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CONTEMPORARY VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY, CONTINUED
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the body, and even penetrates the eternal as it develops. self is not a beginningless or unchanging substance. It begins in this life, is constantly changing, and will end with this life. Das does not expect or desire immortality or rebirth; he finds this life happy and satisfactory. It is satisfactory just because the self can grow in it. Basically body, and never ceasing to be body, it yet grows to include incorporeal and even eternal aspects. The eternal ideal is not actual, but it is real in the sense that it acts on the self and determines its growth. We may not know the essence of the self, but we do know its existence, and we do know the ideal which directs it.
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Since we do know the ideal, the scepticism which is prudent in metaphysics is out of place in ethics. Das's moral teaching, just because it is based on what we can know, tends to take the form of moral clichés: knowledge is an end, but not the only end; the most important thing is spirituality, involving withdrawal from the body and its demands; we should live simply, not trying to be great; inner peace is good, yet we must be concerned for those we love; we should lead a life of service, yet being finite can be concerned only for those near us; we enrich our sympathies by conversation with our friends. The problem of evil is not so clear, yet we can see-though with great hesitation, and not allowing this to dull our sympathies that perhaps even suffering itself is good in turning us to the spiritual. In aesthetics also, Das is not sceptical: he is a realist, considering beauty objective and capable of being apprehended with certainty, although its metaphysical significance is uncertain. The moral concept of charity, including sympathy and service, and the aesthetic concept of beauty, including delight and harmony, combine to form the concept of love. Love is an ultimate ideal, coordinate with the ultimate ideals truth and freedom, these three corresponding with the rational functions of feeling, knowing, and willing respectively. In our concern for these ideals we rise above the mere consciousness which we share with animals to attain the spirituality which is the highest concern of the universe and which forms the only immortality of mortal man.
Professor Das calls himself a realist in epistemology ("theoretical realist and practical idealist"), but he does not pro
