The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10

II

Beyond Vedanta

The first step in the spiritual life is the Vedantic experience that the world is an illusion, an absolute illusion. Rather it is the Buddhist experience of nihil, nothingness, extinc­tion that is the first step, the very basic realisation of all spiritual life. It is not the summit—the nec plus ultra, beyond which there is nothing—but it is the very foundation, the absolute minimum of spirituality—sine qua non, without which it is not. The one experience with which you start your spiritual journey is the total negation of whatever exists, reducing existence to zero: world-existence being equated with Ignorance. Life is a false­hood, one has to reject it outright. The next step in Vedanta would be, when you have eliminated everything, reduced all to zero, to contemplate, to find what remains, the irreducible reality—the unity, the One, Sat, Brahman.

First, then, the total "and absolute dissolution of this creation of ignorance, the Creation which is ignorance, and attaining a status of nothingness, absolute annihilation, then in that blank void emerges the Residue, the One True Reality—a silent, infinite eternal immobility, a pure Existence. In the beginning the Non-Existence (Asat), then there arises the Pure Existence (Sat). That pure Existence is gradually found to possess or be Delight also. As Being is not the being in creation even so the Consciousness

Page 8

is not the normal or mental consciousness, and Delight too is not the joy of life; they are all of quite another quality and category.

In other words Purusha is given the exclusive reality, while Prakriti is negated, being identified with unconsciousness and ignorance, is relegated to a status of relative reality. Prakriti is considered as māyā, the illusory con-sciousness, the ignorance. Purusha is the Brahman, the Conscious Being, the One Absolute Pure Reality.

The Tantra comes next in the scale. Tantra does not consider Prakriti as absolutely separate from Purusha and opposite in character. Prakriti is not unconsciousness (Achit); it is instinct with consciousness. Indeed Prakriti as conceived by Sankhya or Mayavada is only a lower formulation, an inferior aspect of the higher Prakriti which is one with the higher Purusha, Purushottama. Tantra worships the higher Prakriti as Parashakti, the Divine Mother, who holds in herself the supreme Purusha. The world is created and exists not by the power of Maya but by the formative power of the Mother, which was the original meaning of the word 'maya', the Divine Maya. The Divine Mother creates the world and maintains the world in the Delight of her Conscious Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee), she is the Power of Delight (Hladini Shakti).

The Whole bifurcation between Tantra and Vedanta hinges upon one point. The Vedanta overlooked one term of the Truth and missed thereby a whole world of experience and reality. The central term of Vedanta is taken

Page 9

as Consciousness, Consciousness pure and simple. It omitted the fact that Consciousness is also Energy. That Chit is Tapas is the central principle in Tantra. The exclusive stress on Chit, Pure Consciousness, led to the realisation of the Pure Purusha as mere Witness, Observer, a passive consciousness. Subsequently it was also added that the Purusha is not merely a Witness, (sākṣī), but the Upholder (bhartā), even Enjoyer (bhoktā) of the world and creation; finally it was added also that the Purusha may be a creator also (kartā), but all this is somewhat outside the pale of orthodox Vedanta, Mayavada. Tantra equated Consciousness with Energy; for it Conscious Energy or Consciousness-Energy is the indivisible Mother-Reality.

The Vedanta ends in Ananda, it is a static unitary Ananda. The Tantra posits a dynamic Ananda, a dual Ananda between Ishwara and Ishwari, Shiva and Shakti. The Vaishnava takes a further step and transmutes Ananda into Love, a terrestrial humanised love.

An earlier form of this humanised love was given in Buddha's Compassion. The transcendent Delight (Ananda) was made terrestrial and human in Buddha. But Buddha's compassion was a universal feeling and had no personal frame as it were. Vaishnavism gave it a personal frame and a human form. Radha and Krishna are not figures of an allegory but concrete realities. Vrindavan is not merely the land of heart's desire, a garden of paradise but real habitation in a real and concrete consciousness and life. The human frame assumed by Radha and Krishna is not merely an assumption, an illusion but an etersal

Page 10

reality in an eternal domain. The gradation of the spiritual domains is thus sometimes given as (I) Brahma-loka of the Vedantin, (2) Shivaloka of the Tantrik and finally (3) Goloka of the Vaishnava.

The relation between the Supreme (over and above the creation) and the individual in the creation representing the creation is sometimes described in human terms to give it a concrete and graphic form. This relationship characteristically indicates the fundamental nature of the Reality it deals with. Thus in the Vedantic tradition the Supreme is worshipped as the Father (pitā no asi). It is also a relation of Master and disciple, the leader and the led. It brings out into prominence the Purusha aspect of the Reality. In the Tantra the relation is as between Mother and child. The supreme Reality is the Divine Mother holding the universe in her arms. The individual worships and adores the Supreme Prakriti as a human child does. The Vaishnava makes the relation as between the lover and the beloved, and the love depicted is in­tensely vital and even physical, as intense and poignant as the ordinary ignorant human passion. It is to show that the Love Divine can beat the human love on its own ground, that is to say, it can be or it is as passionately sweet and as intensely intimate as any human love. It is why Bhakta Prahlad said to his beloved Vishnu "O Lord, What ordinary men feel and enjoy in and through their physical senses, may I have the same enjoyment in and through Thee."

Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete reality is a manifestation

Page 11

in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical consciousness.

Therefore one more step has to be taken when the Divine Love will incarnate in its integral and absolute reality upon this physical earth in a concretely material frame.

Page 12