Hitler and his God

A Double Ladder

Sri Aurobindo’s vision is evolutionary and encompasses the standard scientific outlook while at the same time exceeding it. In his view matter is not the only and sufficient reality, nor is it capable of providing an adequate explanation of the evolutionary process. The appearance of the evolutionary principle, “the creation of forms of Matter, first of inconscient and inanimate, then of living and thinking Matter, the appearance of more and more organized bodies adapted to express a greater power of consciousness, has been studied from the physical side, the side of form-building, by Science”, writes Sri Aurobindo in his major opus The Life Divine. “But very little light has been shed on the inner side, the side of consciousness, and what little has been observed is rather of its physical basis and instrumentation than of the progressive operations of Consciousness in its own nature.

“In the evolution, as it has been observed so far, although a continuity is there – for Life takes up Matter and Mind takes up submental Life, the Mind of intelligence takes up the mind of life and sensation – the leap from one grade of consciousness in the series to another grade seems to our eyes immense, the crossing of the gulf whether by bridge or by leap impossible; we fail to discover any concrete and satisfactory evidence of its accomplishment in the past or of the manner in which it was accomplished. Even in the outward evolution, even in the development of physical forms where the data are clearly in evidence, there are missing links that remain always missing; but in the evolution of consciousness the passage is still more difficult to account for, for it seems more like a transformation than a passage.” 928

The ground of all existence in whatever of its manifestations is That, the omnipresent Reality which cannot be limited or labelled with a name, but whose ultimate attributes are existence, consciousness-force and absolute joy. In the Indian tradition “That” is often called “Brahman”. “Brahman is in all things, all things are in Brahman, all things are Brahman.” It is the absolute, indivisible Something in which there is neither centre nor circumference. “An omnipresent Reality is the truth of all life and existence whether absolute or relative, whether corporeal or incorporeal, whether animate or inanimate, whether intelligent or unintelligent; and in all its infinitely varying and even constantly opposed self-expressions, from the contradictions nearest to our ordinary experience to those remotest antinomies which lose themselves on the verges of the Ineffable, the Reality is one and not a sum or concourse. From that all variations begin, in that all variations consist, to that all variations return. All affirmations are denied only to lead to a wider affirmation of the same Reality. All antinomies confront each other in order to recognize one Truth in their opposed aspects and embrace by the way of conflict their mutual Unity. Brahman is the Alpha and the Omega. Brahman is the One besides whom there is nothing else existent.” 929

The evolutionary cycle of which we are a part takes place within That, its origin, essence and destiny. As there is no end to That, there is no end to its manifestations, the cosmic cycles and their extinctions. It is also self-evident that, where there is evolution, there must have been a previous involution. “Nothing can evolve out of Matter which is not already therein contained … Evolution of Life in Matter supposes a previous involution of it there, unless we suppose it to be a new creation magically and unaccountably introduced in Nature … The evolution of consciousness and knowledge cannot be accounted for unless there is already a concealed consciousness in things with its inherent and native powers emerging little by little.” 930 There is “the mounting and descending hierarchy of planes of consciousness that like a double ladder lapse into the nescience of Matter and climb back again through the flowering of life and soul and mind into the infinity of the Spirit”. 931

This is how the gradations of existence as we know them came about: matter, life, mind, and the planes where all what surpasses the mind comes from. These gradations are also called “the great chain of being”. Arthur Lovejoy writes in the preface of his book with the same title: “The phrase which I have taken for the title [The Great Chain of Being] was long one of the most famous in the vocabulary of Occidental philosophy, science and reflective poetry; and the conception which in modern times came to be expressed by this or similar phrases has been one of the half-dozen most potent and persistent presuppositions in Western thought. It was, in fact, until not much more than a century ago probably the most widely familiar conception of the general scheme of things, of the constitutive pattern of the universe; and as such it necessarily predetermined current ideas on many other matters.” 932

“Nothing can evolve out of Matter which is not already therein contained”, writes Sri Aurobindo. “Each step of this graded existence prepares the next, holds in itself what appears in that which follows … In the very atom there is something that becomes in us a will and a desire … Every particle of what we call Matter contains [all the other principles] implicit in itself … In fact, life, mind, Supermind are present in the atom.” Ultimately “Matter is a form of Spirit, a habitation of Spirit, and here in Matter itself there can be a realization of Spirit.” For “Matter itself is a substance and power of spirit and could not exist if it were anything else.” 933