PART I
" Sri Aurobindo is both a poet and 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."¹——G. H. LANGLEY ( Sri Aurobindo: Indian Poet, Philosopher, Mystic " Royal India Pakistan Ceylon Society, David Marlowe Ltd., )
". .1 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 malting headway of the greatest spiritual voice of India, Sri Aurobindo, will be known all over America and be a vast power of illumination..." ( Prof. Fredric Spiegelberg of Stanford University, California, U. S. A.)
I' "Resurgent India has in The Life Divine a world-view worthy of its glories past and formative of a more glorious future " ( Chandra shekharan)
DAWN OF A NEW AGE
I should like to begin by giving some historical back- ground. In the last decade of the last century there was a profound stirring of the spirit of India, Bharat Shakti.
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¹ I am inclined to give these quotations because we in India have hesitation and are slow in recognising greatness in our midst. Tagore got his place in our country after he won the Nobel Prize. Bat greatness does not depend upon its recognition : it is those who recognise it that stand to gain.
² Doubt has been expressed in some academic quarters as to whether " The Life Divine " is a philosophy. After all what is in a name ?
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It was the beginning of the movement of independence. Ill might be difficult for a reader of The Life Divine, the great: philosophic work, to imagine that its author was one of the; very few nationalist leaders in those stormy days of Indian' politics. It was during his detention as an under-trial political revolutionary in 1908 that he got the second crucial experience of yoga that 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.S This spiritual experience in jail turned his mind to a problem; of far greater magnitude than winning the freedom of the I country. Subsequently invited several times to lead the¦ political movement, he politely declined the honour because of his single-minded devotion to the pursuit of the! spiritual problems of man.
I give this historical background in order to bring to your minds the fact that The Life Divine is not an arm-chair philosophy, not a mere academic product; it is the result of a very earnest and single-minded search extending over
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It may not conform to certain fixed ideas of what is philosophy and " The Life Divine " is not an exercise in intellectual gymnastics, nor is it an attempt of mathematical logic. Dr. S. K. Mitra, I think, is right when he says : " System building is not what we value in a j Philosopher. It is the power to kindle thought, to give new orientation, a new outlook. " Meeting of the East and West is Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy.
Besides there are philosophers and philosophers. Some are professionals who live in the old orthodox mould and whom no philosophy touches; they remain like the lotus leaf in water. There are others who are careerists and have an eye on promotion and position. Others there are who are interested in ideas-new ideas and even those who are attracted by the style and method. Only very few are earnest seekers of the Truth prepared to tread the unknown path and risk all the dangers of an adventure. What such people write is philosophy. " The Life Divine " is such a philosophy.
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forty long years by one of the foremost intellectuals of our times. It is important to note that the author not merely thought but lived his vision of the reality, and it is the solid work done for many years that has enabled him to make a lasting contribution to thought and life. It is necessary that the younger generation should be made aware of so varied 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 a new age. We are told by many leaders of thought that today we are living in the atomic age, in the space age, the age of Cosmonauts,. the age of technical advance par excellence and. it seems at first sight natural that our age should be so named because. of the vast economic changes science has brought about and is even now bringing about in the individual and collective life of man.
It has given a new concept of collective life by showing the possibility of ameliorating the material condition of the masses all over the world. Man has established himself as the undisputed king among creatures of the earth and he is expanding his physical consciousness to outer space claiming it as his domain. Mind has succeeded in mastering material energy by the knowledge of its processes.
Even with regard to mind's control over material energy, long ago Sri Aurobindo laid down 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 now attained by man is that of Mind and of the Life-Force which are themselves not final realities but instruments of the Spirit. He writes in The Life Divine : " But there is always a limit and an encumbrance, the limit of the material field in the knowledge, the encumbrance of the material machinery in the power. But here also the latest trend is highly significant of a freer future. As the outposts
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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 reduce to the vanishing point the machinery by which the greatest effects are produced. Wire- less telegraphy is Nature's exterior sign and pretext for 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 the physical energy and speed it accurately upon its errand. There, once we bring ourselves to recognise it, lie the gates that open upon the enormous vistas of the future."
But Man, the mental being, in spite of his scientific advance, is still a slave of his own nature, his blind desires, impulses, passions, ambitions, greed, ego - in short, the slave of ignorance. The advance in techniques has given rise to a tendency to increase his needs, " to raise the standard of living, " as it is called, to multiply gadgets for his comfort; it is slowly changing the values of life by promoting the false notion that the physical is the only reality. The exclusive concentration on mere material advance, it is clear, is not enough to create perfect men or a perfect society. Even in societies that have achieved a very high degree of material advance there are signs of satiety, psychological malaise which manifest themselves in increasing nervous disorders. We may ask ourselves whether this scientific advance with its utility to life and its mastery of science-data is leading man towards the Truth. It is true , science gives efficiency which is very essential but efficiency alone is not, or cannot be, the goal of life. To a strictly rationalistic, that is, scientific, outlook Truth is unknowable.
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What is urgently needed is not only mastery of material Nature but also self-mastery. The application of scientific advance to collective life has put into man's hand 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 the material advance by itself would not solve man's problems though the possibility of its misuse has instilled fear in his mind and the fear makes him halt and think; but that fear would only deter him but not bring about the necessary inner change. That is what Billy Graham writes in Life³ "
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, this perception is fairly widespread among the intelligentsia everywhere and I believe that it is symptomatic of the new psychological change that is trying to establish itself. The material advance itself, man's mastery over unlimited material energy, and simultaneously man's inner feeling of the need for changing his own nature are signs of the descent of a Power beyond the Mind into earth evolution. Sri Aurobindo advocates the control of Matter—that is, material energy by the Spirit; but, in order to be able to do that, man must rise above his present state of Consciousness; he must rise to the Supermind.
In one of my lectures at the Friend's Hall at Cambridge,4 I said: " Yours is an old seat of learning. It has the distinction of giving to the world great discoverers like Newton and Faraday. I have come to tell you that here in King's College there was another distinguished discoverer, Sri Aurobindo, from India, who laid bare the Supramental level of Conscious-
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3. August 15, 1960.
4 November, 1955.
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ness opening thereby an immense realm of spiritual experience 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 profounder view, it satisfies the deepest need of man — his aspiration for integral perfection. While it thus satisfies the spiritual need of mankind it is equally a characteristic contribution of India to the human culture of the future; for 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 Sri Chandrashekharan, the Andhra poet, says : " No other philosophy or religion gives to life on earth such high significance."
Apart from the material advance there are purely psychological factors also that have emerged: ( 1 ) Inter- nationalism; (2) A universal demand for a kind of Socialism; ( 3 ) The increasing prominence given to ethical values in international politics. The question is whether these new Values with the help of the scientific advance would enable man to solve his problems. In fact, there is a great confusion with regard to the nature of the problem before man. It is supposed by some that a certain plan or programme, carried out by social, political and other outer means, would solve the problem.
About that Sri Aurobindo says : " The advocates of action think that by human intellect and energy making an always new rush, everything can be put right; the present state of the world after a development of the intellect and a 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 the stand that it is only by a change of consciousness that the true basis of life can be
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discovered; from within outward is indeed the rule. "5
Others think that a certain " thought " or " ism" propagated by sincere persons, through the agency of speech, travel, radio, press, books even padayatras - would bring about the necessary inner and outer change. It is true, a system of thought, the ideal of service, some programme of social or economic change etc. are great powers for effecting a change in life. But the most important thing, very often forgotten, is that there is no mere outer problem. The problem is inner, the problem is man and his ignorance.
The next question is : is it possible to attain perfection with the faculties which man possesses at present? Sri Aurobindo shows that man must ascend to the Supermind, -the Truth-Consciousness (above the Mind ), if he is to attain perfection.
The general tendency is to regard such questions relating to the fundamentals as insoluble and if solutions are offered they are dubbed Utopian. This wrong attitude prevents a proper approach and retards the solutions of important problems. An illustration might make the point clear.
If Mahatma Gandhi had consulted the statesmen and political leaders of his time to advise him about his contemplated resort to Satyagraha to secure independence for India, what do you think would have been their 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 Satyagraha, still it is clear that the Mahatma did right in trying his novel experiment for which he consulted only his own conscience: the world has a new weapon for setting right some of its political wrongs. What is or seems impossible at one time becomes possible after sometime. The sciences of medicine,
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5 On Yoga ' Tome I, P. 162.
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physics, etc., have achieved many things that were once considered impossible. Sri Aurobindo writes in his epic Savitri
The high Gods look on man and watch and choose
To-day's impossibles for the future's base.6
In considering the solution offered by a great work like The Life Divine one has to keep the mind open, admit untried possibilities and undertake even the risk of experimenting in new directions. In this regard I am glad to find that Vinoba Bhave, though following a particular line of thought and action, has kept his mind open to other quits disparate kinds of possibilities. He is trying to live up to the ideal of " the world as one family", Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam , and he has been preaching the same in his "Padayatra", "pilgrimage on foot". After years of experience of Padayatra he accepts the possibility of spreading the idea without resorting to any outer means. By attaining to a certain spiritual poise it is possible, he believes, to spread the ideas and work out its results in life sitting at one place. It would be like the launching of a ballistic missile from a previously prepared base directing it to the target.
The Life Divine propounds the possibility—indeed, the inevitability of evolution of man from Mind to Supermind. Omnipresent Reality is the basis of the universe—its fundamental substance. This Omnipresent Reality is active :". the universe in three positions or, say, it is triple in its moments: the Individual, the Universe- and the Transcendent i In all the three it is identical. The universe is the movement of evolution from an apparent Inconscience to a greater and greater degree of consciousness: this is a process in the opposite direction to involution in which there was the gradual descent covering the original Reality, creating a world at every downward step. The process of evolution
6 ( Savitri : Book III Canto 4, P. 308.
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has proceeded from Matter to Life, from Life to Mind. Man, the mental being, is transitional because he has yet to ascend to higher Consciousness beyond Mind. This is the great spiritual Odvssey that man has now to undertake consciously.If material science lays open before man a wide—practically unlimited- field of adventure, research and experience in the outer interstellar space, the supramental, is not without its own attractive elements. The Life Divine is a call " to spiritual adventure, to a spiritual exploration; it initiates a vision of heights of consciousness which have indeed been glimpsed and visited but have yet to be discovered and mapped in their completeness. The highest of these peaks or elevated plateaus of Consciousness, the supramental, lies far beyond the possibility of any satisfying mental scheme or map of it or any grasp of mental seeing and description."7 On those unexplored heights there lie inexhaustible treasures of Light and Power which can effectively help mankind to solve its problems. A call is upon young India to answer. The Life Divine is not a poetical dream, an abstract weaving of mere intellect; it is a discovery that makes available a new source of knowledge and Power to man.
That this assertion is not a speculation unrelated to the so-called ' hard realities ' of life may be seen from a statement of Sri Aurobindo himself:
" This ( his retirement from outer activity ) did not mean as most, people supposed, that he had retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interests in the world or in life. It could not mean that, for the very principle of his yoga is not only to realise the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world activity into the scope of this spiritual consciousness and action and to base life on the spirit and
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7 The Life Divine, P. 817
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give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action for it is a part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the Mind and Life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic Power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in the spiritual consciousness, though all do not care to possess or, possessing, to use it, and this Power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which Sri Aurobindo used at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world forces. "
In his Savitri he wrote :
This world is a beginning and a base
Where Life and Mind erect their structured dreams:
An unborn Power must build reality.8
Supermind brings to birth that unborn Power. Is it only Power ? It is much more; listen to the voice of the maternal Divine Love.
"0 beloved children, sorrowful and ignorant and thou,
0 rebellious and violent Nature, open your hearts, tranquillise your force, it is the omnipotence of Love that is coming to you."9
In spite of the glib talk of there being no difference between the cultures of the East and the West it cannot be denied that the values dominating Western culture have created problems for new India. Old values are already broken up and one need not regret it if they had no contribution to make to human progress. But young men uprooted,
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8 Book I, Canto 4.
9 Prayers and Meditations of the Mother : P. 131. June 9, 1914.
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psychologically, from their own culture are taking to the glamorous outer values of the powerful Western culture in their bewilderment. The civilisation of gadgets, with its aimless speed, senseless competition, fragmented living, "commercialisation of culture, rising standard of living with no prospect of where it will stop, undermining of moral and spiritual values—all that poses a problem. There is a crisis in the cultural life of free India. It is for young India to decide. In a wider sense the choice is for humanity today.
As for India, return to the past is not only undesirable but impossible. Sterile repetition is not life; nor is slavish imitation of the West the solution. Does free India want to tread the same path of industrialisation in the same way ? Our need today is growth—growth within. The problem is how to assimilate the dynamic values of life—social, economic and political—prominently imposing themselves upon humanity, and yet to preserve the spiritual forces created :by our culture; or, in other words: Is Indian spirituality capable of assimilating the elements of western culture .and giving humanity a new synthesis that might point the way out of the present crisis ?
It is spirituality that can give us guidance in the present crisis but there are some leaders who regard this as not possible; though they have no knowledge of what spirituality is and they dub it ' escapism.'
This word ' escapism ' is sometimes used to question and run down the value of spiritual life. Escape from what ? life presents so many problems and there is no one method of solving them. If, for instance, J. C. Bose retires into his laboratory to solve scientific problems and does not participate in a political demonstration or in a jail-going programme, is he an escapist ? If Tagore continues his literary activities and does not ply the charkha or go to prison, can he be called an escapist ?
Ramdas, the great saint of Maharashtra, was a great
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patriot and wanted to remove the Mughal yoke. But he did not take to political organisation as his own work-he only prepared the ground and Shivaji organised the politic, activity. Was Ramdas an escapist ?
Ramakrishna after a long and arduous life of Tapasya. gives out to the world that the sincere practice of every religion leads to the same experience—can he be called a escapist ? Does he not serve the highest need of mankind by giving to it a great truth ? If a culture worth the name of " Human Culture " is to arise some day in future it can only be on the basis of the truth announced by Ramakrishna.
And what about his being a living example of the attainment of profound knowledge by other more direct methods of inner culture than those that are in vogue? Sometimes, it is forgotten that rushing into action itself may be attempt at escape.
I believe no one can escape-even if one wants to-because Nature will be always with oneself. What is called " escapism" may be the shifting of the point of interest of the individual It may be also exclusive concentration of a particular subject of interest. Some of our leaders seem to think that there is only one method by which problems can be faced or solved. But that would be arbitrary limitation—for there can be many methods. One may have to wait for conditions to be fulfilled to try his method. In fact, no true progress or gain by the individual in any field can remain personal, it is always for all. As to methods, those who are one-tracked in their minds may be reminded of the line of the poet: " More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." Even prayer can be a method.
Some quotations from Sri Aurobindo's letters and other writings would be helpful in dispelling the notion that the attainment of the higher consciousness is something abstract and without any dynamic consequence.
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(1)
" I must remind you that I have been an intellectual myself and no stranger to doubts - both the Mother and myself have had one side of the mind as positive and as insistent on practical results and more so than any Russell can be. We could never have been contented with the shining ideas and phrases which Rolland or another takes for gold coin of Truth.., I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane." ( 18-8-1932 )10
(2)
" When I concentrate, I work upon others, upon the world, upon the play of forces." (19-12-1934).11
(3)
" The invisible Force producing tangible results both inward and outward is the whole meaning of the yogic consciousness. Who would be satisfied with such meaningless hallucination and call it power ? If we had not had thousands of experiences showing that the power within could alter the mind, develop its powers, add new ones, bringing in new ranges of knowledge, master the vital movements, control the conditions and functionings of the body, work as a concrete dynamic force on other forces, modify events, etc. etc. we would not speak of it as we do. " 12
(4)
" Concrete ? What do you mean by concrete ? Spiritual force has its own concreteness; it can take a form ( like a,
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10 Life of Sri Aurobindo, P. 281.
11 Ibid.
12 On Yoga, Tome I, P. 237
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stream, for instance ) of which one is aware and can send it quite concretely on whatever object one chooses." 13
(5)
" I have always said that the spiritual force I have been putting on human affairs, such as the War, is not the supramental but the overmind force, and that when it acts on the material world it is so inextricably mixed up in the tangle of lower world forces that its results, however adequate to the immediate object, must necessarily be partial. "14
(6)
" I have often used the Force alone without any human instrument or outer means...... " ( 24-1-1936. )15
(7)
" Certainly my force is not confined to the Ashram ant its conditions. As you know it is being largely used for helping the right development of the War and of change in the human world. It is also used for individual purposes outside the scope of the Ashram and the practice of yoga; but that, of course, is silently done and mainly by a spiritual. action." ( 13-3-1944 )16
Ramakrishna gave birth to the neo-spirituality in India by freeing it from all external forms and stressing "experience" as the acid test. On the basis of his experience—call it realisation—he declared the unity of all religions. Sri Aurobindo gives the link between the past and the future and asks humanity to build its life on the basis of the Omni- present Reality ;to him Life and God are absolutely compatible; earth is worthy of the divine manifestation. Separation of
12 Ibid, Tome I, P. 233
13 Life of Sri Aurobindo, P. 296
14 Ibid, P. 297 "
15 I bid, P. 297
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the human spirit from the Divine is the cause of the prevailing human ignorance which is a transitory or passing phase in cosmic unfoldmentt - he growth of the human soul towards the Truth. He assures us that the Universe and the Reality are not static, but dynamic and that evolution is the process of unfoldment of the Divine that is involved in the Inconscient. " The animal is the living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man. Man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the super- man, the God. Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God?"17
THE PHYSICAL BODY IN THE SCHEME OF
SUPRAMENTAL PERFECTION
The Life Divine presents so many avenues of new approaches to problems of man's individual and collective life that it is not possible to deal with all of them in a single exposition. I choose three such: (1) the physical body in the scheme of supramental perfection; ( 2 ) the place of material, economic organisation and ethics in the collective life of man from the point of view of The Life Divine; ( 3 ) the origin of Ignorance.
One question which might be considered here is the place of the physical body in the scheme of Supramental transformation. The movement of ascent from Mind to Supermind and the descent from Supermind to the mental, vital and physical consciousness brings about the transformation of nature. For example. Mind would function as the Mind of Light, not as at present, a mind subject to half-light
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17 The Life Divine, P. 5
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and half-darkness. The question is how would it affect th< laws of the body ? Is it possible to transform the gross an( seemingly undivine body into a divine body ? Or is there a divine use of the body as there is of mind and life ? Or metaphysically, if the Spirit has assumed form, a material form, what is the place of Form in the ultimate fulfilment' Though the Upanishad has not hesitated to state that "Mattel is Brahman", the seeker of spiritual life, even the religious man finds the body a great obstacle and a bondage from which he seeks escape through ascetic rejection and even mortification. Man finds that life manifesting in Matter is compelled to accept grossness and subjection to pain and] death, and that Mind in Matter becomes limited, dull and;
blind. In fact, one finds that Matter, Life and Mind, each' one of them, is trying to overpower the other two in life.
Matter may be said to be the fundamental element of our earth, it is ignorance incarnate on whose dark background Mind and Life seem to arise. Matter seems only form— without consciousness, a work of brute inconscient energy. The second thing about the working of Matter is its subjection to mechanical laws. It opposes Life and Mind by its sheer inertia and. thus renders the conquest of ignorance by them difficult, if not impossible. The third characteristic is that the process of division reaches its culmination in Matter which imposes the law of struggle, dissatisfaction, pain and death on the being.
According to Sri Aurobindo, the Omnipresent Reality^ is the basic truth of the cosmos. The question then comes up: how does matter arise in the one Omnipresent Reality? Now, what we call Matter is really Energy and the question would be : why does Energy take the form of Matter ? Is it the sense-organism of the individual mind that gives the impression of Matter ? No. It is the Universal Mind that is the creator of Matter. " Matter is substance of one conscious-being phenomenally divided within itself by the
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action of a universal Mind. "¹
" Material substance is the form in which Mind acting through sense contacts the conscious Being of which it is itself a movement of knowledge."² Are not, then, inconscience, inertia, division and death the original and eternal laws of Matter ? Sri Aurobindo says : no, Matter is the creation of Cosmic Mind and for that an extreme fragmentation of the Infinite was needed as the starting point of substance. Hence, howsoever, one may go on dividing the atom there will always be an infinitesimal particle left, one would never arrive at a void. Subtler and subtler states of Matter exist. Ether as an intangible, " almost spiritual support of Matter exists " but its presence is not detectable. " Matter is Sachchidananda represented to his own mental experience as a formal basis of objective knowledge, action and delight of existence. "³
But to our normal experience substance is real in proportion to its solid resistance, to the durability of form. The more subtle the substance the less material the form. If we look at the process of evolution from Matter to Spirit we find " an ascending series of substance"; when the sub- stance is less bound to the form it is more subtle and flexible. " Drawing away from durability of form we draw towards eternity of essence." 4
So when the consciousness rises from Mind to Supermind the series of substance from gross material to the subtle spiritual would also undergo a corresponding tranformation. If the Mind and Life underwent a change there is no reason to suppose that the body which is seemingly undivine and
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¹ The Life Divine, P. 217
² Ibid, P. 219
³ Ibid, P. 220
4 Ibid, P. 233.
A. L... 2
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gross would remain unchanged. In fact, the present limits of the body are not permanent. They are not " the sole possible rhythm of cosmic Nature". Body can be transfigured In the words of Sri Aurobindo, " Earth-mother too may reveal to us her godhead."5
Even without any radical spiritual change we find athletes and physical culturists achieving remarkable results 1 sheer training-feats of endurance and strength that verge c the miraculous. Moreover, under various kinds of psychological strains the human body shows ranges of extraordinary capacities.
Science has sounded some potentialities of Matter and it is a truism to say that man's body is living Matter. T powers of man's physical body and senses, in their gross functioning, are very limited; the sense of sight and hearing has very poor range. But these very senses are capable c far greater ranges of action because they have their subtle forms and powers. Still more remarkable are the hard! tapped powers of Mind. When some of the powers i the Spirit are awakened in man or when man's nature undergoes a transformation by the descent of the Supramental Consciousness, then not only would unknown spiritual powers become active but the very physical consciousness o man would undergo such a change that a far greater degree of immunity from diseases would be attained leading to the conquest of death.
The schools of Yoga in India mention five states of substance, each corresponding to a degree of our being: (1) the material, ' Annamaya'; (2) the vital, ' Pranamaya '; (3) the mental, ' Manomaya '; (4) the ideal, ' Vijnanamaya ' (5) the spiritual or beatific, ' Anandamaya '. To each of the grades of the Soul there corresponds a grade of substance; the soul dwells in each simultaneously, there is no isolation. They
5 The Life Divine, P. 234.
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are called Koshas or sheaths. Though we are normally co, nscious of only physical body, it is possible to open oneself to other bodies; the psychic and occult phenomena we come across in life are due to them. Six nervous centres of life in the physical body, corresponding to six centres of vital and mental faculties in the subtle, have been discovered by the yogis and they have found out physical exercises by which these, now closed, centres could be opened up, and man can enter into the higher spiritual life. " Our substance does not end with the physical body."6
" The conquest of physical limitations by the power of supramental substance is possible. "
The verse of Swetashwatara Upanishad shows that the idea of a divine body was familiar to the seers in the past.
1. " When the five-fold quality of yoga has been produced; 2, Arising from earth, water, fire, air and space; 3. No sickness, no old age, no death has he; 4. Who has obtained a body made out of the fire of yoga." 7
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6.The Life Divine, Ch. 26P. 239
A few quotations from Sri Aurobindo's letters shed light on the question of physical transformation :
(1 ) " There can be no immortality of the body without supramentalisation; the potentiality is there in the yogic force and yogis can live for 200 or 300 years or more, but there can be no real principle of it without the supramental.
Even Science believes that one day death may be conquered by physical means and its reasonings are perfectly sound.
There is no reason why the supramental Force should not do it. Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reason why they should not last. " . ( On Yoga II, Tome 2, P. 333 )
( 2 ) " DEATH is there because the being in the body is not yet developed enough to go on growing in the same body without the need of change and the body itself is not sufficiently conscious. If the mind and the body itself were more conscious and plastic, death would not be necessary. " (On Yoga II, Tome 2, P. 333 )
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MATERIAL, ECONOMIC ORGANISATION AND
ETHICS IN THE COLLECTIVE LIFE
" What the modern spirit has sought for is the economy social ultimate, an ideal material organisation of civilisation and comfort, the use of reason and science and education for the generalisation of a utilitarian rationality which will give
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( 3) " Immunity from death by anything but one's own will to leave the body, immunity from illness, are things that can be achieved only by a complete change of consciousness which each man has to develop in himself,—there can be no automatic immunity without that achievement. "
(On Yoga II, Tome 2, P. 334
( 4 ) " It ( death ) has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is then already—it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into whole of the material nature is the most difficult thing of all—at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle. "
( 5,) " Immortality is one of the possible results of supramentalisation, but it is not an obligatory result and it does not mean that then will be an eternal or indefinite prolongation of life as it is. That is what many think it will be, that they will remain what they are with all their human desires and the only difference will be that they will satisfy them endlessly; but such an immortality would not be worth having and ii would not be long before people are tired of it. To live in the Divine and have the divine Consciousness is itself immortality and to be able to divinise the body also and make it a fit instrument for divine works and divine life would be its material expression only. "
( On Yoga II, Tome 2, P. 337 )
( 6) " The scientists now hold that it is (theoretically at least; 'possible to discover physical means by which death can be overcome but that would mean only a prolongation of the present consciousness in the present body. Unless there is a change of consciousness an change of functionings it would be a very small gain. "
(On Yoga II, Tome 2, P. 338
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the individual a perfected social being in a perfected economic society."¹
" At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny, "²
"Reason, science and education" are the means by which the modern spirit wants to create individual and collective perfection. What remains of the old spiritual values is " moralised humanitarianism " and " Social ethicism "; these are to replace the old religious spirit and spiritual idealism.
Granting that the economic stress has a legitimate place in any scheme of reconstruction of collective life, the need to consider the adequacy of the psychological means, which modern man proposes to employ, remains.
" Reason and Science " as psychological means can only help but are not sufficient to solve the problems now facing humanity. This is, perhaps, being granted even by votaries of reason and science now after the experience the world has had during the last forty years.
1 want to deal particularly with the item, " Social ethicism "- in fact, with ethics as an effective means to solve human problems.
It is very likely that the beginning of ethics was the sense of recoil that even the primitive man felt from painful experiences of life. Then the growth of the sense of good and evil—- particularly the sense of evil—was connected with the mind of desire ; that is to say, good and evil has sensational value, what gave pleasure was good and what was painful was bad or evil.
Then the sense of good and evil advanced from the field of individual experience to society and acquired a utilitarian value ; what was considered beneficial to society was ' good ' and its opposite was 'bad '.
¹ The Life Divine, P. 932
² Ibid, P. 933
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Really speaking the sensational and utilitarian views of good and evil can hardly be called ' ethical'. When reason intervenes and tries to determine some principle or law of ethics, then the idealistic value of ethics comes into being. There is even a religious basis of ethics, declaring on the authority of religion what is good and what is bad. Conceptions of Truth and righteousness are determined by religion. For those that have a spiritual bent the Upanishad draws the distinction between ' Preyas ', the pleasant, and ' Preyas ', ' what is conducive to welfare'. The rational approach gives only the relative value to ethics because mind can only be selective. What is ' good ' for one mind is ' bad ' for some other mind. Besides, the mind gives ethics a form in thought and in action of life which becomes more or less an artificial construction, not a spontaneous expression. Still, with all its limitations, ethics, the sense of moral values of good and evil, is an indispensable stage in evolution. It arises from the perception of possibility of a higher idealistic—intellectual—harmony instead of the prevalence of a lower movement in man's nature—the movement that he inherits from the animal and from the inconscience from which he has evolved. The aim of ethics is, really speaking, not to destroy the parts of nature that are wedded to the lower harmony, but to convert them— by first controlling them—" to lessen, to tame, purify and prepare to be fit instruments" for the higher harmony which the mind and heart of man perceive necessary for perfection.
There is in fact a deeper basis of ethics, apart from relative and selective basis of intellect, an inward sanction, an< intuitive sense or a psychic tact which is traditionally known as ' Conscience '.
Morality has thus to do more with the will than with any other power of human psychology. But there are some thinkers who believe that morality gives knowledge. It is
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true in a certain sense, within certain limits: it gives one the knowledge of the world which is inconscient, it brings one in contact with the elemental powers of the subconscient and the lower vital nature. Secondly, practice of ethics or morality tends to purify the ordinary nature and may serve as the beginning of dissolution of the ego which is a great obstacle in man's inner progress towards Truth. Ethics establishes active impersonal values in man's nature which require the subjugation of his ego. In the process of man's evolution out of Ignorance ethics is an indispensable stage.
At the basis of ethical endeavour there is "Will to attain perfection" in inner and outer life. Seeking for Truth, Good and Beauty is the sign that the will to perfection is awake. There are people who think that the duality that obtains in ethics—good and evil, truth and falsehood, etc.— is eternal, that there are two eternally conflicting forces at the root of cosmic manifestation and man's progress lies in constantly choosing one against the other. But a little thinking will show that there is no reason to grant an eternal antinomy in the working of the cosmos. Duality, in fact, is only in the mind as a necessary mode for its action. But the opposites of Truth, Good and Beauty have no eternity about them. Of course, so long as one is in the mind, Good and Truth are also relative; but there is the absolute of Truth, "the absolute of Good and of Beauty beyond Mind where there is no possibility of falsehood or evil. It is like darkness whose existence depends upon light but the contrary is not true.
Besides, though the first awakening to the sense of Truth, Good and Beauty generally comes to the mind, yet at its root it is much deeper. It is the soul of man that turns to these things because they are of its nature. In fact, awakening to ethical values—the attraction towards Truth, Good and Beauty, towards nobility, sacrifice and service, etc.—is the machinery
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provided by the Supreme Wisdom so that the all-pervading ignorance may slowly turn to the light of knowledge. Its ultimate aim is not merely to bring about a moral perfection but to lead the human being towards the Infinite. None of these great realities can be fully realised within the limits of mental consciousness. It is the curing of the split-existence that is the remedy.
Sometimes an undue stress is given to external action in the practice of ethics. As a social and conventional rule there may not be much to say against it. But from the point of view of a deeper psychology one has to accept that action is not what it appears—it is the resultant of energy of being and there are many kinds of energies at work in producing a particular action. Action is the result of a very complex play of many forces. And we see that Nature admits strength, power, efficiency as elements in bringing about results in life. The value of action depends upon its source in the being, for, externally the same action may be the result of quite contrary forces.
Ethics accepts the position that life is a becoming and that there is a Truth of becoming which man must realise. In that process of becoming through which the human soul evolves, the duality of good and evil, true and false, etc., belongs to the mind. The call on the human soul is of the infinite, the human being has to rise to the consciousness of Infinity. On that higher plane - the supermind—the soul rises above duality, because it goes beyond Mind and its ignorance. Ethics as the ultimate remedy is imperfect.
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THE ORIGIN OF IGNORANCE
It would be daring and even presumptuous to think that within a short time at our disposal the problem of the origin of Ignorance would be finally and satisfactorily solved. I do not propose to make the attempt. Certain viewpoints may be suggested to help the seeker find the solution of the problem.
It must be emphasised at the beginning that Sri Aurobindo arrives at the solution of the problem on the basis of his spiritual experience. That is to say, it is not a metaphysical solution, though it resorts to the method of metaphysics.
Attempts have been made to explain the origin of Ignorance on the basis of religious belief; accept a Satan, an Ahriman, or a Mara, as against God, Ahurmuzd, or Buddha, and you have an explanation of the origin of Ignorance, especially if you do not inquire as to who created Satan and his Compeers. Then, there is an eternal duality at the basis of creation, a power of good beneficent, all-knowing and a power of evil, malevolent obscuring.
It is also possible to explain Ignorance oh the basis of monistic philosophy. According to it an Infinite Reality is the cause of the universe. Then the question how Ignorance" could have originated from That remains to be answered. The general explanation is that Ignorance has no place in the Infinite Reality which is One. But then from where did Ignorance come ? Somehow or other, a principle opposed to the nature of the self-existent Reality, all-conscious and all- blissful, has succeeded in pervading the creation of that, Reality: it is something " Anirvachaniya "-"indescribable ". But the human being is bound to feel his Ignorance— it is an inescapable experience. Another important aspect of this experience is that man does not, and cannot, feel
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himself at home with Ignorance, it is not felt as native. There is constitutional revolt against it from his nature and sometimes an active effort to eliminate it.
Monism posits an Absolute and Infinite as the only reality and it says that in it, this phenomenon of Ignorance has no place. It amounts to saying that the experience of Ignorance is unreal.
But then the question remains: who experiences this Ignorance. Philosophical schools of so-called absolute monism assert that this unreal experience of Ignorance is on< due to the Mind, and Mind has no place in the Absolute, the ultimate Reality. Mind, according to them, is the creation of Maya, the power of Illusion, which imposes itself, somehow, on the Infinite. So, to get rid of Ignorance man must get rid of his mind. It is like proposing to . patient that he has to get rid of his limb by amputation in order to cure his malady. It may appear to be a short-cut but it is not easy, and its efficacy is not certain. One can always ask if that is the best method of cure.
Sri Aurobindo sees an Omnipresent Reality as the basis of this Universe. In terms of it he explains the phenomenon of Ignorance. At once the question arises: how can an all-wise merciful, omnipresent, omniscient God inflict ignorance on his creation ? But Sri Aurobindo finds that this question is wrongly put, because the Reality being omnipresent does not inflict ignorance upon anybody else. Itself it assume;. ignorance; God or the Omnipresent Reality has managed, on one status of Himself, to become ignorant. He has submitted Himself to a process which we feel as ignorance. This feeling of ignorance and of its infliction is the protest of the Divine in man.
So the question is ; how has this self-division taken place in the One : how has the Divine become ignorant, subject to sorrow, suffering and pain and evil ?
We have to note that Consciousness is the fundamental
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fact of the cosmos. Consciousness is not simple it is complex it has a subconscient level which ends in the Inconscient, a waking outward-turned consciousness which is capable of partial knowledge and a superconscient level which is the attainable potentiality. The infinite Brahman holds all of these in its integral being—it holds both knowledge and Ignorance, Vidya and Avidya. At one pole of its being the Alone, the Timeless Self, the One immutable, is present with its dazzling Light. At the other pole is the broken light and mist, the mutable many, the One Self throwing itself in Mind and Life, in Time for adventure. Thus we can say in the words of Sri Aurobindo : " Ignorance is the limited separative consciousness striving to become an integral consciousness."¹
If the Omnipresent Reality is the basis then the phenomenon of ignorance cannot be something unknowable, or something that came about by an accident, or something which is non-existent. The dynamic character of Supreme is Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresent. Ignorance, therefore, must be the result of the will of .the Supreme. In fact, the Upanishad speaks of the Divine will as the creator of the world—and therefore of ignorance. The character of this Ignorance in man is the separation of the knower from the object of knowledge—separation of the many from the One of whom they are only variations based on fundamental unity. This division of the subjective consciousness has no place in Sachchidananda because nothing but the One exists in it; it is also not present in the Self because the Self is always identical with the One, the Infinite- The division of consciousness which is the root of human ignorance exists in Mind, it exists in Life and of the plane of the body.
Cosmic Ignorance is created by an act of concentration of the One in Prakriti : it has an essential concentration as
¹ The Life Divine
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Silence which becomes Inconscience in Nature; it has an- integral concentration as Sachchidananda which becomes the Supermind creative of the cosmos; it has a multiple concentration which becomes the one overmind which gives rise to Mental, Vital and Physical worlds; it has a separative- consciousness which becomes what we as individuals. experience as Ignorance.
This Ignorance is due to exclusive concentration : that is,. concentration which puts forward a part of self and holds back the rest of the self-knowledge behind. Thus a self— imitation takes place which gives rise to Ignorance; the true Being is not clouded but kept behind by the exclusive concentration. In fact, this exclusive is purposeful and is. within the exercise of freedom of the Self.
A similar phenomenon takes place—on a much smaller scale, of course, in the mental consciousness of the human being.
Generally the human being is exclusively concentrated in his outward personality and is oblivious of the Subliminal, the Subconscient and Superconscient and Psychic being. Even apart from these levels of consciousness we find a temporary self— oblivious putting forward a personality and pushing behind the rest of the being, is often necessary to secure the highest efiectivity of a particular aspect. For instance, a poet, an actor, or a soldier when concentrated on the task in hand becomes totally oblivious of his other parts and personalities: it is then that he gets his highest efficiency. Such an exclusive concentration, which is ignorance of the total self, is the condition for its highest effectivity as a personality. If the exclusive concentration and the resulting self-loss became permanent, that would give us some idea of the phenomenon of Ignorance in which the human being is the result of an exclusive concentration of the Infinite. The Infinite Brahman puts forward only its power and knowledge as a blade of grass and puts behind the rest of its infinity in
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order to manifest itself as a blade of grass.
Besides, the Supreme has not closed itself in the walls of Ignorance inescapably. He has kept and provided means of escape; only, the return to the divine self cannot be done without effort, without training.
Thus, Ignorance is not a blunder and a fall (as is ordinarily supposed), but a purposeful descent; "not a curse but a divine opportunity." (Ignorance pervades only Prakriti, it is not in the true self, it is not in the whole of our being, it is active only in the Mind.)
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