The Process of Yoga : 2.6 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, June  02, 2022. 06:00. 

Chapter 2: The Structure of the Universe-6.

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This is to know something from the point of view of the Samkhya, the Vedanta, and scriptural testimony. But we can also know inferentially that the world of perception is not all, and there seems to be an underlying current of union between the perceiving consciousness and the object of perception. The world is contained within consciousness, and that is why it is capable of being known. Knowing is nothing but the entry of the object into the knowing principle. The object enters into knowledge, or consciousness, and then it becomes known. When there is a union of the object with the subject, the object is known to exist. The world enters our consciousness, and then we say that the world exists.

But the world cannot enter our consciousness, because the world is so large and we seem to be so small. We are Mr. so and so, Mrs. so and so, individuals here, samsarins, little percipients, not in a position to contain the large universal scheme of creation; and yet inferentially it appears that our consciousness is capable of containing the large object, if logically we are driven to the acceptance of the fact that the large universe as an object is contained in our consciousness because it is known by us as an object. Though our eyes are so small, they can contain the perception of a large mountain or a huge world in front of us.

This is proof enough of a super-sensible truth that behind the eyes that perceive the large world, there is a principle which peeps through the eyes, but is not contained by the eyes. The vast space can be reflected in a glass of water. The glass is so small, and yet we see a vast panorama of the stellar system in the sky reflected there because of the convergence of light rays in the water contained in a small glass. Because of a peculiar phenomena of perception due to which rays of consciousness converge, as it were, in the retina of the eyes and get focussed on the object outside, we seem to be able to look at a large object though our eyes are so small in their constitution. There is a principle of perception behind the eyes that gives life and vitality to them, and also gives the confidence in ourselves that we do exist in spite of our not being seen physically. We can close our eyes, and yet know that we are. We can plug our ears and shut all the senses, and yet we can know that we are. So we do not know that we are merely because of the organs of perception. Such a principle behind the sensory activity operates even in the perception of an object outside us. Just as we know that we exist even without the senses operating, we know that the objects exist even without the senses operating.

To give an instance, we have dream perception. The senses do not operate in the dream world, and yet we create objects of sense. We create a temporary dream sense to know the existence of dream objects. The mind is the real perceiver, and not the sense organs. The sense organs are only instruments for the operation of the mind. Even the mind is not the real perceiver, because the mind acts merely as a lens to reflect a light within that is precedent to the mind itself. In deep sleep, for example, the mind does not function, and yet we know that we existed. That was our real nature. That was what we can now conclude as a principle of awareness which focuses itself through the different layers of our personality, through the mind and the senses, and even through the body. The consciousness charges itself like electric force through the mind, through the senses, through the nervous system, through the muscles and even the bones; and then we begin to feel that we are a physical body, we have a nervous system, we have a muscular system, we have a mind, and so on. It withdraws itself in sleep, manifests itself in waking, and partially manifests itself in dream.

To be continued ...

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