Sachchidananda 'The Life Divine' Book I,Ch.9, 10, 11, 12 - Track 1002

Now Bertrand Russell is one of the proponennts of this theory and he wanted to show that this theory is so powerfully valid and if it is established thoroughly then the hypothesis of consciousness can be removed all together forever, but he had one big difficulty he was a very honest thinker he tried his best this theory and to prove this theory he tried to show that every event is atomic and every event being atomic he said every event can be described atomically. If every event is atomic, it can even be described atomically. That is to say you speak only one word no other word at all and yet that event can be described. So he wanted to invent a new language appropriate to this kind of theory that every event is indifferent of the other so you should be able also in such a way that each event is complete by itself, another event is complete by itself, a third event is complete by itself having no interconnection between them or if relations are there they are only external. He used to give examples of uncle and nephew, uncle is an event, nephew is an event. Now, it is true that there is no uncle without a nephew and no nephew without an uncle, but uncle could have existed even without a nephew in himself and nephew could have existed even if uncle were not to exist. So he said that nephew, uncle relationship is external. It is not that nephew must exist in order that uncle exist. Relationship of course must exist, for relationship this interdependence is necessary, but for the actual existence of the uncle presence of nephew is not necessary and vice versa, but the moment you use the words uncle and nephew, relationship is established so he wanted to find out a new language in which you don’t have to use a word nephew and uncle because the moment you use this term it gives an impression that nephew can’t exist without uncle, uncle can’t exist without a nephew. He went on searching, searching and ultimately he said, I will use language in which there will be only one word, − this, this, that’s all not a lot, only one word. You indicate this it is atomic. This is atomic, that is atomic so each word has only word namely this. If you want to indicate don’t use a long language in which this is so and so, that is so and so. Simply say this he went to that length but then he admitted that the moment I say this I am obliged to imply that this is different from that otherwise how can I indicate this. If I do not at the same time indicate its different from the other I can’t indicate this at all, so he came to the conclusion ultimately that this still had not worked and he had a programme in his life that one day he will find out a language which will be purely atomic, which he could not until the end of his life. In any case it only shows that the theory of materialism even in his extreme effort failed, even in the extreme efforts you grant everything, so you will see that all the dialogue that we have so far, in each dialogue the materialist is not able to answer ultimately. Now let us take the other way round let us assume that consciousness is at the root of things, not matter but consciousness is at the root of the whole universe can we then explain the universe? Now just as the materialist has a difficulty in explaining consciousness coming out of the matter similarly, the theory of consciousness have a big difficulty because of the presence of matter. If everything is conscious how can there be matter which is unconscious. This is the big blockage for the theory of consciousness. How can there be matter which is unconscious if ultimate reality is consciousness?

Question- But they argue they say that it is only in your consciousness that you perceive matter. If you didn’t have consciousness you won’t perceive matter.

Yes, but that argument is not conclusive.

Question -How do you go ahead in that?

If he has argued on behalf of the materialist that it is true that as far as you are concerned. For you things exist only so long as you are in consciousness, but how do you prove that they don’t exist when your consciousness is not present. It is true that when you perceive a thing then it is in your perception that the thing exists, but does it prove therefore that when your consciousness is not at work that thing still continues or does not continue to exist. For example we have a theory of a philosopher who said that if an idealist is right, idealist is one who regards consciousness at the root of things as opposed to materialist, so he says that if idealist is right then the train as it enters into the platform it begins to have wheels when it goes out of the platform it ceases to have wheels. Why because when a train is moving in a place where nobody is around to see, you can of course see the wagons because you are seated and you are experiencing it but you are not seeing the wheels. So wheels must not be existing at that time, so the absurdity will be that wheels come into an existence when a train enters into a platform because there human beings are all around on the platform so they can see the wheels. So do you mean to say that the wheels come into the existence when the train enters into the platform and they ceases to have to be there when the train goes out of the platform, but your argument remains as far as you are concerned wheels exists only because you see them if you were not there to see you are not even there to make a statement that the wheels exists, but this argument does not stand very powerfully because of another reason also that if things exist only because you see them then how is it that you cannot see things at your will. If things exist only because you see them then how is it that you cannot see things at your will? How is it that you are obliged to see this machine and you are not able to see here a river? Think of river, if river exist upon your thinking or upon your seeing then as soon as you think of a river, river must come into existence. It doesn’t come into existence. Therefore, there must be a reality independent of your thinking and therefore this idealist theory fails in answering this question. But idealist theory as I told you has an upper hand when we discuss all the theories of materialism. Even if things exist independent of your perception you have many problems to answer and each question we have raised uptil now. Six theories we have presented. In six different forms we have presented materialism and each theory ultimately fails to answer therefore the theory of idealism is stronger than the materialist as compare to materialist but now the idealist has this problem, how do you show that from consciousness matter can come into existence.