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Namah Vol. 29, Issue 3, 15th October 2021

limitation of outer instruments when it we have taught ourselves to embrace this
stumbled upon the atomic world. Quantum insecurity. Now, many people feel comfortable
mechanics shifted the belief from certainty subjecting all claims of truth to the scientific
to probability. High speeds and large method and uncomfortable otherwise. If a
distances in space showed the relative remedy works on all the people who have
nature of perception. The absolute truths tried it, but it has not been tested on a vast
floundered, opening the door for another population against a control group, these
age. The new age that has dawned now has science-worshippers may not call it a remedy
been embraced by early risers. It is called at all. The bhakta’s method of verifying a claim
the subjective age, where the soul with the is to look for a quote from the guru or a verse
antahhkaranna will play a major role as the from the wisdom texts that validates it. To an
gatherer of truth. unbiased observer both the methods would
seem to be based on faith. The laws of physical
The subjective age nature do not apply in the dream space, or
to psychical or spiritual experiences. These
Sri Aurobindo, in his writing on social evolution, are large spaces a person dwells in every
The Human Cycle, lays out the history of these day. So for practical purposes, the scientific
ages of man, from symbolic to rational. Then method falls short. The subjective age would
he speaks for the need of a subjective age: bring back personal experiences as legitimate
measures of truth.
“For in his study of himself and the world he
cannot but come face to face with the soul in The Western knowledge academy
himself and the soul in the world and find
it to be an entity so profound, so complex, Most of the world has accepted the Western
so full of hidden secrets and powers that knowledge academy that uses the scientific
his intellectual reason betrays itself as an method of enquiry. Colonisation forced the
insufficient light and a fumbling seeker: it is South and East to uphold the Western method
successfully analytical only of superficialities so thoroughly that their indigenous systems
and of what lies just behind the superficies. were derogatorily termed ‘blind faith’ and
The need of a deeper knowledge must then the new one from Europe was accepted as
turn him to the discovery of new powers and ‘the enlightenment’. The old systems existed
means within himself (2).” from the symbolic age and fell into obscure
ways, and no doubt there is much to gain
Even though the rational age has made from being rational, but it is a passage, and
us dependent on machines, deep down at not the last station of man. The subjective age
the visceral and nervous layer, this shift in assigns a new place to reason, a subordinate
behaviour makes us anxious. It tells us that one that helps in decolonising the mind of
our experiences are not valid. Our senses are previously colonised peoples. When using the
unreliable. Our reality is an illusion. We are indigenous methods to acquire knowledge, a
not in control anymore. Our environment different kind of knowledge is also acquired.
can deceive us. Our instincts are crude; In the same essay by Sri Aurobindo quoted
our intuitions misleading. Over generations above, he speaks about the subjective age and

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