Pride & Prejudice
does not attempt to penetrate beyond the boundaries of society and human nature to
reflect the greater powers or realities of the cosmic order that we find in the greatest
of Shakespeare’s works. There is no supernatural element here, no perplexing
confrontation with the mysteries of darkness or evil, no overriding sense of fate moving
the action to an inescapable conclusion. Although we have attempted to point out the
deeper truths of life observable in the story, we do not imply that the author was in any
way conscious or intending to present them. What she expresses is the keen observation and
intuitive insight of a creative writer who is in tune with the realities of life at the
level she depicts it.
To go beyond this and seek for spiritual themes or
truths may appear to be stretching the limits of enquiry too far. This would be true if we
tried to imply any awareness or intention on the author’s part, which we do not. But
regardless of Jane Austen’s awareness or intention, she depicts life. To the extent
that what she depicts is true to life, it must also be true to whatever principles or
powers may exist above or beyond life, which serve as its foundation and creative source.
Although our intention is not to either present or explain his philosophy in depth, we
propose to use the story as a vehicle to illustrate some of Sri Aurobindo’s
fundamental themes of spiritual evolution.
The same act and outcome can be explained from multiple
levels of causality or determination, just as a person’s external behavior can be an
expression of manners, character, motives, thoughts, psychic or spiritual inspiration. The
same act can serve simultaneously for accomplishing the goals of determinants at multiple
levels.
Darcy’s marriage to Elizabeth reveals multiple
levels of significance. At the level of political and economic structures, it is a
movement of social evolution from aristocracy to a new order. At the social level, it is
the first step that leads eventually to the erosion of the institution of marriage and the
emergence of the individual from the collective. The empowerment of women and the middle
and lower classes challenges and eventually overthrows establishes social institutions. At
the psychological level, it represents the development of character from pride and
prejudice to greater self-knowledge and humility. At the spiritual level, it is the
evolution from ego to spiritual equality.
Similarly, Wickham’s marriage to Lydia
accomplishes at several levels simultaneously. At the level of the social evolution, it
helps preserve the institution of marriage from breakdown. At the psychological level, it
represents the evolution from dissipation to self-discipline. At the spiritual level, it
is a movement of consciousness evolving from ignorance to knowledge, falsehood to truth,
pain of existence to delight of existence, divided ego to soul of oneness.
In The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo describes the
process of involution by which the One, infinite, indivisible, formless omnipresent and
omniscient Reality, the Self-Conscious Being, creates out of itself a world of multiple,
divided, ignorant, impotent forms and the process of evolution by which these forms
struggle to survive, grow and rise in consciousness to manifest in form the infinite
potentials of the formless reality. He describes life as a manifestation of that spiritual
reality and the evolution of life as an expression of the evolution of consciousness that
this spirit undertakes for the delight of self-discovery and manifestation in the world of
forms.
Sri Aurobindo describes matter as the delight of
existence offering itself as object of sensation to the consciousness involved in matter
to tempt that hidden Godhead out of its secrecy. Delight (ananda)
tempts the hidden consciousness in matter (chit) to awaken the secret godhead, being
(sat). Self-conscious being (satchidananda), which has become the universe,
presents itself to its own consciousness as the delight of existence to awaken the
involved consciousness and tempt the Being to come to the surface. That is the evolution.
The whole world is the involution of Satchidananda as form – matter, life and mind.
The evolution is the recovery of consciousness through the temptation of the emerging
delight until we rediscover the Godhead.
We speak of an evolution of the society and the
individual characters in the story. That evolution is the emergence of the involved divine
consciousness that is hidden and subconscious. The society awakens when it is activated by
sensation to bring out its hidden soul or being, which is the human being, the individual
soul, whose potential is infinite. The process of social development is the process of the
society discovering and evolving conscious individuals.
We can see that process in this story. The process is
the same at all levels. Darcy thinks that he is a rich, important aristocrat, which is
only a surface truth of his existence. He has to discover that he is a good man, the
hidden godhead. He is fully identified with money and his social position. He has to give
up his arrogance and realize he a generous man of good character. For him, that is a
personal evolution toward the godhead. It is growth of character or psychological growth.
Compared with the Darcy at the beginning of the story, the Darcy at the end of the story
is god, he has self-knowledge. The consciousness evolves in him. And what is the process?
He is tempted by delight, which comes to him in the form of Elizabeth. It tempts him to
awaken in consciousness. He becomes aware that he is not the good man he thought he was.
He is not superior to the people he is looking down on. Consciousness is self-knowledge.
He was unconscious. He becomes aware that it was wrong to interfere in Bingley’s
marriage. And what is the joy for him at the end? When
Elizabeth accepts his proposal, he is filled with delight. He says, “Dear, darling
Elizabeth.” Ananda, the delight of
existence, awakening him to self-knowledge to discover the better man he really is.
It is the same process for Elizabeth,
except that the first touch of the delight of existence comes to her as pain. She overhears Darcy’s rude comment about her
at the ball. She laughs. But seeing where he is and where she is hurts her. The delight of
existence comes to her in the form of a handsome Wickham. She is so unconscious that she
believes anything the man says. Actually, what is coming to her is the delight of
existence--it is Darcy. But until she actually lands at Pemberley, she never understands
what is coming to her. Because she was so unconscious, so prejudiced in her attitudes,
delight comes to her as pain. She was so unwilling to accept what she was. The very
thought of Darcy reminds her of that low consciousness which she does not want to accept
in herself or her family. The process is the same as for Darcy. Every contact of life
comes to her to awaken the consciousness in her. When it is awakened, she feels she never
knew herself until then. But the self she sees and feels ashamed of is only her lower
self. Her higher self that is emerging is the mistress of Pemberley. Consciousness is the
process by which she comes to realize her higher self, which is two hundred times higher
as crudely measured in monetary terms.
The process we see here is the same
process that occurs at the social, psychological and spiritual levels. The whole world is
only the godhead involved in matter, in ignorance, in prejudice, selfishness, falsehood
etc. It is only the divine, nothing else. The contact that comes to us from life has only
one purpose, to awaken the consciousness so we can discover the hidden godhead and it can
more fully manifest on the surface. We may not discover the full Divine Godhead, but we
can discover more of the latent potential of our own inner being, which is a portion and
expression of that Godhead. We can give up falsehood, jealousy, meanness, and the like. We
can discover our greater capacities and higher nature and rise. This is not just a story
of the psychological process of two people meeting and falling in love. It is the story of
the Divine Spirit evolving and becoming more conscious on earth.
We can understand the evolution fully only when we
understand the essential role and process of the involution. The involution provides the
necessary foundation and circumstances for the evolution. All that we perceive as
unconsciousness, opposition, obstacle, resistance, hostility and perversity—in
others, the life around us and even in ourselves—are products of the involution that
play essential roles in the emergence of positive characteristics and accomplished
capacities in the evolution. Involution is the essential basis for the evolution. Mind has
involved in body because the ignorance and limitation of matter is essential for the
evolution of life and mind in matter. We can see it in life. Each intractable problem that
arises for us because of an involved consciousness becomes a goad and stimulus for our
progress, without which we could not evolve.
In the story, the involved consciousness makes possible
the social evolution. The involved condition of five daughters to be married without money
to marry them well releases the evolutionary aspirations and energies of the family to
fight for their social survival and accomplishment. The Bennet marriage, the entail,
Collins living under Lady Catherine, Lady Catherine’s agreement with Darcy’s
mother, Wickham’s prior relationship with Darcy and Georgiana, Mrs. Gardiner’s
prior sojourn in Derbyshire, a vacant Netherfield available for Bingley to lease are
involved conditions in which the evolution takes place. Darcy’s pride is the goad
that offends and brings out Eliza’s strength of character. Eliza’s prejudice
becomes the occasion that attracts Darcy and makes him pursue her until he gets her. Had
she admired him from the start, he would have taken that admiration as that of a lower
class person for a higher and never discovered her true character. Even Lydia’s fall
and elopement are necessary conditions for Darcy to demonstrate his goodness and affection
for Eliza, which finally wins her.
The story begins with Mr. Bennet’s marriage to
Mrs. Bennet and ends with Lydia and Wickham becoming in-laws to Darcy! Bennet’s
family is a chosen instrument for social progress. The Bennets are the protypical family
of the social evolution, since they already represent a joining of aristocratic and
bourgeois classes working out their tensions and integration in and through the human
relationships of the family. All the energy and initiative in the family comes from Mrs.
Bennet. Eliza, who takes after her father, never takes initiative. Lydia, who embodies her
mother’s energy, constantly takes initiative. Mr. Bennet’s sarcasm reflects his
knowledge of his folly in marrying Mrs. Bennet.
1.
Darcy
Darcy seeks the fresh input of evolutionary energy he
finds in Eliza to revitalize his family and preserve the social order from radical
revolution. Darcy’s evolution has been spurred by Wickham’s earlier demands for
money and his attempt to elope with Georgiana. That has made Darcy conscious of how
vulnerable his family is. His consciousness is awakened to greater possibilities by the
light (delight of being) he sees in Eliza’s eyes tempting his soul to come forward.
The material thought of Eliza makes him conscious of something more valuable than his
money or status. Eliza’s assertion of Wickham’s scandalous lies against Darcy
cause pain because they are so false and insulting, but are even more painful because they
come between him and the object of his affections.
These objects of sensation presented to Darcy’s
mind as material thought tempt the inner Godhead to awaken. He sheds his false values of
superiority based on money and status, his disgust with Eliza’s family, which is
matched by his own aunt’s behavior, his disdain for social inferiority. He recognizes
and affirms the values of goodness and generosity, stoops to redeem the despicable Wickham
and Lydia for Eliza’s sake and his own happiness. A greater, better, more energized
enlightened Darcy emerges from this process.
Darcy was unconscious of the extent to which he had
built a wall of dead formality around himself that isolated him from life, vitality, mirth
and fulfillment. He takes himself, his status, his money so seriously that he does not see
that the spirit and joy in life lies elsewhere. When Darcy meets Eliza and when he
proposes the first time, he is conscious only of himself (his ego), he is lost in his own
mental debate about what to do (mind), he thinks of the past and future rather than the
intensity of his love for her. When he proposes again at Longbourn, he has rejected all
thoughts about social status (mind), family and money, forgotten all that was said between
them in the past so he could bring himself to ask again (time), he has rejected his sense
of self-importance (ego).
2. Eliza
Darcy is aware of what attracts him to Eliza from an
evolutionary point of view. Eliza is unconscious of her evolutionary possibility. She
lacks conscious aspiration for something higher, but refuses the conventional life that
Charlotte readily accepts. Charlotte represents the common instinct for self-preservation.
She lacks both the higher values of Eliza and the vulgarity of Collins. In the story Eliza
has to first become aware of her evolutionary possibility, then come to want it, and
finally qualify herself for that accomplishment by overcoming the consciousness she
inherits from her mother.
Collins and Wickham represent the non-evolutionary
opportunities for Eliza. She is offered the human choice of a secure marriage with Collins
to preserve the family property or romance with Wickham. Only by rejecting both does she
become qualified for an evolutionary progress. Delight of being touches her mind in the
form of a pleasing Wickham and then negatively in the form of Darcy’s offensive and
insulting proposal, his letter discrediting Wickham, and news of Lydia’s elopement.
Her attraction to Wickham gradually is transformed into an attraction for Darcy. Only when
she experiences Pemberley does the delight in Darcy’s proposal become real to her.
The process she undergoes begins as pain from the
humiliation of her family and knowledge of her own inheritance. The pain eventually
changes into the delight of accomplishment. Through this process, the hidden
consciousness, her deeper personality, emerges in strength and joy. She evolves from
unconsciousness to consciousness, from vanity to humility, from prejudice against that
which is above her to gratitude for being a recipient of affection, for the opportunity to
rise, and for the salvation and elevation of her family.
When Darcy first proposes, she lives in the past,
focuses on her (false) opinions, asserts her offended ego, and identifies with the limits
of family and friendship. Through the course of events, she evolves. When she meets Darcy
at Pemberley, her mind goes blank and empty in the face of his affectionate behavior. She
forgets herself in expansive joy. She forgets all that has happened between them in the
past. She expands beyond the limits of her family ties to be herself. Had Eliza been
capable of this poised silence, egolessness and fresh response at Rosings, all the
difficulties with Darcy could have been worked out and their marriage agreed upon even
then.
3. Lydia and
Wickham
Lydia and Eliza are two poles of the same fresh energy.
Lydia represents the evolving energy destroying the old social forms physically to get
what it wants. Eliza is the same fresh energy destroying the old forms mentally through
her ability to laugh and see the silliness of what others cherish. Had Lydia married a
Collins, she would have died for want of expression. She evolves by consenting to confine
her biological energy within the institution of marriage, giving up all the other
officers, rather than as a prostitute. In earlier periods, Lydia would have ended on the
street. She lacks any conscious aspiration other than physical enjoyment. Her progress is
from biological enjoyment to marriage. Society elevates her to preserve its institutions
in wider, more diluted form (in the same manner as educating the illiterate dilutes
educational standards).
Lydia and Wickham represent that revolutionary energy
seeking to rise unconstrained by any social norms. Therefore, Darcy has to pay for their
marriage, for retaining them within the social system, in order to preserve the old order
that he cherishes. But his very act of doing so changes that old order. It is the
compromise he makes to avoid revolution.
Wickham too evolves, tempted by the delight of being
offering itself as object of sensation. His proximity to Pemberley and the attractiveness
of acquiring the wealth and status of Darcy tempt him to rise. He is also lured to elope
with Lydia, which becomes his path to austerity. He rises by evolving from dissipation to
self-discipline, from shameless to the socially conforming behavior of living with Lydia!
He still evolves through falsehood and therefore achieves the minimum progress.
Falsehood according to Sri Aurobindo is involved
Truth. It is a power of truth distorted and perverted by ignorance and ego. The evolution
of consciousness is an evolution of consciousness out of unconsciousness, truth out of
falsehood. As a power of truth, it is itself an instrument of the evolution. It is a prior
state of involution, which is an essential condition and means for the evolution.
Falsehood plays a central role in the story. We can
view Wickham’s overt conscious falsehood as a counterpart and complement to
Darcy’s false sense of self-importance and superiority. Falsehood of one type fosters
other complementary forms, as Lady Catherine’s arrogance fosters Collins’
servile obsequiousness. The capacities for falsehood in Darcy and Wickham grew up
side-by-side, one in the shadow of the other, and interact through events to destroy each
other.
1. Eliza’s
Options
Eliza’s possibility of becoming mistress of
Pemberley is indicated by the relationship she forges at a lower level with the son of the
former steward of Pemberley. If she responds at this level to Wickham, who is false, she
misses the higher opportunity of Darcy, who is true. Similarly, if she responds to the
status and security offered by Collins, as Mrs. Bennet wishes and Charlotte does, she
misses the opportunity to rise in status and wealth. Her human choice is to respond to the
opportunity of rising and make the personal progress.
2.
Role of Wickham’s lies in forging Eliza’s relationship with Darcy.
When Darcy first took interest in her, Eliza was
incapable of recognizing his interest or imagining where it could lead. She could not
relate to him or the opportunity because it was too high above her. Therefore, it appeared
undesirable or even objectionable.
Wickham’s lies about Darcy forge an intense,
negative relationship between Eliza and Darcy. They enable her to brush aside all thought
of his social status, money and his proposal to her. She is able to relate to him
personally, to feel insulted by his insults, to express her resentment of his words and
acts, and to insult him in return. The power of Wickham’s lie arises because it
accuses Darcy of depriving Wickham of the money that would have enabled him to marry
Eliza. Eliza’s total lack of regard for Darcy’s money and status, which
Wickham’s falsehood helps accentuate, make her even more attractive to Darcy because
she appears to be above all mercenary and social motives.
The fact that Eliza’s rejection of Darcy’s
proposal is based on false information, rather than purely on her personal preferences,
provides Darcy with an opportunity to defend himself and eventually propose again. A
personal rejection, such as her rejection of Collins, would have cancelled all future
possibilities.
3. Eliza’s
evolution is from falsehood to truth & truth of self.
Falsehood is the involved condition from which Eliza
must rise to truth. Wickham’s falsehood is the external condition that makes that
possible. The evolution is from the surface to the depths. Eliza has to outgrow the
superficial attraction of her surface personality for a pleasant false form in order to
progress on the strength of her character to a higher level and to value character in
Darcy over appearance in Wickham.
She responds to the false Wickham because his
appearance and behavior are pleasant and rejects the true Darcy because he is proud and
unpolished. We can say that she responds to Wickham because he is false and rejects
Darcy because he is bluntly true. This natural human tendency is brought out powerfully in
Trollop’s Eustace Diamonds where a false woman, also named Elizabeth, responds
to the flattering proposal of a false man, even when she knows that both he and his
flattery are false. Eliza rejects truth about Wickham when Caroline presents it to her
because she does not like the truth. The choice of being pleased over knowing what is true
is the choice of falsehood over truth. It is the vital dominating mind.
Darcy’s letter exposes the truth about Wickham.
Eliza accepts that truth and rejects Wickham from her mind, but her feelings for him
remain positive. Therefore, she is unwilling to expose his falsehood to her family. Even
when she knows the truth of Wickham’s lies, she never feels angry at him, while she
felt a powerful urge to spite Darcy when she believed Wickham’s lies about him. She
comes to accept Darcy as true and Wickham as false, but still she is unable to fully give
up her attraction for what is low and false. Had she done so, the story would have ended
happily at this point.
When Wickham elopes with Lydia, Eliza suffers the
psychological pain and social humiliation arising from her attachment to Wickham’s
falsehood. She sees and reconciles herself to the truth of her family position, which had
so angered her when Darcy mentioned it earlier. The intensity of this experience is needed
for her to give up her feelings for him more fully. This acknowledgement brings Darcy
back. Even in accepting his proposal, she wishes to avoid being reminded of the full truth
of her own personality.
4.
Avoiding Lydia’s elopement:
What would have been the result had Eliza told her family the truth about Wickham before
going to Derbyshire?
Mr. Bennet would not have believed Eliza, or her
mother would have insisted on sending Lydia to Brighton anyway, or Lydia would have
insisted on going or run off on her own. Lydia’s elopement is a result of the
consciousness of the family. It can only be prevented by a change in that consciousness.
The elopement could have been prevented if Eliza had seen the truth of her attraction to
the falsehood in Wickham, if she had seen that she is like Lydia and her mother beneath
the surface, and if she had tried to reverse those attitudes in herself.
5. Conversion
of Truth into Falsehood
When Wickham tells Eliza about his past relationship
with Darcy, he converts truth into falsehood at several points. He says that Darcy refused
him the vicarage that Wickham in fact refused. He says Darcy deprived him of an income,
when in fact Darcy paid him an exorbitant sum of £3000. He also completely omits the
reference to his attempted elopement with Georgiana.
Reading this passage, any sincere person can reflect on
the occasions when they have inverted truth of cause-effect, positive-negative, and
benefactor-beneficiary in their relationships with others. The inner point in
consciousness is the capacity of ego to convert truth into falsehood to serve its motives,
pride, and self-justification.
Mrs. Bennet exhibits the same characteristic less
consciously when after news of Wickham’s elopement she tells Mrs. Philip that she had
always suspected his bad character, which in fact she had so strongly admired.
6. Evolution
from falsehood to truth
Wickham’s falsehood is a counterpart and
complement to Darcy’s unconsciousness of his right obligations and attitudes toward
those beneath him in society, i.e. Darcy’s false values of money and status. They go
together and evolve together. Wickham’s falsehood appeals to the false preference in
Eliza, which Darcy later dispels, helping her evolve from falsehood to truth.
Wickham’s falsehood helps Eliza shed her false prejudice and Darcy shed his false
sense of superiority. The role of falsehood in others is to help us shed our own
falsehood.
Although we often regard as small lie as necessary or
convenient to promote our aims, when opportunities open up at a higher level, the
introduction of falsehood or the inability to totally eliminate it can only limit,
postpone or cancel that higher opportunity. Darcy too succumbs to a small falsehood when
he withholds from Bingley the fact that Jane is in London. This capacity for deceit makes
him vulnerable to Wickham’s slanderous falsehoods directed against him. As a result,
his winning of Eliza is very much postponed and subject to much suffering for him. Because
Eliza is never able to wholly overcome her attraction to Wickham, even after his marriage
to Lydia, she has to occasionally provide them with money. She continues to pay for her
attraction to a false man.
6.
Growth by Self-knowledge
1. Darcy
Self-knowledge
is a powerful instrument for evolution. Darcy grows by self-knowledge. His pride has kept
him at a distance from the object of his affection, Eliza. When he accepts the true of her
accusations against him for undue pride and arrogance, especially in the manner of his
marriage proposal, and when he decides to act in direct contradiction of that pride by
saving Lydia and redeeming Wickham, the artificial barrier dissolves and he wins Eliza.
When Darcy discovers
that he has been arrogant and pompous and foolishly riding on the strength of his money
and status, he becomes aware of his own lack of character, his own selfishness and
boorishness. That frank recognition creates the opening that wins Eliza. At Herefordshire,
and most especially at the Netherfield ball, Darcy feels that Eliza’s family is
socially and culturally inferior to his own and therefore he cannot propose to her. When
Darcy comes to Rosings, he is confronted with knowledge of the equally vulgar, shameless
behavior of his aunt in the presence of Eliza. He is forced to subconsciously recognize
that his objections to Eliza’s family are no more justified than to his own, i.e. his
family is as low as hers. This subconscious knowledge, not yet consciously conceded,
enables his attraction to Eliza to overcome the objections of his conscious mind and
compels him to propose to her. When Eliza rejects his proposal and points out to him his
ungentleman-like behavior, he gradually recognizes the same lack of culture in himself
that he has observed in his aunt. This conscious self-knowledge enables him to overcome
all his mental reservations to Eliza and to propose to her again at Longbourn.
2. Eliza
When Eliza has to
witness the vulgar behavior of her mother and sisters in the presence of Darcy at the
Netherfield ball, she too feels her family is humiliatingly low and undesirable. What she
experiences of them at home outside the social context does not embarrass in this way.
Eliza’s full realization and acceptance of the low culture and offensive behavior of
her family is an indispensable psychological condition for her elevation. What Darcy has
said about her family was very rude but very true. Her anger or resentment against him for
saying it does not change the fact. Her genuine acceptance of it and of his cultural
superiority create the receptivity needed for her to rise. She abandons pride and
prejudice and is elevated to the cultural heights she aspires for in her mind. When Eliza
discovers that all her ‘impertinence’ and assertiveness has been misplaced and
wrongly directed against Darcy, she comes face to face with the realization that she is
like her mother, she has inherited the same lack of culture. That frank admission and
sincere self-disgust create an opening in her for great advancement.
Eliza undergoes a
similar process of awaking to self-knowledge when Darcy’s letter exposes the
falsehood of her belief in Wickham and Lydia’s elopement fully justifies all
Darcy’s worst accusations against her family and herself. That conscious
self-knowledge in Eliza generates a sense of gratitude to Darcy for having accepted her
and loving her still, in spite of what he knows about her. When she expresses it, he
proposes a second time.
3. Mr.
Bennet
Mr. Bennett also
undergoes self-enlightenment. He realizes his indulgence and casualness is responsible for
Lydia’s elopement and accepts the burden of self-condemnation as fully justified. In
response, life takes initiative to reverse the calamity and save him without even any
significant expense on his part. To that extent, he has reversed his attitude and life has
reversed in response.
7.
Planes of Consciousness & Human
Choice
Individuals
act from a formed character. But given the character, each individual is capable of more
than one type of response to any situation. In other words, results of action are a
product not only of human character but also of human choice. Human consciousness consists
of multiple layers or levels ranging from the pure physical to the pure mental and to
spiritual levels beyond mind. Each individual possesses all these levels, developed in
varying degrees. Each individual is capable of acting from any of these levels, but
normally has a characteristic plane of action; a maximum plane reached at the most
creative moments and a minimum level that is reached at times of extreme crisis. In any
specific action, an individual may choose to express qualities of one or several of these
levels. Each level of consciousness has a dual aspect, one in the ascent from action to
understanding and another in the descent from understanding to action. In some events, the
complete range of planes in encompassed from physical action to mental comprehension or
from mental comprehension to physical action.
1. Social,
mental and spiritual choice
In an evolving social
context, the old social values (class, property) are obstacles to tapping new
opportunities. Individuals who choose allegiance to the old values stagnate or fail (Lady
Catherine, Collins). Individuals who choose allegiance to the emerging social values
advance along with the society. They have access to the opportunities that social
evolution has opened up. Darcy reinvigorates his declining family and establishment. Eliza
rises ten times higher than her birth and situation merit.
In any situation, human
choice conforms to authority. The primary authority depicted in the story is the social
authority. The choice for each character is between values of the old and new social
order. Individual choices are determined by the direction of the evolving society. Lady
Catherine chooses the old. Darcy chooses the new.
What society compels or
sanctions, the individual chooses for himself. Mr. Bennet sends Lydia to Brighton because
society was moving away from concerns for proprietary and toward the fuller unleashing of
individual initiative. Choice based on the prevailing authority accomplishes within the
scope of opportunities that have been embraced by the evolving society. Therefore, the
best that can come out of Lydia’s initiative is marriage. The society does not
sanction anything higher for a woman at that time.
Higher than the social
authority is individual authority, the authority generated by mind’s
discrimination based on its ideas and values. Darcy makes choices at the point where
social character is evolving into individual character. He plays the role of a pioneer who
accomplishes something new for the first time or, at least, something that has not yet
become common and accepted at his level of society.
Beyond choices based on
social and individual authority, there is a level of choice based on spiritual authority,
the authority of the spirit as it expresses in the mind. This authority is capable of
accomplishing what lies beyond the society’s current level. Spiritual authority comes
by understanding our present mental attitudes from a spiritual perspective within the
framework sanctioned by the evolving society. Pride & Prejudice is a story
within the bounds of social authority.
2. Movement
between planes of consciousness
Human consciousness can
be described as an ascending series of levels or planes from the lowest physical
consciousness of the body to the highest mental consciousness of mind. Beyond that is the
realm of spiritual consciousness. Sri Aurobindo described the human range of consciousness
in terms of three planes:
a) Physical
-- the subconscious awareness and impulses of the body expressed in animal instincts,
basic drives of human nature, and inherited character traits. The primary drives of the
physical are for self-preservation and reproduction. The physical expresses itself through
action.
b) Vital
– the semi-conscious sensations, urges, desires, feelings and emotions. The vital
provides the energy for human action and expresses itself through attraction, liking,
desire and enthusiasm.
c) Mental
– the thoughts, opinions, beliefs, ideas and values that guide our conscious
thinking, conceptualizing and decision-making processes.
These three planes can
be further subdivided into nine, in which each of the three contains a physical, vital and
mental element. The function of each of these centers is summarized below.
1. Conceptual
mind – the center of conception, pure ideas and philosophy
2. Emotional
mind – the center of mental emotions, sentiments, poetry
3. Physical
mind – the center which plans, processes physical data and information
4. Mental
vital – the center of life intelligence, higher emotions, cunning, cleverness,
leadership in life
5. Pure Vital
– the center of passions, feelings, courage, boldness, enthusiasm
6. Physical
vital – the center of nervous responses, social behavior and manners
7. Mental
physical – the center of physical skills, knowledge of the body
8. Vital
physical – the center of physical sensations and urges, including sexual attraction
9. Pure
Physical – the center of the pure physical which seeks inertia
The evolution of human
consciousness is a progression from the subconscious physical to the more fully conscious
mental planes and then to the spiritual planes above and beyond mind. Social evolution can
be described as a movement from physical experience to mental knowledge and the
application of the knowledge derived from experience to enlighten and elevate physical
activities. Involution is a reverse movement in which the consciousness moves down to act
from a lower level rather than up to a higher level.
Human beings are free at
every moment to respond to circumstances by elevating their consciousness to a higher
level or by descending to a lower level or by remaining where they are. The human will is
the determinant. Human choice is the instrument for evolution and involution. We can
discover both these movements in the story. The numbers in parenthesis refer to the
corresponding center as described above:
3. Collins’
proposal to Eliza – descent of consciousness
When
Collins proposes to Eliza, it is not out of passion (level 5) or the sensation of physical
attraction (level 8) or mental admiration for her character (level 2). It arises from his
perception of his own desirable social position and the difficult social position that
Eliza is in, which he says may never attract another marriage proposal. He acts from vital
understanding of the life situation (level 4). Had he been a mental character who
understood Eliza’s character, he would have understood that money and Lady
Catherine’s beneficent attentions would not be sufficient to win her. When Eliza
soundly rejects Collins’ proposal, he feels deeply offended, reacts and feels
compelled to physically leave the premises. His urge is not merely one of hurt sentiments.
He is physically embarrassed, offended and repelled. He has descended in consciousness
from the mental vital of confident leadership (level 4) to the vital physical (level 8)
sensation of repulsion.
Mrs. Bennet follows
exactly the same course. She encourages Collins’ proposal based on a very stupid
understanding of her daughter (level 4). She reacts very sharply to Eliza’s refusal.
Her reaction is not just nervous-vital (level 6) but goes all the way down to the vital
physical (level 8). Both Collins and Mrs. Bennet choose to give unthinking (non-mental)
responses to the event and as a result, their consciousness descends. The choose acts of
involution.
4. Darcy’s
proposal to Eliza – ascent of consciousness
Contrast Collins and
Mrs. Bennet’s reactions to the responses of Eliza and Darcy. When Darcy proposes to
Eliza, he is compelled by the power of his emotions (level 4) to disregard his
understanding of Eliza’s very undesirable social position. His understanding is the
vital mind’s perception of social life (level 4), not the conceptual mind’s
abstract thinking about ideas (level 1).
But after Eliza rejects
him, Darcy exercises human choice in a direction opposite to the one Collins chose.
Instead of feeling offended, reacting and finding fault with her, he reflects on the
objective truth of her accusations against him and realizes his own character and conduct
have been at fault. He rises in consciousness from the liking and disliking of the vital
to the impersonal understanding of the mental. He sees himself with the detach objectivity
with which the world sees him. This is the capacity of mind, especially the emotional
understanding of level 2. When Darcy and Eliza meet after Lydia’s elopement and
marriage to Wickham, Darcy explains with objective, conceptual clarity (level 1) the
deficiencies he has discovered in himself. “I have been selfish, in practice if not
in principle.
When Darcy proposes,
Eliza too acts from level 4, from the basis of her prejudice against him, her belief in
his mean character, as expressed in his mistreatment of Wickham and arrogant interference
between Bingley and Jane. When Darcy vividly depicts the despicable lack of culture in her
family, she too has the choice of being offended and reacting as Collins has done, of
descending to a lower level of consciousness and learning nothing from the experience.
Instead, like Darcy she exercises her power of choice to rise rather than fall. She too
subjects her behavior to an impartial, rational analysis and finds it deficient. She
becomes conscious of her prejudice and her vanity. She acts from the
emotional mind and reflects from the conceptual mind (level 2 & level 1).
5. Darcy’s
redemption – descent of the higher
Both Darcy and Eliza
gain an invaluable knowledge from their explosive confrontation at Hunsford. Both choose
to learn from the experience and improve themselves by what they have understood. But the
cycle does not stop with understanding. Knowledge is fully acquired at a higher level of
consciousness only when it is fully expressed in action at the lower (physical) levels.
After understanding the
truth of her accusations (level 1), Darcy fully accepts the truth of that understanding in
his emotional mind (level 2). He then makes a decision to change and reverse his conduct
(level 3). Lydia’s elopement with Wickham presents the external opportunity to
express this reversal. Imagine the vital and physical repulsion Darcy must have felt at
even the thought of chasing after this scoundrel and his wild, wanton run-away! He
converts his decision into a commitment to act (level 4) and an emotional determination
(level 5). His vital energy is fully released and he moves into physical action. He does
not merely order someone to go to London. He physical goes to London himself to hunt them
down. He does not merely negotiate with Wickham. He vigorously rejects Mr. Gardiner’s
offer of money and insists on paying his own money (his own physicality) to settle
Wickham’s debts and buy him a commission. Not satisfied with that, he overcomes his
extreme distaste and physical sensitivity to be present at their wedding. Darcy has taken
his knew mental understanding and expressed it fully at all nine levels down to the pure
physical.
The delight of existence
is involved and expresses at all levels from the physical matter to satchitananda. The
higher the level (from matter up to spirit), the greater the evolutionary progress in the
ascent. The lower the level, the greater the intensity in the descent. Sex is the delight
of being experienced by the physical. Money is one expression of the delight of being
experienced by the vital. Happiness and emotional fulfillment are the delight of being
experienced by the heart. Ideas are the delight of being experienced by the mind. Real
ideas are the delight of being experienced by the supramental. Ananda is the delight of
being experienced by the Self-conscious Being.
Pride & Prejudice
is the delight of being presented as sensation to our mental emotional understanding.
Lydia seeks the biological delight of physically possessing a man and discovers the social
delight of marriage that she did not seek. Jane discovers the social delight of a handsome
rich respectable man. Eliza discovers the vital delight of being passionately loved by a
man she can admire and rising to Mistress of Pemberley. Darcy discovers the emotional
delight of affection and the mental delight of self-giving and humility.
The universe is a
manifestation of the One through the instrumentation of its eight principle powers, eight
cosmic determinants, and their significant relations, powers, forms of being,
consciousness, force and delight, energies, conditions, lines of truth, processes of
consciousness, imperatives, possibilities, and actualities of manifestation.
These eight determinants
expressing in varying degrees and proportions make up all the forms and forces of the
manifestation. The power of each determinant expresses along a continuum from full
manifestation (positive) to complete involution (negative). At the negative pole of the
continuum each determinate manifests as the very opposite power to what it appears in the
divine consciousness. Both the positive and negative expressions of each determinate are
manifestations and instruments for the Divine Consciousness to express its intention in
the universe. The involution from spirit to create matter and the evolution from matter to
manifest spirit require the action of each determinate along this continuum.
The
determinants and their opposites can be described as:
Positive
|
Negative
|
1. Self-conscious Being or
Truth
|
Falsehood
|
|
2. Being as detached
witness (Purusha)
|
Being
involved in its creation
|
|
3. Being as Creator &
Master (Ishwara)
|
Ego
|
|
4. Knowledge
|
Ignorance
|
|
5. Will or Goodness
|
Impotence
or Evil
|
|
6. Beauty
|
Ugliness
|
|
7. Joy
|
Pain
|
|
8. Love
|
Hate
|
|
|
|
|
|
During the process of
manifestation, each of these sets of determinants splits into three poises -- subject,
object and act or experience. For example, Self-conscious Being becomes Being as subject,
being as object to its own perception and the act of perceiving or experiencing itself.
Being as Creator becomes the creator, the creation and the act of creating. Knowledge
becomes the knower, the object of knowledge and the experience of knowing. Love becomes
the lover, the object of adoration and the act of loving. In manifestation, all eight
determinants and their opposites in each of the three poises are present in varying
degrees in every form, force and action.
The process of
involution is a movement from the positive to the negative term of each determinate. The
process of evolution is a movement from negative to positive term of each determinate in
manifestation. The evolution progresses by a meeting, interaction and reconciliation of
these determinants, raising the level of harmony between the involved elements to
successively higher levels as they evolve.
Eliza is evolving along
a continuum on all eight dimensions. In Eliza, beauty is mixed with falsehood, goodwill
with animosity, love with intense dislike, a sense of mastery with a sense of
helplessness, a detached objectivity about those around her with an involved subjectivity
regarding her own thoughts and actions. She is attracted to Wickham’s Beauty but
unable to recognize his Falsehood. She is the beneficiary of Charlotte’s Goodness but
capable of ill will toward Darcy. She has to progress from the prejudices of egoistic
resentment against Darcy for being slighted and insulted to the detached calm of accepting
what she and her family are, and the fate that life imposes on them. She has to progress
from acceptance of the falsehoods of Wickham’s pleasing beautiful form and his
flattering attentions to the truth about Wickham and her own family inheritance. The
movement from falsehood to truth requires her to elevate her consciousness from
vital-physical surface attraction to mental objectivity and knowledge. She has to move
from hate against Darcy for his sense of superiority to love and gratitude for his
accepting her in spite of what she is. She has to pass through the pain of Lydia’s
elopement in order to find the joy of recognizing her true feelings for Darcy and
releasing the will to win him.
Eliza’s inner
evolution is made possible by the action of the eight determinants and their opposites in
the world around her. Goodness comes to her from Charlotte to help her emerge from the
narrowness of her egoistic family position to discover the truth of her destiny as
Darcy’s wife. Eliza is endowed with Beauty and, therefore, she responds without
question to beauty in Wickham. Beauty and Falsehood come to her together in Wickham so
that she can discover Truth of herself and move from seeking beauty of physical-vital form
to mental beauty of character. Delight is a native endowment of her personality. Pain
comes in the form of the elopement to awaken a deeper awareness in her and release her
energy for action. Knowledge presents itself to her through Darcy to awaken her to
Self-knowledge. Love comes to her from Darcy to help her shed the egoistic smallness of
her social position and prejudice. Will comes to her in Lydia as initiative for evolution,
which releases Eliza’s will to finally take initiative toward Darcy by expressing her
gratitude. Ignorance comes to her as obsequious Collins and overbearing Lady Catherine,
who mistake social position to be the measure of value, rather than human character.
The process is
illustrated by the dynamics of interaction between Eliza and Darcy. During the scene at
Rosings Park, Eliza is playing the piano and talking with Fitzwilliam when Darcy
approaches them. Darcy’s close observation of her playing raises anxiety in her that
he intends to intimidate her. Her anxiety is raised by her subconscious feeling of
inferiority, which expresses on the surface as irritation. The irritation releases the
boldness of her personality and energizes her to aggressively confront him. It releases
her will. From Darcy’s side, Lady Catherine’s vulgar, offensive behavior has
made him acutely conscious of the cultural inferiority of his own relations. That
knowledge meets his knowledge of the inferiority of Eliza’s family and reconciles
with it, by making her connections seem much more approachable (less condemnable). These
conflicting forces continue to interact when Darcy proposes to her a few days later and
subsequently while they are separated. By the time they meet again at Pemberley, Darcy has
consciously overcome his mental reservations but does not know whether Eliza will accept
him. Eliza has subconsciously overcome her reservations, but cannot imagine he still wants
her. They meet and establish a pleasant surface harmony that is attractive to both. But
beneath the surface, Darcy’s new mental attitude has not yet translated into vital
will. Eliza’s surface acceptance has not overcome her sense of social distance.
Lydia’s elopement
comes as an external determinant to establish a harmony at the vital level. It provides
Eliza with on opportunity to express a confidence in Darcy comparable to that offered by
him when he disclosed to her Georgiana’s near elopement with Wickham. It provides
Darcy with an opportunity to prove his affection and acceptance of her family in the most
tangible terms. It abolishes all remaining prejudice that Eliza harbors regarding
Darcy’s sense of social superiority. Lydia’s disclosure of Darcy’s role
provides Eliza with the essential knowledge she needs to recognize the change in him.
Eliza’s initiative to offer gratitude provides Darcy with the knowledge he needs that
she has overcome her objections to him.
The brief comments in
this chapter are intended to illustrate how the truths of spirituality can be perceived in
the story and in our own lives.
The overall intention of
this paper has not been to project any particular interpretation of Jane Austen’s
marvelous work of fiction. It has been rather to illustrate an approach to literary
criticism based on the premise that art reflects life and that literature is a wonderful
mirror of our real human condition. The ultimate purpose of both literature and its
criticism should be to help us discover a greater knowledge and delight in our own living,
growing and spiritual evolution, which Sri Aurobindo termed the adventure of
consciousness and joy.
