March. 19, 2002
¨ In reading The Life
Divine, we know it is best understood when read from a consciousness meant
for it.
¨ What is that consciousness? How can we describe it?
¨ The Mother said in The
Agenda that the transformation of the physical substance in Her made Her feel
like howling all the time. Therefore, She said She would not recommend this
yoga to anyone. When Her physical consciousness was being transformed, She said
She was on fire all the time. She then understood that Sri Aurobindo was in
that terrible state all the time while he was alive but never spoke of it.
Mother said tears came to Her eyes thinking of it.
¨ The physical transformation
necessarily needs illness.
¨ Now, at least, we know what
it is at the physical level.
¨ Let us conceive what it will
he like at the vital, mental level.
¨ We know social consciousness
and physiological consciousness also are to be overcome or transformed.
Presently they are not more than mental concepts. It is helpful to know how the
emotions and sensations of those concepts feel inside us.
¨ We know how parents in the USA
now respond to the freedom in their children. What they felt in 1960 was a very
mild example of changing social consciousness.
¨ In a period 100 years apart,
we can imagine the trauma of parents. Suppose a hundred years ago parents met
with the present behaviour of children or husbands their wives’ attitudes, what
amount of mental turmoil would have been there is possible to guess.
¨ Mother who asked for the
abolition of property, inheritance and marriage would want us sadhaks to accept
it mentally and vitally.
¨ Even in the mind today it is
a revolution that all cannot easily endorse. Extend it to the vital, if not the
physical. It is quite a change.
¨ Inside a company, a family,
with a spouse we see how our self-interest is a close preserve. Imagine the
employer who enjoys the higher commissions his sales people receive out of
higher sales. That employer who really
feels the joy of his men earning more does cross the usual selfish dimension of
emotion not into selflessness but steps out of his crude blind selfishness.
¨ Below is a list of ordinary
human attitudes and the corresponding attitudes of Mother.
―
Man
wants to earn more without his salesmen getting higher commission.
Mother would expect him to
enjoy the higher income of his sales people.
―
Competition
with colleagues, brothers and sisters, etc.
Genuine happy co-operation
with all of them.
―
Resort
to lies, or at least dubious statements at times of crisis.
Utter truthfulness.
―
Man
shrinks at others’ prosperity.
Man flowers at others’
prosperity or works for it.
―
Shrinking
from work.
Loves work, work energises.
―
Suspicions
of others’ motives.
Unsuspecting trust.
―
Trusts
one’s own understanding.
Trusts everyone who needs to
be trusted.
―
Speak
or think meanly of others.
Think highly of others and
speak it out.
To someone who tries a little here or completes the
list to be followed, The Life Divine will be less difficult.
¨ Yoga will be complete when
the physical consciousness and physical substance are transformed. That is not
where we are.
¨ What is relevant to us is where we are.
¨ Social consciousness,
ethical consciousness, moral consciousness, and particularly ego consciousness are
what matters to us.
¨ Another thing that touches
us is personal consciousness.
¨ Let us consider a few
practical instances to make these changes more real to us.
¨ The style of dress changes
from ordinary trousers to one with pleats. Most people switch over to the new
style, some do not. Here there is no legal pressure or even social pressure. But there is an inner urge to conform. He
is one who is weak in his social consciousness who would feel comfortable only
when he is with the majority.
¨ In India, a boy or girl is
under real social pressure to marry, as well as take employment. He may have no
inclination to marry, but to withstand the pressure of society to marry is not
possible for all. A person may have enough income and may need no employment.
But the pressure of society is real. To such a person ‘contradictions are
complements’ will always remain a riddle. He will have no intellectual ability
to understand such an idea until the society accepts it. He has the social consciousness and its understanding, irrespective of
his own native intelligence. Neither the logic of the infinite nor quantity
is an illusion will sufficiently explain to him. To him a rich man will be a
wise man or even a good man as society finds him so.
¨ The Life Divine does not cater to social
intelligence or to moral intelligence, but it does so to pure intelligence
unencumbered by such fetters. Academic intelligence is made free from these
inhibitions.
¨ Indians believe in Karma,
Christians in heaven and hell. Apart from the religious training there is the
moral, ethical consciousness in man which has responded to such religious
training. Such a person abhors evil.
When Sri Aurobindo says that the dominant instinct of the vital is to reject
pain, the idea does not communicate to him, as his own ethical consciousness
stands in the way.
¨ In order to see the value of
self-education outside the educational system, one should have overcome social
consciousness.
¨ To see a cat destroying its
weak offspring will jar on his moral sensitivity. For him to conceive that one
whose soul has outlived the usefulness of its body at a young age has decided
to leave is an outrage on his physical sensitivity. His very body will react and copiously release physical emotions of
violent sorrow.
¨ To look at the ideas of The
Life Divine that defy our understanding and discover which consciousness in
us and which sensitivity in our own psychology is offended is a fruitful
exercise in comprehension.
¨ Sri Aurobindo says
consciousness will yield the answer we fail to get from intellect. To a
sentimental intellect, this will make no sense and be a blank.
¨ Sri Aurobindo adores the
feet of the criminal and harlot. Not
only to moral sensitivity but to psychological consciousness this will be
revolting. Revolting or not, the concept will elude them.
¨ That the infinite is
undiminishing is not a reality people with practical minds will bring to
experience. When they does so, what gives way is the materiality in their
consciousness.
¨ Face to face with these
statements, one has a rich field of consciousness inquiry which when undertaken
successfully will help reverse one’s consciousness, thus opening new dimensions
of comprehension.
Some Landmarks in the BOOK.
1.
Taste
of Ignorance is over.
The best of men cannot see
the reality of this statement in his emotional comprehension, leave alone in
his physical sensation, as man is unconscious
of his existence or its taste.
2.
‘Spirit
will move Matter’ remains incomprehensible. Spirit to us is an idea. The Spirit
that moves Matter is the physical substance, the inversion of Sat. Man is in
the mind, often in the vital. This statement is far from real.
3.
Shifting
to the inner leads to instantaneous miraculousness. Here one shifts from Time
to Simultaneity. Man is inside Time, dominated by Time consciousness.
4.
Simultaneous
integrality of Time-eternity and Timeless eternity can reveal itself only when
one begins to be outside Time. We are now inside Time, as we are dominated by
ego consciousness.
5.
Maya
declares ‘Let it be so’ and it comes to pass. This is pure miracle. Man is
unwilling to give credence to it. It will be clear to him when the occult process
reveals to him.
6.
Desire
is incapacity. Man sees his desire as his capacity.
7.
Divine
body. Man who concedes Divine Mind is chagrined by the very concept of a Divine
body. Sri Aurobindo modifies the phrase to divinised body and pleads for an
extension of the concept from mind to the body.
8.
As
gods are lost in their splendours and animals are satisfied with a modicum, Man is saturated with the enjoyment of what
he has.
9.
The
subliminal compels the surface to seek what the surface loathes as it is what
the subliminal enjoys. This is like our seeing the Sun going round the earth.
10.
Real-Idea
is a vibration of the Being, by which Supermind creates. Real-Idea combined
knowledge and will in a state of fusion. Our
mind where they are separate must appreciate their fusion.