The elemental scientific basis of Radhakrishnan’s Thoughts and Logic
Hindu philosophy of life—Radhakrishnan started his intellectual activities with clear determination of analysing the desirability of morality in life; in consonance with Hinduism. He contradicted the allegations that Hinduism is replete with internal conflicts and contradictions. He also tried to portray that the mystic experiences and imaginations of Hinduism definitely does not negate universe and life. The institutional aspects of Hinduism have shown great capabilities for remarkable sustainability and adaptability in the midst of political and social upheavals. Hinduism has established a great way of living. It is ridiculous to attribute laggard-ism to the philosophy which gave birth to great people like Buddha, Shankara and Ramanuja and creative talent like Gandhi in the modern age. Hinduism has attached importance to both credit and love. It has accepted that it is not life’s aim to treat the requirements of physical life as sacred, but the real purpose is to establish the kingdom of spiritualism of soul in the universe. It is one of the greatnesses of Hindu civilization to absorb the downtrodden people and to accept them. Hinduism has never advocated destroying foreign or irreconcilable elements. It has always propagated purity of conduct and honesty. It has never emphasized that people should follow some idealistic religion based tenets without demur. Radhakrishnan believes in Hindu way of life which inspires human beings to attain an elevated version of the self. It may be that Hinduism might not be treated as the ultimate and most unbiased religion, as conventional historical religions are. It is a tradition of constant development, and in this regard, Radhakrishnan writes, Hinduism is in motion, not passive, a process, not the end, a tradition of development and not only about knowledge of God. Its past history drives us to believe that in future, whenever it faces any crisis regarding thoughts or history it will be able to face and overcome the same. Radhakrishnan has been immensely influenced by the idea of a lack of desire and sense if detachment in Hinduism. He has described in lively terms the spiritual idealism and goals embodied in Hinduism. The principal tenets of Hinduism is to teach unity, among plenty and diversity. Its concept is wide spread as it accepts that truth can interpreted in many ways and it opposes all kinds of communal ill-feeling and it is intolerant towards fundamentalism. In religious philosophy, Hinduism is democratic. The institutional elements of Hinduism are in spiritualism. These have deep meanings and have an enduring importance in giving people of India the strength to lead they day to day life. But Radhakrishnan is not a narrow minded communalist. He has a liberal and tolerant mind. He has found spiritual and moral oneness in Hinduism.
- Parambramha and God—Radhakrishnan accepts the existence of one primal , spiritual, eternal truth. He also understand the difference between God with and without attributes and accepts him as he is in old Vedas and Upanishads. The imagination of high and low in matters of spiritualism indicates that man is trying to apply the feudalistic and dictatorial ideas of society into spiritualism. It is ridiculous to state that God is of a lower level and Brahma is of higher order; though Radhakrishnan’s opinion ‘God is to imagine and determine Brahma in the context of the universe’ though logical, might not go down too well with his believers. Radhakrishnan believes in the validity and truth of spiritual experiences. Radhakrishnan fi nds the truthfulness of spiritual experience in the lives of saints, rishis like Uddalaka, Buddha, Shankara, Socrates, Plato, Mohammad, Saint Paul, Plotinus, Augustine, Dante, Eckhart, Saint Bernard, Saint john, Spinoja, Blake, Rusto. These great human beings took birth in different ages and times but, they all unanimously proved that there are things like spiritual experiences and these experiences have power to enlighten the heart and elevate the character of human beings. Proof by these great souls are so strong that they cannot be ignored but do establish that spiritual experience is the material truth.
- Sequence of events of the Universe—Radhakrishnan believes that since the universe is only 1 aspect of the eternal creative activities of the Parambrahma, there is one purpose behind all activities taking place. The universe is the manifestation of special determination of the Brahma. There is always a tendency to acquire fullness by the individual events. We cannot ignore the world as a mirage or a mystery, nor acquire satisfaction treating the universe as an unending emptiness. The existence of God is at the kernel and the process of the universe. The way life, mind, consciousness, etc., power have constantly increased, it is certain that interpretation of the universe, on physical terms alone, cannot be appropriate. The process of universal activities leads to the requirement of omnipresent spirituality. Physical or fundamentalist way of thinking cannot discover the true nature of the universe. The philosophers of modern physical science, like Eddington, Jeans, Einstein, etc. also now do not believe in harsh physical elements. Despite the mockery shown by Voltaire, Kent towards the elemental scientific logic in favour of existence of God, the process of universe displays end, relations between events, purpose, as well as moralistic tendencies. The creativity, eternal elements and spread determined by Whitehead, theory of development by Alexander and Lioyd Morgan, have brought out deficiencies in materialistic interpretations of creation. Thomson, Oliver Lodge, and Smotters, also point out the deficiency in mechanical physicalism. Despite being spiritualistic, Radhakrishnan does not ignore the realities of the universe. He believes the universe as the abode of God. That is why all different matter and living beings are the manifestation of God. All things in the universe are the configurations of the consciousness. The spiritual universe which exists beyond the ever changing material universe fructifies the historical process. Thus universe is neither a conglomeration of matter nor a mirage. It is an active fl ow of spiritualism. Spiritualism only guarantees the moralistic and idealistic success of human beings. Hence according to Radhakrishnan, it is necessary to accept existence of experience of a power to explain the sequence of events of the universe. The universe can be understood then.
- Anta Pragya and the mind—Like Plotinus and Bergshaw , Radhakrishnan too believed in the infinite powers of the mind. Anta Pragya is a medium to express reality. That is the complete foundation to the study of elemental science and psychology. Philosophers, Artists, Mystics and even scientists take the help of these concepts while doing about their day to day work, even if they not accept this in public domain. Anta Pragya is both direct and spontaneous. Instead of attacking anything from the outside, it tries to enter it from the inside by appearing sympathetic. Anta Pragya is created when we concentrate all our energies on any one object for a long period of time. But it doesn’t oppose the power of the mind. Albeit, it can be said that Anta Pragya doesn’t depict lack of brainpower but rather, it depicts the best state of the human brain. Not only that, based on Anta Pragya a lot of intellectual thought processes can be verified and ascertained. And that is why we can’t say that Anta Pragya can’t be displayed, visualized. But even though it not is intellectual, it would be representative of Anta Pragya. It is contained in the process of thought; instead, it is the precursor to thought process. But brain is multifaceted and analysis oriented, on the other hand, Anta Pragya is synthetic and undivided. But Anta Pragya is neither emotionally up heaving nor the end of the world, as we see it. And neither can it be classified as an easy knowledge to gain access to. In actuality, it completes the brain’s thinking process. Radhakrishnan has tried his best to negate such an approach which promotes Anta Pragya as a concept far divided from the brain. According to him, Anta Pragya and reasoning, the power of the human mind, are deeply intertwined. He also says that Anta Pragya is the end result of a long drawn process of continuous thought and analysis. But I doubt this as Kabir, Meerabai, Teresa, etc., who supposed had practised Anta Pragya, had ever delved into their minds, spent enough time and analysed all aspects of Anta Pragya. In my opinion, separating the conventional notion of Anta Pragya into two different parts in terms of perspectives would be a better option. The maturity of the mind is one type and the ability to manifest the ultimate, real truth would be the second type. These two do not mean the same, and do not refer to the same object. Radhakrishnan believes that ‘Unity of the mind’ is our soul and the activities of the mind can help us understand the truth of Anta Pragya and the power so gained, can be depicted or expressed in terms of a language. I doubt whether the beliefs of Radhakrishnan would be beneficial to the cause of the spiritual uprising of man.
Radhakrishnans’ Philosophy on Civilization
As like Rabrindath Radhakrishnan also believes that to protect civilization it necessary to have moral power. There are many challenges which are trying to destroy the pillars of modern civilization. An only spiritual humanitarian morality can save it. He wrote somewhere that “world has seen so many civilization under many years in a dust. We generally believed that whatever and however the development to take place, the western civil structure is in it have strong and lasting forever. Now way are watching how these reserved western civil structures taking dangerous face. It is not unhazardous to be an immoral. Because of avarice and self-importance these bad systems are vanishing themselves. The winner and exploiter who blunder to mountain of moral rules they ditch their own grave at the end. Now we have time in our hand though time is running away from our hand – we have to try to save the helpless man who is running towards his self destruction.” Now a days the sun of religion is going to sunset and the moral ethics are in danger, it is quite necessary to have to give a fresh start for modern civilization and to bring them spiritual goal and moral rules.
Radarkrishnan’s dream is that in a future such kind of human civilization should rise on the basis of to look world in a same manner. In today’s modern world the rise of interdependence between industrial world and economical world and also tools of complete destruction are so much dangerous that it is self destructive to praise regional civilization. Racial egoism, the philosophy of self destruction, Praising of Military power, hoarding of money are the faces of mean devotion and it’s blemished effects. As in the begging of Modern era world reject Tolima’s Earth centered universe law and accepted the of Copernicus’s Sun centered law, and in that same way today we have to consider civilization and not try to relate from the view of cast centered patriotism., and accepted universalism. It will be the main foundation of future civilization. But for the development of universalism it is not enough the way of empty mind. At the end now to build this future civilization we have impersonal intellect generosity, and not the tools of production and its innovative foundations. For this reason we should understands the limitations of our civilization, and to accept the values and qualities of western civilizations in conscious manner. One cannot force to accept our civilizations’ barometer on forcefully way is an example of Farcifies and it is definitely fail in some other day. It is very important to us to understand the western and eastern agreed spiritualism and its moral values in very deep manner. Mankind is in a grave danger. History is going through tough time. Civilization has give birth too many difficult problems and there is an only one solution for that is ‘Unborn Soul of Universe’ rise and gets moral and spiritual consciousness. Radhakrishnan stated that Bhagawat Geeta is also believes in human brotherhood. He relates the general meaning of Geeta to universal unity.
