Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

Lecture X

Chap. 16. The Triple Status of Supermind

Chap. 17. The Divine Soul Chap. 18. Mind and Supermind

It is perhaps good to take chapters 16, 17, 18, together as all the three deal with the subject of the Supermind. Then the chapters that follow upto chapter 28th may be regarded as applications of the working of the Supermind. The 17th gives the status of the Divine Soul,—the central being, in the Supermind; the 18th deals with Mind and Supermind, while Chapters from 19th to 22nd deal with Life and its nature and the working of the Supermind. Chapter 23 deals with the Double soul and then 24th-27th deal with Matter, and in Chapter 28th the distinction between Supermind, Mind and Overmind is clearly made for the first time. The importance of Overmind as an intermediate plane between Supermind and Mind is noteworthy.

We have seen that the One Infinite Existence-Conscious-ness-and Bliss eternal gives rise to the flux of the many, the world. And the connection between the two is the link of the Supermind, the Truth-Consciousness, into which the Satchidananda or the infinite consciousness of the Eternal casts itself in a self-vision, a self-knowledge in which all the potentialities are held together. And it is the Supermind that projects itself into the world that we know,—in mind, life and body—in the mental, vital and physical worlds, so to speak. They are a working out of that principle. Now in these chapters Sri Aurobindo is trying to show that Mind, Life and Matter are a working of the Supermind from behind the veil.

These chapters are devoted to the development of the idea that Supermind first projects out of itself, the Truth-Consciousness

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It becomes, so to say, the Truth-Consciousness. And when it becomes the Truth-Consciousness then it becomes a parent or creator of the worlds that follow. The world of mind, the world of life and the world of matter are nothing else but a veiled working of the Supermind, a veiled working of the Truth-Consciousness. It is there working behind the working of mind, behind the working of life, behind the operation of the inconscient and gross matter.

Now, if we grant the proposition that Supermind can be the creator of this world or that Truth-Consciousness can originate a world of the flux of the many, then we need not go into every detail of the argument, for the chapters are filled with the argument proving the working of mind supported behind the veil by the working of the Supermind, the working of Life supported from behind by a working of Conscious-Power, and a working of matter supported by Infinite existence, the principle of Being. It is that which is working. In chapters 16 and 17 you have to move the material forward showing how the Supermind projects itself into the world as we know it. I will therefore give the main ideas of chapter 16.

First God, is illimitable bliss of existence-consciousness and He is our highest Self. That is the conception of God at which we have arrived. And when concentrated within Himself, He is Bliss. When He is active He becomes the delight of the play of Bliss. It becomes for us the universe. Divine consciousness possesses that delight eternally. For that, the problem does not exist. But if man is to attain divine life then that veiled Divine Self must be unveiled to man. Otherwise he cannot live the divine life here. In actuality we feel two things : one is the unity of Satchidananda, and the other is the divided mentality; that is to say, the mental consciousness of man is not at all capable of reali-

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zing that fundamental, essential, self-existent Delight. These two oppose each other. Human mind in its search for perfection says : one of them must be true and the other must be false. If the other is true, then to reach the Delight which is the true expression of the Supreme, one must be able to give up this world of life. That line of thought we have once considered. Sri Aurobindo gives here again the argument to show that Supermind works on a triple status, or three stages which it takes up. But we need a link, and we saw last time that the link is Supermind. It is the link between Satchidananda and the world of division, between the world of mind, life and body. Satchidananda is proceeding out of the poise of unity into this movement.

And it is the Infinite Being moving out into determinative self-knowledge, force of the Self also—at the same time—and all the forms are its conscious becomings created by its own force in its own self-extension in infinite time and in infinite space. This we considered last time. Now, in the Supermind the Divine takes up three poises of world formation—the unity of things—not in the sense of unitarian unity or unitarian consciousness,—in which the potentiality of the Many is held. The second poise is that of the modification of that unity which becomes the play of the Many in the One, and the One in the Many, so as to support the manifestation of the many. And in that modification the supramental poise is of One in the Many and Many in One. That is to say, there is one soul-essence, and the differentiation is there only in the soul-forms. In the second poise the differentiation of One into many, and many into One takes place without creating division or separation, and without Satchidananda's undergoing a real process of separation—a condition in which the One is conscious of the Marty and the Many are filled with the presence of the One. That is to say, there is difference only in the soul-form and not in the Soul essence, that

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is what may be called the Jīvātman, the individual Divine. The third is a further modification which creates diversified individuality, which becomes the ego ultimately, following the creation of the mind. In the third poise of the Supermind the mental consciousness, or mind, comes into existence because the diversification has got to individualize itself. There in the first poise of the One and the Many the Truth-Consciousness is present and the Infinite.

There is of course a supporting concentration of the Supermind even when the being projects itself into the movement and is involved in it. There is the bliss of supramental unity in the duality. But the consequence of this projection is lapse into Avidya, ignorance. Then the Many are felt as the real fact of existence and the One is known only as the sum of the many. This Self in the Supermind would know the truth of the stable unity and truth of differentiation. It is the foundation and culmination of the divine play. It has the joy of differentiation of and the joy of unity. Of course, the Ananda would vary, that is to say, the poise enjoying it would vary. The Many would depend on the One and the Eternal would depend on the Many—there would be eternal persistence, eternal recurrence of the Many.

This is difficult for the mind to grasp; in its exclusive concentration it creates mutually destructive philosophical schools. But we who seek the integral Truth need not bother about them. It would be "vain labour of enslaving to our mental distinctions and definitions the absolute freedom of the divine Infinite." If you take only the first manifestation of the Supreme, you get an imperfect idea of the Reality. You must take all the three poises together. Unless and until the One is known as the Individual Self of the One, the Cosmic Self of the All, and the Transcendent above with individual and the All you have not got the right perspective of the Truth-consciousness. Truth-consciousness is itself at

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the centre of the individual. It is the common cosmic or all-pervading consciousness of the All and it is beyond the individual and the cosmic consciousness, both of which are derivatives of that One. If you grasp these three aspects which are here expressed in the formula of the Upanishads— "All Beings are in the Self", "The Self is in all Beings" and "All beings are the Divine"." Then it gives you the correct perspective.

Here the author is trying to show how the Supermind in taking the three poises becomes the origin of our ignorant world. The mental world is a variation of the third poise in which a further modification of the unity of the Truth-Consciousness takes place, creating the individualized ego. The individualized ego is the further modification of the limitation of this consciousness. We may grasp intellectually what is the eternal Reality and how out of that eternal Divine Reality the world has come. That which has come out of the Divine must inevitably return to the Divine. That is the logic of the Life Divine. Because it has come from the Divine it should be logical for it to go back to the Divine. This truth, however convincing intellectually, does not give us the satisfaction of the thing that is "experienced." And so he puts this question : how must we now change and what must we become in order to arise then in the Divine consciousness ? In order to have the real change man will have to undertake a serious inner effort and become so changed in his nature in life and his relation to others as to be able to embody the divine life. How must we changed in order to do that ? He is presenting that problem; and in Chapter 17 he says we have seen the descent of the Divine, the descent from the Truth-Consciousness to the ego formation, to life and to matter. But we have not seen the possibility and the necessity of the ascent. We stand at the point where the descent of the Divine is understood, but

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what is to be done ? In the descent we have lost the contact of the Infinite. The background was lost when the diversified ego was created. So the problem here in the 17th chapter is that while we know the descent to some extent and also understand that we are the Divine that has descended : the problem now is for this Divine in the human to ascend or rather to reascend to its own Divine Consciousness. And you can say that this being that wants to ascend to the Divine consciousness is already contained in the essential Satchidananda. The soul, the psychic being, behind the ego wants to ascend, but it is self-contained in the Supreme. That is the Divine Soul and you may call that the Jīvātman, the Central Being of the human individual here whose distortion is the ego. Sri Aurobindo puts it here with logic : the Divine Soul is pure, infinite Self-existence in its being and sense-existence and a free play of immortal life in its becoming. It is there in the Divine; there the true individual, the Central Being, is already contained in the Satchidananda, in the Infinite, and for it there is no death, no birth and no change. In Eternal Satchidananda it is free from time and therefore inevitably in bliss. Now, to the intellect this is only an abstract conception. It tells us that the Infinite is there in some way, "but the intellect cannot bring us into its presence" just by bringing the idea to our mind. The divine soul lives in it and it feels itself a manifestation of the Absolute; and as spoken of in the Rig Veda, we might sometimes have a glimpse of it. In that case, the divine soul that is always existent and contained in the Satchidananda would not only not lose the background of the Infinite, free from time and birth and change and death, but it would simultaneously live in the One and in the Many because there the unity is Self-existent and automatically operative. It is not an effort to realize the One in the Many and the Many in the One on the level of the Divine Soul in the Supermind where the division has

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not yet intervened. The Divine Souls therefore simultaneously would live in the One and in the Many,—the two terms of the expression of the Satchidananda. All actually lives so, but the divided consciousness of man compels him to live either in the One or in the Many. In actuality, the One and the Many do co-exist, but in man's consciousness either he is compelled by the limitedness of his consciousness to accept the position of the One or accept to live in the many. He must abandon the many in order to live in the One or live in the Many and forget the One. This is inevitable in the present conditions. "The Divine Soul is not so enslaved to diversity and duality." Infinite self-Concentration and infinite self-expansion and diffusion, bring about the One and the many: Self-concentration is Being, self-extension is the Many. It is constant self-extension and diffusion of the One in the Many and the Many in diffusion are drawn always to the One. This vast view is the mould of Truth-Consciousness. This is the real "I", he says. All is in it, the potentialities of the One, and all that we find as expression comes out of the silence of the One.

Now, the divine soul, when it extends itself, will be aware of three grades of Satchidananda of which we have spoken. "All things are the Self", its own Self. There is One Self-being, and One Seff-becoming. All are soul-forms of the One, that is the whole is in the One and the whole is in all. Thus it sees a relativity that proves to be the Absolute behind the form. It is based on self-knowledge, self in us becoming All-existences. All existences are in the Self and the Self is in all existence. That is the triple formula which we have dealt with.

This Divine Soul deals with others also as its own self. There is no division, and therefore, as the Veda puts it, Agni is called Indra, Indra is called Vayu, Vayu is called Mitra, and each one is expected to fulfil its function as a working

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out of an infinite Power. It is not expected to operate independently of others. Agni, Fire has its own function but it is also all the other Gods, for all the Gods are One. We will, in the next chapter, consider the psychological conditions for realizing this Divine Soul in life, and see how to bring the expression of the Divine Soul here in life. We are trying only to envisage the existence of the Divine Soul in the Truth-Consciousness and to understand in what state it would be living if it had its permanent station there. It would live in identity with the One and in a self-extension in the many who would be continually referable to the One, so that there would be no loss of identity and yet there would be a particularization or a variation allowing it to function as an individual Soul-form without any difference in the Soul-essence. It is given a particular function because of the will, but it is not therefore divided from all the rest because there they are all operations of one and the same Will. If Satchidananda projected predominantly a mental consciousness in one Divine Soul and projected a predominantly vital consciousness in another Soul, the two would not feel as if they were isolated from each other. They would know that the will that is operating in both is one. The power that is acting in both,—in one form in the mental power, another in vital power,—is one and the same, deriving from one inalienable, eternal, infinite Source. That would be the status of the Divine Soul. It is clear that it would not be an individuated mental egoistic soul separated from its source. It would have an individuation and an evaluation, and yet it would be constantly conscious of the background of infinity and multiplicity. It would be conscious of the unity and the many. So it would consciously fulfil a particular variation or a function assigned to it by the Divine Will which is common to all. As for the conditions of realizing this Divine Soul in life we will come to the subject when we take

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up the detail of the process.

Then he takes up the three powers, and that is important to understand. They are mind, vital being and matter— mind, life and body. In Chapters 18,19 and 20, he deals with the Mind and Life to show how they are derived from the Supermind, how there is a derivative action from the Supra-mental Truth-Consciousness. Mind as we know it is derived from That. Life as we feel it is derived from That. There is a relation of the Supermind to mind, life and body. We have seen five planes : the Transcendent, the Infinite, or Eternal Satchidananda; then there is the Supermind or Truth-Consciousness; and then from there are derived the three : Mind, Life and Body. Now here what we are trying to do is to see that bridging these five is Divine Maya, and there is the undivine Maya, undivine nature. Maya is another name for Nature. Now the question is : what is the relation between these two natures and these three planes ? That is what he is trying to work out, the relation between the Transcendent, and the Supermind and these three, mind, life and body and how they are related to the Truth-Consciousness and to the Transcendental. (It is a little analytical, not that we go into every detail because when we take the position on the basis of the chapters we have worked out up to the 12th—we can see afterward that these following chapters are an application of the basis that is already established.) The Supermind is a working out or welling out of this self-existent Delight into movement. Eternal Self-existent Delight concentrated within itself gives you the view of the Transcendental, eternal and infinite; and when it moves out into self-extension, its Delight turns into play of Delight. Then the world is created. He says that we do not feel the Delight. The argument with which he begins this chapter is that if the universe, or creation is a play of the Delight of the Eternal and the Infinite, mind, life and body do

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not feel the presence of the delight and the experience of it. It is the opposite of the original constitution of the being. Is it then possible to have a relation between the two or is it that mind can ascend to it ? That is one problem. Is it that we have to resort to abandoning life ? Has man to abandon mind, life, and body in order to ascend to the Delight ? Is it possible for mind by some process to expand out into that Delight or is it compulsory that man must abandon this formula of mind, life and body here and then perhaps somehow return to the Delight of which it is an expression here ? Sri Aurobindo says it is not necessary to abandon them because mind, life and body are within the formula of the Real-Idea of the Supermind. They have not been created in opposition to the Truth-Consciousness. It is not as if Supermind wanted to create a perfect world and suddenly our imperfect world happened to come into existence. In the working out of the Supermind an individuation was necessary to be created out of Matter and that individuation became so thoroughly exclusive as not to remember its origin, that's all. The whole problem for man is how to awaken to the Supermind so as to eliminate ignorance and consequent imperfection from life. Sri Aurobindo says this is a derivative working of the Real-Idea of the Supermind. The Truth-Consciousness has seen the possibility of a mental world, a vital world and a material world. And it is that which has projected itself into actuality for us. So, as it is a derivative working, it is not necessary to abandon life, or abandon mind or abandon the body in order to go back to the source of Real-Idea, to Truth-Consciousness in the Satchidananda. Now, why do they operate as they do on the basis of separation, creating first division, conflict, pain, suffering and all the problems of life? It is because they are separated from the origin, the problem has become acute because of the separation of these instruments, mind, life and body. And if the separation is removed, then

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expansion of consciousness also is possible. If the separation from the origin is removed, the same consciousness which is now limited, working on a basis of division and separation, can expand into its original Truth-Consciousness. And then the problem would be how to give the process of expansion a trial in life. The problem is how to provide the process of expansion from limited and egoistic mental, vital, and physical consciousness to a consciousness of unity, universality, infinity and delight ? If this can take place then the divine manifestation becomes possible. Then the remoulding of all the instruments of mind, life, and body can also occur. For that we have to take cognizance of the fact that for man, the manifestation is taking place on the basis of matter, on the basis of earth, and that man is founding himself as if he were proceeding from the earth outward, from the earth upward. So, in the earth-consciousness, if the establishment of the connection between the mental consciousness and our world takes place on the earth itself, there would be a first connection, and after the connection, perhaps, an expression or manifestation of that Truth. Something more than mind would manifest; if the connection is "permanent then that which is beyond mind—would remould the instrumentation of mind, life and body. The problem then is to establish the connection by the process of self-expansion, expansion of consciousness. Man has been so much subjected to ignorance, division and conflict and suffering, still, the inner soul in man, has contacted that Truth in the form of various conceptions of a Divine entity. One may call it God, some have called it the Infinite, some call it Lord. It does not matter what name you give to it. The inner contact between the Consciousness working within the formula of ignorance of mind, life and body, and that One in the inner being has, more or less, been constant. Inner unity with the Divine has been achieved more or less by some people

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or even by many people. But the victory of God in the field of external nature has not yet been achieved. Victory of the Divine Truth, victory over ignorance is possible. Then not only the manifestation of the Divine consciousness in the world would be possible, but also His power could remould man's life and body until the image of the Satcid-ananda is projected in life. And the victory in the outer nature may be the victory of God in humanity. The next step would be the victory of the Divine in the outer manifestation in life.

How does the mind happen to be held in the Supermind ? It is held as the Real-Idea. We have seen that all cosmic mind, universal mind, is held there as a potentiality of the Supreme. All perfection which mind can conceive is already there, because the mind would not get the idea if it did not exist. The idea, the thought, is the representative of that which exists somewhere. That which the mind conceives as the ideal is really something which already exists in the Supermind as the Real-Idea. What is an ideal that mind conceives ? An ideal generally is an eternal Reality, perceived by the mind but not yet manifested, or realized in our conditions of life. And this ideal itself is an indication that that which is envisaged by the mind is already in the Real-Idea. It is the Real-Idea which is at work. The whole of mental working, therefore, is reaching out to the Truth held in the Higher Consciousness. The Divine Maya comprehends both vidyā The Divine Maya which creates the world has the comprehension of knowledge and of ignorance. Ignorance of the mind also is held in it, so to say, and therefore it must have a Consciousness that contains all the finite. All the finite working of the mind is also contained in the Divine Maya. When this aspect of mind is realized by the mental Consciousness of man, then mind will not be rejected. Supposing one reaches this Reality, the supreme

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Truth Consciousness—what would be the use of mind afterwards ? Would there be nothing left for the mind to do ? Mind would not be necessarily abrogated. Mind is not an instrument to be thrown away. It is not something that would have no use in the scheme of manifestation of Divine perfection. Sri Aurobindo shows, that it has a place in Truth-Consciousness as a secondary operation of the Truth-Consciousness. Only the difficulty is being created by a complete isolation of the ego, a division of the being. But when the division is removed, mind would become an instrument of the Higher Consciousness. Immediately when the veil is removed, mind would not have to be rejected. It is not that you would have to tolerate it somehow, until you ended bodily existence. When the mind becomes conscious of the need of dealing with divisions in the working of the Truth-Consciousness in life it is able to fulfil its true function. What is the true function of mind ? He defines it now. "It is to translate the Infinite in terms of the finite". The true function of mind would be restored when the veil is removed and mind becomes a conscious working of the Truth-Consciousness. Only the forgetfulness of the Infinite is not allowed to intervene. Then mind is able to perform its function of translating the Infinite in terms of the finite, without forgetting the Infinite. That would be the change. The second function that the mind would perform when it contacts the Supermind would be to hold the forms apart from each other. Otherwise they would mingle up. So the mind is allowed the function of "holding the forms, not the spirit, apart from each other by the phenomenal purely formal delimitations''. The delimitation of their activity is not actual, for "behind this the Universality of the being will remain completely conscious and untouched". Now this can be made clear by an instance. Take America. America is one,—but suppose we want now to create some organisation

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for social or political life. Then you take the New York state, and follow it up by other states. When you prepare a map of America you put on the map a limit for each state. Does it divide America ? It does not. It is just something similar that happens in the mind. He says the mind holding forms apart from each other, is only phenomenal and purely formal, it forms delimitations. You put a line of the map but the map is only a delimitation for practical purposes. It is not that you are dividing anything, for behind it the Real must be always conscious and untouched, just as the oneness of the nation is not touched. In fact, it is conscious and yet the delimitation is there. That would be the function of the mind. There are two functions which the Supermind will allow the mind to continue, when it actually takes hold of and transforms the mind. One is its power to render the Infinite in terms of the finite, because if the mind dealt always with the Infinite as the Infinite you cannot have life. The Infinite is not lost. It is there all the time present, but it is being applied to conditions of material manifestation of earth-consciousness which is based on Matter. And in Matter the subdivision Mind, we have already seen, is a dividing faculty. It conceives perceives and sense things as if cut off from the background —not as whole—and it deals with parts as if they were wholes. This work of the mental consciousness to limit, to cut out from the all and deal with it as a whole is a fiction that creates the first division. Mind can multiply also as it divides, it can add as it can subtract, but it is unable to go beyond its limits. It cannot conceive the infinite, it can figure it as the vast. Possession of the Infinite can come only by the ascent of consciousness, an opening to the descent of the Higher Consciousness. It is the mind's way of functioning that brought the elements of division into being. For example, the infinity of the One came to be translated into extension in conceptual time and space. In the same way the Omnipotence

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in that self-extension translated itself into "multiplicity of conscious souls", and that multiplicity of soul-forms is constituted into "divided habitation of extended unity." The Purusha that is manifested in each soul-form is really the One and all Purushas enjoy the same Prakriti. But when the Purusha is completely identified with form and movement—then it becomes the ego. There is free identification from moment to moment,—only the self-knowledge of the Divine Soul prevents it from fixing itself in rigid chain of separation. Still a new action of the Conscious-Force is needed to create "a helplessly limited mind as opposed to freely limiting mind".

This new power is avidyā, the self-ignoring faculty, which acts by an exclusive concentration in the mind. Then the mind perceives only the particular not the universal: it takes up an exclusive concentration on the object excluding the rest of the all. This Mind is the final operation of the apprehending Truth-Consciousness; it is a subordinate process of the Eternal Seer, and Thinker. We have already seen that the Divine Maya comprehends both vidyā and avidyā-Knowledge and Ignorance. What we call "ignorance is mind separated in its knowledge from the source of knowledge and giving a force of rigidity and mistaken appearance of opposition and of conflict to the harmonious play of the Supreme Truth in its universal manifestation." It is by an exclusive concentration of consciousness which becomes complete identification with the moment, the field or form; then the indivisibility of time, force, substance is lost. Thus Ignorance does not create anything new or bring into being absolute falsehood. It is only mis-representation of the Truth.

Mind has to rediscover the truth of the Real-Idea. The veil that intervenes has to be rent. The dividing mind has become divided mentality. To be aware of the self as only the body, to know oneself as desire, —that is ignorance. The

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true individual is only a form of the One. But when it becomes a separate centre of the One, or even a centre of the All then it has fallen in ignorance. When this falsifying stand is lost then Mind can get back to the Truth of itself and of things. Then mind would be an instrument of the Truth-Consciousness. "Self-ignorance is therefore the perversity of our existence and that perversity stands fortified in the self-limitation, the egoism which is the form taken by that self-ignorance." All ignorance and perversity is only the distortion of the truth and right and not absolute falsehood.

In chapter 19 Sri Aurobindo takes up the problem of Life. Universal Energy which seems to be at work has covered three great steps in unfolding the process of evolution. It has brought into existence Matter,—organised Inconscience —as the first evolute. It has brought Life into being appa-rendy from Matter and Mind from Life. Matter, Life and Mind is the accomplished triple evolution. We have also seen that Supermind is working behind the veil in Mind which is its derivative. Man is the epitome of evolutionary process already accomplished having in him the Body-consciousness which is based on Matter,—Vital-consciousness which is based on the Life-principle and Mental consciousness of which he is the special representative. But Mind is not the end of the process of evolution, a further development beyond what is accomplished is possible. You cannot ask Nature to stop at a certain point in her labour. The Life Divine has proved that in chapter 4. In fact, there is already a tendency, a tension at work in the mental consciousness always to go beyond the difficulties of a divided being that is man. For man to refuse the ascent to the higher plane would be to limit the force of evolution. Sri Aurobindo wants man to justify the upward trend of Nature by making a conscious movement to go beyond the mental consciousness.

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Now the question is : Is Supermind working behind Life ? We have already seen that it is involved and is indirectly working in Mind. Is the Supermind involved in Life also ? We have considered Mind as an independent power. But here on earth there is no mental consciousness that is not in Life, because Mind here manifests itself in Life. When we say Life we mean to imply—if not a mental consciousness, at least awareness and some intelligence working from behind.

Then the question is : What is Life ? Also what is its relation to Satchidananda and Supermind ? This is important because man is preoccupied with Life. Very few people care for Mind while the majority are interested in Life. Men do not mind if they do not understand, what they want is enjoyment. The Upanishad also says : "Whatever is established here in the triple heavens is under the control of life." What we see in the universe has life, earth is living, the vegetable world is living, the insect and the animal worlds are alive. How has Life come into being ? By what compulsion or necessity did it come to birth from the Satchidananda ? What has given rise to Life from the Supermind ?

Is Life an evil, a delusion, a delirium, an insanity ? There are philosophers like Schoepenhauer who maintain that life is a delusion. At first sight it seems as if life is a force that works at random, as Sri Aurobindo puts in Savitri "a force that is gone wry". Is it condemned permanently to remain imperfect, restless, always inviting difficulties, dangers, and suffering ? It never seems to atain what it strives for—it is like the labour of Tantalus from whose lips the cup is always receding. Man seeks happiness in life but hardly finds it. If life is an evil and delusion, why is it so ?

We have arrived at the conception of the Omnipresent Reality as the fundamental truth of the world—including life. And we ask : why has the Omnipresent Reality inflicted upon itself the scourge of life as we find it ? We have reached

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the conclusion that the ultimate Reality is infinite Being, Consciousness and Delight, it is Satchidananda. If it is the play of delight that brought the world into existence, why is it that we do not find that delight in life? Does the play of Satchidananda creating the worlds, flow into life ? Is life a divine principle in its origin, if not in its actual working ? When Mind sees Life it perceives a cosmic energy which builds and creates forms of energies, it stimulates, disintegrates and renews them. All the three are processes of life, not life. All is life—as we have already seen—all existence is universal life that takes form—it is first submental in Matter, it is not apparent in metal, stone and gas. It appears like an inanimate force. In man, animals and plants it is animate. All renews, nothing perishes. Even death is process of life. Even physical disintegration is a renewal. When the physical body is dissolved the elements are used by other organisms.

The second thing about Life is that it is impelled to go on creating eternally. Life depends upon Matter for its continuation and growth. Breathing, eating, feeling are all necessary for life—these help life to remain, to increase, to express itself. But life can be without them. Life can exist without breath and continue when the heart stops. "Life is everywhere, secret or manifest, organised or elemental," It is all-pervading and imperishable. Even in metal there is life. J. C. Bose proved the nervous response in plants,—that the plant suffers, is drugged and dies. The metals show a kind of fatigue. We must change our idea of 'Life' which is generally confined to living beings. Life can have a submental organisation,—the nervous system in the plants is not mental. Mind can continue when Life is suspended. Attraction and repulsion of elements is a sign of some movement which to the conscious being would become "like and dislike." Positive and negative in the material world become in the world

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of Life, attraction and repulsion. In hibernation life is suspended and continues after months when good conditions return. When we say "a man is dead" we mean that the body organism has become completely unusable by life. When some bodily function is impaired so that life cannot function in it, then life withdraws from it, it is not destroyed.

An important characteristic of life is its mutability. Life is the working of universal energy in which transition from the Inconscient to Consciousness is managed. It is an "intermediary power latent or submerged in Matter, delivered by its own force into submental being, delivered finally by the emergence of Mind into full dynamis." Same processes of birth, growth, decay and death characterise life in various aspects e.g. in the plants and insects and animals and man. Then there is maintenance, propagation, and nourishment from outside as characteristics of life in the body. Even though the individual forms disintegrate there is a tendency in life to form aggregates. Life is the conscious-force acting.

"Life as nervous energy carries the force of form as a sensation to modify mind and brings back force of mind to modify Matter."

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