VIDYA AND AVIDYA

Vidya, the Knowledge of unity

Avidya — the Knowledge of the multiplicity

THE ONE AND THE MANY

Knowledge and Ignorance

There are always two possible views of the Universe. The one supposes with modern science and the knowledge of the multiplicity (Avidya), matter to be the beginning of things, and studies everything as a process of material evolution. If it is true, as material science maintains, that matter is the source and beginning of all things, how do you explain the emergence of mind, life, of Spirit? For if there was no conscious force behind matter, matter would know only its own static existence.

The other is the knowledge of Unity (Vidya) that is inherent and which sees all as an integral part of the One and the Universe as a manifestation of the Spirit.

When we see the material Universe as a manifestation of the Spirit and we go by the knowledge of the One and we see everything as a whole and begin to look beyond, we can see how matter evolves, creates, maintains, disintegrates and recreates fresh matter. This is the eternal cycle of life, the reality behind the manifested existence.⁴⁵

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The true call upon us is the call of the Infinite and the Supreme; the self-affirmation and self-abnegation imposed on us by Nature are both movements towards that, and it is the right way of self-affirmation and self-negation taken together in place of the wrong, because ignorant, way of the ego and in place of the conflict between the yes and the no of Nature that we have to discover. If we do not discover that, either the push of life will be too strong for our narrow ideal of perfection, its instrumentation will break and it will fail to consummate and perpetuate itself, or at best a half result will be all that we shall obtain, or else the push away from life will present itself as the only remedy, the one way out of the otherwise invincible grasp of the Ignorance.⁴⁶

Certainly if we study the material world only, excluding all evidence of other planes as a dream or a hallucination, if we equally exclude all evidence of operations in mind which exceed the material limitation and study only its ordinary equation with Matter, we must necessarily accept the theory of Matter as the origin and as the indispensable basis and continent. Otherwise, we shall be irresistibly led towards the early Vedantic conclusions.⁴⁷

Sri Aurobindo says that this is our "original sin":

.... or rather let us say in a more philosophical language, the deviation from the Truth and Right of the Spirit, from its oneness, integrality and harmony that was the necessary condition for the great plunge into the Ignorance

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which is the soul's adventure in the world and from which was born our suffering and aspiring humanity.⁴⁸

The origin of falsehood, suffering and evil

The test is the expulsion of all desires, their inability to get at the mind, and it is the inner state from which the freedom arises, the delight of the soul gathered within itself with the mind equal and still and high-poised above the attractions and repulsions and storm and stress of the external life.

The liberator is within us, but it is not our mind, nor our intelligence, nor our personal will — they are only instruments. It is to the Self, the Lord, in whom we have to utterly take refuge. ⁴⁹

The first movement must be obviously to get rid of desire which is the whole root of the evil and suffering; and in order to get rid of desire, we must put an end to the cause of desire, the rushing out of the senses to seize and enjoy their objects. We must draw them back when they are inclined thus to rush out, draw them away from their objects,—as the tortoise draws in his limbs into the shell, so these into their source, quiescent in the mind, the mind quiescent in intelligence, the intelligence quiescent in the soul and its self-knowledge, observing the action of Nature, but not subject to it, not desiring anything that the objective life can give.⁵⁰

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The real difficulty

The real difficulty is always in ourselves, not in our surroundings. There are three things necessary in order to make men invincible, Will, Disinterestedness and Faith. We may have a will to emancipate ourselves, but sufficient faith may be lacking. We may have a faith in our ultimate emancipation, but the will to use the necessary means may be wanting. And even if there are will and faith, we may use them with a violent attachment to the fruit of our work or with passions of hatred, blind excitement or hasty forcefulness which may produce evil reactions. For this reason it is necessary, in a work of such magnitude, to have resort to a higher Power than that of mind and body in order to overcome unprecedented obstacles. This is the need of sadhana.⁵¹

To be conscious is the first necessary step towards overcoming—but for the overcoming, strength is necessary and also detachment and the will to overcome.⁵²

Our highest wisdom, our minutest most accurate science, our most effective application of knowledge can be at most a thinning of the veil of ignorance, but not a going beyond it, so long as we do not get at the fundamental knowledge and the consciousness to which that is native. The rest are effective for their own temporal purposes, but prove ineffective in the end, because they do not bring to the highest good; they lead to no permanent solution of the problem of existence.⁵³

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The ignorance in which we live is not a baseless and wholesale falsehood, but at its lowest the misrepresentation of a Truth, at its highest an imperfect representation and translation into inferior and to that extent misleading values. It is a knowledge of the superficial only and therefore a missing of the secret essential which is the key to all that the superficial is striving for; a knowledge of the finite and apparent, but a missing of all that the apparent symbolises and the finite suggests; a knowledge of inferior forms, but a missing of all that our inferior life and being has above it and to which it must aspire if it is to fulfil its greatest possibilities. The true knowledge is that of the highest, the inmost, the infinite.⁵⁴

Life is a perpetual choice between truth and falsehood, light and darkness, progress and regression. The ascent towards the heights or a fall into the abyss. It is for each one to choose freely.

The Mother

In each one's life a moment comes when he has to choose between the Path and the muddle. You cannot put one foot here and one foot there. If you try to, you will be torn to pieces.

The Mother

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