Page 270 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

Performance and impermanence, and permanence in impermanence, or impermanence in permanence, have been the alternatives which men have chosen at one time or other, and so far liberation seems to be a going from one to the other, or the escape from one to the other. Somehow none of them had been satisfactory to the human mind restless for a real solution.
It is contended by some that the spiritualism of Advaita, with its emphasis on the hierarchical disposition of values of the world superseded by the ultimate value of transcendental freedom or moksha, is the goal of man. The Brahman is the ultimate self (atman) of man, and all attempts to arrive at it in manifestation is illusion. Despite its being pessimistic it is the truth that one will realize ultimately.
These solutions make it necessary for man to develop a new kind of vision. It is true to affirm that our vision is adapted to the ends we have in view, and in one sense its limitations are limitations determined by our goals. It is not usually known that we know or see only that which we wish to see or know, except in those cases where Wonder or Danger are present or are apprehended. This jolt is what we always look out for as the cause of most philosophising; it is precisely this 'shock' that lifts man up to the Vision of his own future; it gives him an urgent necessity to solve the problem of his own existence. It is under such a stress or impact that one begins to sense the need for a newer vision and approach to the problem of existence.
Such a vision is not enough; it is necessary also to feel the adequacy of being, of life; what is called forth is a new impulse to realize being which seems to have lost its meaning in the context of the new shock. The philosophic theory of knowledge seeks only a knowledge - an explanation which, however comprehensive or synoptic and systematic, falls short of explaining or providing a sense of being in the knowing of this systematic formulation. This is what modern thinkers have discerned as the necessity for a philosophy based on the awareness of existence or being which transcends knowing. Some have gone to the extent of affirming that knowing might not lead to being at all, and therefore one need not have a philosophy to arrive at this existence or Being.
It is well-known that the attraction of mysticism lies in its claim to solve the problem of being or existence. Some proceed on the assumption that being