17. The Man who knows Brahman knows also the very Supreme and he who knows the Supreme knows also the Waters and the peoples. They who know Brahman, the most ancient One, have always been knowing the Pillar.

18. The Universal fire is its head, the flames of the fire are its eyes, the sorcerer spirits are its limbs; of that Pillar speak — which one indeed is it?

19. Brahman is its mouth, they say, a very scourge of sweetness is its tongue and they say, the Vast¹ is its breast; of that Pillar speak — which one indeed is it?

20. Out of that they carved out the Riks, out of that they fashioned the Yajur: the Samas are its hair. The line of the Atharvas and the line of the Angirasa are its mouth. Of that Pillar speak— which one indeed is it?

21. Men established the line of Non-Being and knew it the Supreme. Others, on the contrary, recognise the Being and follow that line of theirs.

22. There all the Adityas², all the Rudras³ and all those born of - Indra¹ are lodged. There what was, what will be and all the worlds are established. Of the Great Pillar speak — which one indeed is it?

Translated by NOLINI KANA GUPTA

¹ stainless.

² children of the sun.

³ children of the Violent One, the Lord of Might.

4 The Lord of Mind or the Divine Mind.

Page-14

"THE MUSIC OF SILENCE"*

I HAVE seized your soul, mighty Spirit of Time!

Now the sky veers around, irridescent in the cataract of sun-rays Creating the magic city of limpid Eve-tide,

I wandered along river banks seeking to attune my heart-strings

To the murmur and music of life voiced by her rippling waves:

Night infinite descended with silent steps

Casting the shadow of her coronet

Upon the wide sky, flinging the hem of her robe,

Lading down the soft darkness upon Earth's expanse.

Her eyes lost in thought,

In this vast Night, plunged in the contemplation of the supreme Void,

The dark Mother of the world in her ascetic mood lies in utter trance:

She draws deep into her bosom all creatures stilled in peace,

She plays her role of goddess Sleep,

Comes and silences the Life's noise and its ceaseless play.

Now is the honeyed banquet of stillness,

The crowded stars like bees innumerable have flown out and gathered in the heavens:

To smear with the rays of light the hearts of creatures,

The luminous amphora of cooling ecstasy,

The Moon, floats up in the night bejewelled with stars.

In this darkness illumined by dream-moonlight

The little human soul of mine

I have drowned into this infinite Life

And have heard the music of Silence.

(SRI AUROBINDO)

* Translated from Bengali by Nolini Kanta Gupta.

Page-15

JUST BE THERE WHERE YOU ARE*

BE there where you have always been

Fate is firm in its resolve, the will unbending.

Nor far, nor near, always within sight, but beyond reach altogether;

Without activity yet keeping interest.

The flame is out, still neither hot nor cold.

 

A luminous darkness, doors closed yet the breeze moving free:

A river with no currents yet a silent tide moving up...

Field harvested, stacks of straw strewn over — the only comfort;

Out of the watery tomb of the goddess floats up her cardboard coronet.

 

Nothing is here, yet something remains. An empty envelope

With only the address written in the dear familiar hand. — A trifle, still invaluable!

After the wild passion's play the fatigued floor lies with the covering carpet of memory —

 

Not a magic carpet — it will take you nowhere!

You shall remain just there, where you have been forever.

(HENA HALDER)

* Translated from Bengali by Nolini Kanta Gupta. ("Desh", March 4, 1978)

Page-16

THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY

An Outline

CHAPTER 20

The Drive Towards Economic Centralisation

A FURTHER step towards national unity, after the unity and uniformity of the political, military and strictly administrative, functions, is the unity and uniformity of legislative and judicial functions. These functions are arrogated by the state not in its first but in its last stages of development, when the state becomes, in theory at least, conterminous with the society. That is the importance of democracy and socialism; for these are signs that the society is becoming a self-conscious organism, is beginning to plan and think.

In the early stages of society, there was no such thing as law in its present sense, a body of rules codified and enacted. Early law was a body of rules sanctioned by custom and habit; it had its origins in the needs of the environment. It was not divided into separate water-tight compartments: it embraced the whole of life, social, religious, political, administrative. It changed under pressure of growing needs and seldom at the dictates of the state or legislator. The king was its administrator and guardian, not its author.

Much of ancient law was in fact ascribed by tradition to a Manu, Moses or Lycurgus; but this has been discredited by modern enquiry. The truth underlying this ascription is the fact that the type and lines of the evolution of the law are fixed in respect of each society by its Manu, the mental demi-god who reigns in the subtle world of larger mentality and shapes the society's growth. An incarnate Manu or Moses or Mohammad merely acts as the mouthpiece of this demi-god; he receives and proclaims the law from as superconscient plane : the law he proclaims is not the product of any rational, practical thinking. The enactment of laws by a constituted legislative authority belongs to the later rational phase of social evolution, of which

Page-17

monarchy was the transition-stage.

The king, elective or hereditary, was originally a war leader; he was from the first supreme only in war. At home he was merely the head of the elders with whom he had to share authority. It was as if by delegation, of his power to give command in war, that he gradually became the executive head in peacetime.

In the old monarchies, the king was the maker of war and peace; it was he who conducted the foreign policy according to his own ideas and interests; he was the supreme commander in the field. Even the executive heads of modern democracies have preserved some vestiges of this till today: they act very much on their own in the matter of foreign policy and leave very little discretion of choice in these matters even when they profess to consult the demos. The recent demand for open diplomacy and a wider share in the conduct of foreign policy by the nation's representatives is a sign of the growing self-consciousness of the society.

The king found it less easy to acquire a monoply of power in internal affairs because here he had to come up against established habits, vested interests and rival powers. What he did succeed in establishing in the end was a measure of unified control of the administrative functions of government. These functions are primarily executive, financial and judicial.

The control of the public purse is the essential sign of sovereignty. In his attempt to become sovereign, the king has always tried to levy taxes at will as well as to spend the public funds at his discretion. Where he has had to bargain with other estates on this important issue, the monarchy has been doomed, as in Stuart England and Revolutionary France. Even in our own times, the governing bodies which claim to represent the whole nation and levy taxes in its name, might be opening the gates to revolution if they mismanaged the finances.

SANAT K. BANERJI

Page-18

WRITING AND YOGA

I

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

WRITING is a creative activity and a most valuable talent and capacity. It is a joy in itself. It is self-expression and self-realization. It is also a powerful socializing force. But the inner dynamism of creative activity, its true motive force, is a mystery. What creativity is, what its source and sustaining power, its different levels and qualities, and allied questions, stand unanswered. And, therefore, true and original writing is generally regarded as inexplicable, a gift of the gods to man; and if so, a science of the creative process is not possible.

Modern depth-psychology, however, has discovered what it calls the subconscious mind, and has ventured to enquire into the nature and character of inspiration and the faculty of creative work and has attempted some explanations of these secrets of human nature. The sum of its answers is that inspiration and creative work are determined by the deep dynamisms of the individual's subconscious, whether sexual or otherwise in character. This is the most that modern psychology is able to offer. It does not provide a basis for distinguishing between the different qualities and levels of inspiration and creativity, nor does it give a plan of practical and educational discipline for the cultivation and development of these great faculties. If these higher activities of the human mind and spirit are really incapable of educational handling, and if they are to remain wholly mysterious facts and rare phenomena, then the prospects for the progress of human culture are rather depressing.

This, however, cannot be true. Our consciousness and awareness from their very nature admit of indefinite growth and therefore it should be perfectly possible to know the creative process, as we do other activities that take place within us. Yoga is claimed to be a discipline to ensure this knowledge, an art of the growth of self-awareness which lights up the secret corners of one's personality and its different planes and dimensions, revealing the true nature of creative activity.

Page-19

Our normal personality, which consists of our reactions and adjustments to the external world, physical and social, is essentially a thing of convention and habit. Its normal attention is directed outward, it is Bahirmukha, and it seeks adjustments and conformity, competitiveness, distinctiveness and novelty. But creativity is not its Dharma, its quality and function. It is not capable of self-existence, it is basically dependent in character, it cannot act out of itself and therefore it cannot create.

C. G. Jung, a profound psychologist, while discussing the essential quality of personality in his work, 'The Integration of the Personality', says that man commonly lives by tradition. His habitual thought, feeling and action are quite adequate for the usual situations of life and they constitute, as it were, the line of least resistance for the flow of his life's energy. But when an unprecedented situation arises 'personality' shows its true worth. It may be able to rise above tradition and habit and put forth a creative act. Personality, which is usually determined by externalities, has also a unique "centre" above and behind our normal consciousness. Jung attributes to this 'centre' with the power to integrate the varied thoughts, feelings and volitions of our normal personality.

In Yogic philosophy this centre is the true spiritual selfhood of man, which is a fact to be experienced and the realization of which admits of a systematic cultivation. To discover this centre and exercise its faculties is to live creatively. To view all life and existence from that centre is to experience them creatively. And, if one has the power of expression in words, he will be able to embody his experience in written or spoken speech.

Our usual normal personality is to this deeper centre of experience an outer instrument or mask, and the cultivation of this is no more than the improvement of the equipment necessary for the embodiment, conservation and expression of the creative experience. Our training in the use of a language is only an equipment for creative work. The outer personality and the inner conscious centre are parts of our integral Personality and even when we are primarily and largely identified with and limited to the outer part, the spiritual centre does continue to influence us more or less, directly or indirectly. Such influence has been recognized by poets and writers as inspiration. But most often it is an indeterminable factor and, therefore, not

Page-20

usually intentionally utilizable. If this truly creative factor could become better known and its working conditions better understood, it would be a great aid to the cultivation of creative writing.

The whole tradition of Yoga bears witness to the possibility of our being able to discover the inner consciousness or self, behind and above the environment-involved and environment-dependent personality. In our own time this knowledge and the discipline which leads to it have received fresh verification and amplification at the hands of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo maps out in great detail the varied parts of the integral human personality and gives in his books practical directions for the discovery and identification of these parts. And, since he was a poet and a writer too, he gives also an assessment of these in respect of their creative powers.

Our normal personality has its physical, vital and mental aspects and the quality of a piece of writing may be marked by one or the other, or a combined working of two or more of these. It bears the stamp of the source from which it proceeds. If it proceeds from the inner conscious centre, which Sri Aurobindo calls the Psychic Being, it will possess another quality. There are also the parts and planes where the individual directly experiences his identity with the universal and the general, and such participation would involve a great widening of the ordinary narrow and divided outlook on life. There are also the ranges of consciousness which Sri Aurobindo calls the overhead planes; they open up successively fresh perspectives of transcendent harmonies.

This is a bare indication of the possible, varied and wide ranges of experience which our personality carries hidden within itself, while we normally continue to live and exercise its most limited, divided and externally determined part. Evidently for true and creative writing these inner, richer and self-conscious planes of personality must be discovered and made dynamic in our lives. Sri Aurobindo has given the testimony of his own experience:

"As the Yoga increased, I read very little — for when all the ideas in the world come crowding from within or from above, there is not much need for gathering mental food from outside sources; at most a utility for keeping oneself informed of what is happening in the world, — but not as material for building up one's vision of the world and Truth and things. One becomes an independent mind in communion with the cosmic Thinker."

Page-21

Evidently it is most important to discover the inner sources of knowledge and learn to see things more deeply and fully. But how is this to be done? The way is indeed long and difficult and above all it demands great sincerity of purpose. And yet the general advice of Sri Aurobindo is simple. It is just this: "Allow your consciousness to grow." The consciousness as such, by persistent and sincere aspiration, should grow in width, depth and height; the measure of comprehension and sympathy should become larger and greater. Increasing one's stock of ideas and words is not growth of consciousness. True growth in due course automatically brings us into contact with our creative nature. And while the process of growth is difficult, it is in itself a source of deep joy.

II

THE INTEGRAL PERSONALITY

Since man is the leader of the evolutionary march and in humanity the individuals have to take the initiative, the individual human personality acquires, as a practical fact, supreme value. And Sri Aurobindo's yogic work really consisted in the exploration of the fullest resources of the individual personality and the discovery of the methods of developing them.

His view of personality is both a systematisation and an elaboration of the past Indian views on the subject and being supported by fresh yogic exploration and experience, it acquires a great significance for the present. To Sri Aurobindo too the mind is an outer formation, produced by nature and adapted as an instrument of action on nature. The real personality is the spirit within. However, while in the past Indian philosophy has called it an unchanging soul, Sri Aurobindo affirms it as a fact of evolution and calls it the Psychic Consciousness. This psychic consciousness is according to him, slowly growing up as a potentiality and is due for expression as an actuality in life in the normal course of things. This makes a great deal of difference so far as the previous position is concerned. The spirit is not indifferent to and detached from our normal life, but involved in it and seeking to express itself in it. This spiritual principle, which

Page-22

is of itself seeking expression, would naturally admit of an easier realisation or at least would be directly helpful in the transformation of existing life. Soul, as a substance, detached and independent, however, is not denied, but that is affirmed as another fact of personality serving as its static basis. The psychic being is the dynamic counterpart of it. This is one capital point of Sri Aurobindo's view of personality.

Another is the relation of the unconscious, the conscious and the super conscious. Evolution, cosmic and individual, is a hearty principle with Sri Aurobindo. All nature is moving up towards higher and higher levels of consciousness. Out of the unconscious Matter has emerged life and out of subconscious and semi-conscious life has emerged the mind of man. The unconscious is, therefore, progressively becoming conscious and the conscious arising to higher degrees of consciousness, which are now superconscious to us. The whole process is determined teleological, by a pull and attraction of the superconscious states. However, the growth of consciousness is a difficult and a slow process since the unconscious offers resistance and seeks to persist in its own action. This is the principle of mechanism in personality, but the fact that a progressive growth of consciousness does take place and that at the higher stages of growth the attraction of the superconscious states tends to become clearer, the chief causal factor of personality is the superconscious. This gives a new orientation and movement and thereby accords to the "teleological determination" and "goal-seeking ness" its full validation.

Western psychology normally does not even recognise the fact of the super-conscious. A psychologist like Jung too, who has made muminating studies of Yogic practice and affirms progressive integration as almost the law of personality, contends that the "wholeness", of which, he admits, the Yogis are "past-masters," is reducible to the unconscious. But the unconscious, which is essentially "chaotic" in character, could not in the same breath be credited with the quality of wholeness. Besides, in an evolutionary process, if there is a past and a present, there must also be a future, unless we affirm "that the process has entirely run its course. The human consciousness is, in fact, a superconscious state to that of the animal and likewise there must be states of yet higher order to the present human consciousness. The yogic discipline is able to demonstrate these in

Page-23

individuals. And what is achieved in such cases is surely indicative of racial possibilities.

The superconscious has been the special field of exploration and mastery for Sri Aurobindo and he has identified many successive levels of it reaching up to that of the completest integration, which he has called the Supermind. The significance of this work is really tremendous. It gives a new basic orientation to personality for the science of psychology, releases new forces for the change and growth of human capacity and character for education and creates new prospects for the cultural advancement of the race as a whole.

Sri Aurobindo has also identified a further part of personality and Yogically demonstrated its reality as a fact. This is what he has called the subliminal in personality. The normal personality, which plays up in interaction with the environment, is a self sharply set against a non-self. It is a finite particular in the language of philosophy. Now if an individual by a progressive self-dissociation separates himself from this finite self-hood, he may discover within himself a form of consciousness which is felt as widely continuous with others. Here we participate in the universal consciousness and then get into direct contact with other minds. This consciousness is not superconscious to our individual mind, but is of the same level and order though universal in character. Supersensory phenomena of psychical research and parapsychology, which are causing so much difficulty, are to Sri Aurobindo, primarily the behaviour and action of the subliminal in human personality. This part is, in some personalities normally more active and therefore they are able to display supra-sensory capacity. But it admits of cultivation too as the super-conscious states do.

This is a broad outline of the view of human personality, which Indian philosophy, in the person of Sri Aurobindo, has contributed to the subject. This view, by virtue of its wide comprehensiveness and due appreciation of the different aspects of personality, can truly be called the integral view of personality. It can easily accommodate within its broad scope the Western science of psychology as a most useful body of knowledge of the outer personality, of the environment-dependent mind and of the subconscious. And in doing so it will give to Western psychology the larger perspective of the integral personality; in particular, the determining orientation of the superconscious.

Page-24

In this, the gain of the integral view too would be great. It will get annexed to it a vast body of detailed knowledge of the interrelations of the organism to the environment.

Evidently this is a fine possibility, a possibility of a tremendous advance in the knowledge of human personality. A corresponding possibility in the objective fife of human culture will also go with it. And that will mean a reorientation of the whole life through a reorientation of human personality.

III

THE SUBCONSCIOUS AND THE SUPERCONSCIOUS:

TAPPING THEM FOR CREATIVE ACTIVITY

The Subconscious is the whole life of our past experiences carried along in us as our present personality and character. But this vast body of past experiences abides in us at a much diminished consciousness and we are not aware of its contents at our normal waking consciousness. It is, therefore, called 'sub consciousness'. We might recall the experience of our becoming aware of the stopping of a clock in the room, while being unaware of its going on. Surely we were somehow aware of its going on, otherwise how could we become aware of its stopping. The fact is that our awareness of its going on was subconscious, but when it stopped we became conscious of it, because of our interest in its going on.

To become aware of the subconscious and its working is an achievement. It is an immense extension in one's self-awareness and then one can turn that vast body of past experiences to good use as also be on guard against the unhelpful experiences of the past.

The experiences in the subconscious are not only of a lower degree of consciousness, but they are also not in an organised form. The subconscious is actually said to be "chaotic", since there are all kinds of experiences in it. In fact, the experiences as they occur at the conscious level are of all kinds, good, bad and indifferent. They are not Tiarmonious, but much varied and even contradictory. They are just allowed to drop off into the subconscious, without our exercising a careful discrimination and an attempt to co-ordinate and organise them. The result is the persistence of these contradictions and unpleasantnesses

Page-25

in us almost perpetually. And they continue to exert themselves and exercise their influence on our conscious level. We are so often sad without an identifiable cause. The reason possibly is that some unpleasantness of the past acquires through some favourable circumstances more than its usual intensity and we become sad without being able to identify it. But one who has an eye on his subconscious might be able to do so and thus soon liberate himself from its influence. To acquire a concrete feeling for one's subconscious, one needs to recall one's dreams of the night on waking up. During sleep when the normal consciousness lapses, the subconscious activity becomes dominant and the dreams are an expression of the same. The cravings, the hankerings, the gratifications, the disorderliness of the dreams are a representation of the character of the subconscious.

The subconscious is our whole past continuing to live with us and exercise its influence and determination on our present as also the future. To live under its determination is to continue to live as we have lived in the past more or less. This is the psychological foundation for the general opinion that the nature of man does not change.

The superconscious, on the other hand, is the range of consciousness not yet realised at a particular level of evolution. The human consciousness is superconscious to the animal and a unified and an integrated consciousness is superconscious to the ordinary human consciousness, which is so subject to conflicts, divisions, vacillations and regrets. A unified and an integrated consciousness capable of wholeness in its quality and character and its action in thought, feeling and will is evidently a clear possibility indicated .by the growth of consciousness at the animal and the human ranges of consciousness already covered by evolution.

The yogic pursuit, which intensively cultivates self-awareness, slowly brings the subconscious and the superconscious into a direct relationship with the waking consciousness and makes them clearly observable. It is a great thing when that happens and it brings with it a wonderful feeling of self-knowledge, self-direction and self-mastery.

As the subconscious is a thing of the past, so is the superconscious a thing of the future. And as the subconscious means a perpetuation of the conflicts, contradictions, divisions and imperfections

Page-26

of the past, so the superconscious means wholeness, integration, unity, effectivity and perfection in the varied activities of our normal life.

Ordinarily, man is unaware of his subconscious as well as his superconscious. He lives too much centred in the waking moment of the present, unconsciously controlled by the subconscious and occasionally and vaguely guided by his superconscious. But a conscious aspiration can change this scheme of ordinary life. If we generally become aware of these two other vast dimensions of personality and recognise their true qualities and then make up our minds to live for and by the superconscious and take a hearty leap towards it, a most marvellous new dynamism of life can begin to function and radically change life.

Tapping the subconscious is a very powerful device for creative work. Instead of struggling with a problem with the conscious mind and its immediate resources, we turn towards our entire body of past experiences by intentionally contemplating the same and, as it were, entrust our problem to it and give it time to work over it. After some time, may be we entrusted the matter to our subconscious while going to bed and as we get up in the morning the problem seems to be joyously pushing up into consciousness with its solution. If it was a matter of writing an essay or a poem, we feel we are ready for it. Sometimes the subconscious takes a longer time. We have to wait and give it the time it needs. It can be useful to remind the subconscious of the task by dwelling on it and letting the subject get deeper down into us. It is extremely interesting; sometimes we can quite feel that some working is going on within us on the problem, that the thing is being prepared and so on. And the moment when it tends to push itself up is really delightful. It is irresistible. We have just to obey the impulse and you are quite surprised at what is done. We feel large and wide, we feel that unexpected resources have collaborated in the work.

Tapping the Superconscious is immensely more thrilling. We turn towards not our own past experience, but the infinite 'possibilities of the future, the all-knowing unknown above and entrust our problem to the same and wait. Hopefully and trustfully waiting is essential to the process of tapping, whether of the subconscious or the superconscious. And in this case, when the

Page-27

matter is entrusted to the superconscious, the answers may be more surprising. We feel they are beyond our capacities, altogether unexpected, so harmonious, so beautiful and with such simplicity and spontaneity they took shape.

The resources of integral personality are most wonderful. Under the stress of egoity we limit ourselves badly and persistently suffer from the feeling, 'oh, this is difficult, this cannot be done' and so on. If we could through sustained self-awareness and self-exploration become aware how so vaguely and generally, of our past experiences and the possibilities of future experiences, we would feel ourselves to be much larger, much deeper and immensely more resourceful. What a wonderful prospect for creative activity!

INDRA SEN

CORRECTION

Read 'Jyotirmoy Mukhopadhyay' in place of Sri Aurobindo' in the "Contents" of April, 1978, against the poem "Release".

Page-28

THE INTEGRAL BRAHMAN

I

IT is well known that in India philosophical thought originated from the Vedas, the Tantras, the teaching of the Buddha, or those of the Jaina Tirthamkaras. All of these are records primarily of spiritual experience and secondarily of points of view regarding existence and life in the world determined by those experiences. Philosophy is a rational statement of an idea of reality which is not purely speculative but always has an experiential basis. The end of philosophy is also practical. It shows man the way to the realisation of that on attaining which no other goal is considered more worthy, and established in which man is not disturbed by the fiercest assault of grief. As Sri Aurobindo says, "Philosophy and religion are the soul of Indian culture, inseparable from each other and interpenetrative. The object of Indian philosophy, its entire raison d'etre, is knowledge of the Spirit, the experience of it and the right way to a spiritual existence; its single aim coincides with the highest significance of religion. Indian religion draws all its characteristic values from the spiritual philosophy which illumines its supreme aspiration and colours even most of what is drawn from an inferior range of religious experience".¹

Sri Aurobindo's philosophy also arises from his own incomparably rich spiritual experience. The totality of this experience gave him a most comprehensive knowledge of the universe which he formulates in his philosophical works. But the vision is worked out rationally, logically and in a manner which addresses itself to the modern mind. This is not to say that all the truths explained in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy are capable of being known by human reason alone. But even the suprarational elements of his philosophy are shown rationally to be necessary for what he considers to be a total explanation of the universe and life in it. And in order to understand the outline, the details and the implications of his integral Advaita we should have to follow the steps of a movement of reason which, though not loose and unorganised, is not too rigid and trenchant.

Of course the integral Advaita has a supremely practical aim. Our philosopher is first and foremost a Yogi and then a thinker. It

Page-29

is not impossible to practise the new Yoga that Sri Aurobindo devised even if the sadhaka does not understand intellectually his philosophy. Nevertheless, a mental synthesis of the basic concepts of this philosophy can be a great help. "Truth of Life", says Sri Aurobindo, "depends on the truth of being." This is why in his writings he gave the first position to his metaphysical work, The Life Divine.

The theme of this book is a new life of man on this earth which will be a perfect expression of the Divine. To be able to evolve life to this stage it is necessary to have an idea of the nature of the Divine. Sri Aurobindo has given a connected view of the nature of Reality in his various works. In this brief article we will attempt an exposition of the idea of Brahman in the integral Advaita.

Sri Aurobindo starts with the idea of an omnipresent Reality, a reality which is independent, exists in its own right, for itself, and is perfect in itself. In its essential nature it is unknowable and un-manifest. Even the highest and completest experience and conception cannot penetrate into the heart of the supreme mystery. It eludes all definition, description and formulation. It cannot be described as either this or that, nor can it be described as not this or not that. Being omnipresent, it is all and yet nothing in particular.

In familar philosophical terms, we may say that the Reality in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is Shunya or Asat as Buddha called it. In fact, Sri Aurobindo feels that Buddhism was declared to be non-Vedic too soon and not correctly. For we find the Taitiriya Upanishad saying that Being was born of Non-Being. It is true that the Chhandogya Upanishad joins issue here with the other Upanishad mentioned above. But Sri Aurobindo says that Asat should be understood not as mere nullity but as that which exceeds even the purest conception and highest experience of Existence in the cosmos. Reality defies all attempts to limit it by either negative or positive descriptions. And Sat, or existence, the most abstract category, is also exceeded. What word but Asat or Non-Existence can be employed to indicate this aspect of Reality?

Asat however is not the whole conception of Reality nor does its experience represent the limit of our knowledge of it. Sat of Existence is equally the Reality. Sri Aurobindo says that the illimitable Permanent visioned by the Buddha as Non-Being 'is also the supreme Existence, the sovereign Being. Sat and Asat are the

Page-30

two last categories and experiences through which the developing spiritual consciousness of man approaches the Unknowable. He uses the term Transcendent to suggest the omnipresent Reality which man conceives and experiences either as Non-Being or Being. The truth lies in a reconciliation of the two experience-concepts.

Existence, says Sri Aurobindo following the Vedanta of the Upanishads, is Consciousness. They indicate the same reality approached respectively by objective analysis of things that exist, and subjectively by analysis of our psychological states and activities. Truly speaking, we can be really sure of an immutable and independent reality through subjective analysis. For this introspective analysis takes us to the great fact of Consciousness which is the basis of all investigation and affirmation and denial including that of its own existence. Denial of consciousness is an act of consciousness. If consciousness needs any proof, it can only be consciousness. This is what is meant by saying that Brahman is svaprakasa, self-evident or self-aware. Consciousness is the ultimate light in the illumination of which everything is manifest but which needs no light other than itself for the manifestation of its own existence.

Being One, independent, having no second to challenge its existence or to cause it any anxiety or worry, Brahman is exceeding peace and bliss. Fulfilled in itself, absorbed in its own nature, Brahman is delight of existence. A supreme Existence that is the ultimate Consciousness which is the purest Delight of Existence is Sat-Chit-Ananda.

Is the self-aware Sat-Chit-Ananda also self-knowing? Does Brahman know itself? For Sri Aurobindo the answer is in the affirmative. The self-awareness of Brahman is the background and the possibility of the self-knowledge of Brahman. Chit is Chit-Shakti, Consciousness is Consciousness-Force. The Force of Consciousness moves towards itself as Consciousness and Being arid knows itself. Light affirms itself as Light. Thus Sat, or Being, through its own Consciousness-Force is dynamic. Its movement, prasarana, is an action of self-discovery. Free from all movement, Reality is also movement, Being is Becoming. If the world is a flux, it is the Ever-stable's flux. The world is a movement of the self-existent and self-conscious delight of being. Reality Omnipresent is present not only as Asat, not merely as Sat, but also as the world.

Page-31

Transcendent of the Universe, it is immanent in it which is its self-becoming.

One line of interpretation of the Upanishads denies that Brahman knows itself. It is pure Consciousness but not conscious; self-aware, it is however not self-knowing. Sri Aurobindo affirms the pure consciousness but also accepts the knowledge of Brahman as a movement] within its own being. It is important to seize hold of this idea because we will find later that the self-awareness of Brahman which is also world-awareness is a key-category of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy. We may add here that this is what Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind.

In relation to the cosmos, Brahman manifests itself to awakened human consciousness as Sat-Chit-Ananda. We shall in our exposition of Brahman in relation to the cosmos, in fact, concentrate on the concept of Sat-Chit-Ananda. Brahman is conceived and experienced in three aspects — Atman, Purusha and Ishwara; Sri Aurobindo uses the three English terms Self, Soul or Conscious Being, and the Divine respectively for these three Sanskrit words. Let us give a brief exposition of each of these three aspects of Brahman. But before we do so, we would like to point out that it must not be thought that they are three different realities. We would also like to emphasise that the integral supramental knowledge reveals these three as the same Reality simultaneously without losing the distinction among them.

Atman or Self has an impersonal and static aspect. It is not by itself active in the manifestation of the universe. It provides the foundation of the cosmic creative act, but is not itself active. It supports the manifestation by its sheer presence. It is the inmost reality, the Self, of everything. Purusha or Soul is, in comparison to Atman or Self, more active and closer to the act of manifestation. It gives the sanction and the permission to the manifestation; it also witnesses and enjoys the creation. However, it is not the aspect of Reality which dynamically controls the creation. Ishwara or the Divine on the other hand is the real manifester of Brahman as the universe, is masterful Governor. In familiar terms of Western philosophy Ishwara or the Divine Being is the Supreme Person. It is not an impersonal reality nor is it static and aloof from the act of manifestation and the manifested universe. We

Page-32

should however immediately point out that, though not exclusively impersonal, the Divine Being is free from his own creative act and not bound by it. Thus he reconciles in him the impersonal and the personal aspects. Moreover, in spite of being actively creative and governing the act of creation and the created universe, Ishwara witnesses and watches and enjoys it from a distance as it were, and also from within it, the manifestation and as such he has the aspect of the Soul or Purusha synthetised in himself. From this point of view one could say the Divine Being is the most comprehensive aspect of Brahman.

It should be remembered that of these three aspects none is superior or inferior to the other. They are on the same level and equally real and only represent three sides of the omnipresent Reality when it is approached from the standpoint of the cosmos. Here again, in order to avoid confusion we would like to point out immediately that it should not be understood that the Self, Soul and Ishwara are the Brahman seen as these only from the cosmic point of view, that the Reality is not itself or has not these three aspects. There would be no cosmos if Brahman were not Ishwara. The Divine Being is a prior reality, the Universe only his manifestation. It is necessary to say this because in the great system of Shan-kara, Ishwara or the Saguna Brahman is not ultimately real but Brahman wrongly seen as a personal being due to the function of Maya, the illusory power of creating illusions.

We have said before that Consciousness is Consciousness-Force. In relation to the three aspects of Brahman, namely, Self, Soul, and the Divine Being, Consciousness-Force also assumes three aspects. They are, in Sri Aurobindo's nomenclature, Maya, Prakriti and Shakti. Maya here does not mean a power of creating illusions. It is the Chit-Shakti, Consciousness-Force as concretively creative of the universe. It does not execute what it conceives. Dynamic execution is the work of Prakriti. Shakti combines these two functions and is both concretively creative and dynamically executive. Thus Shakti also is a synthesis of the other two aspects Of Consciousness-Force, that is, of Maya and Prakriti just as Ishwara is the synthesis of the other two aspects of Brahman, namely, Self and Soul. Sometimes Sri Aurobindo calls Shakti in this sense Ishwari. Let the reader remember that all these three aspects of

Page-33

the Supreme Chit-Shakti are conscious powers.

Sri Aurobindo also says that these three aspects of conscious power have lower phases too. Maya in her inferior aspect is a power of creating divisions and thus a force of Ignorance. Prakriti in its lower aspect is constituted of the three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas. Shakti in its lower aspect is a power of limited mastery and control.

We have already briefly pointed out that the Reality Omnipresent is in its essence indeterminable. This does not mean for Sri Aurobindo that it is incapable of self-determination. One of the capacities of Conscious-Force is the power of self-limitation. Determinations are not imposed on Brahman by a power or agent foreign to its own being. They must arise from within the nature of the Reality and can only be self-determinations. The finite determinations that we see in the world do not directly rise from the essentially indeterminable nature of Brahman.

There are different hierarchies of determinations, the higher ones are relatively indeterminable in relation to the lower ones. As Sri Aurobindo puts it, there is the fundamental indeterminable but not incapable of self-determinations; the primary self-determinations are generic determinates or general determinations giving rise to more circumscribed determinations in relation to which the former are indeterminate. Through successive levels of greater determinations we come to the level of finite objects. In determinability only means that Brahman is not confined to any particular determination or any sum of determinations. It exceeds all-self-variation even while self-determining itself. ,

This kind of analysis may be applied to the so-called oppositions of the One and Many, Formless and Form, Immutable and Mutable. While for philosophical thought Brahman is One, formless, immutable, for spiritual experience of its harmonious nature Brahman is also many and form and mutable. Its unity is not abrogated by its manifestation as the many, for in the multiplicity it indwells all finite things. Its formlessness implies that it is not limited to any particular form, not that it cannot assume form. Its immutability signifies that in spite of remaining identical for ever, it can move in a series of self-variations in none of which it is exhausted.

Brahman in itself is devoid of quality, feature and attribute.

Page-34

This is not to say that qualities, features and attributes are unreal. The self-power of Brahman manifests what become qualities, features and attributes. They do not bind the Reality which though exceeding them utilises them for its own manifestation.

The world is a manifestation of Brahman, but it is from another point of view a self-concealing of Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is by deliberately veiling its absoluteness that Brahman becomes the world of relativities; by concealing its consciousness, it becomes partly conscious, subconscious and unconscious; by screening its delight of existence it turns itself into pleasure, pain and indifference. One of the basic powers of the Conscious-Force is self-limitations or delimitations. This power is exercised in utter freedom which is the nature of Brahman and its Conscious-Force. The self-concealing does not in any way affect the existence of Brahman, it remains what it is for ever and yet the act of self-limitation is the beginning of the process of manifestation of the universe.

The initial self-limitation however does not impair the existence of Sat-Chit-Ananda. For example, the Transcendent limits or determines itself as it were as the Cosmic Being, the Self and Soul of the universe. And the Cosmic Being self-limits itself as the individual self. These three, the transcendent, the cosmic and the individual are three aspects of Sat-Chit-Ananda which obtain simultaneously. Neither of them abrogates the other two. The One is All-Existence and the All-Existence is all existences. Thus the individual is nothing but the Brahman in and as a centre of its own self-manifestation in which Brahman is totally present.

Further self-limitation progressively brings about the beginning of separation in the inseparable being of Sat-Chit-Ananda. To explain this process briefly it is necessary to expound the nature of the Supermind which, let us remind ourselves, is the integral self-awareness of Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is in the Supermind and by the action of the Supermind that Sat-Chit-Ananda becomes the subject knowing itself as the object. Both the knower and the known on this level are the Sat-Chit-Ananda and both are held in the same consciousness, But even this ideal biune ness presupposes a complete and integral consciousness, in which each is in each and all is in each and all is in all. From this position of integral unity pregnant with diversity arises -the action of objectification. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the

Page-35

triple status of the Supermind. And these represent a process of making more pronounced the ideal object till it becomes separated from its coeval corresponding reality as the subject. The Divine as the supramental knower at a certain stage of the supramental knowledge and action looks upon itself as if the object that he knows is separate from itself. Consciousness has split itself as a subject and object but held in unity, then it looks upon itself as subject as distinct from the object and finally on the object as separate from itself. This is how the objective world comes into existence and thus we have come into the world of separation and division. Nevertheless the fundamental unity retains its unitary character though it is now veiled over by its own self-alienating action. One result of this self-veiling process of Sat-Chit-Ananda is that consciousness becomes separated from Force, or, in other words, force becomes progressively less and less conscious till it turns itself into a mechanical energy. With the limitation of consciousness giving rise to its own division, there is a corresponding process of further separation of being till consciousness becomes completely oblivious of unity and all things are separated and divided. Nevertheless the unitary reality is in the very heart of this world of division. As the Rig Veda X. 129, 1.5 says: "Then existence was not nor non-existence, the mid-world was not nor the other nor what is beyond. What covered all? Where was it? In whose refuge? What was that ocean dense and deep? Death was not nor immortality nor the knowledge of day and night. That one lived without breath by his self-law, there was nothing else nor ought beyond it. In the beginning Darkness was hidden by darkness, all this was- an ocean of inconscience. Then universal being was concealed by fragmentation, then by the greatness of its energy That One was born. That moved at first as desire within, which was the primal seed of mind. The seers of Truth discovered the building of being in non-being by will in the heart and by the thought; their ray was extended horizontally; but what was there below, what was there above? There were Casters of the seed, there were Greatnesses; there was a self-law below, there was Will above"²

This progressive process of self-variation of the one Self is called descent of Consciousness by Sri Aurobindo. If the Self has become everything, an idea which the Upanishads and the-Vedic

Page-36

hymns too assert so many times, and if everything includes mind and life and matter, the three principles that make up our world, it is significant that Sri Aurobindo images the process as descent. For the process of descent is followed by a process of ascent. The ascent is of the Consciousness-Force, of the Being self-buried in what Sri Aurobindo calls the Inconscient, that formulation of Consciousness which shows no glimmer of its own luminous origin and substance. This is what the Veda calls apraketam salilam, the unconscious waters. This has involved in it all the different self-formulations of Conscious Being, the different levels of existence through which the Reality descends into and as Matter. Thus Matter also is Brahman. But equally Life and Mind are also Brahman. As the Mundaka Upanishad says, "By energism of Consciousness Brahman is massed; from that Matter is born and from Matter Life and Mind and the worlds." We may remember along with this the declarations of the Taittiriya Upanishad, "He energised conscious-force (in the austerity of thought) and came to the knowledge that Matter is the Brahman. For from Matter all existences are born; born, by Matter they increase and enter into Matter in their passing hence. Then he went to Varuna, his father, and said, 'Lord, teach me of the Brahman.' But he said to him: 'Energise (again) the conscious energy in thee; for the Energy is Brahman. He discovered that Mind was the Brahman"; "He passes in his departure from this world to the physical Self; he passes to the Self of life; he passes to the Self of mind; he passes to the Self of knowledge; he passes to the Self of bliss..." In the last quotation the Self of Knowledge is mentioned. Knowledge here is vijndna, what Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind. It is the integral self-awareness and world-awareness of Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is this Supermind which is truly the Origin, the Idea, the Power, the Law, the Process and Substance of the whole universe. It is in the heart of matter as much as in the dynamism of life and in thought and feeling and will in the mind. Only, on these levels of existence it is veiled and functions secretly. But everywhere it possesses the full knowledge of everything. This is in effect the Lord which is indwelling in everything and governs all.

The descent of Consciousness and Being takes place mainly along four lines. They are, first, divine beings, gods and goddesses,

Page-37

powers and personalities of the Divine, Ishwara, presiding over the cosmic functions of Shakti or Conscious Power; secondly, as individual self which is multiple; thirdly, as different means and methods of knowledge from Supermind down to the senses; and fourthly, as all existences or objects of the universe;

It might seem that Sri Aurobindo is conceiving Brahman as what is called in Western philosophy the concrete universal. While Sri Aurobindo does speak of Brahman as the All-Existence, the Whole, and all existences are included in its being, — because nothing can be outside the Reality which is omnipresent, — this is not the only idea of Brahman in his philosophy. It is pure identity, then unity containing in itself all potential and actual diversity, unity in difference and difference held secretly by unity. It is not that the Reality is more present in one thing, less in another but it is wholly present in everything. It is the manifestation of Conscious Power of Sat-Chit-Ananda in varying degrees that is responsible for the differences in quantity and quality of things. But in the midst of all differences Sat-Chit-Ananda is samam brah-ma, equal reality.

A word about the individual self will be relevant here. Sri Aurobindo accepts the reality of the individual self. And though in the play of manifestation it is distinct from Sat-Chit-Ananda, in its essential being it is one with it. In fact the individual self is only the universal Self experienced from or in an individual centre. Atman is the universal aspect of the individual self. Sri Aurobindo goes on to say that if the individual self is not felt as one with all, then it is not being experienced as Atman but only as. the individual manifestation of the Self, not revealing its universal aspect as Atman. Sat-Chit-Ananda as the universal Self multiplies itself as many centres of its self-knowledge, self-action and self-enjoyment. Here again there can be, once the individual self is manifested, different patterns of relationship between the individual, the universal and transcendent Reality as Self.

The Divine manifests himself as the individual in the supermind. Sri Aurobindo calls the individual soul Jivatman. He also uses the term central being for the same concept. The central being has two poises, one beyond the world of evolution and the other in it. We will be more concerned here with that aspect- of the

Page-38

individual self or soul which is in the world of evolution. This is called the psychic entity which is ever pure and perfect and not in any way subject to the limitations and influences of mind, life and body. The psychic entity projects something out of it and gradually builds it up as what Sri Aurobindo calls the psychic being. It is a spark of the Divine Flame. Sri Aurobindo also calls it the psychic personality. It is in its nature spiritual, not mental or vital or physical and as such pure. However, it is not perfect and not strong enough to withstand suggestions and influences coming upon it from mind, life and body. It grows and evolves and achieves perfection. It is an individual being but capable of knowing its counterpart beyond the world of evolution, that is, the true individual soul or self and then too the cosmic and the transcendent Self. As we have said, Sri Aurobindo describes it as both psychic being and psychic personality. We think it can be said that just as a man can develop a sattwic nature, so also the psychic entity in man can develop a psychic nature and this is the psychic personality though in this case it is both being and nature rolled into one. Its role is a link between the psychic entity and the mental, vital and physical nature on which the pure spiritual element in our being cannot work directly. The psychic entity needs a bridge of contact between itself and external nature and it therefore evolves the psychic being and personality as that bridge. Our personal evolution is guided by the Divine in and through the psychic being which is God as the support of our individual nature and the means of its eventual transformation.

What then will be the ideal and integral knowledge of Brahman according to Sri Aurobindo? so complex is the Maya of the Infinite, there is a sense in which the view of all as parts of the whole, waves of the sea or even as in a sense separate entities becomes a necessary part of the integral Truth and integral Knowledge. For if the Self is always One in all, yet we see that for the purposes at least of the psychic manifestation it expresses itself in perpetual soul-forms which preside over the movements of our personality 'through the worlds and the aeons. This persistent soul-existence is the real Individuality which stands behind the constant mutations of the thing we call our personality. It is not a limited ego but a thing in itself infinite; it is in truth the Infinite itself consenting

Page-39

from one plane of its being to reflect itself in perpetual soul-experience."³ Again, "We have seen this already in the necessity of realising the Self as at once one and many; for we have to realise each thing and being as That; we have to realise the unity of all as That, both in the unity of sum and in the oneness of essence; and we have to realise That as the Transcendent who is beyond all this unity and multiplicity you see everywhere as the two opposite, yet companion poles of all existence. For every individual being is the Self, the Divine, in spite of the outward limitations of the mental and physical form through which it presents itself in the actual moment, in the actual field of space, in the actual succession of circumstances that make up the web of inner state and outward action and event through which we know the individual. So, equally, every collectivity, small or great is each the Self, the Divine, similarly expressing itself in the conditions of this manifestation. We cannot know really any individual or any collectivity if we know it only as it appears inwardly to itself or outwardly to us, but only if we know it as the Divine, the One, our own Self employing its various essential modes and its occasional circumstances of self-manifestation. Until we have transformed the habits of our mentality so that it shall live entirely in this knowledge reconciling all differences in the One, we do not live in the the real Truth, because we do not live in real unity. The accomplished sense of unity is not that in which all are regarded as parts of one whole, waves of one sea, but that in which each as well as the All is regarded wholly as the Divine, wholly as our Self in a supreme identity."⁴ Sat-Chit-Ananda in its essential nature is beyond Space and Time. But it will be a mistake to think that Space and Time are unreal and belong only to the world of phenomena. The philosophical views about Space and Time can be divided broadly into two kinds. For example, Sankhya, Vedanta according to Shankara, Kant, look upon Space and Time as something that are man's ways of arranging his perceptions or of receiving the materials of sense; however one may express the idea, the main point is that they are tools of human understanding. Space and Time are not objectively real because Reality is beyond Space and Time. In India the philosophies based on Tantra and the views of the Upanishads as interpreted by Sri Aurobindo believe in the objective reality of Space

Page-40

and Time. Sat-Chit-Ananda is self-extended, vitata, in the world and Space and Time are means of this extension of Brahman. Sri Aurobindo accepts this view. He also says there are different levels of Space and Time. We are already familiar with the concepts of cittākāśa and cidākāśa. It is well-known that ākāśa, kha or ether is a symbol of Brahman in the Upanishads. But cidakaśa, spirit-space, may have not only a symbolic meaning. Since Brahman contains all and by its Consciousness-Force extends itself every where, it can be called Space. Time also is a means of Brahman's self-extension in duration. Here again there are different levels of Time, outer and, inner. Time on a higher level of consciousness has a much greater momentum and at the very highest level it may seem to be still. Sri Aurobindo also speaks of eternal Time, that is to say, there is a moment in which all Time is packed, all that would unroll in history is inherently and simultaneously present in it waiting to be manifested. There is a vision which sees at once all that is going to happen in the future. Needless to say that Brahman is not bound by Space and Time. If Brahman were not eternal and beyond Time it could not reveal itself endlessly. If Brahman were not beyond Space it could not be omnipresent. There is Eternity beyond Time, eternal Moment and Time-Eternity, all of this is Brahman who in its essential nature is transcendent.

We have spoken of the descent of consciousness into and as the world down to the material existence. There is also a process of ascent of consciousness from Matter. Consciousness is as it were imprisoned in what Sri Aurobindo calls the Inconscient, the unconscious waters out of which this world is manifested. The ascent of Consciousness is a progressive release of the prisoner out of the prison of Matter. This is what Sri Aurobindo calls evolution which is in other words is the progressive manifestation of God in the world. The impulse to evolution comes from God himself. Nature is ever engaged in bringing about the emergence of higher values in the world and this work of Nature has evolved matter, life and mind here on earth. With the emergence of mind consciousness has become self-conscious reason and capable of asking questions about its true nature and its goal. This is another way of saying that the spiritual element involved in matter has through the process of evolution become the individual soul in man and is engaged in the quest

Page-41

for self-knowledge. By adopting the proper means and disciplines man comes to know the Reality, be one with it in different degrees of unity, — unity with a stress on distinction, unity in difference with emphasis on oneness, or perfect identity. There are experiences which reveal the Reality as mere existence, consciousness and bliss, static, uncreative, incapable of self-variation, the world as unreal and individuality a creation of ignorance. There are experiences, on the other hand, which reveal the Reality not only as existence, consciousness and bliss but as existent, conscious, blissful and enjoyer of bliss; in these, consciousness is known as consciousness-force. There are experiences which reveal Brahman in everything and all in the Brahman. From this it is easy to see how God is evolving potentialities of his own being and nature in this world which he has manifested in his own being.

The question is that if consciousness is revealing ever higher levels of its own nature in the world, has the process come to an end with the emergence of mind? Can consciousness do nothing else but unite with its original status beyond the universe through the human soul? Or can it, arriving at a level of its own being higher than the mind, make that the medium of the knowledge of Brahman? Sri Aurobindo's answer is that mind is not the limit of evolution of consciousness in the world, it is a transitional stage and is waiting to be transcended. The new emergence is that of the Supermind, the Knowledge-Will of Sat-Chit-Ananda.

This will bring about a transformation of mind, life and body in such a manner that their nature, now formed by Ignorance, will be shaped by Knowledge with the result that they will be able to manifest their inherent perfection which is the Divinity in them and thus reveal God and not conceal him as they do now. New powers of consciousness are being released and their accomplished perfection will turn the Nature of Ignorance into the Nature of Knowledge. Spirit involves itself in Matter, Spirit evolves out of and in Matter. But its perfect manifestation in the world has not yet been effected. Perhaps it will not be out of place to say a few words here on substance. Sri Aurobindo speaks of an ascending series of substance and though originally there is only one substance, namely Spirit, the hierarchy is made up of Existence, Consciousness-Force, Bliss, Supermind, Mind, Life and Matter. Spirit is substance because it is the basic material,

Page-42

upādāna, of everything in the universe. But according to the theory of the descent of the Consciousness-Force, spiritual substance can and does turn itself into different kinds of substance. In the process of descent there are different levels of consciousness, there are diverse planes or worlds. Each of these has one dominent substance as its basis. Nevertheless since Sat-Chit-Ananda has by descending into Matter involved itself in it, spiritual substance is secretly present in Matter. The evolution of the Supermind will openly manifest spiritual substance which will become the material of the body of the superman. Similarly, vital and mental substance will also undergo such a radical change as will transform them completely. Mind will be able to reflect perfectly the whole truth of the self, Life become a pure flow, free of desire and disturbance of the conscious-Force. But the culmination is the spiritualisation of Matter, which will become "the earthly robe of God."

It should be clear from what has been said above that God himself is the leader of evolution of consciousness from its involved existence in Matter to its fully evolved and perfectly manifest emergence in the world. He is moving towards self-fulfilment here on this earth. The question may be asked that if God is, as Sri Aurobindo says, perfect in being, consciousness and delight, how can he have a purpose? How can one speak of the self-fulfilment of God? It is perfectly true that God is in need of nothing. Yet he has manifested the world within his self-being and out of himself. Sri Aurobindo says that God has manifested the world to enjoy the delight of becoming. In that process of self-manifestation, we have seen, self-limitation plays the initial part. It is in the self-limited God which is another name of the world that the Divine Self fulfills himself by progressively manifesting higher and yet higher levels of his being, consciousness and delight. It is in the world that evolution takes place, and the world is in God, and it is in this sense that it can be said that evolution is a process in God. But let us be quite clear that it is not the Absolute beyond the world in which evolution occurs but in the self-limited aspect of God which is the world in which there is a progressive manifestation of hidden splendours of new consciousness, novel capacities, fresh joys, culminating in a total self-perfection of the soul and its nature — psychic, mental, vital and physical. The individual spirit that by the Supermind knows the

Page-43

Divine in all its aspects and by the power of the same Supermind perfectly spiritualise his mind, life and body is the future term of evolution, a veritable god, the superman. Of this whole movement the Cosmic Spirit through its own integral self-awareness and all-awareness is the presiding deity, the moving power and the terminus. Creation begins from the supramental Divine, transcendent of the world and ends in the overt manifestation of the same Divine immanent in the world, as the divine superman.

Because Sri Aurobindo believes in the reality of Becoming, it should not be understood that this is the nature of the Reality and the Being is not real. Being is the fundamental aspect of .the Reality, Becoming only the movement of its Consciousness. Sat-Chit-Ananda is the self-existent Reality depending on nothing for its being. It does not live by the world, the world lives by it. The human mind cannot reconcile the idea of both Being and Becoming as real. A very logical mind, if it' has awakened to the concept of Being, identifies that idea with immutability. Sat-Chit-Ananda must not only be changeless but also incapable and devoid of all change — that is the normal idea. But if it is true that Reality by its inherent Conscious Force and through its creative Bliss can manifest itself, then change, becoming, in spite of being real, will not affect the immutable status of the Reality. As Sri Aurobindo says, "The pure existent is then a fact and no mere concept; it is the fundamental reality. But, let us hasten to add, the movement, the energy, the becoming are also a fact, also a reality. The supreme intuition and its corresponding experience may correct the other, may go beyond, may suspend, but do not abolish it. We have therefore two fundamental facts of pure existence and of world-existence, a fact of Being, a fact of Becoming. To deny one or the other is easy; to recognise the facts of consciousness and find out their relation is the true and fruitful wisdom.

"Stability and movement, we must remember, are only our psychological representations of the Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in the moving and multitudinous. World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of

Page-44

the God numberlessly to the view: it leaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is and ever will be; its sole absolute object is the joy of the dancing."⁵

It is appreciated that as with the idea of quality less and qualified, the formless and ability to take any form, transcendence and immanence, impersonality and power to assume personality, the concept of immutability and mutation being both real militates against the Law of Contradiction. Sri Aurobindo is of the opinion that along with the Law of Identity, that of Contradiction is a basic Law of Thought. But it is an abstraction from our experiences of |ignite things and has an application only to the world of finite objects. But Sat-Chit-Ananda is not bound by human logic because of which the Law of Contradiction has no application to the fundamental spiritual reality. Relations do not abrogate the absoluteness of the Absolute nor does change affect the changeless Ground of all existence. What appear to us to be contradictions are complementary truths in the being of Brahman.

What then will be the logic of the apprehension of the integral Brahman? It is the logic of developing, progressively harmonising, gradually integral sing experiences of the integral Brahman. Logic can only tell us of the relations between things, not what the things are. To know anything that has existence, that can be conceived as real in any sense, we must have experience of that thing. Reason can systematise these experiences into a structure of intellectual knowledge. But this knowledge is only of a system of thought, not of real things or of the Reality. Brahman has its own logic which outstrips the steps of human logic. What Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind has within it the inherent and integral knowledge of the existence, power and movement of Brahman. All manifestation is guided and controlled by the integral supramental knowledge. Its vastness baffles human reason but it is the reason of Brahman and its logic is that of the dialectic of progressively widening experience of Sat-Chit-Ananda. The logic of the Infinite may seem to be magic to us finite beings. But if the Reality is beyond the grasp of the human intellect, it is not in itself illogical but supra-logical. The Law of Contradiction has its own field of application but Brahman is beyond its province.

It may be asked whether the idea of involution and evolution of

Page-45

Consciousness is all Vedantic, especially because Sri Aurobindo claims to be a Vedantist. The conception of Brahman as having many aspects may perhaps be accepted as Vedantic because the different founders of the schools of Vedanta have explained the nature of Brahman in a way in which in their respective philosophies, one or the other of the aspects of the ultimate Reality as delineated by Sri Aurobindo is expounded. Of course from the purely logical point of view, to accept all those aspects simultaneously presents great difficulties. But this is precisely Sri Aurobindo's point, namely, that mental reason cannot grasp the nature of the integral Brahman and that the contradictions are not so in the supermind but complementary aspects of Truth. But the idea of involution and evolution of consciousness may appear to be very novel and thought of as perhaps not to be found in the Upanishads.

We may point out here that Sri Aurobindo is not only a Vedantist but also a Vedist. He sees the truths of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita provisioned in the Veda though couched in a systematic symbolic language. We cannot elaborate on this point here but let us point out that the idea of the self-limitation of the Reality is clearly expressed in the Veda:

Ya imā viśvā bhuvanāni jukvadrsirhotā nyasīdat pita nah

sa aśisā dravinamicchamānah prathamacchadavarām ā viveśa

Rv. X. 81. I; yajur: 17. 17

The first half of the rik means that God, the maker of the universe, sacrificed the worlds into his own Self, that is to say, he withdrew into himself the seven worlds, he is the super sensuous and omniscient Seer, our Father, who was existent by himself and is the performer of the sacrifice of dissolution. The second half makes out that the Lord being desirous of creating and enjoying the things of the world veiled his own nature as transcendent Self. Having veiled his fundamental nature, he entered into the hearts of living creatures manifested by himself. This interpretation is not according to Sri Aurobindo but according to Sayana the great commentator of the Vedas, who explained the sacred scripture from the ritualistic standpoint of the Mimamsakas and not usually from the spiritual point of view which Sri Aurobindo adopts.

Page-46

We have seen that in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy Brahman assumes self-limitation and of course he accepts the idea expressed both in the hymn quoted above and in the Taittiriya Upanishad that after creating the world God entered into it. Now the creatures and things of the world are not apparently spiritual but mental, vital and material. This can very well be described as descent of Consciousness and we extend the idea by saying that the Consciousness that descends becomes involved in the things in which it descends. This way we get the idea of involution. In fact the Mundaka Upanishad 1.1 8 already quoted above says, " By energism of consciousness Brahman is massed; from that Matter is born and from Matter, Life and Mind and the worlds" (Sri Aurobindo' s translation). In this verse we come across the id ea of both involution and evolution . And the Taittiriya Upanishad also refer s to the ascension of the soul from Matter through Life, Mind, Supermind or Vijnana to Delight. This is interpreted by Sri Aurobindo as evolution of Consciousness from the lowest kind of existence to its own status in the highest.

The Veda speaks of Purusha becoming everything as also does Aditi who is interpreted by Sri Aurobindo as the unitary Consciousness-Force of the Divine, Deva. And of course the Upanishads are full of statements about the Self becoming everything that is created, the Self indwelling in them and their existing in the Self. Here again if the Self has become everything, it is Matter, Life, Mind etc. in which it is involved. And if it is true that man can realise the spiritual Self, that would indicate that consciousness rises to and evolves towards the Reality. What Sri Aurobindo adds to this general conception is the idea that consciousness is not only evolving towards its original status but is manifesting here higher and higher levels of its own being. And according to this idea the super mental level of consciousness, the integral Knowledge-Will, is evolving and will manifest itself in the world. The result of that evolution will be the unveiled appearance of Brahman in the world and a new life of the total being and nature of man released from the clutches of ignorance and guided directly by the highest consciousness and force.

Sri Aurobindo feels that the great Upanishadic saying, "One without a second", has not been read sufficiently in relation to the equally

Page-47

important and imperative Upanishadic saying, "All is Brahman". In Shankara's philosophy the one indivisible Brahman is the sole reality. It is devoid of space, time, causality, name, form, quality, action. Apart from bare Existence, everything else in Non-Brahman, anātman, non-Self. How they come to appear and appear persistently is another question, but there is no gainsaying the fact that according to Shankara they are unreal. While they are not ideas or imaginations in the mind of any individual knower, in other words the world is objectively presented to man, its objectivity does not warrant the idea that they are real. In fact Shankara would say that they are unreal precisely because they are objective and thus not the pure Self. The indivisible, immutable, impersonal, quality less, spaceless and timeless Brahman is not the cause of the world. Sri Aurobindo grants that this conception of Reality is not only supported by logic but is also confirmed by a great spiritual experience. But he also avers that this is an incomplete conception of Brahman. The Upanishads presents a more comprehensive idea of Brahman, that which, while asserting the idea as worked out by Shankara, also asserts that Reality has become all, that Reality is all. The different states of consciousness of Atman, the Fourth, the deep sleep, the dream and the waking, are all the same Self represented by aum. The Mandukya Upanishad does not condemn the three lower levels as unreal asserting the Fourth to be the sole Reality. Sri Aurobindo says that a strict logic might do so but equally a more comprehensive logic may assert the reality of all the four states. The impersonal static aspect of Brahman is the status of its freedom from its own manifestation, even from the impulse to manifest. But this does not mean that Brahman is not personal, cannot have relations, is incapable of manifesting a world of multiplicity in its Being. Shankara's theory bisects existence into two, Self and not-Self, and condemns the latter as illusion. And he goes on to say that the illusion is unaccountable. A persistently unreal but constantly appearing world can very well be described as illusion of which Brahman does not offer any explanation. On the other hand Sri Aurobindo feels that Brahman must be that, knowing which everything can be, indeed is, known and thus Brahman explains all. We have seen before that Brahman is also Ishwara, Lord and Master of the Universe. Ishwara ,in Sri

Page-48

Aurobindo's philosophy is not the Saguna Brahman or Ishwara of Shankara's philosophy. For Ishwara according to Shankara is not real, is not Brahman in the true sense of the word. It is an appearance in Maya of Brahman just as the individual self is an appearance of Brahman in Avidya, the lower and more limited aspect of the Ignorance the power of creating illusions. According to Sri Aurobindo, however, the individual self is real because it is Brahman as the individual. In the liberated state the individual universalise itself and also knows itself as one with the Transcendent. But it does not lose its individuality because that provides the centre through which Sat-Chit-Ananda acts. The transcendent, the cosmic and the individual are the triple status of the integral Brahman.

Not only is this manifestation real but there is also evolution in the manifested universe. There is a purpose in the universe which is being progressively realised. We have said before that the self-knowledge and world-knowledge of Sat-Chit-Ananda, in other words the Super mind, is the conscient and creative power of Consciousness. It has within it the Idea of the self-manifestation of Brahman, an idea not mental but rooted in the self-consciousness of Brahman, and the Law and process of that manifestation. The progressive concealing of Consciousness in Mind, Life and Matter and its evolutionary unveiling in the world in these three now-lower terms of consciousness, are the double process of the self-manifestation of Sat-Chit-Ananda. Thus the purpose is the emergence of higher levels of consciousness from their dormant state in lower levels of consciousness. It is true that Brahman cannot have any unfulfilled need. On the other hand the universe which is a limited manifestation of illimitable Brahman can manifest more of that which is its base, its stuff, its moving power and the goal to which it purposely moves and this is evolution. Shankara naturally cannot accept any such idea. Since the universe is not a manifestation of the Brahman, Brahman can have no manifestation in the universe. For Sri Aurobindo, however, both the individual and the universe are respectively the centre and circumstance of Brahman's manifestation. The individual self, being in its essential reality nothing but Brahman, becomes directly aware of its truth and through the liberated individual the universe becomes progressively conscious of itself. "God having become Nature, Nature seeks to be God."

Page-49

II

Shankara's Brahman is pure consciousness devoid of any power of knowledge, will or enjoyment. Shankara has his own logic to support this idea of Brahman. But his idea has great difficulties also and cannot but lead to the rejection of the world as illusion. According to Sri Aurobindo, however, Brahman is not only conscious but also Conscious-Force. This force is manifested as power of knowledge, will and enjoyment. This theory has one advantage over that of Shankara. In the philosophy of the latter, all knowledge, including anubhava, the intuition of Brahman, is a mode of the mind, antah-karanavrtti. In other words, it is a function of Maya, the power of Ignorance which creates the illusion of the world and superimposes it on the pure foundation, adhisthāna, of Brahman. Through that the reflection of cit, consciousness, falls on the purified and concentrated mind and is called intuition. But if the mind is a product of Maya which is power of illusion, can there be any guarantee of authenticity of the intuition of Brahman?

In point of fact, all spiritual knowledge is obtained through the mind by receiving and reflecting the light of consciousness on it. But if such knowledge has to have any authenticity, it must somehow represent a knowledge which is not a movement of Maya. In other words, it must be a movement of true spiritual consciousness. This means there must be a movement of consciousness which results in knowledge. This knowledge must be true knowledge that Consciousness itself has. While Sri Aurobindo accepts a status of consciousness which is beyond movement, and in that status it is self-aware, svaprakāsa, he also says that there is another status of consciousness in which it moves within and towards itself and is thus self-knowing; svaprakāśa therefore means not only self illumination in the sense of not being revealed by anything other than itself but also self-illuminating in that of revealing and knowing itself. It is indeed the reflection of this self-knowledge of Brahman on the pure spiritualised mind that produces authentic knowledge of Atman or Brahman. Let us remind ourselves in this context that this self-knowledge of Brahman is the Supermind in Sri Aurobindo's terminology. In the pure self-awareness of Brahman there is no movement and thus it is uncreative, but the self-knowledge of Brahman, which is manifested in

Page-50

pure Consciousness moving within and towards itself, is creative. It brings out into manifestation what is unmanifest in Sat-Chit-Ananda. "...in Supermind", says Sri Aurobindo, "all being is consciousness, all consciousness is of being, and the idea, a pregnant vibration of consciousness, is equally a vibration of being pregnant of itself; it is an initial coming out, in creative self-knowledge, of that which lay concentrated in uncreative self-awareness. It comes out as Idea that is a reality, and it is that reality of the Idea which evolves itself, always by its own power and consciousness of itself, always self-conscious, always self-developing by the will inherent in the Idea, always self-realising by the knowledge ingrained in its every impulsion. This is the truth of all creation, of all evolution."⁶

The Supermind is the link between the pure consciousness of Brahman and the separative consciousness of mind, life and body. It is "an intermediate formulation which refers back to a term above it and forward to another below it; we see at the same time that it is evidently the link and means by which the inferior develops out of the superior and should equally be the link and means by which it may develop back again towards its source. The term above is the Unitarian or indivisible consciousness of pure Sachchidananda in which there are no separating distinctions; the term below is the analytic or dividing consciousness of Mind which can only know by separation and distinction and has at the most a vague and secondary apprehension of unity and infinity, — for, though it can synthetise its divisions, it cannot arrive at a true totality. Between them is this comprehensive and creative consciousness, by its power of pervading and comprehending knowledge the child of that self-awareness by identity which is the poise of the Brahman and by its power of projecting, confronting, apprehending knowledge parent of that awareness by distinction which is the process of the Mind."⁷ It is true that Shankara speaks of Brahman as sarvajña, sarvaśakti and sarveśvara, omniscient, omnipotent and Lord of all. But this is not said really of the ultimate, the true Brahman, only of Ishwara or qualitied Brahman. In his commentary on Brahmasutra 11.1.14, he clearly says that all these attributes are due to Avidya or Ignorance.

Let us mention here Sri Aurobindo's view of the reason why the three main standpoints of Vedanta differ. It is due to the fact that it is a particular level of the Supermind that the purified mind reflects.

Page-51

In the first status of the Supermind Sachchidananda equally self-extends himself. He comprehends all, possesses all, constitutes all, yet this all is One, not Many; there is no individualisation. "It is when the reflection of this Supermind falls upon our stilled and purified self that we lose all sense of individuality; for there is no concentration of consciousness there to support an individual development."⁸ In the second poise of the Supermind, however, consciousness steps back in the idea from the movement which it contains. It knows the movements by what Sri Aurobindo calls the apprehending consciousness by which it follows, occupies and inhabits its works and seems to distribute itself in its forms. It is here that the concentration of the Self emerges as a support of the soul-form which is individual Divine or Jivatman. The reflection of this poise on our purified mind would enable our soul to support and occupy its individual existence and also realise itself as the One that inhabits all and contains all. In the third poise of the Supermind the supporting concentration stands not at the back of the movement but projects itself into it and in a way becomes involved in it. The nature of the function of the movement is changed here in this sense that the Jivatman makes a play of relation with the universal in such a way that the realisation of complete unity with the Divine is a culmination of its experience. This would give a sort of fundamental dualism in unity but not unity qualified by a subordinate dualism as in the second poise.

But the philosophic mind indulges in exclusions and constructs different systems of thought without realising that there can be consciousness which can harmonise the different standpoints.

"It is indeed only when our human mentality lays an exclusive emphasis on one side of spiritual experience, affirms that to be the sole eternal truth and states it in the terms of our all-dividing mental logic that the necessity for mutually destructive schools of philosophy arises. Thus, emphasising the sole truth of the Unitarian consciousness, we observe the play of the divine unity, erroneously rendered by our mentality into the terms of real difference, but, not satisfied with correcting this error of the mind by the truth of a higher principle, we assert that the play itself is an illusion. Or, emphasising the play of the One in the Many, we declare a qualified unity and regard the individual soul as a soul-form of the Supreme, but would -assert

Page-52

the eternity of this qualified existence and deny altogether the experience of a pure consciousness in an unqualified oneness. Or, again, emphasising the play of difference, we assert that the Supreme and the human soul are eternally different and reject the validity of an experience which exceeds and seems to abolish that difference. But the position that we have now firmly taken absolves us from the necessity of these negations and exclusions: we see that there is a truth behind all these affirmations, but at the same time an excess which leads to an ill-founded negation. Affirming, as we have done, the absolute absoluteness of That, not limited by our ideas of unity, not limited by our ideas of multiplicity, affirming the unity as a basis for the manifestation of the multiplicity and the multiplicity as the basis for the return to oneness and the enjoyment of unity in the divine manifestation, we need not burden our present statement with these discussions or undertake the vain labour of enslaving to our mental distinctions and definitions the absolute freedom of the Divine infinite."⁹

III

Ramanuja's idea of Brahman is that it is One, Sat-Chit-Ananda, full of auspicious qualities and that it is possible to have relations with it. The world of soul, cit, and the world of Matter, acit, the individual soul and the world exist within the being of Brahman but are eternally distinct realities. They have no existence apart from Brahman, aprthaksiddha, though they are not unreal as indicated above. Brahman is personal and not devoid of qualities and attributes. Ramanuja does not accept a status of Brahman in which it is without or beyond qualities; he also does not believe in the reality of pure Consciousness. Even in the state of liberation the individual soul is not identified with Brahman. There is union but not identity. Sat-Chit-Ananda is said to be qualified, he is as it were the noun, and soul and world are the adjectives qualifying him. Ramanuja will grant that all is Brahman in the sense that it is the all-embracing and all-inclusive Reality, but the world is not a becoming of Brahman,* nor is the individual soul the Absolute as the individual.

* Ramanuja says that Brahman is both the material and instrumental cause of the world. Yet the world is not a becoming of Brahman in the same way as Sri Aurobindo means it.

Page-53

It should be easy to see from above where Sri Aurobindo differs from Ramanuja in regard to the concept of Brahman. He, as has been explained before, firmly believes in that aspect of Brahman in which it is beyond qualities, features, attributes and creative power and in which it is pure Consciousness. But he also asserts that Brahman is in another aspect full of qualities, features and attributes and endowed with creative power. It is nirguno guru. In so far as Brahman is Ishwara, the personal Lord and Master, the individual soul is distinct from it. Sri Aurobindo will not agree that there can be complete identity between Ishwara and the jivātmā, because in relation to Ishwara it is a portion, an individual manifestation of Ishwara. But the Self, Atman, is also an aspect of Brahman and it is with that aspect that the individual self can recover its identity.

Ramanuja of course has no idea of the evolution of God in the world as worked out by Sri Aurobindo. The world is not an emanation of Ishwara and there is no question of Consciousness being involved in Matter and gradually expressing itself in a more overt manner.

Sri Aurobindo's position is not in-between Shankara's and Ramanuja's but beyond the stands taken by them. Needless to say that Sri Aurobindo will be in part agreement with the dualistic position of Madhva which also he thinks is valid though not completely so. Since he believes in the reality of the individual soul, he naturally believes in the possibility of a relationship in which the soul is related to Sat-Chit-Ananda, even in union with it but with a stress on the distinction. Madhva's idea that Sat-Chit-Ananda and Jiva are eternally and fundamentally separate realities is not fully supported by Sri Aurobindo. The following quotation makes his position clear: "The Divine is always One that is Many. The individual spirit is part of the "Many" side of the One, and the psychic being is what it puts forth to evolve here in the earth-nature. In liberation the individual self realises itself as the One (that is yet Many). It may plunge into the One and merge or hide itself in its bosom — that is the laya of the Adwaita; it may feel its oneness and yet as part of the Many that is One enjoy the Divine, that is the Dwaita Dwaita liberation; it may lay stress on its Many aspects and be possessed by the Divine, the Vishishtadwaita

Page-54

or go on playing with Krishna in the eternal Vrindavan, the Dwaita liberation. Or it may, even being liberated, remain in the Lila or manifestation or descend into it as often as it likes. The Divine is not bound by human philosophies, it is free in its play and free in its essence."¹⁰

Another monistic school of Vedanta is the Bengal branch of Vaishnavism whose philosophy is known as acintyabhedābhedavāda, the doctrine of inconceivable or supralogical distinction and identity. According to this doctrine the ultimate Reality is jndnam advayam, non-dual Consciousness. However, this is indicated by three designations, brahman, paramātmā and bhagavān. These are not three different realities but three aspects of the same reality. Reality is endowed with Shakti which is conscious. The distinction between the three aspects of the Reality depends on whether or which aspect of the Shakti is manifest and active. In Brahman Shakti is not at all manifest, it is the static aspect of the Reality. Paramatma, literally the great Self, is really the manifester or creator of the world. In him Maya, which is not considered to be a conscious force but also not a power of creating illusions is manifest and of Maya he is the Master and Lord. Bhagavan is the highest aspect of the Reality in whom the Conscious Force is fully manifest. However, the svarūpa sakti, the inherent Force of Bhagavan, is not creative of the world. Bhagavan does not even know that there is a creation of Maya; that force is unconscious and impure and as such cannot remain before the supreme Lord. Thus Bhagavan is not the creator of the world. But then what is the function of. the Conscious Force fully manifest in him? It is simply the Force of the Lord considered as the power of love and enjoyment. The concept of the Reality in this school is that it is the supreme Lover and the highest Object of love. The individual soul is a portion, citkanā, a particle of consciousness, but it is subject to Maya or Ignorance. In the state of liberation it can either completely identify itself with Brahman, a course which the school does not recommend, or it can unite itself with Paramatma retaining its distinction or it can enter into the magical love-circle of Bhagavan and enjoy loving him and being loved by him. This is the supreme destiny of the soul.

But this play of love, Hid, cannot really take place in this world

Page-55

but is enacted only in Bhagavan's own plane of existence. In a sense the universe is also the result of the Lila of God. But this is not the Lila that the Bengal Vaishnavas mean when they say that to participate in the Lila is the highest destiny of the soul. Here also we find the stress is on attaining a spiritual destiny beyond the world. This world is a product of Maya and must remain so.

It should not be difficult to see Sri Aurobindo's difference from this view of the Reality. He also speaks of the different aspects of Brahman — Bengal Vaishnavism uses this term both for the Reality and for one aspect of it — and of the possibility of diverse relationships that the individual soul can have with the Divine in a state of liberation. But his insistence is on the supramental and integral realisation of Brahman which would mean a simultaneous and direct cognition of identity, unity, distinction in unity, and distinction between the individual soul and God. But the main difference between the integral Adwaita of Sri Aurobindo and the Distinction-cum-Identity doctrine of Bengal Vaishnavism is in their respective attitudes towards the world and the soul's destiny in it. Sri Aurobindo also would agree that there is a plane of conscious existence where dalliance of love between the liberated individual soul and the Divine the supreme Fascinator, is the supreme experience. And in the integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo based on his integral Monism, this realisation is supremely desirable. But, he asks, cannot this play of love be played here on this earth, cannot this world be transformed into the eternal Vrindavana? The Life Divine can very well be described as the Rasa-Lila enacted by divine supermen living in transformed material bodies here on earth. It can be said that though there is a clear recognition of Conscious Force in Bengal Vaishnavism, the supermind, as explained by Sri Aurobindo is not found in it. The Knowledge and Will which can transform mind, life and body and thus make them instruments of the full manifestation of the Divine in that which is now the world of Ignorance is not recognised in the philosophy and the yoga initiated by Mahaprabhu Chaitanya. But the integral realisation of the Divine by the supramental consciousness and the total manifestation of him" in the world is the characteristic note of the philosophy and yoga of Sri Aurobindo.

Page-56

IV

It will be both interesting and instructive to make a brief comparison between the integral Brahman of Sri Aurobindo's Purnadwaita and the Paramshiva of śīvādvayasasana. This latter is also known as pratydbhijnñādarśana, the philosophy of Recognition. There is a great deal which is common between the two concepts. For example, the idea that the Reality is both transcendent of and immanent in the universe, Consciousness is Consciousness-force of which knowledge, will, action, enjoyment are different aspects, the world is a manifestation of the Reality through its inherent Conscious-force, the manifestation presupposes a self-concealing, ātma-sankoca, in the language of the Shaiva philosophy, the descent and ascent of consciousness, avaroha and āroha, to quote the words by which this twin process is described in the books of the same system, the individual self in the fullness of self-realisation recognising itself as the ultimate Reality, Brahman or Shiva in relation to the universe assuming integral I-ness, pūrhā-hantā. It should be mentioned that the monistic Shaiva philosophy being based on the Tantras has a different list of categories while those of Sri Aurobindo are Upanishadic, also that there are thirty-six categories in the former and seven or eight in the latter. There is in Shiva as Sri Aurobindo's Brahman self-knowledge and world-knowledge and dynamic identity of Brahman and Shiva with all in the universe. In fact in the highest state, Shiva's integral I-ness, is the perfect balance between the Shiva and Shakti aspects of the Reality. If this state has to be expressed in language, which can be done very feebly and imperfectly, it would be not I am but simply I. Sri Aurobindo also says that Sat-Chit-Ananda as the inmost reality of everything asserts itself as I in all.

The progressive objectification or emergence of the subject as object is described in almost identical terms by the writers of the Shaiva school and Sri Aurobindo. We need not go into the details of the process of the emergence of the universe from Shiva. It should suffice to say that Shiva is sheer illumination, prakāśa, and its power of integral self-knowledge is vimarsa. Shiva and Shakti are not two different realities but only two aspects of the same, reality. Even this description is a concession to language.

Page-57

It is the expansion of Shakti which is creation of the universe, sva-śaktivikāsasphāra jagnnirmānam. Shiva remains ever the same and yet Shakti manifests Shiva in different degrees of expression. Pure consciousness is the knower, the knower issues as knowledge, knowledge becomes the known. By the exercise of its conscious-force the subject looks upon itself as the object and then there is a further process as a result of which it regards the object first as distinct, then as separate from itself. This also means a separation of consciousness and its power of freedom, of bodha and svātantrya. This culminates in the emergence of the prthvi-tattva, the earth-principle or Matter. This is the nethermost point of the descent^ of Consciousness from which it starts ascending and through various stages rises up back to its pure status, to Parama-Shiva. Both in Pratyabhijna Philosophy and in the Integral Adwaita, Ignorance is not a principle essentially opposite to Knowledge. Both are powers of Consciousness, and Knowledge by hiding itself becomes Ignorance which is partial knowledge. Sri Aurobindo describes Ignorance as a development by limitation of Knowledge. It is knowledge of the Many with the awareness of unity suppressed; Knowledge is awareness of unity, and Brahman is both in two phases of its consciousness. The Shaiva system says that ajñāna, Ignorance, is not the total absence of but only incomplete knowledge.

There are however very important differences between the two systems. For example, first, there is in the Tantric Shaiva philosophy we are dealing with less emphasis on the aspect of Reality in which it is utterly self-absorbed in a completely ineffable condition in which it could not even be described as Sat or Asat, Being or Non-Being. In it Shiva is almost always described as the knower and the doer. While Sri Aurobindo accepts this latter aspect, metaphysically speaking he stresses equally the other aspect. The word transcendent has different implications in the two systems. While in the Shaiva philosophy it means a status of Reality beyond the universe, in the integral Adwaita of Sri Aurobindo it means a status of Brahman even beyond its aspect of Sat-Chit-Ananda as both impersonal and personal, beyond the Self, Purusha and Ishwara aspects, beyond One and' Many. Secondly, the individual soul in the Shaiva philosophy is infected by the Impurity of anutva, atomicity. In the highest state of realisation, individuality has to be transcended in such a way that it

Page-58

does not exist. In Sri Aurobindo's thought individuality is not only a true expression of the absolute Brahman, but is a status assumed by the Reality without sacrificing its transcendent and cosmic aspects. Consequently the integral self-knowledge attained by individual self does not abrogate its individuality though it becomes capable of recovering its cosmic and transcendent status. Thirdly, as soon as the self-concealing takes place, according to the Shaiva system, Consciousness and Force become separated. In Sri Aurobindo's philosophy in the first status of the Supermind Soul and Nature, Purusha and Prakriti, are not divorced but are the same Reality. In fact, Sri Aurobindo uses the terms Conscious Soul and Nature Soul to indicate their unity in this state. In the Shaiva philosophy the Shiva-tat-twa is the highest category in the universal manifestation. But the individual souls who are on this level of existence are still limited, atomic, and have not perfectly realised and recognised their integral Shiva hood.The moment they succeed in doing so, they break through the limitation of their individuality and thereby attain a perfect harmony of Shiva and Shakti and thus become Parama-Shiva. In Sri Aurobindo's system, in the first status of Supermind there is no individualisation and yet it is not Sat-Chit-Ananda. In the second status of the Supermind there is emergence of individuality, but individual souls do not suffer from any limitation and Purusha and Prakriti, Soul and Nature, are the same reality, though they can now be spoken of as two aspects of the underlying unity. Here the individual knows itself as one with Sat-Chit-Ananda and knows its unity with other individuals who are known as centres of Brahman. Thus there is not Ignorance here. It is in the third status of the Supermind that the possibility arises of the individual regarding itself as separate from Sat-Chit-Ananda and a fall from this status culminates in the emergence of the separative ego. Fourthly, though there is the idea of ascent of consciousness in the Shaiva system, it is taken to mean the process of the return of consciousness involved in Matter back to its original spiritual Shiva status. The descent of Consciousness is the same as the manifestation of the universe. But after this initial descent there is a secondary descent, which rains

*Strictly speaking the atomic impurity, anavamala, is dissolved as soon as the soul enters into the higher hemisphere. But this is also true that impression of the impurity continues and that is why perfect L-hood does not manifest itself fully.

Page-59

down as liberating Grace, anugraka, on the individual soul in bondage. In Sri Aurobindo, however, there is a tertiary descent too, namely, that of the Supermind. This descent is not for the purpose of the individual's ascent towards its original status of the Absolute, but to bring about the evolution of a new level of consciousness in the world, to manifest a new species of spiritual beings whose total existence and nature, mental, vital, physical, will be transformed in such a manner that, as has been said above, they will reveal the indwelling Divinity and not hide it as they do in their present unregenerate form and function. The call of the Shaiva philosophy is in the last analysis to the Beyond, the promise of the integral Adwaita of Sri Aurobindo is a complete union with the Beyond and then by the descent of a specific principle and power resulting from that union, to make the Below the unfettered field of the cosmic play of the eternal Child playing an eternal game in an eternal garden, where

"Our human ignorance moves towards the Truth

That Nescience may become omniscient:

Transmuted instincts shape to divine thoughts,

Thoughts house infallible immortal sight

And Nature climbs towards God's identity"¹¹

So that

"Matter might grow conscious of its soul."¹²*

ARABINDA BASU

 

* This is the first of two Sri Aurobindo Annual Lectures, delivered in November, 1973 at the University of Bombay.

1. The Foundations of Indian Culture, New York 1953, p. 63

2. The Life Divine, Pondicherry 1972, p. 240

3. On Yoga I, The Synthesis of Yoga, Pondicherry 1965, pp. 347-348

4. Ibid., p. 347

5. The Life Divine, Pondicherry 1972, p. 78

6. Ibid., p. 130

7. Ibid., p. r25

8. Ibid., p. 146

9. Ibid., p. 149

10. On Yoga II, Letters on Yoga —Tome one, Pondicherry 1969, p. 303

11. Savitri, Pondicherry, 1970, p. 121

12. Ibid., p. 101 

Page-60

THE MOTHER ON SRI AUROBINDO

( 1 )

HOMAGE TO SRI AUROBINDO

HOW beautiful is the day when one can offer one's devotion to Sri Aurobindo.

*

Sri Aurobindo is always with us, enhghtening, guiding, protecting. We must answer to his grace by a perfect faithfulness.

*

His Grace is always with those who want to progress and realise the Truth of tomorrow.

*

He has come to bid the earth to prepare for its luminous future.

*

Sri Aurobindo has brought to the world the assurance of a divine future.

*

Sri Aurobindo has come on earth not to bring a teaching or a creed in competition with previous creeds or teachings, but to show the way to overpass the past and to open concretely the route towards .an imminent and inevitable future.

Page-61

Sri Aurobindo incarnated in a human body the supramental consciousness and has not only revealed to us the nature of the path to follow and the method of following it so as to arrive at the goal, but has also by his own personal realisation given us the example; he has provided us with the proof that the thing can be done and the time is now to do it.

*

To express our gratitude to Sri Aurobindo we can do nothing better than to be a living demonstration of his teaching.

*

To thee who hast been the material envelope of our Master, to thee our infinite gratitude. Before thee who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before thee who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before thee we bow down and implore that we may never forget, even for a moment, all we owe to thee.

(2)

MESSAGES FOR SRI AUROBINDO'S CENTENARY

Today is the first day of Sri Aurobindo's centenary year. Though he has left his body he is still with us, alive and active.

Sri Aurobindo belongs to the future; he is the messenger of the future. He still shows us the way to follow in order to hasten the realisation of a glorious future fashioned by the Divine Will.

All those who want to collaborate for the progress of humanity and for India's luminous destiny must unite in a clairvoyant aspiration and in an illumined work.

15 August 1971

Page-62

In what way can those connected with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother best celebrate the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo ?

Aspire and be sincere and obstinate in your endeavour.

In what way can people in general best celebrate the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo ?

Make an effort to progress in understanding.

14 September 1971

Open to Sri Aurobindo's consciousness and let it transform your life.

26 September 1971

*

Sri Aurobindo is always present.

Be sincere and faithful.

This is the first condition. Blessings.

29 September 1971

Sri Aurobindo came to tell the world of the beauty of the future that must be realised.

He came to give not a hope but a certitude of the splendour towards which the world moves. The world is not an unfortunate accident, it is a marvel which moves towards its expression.

The world needs the certitude of the beauty of the future. And Sri Aurobindo has given that assurance.

27 November 1971

Page-63

Sri Aurobindo came to tell us how to find Thee and how to serve Thee.

Grant that in this year of his centenary we may truly understand what he has taught us and in all sincerity put it into practice.

6 December 1971

The red lotus is the flower of Sri Aurobindo, but specially for his centenary we shall choose the blue lotus, which is the colour of his physical aura, to symbolise the centenary of the manifestation of the Supreme upon earth.

21 December 1971

Sri Aurobindo gave his life so that we may be born into the Divine Consciousness.

24 December1971 

1972

BONNE ANNÉE

This year is consecrated to Sri Aurobindo.

To understand his teaching better and try to put it into practice, is certainly the best way of showing our gratitude to him for all the light, knowledge and force which he has so generously brought to the earth.

May his teaching enlighten and guide us, and what we cannot do today, we shall do tomorrow.

Let us take the right attitude in all sincerity, and it will truly be a BONNE ANNÉE

31 December 1971

Page-64

Without the Divine we are limited, incompetent and helpless beings; with the Divine, if we give ourselves entirely to Him, all is possible and our progress is limitless.

A special help has come onto the earth for Sri Aurobindo's centenary year; let us take advantage of it to overcome the ego and emerge into the light.

BONNE ANNÉE

1 January 1972

Sri Aurobindo does not belong to a country but to the whole earth. His teaching leads us towards a better future.

1 January 1972

When Sri Aurobindo left his body he said that he would not abandon us. And, in truth, during these twenty-one years, he has always been with us, guiding and helping all those who are receptive and open to his influence.

In this year of his centenary, his help will be stronger still. It is up to us to be more open and to know how to take advantage of it. The future is for those who have the soul of a hero. The stronger and more sincere our faith, the more powerful and effective will be the help received.

2 January 1972

Sri Aurobindo came upon the earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and

Page-65

endeavour to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation.

This gives life its real sense and will help us to overcome all obstacles.

Let us live for the new creation and we shall grow stronger and stronger by remaining young and progressive.

30 January 1972

This year, let us offer all the activities of our body in consecration to Sri Aurobindo.

1 April 1972

Sri Aurobindo has given us the spiritual teaching which teaches us to come in direct contact with the Divine.

July 1972

15-8-1972

One more step towards Eternity,

Sri Aurobindo's message is an immortal sunlight radiating over the future.

Sri Aurobindo came on earth from the Supreme to announce the manifestation of a new race and the new world, the Supramental. Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.

15 August 1972

Page-66

5-8-I972

Man is the creation of yesterday.

Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of to-morrow: the coming of the supramental being.

15 August 1972

The best homage that we can render to Sri Aurobindo on his centenary is to have a thirst for progress and to open all our being to the Divine Influence of which he is the Messenger upon earth.

15 August 1972

Sri Aurobindo shows us the way towards the glorious future.

August 1972

The best homage we can pay to Sri Aurobindo is to prepare for the supramental transformation.

5 December 1972

(3)

The Significance of August 15TH

This evening, instead of answering questions, I would like us to meditate on the remembrance of Sri Aurobindo, on the way to keep it alive in us and on the gratitude we owe him for all that he has done and is still doing in his ever luminous, living and active

Page-67

consciousness for this great realisation which he came not only to announce to the Earth but also to realise, and which he continues to realise.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of his birth, an eternal birth in the history of the universe.

14 August 1957

Today I received a question about a phrase I used on the fourteenth of August, the eve of Sri Aurobindo's birthday....

The question is about the phrase in which I spoke of the birth of Sri Aurobindo — it was on the eve of his birthday — and I called it an "eternal birth". I am asked what I meant by "eternal".

Of course, if the words are taken literally, an "eternal birth" doesn't signify much. But I am going to explain to you how there can be — and in fact is — a physical explanation or understanding, a mental understanding, a psychic understanding and a spiritual understanding.

Physically, it means that the consequence of this birth will last as long as the Earth. The consequences of Sri Aurobindo's birth will be felt throughout the entire existence of the Earth. And so I called it "eternal", a little poetically.

Mentally, it is a birth the memory of which will last eternally. Through the ages Sri Aurobindo's birth will be remembered, with all the consequences it has had.

Psychically, it is a birth which will recur eternally, from age to age, in the history of the universe. This birth is a manifestation which takes place periodically, from age to age, in the history of the Earth. That is, the birth itself is renewed, repeated, reproduced, bringing every time perhaps something more — something more complete and more perfect — but it is the same movement of descent, of manifestation, of birth in an earthly body.

And finally, from the purely spiritual point of view, it could be said that it is the birth of the Eternal upon Earth. For each time the Avatar takes a physical form it is the birth of the Eternal himself on Earth.

Page-68

All that, contained in two words, "eternal birth".

4 September 1957

Mother, has this day, the fifteenth of August, an occult or a simple significance ? For, in history, important events occurred on this day.

What exactly do you mean? The fifteenth of August is Sri Aurobindo's birthday. Therefore, it is a date which has a capital importance in the life of the earth, from the physical point of view. So?

On August fifteenth other important events took place ?...

What, the liberation of India? Is it because the liberation of India came about on the fifteenth of August? And so, it is necessary to tell you why it happened, you can't find it out by yourself, can you? It needs to be said, does it? I think Sri Aurobindo has written it also, hasn't he, in the message he gave? Hasn't he said it?¹

(Silence)

Yes, it is exactly that....

Today, there came into my hands one of those greeting cards which people send on puja days or for the new year or other such festivals; and on this card was written something like this — I don't recall the exact words — but anyway they were, "Greetings on the occasion of this memorable day of the birth of our nation." It is sent by someone who, I think, proclaimed himself a disciple of Sri Aurobindo quite a long time ago.... That seemed to me one of those enormities which human stupidity alone can commit. If he had said, "On this memorable day of the birth of Sri Aurobindo

"August 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age___

"August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition." — Sri Aurobindo, "Message of August 15th, 1947."

Page-69

and its natural consequence, the birth of the nation", it would have been quite all right. But still, the important point was left out and the other mentioned, which is quite simply a consequence, a natural result: it had to be like that, it could not be otherwise.

But people always think like that, the wrong way up. Always. They take the effect for the cause, they glorify the effect and forget the cause.

And that is why the world walks on its head with its feet in the air. Quite simply, there is no other reason.

15 August 1956

(4)

STUDY OF THE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO

It seems to me that apart from the work at the Building Service, if you feel like studying, it would be more worthwhile to read Sri Aurobindo's books seriously and carefully without rushing. That will help you more than anything else for your sadhana.

9 March 1941

Sweet Mother, with what attitude should I read Sri Aurobindo's books when they are difficult and when I do not understand ? Savitri, The Life Divine, for example ?

Read a little at a time, read again and again until you have understood.

23 May 1960

Page-70

What is the true method for studying Sri Aurobindo's works ?

The true method is to read a little at a time, with concentration, keeping the mind as silent as possible, without actively trying to understand, but turned upwards, in silence, and aspiring for the light. Understanding will come little by little.

And later, in one or two years, you will read the same thing again and then you will know that the first contact had been vague and incomplete, and that true understanding comes later, after having tried to put it into practice.

14 October 1967

You came to earth to learn to know yourself.

Read Sri Aurobindo's books and look carefully within yourself as deeply as you can.

4 July 1969

For Sri Aurobindo's centenary, what is the best offering that I can personally make to Sri Aurobindo ?

Offer him your mind in all sincerity.

13 November 1970

To be able to offer my mind to Sri Aurobindo in all sincerity, is it not very necessary to develop a great power of concentration ? Will you tell me by what method I could cultivate this precious faculty ?

Fix a time when you can be quiet every day.

Take one of Sri Aurobindo's books. Read a sentence or two.

Page-71

Then remain silent and concentrated to understand the deeper meaning. Try to concentrate deeply enough to obtain mental silence and begin again daily until you obtain a result. Naturally you should not fall asleep.

3 February 1972

If one reads Sri Aurobindo carefully one finds the answers to all that one wants to know.

25 October 1972

By studying carefully what Sri Aurobindo has said on all subjects one can easily reach a complete knowledge of the things of this world.

Mother, how can one become wise ?

Read Sri Aurobindo.

The outline of a study project, "On the Spiritual History of India", was read to the Mother. She commented:

No! It won't do. It is not to be done that way. You should begin with a big 'BANG'!

You were trying to show the continuity of history, with Sri Aurobindo as the outcome, the culmination. It is false, entirely.

Sri Aurobindo does not belong to history; he is outside and beyond history.

Till the birth of Sri Aurobindo, religions and spirituahty were always centered on past figures, and they were showing as 'the goal' the negation of life upon earth. So, you had a choice between two alternatives: either

Page-72

— a life in this world with its round of petty pleasures and pains, joys and sufferings, threatened by hell if you were not behaving properly, or

— an escape into another world, heaven, nirvana, moksha... Between these two there is nothing much to choose, they are

equally bad.

Sri Aurobindo has told us that this was a fundamental mistake which accounts for the weakness and degradation of India. Buddhism, Jainism, Illusionism were sufficient to sap all energy out of the country.

True, India is the only place in the world which is still aware that something else than matter exists. The other countries have quite forgotten it: Europe, America and elsewhere.... That is why she still has a message to preserve and deliver to the world. But at present she is splashing and floundering in the muddle.

Sri Aurobindo has shown that the truth does not lie in running away from earthly life but in remaining in it, to transform it, divinise it, so that the Divine can manifest HERE, in this PHYSICAL WORLD.

You should tell this all at the first sitting. You should be square and frank... like that! (With her hands, Mother makes a big square sign on the table.')

Then, when this is told, strongly, squarely, and there is no doubt about it — and then only — you can go on and amuse yourself with the history of religions and religious or spiritual leaders.

Then — and then only — you will be able to show the seed of weakness and falsehood that they have harboured and proclaimed.

Then — and then only — you will be able to discern, from time to time, from place to place, an 'intuition' that something else is possible; in the Vedas, for instance (the injunction to descend deep into the cave of the Panis); in the Tantras also ... a little light burning.

31 March 1967

Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history.

Sri Aurobindo is the future advancing towards its realisation.

Page-73

Thus we must shelter the eternal youth required for a speedy advance, in order not to become laggards on the way.

2 April 1967

As for reading the works of Sri Aurobindo, it opens the door of the future to us.

16 November 1972

REFERENCES

Parts (1) and (2) are from the Mother's writings, Part (3) from her talks, and Part (4) from her writings, except the piece dated 31 March 1967, which is a notation of the Mother's comments, written from memory by a sadhak, and approved by the Mother for publication.

Page-74