132. 152 201 CHAPTER III

152 201 CHAPTER III

IV. INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND. ad

But the power of visualisation, in order that it may function and complete the æsthetic image, presupposes the unconscious. And the unconscious is only what was once experienced. Therefore, æsthetic experience is not possible unless the spectator has had the consciousness of all those elements, which are necessary to complete the image, in some form.

V. CONTEMPLATIVE HABIT. (BHĀVANĀ OR CARVAŅĀ) Æsthetic experience, in respect of the process involved in its acquisition, is very much like the religious mystic experience, got through contemplation. The elements of the mystic experience, resulting from con- templation, are not exclusively or entirely those which constitute the object of contemplation, but are rather those which are mostly subjective, but appear objectively because of the force of contemplation. The contents of the æsthetic experience also are similar and similarly they become objectified. Further, one or two days' religious contempla- tion does not result in mystic experience : nor does the very first æsthetic contemplation lead to æsthetic experience. The contemplative process, involved in the rise of æsthetic experience, is conceived on the analogy of chewing the cud by an animal, a cow for instance, (Romantha). It consists in calling back the experiences, which an æsthete has from an æsthetic object, but which, as they come in succession, sink into the sub-conscious. It consists in reflec- ting over what has been so called back to conscious level; in holding up before the mind's eye these experiences separately; in realising their true nature as such and in grasping the whole, which because of mutual affection of 1. Dh. L., 30.