Q: — I have truly been astonished to hear from your Holiness these mysteries of the Vaishnava Philosophy and their scientific analysis with the most reasonable arguments. I could not even think before that there are in the Vaishnava Philosophy such excellent solution, corroboration and elucidation of the problems of Indian Philosophy.
A: — The Vaishnava Philosophy has spoken about true wisdom. True wisdom is not subject to an attack from any rival camp like the changeable and fluctuating knowledge of the empiricists; this is the special feature of the Vaishnava Philosophy. The philosophies that have been, are being and will be built on the foundation of empiricism will be abandoned, enlarged and altered along with the increase and decrease of experience. Before the civilization five-thousand years old, the three-thousand year old civilisation is imperfect; and the seven-thousand year old one is more enlarged; and in ten thousand years it will be still further changed and enlarged. The Vaishnava Philosophy built, as it is, upon the strong unalterable foundation, of true and perfect wisdom is not fit for change and reformation through scuffling and disputes even like the foot-ball being kicked to and fro.
The Shrimad Bhagavatam which is the essence of the Vedas and Vedantas speaks of the real Truth. This scripture describes something which is beyond the regions of human civilisation and all the rules and regulations of society, and speaks about the attainment of another or spiritual body by the soul. Some empiricists of the inductive school do not recognize this change of body for the soul. There are others who try to prove such a change by various mundane reasonings. Some of them cite the example of the tendency of a newly born monkey to grasp the branch of a tree, or that of a new-born rhinoceros to fly away from the mother, considering which, they say, every one must have to admit the previous life of creatures and cannot disbelieve the transmigration of souls. As a baby-rhinoceros is born, it runs away from the mother lest the mother should lick its skin. Her tongue is so sharp that the bark of a tree licked by her is removed. The baby comes to the mother only when its hide gets hardened in the course of a few days. Seeing these, the empiricists realise that this habit of the baby rhinoceros is indicative of its previous birth.
The Vedic scriptures, however, have given a scrutinising analysis of the mutual difference of the soul, the mind and the body as the atomic sentience, pseudo-sentience and matter. The soul (atma) is the owner of the body and the mind. These two are the properties of the soul which again is the property of the Supra-soul (paramatma). The Supra-soul is the casual sentience and the soul (jivatma) is the effectual sentience. The soul has two bodies or distinguishing properties; one is the subtle one or mind and the other the crude one i.e., material body. The outer body is the aggregate of atoms of the five elements of matter; the inner or mental body is the conductor of the outer body. The soul in its conditioned or bound state is connected with foreign properties through the mind. The soul is now asleep and inattentive to the service of the Supra-soul. Seeing the owner asleep, the subordinate workers, mind and body, are busy about their mean self-interest, instead of looking after the interest of their owner. All the universe, animate and inanimate, is included within the Supra-Soul; in reality every creation is animate. Our scriptures have proved this since time immemorial. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose has proved, even by the inductive process, before the empiric school, that there exists animation even within grass shrubs, creepers, etc.
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This is why people in modern Western societies are still not satisfied, even though they are so economically advanced and thus have so much facility for sense enjoyment. They always want more. As the late British economist E. F. Schumacher points out:
Is there enough to go round? Immediately we encounter a serious difficulty: What is “enough”? Who can tell us? Certainly not the economist who pursues “economic growth” as the highest of all values and therefore has no concept of “enough.” There are poor societies which have too little; but where is the rich society that says: “Halt! We have enough”? There is none.*
What’s really needed is to recognize the need for spiritual as well as material happiness. A society that has great material prosperity but lacks spiritual purpose is really a poor society. A body without the soul is a dead body—even if it is nicely decorated with fancy ornaments.
Science of Identity Foundation - Siddhaswarupananda
*E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 25.
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