Sree Krishna, the Lord of Love

by Baba Premananda Bharati

SECTION XV. SCIENCE UPHOLDS SHASTRAS.

Now let us consider the main points of this great epoch-making scientific discovery by the light of the truths of Nature and the laws of matter discovered countless ages ago by the illuminated sages of India, and handed down through the corridors of time. Every discovery of modern science has tended to establish the principles of Hindoo religion and philosophy, by furnishing practical testimony to what were so long considered as their mystic teachings. But this discovery of Prof. Bose's is an unexpected stumble of a purely objective method of investigation upon the truths and laws of the subjective realm. The evidence which Prof. Bose's experiments afford is of course indirect; but this indirect evidence is startlingly direct in its pointed and unmistakable suggestions. It is therefore most opportune at the present moment, when the human mind the world over is striving, impelled by a natural hunger, to get at the facts back of the physical shroud of the universe.

The Hindoo sages say that the universe is one whole, huge being, of which the high heavens are the head, the sun and the moon the eyes, space the body, and the earth the feet. Every inch, nay, every point, of this universe-body is alive as a healthy human body. The composing principles of this body are twenty-four, as I have already explained. These twenty-four principles are therefore present in every atom of it, in every speck of earth, the last principle in creation. This speck or molecule of earth has, however, no opening for any of its composing principles; whereas vegetable and animal life-forms have many of these passages of their composing principles more or less open. As a tortoise puts forth its body out of its shell and again draws that body into it, so out of Love the twenty-three principles are projected, and drawn, in the fullness of time, back into its bosom again. This reaction or journey of the universe back to its source is called universal destruction, or dissolution, or disintegration. This universal dissolution takes place when the Three Cardinal Attributes of creation, out of which all the composing principles have sprung, fall into equilibrium; in other words, become equal in power or tension. This loss of tensity or equipoise in the power of the Cardinal Attributes, viz., Sattwa (Illumination), Rāja (Activity or Motion), and Tama (Obscuration), results in the loss of their individuality, and their transformation into Pure Illumination. By pure illumination is meant unmixed illumination; that is to say, absolute illumination, having no tendency or trace in it of being disturbed into obscuration. In short, Sattwa, Rāja and Tama are each of them mixed with the other two, its own quality being predominant in it. Their inequality of power brings them forth into and sustains their being. The moment this power becomes equal and they lose their existence, the Absolute Illumination, co-existent with Absolute Love and Absolute Being out of which they sprung, alone remains.

This equipoise of the cardinal cosmic attributes takes place at intervals of time, the dimension of which staggers the human mind to imagine. But while the return-journey of the universe as a whole takes place once in an indefinitely long period of time, the molecules of earth, as soon as they are created, have a tendency to go back to their original source. But the molecule's journey backward to Love is made by a very circuitous path. That path leads through the process of opening one by one the passages of its composing principles. By passages is meant channels of communication and sympathy with the main laws and vibrations of the working of the universe.

The first step the molecule takes, in this return-journey, is by opening the passage of one principle, the sense of feeling, and becoming a blade of grass. A blade of grass has only one sense opened, the sense of touch, by which it draws juice from the earth for its sustenance. After being reborn thousands of times as a blade of grass, it draws the magnetism from the different life-forms in Nature, which helps it to develop into a shrub. And then, after thousands of shrub-lives, it develops into a plant, and then into tree-life, in which it puts forth flowers and fruits. And, finally, drawing in more and more magnetism and vibrations from the animal world, it develops into an animal itself. At first it is but an animalcule, and then a worm. As a worm it has opened more passages, the passage of tasting (the palate), the passage of gripping (with the mouth), the passage of moving (the feet), the passages of excreting and generating, the passage of seeing (the eye), the passage of smelling, the passage of hearing, etc. Through thousands of rebirths in each animal form it is promoted into higher and higher animal forms, in which more and more passages of its composing principles are opened. The last forms of lower animals it takes are those of monkeys and apes, the forms just before developing into human form. In these ape forms of life it opens all principles except four; viz., Mind, Ego, Intellect and Love. However intelligent a monkey or a dog or any other animal may be or seem to be, the Mind principle is not yet open in it. All its actions are prompted by instinct, which is the natural impulse of the indirect influence of the mind on the verge of being opened, as well as of automatic memory of past experiences in this and previous existences, the impressions of which are in their very blood. With the opening of the Mind principle begins the human form. It may be the most savage man, but it is human. He can think, is self-conscious, and acts with reasoned decision, however crude or erroneous; because with the opening of the Mind there are simultaneously opened the Ego and the Intellect, they being almost on principle in three.

After these explanations of the composition, construction, and transformation of matter, let us go back to unopened matter, in order to explain the mysteries of Professor Bose's discoveries by the aid of the galvanometer. The Professor has discovered that the application of this delicate instrument reveals the fact that matter which has hitherto been considered non-living is very much alive indeed, as fully alive as living animals are, because they respond to external stimulus as fully as any living being. According to Hindoo definition and idea of construction and composition of matter, it is only natural that this should be so. To the Hindoo sage this is not at all a wonder. Love, Consciousness, Ego, Mind, the ten senses, the five fine essences and the five gross forms of matter, called elements, are as much present in minerals, which are but formations of earth, as in animals. A lump of earth, or a piece of metal, or a vegetable, cannot give visible, direct response to external stimulus, because they have no openings (open physical organs) through which to manifest it. If you can by any means feel the vibrations caused by such stimulus within them, then only can you find the proof of the uniform composition and construction of all forms of matter in this one whole living universe. The galvanometer serves this purpose, and hence the Hindoo idea stands to-day as a demonstrated fact.

Let us analyze the tests and proofs of the galvanometer a little more closely, and understand them according to the Hindoo doctrine of the construction and organization of what is called organic or inorganic matter. The Hindoo doctrine does not recognize the nerve or the brain as any of the principles which compose what is called the living body. The nerve is but a mere physical vehicle of the sensation of the mind (which includes the Ego and the Intellect, the part of universal consciousness in individual souls), and the brain is the physical centre of these physical channels of the mind's sensation and experiences. The mind feels the sensation of the external stimulus through its channels, the five cognizing senses, and the mind's sensations are carried through the nerves to the brain. This is in regard to animal life, which has brains and nerves formed fully or partially. The vegetables and minerals have neither brains nor nerves. How, then, do they show the same irritation as animals do to external stimulus, as shown by the galvanometer?

The answer is simple. Because they have the psychic vehicles, the five cognizing senses, by which to convey the sensation of the external stimulus to the mind, and therefore they need no physical brain or nerve. Only, having no physical openings, they cannot manifest the effect of those sensations outside themselves, as animals do; and only an instrument, like the galvanometer, is able to detect the sensations and indicate them by the deflection of its needle. Mineral and vegetable matter having all the twenty-four principles in them, have the mind and the senses, too. Only, they are in a shut-up, undeveloped state, and perform their undeveloped, crude functions like an unconscious mechanism.

It is through the senses that sensations are perceived; and had not the senses been present within a piece of metal or a vegetable, there would be no sensation in it, and therefore the galvanometer would have been useless in its application and results, because, there being no sensation, there would be no deflection of the needle. Professor Bose's experiments conclusively prove not only the unity, but the uniform composition and construction of the whole universe; that all its composing principles are present everywhere; that in some phases they are in a latent and in others in manifest state. The tests of the galvanometer also prove that what is true of the whole universe is true of a particle of earth; that the whole universe is one whole living mass, like a single living being, and that every molecule of its composition is a universe in embryo; because every molecule is instinct with all the forces and properties of the twenty-four principles, which are the materials as well as the attributes of the cosmos.