The Link #27 - Measure in the East and the West

Most people who are at all observant are now aware of an intense and pervasive fragmentation of the entire fabric of human life, both social and individual. Such an awareness tends to give rise to the urge to end this fragmentation so that man may live in wholeness and integrity, as he perhaps once did before the current disruptive phase of human development began. In the search for this sort of release from fragmentation, many people are turning to other cultures and other forms of society, hoping that these may provide an approach superior to the one that is now dominant. Particularly in the West, more and more people are beginning to feel that perhaps in the East (especially in India) such a superior approach still survives, in the sense that religion and philosophy emphasise wholeness and imply the futility of a way of life based on seeing everything as analysed into separate parts. It may thus seem natural to suggest that we drop our fragmentary Western approach and adopt instead the Eastern way. This way generally includes not only a view of the self and the world that denies division and fragmentation, but also techniques of meditation intended to lead the whole process of mental operation non-verbally to that quiet state of smooth and orderly flow needed to end fragmentation at its very source, i.e. the chaotic, turbulent and generally confused state of mind in which we ordinarily tend to live most of the time.

To understand more deeply what is involved in these questions, it is useful to go into the difference between Eastern and Western notions of measure, for these have been of crucial significance in the development of the different general attitudes to life that have come about over the centuries in these two parts of the world.

Now, in the West, the notion of measure has, from very early times, played a key role in determining the general selfworld view and the modes of living implicit in such a view. Thus, among the ancient Greeks, from whom we derive a large number of our fundamental notions, to keep everything in its right measure was regarded as one of the essentials of a good life (e.g., Greek tragedies generally portrayed man’s suffering as a consequence of his going beyond the proper measure of things). In this regard, measure was not looked on in its modern sense as being primarily some sort of comparison with an object using an external standard or unit (e.g., so many inches or pounds). Rather, this latter procedure was regarded as a kind of outward display or appearance reflecting a deeper ‘inner’ measure or proportion, which itself played an essential role in everything. When something went beyond its proper measure, this meant not merely that it was not conforming to some external standard of what was right, but much more that it was inwardly out of harmony, so that it was bound to lose its integrity and break up into fragments. One can obtain some insight into this way of thinking by considering the earlier meanings of certain words. Thus, the Latin mederi meaning ‘to cure’ (the root of the word ‘medicine’) is based on a root meaning ‘to measure’. This reflects the view that physical health is to be regarded as the outcome of a state of right inward measure, or proportion, in all parts and processes of the body. Similarly, the word ‘moderation’, which describes one of the prime ancient notions of virtue, is based on the same root; and this shows that such virtue was regarded as the outcome of a right inner measure underlying man’s social actions and behaviour. And again, the word ‘meditation’, which is based on the same root, implies a kind of weighing, pondering, or measuring of the whole process of thought, which could bring the inner activities of the mind to a state of harmonious measure. So, physically, socially and mentally, awareness of the inner proportion or measure of things was seen as the essential key to a healthy, happy, harmonious life.

measure is a form of insight

In this connection, it is instructive to call to mind ancient Greek notions of measure in music and in the visual arts. These notions emphasised that a grasp of measure was necessary for the understanding of harmony in music (e.g., measure as rhythm, right proportion in intensity of sound, right proportion in tonality, etc.). Likewise, in the visual arts, right measure was seen as essential to overall harmony and beauty (e.g., the ‘Golden Mean’). All of this indicates how far the notion of measure went beyond that of comparison with an external standard, to point to a sort of universal inner proportion, perceived both through the senses and through the mind.

As time went on, however, this notion of measure gradually began to change, to lose its subtlety, and to become relatively gross and mechanical. Probably this was because man’s notions of measure became more and more routine and habitual, both with regard to its outward meaning of measurement relative to an external unit, and also to its inner significance as a universal sort of proportion relevant to physical health, social order, and mental harmony. Men began to learn such notions of measure mechanically, by conforming to the teachings of their elders or their masters, and not creatively through an inner feeling and understanding of the deeper meaning of the measure or proportion about which they were learning. So measure gradually came to be taught as a sort of rule that was to be imposed from outside on the human being, who in turn imposed the corresponding measure physically, socially and mentally, in every context in which he was working. As a result, the prevailing notions of measure were no longer seen as forms of insight. Rather, they appeared to be ‘absolute truths about reality as it is’, which men seemed always to have known, and whose origin was often explained mythologically as binding injunctions of the Gods, which it would be both dangerous and wicked to question. Thought about measure thus tended to fall mainly into the domain of unconscious habit and, as a result, the forms induced in the mind’s perception by this thought were now seen as directly observed objective realities, which were essentially independent of how they were thought about.

Even by the time of the ancient Greeks, this process had gone a long way, and as men realised this, they began to question the notion of measure. Thus, Protagoras said: “Man is the measure of all things,” thus emphasising that measure is not a reality external to man, existing independently of him. But many who were in the habit of looking at everything externally also applied this way of looking to what Protagoras said. Thus, they concluded that measure was something arbitrary, and subject to the capricious choice or taste of each individual. In this way, they overlooked the fact that measure is a form of insight that has to fit the overall reality in which man lives, as eventually demonstrated by the clarity of perception and harmony of action to which it leads. Such insight can arise properly only when a man works with seriousness and honesty, putting truth and factuality first, rather than his own whims or desires.

The general rigidification and objectification of the notion of measure continued to develop, until in modern times the very word ‘measure’ has come to denote mainly a process of comparing something with an external standard. While the original meaning still survives in some contexts (e.g., art and mathematics), it is generally felt as having only a secondary sort of significance.

Now, in the East, the notion of measure has not played nearly so fundamental a role. Rather, in the prevailing philosophy in the Orient, the immeasurable (i.e. that which cannot be named, described, or understood through any form of reason) is regarded as the primary reality. Thus, in Sanskrit (which has an origin common to the Indo-European language group) there is a word matra meaning ‘measure’ in the musical sense, which is close to the Greek metron. But then there is another word maya obtained from the same root, which means ‘illusion’. This is an extraordinarily significant point. Whereas to Western society as it derives from the Greeks, measure, with all that this word implies, is the very essence of reality, or at least, the key to this essence, in the East, measure has come to be regarded as being in some way false and deceitful. Indeed, the entire measurable structure and order of forms and proportions that present themselves to ordinary perception are regarded as a sort of veil covering the true reality, which cannot be perceived by the senses and of which nothing can be said or thought.

It is clear that the different ways the two societies have developed fit in with their different attitudes to measure. Thus, in the West, society has mainly emphasised the development of science and technology (dependent on measure), while in the East, the main emphasis has gone to religion and philosophy (which are directed ultimately toward the immeasurable).

measure is illusion when it is identified with the whole of reality

If one considers this question carefully, one can see that in a certain sense, the East was right to see the immeasurable as the primary reality. For, as has already been indicated, measure is an insight created in man. A reality which is beyond man and prior to him cannot depend on such insight. Indeed, the attempt to suppose that measure exists prior to man and independently of him leads, as has been seen, to the ‘objectification’ of man’s insight, so that it becomes rigidified and unable to change, eventually bringing about falseness and deception in our overall apprehension of the self and the world.

On the other hand, it would clearly be wrong to accept the notion that measure is inherently incapable of being anything else but a false and deceitful veil of illusion, covering the true nature of reality. Rather, one may perhaps say that whatever can be assimilated within the field of measure is real, but is of a dependent conditional sort of reality. What it depends on is ultimately the immeasurable totality. But this totality is not separate from the field of measure. Rather, the immeasurable overlaps and includes the measurable. Or to put it in another way, all that can be measured has its origin, its sustenance, and its ultimate dissolution in the immeasurable and indefinable which is the creative source of everything. Nevertheless, an adequate understanding of the measurable aspect of reality as a whole is evidently necessary for clear perception and right action in every phase of life.

One may speculate that perhaps in very early times, the men who were wise enough to see that the immeasurable is the primary and independent source of all reality were also wise enough to see that measure is insight into a secondary and dependent aspect of this reality, which is capable of helping to bring about order and harmony in our lives. What they may have said is, perhaps, that when measure is identified with ‘the whole of reality as it is’, this is illusion. But then, when men learned this by conforming to the teachings of tradition, the meaning became largely habitual and mechanical. In the way indicated earlier, the subtlety was lost, and men began to say simply: ‘measure is illusion’. Thus, both in the East and in the West, true insight may have been turned into something false and misleading by the procedure of learning mechanically through conformity to existent teachings, rather than through a creative and original grasp of the insights implicit in such teachings.

It is of course impossible to go back to a state of wholeness that may have been present before the split between East and West developed (if only because we know little, if anything, about this state). Rather, what is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves the meaning of fragmentation and wholeness. Of course, we have to be cognisant of the teachings of the past, both Western and Eastern. But to imitate these teachings or to try to conform to them would have little value. However, to develop new insight into fragmentation and wholeness requires a creative effort even more difficult than that needed to make fundamental new discoveries in science, or to create great and original works of art. It might in this context be said that the one who is similar to Einstein in creativity is not the one who imitates Einstein’s ideas, nor even the one who applies these ideas in new ways. Rather, it is the one who learns from Einstein, and then goes on to do something original, which is able to assimilate what is valid in Einstein’s work and yet goes beyond this work in qualitatively new ways. So what we have to do with regard to the great wisdom from the whole of the past, both in the East and in the West, is to assimilate it and to go on to new and original insights relevant to our present condition of life.

In doing this, it is important that we be clear on the role of techniques, such as those used in various forms of meditation. In a way, techniques of meditation can be looked on as measures (actions ordered by knowledge and reason) which are taken by man to try to reach the immeasurable, i.e. a state of mind in which he ceases to sense a separation between himself and the whole of reality. But clearly there is a contradiction in such a notion. For the immeasurable is, if anything, just that which cannot be brought within limits determined by man’s knowledge and reason.

there is nothing positive man can do to get in touch with the immeasurable

To be sure, in certain specifiable contexts, technical measures, understood in the right spirit, can lead us to do things from which we can derive insight, if we are observant. But such possibilities are limited. Thus, it would be a contradiction in terms to think of formulating techniques for making fundamental new discoveries in science or creative and original works of art, for the very essence of such action is a certain freedom from dependence on others who would be needed as guides. How can this freedom be transmitted in an activity in which conformity to someone else’s knowledge or pattern of behaviour is the main source of energy? And if techniques cannot teach creativity and originality in art and science, how much less is it possible for them to enable us to ‘discover the immeasurable’?

Actually, there are no direct and positive things that man can do to get in touch with the immeasurable. For this must be a process immensely beyond anything that man can grasp with his mind or accomplish with his hands or his instruments. What man can do is to give his full attention and creative energies to bringing clarity and order into the whole of the field of measure. This involves, of course, not only the outward display of measure in terms of external units, but also inward measure or proportion, as in health of the body, moderation in action, and meditation, which gives insight into the operation of thought. This latter is particularly important because fragmentation has its root in the kind of thought that goes beyond its proper limits of harmony, by confusing its own content with a reality that would be independent of thought. In the West, this confusion has arisen, largely in the routine and mechanical application of measure, in such a way that everything is treated as broken up into separate parts, because the measurable limits of each part are seen as independently existent realities. In the East, a correspondingly routine and mechanical approach through acceptance of the authority of other people’s ideas and techniques has rather generally led to a fragmentation between the everyday measurable aspects of reality and some special immeasurable domain that would be totally different (as well as between the methods imposed by the authority and the spontaneously creative responses of the individual who tries to conform to these methods).

fragmentation has its root in thought that goes beyond its limit

To end this general fragmentation requires intelligent insight, not only into the world as a whole, but also into how the instrument of thought is working. In particular, what is needed is not the measurement of thought to determine whether it has gone beyond its proper limits or not. Rather, there has to be a kind of observation from moment to moment of how thought as a whole tends continually to carry measurement into contexts in which it is not relevant. This requires a creative act of perception through the senses and through the mind that contains its own spontaneous discipline, not dependent on the authority of another or on the imposition of a technique for its order or its sustenance. Through meditation involving such perception and such spontaneous discipline, thought will come to work in a proper order, and the whole field of the measurable will then be harmonious, so that it can move in parallel with the immeasurable.

This requires, however, that he give his full creative energies to the enquiry into the whole field of measure, and that he drops his demands (generally implicit and unexpressed) for some sort of guidance in this enquiry. To do this may perhaps be extremely difficult and arduous. But since everything turns on this, it is surely worthy of the serious attention and utmost consideration of each one of us.

by David Bohm, 1973
© 1973 by Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.
(originally published in KFT Bulletin 17)
reproduced with permission from Sara Bohm