A metaphysical & scientific study of the evolutionary prospects of the human body in the light of Sri Aurobindo's vision & assurance of the body's divine destiny.
Chapter VI
THEORIES OF EXISTENCE AND ATTITUDES
TOWARDS THE BODY
A mind looks out from a small casual globe
And wonders what itself and all things are.
(Savitri, Book II, Canto V, p. 167)
The Philosophy of Integralism arising out of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Vision of the Reality and world-process envisages "a divine life upon earth and liberation of earth-nature itself as part of a total purpose of the embodiment of the spirit here",1 and the Yoga of supramental Transformation as brought into action by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo seeks to realise in the not too distant future this sublime ideal of total spiritual perfection of which the high watermark, the crowning achievement, so to say, will be a supreme and entire divine transfiguration of the body itself.
But in order to grasp and appreciate in full the import and importance of this dynamic seer-vision of the apotheosis of the material body here upon earth in the very conditions of the material Universe, we must try to have a perspective view of different attitudes to the physical body and diverse conceptions regarding its ultimate destiny, that have occupied the reflective mind and the yearning heart of man throughout the long gamut of his cultural-spiritual history.
But since one's whole conception of the importance or otherwise of the human body, also one's attitude to incarnate life in general, are in the last analysis determined by one's metaphysical view, implicit or explicit, of the fundamental truth of the universe and the meaning of existence, we propose to consider incidentally — although in a summary way — the divergent views advanced so far concerning the sense and significance of the world-process and man's place and role in it.
Each of these distinct ways of looking at Nature and world-existence has invariably determined its corresponding brand of attitude to life in general and to body and Matter in particular. Some of these views have led to a downright disparagement and
1 The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, p. 43.
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denial of the physical being of man: some others recognise the importance of the body, even at times its essentiality and perfectibility, but not here upon earth in an earthly embodiment but elsewhere on some supraterrestrial plane of existence; the proponents of a few others have sought to achieve here in this embodied life some sort of physical perfection, but their supposed success in their undertaking has come down to posterity as a matter of tradition only, not verified or authenticated in fact, or at the most this has remained as a rare and imperfect, precariously maintained, individual siddhi or attainment, not as the natural law, dharma, of the body itself.
For the purpose of our present discussion we may broadly state that in the field of thought there are four main categories of conceptions regarding the fundamental truth of self-existence and world-existence. These may be termed, in the nomenclature of Sri Aurobindo, as (A) the cosmic-terrestrial, (B) the supracosmic, (C) the supraterrestrial or otherworldly, and finally (D) the integral or synthetic. Let us first consider in brief the first three views of existence in order to study and explore where they depart from the integral vision of life which is Sri Aurobindo's and how far the truths they stand on fit into its harmonising structure.
(A) The Cosmic-Terrestrial View
Earth only is there and not some heavenly source.
(Savitri, Book X, Canto II, p. 609)
The cosmic-terrestrial theory of existence considers the cosmic existence as the only reality and its view is ordinarily confined to life in the material world. Earth is the field of a great becoming and man is this becoming's highest possible form, albeit temporary and transient.
In this view of a sole terrestrial life, the one high and reasonable course for the individual human being is to study the laws of the Becoming and take the best advantage of them to realise its potentialities in himself or for himself or in or for the race of which he is a member; his business is to make the most of such actualities as exist and to seize on or to advance towards the highest possibilities that can be developed here or are in the making. Humanity and its welfare and progress provide the largest field and the
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natural limits for the terrestrial aim of our being. In the most materialist and individualistic view of existence, the only significance of life will be to achieve the individual's greatest possible perfection or make the most of his life in whatever way his personal nature demands, until it passes out of him in the course of inevitable and not so far-off individual annihilation.1
To exemplify the attitudes to body and bodily life this cosmic-terrestrial theory of existence tends to engender in the mind and heart of its adherents, let us consider in turn two schools of thought one of which arising in ancient India even before the epoch of the great Upanishads, the other growing in the Occident and approaching its crescendo in our time.
(a) The Charvaka Metaphysics and Ethics
In Indian philosophy the word Charvaka signifies a materialist. This heterodox school of Indian metaphysical thinking, also known as lokāyata school, preached the Epicurean doctrine of 'eat, drink and be merry'.
The Charvakas assert the sole reality of perceptible objects alone. Matter, according to this view, being the only and fundamental reality and our existence an inconsequential freak of Matter itself or of some energy building up Matter, there cannot be any individual personal existence outside of the material body. Consciousness having no independent non-material source or support but being only an operation of material energy acting in and upon a particular structural pattern of Matter, must perforce cease to exist with the dissolution of the physical body. The survival of man in any form after death is untenable.
Since our personal existence is entirely dependent upon the persistence of the body and bodily life alone, we must regard — so runs the argument of the Charvakas — the carnal pleasures as the only desirable things of which we can be sure and certain. Also, simply because sense pleasures are irretrievably mixed up with their quota of pain, it would be the height of absurdity to forgo on that score all pleasures of bodily life; for it would then be like 'rejecting the kernel because of its husk'. (Cf. Ananda-bodhacharya, Pramāna-mālā: "One does not forsake eating for
1 This paragraph is an adaptation from The Life Divine, pp. 670-71.
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fear of indigestion, nor does one forgo the use of a blanket for fear of the bugs."1)
So the highest end of man's conduct and the summum bonum that an individual can achieve is the attainment of maximum amount of pleasure in this very life. A really good life is, according to the Charvakas, a life of maximum enjoyment. Let us recall in this connection the oft-quoted Charvaka maxim:
"Live merrily so long as you live; partake of butter even if by borrowing. Whence is the possibility of our coming back, once the body is reduced to ashes?'2
We would not have considered here the Charvaka theory of existence and the grossly hedonistic attitude to life that it entails, if not for the fact that this happens to be the philosophy of life, although very often camouflaged under the veneer of something more respectable, governing the daily conduct of most men in all times and climes. Even to-day, "the Philistine is not dead, — quite the contrary, he abounds."3 For, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out, the mere participation in the benefits of civilisation is not enough to raise a man into the mental life proper. Hence it is that "the Philistine is in fact the modern civilised barbarian; he is often the half-civilised physical and vital barbarian by his unintelligent attachment to the life of the body, the life of the vital needs and impulses and the ideal of the merely domestic and economic human animal."4 He "lives outwardly the civilised life, possesses all its paraphernalia, ... [but] pulls the higher faculties down to the level of his senses, his sensations, his unenlightened and unchast-ened emotions, his gross utilitarian practicality."6
Leaving aside this Charvaka-Philistine attitude to body and bodily life we now proceed to the consideration of the scientifically controlled physical culture of the bodily system, so much prevalent in our day.
1 "Na hi ajīrṇa-bhayāt āhara-parityāgo, yūka-bhayād vā prāvaraṇa-pari-tyāgaḥ."
2 "Yāvaj jīvet sukhaṁ jīvet, ṛnaṁ kṛtvā ghṛtam pivet. Bhasmībhūtasya dehasya punarāgamanaṁ kutaḥ?" 3 Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle (1962), p. 115. 4 5 Ibid., p. 114.
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(b) The Scientific Physical Culture and
the Perfection of the Body
The call for a well-planned and universal physical culture for all age-groups of men and women is one of the dominant traits of the cultural value-system of modern man. The benefits that have been actually-drawn arid are potentially realizable from a proper and well-coordinated training of the body through scientific means and procedure are indeed manifold and belong to more than one order. Let us pass on to a succinct consideration of these benefits, basing ourselves for that purpose mainly on the observations made by Sri Aurobindo himself in his lastly written work The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth.
(i)Perfection of the body proper: For the body itself the perfection that can be developed through such activities as sports and physical exercises are those of its natural qualities and capacities and, secondly, the development of its instrumental fitness in the unhindered service of the human mind and will and dynamic life-energy.
What is thus gained by an extended and many-sided course of physical education and discipline is a general fitness of the body to rise to the occasion and meet adequately all possible situations in which it may find itself placed. Another happy result is "the formation of a capacity for harmonious and right movements of the body."1
(ii)Mental and moral perfection: A systematic undertaking of a disciplined physical culture is apt to develop certain parts of the mind and contribute to the building up of character. Many forms of sports and competitive games help to form and even necessitate the essential qualities of "courage, hardihood, energetic action and initiative or call for skill, steadiness of will or rapid decision and action, the perception of what is to be done in an emergency and dexterity in doing it."2
Apart from the attainment by the individual participant of these laudable qualities, there accrues the great gain of discipline and order, obedience and the habit of team-work, so necessary for a successful living but in no way inconsistent with individual freedom and initiative.
(iii)Awakening of the body-consciousness: A careful observation
1 2 Sri Aurobindo, op. cit., p. 4.
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would reveal to us the fact that the human body possesses a consciousness of its own, independent of all mental or vital over-lordship, but in general concealed from the surface view. But this submerged self-concealment does not prevent it in any way from being astonishingly potent and efficient in many a domain of its activity. Its potentialities are, of course, as yet partly awake but for the most part latent and unmanifested.
Now, an all-round total perfection of the body should imply, not merely the building up of health and strength, but also the awakening and education of this "essential and instinctive body-consciousness...which is equivalent in the body to swift insight in the mind and spontaneous and rapid decision in the will. What is awake in it we have to make fully conscious; what is asleep we have to arouse and set to its work; what is latent we have to evoke and educate."1
A trained and developed automatism in the execution of many complex physical movements and the elaboration of new and highly rich and efficient reflexes in our physical system are other desirable gains that we can expect to derive from a scientifically co-ordinated culture of the body.
Critique: Such then are the gains for the body and body-consciousness — and these are unquestionably valuable in their own domain — one may reap from a systematic physical culture undertaken in a scientific way. But in no way do they measure up to our conception of the total perfection of the body, nor are they ever capable of leading by themselves alone to the essential and intrinsic apotheosis of the human body that we have envisaged in one of our preceding chapters (Chap. III). For that we have to lean upon the other and higher end of the range of our being and set into motion another modus operandi.
As a matter of fact, in the pursuit of perfection one may possibly start at either end, the lower or the higher, of the possibilities and potentialities of the total constitution of our being and one has then to employ the means and methods proper to it. Thus, "if we start in any field at the lower end, we have to employ the means and methods which Life and Matter offer to us and respect the conditions and what we may call the technique imposed by the vital and the material energy. We may extend the activity, the
1 The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, pp. 23-24.
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achievement, the perfection attained beyond the initial, even beyond the normal possibilities but still we have to stand on the same base with which we started and within the boundaries it gives to us."1
And this is what is actually attempted and, under the most favourable circumstances, achieved in what may be termed scientific culture of the body. The means and methods adopted therein are necessarily limited and conditioned by the present nature and disposition of the body as elaborated by evolutionary nature and the goal envisaged is no more and no higher than a relative human perfection of the body's powers and capacities and its instrumental efficiency.
But, be it noted, "the most we can do in the physical field by physical means is necessarily insecure as well as bound by limits; even what seems a perfect health and strength of the body is precarious and can be broken down at any moment by fluctuations from within or by a strong attack or shock from outside: only by the breaking of our limitations can a higher and more enduring perfection come."2
And for this we have to turn to the dynamism of the spirit and consciously and deliberately open ourselves to the superior intervention of higher powers: psychic powers from within and powers of the spirit from above. We shall have occasion to deal with this question more fully later on. For the moment let us proceed to the succinct consideration of the second great category of theories and views concerning the fundamental truths of the cosmic becoming and of man's place in it.
(B) The Supracosmic View
O soul, inventor of man's thoughts and hopes,
Thyself the invention of the moments' stream, I
llusion's centre or subtle apex point,
At last know thyself, from vain existence cease.
(Savitri, Book VII, Canto VI, p. 535)
The supracosmic theory of existence3 may be taken to be the
1 The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, pp. 13-14.
2 Ibid., p. 24.
3 Adapted from The Life Divine, pp. 667-68.
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exact opposite of the cosmic-terrestrial view of reality. According to this theory the supreme and supracosmic transcendent Reality alone is to be considered entirely or essentially real. Everything else, whether individual being or cosmic existence, suffers from a certain sense of vanity and illusoriness. The supracosmic view has many variants of which the principal ones may be somewhat inadequately characterised as follows:
(1)In the extreme exclusive forms of this type of world-vision, human existence has no real meaning or significance at all; the only true truth is in the supracosmic alone. Somehow an error or ignorance has overcast the absolute Reality and it is because of this that the soul, if the soul exists at all, has ventured into the field of vain manifestation. It is no more than a mistake on the part of the soul or perhaps a delirium of its will to be.
(2)The Absolute, the Parabrahman, is at once the alpha and the omega, the origin and goal, of all existence; everything else is no more than a passing interlude and therefore devoid of any abiding significance.
(3)The Becoming is a reality. But for the individual soul, this temporal becoming is indeed temporary and of relatively minor importance. Thus the truth and law of its temporal becoming once fulfilled, the soul has to turn back to its final self-realisation, for its natural highest fulfilment is a release into its original being, its eternal self, its timeless reality.
Whatever may be the forms assumed by this supracosmic view of existence, the ultimate goal advocated by all of them is to get away from all living, whether terrestrial or celestial, and to obtain an escape into the ineffable and indefinable Absolute beyond all individual and cosmic being and existence. "A recoil of the life-motive from itself and ... a will to annul life itself in an immobile Reality or an original Non-Existence"1 are the inevitable corollaries of this supracosmic vision of things, thus militating against all idea of the divinisation of life here in the conditions of the material universe.
Under this category we may mention en passant the two great schools of world-negating metaphysics — Buddhism with its doctrines of anicca and anāttā (the theory of impermanence and the theory of the non-existence of any soul or self), and Illusionism with its doctrine of Maya — that have weighed heavily on Indian
1 The Life Divine, p. 415.
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thought and general mentality for the last two thousand years and more.
The Buddhist attitude to physical body and bodily life is a logical sequel to the Buddhist analysis of existence. As we have already pointed out (Chap. II), this may be summed up as follows:
(i)In the ultimate account the body can never be the repository of anything but evil;
(ii)a final and absolute deliverance from all corporeal existence is the loftiest of all aims.
To exemplify this attitude which is antipodal to our goal of the eventual divinisation of matter and physical body, we may adduce here a couple of extracts1 picked up at random from a host of others:
"Seeing others afflicted by the body, O Pingiya, seeing heedless people suffer in their bodies, therefore, O Pingiya, shalt thou be heedful and leave the body behind that thou mayst never come to exist again." (Sutta Nipāta).
" 'Through countless births have I wandered', said Gautama, 'seeking but not discovering the maker of this my mortal dwelling house, and still, again and again, have birth and life and pain returned. But now at length art thou discovered, thou builder of this house (of flesh). No longer shalt thou rear a house for me. Rafters and beams are shattered, and, with destruction of tanhā [ thirst for existence ], deliverance from repeated life is gained at last.' " (Dhammapada, Ch. xi).
In the classical Illusionist theory of cosmic existence, a sole and supreme, self-existent and immutable Transcendence is accepted as the one and only Reality (Brahma satyam, jaganmithyā. Ekam eva advitīyam). The universe superimposed on this Reality is either a non-existence, a semblance or in some inscrutable way (anir-vacaniyā māyā) unreally real (sadasat), a cosmic illusion (jagat-bhrānti) that is yet not altogether an illusion.
Anyway, the only true Truth, the only abiding reality is the eternal and absolute pure Existence, for ever immutable, for ever void of names and forms, relations and happenings.
There is no true becoming of this supreme Existence (Brahman).
1 These two extracts are taken from J. H. Bateson's article "Body (Buddhist attitude)" in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. II.
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Although it is by its essentiality the Self of all, the natural beings of which it is the Self are only temporary appearances. "Brahman the Reality appears in the phenomenal existence as the Self of the living individual; but when the individuality of the individual is dissolved by intuitive knowledge, the phenomenal being is released into the self-being: it is no longer subject to Maya and by its release from the appearance of individuality it is extinguished in the Reality."1
Thus, when the illusory distinction between the self and Brahman disappears at last (jiva brahmaiva nāparaḥ) and the unreal reality (prātibhāsika vyavahārika sattā) of cosmic existence is realised through the removal of Ignorance (avidyā-nivṛtti), the soul is said to attain mukti or liberation from its bondage.
From what we have stated above, it becomes quite clear that any attempt at or even the very conception of a divine transfiguration of the embodied physical existence here is repugnant to the Illusionist view. For, the body one perceives is like every other thing a mere illusory appearance, a product of ignorance. On the attainment of liberation, so avers the Illusionist, this unreal nature of the body becomes patent to the liberated soul. Is it not then the height of absurdity to have for one's ideal the divine transformation of something that does not really exist at all?
Of course, even on the attainment of liberation, the body of the mukta appears to continue for some shorter or longer time. But the explanation for this phenomenon lies elsewhere — in the complex Law of Karma (We shall revert to this topic later on while discussing the spiritual penury of our 'Waking State': see Part Two, Chapter VI).
We now proceed to consider the third category of theories, the supraterrestrial view of existence.
(C) The Supraterrestrial View
In spite of all superficial evidences to the contrary, man cannot easily shake off a sense implanted in him by Nature that, after all, this terrestrial figure of humanity cannot represent all that he really is or is capable of attaining to: there must be somehow something in his total composition that goes beyond this tentative and transitional
1 The Life Divine, p. 462.
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earthly formation. "The intuition of a beyond, the idea and feeling of a soul and spirit in us which is other than the mind, life and body or is greater, not limited by their formula,"1 returns upon man after every attempt at banishment and finally possesses his mind and heart.
Now, the supraterrestrial view of life has for its basic traits (i) the belief that the individual human soul, essentially immortal, can survive the dissolution of its physical embodiment and persist eternally, apart from the body or perhaps 'clothed' in some other type of non-earthly frame; (ii) also the idea — a natural corollary of the first tenet — that this material world, this earthly arena, this human life is not the only possible scene or habitation of the soul; indeed, there are other planes of greater consciousness, other worlds of higher existence which the soul can attain to, even while in the earthly physical body, and to which it retires in order to dwell there eternally or at least in a more permanent way, when the terrestrial body gets disintegrated at death.
Thus, according to this conception of existence, the true home of the human soul or spirit is beyond the earth in some other spiritually elevated supraterrestrial plane or world and this all too brief earthly life is, in some way or other, only an episode of his immortality or perhaps a deviation and a fall from a pre-existent celestial-spiritual into a sordid material existence. According to the view we choose to take of the matter, the earthly life in a material body will appear either as a place of ordeal, or as a necessary, albeit temporary, field of soul's development, or perhaps as a scene of spiritual exile. In any case, the sojourn upon earth is considered to be a passing phase, and an ultimate departure to a heaven beyond, which is supposed to be the soul's only true and proper habitation, is the only destiny awaiting the individual spirit.
It has to be noted that this supraterrestrial view of existence does not necessarily lead to the formulation of an attitude of indifference or disrespect to the body as such. For, most of the adherents of various schools of supraterrestrial theory of existence consider that, for the soul, the gross physical earthly body is not the only body possible. As a matter of fact, as there exist different planes of consciousness, different worlds of experiences, hierarchically arranged in an ascending order, similarly each individual soul is endowed with a series of 'sheaths' or 'bodies' (koṣas
1 The Life Divine, p. 674.
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and śarīras) through which it can communicate with these various worlds, dwell therein and participate in experiences of corresponding orders.
This conception of concurrent existence of more than one type of embodiment for a soul has been variously expressed in different occult-spiritual traditions. Mention may be made of sthūla (or gross), sūksma (or subtle) and kāraṇa (or causal) dehas (or bodies) of Vedanta; auādrika, taijasa and kārmāna śarīras of the Jainas; and nirmāṇa-kāya, sambhoga-kāya and dharma-kāya of the Buddhists. The Sufis too sometimes make a distinction between what they call nafs-i-jāri or a 'wandering body' and nafs-i-muqīm or a 'stationary body'. Their jism-i-latīf i.e., a fine subtle body and jism-i-kasīf, i.e., a dense or gross body fall in the same category as the ātivāhika and ādhibhautika śarīras of Vedantic classification and the khecara-citta or sūkṣma-deha and sthūla-deha of the Pa-tanjali system of Yoga.
Be that as it may, the proponents of the supraterrestrial theory of existence and of its complementary conception of a plurality of bodies for the soul, do not generally credit our earthly physical body with any great spiritual possibility of its own. Indeed, the goal set before the aspirant is that he should seek to 'loosen' "the soul, ātivāhika deha, sūtkṣma-śarīra,jñāna-deha, nirmāṇa-kāya, nafs-i-jāri, nafs-i-latīf,jism-i-misāl, subtle body...from the physical body, sthūla-śarīra, ādhibhautika deha,jaḍa-deha, jism-i-kasif jism-i-shahāḍa, nafs-i-muquīm, gross or dense body, body of flesh, by regulated fasts and vigils, physical and psychical disciplines, and various subtle introspective processes,...under the guidance of a wise teacher...who has himself passed through the experience and achieved 'freedom' of subtle body from gross body."1 The spiritual destiny for the individual soul is, of course, attained when it can effectuate its permanent release from this gross terrestrial body and depart to a desired supraterrestrial world of existence and experience at the fall of the present physical 'sheath'.
In this connection we may recall, for comparison, the Christian doctrine of the body — in particular, St. Paul's gospel of a 'glorious body'. In the Pauline anthropology, it is not the deliverance from the body as a body that the apostle longs for, but the deliverance from the natural body of corruption and mortality. As a matter of fact, he proclaims that, at resurrection, our 'nakedness'
1 Dr. Bhagavan Das, Essential Unity of All Religions, p. 276.
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(i.e., the state of disembodiment) will be 'clothed upon', not surely with an earthly body of flesh and blood, but with a supernatural 'pneumatical' body.
Let us now proceed to the consideration of what may be termed the 'Integral View' of existence.
(D) The Integral View
To free the self is but one radiant pace;
Here to fulfil himself was God's desire.
(Savitri, Book III, Canto II, p. 312)
We have cursorily reviewed three distinct and different ways of looking at the world-existence and man's self-existence, also the characteristic attitudes to body and bodily life that these separate views tend to create in their adherents. Each of these divergent ways of regarding the Reality represents no doubt a core of truth, valid in its own field, but, when exclusively stressed, suffers from the error of absolute exaggeration to the point of not taking into account the equally valid truths contained in other possible views.
Indeed, all these views and conceptions, being partial approaches, embody only partial truths and therefore cannot in the very nature of things take into adequate account or satisfactorily explain the total rhythm and the entire process of this world-phenomenon. Hence arises the imperative need of the hour for an integral view of existence that will admit the valid truths of all other views but at the same time eliminate their unnecessary limitations and negations. What is needed is some largest and highest Truth in the bosom of which all the various seeings find their justification and get harmoniously reconciled. What is called for is some integral vision and knowledge which will illumine and integralise the significance of all one-sided knowledge and gather together all possible human experiences in the manifold Truth of a supreme all-reconciling oneness. As we shall presently see, Sri Aurobindo's vision of the world and of man answers fully to these demands.
Man finds himself to be suffering from all the painful consequences of a split-personality when he discovers to his utter discomfiture that he is under the sway of a 'triple attraction': earth
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and earthly life exercise an abiding attraction upon his mind and heart; he yearns after the far-off glories of heaven, that is to say, supraterrestrial realms of existence that may open their portals to him after the dissolution of his earthly physical life; finally, the supreme and supracosmic transcendent Reality enthralls him with its bare and solitary snowy grandeur. Thus he is confronted with a conflict of his life-motives and the simultaneous ill-reconciled clamours of various impulses and urges of his complex being. On the one hand, almost all men normally devote the major part of their energy to the pursuit of terrestrial needs, interests and ideals — whether for their individual existence or for the larger or smaller collectivity to which they belong. But at the same time man the individual vaguely or clearly feels that he is much more than his body, life and mind; he must be in his essential nature something transcending his terrestrial appearance in a human embodiment, Finally, there opens in man, with the deepening of his mental life and the development of subtle knowledge, "the perception that the terrestrial and the supraterrestrial are not the only terms of being; there is something which is supracosmic and the highest remote origin of our existence."1
These then are the three fundamental urges ineradicably implanted in man: the terrestrial, the supraterrestrial and the supracosmic ; and any overstressing of one of them to the belittlement of the other two is bound to create some sort of an internecine war in his being. The reconciling equation can be found if we recognise the purport of our whole complex human nature in its right place in the total cosmic movement, and confer its just and legitimate value to each part of our complex being and many-sided aspiration.
The Yoga-Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, the Master-Mystic par excellence, embodies not simply a well-reasoned structure of thought, but, above all, the all-reconciling all-integrating truths of existence; for, it arises out of an integral spiritual vision and experience and is not merely the brilliant product of a speculative mind. Now, this integral vision of world-existence and self-existence views "our existence here as a Becoming with the Divine Being for its origin and its object, a progressive manifestation, a spiritual evolution with the supracosmic for its source and support, the other-worldly for a condition and connecting link and the
1 The Life Divine, p. 675.
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cosmic and terrestrial for its field, and with human mind and life for its nodus and turning-point of release towards a higher and a highest perfection."1
As a matter of fact, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out, "a spiritual evolution, an unfolding here of the Being within from birth to birth, of which man becomes the central instrument and human life at its highest offers the critical turning point, is the link needed for the reconciliation of life and spirit; for it allows us to take into account the total nature of man and to recognise the legitimate place of his triple attraction, to earth, to heaven and to the supreme Reality."2
In fact, the required solution of the problem of harmonisation of the threefold demand of human nature lies in the recognition of the fact that "the lower consciousness of mind, life and body cannot arrive at its full meaning until it is taken up, restated, transformed by the light and power and joy of the higher spiritual consciousness, while the higher too does not stand in its full right relation to the lower by mere rejection, but by this assumption and domination, this taking up of its unfulfilled values, this restatement and transformation, — a spiritualising and supramentalising of the mental, vital and physical nature."3
The terrestrial ideal on one side, the supracosmic urge on the other, and the supraterrestrial aspiration in between, all err through the overstress and exclusiveness of their separate content and thus miss the reconciling equation. According to the verdict of the all-embracing, all-transcending and all-fulfilling spiritual Illumination underlying the Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, "the supracosmic Reality stands as the supreme Truth of being; to realise it is the highest reach of our consciousness. But it is this highest Reality which is also the cosmic being, the cosmic consciousness, the cosmic will and life: it has put these things forth, not outside itself but in its own being, not as an opposite principle but as its own self-unfolding and self-expression. Cosmic being is not a meaningless freak or phantasy or a chance error; there is a divine significance and truth in it: the manifold self-expression of the spirit is its high sense, the Divine itself is the key of its enigma. A perfect self-expression of the
1 The Life Divine, p. 667.
2 Ibid., p. 677.
3Ibid., pp. 677-78.
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spirit is the object of our terrestrial existence."1
But this self-expression is in its nature evolutionary and progressive. And evolution carries with it in its intrinsic sense the necessity of a previous involution. For the spiritual process of evolution is a self-creation, ātma-krti, not a making of what never was, but a bringing out of what was implicit in the Being and inherent in the very beginning. In fact, what is happening in the world in course of its evolutionary march is that the Ignorance is seeking and preparing to transform itself by a progressive illumination of its darkness into the Knowledge that is already inherent and concealed within it. And in this process of progressive self-revelation, all that evolves already existed involved, passive or otherwise active, but in either case concealed from the superficial view in the shroud of apparently acting material Nature. "Matter could not have become animate if the principle of life had not been there constituting Matter and emerging as a phenomenon of life-in-matter; life-in-matter could not have begun to feel, perceive, think, reason, if the principle of mind had not been there behind life and substance, constituting it as its field of operation and emergent in the phenomenon of a thinking life and body: so too spirituality emerging in mind is the sign of a power which itself has founded and constituted life, mind and body and is now emerging as a spiritual being in a living and thinking body.... Spirit is a final evolutionary emergence because it is the original involutionary element and factor. 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."2
Thus the true significance of the earthly existence is concealed at the outset by the involution of the Spirit, the Divine reality, in an opaque material Inconscience. Here in this material world Sachchidananda or the Existence-Consciousness-Bliss Absolute has hidden himself in what seem to be his opposites: "a Void, an infinite of Non-Existence, an indeterminate Inconscient, an insensitive blissless Zero"3 out of which everything else has to evolve. When this inevitable evolution — this evolutionary emergence
1The Life Divine, p. 679.
2Ibid., p. 853.
3The Human Cycle, p. 208.
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of the involved Being and Consciousness — begins its course of ascent, it first develops, as it is bound to develop in the inverse order, Matter and a material universe: in Matter, life appears and living physical beings: in Life, Mind manifests and embodied living and thinking beings. And this is the actual state of the evolutionary ascent with Mind and Man as its highest products.
But Sachchidananda has yet to emerge fully in manifestation. Therefore this evolution, this spiritual progression cannot stop short with Mind and with the imperfect mental being called Man. Mind is too imperfect an expression and man too hampered and burdened a creature to be the last terms of the evolutionary elaboration of life's destiny upon earth. So, in the very nature of things, following the logic of the inner significance of the whole process, evolution is bound to proceed on its upward and forward march and bring out in due course a far greater consciousness than what we call Mind, indeed a supreme Truth-Consciousness — or what the great Vedic mystics termed Rita-Chit and Sri Aurobindo calls Supermind — that by its full manifestation will liberate not partially, not imperfectly as at present, but radically and wholly the imprisoned Divine. This Supramental Gnosis manifesting the Spirit's self-knowledge and world-knowledge, will bring into overt action, by an inherent necessity and inevitability, the dynamic manifestation here upon our earth itself of Sachchidananda or the divine Existence, Consciousness and Delight of being and becoming.
It is this that is the inner significance of the plan and sequence of the terrestrial evolution and it is this spiritually inexorable necessity that has so far determined and must in future determine all its steps and degrees, its principles and processes. Such is then the evolutionary import attached by Sri Aurobindo to our cosmic existence. A perfect self-expression of the Divine in the frame of Time and Space being the ultimate secret of evolution and the sole raison d'être and the only object of our terrestrial existence, the earth-life, in Sri Aurobindo's all-reconciling Integral Vision, cannot be considered as merely an unfortunate lapse of the spirit into something essentially imperfect, vain and miserable, if not altogether undivine, offered to the embodied soul as a thing to be suffered and then ingloriously cast away from it, as soon as its own inner spiritual maturity or some inscrutable law of the spirit makes that exit or rejection possible; nor can it be viewed as an
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inexplicable dream or illusion or an intolerable impossible evil that has somehow yet become a 'dolorous fact'. Earth-life has for its sense and significance the evolutionary unfolding of the Divine's self-existent timeless perfection in terms of a time-creation.
To sum up: "An involution of spirit in the Inconscience is the beginning; an evolution in the Ignorance with its play of the possibilities of a partial developing knowledge is the middle, and the cause of the anomalies of our present nature, — our imperfection is the sign of a transitional state, a growth not yet completed, an effort that is finding its way; a consummation in a deployment of the spirit's self-knowledge and the self-power of its divine being and consciousness is the culmination: these are the three stages of the cycle of the spirit's progressive self-expression in life. The two stages that have already their play seem at first sight to deny the possibility of the later consummating stage of the cycle, but logically they imply its emergence; for if the inconscience has evolved consciousness, the partial consciousness already reached must surely evolve into complete consciousness. It is a perfected and divinised life for which the earth-nature is seeking, and this seeking is a sign of the Divine Will in Nature. Other seekings also there are and these too find their means of self-fulfilment; a withdrawal into the supreme peace and ecstasy, a withdrawal into the bliss of the Divine presence are open to the soul in earth-existence: for the Infinite in its manifestation has many possibilities and is not confined by its formulations. But neither of these withdrawals can be the fundamental intention in the Becoming itself here; for then an evolutionary progression would not have been undertaken, — such a progression here can only have for its aim a self-fulfilment here: a progressive manifestation of this kind can only have for its soul of significance the revelation of Being in a perfect Becoming."1
Attitude towards body and bodily life: It is quite obvious that in this Vision of the integral fulfilment of terrestrial life, in this idea of the establishment of a divine life upon earth in an earthly body, our body is bound to assume a place of capital importance. For, is it not too patent a fact that man as a species has become man, as distinct from and superior to all other animal creation, simply because he has been endowed with a characteristic body and brain
1 The Life Divine, pp. 681-82. (Italics ours)
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allowing him to receive and adequately manifest a progressive mental illumination? In order to seize the importance of the specially structured human body in relation to the subjective-objective development of man, we may for a moment try to visualise any subhuman animal body but somehow possessing mental consciousness within. We can then very well comprehend the enormous difficulties that this imaginary hybrid creature will encounter in the process of manifesting dynamically a truly mental human culture.
Now, the same rule is bound to hold in the case of a prospective divine transfiguration of terrestrial life. A supramental transformation even of what is called our 'physical sheath', annnamaya koṣa, is absolutely indispensable for a truly divine living in the world. As Sri Aurobindo has so trenchantly put it:
"It can only be by developing a body or at least a functioning of the physical instrument capable of receiving and serving a still higher illumination that he [man] will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of Life is cancelled, its meaning is annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there is a destined limit to the consciously progressive power which distinguishes him from all other terrestrial existences and as he has replaced them in the front of things, so another must eventually replace him and assume his heritage."1
But Sri Aurobindo assures us that this need not be so. For man has proved himself to be a creature that is capable of infinite self-transcendence through consciously guided efforts. Thus, if only man cares to collaborate, at the present juncture of the evolutionary history, with the secretly operative Force behind evolution and opens all his members — his mentality, his life and even his body — to the unveiled action of what we have referred to above as Supramental Gnosis, and allows them to be freely moulded and transfigured by that supremely potent power of the Spirit operating in Nature, there is no reason why he himself cannot attain to the status of divine manhood. For Supermind alone possesses the Knowledge and Power to effectuate a total and
1 The Life Divine, p. 231.
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entire transformation of our physical being.
But what is the nature of this Supermind ? and what is its potency of action? The Supermind is the self-existent self-effulgent plenary Truth-Consciousness of the Divine Nature, far superior to all mental movement, by which the Divine knows not only his own essence and being but his manifestation also. Again, the supramental is not merely a static power of Knowledge; it is at the same time Chit-Shakti, an infinitely potent self-effectuating dynamic power of Will that is according to the Knowledge because always one with the Knowledge.
Now, in the as yet unaccomplished progressive march of evolution, this Gnostic Knowledge-Will is bound to emerge and be overtly operative in the field of earthly manifestation; and this supramental manifestation in its turn is sure to usher in its wake a divine life in a divine body in a material world, for which Nature, the Great Mother, has been in travail since ages past. This divine transfiguration of life in the field of matter will necessarily signify "a union of the two ends of existence, the spiritual summit and the material base. The soul with the basis of its life established in Matter ascends to the heights of the Spirit but does not cast away its base, it joins the heights and depths together. The Spirit descends into Matter and the material world with all its lights and glories and powers and with them fills and transforms life in the material world so that it becomes more and more divine. The transformation is not a change into something purely subtle and spiritual to which Matter is in its nature repugnant and by which it is felt as an obstacle or as a shackle binding the Spirit; it takes up Matter as a form of the Spirit though now a form which conceals, and turns it into a revealing instrument, it does not cast away the energies of Matter, its capacities, its methods; it brings out their hidden possibilities, uplifts, sublimates, discloses their innate divinity."1
In this changed communion of the Spirit with Matter, the Will of the Spirit will directly control and determine the movements and laws of the physical body. The subconscient will become conscious and "the basis of inconscience with its obscurity and ambiguity, its obstruction or tardy responses will have been transformed into a lower or supporting superconscience by the supramental emergence."2 The new evolution will effectuate even for
1 The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, pp. 9-10.
2 The Life Divine, p. 985.
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the physical being of man as for his mind and life, the triple process of spiritualisation, perfection and utter fulfilment. As a result all the obscurities, frailties and limitations of the physical system of man will be overcome and eliminated; the body, rendered absolutely immune from all attacks of illnesses and disorders, will manifest a spiritual Ananda of its own; the bodily life will free itself from the now universal necessity of physical alimentation gathered from outside; sex and sensuality will depart from the scene and the spiritual aspirant's upsoaring consciousness will not be drugged and dragged down into the mire by the unregenerate and unresponsive waking physical consciousness. In short, there will come about indeed a divine apotheosis of body and the bodily life upon earth:
"The Spirit shall look out through Matter's gaze
And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face.
........
A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell
And take the charge of breath and speech and act
And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns
And every feeling a celestial thrill.
..........
Nature shall live to manifest secret God,
The Spirit shall take up the human play,
This earthly life become the life divine."1
In the present work we shall try to justify on metaphysical as well as on scientific grounds the sublime prospect of the transfiguration of the body with all that it implies, and indicate, in the light of the Supramental Vision vouchsafed by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, how far and in what way the insistent problems of food and sleep, fatigue and inertia, sex and sensuality, animal impulses and appetites, diseases and decay, and finally the Sphinx like problem of death and dissolution are going to be tackled and solved in the transformed divine body to appear in the course of the future evolution of man.
We shall incidentally seek to find out — in however meagre and suggestive a measure — any corroborative evidence gleaned from the field of biological evolution so far, for after all, "evolution...
1 Savitri, Book XI, Canto I, pp. 709-11.
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must have at any given moment a past with its fundamental results still in evidence, a present in which the results it is labouring over are in process of becoming, a future in which still unevolved powers and forms of being must appear till there is the full and perfect manifestation."1 And so Nature, the Great Mother, must have left her clues of approach even in the earlier phases of the great World-Becoming that is being worked out through this process of terrestrial evolution.
End of Part One
1 The Life Divine, p. 707.
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