sivananda biography of a modern sage devotees
DESCRIPTION
GENERAL INTRODUCTIONby Swami KrishnanandaThe Problem StatedThe world we lirrc in is observed o be a solid mass of matter. Bvenour olvn bodies ane seen to be parts of physical nature 'governed bymechanistic laws, which alonb appears to be all that is real. [t has becomea commonplace idea today, especially in the unirrerse of science, that lifeis suictly determined R th. Law of causality which rules over the entirescheme of the world. We are told that distinctions that are supposed tosubsist between such realms of being as matte! life and mind are onlysuperficial and are accounted for by the grades of subdety in themanifestation and spreading of particles of matter. Even the orgranism ofthe human body, which appeanr to defr the laws of the universal machinethat modern science envisages, is explained away as only one of the manyforms of the working;s of the brute force of matter which is the ultimarestuffof all thing;s. The natural consequence of such a theory as this is theastonishing condusion that human life, like every other materialsubstance in the world, is complercly determined by blind causal laws andthe so-called free-will of marr is subservient to them, if not a merechimera. When we protest that man is not merely'matter but also mind,it is oforces of matter. Man is reduced to an insignificant speck in the giganticmachinery of the cosmos which works ruthlessly with its own laws, unconcernedwith the weal and woe of man.This naturalistic interpretation of life, that .is fast threatening tobecome rampant in this modern scientific and aomic age, seems to bereally the philosophy of the common credulous man and even of thevl Sivananda: Biography of a Modern Sageintelligent public who have neither the patience and the leisure (nor theequipment of understanding) to fathom the greater depths of humanexperience. Hand in hand with this theory of crass materialism there is acraze for more comfort and pleasure by lessening ellort and movement ofevery kind, and an inherent feeling that material progress conceived at itszenith should be the ultimate purpose of existence. Due to an irrationalfaith in the effrcacy and correctness of this doctrine, the man of the worldseems to have forgotten the corruption of moral values today, the fall in themental life and the standard of present-day education, and a sense ofmonotony and nestlessness of spirit brought about by such a view of life,in spite of his riches and material possessions.The fact that man is not merely a humble cogwheel in the deterministicmachine of a relentless universe and that the essence of man is aspiritual principle co-extensive and co-eternal with the universal Spirit,was easily felt by many as a reaction to the very unsatisfactory andhumdrum propaganda carried on by the materialists. The balance swungfrom the extr€me of materialism holding that man is merged in thephysical nature, to the other extneme of the idealism which propoundedthat man is perficrce dragged on by the impetus of a cosmic spiritualSubstance. The dillerence between these materialistic and idealistictheories is found finally to be in the conception of the ultimate stuff andconstitution of the universe - the one advocating that it is matteqmotion and force, and the other affirming that it is pure Mind or Spirit.But both agree in holding that man has no real choice and freedom of his.own, he being inextricably involved, merged and lost in the ultimatereality of the universe, be it material, mental or spiritual. Unfortunateman discovered that it was hand for him, under such circumstances, tolive a normal life of eqjoyment of the aesthetic, religious and moralvalues - and at the same time feel his feet well planted on mother earth,with her richness and grandeu4 promises and mysteries. Yet that life isnot all. There is some aweTRANSCRIPT
BIOGRAPHY OF A MODERN SAGE
r:t, and works of swavni sivananba
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THE DTVINE LIFE SOCIETYP.O. SH IVANANDANAGAR-2 49 192
Distt. Tehri-Garhwal, Uttaranchal, Himalayas, I ndia
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