The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3

Some Conceptions and Misconceptions

(1)

A question is asked, where, in what stage or level of Involution does the principle of exculsive concentration (the principle of Ignorance) come in? If, as Sri Aurobindo says, it comes subsequently at a later stage, where was it then before? was it not in the Absolute Reality itself ? There can be nothing that is not inherent in the Absolute Reality. We all know, nothing comes out of nothing. Then, if it is in the original Reality already, why should it come out at a later stage and not be active from the very beginning? This standpoint seems to have been anticipated by some schools (Visishtadwaita Vedanta, for example) who describe in consequence the Reality (Brahman) as consisting, when viewed as a totality, of both Knowledge and Ignorance—Chit-Achif, the Ignorance is a sort of peripheral reality not

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rouching or affecting the Knowledge, but connected with or depending upon the nuclear reality, something like the physical body coexisting with and depending on the soul or self. One can also remember in this connection the Purusha-Prakriti relation in Sankhya. Such a standpoint, I suppose, is the precursor or philosophical background of what is well-known as the Manichean principle.

Sri Aurobindo's view is different. It is something like this—I am putting the thing as simply as possible, without entering into details or mysteries that merely confuse the brain. The Absolute Reality contains all, nothing can be outside, pain and sin and all; true. But these do not exist as such in the supreme status, they are resolved each into its ultimate and fundamental force of consciousness. When we say all things, whatever they are, exist in the Divine Consciousness, the Absolute, we have an idea that they exist there as they do here as objects or entities: it goes without saying, they do not. Naturally we have to make a distinction between things of Knowledge and things of Ignorance. Although there

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is a gradation between the two—Knowledge rolls or wraps itself gradually into Ignorance and Ignorance unrolls or unfolds itself slowly into Knowledge—still in the Divine Consciousness things of Knowledge alone exist, things of Ignorance cannot be said to exist there on the same title, because, as I have said, the original truths of things alone are there—not their derivations and deformations. One can say indeed that in the supreme Light darkness exists as a possibility; but this is only a figure of speech. Possibility does not mean that it is there like a seed—or even a chromosome rod —to sprout and grow. Possibility really means just a chance of the consciousness acting in a certain way, developing in a particular direction under certain conditions.

Matter exists in the absolute Consciousness, not as Matter but as its fundamental substratum, as that radical mode of being or consciousness which by the devolution of consciousness and the interaction of Knowledge and Ignorance in the end works itself out as Matter. So also with regard to Life and with regard to Mind. If things are to exist in the highest status of

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consciousness, the Divine Consciousness, exactly as they exist now, there would be no point or meaning in creation or manifestation. Manifestation or creation does not mean merely unveiling or unrolling in the sense of unpacking. It means a gradual shift in the stress of consciousness, giving it a particular mode of action.

The unrolling or Involution is the path traced by consciousness in its changing modes of concentration. The principle of concentration is inherent in consciousness. Sri Aurobindo speaks of four modes or degrees of this concentration: (1) the essential, (2) the integral, (3) the total or global and (4) the separative. The first is "a sole in-dwelling or an entire absorption in the essence of its own being"—it is the superconscient Silence, at one end, and the Inconscience, at the other. The second is the total Sachchidananda, the supramental concentration; the third, multiple or totalising overmental awareness; the fourth is the exclusive concentration of Ignorance. All the four, however, form the integral play of one indivisible consciousness.

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Here we come to the very heart of the mystery. As we have put it thus far, the process of Involution would appear as a series of stages in a descending order, a movement along a vertical line, as it were, one stage following another, more or less separate from each other, the lower being ever more ignorant, more separative, more exclusive. But this is not the whole picture. At each lower stage the higher is not merely high above, but also comes down and stands behind or becomes immanent in the the lower. Along with the vertical movement there is also a horizontal movement. In other words, even when we are sunk in the lowest stratum of Ignorance—in the domain of Matter —we have also there all the other strands behind, even the very highest, not merely as a passive or neutral entity, but as dynamic agents, exerting their living pressure to the full.Indeed the Ignorance is not mere Ignorance, but Knowledge itself, the very highest Knowledge, but in a particular mode of activity. What appears ignorant is full of a secret Knowledge-it is just the outer surface, the facet that appears as its opposite because of a

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particular manner of concentration, a total self-abandonment in the object of Knowledge. That Knowledge stands revealed if the mask is put away, that is to say, if we get behind, if we release the exclusiveness of the concentration. This release or getting behind does not mean necessarily the dissolution of the status itself-for it is the pressure from behind, the concentration of the hidden consciousness that creates the status and its troth-forms; with the exclusiveness goes away only the twist, the aberration produced by it. When the consciousness withdraws from its mode and field of exclusive concentration, it need not concentrateagain 'On the withdrawal only, it can be an inclusive concentration also embracing both the status-the frontal and the behind. Both can be held together in one single movement of consciousness possessing the double function 'Of projection and comprehension prajnana and uijnana.

Such a synthetic poise is not a mere theoretical possibility: it is an actuality and is being demonstrated by the fact of evolution. The partial release of the absolutely exclusive concentration

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of consciouness in Matter has given rise to Life which is a double poise: Life plays in and through Matter and has not dissolved Matter. Likewise a further release of concentration has given birth to Mind which still bases itself upon and is woven into Life and Matter. The change-over from unconsciousness to consciousness and from consciousness to super-consciousness is the movement of consciousness from a unilateral towards an ever widening multiple poise and functioning of concentration.

The exclusive concentration was the logical and inevitable final term of a movement of separativity and exteriorisation. It had its necessity and utility. Its special function was utilised by Nature for precision and perfection in details of execution in the most material order of reality. Indeed, what can be more exact and accurate than the laws of physics, the mathematical laws that govern the movements of the material particles? Furthermore, if we look at the scientist himself, do we not find in him an apt image of the same phenomenon? A scientist means a specialist—the more

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specialised and restricted his view, the surer he is likely to be in his particular domain. And specialised knowledge means a withdrawal from other fields and viewpoints of knowledge, an ignorance of them. Likewise, a workman who moulds the head of a pin is all concentrated upon that single point of existence—he forgets the whole world and himself in that act whose perfect execution seems to depend upon the measure of his self-oblivion. But evidently this is not bound to be so. A one-pointed self-absorption—that is Ignorance— is certainly an effective way of dealing with material objects—things of Ignorance; but it is not the only way. It is a way or mechanism adopted by Nature in a certain status under certain conditions. One need not always forget oneself in the act in order to do the act perfectly. An unconscious instinctive act is not always best done—it can be done best consciously, intuitively. A wider knowledge, a greater acquaintance with objects and facts and truths of other domains too is being more and more insisted upon as a surer basis of specialisation. The pinpointed (one might

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almost say geometrically pointed) consciousness in Matter that resolves itself into unconsciousness acts perfectly but blindly; the vast consciousness also acts there with absolute perfection but consciously—conscious to the highest degree. As we have said, super-consciousness does not confine itself to the supreme status alone, to the domain of pure infinity, but it comes down and embraces the most inferior status too, the status of the finite. Precisely because it is infinity, it is not bound to its infinity but can express its infinity in and through infinite limits.

(2)

The principle of "exclusive concentration" does not by itself really create the "objects" of the material world; it creates the perception —the illusory perception—of separativeness, that objects are more or less closed systems, distinct and isolated from one another. The sense of limitation—and hence actual limitation, not however real or essential limitation —comes out of the exclusive concentration.

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This does not mean that the limitation or discreteness of objects is merely psychological (mental), not ontological, as one may say. In Sri Aurobindo's outlook the distinction between psychological and ontological is not trenchant and absolute. For, "psychological", according to him, does not mean merely "mental" but also "relating to consciousness"; and although mind does not create material objects, consciousness may do so—indeed it is the force of the original consciousness, which is the force of being, that has created the physical plane of multiplicity. This creative power is the self-projecting energy of consciousness—prajnana. It is, in other words, the force of individuation inherent in the play of consciousness. Now, as I have already said, at a certain stage, under certain conditions, through a gradation of stages, this force of individuation originally and intrinsically existing and working in and through unity and integration, is possessed or veiled by or "devolves" into a force of limitation, meaning separateness and exclusion. What would otherwise be an ensemble, an organism of individualities held

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together and moving as various forms or lines of force of one and the same reality, is now broken up and becomes a conglomeration of isolated entities. Unity is transformed into multiplicity, solidarity is lost in plurality.

We can, however, make a distinction between "limitation" and "delimitation" or individuation. Limitation is a movement of Ignorance: it is the result of exclusive concentration. It creates separateness, forgets the unity. Delimitation, on the contrary, is a movement of knowledge, of pure consciousness dynamic. It creates diversity, multiplicity maintained in unity.

It is to be added that the limitation in Ignorance is after all apparent; that does not mean it is unreal or illusory, in the sense of Mayavada. Here is the distinction: Mayavada holds all formation as maya,

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itself but under certain conditions. Again, Mayavada speaks of the Brahman, the Absolute or Transcendent as the sole and true reality: it is the Stable, the Unmoving, the utter Unity cancelling, negating all movement and multiplicity. Sri Aurobindo views the highest reality as dynamic also, permeating the multiplicity and becoming the multiplicity, becoming or existing as the multiplicity in a movement of Knowledge, becoming and appearing also at first in a movement and mood of Ignorance as the material multiplicity but gradually transmuting this ignorant multiplicity into a movement and embodiment of Knowledge. For the Knowledge was always there in and behind the Ignorance, secretly informing and guiding, moulding and transforming it.

Thus, for example, we would not say pain is an illusion, because Ananda is the root of all and is the All. We say pain is also a reality: it is a temporary and localised form of Ananda, Ananda muted and deformed, under certain stresses and conditions. Ananda is there always, but not away and aloof from pain; it is not the opposite or the negation of pain. Nor is

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pain a superimposition, as something foreign, upon Ananda, so that when it passes away, like a cloud, Ananda appears automatically in its full glory. We consider pain as a formation of Ananda, it is the first result of an effort of consciousness to hold Ananda in and through a form, but it need not and cannot be the last consummation.

In fact, the Mayavadin ascribes true reality (paramarthika) to the transcendental alone; even when that reality is spoken of as within and behind—and not merely beyond—the world and the individual, he takes it to mean as something away and aloof from the appearances, unmixed and untouched by these, and hence practically transcendent. Sri Aurobindo gives full and independent value to each of these triple states which, united and fused together, form the true and total reality. The transcendent reality is also immanent in the cosmos as the World-Power and the World-Consciousness and the Creative Delight: it is also resident in the individual as the individual godhead—antaryamin—the conscious Energy that informs, inspires, drives

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and directs all local formations towards a divine fulfilment in time and in this physical domain. In this view nothing is illusory—even though some may be temporary—they are all contributory to the Divine End and take their place there in a transfigured form and rhythm. We are here far from being such stuffs as dreams are made of.

One must not forget, however, that the principle of exclusive concentration cannot be isolated from the total action of consciousness and viewed as functioning by itself at any time. We isolated it for logical comprehension. In actuality it is integrated with the whole nisus of consciousness and operates in conjunction with and as part of the total drive. That total drive at one point results in the multiple realities of Matter. When the element of limitation in the physical plane is ascribed to the exclusiveness of a stress in consciousness, it should not be forgotten that the act is, as it were, a "joint and several responsibility" of the whole consciousness in its multiple functioning. And the reverse movement is also likewise a global act: there too the force that

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withdraws, ascends or eliminates cannot be isolated from the other force that reaffirms, re-establishes, reintegrates,—the principle of exclusiveness (like that of pain) is not proved to be illusory and non-existent, but reappears in its own essential nature as a principle of centering or canalisation of consciousness.

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