Language learning is conscious whereas language acquisition is non-conscious. According to Noam Chomsky, his language acquisition device, all the rules of grammar of a language are internalized non-consciously. That is the reason why an illiterate is also capable of producing absolutely acceptable utterances in mother-tongue without a single flaw.
The Divine Play is also non-conscious to a mortal. Here the term ‘non-conscious’ implies that things happen without any conscious effort, unnoticed. Let us explore the concept. When we look at the movements of the spherical bodies, or ecological balance or a living organism as a system of systems; we come to understand that there is an underlying rule, a super physical power governing this universe quite unrevealed and unrealized.
‘Best are all things as ordained by the God,
His creating hand,
Nothing imperfect or deficient left’ Paradise Lost. – says John Milton in
According to the psycho-analytical theory of Sigmund Freud that which seems to be conscious is really unconscious. Similarly, what seems to be unconscious is really conscious. For example, all sense organs are just instrumental; eyes can neither restore nor recollect anything that they have shown, ears cannot replay any musical note that they have perceived. But everything perceived by the sense organ is always being stored, as files are stored in a Computer and such information is retrieved as and when necessary – All this is done by the so-called larger unconscious part of the human mind. And such a process is again mystic and non-conscious.
Here is an example for the non-conscious way of maintaining ecological balance in nature. Lemmings are rat-like looking species. They grow in large numbers in a short period of time. When they become thousands and millions in number, one day, they start rushing towards the sea-shore. They plunge into the waters.
It seems that they want to cross the sea to find another island. Thus they swim and swim, get exhausted, drown and commit mass suicide.
Verily in the human body, respiration, blood circulation, heartbeat, peristaltic movement, hormones and enzymes secretion….. all biological functions go perfectly involuntarily unnoticed – again non-consciously.
When asked “Is there any pre ordination?” Amma clarified, “It is there whether you accept it or reject it”.
Dante, in his ‘Divine Comedy’, refers to the Divine Mystery, the open secret, opened to all but found by none.
“God makes us act according to His volition, His will (Sankalpa) and at the same time makes us feel as if we act according to our will” – disclosing the Divine Mystery AMMA spake thus.
Truly our actions exceed our grasp (Chetalu chetullo levu). Our will is dictated and directed by an inexplicable Supreme Power. Human beings – an extremely developed living organism, endowed with rational and discriminative capacity is also an absolutely dependent being seemingly independent.
We move our hands, legs and limbs. Hence we think we act, we perceive and we express. Thus we tend to believe we act independently. But the reality is that that unknown unbound sovereign power which makes us feel, receive and express, is always beyond human comprehension.
We do recognize the onset of a thought only after its emergence. But the agency, the source how and where it came from is unknown. It, in fact, always originates from the one Supreme self.
Once when asked, “What is illusion or Maya”, Amma succinctly replied, “Opening that I am the doer.”
The celestial ways are always miraculous and mysterious. Let me conclude with a statement of Einstein: There are two ways to live: one is to believe in that everything is a miracle and the other to believe in that nothing is a miracle.