The Concrete And The Abstract

The Pioneer

The world we live in constitutes an alliance of sensuous consciousness and concrete matter. Our knowledge is contained within the circumference of our senses and all material substances subsist within the periphery of speech, form, smell, taste and touch. The five senses with their objects constitute our small world. In fact, this world is not so small, but the power of our senses is very limited for they only apprehend gross material objects.

Atoms are concrete enough, yet the senses cannot apprehend them. Innumerable atoms unite to form mass, which is yet too subtle for the senses to apprehend. They can apprehend only those substances which are made up of an infinite number of atoms and have developed gross concreteness. Our senses cannot even apprehend the whole of the corporeal world. So the question of their apprehending the incorporeal, intangible world does not arise.

The incorporeal elements are beyond sound, smell, taste and touch. Their atoms are different from those of the material world. Thus, the efforts of one who seeks to know the incorporeal world through the senses will not be successful. The knowledge of the incorporeal world is a subject of supreme extrasensory perception. Even common extrasensory perception will not succeed. Only supreme extrasensory perception may help attain it.

The starting point of religion is extrasensory consciousness. One endowed with only sensory perception cannot appreciate it. Only that person may be said to be religious who is able to appraise both the concrete and the abstract. Man is a social being. He is moulded by society. This is true from the empirical aspect but not from the transcendental aspect.

From the transcendental aspect, a man stands alone. Each soul can provide refuge only to itself through right conduct. Empirical truths are directly linked with thought, whereas ultimate truths pertain to spiritual knowledge that lies beyond thought. This marks the dividing line between thinking and non-thinking, between the concrete and the abstract. The sphere of both the concrete and the abstract is very extensive, but to those living within the periphery of sensuous knowledge the field of the abstract does not appear to be large enough. For them the sun of spirituality is generally overcast with clouds of selfishness.