2: Soul Consciousness

We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live
and move and have its joy in Brahma, the all-conscious and all-
pervading Spirit, by extending its field of consciousness over
all the world. But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task
for man to achieve. If this extension of consciousness be an
outward process, then it is endless; it is like attempting to
cross the ocean after ladling out its water. By beginning to try
to realise all, one has to end by realising nothing.

But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds. Man has every
day to solve this problem of enlarging his region and adjusting
his burdens. His burdens are many, too numerous for him 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 been able to hit upon
the system which would have set everything in place and
distributed the weight evenly. This search for system is really
a search for unity, for synthesis; it is our attempt to harmonise
the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inner
adjustment. In the search we gradually become aware that to find
out the One is to possess the All; that there, indeed, is our
last and highest privilege. It is based on the law of that unity
which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength. Its living
principle is the power that is in truth; the truth of that unity
which comprehends multiplicity. Facts are many, but the truth is
one. The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has
power to apprehend truth. The apple falls from the tree, the
rain descends upon the earth--you can go on burdening your memory
with such facts and never come to an end. But once you get hold
of the 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 pure
joy to man--it is a liberation of his mind. For, a mere fact is
like a blind lane, it leads only to itself--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 about Biology, it does not
stop there, but like a lamp shedding its light far beyond the
object for which it was lighted, it illumines the whole region of
human life and thought, transcending its original purpose. Thus
we find that truth, while investing all facts, is not a mere
aggregate of facts--it surpasses them on all sides and points to
the infinite reality.

As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man
must clearly realise some central truth which will give him an
outlook