Intellect and Intuition in Sankara's Philosophy Dr. Sir S. Radhakrishnan
1 Philosophy is not a matter of dialectics and intellectual jugglery, but a product of life and meditation on it. It is Common enough for philosophers who sport on the surface of life to possess the leisure and the capacity for technical discussions. What is rarer is the combination in one individual of knowledge and wisdom. It is only from those of deep thought and large experience that we can get a breadth and depth of understanding, a hold on essentials too often absents from the works of mere intellectuals. In our ancient scriptures it is laid down that philosophy is not a pursuit to which anyone can take. It requires not only a sharp intellect but a detached spirit. 2 Commenting on the first *Brahma* <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/brahma#history> *Sutra* <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/sutra#history>*, ‘athato brahmajignasa,’* Vidyaranya observes: "He who possesses the four requisites, since release is not to be attained through works, must enter on an inquiry into the Vedanta texts in order to obtain the intuition of Brahman <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/brahman#history>, which is the means of release." This philosophy would apply to normal day to day ethics also. This view is not a peculiar idiosyncrasy of the follower of the Advaita Vedanta. It is the ancient tradition accepted by all systems. When the old sage Yājñavalkya gave up his all to seek the way of wisdom, he left his possessions to his two wives. Maitreyi refused the riches of the world with the remark, ‘*yena na amrita syam kim tena kuryam*’? What shall I do with these by which I cannot gain life eternal? Philosophical wisdom is possible only for those who have disciplined their whole nature and not merely those who have sharpened their intellectual powers. Wisdom is integral thinking, while knowledge is fractional thinking. While the latter is more in evidence in science and mathematics, which can be understood by all who possess a trained intellect, the exercise of the former is demanded for an understanding of poetry <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/poetry#history> and philosophy, art and literature. The lack of these , creates the resistance to develop. That integral thinking or intuitive understanding is responsible for the great insights of philosophy and it is not without reason that philosophy in India <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/india#history> is conveyed by the term ‘darshana <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/darshana#history>’ which literally means ‘sight’ or ‘insight’. Philosophy as a ‘darshana’ implies that the ultimate reality is something of which we are directly aware and is not a matter of speculative construction of logical syntheses. 3 Perception and inference are inadequate to the Absolute. The Real is a *vastu <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/vastu#history>* (matter) but not in space and time; nor is it a mere universal. The *Katha* <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/katha#history>* Upanishad* says: "Not by speech, not by thought, not by sight, does one grasp Him." Sankara tells us that Brahman "cannot become the object of perception because it does not possess qualities such as form and the like, and as it is devoid of characteristic signs, it does not lend itself to inference and the other means of right knowledge." The Absolute is a positive but unnameable being. It negates limitations, privations. The moment we apply logical concepts to it, we reduce it to a non-absolute, the determinate God. The Absolute is the ground of all possibilities including that of God. To know it we have to pass beyond God (Isvara <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/ishvara#history>) into the silent real which precedes and is prior to all things. It is *ekam, advitiyam, nirvisesham, avikriyam,* opposed to all becoming, formless and fashion less. 4 The world may be an assemblage of mindless forces or a commonwealth of free, progressive agents. When we accept the second, we go beyond mere logic and take our stand on moral consciousness. It is possible that moral consciousness might leave open a number of alternatives, which insistence on the autonomous religious life might close up. In short we are called upon to supplement logic by the facts of life, ethical as well as religious. Only then is logic complete. The unsuppressed aspirations of mans spirit are as much a part of the natural order as the suppressed desires of psycho-analysis or the ordinary perceptions of mankind. In other words we want a synoptic comprehension of all facts of life. *Samyagdarshanam* is not merely perfect vision but total vision. While Sankara admits that *sakshatkara* is a specific mode of apprehension distinct from ordinary perception or inference, he regards it as a species or knowledge and not of feeling or of desire. It is as much determined by the inward organ as perceptual or inferential knowledge is, If the latter is brought about by *antahkaranavritti,* even so is the former. Commenting on Bhagavadgita, VI. 20, Sankara writes that the yogin <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/yogin#history>, "whose mind is restrained by the practice of yoga sees the self, the highest which is wholly spirit and essentially light, by means of the purified inner organ Here he differs from the view which is sometimes adopted by west theory, that intuition is a negation of intellect. For Sankara, it is a fulfilment of it. Intuitive experience is the crown of intellectual knowledge. *Anubhavavasanam brahma-jnanam, anubhavarudham eva cha *vidyaphalam*.* Intuition is not a substitute for rational knowledge but a supplement to it. It is rational thought matured to inspiration. Intuitive insight while spontaneous does not arise except in the minds of those who are prepared for it by study of scripture and reflection. "Hearing from scriptural texts and reflecting with the help of arguments and meditation are the causes of the insight (into Braman). 5 From the vividness of the experience arises emotional intensity but these accompaniments are not a guarantee of the truth of the object intuited. These intuitions, simply because they carry conviction to the seer, are not to be taken as true. Subjective certitude is different from logical certainty. The sense of assurance is present even when the object is imaginal and even such unreal objects, so long as they are believed to be actual, evoke feelings and attitudes quite as intense and effective as those excited by real ones. The strength of assurance and the intensity of the experience are not a proof of the reality of the object experienced. Intuitions, sensuous as well as spiritual, require to be tested and criticised before they are accepted as valid. Questions of validity are not answered by the experiences themselves. Certitude is not certainty. Psychological objectivity is not ontological reality. While religion may be satisfied with the sense of convincedness, which is enough to foster spiritual life, philosophy is interested in finding out whether the object believed in is well-grounded or not. *Pramanair arthaparikshanam nyayah.* Nyaya <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/nyaya#history> is knowing an object thoroughly by means of the *pramanas <https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/pramana#history>.* 6 What is intuited cannot be irrational. It cannot be in conflict with reason. What reason suggests as the truth, intuition reveals as the reality. The intuited truth that the self of man is eternally one with the supreme is the ultimate fact to which we are led by a rational ontology which establishes the unreality of multiplicity, division, manifoldness, and separateness. The unreality of the world is just its self-contradiction. It is said to be* avastu* since it is contrary to reason. What is self-contradictory and yet actual cannot be real. The real is what is not self-contradictory. Reality cannot explain the possibility of mere appearance. Error can be dispelled but not explained. What is of its own nature irrational does not admit of explanation. Reason affirms the complete oneness and simplicity of the real. But reason by itself cannot disclose this truth. When once the beliefs arise through intuition or scripture, then logic can tell us whether they are valid or invalid. Sankara uses the methods of proof and dialectic in the formulation of the absolutely inconceivable absolute which escapes all definitions. 7 Even the scriptural texts are to be used with discrimination. We cannot interpret them arbitrarily. Blind acquiescence in authority is as unsound as a cheap rejection of it. A wise Greek has said: "Not to know what was done in the world before we were born is always to remain a child." We must always begin as learners, accept something which we did not create. Even scripture is a means to the insight into the real, and loses its point when enlightenment arises. "*Sruter api abhavah prabodhe.*"It is obvious that Sankara believes in a direct awareness of reality which is neither perceptual nor conceptual. Here he differs from Hegel, but he also affirms that this direct awareness is through and through rational, and in this he differs from Bergson. 8 The tragedy of our age is traceable to its excessive intellectuality. A narrowly intellectual life is lopsided. It revels in the abstract and the repetitive and believes that it is the real. Life is sacrificed to its appurtenances. To give to millions of men the electric light does not mean the development in them of clearer illumination. Cain, in Byron's poem, asks of Lucifer, the prince of the intellectuals, "Are you happy," and the great intellectual says to him, "No; art thou?" Our civilisation is shadowed by a sense of defeat and depression. The typical characters of our age are represented by the Forsythe of England, the Babbitts of America, and the Buddenbrooks of Germany, all small adventurers with no heroism about them. They do not know what to do, and so spend their time playing golf, cursing the weather, revising the prayer book, and ruling empires, if they get a chance, Philosophy is dismissed as a narrowly intellectual affair dealing with proofs and evidences, with the result that it has become negative and arid. 9 Our literature is critical and realistic. It deals with life as a formula or a pattern and not with men and women, their ardours and ecstasies, their strange possibilities and endless mysteries. Great literature ought to produce a sense of something inexplicable and overwhelming. It must "tease us out of thought" with the pale light of another world, and if the works of today do not possess such compelling or consecrating power, it is because they are mainly intellectual, "Analysis kills spontaneity just as grain, once it is ground into powder, no longer springs and germinates," says Amiel. The true seers possess a different tone and temper, a spirit out of the common, touched with a light from beyond. When we read their writing, they quicken a like life in us and make us glow with the ardours of self-discovery. 10 India of the ages is not dead; nor has she spoken her last creative word. The time has come for a few religious expressions, a new language for the old everlasting emotions in terms of modern knowledge, a religious form that should Contradict no fact and check no inquiry. The everlasting spirit of love and righteousness which has inspired the religions of the past must now quicken and inform the new learning. 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