Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Values Higher and Lower

1

THE problem in the final analysis is as ancient as man's first utterance. Which comes first, which is more important – Spirit or Matter, Body or Soul? Naturally, there have been always two answers, according to one's outlook. Some have declared Annam comes first, Annam is of primary importance, Annam is to be increased, Annam is to be worshipped: or again, earth is the firm status, be founded upon earth – śarīram ādyam. On the other hand, it has also been declared that the Spirit comes first, the Spirit is the true foundation, the roots of creation are up there, not here below: if that is known, then only all this is known; it is by that Light all that shines here shines. And if I miss that, what is the use of all this world of things?

In fact, however, the reality is a polarised entity: and both ends are equally necessary, for each is involved in the other. It is an unreal distinction, due to mind's prejudice and preference, that says one is first and the other next or last, one is more important and the other less. The true truth is that Spirit and Matter are one: for Matter is Spirit involved and Spirit is Matter evolved. The position can be stated in this form also: without Spirit, Matter does not exist; without Matter, Spirit does not manifest.

The balance is upset exactly when we say that the higher depends on the lower or that it comes after. Not only so, the statement is likely to involve an error, a mistaken view. If one has to make a distinction between higher and lower, inner and outer, it will be nearer the truth and fact to say that the lower depends on the higher, it is the inner reality

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that upholds and inspires the outer form: without this inner cohesive deity all the external frame would fall to pieces. It is not the contingencies of time and circumstances, of day-to-day existence that determine the nature and form of power of the soul and spirit. It is the pressure of the Inner Being, antaryāmī, that brings about the pattern and organisation of the outer life. At the summit of being, at the absolute point of consciousness the two are identical, absolutely one and the same. In the lower ranges as manifestation and variation begin the two maintain their union and harmony and mutuality so long as the consciousness retains its purity and the being is not invaded. by Ignorance. Ignorance means the gradual predominance of the outer and the lower, till it reaches its last point in Inconscience where Matter is the only reality and everything is made to stand and depend on the grossest reality.

Even then, even from that nadir, let us consider things a little more closely. We have still consciousness left in us as human beings. Now, because 'man has a body and because he has to live and move in physical surroundings and circumstances, therefore body and physical conditions must necessarily come to his consciousness first in importance – this is not a valid argument nor a statement of fact. For man has and is something else besides: and this something else, in other words, the spiritual being, is quite a free and independent entity and can act as it wills ignoring and ignorant of the body and its circumstances. Whether one is poor or rich, successful or frustrated, happy or unhappy, one can always listen and follow the call of the Spirit.

It may be that for most men the physical life is of first and primary importance and they look upon the spiritual life, 'if ever they do, as a secondary pursuit; even as children consider food and play as the one thing needful, study or mental exercise quite a secondary or tertiary affair occupying a small side corner. This is because the taste for the higher life belongs to a more developed consciousness, not because it is something really dependent and derivative. Indeed, we do in fact see people – individually or collectively (like the early Christians, for example) – suddenly becoming conscious of the burning reality of the Spirit, in the midst of and in

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spite of the most adverse and all-engrossing outer physical conditions, and follow it caring nothing. So the Christ directs: Follow Me, let the dead bury their dead; and the Indian Shastra enjoins: Yadahareva virajet tadahareva pravrajet – the day you feel unattached, that very day go out of the world and away.

To the spiritual seeker the higher values are the first things that come first: to the ordinary man it is otherwise, lower values come first and claim topmost priority. To the experience of the spiritual seeker one should give greater value, for he has the experience of both the values, while the ordinary man knows only of one variety. Naturally, as we have said, there is synthesis, a fusion of the two values; but that is elsewhere for the present, not actually here and now.

2

It is again a point of view to say that things are fundamentally values only, as "philosophers of value" seem to declare today. It would be equally true to say that masses are fundamentally energies or that particles are merely waves. The truth of the matter, here as elsewhere, is global – ubhayameva, in the famous phrase of the great Rishi Yajnavalkya. In other words, values and things are aspects, polarisations of one single reality. Things have values; things are values: things are also things. .

Value refers to the particular poise or status, the mode of being or function of a thing. In its ultimate formulation we can say it is the rhythm or force of consciousness that vibrates in an object, it is the becoming of the being: but becoming does not cancel being, it only activises, energises, formulates. The debate brings us back to the ancient quarrel between the Buddhists and the Vedantists, the latter posits sat, being or existence, while the former considers sat as only an assemblage of asat. The object and its function, the thing-in-itself and its attribute (the fire and its burning power, as the Indian logicians used to cite familiarly as an example) are not to be separated – they are not separated in fact but given together as one unified entity; it is the logical mind that separates them artificially.

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3

That man is not the term of evolution, that intellect is not the supreme expression of human capacity, that this mortal being shall acquire new faculties and powers and become a higher species with a good deal of his present limitations removed are some of the views regarding human destiny held today. At one end are religious and devout people or those who follow a faith and spiritual discipline and at the other end are hard-headed scientific people who go by the evidence of downright facts and figures. There are a considerable number among both the groups and also among all the gradations lying in-between who subscribe, although in various ways, to this television we speak of. Catholics who believe in the coming of the Messiah and physicists who believe in re-creation of Matter and Energy, not merely its disintegration, have been equally enthusiastic in upholding this New Faith. There is Berdyaev who is a Christian, there is Gerald Heard who is called a Neo­Brahmin and there is Lecomte du Noüy, the eminent French biophysicist.

We see the movement accepted and advanced (if not even initiated) more in the West than in the East. That the world is a progressive and progressing phenomenon comes easily and naturally to the European mind. The East has been habituated to a static view of things: if there is dynamism, it is mostly considered as a movement in a circle. The spiritual East with its obsessing experience of the Infinite and Eternal and Permanent, the Transcendent, found it unnecessary to attach that importance to the impermanent and finite which would give it a meaning and purpose and direction. Therefore we see in India those who advocate this new view are considered Europeanised and not following the authentic spiritual tradition of India.

We, of course, are not of the opinion that all possible revelations in the spiritual sphere have been made and done with even in India or that there cannot be fresh valuations of the old revelations or their applications in a new way. We believe in the words of the ancient Rishis who declared that dawns come endlessly in succession, today's dawn follows the path trod by the ancient ones and is the first of the eternal series to

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come in the future. Each dawn brings in a new and fresh revelation, a hope and vision looking into the future although linked in with the experiences of the infinite past.

That is why, while we give our support to this new effort of Europe, we agree and even insist that the hoary spiritual tradition of India has still something to teach us moderns, some light to give us in our present predicament. For, although, the ideal is generally admitted in many places, the way to it is not clear. Since Nietzsche spoke of the surpassing of man, many are taken up with the ideal, but the means to effect it remains yet to be discovered: it is still under discussion, at least. As a matter of fact, the goal itself is none too clear and definite: sometimes we think of a saintly transformation of

human nature, sometimes the growing power of Intuition, very vaguely and variously defined, replacing or supplementing intellect and thus adding a new asset to man's life and consciousness.

The crucial problem however lies, in a sense, in the way that the goal is to be reached, in the modus operandi. How is the higher status, whatever it is, to be brought down, made effective, be established here on earth and in life. Ideals there have been always and many; evidently we do not know how to go about the business and actualise what is thought and dreamed. About the new ideal too, suggestions have been made with regard to the path to be followed to reach it and are being tried and tested. Some say a life of inner or ethical discipline, conscious effort on the part of each Individual for his own sake is needed: the higher reality must be reached first by a few individuals, it cannot be attained by 'mass action. Others declare that personal effort will not lead very far; if there is to be a great or fundamental change in human nature, it is the Divine Grace alone that can bring it about. The surpassing of man is a miracle and only the supreme magician as an Avatara can do it. Others, again, are not prone to believe in a physical Incarnation – somewhat difficult usually for a European mind – but would accept subtler forces or even superior beings, other than the human category, as aids and agents in the working out of the great future.

It 'is India's great achievement and speciality that she has found the way – the way to all truly high fulfilment. It is Yoga

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and the Yogic consciousness. Yoga is the science and art of discovering the higher truths, indeed, the highest reality and of living there, not a midway moral elevation only. In its integral view it combines all the three processes mentioned above. The Yogic consciousness seeks to lift the consciousness as high as possible, in fact, to the very highest – it literally means union or identity (with the highest Reality, Spirit or God). Thus it has the true perception or vision of the forces that act in and upon the world and the powers that decide and is in union with them. The Yogic consciousness and power is also embodied in the Divine Incarnation – for he is Yogeshwara: and in India it is accepted as a commonplace that God descends in a human shape, whenever there is a great crisis and man needs salvaging and salvation. God comes then with all his angels, with the divine host to battle for him and with him to establish the Dharma.

Sri Aurobindo's stand in this field is very definite and clear. The goal or end is clear, and with it the way too. What he envisages is the transformation of Matter and material life, that is to say, neither rejecting it as an impossible thing nor trying to gloss it over with a coat of mental luminosity, but delving into it and cleaning and purifying it, removing its mire and dross wholly and absolutely so that its true divine nature comes out and remains as Nature's highest and fullest expression on earth. That is the goal: the way_too is not less characteristic. The total spiritual transformation, the divinisation of Matter is possible, not only possible but inevitable, because it is :Matter that wants it, because Matter in its essence, in its true reality is spiritual energy, is the Spirit itself. That is the great secret Sri Aurobindo has brought to light. The ideals in the past for the reclamation of human nature and reformation of human society were tackled with mental and moral powers which were not adequate to the task. Even when the spiritual power was invoked, it was of the static category which is above, aloof, witness and can have at best a kindly look and influence. That the spirit dynamic is involved in Matter and as Matter is a truth that has to be discovered.

The supreme creative power of the Spirit – Truth-Consciousness – Sri Aurobindo calls the Superrnind. This power is not only up there above, but it is here below and within

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Matter. It is a power of Matter itself, its most secret power. Truth-Consciousness or Supermind congealed, solidified or crystallised under certain conditions becomes Matter: now to re-become its own true self and nature is the very drive of Matter, that is the true sense of evolution. The very nature of Matter makes its transformation absolutely inevitable. It obeys no alien force or rule, its achievement means self-fulfilment and therefore it is something destined and, when done, permanent and perfect.

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