Sri Aurobindo on Reason and Religion

SRI AUROBINDO ON REASON AND, RELIGION

The modern age is known as the age of reason; Blinded by the stupendous, achievements of reason through development and application of science, the modern mind has come to idolise reason as a cure for all problems of society. This tendency has displaced religion from the centre of life. Reason and religion are treated as inimical to each other. This is a misguided conception of the relationship between reason and religion according to Sri Aurobindo. In Sri Aurobindo’s mystical and integral view of man, reason and religion are complementary to each other in some degree.

According to this great sage of modern India, every man is a complete individual with infrarational, rational and suprarational parts of being and the right way to the development of the ideal­ man and society is to seize and cover the totality of his personality. The infrarational in man consists of his instincts, impulses, emotions and drives. The dominant faculty of the rational part is reason. The religious instinct and aspiration constitute the stuff of the suprarational. Each level of our being is endowed with a con­sciousness of its own. Reason is the principal source of rational consciousness in man while intuition is the instrument of suprarational consciousness. If there is a single, sufficient principle that can regulate and harmonise the activities and expressions of these three members of our being, it is religion, according to Sri Aurobindo. True religion, which is spiritual by nature and distinct from cult, creed, ceremony or symbol, embraces and harmonises all the three levels of our existence. As he writes:

“The widest spirituality does not exclude or discourage any essential human activity or faculty, but works rather to lift all of them up out of their imperfection and groping ignorance, transforms them by its touch and makes them the instruments of the light, power, and joy of the divine being and the nature.” This assertion though an echo of the Hindu theory of Purusharthas, acquires greater significance as sri Aurobindo provides a well-articulated and elegant exposition of the interrelationships of the three members of our being in spiritual religion. In this essay we will consider these interrelationships from the point of view of the function of reason in relation to the infrarational and the suprarational.

Functions of Reason

Itself a product of a long course of evolution, reason constitutes in man a master principle of self-development and a condition of his future evolution. Reason is the most unique faculty by which man triumphs over the physical world and it is a master of all utilities. And by virtue of reason, human evolution takes on a self-conscious character in sharp contrast to the evolutionary process among animals. Evolution among animals is a mechanical, unconscious and unparticipated process, mediated by instinctual changes generated by genetic mutations. Transformation of the instinctual roots of animal behaviour by mutations is a slow and random process of nature. But man, because of reason, can accelerate and consciously co-operate in the evolutionary development. To quote Sri Aurobindo: “(Man) can initiate an intelligent evolution which he himself shall determine or at least be in it a conscious instrument–a co-operating and constantly consulted party. The rest of terrestrial existence is helplessly enslaved and tyrannised over by nature.”

To see how reason is a unique resource in man to speed up his evolutionary development requires an examination of the evolutionary process itself. According to the theory of origin of life currently in vogue, organic life evolved from inorganic matter by a continuous process of differentiation and unfoldment of inherent evolutionary potentials. Which evolutionary process has brought matter into existence is enigmatic to science. The only answer that modern physics gives is that what existed and exists in the time-space matrix is indestructible and yet transformable energy appearing and functioning as different forms of matter–living and non-living. At the level of physical matter, this energy has no consciousness or experience of itself. Nevertheless it never fails to obey the laws appropriate to it at that level of its manifestation and functioning. This is the pre-organic stage of cosmic evolution where nature is not sentient. At the organic level, matter (energy or nature) assumes and manifests a new quality namely consciousness or experience. Nature is self-oblivious by and large at this level, in spite of the presence of the psyche in the living matter. Organic evolution thereafter, taking millions of years of time, achieves greater and greater clarification and refinement of consciousness. At the level of higher vertebrates, as Julian Huxley explains, there is “subjective experience” but not an “awareness of the subject.” Here nature has experience out no self-experience, no sense of individuality and no awareness of self and non-self. At the level of man, nature becomes self-aware because of development of the faculty of reason in man. As Sri Aurobindo writes, at this stage, nature “tries to know, modify, alter, develop, utilise, consciously experiment with Herself and Her potentialities.” In simple words, man can study and analyse himself as he studies other objects; he can be the object and subject of experience at once. This power, endowed by reason, is what enables man to participate in his evolutionary development as a conscious and co-operating party. In man alone, nature turns its consciousness upon itself and seeks to know and govern itself by reason. This power again is the basis of man’s ethical life and social order. With reason he is able to study reason itself, its workings, laws and limitations. It is through reason that man arrives at the threshold of understanding of his nature beyond reason.

There is according to Sri Aurobindo a hidden knowledge underlying the impulsive infrarational part of our being. In one sense, this concealed consciousness governing our impulsive-emotional nature may be identified with the metaphysical concept of Vasanas. In the language of the science of genetics, the submerged consciousness of the infrarational corresponds to the genetic code or genetic intelligence, responsible for generating the unique as well as universal human traits and tendencies of behaviour. In genetical explanations of human personality and behaviour, the discovery of the DNA and RNA provides only a material basis of behaviour. The answer to the question as to what intelligence or consciousness controls the orderly functioning of the chemical molecules of DNA and RNA is still elusive. Obviously these material units of inheritance must be acting according to the promptings of a non-material consciousness which the geneticist calls genetic code or genetic intelligence. The Vedanta calls it Vasanas, Samskaras and Karmasaya in different contexts. In Vedantic metaphysics, the subtle body (Sukshma Sarira) carrying all its Vasanas and Karmasaya manifests itself through the unique genetic constitution of each man. This is what Sri Aurobindo refers to when he asserts that our infrarational level of existence is governed by a hidden knowledge proper to itself.”

Reason has no hold on this hidden consciosusness of the infrarational, for it acts according to its own logic and laws of order. Nevertheless the infrarational is not free from the influence of the suprarational or the religious sense in man. A true, integral, spiritual religion recognises and provides for the lower cravings of the infrarational too. It seeks to lift and transform the infrarational by its touch and thrust. As a result of this interaction between the highest and purest tendencies of the suprarational and the lowest ones of the infrarational, many dubious elements (superstitions and irrational religious practices) may spring up in the true, spiritual religion. Though these lower satisfactions are necessary to give completeness to true, spiritual religion corresponding with the lower and higher aspects of human nature, it must be borne in mind that the supreme purity of spiritual experience cannot be gained or glimpsed through this “mixed and turbid current.” When religion deteriorates by being overwhelmed by these lower forms of satisfaction, reason has a legitimate function to fulfil. “Here surely it can intervene to enlighten, purify, rationalise the play of instincts and the impulses” (Sri Aurobinbo). Thus, Sri Aurobindo sees a purgatory role for reason in religion when it is overcontaminated and overwhelmed by irrational creeds and practices, formed as a result of the contact between the infrarational and the suprarational in the vast embrace of a true, integral spiritual religion.

Reason can perform two other roles in religion according to Sri Aurobindo. The first concerns its place in spiritualised religion. The second concerns its place in religious reform. These two functions of reason in religion will be briefly discussed.

Reason and Spiritual Religion

Hard, direct and intuitive “experience of the Holy” is the essence and finale of true, spiritualised religion. A religious philosophy may deal with the issue of the nature, content and implications of this experience of the Holy, but the experience alone is the summum bonum of spiritual religion. Since infinite are the potentialities of the Divine variable and innumerable must be the experiences of the Holy or Divine. The inherent and irresistible tendency of the Holy experience is to seek expression, communication and elaboration of its meaning. In the communication of the Holy experience, reason has a role to play as a vehicle of expression and elaboration. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: “Its sole legitimate sphere is to explain as best as it can, in its own language and to the rational and intellectual parts of man, the truths, experiences, the laws of our suprarational and spiritual existence.” But by itself, however, reason cannot give the spiritual light nor open the gates of the Holy experience. On the contrary the power of reason and its efficacy are greatly enhanced by the Holy experience. Sri Aurobindo writes: “What is impossible or absurd to the unaided reason becomes real and right to the reason lifted beyond itself by the power of the spirit and irradiated by its light. For then it is dominated by the intuitive mind which is our means of passage to a yet higher principle of knowledge.”

Reason and Religious Reformation

The other role of reason in religion is reformation. Reason may be used as an instrument of reformation when religious forms and systems become “effete” and “corrupt.” A risk is involved here also. Sri Aurobindo observes that religious reforms entirely on the basis of intellectual reason will not do good. He writes: “But in its endeavour to get rid of the superstition and ignorance which have attached themselves to religious forms and symbols, intellectual reason unenlightened by spiritual knowledge tends to deny and, so far as it can, to destroy the truth and the experience which was contained in them.” This implies that rational and humanitarian motivations and ideals are not enough in religious reform work. The religious reformer must possess spiritual knowledge and experience. Otherwise, the inevitable will follow: “Reformations which give too much to reason and are too negative and protestant usually create religions which lack in wealth of spirituality and fullness of religious emotion; they are not opulent in the contents; their form and too often their spirit is impoverished, bare and cold.....religious reformation acts best when either it reilluminates...or when it purifies by spiritual illumination, not by rational enlightenment.”

Sri Aurobindo is greatly concerned that the modern man should develop a proper appreciation of the positive functions as well as the limitations of reason in true religion.

Limitations of Reason

Sri Aurobindo noticed a definite dissatisfaction with the imperfect sovereignty of reason and an inclination to give greater freedom and significance to other powers of nature, in the modern times. As an agent of true, pure knowledge reason & challenged by intuition. As an agent of peace, harmony and happiness it is rivalled by faith or religion. In the realm of ethics and social organisation reason has proved to be a weak and shaky foundation.

As an agent of knowledge, reason discloses only appearances and not the essence. Modern physics speaks of radiation, light and other forms of energy without ever knowing the true nature of them. It admits its inability to pierce the ultimate mystery of the universe which is nothing but a play of energy in boundless space and time. Great men of science have come to believe that consciousness alone is the reality and the rest all is only a remote inference from it. Watch for example how Sri Aurobindo expresses the truth about reason: “It looks up towards the absolute, looks towards the infinite, looks in towards the one, but without being able to grasp and hold their realities; for it is able only to consider them with a sort of derivative and remote understanding because it moves in the relative, and itself limited and definite, it can act only by definition, division and limitation.”

Reason, according to Sri Aurobindo, is an imperfect basis not only of absolute knowledge but also of social organisation. He writes: “Life escapes from the formulas and systems reason labours to impose on it; it proclaims itself too complex, too full of infinite potentialities to be tyrannised over by the ordinary intellect of man....This is the cause why all human sytems have failed in the end; for they have never been anything but a partial and confused application of reason to life....For the limited imperfect reason has no self-sufficient light of its own; it is obliged to proceed by observation, experiment....through errors and stumblings to a larger experience.”

It is as well to recognise the double role of reason in human affairs. Reason is often used to defend, rationalise and legitimise conflicting human ideals and social systems such as individualism or collectvism, activism or quietism, and socialism or democracy. Finding it difficult to reconcile these conflicting ideas and systems reason moves and forth from one system to another. Thus reason through trials by error, increases the width and wealth of experience and thereby realises in the end its own limits and possibilities.