Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

Appendix

THE ORIGIN OF THE IGNORANCE

It is rather difficult to make up one's mind to speak on a subject that has taken the philosophers of the world life-long efforts to arrive at what might be called even a working solution of the problem, the origin of the Ignorance. It would be daring and presumptuous to think that within a short span of time we could solve ultimately and finally the problem which has baffled great philosophers. I will try to make out some points along the lines not merely of metaphysics, but along the line of spiritual experience which gave Sri Aurobindo solutions for all the problems of life which beset humanity today. It is not that there is no metaphysical justificaion for his solution. What I mean to stress is that it is based on something more than mere metaphysics.

Sri Aurobindo's contribution to the world of Thought and Philosophy now is not new. It was the late Sir Francis Young-husband who said that it is the greatest contribution to contemporary philosophy after that of Henry Bergson. His master-piece, The Life Divine, was highly prized by Romain Rolland. In what consists the speciality of the contribution ? Apart from his spiritual experience what has he given to the world of philosophy ? There are more than three fundamental problems on which he has thrown light, among them the explanation of the baffling problem of the origin of ignorance is one. This has been called the "Ass's bridge" of philosophers, for many systems have floundered in solving it. It is curious that human mind has tried to give an explanation of this problem while remaining in Ignorance ! It looks so contradictory. And yet it is a feat of which the human intelligence is quite capable. And here I will try to place before you one such feat that, to my mind, surpasses all the feats performed in the realm of philosophy.

An explanation of the origin of the Ignorance on the basis

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of religious belief is very easy. Accept a Satan, an Ahriman, or a Mara as against a God, an Ahurmazda or a Buddha and you have the explanation of the problem, especially if you don't inquire as to who created the Satan and his equals. You can say there is an eternal duality at the basis of this world— a power of Good, beneficent, all-knowing and a power that opposes it, a power of Evil,—a power malevolent. This is an easy explanation if the mind could accept it and rest content. Thus, on the basis of what is called dogma, Ignorance is the result of an eternal duality. One can even maintain that this duality is going to remain perpetual in this world.

It is also possible to explain the existence of Ignorance on the basis of dualistic philosophy. If you admit the existence of an Infinite Reality at the basis of this universe and then try to see how Ignorance could have originated from it then you find yourself face to face against a kind of dualism which you have to explain. In that case you say : "The Absolute is there, but Ignorance is not in that Reality." That is to say, Ignorance is "here" in this world, in life. Somehow or other a principle opposed to the nature of the self-existent Reality,—all-conscious and all-delight,—has succeeded in inflicting itself upon that Reality. This is "indescribable"— "Anirvachaniya",—it is something that should not have happened but has happened. But whether one experiences the infinite Reality or not in life one is bound to experience Ignorance, Ignorance is inescapable. In fact, the experience of Ignorance is itself a sign of awakening to knowledge. What the monistic explanation,—though in fact it is dualism,—wants to say is that there is no Ignorance or no place for Ignorance in the ultimate Reality. Ignorance is operating in the human consciousness. It is man who feels the infliction of Ignorance on himself and the worst of it is that he cannot manage to make himself at home with this Ignorance ! That is man's trouble.

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In spite of all the explanations, rational and convincing to one part of his being, something in the very structure of man refuses to accept this eternal duality and the perpetual infliction of Ignorance on himself as the last word of wisdom. Something from his depth says : "I am capable of knowledge." In man's very constitution there is something that says : "this Ignorance is not native to me, it is not a part of my true being".

Monism posits an absolute, infinite Being as the only Reality in which this phenomenon of Ignorance is not given any place—that is, any real existence. It amounts to saying that the experience of Ignorance is unreal. But the question remains : who, then, experiences this Ignorance ? Philosophies based on so-called absolute monism assert that this experience is due to the mind;—but mind has no place in the ultimate Reality, in the Absolute. Mind, according to them, is a derivative phenomenon which has come into existence due to the imposition of Maya, the Power of illusion, on the Absolute. So, if you get rid of your mind you can get rid of Ignorance. It is like proposing to a patient that he has to get rid of a limb by amputation in order to cure his malady : cut off the troubled limb—there will be no trouble afterwards. It may be the shortest cut, but I do not know if that is the only and the best way of cure. After all there may be some utility and fulfilment of the limb intended by Nature or God. This solution based on monism has been accepted by a portion of humanity and is even followed by it. And it must be admitted that there is some truth in that outlook, however exaggerated. An infinite, omnipresent Reality is at the basis of this universe and in that Reality Ignorance does not find a place as it finds in man's consciousness : it does not exist in it as it does in man.

Sri Aurobindo starts his whole philosophy with only one

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assumption : that an Omnipresent Reality is at the basis of this universe. There are two main outlooks, one based on acceptance of Matter and another on that of Spirit. Sri Aurobindo takes up the materialistic basis and shows how it is unable to satisfy the demands of our reason. On the basis of an Omnipresent Reality it is possible to explain the phenomenon of Ignorance, though at first sight it looks an impossible task; for, how can an all-knowing, infinite Being, an all-pervading conscious Reality,—Something that in its very constitution is incapable of Ignorance, inflict upon itself an Ignorance with all the consequences of falsehood, suffering, evil etc. ? Our religious sense is outraged at the thought that a God all-merciful, all-knowing—if you call that Omnipresent Reality, God—has created a creature called man and inflicted Ignorance upon him; but that is not true. According to this view, God has managed to become ignorant: He has submitted Himself to a process which we know as Ignorance. And now the same Divinity—in man—feels a very galling sense of imperfection due to Ignorance. It is surprising how man has not been able to feel himself at home with his Ignorance in spite of so many years of its experience. But even granting that an Omnipresent Reality is the source of this universe the question does remain : how did this Reality succeed in creating this self-division and become ignorant, subject to sorrow and pain, give rise to evil within itself ?

It is difficult to explain; but let us not be baffled and let us not despair in face of this difficulty. The Master can help us out. Let us first of all reduce the problem to its proper proportions.

Some philosophers have tried to make out as if Ignorance was an all-pervading element, as if there was nothing in the world outside the field of its operation. This view appears true at first sight; but it is not quite true. It may be

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true so far as humanity is concerned. But in considering this problem we are not to be limited to humanity. We have to think in terms of the whole universe, because Ignorance is a phenomenon that happens in the universe. We have already seen that Ignorance cannot be in the Absolute, in the essential Reality above. If there is an Omnipresent Reality, it cannot be ignorant of itself, unconscious of itself, it cannot cease to know itself. It may be that in the action of its conscious Force, perhaps in its dynamic movement, it has managed to manipulate an operation which has created, in the flow of Time, what we feel as Ignorance.

But now let us see how this Ignorance operates in the universe we know. Imagine the whole cosmos stretched on a vast canvas moving from the Inconscient to Mind in humanity, and let us go back to the beginning,—to the Inconscient. Do we see Ignorance there ? No, we see neither Ignorance nor Knowledge. The first organised element to come out of this Inconscient is Matter. Do we find Ignorance in Matter ? No, because, to our sense and mind Matter is inert, it is neither conscient nor inconscient. It is, perhaps, negation of both Ignorance and Knowledge. It is like the absence of morality in the animal consciousness which is called amoral. So, the vast stretch of material universe is not subject to the operation of Ignorance, it has no experience or active sense of Ignorance.

Next in the vegetable kingdom and the insect-world we find the working of an Instinct which guides the action of the organism towards self-preservation, self-protection, towards pleasure and away from pain. In the vegetable kingdom there is spontaneous action of something that can be called nervous life-energy. But it does not feel its state as Ignorance, though perhaps to man's view it may appear to be very ignoranct. But we find that in many respects its instinctive reactions are far more unerring and wider

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than those of reason in man. So far as the action of life-instinct is concerned the animal is far more correct than man who acts by outer sense and reason: when it seeks safety or food or pleasure it is almost always unerring in its actions. But when man seeks his food we know what a mess he makes and how he finds tremendous difficulties in reaching his end! The ant seeking to make her home automatically selects a place which is on a higher level than the surroundings and where water does not accumulate. The mother-bird knows when and where to build her nest. In these instances we see such an effective operation of spontaneous knowledge—which we term instinct—that there seems no place for the feeling of Ignorance. So far as the animal kingdom is concerned there is no active Ignorance. On the contrary the organism seems equipped with sufficient and effective knowledge for the purpose of life and its needs.

So, the omnipresent Reality has left out the vegetable and the animal kingdom and has inflicted Ignorance upon itself in the human being. Even there if we take the whole span of human history and the evolution of man in it we find that man has been an ignorant being and has been conscious of it, yet sometimes an individual appears and declares: "I am not ignorant, I have attained knowledge". And people —large sections of humanity—have accepted this affirmation. Those who declared their liberation from Ignorance also promised a similar liberation to those who would follow them and adopt their methods of attaining knowledge. It was thus that in an Upanishad some one declared Veddhām etam puruṣam mahāntam, ādityavarṇam, tamasaḥ parastāt— "I have known that great Being, effulgent with the solar light (who shines), from beyond the Darkness." Or, when some great incarnation says : "I and my father are one" humanity accepts the assertion. It is then seen that a humaan being —human in the sense of having a body, life, and mind

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can exist, from whom the veil of Ignorance is lifted. In one Upanishad mankind is addressed thus: "Listen to me all children of Immortality." Man is not called there the degraded mortal. Thus, even among men there are some who have reached the golden Light of the Truth and crossed the dark ocean of Ignorance; they even promise to lead us to the Light. Religions assert that it is the destiny of man to attain the Light. There are thus all over the world individuals who claim to have gone beyond Ignorance, and there are collectivities that have tried and are trying to go beyond Ignorance. That gives us some hope of finding an explanation of its origin.

But that is from the side of the human being. We have started with the assumption that an Omnipresent Reality is the basis of this universe. In that case the question arises: why does the Divine Reality create Ignorance within itself? The process, the Cause, the purpose require an explanation, because to our mind the fact of the Divine losing its all-knowldge, consciousness and delight seems, if not absurd and impossible, at least most irrational. Why should the Divine who is perfect become something imperfect, who is All become partial and limited? It has now got imprisoned in the body and thinks it is the body, it becomes fired by desires and believes that desires are itself, it identifies itself with thought and becomes limited to a mental formula. How has the Divine managed to create this apparent impossibility?

It is true that one of the definitions of Omnipotence is the power to do something which to our mind seems, or is, impossible. So one can say that the Omnipotence of the Divine alone could have successfully created this great miracle of Ignorance.

But our mind will not accept such an answer, for, it seeks conviction; to the mind the fact of the Divine becoming

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Mr. So and so, or, a helpless child seems quite illogical. So let us see the problem from another angle.

Let us find out if man is really ignorant and if so how far. Leave aside exceptions like Lord Buddha and Jesus Christ, Sri Krishna or Sri Aurobindo. The average human being does feel his Ignorance and generally when we think of man's Ignorance our attention is mainly directed to his waking condition, to his apparent being. But, is man really the waking consciousness only ? Is he only that which apepars to us from outside,—the surface consiousness ? Modern psychology will tell you that man's waking consciousness is only a fraction of his subconscious being. In fact, what man does on the surface-consciousness is very often the result of the action of the subconscient, or even of the environmental consciousness. There is available to man even a subliminal consciousness in which the incidence of his Ignorance is considerably reduced.

Take, for instance, the sense organisation. Ordinarily the range of our senses is extremely limited and poor. The eye cannot see beyond a certain range, it has to be helped by devices like the microscope or the telescope. But the limitation of the sense is not final, its range can be considerably increased. A man in hypnosis can see much farther than the eye ever can. The power of communicating thought which is unconscious in most men can become a conscious faculty. Clairvoyance, telepathy etc. are today recognised phenomena. After Sir William Crooks, the founder of the psychic Research Society, London, it is difficult to call these phenomena superstition. In fact, we should be glad to welcome the almost unlimited field of experience opened out by these occult sciences. The subliminal part of man's being is not so ignorant as his surface Consciousness; it has a vast store of knowledge which can be available to man.

So the human being has not only the surface consciousness —body

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and senses, desires and ideas but he also has a subconscient and a subliminal part which are vast and almost universal. Sri Aurobindo, on the basis of his own experience and the spiritual tradition of India, would add the Super-conscient. This Superconscient is at present a potentiality in man. Man can rise from his mind to Intuition, to Inspiration. Man is not eternaly confined to his present consciousness. Man finds that his ignorance is most intense in his waking condition, and even there he is acting on a selection from the subconscient or the environmental consciousness. Subtle levels of consciousness, vast ranges of knowledge and action are available to man. So, Ignorance is not like a dark sheet completely shutting out all Light, it is rather like a hazy light,—it is partial knowledge. In fact, this Ignorance holds within itself the possibility of a wider consciousness and knowledge for man. Man can train himself and increase the range of his being, he can communicate at a distance, he can influence persons and events at a distance, he can cure diseases by will. These things are being done everyday in life. Emile Coué, a French doctor, used to cure hundreds of patients by auto-suggestion.

It could still be maintained that in spite of all these ranges of consciousness available to man, he is ignorant because he does not know himself. After all self-knowledge is the true knowledge. The feeling of being ignorant is due to the lack of self-knowledge. Man does not experience his unity with the Omnipresent Reality, and he finds that he is subject to time,—past, present and future—he lives from moment to moment,—he does not live in Eternity, does not feel that he has been for ever and for ever. On the contrary, he feels he is subject to death. This is his fundamental ignorance; add to it his ignorance about other men and the world around him and you find that the question : how did the Omnipresent Reality become all this remains to be answered.

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Let us imagine this Omnipresent Reality at the start and see how Ignorance could have resulted from it. We have already seen that active or operative Ignorance is found only in the human being and there is a stage in the progress of the Human being at which man seems to go out of darkness, of Ignorance and live and act in the Light. So, it seems that Ignorance is like a mass of dark clouds covering a certain belt of evolutionary movement of universal Energy. This universal Energy is moving from the darkness of the Inconscient right up to some self-existent Light, and in between, at a certain stage, it is subjected to the dark belt of Ignorance. Below that line there is no active Ignorance and beyond it Ignorance cannot exist, as it is completely eliminated. So, the divine Reality becomes self-forgetful, becomes even an ego subject to Ignorance only in an intermediate state.

Now, the Divine who is Absolute cannot be a zero or a void; it cannot be without content. There are schools of philosophy that believe that the Absolute cannot have any content, that if it has power, or quality, action or creativity it would cease to be the Absolute. But if the Absolute is subjected to such conditions laid down by the mind then it is no longer Absolute but relative. No definition or dictation from the mind can limit it. Absolute would be true absolute only if it could become all relativities and yet remain Absolute. It cannot be bound down to its unitarian unity. In fact the Absolute must hold within itself infinite potentialities of knowledge, consciousness, delight, energy, substantiality, which can manifest in the course of evolutionary movement in time. These potentialities being those of the Reality must all be charged each with a power of self-realisation. They are not, like mental possibilities, idle dreams or mere abstractions which may or may not actualise themselves. The nature of mental or vital determinations is that they succeed partially in realising themselves in actual life;

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very often they fail entirely. In case of man, knowledge and will are hardly commensurate, most often they are separated by a wide gulf. But in regard to the Reality the power to realise itself is inherent in the self-determination, the power behind each potentiality is the power of the Absolute.

The question may arise; what makes the Absolute accept the multiplicity, this self-division into innumerable parts, and portions ? It is already answered above in the infinite potentialities of the Absolute. It can be said that it is the very nature of the Supreme to manifest himself multitudi-nously, and behind each self-determination the power of entire Absolute stands supporting it. It is like each wave of the ocean determined by the whole and supported by its entire power. It is when the wave feels a separate existence that it becomes small, identified with the little form. But if it could retain the knowledge of its identity with the ocean then every wave could be also surcharged with the consciousness of the totality and in that case every wave-form would be the result of the self-determination of the infinite ocean.

Even admitting the analogy one may find that the process, the "how", remains to be known. How does the Infinite become the infinitesimal, the One, the Alone, become many, the Perfect imperfect ? To understand this "how" we must come back to ourselves, and find something in our own experience which can give us an idea of the process. Otherwise we may have the philosophical explanation but not the conviction. If we take an individual we find that though he appears to us a single person yet there are several personalities in him. He is a son in relation to his father, a brother, a husband, a member of a club, a friend to some one, a scientist or a shopkeeper in his profession. An individual thus is so many persons in one. Now when one personality is working in him all the other personalities seem to be non-existent;—when the scientist is working in his laboratory then it is the scientist in

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him that should absorb all his energies. Then only he can secure the maximum success. Now what happens to the other personalities in him when the scientist is in front ? It seems the other personalities are cut off from him. But this is not true. The total being is supporting the personality that is projected in front of consciousness for a particular effectivity. This limitation of concentration on a particular personality is necessary for effectivity. All the other personalities are put into background, they are not destroyed, they do not become unreal. In fact, they can all be called up to the surface, each according to the need. This selective projection of a personality for a particular purpose secures full efficiency. This exclusive concentration on one personality may render the individual practically "ignorant" of his other personalities,—for the time being at least. It is curious but true that the more exclusive the concentration, i.e. greater the ignorance of other personalities,—the greater is the effectivity.

In the case of this universe, the Omnipresent Reality projects infinite self-determinations in innumerable forms of the cosmos in each of which one aspect, one power, one quality, a necessary, effective variation of the common background, is embodied. The rest of the Omnipresent Reality is kept in the background to support the play of variation. In the embodiment of its self-determination there is an exclusive concentration. Thus a world of infinitely varied forms and relations comes into being. In the lower kingdoms where there is no mind, the form or the organism acts with a knowledge that seems to be self-existent. Only in man, the mental being, an infinite play of possibility of choice being given, human knowledge is subjected to an uncertainty and a wrong choice which makes possible the experience of Ignorance. This Ignorance really proceeds from an exclusive concentration of consciousness in the external being, the ego

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and its nature and an oblivion of the true divine Being, which one really is. When the human being turns from the ego to seek the soul then Ignorance begins to melt.

In the Upanishad the creation of this universe is said to be the result of "Tapas"—of energising or concentration. "Sa tapas taptvā idam sarvam usṛjata". The Supreme energised,—having gathered his consciousness in concentration,—created all this. What it this "Tapas"—this gathering of consciousness ? You can have an idea of it if you know what is "brooding". The bird hatches its egg—but this hatching is really "brooding". It is during this process of brooding that the heat of incubation is generated and the egg gives rise to the bird. That which was held in potentiality in the egg is released in to expression as "bird". This universe is called "Brahmāṇḍa"—"the Egg of the Infinite". It holds within itself all the infimte content of the Divine. It is the brooding concentration of the Supreme that releases the universe into manifestation.

It is when the individual or the organism so created loses contact with the Source that Ignorance comes into play. It is as if an actor playing a part so completely identifies himself with the character that he totally forgets his true self. That is effective ignorance. So long as he remembers bis true self which is all the time behind the actor, he can always go back to it. But if he forgets his true self he would not even think of going back to it. Then he would be really ignorant. Something of the same nature happens to the human being when he gets enclosed in the ego-consciousness. Then he loses contact with his true Self, the Divinity that is within and becomes ignorant.

The Omnipresent Reality has provided avenues of escape from the prison of ego-consciousness, from this Ignorance in man. There is a hidden passage in the heart leading to the holy Presence. That Divine spark is all the time there waiting

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to be sought, to be unveiled. This divine Presence in the heart of man is declared by all the religions and is confirmed by the experience of mystics all over the world. One has to find out the passage which leads to it in the "Cave of the heart", as the Upanishad says. It is thus possible to reach the Light even from and in the midst of the condition of Ignorance.

For what purpose could the Divine have undertaken this perilous adventure,—this loss of self-knowledge, consciousness and perfection? It could only be to bring into existence a world of multiple relationship in which the play of the divine Delight—when it succeeds in its aim—would create here, in the conditions of the Inconscient, a world of Harmony and Light.

An analogy, perhaps, may help us to grasp the idea. Imagine a diamond of infinite dimensions with innumerable facets of geometrical shapes. If we see only one facet we think and believe that the light belongs to it. But, in reality, no facet has any brilliance of its own. Each gets its light from the whole. It is the self-determination of the whole that gives reality to each individual facet. But this, again, does not reduce each facet to unreality. There is a truth behind each self-determination, each facet. So that on each point of its self-expression the total power of the Reality is present. It is this omnipotent power of the Supreme that Sri Aurobindo called "prodigal of her rich divinity", so full of her Divinity that She could afford to be prodigal.

Apart from the Power-aspect, if we could visualise the sea of Beauty—beauty to create which the universal Energy might have taken millions of years,—going to waste every second in this world we would be apalled. Look at the beauty of design and colour and the sweetness of fragrance of a flower which lasts only a few hours, beauty unseen by man, and you will understand Sri Aurobindo's line in Savitri, "Spiritual beauty ...squanders eternity on a beat of Time." The expression of

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eternal Delight is thrown in Time where its eternity seems to us to be squandered. Behind each form of Beauty this Eternity is present. That such beauty and delight from Eternity should play in Time perpetually is the greatest miracle one could conceive, a miracle that is possible only for the divine Omnipotence. It is the acceptance of the limitations of form i.e. of Ignorance—which renders this miracle possible. What greater miracle could there be than this, that in a world based on the Inconscient there should occur not only the phenomena of Life and Mind but that the mental being should aspire for and conceive it possible to attain the Divine and manifest Perfection in life on earth ? This great achievement, the achievement of Divine Perfection out of terms which are the very opposite of any perfection is the wager which the Supreme seems to have taken with Himself when he accepted Ignorance and descended into the Inconscient. It is the Supreme alone who can accomplish that miracle,—to the mind an impossibility, to the Omniscience and Omnipotence a legitimate aim.

The Origin of Ignorance is essentially in the sanction of the Supreme to create, or become, a Universe of multiple self-manifestation. Listen to what the Master says in Savitri:

"The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone

Has called out of the Silence his mute Force

Where she lay in the featureless and formless hush

Guarding from Time by her immobile sleep

The ineffable puissance of his solitude.

The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone

Has entered with his silence into space:

He has fashioned these countless persons of one self;

He lives in all, who lived in his Vast alone".

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"The Absolute, the Perfect, the Immune,

One who is in us as our secret self,

Our mask of imperfection has assumed,

He has made this tenement of flesh his own,

His image in the human measure cast T

hat to his divine measure we may rise;"

"A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme;

His nature we must put on as he put ours;

We are sons of God and must be even as he:

His human portion, we must grow divine."

It is for working this great miracle that the Supreme has accepted Ignorance and limitation in an infinitesimal particle of Matter with a very poor mental consciousness. The whole ocean can thus be manifested in a drop of water—this miracle is performed by the Divine and under the goad of this very Ignorance man is going to achieve its highest marvel : the manysided multiplicity of Ignorance trying to rise to All-Knowledge will one day succeed in transforming Ignorance into Knowledge. Ignorance is the necessary intermediate stage on the way to a Divine Perfection,—it is not a permanent infliction without any significance or justification. To strive for that Divine Perfection should be the natural result of such an understanding of the Origin of the Ignorance.

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