Abstract thinking

"The world we live in constitutes an alliance of sensuous consciousness and concrete matter. Our knowledge is contained within the circumference of our senses and all material substances subsist within the periphery of speech, form, smell, taste and touch. Five senses with their objects-these constitute our small world. In fact, this world is not so small-it is very extensive. But the power of the senses is very limited. They apprehend only gross material objects. Atoms are concrete enough, yet the senses cannot apprehend them. Innumberable atoms unite to form a mass which is yet too subtle for the senses to apprehend. They can apprehend only those substances which are made up of an infinite number of atoms and have developed gross concreteness. Our senses cannot even apprehend the whole of the corporeal world. So the question of their apprehending the incorporeal, intangible world does not arise. The incorporeal elements are beyond sound, smell, taste, and touch. Their atoms are different from those of the material world. Thus the effort of one who seeks to know the incorporeal world through the senses will not be successful. The knowledge of the incorporeal world is a subject of supreme extrasensory perception. Even common extrasensory perception would not succeed. Only supreme extrasensory perception may attain it. The starting point of religion is extrasensory consciousness. One endowed with only sensory perception cannot appreciate it. Only that person may be said to be religious who is able to appraise both the concrete and the abstract." Book jacket.