Lecture II
Chap. 3. The Two Negations : the Refusal of the Ascetic
Chap. 4. Reality Omnipresent
Chap. 5. The Destiny of the Individual Chap.
6. Man in the Universe
I will read a quotation from a book written by Mr. G.H. Langley who was the Vice-Chancellor at the Dacca University and who, on his retirement was asked by the Royal India-Pakistan-Ceylon Society to write a book on Sri Aurobindo. The Society published the book under the heading Sri Aurobindo, Indian Poet, Philosopher and Mystic. In that book Mr. Langley writes: "Sri Aurobindo is both a poet and a speculative thinker. The same is true of Rabindranath Tagore but the thought of Sri Aurobindo appears to me more comprehensive and systematic than that of Tagore." I use this comparison just to show that students of philosophy, without becoming devotees or disciples of Sri Aurobindo, have given him a place in their arrangement of philosophycal contribution which I think the ordinary man should notice.
There are such persons who do not belong to Sri Aurobindo's group of disciples or devotees. Here is another whom I think you know very well, Dr. Frederic Spiegel-berg of Stanford University. He wrote, "I have never known a philosopher so all-embracing in his metaphysical structure as Sri Aurobindo. None before him had the same vision. I can foresee the day when the teachings which are already making headway of the greatest spiritual voice of India, Sri Aurobindo, will be known all over America and be a vast power of illumination." This gives us a good start when we can feel that it is not at all a one-sided view that we are trying to take up and advocate.
When I spoke yesterday, I spoke of Sri Aurobindo's contribution
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as the Dawn of a new age. And today I would like to begin by giving some historical background. In the first decade of the present century, there was a profound stirring of the spirit of India "the Swadeshi Movement" as we call it. It was the beginning of the movement for Indian Independence.
It might be difficult for a reader of The Life Divine, the great philosophical work, today to imagine that its author was one of the very few nationalist leaders in those stormy days of Indian politics. When one takes up The Life Divine one imagines the author as a philosopher sitting in his cabin thinking of world problem. One would hardly know that he was a very great dynamic leader of an all-India stature.
It was during his detention, while under trial as a political revolutionary in 1908, that he got the second crucial experience of Yoga which became the turning point of his life. In a certain sense it was an epoch-making experience and he gave expression to it at a meeting in Uttarpara, in 1909. This spiritual experience in jail turned his mind to a problem of far greater magnitude than the winning of the freedom of the country. Subsequently, though invited several times to lead the political movement, he politely declined the honour because of his single-minded devotion to the pursuit of spiritual problem of man.
I give this historical background in order to bring to your mind the fact that The Life Divine is not an armchair philosophy, it is not a mere academic product. It is the result of the earnest and single-minded search for Truth extending over forty years by one of the foremost intellectuals of our times. It is important to note that the author not merely thought but lived the vision of the Reality and it is the solid work done for many years that has enabled him to make a lasting contribution to the thought and life of humanity. It is necessary that the present generation should be made
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aware of so great and valuable a contribution because that would enable it to solve the problems of today and of the future.
The Life Divine ushers in the dawn of the new age. We are told by many leaders of thought today that we are living in an atomic age, in the space age, in the age of cosmonauts, the age of technical advance and it seems at first sight natural that it should be so called because it has brought about and is even now bringing about in the individual and collective life vast changes by showing the possibilities of ameliorating the material conditions of the masses by technology all over the world. Man has been enabled to establish himself as the undisputed king among creatures of earth and he is expanding his physical consciousness to outer space as his domain. Mind has succeeded in mastering material energy by the knowledge of its processes.
Even with regard the control of mind over material energies, Sri Aurobindo laid down, long ago, a fundamental principle, indicating the nature of the new age of conquest even of Matter, conquest not dependent always on gross physical means and processes but the conquest of Matter by the Spirit. The control that man has attained over Nature at present is the control of mind and of life-force, which are in themselves not final realities but instruments of the Spirit. He writes in The Life Divine: "There is always a limit and an encumbrance; the limit of the material field in knowledge and encumbrance of the material machinery in power. But here also the latest scientific trend is highly significant of a freer future. As the outposts of scientific knowledge- come more and more to be set on the borders that divide the material from the immaterial, so also the highest achievements of practical science are those which tend to simplify and to reduce to the vanishing point the machinery by which the greatest effects are produced. Wireless
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telegraphy is Nature's exterior sign and pretext or a new orientation, the sensible physical means for the intermediate transmission of the physical force is removed. It is only preserved at the points of impulsion and reception. Eventually even these must disappear, for when the laws and forces of the supraphysical are studied with the right starting-point the means will infallibly be found for mind directly to seize on physical energy to speed it accurately upon its errand. There once you bring yourself to recognize it, lie the gates that open upon the enormous vistas of future."
Now this quotation from The Life Divine shows how he envisages the still greater progress of man's conquest over Matter, not merely by mind but directly by the action of the Spirit. But man, the mental being, because of his blind desires, impulses, passions, ambitions, greed, and ego, is slave of ignorance. The advance in technique has given rise to a tendency to increase his needs and to raise the standard of living, as it is called. There is a tendency to multiply the gadgets for his comfort and it is slowly changing the values of life by promoting the false notion that the physical is the only Real. Such exclusive concentration on mere material advance is not enough to create a perfect individual or a perfect society. Even in societies that have achieved a very high material advance there are already signs of satiety and psychological malaise which manifest themselves in increasing nervous disorders. We may ask ourselves whether this scientific advance with its utility to life and mastery of sense data is leading man towards the Truth.
It is true that science gives efficiency which is very essential but efficiency alone is not, and cannot be, the goal of life. To a strictly scientific and rationalistic view Truth is unknowable. What is urgently needed today is not only mastery over
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nature but also mastery over self. The application of scientific advance to collective life has put into man's hands such a tremendous reservoir of material power that without a corresponding inner transformation of his nature, man would not be able to make a real advance in his culture. It means that material advance by itself would not solve man's problems though the possibility of its misuse has instilled fear in man's mind and that fear makes him halt. But that fear would only deter him, it would not bring about the necessary change. Billy Graham in the magazine Life, August 15, 1960, writes, "American genius has enabled us to change virtually everything but ourselves. It is absolutely impossible to change society and reverse the moral trend unless we ourselves are changed from inside out." This feeling and this perception is fairly widespread among the intelligentsia everywhere and, I believe, it is symptomatic of the new psychological change that is trying to establish itself in mankind. The material advance itself, man's mastery over unlimited material energy, and simultaneously man's feeling of a need for change in his own nature, are signs of the descent of the Supramental in our earth evolution. Sri Aurobindo advocates the control of Matter by the Spirit but in order to be able to do that man must rise above his present state of consciousness. He must rise from his mental consciousness to the Truth-Consciousness, to the Supermind.
When I spoke in Cambridge in Friends' Hall in 1955, I said to the audience, 'Yours is an old seat of learning, and it has the distinction of giving to the world great discoverers like Newton and Faraday and others. I have come to tell you that here, in this King's College, there was another distinguished discoverer, Sri Aurobindo, from India who laid bare the supramental level of consciousness, opening thereby an immense realm of spiritual experience
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to man'. In the words of Dr. Gokak, "his work opens up new horizons that spell new cultures upon earth".
The Life Divine meets the challenge of the agnostic and materialistic outlook now trying to dominate the world, but in a more profound view it satisfies the deepest need of man, his aspiration for an integral perfection. While it thus satisfies the spiritual need of mankind it is an equally characteristic contribution of India to the human culture of the future. Without those fundamental spiritual elements, no human culture could be perfect. Sri Aurobindo's works may be said to be the international form of Indian culture. My friend, Dr. Chandrashekhar, an Andhra Poet, says, "No other philosophy or religion gives to life on earth such a high significance as the works of Sri Aurobindo."
There are people who are confident about solving man's problems by other than spiritual methods. There are other factors also that have intervened and some of them advocate resorting to social or political action for solving them. There are three psychological factors that have emerged. One, an internationalism all over the world, a tendency to make the world one, not insisting on national egoism or national consciousness but a tendency to create a consciousness of the whole of humanity. Second, a universal demand for a kind of socialism everywhere; even when there has been a very individualistic and democratic outlook, the pressure has been to demand a kind of socialism, a kind of justice for all, and it is demanded that whatever one does must mean something to as many as possible. Third, an increasing prominence given to ethical values in international politics. Gradually the balance of power is shifting from economy and military force to ethical forces in international life.
There was a time when nations trying to decide the questions or solve their problems resorted either to economic or political pressures or military force. After the two worldwars
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the balance is now shifting slowly, not very quickly but slowly, to imponderable forces. In international life now ethical element,—whether what you do is right or not, is good or not,—is regarded as an important factor in deciding the policy of nations. This coming into prominence of ethical values in international life is also another important element.
The question is whether these new values with the scientific advance, would be able to solve man's problem. There is a great confusion also with regard to the nature of the problem itself. In fact, it is supposed by some that a plan or a programme carried out by social, political or other outer means would perhaps solve man's problems. About this Sri Aurobindo says that "the advocates of action think that by human intellect and human energy making an always new rush, everything can be put right. The present state of the world after the development of intellect and its stupendous output of energy—for which there is no historical parallel, is a signal proof of the emptiness of the illusion under which they labour. Yoga takes a stand that it is only by a change of consciousness that the true basis of life can be discovered. From within outward is indeed the rule." Some others think that a certain thought, some "ism", propagandized by sincere persons through agency of speech and travel and radio and press and books and television would bring about the necessary inner and outer change. It is true that thought, idea and an ideal or some programme of social or economic progress—these are great powers for effecting a change in life. But the most important thing very often forgotten is that there is no outer problem. The problem is not outer, the problem is inner: the problem is man and his ignorance. The next question then is : is it possible to attain perfection with the faculties that man possesses at present ? Sri Aurobindo shows
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that man must ascend to the Supermind, to the Truth-Consciousness, if he is to attain perfection. The general tendency, when such questions arise, is to regard them as fundamental and unsolvable. And if solutions are offered, it is said "this is a good solution but it is Utopian, impossible", "It is Shangri-la, it cannot be carried out in life." This wrong attitude prevents a proper approach and retards the solution of important problems.
An illustration can make the point clear. If Mahatma Gandhi had consulted the political leaders and statesman of his time to advise him about his contemplated resort to Satya-graha, Non-violence, to secure independence for India, what do you think would have been the reaction ? With one voice they would have declared him crazy and advised him against any such Utopian method that would surely invite failure if not political disaster. Granting that India does not owe its freedom entirely to Non-violence, still it is clear that Gandhi did the right thing in trying his novel experiment after consulting only his own conscience. The world has now a new weapon for setting right some of the wrongs of collective life. What is, or what seems impossible at one time becomes possible after sometime. So the sciences of medicine, physics, etc., have achieved many things that were at one time considered impossible. And Sri Aurobindo writes in his epic, Savitri,
"The high gods look on men and watch and choose,
Today's impossible for the future base."
So fundamentally there is nothing that should be considered impossible, I mean the programme that he lays down for man in books like The Life Divine.
Consciousness is the fundamental fact of the cosmos and cosmic consciousness of which the individual is only one
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particular application, is a secondary working out of it. Whether this cosmic consciousness is the highest, is a problem. This is one question and in this chapter which we are trying to read we will see that cosmic consciousness is not the whole of the Reality that is at work. There is something beyond the cosmic consciousness. There is the Transcendent, if you like to call it, or a supracosmic Reality. It is transcendent to the ego, but it transcends also the cosmos. The cosmic consciousness is far wider than the individual and the Transcendent consciousness is far wider than the cosmic. The cosmic consciousness which is far superior to the individual makes a great appeal to man when he awakens to it in his spiritual life. It is possible that man is overcome at the first contact of the supracosmic aspect of the Reality and he may conclude that That alone is real, the rest—the cosmic and the individual and the world—unreal: everything else except the Transcendent is felt as an illusion.
Matter is supported by the evidence of the senses and therefore we think that Reality ends with matter. That is not quite true. Even matter has its own occultism. Matter has conditions which our senses can not grasp. Physical realities there are which are really suprasensible. Our senses themselves have supra-physical capabilities : they can sense matter without using the gross organs. Telepathy, hypnotism, etc. bear evidence to what might be called occultism at the material level of consciousness. Though the knowledge of this occult world is at present imperfect because of defective manner of its acquisition and use, it requires to be checked, controlled, scrutinized, That matter has subtle states which our senses do not perceive is the truth. Just as beyond the cosmos there is the Transcendent, below matter or behind matter the scientist or the materialist does know that there is something occult which he does not know.
So that both ways there is a sort of transcendence, beyond
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the perception of the cosmic spirit and a transcendence of the limitations of matter when they are overcome by or they are removed by the occult phenomen a which occur on the plane of Matter. There in both directions, the worlds beyond already exist, beyond matter and beyond cosmos. Occultism is seen normally by man in life in the realm of spirit-communications, in telepathy, in faith-cure, in thought-transference and so on. One can say that the methods employed are not always reliable and refined and effective but require to be constantly checked and controlled and disciplined, but that they occur and that they are valid, I think, nobody can doubt.
Sri Aurobindo puts it down in The Life Divine that the occult is a part of existence. Science itself is, in its own way, an occultism, for it brings to light the formula which Nature hides and it uses the knowledge to set free operations of her energies which she has not included in her ordinary operations and to organize and place them at the service of man. This is a kind of physical magic. So occultism is not merely spiritual, it is also seen in the physical.
The question now arises : is then, cosmic existence real ?
The Transcendent beyond is the ultimate Reality, Matter and below matter what may be called the Transcendence of matter seems to have some Unknown at work. In between you feel the Cosmic Consciousness. Now is this real ? Because the ascetic refuses to believe it to be real. A logical and intellectual process is formulated by the ascetic to prove that the cosmic consciousness is not real. And the second question is : what is the value of human life ? Is the short life of the human individual meant for snatching from the transient existence whatever pleasure he can ? Should he give himself up to enjoying life as it is presented to him ? Or should he submit himself to a dispassionate, objectless service of the race knowing full well that all
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this is a transient fiction ?
This, I think, is the attitude which some of the modern schools of thought are advocating.
If life is not real, is it only a nervous spasm in matter ? If one accepts that, one comes to a material Mayavada that all is matter and matter is Maya, or illusion. Like Maya which 'is' and 'is not', matter also 'is' because it is present and compels, and "it is not" because it is phenomenal and transitory.
The second difficulty in solving this problem is the question whether cosmic consciousness is real or not. Normally man has no experience of the cosmic mind. He has no experience of the supermind, and so how is he to decide whether cosmic conciousness is real or not ? The remedy to solve this problem, Sri Aurobindo suggests here, is that we must try to extend the field of our own consciousness and get into the experience of cosmic consciousness. And this can be done not by simply wanting it, but by increasing the instrumental capacities of human nature.
Man is given certain instruments,—senses, nervous being, vital being, emotional being and mental being. These have certain capacities and they are capable of development. Man's intellectual capacity, his reasoning power, comprehension etc. can be developed. When the powers of the instruments are developed then man is able to expand his consciousness.
Man finds also that he has a great power of detachment from the instruments because he has within him the true Self. This Self is independent of nature. Man can detach himself in the mind or in the vital and experience a "witness" Self that can watch, without participation, all the movements of nature. The experience of the witness is really the beginning of expansion of consciousness and of true freedom. The witness watches not merely the
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individual nature but the whole of cosmic movement.
Modern psychology has begun to admit the existence of the cosmic consciousness in another sense than what the ancients knew. It is now called "the collective unconscious", whatever it may mean. The ancient seers and mystics had the experience of the cosmic consciousness : they knew matter to be only one working of the cosmic energy, another is life and the third is mind. In man matter, life and mind have organized the possibility of realising the witness Self, the Purusha.
What is the test that he has actually done it ? The test is that he is able to live in another consciousness, to be able to identify with the content of 'other' consciousness. He begins as an individual and expands into cosmic consciousness. When he takes up his individual station again he is able to identify himself with the content of consciousness of what, to him as an individual, are "others". He is able to know the content of consciousness which is not that of his individual self. That is one test. When we live in it, we live also in other minds, in other lives and we can produce effects on others and produce effect on the physical plane and mould events. One can take part in moulding world events. The cosmic consciousness therefore is real and its effects also are real. Thus the world which is a product of cosmic consciousness is also real world.
When we say the world is real or the cosmic consciousness is the real we do not mean to say that it is an independent existence. It is real because something greater than the cosmic consciousness is real. It is a dependent Reality, in the sense that it is an expression of a greater Reality than the cosmos, than the universe. The Transcendent Reality is the basis of the cosmos.
So that if one would ask : who created the world and answer "the cosmic consciousness", he would be right.
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But there is a Conscious Energy, one with Being that creates the world. It is the Sat and the Chit aspect of the Supreme that is responsible for the world creation. Therefore Conscious-Being that one speaks of, thus, is more than the universe.
Conscious Being—not cosmic being—is more than the Cosmos; it lives also within, inside the working of cosmic harmonies. The world that we know lives by That which is beyond the cosmos. But That does not live by the world. That is one thing to be grasped.
And the great fact of this life manifested on earth is that man can ascend to the Transcendent Being; it is possible for man, the individual, to ascend to the transcendent Truth, that by which the world lives but which does not live by the world. This is the whole basis of Life Divine, that it is possible for the individual to ascend to, to rise to the Transcendent Consciousness.
In the metaphysical language, he puts it as the Transcendent, the Universal, and the Individual as the three statuses of the Reality—Satchidananda—in the world. Whereas in poetry he puts it differently. He says in Savitri:
The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone Has called out of the Silence his mute force Where She lay in the featureless and formless hush Guarding from Time by her immobile sleep The ineffable puissance of his solitude. Book I, Canto 4.
The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone
Has called out of the Silence his mute force
Where She lay in the featureless and formless hush
Guarding from Time by her immobile sleep
The ineffable puissance of his solitude.
Book I, Canto 4.
Here one finds three terms, Absolute, Perfect and Alone. The 'Alone' means there are no two Truths, there is only one Truth and that can have a personal as well as an impersonal aspect. The 'Perfect' implies the creation of the Universe, because a perfect thing can exist in the midst of relatively
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perfect or imperfect things. The 'Absolute' means free from or beyond all creation, beyond all relativities. The philosophical term 'Transcendent' can imply all the three. But the general idea is that what transcends is unrelated to, or rejects what it transcends. The Supreme is transcendent, but not in the sense of rejecting what it transcends; it only means it is greater than what it transcends. Even in our ordinary experience we know that life transcends matter but it does not reject it, it rises above it. So, also mind transcends life and matter but does not reject either.
There are philosophies that assert that the Transcendent is the only Reality and everything else is unreal. The aim of man is to reach or ascend to the Transcendent by rejecting the world and life. The Spirit is pure and luminous without duality. The Brahman is, moreover, inactive, silent, eternal; the world is unreal, temporary. The ascetic attitude rejects nature and life on that basis. In India this attitude has played a great part and men have been told to reject life in order to attain spiritual perfection. Perfect and eternal bliss is to be attained in the Brahmaloka, on the plane of the Infinite by merging into it. It is argued that in order to attain knowledge one must withdraw from ignorance which prevails in life. So, renunciation is said to be the sole path to Knowledge. Acceptance of life would be an act of ignorance, cessation of birth is the true aim of human birth. When the spirit calls one has to recoil from matter.
The age in which we live is not in sympathy with this ascetic ideal of refusal and renunciation of life. Did India accept it because her vitality was failing ? Perhaps.
Sri Aurobindo accepts that our age is not in sympathy with the ascetic attitude. But in spite of all that can be said against it, there is a great truth in the ideal of renunciation. It proves that so far as man is concerned, inner spiritual progress is more important than material possessions, that self-control
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is greater than self-indulgence, Spirit is greater than the world. The modern man is living a life subject to vital urges and outer values have acquired a great importance in his view. It is necessary for man to accept the truth that Spirit is the ultimate Reality. The integral attitude which Sri Aurobindo advocates is that the Spirit—call it Satchidananda, or Brahman or anything else,—is One. The One includes the All, "ekamevādvitīyam."
The limitation of the ascetic idea is that it fails to give any meaning to life and to the world; the descent of the Transcendent into Matter remains unexplained. Nevertheless the ascetic idea has also rendered service to human life by pointing out the importance of the Spirit. It will be seen that the capacity to give up things is always found in those who have attained greatness, it draws life out of the downward gravitational pull of animality, desire and ambition. It gives one* the capacity to reject ignorance.
What is, then, the solution of the opposition between Spirit and Matter ? Sri Aurobindo does not advocate a compromise. It is very often a bad bargain. It is necessary to reconcile the two—Spirit and Matter. The reconciliation is found in the Cosmic Consciousness which is the meeting point of Matter and Spirit; in the creation of the world Matter and Spirit meet. Both are divine; the Cosmic Consciousness on one side is the active Brahman and on the other side it is the inactive Brahman. There is no contradiction in these aspects, it is not as if the one denies and the other affirms the cosmic illusion. The Cosmic Consciousness has behind its active aspect the background of its tremendous impersonal, silent aspect. It is from that passive and silent aspect that the worlds are created. Sri Aurobindo shows that
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silence does not mean void, it only means consciousness held back from expression. What is contained in the silence expresses itself as the Word. It is the inactive aspect that sustains the cosmic action, supports the movement of the worlds. If the Infinite Brahman were not fully present at each point of manifestation the objects of our perception would not exist.
Some systems of thought have ended by accepting the silence as 'non-being'—'asat'. In an Upanishad it is stated that "Being came out of Non-Being" The meaning of the statement is that 'Being' comes out of that which to the human mind is 'Non-Being'. But if one accepts the idea of non-being as the ultimate truth then to merge into non-being, annihilation of oneself in it, would be the summum bonum. That would be the highest spiritual achievement of the human spirit.
Sri Aurobindo says : this is only a play with mere words. What after all does one mean by "Non-Being" ? 'Being' and 'Non-Being' are both ideas of the mind. 'Being'—Sat —is that which the mind can grasp, 'Non-Being'—Asat—is that which the mind cannot grasp, it is something beyond the reach of mind. And if one says that non-being is zero or void it is that which is the All. It is the Infinite that one cannot describe, it is like a blank to the human mind. In that sense only it can be said to be non-existence.
When it is stated that 'Being' came out of 'Non-Being' one can ask: when did it come out ? In fact, it is an eternal reality that exists and therein what mind calls 'Being' as well as 'Non-Being' have both existed simultaneously. There was no particular point of time at which 'Being' or 'Non-Being' began. Does entry into non-being mean negation of all experience ? How can such a negation of experience be an explanation of our experience ?
Non-being—'asat' —really means freedom of the Reality
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from 'Being' —, freedom from all the terms of existence,— not the denial of all reality of existence but the denial of all the limitation of its expression. Thus, simultaneous awareness of a conscious being, a Self as a Reality and an Unknowable beyond as the same Reality becomes realisable to the awakened human soul. Man then realises that the Reality is not limited to its expression. That is the meaning of the word 'Non-being'.
The Omnipresent Reality is the foundation of the Life Divine. Sri Aurobindo says : "An omnipresent Reality is the Brahman, not an omnipresent cause of persistent illusion. If it is asserted like the old Vedanta that 'Self alone exists' then one must equally accept: "All is the Self." i.e., a Divine Self exists and all is that Divine Self.
How did this Self manifest or create this universe ? Was the Self compelled to manifest, or create, or express the universe ? Was there a necessity ? Did something happen in its own Self and it had to submit unwillingly so that something contrary to its very being and nature came into existence ? How did a world of ignorance, suffering, pain, and evil,—a very imperfect world come into being from the Self or from the Brahman ? The question is : was there a compulsion, a necessity ?
Sri Aurobindo asserts that there was no such compulsion or necessity. Something is there that wills the manifestation and what else can that be if not the Omnipresent Reality ? It is not possible, logically, to put the responsibility from the one Omnipresent Reality to some other thing, like Maya or Avidya, the power of illusion. Sri Aurobindo accepts only the Omnipresent Reality as the basis of the Cosmos. As the universe proceeds from the Omnipresent Reality it is its manifestation. The question who is responsible for the world-ignorance, for suffering etc. is indirectly answered : the Omnipresent Reality is the cause of ignorance, pain etc.
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This can be called true Monism. Brahman is the Lord, it is base, it is the material of creation.
Existence, consciousness and bliss—Satchidananda—is the description of that One, the Omnipresent Reality. It is that which is the world, at work in it; but at the same time it is beyond the world in the sense of not being limited by this creation. In that sense only it is 'non-being' which at the same time supports the 'being'.
If one can accept the logic of this truth and follow the process of inner growth, then one can be integrally fulfilled. If the intellect is convinced of the Truth, then one has to pursue the path of self-culture—yoga—with faith. And faith will be justified by experience. The main difficulty is the perception of the whole universe as inert matter. One sees and knows 'forms' only; but they are valid only as the shapes and substances of manifestation of That which is incorporeal, immaterial; that which is behind the form is the Real, it is That which the form expresses. One sees matter and life but they exist in the Brahman, in the Omnipresent Reality.
But Brahman is not a unitarian Reality, it contains many forms of consciousness and being. Many planes of consciousness co-exist in the Brahman. It holds the Reality of the Individual, of the Universe, of the Transcendental. They are not separate from one another. The Supreme Reality occupies the three positions at the same time. The Transcendent transcends the cosmos, yet embraces it. The Universal is greater than the Individual but includes and supports it. The Individual holds within himself the capacity to liberate the Self from ego and expand into Universal Consciousness. He can even soar beyond the Universal into the Transcendent and keep his relation with life so as to bring the working of the highest status of Reality into life. The liberated individual thus becomes a point of light, a point of self-manifestation of the Supreme. Then the problem of man's life is solved.
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