TTHHEE PPHHIILLOOSSOOPPHHYY OOFF LLIIFFEE by Swami Krishnananda The Divine Life Society Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India (Internet Edition: For free distribution only) Website: www.swami-krishnananda.org CONTENTS PUBLISHERS’ NOTE 6 PREFACE 7 PART I - THE FOUNDATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 10 Chapter I - THE DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY 10 The Fundamental Science 10 The Metaphysics of Reality 13 The Concept of Intuitional Basis 14 Rational Presentation of Experience 15 Classification of Themes 16 Chapter II - THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY 19 The Need for a Theory of Life 19 Science and Philosophy 20 Swami Sivananda and Philosophy 22 Chapter III - THE METHOD AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY 24 The Approach to Philosophy 24 Scepticism and Agnosticism 25 Empiricism and Rationalism 26 The Critical Method of Kant 28 The Dialectical Method of Hegel 29 Other Methods 30 Characteristics of the Philosophical Method 31 The Integral Method 32 Chapter IV - THE ATMAN 36 The Indubitability of the Self 36 A Consideration of Different Theories of Self 38 The Nature of the Atman 45 The Atman as Existence 47 The Atman as Consciousness 48 The Atman as Bliss 48 Sat, Chit and Ananda are One 50 Arguments for the Existence of the Atman 51 Anvaya and Vyatireka 56 Chapter V - THE THEORY OF PERCEPTION 59 The Perceptive Apparatus 59 The Philosophy of Life by Swami KrishnanandaKrishnananda 21 Perception According to the Sankhya and the Vedanta 61 Consciousness Behind Relation 65 Internal Perception 67 The Nature of Truth 68 Realistic Idealism 69 Theories of Error 71 Satkhyati 73 Akhyati 73 Anyathakhyati 74 Atmakhyati 75 Asatkhyati 76 Anirvachaniyakhyati 77 The Nature of Intuition 78 Intellect and Intuition 80 Chapter VI - THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNIVERSE 83 The World of Science 83 Inadequacy of the Mechanistic Conception of Life 84 Space, Time and Causation 86 The Relativity of Space and Time 90 The Phenomenal Character of Space 91 The Transcendence of Space in the Atman 93 Time is an Appearance 95 Causation: A Law of Necessity 97 The Meaning of Causal Relation 97 Causation and Causality 98 Cause and Effect are Continuous 99 The Significance of the Causal Concept 100 The Evolution of Name and Form 101 The Projection of the Universe 103 Design in the Evolutionary Process 105 Purpose in Nature 107 Chapter VII - THE PHENOMENALITY OF EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE 109 The Non-Difference of the World from its Cause 109 The Meaning of Appearance 110 Empirical and Apparent Reality 112 The Figure of the Cave 113 The Waking World is Like the Dream World 114 The Waking World has Practical Reality 116 The Philosophy of Life by Swami KrishnanandaKrishnananda 23 The World is Unreal 118 Chapter VIII - BRAHMAN 122 The Story of the Atom 122 From Physics to Metaphysics 123 Pluralism and Dualism 124 Towards Monotheism 126 The Underlying Essence 127 Impossibility of the Dualist Hypothesis 130 Consciousness is Above Relation 131 Brahman is Existence and Consciousness 133 The World is Inseparable from Consciousness 135 Brahman is Bliss 136 Brahman is Not the Unknowable 138 General Nature of Reality 139 Brahman in the Upanishads 140 Chapter IX - ISVARA OR THE UNIVERSAL SOUL 143 The Existence of God 143 Arguments for the Existence of God 144 The Limitations of Reason 148 The Inner Ruler and Controller 150 Chapter X - THE JIVA 154 The Defining Characteristics 154 The Bodies and the Sheaths 155 States of Consciousness 160 Analysis of Dream 163 Free will and Necessity 169 Life After Death 173 PART II - A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOME WESTERN PHILOSOPHERS 177 INTRODUCTION 177 Chapter XI - IMMANUEL KANT 179 Chapter XII - GEORGE WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL 188 Chapter XIII - ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER 195 Chapter XIV - FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE 200 Chapter XV - WILLIAM JAMES 202 Chapter XVI - HENRI BERGSON 207 Chapter XVII - SAMUEL ALEXANDER 212 The Philosophy of Life by Swami KrishnanandaKrishnananda 43 Chapter XVIII - ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD 215 Chapter XIX - THE NEO-HEGELIANS 221 Chapter XX - THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF WESTERN THOUGHT 225 Chapter XXI - PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE 232 NOTES 235 The Philosophy of Life by Swami KrishnanandaKrishnananda 45 PUBLISHERS’ NOTE The present publication meets a significant demand of seeking minds for a textbook on the metaphysics of a spiritual view of life, which goes into the heart of its questions and processes and supplies the needs of the contemplative as well as the practical side of an earnest search for Reality. This may well form an advanced study for those who have already had a grasp of the principles stated in the author’s Resurgent Culture. The entire volume constitutes not only an incisive analysis but also a meditation of consciousness. The aim of the work is mainly to open up a rich treasure which is hidden beneath the culture of India and to make a contribution to an international understanding of the perennial values dear to all humanity. Knowledge in its essence is free from the barriers of space, time and personality, for it embodies rather a contemplation of the limitless profundities within man and the universe than a perception of the shifting scenes we call history. When process consummates itself in being, universal history realises its eternal meaning. This treatise is a valuable guide to the student as well as the philosopher of life, a practical directive to seekers on the spiritual path along the lines of knowledge. The work is exclusively devoted to a discussion and exposition of the metaphysical side of philosophy and is intended to provide direct assistance in the higher reaches of one’s spiritual quest. —THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY Shivanandanagar, 2nd July, 1992. The Philosophy of Life by Swami KrishnanandaKrishnananda 65 PREFACE It was my feeling that a proper approach to the subject of the higher analysis of life in the language of the modern mind is long overdue, and this work has to be undertaken earlier or later. Though a response to such a need has been attempted by many scholars, the result in most cases was such that it evoked either the intellectual or emotional side independently, and man was not touched in his being. One has to address human nature in its completeness and not merely a side of it. Physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, metaphysics and mysticism developed a tendency to specialisation and became almost water-tight compartments. This was indeed not a desirable state of affairs, for it encouraged a false division in what in fact is an indivisible unity. We cannot amputate the limb of a living body and then succeed by its study in an understanding of the true nature of the organism. A study of life is at once many-sided and, though a conclusive rational knowledge of it involves a study of things by their ultimate causes ranging beyond empirical observation, the purely logical method of philosophy, or the way of feeling which certain religious schools advocate, cannot be said independently to satisfy human aspiration, which always rises as a whole in its structure and not a part separated from its associates. To follow a system of thinking to its final limits would land one in a necessity to pay due attention to the laws of several strata and aspects of life. The seeker of Truth has a difficult task to perform, for he cannot affiliate himself to any particular branch of learning, while he cannot also ignore the manifold character of knowledge. With this end in view, this adventure of presenting a treatise on the essential Philosophy of Life was undertaken. The study in this volume has been comparative wherever necessary, and the thesis put forth is that in the teachings of Swami Sivananda a synthesis of the approach to life can be found, with a blending of the best in the different sections of life and pointing to a perfection which is integral. All quotations cited in this work are, unless otherwise stated, references from the writings of His Holiness Sri Swami Sivananda, intended either for comparison or substantiation of a thesis enunciated. After a statement on the meaning, value and methods of philosophy, and the need for it in human life, the work endeavours to make out that, though a scientific spirit is necessary in any study of philosophy, science cannot satisfy the vital urges in man. The main problem commences with the study of man himself, and in searching for the true man, we find the Atman, the highest principle of existence. While envisaging man as an individual, the problem of perception, or knowledge of the external world, comes out as a natural corollary. Right perception is a correct comprehension of fact. The composition of the universe which presents itself before perception becomes thereafter the subject of analysis. It has to be decided whether the universe is real in the same sense as it appears, or it has any other meaning. A recognition of the inadequacy of empirical experience in its various forms takes us to the heart of the study, viz., the nature of the Absolute,—Brahman. But the Supreme Reality eludes the grasp of the individual and compels attention as the universal Deity of creation,—God, or Isvara. The existence of Isvara implies at the same time the presence of Jivas who are subservient as His integral parts, though internally related in His self-identical universal consciousness. The question of the mutual relation of God, the world and the individual, is ultimately an empirical one and is overcome in the unitariness of the Absolute. Here The Philosophy of Life by Swami KrishnanandaKrishnananda 76 we have a vision of perfection in its various phases. Spiritual life is meditation on Reality. As it has been rather customary nowadays to entertain a comparative outlook in philosophy, the views of several Western thinkers are also taken into consideration in our judgment of values.