The Destiny of the Body

Chapter X

Life's Ingenuity and Supermind

By Wisdom all these are guided and have their firm abiding in Wisdom. For Wisdom is the eye of the world, Wisdom is the sure foundation.

(Aitareya Upanishad, III. 3)

This evolution of our consciousness to a superconscience or supreme of itself is possible only if the Inconscience which is our basis here is really itself an involved Superconscience; for what is to be in the becoming of the Reality in us must be already there involved or secret in its beginning. Such an involved Being or Power we can well conceive the Inconscient to be when we closely regard this material creation of an unconscious Energy and see it labouring out with curious construction and infinite device the work of a vast involved Intelligence evolving out of its involution an emerging consciousness whose emergence cannot stop short on the way until the Involved has evolved and revealed itself as a supreme totally self-aware and all aware Intelligence. It is this to which we have given the name of Supermind or Gnosis. For that evidently must be the consciousness of the Reality, the Being, the Spirit that is secret in us and slowly manifesting here; of that Being we are the becomings and must grow into its nature.

(Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 1017)

The foregoing study of longue haleine of the problem of alimentation — of its genesis, essential traits, and variations on the same theme — at once prompts us to make a basic suggestion. In order that the human body may be completely autotrophe, that is to say, grow altogether independent of other organisms for its nutritional requirements until at the end it totally transcends all needs for material alimentation, three conditions have to be preliminarily satisfied:

(i)the body must acquire an almost infinite capacity for biosynthesis;

(ii)the organism must be able to dispense with the particular

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form of energy potentially stored in biochemical foodstuffs, and instead draw upon a new source of free energy, physical in the beginning but supraphysical at the end;

(iii) the body should be capable of replenishing its substantial stuff not through the assimilation of gross external matter as at present but by some such process as the materialisation of universal energy-substance.

We may very well expect that in the course of further evolutionary progression the human body will undergo the necessary mutation to fulfil the above three essential prerequisites and thus rid itself of the bondage to material food. This evolutionary accomplishment will then translate into realised fact the following prophecy of Sri Aurobindo:

"Conceivably, one might rediscover and re-establish at the summit of the evolution of life the phenomenon we see at its base, the power to draw from all around it the means of sustenance and self-renewal."¹

At this point the sceptic may raise his eye-brows and exclaim: "Impossible! This is too fantastic a possibility to be realised by evolution." But have not the achievements of each new phase of the evolutionary unfoldment of life upon earth looked like fantasies when viewed from the station of an anterior phase?

Indeed, no limit need be or can be put to evolutionary possibilities. Actuality never exhausts the sum of potentialities.² And, as Sri Aurobindo has so forcefully pointed out, to argue that something cannot be done because it has never yet been done is to "deny the possibility of changing things and thus of evolution, of the realisation of the unrealised, ...and reduce all to a matter of rigid and unalterable status quo, which is an insolent defiance to both fact and reason(!) and suprareason."³

But this cannot be. And evolutionary Nature brushes aside all our preconceived notions of plausibility and proceeds to conquer ever-new terrains of achievement.⁴ However, a valid question

¹Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, p. 52. (Italics ours)

² Cf. "Impossibility is only a sum of greater unrealised possibles. It veils an advanced stage and a yet unaccomplished journey". (Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Glimpses, p. 6)

³Nirodbaran, Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, pp. 62-63.

⁴Cf. "All things (not only those that are conceivable at the moment, but

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may be raised whether evolution is still continuing, at least so far as form-evolution is concerned. We have suggested that the attainment of victory over our body's food-need is conditional upon a new type of physiological functioning and the acquisition of hitherto unrealised evolutionary capabilities. But has not the process of evolution stopped long since? And has not the human body with all its foibles and virtues, its chemistry and physiology, already acquired a well-set unalterable disposition? If so, the alimentary habits of man's body must be deemed to be permanent and binding and incapable of any alteration. After all, — the disbeliever would so declare, — the body is the product of inconscient physical energy and the consciousness that seems to indwell it is only the derivative outcome of the operation of this energy. It follows then that once the evolutionary process has come to a stop, there is no more scope for any adaptive improvement and our bodily system is destined to remain bound down to its present form and functioning. For, if the process of evolutionary transfiguration is set aside as not being operative any longer, what other alternative mechanism can at all be conceived that can bring about the necessary change?

But what goes before is altogether fallacious. For, the implied assumptions and hence the conclusions are only half-truths and has it not been well said that 'half-truth is its own Nemesis'? Indeed, doubts and misgivings of the above sort arise from a superficial view of things due to the thought's concentrating on appearance alone and missing what lies behind the frontal process. But a deeper inquiry reveals that

(i)The true foundation is above while the branchings are downward, ūrdhvabudhnaḥ nīcīna-śakhaḥ (Rig-Veda), ūrdhvamūlam adḥahśākham (Gita). Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of Matter. On the contrary, Matter itself is a derivative and a phenomenon of Energy, and this Energy that is secretly and universally operative behind all manifestation is 'not without a Being or Existence possessing it or a Consciousness supplying it': it is indeed in its essential nature the Consciousness-Force, cit-śakti, cit-tapas, of Sachchidananda.

(ii)Thus our body is not mere unconscious Matter: it is a

all those that are for the moment inconceivable), all are not only possible, but will be realised." (The Mother, Bulletin, Vol. XIII, No. 3, p. 51)

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structure of a secretly conscious Energy that has taken form in it. Thus consciousness that "seems to be a result is, — in its reality, though not in its form, — the origin; the effect is in the essence pre-existent to the apparent cause, the principle of the emergent activity precedent to its present field of action."¹

(iii)That the embodied soul is so much dependent upon the bodily and nervous life, that the physiological functionings of the body govern and determine the reactions of the subjective being, is thus seen to be only a minor truth. The major truth is that Consciousness is the real and original determinant of our bodily life; it can, if it so wills and under proper conditions, transmit its commands to the bodily instrument and govern its reactions "even to the overriding of its normal law or conditions of action."²

(iv)That the body and not the indwelling consciousness appears to be the primary determinant is only a provisional evolutionary arrangement. For in the involutionary self-shrouding of consciousness, the principle of Matter represents the nethermost stage of descent, 'an abysmal sleep, a fathomless trance of consciousness',³ in which the absorbed Energy is totally oblivious of its origin and real self, and supports the physical existence in a somnambulist action. Thus in our body, "the outer force and figure of being, what we might call the formal or form existence as distinguished from the immanent or secretly governing consciousness, is lost in the physical action, is so absorbed into it as to be fixed in a stereotyped self-oblivion unaware of what it is and what it is doing."⁴

(v)But behind the outer veil of material inconscience and the iron grip of physico-chemical determinism, a secret involved Consciousness, cosmic and infinite, is always at work in our body. And without this supporting greater Consciousness-Force that is 'awake in all that sleeps',⁵ our physical system itself would have no power of action, nor any organising coherence at all.

(vi)Now the whole nisus of the evolutionary process is to bring out to the front the totality of this involved Consciousness and

¹ The Life Divine, p. 853.

² Ibid., p. 306.

³ Ibid., p. 593.

⁴ Ibid., p. 711.

⁵ ya eṣa supteṣu jāgarti. (Katha Upanishad, V. 8)

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make it the overt master there even over our outer existence and nature. It follows then that the evolutionary emergence cannot stop short with man or mental consciousness. For Mind is no more than an intermediate power of consciousness, limited in vision and limping in movement. Now, "evolution is an inverse action of the involution: what is an ultimate and last derivation in the involution is the first to appear in the evolution; what was original and primal in the involution is in the evolution the last and supreme emergence."¹ Thus spirit, being the original involutionary element and factor, must be a final evolutionary emergence. The evolutionary progression is thus bound to continue till Supermind, the original 'creative medium' of the Divine, and the triune glory of Sachchidananda stand evolved here in the material universe.²

(vii)The old evolutionary procedure that relied on a prior form-evolution to effectuate a resultant change of consciousness has no doubt been superseded. For "in man a reversal is possible, indeed inevitable; for it is through his consciousness, through its transmutation and no longer through a new bodily organism as a first instrumentation that the evolution can and must be effected. ...It is no longer the change of body that must precede the change of consciousness; the consciousness itself by its mutation will necessitate and operate whatever mutation is needed for the body."³

(viii)With the emergence of Supermind in evolution, will come about the discovery of all the hidden truths and powers of the forces of the concealed Spirit; and the right dynamisation of that higher knowledge will establish the Spirit's total mastery over all its fields of operation. Matter in general and the body in particular will be obedient instruments of the Spirit and pliantly move to fulfil without any let or hindrance all the demands made upon them.

We conclude then that when we speak of the ultimate conquest of the body's food-need, achieved through the process of an evolutionary transfiguration, we are not indulging in a child soul's

¹ The Life Divine, p. 853.

²Cf. "The Divine descends from pure existence through the play of Consciousness-Force and Bliss and the creative medium of Supermind into cosmic being; we ascend from Matter through a developing life, soul and mind and the illuminating medium of supermind towards the divine being." (The Life Divine, p. 264)

³The Life Divine, p. 844. (Italics ours)

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phantasy or its demands for arbitrary miracles nor are we visualising any impossible chimera that goes beyond or outside all forces of Nature and becomes automatically effective. What we are envisaging is the control and conquest of the prevailing determinism of our bodily system by the higher determinism of the supernal grades and powers of our being. And there is nothing "miraculous" or "irrational" here. Indeed, "what seems to us supernatural is in fact either a spontaneous irruption of the phenomena of other-Nature into physical Nature or...a possession of the knowledge and power of the higher orders or grades of cosmic Being and Energy and the direction of their forces and processes towards the production of effects in the physical world by seizing on possibilities of interconnection and means for a material effectuality."¹

But why at all these misgivings and doubts about the prospect of some wonderful achievements expected to come from the supramental evolution ? Is not our body, even in its actuality, already a marvel product of organic evolution ? We do not pause to study and contemplate its weird functioning and its intricate structure; therefore it appears to our blissful ignorance altogether self-evident, simple and natural! But anyone who studies the physiology and biochemistry of a living body cannot but be struck by the amazing ingenuity displayed by Life although acting so far under the heavy load of a frontal ignorance. To cite only a few amongst a host of other instances that baffle the comprehension of even the twentieth-century men of science:

(a) Harmony and co-ordination: We know that life is largely a matter of enzymes. Even the simplest of living cells contains a thousand or more of them. Thus the "picture of the smallest living cells is already one of a complexity which the mind finds difficulty in grasping. How all these separate and complex enzyme-molecules are packed away in a tiny fragment of protoplasm, how they work in harmony with each other, producing that result which we recognise as life, we hardly know."²

¹ The Life Divine pp. 874-75.

Cf. The Mother: "I may say with certainty that people who want to see miracles are people who cherish their ignorance! There is miracle, because you do not give people the time to see the procedure by which you do things, you do not show them the steps." (Bulletin, August 1964, p. 31)

² J. A. V. Butler, Inside the Living Cell (1959), p. 27.

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(b)Enzymatic action: its speed and efficiency: We have referred to the fact that almost all the biochemical reactions in a living body are mediated by enzymes. But how, through what mechanism, these wonderful bio-catalysts bring about these diverse reactions is "largely a matter of conjecture."¹

And the speed and smoothness accompanying these enzymatic actions are something that the chemist can hardly match in his laboratory experiments. "In practice, chemical synthesis in the laboratory is often very difficult. Compounds have to be transformed one step at a time, often by wasteful processes, using powerful chemicals, heat, and sometimes electrical actions, to bring about the desired changes. It may take months to build up a compound, by a complicated sequence of actions, which a cell can make in a matter of minutes."²

It is not only the speed of these enzymatic actions that is breathtaking; their efficiency too is wonderful. These enzymes bring about rapid chemical changes and in large bulks, even when they are present in very small quantities, and without being changed themselves. Thus "a solution containing a ten millionth of an ounce of pepsin has a powerful effect on clotting of milk; rennin, another enzyme present in calves' stomachs and used for making junkets and cheese, can clot ten million times its weight of milk in ten minutes. Urease crystals produce a hundred times their weight of ammonia from urea in five minutes; it is said that one molecule of catalase can decompose over two million molecules of hydrogen peroxide every minute."³

(c)The mystery of specific protein synthesis: Proteins, as we have mentioned before, are the most essential constituents of all living cells. But these are different and specific for different types of cells. Now all these proteins are made up of highly complex chains of amino acids, the number and order of these amino acid components varying from protein to protein. There are about twenty separate amino acids and "the number of possible ways of arranging say a chain of one hundred units chosen from twenty different kinds is enormous. But the cell selects the amino acids and places them in the correct order with great ease and speed. In many bacteria a new generation is produced in thirty minutes

¹ J. A. V. Butler, Inside the Living Cell (1959), p. 25.

² Ibid., p. 22. (Italics ours)

³ Ibid., p. 24.

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or even less time. In this period, the full complement of proteins for a new cell must be synthesized. It is evident that the protein synthesizing mechanism works with great speed and efficiency. What is its nature ?"¹ Modern science has not yet been able to unravel this greatest mystery of life, the mystery of how specific proteins are made.

(d) The mystery of energy utilization: We have seen that Nature has so ordained that all heterotrophic organisms have to depend on organic foodstuffs for gathering the energy needed for their vital processes. Now the general aim of metabolic studies is "to determine how the chemical energy of the food substances is utilized in contraction of muscles, secretion of glands, transmission of impulses along nerves, growth of tissues and the other activities characteristic of the living animal. The present position of the problem is that a very great deal is known about the chemical reactions which occur and the amount of energy made available, but little is known about how this energy is used by the tissues for their purposes."

Instances are indeed legion that demonstrate life's wonderful ingenuity and what has been termed by Walter Cannon 'the wisdom of the body'. We need not cite any more examples here, for even a slight acquaintance with the organisational details of living bodies and with the behaviour patterns of different creatures cannot but convince even the most casual observer that behind the apparent inconscience of the workings of physico-chemical energies there must be operative all the while a conscient purposive Force. The physical scientist may try to 'explain' away all these things in terms of physical causality bearing such high names as adaptability, homoeostasis, feed-back reactions, etc. But this sort of explanation does not go very far. For it explains, if at all, only the phenomenal 'how' and not the intrinsic 'why'.

Now we can very well imagine what wonderful results will be achieved in the overt frontal plane of life, when the divine Super-mind emerges from behind and descends from above to take charge of the evolutionary process.

Let us now proceed to study how the New Body, a future product of supramental evolution, is expected to solve its twin problems of energy-requirement and substantial need.

¹ J. A. V. Butler, Inside the Living Cell (1959), p. 50.

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