Lecture XII
Chap. 22. The Problem of Life
Chap. 23. The Double Soul in Man
And when evolution arrives at mind, life awakes to the necessity of giving up the finiteness or the inconscience with which it started. Its business first was to create a conscious centre of experience, a subjective being which could receive the whole universe. Having created such a centre in life, that is, the mental being, it forces the mind to go back, to reverse the process of individualizing into a necessity of accepting collective life, the need for interchange, the need for exchange, the need for "other" in order to fulfill one's self. That is what the process of nature seems to do when it evolves from the inconscience of matter. Life begins with the inconscience of matter, develops the half-conscient forms of life and the ego emerges into full mentality. When it emerges into full mentality, the process is reversed. Nature reverses the process by compelling the individual, the ego, to expand, to merge into another being, or into other beings. And the fulfilment of it would lie in ascending to the plane of consciousness beyond mind, where the law which operated and created this reversal would reach again the next step of its ascent. And this reversal from mind to the necessity of collective life drives the individual from egocentricity into universality; and universality must culminate into Truth-Consciousness, because the universal consciousness is not the whole truth of the Omnipresent Reality. Universal consciousness is only one term of it, and universal mental consciousness has a double strain of knowledge and ignorance. When you speak of the Universal Consciousness it is not as if you were dealing with highest spiritual Consciousness: You are dealing with the universal consciousness of which mind is the dominating
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instrument. But in that case, universal consciouness itself is not perfect. It has the double movement, vidyā and avidyā—knowledge and ignorance in it, and therefore fulfilment of this impulse to realize complete unity would come truly if one could go beyond the formula of mind as an essential element of manifestation. That is where we left off yesterday.
Now today we take up this problem of life. Life is a conscious working of Satchidananda. That is how we have looked at life,—that it is the Consciousness-Force of Satchidananda manifesting itself as life. The element of the Infinite that is behind life is Consciousness-Force or cit-śakti of Satchidananda. Being, or Sat, becomes the basis of existence reducing itself to matter. When infinite Sat reduces itself to cosmic terms, we see it as Matter, the base of the material universe. Consciousness-Force becomes what we know or cognize as Life. Supermind becomes what we cognize as Mind. Ananda or delight becomes what we have within us as our true soul, the Psychic Being. That gives us a correspondence. Sat, Chit, Ananda, these three are the supernals of the Eternal, and its instrument of action is the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness. It is this instrument by which this ever-present Reality creates the world. These four are the terms of knowledge, Sat, Chit, Ananda, Vijnana. Theirs is the realm of Infinity and Knowledge, therefore, it is the world of truth. And in this lower triplicity of manifested or evolved universe, Existence corresponds to Matter, Conscious-Force or Consciousness-Force becomes the two aspects of will and knowledge, manifesting itself as Life. And in this Truth-Consciousness or Supermind becomes Mind and Ananda becomes the Psychic Being.
That gives you a rough correspondence of the whole scale, how the world of Truth, the world of Infinity, world of Omnipresent Reality is related to the present manifested
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universe. There is the principle of being, Sat, which when it is completely covered up, becomes matter, complete inconscience—even apparent non-existence. Chit is conscious-force which is the aspect of knowledge and conscious power. When manifested here it is life. The third principle, Ananda, is manifested here as the psychic being, psychic plane of consciousness, the true individuality in man. It is the delight aspect that is the cause of the universe, cause of its continuation, cause of its manifestation and it is the driving force for its realization. That is why the whole of creation is moving toward realization of Delight. So that the Divine creates the world not out of any compulsion but out of self-vision of the Eternal and the Infinite in which the self-awareness of the Supreme throws itself out into Truth-Consciousness. The vision of the Supreme cannot be a vision of both truth and falsehood, and it cannot be ignorance. It cannot be compelled, cannot be necessitated. It is an automatic self-movement or self-determination of the Supreme that first takes the form of Truth-Consciousness in which the totality of the universe exists as a seed where the unity of the Infinite is the basis and multiphcity is variation on the basis of that unity. So all that is here exists without losing the basis of infinity and unity. Unity remains, infinity remains, and yet there is a variation and a differentiation based upon that unity. That is the world of Truth-Consciousness. And as a secondary operation, when it creates or turns further toward this creation, it adopts the constitution of mind. First, universal mind comes into being. It is not individual mind that comes into being first, Universality of mind comes into operation and then begins its principle of division. Then only, the creation of a limited individuality or separate ego becomes possible. It goes on hiding or veiling its light more and more till it comes to matter. This very process comes into operation in creating universal life. It ends in creating universal matter and out of it starts
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evolution. Then there is the ascent. In the ascent this drive of universal mind becomes possible because of the conscious entity, that is the ego. The ascent rises from matter to life, to mind, to Supermind. When life has reached the point of creating a conscious centre of ego on the basis of matter, then the process is reversed and has to move back to the original Truth-Consciousness. We are now at a point where the central circumstance of this truth is the cosmos. The process of Satchidananda is here in the second term. The second term is Conscious Existence. Satchidananda is not triple. If you look at the Infinite like that, then you have A+B+C. But ABC is nothing but the Infinite—Satchidananda. This Conscious Being or Conscious Power has become Life, and it is this aspect of Life which we are considering. We have already considered the knowledge aspect of it. Now, of the three conscious aspects, we take up life—the force of Satchidananda putting itself forth under cosmic conditions. It becomes Life when it evolves from cosmic matter. The first projection is universal matter and the second projection is universal life. This life that has come into existence is subjected to the operation of universal mind. Therefore, the dividing faculties are already at work when life comes into existence. Mind is the dividing action of a force which itself is undivided—e.g. Truth-Consciousness, or Supermind. This undivided force creates duality, creates oppositions, and creates denial of Satchidananda and its Nature.
And the problem to solve, therefore, is to find out how to create or make emerge the Unity and Infinity and Delight which are behind this world of clash. It is there above,—the play of the Truth, play of Omnipresent Reality, play of the Divine, play of Reality, play of Satchidananda. The problem is to find out whether there is a play of unity behind apparent clash, division, and duality which you find rampant in the
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world, which is a projection of the Conscious-Force under the conditions of universal manifestation. Under the constitution of the universe the Infinite, self-existent and self-conscious force of Satchidananda takes up the form of life in the universe. And that life has the aspect of division, separation, conflict and struggle. Now, the question is : is there a truth that is working behind this aspect of struggle and is it possible to realize the Truth-Consciousness here in life ? The solution has to be sought not by our mind alone. The solution of this problem of division and duality and clash is not a mental solution but a solution for and in life. Mind can isolate itself, isolate the problem and seek an independent solution on the basis of mind only. And mind can say : all this struggle is unreal; I retire into myself when I have to face the struggle. The solution has to be sought not by the mind alone, but also by life. Consciousness as force created this world movement and this problem; therefore, consciousness as force must solve it. Life appears first in matter, and it emerges in the vital field and then in the mental field. The consciousness is delivered from the slavery to the outer form in the mind. And it is freed also from its own limitation of form because mind can be quite free from the limitations of life and body. The crux of the difficulty is here—that man is a mental being and has a mental consciousness, and as a mental being and as a mental consciousness he is aware of universal forces. He is aware of the universal force, of a universal life and then he knows that he is only a part of it. And he does not know that he, himself, is universal. This is the knot of the difficulty. There is a mind at work and this mind comes in contact with energy or consciousness all around and it knows that there is cosmic or universal energy at work, universal life at work. But the mind is not conscious of its own universality; therefore, man who is the representative of mind in the world is unable to deal with the general
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life and his own life effectively because he does not know his own universality. The central drive of pure mind is to know. First, it drives man to know matter. It drives mind to know life. Mind wants to know matter; mind wants to know and tries to understand life; and mind wants to understand man, himself. And really this effort 'to know' that one finds in the mind is the will of the Satchidananda. It is the will of the Supreme working in him for self-restoration. The impulse to know is the operation of the secret urge of the Satchidananda because it is urging it to know its own self. It is trying to have self-knowledge because it has lost that self-awareness having created the world and having become an individual centre of expression on a point of matter and life and mind. Having sunk into the ego, it has lost the connection with the All, the Infinite, the Eternal, and has become confined into the realm of the ego. Appearing as an individual in the world Satchidananda has put this secret will in the individual and the world in which he expresses himself and yet he seems to deny himself. And therefore the will to "know" is a process of the energy by which he will be able to come back to himself. Man has either to satisfy this drive of evolution, or if he cannot or would not do it, then the drive of Nature— evolution—must create another being who can do it. Man may become obsolete and some other being may take his place. In any case, the drive towards levels of being beyond mind has got to succeed. A restoration of the lost identity of the Supreme must succeed in terms of matter. In life it is manifested as earth-consciousness. The identity is not to be realised above where it already exists, where it is self-existent. It is here on earth that it does not exist. The problem is here. The advocates of absolute monism so-called go wrong when they tell us : go back to Satchidananda and merge into it; there no problem exists. But in Satchidananda no problem ever existed. The solution has to be sought here where the
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problem exists. Man has either to evolve beyond mind in humanity or give place to some being which will be able to embody the Truth-Consciousness in himself. If you observe life you find that there is a correspondence between consciousness and force : consciousness and force are proportionate to each other. If there is infinite consciousness, the force at the disposal of infinite consciousness must be also infinite. If there is consciousness submerged in matter or in inconscience, then the force operating will be inconscient. If the consciousness rises to the plane of unity in the midst of life and its diversity, then the force also will be correspondingly capable of handling unity and diversity. So in life consciousness has a correspondence to force. Man's feeling that he is weak and incapable is not the final condition because the consciousness will have a corresponding force, and if you depend upon the consciousness which is infinite, you will get an infinite force to support you. And when consciousness is one that can be in unity and diversity at the same time, you will have power that deals with unity and diversity at the same time. When you surrender to a Higher Consciousness, to an Omnipotent, Omniscient Force or Reality, then the force of that consciousness will work in you. You are an individual with a divided consciousness. In a divided consciousness it is egoistic force, and you have to aspire from there. If you appeal to the Divine consciousness, then the Divine force can work in you. By aspiration one opens oneself to the Infinite consciousness, to the Divine Omnipresent Reality, and appeals to that Infinite consciousness to work in him. Therefore, when you have a great defect or difficulty you shouldn't think, "I can't remove it !" because you alone are not going to remove it. When you want to remove it, you use your will to remove it and when you call in the help of the Divine, your own sincerity will be one factor, but the work is accomplished by a much higher Power.
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In man's divided consciousness you find that the force is separated from consciousness. In matter the force seems to be completely isolated from consciousness. At present man is in the third stage which is that of divided consciousness, and he is able to see the problem. It is only when he rises to the plane of coexistent unity and diversity that his problem of life can be solved. When from the divided consciousness he rises to a consciousness in which unity and diversity coexist then the problem of life, that is, the problem of division, struggle and opposition, and aspect of duality will be radically solved. That is how the overcoming of the limit of mental consciousness will operate. Individuals live in themselves. Then, when the individual rises to this unity and diversity simultaneously existing and working, individuals will know themselves and view each other as the one consciousness and one being in many souls, one power in many minds.
Three difficulties present themselves in this process of rising from the third to the fourth status, from the ordinary divided-consciousness to the undivided consciousness in which unity and diversity coexist. One is that man realises that all knowledge he has is of partial self, an incomplete knowledge of self. That is to say, he is only living on surface consciousness. He knows only his surface consciousness and is unconscious of his own subconscious and subliminal being which are not the same. Below the surface is the subconscious and behind the veil the subliminal. That is one difficulty why man is not able intelligently and spontaneously, without making a conscious effort, to rise from the third to the fourth status. The second difficulty is this formula of our mind and life and body separated from universal life. Man as mind, life and body, or man the mental, the vital, and the physical being, is separated from the universal. First, he does not know himself fully. He is not conscious
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of the whole range of his being. Second, he is cut off from the universal consciousness which surrounds him. Far from being one with universal, he is not conscious of his identity with his own fellows and feels them as separate. If he lived in the universal being he would be able to feel at least his identity with his fellow beings which now he does not. Therefore, he feels that all that has manifested on the plane of mind is also separated and isolated. The third difficulty is the division between force and consciousness in his own being. There is a want of harmony between various instruments of his own nature. The force in him is divided. Mind wants to do something, while the emotional being goes in another direction, the vital being pulls in a third direction. So the whole force of man's consciousness is divided. The consciousness is divided and force is divided. There is not a sort of harmony in the operation of the consciousness of man because man is not an integrated being. He does not act as one organized and integrated consciousness. He works as three or four persons working at the same time.
These three difficulties prevent the rise to the fourth, or Truth-Consciousness in which unity and diversity would play on the basis of infinity of Truth-Consciousness. Some of the philosophies state that man is not a free agent. Partly there is great truth in it. Man has not got freedom, though there is a sense of mastery in him, though there is a feeling of somebody in him who can rule his nature, he is not actually able to rule himself because his passions control his moods, and he is quite unconscious of the wide range of his own constitution. He does not know the subconscious and the subliminal. Then he makes a separate stand from the universal and is divided within himself. Therefore man is not free. He is governed by bis nature, and it is nature that works in him. But he is capable of taking
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the current or flow of Nature toward ascent or toward the fourth step which life reaches and which will be the solution of his problems. If he is governed by Nature, as he actually is at present, then he cannot manage to make the ascent. There is a Lord in him who is the master but for that he must rise from this ignorant Maya to the creative Maya of the Supreme, to the Maya that governs the world, Maya the creative power of the Satchidananda. If man can rise to that the problem for him is easy to solve, because he will become one who can consciously govern his nature. The problem of life can be solved only by life's rising to that fourth status where unity and diversity coexist, on the basis of infinity.
This force of Nature and Conscious Being are everywhere in the universe. There is always a dichotomy in it, a sort of division between the force of Nature and the conscious force of Being that holds the same force of Nature. For example, there is a mental person and there is a mental force. If you carefully observe, the force that is working as mental energy is not the same as the conscious being who holds himself as the mental being or mental person. Between the mental being, the subjective self, and mental power or mental nature, there is always a division. Whatever the subjective being knows, nature does not always confirm, whatever it wills the nature does not necessarily carry out. In fact, very often it carries out the very opposite of what the mental person wills. There is no correspondence between conscious force of nature, and conscious being that holds that nature as its form, or as its mould. It holds mind as its mould for expression, but mental force or mental energy that is working is not under the control of the mental Puru-sha, it does not run parallel to the will of the mental Purusha. The nature force operating in mind has another way of operating, very different. There is mental, vital, and physical
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being—mental nature, vital nature, physical nature, and the purusha in each,—mental purusha, vital purusha, and the physical purusha means the subjective self. There is always a division in mind, life and body. All this is reconciled on the level of the Supermind. It is only at the level of the Truth-Consciousness that the conscious-self and the powers or forces of nature are in agreement. The capability of perfection, therefore, is not in mind, life and body. In the subconscience there is Perfection in one sense, because there is as yet no division. In matter laws operate without any intervention of self and operate correctly and without exception. Consciousness and force of consciousness can be reconciled on the level above mind, in the Supermind.
Now we take up part of the 23rd chapter. Up till now we have dealt with this consciousness aspect as operating through Supermind in the world and we have seen how it is connected with the need to return to the origin from which it has come. The delight aspect of the triple Satchidananda manifests itself here as the psychic being. And in this chapter Sri Aurobindo shows how this delight of self-existence, consciousness and bliss, translates or manifests itself as the psychic being into the universe in which we live. It is the true individual behind human egoism, it is the true divine spark of individuality operating behind the functioning of mind, life and body of man. This psychic being takes up a double aspect when it works in man. A part of it undergoes an operation of avidyā, the power of ignorance —and another part keeps back, behind, independent and free.
We have seen that the first status of life is dumb inconscience. The second status of life is rooted in desire, eagerness to possess, therefore is subject to them. The third status opens into mind and there the element of love begins to operate and that opens out, like a bud. Life has gone
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through the three. It is to go to the fourth. That is what we have seen, because that aspect of love must become universal, and if it is to become universal it will have to be freed from the limitation of mind. For that it must rise to the Truth-Consciousness. Now, love universal, means that love itself will be freed from the limitations of ego in its operation here then only it can become love universal. The psychic being, the true individuality in the human being, is seeking this universal delight as the result of universal love. The true individuality in man is not seeking the fulfilment of the ego in terms of ego. What it is seeking is widening out into the new universality so as to contact the Delight— the Ananda—of which it is a representative in ignorance. It is seeking for delight, for universal delight. Everything that exists wants to experience delight, wants to manifest the delight. Delight drives the material inconscience to the infinity of the Spirit. World therefore is Satchidananda masked, it is a veil, a mask of Matter, mask of the Inconscient, mask of struggle, mask of group, mask of the individual. The world is Satchidananda masked. The secret movement of this Conscious-Force is life. Why does it move ? Because it is seeking delight. If delight is held back, if life meets its opposite, pain and suffering it is not discouraged. Life does not accept suffering and pain as if they were laws of life. To seek for Delight is therefore the fundamental impulse and central drive of life. Delight itself is self-existent; it is not happiness. Delight is inward and that Delight is the pure ultimate constituent of the Reality. Where is this delight in man ? In which instrument does it reside ? Bliss exists in man in the form of his psychic being, the soul. Soul is an emanation of the delight of Satchidananda and therefore it always seeks delight and can get it, because it is always universal, when it gets back to its true experience or realization of self. Delight is the true constituent of the
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self of man, not mind, life or body. The mental being in man is not his true being. Mind is his instrument. The true human being is- not the life-being or the vital-being in man. The true human being is not the body or force at work in the physical being. The true human being is a psychic being which uses mind, life and body as its instruments and is itself a projection of the delight of Satchidananda. You find a dichotomy even in his psychic being : there is a surface self, working as the desire-soul in mind, life and body. Each instrument of nature has a conscious part which is on the surface and a part that is subliminal, behind the veil. Mind has a surface consciousness, and a subliminal consciousness. Life is two-fold, body is two-fold and this being also when it comes here forgets one part in the ignorance and one part is kept behind. In case of the psychic being what comes to the front is the desire-soul,—the psychic being in ignorance becomes the desire-soul. This desire-soul is the projection of the psychic being in ignorant nature. Then it is not able to act in its purity. The delight it seeks is the delight through the operation of desire in mind, desire in vital, desire in body. It is seeking the true spiritual Delight really speaking, but it seeks it ignorantly as a desire or passion or ambition. The problem for man is therefore to get back from the desire-soul to the psychic being. Then he can get universal delight. If he remains confined to this desire-soul he meets with the experience of happiness and suffering, pleasure and pain,—a distorted experience of delight. The delight itself comes to it in three forms, pleasure, pain and neutral indifference. When it withdraws from the desire-soul and regains the true self, then it opens to universal delight; and then all contacts become contacts of that delight. When it opens to universal delight, it is the delight of the Satchidananda, really speaking. In the mind, there is a surface mind, the ego and so on, and the subliminal
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self. In the life also, there is an outer vital personality and an inner vital being, you can say, a subliminal vital being. There is a subtle physical body behind this gross physical body. Desire-soul is the projection of the psychic being in this world of ignorance—in the mind, life and body. When it withdraws the desire-soul and comes to the surface then it can open to universal delight; then each impact of the outside world becomes only an impact of delight. Now this psychic being is the true individuality and it is very close to universal consciousness and delight. In the action of desire-soul, it is the' universal delight that enters, but it is deformed while coming through the distorting and narrowing medium of desire and ego. So what the desire-soul, which is a projection of the psychic being in the nature part, gets is not something fundamentally wrong. It does not experience what it should. It is the desire-soul that distorts it. To awaken to the true soul is the remedy out of this difficulty. Soul is the Self's delegate and the Self that is in man is the Self of the world; therefore, it can always open to the universal delight. Reception and enjoyment of delight is called Rasa. Rasa,—reception of this delight—is determined by the condition of consciousness in which one lives. If you stand on the level of ego and desire-soul, you get pleasure, pain and neutral indifference. The delight is running through the whole gamut of creation,—through the inconscient, the conscient and the superconscient, all is pervaded by the flow of delight. Soul takes the joy of all experience when it retires and identifies itself with the psychic being. One can bring about a change in the desire-soul by going back into the psychic being that is behind. Soul can come to the surface of nature—and then one experiences through mind, through life and through body equal and all-embracing delight. Sometimes man gets it even when he is not consciously in contact with the psychic being, but somehow,
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unconscious to him, the psychic being conies in front. Then man even in his ignorant state is able to experience this equal and all-embracing Delight. Take the case of a lover of Nature. In his case the desire-soul is pressed back for the time being and the psychic being comes to the front without his knowing. When he is in tune with Nature then he experiences all Nature full of delight. In the case of a poet or an artist or a lover of Nature all contacts that come to them strike them first with the vibration of delight. It is the operation of the psychic being that has come to the front temporarily. Few artists can keep that personality all the time; if one could, then one would be a yogi. There is always the vital personality, the egoistic being, the mental being and the selfish being, perhaps a very unconventional being also. And this lower foundation of our nature has to be changed in order to make available the cosmic or universal delight. Psychic being is the flame of the Lord, an inextinguishable flame. It is the witness that is concentrated; it is a control that is in us; it is the guide; it is an inner life; it is a divine voice imperishable. It is not the unborn self, because the psychic being accepts to work in ignorance and therefore the psychic being is not the unborn self but the self that has accepted to work in ignorance and embody delight, manifest the delight.
At first the psychic being has to act through the instruments of ignorant nature-mind, life and body. Its action, therefore, is concealed and partial. It awakens in the nature of man thirst for the Truth, attraction for Beauty, for Love, for Harmony. This it is obliged to do because in strong nature it is the divine-soul that leads. The devotion for truth, right, justice, the zeal for unselfish ideals that awake in man's nature is a sign of the working of the psychic being.
Then the question is : is psychic governance of nature sufficient to establish spiritual perfection here ? It is true
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that one comes to the possession of the true individual soul when one attains the psychic being. But another step of transformation from above is needed which can give man the possession of his self in its universality and transcendence. It is possible that the psychic being as the true individual, can choose to be static to the cosmic Self and return to the Silent Divine—and merge in love and rapture.
But Sri Aurobindo says that more is possible : the exposition that is given is in terms of our mental consciousness in which division prevails. In the Supermind, all those divisions of the mind disappear. It is possible then to establish one's status in the Spirit and participate in world-dynamis. The ego-centre is useful for nature, the individual moves round it and it acts as the defence against the pressure of cosmic forces. But in spiritual life we must loose the 'ego'. But merely loosing the ego would not bring about true dynamism for action in life. In the traditional Vedanta the knowers of Reality—the Brahman—are classified into four groups. One who is like a child—bāla; one who is mad— unmatta; one who is inert—jaḍa and one who is like a possessed being piśāca. It does not give a picture of ideal spiritual life. It would be like the condition of a king with incapable minister. Supramental transformation alone can bring about the perfect spiritual status and faultless divine dynamism.
Questions and Answers
Q: Don't we identify ourself with a thing or person...?
A. Yes. It is an imperfect operation of unity. When unity operates through mind or vital being it takes the form of sympathy and the outer forms in which you see it working. But it is a mental form of it or forms subject to our present limited consciousness: The real solution is identity, unity of soul. Then you realise that mere sympathy cannot make
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one know. Then you understand also what only sympathy of heart or mind is not able to give you. Sri Aurobindo does not say it is not good to have sympathy. Don't misunderstand him. There should be sympathy but one must not stop at sympathy. Sympathy is the first step, but it is really by overpassing the mental consciousness that we reach the truth of which sympathy is a symptom. Sympathy is the symptom indicating the possibility of identity, oneness.
Q: Is it not the experience of one Self in all?
A. It is the one soul in all, one being in All which is divine. The first realization is the One in All, but then one will realise that it is not only one in all but more than the all. It is Infinite. It is a question of growth of consciousness. When the consciousness grows, then the consciousness has this concrete experience. It is not mental; the mind may have an idea, the heart may have a feeling, even the will may have an operation to realize it but they are only processes by which the consciousness grows. It is a concrete experience of consciousness that one has to have. What Sri Aurobindo indicates is not only an idea but a realization or a concrete experience, and concrete experience comes to consciousness, not only to mental consciousness. The true being is the psychic being—not the mental being and the psychic is nearest to the universal. Therefore, the psychic being automatically or easily expands into the universal consciousness and realizes oneness with all. And that oneness with all is so much more intense in its experience than sympathy and other things. It can't be put in the same category. Sympathy is a step, but identity is something else. And that unity brings about a vibration in life, in the individual and in the atmosphere which solves the problem of division that is the difficulty of man's consciousness. Sympathy can go to the extent of extending help,—material or vital or mental or emotional
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help,—but identity and unity can help by eliminating the very cause of difficulty and suffering. People have no idea of this power of identity and therefore they think that it can do nothing. Maybe a man is poor and you have sympathy. That may help him a little; but identity would be much more effective. When you are identified with him, the incidence of his poverty is reduced. By the very fact of your identity he may feel the pinch of his conditions much less than he would have felt if you had not had that identity. What you can do by identity you cannot do by sympathy. Identity helps the world. People do not realize it, therefore, they think that it is only the outer expression of sympathy that helps the world. This inner dynamic identity is something very powerful. It can change a circumstance or a situation.
Indian mythology is full of stories that illustrate this principle. I will, in short, cite only one.
Krishna is recognised as the incarnation of the Divine throughout India. In his young age, he studied with several students at Rishi Sandipani's place and was very friendly with a poor student called Sudama who was physically very ugly but had many good qualities one of which was his love for Krishna. They became chums. In those days students had to go to the forest and cut wood for the teacher. In fact, the students lived in the teacher's house and were regarded as members of one family. Sudama used to cut Krishna's share of the wood.
After study they separated, Krishna became the premier prince of Dwarka and a very prominent statesman of his times. Sudama lived in an obscure village and was poor. He got a large family and very often it came to theverge of starvation. Sudama used to tell his wife about his friendship with the great Krishna in his early days. So once his wife asked him to go to Krishna and get some help to feed the family. Sudama was reluctant; he did not want to use his friendship for such a purpose but
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he yielded to the frequent importunities of his wife. He did not want to go to his friend without some gift. His wife went round the neighbours and begged some fried rice which she gave him as a gift for his friend, royal Krishna.
Sudama somehow reached Dwarka and found out Krishna's palace. He was stopped at the gate, his poor appearance was enough to bar bis way. With difficulty he sent his name to Krishna who had just finished his bath and was being waited upon by bis queens. When he heard Sudama's name, Krishna rushed to the door and escorted him to his personal chamber. The queens were all astonished to see a poor and not very prepossessing person being so honoured with familiarity by Krishna.
Then the two friends were in reminiscent mood, and talked of their early days. Krishna found that Sudama had married and had many children. He asked him if his wife had given some gift for him. Sudama was so overcome by the grandeur of the capital and the affluence of Krishna that he was hiding the little bundle of fried rice under him. Krishna noticed it and took it away in spite of his remonstrances. He ate the fried rice with great joy and appreciated its taste to the discomfiture of the queens. Krishna served Sudama as a personal guest making him feel like old days— the days of boys' equality.
Sudama could not ask for Krishna's help for removing his poor condition and returned home rather disappointed with all the ideas of men in. common life.
When he reached his place he found it was so transformed that he could not recognise his own house, till his wife came and assured him of its sameness in spite of the great change which came over because of Krishna's grace.
This story, so current in India, gives an illustration of how the inner identity is more effective in its work than outer sympathy. It also shows that grace does not work in human
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ways and that man's offering to the Divine is not valued in the human way.
It is very difficult to recognize the Divine when it has taken up a human consciousness. Indian Mythology is full of such stories.
Q: You spoke of the descent and the ascent; from where is the descent ?
A. The descent has taken place from the Infinite—that is one ladder and the ascent is from Matter to what to us is the Infinite,—another ladder. There is an Infinite and from that there is a line of descent. And that line of descent takes the form of a ladder; the Infinite does not plumb down straight into the inconscience. It is, as it were, a ladder and the steps go one, two, three, four and then a plunge. Then comes the inconscience. Then, to our view, there is a rising ladder—with steps one, two, three, four. The descent is from Satchidananda to Matter or Inconscience, and the ascent is from Inconscience back to Satchidananda, the world of Truth.
Q: Is there this duality—can we refer to the dark force against the individual?
A. In the Satchidananda you can say that one end is the spirit, the other end is Matter. Spirit is involved in Matter and Matter is involved in Spirit.
Q: There is a mythological story about angels descending in dream and there is mention of jacob's ladder. Can the descent take place in the human body ?
A. The body also is a field for expression of the higher Reality. Therefore, perfection of body is not to be kept out from the scheme of spiritual perfection. The body has to participate in the scheme of perfection. Only one should not give
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too much importance to the body and stop with the body. But the body is not to be neglected. The body, nervous system, vital being, emotional being, and all the ranges above the mind,—all that can participate and should participate in the scheme of perfection. That is Sri Aurobindo's stand. And so, when the descent is taking place, all the steps of the descent have to be covered in the ascent, and although they have now been embodied by men, the material part, vital part, and the mental part, all must participate in the perfection.
Q: Don't you think there are people who can actually see all this ?
A. Oh, yes. While doing Sadhana, one can open to the vision. I know several people who have seen these things. One should not strain to see unless it is necessary for further development.
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