The Career and Teachings of the Supreme Lord Sree Krishna-Chaitanya

by Sri Narayan Das Bhakti Sadhukar

V. HISTORY OF ATHEISM

Faith in a Personal Godhead and inclination to serve Him are not the artificial products of material civilization. Many books have been written by empiric thinkers to prove the historical origin of a belief in God as a product and concomitant of material circumstances. Such attempts betray an attitude of self-contradiction in regard to the nature of the super-mundane. These writers, almost deliberately confound religion, which is the eternal spiritual function of all individual souls, with the apparently similar mental speculations on the same subject although it is more or less admitted by all persons as lying outside the range of our sensuous experience. Nevertheless these assume religion to be the equivalent of a bundle of ideas that have their temporary existence in their own imaginations, and proceed to analyze what they suppose to be the similar mental phenomena of past generations with the tacit object of finding further support for, and for the elaboration of their pre-conceived views. Religion is supposed to be only a special department of thought produced by the mind by working on a particular aspect of the materials presented to it by the senses. This mental religion is more or less the method as well as goal of investigation of empiric moralists, theologians and scientists. Empiric criticism of the Bible and all mental treatment of the subject of religion, are vitiated by the adoption of this faulty method of begging the question at issue.

It is necessary to approach the subject with a mind free from prejudices that may have been engendered by such tentative and inconclusive speculations. Love for God and desire to serve Him are functions of the soul, and, as such, are located beyond the sphere of our physico-mental experience which is strictly confined to the sense-perceptions of material space and time. They are not of the nature of positive or negative ideas, however refined, that have their non-permanent existence in our sensuous mind, nor are they of the nature of physical activities in continuation of such ideas, that bear the names of ‘‘love’’ and “service” in the current speech of the world. These have a beginning and an end and by their nature are subject to perpetual modifications. But love of God and service of God which belong to the soul, are eternal and unchangeable. They are not erring mental notions but the reality in the form of the only function of our souls and belong to a plane of existence higher than the sensuous mind, to which no critic of the empiric school has any access.

But our sensuous minds are, and have been always, enabled, by the grace of God, to believe, no doubt dimly and imperfectly, in the great difference that must always exist between the physio-mental and the spiritual, whenever we are in a position to turn to the subject, which is always knocking at our door, our unbiased attention, in other words, when we are sincerely desirous of knowing the Absolute. On the path of such enquiry, the first axiom to which our unreserved assent is invited is this, viz., that the service of the Absolute is the only function of our soul in her pure, natural state. The fact may also be stated thus in terms of her present temporary, deluded existence, viz., that the inclination to serve the Absolute is innate in the soul and is, spontaneously aroused and asserts its superiority to all other forms of activity as soon as the nature of the service is properly explained, the resistance of her physical and mental equipments notwithstanding provided she gives to the subject, which she is free to do, her unbiased attention. This natural inclination to serve God has been present in the souls of men in every position of their material civilization and independently of such civilization.

This inclination to serve God and the actual service of God which exist eternally, are screened from the view of deluded humanity by their preference for worldly activities through ignorance due to the desire for meddling with objects that seem to promise and also yield transient sensuous pleasures. But whenever there has been a determined effort by atheists to suppress religion altogether it has reacted against such pressure and successfully reasserted itself in a clearer form than before, triumphantly silencing its opponents. It is possible to write the history of this eternal conflict, in its various forms, of atheism against religion. The history of theism which is eternal can, therefore, be said in this sense to begin with this world, i.e., as soon as the individual soul comes under the conditions of material space and time, due to her eternal tendency towards the service of Godhead against her counter-tendency to worldliness, roused to activity by atheistical opposition.

Atheism, the correlative of theism, is of this world and has always existed, and has often predominated, in it. In this world men are found to be naturally divided into two mutually hostile groups, viz., ( l ) those who seek what is permanently good for them, and ( 2 ) those who desire what appears to be pleasant, without considering the consequences of its acceptance. The number of those who belong to the first group has always been infinitesimally small in this world which is of the nature of a temporary abode, or rather, house of correction, of those souls who have lapsed from the state of grace by reason of their preferring the pursuit of selfish enjoyment to service of Godhead. Atheism has been on the whole, the prevailing creed of this world. It has, however, been always compelled to masquerade in the garb of religion. But whenever atheism has been openly professed by the greatest leaders of thought and has appeared to be on the point of scoring a final and decisive victory over its rival with their influential support, the latter has invariably re-asserted itself, has demolished all efforts of the former and has consolidated its position by the refutation of such arguments as had been urged, or had seemed likely to be urged in the future, against it by its opponents, to an extent that was within the grasp of the contemporaneous generations. Atheistic opposition has thus resulted in the gradual and further elucidation of the theistic position. But although the opponents of theism have been silenced from time to time they are not always really converted to the views of their victorious rival, with the exception of a very small number; although most of them are compelled to profess a temporary, hypocritical allegiance to the manifested Truth, from worldly considerations. These hypocritical followers, indeed, afterwards prove the worst enemies of the re-established religion, and by their show of its acceptance prepare to betray the citadel to the enemy, till at last rottenness inside and outside the system necessitates a vigorous re-assertion of the Truth for the benefit of the few who really want to serve God.

It takes a considerable time after birth for a man to acquire a fair measure of experience of the material world. The term ‘matter’is applied to those external objects and their qualities that are perceived by the senses. In proportion as the senses of the child are developed they are enabled to have a fuller ‘knowledge’ of the qualities of material objects, and to enjoy in an apparently more and more ‘conscious’ manner the pleasures yielded by such exercise of the senses. The more the qualities of material objects are ‘enjoyed’the stronger the desire for such enjoyment becomes, till gradually the minds of men become so devotedly attached to this pleasurable exercise of the senses that they have no taste left for anything else. The pleasures of sound, touch, colour, taste and smell thus tend to colour and impart an overpowering charm to all activities of the mind and invite the deluded soul to be naturalized to the condition. The soul once enslaved to the mental outlook cannot be roused to grasp the unwholesome transitory character of the earthly sojourn although constantly reminded of the same by the most significant facts of her worldly experience, viz., birth and death, and she seems to forget for all practical purposes the fact that as soon as one dies one ceases to have any further connection by way of continuity of consciousness with these very material objects that appear to possess a distinctive individual reference to him when alive. If by rare good fortune, the clear consciousness of the transitoriness of the worldly life is awakened in the deluded soul, she naturally tries to desist from the exclusive pursuit of worldly enjoyment and turns round to reconsider the whole position. A person who stops in the midst of his worldly pursuits to consider the implication of their transitory nature, puts to himself in some form or other these three questions, viz. ‘Who am I, the apparent enjoyer of this world? ’‘What is this vast world itself?’ ‘W hat is the real nature of the relation between this world and myself?’

Whenever the soul with her back to worldly pursuits asks the above questions she finds the answer in her own awakened consciousness The answer which the inquiring soul receives being put together in a systematic form, comes to be known as science and philosophy. The answer which the soul receives may be either (l) her own real consistent answer or (2) of a heterogeneous character. But why does not the soul, who is in essence the same, receive the same kind of answer in all cases?

The real nature of the soul is purely spiritual. The answer which she gives when she is in her own proper condition is the true answer and is the same in all cases. This mundane world is not her real home. It is material, that is to say, not of the essence of the soul but the product of the deluding power of God which makes it resemble the realm of the spirit. The illusion-producing power who has made this world is of the nature of the shadow of the superior spiritual power of the Divinity. The individual soul is an infinitesimally small separable part of the latter whose nature she shares. The soul resident in this unspiritual world is under the delusion that her essence is material and she has a natural affinity with the deluding power although there is really no such affinity at all. This is a heterogeneous alliance. The deluded soul’s own proper nature is eclipsed and becomes dormant by the operation of the deluding energy resulting in the apparent identification by herself of her function with those of the body and limited mind, being thus unnaturally alloyed with the qualities of material energy. The individual soul whose real nature is purely spiritual, on imbibing this mixed character by operation of the material energy of God, functions by direction of the material mind in accordance with the dictates of this adventitious, unnatural, ‘second’ nature. The spiritual principle of self-luminous cognition, by such subordination to the principle of limitation, is perverted into the mind of the fallen jiva which is an extraordinary mixture, or rather incarceration, of spirit in a subtle material case. The answers that the mixed mind under the lead of the deluding material energy of God, returns to the questions put to it, are also necessarily heterogeneous, that is, self-contradictory. These answers of the soul fettered in the material mind reflect the heterogeneity of customs, dress, food, language and mode of thought of the country of the temporary sojourn of the physical body which encases the mind. Differences in respect of place of residence, age and condition of the physical body, all tend to make the answer correspondingly different in every case. There is thus a twofold perversion due to the twofold incarceration of the soul in matter, viz., in the subtle form of mind and grosser form of physical body, by means of which she is deluded into relation of affinity with country, race, language, etc., which differ in the case of different individuals represented now by the physical body and mind.

In order to discuss in an adequate manner and in detail these heterogeneous answers it would be necessary to examine the history of all countries, to come into direct contact with the peoples by means of journeys through those countries and to master the different languages of the world. This is not the present purpose and a cursory glance at them will suffice to afford the reader a working idea of their general nature.

Of the above two kinds of answers received by the soul that variety which is true is also the one that is alone reasonable. The heterogeneous answers, although extremely diverse in character, are also, however, divisible into two distinctive groups. The first group constitutes the body of empiric practice and theory of truth; the second group is represented by activities devised for the purpose of securing selfish, transitory, material enjoyment [(1) jnana and (2) karma].

We have stated above that the true answer is also the rational one. If objection is taken to our use of the word ‘rational’ in this connection on the ground that the material reason admits its affinity with the heterogeneity of physical Nature, our reply is that the vocabulary that is available for expressing spiritual facts has acquired the material connotation by habitual abuse. The current vocabulary both as regards its derivation and usage refers really and exclusively to the transcendental. The words ‘rational’ and ‘reason’ used by us in connection with the soul have reference to the distinctive spiritual faculty inherent in the soul that can never err and always serves the transcendental Truth. The corresponding material faculty that dominates the eclipsed soul being subservient to the deluding energy, is, in the case of fallen souls, the approver, by its constitution, of the heterogeneous existence. This faculty in its normal, spiritual condition naturally responds in the really rational way.

That group of the two divisions of heterogeneous answers which has been named practice and theory of truth is the perversion corresponding to the Truth in the shape of answer returned by the pure soul that accepts the real and rejects the unreal. This heterogeneous ‘knowledge’ in its synthetic or positive aspect represents the qualities of matter and favours the view that matter is eternal and the ultimate cause of everything, and, negatively, tries to establish the view that the Brahman or the Absolute is devoid of all distinctive qualities, a conclusion which is reached by the denial of the existence of matter.

That division of the heterogeneous answer which has been named activity in quest of transitory, selfish enjoyment, is the pursuit by the soul, under the domination of the deluding power, of non-God. The correlative of this is the pure rational activity of the soul in the form of the service of Godhead by means of spiritual thoughts and deeds.

The heterogeneous answer, with which most of us are more or less familiar, may be conveniently considered under two heads, according to the nature of the object of human life offered for our acceptance which is either (l) material pleasure, or, (2) extinction of material existence. The heterogeneous answer confines itself, as regards its subject of reference, to phenomenal Nature which, according to this view, exhausts all existence. The view that holds material pleasure as the end is in its turn divided into two sections according as the pleasure to be pursued is either selfish or unselfish.

We shall consider first the view that the end of human life is the attainment of selfish material pleasure. According to the supporters of this opinion there is no God, no soul, no other world, and no moral consequence of acts done by us. Our only proper function is to spend the time in constant sensuous pleasures with discretion to avoid any unpleasant worldly consequence. Such view has seldom been fully acted upon in civilized society. It has remained practically confined as theory to the persons who have conceived and propounded it in the different ages and countries. Such individuals are the Brahmana Charvaka in India, Yang Chu in China, Leucippus in Greece, Sardanapalus in Central Asia, Lucretius in Rome. Von Holbach maintains that the religion that leads to one's own selfish pleasure, is alone admissible. Religion is defined by him as the contrivance of securing one’s own pleasure by means of the pleasures of others.

The professed followers of unselfish material enjoyment have been very numerous and have in fact included the vast majority of the people in all ages and countries. The school of godless fruitive work ( karma-kandis) of India is probably the oldest body of the credal followers of this view. According to this school Isvara (i.e., the Supreme Ruler) is an entity that has no antecedent ( apurva ) . The view has been supported by learned mal-interpretation of the Vedic Scriptures. Democritus, the exponent of the view in ancient Greece, holds that unoccupied space and matter are eternal, the difference between substances being quantitative and not qualitative. Knowledge is merely the state of conjunction of certain external and internal substances. All substances are made up of atoms. Kanada maintains the permanent qualitative difference between different classes of atoms. According to the Vaisheshika School the individual soul and the Oversoul belong to the category of substances. Plato and Aristotle do not admit God to be the only eternal entity nor as the only cause of the world. This makes their systems share the defects noticeable in Kanada. Gassendi, Diderot and La Mettrie belong to this class. According to Comte we should regard theism as infancy, philosophy as childhood and positivism as mature stage in the evolution of thought. Men are required to be philanthropically disposed and to be disinterestedly religious in their conduct. The earth is the supreme fetish of Comte, the country his supreme medium and human nature his supreme being. Mill is in substantial agreement with Comte. The propounders of secularism in England include the names of Mill, Lewis, Paine, Carlyle, Bentham, Combe, Holyoake, Bradlaugh.

But the faculty of reason, even when it happens to be engrossed in matter, if only it could he induced to consider the subject in an impartial spirit, is bound to reject all these views for their extremely bad logic. The materialist proclaims the necessity and wisdom, above all things, of reducing the number of categories, and in fact it is this which leads him to deny the existence of the transcendental. But his own method leads him to the formulation of an infinite number of categories. Materialism is artificial and unscientific as it ignores the principle of self-consciousness and holds material Nature to be eternal. It calls self-consciousness a quality of matter and at the same time asserts it to be the regulative principle of the entity of which it is declared to be the quality. It involves the subordination of the principle of self-consciousness, which is the better and higher principle, to gross matter (Ferris). There is no proof of the permanence of matter (Prof. Tyndal). Boucher and Moleschott hold matter to be eternal, which is, however a mere assumption The view of Comte that man should cease from the enquiry of the beginning and end of the world, if really followed, would reduce man to equality with lifeless matter. No instance of any self-born man or of a man generated by the process of progressive evolution is known within the last three thousand years of human experience. The argument from design, if it be admitted, points to the principle of intelligence as the cause of the cosmic order and would thus be a complete refutation of all forms of materialism.

If again we consider the actual conduct of materialists in regard to society we find that they hold it necessary for men to be religious, in their acts. Sin and righteousness are held to he productive respectively of pain and pleasure of men in general. Pleasure for oneself should conform to the pleasure that is disinterested. By the practice of religion sin and its resultant misery are got rid of. It is necessary for men to investigate those laws that enable them to maintain their existence in society. The actions performed by men bear fruit even after their death for other beings of this world. In this sense acts never die. Acts are transformed into forces that did not exist before, such forces, being nourished by other future acts, are the cause of the continued improvement of the world. This is the disinterested reward of one’s acts.

The professors of disinterested material pleasure as the object of human life are, in fact, identical with the school that regard the selfish pleasure of oneself as the object of life. This is proved by Von Holbach under the name of Miraboud in his “System of Nature” (1770). In that work he has shown that there is no such thing as disinterestedness in this world. Religion is only a contrivance of securing on's own pleasures by making others happy. No one would care to do that which did not bring pleasure to himself. Even the sacrifice of life is made for pleasing oneself. All pleasures flowing from religion are for one's own self. Even love for God is for one's own pleasure. Whatever is natural is necessarily selfish because nature refers to the self. Selfishness is natural. Disinterestedness is unnatural and is never to be found.

The view that God is that which is without antecedent and identical with power or force, as propounded by Jaimini and Western scholars, never appeals to those who possess clearness of understanding. Those who accept their view have to be content with a part of the whole. The view of the non-antecedentists is directly opposed to the idea of God. Jaimini was well aware of the existence of a natural inclination in the hearts of men to submit to God and has accordingly very cleverly and with great assiduity conceived a god as the awarder of the fruits of our actions and included him in his category of the non-antecedent It is due to this cleverness in providing a reference to a god that the view of the Smarta Pandits advocating godless fruitive works, has been so vigorously prevalent in India. People with a cloudy intellect extend a ready welcome to the view of the professors of so-called disinterestedness in the hope of securing at a trifling cost the reward of unselfishness. This is another powerful reason for the spread of the creed of atheistic fruitive works.

The instructions of the professors of disinterested material pleasures may be appreciated at first, to a certain extent, by people by reason of their own selfishness; but they will scruple less to commit sinful acts the more they will enter into the spirit of the system. It is in this way that the system quickly enough degenerates into one of expediency pure and simple in which every individual member is free to act for his own pleasures in a way that appears to him to be not obviously against the general interest, and soon learns to care only for the external appearance of his acts. In the absence of a God to punish, the only check on the most reckless pursuit of selfish pleasures will be the fear of public exposure; and various expedients will accordingly be devised for avoiding the consequences of such a contingency. The truth of this criticism is corroborated by the notoriously lax practices of the ordinary Smarta Pandits who are adepts in twisting the rules to any extent to suit their individual purposes.

In the nominal provision for the worship of a god as found in this system we do not notice any of the characteristics of real devotion to God. Some of these even opine that the worship of God is only a variety of fruitive works; or, in other words, that it is prescribed for people in a general way and is optional in their own case. Comte has provided for the worship of his conceptions as God for the reason that they appeared to him to be true. In this Comte is more sincere; but Jaimini and the others are more far-sighted. The views of Comte and Jaimini are identical in theory. Those theories of the elevationists in effect sometimes affect to say to devotion’, “I follow you. I make men fit for devotion to God. I shall bring the sinners to your feet after purifying their minds”. These professions are the result of duplicity When work truly follows devotion it does not claim any separate recognition of itself but is content to pass under the name of devotion. So long, however, as work is disposed to retain its own separate designation it seeks its own glorification as a rival process claiming equality with devotion. This attitude leads it to claim all credit for every effort for the advancement of science, of society and industry, etc. as flowing from itself. But as a matter of fact when such work is transformed into the nature of devotion, i.e., service of God, science, society, industry, etc., are rendered even more glorious and progressive.

The view that material extinction is the proper object of life is held by the philosophical schools of Buddhism and Jainism. The genesis of the view is supplied by the fact that material pleasure is essentially trivial and is not genial company for a spiritual being. The experience of this gives rise to the theory that all existence is misery. It is a significant fact that the ordinary, Buddhist of today, at any rate in Burma, is not a pessimist. He believes that God exists eternally, that He has created the world. It is He who appeared in this world as the Buddha and always exists as God in Heaven. Men will go to Heaven by doing good works and by following the rules laid down by the Buddha This is not the Buddhistic theory of the schools. In fact these pessimistic views, that have been adumbrated with so much subtlety of argumentation, are never accepted as common property by the Society. They are bound to remain locked up in books and in the minds of their teachers. The general population, if at any time they happen to pride themselves as the followers of these views, do so under the impression that those views are identical with their own cherished Opinions which, as have been pointed out above, are nothing but the spontaneous concomitants of human nature. Love of Humanity as the object of life, as propounded by Comte, worship of God under the name of the Non-antecedent, a constituent part of his fruitive works, as devised by Jaimini, the theory of material extinction propagated by Sakya Singha, all of these are bound to be reduced by the general body of their respective practising followers to one common form, viz., that of the religion that is natural to man. To this consummation they are tending even at the present moment

The pessimists of western countries come under this category. There is no such thing as re-birth according to these Western pessimists whose theory may be described as the view of material extinction as the desired end of human life which itself is limited to one single birth. The Buddhist and Jain Schools agree in holding material extinction as the proper end of human life attainable through a cycle of births and re-births.

According to Buddha the jiva can attain final extinction (parinirvana) as the result of long practice of gentleness, patience, forgiveness, kindness, unselfishness, meditation, renunciation and friendliness. There is complete cessation of existence on the attainment of ultimate extinction (parinirvana). After ordinary extinction (nirvana) existence as kindness persists.

The Jains maintain that in accordance with the stage of advancement of the jiva due to the exercise of all the good qualities under the lead of kindness and renunciation he attains successively to the conditions of Narada, a Mahadeva, a Vasudeva, a Para-Vasudeva and finally the state of the Divinity involved in total material extinction.

According to both Buddhists and Jains the material world is eternal. Work which is without a beginning has an end. Existence is misery. Utter extinction (parinirvana) is happiness. The system of fruitive works propounded by Jaimini is harmful for the jiva. The rules that ensure utter extinction (parinirvana) are alone productive of good Indra and other gods although they are the masters of fruitive workers are the servants of those who follow the path of utter extinction (parinirvana).

Schopenhauer and Hartmann are material extinctionists admitting a single birth. According to Schopenhauer extinction is attainable by renouncing the desire for existence, by, voluntary abnegation (tyag), humility, acceptance of physical suffering, moral purity and asceticism (vairagya). According to Hartmann it is not necessary to undergo any suffering. Extinction is easy of attainment after death. Herr Bensa has demonstrated the impossibility of extinction by asserting the eternal nature of misery.

Most of the followers of current monism are material extinctionists. One section of the monists hopes for the spiritual bliss of the Brahman after extinction; the other section accepting the extinction of all existence after death, does not admit any other form of bliss. It is these latter whom I have classed as material extinctionists.

In the theory of material extinction the specific nature of the jiva is left uncertain. All these speculations are altogether atheistical. These views having been put forward with the object of preventing the oppressions by the exponents of material fruitive works could he propagated with such great vigour by the enthusiasm and perseverance of their preachers. In India on account of the oppression practiced on the Kshatriyas and the other varnas by the Brahmanas in course of the latter's efforts to further the establishment of the godless creed of fruitive works and the universal supremacy of the Brahmanas, the Kshatriyas handed together for the promulgation of the Buddhist, and the Vaishyas similarly combined to spread the Jain creed. When the factious spirit is reinforced by the clash of worldly interests it operates with great vigour. The Buddhist and Jain views were propagated in India in this way. In those countries into which those views were subsequently imported they were accepted as God-sent due to the absence of a stronger critical faculty in the peoples of those countries. It is a matter of history that the modern professors of material extinctionism in Europe, were led to propagate those views by their hatred of the Christian religion.

According to the Tantric view the whole world including the Chit and achit has been created by an eternal power named Maya. When the zeal of Buddhist preachers cooled down due to the barrenness of the philosophy of their creed there was an attempt to rehabilitate those doctrines in a new garb. It is at this stage that the Buddhist idea was transformed into the Tantric and the new theory known as Mayavada was propounded. This cult of Maya passed under the name of Buddhism inside that religion. This subtle form of Buddhism under the separate designation of Mayavada spread rapidly among the non-Buddhist populations. We have the genesis of the illusionist Vedantists when the cult of Maya assumed the form of a philosophy resting on Vedic interpretation. The same cult obtained currency among the hill tribes as Maya-Sakti-Vada conforming to the Tantra Shastras. The Tantric view according to many is derived from the Sankhya Philosophy of Kapila. But the latter is the progenitor of the Saiva cult in which physical Nature occupies an honoured position which may have been the cause of the mistaken view that assigns. to the Tantric cult its Sankhya origin. In the Tantra physical Nature is the mother of the conscious principle but these two are co-ordinate in the Sankhya philosophy. A form of extinction in the shape of absorption into physical Nature has also been imagined. The worshippers of the power of physical Nature sometimes supplicate her in imitation of the manner in which the professors of the principle of self-conscious power express the thoughts of their minds in addressing God (vide Holbach).

In the Mahanirvana-Tantra Mahadeva in praying to the principal power Adya Sakti Kali, addresses her in one passage as the creator of the world by the will of Para-Brahma. This corresponds to Sankhya. But in other passages she is described as alone existing in the form of chaos (tamas) after dissolution of the cosmos (pralaya) ; and she is also declared to be identical with the self-conscious principle in the jiva. All this is directly opposed to the Sankhya view.

It cannot be said that the Sakti-vada of the Tantras originated from any philosophical system in particular. In fact the Tantra is so full of self-contradiction that it does not admit of any systematic consideration. The distinctive Tantric processes, viz., the lata .sadhana, the panchamakara sadhana, sura sadhana, etc., do not appear to have been derived from any theistic philosophical system. Tantric (Saktivada) doctrine of supremacy of material power cannot be considered to be very different in character from the worship of the non-antecedent or god as mental formula (mantram) of atheistic fruitive works and the worship of physical Nature devised by Comte, etc.

There are a few scholars who admit the existence of nothing except mental ideas. They hold that the objective world has no real existence. Ideas are the only entities. The soul that is held by others as the subjective reality, is also ineffective. There is really nothing except ideas. Bishop Berkeley and a few others are more or less of this opinion. It is they who have given the view the name of Idealism.

Mill has also admitted this view to a certain extent. Idealism should not be regarded as identical with spiritualism. Idealism is merely the mental contemplation of material objects perceived through the senses. Such contemplation establishes the connection of the principle of self-consciousness with physical Nature. It is not essentially different from matter. Idealism is, therefore, by no means outside materialism. Among the undifferentiating monists a few have held that there are no such things as God or any substantive cosmic entities, but it is only the ideas of them that have existence and that it is the idea that is the undifferentiated truth. This view is altogether trivial. Its professors never acted up to their principles. Idealism should logically be classed under materialism.

There is a certain class of people who argue that what is supposed to exist, does not really exist. All entities are impermanent and they belong to the category of the non-existent as soon as they undergo transformation or destruction. Therefore, the non-existent is the eternal and true. This opinion has no substance. Such sophistical argument is advanced by a class of deluded people who are especially fond of indulging in abstruse futile hair-splitting.

That the non-existent is true is a proposition that carries its own refutation. From such abstruse speculations has arisen a body of opinions which is known in the English language as Skepticism, supported by Hume and a few others. Skepticism, although in itself it is inconclusive and unnatural, was at one time welcomed by people and also accepted in practice. The doctrines of selfish material pleasure and material extinction give rise to so much mischief in the world that men came to entertain a great contempt even for the very name of such religion. The nature of man is pure and endowed with the tendency. of devotion to God. It never finds joy in materialism. Skepticism is nothing but the last desperate attempt of the human reason to break its chains by its own strength after it is banished by materialism to the dungeon of ignorance and finds its hands and feet heavily fettered with chains of iron.

It was attempted to be established by rank materialism that matter is eternal and that matter alone is true. Many echoed the views of Huxley that no matter what the event may be unless it is affirmed to be the transformation of material causes it is not a scientific proposition. Nothing can be proved except matter and that which sets it in motion. The principles of cognition and feeling, it was affirmed, will be altogether discarded by the Scriptures in the long run. The soul will be steadily submerged under the rising tide of materialism. Freedom will be put into bondage by the dead hand of Providence. It was when a numerous body. of men were arguing in this immoral strain that the nature of man feeling its own degradation made an attempt to direct its reason along a different track. Disregarding all the evil consequences of this new effort, being determined to destroy the materialistic theory at all costs, human reason gave birth to Skepticism. The evil in the form of materialism was undoubtedly got rid of but Skepticism did even more harm to theism than what it prevented. People began to suspect that we cannot find the real truth. We can only experience the qualities of objects. Where is the proof that even this experience is True? By means of the senses we perceive different qualities separately. As for instance we perceive colour by the eye, sound by the ear, smell by the nose, touch by the skin and taste by the tongue. The knowledge of the object is obtained by means of the aggregate of the qualities imbibed severally through the five channels of such knowledge. We would have obtained the knowledge in a different form if instead of five we had ten additional senses. Under the circumstances whatever knowledge we happen to possess is wholly tentative and doubtful. By such Skepticism although materialism was destroyed, spiritualism did not profit in any way. Skepticism admits unreservedly the real existence of objects. What it asserts is that we do not possess any knowledge of the real nature of objects as our knowledge is imperfect, and also that we have no means of having the requisite kind of knowledge. Skepticism destroys itself in as much as it admits the undoubted existence of the reality. If there is such a thing as Absolute Reality Skepticism is left no ground to stand upon. On a careful consideration Skepticism appears to be meaningless jargon. Who is it that doubts that I exist?—I myself? Therefore, I exist.

All these three views, viz., materialism or the doctrine of material power, idealism and Skepticism are forms of atheism that have existed from ancient times. These include all possible varieties of atheism. We have arrived at the conclusion after careful enquiry that the claims of the atheists of recent times to be propounders of original views, are untenable in every case. They always express only the old views under a different name and garb. Many systems of philosophy have been promulgated in this country. Of these Sankhya, Naya, Vaishesika and Kar1t1anlimansa are professedly atheistical. Patanjala and the pseudo monistic interpretation of Vedanta, are veiled forms of atheism. We can, in this place, only bestow a passing glance at them.

Sankhya philosophical system:—God cannot be proved.— “Isvarasidheh” 1—92. If God is admitted He must be either free or dependent“Muktabaddhayorantyatrarabhavanna Tatsidhih” 1—93. Free God is unrealizable. Dependent God has not the quality of Godship. Bijnana Bhikshu commenting on this says that the following is, therefore, said in regard to the particular passages of the Scriptures bearing on God, “ that they are merely eulogistic of the free soul or in praise of the successful pursuit of religious activities. God does not really exist”, “muktatmanah prasamsha upasasiddhasyava, 1—96. This much for Sankhya.

The System of Nayaya philosophy: —It is made by Goutama. Goutama says that there are sixteen entities, “pramana-prameya ....nihshreyashadhigamah”. The state of the highest good (nihshreyah) of Goutama is unintelligible. It appears as if the good of the jiva is attained if he can prevail in argument. God does not find a place among his sixteen entities. It is for this reason that the Vedas says that the natural inclination to God should not be allowed to be obsessed by casuistical argument. Goutama also notices the principle of evil. “Duhkha-janmapravritti-dosa-mith-yajnana namuttaraottarapaye tadanantarapayadapavargah.” Deliverance (mukti) is regarded in a general way as the cessation of extreme misery. According to Goutama there is no joy in the state of deliverance. Therefore, there is absolutely no such thing as Divine bliss. Whence the Nyava Shastra made by Goutama, is opposed to the Vedas.

Vaishesika philosophy made by Kanada:—This system does not call for any elaborate discussion. If we consider the original .sutras made by Kanada himself we do not find any eternal God therein. Certain authors of this school have made an attempt to divest their system of its God-less-ness by naming as super-soul (paramatma) a principle under the entity ‘embodied’ (dehi) which is one of the seven entities. But scholars such as Sankaracharya, etc., in their respective commentaries on the Vedanta-sutra, have stated as their conclusion that the Kanada-doctrine is non-Vedic and godless. As a matter of fact it is found that those who do not admit that God is the Supreme Master without any reservation, even though the word God be found in their systems, are really atheists. It is the Nature of God that He must be recognized as the Lord of all entities. The view which admits the existence of eternal entities on a footing of equality with God, is atheistical

Karma mimansa:—Jaimini is the author of the original sutras of this system. He makes no mention of God. His premier subject is dharma. “Chodana lakshanortho dharmah. Karmaike tatra darshanat.” The meaning conveyed by the Vedas is dharma. Its name is karma (work). His commentator Sabaraswami writes in this connection as follows: ‘Katham punaridamavagamyate? Asti tadapurmam.’ How is this to be known? Therefore, there must be an entity which bears the name of ‘previously nonexistent’ (apurva). When work is performed something previously non-existent is thereby manifested which awards the fruit. Where is the necessity of a god for bestowing the fruits of actions? What more is there that could have been said by modern atheists such as Comte, etc.?

Vedanta:—The Vedanta philosophy supports in every devotion to God. In its commentaries dishonest thinkers have interpolated veiled Buddhistic thought under the garb of non distinctive monism. But saintly persons have shown the good path to the people of the world by composing with great care proper commentaries of the original sutras. We shall consider the futility of monism in another place.

Yoga:—The shastra made by Patanjali Rishi bears the name of Yoga-Shastra. The following sutra is embodied in the chapter on method of the Shastra: “Klesakarma-bipakashayairaparamristah purusavisesha Isvarah. Tatra niratisayam sarvajnyavijam. Sha purbesamapi guruh kalenanavachhedat.” The being capable of taking the initiative untroubled by tribulations in the four forms of misery, work, consequence (bipaka), subject (asraya) bears the name of god. In him is located the seed of extreme omniscience. He is the preceptor of all the people that have gone before, in as much as he is uninterrupted by time. This statement of the subject of Godhead in this system has led many to think that Patanjali is really a devotee of God. But one who has read the Patanjali Yoga Shastra to its conclusion with special care and judgment, cannot be so mistaken. In the Kaiva1yapad occurs the principle “Purusartha-sunyanam pratiprashavah kaivalyam svarupapratistha. va chitisaktriti,” which is thus explained in the Bhojabritti: “Chichhaktervrittisharupyanivrittou svarupamanam tat kaivalyamuchyate.” The non-alternative state (kaivalya) is the name of the existence of the cognitive principle in its own proper condition. The point that requires to be considered in this connection is this, viz., what is meant by ‘the proper condition of the cognitive principle’? That is to say, whether the jiva who has attained the non-alternative state (kaivalya) will have any function? After the jiva has attained the non-alternative state (kaivalya) what will be his relation with the god of his unrealized state? In the said Shastra there is unfortunately no answer to this question. On repeated reading of this Shastra one is convinced that its god of the state of unrealized effort, is a kind of entity that is conceived merely for the success of worship. He is not to be found in the realized state. Can such Shastra be considered as theistic?

All these atheistical opinions have been preached in this as well as other countries under different names due to difference of language.

Reason is of two kinds, viz, pure reason and adulterated reason. The faculty of the soul in its pure state that applies itself to the examination of the self-conscious, may be described as pure reason. It is without defect and is a function which is natural to the soul. The perverted form of the above faculty due to association with the material principle that is found to guide the soul when she is engrossed in matter, is the adulterated reason. This adulterated or pseudo-reason is of two kinds, viz., ( 1 ) alloyed with fruitive works (karma-misra,’ and (2) allied with empiric knowledge ( jnana-misra). It is also called sophistry (tarka). It is this which is condemnable for the reason that there happens to be present in it the following defect, viz., error (bhrama), delusion (pramada.), deceit (bipralipsa) and inefficiency of the organs (karanapatava). Its decision is defective in all cases. That which is established by the real reason is the same in all cases. The opinions that are produced by the adulterated reason are diverse and mutually conflicting. By acting in accordance with those opinions the incarcerated jiva. earns only the bondage of ignorance as the fruit of such procedure.

Adulterated reason owes its origin to the operation of matter. The material picture which the individual soul, imprisoned in matter, receives in the first instance by means of the senses, is carried to the brain by the nervous process. The reason then goes to work on these pictures that are preserved in the brain by the process of memory. This activity gives rise to various concoctions and abstractions. The term ‘scientific knowledge’ is applied to the beauty that is perceived by the assortment of those pictures. By the processes of analysis and synthesis those pictures are made to yield hues in the form of secondary conclusions. This is called reasoning. Comte said, “Assort that which has been observed and from it investigate the truth”.

Let us now consider whether the reason which is brought to bear on the pictures that have been obtained originally and exclusively from the material world can be designated as reason born of matter. How is one to know about super-material objects and their qualities through this process? If there happens to exist any super-material entity there must, therefore, also necessarily exist for the realization of the same some process that is suitable for such purpose. That those who are not acquainted with this higher process, or do not like to be acquainted with it due to prejudice, adopting the reason that is based on matter, will speak the language of delirium, admits of no doubt. In those cases in which the investigation of the material world happens to be the sole endeavour the reason that stands on matter yields the best results. This adulterated reason is specially effective in all forms of material affairs such as arts, bodily activities, warfare, music, etc., etc. In the first place adulterated reason in alliance with empiric knowledge, arrives at certain decisions and subsequently joining hands with fruitive work completes them by carrying them out in practice. When the affair of the railway was first settled in the mind of a materialist scholar, his reason was at that time alloyed with empiric knowledge. When it was reduced to practice the reason becoming imbued with fruitive work applied itself to the work of manufacture. Works such as the industries, etc., are as a matter of fact the proper subject of the adulterated reason. Supermaterial entities are not its legitimate subject and’ therefore, its application to them is not practicable. Super-material reason is in a position to act only in the case of super-material entities. Materialism, the theory of material force, material extinctionism, idealism,—all these systems, adopting the reason that is dependent on matter for the purpose of investigating the cause of the world which happens to be super-material, could necessarily obtain no satisfaction. This was so because the process they adopted for the purpose happened to be quite ridiculous. All the books that have been written by them are, therefore, merely the meaningless utterances of delirious persons.

Although the real reason happens to be the natural faculty of the soul yet the soul that is encased in matter, under the heavy pressure of the load of matter for making it the exclusive subject of his contemplation, shows greater honour to adulterated reason. Hence most people of this world are upholders of the mixed reason. The super-material unalloyed reason is very rare. Those alone who through good fortune are actively disposed to serve the introspective faculty, are acquainted with the greatness of pure reason or spontaneous exclusiveness (sahaja samadhi). From a remote antiquity the world with a superficial vision paying honour to adulterated reason, had been hoping to obtain from itself its own realization. All the different views which were propounded by such reason, although they are at first accepted by it with cordiality, prove unsatisfactory to itself in the long run. But the reason even when it is limited or mixed, cannot be without relation to the soul. At times it tries to do good to the soul. When after having brought forth the long series of heterogeneous views and talked deliriously in many different ways the adulterated reason could obtain no satisfaction it developed a feeling of contempt for itself. It began to cry deliriously. It said, ‘Alas, how am I abandoning my nature by straying far away from the soul to whom I am eternally joined, having been occupied in such superficial activities!’ Lamenting in this way, weighed down with fear, it admits, when it happens to be on its last legs, God as the Source of all activities. At this stage the human mind proclaims to all countries that God is realizable by the adulterated reason. In this mood Udayanacharya wrote his work, the Kusmanjali. In England the opinions that are promulgated under the names of Deism and Natural Theology should be recognized as meeting the approval of those people who profess those opinions by reason of their being in the above-mentioned condition. The theistic principle that is established by the process of adulterated reasoning, is extremely imperfect and, in regard to the reality, is both foreign and incomplete ; because the theistic conception that is brought about by reason in alliance with matter, is a specific and limited idea, viz., that God is the mere cause of matter. It is artificial in as much as there is in it no real advancement towards the spiritual state proper, no direct activity of the soul nor any investigation of the Reality. This will appear later in its proper place.

Such delirious mixed reason, even after admitting God, is unable to establish the unity of God on account of materialistic errors. Sometimes it supposes God to be a dual entity. Thereupon in their judgment the spiritual principle appears as one god and the material principle as another god. The god, whose nature is imagined to be spiritual, is supposed to be the source of good. The god as the material principle, is opined as the cause of all evil. A certain scholar who bore the name of Jaradvastra, in his work the Zendavesta, admitted the dual nature of the divine principle in recognition of the eternity of the two gods, as the evil and the good principle respectively. Theistically disposed persons showed their contempt for him by designating him as the rotten interpreter ( jaran-mimansaka). This designation is retained even to this day, having been applied subsequently in connection with all superficial persons of the schools of fruitive work and empiric knowledge. Jaradvastra is an ancient scholar. His view received no support in India but spread successfully in Iran. Becoming infective his view produced, in the religion of the Jews and subsequently among the followers of the Koran, Satan as the rival of God. About the time when Jaradvastra was preaching his view of two gods, the necessity for three gods being recognized among the Jews the doctrine of the Trinity was originated. In the Trinitarian view at first the three gods were conceived as separate from one another; and subsequently, when this appeared unsatisfactory to the scholars, they elicited the inter-connection among them by the elaboration of the theological principles represented by God, the Holy Ghost and Christ respectively. In the particular Age or Sect in which Brahma, Vishnu and Siva are conceived as different gods the unsatisfactory circumstance of similar belief in three gods occurred also in India. Scholars having established the theoretical unity of those three gods, have incorporated in many parts of the Shastras advice discountenancing their separate existence. In different countries there is also found to exist belief in many gods. Specially in very backward countries monothism in a pure form is not found to prevail. At one time it was the practice to regard the gods, such as Indra, Chandra, Vayu, Varuna, etc., as mutually independent. The school of the mimmansakas (interpretationists) correcting the above view subsequently established a single god, viz., Brahma. All this is mere delirious utterances of reason deluded by matter. God is one entity. Had He been more than one the world would have never functioned in a beautiful manner. Different laws in conformity with different wills in mutual conflict, would have undoubtedly wrecked the world. That this visible universe has issued from the will of one powerful person, cannot be denied by any person who feels the impulse of goodness.

The reasoning that is generated by the spontaneous cognition of the soul, is alone pure and free from defect. The Truth that is elucidated by such reasoning, is alone real. Reasoning can have no existence apart from instinctive knowledge. The reasoning associated with the knowledge of external Nature, that is noticed in the affairs of this world, is impure or mixed. The truths that are declared by the mixed reason, are all of a trivial character. Even if it establishes God its argument is never satisfactory. There is no applicability of the pervert reason to the case of the Absolute Truth. All conclusions regarding the Absolute reached by the pure reason on the basis provided by intuitive knowledge, are true. It may be asked in this connection what intuitive knowledge is. The soul is self-conscious and is, therefore, all knowledge. The knowledge that naturally exists in the soul is spontaneous or intuitive knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is eternally cognate to the soul. It is not produced by any process of material experience. Pure reasoning is the name for a certain process of such intuitive knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is ascertainable by the fact that the jiva has the following realization from before the generation of any experience of the material world, viz.

(I) I exist.

(2) I shall continue to exist.

(3) I have joy.

(4) There is a great entity that underlies and maintains my joy

(5) It is my nature to depend on the support of this entity.

(6) I am eternally guided by this entity.

(7) This support is extremely beautiful.

(8) I have no power of abandoning this support.

(9) My present state is lamentable.

(10) I ought to follow again my guide and support, giving up this miserable condition.

(11) This world is not my eternal dwelling-place.

(12) By the progress of this world My eternal improvement is not secured.

Unless the reason adopts such intuitive knowledge it merely continues to wander deliriously. There also exist certain axiomatic truths in the domain of spiritual science. No spiritual progress is possible unless these are accepted and followed.

There is a certain class of people who cannot form a settled opinion of their own after accepting pure intuitive knowledge and yet do not trust reason in all cases. Admitting intuitive knowledge to a certain extent they recognize oneness of God. Absorbed in knowledge they attain the exclusive state. But this exclusiveness is not the natural state of samadhi in as much as it exhibits abstruseness of thought. By such abstruse thinking even after piercing through this gross world they fail to obtain the vision of the spiritual world because the natural Truth does not manifest Himself without spontaneous exclusiveness. Having observed the symbolic world they feel as if they have seen the ultimate abiding-place of the jiva. In reality they only stand on the symbol of the material world. The difference between the symbolic world and material world consists in this that the material world is apprehensible by the senses. The symbolic world is apprehensible by the mind. The symbolic world is merely the subtle initial stage of the material world. The material world is of two kinds, viz., (I) the very gross material world, and (2) the subtler world full of light. The astral body that the Theosophists talk about, is the lighted material body. The symbolic body is subtler than the astral; that is to say, it is mental. The subtle world that is full of the manifestations of power, according to the Pantanjala Shastra and the opinion of Buddhist ascetics, is the symbolic world. The spiritual entity is different from these. The non-alternative kaivalya) state described in the Pantanjala Shastra, is merely the idea of the state that is the opposite of the gross and the subtle, but shows no trace of any investigation of the spiritual Truth. No one can Say what the relation of Godhead is to the jiva after his attainment of the non-alternative state (kaivalya), or about the whereabouts or the nature of God in the non-alternative ( kaivalya ) state, although a god is met with during the pre-realization stage of such endeavour. If the jiva on attainment of the non-alternative state (kaivalya) merge with God then as a matter of fact it is monism. The Yogashastra, whether it is Theosophy or Patanjali, is not for the eternal benefit of jiva. Yogashastra is one of the numerous blind lanes that are found to exist between the grossest materialism at one end and spiritual Truth at the other. And, therefore, it yields no satisfaction to the jiva who is in quest of spiritual bliss.

Some hold that God has made this world for our enjoyment. We obtain the grace of God by religious merit earned in course of sinless enjoyment of this world. It may be objected to this that if this world had been made for yielding happiness to the jiva, God would not make it so imperfect. God has to be blamed for making it so imperfect if we assume that this world was intended by Him for our happiness. If His purpose in creating the world had been to teach us to be religious it would undoubtedly have been made differently because at present all persons of this world cannot attain to religion.

Holders of the opposite view say that this world is intended for the punishment of the jiva for offense committed by him. Being unable to find an adequate answer to the question how the jiva could commit offense a certain explanation has found a place in several religious systems to the following effect. God having created the first jiva permitted him to live in a pleasant wood in company of his wife. He forbade them to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The first parents of mankind by the advice of a certain fallen jiva having eaten the forbidden fruit, were expelled from the happy region for the offense of disobedience to God and fell into this world which is so full of misery. For this offense of the first parents all these jivas were born sinful. As the offense could not be expiated by the jivas themselves a certain being, who is like one limb of God, being born among men in the likeness of man, chose to suffer death by taking upon his own shoulders the sin of all jivas, who would follow him. Those jivas who followed him thereby easily earned their deliverance while those who did not follow him were cast into the eternal hell. It is not possible to comprehend with the normal understanding how other jivas can be excused by the punishment of God becoming jiva.

According to the above the jiva exists as jiva from birth to death. The jiva, therefore, did not exist before birth and, after death also, the jiva would have no existence in this sphere of his work. Moreover man alone is meant by jiva. Jiva cannot in the circumstances be a spiritual principle. He is to be conceived as created in matter by accident or by the will of God. Why the jiva appears in different periods and in different circumstances, is not understood. Why should not other animals be counted among the jivas? Why should birds and beasts be anterior to man? It is incomprehensible to those who obey God how it can be the dispensation of God, Who is full of mercy, that man should earn eternal heaven or suffer eternal damnation merely for his acts done in a single birth.

Those who belong to this School cannot serve God in any unselfish way. They cultivate the arts and sciences under the belief that God Can be pleased by one's attempt to improve the world. But they remain ever ignorant of pure devotion to God which is free from all impulses of worldly work and knowledge. The service of God from a sense of duty can never be disinterested or natural. That we shall serve God because He has been merciful to us, is a mean conception, because it implies that we would not have served Him if He had not been kind to us. We also cherish the immoral hope of future favours. If God were considered as merciful for His bestowal of devotion it would not have been objectionable in any way. In these religions such a statement is not to be found. The mercy of God in this case only refers to the conveniences and happiness incidental to the worldly life.

In this and other analogous creeds of a recent origin God is formless and all-pervasive. The pursuit of knowledge is the chief work of such systems. The consideration arising from empiric knowledge that God is lowered if considered to have a form, constantly troubles their minds. God, according to this view, must be formless and all-pervasive because we have created Him such by our knowledge and He cannot be anything else than this. This conception of God degenerates into a form of idolatry that is straitly circumscribed by materialistic considerations. The sky that is found in matter is also all-pervasive and formless. The God of this School is like it. This is matter-worship. The expressions used in the prayers and hymns of praise, which are the only forms of worship in these creeds, are also altogether worldly. Those who hold this view are generally self-sufficient. They keep aloof even from good preceptors through fear lest such association may impart superstitions. Some even hold that as the truth is inherent in the soul it can be realized by one’s own independent efforts, and that, therefore, there is no necessity for submission to a preceptor. Some opine that it is sufficient to accept the supreme Teacher. God is the supreme Preceptor and Saviour. He destroys our sinful tendencies by entering into our proper selves. There is no necessity for any human preceptor. Some of them regard as God-given a certain book which is a compilation from different sources. Others do not admit the authority of any book through fear lest by recognizing the authority of any Scriptures errors are admitted.

Although according to this view only there is only one God yet it is in many parts inconsistent, full of insinuations of partiality against God and of no value to jivas who are naturally disposed towards God. Instead of admitting a principle of evil existing separately from God it considers the commission of sin as due to the weakness of jivas for which also, as this view offers no other explanation. God is tacitly held to be ultimately responsible. In the pride of empiric knowledge they fail to grasp the difference between soul and mind. Their spiritual science is stunted in its growth on account of arrogance engendered by their superior knowledge of the physical sciences. Their spiritual knowledge is so meager that they cannot distinguish between the spiritual principle and the material principle in gross and subtle forms. They accordingly mistake the symbolic for the spiritual.

From a long time a body of opinions bearing the name of advaita-vada (monism) has been current in this country. This opinion is born of study of the Vedas under the lead of narrow partisan bias. Although monism has also been preached by many scholars outside India yet there seems to be little doubt that this view spread originally to other countries from India. A few savants who accompanied Alexander the Great into India, made the thorough acquaintance of it. This has been hinted by authors of Greece and Rome in their own works. According to advaita-vada the Brahman is the only entity. There is not and has never been any second entity besides the Brahman. Distinctions such as spirit, matter and God are due to conventional judgment. As a matter of fact the Brahman is the unchanged cause of all cognisable principles. The Brahman is eternal, without change, without form and without differentiation. In the Brahman there is no adjunct, no kind of power and no kind of activity. There is no change of state or transformation of the Brahman. All these expressions are to be found in different parts of the Vedas. The professors of the monistic cult of the Brahman adopted these statements without any objection, But when they turned their eyes towards the differentiated world, they began to reflect how such Brahman can be the cause of the world. Whence came the world ? Unless this was explained the view which appealed to their tastes could not be rendered tenable. Arrived at this point they began to think, and numerous issues were soon brought to light that clamoured for solution. How can activity or the active power be admitted to the Brahman which is without activity in any form? On the other hand caution was necessary lest monism suffered any curtailment by the admission of a second principle. Thinking on in this manner they first of all came to the conclusion that there would be no violation of the monistic principle if a slight power of transformation in the Brahman were admitted. The Brahman is the transformation of itself. This transformation is cognisable. Those monists who considered such admission as inconsistent with the monistic position, proposed to account for the world by the assumption of deception or illusion (vivarta) due to want of true knowledge; just as a stick may be mistakenly supposed to be a snake. The world is unreal, a mere illusory idea. There is no world, no life. The Brahman exists and there also exists an illusion in the shape of the knowledge of the world. The names ‘avidya’ (nescience) ‘maya’ (illusion) etc. arose out of the effort to understand this deception thoroughly. A deception is never a real, separate entity. Therefore, there is no infringement of the conclusion of monism that the reality is only one. After this extraneous knowledge is subdued by the knowledge of the Reality the apparent illusion is destroyed with the realization of one entity, resulting in emancipation (mukti).Yet another body of scholars refused to consider the theory of illusion as being altogether true. They said that the world is not a piece of self evident deception. The illusion of the world owes its maintenance to another hallucination, viz., the jiva or individual soul. The jiva is not a separate entity from the Brahman. This would be an infringement of the monistic principle. The jiva is the real illusion. These scholars are divided into two groups. One of those held the view that the Brahman is like the great sky appearing as jiva due to limitation like the portion of the great sky enclosed within the pot. The other section thought this would be too great a tampering with the Brahman, and necessitate His subordination to illusion. Instead of doing this let the jiva be recognized as the reflection of the Brahman like the image of the moon in the water. Being itself a false entity full of a deceptive cognition in the way of the natural function of the principle of nescience the jiva soul imagines this world as made up of matter. In reality the Brahman is one and without a second. The jiva is not a separate entity. The world also is not anything that has a separate existence from the Brahman.

The great error of these scholars, which they can neither see nor want to see, is their assumption that the Brahman is only one admitting of the existence of no second entity, and that there is no other real thing separate from the Brahman. So long as the inconceivable power of the same Brahman is not admitted all the above speculations are bound to be trivial. Is the powerless Brahman proved to be one by the postulation of illusion by one, of ‘nescience’ by another, of ‘deception’ by a third and of ‘the deception of a deception’ by yet another school ? In all these views the abandonment of the monistic position is easily recognizable. The conception of the Brahman possessed of inconceivable power, is an infinitely greater idea than that of the powerless Brahman. Neither does the former necessitate the postulation of an entity foreign to the Brahman for the purpose of preserving His so called unity. Monism fails utterly to comprehend and harmonize all the statements of the Vedas and is equally- powerless to promote the good of the jiva. We take leave of the subject of monism with these general observations for the present, reserving the specific consideration of the details of its numerous variants in connection with the teaching of Mahaprabhu when He refutes the fallacies of this view.

All these are mere verbal juggleries or the mischievous prejudices of self-opinionated controversialists. The Truth exists buried in the midst of erroneous speculations. It is the office of the real investigator of Truth, on ascertaining the nature of the untruths, to discard them and by making the direct acquaintance with Truth to procure and treasure Him. Victor Cousin, the French savant, although he rightly hit the method, failed in its actual application, due to the fact that he employed himself in searching for the Absolute Truth in the piles of empiric learning. Such effort is like the endeavour to obtain the grain by the process of grinding the chaff. The real sifting has been done by Sree Vyasadeva in his Brahmasutra and elaborated by himself in the Sreemad Bhagavatam; and Sree Chaitanya Deva came into this world to make the religion set forth in the Sreemad Bhagavatam possible of attainment by the fallen jiva..

Enough has been said on atheistic speculations to prove that they have always exercised, and still continue to exercise, consciously or unconsciously to their victims, a most pernicious influence on the human mind and prevent it from giving even a hearing to the subject of the Absolute Truth. It was so in the Age of Sree Chaitanya Deva. The South of India was the official stronghold of all kinds of warring doctrines and it was the purpose of Sree Chaitanya in traveling through the South to meet and refute the fallacies of the atheistical scholars of the different schools and thereby destroy their sinister influence which prevented the general body- of the people from giving their unprejudiced attention to His teaching,

The reader will get some idea of the chaotic state of religious opinion in India at the time of Sree Chaitanya Deva from the following brief sketch of the principal schools of philosophy whose views were more or less current in that Age. The more important of these have been compiled by Madhvacharya, a follower of Sankara’s monism, who preceded Sree Chaitanya Deva by about two centuries, in his work the Sarba-Darsana Sangraha which has been translated into English by E. B. Cowell. The systems mainly prevalent at the time of Sree Chaitanya Deva may be arranged in the following order:—

(1) The system of Charvaka, opposed to the Vedas, hankering for things other than God,—a devoted admirer of worldly qualities,—atheistical.

( 2 ) The system of the Buddhists who hold everything as transitory, worship worldly qualities, are atheistical, rely on abstruse and fallacious argument.

(3) The system of the Jaina arhats, indeterminists, worship worldly qualities, rely- on abstruse and fallacious argument.

(4) The system of Sankhya, godless, holds the soul as devoid of quality, relies on abstruse and fallacious argument.

(5) The system of Patanjala, acknowledges a god, holds the soul as devoid of quality, relies on abstruse and fallacious argument.

(6) The system of Sankara, averse to God, professing the aim of harmonizing conflicting opinions, pseudo-revelationist, pure monist, rationalistic.

(7) The system of the Baiakaranas, materialists, pseudo revelationists, worship god conceived as possessed of worldly qualities.

(8) The system of the Mimansakas, rely on the meaning of words, pseudo-revelationists, worship god who is conceived as possessing worldly qualities.

(9) The system of the Naiyayikas, profess first beginning, process of effort and the unknown factor, recognize the authority and validity of evidence other than that of the Word of the Veda, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

(10) The system of the Baisheshikas, profess first beginning, process of effort, the unknown factor, recognize no other authority than that of the Scriptures, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

(11) The system of the tranquilized Saivas, profess worldly enjoyment, process of effort, the unknown factor, emancipation while still living in this world, rationalistic, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities, believe in God.

( 12) The system of the Pratyabhijnas, profess material enjoyment, process of effort, the unknown factor, hold emancipation on leaving the physical body, hold unity of the soul, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

(13) The system of the Nakulish Pashupat Saivas, profess material enjoyment, process of effort, the unknown factor, hold souls to be separate, hold emancipation after leaving the body, believe in god as unrelated to fruitive work, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

(14) The system of the Saivas, profess material enjoyment, process of effort, the unknown factor, hold emancipation as a bodiless state, hold souls as separate, believe in god as related to fruitive work, worship god conceived as possessing mundane qualities.

Charvaka—holds the living body as identical with the soul and its satisfaction as the object of life. Direct perception is the only proof of reality. The highest good consists in the pleasures produced by enjoyment of women, eating of wholesome food and wearing the best apparel, etc. The pain that is incidental to these pleasures should be avoided as far as possible. But it would he foolish to forego the pleasure itself which is real for fear of the pain that may occasionally be associated with it. There is no after-life. Those eminently learned men who perform ceremonies enjoined by the Vedas at the cost of much wealth and physical discomfort are all deluded by the long-standing custom of obeying the Vedas, which were originally made by the hypocrite, the cunning knave and the cannibal taking counsel together. The Vedas are full of false, atrocious, immoral and ridiculous practices.

Buddhism.—The Buddhists are divided into four schools, viz., the Madhyamikas, the Yogachariyas, the Sautranitikas and the Baibhasikas rendered by Cowell as Nihilists, Subjective Idealists, Representationists, and Presentationists, respectively. According to the first nothing exists except the void. In other words, nothing is really- true. If anything had been really true it would have been constantly perceivable in the waking state, in sleep and in dream. According to the second external objects are non-existent. The soul which is only momentary cognition, is alone true. The third school holds that external objects are true and realizable by inference. According to the Baibhasikas external objects are realizable by direct perception. According to all the schools the principal duty consists in worshipping this body by nourishing the twelve dimensions of which it is made, viz., the five active organs, the five perceptual organs and the two perceptuo-volitional organs of the mind and the faculty of discrimination. According to the Buddhists ‘Sugata’ is God, the world is momentarily perishable, direct perception and inference are the evidence; and misery, dimension, aggregate an(l the path are the four truths. The entity misery is constituted of its five limbs, viz., knowledge, pain, cognition, impression and colour. The twelve dimensions have already been mentioned. The attachments and repugnances that arise spontaneously in the hearts of men, are called the principle of aggregation. The fixed persuasion that all impressions are momentary, bears the name of the path. .Moksha or emancipation is identical with this last.

Jainism The general term of the sect is arhat. The Jains are that sect of the arhats that follows the teachings of the Jina. The arhats refute the theory of momentariness of the Buddhists and admit the continuity and eternal existence of the soul. The body is the measure of the jiva. The Arhat is God. He is omniscient and free from attachment, repugnance, etc. The three jewels are right view, right knowledge, and right conduct. The right view consists of the right faith which is prevention of opposition or doubt regarding the truth declared by the Jina. The right knowledge consists of the knowledge of the truth declared by the Jina in a condensed or elaborate form. Right conduct consists in the abandonment of condemned activities. Right conduct is of five kinds, viz., not to kill any jiva whether it is locomotive or stationary, not to accept more than is given, not to steal, to speak words that are true, beneficial and also agreeable, to give up lust, anger, etc., and to avoid undue attachment for all things. These five constitute the great obligation. The highest state is attained by practicing these, They are ‘syad-vadins’ ie, believe in the doctrine of relativity, indefiniteness or indeterminateness, as opposed to the idea of the absolute.

Sankhya.—The propounder of the Sankhya system of philosophy is Kapila. There are two Kapilas. Kapila, the son of Kardama and Devahuti, belongs to the Satya Yuga. He is the Kapila mentioned in the Sreemad Bhagavatam. His view, which is also known as Sankhya, is recorded in the Bhagavatam.. It contains many statements that refer to the system of pure devotion. He must be carefully distinguished from Kapila, the propounder of the atheistical view of the current Sankhya philosophy which is our present subject. The atheist Kapila was born of the Agni-family in the Treta Yuga..

According to the Sankhya there are really two fundamental entities, viz., the pradhana or prakriti (i.e., the material principle) and the purusha (i.e., the soul). Prakriti undergoes transformation. The purusha is an essence unaffected. The twenty-five entities of the Sankhya, from the enumeration of which the system derives its name, consist of primordial matter (mula prakriti), mahat, mistaken egoism (ahamkara) , the five subtle elements (panchatanmatrah), the five organs of sense, the five organs of action, the mind which is the organ of both sense and action, the five principles of gross matter and the soul (purusha). Of these the first is the pure essence of matter in the sense that it is not the effect of any other cause but is the cause of all the other material principles. The next groups in the series consisting of the seven categories from mahat to the five subtle elements, are related to one another as cause and effect each being the cause of the following entity. They are, therefore, both cause and effect. The five principles of gross matter are not the cause of any other entity. They are merely effect. Purusha or the soul is eternal and unchangeable. It is neither the cause nor the effect of anything.

Primordial matter (prakriti) is constituted of the three qualities, viz., sattva, rajas and tamas. The state of equilibrium of these three qualities is prakriti. The qualities (gunas) are material and transformable. The whole world is the transformation of the qualities. The sattva quality is happiness itself, it is light and illuminating. Its function is equable (santa). The rajas quality is made of misery and is active. Its function is terrible (ghora). The quality of tamas is stupefying, it is heavy and suppressive. Its function is irrational (murha) . Although thus mutually, opposed they co-operate with one another and thus produce the world. The world is thus full of pleasure, pain and ignorance. Pleasure and pain are the qualities of the principle of discrimination (mahat or buddhi), i.e. of matter, and not of the soul. These qualities of the material intelligence are reflected in the soul. The soul is eternal, free from the material qualities, self-conscious, witness, active, different from matter and many- in number. The material (prakriti) is the inactive principle, which is itself unconscious, but moving by the proximity of the soul. The soul is liberated when this relationship with the material principle is recognised by him. Such recognition leads the soul to dissociate himself from prakriti. This is the summum bonum and is called mukti or liberation.

Yoga.—This system was propounded by Patanjala Muni. It is also called theistic Sankhya. It recognizes in addition to the twenty-five entities of Sankhya mentioned above a twenty-sixth entity, viz. , god. The summum bonum is called the non-alternative state (kaivalya) which is reached by the eight processes of yoga by which the activities of the mind are controlled and subdued. The worship of god helps the purification and tranquilization of the mind. The system is very similar to Sankhya, the chief differences being that it recognizes the attainment of emancipation as dependent on the grace of god and also lays stress on the eightfold yoga practices. On attainment of the state of freedom from any form of activity (asamprajnata samadhi or mukti) misery finally disappears. This is the goal. It will be noticed that although the existence of God is admitted in the pre-non-alternative stages, He is only a secondary entity, the primary- object being the attainment of a desirable state for oneself which does not appear to be in any way related to God after it is realised.

The system of Sankara.—Sankara has tried to deduce the doctrine of pure monism from the Brahma sutra of Maharshi Veda-Vyasa. According to this system the Brahman alone is true, all else is untrue. The world perceived through the senses is an illusion like the mistaking of the rope for the snake. There is no difference between the individual soul and the highest Soul Who is the Brahman. It is similar to the Nihilistic school of Buddhism and has been considered to be a form of Buddhism under the garb of lip-loyalty to the Scriptures. Its Brahman is only a negation of the material world and has no definable nature of its own. The assertion that the nature of the Brahman is spiritual (chit) as distinct from unconscious matter (achit), differentiates it theoretically but not practically from the doctrine of ‘Void’ of the Buddhists. It commits material suicide in order to establish a spiritual void. It is an unnatural and forced interpretation of the philosophy of the Brahma sutra and has obtained wide currency in this country, being recognized by many foreign scholars as the representative philosophy of Hindu orthodoxy. It is less prevalent in the south than in the north of India. Pure monism which in its present form owes its origin to Sankara, has branched out into many slightly differing forms. It has already been referred to in another place and will be considered in its relation to the teaching of Sree Chaitanyadeva in its proper place.

The system of Baiakaranas.—The Grammarian Panini is the propounder of the view that by the study of sound in the form of the letters of the alphabet and words formed of them the knowledge of the object to which they point is spontaneously realized as the result of such practice. Sound is of two kinds, eternal and transitory. The eternal sound is directly expressive of its object. The Grammarians recognize this directly expressive sound as the Brahman. They hold that by the study of the science of sound by the gradual subsidence of ignorance the state of emancipation is attained. It is considered as the easy, royal road among the ways that lead to emancipation (moksha).

The system of the Mimamsakas.—This was made by Maharshi Jaimini. The Word of the Scripture made by God out of pity for the attainment of a desirable state for oneself which does not appear to be in any way related to God after it is realized the suffering of the jiva, is the only authority by following which the fruit in the form of happiness promised by it is attainable. This school undertakes to supply the true interpretation and to reconcile apparently conflicting statements of the Scriptures.

The system of the Naiyayikas.—The view of Gautama, the promulgator of this system, may be thus put: there are sixteen categories consisting of processes by which the knowledge of the twelve entities can be obtained. By constant hearing, contemplation and revision of the knowledge thus gained the individual soul and the Over-soul become known. This leads to the disappearance of misery and with it of false knowledge and their resultant preferences, repugnances and stupefaction, etc. There is then left no inclination for virtuous or vicious acts. After this, on the termination of the sufferings by the system of bodies produced by the previously accumulated activities leading to rebirth, there is final cessation of the twenty-one kinds of misery due to the six sense organs the six objects of the senses, the six intellectual faculties and pleasure and pain. This is the attainment of happiness or mukti. .

The system of the Vaisheshikas.—This system owes its origin to Maharshi Kanad or Uluka. The summum bonum according to this system is the final cessation of misery (mukti). This is the result of true knowledge which is obtained by a critical and careful study of the Scriptures and their constant consideration and meditation. It is necessary, first of all, to differentiate the soul from the non-soul or matter. This school holds that there is definite and eternal difference between the several permanent entities and also between the objects and their qualities, although the last two are eternally associated with each other. It is this peculiarity which gives its name to the system. The atom is the final limit of matter. The world, etc., made of material atoms, are eternal and any other worlds not so made are impermanent but eternal. The system closely resembles that of the Naiyayikas.

Saivas.—According to this, Siva who is ever affectionate to His devotees is held to be god and the jivas are designated as animals (pashu). God awards the fruit of actions in accordance with the nature of such acts. All action is followed by its appropriate effect and is therefore, the cause of such effect. This does not affect the not affect the freedom of action of god as the supreme lord and master. God is formless. There are three entities, viz., the lord, the animal and the bond. Siva is the lord and those who have attained the state of Siva and the methods whereby this state is attained, e.g., initiation, etc., form the lordly category. The jiva-soul is the animal. This jiva-soul is different from the body, is eternal and is capable of taking the initiative. The jiva-soul freed by Siva from sin is elevated to his proper lordly position and merges with the divinity.

The Pratyabhijnas.—According to this school the jiva-soul is the over-soul. This is established by the inference that a being who has knowledge and power of independent action is god; that which has not those powers is non-god, e.g., house, etc. The soul of jiva possesses the above powers and therefore it is god. This recognition of the identity of the jiva-soul with god is called Pratyabhijnas. The acquisition of this knowledge is alone necessary for the highest realization, viz., that Siva is the divinity.

Nakulish Pashupat Saivas.—Siva is god. Being the ruler of jivas, Siva is also called Pashupati, jiva being named pashu (animal). God's will is the only cause of the world. The summum bonum (mukti) according to this view consists in the absolute cessation of all misery and the attaimment of the state of the divinity. Specific acts are prescribed as the method to be followed for obtaining emancipation. It considers service of god as tantamount to bondage.

Saivas (Rasesvara or Mercurial school).—The summum bonum is the attainment of the state of the divinity. This is possible only through knowledge of god. But this knowledge is naturally and easily attainable in this material body if it is tranquilized by mercury. Siva is god. Mercury is Siva’s own self. The body is the friend of the soul and can be rendered spiritual and eternal in the above way. Mercury is called “parada” and “rasesvara” due to its qualities of enabling the jiva to get across the ocean of this world and being accordingly the supreme liquid.

All these and many other atheistical views have been prevalent in this country from most remote times. All these are empirical and try to work up to God, Who is necessarily conceived as some form of sublimated or discarded matter, by the powers of the human mind working on the data supplied by the senses. Even in those cases where there is profession of obedience to the authority of the revealed Scriptures such admission is merely verbal and the method adopted is in every instance purely empirical, although help of the Scriptures is frequently sought in support of special views reached by the empiric process. In spite of the lip-profession of theism such method has consciously or unconsciously led in every case to the formulation of materialistic, unspiritual and godless systems. This, however, did not pass unchallenged. Or, it would be truer to say, that these views were really propounded in opposition to the theistic school which embodies the natural religion of the jiva and which has existed both potentially and in an explicit form from eternity.

It is in fact futile to seek for the origin of the eternal religion in history limited by space and time. It has always existed. Its continued existence can also no doubt be established as far back as our limited vision extends. All the other systems have a historical origin. The theistic (Vaishnava) religion has no historical origin and no beginning. The other systems have attained temporary prominence on account of the vigour of their attack on theism (Vaishnavism). We shall return to this subject again. For the present it would be sufficient to point out that theism in its true sense, which is identical with Vaishnavism, possesses the most numerous body of expounders and they have always been engaged in refuting the fallacies of the empiric schools. In the Iron Age (Kali Yuga) the Vaishnava religion has had four principal teachers after whom the four divisions (sampradayas) of the community are named. Those four founder-Acharyas of the respective sampradayas in the chronological order of their appearance are,—Sreemad Adi Vishnuswami, Sreemad Nimbarka, Sreemad Ramanuja and Sreemad Madhva. The Vaishnava Founder Acharyas are pure revelationists (srauta panthis) as opposed to the schools mentioned above who are empiricists. They hold devotion to Godhead Whose Nature is purely spiritual to be the summum bonum. This goal is reached by obeying the Scriptures by submitting to receive the Word of Godhead from sadhus who alone understand their true import. This submission must also be complete.

But although the four Vaishnava Founder-Acharyas, who preceded Sree Chaitanyadeva, and their followers certainly prepared the ground for the general re-establishment of pure theism their efforts only led their opponents to endless shifting of position and restatement of their views and this was done with so much vigour and success that at the time of the advent of Sree Chaitanyadeva the country had passed almost completely into the hands of the atheists as will appear from the incomplete list of the principal atheistic schools that were flourishing in His time which has been put before the reader in the above brief account. Sree Chaitanyadeva was opposed by all of these and He had to meet their leaders in learned disputations. The school which was most hostile to Him was that of the .smartas who do not admit the transcendence of Vishnu and His devotees but hold Vishnu to be a god of equal status with the other gods and endowed with specific powers. The smartas are frankly polytheistic and follow fruitive activities for the reward of material happiness promised by the Scriptures for their performance. The purely spiritual religion preached by Sree Chaitanyadeva was, therefore, utterly incomprehensible and repugnant to the doctrines and practices of the smartas.

Sree Chaitanyadeva also had occasion to engage in controversy with Chand Kazi who believed in the doctrine of impersonal Godhead, and so thoroughly convinced him that it is not the teaching of the Koran that he turned out to be one of His staunchest supporters.

The followers of the Vaishnava Founder-Acharyas had also succumbed to the seduction of the other schools and Sree Chaitanyadeva had to meet in controversy the leaders of pseudo-Vaishnava f actions who were in revolt against the authority of their own Acharyas. He opposed the Ramananda sect who called themselves the followers of Ramanuja but favoured salvationism, and the tattvavadins, professing to belong to the Madhva school, for a similar reason. He did not esteem the views of Ballava Acharya who, professing to follow Vishnuswami, differed from Sridhar, the commentator of the Sreemad Bhagavatam, also belonging to the same sampradaya. The sampradaya founded by Nimbarkacharya has so utterly neglected its original Acharya that his works and those of his proximate successors appear to be lost. Sree Chaitanyadeva rescued the teachings of the great Acharyas in the process of perfecting them and demonstrated the relation of harmony in which their systems stand to the full Truth. But before we finally plunge into the consideration of the religion taught and practiced by Sree Chaitanyadeva the issue will be simplified if we stop for a short time to take a passing glance at the views of the four great Vaishnava Founder-Acharyas who preceded Sree Chaitanya and kept the dim lamp of theistic scholarship burning which was to be merged in the Sunrise of Advent of the Supreme Lord Himself as Teacher of His Word.

---

Return to