Lecture VII
Chap. 12. Delight of Existence : the Solution
The general considerations of this chapter might be analysed for our understanding as an explanation of the will to live. We will first take up only general considerations before the chapter proper. The will to live has been one of the powers noticed by some philosophers as the cause of continuation of existence. Nietzsche, I think, expressed it first—will to exist or will to live and will to power. Then men like Dr. Schweitzer translate this "will to live" into "will to love." If the "will to conquer", and "will to expand" are transformed by man's sense of cultural values into "will to love," he has then an active philosophy of life which does not necessarily explain the why and wherefore of the cosmos, but supplies a code of conduct, a value of life by which he can live satisfactorily so far as his outer mind is concerned. But is the will to live the first impulse, and is it mere self-preservation ? In this chapter we are trying to see into the cause of the will to live.
Secondly, this chapter brings out the place of pain in the scheme of things. Yesterday, I pointed out how the slightly exaggerated view of the place of pain in the scheme of human life brought about a lopsided view of life and its remedy in Buddhism. In this chapter, we might be able to put pain in its proper place in the economy of the universe; and also the possibility, not of avoiding pain, but if possible, of transforming it. Buddha thought that pain was one of the elements permanently connected with the cosmos, and inseparable from life. This chapter will show us that pain is not anything fixed—it is variable, and also an element that can be transformed and changed. If there is a possibility of transformation and change, then this chapter
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will show us how pain not only has a place in the scheme of universal evolution as a temporary stage imposed upon an evolving consciousness or evolving entity called man, but has a purpose to serve in the sense that it serves as an index to note certain superficial reactions to universal contacts.
And if the organism is capable of bringing out its own inmost Reality, then these reactions are capable of being transformed. Here, the problem of how comes out later, but the possibility of transformation is suggested, as well as diving into the cause of this suffering and pain. There is a probing into the why—why an Infinite Existence, Consciousness and Delight, chose or decided to accept, this channel of suffering and pain which we feel as an undesirable element. That is what this chapter covers.
Infinite Existence-Consciousness and Delight—that is at the basis of all things we see. The Life Divine wants to bring to our notice this idea that the reason for "will to life" is not merely self-preservation but this delight of existence. Delight is the secret of existence. Why preserve life ? Because it is delightful to continue to exist. Delight is not felt because it is natural to the normal consciousness of the organism or man. But if it was not at the base supporting this impulse for self-preservation, mere self-preservation would be meaningless. Delight is the secret of existence or creation. That is why the Upanishad says, "All creatures are born from Delight, they are maintained by Delight, and to Delight they return." Who created this movement of the world out of that Infinite Self-existence, Consciousness and Delight ? It is indivisible, infinite existence, and the world is rolling out from that. By what power was it brought into existence—this cosmos, this world, as we know it ? The word used by the original Veda and by some of the Upanishads subsequently is "Maya", which in later philosophical terminology of the ninth and the tenth
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centuries underwent a radical change in its original meaning. "Maya" is from the root mā—to measure, to formulate, to cut from the original piece (for a purpose). To measure out from the whole something for a definite purpose. Maya is the Power of formulation, power of delimitation, or power of taking out from the original what would be needed for a purpose. Suppose you have a roll of cloth. Now, a roll of cloth is all right as cloth, but if you want to clothe a child, an elderly man, or a soldier, you don't cover him with the whole roll. You take out the piece and say, "Well, so much is for this purpose, so much for another purpose, etc." So, the roll is measured out. Now, this is one sense in which we have to look at the process that must have, or seems to have, taken place. A formative power of the Supreme has created the world which is his measured out cosmos, or measured out Self-expression; therefore, it is not unreal, because it is His own Self that is measured out. There are people who say that in this power of self-formation one can formulate a dream. But when one formulates a dream, the dream is real within oneself. Dream is not false. Dream is a reality of oneself,—one and one's dream are one, there is no separation. It is only when one artificially divides one's mental consciousness from it that one says the dream was unreal. When it is actually being seen by the self then the self and the dream are one. It is a part of the self, in fact, and therefore partakes of the reality of the self. It is therefore real because the self is real. The form and the world, therefore, are eternal complements of this process of self-unrollment of an original Reality. It is a creation of Self-conscious Being out of Its own eternal Truth. The substance of the world, therefore, is real existence. Our mind, when it looks at this creation, can feel that though it can grant an infinite being and consciousness as the origin, the world that comes out of it is so different that it must
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be an illusion of that Infinite Consciousness.
To that Sri Aurobindo replies by saying that this conception of the world as an illusion of the Infinite is not a correct appraisement by our intellect, but is only a shadow of the Infinite seen by our own mental self. Actually, it partakes of the substance of the original Truth and Reality. Even if it is an illusion of Infinite Consciousness, it is only phenomenal, but it is the substance of the Real. It partakes of the nature of the Self,—the nature of the Infinite Reality. Then, if we accept this world as a creation of the Consciousness, it appears to our mind as a movement of Force. Some Force is moving out actively. When this Force moves, it seems to obey some secret will within itself. It is not merely an incon-scient force moving out to a chance, to a chaos, to an un-rhythmic play of its vibrations. It is Force that moves out and seems to be carrying out in its flow, or obeying by working or by actively moving some secret will, some play of original movement in its own Self. Infinite forms, world existence, all this flowing out is an expression of an infinite play of that consciousness, energy, or force. It is also a play of infinite Delight,—it is called 'Lila' or play.
What kind of play ? It is, in one sense, purposeless, that is, without a mental purpose. There is a spontaneity about the play. When we speak of play we imply spontaneity, naturalness; not necessarily a set purpose in which you subject your will to a tension. In play, your whole being is relaxed. Otherwise it is not play. This spontaneity of movement is called play, or 'lila'. It is like a child's play, or the poet's play—in his own creation, or act of play; there is joy in what one is doing. It is eternally young, fresh, and inexhaustible. So, too, the play that is moving out is eternally young and inexhaustible; and creating and recreating of Himself within Himself, for sheer bliss. That is the character of the Lila, where the play, the player, and the playground are all One. They are
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not divided; and this play of existence in relation to the Eternal, infinite Existence-Consciousness-Delight—Sat-chidananda—is called Maya or Prakriti or Lila. It is the power of self-measurement or self-formulation, power of objectivizing Himself; spontaneous play of inexhaustible Delight. All this, to our view of the world, is a mutable movement of force and a constant and yet mutable result. A constant rhythm is there and yet that constant rhythm is constantly changing. So, the constant play of mutable rhythm, eternal delight of Being, moving into infinite and variable delight of Becoming; that is the foundation. Delight of the infinite being flows into, activates itself into, a delight of Becoming, which is our perception of the world. That is the root of creation.
So there is one indivisible conscious Being behind all experiences, supporting them by its inalienable Delight. This support of the Being full of Delight—behind this variable inexhaustible play of multiple variant rhythm of its own Self, is our true Self, the true Self of the human individual. The true Self of the human individual is the one infinite Delight-Self, throwing Itself out, pouring Itself out, into an infinite inexhaustible Delight of Becoming. The mental self that we have is only representative of that self of knowledge in the Supermind. It is only representative for sensational experience in response to multiple contacts of the universe. There are multiple contacts, actions and reactions, so whatever the contacts are, whatever shock of its universe is given to us, the mental representative of that Being of delight is given to us for superficial reactions to it, for a sensational experience of shocks of existence. Essential Delight is of consciousness. Essential delight is not yet become a part of sense experience. Delight is self-existent. The delight is rendered available to the evolving consciousness here in terms of mental consciousness. It is mental consciousness that represents that
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Being of delight here. How does it get that original delight which is cause of being, which is cause of life and cause of its existence? It takes it only through sensation. For having these sensations, a machinery is provided in the form of mental and nervous conciousness. Nervous consciousness and mental consciousness together receive the multiple shocks of the cosmos, and render it in terms of pleasure, pain and neutral indifference. It is true they do not render all sensation in terms of delight. Fundamentaly the object is to give the experience of that self-existent Delight to the Being, which has evolved itself out of the Inconscient. So, the mental consciousness is not decisive so far as the creation is concerned, but only a representative put forward for sensational experience, to respond to the multiple contacts of the universe, to give a response. It is not able to render a perfect response.
This is one way of looking at the problem of why there is pain and suffering. Original Delight, which is infinite and full of variable rhythms creating the cosmos is flowing, and in its flow it gives rise to a mental consciousness which is representative of that true Self, and the contacts of the world are given to it in the form of sensation. Its response to the contact is imperfect. That is why the imperfect response to the original Delight renders itself in triple terms of pleasure, pain, and neutral indifference. What are the consequences of this limited being and limited response of the mental being ? The human being is limited in his mental consciousness, and has a narrow nervous apparatus given to him for reacting to all outer contacts. The first consequence is that though we are the One, indivisible, original Delight-Self, yet the disposition of our sensational experience gives us pleasure, pain, and neutral indifference. Though we are That in our original constitution, this experience in triple terms is there and it is only a superficial arrangement created by that limited part
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of us which is uppermost in our waking consciousness. This triple reaction is created as a superficial necessity and temporary arrangement by the waking consciousness. If you go deep down, it will be found that even the human mental personality has behind it an impersonal ground or plane where it is receiving without any distortion the universal delight that is flowing throughout the creation. It is able to contact that plane behind, and not on the surface consciousness of the waking being. Behind, there must be something much vaster than the human mental consciousness, than the superficial consciousness which we have, and which is capable of contacting impartially the delight universal that is flowing in creation. The delight that is flowing must be available to man somewhere in his depths, somewhere behind the surface consciousness, and it is this contact that supports the superficial being through all the labour, through all the suffering, in the progress of life. This is sometimes how one gets comfort in life.
A man faced with tremendous suffering thinks that the whole universal scheme is cruel, he feels that he is dealt with must unjustly, subjected to suffering and pain out of all proportion to his deserving and so on. Suddenly he goes out and sees somebody else worse off than himself so far as pain and suffering are concerned, and he begins to feel: "Who knows ? Perhaps I am better off than this man." Still further, one finds a stretch of poverty—ignorance in life and suffering—which causes one to ask, if he is sufficiently awakened : "Why is it that the man goes on living ? Why should he live ? Perhaps a foot, or a hand is amputated, so he has to depend for everything on other people. Yet, he doesn't want to die ! Most surprising !" It is that contact with the deeper delight, certainly unknown to him. It is that which supports the superficial being through all the labouring and unpleasant contacts of life. This 'I' that has
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evolved in man is only a trembling ray on the surface, but behind is the vast subconscient and also the vast subliminal and also the superconscient, which receives all the contacts of the universal consciousness, being, and delight. In life we dimly feel the Self calm and joyous, sometimes, and we know that this world is not Its master. Therein, man has gone through a great crisis, and if he can become conscious within himself, when he is alone, he knows that all that has nothing to do with him. This world is not his master. Even in the waking consciousness, this perception can come to the human individual in calmness because within him is the realisation of the Lord. It is the true Being that is in him. This self can smile at nature, and it can live in the delight Self, the ānanda-maya —behind the mental—consciousness, ever blissful. This Self is the truth of self. It is within ourself though not easily available to at present to our surface consciousness.
Now we come to the problem of pain. The first proposition which Sri Aurobindo wants us to consider is that pleasure, pain and neutral indifference have no absoluteness about them. Thre is no point at which you can say: this must be painful. We cannot say certain things must give pleasure. Perhaps not. The scale of reception of sensation of pleasure and pain is a variable scale. It can move from lower to the higher. There is also no compelling necessity for their existence. You cannot say that when your hand is cut you must feel pain; if the hand is rotten, you feel better when it is cut. You would feel that it is all right, it is better that it goes. There are people with reactions like that. Secondly, it is a temporary and superficial arrangement. The scale of pleasure and pain and neutral indifference that is given is only a scale of temporary arrangement, of superficial necessity. It becomes in man a habit only, really speaking, not a permanent and compelling part of his make-up. As it is only a habit, it can be changed. One can return the response of pleasure to what
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now brings pain, or pain to what now brings pleasure. One can even train oneself to give out the reaction of delight to all contacts. It is all a question of training. If you try to follow this process of the possibility of changing the scale of pleasure and pain, you will observe that in the mind it is pretty easy to attain this status or this poise. You can always separate the mind from what is pleasure and pain, and either change the values or react with only the reaction of delight in the mind. The mind is elastic.
The difficulty comes only in the body and the nervous system. There is an obstinate persistence in the original reading or value of the sensations which it receives. But in the mind the conversion of pleasure and pain becomes not at all difficult because the mind is elastic. The body and nervous system are more difficult because they are governed by external nature and external contacts. Yet even in the body and the nervous system one can see that the scale of pleasure and pain can be changed, if not by the man himself, by hypnotism. If a man under hypnosis is given sugar and told that it is bitter, he will throw it out. There are many examples. So this reaction of the body and nerves can be thoroughly altered on the body level. Then the body and nerves react on a completely changed scale. The problem we are considering is : how far is the present reaction compelling and how far it is possible to change it. We say that in the body the reaction to suffering is a scale that can be completely changed. There can be no suffering in going through actions which normally are very hard to bear.
Secondly, the place of this pain in the scheme of nature is also to be observed. We have to see that this pain is not without its utility, especially on the nervous level. Pain is a warning of nature that the contact is dangerous, that there is something to be guarded against. Pain is nature's device for attaining conventional ends, and one of the ends
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is to give warning of danger, or possible disaster, to the organism. This temporary experience is meant to help the evolution of this 'I' to a further stage. This 'I' is to be trained to return other responses to outside contacts. Pain is one way to begin it. It can learn to react to pain quite differently than it is accustomed to. The first training is to recoil from danger and harmful contacts, and warning to avoid danger. Pain is not present in the inconscience of matter. Gerald Heard has written a book called, "Pain, Sex and Time". He wants to prove, roughly, that pain, sex and time, give you the three levels of rise of the organism in the process of evolution. With pain, the evolution of the living organism or vital being begins and in sex it reaches a certain animal level, so to say, and in 'time' it comes to mental consciousness. This is just mentioned to show that in living organism, in matter, there is no experience of pain. There may be vibrations only—call it positive and negative, if you like—but there is no cognizing subjective sense to feel pain, pleasure, or indifference. Pain begins with life in matter and grows with the mental consciousness in matter. When the mind is free and unegoistic, then probably pain also would become much less. When the mind becomes less egoistic and less attached to the personal, then perhaps pain also would become less in its incidence on the consciousness. Elimination of pain, therefore, seems possible because there are currents of the Delight of existence coining to us as pleasure, pain, and neutral indifference. Therefore the conversion must be possible. A transformation of pain into that original Delight should be possible, theoretically and metaphysically.
What, then, is the cause of this wrong reception of the Delight ? Why is the Delight received as pleasure, pain and indifference ? The cause, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the psychological division from the Original Consciousness, the self-division is the cause, or acceptance of running into
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limited egoistic consciousness. Then, instead of receiving the universal contact, one reduces oneself to a small being and reduces the universal to individual contact. The universal contact coming through the individual machinery of the small individual channel, completely changes its character from delight into pleasure, pain, and indifference. Instead of trying to contact, or having a universal reception to contacts of the world, one reacts from the point of division, and with an egoistic view,—piecemeal. With a universal reception to all contacts of the world there is attached the universal delight, the sap, as they call it, the "rasa", in Indian terminology. Through all universal movements the universal delight is flowing all the time. It is possible to taste the sap that all things have. The Upanishad says in one of its great epigrammatic utterancs "He, the Supreme, is Rasa, the essence of delight". The ultimate truth of the Supreme is the essentiality of delight.
We don't receive it because we look to the manner in which it flows, and not to the essence. We look at the outer form of it, as it affects us, how it affects our desires, how it affects ours cravings. That is why it is deformed. This universal delight is deformed because in the reception there is a looking to the egoistic centre and how it affects it —to the manner and not to the essence. This creates in the human being an inability to seize this essence, this taste of universal delight.
We say that the universal delight is flowing. How do we know ? Is there any proof ? There is plenty of proof, though The Life Divine is not the place for providing it; but apart from it, there is plenty of proof that there is such a flow of universal delight; only man is not able to cognize, or seize, or experience it. It is in rare moments when the mind becomes disinterested, heart also becomes pure or disinterested, and it can put its detachment on the nervous system,
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then it can feel this delight, and also eliminate pleasure, pain and indifference, and gradually become free from this triple reaction. We go nearest to this in the appreciation of all arts; for example, poetry and drama. In the drama, man can actually take the delight of the tragic, the horrible, the repellent, the terrible. Something terrible may be happening, but because ego is taken out of the reaction, we are not affected, we can observe what is happening in an absolutely detached and impersonal way, and actually have the delight in seeing the tragedy. Even if we weep, we still enjoy the weeping, the suffering, but it does not affect us. It is not personal pleasure; this is not, of course, the pure form of that delight, but still it takes us very near to that universal delight: it shows that the delight is there. We are only concerned with the actuality of the thing.
Now, pain and suffering come to man and man cannot understand how suffering happens. Suffering is really due to the failure of this conscious force in man to meet some contact of the universe. It is the shocks of experience or existence. The conscious power in man is not able to meet the shock, and suffering is the result.
How to eliminate this ? Just as pain can be eliminated, limitation of pleasure, pain and indifference too can be eliminated and is actually eliminated in our aesthestic experience. Can we eliminate suffering ? Yes, there are three or four methods by which suffering can be eliminated completely, by a slow and gradual training. One is by titiksā, endurance, training oneself to endurance. It is not to train oneself to cruelty or hardness. It is to train our psychology to an equal reaction to pleasure and pain. Titikṣd is to bear the contact, to endure, it is the power of endurance. If happiness comes, one takes without elation. If an unhappy contact comes one takes it without depression. It is a question of training.
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When one first goes into a very cold or a hot climate, one gradually acclimatizes and learns to bear the cold, bear the heat. The body is trained by endurance. The psychological part of us can also be trained to this endurance. Powers of endurance can be induced, and can be brought to a state of almost perfection. So, suffering can be eliminated by this method of facing, enduring and conquering the shocks of life.
Another method is equality. Training oneself to equality, equanimity, which is a state of undisturbed serenity. It is not the same as the power that is at the back of endurance. In endurance the will is more at work. In equanimity a state of detachment and impersonality is at work. One faces the contact by a sort of impersonality; looking at it as if it were happening to some third person. Equality means equal indifference or equal gladness to all contacts, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. It is as though one were sitting on the top of a hill looking at what is happening below in the mind or the nervous system or the heart; and that which is happening to one's nature-personality is not able to affect one. One is undisturbed on the height of detachment, sitting above.
Then one can also convert this contact into an equal bliss of all contacts, an all-embracing bliss, by taking a path of surrender and losing the ego in the universal, all-pervading equal delight, or in the Supreme. A Fourth path is also open to one—to accept all contacts that come with an attitude of surrender. It is called nati.
I am only trying to show you that one can adapt oneself
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to, can accustom oneself to an attitude of surrender to such an extent that one can take whatever event comes as something intended by a Supreme Power, and from it one has got to learn something, that is all. This shows the limits of human psychology and its possibilities. A constant study of the nervous system and generalizations based on thousands of cases are of no great importance, because the possibilities of development are infinite. You cannot know how far the human consciousness can be trained to react to outside contacts, therefore you cannot generalize about the individual and his so-called 'normal' contacts, which are not rules but only long established habits. These habits are quite changeable. Habits can certainly be given up.
That is possible by first giving a neutral reaction, and then to turn it into an all-pervading equal delight of existence. To realize an all-pervading delight is the next step to an indifferent reaction.
Now, very often people who have not thought about this question, ask, "If delight is the cause, original substance, the maintaining power, and the end of all universe, why do we not see it ?" Sri Aurobindo tries to show that our perception has to become a little careful about it. Delight is there in matter, but it is self-gathered, absorbed, and sub-conscient, in the basis of physical universe. Then it takes up a neutral movement which is not yet a sensation. Vibration in matter is the only thing we notice. This vibration, scientists say, can be classified into positive and negative, and when the two meet, it is neutral. Perhaps, one could say, the positive is pleasure.
One must identify oneself with matter to know what matter feels like. But positive is there as a classification. Negative is there—which might be pain. This meeting of positive and negative becoming neutral might be neutral indifference. But in the actual process of evolution what we
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see is that in matter there is no experience of joy. There is neutral movement also, afterwards of life, but it has not yet reached the stage of sensation. Life in the elemental stage is not sensational, it is elemental. In primordial beings like the dinosaur, etc., the sensation has not yet become organized properly. There is only an elemental force of life, an impulse. From that comes a growth of mind and ego, then you get the triple reaction of pain, pleasure and neutral indifference, in the scale of evolution. Here, we get this triple reaction because of the limitations of the force of our consciousness in the form, and exposure to the shocks of universal nature, which are alien to this ego which has come into existence. Therefore the ego feels itself out of harmony with the total. That is why there is pleasure, pain and neutral indifference. We can say it has wrong reaction or returns partial shocks to the environment because it is out of harmony.
What is the solution ? The solution is that in this mental consciousness of man, there should take place the emergence of Satchidananda. It should be possible to evoke the emergence of Satchidananda in its own creations. This should now become possible because that possibility, partly, is indicated by the subliminal, and by the universal behind the organized consciousness of man's egoism. Behind it is the subliminal, subconscient, and supraconscient. It should be possible to evoke the supraconscient Satchidananda into expression here in life.
We do not see the Infinite Delight, Existence and Consciousness at work at all. It is hidden in that which is the very opposite of Satchidananda,—matter, the inconscient. This possibility of the Infinite houses itself in what seems to be its opposite and then it sets about the process of Self-finding, even under terms that are opposed to it. This is a paradox, and this is what we call a problem that omnipotence alone can solve. God alone can create ignorance because He alone
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can eliminate and transform it. The Divine alone can create and inflict Ignorance upon Himself because He has within Him the omnipotence and omniscience to overcome that Ignorance which is His own creation, is His own Self in another way. Infinite Being loses Itself in the appearance of non-being first and emerges in the appearance of a finite soul. Infinite consciousness loses itself in appearance of insensible matter, discordant rhythm of life, where it experiences pleasure, pain and neutral indifference; and infinite Unity loses itself in appearance of chaos of multiplicity, then emerges in discord of forces and beings seeking to recover that Unity, to recover it by possession, by dissolving, or by devouring each other. The solution lies in reaching the source, the emergence of Satchidananda in the play. Then there will be the resolution of the disharmony and conflict.
Satchidananda must emerge, therefore, in this creature, man. Man has to become universal and the mental consciousness has to be transformed by man opening to the Supraconscient in whom unity is the law, and each embraces all. Then the narrowness is lost in the universal love, the vital restricted being returns equal shock to the whole universal contact, and then it becomes capable of universal delight. Even the physical being has to know the One with the indivisible force that is All, and individual nature has to reproduce the nature of the original creative Divine Delight, the nature of the Satchidananda, which is perfect. Then it is always the same delight, of oneness in all; it is harmony realized by the realization of the Supreme, Satchidananda.
That might give us the resolution of this problem. Delight is the problem and Delight is the solution.
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Questions and Answers
Q : He who loses his life shall find it.
A : It is not bliss. "I am the resurrection and the light. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And he that liveth and believeth in Me shall never de." That is the text, is it not ?
Q : His teaching is identical with the teaching of Sri Aurobindo. He said, "Why do you weep ? a greater than I shall comfort thee, Truth shall be your comforter." The Truth-consciousness, in other words, wouldn't that mean ?
A : Yes, it is the realization of the original creative impulse, of the creative Truth. There are many sayings in the Bible that express profound spiritual experience. But it does not seem to have been understood in the right sense by the followers.
First of all, the Bible is not the expression of Christ's personal experience. This is one difficulty. We know it should be 90 % authentic because there is no reason why the disciples should say something which was not authentic. But still it is not as if he sat down with the idea : "I want now to put into words or put in language what I want to say." Then it would carry the stamp of his authority. It does carry an indirect light. And the same thing has happened to Buddha. We have no authentic exposition of Buddha in his own language. The Sutta, the first exposition by his disciples, has preserved many of his words, and from that we get what Buddha said. I think, most probably he did say them. But Buddha did not sit down with a resolution : "Let me put my understanding of man and his problem, and the universe, in language." Then we would have been satisfied that we have an authentic exposition. So, with regard to the the Bible the one great difficulty is that the authenticity of
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the Bible, so far as it concerns the responsibility of Christ, is certainly in doubt. We take it as an honest attempt and accept it as true; but it is so piecemeal, so cut up that one cannot make out a total view of how he looked at the world. Many subjects of perenial concern to humanity have been dealt with. But a picture of the cosmos and the why and wherefore of it, and probing into causes and the profundities of it, and then giving it not merely a philosophy but also a line of growth toward that Light, thereby explaining the individual and the collective life of man—these things are lacking. What I have seen is that the modern mind is faced with so many different problems that the Bible though a great revelation in a certain sense, does not satisfy it to-day.
This is one great advantage of Sri Aurobindo. He does not require a commentator. If you can go to the original the exposition is there in his own words, and, so you can judge for yourself. It does not matter whether you agree or not, but it is not somebody else who is explaining him to you. Here it is he himelf who is speaking, so you know what he says and what to make of it. In other cases of ancient scriptures like the Vedas and the Upanishads also, the difficulty is that they have expressed themselves in symbolic language, and now the explanation of the symbol is so difficult that somebody is required to explain the symbol. And there are differences in the explanations. But the Gita is an exception. The Gita is clear. Only its authorship is not known. It is spoken in the name of Krishna. We hope it is true. The knowledge embodied is so vast and the synthesis is so wonderful and grand that one feels that a divine spirit is certainly behind it. And it is clear as far as it goes. It is one man's own exposition, and you can make what you like of it from the original without resorting to any commentator. Sri Aurobindo's advantage is that he knows well the western mind. The development of intellect, knowledge of modern
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problems, knowledge of modern attitude of man toward problems, and also the difficulties of man today—all are known to him. He has in addition, the experience of spiritual life.
Q : Some people understand this when put in terms so that the mind can understand and accept and it can be consistent with the mental approach. Do some people find it too intellectual for them ? There are individuals to whom it just does not appeal. They are not intllectual enough.
A : That is not the fault of The Life Divine... it is their shortcomings. For them he has written 2 or 3 books. You can recommend them : Thoughts and Glimpses; Aphorisms— People go to these and say "Wonderful" !!! Then, Evolution —a small book; and More Lights on Yoga; and The Hour of God.
Q : Would "The Riddle of This World" be one ?
A : Yes, it can be, but it is intellectual. The letter which gives the title to the book is an answer to a member of the Academie FranÇaise, Maurice Magre. He came to Pondicherry and wrote to Sri Aurobindo asking some questions. This letter was his answer. It is intellectual. The Mother is a very fine book. And The Mother's writings are very simple and straight. You can give them to anybody and he will immediately follow. They are direct and straight and clear. The Life Divine is a fete of intellectuality. His chapters on the Origin of Ignorance are not only original but there is very little in philosophical writing which can come near it. There is a vastness so great that when you read you say, "In the world's philosophy nobody ever thought of explaining ignorance in that way. It is a marvellous explanation. We will come to it in The Life Divine.
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Q : But the intellect, or the intellectual, is not necessary for spiritual experience, is it ?
A : Not necessarily. But one who hasn't developed the intellect and is seeking, for him there is an answer. And there is a place for the intellect in the spiritual life. But intellect is not indispensable. There are plenty of people who do not have any intellectual training or aptitude, and they are progressing in Yoga quite all right. It is an instrument that is given to man by Nature and when it is sincere and seeking it can be satisfied. When it is egoistic and wilful, then one can never satisfy it. That is why Sri Aurobindo wrote in a letter not to try to answer "doubt's" because the spirit of doubt is insatiable. One who submits himself to the spirit of doubt can never be satisfied, because it doesn't want to be satisfied.
Q : I was just thinking about the suffering of Christ in Gethse-mane and the relation of pain and suffering. Do you wish to comment on this ?
A : Yes, it is an expression of universal love. The willingness of being consecrated by accepting universal love. How far can the expression of universal love be attained in life ? If you want to see it exemplified, you see it in Christ. You can say, not only universal but Divine Love, for that matter.
Q : Do you think that Christianity has over-exaggerated suffering so that it has become a distortion of what Christ Himself tried to...
A : Not only that; you must leave aside Christianity as an organized religion. I am only asserting that Christ's personal suffering stood for a consciousness and a realization. Christianity, after the 13th, or 14th century, gave this up almost completely—the goal of realising man's unity with his Creator or the Supreme. That was the basis of Christ's expe-
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rience, and that, Christianity never seriously attempted. They gave themselves up to social good service, piety, devotion, charity—which was and is very good. It did a lot of good work, but it was far away from the original intention of Christ. And in fact, the Church is not a creation of Christ, historically. If you study, you find it was a creation of the disciples. Whether Christ, left to himself, would have created a church or not is another question. You can say that because the disciples were sincere, they felt inspired to create this hope—probably Christ consciousness was behind it,—but that is only a way of explaining it to ourselves. It is not possible to put the whole responsibility on Christ; so the turn that Christianity took is not the turn probably intended by the founder.
Q : Isn't it the tendency of the human mind with its dogmatism...
A : Not only dogmatism. When religion becomes a social function or a social institution it is always two portions that come into existence. One, the kernel, the eternal portion of religious life; and second, the outer forms. And it is the outer forms that win ultimately and the inner spirit generally evaporates in the outer religious forms. It happens to all religions, including Hinduism. One has to preserve the religious impulse, which is to reach the Truth. Instead it begins to affirm some principle or believe in something or go through some ceremony, which is quite a different thing, and later, as it goes on developing it becomes a social institution. People meet in church very often as they go to a ball-dance. Even in America when they meet, it is more to socialize. How do they run the church? let us have lotteries, let us do this, let us do that. Now what has that to do with the ultimate aim of religion life ? People need clubs and social meetings —why call it church ? Where you are seriously devoted to
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activating the religious impulse, then it is all right. But why feel that somehow, we must keep it alive ? It is better, if it is not living, to allow it to die, so that something new and true can take its place. Now we are preserving a form with the wrong belief that we are religious when we are not. What is the use ? To be frankly and honestly irreligious is better than professing religion which has no basis. If something outlives its purpose, it does no good. A new Christianity, will arise, something new will come to take its place. But if you keep a semblance alive or keep a dead form alive, the real thing takes time to come into existence.
Q : We won't get away from this, will we, until we get off the mental plane and into a higher plane ? There will always be dogmatism on the mental plane, isn't that natural ?
A : Well, it is a question of allowing the Higher Power to work out. We see that the religious impulse is working out in forms that are not worth preserving. Inertia is there, upward drive is there, progressive tendency is there. What we have to do is to stress the essential and to follow it without having disgust or dislike for anything. We must not run down anything and say, this is wrong if that is what the people like. But our perception of the essential is that the real change must come in consciousness. Those people who feel called upon to try and tackle the problem differently, let them do it. There is no question of our feeling any superiority, or feeling that this is more essential. Our perception is that if they feel that there is another solution, let them try.
Q: Going back to your talk, in your elimination of suffering, you gave four methods. It seems to me that at back of all it is the same identical thing. It seems like it all boils down to "indifference".
A : No, it can happen in many ways. When you use the
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endurance, you have to exercise your will. In another indifference you have to exercise detachment. When you sit on a higher plane and watch your personality going through what to outsiders is suffering—you are exercising a detachment, but when you put endurance, then you are putting forth your will, in order to react equally to pleasure and pain. The force that is evoked is not the same; not on the same plane. In one there is a strength of vibration of will, in another detachment of consciousness.
Q: It seems likely that at the back of all of them is a form of withdrawal.
A : Not necessarily withdrawal. It is a form of meeting. In titiksā you meet the contact. I gave you roughly the instance of cold and heat and the nervous system. Then you put forth a reaction of equality to cold and heat. That is endurance. That gives an idea that there is a positive action. There is no withdrawal at all. There is a resolution of consciousness to meet both shocks equally, that's all.
Q : But isn't it a withdrawal from permitting the shocks to...
A : No. On the contrary, it is the return of the shocks outside. It is really throwing out a greater vibration than the one that is given by heat or cold or pleasure or pain.
Q : Is one more egotistical than the other ? Is the willpower more of the ego than detachment?
A : Not necessarily. Even the exercise of the will can be impersonal. Only the will is an aspect of power whereas detachment acts more on the basis of knowledge, that is all. In the one you stress the power aspect and in the other you act upon the knowledge aspect, or the subjective being detached from all the reactions of nature (Prakriti).
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Q: Isn't that a withdrawal from it—saying 'not that'— (neti, neti) this in a sense is withdrawal. If you surrender to it, not letting the effects touch you, that's withdrawal. And the training to endure, that too is a withdrawal. It seems like it is all the same...
A : I don't think—because withdrawal is not the solution of the problem, first of all. You see, the flow of life is expression. It is going out, it is manifestation. Now, any withdrawal would be only a negative solution. In that way Buddha also gave a sort of solution, which is a half solution and couldn't be applied to life. That is why Buddhism had to go out of India. It is possible to give a partial solution and say "withdraw." If you withdraw you can get only a temporary solution. You cannot get a radical solution at all by withdrawal, because withdrawal is not the law of the cosmos. Universe is a manifestation. It is Self-expression ; withdrawal is want of expression.
Q : Well, isn't it want of expression when you equalize all— when you equalize pleasure and pain you are making the hills level.
A : No. You are bringing into possible expression the experience of delight.
Q : Is this withdrawal a form of expression ?
A : You can say so, if you like. What happens to the contact of life and how it is related to ultimate aim of self-expression, that is the problem. If the withdrawal is in keeping with the aim of self-expression, then it is a necessary condition. But ultimately the withdrawal will have to transform itself into an equal experience of Delight. That would be the solution so far as the basis of the chapter is concerned.
Q: That is for an evolved person. Don't most of us react
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according to a pattern of habit and social training ? And it is more instantaneously. Don't we have to reckon with that, too ? We have to see which way is easiest for...
A : Yes. That is why 2 or 3 methods were suggested. One in whom the nature is strong and powerful, who likes to take up adventure and danger, for him, titiksā, the endurance method is good, the warrior method. For one who is more impersonal and ready to intellectualize, for him detachment is better. Or one who is emotionally inclined, for him the submission to what comes as a dispensation of the Higher Power and therefore, an equal acceptance without any normal reactions—tends to create some sense. So according to natural aptitude one takes up the method. The culmination of the process would be to reduce first all contacts to an indifference and then you can move to an equal acceptance of delight in all conditions, of all sensations. That's the aim.
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