God means traditionally one
who grants our prayers. Only those temples that answer to this description are
popular. This is an important aspect of worship but not in philosophy or yoga. The
Life Divine was mainly addressed to the European intellect to give an
outline or sketches of a new human discovery of the eternal godhead. The result
was like the book of Copernicus on his system read by one whose ocular evidence
was the sun goes around the earth. The Realities The
Life Divine tries to describe are in a plane of Mind that Man does not
know. Hence, the reputation of the Book as “unintelligible”.
Charles Darwin who is the ruling deity of the evolutionary theory
whose book was purchased by an anxious public on the day of its publication to
the last copy, knocked his head against this phenomenon which remains
unaddressed till today. His theory was of the evolution of the form while
evolution is of the consciousness. Hence the unexplained gaps
in the transformation of one species to another. The parts of a whole
together do not make up the whole, as one cardinal element of how the parts
should come together is missing. Life has evolved. Social life too has
evolved. Scholars study the details of the parts such as population, migration,
economy, war, government, etc. The
conception that the society is a whole is still not apparent. Hence phenomena
of life such as terrorism, hippie movement, etc. constantly throw a surprise.
Such surprises were always there in every period.
The institution of marriage
held sacred for ages is being dissolved but what the woman represents to man
remains a mystery. In a higher plane of
life which is truly a plane of spirit in life, there are no mysteries,
nor unanswered questions. Philosophy has not solved the question of creation or
the principle of determinism. Sri Aurobindo who could do such a lofty yoga as
Rajya yoga in three days found the basis of Indian spirituality inadequate. He
moved to an adequate basis in Supermind, apparently guided by Swami Vivekananda
in the subtle plane.
Any satisfactory
comprehension of the Book demands a full understanding of this conception of
the whole which occurs in all His chapters. Issuing out of this basic
conception dealt from a dozen perspectives in the chapter ‘Brahman, Purusha,
Ishwara’, there are 770 subordinate principles spread over 56 chapters. One of
them is Oneness is not One. In all, there are 1452 valid ideas explained
in 1452 paragraphs. The aim of this article is to present such ideas in their
totality so that the reader of The Life Divine will not meet with one
obstacle in the Book. Whether that totality can also be simplicity is the
question. Some near analogies, if not apt examples can bring such simplicity in
some measure. As these intricate phenomena are already half buried in our life,
such an attempt may yield the expected result in some measure.
The example of parts and
whole can be taken up for examination.
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Apparently, this is
contradictory. Common sense dictates that when all the parts of a whole are put
together, it must make up the whole. But, experience can be otherwise. A
machine is made up of 275 parts. We can dismantle it into individual parts. In
bringing them back together, we assume that it is assembled back into the same
old machine. Well, we can collect all the 275 individual parts in a basket. And
that will not make the machine. The machine has a form. The parts fit into each
other in the pattern of that form. The parts are physical. The
Philosophy speaks of good as
the opposite of evil. This is simplicity itself. When philosophy goes further
and speaks of GOOD that is not the opposite of evil, our intellect is
confounded. It is called ‘Self-Existent Good’ and it is said in the higher
consciousness of the higher world there is no evil, only the good. We call it
GOOD. It looks irrational. We can concede the existence of a higher GOOD in a
higher world, but we clearly see our sense of appreciation is left behind. We
are told that it is a world of Light which is not the opposite of darkness, a
world of joy that is not the opposite of pain. We are offered a world of
conceptions we are not used to. They are Truth, Unity, Goodness, Knowledge,
Power, Beauty, Love, Joy, Purity, Silence and Peace. The intellect is hard put
but it is not utterly impossible for it to accept it. Then we come to infinity
which is the opposite of finite. What about Infinity that is Self-Existent and
not the opposite of the finite? He calls Infinity the boundless finite and describes
it as Infinity that retains its infinite character in the plane of finite Time.
Here is a rich field of confusion. Brahman is the Absolute. It is the Infinite
that is Eternal. Brahman is without attributes of form or force. We are told
that because it is without attributes, it is capable of creating anything and
everything on earth. The comprehension of our intellect comes to an end.
The subject matter of The Life Divine lies beyond this finite world. It
is my pious hope to clear this confusion as much as possible, as He has given
us several leads in the Book. In the measure this confusion is cleared, the
Book will reveal itself to the reader.
The ancients discovered
Brahman. It was the ultimate discovery of the human mind. It still remains so.
To them, Brahman was Ineffable, Immutable, Akshara
Brahman. It was Infinity and Eternity. It was featureless. They said it was
incapable of determinism and therefore declared that the world was created by
Mind. Sri Aurobindo too had this experience, early in His yogic life. But He
could go beyond and see that all the above is only one side of Brahman. To
Him, Brahman was mutable too. It was an Infinity that could take on features.
It could determine though It is beyond any
determinism. This experience of His too was another side of Brahman. In
reality, Brahman was capable of both these statuses of being immutable as well
as mutable. As the Rishis saw Brahman was Existence, Consciousness, Bliss, He
too saw, but His experience discovered the fullness that Brahman was. He then
saw that He had moved from Mind to Supermind. The Rishis even in Vedic times
knew of the existence of Supermind but had not risen to that plane to
possess it as a human faculty. To Him, Mind was not the end. It could rise into
what HE called Supermind. Man is not the end, the
Supramental Being is the next species. Mind that is in Time can move to the
plane of Timelessness. But Supermind is in a plane where Time and Timelessness
co-exist. He called it simultaneous integrality of Time eternity and Timeless
eternity. It is this plane that perceives the fullness of Brahman.
He explains in the latter chapters of the Book that Mind is a partial
instrument. It was created for dividing things. It can see only a part of a
whole and therefore Mind saw only one aspect of the Brahman and mistook it as
the whole. To Him, Mind has a range. He calls it spiritual range of Mind. Our
mind is a power of Ignorance which to arrive at an understanding resorts to
thought devoid of sense impressions, though all its impressions reach it
through the five senses. This is the human mind, the lowest level of Mind. This
exists on the surface being in Time and is possessed by the ego as a finite.
Above this surface mind lies the Higher Mind of Silence of the Muni, the
Illumined Mind of the Rishi, the Intuitive Mind of the yogi and the Overmind of
the gods. Below our surface mind is the Inner Mind that is in Timelessness and
beyond it is the subliminal Mind that spreads all over the universe and beyond.
It is a plane of Mind where the Superconscient and the subconscient meet. The
psychic Being, the evolving part of the Immutable Soul is hidden in a cave in
the subliminal mind. To understand the full range of Mind from the subliminal
to the Supermind, their scope, the instruments they use, the popular
terminology given to them, etc. will clear much of the confusion generally
created.
As the Rishis found the
Brahman passive, inactive, immutable, so they saw the Spirit, the inner
subjective experience of Existence, inactive and incapable of movement or
change or growth. To Sri Aurobindo, again, this too is a partial experience of
the dividing Mind. He found the Spirit capable of movement as well as a
moveless static status. In His fuller vision, He was able to see the Spirit in
a greater role in evolution that is preceded by involution. He had this fuller
vision because He had a fuller instrument of Supermind that the ancients never
possessed. This enabled Him to declare a few things:
1.
All the yogas so far done, He said, were yogas of
the surface mind.
2.
They were the yogic realisations of the ego.
3.
His basis is ego is to be dissolved,
the surface is to be crossed to initiate Purna Yoga.
This preliminary effort can
be followed by a summary exposition of the various chapters or at least various
sections of the text. The first of our exercises can be the three dimensions of
existence. In His phraseology, we find the following concepts either exactly in
these words or in phrases that mean as much. They are:
·
Silent activity
Sound of Silence
Noise
of Silent Stillness.
·
Movement of Stillness
Movement of
Status – Sthanu
·
Divided Unity
·
Self-multiplied Identical
·
Form of the formless
·
Dark light
·
Matter that is Spirit
·
Universal Individual
·
Subtle concreteness
·
Infinity of the infinitesimal
·
Part is great than the whole
·
The Inner that includes the outer
·
Determinism of the Indeterminable
·
Ascent in the descent
·
Descent in the ascent
·
Steadied lightning in the sky
·
The Eternal Individual
·
Ignorance that is greater than knowledge
·
The evolving soul
·
Freedom is the final law and the last consummation
·
Freedom that is free to lose its freedom – freedom
in fetters
·
Knowledge that is work
·
The Undivine Divine
·
Memory of the future
·
Imagination that brings the future into the present
·
The ever-present moment
·
The moment of eternity
·
The point of infinity
·
The One that is the Many
All these concepts express
one cardinal spiritual fact which is the idea of Infinity that never decreases
or increases by subtraction or addition. That concept clears the mental
horizon. Sri Aurobindo extends it to our human life which I term as practical
concept of infinity. A full appreciation of infinity and its practical
expressions will remove all the vestiges of lack of clarity.
These three statuses belong
to three dimensions of Time. They are 1) Human time in ignorance of the lower
hemisphere, 2) Timelessness of the higher worlds and 3) Simultaneous Time which
is yet to be born on earth. The successive and processive action of Time is
what we know. Any work of ours needs a certain
duration and is punctuated by precise processes each succeeding the other. No
work of ours is instantaneous. The Rishi lives in Timelessness while in Samadhi
and is capable of invoking that dimension if he chooses. The seed he sows can
sprout into a tree at once. Timelessness dispenses with the long duration Time
needs but it does not dispense with the successive stages. In the Simultaneous
Time, work in Time is done with the speed of Timelessness, abolishing space and
Time. It does not need the process of successiveness. Successiveness becomes
simultaneous there. In this transition, there are other casualties such as
evil and karma. It is a world free of evil, death, karma, waste, punishment,
ethics, pain, failure, etc., etc., all these phenomena are creations of ego in
the plane of Time made possible by the divisive action of Mind. It is a perfect
creation in the field of ignorance for the everlasting enjoyment of what He
calls “Taste of Ignorance”.
The world knows of the
higher hemisphere of Light and Love and the lower hemisphere of darkness and
pain as planes of Timelessness and Time. The new spiritual experience of Sri
Aurobindo is the new world not yet manifested seen by the new faculty of Man,
Supermind. This new world includes both world and rejects none. Only that it
raises both to a new greater height that is of fullness, wholeness,
integrality, universality, etc. He describes this world in the last chapter
“The Divine Life”. Non-perception of this new higher dimension in all our
existence leads to unintelligibility of the Book The
Life Divine. I hope to spotlight this aspect repeatedly by laying emphasis
on these 29 phrases listed above. The principle is the same but the phenomena
are different. Nor are they confined to these 29 items. In truth, it
embraces every item of life however insignificant it really is. In my
varied writings over two decades I have been speaking of these phenomena not so
much in their aspects of theory, as in their practical manifestations such as
prayers, yield:
·
Final results in the beginning;
·
solutions to our problems defying laws of the
government, laws of life and laws of Nature;
·
results almost resembling materialisation;
·
benefits unimaginable as well as inconceivable, as
copious ground water in a desert;
·
universal results for individual acts;
·
impacts on human nature so as to make it turn around
180 degrees, as the Americans are fond of saying;
·
infinite results for finite actions;
·
Divine JOY for acts that are
apparently anti-divine.
We know the silence of the
mouth, the silence of thought, the silence of mind, the silence of Being, the silence that arises by the absence of thought. He
adds the Silence that arises out of the absence of activity and calls it
Silence and goes on to say there is a Silence behind silence. Having said that
much, He declares Silence sustains activity. Theoretically, the activity needs
a base in consciousness. It is of Silence. Anyone who has made substantial
progress in yoga, He says, knows that enormous energy wells out of such
Silence. We know Silence is the opposite of noise, thought, speech, etc. It is
true. It is equally true that all activities well out of Silence. So
there is a silence with a small ‘s’ which is the
opposite of noise, thought, speech, etc. And there is a Silence with a capital
‘S’ which includes silence and its opposite. This world is seen only by the
Supramental Time vision and exists in the plane of Time called Simultaneous
integrality of Time-eternity and Timeless eternity.
We know of silence often in
meditation, on Darsan days, our own birthdays. Sometimes, for no reason, we
see the Silence deepening and taking possession of our whole being. Surely
this is the Silence of the third dimension of Time. It is Supramental Silence
which is the beginning of the birth of Supramental love. This Silence makes the
activity powerful, instantaneous in producing results. This is the gift of Sri
Aurobindo to humanity.
Of infinity it is said that
it never moves but is always ahead of you. It is a movement ahead of us
while it never stirs. In Sanskrit it is called sthanu. Sri Aurobindo
cites the running train in which we sit. Watching the telegraph posts outside,
the posts seem to run while the train gives the feeling it is still. When the
spokes of a fast rotating wheel move faster than our persistence of vision, we
feel the discontinuous spokes as a continuous disc. Existence is moving at a
speed greater than light all the time giving the appearance of stillness. When
two trains run on parallel lines, we feel both are still. Their movement is
unperceived by our consciousness.
Unity and division are
opposite concepts as well as opposite realities. When aspects are divided, the
object is not. One who occupies three posts has three powers, not three
persons. The One is divided by the dividing mind into the Many. To the Mind,
they are distinctly separate, disparate, but Supermind sees no division of
substance. It only perceives division of consciousness. The father is a brother
and is also a son to his father. He has three different relations, not three
different persons. In philosophic language, we say there is the unity that is
the opposite of diversity and there is the self-existing UNITY which has no
opposing phenomenon. In the cinema the film is not a continuous movement. The
film catches in distinctly separate plates different ‘stills’. Run on the wheel
at a certain speed, the screen produces the original movement. In the film,
there is the division. Neither on the screen nor in real life is there
division. Unity is real which is capable of appearing divided as well as
united.
This is similar to the One
and the Many. We speak. Our speech is one, but its expressions are many. With
different people we speak differently, but all is SPEECH. One speech expresses
itself as several conversations. The words are many but the speech is one. Man
is One, but he varies as American, Canadian, Indian, Chinese or Japanese. The
multiplying number of varieties does not rob Man of his character of being
human. A road is a phenomenon. And there is an infinite variety of roads. Such
a rule applies to all phenomena of the world. The oneness is impersonal. The
individual particularity is one form of the variety. The Upanishads said, “This
boy, this girl, this tree are all Brahman”.
We know they are opposite
phenomena, but we miss seeing the fact that formlessness is the parent of Form.
It is the formless state that enables the form to arise. Gold is formless. The
jewel’s form issues out of the formless gold. So, formlessness contains the
form as well as its opposite. In a higher sense, formlessness is the higher
dimension in simultaneous Time that contains form and formless ness. The tree
has a form. The mud gives birth to the form of the tree and in that sense it is
its opposite. In a higher sense, Mother earth, which
we call mud and dirt contains the form of the tree as well as the formlessness
out of which the form of the tree issues. Speech has a form, but not mere sound.
Hence we can say,
Speech x
sound, as
well as
Sound is the source
of speech and its opposite.
To us, darkness is absence
of light. The spiritual truth about darkness is it is greater denser light.
Even the physicist says the dark surface absorbs all the light without
reflecting even a part of it. Mother says before spiritual light sunlight is pitch dark and before spiritual darkness our darkness is as
bright as
Chapter 2 of the first book
is Materialist Denial. The main argument here is Matter is the robe of the
Spirit. Moving from intellect to consciousness, one sees Matter is a vibration
of energy. He also, at that level, finds the Spirit is a vibration of energy.
This occurs at the plane of cosmic consciousness. Hence Matter and Spirit are
reconciled here. Further He explains here in this chapter how Matter and Spirit
are reconciled in the transcendental consciousness.
We know the Man, the
citizen. He is confined to his own experience. Man extending his personality to
society and life becomes vastly more informed and his knowledge then is
universal. Both are conceivable. Man never loses his individuality. Having
acquired universality Man’s individuality asserts now at the level of
universality. The individuality he
lost in becoming universal he now endeavours to restore at the level of
universality. He is the universal Individual, viswamanava.
We move in evolution from
ego to the transcendent Eternal via the World Purusha. The Eternal, please
note, is not the unevolving Spirit, the Immutable Spirit. It is evolving,
called the evolving Spirit, the Psychic Being.
Iron is strong, concrete.
New alloys are formed for greater strength. When a stronger material emerges,
it is found to be light. A famous metallurgist said that the stronger a metal
is, the lighter it is. A metal rod beats the flesh and inflicts a severe wound.
Mantra is subtle. It too can inflict a wound. One can cure the wound in the
flesh, not what is caused by the subtle mantra. As the evolution proceeds,
concrete material becomes subtle material. The subtlety includes the
concreteness at its higher level. Mantra can be harmful as well as
beneficial. A boon is given in words. Its power is greater than material
benefits, vastly.
What Sri Aurobindo offers to
the world is a
He who sees this new
dimension in Time, Being, Consciousness, Ananda, Supermind, Mind, Life and
Matter will have no single argument in this Book unintelligible. These points
are the knots. Breaking these knots, the first major victory will be won in
comprehending this Book. As said earlier, the other 1452 and 770 minor ideas
are minor obstacles. Most of them will lend themselves to be solved by a good
mental academic education. Others draw their difficulties from their relating
to this higher dimension. Here I hope to handle some typical instances and hope
to clear the way. I do not have in view handling every single difficulty.
This new dimension of life
is reached by a new attitude, a new motive. They fashion themselves as
strategies of understanding in reading and strategies in living in life. Grow
by giving is one such. The physical vital man is possessive. He grows by
taking. At the plane of Mind, growth demands giving. In Spirit, all growth is
only by giving. Surely for a possessive physical man, this presents a
difficulty. Even after giving up property, the mind refuses to give up its
possessiveness. It is felt more in possessing a woman or man as wife or
husband. Unless the society overcomes it, the individual is unable to do so. This
book is meant for those individuals who have acquired this new dimension of
thought and would prepare the society for that wider mission. These
obstacles arising as mental phenomena stand in the way of comprehending these
arguments. This article aims at clearing such impediments at the theoretical
level, explaining them philosophically.
The infinitesimal is the
finite and is the opposite of the infinite. The mind is baffled at the thought
of the infinity of the infinitesimal. The finite is in Time. The infinite is in
timelessness. In the next higher plane of Simultaneous Time, the
infinitesimal itself is the infinite. Theory says that the infinite
converted itself into the infinitesimal. Or what is infinitesimal on the
surface is really the infinite behind the surface.
To us, the inner and the
outer are apart and are opposites. In theory, there is only inner and no outer.
In the higher third dimension, the Inner includes the outer. That is why the
inner is able to move the outer.
Determinism of
the Indeterminable.
We can determine our acts.
We cannot determine other acts. In the first chapter of the II Book ‘Cosmic
Determinants’, He proves what is indeterminate to us is really cosmic
determinants. The argument is extended to Sachchidananda and the Absolute. Thus,
He proves His thesis that anything in this world is determined by the Brahman,
the Absolute, while it is considered as indeterminable.
Tradition finds the
Immutable Brahman incapable of any determinism. He goes further on to say the
Brahman is Immutable a well as Mutable, as it chooses. What the tradition knows
is the partial Brahman. The Fullness of Brahman is beyond and is capable of
anything. We cannot attribute any incapacity to It. He
meets the logic of the tradition saying that Brahman is not capable of
determinism but is incapable of being limited or controlled by any other
determinism. Hence in the title of the chapter, He calls it ‘Indeterminable’.
This is the self-existing Infinity as against the infinity that is the opposite
of the finite. Sri Aurobindo describes this infinity as ‘boundless finite’ and
offers a theoretical explanation: Infinity is there in all planes,
only that it takes on different hues in different planes. In a nation,
the political WILL of the people is crystalised in the plane of political
administration that is the government as constitution. In the legislature, that
constitution becomes law while in the administration it becomes rule. In the
various departments, the same undergoes another conversion and it is G.O.,
government order. Further down, it is procedure, custom, usage. The political
will of the people and their constitution is met as G.O. and rules. The
invisible determinism of the Indeterminable is the same as our own decision in
ordinary activities. Thus the determinism and indeterminable
are of the same plane.
Man rising from his body to
the Spirit via his vital and mental is ascent. He says when we reach the Supermind, it descends on all the planes of our being. It
acts at every stage. When Man ascends from his body to his vital, his vital
descends on his body and the descent is continued till the body is saturated
with the vital. This occurs at all stages. In 1926, the Overmind descended into
Sri Aurobindo down to His very cells. Thus it was called Siddhi Day. Even
though He touched the Supermind in 1910, it took sixteen years for the Overmind
to descend into Him. In the ascent, body is the lowest and Supermind is the
highest. In the descent, Supermind begins and the descent is consummated at the
body, thus making the Body the highest in the descent. Note as the descent
occurs, each plane ascends. It is called ascent in the descent. What Mother
called True Physical, baffling our comprehension, is the Physical that has
received the Supramental force. There is the gross physical and subtle physical.
Both are primary. The Physical becomes True when the
Supermind descends and the subtle Physical matures into the causal plane.
In our life, lightning is
for a fraction of a second. In the Third dimension of Time, there will be
lightning steadied in the sky. It is a world of Marvel. There is no darkness
there. We must be able to conceive of it. This is not the higher world of the
cosmos. It is in the second dimension. This world I speak of is in the
Simultaneous Time.
We know our ego to be ourselves. In dissolving the ego, we find we are
not dissolved. Only the ignorance of the ego is dissolved. When the dissolution
of the ego is complete, we find the Purusha there. It is the world Purusha. The
world Purusha individualises the world experience in us. It is done outside.
Inside the same process reveals the Transcendent in us. That is, world Purusha
outside is the Transcendent Purusha inside.
·
Ego is in Time, on the surface in ignorance.
·
Purusha is in Timelessness in the inner mind which
is subtle and not spiritual, where ignorance remains.
·
The Eternal, the Transcendent Purusha is inside in
the subliminal, in the simultaneous Time.
Ignorance is a limitation of knowledge. For it to become perfect, it
needs to be confined in scope. So a limited surface is created inverting the
subliminal where Ignorance is made perfect by the combined action of mind,
Time, ego, making it finite. As Ignorance is a later product than knowledge, it
is greater than knowledge.
The Evolving Soul
This is a concept unknown to
the tradition in whose perception the Soul is ineffable, immutable, without
beginning or end. It is infinite. This is only one side of the soul. In a
fuller view of the Supermind, Soul is seen in its fullness as the Spirit in a Being in creation. Sri Aurobindo calls His yoga the Yoga of
Spiritual evolution. In His theory of creation, we find the Brahman becoming
the world and emerging out of it. Spirit is only an intermediary term between
Sat and Truth. The Prakriti too has a spirit involved in it. As the
Prakriti moves, the hidden spirit there evolves. It is the Psychic Being. This
creates the new dimension of Time known as simultaneous Time. This is called
the evolving Soul, evolving into Sat and Brahman. Sri Aurobindo repeatedly says
what issued out of Brahman as involution must return to Brahman through
evolution. So far, involution alone was known. Evolution is a process and plane
which Sri Aurobindo experienced for the first time.
The freedom tradition knows
is a freedom that stops short of the ultimate goal. To it, Sri Aurobindo
adds one more dimension of a Freedom to lose its freedom. No one can deny
the Absolute this freedom. It is by losing this freedom that the Absolute
becomes the cosmos.
Allied to this conception is
the determinism of the Absolute. While the tradition says the Absolute cannot
determine because it is without attributes, Sri Aurobindo says the Absolute is
beyond determinism in the sense that no determinism can control the Absolute.
It is incapable of being determined by anything else.
Knowledge is of the mind,
work is of the body. Knowledge by itself will NOT be able to move work. There is
a knowledge of the body indicated by No. 7 in our
chart. Mental knowledge is in No. 1. If No. 1 reaches No. 7, knowledge of Mind
becomes knowledge of work which means work moves. To win an election, to
accomplish a project in the office or at home, this knowledge can be used. For
that, the very first step is the conception of the
The Theory is mental
knowledge becomes perfect and moves into the 3rd dimension of Time
when it becomes knowledge of the physical which is work.
Brahman is a whole, creation is a whole, the infinite is a whole, the
finite is a whole and everything is a whole. The divine and undivine are the
divisions of the Mind. There is no real division Our
body is a whole. Our being is a whole. There is no division in any of them. It
has parts that are dirty which produce excrements. To us, they are undesirable,
but they are indispensable for the existence of the body. The sewage of the
town, the criminals of the society are unwanted for our mental understanding,
but to a completer understanding they are essential. The undivine is in Time,
the Divine is in Timelessness, the whole of life that is existence is in
simultaneous time. This explanation answers incidentally the question of evil.
It is almost a metaphor.
Only when we conceive of the whole of which the future is a part, does its
memory come into the picture.
Sri Aurobindo defines
imagination as the formulation of future possibility. Such a formulation makes
its possibility greater. It is to bring the future into the present. The
present maturing into ever-present takes the past and future into its immediate
Present. This is to upgrade Time into Simultaneous Time.
As in the ever-present, the
entire eternity is compressed into one point called MOMENT. Similarly, the
entire space is abridged into one point.
The above powerfully touches
upon some points of the mystery, if not clearing them entirely. Basic
familiarity with these thoughts will lessen the difficulties in comprehending
the Book. Sri Aravindam is beyond Moksha. It is a condition attained by
sacrificing Moksha. Asceticism shuns life. It considers life as its enemy. Sri
Aravindam can be called transformation. He who seeks Moksha has no
transformation. The human being is made up of four parts of which Spirit is the
highest. The Spirit being the most refined finds itself burdened by the other
darker parts. So tapas and yoga sought a way to separate the noblest
part from the others and offer it freedom into the domains of the original Spirit,
the Superconscient. By this, our best part is released and other parts remain
in ignorance that is darkness. Transformation has another philosophy. All the
parts of our being are fundamentally made up of Spirit out of which evolved the
physical, vital and mental parts. Should we continue that evolution, SPIRIT too
will emerge out of Mind and later vital and physical parts.
This is evolution. Brahman that created the world has not stipulated
moksha for its best part, but expected to emerge out of ignorance by evolution
to its original status, thus giving it the joy it has sought in creation. This
was the divine intention. So transformation gives up moksha which is attained
by giving up life.
Having fashioned a new
philosophy, He sought new terminology too. It is necessary for the reader to
familiarise himself with all the terms of His philosophy. Self, Soul, being,
Spirit is one such set of words. Our basis is the Absolute became the world.
The Absolute became Sat, Existence, who became the Existent, Sat Purusha. The
Existent created the world by objectifying itself, its subjective part being
the Spirit and the objective part being the Truth. Cosmos above and the
world below were created by the Spirit. Everything in it is Spirit. The Spirit
in the universe is Spiritual substance. Knowledge and the Mind its instrument
are the extension of the Existence. Viewed by the Mind through its senses, the
Spiritual substance appears to be material substance out of which Matter is
created by the divisive action of Mind. It is this secret of creation that Mind
could not see and only the Supermind could see. In the chapter on Matter there
is a brilliant exposition of this process and an able summary of it in the last
para of that chapter. It is given below:
·
There is a self-extension of being. It is
conceptive.
Rather, there is
a conceptive self-extension of the being.
·
It works itself out in the universe as substance.
This substance is the object of consciousness.
·
This substance is represented by cosmic Mind and
Life in their creative action. It is represented by atomic division and
aggregation.
·
The result is called Matter.
·