Law of Karma

SR No.: 007009
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nirmala Jha
Publisher: Capital Pubishing House Delhi
Publication Year: 1985
Total Pages: 168
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 115

Philosophy of Dr. Radhakrishnan
105
with an enduring structure."22 But the self as an organised whole has higher unity, functions and organisation. Though the parts of the soul are transient there is persistence of pattern which constitutes the unity of a self.
It is a dynamic principle, ever mobile and changing. It is neither a static concept nor a self-identical entity. As the self is a mind body organic whole, both consciousness and body continuously change. The self is an emergent principle, which comes into being, changes and passes away. But the specific organisation of it endures. The self is unique because its pattern and organisation of elements is one which persists. Though the parts change, come into being and are constantly giving way for new parts, the whole is not destroyed with its parts. To quote Radhakrishnan, "The self has no element which is self-identical throughout. The body is continuously changing. It is a scene of unending waste made good by repair. There is nothing concrete in the individual which is not produced and which will not pass away. The distinctiveness of selihood, does not lie in its simplicity but in the specific organisation of its contents."23
But, according to him, all selves are not alike. There is hierarchy in the selves. The human self has higher, internal and synthetic unity than what the animal self has. Whereas in the lower animals there is instinctive unity, there is selfconscious unity in the human self. The human self has a higher internal synthesis which enables one to use symbols and reflect on experience.
There are three types of functions of human self, viz., appetites, emotional reactions and intellectual ideals. It is the intellectual ideals which organise desires and emotions into permanent unities. In the self, we have a teleological unity, which is the only thing constant in the concrete, busy, active and dynamic self. Though the changes in self ever take place, there are some of its distinguishable characteristics which always remain. In the series of the changes of the self, the unity is preserved in its attainment of that end. As ihe unity of a single melody is realised in the time, the unity of self is realised in the series of stages, towards the attainment of end.