reality which admits their truth and exceeds it. This is, we may
\nsay, a sign of the relativity of all truth and all
\nexperience, since both vary with the outlook and the inlook of the
\nknowing and experiencing mind and being; each man is
\nsaid to have his own religion according to his own nature, but so too
\neach man may be said to have his own philosophy, his
\nown way of seeing and experience of existence, though only a few can
\nformulate it. But from another point of view this
\nvariety testifies rather to the infinity of aspects of the Infinite;
\neach catches a partial glimpse or a whole glimpse of one or
\nmore aspects or contacts or enters into it in his mental or his
\nspiritual experience. To the mind at a certain stage all these
\nviewpoints begin to lose their definitiveness in a large catholicity or
\na complex tolerant incertitude, or all the rest may fall
\naway from it and yield place to an ultimate truth or a single absorbing
\nexperience. It is then that it is liable to feel the
\nunreality of all that it has seen and thought and taken as part of
\nitself or its universe. This “all” becomes to it a universal
\nunreality or a many-sided fragmental reality without a principle of
\nunification; as it passes into the negativing purity of an
\nabsolute experience, all falls away from it and there remains only a
\nsilent and immobile Absolute. But the consciousness
\nmight be called to go farther and see again all it has left in the
\nlight of a new spiritual vision: it may recover the truth of all
\nthings in the truth of the Absolute; it may reconcile the negation of
\nNirvana and the affirmation of the cosmic consciousness
\nin a single regard of That of which both are the self-expressions. In
\nthe passage from mental to overmind cognition this
\nmany-sided unity is the leading experience; the whole manifestation
\nassumes the appearance of a singular and mighty
\nharmony which reaches its greatest completeness when the soul stands on
\nthe border between Overmind and Supermind
\nand looks back with a total view upon existence. <\/p>\n

     This is at least a possibility that we have to explore and <\/p>\n


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\n

pursue this view of things to its ultimate
\nconsequence. A consideration of the possibility of a great cosmic
\nIllusion as the
\nexplanation of the enigma of being had to be undertaken because this
\nview and experience of things presents itself
\npowerfully at the end of the mental spiral where that reaches its point
\nof breaking or point of cessation; but once it is
\nascertained that it is not the obligatory end of a scrupulous enquiry
\ninto the ultimate truth, we can leave it aside or refer to it
\nonly when needed in connection with some line of a more plastic course
\nof thought and reasoning. Our regard can now be
\nconcentrated on the problem that is left by the exclusion of the
\nillusionist solution, the problem of the Knowledge and the
\nIgnorance. <\/p>\n

   All turns round
\nthe question “What is Reality?” Our cognitive consciousness is limited,
\nignorant, finite; our conceptions
\nof reality depend on our way of contact with existence in this limited
\nconsciousness and may be very different from the way
\nin which an original and ultimate Consciousness sees it. It is
\nnecessary to distinguish between the essential Reality, the
\nphenomenal reality dependent upon it and arising out of it, and the
\nrestricted and often misleading experience or notion of
\neither that is created by our sense-experience and our reason. To our
\nsense the earth is flat and, for most immediate
\npractical purposes, within a limit, we have to follow the sense reality
\nand deal with the flatness as if it were a fact; but in
\ntrue phenomenal reality the flatness of the earth is unreal, and
\nScience seeking for the truth of the phenomenal reality in
\nthings has to treat it as approximately round. In a host of details
\nScience contradicts the evidence of the senses as to the
\nreal truth of phenomena; but, still, we have to accept the cadre
\nprovided by our senses because the practical relations with
\nthings which they impose on us have validity as an effect of reality
\nand cannot be disregarded. Our reason, relying on the
\nsenses and exceeding them, constructs its own canons or notions of the
\nreal and unreal, but these canons vary according to
\nthe standpoint taken by the reasoning observer. The physical scientist
\nprobing into phenomena erects formulas and
\nstandards based on the objective and phenomenal reality and its
\nprocesses: to his view mind may appear as a subjective
\nresult of Matter and self and spirit as unreal; at any rate he has to
\nact as if matter and energy alone<\/p>\n


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existed and mind were only an observer of an independent physical reality which is unaffected by any mental processes
\n1<\/small> <\/sup>or any presence or intervention of a cosmic
\nIntelligence. The psychologist, probing independently into mind
\nconsciousness
\nand mind unconsciousness, discovers another domain of realities,
\nsubjective in its character, which has its own law and
\nprocess; to him Mind may even come to appear as the key of the real,
\nMatter as only a field for mind, and spirit apart from
\nmind as something unreal. But there is a farther probing which brings
\nup the truth of self and spirit and establishes a greater
\norder of the real in which there is a reversal of our view both of the
\nsubjective mind realities and objective physical realities
\nso that they are seen as things phenomenal, secondary, dependent upon
\nthe truth of self and the realities of the spirit. In this
\ndeeper search into things mind and matter begin to wear the appearance
\nof a lesser order of the real and may easily come
\nto appear unreal. <\/p>\n

    
\nBut it is the reason accustomed to deal with the finite that makes
\nthese exclusions; it cuts the whole into segments and
\ncan select one segment of the whole as if it were the entire reality.
\nThis is necessary for its action since its business is to
\ndeal with the finite as finite, and we have to accept for practical
\npurposes and for the reason’s dealings with the finite the
\ncadre it gives us, because it is valid as an effect of reality and so
\ncannot be disregarded. When we come to the experience
\nof the spiritual which is itself the whole or contains the whole in
\nitself, our mind carries there too its segmenting reason and
\nthe definitions necessary to a finite cognition; it cuts a line of
\nsection between the infinite and the finite, the spirit and its
\nphenomena or manifestations, and dubs those as real and these as
\nunreal. But an original and ultimate consciousness
\nembracing all the terms of existence in a single integral view would
\nsee the whole in its spiritual essential reality and the
\nphenomenon as a phenomenon or manifestation of that reality. If this
\ngreater spiritual consciousness saw in things only
\nunreality and an entire disconnection with the truth of the spirit, it
\ncould not have—if it were itself a
\nTruth-Consciousness—any reason for maintaining them in continuous <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/sup> This position has been shaken by
\nthe theory of Relativity, but it must hold as a pragmatic basis for experiment
\nand affirmation of the scientific fact. <\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage 473<\/p>\n

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\n

or recurrent existence through all Time: if it so
\nmaintains them, it is because they are based on the realities of the
\nspirit. But,
\nnecessarily, when thus integrally seen, the phenomenal reality would
\ntake on another appearance than when it is viewed by
\nthe reason and sense of the finite being; it would have another and
\ndeeper reality, another and greater significance, another
\nand more subtle and complex process of its movements of existence. The
\ncanons of reality and all the forms of thought
\ncreated by the finite reason and sense would appear to the greater
\nconsciousness as partial constructions with an element of
\ntruth in them and an element of error; these constructions might
\ntherefore be described as at once real and unreal, but the
\nphenomenal world itself would not become either unreal or unreal-real
\nby that fact: it would put on another reality of a
\nspiritual character; the finite would reveal itself as a power, a
\nmovement, a process of the Infinite. <\/p>\n

   
\nAn original and ultimate consciousness would be a consciousness of the
\nInfinite and necessarily unitarian in its view of
\ndiversity, integral, all-accepting, all-embracing, all-discriminating
\nbecause all-determining, an indivisible whole-vision. It would
\nsee the essence of things and regard all forms and movements as
\nphenomenon and consequence of the essential Reality,
\nmotions and formations of its power of being. It is held by the reason
\nthat truth must be empty of any conflict of
\ncontradictions: if so, since the phenomenal universe is or seems to be
\nthe contrary of the essential Brahman it must be
\nunreal; since individual being is the contrary of both transcendence
\nand universality, it must be unreal. But what appear as
\ncontradictions to a reason based on the finite may not be
\ncontradictions to a vision or a larger reason based on the infinite.
\nWhat our mind sees as contraries may be to the infinite consciousness
\nnot contraries but complementaries: essence and
\nphenomenon of the essence are complementary to each other, not
\ncontradictory, — the phenomenon manifests the essence;
\nthe finite is a circumstance and not a contradiction of the infinite;
\nthe individual is a self-expression of the universal and the
\ntranscendent, — it is not a contradiction or something quite other than
\nit, it is the universal concentrated and selective, it is one
\nwith the Transcendent in its\n<\/p>\n


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\n

essence of being and its essence of nature. In the
\nview of this unitarian comprehensive seeing there is nothing
\ncontradictory
\nin a formless Essence of being that carries a multitude of forms, or in
\na status of the Infinite supporting a kinesis of the
\nInfinite, or in an infinite Oneness expressing itself in a multiplicity
\nof beings and aspects and powers and movements, for
\nthey are beings and aspects and powers and movements of the One. A
\nworld-creation on this basis is a perfectly natural
\nand normal and inevitable movement which in itself raises no problem,
\nsince it is exactly what one must expect in an action
\nof the Infinite. All the intellectual problem and difficulty is raised
\nby the finite reason cutting, separating, opposing the power
\nof the Infinite to its being, its kinesis to its status, its natural
\nmultiplicity to its essential oneness, segmenting self, opposing
\nSpirit to Nature. To understand truly the world-process of the Infinite
\nand the Time-process of the Eternal, the
\nconsciousness must pass beyond this finite reason and the finite sense
\nto a larger reason and spiritual sense in touch with the
\nconsciousness of the Infinite and responsive to the logic of the
\nInfinite which is the very logic of being itself and arises
\ninevitably from its self-operation of its own realities, a logic whose
\nsequences are not the steps of thought but the steps of
\nexistence. <\/p>\n

     But
\nwhat has been thus described, it may be said, is only a cosmic
\nconsciousness and there is the Absolute: the
\nAbsolute cannot be limited; since universe and individual limit and
\ndivide the Absolute, they must be unreal. It is self-evident
\nindeed that the Absolute cannot be limited; it can be limited neither
\nby formlessness nor by form, neither by unity nor by
\nmultiplicity, neither by immobile status nor by dynamic mobility. If it
\nmanifests form, form cannot limit it; if it manifests
\nmultiplicity, multiplicity cannot divide it; if it manifests motion and
\nbecoming, motion cannot perturb nor becoming change it: it
\ncannot be limited any more than it can be exhausted by self-creation.
\nEven material things have this superiority to their
\nmanifestation; earth is not limited by the vessels made from it, nor
\nair by the winds that move in it, nor the sea by the waves
\nthat rise on its surface. This impression of limitation belongs only to
\nthe mind and sense which see the finite as if it were an
\nindependent entity\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 475<\/p>\n

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\n

separating itself from the Infinite or something cut
\nout of it by limitation: it is this impression that is illusory, but
\nneither the
\ninfinite nor the finite is an illusion; for neither exists by the
\nimpressions of the sense or the mind, they depend for their
\nexistence on the Absolute. <\/p>\n

    
\nThe Absolute is in itself indefinable by reason, ineffable to the
\nspeech; it has to be approached through experience. It
\ncan be approached through an absolute negation of existence, as if it
\nwere itself a supreme Non-Existence, a mysterious
\ninfinite Nihil. It can be approached through an absolute affirmation of
\nall the fundamentals of our own existence, through an
\nabsolute of Light and Knowledge, through an absolute of Love or Beauty,
\nthrough an absolute of Force, through an absolute
\nof peace or silence. It can be approached through an inexpressible
\nabsolute of being or of consciousness, or of power of
\nbeing, or of delight of being, or through a supreme experience in which
\nthese things become inexpressibly one; for we can
\nenter into such an ineffable state and, plunged into it as if into a
\nluminous abyss of existence, we can reach a
\nsuperconscience which may be described as the gate of the Absolute. It
\nis supposed that it is only through a negation of
\nindividual and cosmos that we can enter into the Absolute. But in fact
\nthe individual need only deny his own small separate
\nego-existence; he can approach the Absolute through a sublimation of
\nhis spiritual individuality taking up the cosmos into
\nhimself and transcending it; or he may negate himself altogether, but
\neven so it is still the individual who by self-exceeding
\nenters into the Absolute. He may enter also by a sublimation of his
\nbeing into a supreme existence or super-existence, by a
\nsublimation of his consciousness into a supreme consciousness or
\nsuper-conscience, by a sublimation of his and all delight of
\nbeing into a super-delight or supreme ecstasy. He can make the approach
\nthrough an ascension in which he enters into
\ncosmic consciousness, assumes it into himself and raises himself and it
\ninto a state of being in which oneness and multiplicity
\nare in perfect harmony and unison in a supreme status of manifestation
\nwhere all are in each and each in all and all in the
\none without any determining individuation, — for the dynamic identity
\nand mutuality have become complete; on the path\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 476<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

of affirmation it is this status of the
\nmanifestation that is nearest to the Absolute. This paradox of an
\nAbsolute which can be realised through an absolute negation and through
\nan absolute affirmation, in many ways, can only be accounted for to the
\nreason if it is a supreme Existence which is so far above our notion
\nand experience of existence that it can correspond also
\nto our negation of it, to our notion and experience of non-existence,
\nbut also, since all that exists is That, whatever its degree
\nof manifestation, it is itself the supreme of all things and can be
\napproached through supreme affirmations as through
\nsupreme negations. The Absolute is the ineffable x<\/i> overtopping and underlying and immanent and essential in all that we can
\ncall existence or non-existence. <\/p>\n

     
\nIt is our first premiss that the Absolute is the supreme reality; but
\nthe issue is whether all else that we experience is real
\nor unreal. A distinction is sometimes made between being and existence,
\nand it is supposed that being is real but existence
\nor what manifests as such is unreal. But this can stand only if there
\nis a rigid distinction, a cut and separation between the
\nuncreated Eternal and created existences; the uncreated Being can then
\nbe taken as alone real. This conclusion does not
\nfollow if what exists is form of Being and substance of Being; it would
\nbe unreal only if it were a form of Non-Being, asat<\/i>, created out of the Void, sunya<\/i>. The states of existence through which we approach and enter into the Absolute must have
\ntheir truth, for the untrue and unreal cannot lead into the Real: but also what issues from the Absolute, what the Eternal
\nsupports and informs and manifests in itself, must have a reality. There is the unmanifest and there is the manifestation, but
\na manifestation of the Real must itself be real; there is the Timeless and there is the process of things in Time, but nothing
\ncan appear in Time unless it has a basis in the timeless Reality. If my self and spirit are real, my thoughts, feelings, powers
\nof all kinds, which are its expressions, cannot be unreal; my body, which is the form it puts out in itself and which at the
\nsame time it inhabits, cannot be a nothing or a mere unsubstantial shadow. The only reconciling explanation is that timeless
\neternity and time eternity are two aspects of the Eternal and<\/p>\n


\nPage 477<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

Absolute and both are real, but in a different order of reality: what is unmanifest in the Timeless manifests itself in Time;
\neach thing that exists is real in its own degree of the manifestation and is so seen by the consciousness of the Infinite. <\/p>\n

     
\nAll manifestation depends upon being, but also upon consciousness and
\nits power or degree; for as is the status of
\nconsciousness, so will be the status of being. Even the Inconscient is
\na status and power of involved consciousness in which
\nbeing is plunged into another and opposite state of non-manifestation
\nresembling non-existence so that out of it all in the
\nmaterial universe may be manifested; so too the superconscient is
\nconsciousness taken up into an absolute of being. For
\nthere is a superconscient status in which consciousness seems to be
\nluminously involved in being and as if unaware of itself;
\nall consciousness of being, all knowledge, self-vision, force of being,
\nseem to emerge from that involved state or to appear in
\nit: this emergence, in our view of it, may appear to be an emergence
\ninto a lesser reality, but in fact both the
\nsuperconscience and the consciousness are and regard the same Real.
\nThere is also a status of the Supreme in which no
\ndistinction can be made between being and consciousness, — for they are
\ntoo much one there to be thus differentiated, — but
\nthis supreme status of being is also a supreme status of the power of
\nbeing and therefore of the power of consciousness; for
\nthe force of being and the force of its consciousness are one there and
\ncannot be separated: it is this unification of eternal
\nBeing with the eternal Consciousness-Force that is the status of the
\nsupreme Ishwara, and its force of being is the dynamis
\nof the Absolute. This status is not a negation of cosmos; it carries in
\nitself the essence and power of all cosmic existence. <\/p>\n

     
\nBut still unreality is a fact of cosmic existence, and if all is the
\nBrahman, the Reality, we have to account for this
\nelement of unreality in the Real. If the unreal is not a fact of being,
\nit must be an act or a formation of consciousness, and is
\nthere not then a status or degree of consciousness in which its acts
\nand formations are wholly or partly unreal? If this
\nunreality cannot be attributed to an original cosmic Illusion, to Maya,
\nthere is still in the universe itself a power of illusion of
\nIgnorance. It is\n<\/p>\n


\nPage 478<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

in the power of the Mind to conceive things that are
\nnot real, it is in its power even to create things that are not real or
\nnot
\nwholly real; its very view of itself and universe is a construction
\nthat is not wholly real or wholly unreal. Where does this
\nelement of unreality begin and where does it stop, and what is its
\ncause and what ensues on the removal of both the cause
\nand the consequence? Even if all cosmic existence is not in itself
\nunreal, cannot that description be applied to the world of
\nIgnorance in which we live, this world of constant change and birth and
\ndeath and frustration and suffering, and does not the
\nremoval of the Ignorance abolish for us the reality of the world which
\nit creates, or is not a departure out of it the natural
\nand only issue? This would be valid, if our ignorance were a pure
\nignorance without any element of truth or knowledge in it.
\nBut in fact our consciousness is a mixture of the true and the false;
\nits acts and creations are not a pure invention, a
\nbaseless structure. The structure it builds, its form of things or form
\nof the universe, is not a mixture of reality and the unreal
\nso much as a half comprehension, a half expression of the real, and,
\nsince all consciousness is force and therefore
\npotentially creative, our ignorance has the result of wrong creation,
\nwrong manifestation, wrong action or misconceived and
\nmisdirected energy of the being. All world-existence is manifestation,
\nbut our ignorance is the agent of a partial, limited and
\nignorant manifestation, — in part an expression but in part also a
\ndisguise of the original being, consciousness and delight of
\nexistence. If this state of things is permanent and unalterable, if our
\nworld must always move in this circle, if some
\nIgnorance is the cause of all things and all action here and not a
\ncondition and circumstance, then indeed the cessation of
\nindividual ignorance could only come by an escape of the individual
\nfrom world-being, and a cessation of the cosmic
\nignorance would be the destruction of world-being. But if this world
\nhas at its root an evolutionary principle, if our ignorance
\nis a half-knowledge evolving towards knowledge, another account and
\nanother issue and spiritual result of our existence in
\nmaterial Nature, a greater manifestation here becomes possible. <\/p>\n

       A farther distinction has to be made in our conceptions of<\/p>\n


\nPage 479<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

unreality, so as to avoid a possible confusion in
\nour dealings with this problem of the Ignorance. Our mind, or a part of
\nit, has
\na pragmatic standard of reality; it insists on a standard of fact, of
\nactuality. All that is fact of existence is to it real, but for it
\nthis factuality or reality of the actual is limited to the phenomena of
\nthis terrestrial existence in the material universe. But
\nterrestrial or material existence is only a part manifestation, it is a
\nsystem of actualised possibilities of the Being which does
\nnot exclude all other possibilities not yet actualised or not
\nactualised here. In a manifestation in Time new realities can
\nemerge, truths of being not yet realised can put forth their
\npossibilities and become actual in the physical and terrestrial
\nexistence; other truths of being there may be that are supraphysical
\nand belong to another domain of manifestation, not
\nrealised here but still real. Even what is nowhere actual in any
\nuniverse, may be a truth of being, a potential of being, and
\ncannot, because it is not yet expressed in form of existence, be taxed
\nas unreal. But our mind or this part of it still insists on
\nits pragmatic habit or conception of the real which admits only the
\nfactual and actual as true and is prone to regard all else
\nas unreal. There is then for this mind an unreality which is of a
\npurely pragmatic nature: it consists in the formulation of
\nthings which are not necessarily unreal in themselves but are not
\nrealised or perhaps cannot be realised by ourselves or in
\npresent circumstances or in our actual world of being; this is not a
\ntrue unreality, it is not an unreal but an unrealised, not an
\nunreal of being but only an unreal of present or known fact. There is,
\nagain, an unreality which is conceptual and perceptive
\nand is caused by an erroneous conception and perception of the real:
\nthis too is not or need not be an unreality of being, it is
\nonly a false construction of consciousness due to limitation by
\nIgnorance. These and other secondary movements of our
\nignorance are not the heart of the problem, for that turns upon a more
\ngeneral affliction of our consciousness and the
\nworld-consciousness here; it is the problem of the cosmic Ignorance.
\nFor our whole view and experience of existence
\nlabours under a limitation of consciousness which is not ours alone but
\nseems to be at the basis of the material creation.
\nInstead of the original<\/p>\n


\nPage 480<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

and ultimate Consciousness which sees reality as a
\nwhole, we see active here a limited consciousness and either a partial
\nand unfinished creation or a cosmic kinesis that moves in a perpetual
\ncircle of meaningless change. Our consciousness sees
\na part and parts only of the Manifestation, — if manifestation it be, —
\nand treats it or them as if they were separate entities; all
\nour illusions and errors arise from a limited separative awareness
\nwhich creates unrealities or misconceives the Real. But
\nthe problem becomes still more enigmatic when we perceive that our
\nmaterial world seems to arise directly, not out of any
\noriginal Being and Consciousness, but out of a status of Inconscience
\nand apparent Non-Existence, our ignorance itself is
\nsomething that has appeared as if with difficulty and struggle out of
\nthe Inconscience. <\/p>\n

  
\nThis then is the mystery, — how did an illimitable consciousness and
\nforce of integral being enter into this limitation and separativeness?
\nhow could this be possible and, if its possibility has to be admitted,
\nwhat is its justification in the Real and its
\nsignificance? It is the mystery not of an original Illusion, but of the
\norigin of the Ignorance and Inconscience and of the
\nrelations of Knowledge and Ignorance to the original Consciousness or
\nSuperconscience. <\/p>\n


\nPage 481<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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