P.R. Sarkar
The existence of the relative factors of time, space and person is substantiated in the field of cognition and the cognizant bearing in its inertness is the highest stance of these factors. The inherent dynamically of an entity, depending on the existential collaboration of another entity (or in certain cases, of other entities, in which case immobility becomes of indefinite character) is called its movement (gati), while that of an entity independent of other entities is called its immobility (agati). When this relative movement loses its adjustment with the temporal factor it may be called a state of pause – in a limited sense, staticity. The movement of an entity in relation to the witnessing faculty may be called its accelerated or retarded movement depending upon the degree of its actional expression.

The question of whether or not movement and inertness are absolute is a knotty problem for both science and philosophy. In fact, just as dynamically is characterized by the stigma of relativity, by the same logic inertness is also characterized by the stigma of relativity. So from an absolute point of view, if the existence of movement is denied the existence of inertness or existential faculty will also have to be denied. When the observable objects do not seem to change place judged by relative standards we call that state a state of inertness. But in such circumstances the movement of the observer and the observed entity within the Macrocosmic arena remains beyond the comprehension of our crude and subtle minds. That is why this so-called state of inertness cannot be called absolute inertness. In individual life the supreme stance is that state in which the causal mind or astral mind remains inactive. We cannot call the disembodied state of mind the supreme stance because in that case the seed of dynamically is still active in the Cosmic Mind and the Cosmic Corpor with the help of the force of creation (prakrti). From this we can deduce that the supreme stance can be attained only when the seed of psychic functioning has been demolished.

The force of creation, whereby the Supreme cognitive faculty (citishakti) goes on transforming itself into cosmic ectoplasms, and then again those cosmic ectoplasms into the spacio-eternal system (bhacakra) without undermining its own status, must necessarily imbibe the witnesship of Supreme Substantial Progenitor of the ectoplasms (sambharaka). In this very witnesship the ectoplasm-begotten primeval elements get their existential recognition or cognizance but their own motivity does not. The Supreme Substantial Progenitor witnesses the motivities of the ectoplasms in some of its stances like uniscient (ota), post-uniscient (anujina’ta) and post-uniscience (anujina’).

When movement has the scope of being witnessed, there cannot be an acceleration or retardation in movement due to the self-involvement of unit ectoplasms. Though unit ectoplasms feel their internal movement, their external movement, which is dependent upon other entities, is not felt due to the absence of any second entity other than the unit ectoplasms themselves, and thus instead of calling their sense of movement, it is more appropriate to call it non-movement or motionlessness.

Unit consciousness, when it is self-dependent (it is dependent on others also), views the transposition of objects, and only that part of movement actually comes under the category of motion. When the self-dependent movement (as also the dependent one), giving up its effort or failing in its effort to exert, surrenders to the state of motionlessness, such a condition indeed is called cessation. Apparently all kinds of movement in this expressed universe are linked with the state of pause. Thus, every action is systolic. The systalticity is an attempt to find stability in a state of pause. Pause is only a temporary state of inertness. Full expression occurs only after attaining momentum for movement from the state of inertness. No action is possible without momentum attained from the state of inertness, and thus every action (roughly it is also called movement) must be systolic or pulsative by nature. In the same way unhindered expansion or enhancement and unhindered contraction is impossible in the realm of mundanity. The manifestative bearing of action or movement is directly related to the relative factors of time, space and person, and the contractive bearing is an attempt at detachment from the temporal factor. As the state of contraction is entrenched in inertness, the unit entity loses its awareness of the temporal factor.

Is that state with we call the state of expression a continuous process? In fact, the cause of expression is the momentum derived from the state of pause. With the momentum thus attained, the state of manifestation continues with ever increasing speed until it reaches a final stage which is also a state of pause. This pause is also entrenched in a state of inertness, but in this state, due to the expressive impact of the temporal factor no momentum can be acquired from the state of inertness. In the next state of pause, that is, in the second half of movement, the manifestative movement is transformed into non-manifestative inertness. This state of non-manifestive inertness is ever decreasing by nature. This process of gradual contraction is nothing but an ultimate surrender to the state of inertness. A structure or an entity, after getting momentum from systolic pause, progresses towards manifestative pause. This is the rule. This momentum is attained in the absence of the assertive presence of the temporal factor. Such momentum cannot be attained when the personal factor is defective or not manifest. This sort of inconspicuous absence of the personal factor or structural defect is termed death.

We can roughly compare this systolic movement with a trek across a series of hills that are arranged in successive order. Having gathered vital force from the plain, one advances towards the first summit, that is, towards the state of manifestative pause. The trek down the other side of the hill can be compared with the movement towards systolic pause. And then again, acquiring one’s strength, the up hill advance towards the next summit is a renewed attempt to reach manifestative pause. But while climbing up the hill one’s physical speed decreases in relation to the proximity to the summit, although due to one’s increased mental speed, one’s aggregate speed actually increases. If one falls down the other side of the hill and corporeal derangement takes place, one will not be able to climb up the next slope after reaching the plain. This situation is called structural derangement … death.

The human respiratory system also provides us with a good comparison with the systolic flow of movement. Inhalation (puraka) can be compared with the movement towards manifestative pause. The retention of breath (pu’rn’a kumbhaka) at the end of inhalation is manifestative pause. Exhalation is the movement towards systolic pause. And holding the breath after complete exhalation (shu’nya khumbaka, breathless void) is systolic pause. In the retention of breath after inhalation there is manifestation of time and continuity of movement, but no sense of dynamism. In the total exhalation, however, there is no manifestation of time, but there is continuity of movement minus the sense of dynamism. One inhalation (puraka) to the beginning of another inhalation constitutes half of the cycle of respiration.

After every such half-cycle or trip – that is, in every post exhalation pause – there occurs the death of the unit being. But after gathering vitality for the second time from this death or state of pause, the unit being comes alive again during the next inhalation. If, after the full cycle of inhalation and exhalation, the physical mechanism is unable to gather vital force from the state of pause, further inhalation becomes impossible, and what we commonly call death occurs. Actually, the unit structure dies thousands of times every day after every exhalation. But in the scriptures this sort of microcosmic death is called the partial annihilation of the unit entity (khan’da pralaya). When the temporal factor is evident and the seed or potential of further inhalation and exhalation is intact, this cannot be considered death. Yogic texts prescribe various methods of respiratory control (pran’aya’ma), whereby a huge quantity of vital force may be acquired from the five fundamental factors.

When the waves of the unit mind lose parallelism with those of the Macrocosmic Mind or move in the opposite direction, it can be called the degeneration of the unit entity. When the waves of the unit mind move in parallelism, it is called the natural movement of the unit mind. When the waves travel faster, we call it advancement or progress of the unit mind.

Nothing in this relative world of multiplicities is stationary. Had this not been so, all entities would have become one – all the multiplicities, losing their distinctive individual faculties, would have been reduced to one singularity. Thus, the existence of the manifest world finds its substantiation not in the absolute flow, but in the relative flow of movement.

It is with the assembling of many individuals that a society comes into being. In a society it is impossible for individuals to move exclusively according to their individual inherent momenta (sam’ska’ra). Although it may be possible for and causal spheres, it is not possible to do so in the physical sphere. The totality of various individual flows of movement constitutes collective social movement. Each individual flow is influenced by the collective flow and strives to move ahead in adjustment with it, at least in the mundane sphere. The fact is that an inorganic entity is transformed into an organic being due to physical clash. Further development of that being is a result of both physical and psychic clashes. These clashes come directly from the systolic pause of social forces and indirectly from natural sources.

If the resultant cumulative flow of innumerable individuals is termed the social or collective flow, then the latter’s trough and crest is shorter that the trough and crest of the individual flows. And this shortness of the collective wavelength hastens either an evolution or a revolution.

Manifestative movement acquires momentum from its previous state of manifestative pause. The mildness or severity of the movement depends on both the length of the period of pause and the inherent strength of the structure. A long period of inertness may be termed death only when an old structure is unable to assimilate the vital force of manifestative pause. In this case a newer structure becomes necessary for the manifestative movement of the state of pause. this new structure may be either a newer form of the old one or an altogether different form. Wherever there is a state of manifestation following a state of inertness, changes are bound to occur within the structure. But that structure can only be called new when the unit mind or the collective mind cannot perceive the distinct change between the old and new forms. During the previous state of pause, one structure meets with death due to suppression or destruction by another structure. Such deaths occur both in individuals and in society. When a unit or society devours or suppresses another, the necessary assimilation of conflicting waves and the resultant clashes cause its wavelength to become shorter in length, leading to the possibility of structural death. In this process of assimilation, if there is the possibility of vibrational adjustment, the individual and collective structures have a greater chance of acquiring more inherent vitality.

Take the case of ancient Egyptian civilization. Today, regardless of whether we like all of its aspects or not, Egypt could certainly claim some specialties of its own. But different kinds of vibrational clashes existed in the inner body of ancient Egyptian civilization resulting in the weakening of the vibrations of its collective body. So the force of different countries from Asia and southeast Europe, whose collective physical vibration was very strong, annihilated this ancient civilization. After proper analysis, we cannot call this state of annihilation of ancient Egyptian civilization actually annihilation, because although many races with less susceptibility (although imbued with greater vitality) smashed to pieces the vitality and the social structure of ancient Egypt, the invaders themselves were influenced by the inherent power of the susceptibility of ancient Egyptian civilization. The greatest blow to Egyptian civilization came from the Arabian society inspired by the ideas of Islam. Due to the influence of the new Arabic ideas, modern Egypt became ideologically dissociated from ancient Egypt. Thus modern Egypt has nothing in common with its ancient counterpart. Arabian culture was not only full of vitality, but it had a special characteristic – the immense capacity for susceptibility. Although the Arabian invasion destroyed the inner strength of Egyptian tradition, Egypt’s capacity for susceptibility was not destroyed. The remaining capacity for susceptibility left in the Egyptian society was diametrically opposite to the new Arab ideas. As a result of Arab susceptibility of hostile Egyptian thought waves, Arabian thought became weak, and it became impossible for the Arabs to conquer Europe. This was one of the main reasons for the retreat of the Iberian Moors.

A question may arise. Since the ancient Arabian and pro-Islamic Arabian ideas were of a conflicting nature, why didn’t the former destroy the vital force of the latter? Actually much of the ancient Arabian ideas were incorporated in the pro-Islamic Arabian ideas. Where there were incompatibilities between them there occurred a terrific psychic clash. One uniform ideology and one uniform spiritual awareness immensely helped the pro-Islamic Arabs impose their psychology upon the ancient Arabian psychology.

The pro-Islamic Arabian psychology suffered from the same set back in Persia in the east as it did in Egypt in the west. Endowed with its own distinct characteristics, Persian society accepted only the external imprint of Islam, but it retained its own cultural identity and ideological characteristics as a subterranean flow, and this continues even today as a trickle. After crossing Persia the pro-Islamic ideology became rather weak and after crossing the Indus valley and entering Indian territory, it became impossible for these ideas to overrun Indian society. This is actually the secondary reason why the pro-Islamic Arabs were unable to over run Indian society. The primary reason was the strong spiritual and social ideology of Indian society, and the power of the national outlook of the Indians themselves. Although the ancient Indian religion based on social castes (varn’a’shram dharma) was centered around idol worship and created wide chasms in the Indian social structure, a glorious moral, social and spiritual ideology generated a powerful wave in India’s collective life. That is why it was not possible for the Islamic social ideas coming from Persia to overrun India. The transformed Islamic ideas and the Indian social ideology lived side by side for centuries. Due to their mutually opposite thought waves, the exchange between them has been very negligible. Of course, Islamic society has had some influence on the external structure of Indian society, but Islam could not influence the mental and spiritual spheres of India. The Sufi influence in Indian society, particularly its influence on the Vaes’na’va religion, is actually of Persian and not Islamic origin. The vibrational form of Sufism is in harmony with the vibration of Indian society, and thus it has continued to supply vital energy to the social life of India for century after century.

From Human Society Part 2, Ananda Marga Publications

Copyright Ananda Marga Publications 2011