Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals : 18-3. SWAMI kRISHNANANDA

11/06/2019
18.  The Purpose of Philosophy-3.

I am reminded here of the few sloka-s from the eighteenth chapter of the Bhagavadgita where Bhagavan Sri Krishna defines three types of knowledge. The lowest kind of knowledge is that which takes a particular finite entity as if it is everything. To consider any isolated object as the whole reality would be the lowest kind of knowledge. The higher knowledge is that which regards every finite as related to every other finite in this world. There is an inter-penetration of things, inter-relation of things, inter-connection of everything with everything else.

This is a higher viewpoint, which is larger than the limited viewpoint which takes one finite object only as if it is everything, by which we cling to things by attachment. Attachment is due to the misconstruing of any particular object in this world, wresting it out of its relations with other things in the world, abstracting only certain characters foisted upon it relatively and the shutting off of all connections of that finite entity with other things in the world.

This is the essence of attachment, where one is blind to the total relevance of that object to other things in the world and one is immersed in the form of the object and not the reality behind the object. But, when you go deeper a little bit into the substance of things, the structure or the components of a particular object, we are driven to the relationship of this object with other objects as is what has happened to modern science today.

From the five elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether – we went to molecules, and from molecules we went to atoms. From atoms we now go deeper to structural elements which carry us further deep down into the abyss of the ocean of Universal Force.

Now, this is the tremendous object of philosophy.

 It is not this object or that object, this man or that man, this nation or that nation, this art or that science. But, it is the general judging principle behind all arts and sciences which synthesises every branch of learning. It is in this sense, perhaps, that it is called the Adhyatma Vidya – "Adhyatma vidya vidyanam".

It is not one of the branches of learning, not one art among other arts, and not one science among other sciences. It is not even 'a philosophy' as people generally speak about it today. It is the basic determining factor behind the appearance of all values in the world, whether sociological, aesthetic or logical.

Thus there is a necessity today to go deeper than the mere empirical definition of philosophy and take it in the true sense of the term as an art of life itself, the science of existence as a whole.

To be continued ....