Philosophical studies would lead to the most important aspect of man's quest, viz., the phenomenon which goes by the name of religion. The soul of man pulsates with a throb and a resistless feeling, which cannot be equated with any other experience in the world, when he contemplates the meaning and the requirements of religion. It has been seen that the structure of the universe is such that it evokes a reaction from man, which is integral in nature. We do not project forth a partial reaction in our relation to the universe, because we seem to wholly belong to it. The whole reaction of the whole man to the whole universe is religion. Here is a truth, which would stimulate one into a new kind of activity, of a character which is far superior, in its quality, to any kind of engagement with which one may be occupied in the work-a-day world. It also would follow from this observation that religion includes the whole of life, and not merely a segment of life, because, here, in this quest, the whole of man is involved, and not a part of him. Since the whole of man is involved in religion, the whole of life is involved in it. This is another important aspect which cannot be forgotten, but, unfortunately, is always lost sight of in the din of the world. Religion is generally not associated with the whole of one's life; it is kept in the pockets and pulled out only when one enters a temple, goes to a church, or sits before a holy saint. This is the religion man has mostly today. Only, it is far from the truth of religion. Religion is not a commodity that can be carried with us as a baggage. It is, to emphasise again, the whole attitude of man to the whole of the universe, or, rather, to the whole of reality in which process everything that is called life has to be included, and nothing can be outside its purview.

The development of the consciousness of religion in man, is also an interesting and wondrous process. While the whole of man is evoked into action when the universe calls him, there are degrees of wholeness in his personality. This should explain the degrees in the experience of the religious consciousness. It is not that every religious person has an identical type of experience at all times. While it is to be accepted that religion demands nothing but a wholeness from man, it is also to be conceded that this wholeness reveals itself in levels of expression, and not at one stroke. There are examples of levels of wholeness in the growth of the human personality. When man is a baby, he is a whole individual; when he is an adolescent, he is a whole individual; when he is an adult, he is a whole individual; when he is a grown-up, mature person, he is still a whole individual; when he becomes old also, he is a whole individual. There is a particular degree of wholeness revealed when he is a baby, another degree when he is an adult, and so on.

In the West, there is prevalent a philosophy known as Holism. Though the word is spelt in this way, what is intended is "wholism". This was a type of discovery, or, one may say, invention of the thinker, General Smutts. The point that is made out is that everything evolves as a whole, and not as a part. There is no such thing as a partial evolution of anything in this universe. An atom is a whole; a plant is a whole; a tree is a whole; an animal is a whole; a human being is a whole; the solar system is a whole. Lower wholes emerge and enlarge into more inclusive wholes. An organisation is a whole which is constituted by parts known as individuals; yet, each individual is a whole in himself or herself. Every cell of the body of each individual also is a whole in itself. The individual is a whole; the family is a whole, which is formed of whole individuals. The community is a whole, the nation is a whole, and the entire mankind is also a completeness in itself. So, even when certain parts seem to be collaborating with a whole to which they belong, they are a wholeness in themselves, nevertheless. The rise of levels into higher and higher forms of completeness is an ascent of the whole from its lower degrees to higher degrees. These are some of the results that would follow from the principles of Holism in evolution.

The Emergent Evolution Theory is portrayed in a magnificent work 'Space, Time and Deity', a collection of lectures delivered by Samuel Alexander. Alexander argues on the basis of the Theory of Relativity of Einstein, primarily, but ascends to a religious level when he posits the necessity of a Deity operating behind every level of evolution, or every stage of progress in the movement of the lower category to the higher one. The Deity, in the language of this author, is a name that is given to the force that pulls the lower level to the higher. What urges a baby to become an adult? What is that power? What is that impulse? What is that peculiar something which transforms the wholeness of a baby into the wholeness of the adult? This impulse is called the 'nisus' in evolution.

To Alexander, the universe, in its lowest astronomical form, is a complex of space and time. From space-time, there evolved a set of qualities, which we may call dimension in the geometrical sense. The primary qualities, which evolved out of the space-time complex, constitute the physical universe. The physical universe is impersonal originally, because there was no person in the beginning. The individual's perceptions are the secondary qualities wrested out of the impersonal form of the universe constituted only of the primary qualities. When individuality is revealed out of the impersonal cosmos, the initial unit recognisable as an entity, in the form of an atom, for instance, organises itself into molecules and, further, larger organic formations which are visible to the eyes as individuals, gradually developing into the plant kingdom, rising later to the animal level, and finally completing itself in the human stage. But the human level is not the really completed stage, because the urge that pulls the lower to the higher, viz., from the inorganic level to the organic form of the plant, and from the plant level to the animal level, and from animal to man, is still working for a further upward ascent.

The 'nisus' is the urge impersonal, which is present behind every particular impulse in the universe, keeping everything restless at every moment of time, never allowing a quiet to anything, pulling everything higher and higher, urging it onward. This 'nisus' is present everywhere, right from the lowest atom to the highest stellar organisations. Man is not the completion of creation, because the 'nisus' is still operating in him, and, so, he is dissatisfied. The dissatisfaction in regard to the finitude of man, on account of which he is struggling still, like a plant reaching up for sunlight, is indication enough that there is a level higher than the human. The Deity is struggling to reveal itself in a more complete form than is available at the human level. Though it may be said that man is superior to the lower levels, he is still lower to the further possible levels above.

The Deity is not a person. It is a force; it is an urge; it is an impulse; it is a necessity; it is an aspiration. It is impossible of definition, and that impossible something is working in everyone. It is impossible to conceive it, because it is not confined to any particular individual's localised body or individuality. It is present everywhere. Inasmuch as it is working uniformly and universally in everything, at all times, no individual can conceive it wholly through the mind or the intellect. The universe is urging itself upward, pulling itself onward, towards a recognition of a perfection which alone can be called the Supreme Deity. Every next higher level is Deity to the lower. Much earlier, Plato proclaimed the degrees of the Idea of the Good. There seems to be some point in the adoration of many gods, though there is only One God. The degrees of reality explain the mystery.

There is, especially in India, a concept called Ishta-Devata, a Sanskrit word which means the 'beloved chosen deity'. The chosen deity is actually the wholeness of the religious ideal which one has placed before oneself as a totality beyond which the mind cannot reach. The God of religion is the totality transcendent to which the mind, at the present level of its evolution, cannot conceive anything. This final reach is the Ishta Devata. The diversity of gods that are generally spoken of in religious circles is due to the degrees of the ideal which different minds, at different stages of evolution, place before themselves. Manifold worships are facets of the single crystal of the whole which is religion. While the supreme ideal of religion cannot be more than one, yet, it can be approached through various levels of this wholeness. These different levels of wholeness are the Ishta-Devatas, the deities, which each one considers as one's sole object. This object is not just one among many others; it is 'the object', and one cannot think of any other ideal then. It is 'the object' which includes every other possible concept of objects. The Devata, or the deity one has as the ideal, is the total of the objective concept, and, very important to remember, again. There are no objects outside this object that one has chosen as the deity; there cannot be another God outside one's God. It is so because of the fact that, here, the mind has reached the pinnacle of its possibility in the conception of Godhead, and once it has reached the apex of its possibility, it cannot go further beyond. So, the deity, as far as anyone is concerned, is the highest possibility of mind or understanding in its grasp of the totality of the religious ideal. Thus, outside it nothing can be, naturally. The mind is not accustomed to think in this manner usually, and it is rightly held that one requires the guidance of a superior who has trodden this path, who knows the pitfalls on the way, and who can point to the path on which to direct the religious aspiration.