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XII. Delight of Existence : The Solution

We are examining the problem of creation of evil. Now we have formed an idea of existence. This idea is that there is an underlying delight of existence. It cannot be removed. We do have sensations. They are outward and are on the surface. They are positive, negative or neutral. They are waves of that infinite depth of being. Sometimes they are the foam on the waves. From this view, we can arrive at a true solution for the problem of evil. The self of things is infinite. It is an indivisible existence. That existence has an essential nature or power. That is an imperishable force. It is infinite and is the power of self-conscious being. That self-consciousness too has a nature. It can be called nature or knowledge. It is a knowledge of itself. It is a delight of being. Again that delight is infinite and cannot be removed. In this world we know of forms. Also there is formlessness. There is an awareness of infinite. That awareness is eternal. It is also an indivisible being. There are many appearances. They are appearances of finite division. This self-existence is there in all of these. It preserves its self-delight in all these. It is a perpetual experience of this self-existence. Matter is inconscient. It is only an appearance. It is the soul that is inconscient in Matter. Matter is in bondage to its own habit. It is a superficial habit. It is only a particular mode of self-conscious existence. Our soul discovers in Matter the Conscious-Force constant,

immobile, brooding. Matter has no sensation. The soul which discovered the infinite being in the inconscience, discovers the same infinite being in its non-sensation. The soul attunes itself to that discovery. It discovers an infinite conscious Delight, imperturbable, ecstatic, all-embracing. This delight is its own delight; this self is its own self in all. Our view is the ordinary view of the self. It is from our surface. We are awake only on the surface. We move only there. This self is hidden from our view. It is there profound, subconscious. This self is within all forms. It is within all experiences, pleasant or painful or neutral. In spite of the soul being hidden, it acts profoundly from the subconscious. It is that which enables and compels things to remain in existence. For men and things cling to existence because of this self. Its will is overmastering. What we see as instinct is the vital perception of the self. The vital tries to preserve itself. Matter is imperishable. That is the expression of the self physically. The sense of immortality the mind has is from this self. It is there in all phases of self-development of the formed existence. We know of the occasional impulse to destroy oneself. It is only a reverse form of this will to be. When attracted to other states, the self tries to withdraw from the present body. Delight is existence. Delight is the secret creation. Delight is the root of birth. Delight is the cause of remaining in existence. Delight is the end of birth. Creation ceases into delight. The Upanishad says, "From Ananda all existences are born, by Ananda they remain in being and increase, to Ananda they depart."

There is an age-long controversy in the old philosophies. Each school has a different formula. These three aspects of essential being are one in reality. Looking at them from this perspective, it is possible

for us to unite the differing formulas. These three aspects are in our mental view triune. They are separable only in appearance. Phenomena divide the consciousness or appear to divide. In reality, there is no division. We can look at world-existence only in appearances. Then it is Maya as we are seeing them only in relation to pure Existence. That pure Existence is infinite, immutable and indivisible. This is not the original meaning of Maya. It has another original sense. It means it is a comprehending consciousness. It also contains. It is capable of embracing, measuring and limiting. This means Maya is a formative consciousness. It outlines, measures out, moulds, forms. It makes us know the unknowable. It helps us measure the limitless. Its original sense is knowledge, skill, intelligence. It has come to acquire a different meaning. Now it is understood as cunning, fraud or illusion. The philosophical systems use a figure of this corrupted meaning. The world now takes Maya for illusion or enchantment.

The world is Maya. The world is not unreal in the sense that it has no sort of existence. We may say it is a dream of the Self. Still, the world would exist in the Self as a dream. The world would be real to Self in the present, even while it is ultimately real. We do not have to say that the world is unreal in the sense that it has no kind of eternal existence. Particular worlds may dissolve. Particular forms may dissolve. They may dissolve physically. They may return from the consciousness of manifestation into the non-manifestation. Yet Form in itself is eternal. The world in itself is eternal. From non-manifestation they return inevitably into manifestation. They have an eternal recurrence, if not eternal persistence. They have an eternal immutability in sum and foundation. They also have an eternal mutability in aspect and in appearance. Was there ever a period in Time when there was no form of universe? We are not sure. Can we say there was no play of being represented to itself in the eternal Conscious-Being. Can we say there was only an intuitive perception that the world we know can and does appear from That and return to It perpetually? We cannot say that.

Still, the world is Maya because it is not the essential Truth of infinite existence. The World is only a creation of self-conscious being. It is not a creation in the void. It is not a creation in nothing out of nothing. But, the world is a creation in the eternal Truth and out of the eternal Truth of that Self-being. Its continent, origin, and substance are the essential, real Existence. Its forms are changeable forms of That to its own conscious perception. It is determined by its own conscious force. It is a creative force. They are capable of manifestation. They are capable of non-manifestation. The mental sense is subject to error and incapacity. Illusions arise out of that. We cannot attribute our incapacity to God or the infinite consciousness. If we do so, it will be audacious. Thus, we may call this the illusion of infinite consciousness. The infinite consciousness is beyond Mind and greater than the Mind. Therefore, it is beyond such illusions. These illusions are falsehoods. The essence and substance of Existence is not a lie. All the errors and deformations come from our ego, as ego is of divided consciousness. Therefore, we can only say the world is not essential truth of That. The consciousness is free. It multiplies. It is mutable but superficial. Even this is infinite. Therefore we can say the world is a phenomenal truth. It is not of the fundamental and immutable Unity. Our consciousness is divided. The infinite consciousness is indivisible.

Let us look at world-existence in relation to consciousness only. We can extend our look to force of consciousness also. We see then the world is a movement of Force. That Force, we see, obeys some secret will. Consciousness that possesses the world has a will of its own. This will or necessity seems to move the world. We find the world obeys that necessity. If so, then the world is a play of Prakriti, the executive Force. It plays to satisfy Purusha. Purusha is a Being. It is a conscious Being. Purusha enjoys and regards. Or, it is the play of Purusha reflected in the movements of Force. And Purusha identifies with such movements. The world, then, is the play of the Mother of things. She moves to cast Herself forever into infinite forms. She is avid of eternally outpouring experiences.

We can look at World-Existence in its relation to self-delight. It is the self-delight of eternally existing being. This experience is described as Lila. It can even be realised as Lila. Lila is the play, it is the child's joy, the poet's joy, the actor's joy, the mechanician's joy. It is the joy of the Soul of things eternally young. It is perpetual and inexhaustible. It creates and re-creates Himself in Himself. It does so for the sheer bliss of self-creation, self-representation. We realise Himself as the play, the player and the playground. These are the three generalisations of the play of existence. It is their relation to the eternal and stable. The immutable Sachchidananda is that existence. They are from the three conceptions Maya, Prakriti, and Lila. In Indian philosophic systems, they are mutually contradictory. In fact, they are perfectly consistent with each other. Each is complementary to the other. All of them are necessary in their totality to an integral view of life. We are part of this world. In its most obvious view it is a movement of Force. We can penetrate that Force. On the surface there is an appearance. Behind this we find consciousness. What we see is a mutable rhythm of consciousness. The consciousness casts up, projects in itself phenomenal truths of its own infinite eternal being. This rhythm in its essence, cause and purpose is a play of infinite delight of being. It is ever busy with its own innumerable self-representations. This is a triple or triune view. This must be the starting point for all our understanding of the universe.

We now see the root of the whole matter. The eternal immutable delight of being moves out into infinite and variable delight of becoming. We have to conceive one indivisible conscious Being behind all our experiences supporting them. It supports them by its inalienable delight. It effects the variations of pleasure and pain and neutral indifference by its movements. The three responses constitute our sensational existence. That is our real self. The mental being is subject to the triple vibration. It can only be a representation of the real self. The real self is put in front for the purposes of sensational experience. The sensational experience is the first rhythm of our divided consciousness. The universe contacts us at multiple points. The sensational experience is the response and reaction to such a touch. It is an imperfect response. It is a tangled and discordant rhythm. It is a prelude to receiving the full play. It is a preparation to appreciating the full, unified play of the conscious Being in us. It is not the true and perfect symphony we could have. If we can enter into sympathy with the One in all variations, we can have this symphony. We can attune ourselves to the absolute and universal diapason.

 

If this view is right, certain consequences naturally issue out of it. In our depths we are that One. In the reality of our being we are the indivisible, All-Consciousness. It is also inalienable All-Bliss. There is a limited part of ourselves. It is uppermost in our waking consciousness. The three vibrations of pain, pleasure and neutral experience are only the surface arrangements. It is superficial because it is sensational experience. Behind there must be something in us. It is much vaster, profounder, and truer than the superficial consciousness. It takes delight impartially in all experiences. Becoming is an agitated movement. The mental being labours, suffers but perseveres. Supported by that secret delight, the mental being is able to pass through all its ordeals. That which we call ourselves is only a trembling ray on the surface. Behind is all the vast subconscient and the vast superconscient. Both profit by all the surface experiences. They both impose themselves on the external self. The external self is exposed as a sort of sensitive covering to the contacts of the world. It is veiled. It assimilates all these contacts into its values. They are values of a truer, profounder, mastering creative experience. Out of its depths, it returns them to the surface. They come as strength, character, knowledge, and impulsion. To us their roots are mysterious. Our mind moves and quivers on the surface. Our mind has not learned to concentrate itself and live in the depths.

In our ordinary life, truth is hidden from us. We dimly glimpse the truth at times. Our conception of the truth is imperfect. We can learn to live within. We surely awaken to this presence within us. It is our more real self. It is a profound presence. It is calm, joyous and powerful. The world is not its master. It is a presence which is the radiation of the Lord within. It may not be the Lord Himself. We are aware of it within. It supports and helps the superficial self. It is smiling at the pleasures or pains as at the error and passion of a little child. We can go back into ourselves and identify ourselves with that Divine. Really it is a radiant penumbra of the Divine. It is not our superficial experience. Then, we can live in that attitude towards the contacts of the world. We can stand back in our entire consciousness from the pleasures and pains of the body. We can also stand back from our vital being and mind. In that case, we can possess them as experiences. As their nature is superficial, it does not touch our real being. It does not impose itself on the core of our being. The Sanskrit term is entirely expressive. It is anandamaya behind manomaya. It is a vast Bliss-Self behind the limited mental self. The mental self is only a shadowy image and disturbed reflection of the former. The truth of ourselves lies within and not on the surface. Our triple vibration of pleasure, pain and indifference is superficial. It is an arrangement and result of our imperfect evolution. It can have no absoluteness, no necessity. We respond to contact with pain or pleasure. This is only a habit. There is no obligation to return a particular response of pleasure or pain. We feel pleasure in a particular contact. We feel pain in another contact. This is a habit our nature has formed. It is a constant relation the recipient has established. We can respond in the very opposite way. It is within our capacity. We can respond with pleasure where it used to be pain. We can also feel pain where we used to feel pleasure. The vast Bliss-Self is within us. Its constant experience is inalienable delight. We can train our superficial being to freely respond with

that delight. We are not compelled to respond with pain or pleasure or indifference as of now. And this is a greater conquest. This is greater than the glad and detached reception in the depths of the habitual reactions on the surface. It is a complete self-possession of delight. It is no longer a mere acceptance without subjection. It is not a free acquiescence in imperfect values of experience. It enables us to convert the imperfect into the perfect, false into true values. The mental being experiences the dualities. The Spirit feels constantly the veritable delight of the depths.

It is not difficult to perceive this pure habitual relativity of reactions of pleasure and pain. The nervous being in us is accustomed to certain fixedness. It is used to a false impression of absoluteness in things. To it, victory, success, honour, and good fortune of all kinds are pleasant things in themselves. They must produce joy just as sugar must taste sweet. Defeat, failure, disappointment, disgrace and evil fortune are unpleasant things in themselves. They must produce grief, just as wormwood must taste bitter. To vary these responses is a departure from fact; it is abnormal and morbid. The nervous being is a thing enslaved to habit. It is a means devised by Nature for fixing constancy in Nature. Sameness of experience, the settled scheme of man's relation to life are secured by this.

The mental being is free. It is the means Nature has devised for flexibility and variation. This is needed for progress and variation. The mental being is its own master. Unless it chooses to subject itself, it is free. It does allow itself to be dominated by the nervous system. Mind is not bound to be grieved by defeat, disgrace or loss. It can meet these things with perfect indifference. Mind can meet defeat and disgrace by an attitude of gladness. The more man refuses to be dominated by his nervous system, the greater is his freedom. His freedom increases in proportion to his drawing back from his nerves and body. Thus he becomes the master of his own responses to this world's contacts. He is no longer a slave to the external touches.

In regard to physical pain and pleasure, it is more difficult to apply the universal truth. It is so because this is the very domain of the nerves and the body. The external pressure and the external contact come to us through the nerves and body. Even here, we glimpse the truth. Here is a fact. The same physical contact that gives pain can give pleasure in other circumstances to the same individual. When conditions change, pain becomes pleasure. This can happen even when the stage of development one is in changes. There is the fact that certain acts inflict severe torture or suffering. Men in periods of high excitement remain unconscious of the same pain. Under high excitement men are indifferent to pain which will ordinarily be torture. In many cases, the nerves are able to reassert themselves and remind the mentality of its habitual obligation to suffer. At such times, the suffering returns. But this is not inevitable, it is only habitual. In hypnosis, we see the person under hypnosis is prevented from feeling the pain of a wound or puncture. He does not feel the pain in the abnormal state. The hypnotist can also prevent him from allowing the pain to return when he is awakened. The reason for this phenomenon is perfectly simple. The habitual waking consciousness is the slave of nervous habits. The hypnotist is able to suspend it and appeal to the subliminal mental being in the depths. It is the inner being who is the master of the nerves and the body, if

he chooses to will. This freedom from pain comes from another person. It comes through the process of hypnosis in an abnormal fashion. It is not a true possession. It comes rapidly and goes quickly. This freedom can be won by one's own will, gradually, with true possession. That can effect a victory of the mental being over the nerves and the body. It can be won partially, or even completely.

Pain of mind and body is a device of Nature. Nature is the Force in her works. It is meant to subserve a definite transitional end in her upward evolution. To the individual, the world is a play and complex shock of many forces. The individual stands in the midst of this play. He is a limited constructed being. He has a limited amount of force. It is exposed to numberless shocks. They wound, maim, break up or disintegrate his construction. Pain is in the nature of a nervous physical recoil from a dangerous contact. He recoils even from a harmful contact. The Upanishads call it jugupsa. It is the impulse of self-defence from 'others'. It is the shrinking of the limited being from that which is not himself. What is not sympathetic or in harmony with itself is the ‘other'. It is from this point of view an indication by Nature of that which has to be avoided, that which has to be remedied. Maybe it can be successfully avoided. It does not come into being in the purely physical world so long as life does not come into being. Till then, mechanical methods are sufficient. It begins when life enters the scene. Life is frail and imperfect to possess Matter. It grows with the growth of Mind in life. It continues so long as Mind is bound in the life and body. Mind uses life and body. Mind depends upon life and body for its knowledge and even means of action. Mind is subjected to the limitation of body and life. These limitations give rise to egoistic impulses and aims. Mind is bound by them. Mind can become free, unegoistic. It can work in harmony with all other beings. It can function in harmony with the play of the universal forces. Then suffering has less of a role. The use of suffering diminishes. Suffering can disappear. It can only continue as a past habit of Nature. There is no longer any use for suffering. But the habit remains. The higher organisation is imperfect. Therefore the lower organisation persists in the higher. Eventually it should be eliminated. It is an essential point in the destined conquest of the soul over Matter. The soul thus conquers the egoistic limitations of Mind.

This elimination is possible because pain and pleasure are currents of the delight of existence. One is imperfect and the other is perverse. As the being is self-divided in its consciousness, this imperfection and perversion come into being. Self-division is because Maya measures and limits. The individual has all the universe to receive. But the ego makes the reception piecemeal. The sensation of the universal soul is the rasa of Sanskrit. All things and all contacts carry rasa. The sap and essence of things and its taste are the rasa. In Sanskrit it is an aesthetic term. We do not seek the essence of the thing in its contact with us. We look only to the manner in which it affects our desires and fears. We are concerned about how our cravings and shrinking are affected. This leads us to the blank inability to seize the essence. Therefore Rasa takes the other forms of grief and pain. It also takes the forms of imperfect and temporary pleasures or even indifference. We could be entirely disinterested in mind and heart. It can impose a detachment on the nervous being. These imperfect and perverse forms of Rasa will be progressively eliminated. Then the true essential taste of the

inalienable delight of existence in all its variations would be within our reach. In Art and Poetry we have a little of these experiences. The variable universal delight is aesthetically received by us. There the taste of the sorrowful, the terrible, even the horrible or repellant reveals to us. As we are detached and disinterested, we think only of the thing and its essence. We do not think of ourselves or our self-defence (jugupsa). This aesthetic reception of contacts is not a precise image of pure delight. Pure delight is supramental and supra-aesthetic. It is not even reflected by the aesthetic sense. Here sorrow, terror, and horror remain. In supramental delight, they are not admitted. Aesthetic sense represents partially and imperfectly one stage of the progressive delight. This belongs to the universal soul in things in manifestation. It admits us in part of our nature to that detachment. It is a detachment from the egoistic sensation. We then acquire that universal attitude through which one Soul sees harmony and beauty. Whereas we divided beings see here chaos and discord. The full liberation can come to us only by a similar liberation in all parts. It is universal aesthesis, the universal standpoint of knowledge, the universal detachment from all things. Yet in our nervous and emotional being, we can sympathise with all things.

The nature of suffering is a failure of consciousness in us to meet the shocks of existence. Therefore, it shrinks and contracts. The self-limitation of egoism creates an inequality in that receptive and possessing force. The ego is ignorant of the true Self which is Sachchidananda. Jugupsa, the shrinking and contraction must be replaced by titiksha, the facing, enduring and conquest of all shocks of existence. By this enduring and conquest, we proceed to an equality. This equality may be indifference to all contacts or gladness in all contacts. This equality must find a firm foundation in replacing ego by Sachchidananda which is All-Bliss. Ego enjoys and suffers while it is All Bliss. The Sachchidananda may be transcendent of the universe. It may be aloof from it. To this state of distant Bliss is the path of equal indifference. It is the path of the ascetic. The fact is, the Sachchidananda consciousness can be transcendent as well as universal. We can reach this state by the path of surrender and loss of ego in the universal. It helps us possess an all-pervading equal delight. It is the path of the ancient Vedic sages. The touch of pleasure is imperfect. The touch of pain is perverse. To be neutral to those is the first step in the soul's self-discipline. Conversion to equal delight can come later. The direct transformation of the triple vibration of pain, etc., into Ananda is possible, but less easy to the human being.

Such, then, is the view of the universe which arises out of the integral Vedantic affirmation. The infinite, indivisible existence is all blissful. It is pure in its self-consciousness. It moves out of its fundamental purity into the varied play of Force that is consciousness. It is the movement of Prakriti which is the play of Maya. The course and movement of the world passes through several stages. The first stage is in the physical universe. Next it emerges in sensation. The triple vibration of pain, pleasure and indifference arises in the next stage of mind and ego. The final stage is the full emergence of Sachchidananda in the universe. At the physical stage, the delight of existence is self-gathered, absorbed and subconscious in the physical universe. Next it emerges in the great mass of neutral movement. We cannot yet call it sensation. The triple vibrations originate from the limitation of the force of consciousness. It is a limitation of the form. Its conflict with the universal Force creates

disharmony. Only in universality does Sachchidananda emerge fully and conquer Nature.

The question arises - why should the One take delight in such a movement? The answer is short. In the Infinity of the One, all possibilities exist. The delight of existence lies in the variable realisation of its possibilities. This is there in the mutable becoming as well as in the immutable being. We refer to the variations in the mutable becoming. We are part of a universe in which Sachchidananda is concealed in its opposite. It tries to find itself even in the terms of its opposite. Infinite being loses itself in the appearance of non-being. It emerges in the appearance of a finite Soul. Infinite consciousness loses itself in inconscience. It takes on the appearance of vast indeterminate inconscience. It emerges in the appearance of limited consciousness that is superficial. Force is infinite and self-sustaining. It loses itself in chaos of atoms. It emerges in the insecure balance of a world. Infinite Delight loses itself in chaos of Matter. It emerges as varied pain. It is the discordant rhythm of pleasure, indifference, etc. Infinite Unity loses itself in the appearance of chaos of multiplicity. It emerges in a discord of forces and beings. They seek to recover unity by possessing, dissolving and devouring each other. In this creation, the real Sachchidananda has to emerge. Man, the individual, has to become and to live as a universal being. His mental consciousness is limited. It has to widen to the superconscient unity which embraces all. His narrow heart has to learn to embrace all. Its lusts must be replaced by universal love. His restricted vital being must be equal to the universal shocks. It must grow capable of universal delight. His physical being must know it is no separate entity. It must discover itself one with all the other bodies. The One is the supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. It is oneness-in-all, it is of unity and harmony. His whole nature has to reproduce that Unity and harmony in itself.

All this is play. The secret reality here is always one and the same delight of existence. Before the emergence of the individual, the same delight was in the subconscious sleep. In all the struggles, varieties, vicissitudes, perversions, conversions, and reversions we find this delight. The individual must wake up in the eternal superconscient self-possession. He must become one with the indivisible Sachchidananda. This is the play of the One, the Lord, the All. It is revealed to our liberated and enlightened knowledge. Just now we are involved in the conceptive standpoint of this material universe.

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book | by Dr. Radut