Study Notes
PARAGRAPH 20
In our practical dealings with life we have to arrive at the same truth. For certain practical ends we have to say that a thing is good or bad, beautiful or ugly, just or unjust and act upon that statement; but if we limit ourselves by it, we do not get at real knowledge. The law of contradictions here is only valid in so far as two different and opposite statements cannot be true of the same thing at the same time, in the same field, in the same respect, from the same point of view and for the same practical purpose.
EXPLANATION
In our practical life we say something is good or bad, beautiful or ugly, just or unjust. All our actions are based on such judgements. But if we limit ourselves by our judgements we do not get real knowledge.
The law of contradictions is based on the principle that two opposite statements cannot be true of the same thing. For example an object cannot be cold and hot at the same time. This law can be valid only in so far as it is pertaining to the same thing, at the same time, in the same field, in the same respect, from the same point of view and for the same practical purpose.
A great war, destruction or violent all-upheaving revolution, for example, may present itself to us as an evil, a virulent and catastrophic disorder, and it is so in certain respects, results, ways of looking at it; but from others, it may be a great good, since it rapidly clears the field for a new good or a more satisfying order. No man is simply good or simply bad; every man is a mixture of contraries: even we find these contraries often inextricably mixed up in a single feeling, a single action.
EXPLANATION
Violent destruction caused by war, revolution would seem as a catastrophe or an evil act. But from another point of view it may be a great good because it clears the way for a new good and a more satisfying order. We call someone good or bad. No man is good alone or bad alone. Because every man is a mixture of contraries. These contraries may be inseparably mixed up in a single feeling, a single action. For example a king would kill his enemy in order to protect his nation. Here his action is mixed up with violence and the notion of welfare of his country.
All kinds of conflicting qualities, powers, values meet together and run into each other to make up our action, life, nature. We can only understand entirely if we get to some sense of the Absolute and yet look at its workings in all the relativities which are being manifested,— look not only at each by itself, but each in relation to all and to that which exceeds and reconciles them all.
EXPLANATION
Our life, action and nature are a mix up of conflicting qualities, powers, values which clash with each other. In order to understand our actions and nature we have to rise above them. We must get to some sense of the Absolute and yet look at its workings in all the manifested relativities. Each action should not be looked at in isolation but in relation to all and in relation to the Absolute which exceeds and reconciles them all.
In fact we can only know by getting to the divine view and purpose in things and not merely looking at our own, though our own limited human view and momentary purpose have their validity in the cadre of the All. For behind all relativities there is this Absolute which gives them their being and their justification.
EXPLANATION
Our human view is partial, superficial and limited to a few apparent facts and appearances. We should not merely look at our own view of things. We can know the true purpose in things only by getting to the divine view of things.
Yet our own limited human view and momentary purpose have their own validity in the framework of the All (totality of things). We cannot dismiss them as useless altogether. Because behind all relatives there is Absolute which gives them the justification for their existence.
No particular act or arrangement in the world is by itself absolute justice; but there is behind all acts and arrangements something absolute which we call justice, which expresses itself through their relativities and which we would realise if our view and knowledge were comprehensive instead of being as they are partial, superficial, limited to a few ostensible facts and appearances.
EXPLANATION
No particular act or arrangement is by itself absolute justice. Behind all acts and arrangements there is something absolute which we call justice. It expresses through their relativities. We would realise this truth if our view and knowledge were comprehensive instead of being partial and superficial.
So too there is an absolute good and an absolute beauty: but we can only get a glimpse of it if we embrace all things impartially and get beyond their appearances to some sense of that which, between them, all and each are by their complex terms trying to state and work out; not an indeterminate,—for the indeterminate, being only the original stuff or perhaps the packed condition of determinations, would explain by itself nothing at all,—but the Absolute.
EXPLANATION
So also there is an absolute good and an absolute beauty. We can get a glimpse of it only if we embrace all things impartially; we should go beyond their appearances to some sense of that which is trying to express and work out by their complex terms. It is the Absolute.
It is not the indeterminate which only contains all the determinations that would explain by itself nothing at all.
We can indeed follow the opposite method of breaking up all things and refusing to look at them as a whole and in relation to that which justifies them and so create an intellectual conception of absolute evil, absolute injustice, the absolute hideousness, painfulness, triviality, vulgarity or vanity of all things; but that is to pursue to its extreme the method of the Ignorance whose view is based upon division.
EXPLANATION
We have seen that to realise the absolute good and the absolute beauty we should go beyond the appearances of relativities i.e. good and bad. There is also an opposite method; instead of going beyond the relativities we can break up all things by looking at them only in parts and refusing to look at them as a whole.
Thereby we look at only the good and bad and refuse to look at them in relation to the Absolute which justify their existence; we create an intellectual conception of absolute evil, absolute injustice, the absolute ugliness, painfulness, insignificance, vulgarity and worthlessness. This is pursuing the method of the Ignorance to its extreme, a view which is based upon division. Because there is no absoluteness about any of these conceptions.
We cannot rightly so deal with the divine workings. Because the Absolute expresses itself through relativities the secret of which we find it difficult to fathom, because to our limited view everything appears to be a purposeless play of oppositions and negatives or a mass of contradictions, we cannot conclude that our first limited view is right or that all is a vain delusion of the mind and has no reality. Nor can we solve all by an original unreconciled contradiction which is to explain all the rest.
EXPLANATION
We cannot rightly deal with the divine workings by the method of Ignorance which is based on division. We must know that the Absolute expresses itself through relativities. We cannot understand the way the Absolute works. Because to our limited view everything appears to be a purposeless play of oppositions and negatives or a mass of contradictions ( good and evil, pain and pleasure, joy and suffering, truth and falsehood etc).
Therefore we cannot conclude that our first limited view is right. Nor can we consider everything a vain delusion of the mind, having no reality. Nor can we explain all the contradictions we see in this world by an original unreconciled contradiction. We cannot say that the original unreconciled contradiction between the Absolute and the relativities exists and therefore all the contradictions we see in this world exist.
The human reason is wrong in attaching a separate and definitive value to each contradiction by itself or getting rid of one by altogether denying the other; but it is right in refusing to accept as final and as the last word the coupling of contradictions which have in no way been reconciled together or have not found their source and significance in something beyond their opposition.
EXPLANATION
It is wrong on the part of our reason to attach a separate and definitive value to each contradiction by itself or to get rid of the one by altogether denying the other.
For example power is considered good as long as it is put into right use; it is considered bad when its possessor is corrupted by it. Therefore we cannot attach a definitive value of good or bad to the power itself. At the same time we cannot eliminate power altogether in order to get rid of the contradiction. So is the case with money.
But it is right on the part of human reason to refuse to accept as final and the last word the coupling (pairing) of contradictions which have in no way been reconciled together or have not found their source and significance in something beyond (in the Absolute) their opposition. For example, pain and pleasure are not the final pair of contradictions; they have their source in bliss which wears the disguise of pain and pleasure.