The Argument
The human mind naturally wants to get
outside, to peer out of the body, as it were, through the channels of the
organs. The eye must see, the ear must hear, the senses must sense the external
world--and naturally the beauties and sublimities of nature captivate the
attention of man first.
The first questions that arose in the human soul were about the
external world. From analysing the external nature, man is led to analyse the
internal; this questioning about the internal man comes with a higher state of
civilisation, with a deeper insight into nature, with a higher state of growth.
No question is so near and dear to man's heart as that of the internal man.
We do not pretend to throw any new light on those all-absorbing
problems, but only to put before you the ancient truth in the language of
modern times...so that man will understand them; for the same divine essence
from which the ideas emanated is ever present in man, and, therefore, he can
always understand them.
How We Know: Theory Of Knowledge
I am looking at you. How many things are necessary for this
vision? First, the eyes. For if I am perfect in every other way, and yet have
no eyes, I shall not be able to see you.
Secondly, the real organ of vision. For the eyes are not the organs.
They are but the instruments of vision, and behind them is the real organ, the
nerve centre in the brain. If that centre be injured, a man may have the
clearest pair of eyes, yet he will not be able to see anything. So, it is
necessary that this centre, or the real organ, be there. Thus we see that the
third thing necessary is, that the mind must be there. First the external
instruments, then the organ to which this external instrument will carry the
sensation, and lastly the organ itself must be joined to the mind. When the
mind is not joined to the organ, the organ and the ear, for example, may take
the impression, and yet we shall not be conscious of it.
The mind, too, is only the carrier; it has to carry the sensation
still forward, and present it to the intellect. The intellect is the
determining faculty and decides upon what is brought to it. Still this is not
sufficient. The intellect must carry it forward and present the whole thing
before the ruler in the body, the human soul, the king on the throne. Before
him this is presented, and then from him comes the order, what to do or what
not to do; and the order goes down in the same sequence to the intellect, to
the mind, to the organs, and the organs convey it to the instruments, and the
perception is complete.
The instruments are in the external body, the gross body of man;
but the mind and the intellect are not. They are in what is called in Hindu
philosophy the finer body, and what in Christian theology you read of as the
spiritual body of man; finer, very much finer than the body, and yet not the
soul. This soul is beyond them all.
How can we know that there is something behind this mind? Because
knowledge which is self-illuminating and the basis of intelligence cannot
belong to dull, dead matter. Never was seen any gross matter which had
intelligence as its own essence. No dull or dead matter can illumine itself. It
is intelligence that illumines all matter. This hall is here only through
intelligence because, as a hall, its existence would be unknown unless some
intelligence built it. This body is not self- luminous; if it were, it would be
so in a dead man also. Neither can the mind nor the spiritual body be
self-luminous. They are not of the essence of intelligence. That which is
self-luminous cannot decay. The luminosity of that which shines through a
borrowed light comes and goes; but that which is light itself, what can make
that come and go, flourish and decay? It is self-luminous, it is luminosity
itself.
The Soul
A self-luminous existence, independent of any other existence,
could never have been the outcome of anything. It always existed; there was
never a time when it did not exist, because if the soul did not exist, where
was time? Time is in the soul; it is when the soul reflects its powers on the
mind and the mind thinks, that time comes. When there was no soul, certainly
there was no thought, and without thought, there was no time. How can the soul,
therefore, be said to be existing in time, when time itself exists in the soul?
It has neither birth nor death, but it is passing through all these various
stages. It is manifesting slowly and gradually from lower to higher, and so on.
It is expressing its own grandeur, working through the mind on the body; and
through the body it is grasping the external world and understanding it. It
takes up a body and uses it; and when that body has failed and is used up, it
takes another body; and so on it goes.
Reincarnation
Here comes a very interesting question, that question which is
generally known as the reincarnation of the soul. Sometimes people get
frightened at the idea, and superstition is so strong that thinking men even
believe that they are the outcome of nothing, and then, with the grandest
logic, try to deduce the theory that although they have come out of zero, they
will be eternal ever afterwards. Those that come out of zero will certainly
have to go back to zero. Neither you, nor I nor anyone present, has come out of
zero, nor will go back to zero. We have been existing eternally, and will
exist, and there is no power under the sun or above the sun which can undo your
or my existence or send us back to zero. Now this idea of reincarnation is not
only not a frightening idea, but is most essential for the moral well-being of
the human race.
Are there any arguments, any rational proofs for this
reincarnation of the soul? Are there any positive proofs? There are; and most
valid ones, too. No other theory except that of reincarnation accounts for the
wide divergence that we find between man and man in their powers to acquire
knowledge. First, let us consider the process by means of which knowledge is
acquired. Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is
no other way to know. If we have not experienced it in this life, we must have
experienced it in other lives.
Experience And Knowledge
Applying the law we dwelt upon under Macrocosm, that each
involution presupposes an evolution, and each evolution an involution, we see
that instinct is involved reason. What we call instinct in men or animals must
therefore be involved, degenerated, voluntary actions, and voluntary actions
are impossible without experience. Experience started that knowledge, and that
knowledge is there.
Hereditary Transmission
"But what," they ask, "is the use of saying that
experience belongs to the soul? Why not say it belongs to the body, and the
body alone? Why not say it is hereditary transmission?" This is the last
question. Why not say that all the experience with which I am born is the
resultant effect of all the past experience of my ancestors? The sum total of
the experience from the little protoplasm up to the highest human being is in
me, but it has come from body to body in the course of hereditary transmission.
Where will the difficulty be? This question is very nice, and we admit some
part of this hereditary transmission. How far? As far as furnishing the
material. We, by our past actions, conform ourselves to a certain birth in a
certain body, and the only suitable material for that body comes from the
parents who have made themselves fit to have that soul as their offspring. It
is the theory that advances the freedom of the human soul.
It is the one theory that does not lay the blame of all our
weakness upon somebody else, which is a common human fallacy.