Publisher's Synopsis
We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live and move and have its joy inBrahma, the all-conscious and all-pervading Spirit, by extending its field of consciousnessover all the world. But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task for man to achieve. If thisextension of consciousness be an outward process, then it is endless; it is like attempting tocross the ocean after ladling out its water. By beginning to try to realise all, one has to endby realising nothing.But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds. Man has every day to solve this problem ofenlarging his region and adjusting his burdens. His burdens are many, too numerous forhim to carry, but he knows that by adopting a system he can lighten the weight of his load.Whenever they feel too complicated and unwieldy, he knows it is because he has not beenable to hit upon the system which would have set everything in place and distributed theweight evenly. This search for system is really a search for unity, for synthesis; it is ourattempt to harmonise the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inneradjustment. In the search we gradually become aware that to find out the One is to possessthe All; that there, indeed, is our last and highest privilege. It is based on the law of thatunity which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength. Its living principle is the power thatis in truth; the truth of that unity which comprehends multiplicity. Facts are many, but thetruth is one. The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has power to apprehendtruth. The apple falls from the tree, the rain descends upon the earth-you can go onburdening your memory with such facts and never come to an end. But once you get hold ofthe law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of collecting facts ad infinitum.You have got at one truth which governs numberless facts. This discovery of truth is purejoy to man-it is a liberation of his mind. For, a mere fact is like a blind lane, it leads only toitself-it has no beyond. But a truth opens up a whole horizon, it leads us to the infinite.That is the reason why, when a man like Darwin discovers some simple general truth aboutBiology, it does not stop there, but like a lamp shedding its light far beyond the object forwhich it was lighted, it illumines the whole region of human life and thought, transcendingits original purpose. Thus we find that truth, while investing all facts, is not a mereaggregate of facts-it surpasses them on all sides and points to the infinite reality.