IX. The Limitations of Science What we need is not a mere concept of evolution struggling to explain a few of the random factors of existence, but it must, in every possibility, in its sweep and scope, be a theory of the universe. If the savage was a sufferer from agoraphobia, frightened of the too vast spaces around him, the picture of the Universe drawn by science in the early twentieth century was the vision of a man suffering from claustrophobia. Our earth and the universe have not always been what they are now. The Universe we now see with our earth stirring in a corner, teeming with living beings of which man is the highest, has been the result of a very l

FIRST THOUGHTS I. Vedic and Puranic Cosmogony In the beginning all this Universe was Non-Existent and Unmanifest, front which this manifest Existence was bom. Itself created itself; none other created it. Therefore they say of it the well and beautifully made. Taittiriya Upanishad1 World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of 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. The Life Divine1 The heights of heaven were measured into form by the eye of this universal Force, they wer

XIII. The Philosophy of Change Change is the most striking and essential characteristic of the world of manifestation which presents itself to our experience. It is the cosmic interweaving of matter, life, mind and soul that constitutes the cosmic panorama. Some hold that change is ipso facto unreal. Permanence is affirmed to be the very essence of reality. As immutable being, the real is eternal perfection. Change or becoming is a mark of imperfection. Moreover, it is believed to be incomprehensible to thought. According to Zeno, change on critical examination, discloses fatal self-contradictions within it. His destructive criticism of the concept of Becoming

PREFACE Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is a new and creative synthesis which holds together and reconciles many contradictions. The logic of the Infinite and the logic of finitude appear in it side by side. It is difficult to write about a philosophy of this kind without sacrificing its subtlety and its fineness. What little I have been able to do in the matter has been possible only because of the Blessings of the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Of the many persistent problems of philosophy that of 'Evolution and Human Destiny' is a uniquely intriguing one. In relation to the universe around him man has been variously considered as the fore-runner of biological ev

SRI AUROBINDO'S PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION (The Mother's Blessings given for this book) By the Same Author: 1.Avatarhood and Human Evolution 2.Beyond Religion 3.Celebration Future : The Next Millennium 4.Champaklal — Lion of Light 5.Education and Society (Ed.) 6.Eternity is Born (Ed.) 7.Footnotes to the Future 8.Integral Yoga Psychology 9.Meditations on the Mother 10.Meta-History 11.Nolini-da — Arjuna of Our Age 12.Purushottam Yoga 13.Sapphires of Solitude (Poems) 14.Savitri — Epic of the Eternal 15.Seven Studies in Sri Aurobindo 16.

VIII. Will to Reason Men are drama-loving creatures who enjoy nothing more whole-heartedly than inventing versions of themselves to be expressed in play, dance, song, ritual, or in written words — in the fresh images of literature or in the staid concepts of philosophy or science. The one overpowering attribute of these self-dramatizers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in the domain of science, has been the will to reason. As a natural consequence of which science threatens to dominate and explain all the aspects of life. Of man's genesis there are many fascinating ancient versions, with a few of which we have already dealt. Here we describe a

XX. The Ego and the Psychic The Purusha, the inner Self, no larger than the size of a man's thumb. Swetaswatara Upanishad.1 It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the in ner light or inner voice of the mystic. The Life Divine.2 He that has known from the very close this Eater of sweetness, the Jiva, the self within that is lord of what was and what shall be, shrinks not thereafter from aught nor abhors any. Katha Upanishad.3 The Individual Self is, in its essence, considered identical with the Absolute itself in a particular poise of being, — with the Absolu

V. The Mysticism of Matter Matter has always been and will always be one of the main objects of physics. "Matter is an aspect of the nature of things."1 The most obvious thing about the world of matter is its immense variety. The Greeks seem to have been impressed chiefly by the densities and forms of the various kinds of matter. Thus they classified matter into four elements which, given in order of density, are earth, water, air and fire. They took one of them as primordial and set out to derive the others from it either by a process of condensation or by one of rarefaction.3 A more important scientific product of Greek thought was the Democritean theory of atoms

XXVII. The Triple Transformation Out of compassion for them, I, lodged in their self, by the blazing lamp of knowledge destroy the darkness which is born of ignorance. Gita1 Evolutionary Nature intends not merely a revelation of the spirit, but a radical and integral transformation of Nature. She strongly wills to effectuate a true manifestation of the embodied life of the Spirit, to complete what she has begun by a passage from the Ignorance to the Knowledge and to reveal herself as the luminous Consciousness-Force carrying in her the eternal Existence and its universal Delight of being. It then becomes obvious that there is much yet

MOVEMENT TWO THE EVOLUTION PROCESS XXI. Involution and Evolution The theory of evolution has been the keynote of the thought of the nineteenth century. It has not only affected all its science and its thought, but powerfully influenced its moral temperament, its politics and its society. The important corollary effects of this great change are the failure of religious spirit and the breaking-up of religious beliefs and the consequent victory of the economic men over the idealist. At present the materialistic view of the world is rapidly collapsing and with it the materialistic statement of the evolution theory must disappear. Modern European thought