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Comparative Aesthetics
tuition of indistinctness (the identity of all things), it may serve as an aesthetic instrument. If artistic experience may embody in us "a sip of eternity," it may condition us with inclinations toward such ultimacy. But the more an artist devotes his attention to details, whether to colors or shapes, symmetry or asymmetry, harmony or uniqueness, the more apprehension of aesthetic ultimacy escapes him. Western admirers of Hindu women, garlanded in saris and bedecked with a forehead beauty mark, usually misunderstand the full significance of the patch of color. A beauty mark it is, indeed; but not because it blends harmoniously with size and shape and color of a partly veiled face. It is beautiful because it both symbolizes the ultimate unity of all things and embodies some of that unity (indifference) in a dot which, when expanded, remains plain, uniform, and usually circular. Orthodox women wear a symbol of holiness on their forehead just as orthodox Christians wear a cross; that either may contribute also the lesser, or more sensuous, beauties may serve as an additional value, but when the lesser detracts from the greater, its function is evil.
Turning next to will, let us consider how Hindus typically exorcize it from ultimate reality. Will is called desire, and desire is condemned not merely in its more violent forms, as lust, greed, avarice, and hatred, but also in its more subtle forms, as anxiety, restlessness, love, and hope. Desire often ends in frustration; hence, to avoid frustration, avoid desiring. The way to the goal of life is to surrender individual will, not to some superior will of God, as with Hebrews, Christians, and Moslems, but to will-lessness. Why? Because ultimate reality, whether conceived as Nirguna Brahman, as purusha enjoying kaivalya, as annata (no-soul) freed from all attachment in nibbana, or as atman (soul) indistinguishing itself in sunya, is utterly will-less. To be perfect is to lack (want) nothing; to desire is to want (lack) what is desired. Only by eliminating desire, thereby eliminating all want (lack), can one become perfect. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, speaking as ultimate reality divinely mani
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festing itself in the world, explains why a soldier should fight with indifference to the consequences of his dutiful killing. What is ultimate about the soul of anyone killed remains eternally indestructible; therefore killing cannot destroy what is really ultimate about any man. And desire for rewards, either for killing or for refraining from killing, prevents one from attaining the goal of eternal desirelessness. In order to convince Arjuna by a final clinching argument, Krishna asserts that, despite his own activity in creating the universe again and again and again, "doing these things does not bind me to desire for rewards. [I am] like one sitting unconcerned, without interest in how they (i.e., people) are affected." 7
Reality and value exist in their ultimate state only when all desire has been quieted, all will has been eliminated, all interest has subsided. Experience is aesthetic to the extent that being is enjoyed as quiescent. Intuition of intrinsic value, an-anda, unendingness, consists not in infinite longing, as with romanticists, but in unending peace, quiescence, will-lessness. A person enjoys the aesthetic most fully when he experiences life as most completely contented. The yogin, not the artist, seeks the aesthetic in its highest level. The orthodox view holds that a person can hardly be a good artist unless he is also something of a yogin.
Hindu civilization thus has rejected both reason and will, the two most highly idealized virtues of Western civilization, which gives them status or value in ultimate reality. Not reason, but intuition alone, can apprehend ultimate reality and value. Not willfulness, but will-lessness alone deserves and enjoys the ultimate value and reality. Furthermore, to the extent that reason and will prevent one from achieving the final intuition and complete will-lessness, they function as evils, not goods. One may, of course, will to attain will-lessness and reason his way to the ultimacy of intuition; thus will and reason may serve as instrumental goods. Reason and will may indeed serve as instrumental values in art, but the aesthetic, at least in
